Totally disorganized — terribly FUN!

Once upon a time (this year), my daughter was training for her first half marathon. She thought the Walt Disney World Half Marathon in Jan 2013 would be a good idea due to the characters, music, and we’d already be there for Brian running the full the next day.

Unfortunately, the Disney HM sold out, and even though we usually have 2 entries set aside for Digital Running, they decided not to do that this year. So, DD1 chose to keep training and switch her HM to the St Pete Rock n Roll…

But we’d still be going to Disney for Brian to run the full. And then some friends said they wanted to do the Orlando Color Run that weekend. If you’ve never heard of The Color Run, it’s a 5k fun run where runners are shot with brightly colored corn starch along the course for a splatter painted feel without the risks and mess that come with paint. Since DD1 would not be running the HM, her schedule was open for the Color Run.

Then we heard that the Color Run was coming to St Pete, and since DD1′s HM training was now on a new schedule and Cross Country season was over, she was available to do the St Pete Color Run too. So she got some Cross Country buddies and her dad to sign up with her and started a Color Run team. The Rainbow Centipedes or something like that.

“The Happiest 5k on the Planet” is how the Color Run bills itself. There is no clock, no timing chip, no winner – just fun and frolic for about 3.1 miles and the slower you go, the more colorful your shirt ends up. It benefits the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and cancer research, but mainly it’s just a cash cow. But because I have seen young people on Tumblr say The Color Run is a goal of theirs and is getting them to exercise a bit, it’s at least a healthy way to spend a Saturday. Unless you’re asthmatic.

They actually instruct runners to arrive dressed in white so they’ll look more blasted with color by the end of the race. Runners receive white t-shirts that say “The Color Run” on them. Some people add ties, suspenders, wigs, tutus, rainbow knee socks and other cute accessories in either white or rainbow colors.

Personally, I didn’t want to spend $50 to have people throw colored corn starch at me, but I wanted to be part of the party. So I signed up as a volunteer. I got an email saying I should come to 7th Ave for Color Zone 4.

There are 4 Color Zones. As people run through each one, roughly 1km apart, they have a different color of corn starch thrown at them. I wasn’t sure which color would be in Zone 4, but I didn’t care.

About 30 hours before the event I received an email update to come to 2nd Ave instead of 7th Ave. This was easier to tell people to look for me because it’s outside of Fresco’s Restaurant, but further from where I wanted to park so I would get in a 1 mile jaunt before the race began.

My morning workout buddy Britt decided to volunteer with me. About 20 hours before the event, she received an email saying they could put her with her friend (even though she never gave anyone my name or that I was at Color Zone 4) and that she should come to the volunteer tent near the start and then head to 9th Ave.

This was a little confusing… the street kept changing… and how did they know which zone I was in if they didn’t ask for my name? But we figured they had volunteer lists at the start we could look at. And 9th Ave was not only near where I wanted to park, but also near the finish line, so it seemed like a prime location.

I made plans to meet Britt at the local pool parking lot, she brought her friend Mallory, and it was a pretty 65 degrees with 85% humidity. I wore a tech shirt, leggings and a green tutu, along with the suggested bandana to cover my mouth, sunglasses to cover my eyes, a Bondi Band to keep my curls out of my face, and OLD sneakers that I keep in the garage for yardwork. I packed up a water bottle, marathon bar, and stuck my keys, cell, license and credit card in a Spibelt within the bag to keep them more protected – and small sewing scissors, more on those later.

It was 1.5 hours before the race start when we arrived at the start area. The sound system was being messed with, the unicorn mascot was just gearing up, and women were walking around with vibrant, colored, stainless steel sports bottles which were free to volunteers who were willing to fill out a survey about their experience.

The Color Run Rainicorn (rainbow unicorn)

We found the volunteer tent, and got in line behind about 30 others and people-watched while waiting. As expected, rainbow socks and tutus abounded. When we approached the front of the line, we saw blue, green, pink, and yellow Color Run Tshirts in boxes for the volunteers. People were being asked which color and size they needed. Then the woman manning the table explained the shirt colors corresponded to the color of corn starch in that zone. So they shifted gears and decided to group people by zone and send them off with their shirts to find the right street corner together.

When our turn came to talk to the lady in charge, she had only my name on her list, not Britt’s or Mallory’s, and she still had the Zone 4 address as 7th Ave. Instead of handing us Tshirts and sending us along to whittle down the ever-growing line outside the volunteer tent, she repeatedly attempted to radio over to zone 4 to find out if they still needed volunteers – but the radios were out of reach. In the meantime, the lady behind us in line said she would help hand out Tshirts, but the 2 Tshirt ladies said they had it all under control.

They didn’t. The line was getting longer, the wind was blowing the list away, walkie talkies were not working, only one person really knew what was going on and she couldn’t reach anyone else but wouldn’t make an executive decisions.

Eventually she decided since one of us was on the zone 4 list, she would send us to zone 4. We were given yellow Tshirts and asked to lead 8 others down the road who were in zone 4 but didn’t know where 9th Ave was.

While walking to zone 4, I busted out the scissors I had in my bag. I cut the arm seams and neck ring off the shirts, along with the bottom 2 inches. Then I put the shirt on over my tech shirt and tied it off to the side. Yep, I’ve done a lot of race volunteering!

