In May, I participated in the Orange County Color Run. I managed to get a few of my fellow mom friends and my sister-in-law to join me in this fun 5K. This was my first race, and I'm happy I chose this fun run.
A few days before the run my sister-in-law had to substitute my brother for herself since she had prior engagements. That's him in the picture above, with me at the finish line. Our team wore these awesome neon rainbow socks, so if Gregg was going to be a part of the team...he had to wear the socks too.
Here are a few tips:
- Arrive early. This means leave home early. I know it seems easy enough. However, we left fairly early, but we had no idea the magnitude of this event. Traffic was horrendous! Then came parking. The event coordinators are very organized and kept us all moving at a nice pace. That being said, we, again, had no idea the number of participants would be so great. From our parking spot we had to walk at least a mile to get to the event entrance. At our arrivial we were too late for the pre-race events. I believe by the time we reached the starting line we were in the 4th heat.
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- Have fun! Wear white, and accessorize with color. At the start line dancing is a great warm up, and it has its perks. My friend shook her booty hard enough to get all of our team Color Run knee socks.
- Run! Hahaha...running is something you'll see very little of at this event; no offense to those that were walking. Sure, have fun...but running and challenging yourself is fun too. Try it.
- If you want lots of color, stay on the outside lanes. If you want less color, stay in the middle.
- Speaking of color, the "color" is a powdered color. It can make it a little difficult to breathe. Also, it gave me some extreme dry mouth. Water is available at 1.5 miles (helps with the dry mouth) and the finish line.
- Smile. There are photographers throughout the race. They have pictures posted online within a few days after the race. .
- Post race: there was lots of music, food trucks, and photo ops. Be sure to do the big color throw...or whatever they call it. They do it every 15 minutes or so, while participants finish the race.
- Cleaning: I forgot to grab a few towels for the seats in my brother's car...apparently, that was not easy to clean. Have some type of exfoliate for bathing, and scrub the color away. I have blonde hair and there was not any permanent color, so no worries. Also, I threw all my clothes, socks, shoes, and anything with color into the wash. They all came out mostly clean...including my white tank! Basically, expect some stains, but nothing to stress over.
