20,000 of Our Closest Friends

What a day!! This morning the Cancer Hating Boob Savers participated in the largest ever Race for the Cure in Kansas City. This was a huge event last year with around 10,000 participants, but this year there were over 20,000 people walking and running in ridiculously hot weather! It was absolutely insane!

While the huge volume of participants obviously means more money than ever was raised for a very important cause, it certainly made for a much more crowded and slightly less enjoyable event! First of all, it took forever to get down to Union Station no matter which direction you were coming from, since obviously most of those 20K people were trying to take the same 3 or so exits to the area. Mom and I thought we were being smart by staying in hotel that was only about 3 miles away so we wouldn't have such a long drive this morning, but then in an idiotic move on my part, I followed the directions from Mapquest that took us back to the interstate instead of just driving straight through town! It took us 40 minutes to drive 3 miles because of the massive traffic jam!! We parked about a half mile away and hoofed it to our meeting place, and even though we were at least 15 minutes late, thankfully everyone else had hit the same traffic and we were still the first team members there!

The walk itself can be described in two words: crowded and hot!! When the walkers actually got started at around 8:00, the reported heat index was already almost 90, and was over 90 once we were finished walking an hour later. With all of those bodies together on city streets in the downtown area, I'm sure the temperature was even higher than actually recorded! There was hardly any breeze to speak of, and only about 1/3 of the course was in the shade. I was so proud of my mom, because although she has a hard time with high blood pressure when the temperature gets too high, she made it the entire 3.1 miles and kept up a pace that was over 3 miles an hour! She could have taken the 1 mile route or easily cut several blocks off the course, but she sweat it out with my friend JoAnna and I and made it the entire way!

Unfortunately, the heat and crowds made hanging around after the race to enjoy the giveaways, survivor parade and other festivities (like the survivor tent that Mom, JoAnna and my friend Laurie were never able to enjoy) pretty much unthinkable. No one had any interest in standing in line in the hot sun for free snacks and gifts! Instead, our team headed over to a nearby brunch buffet and enjoyed the air conditioning, some good food and lots of water! Unfortunately, JoAnna missed out because she didn't even make it out of the parking garage until after we were finished eating! Now that's a serious traffic problem!

Overall I think everyone still had fun despite the less than ideal conditions. However, Mom and I decided that next year--if we participate next year--we would definitely stay at the Hyatt or the Westin since those are right across the street from Union Station so we wouldn't have to fight any traffic. Hopefully next year some other people will be turned off by the crowds and it won't be quite as huge, and hopefully the event also won't be held on a day when the high is 102 degrees!!

For more pictures of the event, check out our Picasa page!