Cubs, Bears and the Marathon

OK, let's get the nasty business out of the way first. Yes the Cubs took a dive in the playoffs. . . again. At least we were NEVER in it. We led game 2 for about 10 minutes after Soto's home run and then that team from Arizona (really?) put up a 4 spot in the bottom of the frame after which there was an extended time out for Ted Lilly to go change his pants. We were at game three with our standing room only tickets. Very exciting at times and then BLAM another inning ending double play. I swear, the Cubs couldn't hit their own asses with a mirror and a fly swatter! So after standing up for about 6 hours at Wrigley the next day we spectated the. . . .





(Mary Beth, Rich, Scott, Andrea)


. . . Chicago Marathon or as my son-in-law called it, the Chicago Death March. It was 89 degrees with high humidity. Aid stations ran out of water. Over 300 people were taken to the hospital. One guy died. They shut down the race after about 4 hours and were hollering at people from a helicopter to STOP RUNNING. What a crummy end to 25 weeks of hard training. But, Leah and Jason 'took it in stride' (!) and both finished but in a lot more time than they would have had it not been about 40 degrees above normal! Here's a link to Leah and Jason's running blog (CLICK ON THE UNDERLINED WORDS. THE SLIDE SHOW WILL RUN BY ITSELF. USE THE BACK ARROW TO RETURN TO THIS POST. . . DAD!) where lives some great pictures of the race. I took most of them with Leah's brand new Cannon 35mm digital camera. It can take 6.5 frames per second which is really fun!
(Photo above is of the race route with red and blue team spectator miles marked accordingly.)

Our plan for spectating went well again and thanks to Kay and Sam, Bridgette and Chad, Cindy, Andrea and Sue for once again riding the rails and holding up our patented 'red dot' signs and cheering on the runners. By splitting up into two teams and cleverly riding the CTA the runners are able to see their fans about every 5 miles.

(Above photo shows miles, our runners' race timeline, and CTA travel routes.)


The weekend ended nicely though with our beloved Monsters of the Midway beating our dreaded rivals to the north, the Green Bay Packers. I think John Madden was on suicide watch after Bret Favre stunk up the place in the second half. GO BEARS!

Sailing? Oh yeah...we will be heading back to Luperon, Domincan Republic on Oct 23 and begin reprovisioning and preparing Enee for heading east and south over the next several months. We hope we remember how to operate the boat! I think we will. . . ."Grab the thingy!"