Let the freak out commence

Alright. Welcome to Duder’s “let’s sleep in a different city each night” extravaganza. If you’re following the tour it goes: Vancouver; North Vancouver; Penticton; Kelowna and then Penticton again. I AM TIRED. I don’t think the marathon handbook recommends sleeping in as many unfamiliar beds as possible before a race. It does however recommend sleeping with unfamiliar men though, and I’m totally making that up.
I have a feeling that I’ve forgotten something, but I checked my running gear at least twice, and I have my pajamas (I always forget my pajamas) so it must be something else. Ah well. As long as I have my running shoes I can buy everything else.
Yesterday was kind of exciting. They had a birthday cake for all the September birthdays (little delayed there, but better late than never), then the CEO made an announcement commemorating some of the people that had reached their 5 year mark with the company. Then he brought out a huge gift bag and: spotlight on Duder. Yes, she’s running her first marathon. I had to field a few questions. I was surprised that a lot of people don’t even know how far it is. One guy was like, “so have you run half marathons before?” and I said I’d run a few and he’s like, “so they’re what, 10k?” and I’m like, “um, no, they’re 21.1k” and he goes, “no, no, how far is a half marathon”. Yep. Another coworker didn’t think I looked tough enough. She’s obviously never seen a waiter try to take my plate away before I’m done eating. But it was so nice. In the gift bag was a picture frame, Advil, Band-Aids (good ones!), power bars, Gatorade and some gag gifts. Plus my boss and the receptionist bought me a nice bottle of wine. I was really surprised and touched. And a bit mad because know everyone knows and so I really have to run it for sure because they’ll all be asking when I return.
And lastly: got to take the seabus to work today. And here I thought that you could only find crazies on the buses. No: there was the guy that kept touching his hair and talking to himself while standing by the door and looking out the window (I was just waiting for the bomb in his knapsack to detonate). Then there was the guy next to me that kept bouncing his legs around like a four year old does when they have to go pee so… maybe he really needed to go pee. Finally there was the woman that kept doing what I can only subscribe as Lamaze breathing techniques, though she wasn’t pregnant. Oh yeah, and there was this one other lady that just sat, ramrod straight in her seat, eyes straight ahead with her hands clenched on her purse just waiting for someone to try and attack or mug her. It was a lot more entertaining than the #16, plus there was the added excitement of possibly drowning.
Well my friends, I likely will not blog again until I return, though I will certainly try. I hope everyone has a great, relaxing, sunny and happy Thanksgiving weekend. I would really love to see you all when I return (Friday) so keep me in your thoughts when scribbling on your social calendars.