the color run recap 2012.

a few months ago my friend sandy told me about this crazy race she heard about, but wouldnt tell me much more other than go visit this site http://www.thecolorrun.com/. it seriously took 1 click on the video to have me hooked and wanting to have everyone i know join on my team. i posted it on richards facebook hoping he would think it was cool enough for him to sign up. and i called my parents, after my mom stopped complaining about me signing her up for another race she watched it too and convinced my dad. we made a team the color bandits and sandy joined us too!

the color run is a 5k in which every kilometer you get dusted with a new color. everybody wears white t-shirts and at the end they give everybody their own packet of color to throw at the finish line festival that goes off every 15 minutes. its not timed and i have never seen such a huge range of ages participate. we saw people pushing strollers, dogs, old people, little kids, people in jeans, runners, spectators, everything seriously. it sold out about 2 months ago and as it got closer more people started to think how fun it sounded and not crazy like they thought when i first told them.

before the color fun.

race morning richard and i headed downtown to park and wait for the rest of our team. i picked up the packets and still had my parents. we brought extra water and towels to apply tattoos on everybody and were decked out in our white t-shirts ready to run! my parents, sandy and her daughter cameron werent far behind us and we headed to start line much before the 9am start. we gathered in the 2nd corral and just people watched for awhile. soon it was time to go! for a few weeks richard was very particular that we would run together by ourselves. now i knew sandy would smoke us (she is seriously fast!) and my parents were walking so it would be fine.

look at all the people lined up!

we started out down las vegas blvd toward the 1st kilometer and the yellow zone. there was a high color zone on the outsides and the low color zone down the middle. sandy stuck with us the first part as we weaved through the people and got doused with yellow dust! it was instantly everywhere and we couldnt wait till the next color! richard has never run more than a mile and realized pretty quickly the stamina for a 3 mile race was very different. he kept taking off then walking, then taking off again, then walking. we hit the green color zone next and made sure it was on our right side to even out our shirts. and hair. and shoes.

the purple was up next after the water stop and richard realized the value of water stops in a race:) purple was the messiest and got in my ears and mouth. it doesnt taste bad, just not a good feeling either haha. for awhile after i was actually spitting purple to get it all out of mouth! the craziest thing is you have nooo idea what you look like or where it is on you! we continued on to pink, my favorite and knew we were almost done. the pink people werent as liberal with their color as the other stops and i think richard was ready, we had slowed down quite a bit.

told you the purple got everywhere!
not my finest moment haha.

we hit the finish line and crossed it together! there were people everywhere and it had warmed up so i was ready for some water. i ran into my friend rich from our monday night runner group that i hadnt seen in awhile! his wife and daughter were running and i think he was glad to be on the other side of the barrier so my color didnt jump on him ;) we found sandy and her daughter, she smoked us just like i thought and was colored from head to toe just like us. we waited for my parents before going into the finish line festival. cameron had held our color while we ran, awesome spectator!

me and sandy!



finishers!

 my parents crossed the line with a huge smile on their faces and we found each other easily. the 5 of us grabbed our color and headed to the festival. i had pink and everyone else had turquoise. we were a little worried we were all going to end up with the same color, but there were so many people around us with different colors it didnt matter. finally they counted us down and we all jumped around throwing color everywhere!!! OMG it was sooo cool. we had sooo many colors on us now. afterward sandy went to grab cameron and we stayed for one more throw just for a little extra color:)

the finish line festival!



the color bandits!

 somehow we lost sandy and cameron but headed back to the cars to see if we could find them. turns out they had somewhere to be so the 4 of us headed to breakfast at hash house a-go-go. thats right in our color and all! we got lots of stares and questions and werent the only ones there with color. one of the funniest moments of the whole day was taking a shower after and having the color all over the tub trying to drain down. it was literally everywhere!

this was the funnnnest race i have ever done and seriously will recommend it to anyone! runner or not, this is something to participate in. richard is now a 5ker and has a new understanding of what i do, which is pretty cool to me. and a new understanding of the hunger level i feel all the time haha. i cant wait for this race to come back to vegas next year!!