Mom's big weekend

You probably noticed a lot of college basketball games were played throughout the last four days. More on that in a minute.

But you probably did not notice that Chicago annually is the site of the largest 8-kilometer (5-mile) road race in the world. It's called the Shamrock Shuffle 8K, sponsored by Chicago Marathon backer Bank of America, and Mom and more than 29,000 other people ran in it this morning.

Her last race also was an 8K, but she wanted to experience the kind of crowd she'll encounter in the marathon. Well, crowd is a good word for it. It was crowded. It also was cold, wet and windy, a day after we welcomed spring with hours and hours of snowfall. And she stopped midway through the race to take off her sweatshirt and wrap it around her.

In other words, she was a little slower today. She finished in 51:50, one second off her previous time. She placed 15,915th overall; 7,086th among women; and 1,491st in her age division.

Back to basketball. Mom entered a bracket challenge at the office, and she ranks a close third after two rounds. She's the only person in the top 16 who picked Kentucky to win it all, too, so the Wildcats can take her with them to the top. (Dad can't believe he just wrote that.)

Great work, Mom!