Open Letter to Drivers in Chicago

Dear People Who Drive Cars in Chicago-- 

On a daily basis, I am one of you. I drive around the city and try to dodge the bikers that are on the road. There are certain elements of bike culture that bother me, but for the most part, cyclists seem to stay over to the side and not cause a whole lot of problems. I find it's the hardcore riders, the ones that are most comfortable on the roads, that tend to make choices that are hard for drivers to anticipate. This bothers me very much. Yes, I have cursed at cyclists. Avoiding a reckless cyclist even caused my husband to run into another car once. So yes, I am one of you. 

However. 

Every once in a while, I become a cyclist. This morning was one of those mornings. I thought I might let you, Drivers of Chicago Streets, what is NOT okay. 

1) It is not okay to race past me giving me a whole foot of clearance at 40 mph on a road with two lanes. Go into the other freaking lane if you can. Especially when it's 7:30 am on  a Sunday and you and I are the only people around. 

2) Motorcycles, this one is for you. Yes, we can both scoot between cars stopped at a light. This does not mean it is okay for you to try to squeeze between said cars side by side. Tap your brakes once and allow me the 10 seconds to get past the cars. Then, you too can go through. It's called a single file line. We learned about them in preschool. 

3) CTA drivers: you are driving a bus. This is pretty much the largest thing on Chicago streets (not too many semis around). I know you get screwed as bus drivers and cars think that you too are a pain in the ass. Please be aware of where the side of your bus is in relation to me. Treat me like a parked car. I'm just trying to stay out of your way. Please don't buzz me. Especially on bridges. 

4) Drivers, I try to stay out of your way as much as possible. That said, the streets of Chicago tend to have many cars parked on them. As much as I would like, I cannot drive through these cars. This applies to all parts of the cars, including their side mirrors. As I stay out of your way as much as possible, I may have to move a bit more into your lane to avoid a parked car. I won't cut in front of you. However, it is not okay to pinch me against these parked cars. Unless you are avoiding a child that ran into the road. But it is especially NOT OKAY when you are racing to get to a red light and stop. This applies to all cars, but is especially important when you are driving a giant SUV and my head barely makes it up to your door handle. 

5) When you do pinch me, it is also not okay for you to give me the stink eye. And when I yell an expletive because I've had to slam on my brakes to avoid becoming a pancake, it is definitely not okay for your wife/girlfriend/one night stand with diamond earrings as big as my watch to laugh at me. Why the hell are you guys driving a giant SUV in the city anyways? 

So Drivers of Chicago, there it is. The days I am one of you, I will try to also keep these rules in mind. But on the days that I'm not, please don't make my trip from point A to point B be the most harrowing thing I've done in the last 10 years. Thanks. 

~l~

ps. if any of you drivers work for bike companies, can you please explain to me why we can put a man on the moon, clone animals, and genetically engineer crops, but we can't make a bike seat that won't make my vah-j ache for a week after I ride my bike?  That will be all. Thanks. 

huh.

so yes, apparently i suck at blogging.

i haven't posted in almost a month. in my defense, this isn't because i haven't been running and don't want you to know. i've just been really freaking busy. summer in chicago is a crazy time because the winter sucks so much. "how do you mean," you ask? well, basically the weather is so terrible from about the middle of october to may, everyone stays inside. that means that from may to october when the weather is tolerable, there are about 2000 things going on every day. it's slightly crazy, although it's also incredibly fun.

however, it's not just a summertime issue. i did the avon walk for breast cancer at the end of june. 39.3 miles over 2 days. it about kicked my ass and did mess up my knee somehow. this is the first time i've ever been injured walking/running in a non-traumatic way (like the time i sprained my ankle trying to jump over the cockroach doesn't count.) it was a total overuse/mechanics/lack of training for the distance injury and although it's not as painful now (thank god), it's still bothering me. gah. this means i will actually have to take care of myself. like stretch before and or after a run. double gah.

k and i also moved. woot! we are now officially homeowners. this is a good thing, but the novelty of moving has worn off. for k, this means he doesn't have to do anything moving related anymore. for me, this means i begrudgingly have to put up all the freaking pictures, break down all the empty boxes and drag them out to the recycling (oh, for the record, city of chicago recycling comes every TWO weeks, so i also had to drag them back), on top of all of the normal cleaning that needs to be done and k doesn't do. needless to say, my days have been in this pattern: get up, go to work, pick up something from the old place/run/play soccer, come home, do a few house chores, eat dinner, do some classwork (oh yeah, did i mention i'm taking an online class this summer which i am making more of a project out of than i should because i am an overachiever and i refuse to half-ass it), watch some tv, fall asleep on the couch, wake up at 1:30, go to sleep in bed, rinse, repeat. notice no blogging in there. oops.

