Chicago Triathlon

I've realized that we start a lot of stories in our family with "It sounded like a good idea at the time..." Welllll, it sounded like a good idea to bring everyone to cheer on Rick as he swam/biked/ran his way through the Chicago Triathlon with the families of 6,999 other competitors. I learned a lot last weekend about how long it takes to complete an Olympic distance tri and how challenging it is to entertain four girls during this time while trying to walk what felt like our own 10k from event to event.

Grandma and Papa Patterson came to help which made it much easier for all.

We began by walking two miles to see Rick run out of the water. We missed to whole swim part after visiting about 15 port-a-potties walking from the parking garage to the lake. At each one Sophia would say quietly to herself "don't look down, don't look down, don't look down" and the first thing she'd do was stare into the poop pit when we opened the door. She made sure to tell Ella that whatever she did not to look into the toilet so guess what was the first thing she did when we walked in? My very wise daughter was appropriately grossed out by the concept of toilets that don't flush. They each learned how to squat and pee in a bush that afternoon.

Next we had and hour and a half to waste while Rick was biking and we walked over to the Bean in Millennium Park.

Then back to the course to cheer on Rick at the run:

It was at about this point that Ceci and Katie decided that they were done watching the race.

When it was over we all felt like we'd run a tri and were ready to go home.
We were very proud of Rick however: