Becoming a Color Runner
I’d heard of the Color Run for years, but never really looked into to doing it. For a while I as doing a lot of half marathons and doing a 5k just wasn’t on my radar at that time. When I did finally look into to it I had already missed the date in Orlando that year. The next year it sold out before I remembered to look into it. They do it in tons of cities across the US every year but I was trying to not have to travel to participate.
Well last year a friend of mine was living in Atlanta and she called me up and said she wanted to do the Color Run up there and asked if I wanted to come up. I thought “Finally!” I’ll be able to see what this run is all about. I recruited my friend Megan who does a lot of walks with me here in Orlando to drive up with me. I hate driving and it’s about a 7 hour drive to Atlanta and having company made it go by much quicker.
If you don’t know what the Color Run is, it’s a 5k (3.1 miles) where you run/walk through all these stations where volunteers throw this colored powder at you which dyes your clothes, skin, etc. It sounds like a horrible idea when described like that but it looks so fun in pictures. It’s tag line is also “The Happiest 5k on the Planet!” I don’t know if I’d go that far but it goes with the rainbow theme, which is I guess why they use it.
We headed up on Friday afternoon and it took a little longer then 7 hours due to traffic but we made it and got all ready for our big color explosion the next morning. We decided to get festive and wear tutu’s because why not? If we’re going there to get colorful why not start with a little color of our own. Our Packets for the run included headbands, a t-shirt, very shiny temporary tattoos, and our own little color packets to throw at the end at the Color Party.
We arrived at the start line and it was full of color EVERYWHERE definitely living up to it’s name. The race took place around a motor speedway somewhere in Atlanta. The energy seemed high and we were ready to get colored. Once it started we made our way through the course and every half a mile or so we walked through a color station. The stations were marked by huge inflatable banners in the color of that station. After going thought the first station we didn’t feel we got that “colored” by the powder they were throwing. We certainly didn’t look anything like the pictures I’d seen of people covered in bright colors.
When we got to the second station we found out why some of those pictures had people smothered in color, when we saw a group of kids basically rolling in a pile of colored powder! So at our next station we looked for some “extra” color laying around and may have thrown a few extra handfuls at each other. It was actually a fun time on the course despite having to color ourselves if we really wanted to get colored.
They had cute signs at every station that coordinated with the color of that station and of course we had to stop for pictures at all of them. there were even a few people in costumes. We ended up behind one guy in a banana costume which gave us a good chuckle.
When we finally found ourselves at the end of the 3.1 miles there was a large party going on with music and everyone throwing their color packets every so often on cue! to pretty much make a burst of rainbow clouds in the sky! Some of the packets mixed in were glittery to make you even more bright and shiny.
They had lots of tents giving out snacks, bags, pens, wipes, and other random things. There were also lots photo ops at the finish line that we promptly took advantage of.
Over all it was a really fun morning with two of my favorite people! The run itself wasn’t exactly what I expected it to be, but it didn’t matter because I think experiences are what you make of them. We definitely made the best of it! I would recommend that every one do the color run once, because you’ll have a good time as long as you don’t mind getting messy. I don’t think I would go out of my way to do it again, but if someone asked me to do it with them I would consider it!
After getting home and cleaning off our rainbow of color, which took a little extra scrubbing in the shower, we headed out to explore Atlanta a little and I will tell you about those adventures next time!
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