Plenty Of Running Around On Night Before Bloomsday

‘Twas the night before Bloomsday, and all through Spokane, every creature was stirring - including The Man.

That would be Mike Severino, dressed in a tux, wearing mirror-finish black shoes, hiding from the rain beneath the Crescent Court awning. He was trading them in for something a little lighter come morning, Say, something in a swoosh.

That’s because even though the Lewis and Clark High School senior was at his prom, nothing would stop him from tackling the Bloom.

Would he actually get any sleep? “Maybe,” he said with a grin.

Downtown was buzzing Saturday night with late-Bloomers (those who hadn’t registered yet), late-night Bloomers (like Severino) and others who just wanted to be a part of the mayhem.

The Ag Trade Center was jammed. Restaurants were busy. Craig Sumner and Greg Lee were at O’Doherty’s pub doing carbo lifts. “We’re running,” Sumner said. “We’re getting loaded first.”

He drinks dark-as-oil beer mixed with lager the night before the race. He switches to something a cheaper and less filling in the morning. That’s when he has one for the road.

“High carbo, low quality is the secret,” Sumner said of the pre-race eye-opener. They came all the way from the Tri-Cities.

Volunteer Lexi Burg sat beneath the “Problem Mail” banner, helping the truly harried. Her annual chore is belping mail-entry folks find their correct numbers.

Inside the Convention Center area, it was a flea market frenzy. Only here, much of the stuff was free.

At the Safeway booth, it almost took protective head gear to get through the mob of kids.

“Juice?”

“Can I have one of those?”

The grocery guys went through 36,000 cartons of apple juice last year. “And we ran out,” Dan Goodmanson said. “It’s a pretty hopping booth.” , DataTimes