Not a Good Day

First of all, sorry for not having an update for awhile. I really do not have any excuse but I will try to give you an full update here. I did run a few times recently but I received some sad news today so I will discuss that first.

Saturday night here in Wisconsin, we received some snow. We got about 3 to 4 inches of the heavy wet snow. I woke up early Sunday and even though the roads were sloppy, i still took the princesses to church and Sunday School. I even commented on the way home how beautiful the snow looked as it clung to the branches of some trees. I really wish I had my camera to show you. Well, I received an email this morning from a friend with a link to a local news article. As it turns out, close to the time I was admiring the beauty of the snow, a flatbed truck had slid across the center line of a local highway and crashed into a friend of mines car as he was taking his family and 2 friends to church. My friend, Karl, swerved his SUV into the ditch to avoid the flatbed truck but it still hit their car right in the drivers side. My friend, Karl, lost his life that day along with his 9 year old son and the 11 year old friend of his daughter. His wife is now in critical condition at a local hospital, and his other son and daughter are there as well. And also his daughters friends brother as well.

I have never had a friend die before. Karl wasn't the closest friend I have but I still played Volleyball and Softball with him for at least 6 or 7 years now and I really liked him. He loved his family a lot and loved God and Jesus even more. It just doesn't seem fair that this happens to really good people. I am not questioning God here. I always try to tell myself that it must be in his plan and I just don't understand or know his plan. It doesn't seem to help too much yet, but I know it will tomorrow and the following days.

As it turns out, the driver of the flatbed and the other 2 guys in that truck are suspected to be in our great country illegally. While it has not yet been confirmed, I have to say that it really pisses me off. I really want to go to our lawmakers and ask them what part of "illegal" they do not understand. I will not get on my soapbox now and start to go off on some people now, but I just had to say that. I know the driver did not do this intentionally, but he should not have even been in this country. They were not injured in the accident so I that is good.

My friend Melanie just a few days ago wrote about seeing a house burn down and reminded us all to count our blessing. Now allow me to remind you all to do the same. I do know that my princesses got a nice big (most likely too tight) squeeze when I got home from work today. Why not do the same with your loved ones?

I ran a few times since I last blogged. I went on an easy run on Friday and didn't even look at my watch the entire 5 miles and ran based off how I felt. Turns out I felt like 8:27 pace and it was easy. I was happy with this run.

Saturday morning, Paul picked me up again and we went to East Troy to run the Single Looper with Mike. It was cold this morning, about 30F and a little windy. We all ended up going our own pace after 2 miles and that was OK as I wasn't feeling too good. I thought that I would feel better after mile 6 and the turn onto Cty D as I have the past few weeks, but that turn took us right into the wind and it suddenly felt a lot colder. Mike was way out of sight but I could see Paul up there for most of the run when there wasn't a hill or turn between us. I ended running the 11 1/5 miles at 8:51 pace as the wind slowed me down. Paul felt bad as well so I wasn't alone.

Congratulations to my blog friend Mark, as he ran a half marathon on Saturday in some really crappy weather. He broke 2 hours so way to go Mark! He is now tapering for a marathon in just under 3 weeks with a goal of under 4 hours. Good Luck, Mark!