The Color Run – Atlanta 2012

Katie, A young girl I used to teach in 11th and 12th grade Sunday School, now a young woman, asked me to run with her in The Color Run, a 5k race benefitting Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  Well, sure!  Now, what is it?

The website says 3.1 miles of color madness.  Run a bit, get plastered with colored paint.  Or pigment.  Or “basically food grade cornstarch.”  Run a bit ore, get colored some more.  Etc.

Leaving early to use mass transit and opting en route to avoid the hassle, we arrived quite early, with her friend Jennifer and my wife, who was appointed to document our legendary color feats in photographs for later generations.   This allowed a few photo ops of some other runners who dressed more imaginatively for the occasion.

Otherwise, there were a lot of people wearing the required white.  If you look past the beach balls, you can see in the distance a portion of those gathered.  Releasing ~1000 runners every few minutes, there was still a line when we finished the run.

We were in the second batch to leave, which was a good thing.  The starter’s humor may have been fine, but what we heard was consistently like Charlie Brown’s elementary school teacher.  “mumble mumble.”

Careful readers may note that this isn’t The Color Race.  Perhaps it could be at other venues, but it is not a timed event.  And it’s not, technically, a run.  Walkers, strollers, etc. are encouraged.  So, confined to a lane in the street, those inclined to jog are forced to cross over to the side walk or otherwise dodge those who walk or suddenly stop, or, worse, those that walk 5 abreast.  I’m not a runner, and barely a jogger, so arriving at the first Color Zone with 4k to go, I was basically okay that my heart rate was unchanged.  Things would speed up after the first Color Zone.

Fast-forward a bit, and we have our first place finisher.  Her Nike’s must have been blessed by Michael Jordan, because she’s running on air.  Given the sidewalk cracks, roots, puddles, and such, that’s an unfair advantage.

Each runner is given a bag of colored whatever to toss at the end of the race in a big cloud.  Some, such as us, chose to share between friends.

The Run FAQ indicates there are fans which will blow the colors off well enough for a ride in the car.  No fans here.  Only leaf blowers.  Ah, the smell of 2 cycle exhaust in the morning!

Overall, quite a good time!  And where else would you be able to blow colors out of your nose?