This past weekend brought the joyous occasion of the Chicago Marathon. And with it, our building was practically cut off from civilization as the race runs right on the street we cross every day to reach humanity and civilization from the 7 a.m. hour to the 4:30 p.m. hour. While this wouldn’t have been a problem, I had to head down the Film Fest in the city. Buses were out of the question, so I had to walk to the train crossing the Marathon path twice.
The first crossing wasn’t so bad. I made friends with some girls who worked at Duffy’s that needed to cross the street to make it to work. We waited for the gap and gingerly Froggered our way over the other side of Sheridan. I anticipated a lot worse, but we made it to the other side unscathed and more importantly, without disrupting a racer. It is also at this time it dawns on me that I have to cross again at Clark, where the people cattle will be a lot thicker and unruly.
I search frantically for another member of the crowd who needs to cross. Success. Amy needed to cross to get to Jamba Juice (the things we do for that deliciousness). So we walked down to Broadway/Surf to cross, thinking we have a lot of space that isn’t barricaded. We start running diagonal and miss the barricade opening. We turn around to see the mass running straight at us. It was like we were Simba, frantically searching for Mufasa to come and rescue us.
With nothing else to do, we started the unthinkable. RUNNING.
And we thought okay, we’ll just run until there’s another opening in the barricades. But there wasn’t one until we reached Wrightwood. Now granted, the distance is not all that far. But when you’re carrying a bag, wearing jeans and actually running in a marathon, you want this running jaunt to end immediately. People are cheering, “Go runners!” and “Yay runners.” While Amy, dressed in workout gear, and I, dressed in jeans and Film Fest shirt, come lollygagging down the path. At least it was free advertising for the Fest right?
Finally we found an opening and laughed our way, while fighting the massive crowd, back to Diversey. Quite the way to spend the 9 o’clock hour on a Sunday. And props to the rest of the runners who finished the other 99.5% of the race that I didn’t.
Hanna (Non)Tana 