Color Me Rad 5K

On Friday, I spent an hour yesterday driving out to Sports Authority so I could pick up my Color Me Rad race packet. As I went inside I was immediately given a 20% coupon for anything in the store (I always get their coupons at Safeway, though) and then told to follow the pink arrows to the left all the way around the store, instead of taking the quickest route, which would have been to the right. That was a little annoying.

The people volunteering for CMR at Sports Authority weren't very knowledgeable - I asked where the color packet was that we got as a part of our entry fee, and someone told me I had to buy it. Um, no. I asked someone else and they said that we would be given one at the end of the race. I'm just glad that someone knew what they were talking about. I was given a pair of sunglasses, a t-shirt, and a temporary tattoo that said "RAD". I hoped that there would be more swag at the actual event, because the entry fee was quite a bit more than other 5Ks. I guess what you're really paying for is the experience!

After I ran 8 Miles this morning, I came home, ate my Egg McMuffin knock-off, had some coffee, and about an hour later was out the door on our way. I even convinced JW to go!

Before all the color!

It had rained the night before, so I was worried the course would be muddy, or even worse - that it would rain on us. Fortunately it didn't, and the sun eventually came out to say hello.

Getting into Marymoor Park was a pain - there's only one way in, and we didn't come to one of the early waves, so we were stuck in traffic for about 30 minutes just trying to get in. We parked, left our cameras and phones in the car (we didn't want to risk getting any color dust getting into any of our electronics, even if they were in plastic bags), and walked over to where the Start Line was.

We were looking for our friend Sam, who we were going to "run" with. Why is run in quotations? Well, JW isn't a runner, and hadn't trained for this like he trained for the Hot Chocolate 5K- plus he had a stomach bug two days ago and still was feeling a little weak. He was hoping to jog maybe a mile, and walk the rest. I had just run 8 miles only a few hours before, so I wasn't really feeling like racing either. I figured I'd just walk when JW wanted to walk.

I was under the impression that we had to pick up our packets the day before, and was a little miffed to see long lines of people picking up their race packet at the race. I'm pretty sure it didn't say that anywhere - there was a note in the PDF I read that if you lived more than 60 minutes away, you could e-mail them and they would work something out. Ugh - would have saved me an hour!

We miraculously found Sam (neither of us had our phones - how did people survive without technology??), and walked over to the start line about 10 minutes before our wave was scheduled to start. My legs were feeling a little shaky at the start and I was worried that I wouldn't even be able to walk the 5K. It was Sam's first 5K, so she was amped up to race - I felt a little bad that we weren't great racing buddies, but she understood.

There was music playing all around, and I felt like I had a little more energy. They were going to throw color bombs at us at various points in the race - I'm going to assume they were at the mile markers, or at least near them. I didn't track the race - and it was kind of nice, knowing I wasn't going for any particular speed, but it was also disorienting because I had no idea how much more of the race there was left.

We started off way too fast, and by the first half mile, JW was walking, so we walked with him for a while. We convinced him to start jogging again, and he did, but then started to feel dizzy and stopped. I was surprised with how well I was holding up! We went like that through the entire race - running through the color sections, and then walking the rest and just chatting. It was actually really nice to just walk and talk without any expectations of when we wanted to finish. The course itself was winding, and marked with cones that were sometimes a little confusing.

As we neared the end, Sam asked us if we wanted to sprint - and JW said yes! So, we did. JW took off like a lightening bolt - he's built for sprinting! He completely smoked Sam and I. I heard people on the sidelines saying, "whoa! nice pace!" which made me laugh. If only they had seen us during the race! JW won the sprint, and then it was Sam, and then it was me. I didn't mind :)

We gathered to a big clump where there were a ton of other people, and that's where the color really started to fly! I got doused with yellow right on my head, and I poured some pink on JW. We looked awesome by the end of it.

We stayed in the center for a bit, and then they were asking for couple volunteers - JW and I immediately rasied our hands and got picked! We went up to the front and were told to eat a Twizzler from both ends, then do 10 push ups, and the couple who finished first won a prize. We should have just bit the Twizzler in half; we started out taking tiny bites, but by the time we were done, people were already on the ground doing their pushups. I forgot that my arms were still sore from rehearsal, so the push ups were SO hard for me - needless to say, we didn't win. But we had fun :)

They doused us with a little more color, and then it was all over!

It took us about an hour to get back home - waiting to exit in the only exit of the park with the rest of the participants sure did take a lot of time. Ah, well! Though the event seemed a little disorganized at Packet Pickup, in the end I had a blast.

The shower to scrub everything off is a completely different story, but after a few washes, I can safely say I'm FINALLY clean. :D