December via InstaFriday

Most of my Instagram photos I’ve shared in recent posts, but here is the month December via Instagram. Merry Christmas!

Doggy playdate in the snow with neighbor, Avery.

Grandma Bailey’s Sausage Soup, perfect for a cold day. Recipe here.

Cookie weekend with friends.

Our brand.

Gotta love Baxter Black!

We met Rudolph at the Red Nose Run in Seward.

Sporting purple in the NE Corn office for K-State game day!

Hank loves is doggy vest!

Merry Christmas!

Third time’s a charm | State Farm 5K

This weekend was the third year in a row that I ran the State Farm 5K in Lincoln.

The first time, I ran with Patricia and Shelley (read here) in the rain.

The second time, I ran with Ronny (read here) in the snow.

This year, it was almost too hot! I ran with Ronny, Shelley and Kim and even though I finished my slowest time of the three years, it was still a great day for running.

My excuse is that I hadn’t ran for over two weeks – whoops!

But here are my results anyhow.

Name: Kelsey Pope
Place: 358    
Time: 31:59 
Pace: 10:18

I am proud of my hubby’s stats!

Name:Ronny Pope
Place:103 
Time: 25:37  
Pace: 8:15

Day O' Green

St. Pat’s Day was a fun day full of friends, running and all things green.

Ronny, Patricia, Melissa (her blog on the race here) and I ran the St. Pat’s Road Race 10K in Manhattan, KS through the K-State campus. Even though it was a windy day, the weather was beautiful and warm.

My time was a few minutes slower than last year, but I was glad that I didn’t have to stop and kept an even pace. (1:06:45.5 – results here)

Before...

After...

Then of course we had to get some green beer and cheer on the Cats (which didn’t turn out so great), but Aggieville was buzzing and such a fun post-race atmosphere to be in. Emily and her roommate, AnnaRose, joined us in Aggieville also.

Then we got to spend some time on the farm and see some other signs of spring, like this adorable little red with a tinge of green growing behind him. I’m so ready for spring!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day | God’s Green Earth

Two things for St. Patrick’s Day:

1. I’m running the St. Pat’s Road Race in Manhattan, KS today with three great people, Patricia, Melissa and Ronny running through the beautiful K-State campus and ending up in Aggieville!

Shelley and I ran it last year, you may remember here.

2. And from my favorite Christian artists perfect for today, “God’s Green Earth”.

Training

Ronny and I have been training for an upcoming 10K that we are planning to run – the St. Pat’s Road Race in Manhattan, KS. I ran it last year with Shelley and really enjoyed it. Probably because the course runs through one of my favorite place on earth – Kansas State University!

This year, Ronny is going to run it with me after he has picked up a liking to racing with the BoulderBOULDER race last year. Shelley will be there again, and Patricia and Melissa plan to run as well!

I’m glad that I have my Garmin Forerunner 210 watch to help me work on my pace, breathing and heart rate. And I’ve had some fun with it – taking it along on all my travels so if I can squeeze a run in, I have the information saved where I ran!

Here are a few of my courses:

Charleston, SC - this was the easiest 3.22  miles ever because it is SO beautiful there!

Charlotte, NC – I did not like downtown Charlotte. It was hard to run in with all of the big streets and there was too much construction going on. But some different sites nonetheless.

Kearney – has the best trail, park and pond that is right by the conference center where a majority of my conferences are. I love getting a chance to run on this trail – especially when it is nice out in February!

Seward – The weather has been so nice, so I’ve gotten some good runs in around town.

Now, I just need to reach that 6 mile  mark!

Garmin–a new incentive to run

For Christmas, I asked for and received a Garmin Forerunner 210 watch. It is a GPS-enabled sport watch that has a premium heart rate monitor that I strap around my ribcage.

What is so cool about this GPS running watch is that it calculates my time, distance, pace, elevation change, heart rate and calories that I burn. I borrowed my friend, Shelley’s, for the Lincoln State Farm 5K and it was great to keep track of my splits and know how consistent I was.

What is even better about this is that I can now track all of my usual running routes here in town and know exactly how far I’ve been running, my elevation change, and the exact distance. Then I can plug it into my computer and upload all of my info to GarminConnect.com. Even my walks with Hank are fun to track. Here is my normal 2.5 mile running route:

For any runner that doesn’t have a GPS, I’ve been using www.runningahead.com – which is a great site to help you put together a running route or map out where you ran.

I’m excited to run in some new races this year and try out my Garmin! Thanks again, Mom & Dad!

Surviving the BolderBOULDER 10K

Memorial Day was a day for remembering, as well as achieving, for Ronny and I this year.

My goal was to run the BolderBOULDER 10K in Boulder, CO  with my Uncle Mark - who has ran it for several years - in honor of my Gramps, a US Navy Veteran, and Ronny's Grandpa Pope, a US Air Force Veteran. And also in honor of grandpa's being cattlemen, we ran, "Fueled by Beef"!

I've been training and getting ready for this race from the past 5K and 10K. Ronny decided that since he was going to be out there anyways, he might as well run with me. I was a little worried about the altitude, but I really only felt it about halfway through the race, and walked for about 30 seconds, then was on the go again.

All along the race route, there were bands and people cheering. Some college guys were handing out beer, others were handing out popsicles and Doritos chips. It made for entertainment, that is for sure!

The coolest part was running into the stadium (cue "Chariots of Fire"). I felt like an Olympian when you watch the marathoners run by a big crowd cheering into the final lap in a stadium. I did push myself a little hard - which caused me to start gagging - and can you imagine what my husband said? "You can puke on the finish line - let's go!" Love you too, honey.

I guess even though he was yelling at me to finish, Ronny was nice enough to "lend his hand" and run together across the finish line. It really would have been a lot harder to finish if he wasn't there motivating me.

But it was an amazing feeling to accomplish something like this, and do it in honor of someone I love.

I remember this picture looking at the jumbotron - Ronny was pointing out our time - 1:01 - the same as my last race and I even walked some in this one! 

My mom took all of the great finish line photos with her telephoto lens- thanks Mom! All along the race, they take your picture and even video the runners (You can watch us here). This was probably my favorite picture they took of us... :)

After the race was done, we filed up in the fieldhouse and met up with Uncle Mark (who is a rockstar and finished in 49:33 minutes!)

Then found my hot beef-supporting-mama!

There were several very funny looking costumes on people running - especially near the end of the race.

But the coolest part was seeing this troop of soldiers, who ran the entire 10K together, and just before finishing....

 Then ran into the side of the stadium floor...

 And did 20-some pushups! Pretty impressive.

 Then got up....

 And finished the race!

It was truly an awesome experience that I hope more of my family members can experience next year!