Color Run

We almost missed out on The Color Run!  My mom, Andrew, and I had been planning on running the 5k race together for a couple months now.  We decided we would register at the event instead of doing same-day registration in case the weather was bad, or in case Andrew and I weren't getting enough sleep from the kids waking up at night.  Yesterday morning, I went online to find out when same-day registration opened, only to discover it had sold out!

Thanks to the help of friends and Craigs List, I tracked down three packets.  Andrew drove all over the Denver-Metro area after work yesterday to pick them up.  With Friday night traffic on Memorial weekend, I have a feeling the drives were no picnic.  I crossed my fingers that all our effort was worth it.  The race bags looked promising--we each got a pack of colored powder to throw at the finish line in addition to our race shirts, sweat bands, numbers, and a temporary tattoo!  We couldn't be picky about shirt sizes, of course.  I ended up with an XL, but I ran it through a hot wash cycle and hot dryer cycle to try to shrink it as much as possible.  It was still big, so I decided to just own the look.  I crimped my hair by braiding it the night before.  The morning of, I stuck my hair in a high pony, donned my sweat band, pulled on some leggings and my new neon pink running shoes.  It looked like I stepped straight out of the early 90s.

Oliver wore my temporary tattoo for me:

We met up with my parents at City Park.  My dad took a "before" photo of us, looking so nice in our clean, crisp running clothes:

Oliver's inspecting our dye packets.  He asked me if he could eat them.

This little guy has no idea what he's getting into.  He's also probably wondering why his dad is dressed like Richard Simmons.

Our dye packs were meant for the finish line, but there were lots of people who couldn't resist the temptation of exploding them at the starting line.

I got hit with a stray shot of purple.  It was my first touch of color:

At every kilometer, they set up a color station, where volunteers doused all the runners with a color.  The first kilometer was orange:

The second color station was blue.  Andrew got covered:

The third kilometer station was yellow, and the fourth kilometer station was green.  At the finish, they counted down every fifteen minutes for finishers to explode their packets.  I broke open our orange one to show Oliver how it worked.  At first, he was hesitant, but then he had fun grabbing handfuls and sprinkling it all over the grass and himself:

We had fun playing with our yellow and purple dye packs, too!  Andrew covered my mom and Oliver in yellow dust:

Oliver got a little upset about his shirt getting covered in color.  It's a good thing he couldn't see his hair!

He enjoyed playing with the color that covered my face:

Although the dye is supposed to wash out of everything, I had my suspicions about Oliver's hair.  My suspicions were confirmed when we got home.  This little guy is going to have orange hair for a while.

We reconnected with my dad and Joanna at the rose gardens in City Park.  Oliver enjoyed smelling the flowers, and I nursed Jo.

As it turns out, the dye powder seeped through my clothes and onto my skin.  Joanna got covered in pink dye from nursing!

As it turns out, there's a splash pad at City Park.  I had no idea!

Oliver got upset about getting his pants wet, so we let him splash around in his undies.

I had to sneak in a few more photos of my colorful wee ones:

Oliver is definitely my husband's son:

The Color Run was as fun as I'd hoped.  I've run a lot of races, and this was truly one of the best.  The only thing it was missing was some music (and maybe a few more water stations!).  We already promised each other we'd run it again next year.  Next year, we'll be sure to register early!