Spring Bloomies

Not the budding, busting out all over kind of blooms. Rather, my little dahh-lings. We walked our city's annual Bloomsday Road Race on Sunday. All five of us - that makes them officially bloomies (although technically it's Gee's second time, since the last time I participated, I was eighteen weeks pregnant). Bloomsday is one of the biggest 12K races in the country. HP smiled on the event - it was our first bright, sunny, honestly hot spring day of the year. Overall, for a five hour excursion with all three children, four hours of which they had to sit in the stroller, it was astonishingly fun. Zero (count them) zero temper tantrums (from the children, one or two from mom, but no timeouts were necessary).

We entered in the stroller division. The night before, HSSH had to fold (more, disassemble, I'd say) the triple wide and fit it into the mini van. (A moment of silent appreciation for the minivan. It will hold three kids, five hours worth of snacks, one mac truck stroller and a piggy we stole from the shed.) Wait, five points if you can name that song and dead artist. (JG, you are disqualified by virtue of your frightening ability to memorize the lyrics of every song that you have ever heard.)

We were less than enthusiastic about the stroller division because it involves a lot of people pushing strollers. The potential for bottlenecks, wheel locks and other stroller related catastrophes was high. But, you know, HSSH was all, 'family time' and 'annual tradition,' etcetera. Sheesh. I agreed to the outing with much eye rolling because I feared the whole day would be one long comment on our reproductive prowess and resulting need for gargantuan triple stroller. I happily admit that I was wrong. We were an inconspicuous drop in a roiling sea of strollers.


Gee prepares his mental game for the big race.










Cue stretches his
calves before the start.





Our elite athletes share a light moment.

Over 43,000 people completed the course. The day is organized and orchestrated within an inch of its life. The stroller division has the latest start time for the obvious reason that any one who is free from pushing a stroller would also be monumentally irritated to be stuck behind 5000 of them. The race started at 8:30 am, but our cavalcade of strollers didn't cross the start line until 10:30 a.m., shortly after the amazing Kenyan man who won the thing in 38 minutes had finished packing, taken a shower and headed to the airport. We didn't head downtown until after nine and we had to park quite a way from our designated line up location. As a result, we were bringing up the rear so to speak.

Here are the 42,977 people who started the race in front of us. (That tiny purple banner is the start line.)

Here are the 23 or so people that, due to some error on their part, or hideous equipment malfunction, started behind us.

We finished at the four hour mark on the race clock. By that time, the kids had been in the stroller for about 3 1/2 hours and they had gone through the snacks like a hoard of locusts stuck in a triple wide stroller. I, on the other hand, hadn't eaten since 8:00 a.m. That was when I realized that we had parked our car three miles up hill from the finish line. I had my first tantrum then and my second tantrum when HSSH refused to stop at Arby's before continuing our all day march of death back to minivan. We compromised with take out and the kids happily spent another 45 minutes in the stroller sipping milkshakes. I limped behind and stuffed fries in my mouth. I couldn't really complain because HSSH pushed that freaking stroller all day, but I did anyway. Despite my low sugar melt down at the end, the whole day was E for excellent. Fine family fun.