Happy & Grateful Eager Beaver Race Recap

It's been a roller coaster of a day. That has become a norm for me the last few weeks.  With that means what I was going to blog about has changed a gazillion times.  Ok.....so maybe I'm exaggerating.  It's only been a million!! : )

I pulled up this picture first thing thing morning.  I needed it.  Big time.  It should maybe read:  I'm a huge emotional mess and flip between pure exhaustion, functioning out of necessity and outright bawling & crying.  No matter what I choose to be HAPPY & GRATEFUL no matter how it turns out.

 

Yep, that's my story & I'm sticking with it!  At least for now.  I know....I know....this too shall pass.  Each day gets a little better.  Although I will always keep this time of my life tucked away in my heart in some way, for the most part it will fade and it will soon not consume my thoughts, time & emotions.  One day at at time, right?!?!? : )

Over the weekend I traveled home to Muscatine to visit my family.  Jim has been out in California taking care of his dad's business.  When he is gone, I don't like to stay here.  The timing was nice since we don't have any free weekends until the beginning of November.  So this was one last hurrah before things get absolutely busy crazy.

Some of the Muscatine Running Friends were going on a migration from Muscatine to Wilton so I joined in on the fun.  6 of us started out at 0'dark thirty (5 a.m.) and hit the country roads on our migration.  About 2.5 hours and 14.5 miles later we arrived at our destination.  We had a lot of fun.  We kept breaking up into different groups then meeting back up at certain points.

Once we got to Wilton some of us ran the Eager Beaver 5k.  I was unsure if I wanted to race this one or not.  I was on the short end of sleep and y'all know my stress & emotions have been through the roof.  I registered anyway and promised myself I would "take it easy".  I learned from last months migration that I run way slower after a long run.  I took off easy at the gun and ran a 8:02 first mile.  (Yes, that is "easy" for me).  Then I felt a surge and started to feel really good.  I ran a 6:30 second mile then a 7:30 third mile.  That put me with a finish time of 22:03.  Wow, way better than I expected!  Believe it or not I didn't even place in my age group.  Yeah....all the 30 year olds were rockin' it that morning.

Here I am with some other Muscatine Running Friends who were at the race, but didn't do the migration.

Overall it was a great race morning for me.  Now....time to keep working on the happy & gratefulness.  Hubby comes home tonight and life as I know it continues on!!