Color Run!!

5K Color Run: The Happiest Color Run on the Planet! 

5K=3.2 miles

Three point two miles of pure joy. It was seriously such a blast! This was my second 5K and first Color Run, and after completing it, I wanted to do this EVERY Saturday! I had started training a few weeks before this, building up my milage everyday; pretty soon, 3 miles wasn't a big deal (i'm up to 5 miles now). 

After running my very first 5K a few months ago, I was hooked. They are such a great way to exercise, and they are so fun! You are with huge groups of random strangers of all sizes and speeds who just want to make a difference in this world and have a good time! The Color Runs and 'Color Me RAD' Runs are so fun. You are given a white Tshirt, a matching sweatband, fun tattoos, and a packet of color to use in the color fight at the end of the race. Throughout the 5K Race, there are different color stations; in which volunteers throw the powder color (it's basically corn starch) onto you as you run by! Just be careful to not get it in your mouth...doesn't feel too good on your lungs as your running! 

I was never more excited to wake up at 6:30am on a Saturday!! Me, two of my roommates, their boyfriends, and a few friends from school all ran the race together! It was such a great experience! Plus it was in downtown Cincinnati, which is beautiful! Plus, how georgous of a morning is this?! Saw this view as we were driving to downtown for the start of the race! 

All ready to go! Packet of color in my hands!!

Molly (one of my roommates), Me, and Bobby!

THE COLOR RUN. BOOM BABY.

Molly, Me, and Lauren with our 'happy' tattoos! Plus Mario creeping behind us. 

Lets do this!! 

At the start of the race! Waiting to begin! My roommate's boyfriend was kind enough to hang out along the sidelines and take photos! And he was pretty excited to play with my fish eye lens! 

Molly and I coming in towards the finish line! We finished first out of our group of friends! Molly was a LITTLE excited! haha and then there's me...trailing behind her looking like a weirdo. 

So the corners in my elbos got sweaty from running, and when the powder color got thrown on me, it kinda got all gross. Like really gross. 

Check out that nastyness! haha 

 Molly and I, right after the race! Sooooo happy! We look ridiculous, and dirty, and sweaty, but it was such a great time! And for the record, I love this picture (below)! 

Our buddies Mario and Bobby finished the race next (out of our group!)

Our group at the finish line! Whoop whoop! 

At the end of the race, they were blaring music, and had a 'paint party' in which we all dumped our powder color on each other at the same time! I'm not sure what we were doing here...maybe dancing or talking? 

They had a countdown, then we all threw our packets of color in the air and on top of each other!! As if we weren't already dirty enough! haha

Our Group again! From Left to Right: 

Bobby, Molly, Mario, Lauren (in front), Jake, and Me. 

So glad to have done this was such an amazing group of friends! I love these people! 

Us Roomies. Showing off our 'happy' tattoos. Being all tough and stuff. Oh, and our team name was 'The Aqua Aviators' sooooo that's why we all tried to wear aviator sunglasses! 

I SOMEHOW managed to get this bright orange/red color DIRECTLY under my armpit!? How on earth I managed that, I don't know! But it made for a silly picture! 

Mario and his shirt 

Bobby and his face. 

Me.

Molly on our way home.

Lauren and her sweatband.

After much discussion, we finally figured out who was showering first....kinda difficult when you have FOUR girls sharing ONE bathroom. I'll have to blog about my roommates and our house sometime! Ya'lls would love my roommates....they are pretty awesome. 

Okie dokie, gotta go! Just wanted to post some pictures from our Color Run Adventure! 

Peace out!

Appalachian Trail

Hiking the entire Appalachian Trail has always been on my bucket list. And we all know that when something is on my bucket list, it gets done! Well I hiked 40 miles of it....only 2,160 more miles to go! The Appalachian Trail goes from Maine, all the way down to Georgia. Our group drove down the Georgia, and hiked our way up. We intend to go back every year and hike/camp for a week or so, that way we eventually hike the entire trail. A few of us plan to go back on Spring Break and hike some more!  

