“Singer” on the lam

Thank heavens! For the first time I finally felt some excitement for the marathon yesterday! Instead of those damn demons that have been waging a hellish war in my belly for over a week now, I had beautiful sunshiny butterflies taking over, their excited wings flapping and fluttering all about. And I would have loved to have told you all about it yesterday, but I couldn’t; my computer was kidnapped. That’s right, kidnapped!

The annual Real Man’s Hockey Pool took place last night, and for the first time since Mario (the organizer) and I started dating, the Luongo Lovers (formerly known as the Cute Clouts) had to bow out. But apparently, my computer was not allowed to. It was probably for the best though, I mean I DID just win the Real Man’s Playoff Pool, I’ve got to give the so-called “real” men a chance to win, it just wouldn’t be kind of me to go in with my hot picks and take them for all they’re worth – again – would it? Nope. It wouldn’t.

So instead of wheeling and dealing, and instead of running 10 km at race pace (like I was supposed to) this princess was slaving over a hot oven – just for my dear runners.

Tonight is the final night of the clinic and instead of running, we’re heading to Pete and Carol’s (our trusty leaders) for a night of pre-race carb-loading, socializing, and inspirational movie watching by way of The Spirit of the Marathon. And because I’m such an amazing baker (totally not modest at all!) I signed up for dessert duty. And well, they are fruit tarts, and fruit is a carb, so they work, right 😀

Oh yeah, back to the genesis of my excitement. So I decided to plug my ipod into my car on the way home from work last night to listen to my newly completed race day playlist, and let me just say, I’ve got a pretty rockin’ list with tons of singable songs jam packed with memory after memory after memory. Beware Portland! My moms always told me I was a great singer, which encouraged me to sing more, much to the chagrin of my brothers and husband it seems; they’ve compared me to Princess Vespa in Spaceballs!

As I was driving along, with those darling butterflies filling my belly, singing at the top of my lungs, my eyes and my mouth had the happiest looks about them. And while I didn’t get through the full 122 songs, it did give me a nice glimmer of what I have to look forward to, like The Coasters Charlie Brown! An odd choice, you might think, but my dad, who can play the guitar just by listening to a song and who has a super duper fun singing voice, used to play this song for us when we were kids, and even though I’m now in my 30s I still on occasion beg him to sing it. That song is attached to one my most favourite childhood memories, and the second I heard it coming through the speakers, I laughed so hard … and then sang along 😀

YAY! JUST 3 MORE DAYS!!!

How do you shut your brain off at night before a race? I’m struggling on the sleep end of things.