Color Run 2012

While I will totally be filing the Color Run 2012 post under "Race Reports", I wouldn't really classify it as a race. Full disclosure: it was more of a party.

First, I was in no way expecting to run the whole thing.  I expected there to be too much of a crowd, plus my training kind of fell apart toward the end and I wasn't ready for 3.1 miles.  I was just there to have fun and I did.  Mainly because I had 15 of some of my most favorite people doing it with me:

I really love these people. Here we are still white.

We got up early, we carpooled in various configurations, we wore white.  We joined a huge throng of other all white people (dressed in white, that is) and moved from the parking lots to the gate of Lowe's Motor Speedway.

I wore a tutu and a white wig.
The wig was a genius move, plus:
my dream of running in a tutu= check!

Alyssa after the Yellow Station.

The start line felt like a dance party.  They were letting waves go every five minutes.  When it was our turn to go, we all took off running.  Those of our group who were serious about running (the Pavs, Jess, Daniel, Elvi) took off right away.  The rest of us attempted to stick together, but that proved hard with the crowds and the excitement, so we broke off into two groups.

At each color station (there were only 4), we stopped and walked as close as we could to the color throwers. We wanted to get as much color as possible. They tell you to shut your mouth in the Color Run tips, but I kept forgetting and would scream through the whole color station. After each color station we would take pictures of each other.

Here's the thing, though.  The color is just dust.  It gets sprinkled on you, but then you run off and it kind of flows away with the wind.  When we got to finish I was slightly disappointed in the amount of color I had absorbed.

But then at the finish line (which is a giant dance party, at least for someone like me who can't stand still when there's a good beat on), they had Color Throws every 10 minutes.  Each runner got a packet of color in their race bag and every 10 minutes they would have a coordinated throw where everyone would toss their colored powder in the air at the same time.  That was beautiful and we all ended up much more colored.  We all just hung out dancing and taking pictures and waiting for the next color throw for a super long time. It was great.

That's about it for the recap. Here are some pics for you to enjoy:

Most of our group during a color throw.

If you're wondering, the color washed right out of my clothes, except for the armpits of my shirt where I sweated. Apparently sweat makes the color stick. So now my color run shirt has blue armpits for all time. I haven't done anything with my wig or tutu, which both kind of look just gray now. I'm just not sure how to go about cleaning either of them.