“We’re going to watch the half marathon because my daddy is running.”
If you’ve been anywhere near Ethan during the past week, you would have been greeted by one of these statements. He has told neighbors, friends at school. strangers on the L. He was very proud and excited that we were going to watch John run the half marathon.
Then came Ike. And it rained, and rained and … okay, you get the picture. But Ethan still really wanted to go watch John run the half marathon. And, in my race for the “Not the Brightest Mommy in the World” award, I decided we would go and watch in the rain.
Really bad idea.
The half marathon is inconveniently located just south of the Museum of Science and Industry — not close to public transportation or anything even closely resembling parking. So we drove down with the bikes, and parked about two miles from the start. It was just a light rain at this point, and we rode our bikes to what we thought was close to the start and locked them up.
We walked for another 3/4 of a mile or so, and John ran to the start (we were late at this point) while Ethan and I staked out a place at the 1 mile point to watch.
Then the rain really started to come down. Steady, monotonous, cold, icky rain. Our bikes were really to far away to go back to, and the van was even farther. So Ethan and I sat on a bench on one of the towels I brought under the umbrella and ate our snack. (Okay, Ethan ate enough snack for both of us, but he needed it more than I do.)
Eventually, we decided to head toward the finish line, since we expected John to be finishing in a half an hour or so. (A mistake, since I lopped a mile off the distance when doing my calculating.) We found a nice spot to watch the finish, but the rain had already soaked through our jackets and the umbrella was leaking, so we abandoned our post and headed back to the shelter we walked past moments before.
It’s really hard to warm up when everything you have on is wet, but Ethan crawled inside my jacket with me and got a little warmer. (I am a heat generator, as he told me.) Finally we decided Daddy would be close to finishing, so we headed back out to find him.
If anything, it was raining even harder at this point, and the wind was picking up. It took John about 10 minutes longer than I anticipated (again, lopping off that extra mile messed up my calculations), and by the time he found us, Ethan was crying.
Unfortunately, we still had to walk the 3/4 of a mile to the bikes, then ride the two miles to the van. And now the wind had REALLY picked up. We were all soaked, tired and crabby, so walking was a treat. I offered to bike to the van and leave John and Ethan in the shelter by the museum, but Ethan wouldn't stay behind.
So, we biked into the gale, and he cried all the way back to the van. Only we couldn’t find the van. And in the process of doubling back to see if we missed it, we ended up biking through a puddle that was probably at least five inches deep. And it was hiding a bump that was at least five inches tall. I didn’t see the bump until we hit it, so I couldn’t give Ethan a warning. And that was the end.
Ethan and I ended up huddling under the canopy in front of one of the apartment buildings until John found the van (around the corner a half block from where we stood). I gave Ethan the umbrella and pushed the bikes toward the van. But the wind caught the umbrella and the bikes, and nearly took Ethan airborne. (He wouldn’t let go.)
But we finally got back into the van, and while John struggled to load the bikes on back, I got Ethan dried off and into his dry clothes. We cranked up the heat and headed home to a nice pot of home made chicken soup, and then to bed.
On the bright side, John ran really well (although we never got to actually see him running) and didn’t seem too sore afterwards — even without being able to stretch. And we have been running “half marathons” around the house ever since.
Who would have ever guessed that we would be this affected by a hurricane in the upper Midwest?
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