Color Me Rad

I decided to participate in Color Me Rad this year because, as I have demonstrated in many situations over many years, I am a moron. I believe that if the deity you believe in wanted you to run, that deity would have made tigers more of a threat in your daily life. I also participated because I was supporting my wife, and running a 5K with color bombs beats some of the other things I’ve had to do to keep her happy.*
Anyway, the concept is simple and fun: Run 5 kilometers, and at roughly each kilometer, pass through a gate where people will «color bomb» you with a different color until you’ve completed the course and look like a rainbow of happiness.^ The race was fun enough, forcing me to admit that I am in a terrible, decrepit physical state and that I will be the first one eaten when the apocalypse comes while not being so challenging that I was in any physical distress. The organizers truly pack this race, and since it’s a fun event, you can’t necessarily blame them, but those who truly want to run the full 5K or (as in my case) run perhaps 20% of it will find it rather difficult because of the sheer volume of people.
We also completed the entire event relatively un-​colored. That’s not a bad thing, since even jogging through the mist meant I was spitting multicolored crud out of my mouth for a while after, but I naively expected a bit more color. I guess that’s a good thing, since you could do it without being completely swamped if you wanted.
In any case, I’m glad I did this event, but I think next time it’s 5K time, I may hold the Color and just do the 5K. Especially if there’s beer at the end.
* That’s all you get. She reads these things too.
^ Or something. Relentlessly positive people make me nervous, so I was a little out of my element.

I don’t run much because I’m afraid of having bad knees when I’m an old woman but I ran this 5k because it sounded like fun. This was my first time running a 5k since I was, like, 12 years old so I didn’t really know what to expect. I was able to run the whole 5k with the exception of stopping to drink a bottle of water twice. For anyone who is a serious runner, this 5k is absolutely not going to make you happy. I’m NOT a serious runner and I was frustrated because it was more like an obstacle 5k dodging all the walkers.
Call me a fuddy-​duddy but I really did not enjoy running through colored corn starch. It was so thick at the end of the race that I could barely see and I felt like I couldn’t breathe since I was already out of breath from running. I liked this run because it was my first as an adult, and crossing the finish line after running the whole thing felt amazing but as far as 5ks go, the next one I run will not involve corn starch or colors.

This year was my first time running the CMR 5K. I had so much fun! First off, they did a great job with directing traffic into the fairgrounds. There were thousands of people there but we were able to park quickly and when it came time to leave, we got out just as fast.
It was a very relaxed event. We signed up for the 9am wave but didn’t take off until about 9:20am. There were lots of people at the starting line. They let through ~100 people at a time. Runners had to weave around walkers. Three miles went by really fast and this is suppose to be a fun event so we took our time on the course and went through the color stations slowly so that we got extra colors on us.
Around mile 3 was when they passed out water bottles. They also gave out granola bars at the finish line. There were professional photographers from Flo-​Foto taking everyone’s pictures which are available on their website for a small fee. Some pics are on the CMR’s FB page for free.
The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for our run. So glad they held it in May. I’m definitely doing this again next year!