Color Me Rad 5k

We participated in the Color Me Rad 5k yesterday and I honestly can't wait until next year to do it again.  It was the most fun I've had at a 5k ever!

In case you haven't heard of Color Me Rad, here's some information direct from their website:

When Zoloft and balloon animals can't seem to raise your spirits, the best way to brighten your life is to run Color Me Rad 5K. Historically, running has only been acceptable when trying to escape the law, personal responsibility, the truth, and grizzly bears. Instead of running FROM something, get ready to run FOR something at this year’s Color Me Rad.  Run for the Hell of it.
Color Me Rad is coming to a town near you with a tsunami of color that'll make colored tears of joy run down your cheeks and will renew your will to live.After 5K of color bombardment, we guarantee your outlook will be brighter, your boyfriend will be more affectionate, your girlfriend will be less needy, the hair on your head will grow back and the hair on your back will fall out, your black and white TV will turn into 720p HD (I know you were hoping for 1080, but we organize races, we're not miracle workers), and your gray outlook will turn green like a spring morning.
You’ll start off with a shirt as pure and white as your grandpa's dentures and you'll soak up enough color while running to change your skin tone forever.  You'll wind up looking like a pack of skittles – just make sure not to “taste the rainbow.”So cast your DYE and get red in the face from Color Me Rad, and not from the embarrassment of passing up on the run of a lifetime.

Sounds interesting, doesn't it?  I wanted to know more, like how it worked:

Start out as clean as a newborn babe, and throughout the run, you'll coat your chaffing thighs with Color Bombs of blue, green,pink, purple, and yellow until your face, shirt, and body come out silkscreened like a tie-dyed hippy on the other side.
Each section of the run adds a new explosion of color to your clean, painter’s palate until you cross the finish line into a final blitzkrieg of color. 

I was so excited to try this out.  I'm not very athletic at the moment, but I've done 5k's before, walking, at about a 20 minute per mile pace, so I knew that I could get it done.  Also, they have different waves that you can sign up for, 10 minutes apart for about an hour.  This way not everyone is starting at the same time.  Even better, those who start in the first wave and are slow (or walking) will still be finishing when tons of other people are, so they don't feel like "I'm the laaaaast one!" like I usually do.

Are you ready for pics yet?  Let's start off with a 'before' photo:

 In case you are wondering, we're wearing white because color shows up best on white!  We were provided with blue shirts to commemorate the event, but they are not quite as much of a blank slate as these were.  They also gave us each a RAD temporary tattoo and sunglasses of our choice (Pink, Purple, Green, Red, Orange and Yellow, I think).  Next year I want to make some shirts that say the name of the event, date and location to wear.

Here's a shot of the sea of people behind us from our place at the starting line:

At the front of the start line was a monster truck, onto which climbed volunteers armed with fire extinguishers which were used to spray the crowd in their first color of the day.

Curious as to what it looks like when that cloud is surrounding you? Wait no further:

And we were off!  Babe soon grabbed one of our color bombs (little bags filled with colored corn starch) and bombed us both:

Along the course there were 5 color stations.  Two had color mixed with water in those same containers that exterminators use often - you know, the ones with the long handle to spray with?  Yeah, those...  And the volunteers would spray you as you ran (walked) by.  The other three just had huge bags full of colored corn starch that volunteers would grab by the handful and just throw on and at you.

As you can see, it was messy.  Here's us when we were all done:

Lookin good, don't we?  =)

There were professional photographers there, we just have to wait until Tuesday to see the photos that they took and be able to purchase them.  I'll update again when I have those photos.

Want to participate in your own color fest?  See if your location is scheduled: