Grateful

In the last few weeks, I've had two friends lose a parent. I have a cousin who's battling kidney stones & this same cousin's husband's parents had a huge barn fire recently.  This caused my cousin's husband's vehicle to blow up with his cell phone in it.  Are you confused yet? 
Not to make light of any of this because it's had our heads spinning lately.  What I'm getting at is that I'm VERY thankful & not just because it's the month of Thanksgiving.  I've been very thankful for a long time.  We've been blessed & we realize it.  We are blessed to have our health & our extended families are doing very well right now.  Being happy & healthy are what's most important to us as I've stated over the years on this blog.  We've been very fortunate to find friends in our running club that have motivated us beyond our wildest dreams this year. Again, I am so thankful that we've been so lucky & blessed.  ;-)

Last night's run with the club went like this...
Arrive at the town hall that we're now meeting at on Wednesday nights.
Jump out of car & put on reflective gear, lights, etc...
Give Jason L. a reflective vest to borrow. 
Jason & I take off before everyone arrives for a 2 mile warm up.
I needed it. It felt cold to me.  What I've noticed lately is that the cold feels colder to me than it usually does.  I'm going to make myself believe that I have less body fat keeping me warm these days.  LOL! 
We come back & I'm warm now. 
We listen to annoucements & take off. 
In my head I knew I needed a solid tempo run last night.
I ran a 2 miler (round trip to the gym on Tues & did a short recovery run Sun morning)
Of course this tempo run is the hilly 5 mile route.
5.24 miles - 44:13 - 8:26 pace

Mile 1: 8:32
Mile 2: 8:37
Mile 3: 7:52
Mile 4: 8:19 (yanked up my NEW sz small capri tights that were slipping down on me. What?!)
Mile 5: 8:57 (hills started getting to me)
.24:      8:04 (down hill & flat to the finish)

2 mi warm up was 9:00 min pace

Mile 1: 9:32
Mile 2: 8:27

7.24 miles for me yesterday.  No running today since we're running Ragnar & I think my "legs" total just over 17 miles.  I'm going to make an attempt to do yoga tonight after I drop off supplies to our van pick up people & I've got our packing to do.  Our place looks like a cyclone hit it so I need to straighten things up tonight.  No rest for the weary but I wouldn't have it any other way....I'm thankful for it all.  ;-)