We wanted to hike/camp for 2 weeks, but with all of our work schedules, we could only go for 7 days....which ended up being only 5 days because we got caught in a hail storm on the side of a mountain...but that's a long story. 

You all know me.....I take a lot of pictures. Out of the 800+ photos I took, I'll try to only post a few of the best photos on here. :)

Love this first picture...it was so foggy and misty that you could barely see the mountians in the background. This was our first mountain that we climbed; Springer Mountain. 

The group!! From L to R

Me, Andrew, Chris, Molly, Mary, and Steven 

My view most of the time....seeing everyones backpacks. I only had my camera out during the easy parts of the trail. When the path got really rocky or steep, I would put my camera away.

Chris and I climbed up the side of a waterfall! Look Mum, no hands!  

Me, Mary, and Molly. 

I was soooo glad to have some girls on the trip with me. A lot of my girlfriends dropped out of the trip, and for awhile it was going to be just me and two of the guys going. But the week before we went, I was able to convince my roommate and one of her friends to go with us! It was nice to have some female company along!

The group again! Let me tell you....these people are amazing. They are not like any of my other college friends. We would have group prayers every morning before hiking, not a single cuss word was said, everyone was laughing and having a great time. It was seriously such a great group! We all cooked dinners together, helped each other pitch hammocks and hang up tarps. We read a few Bible verses together each night too! It was just such a blessing to be with a solid group of friends. I felt so safe, and we all had the time of our lives!!  

Ok Story Time.....

The guys had a much faster pace than us girls; and at one point (during a very steep part of the trail) they guys hiked up ahead till they came to a clearing, then came back down, took us girl's packs, and hiked back up with us. Us girls were not complaining and nobody asked anything, the guys just up and did it. How sweet is that? 

Me journaling in my hammock. I sewed my hammock myself before the trip, so I was a little nervous if it would hold up, but it sure did! In fact it's in my backyard right now! We would pitch our hammocks bunk bed style, so there would be two or three of us on top of each other. Here I am at the top...my hammock was probably 7feet in the air! I needed help getting in, but I stayed the most dry that night, since I had the most coverage from the tarp we hung above.

At this point in the trip all I could think is "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING BETHANY?! DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN HIKE THIS APPALACHIAN TRAIL?!" It was crazy. But fun. It was crazy fun! But inside I was dying. Like for reals I should have gotten into shape before doing all of this. 

Just me and my pack and a gorgeous view of mountains off into the foggy distance. Ahhhh this is the life. Yes, climbing and being so tired all the time sucks, but that feeling of being in an unknown place for the first time, and having an adventure of a lifetime?!...yeah I wouldn't change that for anything!  

A map of the mountains, creeks, and gaps we have hit so far in our trek through Georgia.

Dinner on the mountains? Don't mind if we do! That flat rock that we were standing on? Yeah I slept on that. Stargazing in the mountains is wayyyy better than any other stargazing I have done. And NOTHING is better than taking off your boots after a long day of hiking, having a hot meal, and a view like this! 

no editing was done to this....straight off the camera!! 

How's THIS for a sunrise?! The second best thing in the world? Eating hot oatmeal and watching the sunrise at 6:30am :) 

At this point, after four long hard days of hiking, my body was dreading another day of up and down mountains, but my mind was racing and I was so pumped to wake up early the next morning, put on my 47lb backpack and hike up more mountains!!  

The group on top of Blood Mountain! It was as awful as it's name sounds.

This is on our way down the side of Blood Mountain. We got caught in a hail storm. It came all of a sudden out of nowhere, and poured very hard. Usually with all the trees, we don't feel much rain, but we all got soaked! Our path was a 4inch deep river, and our boots were soaked through. After running through that storm for a few hours, we finally made it to a road that had a small convenient store nearby. 

