How fabulous! How gorgeous! We performed for the La Salle Bank / Chicago Marathon for the third year in a row. It was a gorgeous morning. Chicago had unseasonable warm temperatures (high eighties) Last year we were wearing hats and gloves and freezing our butts off! This year they cut the marathon short AFTER A FEW HOURS due to the numbers of folks dropping (literally) from heat exhaustion! (See My Heat Exhaustion entry: dated AUGUST 13, 2007) Luckily, at 8AM everyone was bright eyed and bushy-tailed and the heat of the day had not made its impact.
We were the first band that the runners encountered, so they were pretty perky at that point. State Street (that great street according to Frank Sinatra) is blocked off through the middle of downtown.
We were set up under the marquis of the historic Chicago Theater (same as last year.)
We are set to start at 8:00AM. and so we wait (the marathon started about four miles away)
Then here they come: wheelchair racers. They ain’t fucking around. They fly by in about two seconds!
THEN the contenders appear. These are the real deal. The professional marathoners who actually win. The prize is over a hundred grand and they are all clustered in one group of about a dozen or more little lean men (and most of them are African) I mean this is where you see the bodies of true marathon runners: lean, completely sinewed. Anyway, the contenders ain’t playing cause they wanna win. They are clustered on the opposite of the street and really aren’t paying us any attention!!
Next group is the much larger pack of semi contenders. They’re gonna finish in good time and they give a damn. But they aren’t expecting to win I don’t think…some of them wave. I remember at this point two years ago, I thought to myself “This Sucks! These people don’t giva damn if we are here or not! In fact, I think we’re gettin on their nerves!”
But the real party begins with the “regular Joe’s” who are running for fun, for a challenge, for a laugh with Elvis costumes on, and tuttus and are all ages and sizes.
They are laughing and giving us “high fives” and running around the band stand and whooping it up .They are looking us in the eye with big thank yous on their faces. And we all get caught up in it.
The entire six lanes of this State Street is filled with 40,00 people running and this procession continues for over forty minutes.
There are people everywhere on the sidelines with signs of encouragement and smiles.
It really is a big love fest.
Hell, I can’t imagine running for 26 miles! MY KNEES!!! Taxi anyone? Luckily my job was to keep the music high energy and pumping. No problem.
