She's on the home stretch!

I ran track in high school. Not only did I run track (which can be generic and mean anything from 'I like wearing short shorts and tennis shoes' to 'I can throw a shot put 100 yards'), but I ran the 4x400 meter relay and was often the first leg. Which means when the gun went off, I had to get around the track one time as fast as I could and then hand the baton off to the next person, so they could get around the track one time as fast as they could. And so on, and so on until the 4th person raced across the finish line, and flopped into the waiting arms of their teammates.

Now, the hardest thing about the 400, for those of you who have never run it (those of you who have ever run it DO know...) is the fact that, while 400 meters seems to be a comparatively short distance in the grand scheme of running events (think marathon), when you're running as fast as you can (let's say sprinting) for 400 meters it's a LONG FREAKING WAY TO THE FINISH LINE.

There's actually some strategy, too. You start out controlled, lifting your knees more as you go around the first curve, you open out a bit more on the first straightaway, and then as you come out of the second curve, you put it all out there. You leave it on the track. You haul ass down that last 100 meters, towards that thin, white finish line. And your lungs burn and you're pretty sure you left your legs 10 yards behind you and there's is no way you can possibly move any faster than you are, but then somehow you pull everything together for one last lurch and you stick your arm out as far as you can and try to focus on placing the baton into the outstretched hand of your teammate, even as your field of vision shrinks because all the blood in your body is going to your screaming muscles and can't be bothered to keep your eyes working.

The feeling of the baton being pulled from your clenched fingers by the next runner is the best feeling in the world, because then you know you're done and you can stop running and best of all, you didn't drop it.

The way that you feel as you start that last 100 meters? That's how I feel right now.

It's a sickening, excited, glorious, knot-in-your-stomach kind of feeling, because you know the end is almost there, but you have to put in a tremendous amount of effort before you can collaspe in relief that it's over.

I have 4 days exactly before I'm married. And there is oh so much still to do. I have to figure out a detailed schedule of the next 96 hours, make sure everyone else has that schedule, double check with all the vendors, fit in two last pilates work outs (no telling what I'll be eating before Saturday morning), and get my fiance cuff links that don't look like I picked them out 4 days before the wedding.

And I know I said this whole wedding planning thing is more like a marathon, but it's all sprint now.

But then again, I'm better at sprinting anyway.

Yay!