Longest Day Ever

We headed to the expo bright and early this morning. We'd decided if we headed in early, then we could pass off the bib pick up to some of the afternoon/evening volunteers and head back to the cabin early. Best laid plans.

We arrived with dozens of snacks and drinks to tide us over throughout the day. If someone said the word pizza one more time, there were bets going as to who'd be sick first.

It was another chaotic day where we tried our best to smile and calm runners' nerves. We answered another billion shuttle questions, handed out bibs, directed runners to the shirts and expo, and general just maintained a friendly environment. It became very, very difficult for me to keep smiling and stay helpful, energetic and upbeat. I was feeling horrible. I had a massive migraine, I had nerve pain shooting up my left side, and I was feeling really nauseous again. I'd been battling my medical stuff off and on for weeks, but I'd hope they'd stay away long enough for me to enjoy the long weekend in Tahoe. No such luck. But, as usual, there was no time to be sick and it was using too much energy thinking about it, so I blocked it out and focused on the task at hand. I have to say - our team has been doing this for so long, it comes easy for us to just do what we do and not have to talk much about it. It's nice to know things were going smoothly without much effort on our part.

When we heard there was going to be pizza again for the volunteer meal, a bunch of us started scrambling. Our team ordered take out from Applebee's (thank you SO MUCH sponsors!) and the boys and I walked the couple of blocks to go pick it up. The bartender who took care of our order was amazing. He definitely helped lighten the mood and cheer us up a bit. The fresh air and sunshine did wonders too. We got back to the expo, ate, kept handing out bibs and started making plans for our exit. Unfortunately, though we'd been scheduled until 2, we had people who thought we were there until 5, some who thought we were there until 7, and some who apparently thought we lived at the expo. Eventually we found enough coverage so that we could head out. We were all looking forward to one thing - relaxing at the house - especially with race day tomorrow!!

It didn't take us long to get changed into comfy clothes, grab the leftover ice cream, turn on the football game and grab our iPads or Kindles. The lazy time of just watching TV, catching up on emails, reading a book or napping was exactly what we needed. I was trying to keep the night-before-race-day jitters at bay, especially after the horrible day I'd had medically.

Later in the evening we had some visitors. Jason and Natalie stopped by to hang out for a bit. That was just awesome. We really enjoyed catching up and reconnecting. It was really kind of them to take the time to come by and I really appreciated the encouragement and laughs.

I love these cozy evenings hanging out with teammates and friends. They are too few and far between. Trying to hang on to every moment we have here together. But, it's time to go get our race day stuff together and get some rest. Alarms will be going off way too soon and then the real test begins.