The Color Run 5k - The Happiest 5k On The Planet!

This post is only about a week late.  I have been at work a lot and don't feel comfortable doing my blogs at work.  

The gear up for the Color Run 5k, which is an epic 5k series that runs throughout the world, is a 5k where you get a different color powder thrown on you at every kilometer, not ever mile.  

Packet pick up was on Thursday and Friday of that week prior to the race at Sports Authority at Concord Mills.  The picture below shows all the things that were in my packet, plus some.

Megan had picked up the other girls packets Thursday - Sarah, Anna, Dawn and Anna's friend Alice who I do CrossFit with.  I decided to hang on to my form to pick up my own because I have OCD issues.  In the packets were "The Color Run" t-shirt, a white headband with the Color Run 2012 on it, bib number, wristbands to get into the run, The Color Run tattoo, and your color packet.  Everyone's color packet holds a different color, and you keep it with you throughout the race and throw it at the color party at the very end of the race.

Color Run t-shirt, Color Run headband, bib number,
wristband for race entry, The Color Run tattoo,
color packet, and my additional purchases of racer
back tank and white socks!

I woke up early that morning because I had no idea what I was going to wear and didn't know how long I needed to leave before hand to get to the speedway on time.  I knew the traffic would be bad.  I finally finished getting ready and left my house earlier than planned.  I got lucky because since I'm a local to the Concord area I know the back roads to get to CC Mills/speedway.  I got there and parked in no time.  Seeing the crowd already lined up was astonishing.

My outfit for the Color Run, minus my Color Run
shirt that I had worn.

We all met at the top of the bridge before we walked over.  We had registered to run at 10:30am.  We all put on our shirts and the girls put on their tattoos.  It was freezing outside and we were all glad that Anna had suggested the later time to start.  We walked over the bridge and took pictures along the way.  We got together and took tons of pictures.  There were hundreds of people starting at one time.  We finally walked up to the starting line at 9:30am.  Yes were weren't suppose to go until 10:30 but all of us were freezing and they weren't controlling who started when, so we all decided to start early.
Anna has been recovering from a broken foot so we were going to take it at her pace.  Fine with all of us because we wanted to become as colorful as possible!

Kilometer 1 - blue
We all were freezing the first kilometer of the race.  We ran around the outside of the speedway, under Hwy 49.  The whole time I couldn't figure out why in the world my sunglasses were killing my eyes around my nose.  It turned out that my headband was too low and was basically resting on my sunglasses(found that out from pictures)!
When we got to the first kilometer we could start to see the color cloud, it was blue which is my favorite.
After that we finally started to warm up, yay because my hands were absolutely freezing.

Kilometer 2 - pink
I decided to do a little twirl because I wanted to be fully covered.  It might look a little weird to just have the front of me full of color and not my back.  I didn't get as colored on my back as I had hoped and my socks weren't getting any color either.  Which was very disappointing since I wanted them to look tye-dye.

Kilometer 3 - orange
Even doing a twirl didn't give us as much color as we liked, so at kilometer 3 we saw people rolling around on the ground and they were getting covered in color.  So we all decided to roll on the ground and then I also went through the line to get some more color on my left side.  This definitely helped because my pants were covered and my butt was orange, just the way it should be! I had been sticking to the right side, I seem to favor that side.  So after rolling on the ground I still wanted to even things up on my left side, so I hopped in line and went through to get some more orange.

Kilometer 4 - yellow
All the girls did the same thing for the yellow line, but we didn't go through the line of people for the yellow.  We were all just anxious to get to the color party since we could see the color being thrown from where we were.  I don't know how many rolls I did on the ground but it was fun.  We walked almost the whole Color Run.  
We got excited when we had finally gotten through the yellow and were able to see the color cloud from the color party.  The whole time all the girls kept their cell phones and color packets in their sports bras.  Megan and I were holding our boobs the whole time because we were scared out phones were going to fall out of our sports bras while we were running the first kilometer!  I think that was one of the highlights of the actual run.

We rounded the corned in time to see a color party going on.  The cloud of color was huge and started to head our way after it was thrown.  We finally got into our color party and waited what felt like forever before we finally threw our color.  I had blue, Dawn had red(it busted in her bag before we started), someone had green, yellow, but the one color we wanted but were missing was purple.  
We later found purple on the ground.  And I rolled around in what little was there so I could have some purple on my shirt and socks.  We stood around posing taking pictures for a while and then we all headed back to our cars and off we went for the day. It was definitely fun and would be fun to do it again!

Post color run colorfulness!

My color run tattoo and some of the color
I acquired while running.  I had color
coming out of my pores and nose for days!

All us CAC ladies post color run
L to R: Megan, myself, Dawn, Sarah, and Anna
Thanks Alice for taking the picture!

Below is the link to look up The Color Run 5k locations.  They go to several cities repeatedly throughout the year and are in several different countries as well.  
Sign up for the VIP list so that you get updates on when your color run registration is about to open up.  Charlotte Color Run sold out within 2 days!
http://thecolorrun.com/