Color Me RAD 5k

(Note: I wasn't compensated for writing this post, I just had a great time running this race!)

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but one of my favorite hobbies (other than sewing and crafting like crazy) is running. I've been running since I was about 15 years old, and haven't stopped since - aside from a couple breaks for pregnancy. Even when I was pregnant, I ran until I was about 31 weeks (it wasn't pretty I'm sure. It was more like waddling near the end ;)

I'm not really a competitive person. I tried track for a whole week in high school before I decided that I didn't like other people telling me how fast to run. After that, I ran for me. I just love how strong I feel when I run, but mostly I just love being outdoors (I blame my dad for that.) But with all the running I've done, I had never formally entered a race until Shannon and I ran in the Pittsburgh 5k recently. It was a great feeling to run through my city and complete my first official 5k, although it was a little embarrassing to see how many 7-year-olds lapped me! After completing the race, I knew I wanted to try another, so when a friend suggested we run the Color Me Rad 5k, I was all in.

The Color Me Rad 5k is basically an untimed, all-for-fun kind of a race where people pelt you with colored powder as you run so that you end up looking like an art studio threw up on you by the end. When we registered, we got blue t-shirts, temporary tattoos, and some sweet 80's-style sunglasses. For the race itself though, we opted for all-white clothes to make sure we got covered in as much color as possible.

And of course I stole some of Shannon's neon nail polish to paint my nails for the race. Duh.

We started out all sparkly clean, but by the end....

We were completely covered in color! Here's a little before and after just for fun:

There were a few times I forgot to close my mouth and ended up with a generous coating of color on my teeth. If you run this race in your city, take it from me and try to keep your mouth shut :) I also kind of look like I have a goatee in this picture which (hopefully) isn't true in real life. We had the greatest time though and I'll definitely be going again next year! The only downside was that the path they chose for the race wove through a parking lot full of gravel, so we did a lot of tripping and stumbling until about 1/2 way through when it turned to pavement. Hopefully the location will be a little better next year.

Has anyone else ever run the Color Me Rad 5k or any of the other color races?