John Wayne Bday Festival

It has been a LONG time since I posted, and hopefully one of these days I'll have time to catch you (yes you, all three people that read this!) of all that's been going on. The Sellers have been doing well, kids got through the end of the school year, Gavin and Chad are having amazing racing seasons, and we are exploring some exciting opportunities on the career / job fronts. I'm so grateful for our health and all the good things in our lives, because there are others I know that are fighting job loss, cancer, and other life altering events. Count your blessings people!

Sam went to grandma Betsy's for the weekend, so Chad and I went out to Winterset to run a small 5k that was part of a line up of events for the John Wayne celebration. Gavin came with us to cheer us on. The fitness sports website had 9:30 start time listed, so we went out there, registered by 8:30 and thought we had plenty of time to warm up. I went one way to warm up a couple miles and hit the restroom, Chad went another.

I got back to the van at 9:11 and Gavin told me the website was wrong, the race started at 9, and dad had been able to jump in the race. I have to admit I was really, really bummed. I was looking forward to it, my training has been going well, and with a small field I had a chance of taking the win for the women. But then I tried to remember the big picture and that this was not that big of deal. Stuff happens. Gav and I jogged up to watch the finishers come in and yell for Chad.

After the race, Chad was going to cool down with the guy that won, and another guy from Pioneer that came out and ran the race. He told me to join them, and it could at least be a decent tempo (close to race pace) run for me. Ha! Yes, Chad's easy cool down pace is my race pace. I kept up with them a good mile and a half and started fading. So we eased up a little, but still got a couple good faster (for me) miles in. Then we did another couple miles at my cool down pace. So, I didn't race, but I got in some good miles and ran with the Hubs.

Gavin really wanted to stay for the pie tasting, but it didn't start til 12:30 (it was 10 am still!). Our Pioneer friend hopped in our van and we took off to see the covered bridges. Along the way we passed a winery, with the tasting room open at 11, so after seeing a couple bridges, we stopped in the tasting room. Gavin drank a sprite while I sampled all their wines and the guys sampled the beer. Iowa wine has sure come a long way from the sickly sweet stuff they used to be!

Finally we made it back to Winterset for pie time. We also stopped into Mi Pueblito for lunch and it was amazing mexican food! They had this smoky, tasty hot sauce that I am now regretting not asking to buy a big cup of to bring home. If you happen to be in / near / driving through Winterset, you can not go wrong there, especially with their lunch specials ~ $5 a plate for a ton of food.

And now we are relaxing at home, we head to Cedar Rapids for a track meet tomorrow.