I had a friend & coworker Kate Grass write me a post on her experience at the Color Me Rad 5K in Charleston SC on March 23, 2013. Here is her account of the race :
Had you asked me 6 months ago if I were a runner – I would have given you the most disgusted look.
Some of my responses typically included:
“Are you kidding me?”
“How can anyone do one activity for so long?”
“I’m an ADD athlete and have to have multiple engaging activities”
“David….a 1/2 marathon – have you been smokin sumthin??”
Well – I really don’t know what happened. In November 2012, my job became more intense and longer hours were required; unfortunately, all of my gym classes with multiple engaging activities were usually over by the time I left work. I started feeling kinda flat and unmotivated so I decided, one evening, to go outside and run around the neighborhood once or twice – just to get my endorphins a ‘flowin. When I finished and walked back into the house, I realized I possibly just ran 4 miles and didn’t even realize it! The next morning, I decided to take the car and drive what I ran the night before and sure enough it was 3.9 miles! Thus began the running beast in me.
I decided to run my first half marathon four months later at the end of February– in Disney (what do you expect, I work with David Geddings!!!?? J). I ran the Disney Princess Half and finished in 2:20:00. I guess it’s my PR because it’s my only one – but now I, at least, have something to qualify me for the next one so I’m not in the 2nd to last corral and spending the majority of energy dodging all of the people who decided to walk in the first 6 corrals ahead of me.
But I digress (David actually asked me to type up a review on the run I completed this past weekend– but I’m a talker!)
I have definitely worked my way backwards in races because this past weekend I ran the 5K Color Me Rad Run – which was all for fun. There were no tracking devices, no official start or end times, & no EARLY start times (for all you runners…some of those 5am – 7am start times are KILLER). I had been talked into the race from a few friends at church who pulled me in by saying we would be pelted with bags of colored cornstarch – I mean, what could be more fun than that, right?
It took me a while to warm up to the idea because of my new found running ego. You know, that running ego you get after you do your first 1Ž2 marathon and then the smaller races just aren’t worth the $$ if there’s no “bling”(also a D.Gedding term)? But I figured what the heck and I actually talked my husband into it also.
We looked at the weather all week for the race – rainy and cold – which is just awesome for Charleston weather (said dripping with sarcasm). I looked everyday just hoping somehow it would change but it didn’t. When we got there it was extremely cold & overcast. Our friends had already picked up our bibs & race packets so we never made it over to the Registration table and therefore got to spend a little more time in the warm car. I will tell you – they weren’t even checking bib numbers. You could have walked into the Exchange Park at Ladson and jumped right in but you wouldn’t have gotten the awesome shirt (my fav so far).
There were multiple waves in 20 minute increments for you which you were assigned one. We were assigned for the first wave at 10:00AM. Because there was no strict regulation, we, technically, could run in multiple waves or one which wasn’t the one you had been assigned. But we decided to run once (b/c it was freezing) and in our allotted time.
They did a great job of spacing out runners. Even though we kicked off at 10:00AM – they only let a few runners begin each 2-3 minutes. We didn’t really start running until 10:05 or 10:07 which made passing very easy. The course was very wide and on very different types of terrain. One minute you may be running in a field but the next you could be on sand, pavement, or an actual track. Spaced out at every half mile were either volunteers throwing different colors of cornstarch at you or spraying wet paint on you– and it didn’t matter where…they weren’t bothering to care where it hit you (I got a ton of it in my mouth the first time) so you learned which parts to protect the next time through. J J
Just before you crossed the finish line, you were given one bag of cornstarch & told to hold onto until the last wave of people crossed the finish line (around noon). We were supposed to stick around until the end because they were going to do one gigantic color bomb in which all runners (and whoever else wanted to participate) would gather by the stage and just toss their bag up and let color fall where it may. Since we had gotten there so early (and it started to rain at 11:00A) we decided to have a little color bomb of our own and the hubby and I went crazy so we could get out of the cold!
BUT — All in all it was a BLAST. I’ll definitely do it again next year and loved the uncompetitive nature of it. Here are a few after pix of me and the hubby and our own little color bomb “fest” we decided to have before we left.
