It was a busy weekend over the weekend. The highlight was my daughter Claire running her 1st 5k race with an organization called Girls on the Run. There are many chapters all over the country. Basically how it works is for the last 2.5 months, she’s been coached at school a few days a week all in preparation for running 3.2 miles.
The event was on Saturday morning, her group was starting at 8:30 a.m. It was taking place at Toyota Park Stadium . It’s about 8 miles from our house, but we decided to leave an hour early just so we weren’t rushed.
What should have been an easy drive soon turned into a nightmare. As thousands of other people were driving there, the traffic jam it ensued was insane. It took us over 2 hours to get there. Poor traffic management, not enough volunteers directing cars in the parking lot. People were just getting out of their cars with their daughters to run into the stadium so they could start on time.
When we could see the stadium, that’s what my husband (who was Claire’s running buddy) did. After they jumped out it took me and my sons another 35 minutes to go 6 blocks to park!
So, she missed running with her friends – they ended up going in a later start time – which obviously a ton of people in the same boat had to do.
It wasn’t until the afternoon after reading comments on Facebook that there were THOUSANDS of girls, trapped on buses for 3-4 hours in the traffic jam, only to get there and be told that the race course was closed and they didn’t get to run
Luckily after all that training – Claire did finish!!! Great job Claire. Hopefully in future events the organizers of the Chicago chapter will get it right. I’ve run in so many races, including Chicago marathon with 40+ thousand runners and never had the kind of traffic nightmare that this was!
*****
I mentioned a few months ago that I got to be in a taping of The Sandwich King on Food TV. They did a segment on the Burger Boss. It finally aired on Sunday and even though I was given a speaking part (the producer asked me to take a bite of my burger, look into the camera and say “This is so delicious!” Sadly that didn’t make it, instead I was just shown eating at a table for a nano-second!
That’s me and my friend Leslie next to me. So that’s my first (but not last!) FOOD TV experience!
How was your weekend!
