As I mentioned in last week's Week in Review, I had the chance to travel up to Baltimore last weekend for the Color Me Rad 5K, which took place on the campus of Goucher College.
I wound up Priceline-ing our hotel room for Saturday night, and we got the Sheraton Baltimore North, which just happened to be next door to Goucher College. That turned out to be good for both me and Raisin Bread because he didn't have to wake up early and I could walk to the race start.
Since I missed packet pick up on Saturday, I wanted to check in early enough so that I would have enough time to drop off my goodies at the hotel room. I arrived at 7 am for my 8 am start time and there was absolutely no line. There also weren't many people around yet either. I received my race bib, a t-shirt, sunglasses and a temporary tattoo.
I headed back to the hotel to drop off my stuff and put on my bib. I stayed in the room until around 7:40 before walking back to the start line. It appeared that no one read the final race instructions because traffic was backed up inside the campus, when it clearly stated that there was no parking available there. Glad, I read but I didn't have to deal with it anyway since I walked!
If you haven't done a color run before, everyone starts off wearing white and along the route you are covered with the different colors of the rainbow. At the finish, your clean whites are no longer.
I loved how the start line was white...
while the finish line was rainbow. So clever!
I decided to wear my brand new Color Me Rad sunglasses during the race because I didn't want to get color in my eyes. I had enough time to take a few before shots prior to the race.
At around 7:45, everyone with an 8 am start time was told to gather around. I guess they made the decision that they had enough of us because we started running at 7:55. I was near the front of the pack as was this white rabbit!
I was really happy with the size of the race. The course was never crowded. Since the race also wasn't timed, I did not worry too much about my speed. I just wanted to enjoy myself.
Soon enough, we came to the first color station. There were lots of volunteers grabbing handfuls of colored corn starch and chucking it at us as we ran through.
The color cloud caused me to have a coughing fit so after the first color station, I held my breath as I ran through.
By the way, I stopped taking pictures on the course because I couldn't tell if they were coming out through my ziplock bag since I was getting sweaty and my ziplock bag was getting crumpled up in my hand.
In addition to the color cloud stations, there were also color spray stations, which I totally was not expecting. A colorfied liquid was sprayed/drizzled on us, and I think I got more color from this that I did from the color powder.
The course was diverse since there were sections of pavement, trails and grass. I had my RunKeeper on, and that was the only way I knew how far we were since there weren't any mile markers.
Since it was such a short race, it wasn't long before I made it to the finish line. At around the last tenth of a mile, you are handed a bag of color to have fun with at the end. Since I was running alone, I didn't have anyone to dump it on besides myself, which I did.
After we crossed, there were refreshments - water, granola bars and nut bars. There were also tons of places to take the requisite "after" shot.
I'm glad I didn't have to climb in a car all dirty and sweaty after this run. Instead, I skipped back to the hotel room for a nice long shower!
Overall, my first color run was a blast. It seemed like there were a lot of first time 5K-ers and I think anything to get people moving and have fun while doing it is a great thing.
Disclosure: I received complimentary race registration for Color Me Rad from Blogportunity and Fit Approach. No compensation was received. All opinions are my own. Read my full disclosure here.
This looks so much fun! Glad you had a blast! I tried this one before and I would love to do it again! :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you had fun too!
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