kitchtrips

She’s got Brazilian leather boots on the pedal of her German car
Listening to the Beatles singing, “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
Yeah, she’s goin’ round the world tonight, but she ain’t leavin’ here
She’s just going to meet her boyfriend down at the street fair

It’s a French kiss
Italian ice
Spanish moss in the moonlight
It’s just another American Saturday night
Oh, that’s exactly what we have right here

Got a big toga party tonight, down at Delta Chi
They got Canadian bacon on their pizza pie
They got a cooler full of cold Coronas and Amstel Light
It’s like were all livin’ in a big ol’ cup
Just fire up the blender, mix it all up

– Brad Paisley

Saturday 3 June 2023

Just as well I didn’t drink too much at 302 last night – just a beer and a couple High Noon cans – as we were up early and on the road to Geneva, Illinois, another suburb about thirty minutes from our Airbnb in Glen Ellyn.

Our destination was the home of the Kane County Cougars minor league baseball team. The parking lots and stadium grounds were this morning home to the Northwestern Medicine 5km run / walk, with a mile walk as well. It was a charity event, with all money going to cancer research. The need to raise money hits close to home for the Alley family: Ivana (Mike’s mother in law / Jane’s mother) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer recently. She is one of my favourite people anywhere on this earth, so the news was hard to stomach. The least we could do was join this charity event today, and raise some worthwhile dollars.

I decided to run the 5km which seemed like a good idea at the time, but come nine o’clock this morning, with the temperature in the thirties (Celsius) and the course going through the parking lots and surrounds of the stadium, where there was precious little shade to be had, I was starting to wonder if I’d made the right call. Suddenly, the 5km walk or 1 mile walk was looking real good.

Anyway, I ran the 5km course in 26:02, which was faster than I expected. Dumped a cup of water over my head halfway, which helped a lot. Somehow I managed to cross the finish line ahead of the Alley clan, who cheered me on whenever our paths crossed during the event.

There was a tonne of confusion on the course: even the people supposed to be telling us where to go seemed to not know where the course went. There were multiple times where people stopped and asked course workers which way to go. It was quite chaotic, with the 5km run mixing in with the 1 mile walk. It would probably be better to keep the two separate.

In the end, I finished at the start line and my watch said I had run 5km. So I wandered around, drinking water and recovering, then decided to wander into the ballpark. It turns out, the course was meant to run through the ballpark’s gates, around the back of the field and finish with a half-lap of the field itself.

All of this, I (and others) only found out belatedly. Some people were really upset, because they wanted their official time – we had chips in our entry bibs – to mirror what they’d run, but after milling around for a while, the time on official scoring was blown right out. Mine was around 34 minutes, finishing seventy-third overall, about seven minutes on top of what I had actually run. So imagine where I might have finished if we’d been directed into the finish line. Anyway, a fun time for a good cause – no real complaints! Although, an earlier start would make it less furnace-like on the course.

We watched Bri’s softball game after the run, then grabbed some lunch – the plan was to get Jimmy Johns sandwiches but the store we went to had run out of bread, which is a problem in a sandwich shop, so it was Chipotle instead – and went back to the Airbnb for a well-deserved rest. It was a long, hot morning.

Dinner at a BBQ joint in downtown Naperville this evening. The only thing I didn’t like about the place was their apparent desire to freeze everyone to death: their air-conditioning was absolutely pumping. Ten late-night drinks with our mate Zeke at Arrowhead Golf Course to end the day. We solved all the issues of the world – well, most of them, anyway! – and I’ll definitely sleep well tonight.