Chicago is one of four cities anxiously awaiting the International Olympic Committee’s decision on who will host the 2016 Summer Games. Along with Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio, Chicago will be biting nails until October 2nd when the IOC announces the host city for 2016. 

Of course, with everything of this magnitude there are debates and arguments over who is really going to pay for it. Mayor Daley assuring the city that it won’t suck all our tax dollars away. Naysayers on the other side calling this a ludicrous idea that we will all indeed end up paying for. People who work downtown already shaking their heads and making alternate commuting plans in case we do get the games.

So this past Sunday when I participated in the Chicago Triathlon (world’s biggest with 9300 participants), I could not help but think of the Olympics. There was a bit of talk and hype about this event going well. Triathlons are an olympic event so this was one more chance to show off how well the City of Big Shoulders can handle her sports.

I was out of shape and miserable for most of the morning. It started off rough with a water temperature of 63 degrees and an air temperature of 48 degrees (in August. in the Midwest). So that will make your heart beat a bit. I was also behind a wave of men racing in a category called “Clydesdale.” Triathletes come in all shapes and sizes, but if you happen to be a portly sort of guy who must weigh in at 200 or above, then there is a special little division for you.

A division that will be followed by a bunch of women in their 30’s who are half their size. Who will get kicked in the face by the foot of a giant man who is swimming the backstroke sideways. Kudos to him for at least trying.

Add to that a headwind on Lake Shore Drive that made you wish you were sailing and the fact that I had Bruce Springsteen’s “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” stuck in my head (don’t even like that song, hello 1976), and it made for a rough morning.

But what I loved were the cowbells. I ran faster when I heard people with their cow bells. Christopher Walken would have been proud. People everywhere along the racecourse ringing the cow bells. I still consider them the phenomena of European winter sports. I largely associate them with German bobsledding or something like that. 

But people were clanking them and cheering them along the racecourse and it felt sort of Olympic-ish (even if I felt sort of middle-age-ish).

And since I had exactly two hours and fifty-eight minutes to think about all this, I started noticing what an enormous heap of trash an event like this generates. Take 9300 people. A water and gatorade stop every mile on the run. Free energy/goo packets for all athletes. A post race party with disposable plates and cutlery. Free bottles of water and gatorade. 9300 plastic bags to hold 9300 t-shirts and 9300 copies of magazines (three magazines to be exact, so 27,000+ magazines and flyers galore). 

And a free towel at the end. Nice as it was, I am fairly certain that everyone in that race had towels at home. unnecessary.

And events like the Triathlon happen every weekend in thousands of cities across the US. Just to run or bike, swim or walk in a race environment places tons of stress on the actual environment. Add the traffic to watch the race and the commute to get athletes to and from the race (like Chicago, I raced near a pile of guys who flew in from Ireland for the event), and a “healthy” endeavor like this becomes and eco-catastrophe.

This I thought of as I slapped my arms and legs through frigid water, as I cursed the wind on Lake Shore Drive, and as I shuffled along the lakefront. This I thought of as people jingled cow bells.

So here’s the question of the day. Can these events, the cities that host them, and the 2016 games (whoever gets them) be promoted and pulled off without killing the planet in the process?

If everyone’s gotta have their gatorade, can we at least recycle the bottles? Can we skip 9300 towels and 27,000 magazines that (let’s be honest), less than half the people even care about or use? And honestly, the Chicago race generated far less trash than many others I’ve raced. But even so. Can we re-think racing and wasting when it comes to marathons, triathlons, walks and bicycle races? Can we do a little bit to preserve the pristine places we run through? Do they have to be mass marketing events as well as actual athletic events?

Cutting out the flyers, magazines, and recycling the plastic bottles is a place to start. Skipping the towels works too!

Just as long as there are still cow bells. Always need more cow bell.

I remember going through a phase in high school when my little group of friends and I watched the Blues Brothers endlessly. It was already an old movie by then but something about it captivated us. I doubt every adolescent of the 80’s had this obsession with Jake and Elwood, but we did. We thought we were cool, dressing up like them on Halloween, quoting the movie every time we were “definitely on Lower Wacker Drive.” Who else does this at sixteen? Looking back, my hunch is that it had to do with the fact that we lived in Chicago and the Blues Brothers are, by far, one of Chi-Towns best claims to fame. 

Midwesterners that we were, we realized that we were hopelessly uncool if we dared to compare ourselves to swanky New York kids or flip flop wearing surfer types from California. We live in what the rest of the country calls “the fly-over states.” At least this is what I am told they call us. Hah I say, you don’t have the Blues Brothers. It was our attempt at getting on the map.

