One of Sara’s college roommates had the brilliant idea of all meeting up again back at the old stomping grounds, and doing a race together. It was a lot of fun getting the four of them (and all the associated spouses and children) together for the first time in 10 years. Actually, come to think of it, Gregory was the only non-Purdue-ex-student among us (though I think he could be an honorary grad if Alexis would have just bought that “Purdue Boyfriend” shirt for him). We had quite a herd of children, and the lot of us together were more of a force of nature than a group of friends, but it was a lot of fun to cruise around and relive old times.

Only Sara, Phil, and Amy’s sister Mary opted for the half-marathon, though in Amy’s defense she is what can only be described as shockingly pregnant. This should not necessarily be considered a handicap though, since she and Alexis crossed the 5k finish line at the same time, but since her timing chip was pinned to her tummy, she ended up winning by a nose baby.

Sara usually runs in Chicago, which is the flattest of the flat, so she was a little nervous about running on all the hills. However, she was quite pleased with her time of 2:39:59, which was only 3 minutes longer than last time, even with the hills and the 5 extra minutes in the bathroom line (and that’s not even mentioning the freezing rain!)

Once again the kids and I tried to meet up with her as often as possible along the route. We did a pretty good job, but this was super-stressful, because it was very difficult to navigate through all the one ways, dead-ends, road closures, and tricky traffic situations along the route. We actually did a pretty good job of meeting up with her, but I was pretty tired at the end of it from getting both kids in and out of the car so many times, finding parking, and somehow dredging my brain for directions on streets I hadn’t used in 10 years.

The kids made signs to hold, and they both did a really good job. Sara came up with the idea of offering high fives to the racers and it was a HUGE hit.

I don’t think any of us were prepared for the amount of high fives; it was somewhat staggering. It really did seem to give a little boost to the runners, and even when we didn’t get the signs out of the car people would say, “There’s the high five kids!” One lady even risked life and limb crossing traffic to give us an extra high five.

In fact, the kids made the cover of The Exponent, the school newspaper (more pictures available in their gallery here).

All in all, it was really a lot of fun being at Purdue. Mostly if we go back there we just go to campus, but this time we were all over town, which brought back a lot more memories (“Oh, remember when you lived here?” “Wait, I remember this place, so and so used to live here!” “Didn’t this used to be…” etc.)

In fact, I guess it really was a throwback because as soon as we got back Sunday night, I had a nightmare that I was late for a physics lecture in EE 129 and when I got there I found out they were having a test I hadn’t studied for. I asked the professor if I could retake it and he started quizzing me with questions about how to draw different molecules. “Oh no!” I thought, “I totally don’t remember this being in the lecture!”

Yes, I guess we’re never too old for the old “test I didn’t study for” nightmare.

Good times with good friends, and I was very proud of Sara. Overall, I give the weekend a high five.