Not that I'm looking for sympathy or anything (no, seriously, I'm not), but I was awake and functioning for 42 hours in a row this weekend. And it was all for The Wild Onion and Wild Scallion, both of which were huge successes.
Why?
Because of all the people who ignored biological imperative and stayed awake much, much longer than one body should.

Friday afternoon, I picked up some Snickers and Hershey Kisses for insta-energy, 2 books and a deck of cards to stave off boredom, and a bunch of fleece to ward off the overnight low of 43. FORTY-THREE, at the lakefront. Did I mention a daytime high of mid-60s? It was *cold* out there, sister. Headed over to the Sears Tower (checkpoint 3a/b) at 6p to cheer the 40 teams of 4 who were going to climb the 103 flights of stairs up to the observation deck, then run back down, strap their rollerblades back on, and hustle to their canoes. They had rollerbladed from North Ave down to 79th, over to Comiskey (don't give me that US Cellular crap. It's Comiskey.) where there was a game, took the Red line to Jackson, and then bladed over. I guess the stairs were supposed to be fun after all that rolling. I don't know, but I'm ok with my ignorance. The racers had only been working since 3:30p, so they were all doing well. Well, mostly all; there was already some fighting and snark between team members. The last team left the Tower at 10:30p and we were back at HQ (North Ave Beach) by 11:15p to get our next marching orders.

You know those little scooters that are a menace on the sidewalk? Well, put some loopy adults on 'em late at night and you'll find that they're incapable of any semblance of balance. Once the more hyper of the group got tired, the next idea that swept thru us was wheelchair races!

I didn't know it at the time, but those chairs on the big fat inflated wheels weren't floating chairs but beach wheelchairs, perfect for a roll down to the beach. As they're made of PVC pipe, they pop apart at critical junctures; the arms, the back, the handle/pushbar...you get the idea. Part of the fun is holding the thing together while being pushed along! So I hopped in and we took off, eschewing pavement for cool sand. We were rolling along at a good clip when danger! danger! tilt! tilt! and I was flying face-first towards the sand, with the chair closely following and my pusher launching himself over both the chair and myself in an attempt to add an acrobatic element to our new sport. I laughed so hard, I really couldn't find anything wrong with what just happened. The other team showed up, and we raced round one v-ball post to t'other and switched. Do you have any idea how hard it is to run in sand, push a awkwardly tall wheelchair, hope you don't fall face-first into the sand again, and laugh like an absolute loon? Trust me. It's hard. It's also an adrenaline surge so huge that I didn't feel the need to sleep for another 12 hours. (and yeah, we won.) This non-sleep thing was good, as I was a driver for the next 10 hours--ferrying people to and from their checkpoints around the city. A big section was for the racers to orienteer themselves around the northwest side, going to fire stations as check points. Pretty cool, but they're as hard to find in person with a map as it is with only coordinates to guide you! HQ was hard-pressed to keep up with the Australian team. They were a good hour ahead of the pack, which meant our checkpoints spent a lot of time twiddling their thumbs (or watching porn, as one CP did. Technically it was an accident, but it *did* happen--they win for 'most unusual use of time') Friends who were awake (c'mon. Friday evening. We're *always* up) called me throughout the evening, prompting my fellow Onioneers to create a fanciful and exciting life for me (they decided that I received 8 booty calls in 8 hours, a 'respectable' average) whereas the truth was a wee less fascinating. One friend drove to Indiana for fun and called me from various points along the way, one told me about a concert attended, one told me which team number he was in the Wild Scallion that morning...as you can see, not the excitement of a strumpet. (C'mon. Eight booty calls? Who gets those?! I don't think I want to know.) Taught my friend how to play rummy during one of the down-times (thanks again for hanging out. I *do* appreciate your staying awake long after you should have been in bed), watched the sun rise, ate 2/3 of a bag of Snickers, drank appx. 3 cases of Fiji water (actually from the islands, and not some little Fiji county in New Hampshire), and found myself driving 14 people around downtown while following the most deranged driver I've ever met. How hard is it to drive to the CBOE from Buckingham Fountain? 20-minutes-hard, that's how. The unfortunate irony is that I was exactly one half-block from a Krispy Kreme (oh, the hell, the horror, the torture) and a Burger King (oh, food. FOOD. Salt. Not-sugar.) and couldn't get food. I finished my drop-offs and headed back to HQ, where I walked in shaking with low blood-sugar. Literally. I don't think I've ever had it that bad. As a child, my dad knew to keep my mom, sister, and I fed at regular intervals to keep that from happening. We turn into scary, vicious harpies when the sugar drops too low, and now just imagine that person behind the wheel of a 15-passenger van driving in Saturday morning traffic downtown.

NOT. PRETTY.

After I ate an Egg McMuffin in .73 seconds, I went back out, did some more runs, and decided that it was time to head for home. The race had been going for 20 hours, the Aussies were rapidly approaching, and the Wild Scallion was in full swing with its full compliment of volunteers. I? Was going home.

I fell asleep on the bus, which scared me since I didn't know it happened until I woke up one stop from home. Got home, took a two-hour nap, was scared awake by the roomies (never a good thing) and then returned to HQ for the after-race burrito and beer party.

Is it just me, or is it a bit odd for Chipotle to be the sponsor? I don't necessarily think of burritos as 'good for you', but I guess it's really about reloading carbs into your body, and burritos and beer is the fastest way to do it. I wasn't going to complain.

Then, the bad part. I watched a movie I've seen before, hoping to dull myself into sleep, and I couldn't fall asleep. Midnight came and went. Still, no sleep. Sleep! No sleep. Sleep! Wake back up. Sleep! Wake up. 6:30a. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Try to sleep. It's bright. No sleep for me...

Awake all day Sunday, feelin' fine. Head for bed, sleep like a baby.

Waking up? Is exactly the wrong action to take here. Why I had to have this problem today instead of yesterday is beyond me.

SO. The Wild Onion: winning time for the Aussies was 20h 20m. The previous week, they did a 412 mile race in Tuscon and came in second; nobody's surprised that they did so well here! 6 teams finished under/at 24 hours, and a total of 12 teams (out of 40) finished at all. As to the Scallion: my friend finished in less than 6 hours, and that makes him The Champion to me.

Oh, and since it wouldn't be an MM adventure without some injury, you'll be happy to know that I think I received my biggest and most immediate bruise to date, but I don't know *how* it happened. It's the size of my hand, on the side of my thigh, and it elicited the loudest and most vitrolic swearing I have ever uttered. Luckily, it was 3a in the West Loop, so I didn't offend anybody.

~~~~~