ah yes, and there's also the introduction of mad men into my life. this show on amc is pretty incredible. fantastically deep characters, good story lines, history and creative industry based... it's right up my alley. and it's on on demand which we have for a few months because we got new cable because we moved. this is bad for me. i am cutting my tv problem down in the fall i swear.

despite this craziness though, i did a 10K yesterday. it was m's first race (she and a friend did the 5k), so i did the 1st mile with them until the courses split. i finished in 58:23 or something like that which for me, is totally a PR. (last time i ran this race, i finished in 1:10 something or other. granted, it was about a billion degrees and sunny that day and this day was overcast and cool, but a PR is a PR.) i did the first mile with M in 11:00, but my overall pace was 9:23, so i'm pretty happy with that. too bad 6.2 miles isn't the same as 26.2...

the furminator

the furminator is quite possibly the best "product" for long haired pet owners. even for semi long haired pet owners. what is the furminator you ask? it is a special brush/clipper that takes out the dog's (or cat's) undercoat which is most of the hair that comes out when the animal sheds. 

a friend's brother's friend (got that?) recommended this product to me this winter when i was in colorado with the disappointing news that it had not yet made it across the mississippi, so if i wanted it, i'd have to order it online. now, i do order things online (like a purse the other day. stupid project runway introduced me to bluefly) , but i just couldn't bring myself to do this with the furminator for some reason. wow, was that a mistake. 

i furminated both maddux and carlos. it didn't do much for maddux, but carlos (who has longer hair than maddux)-- damn! we could go into business making wigs for cancer patients with the amount of hair that is coming out of this dog. it's ridiculous. and kind of amazing. we have had "issues" with dog hair for as long as we've had dogs (i admit part of the problem is that neither of us like to clean much. or at all.), like to the point that i have to use my hands to "scrape" up the hair on our area rug (dark blue rug with shedding dogs=bad choice) which i know is very gross.

however, i have faith that the furminator will change all of this. we close on our condo tomorrow and i'm furminating carlos every day from now until when we officially move in. and then every other day once we're in. if i don't have to clean up balls of hair all over the house (no, kyle doesn't clean up hair), it will be so worth it.  or my dog will be bald. this would also solve the problem. 

and yes, i know this has nothing to do with running. 

I know, I'm such a follower

So yes, I am aware that everyone else has been blogging for about a billion years and I'm totally a follower because I'm starting to do this now. However... I have decided that its time. Why now you ask? It certainly has nothing to do with my free time (I'm working, taking a class, playing soccer, running, closing on a condo, etc. etc. this summer). Oh no, it's much more selfish than that. I'm blogging so you can all guilt me into running. In particular, I'm training for the Chicago Marathon in October. I've run a couple marathons before, but I've never completed a full training plan because I always wuss out at the end. This means I also wuss out at the marathons and end up walking and being way slower than I want and throwing up after the race. My goal for this marathon is to not wuss out. On either the race OR the training. 

This is where my friends and family come in. I'm not Catholic, but my mom's side of the family is. Therefore, I think I have some weird recessive Catholic guilt gene or something because I am quite possibly the easiest person in the world to guilt into something. So make me run people! Exploit my emotional weaknesses! 

** On a side note, I just saw the "condom blowup race" from the Tila Tequila show on The Soup. Oh. My. God. People tell me that I watch crap tv because I watch reality shows on Bravo. No people, I do not watch crap tv. Project Runway in NO WAY compares to the crapness of Tila Tequila. Sorry. **

So, the running. Today I did a 12 miler and it was alright. The last couple of times I've run, my legs have been strange. I've been a little concerned about this because I'm doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Colorado next weekend. However, the first 6 were good (besides the fact that it was raining when I left, so brought my raincoat, it stopped raining about 5 minutes after I left my apartment, so I got to carry a jacket for 11.5 miles.) I stopped and picked up some Gu (Goo?) on the way out-- this is my first Gu experience. I've heard good and bad things about it and wasn't totally sure how my body was going to react as I have trouble with Gatorade on long runs because of the sugar. I just had a tiny little bit of the Gu (it tasted like the fluoride at the dentist. rather gross.), but I didn't throw up. I also don't know if it did anything, but I'm proud of the lack of vomit. Low expectations... 

**On a final note, near Ohio Beach there were people swimming laps in the lake. Anyone know what this is? Ironman training? Crazy people who swim in the lake in thunderstorms? It was kind of cool. If I were a good swimmer (and not a little bit afraid to put my face in Lake Michigan for fear of what is in the water), I would totally think about doing that. Way better than swimming laps in a pool!**

**Oh yeah, and for those of you wondering: Planet Unicorn Hey!