The Color Run (or Why I Still Look A Little Like A Smurf)

On Saturday, I participated in the Color Run 5K! It was the first 5K for me for the year, and it was one that I had never done before.

I’ll admit, after looking at photos of what people looked like after the run was over, I was a little nervous about how I would get all the color off of me. So I decided to try to protect my hair and face, since if the color didn’t come off from there, I’d have a hard time covering it up.

The morning of the race I got up nice and early and got ready.

I met the rest of my team (named “Hue Did It”) over at Dodgers Stadium where the 5K was taking place.

The team looked nice and clean before the event started.

When we got over to the start area, I put my phone in a plastic bag so I could still take pictures but the phone would be protected a bit (smart plan since everything else in my hip pack was covered in powder at the end).

Before we actually started, people started to throw the bags of color that we got for the finish early, so I made sure to put all my protective gear on.

(Wig for the hair, glasses for the eyes, bandana for the nose and mouth).

I didn’t really get any pictures during the event, but it was a doozy.

First of all, it was all hills. And I hate hills. My hips were killing me the entire time, but I kept going (only took one break when the pain was making me feel a little dizzy). I thought maybe it would only be one hill, but every time we turned, there would be another hill staring at us.

Fortunately, my friends who were walking with me were very understanding.

The color part of this was pretty crazy, and I wish I had gotten a picture, but I’ll try to explain it. Every kilometer you entered a color zone. There would be volunteers lines up on each side with a ketchup bottle full of colored cornstarch in the color for that section.

The first section we went through was blue. You could either walk in the middle for less color or one of the sides for more color. We decided that we might as well go for it. The blue volunteers were probably the craziest of all the volunteers. We walked out of that section looking like Smurfs. One volunteer even managed to get a whole thing of blue down the back of my shirt.

After it was all said and done, the team looked like this.

When you looked at our arms, you could really see the craziness between where the shirt covered you and where the color got you.

(you can see my Smurf hands)

When we were ready to leave, there were volunteers with leaf blowers that got a lot of the powder off of you. You were still fully colored, but most of the excess was off of your clothes.

To drive home, I covered my seat with a towel and just wore the tank top I had on under my shirt. And all those clothes went immediately into the washing machine (I tried following the instructions to preserve the color on my shirt but it didn’t work).

It took 3 showers, but I’m almost all clean again. My back is pretty blue still. Those blue volunteers got me pretty good. And I have one blue foot too (not sure how the color got through my socks and shoes).

Overall, I had a great time. I’m not sure I’d want to do this again at Dodgers Stadium with the hills, but maybe next year I’ll think differently.

And if you are considering doing a Color Run, do it. It really is a ton of fun and an experience that you have to see for yourself.

1 5K down, hopefully at least 4 more to go this year!

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