I stayed in Europe until practically the last minute. I was at a layover in Moscow at some crazy time of morning just the morning before the 5k. I flew into LA – pretty much for the main reason that I wanted an LAX passport stamp. If I had JFK, I had to get LAX (or not, because that didn’t happen [which is the story for another post]). I mean, I also wanted to stop at home and check my mail and maybe see a friend or two and just be at home for a hot second… But I totally could’ve just flown into San Diego – especially because I thought I’d be in LA for the next week… Granted, that didn’t happen, because on the way to the Brussels airport, I got an email asking if I wanted to work for The Daily Show, and we finalized everything while I was in Moscow, which was amazing.
So, maybe it’s better I got to fly into LA, since I didn’t get to go back after San Diego. Anyway, none of this really matters.
I got into San Diego not long before the race started – enough time to check into my hotel and shower and basically that was it.
I headed on down to the 5k. I was a little worried about singing the national anthem since my body had no real idea where I was or what time it was. I’d warmed up a bit in my hotel room and practiced by myself once I got to the race. I was like “I feel iffy, but I’m sure this will be fine. Jet lag isn’t a real excuse for anything!”
But alas, I think I was slightly thwarted from jet lag. I like to believe in my head that I’m some amazing performer who can always pull something out, but I don’t think that’s the actual real, real-life truth…. because I cracked a little on the top note, aaand it was even in a low key. I started too low and sounded kinda breathy on the low notes, ’cause they were too low for me. It just felt like a mess!
And I didn’t even get to get another shot right away, as I wasn’t the person singing the following day. So, I had to wait a couple of weeks for a chance to redeem myself. (We’ll see how that goes soon enough at Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle.
Anyway, I did the 5k, then went to the expo and got my stuff for the next day.
I hung out for a bit. I knew I wanted to go to bed early, but did I want to go to bed 11-am-early? I didn’t want to get up around 1am and have hours of nothing. I wanted my best shot to get on at least a kiiiiiinda normal-ish sleep schedule.
So, I hung out at the expo for a hot second.
[Side note: I don’t aaaalways wanna be talking about how things relate to assault and my recovery, but I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the expo in Dallas, and here I felt fine and free. So, maybe it’s a sign I am getting better? Or at least was better on that day, who knows. I felt like the normal Aurora who loves crowds, not the new weird Aurora I don’t like who’s scared of people. So, yay.]
Then it was off to bed, super early – like, super early haha. I slept for something like 14 hours and weirdly it still didn’t feel like quite enough. But off we go to RnR San Diego Marathon, which I’ll talk about tomorrow!