Every 20-50 miles, there are stores and hostiles available for hikers. At the bottom of Blood Mountain there just happened to be a store and cabins!! This was the cabin we stayed in on our last night. Because of the hail storm we were unable to pitch our hammocks outside. We all dumped the entire contents of our bags on the ground of the cabin to let them dry out. And we put our boots in the oven to dry them out.

Such an eventful trip!! And there were so many blessings along the way! Our group became so close, and we had such a blast! I could talk about this trip for hours...I can't wait to tell my grandkids about all the crazy things their Grandma Bethany did in her college days! 

Peace out! 

pancakes anyone?

Forgive me, but I'm sorta on a health-kick this week. I love pancakes....who doesn't?! But they can become very unhealthy if you think about all the processed junk and chemicals that are in bisquick, and all the sugar and carbs, plus the butter and sugary syrup on top. Once again, forgive me, I'm in a healthy mood. 

So this morning I was in the mood to exercise, so I was cruising through a 'healthy training' blog and stumbled upon this recipe. When I saw/read it my jaw fell open. I couldn't believe that you could make pancakes this way! So after I went for a 1.5-2 mile job, I rewarded myself with 'pancakes'. :D 

For one person (me), all you need is 2 bananas and 2 eggs. Mash up the bananas and add the eggs. Mush all together using a fork or whisk.

Heat up skillet, using oil or butter to grease up the pan a little bit. Pour the banana-egg mixture like pancake batter. I sprinkled some cinnamon on top for extra flavor!

Flip just like a pancake, and BOOM. There you have it. Pancakes. They kinda taste like banana cake.

In my family, growing up we would put peanut butter on top of our pancakes, but my roommate has a peanut allergy, so in our house we stick to Sunbutter (just like peanut butter, but it's made from sunflower seeds!) I actually like it better than peanut butter! Try it out sometime! 

Spread some Sunbutter (or Peanut Butter) on the 'pancake' and drizzle some honey on top. Honey is just as sweet as syrup, but it's naturally sweet, and doesn't have added sugar, making it better for you! 

The 2 bananas and 2 eggs yielded 3 medium-large pancakes. Perfect for a hungry Bethany after a morning jog! 

My day is off to a wonderful start! Peace out! 

Corner BLOC Coffee House

Corner BLOC Coffee House.
My second home. My sanctuary. My party house. 

Out of all the coffee places I have been....which is a lot. This is one of my top favorites. No I am not advertising for them or anything crazy. I'm just expressing something I love. And I love this coffee house. 

Walking through the doors, I instantly feel artsy-er, nerdier, and happier. Maybe it's the aroma of coffee beans and cinnamon rolls. Or maybe it's the jazz music coming from the live band in the corner. Maybe it's the stale musk of the old books on the bookshelf. Maybe it's the random people sitting in mismatched chairs in the cafe. Or maybe it's everything combined.  

High waisted acid washed destroyed shorts, a tie-dyed tank top, and pointy-toed orange Ked sneakers = my coffee shop outfit that day 

Take a good look at those beauties. sneakers usually show a punky tomboy side, yet the tribal print, bright orange color, and pointy-toe add a quirky feminine side. So comfortable. And they practically match everything. 

Even the restrooms are cute.

Artwork on the walls, filled bookshelfs everywhere, and unique mis-matched chairs fill up the cafe.   

They had an 'extra' room that could be reserved for meetings and private parties :)

Love this! 

 Nom nom nom

Love this world map. Places are marked with nails. 

I wonder if these are places that people have been, or want to go? Or who put them there? I'm such a travel dreamer.

The shelfs have little brochures, flyers, and business cards on it from local businesses, local artists, and community events and churches. It's a really cool way to meet people and see what's going on in this little tiny town. 

Love this place. The few people that work there know me well...I guess I'm becoming a regular? And I always find something new to try, and I ALWAYS enjoy my time there. 

Peace out.