Now I don’t devote much of my time and thought energy thinking about John Belushi and Dan Akroyd. I’ve got too many other useless things to obsess over. But this past Saturday morning I had a chance to love my sweet home Chicago more than ever before, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. 

You see on Saturday morning I ran a race. A 10 mile race. Along the lakefront. Downtown. On a sunny and gorgeous morning. The race happened to end inside Soldier Field on the 50 yard line. It was called the Soldier Field 10. It was awesome. Not so much the running 10 miles part, but the being downtown part was great. I’m downtown a lot but something about that morning was fabulously different. 

It started actually with a lot of green pride. I woke up at 5:00 am and then hit snooze and took my time getting ready. I needed to be down there by 6:30 so of course I panicked and set my alarm early. Then the fact that I live so close to the city kicked in. No need to rush. I did not leave until 6:00. I was parked by 6:23. awesome. Live close to what you do. Save on time and gas. It’s green and ridiculously convenient. We spend way too much time in our cars. The average person spends 50 minutes a day (total) commuting to and from work. That’s a lot of time guzzling gas and listening to talk radio.

Close as I live, I must confess to a great traffic sin that I had to commit to be parked by that time, and nope, it was not speeding. I made it all the way down to soldier field in less than 20 minutes. Then I saw the exit sing and then the enormous line of traffic waiting to park. ugh. I needed to be at race packed pick up by 6:30. There was of course packet pick up the day before, but in my greenness I decided not to make a needless trip into the city twice. So I waited until that morning.

I sat for a few moments in line, way, way back in line. I sat and sat. Looked at my watch and started to panic. If I missed this, I would be livid. No one was moving. So I looked in my rearview mirror. Traffic to the left of me was whizzing by, heading southbound at 60+ miles an hour. Traffic in front of me was stopped. My heart rate started to bump up a notch and my palms got sweaty. I kept looking in my mirror. Cars were flying to the left of me. I looked up one more time and then jerked my wheel to the left and stepped on it. I jumped into the left lane and whizzed by all the traffic that I was just in, now to my right. I flew at least half a mile down the road until the very last moment. Yes, I was so one of those people. I looked and looked. A mini-van driver was spacing out and had let the car in front of her creep up just far enough for me to squeak in. I slammed on my brakes and nosed myself into the right lane. I had just trumped 50+ cars. 

I waved thank you endlessly at the van behind me. I was still sweating and reeling with traffic guilt. I hate people who do what I just did and if you were in that line on Saturday, I am so sorry, but I only had seven minutes left. I also grew up in this big city with a metropolitan area of 9.5 million people, so every now and again I bust out my city savvy jerky driving and consider myself entitled. Which is basically to say that I have no excuse. ugh.

But I digress (what else is new). I ran the race. I ran 5 miles south, away from the city, and then I turned around at the half way mark and saw before me the entire Chicago skyline as the next 5 miles unfolded before me. Lake Michigan was clear and gorgeous. It glistened in the morning sun. The air was crisp, the sky was blue, it was idyllic. And as I inched my way closer to Soldier Field I got all sappy and patriotic. It was Memorial Day weekend. I was at Soldier Field. My Father-in-Law is a Vet. A three purple hearts soldier in vietnam vet. So I got sappy and patriotic. 

Then I got closer to soldier field and ran through the tunnel and up and out onto the field like Walter Payton. I saw myself on the Jumbo-tron. It was ridiculous but I was swept up in it. I was wearing a Bears t-shirt. It was the best. I moved one step beyond patriotic into city-otic. Which I realize is just one step away from idiotic. 

But the moment I crossed the finish line I thought that I lived in by far the best city in the world. Sweet Home Chicago was blaring on the speakers, the skyline was captivating, I was on the 50 yard line at soldier field. Sure, I committed a few traffic sins to get there, but I was there. In the middle of my city feeling like some sort of triumphant sap. I wanted to call Mayor Daley. 

What I loved most though was the sheer clarity of the morning. The clear sky, the sparkling lake, the fresh air in a heavily urban area. It was smogless. Which is great considering us Chicagoans get most of our energy from coal plants. But it reminded me of how marvelous even the inside of the city can be. And Chicago, as far as cities go, is one of the greenest. Mayor Daley just landed on a list of the top 10 green mayors. Sometimes, all this eco-stuff, it works out. And sure, we are an ecological disaster just like the rest of the world, but sometimes you get a chance to see what is possible. And if it is possible to get swept up in something as trivial as crossing the 50 yard line at Soldier Field, then I have hope that we can someday get swept up in something as significant as saving God’s planet. This would make me forever giddy.

But for now I will take a simple morning when the wind is just right and the traffic is light and my lungs can actually breathe and pump and move my legs and my heart into action And when a few green dreams like this come true along the Chicago Lakefront, you get to say “sweet home Chicago,” and mean it.