With Britt at Zone 4 before the race started

At zone 4 was the zone 4 captain, waiting for the volunteer trainer to come tell us what to do. She worked with St. Anthony’s and told us about all the other races they are a part of that we could volunteer at. There was a large, inflatable yellow arch, some sandwich boards with fun Color Run phrases on them, a speaker, and a few pallets of large bins and trash cans.

The cardboard bins were full of yellow cornstarch. They don’t want people touching it so they can use the leftovers at other races. So we were to dip paint buckets into the big cardboard cans and then take plastic mustard squirt bottles and dip those into the paint buckets, and use the squirt bottles to color the runners. “They don’t need to be squeezed,” we were told, “just a flick of the wrist will allow color to come out.”

This was true. A small movement with the plastic mustard squirt bottles did allow a puff of color to come out, but nothing that would be lasting on a shirt of a runner going by. Just enough to make a 6-inch cloud of smoke. And with all the volunteers testing it at the same time, we were kind of in a haze of yellow smoky stuff. I tried wearing sunglasses, as suggested in my volunteer email, but they were covered instantly with corn starch dust and I couldn’t see at all. The bandana over the mouth was a great way to keep the dust out of our throats and off of our teeth and lips, but muffled our cheering for runners – and since I love to cheer people on and just wore the bandana around my neck. I wasn’t upset – I’m not complaining, I came totally prepared to be a MESS by the end of the race, and we were all having fun and giggling through the learning process.

We had some yellow flags to set out, and some tarps for the ground and then about an hour to wait.

and wait.

and then the first runner came through!

I would say the first 5 runners were probably racing. Everyone else was in it for the fun. It made sense to take your time so you could extended the experience. And runners on the outside edges were right near the color throwers, while those who stayed in the center could cover their mouths and avoid some of the dust. The race sold out at 10,000 runners, so they just kept coming and coming – all shapes, sizes, ages and – of course – colors!

My squeeze bottle wasn’t doing much. Some people had red ones that worked great, but my clear one was a pain in the butt. So I put on some gloves, threw my bottle to the ground, and grabbed a paint bucket. Then I just tossed color bit by bit on the runners. It was fun! Some people spun in circles, some made yellow color angles on the ground, a few people rolled around in the color – and some were stunned when we shouted, “last color station!” Then runners wanted us to get white spots that had been missed earlier, like on their headbands and tutus.

You may have seen Womens Running magazine Retweet this photo… that’s me with the bucket.

A few people asked for color over their heads or on their kids shirts. And then I saw a woman who went behind the volunteer tarp to turn cartwheels and do handstands in the yellow dust while her friends took her photo. I grabbed an empty bucket and photo-bombed the lady while pretending to throw yellow on her head. It turned out, she recognized me from Digital Running, and soon we were exchanging hugs and posing for photos together.

As time went by, I kept looking for the 7+ people who I knew were running the race, but I didn’t see any of them. Luckily, I did see my husband and daughter with her friends. They kind of saw me and smiled and kept going – and then we were all like, “hey, wait a sec…” and ran back to each other. I had a bucket of yellow and sprinkled them all. Brian asked me to drown his bald head, and I did. Then I threw handfuls on the girls and we shouted and cheered together.

They continued on to the finish, and I continued throwing yellow corn starch on runners and cheering them on.

A little while later Brian and DD1 came back around to say hi, figure out the plan for the rest of the morning, and take photos.

They went home to shower, and I stayed until the last walkers went past, and the street was relatively clean.

Cleaning was a chore. We had push brooms and light shovels to use as dustpans. At first the corn starch was so high, about 4-inches, that we could just scoop it with the shovels. Then we swept. Then we had a leaf blower, and Mallory blew the dust toward the center. Eventually a street sweeper came by and made things 90% cleaner in 1/5-th of the time.

Mallory was nice enough to blow off some nearby cars too!

The zone 4 captain had water and Chewy bars for all of us, and was going to throw away the extras. I saved about 20 granola bars for the kids lunch boxes, and the Color Run team took the water back.

I invited anyone I knew who was going to racing to a neighborhood soup-sandwich pub near our house, but I only had phone numbers for 2 of them. We ended up with a small group of 5 rainbow colored people for lunch. We pretty much agreed the race was totally disorganized but terribly FUN!

Some of our suggestions for next time include restructuring the volunteers so that every ten or so are assigned to the same zone as they approach the table – then grouped together and sent off, reminding walkers to stay to the right with signs along the route, reminding people with strollers to pull off to the side if they stop because the clouds of color make it hard to see obstacles, and making the route an actual 5k, because we thought it was short of 3 miles. The best accessory we saw was a man who took little baby tutus and sewed them on the sleeves of his shirt!

After the race, I showered, napped, and showered again. My skin and hair got clean pretty easily. I thought my cuticles and toes would stay stained, but they didn’t. I thought my hair would feel like straw, but it looked great at a wedding we were invited to that night. The worst part was my contact lenses. The corn starch pretty much sticks to moisture and globs up. So you have globs in your nose and around your mouth… but the little dust on my contact lenses blinded me when I got in the shower. The steam and water mixing with the corn starch left me unable to see. Luckily, I wear disposable lenses, so I popped them out and threw them away.

Me, after the race. Oompa Loompa hands.

The next day I took the dirty laundry from the 3 of us and shook it out piece by piece in the backyard before running it through a cold water wash in the laundry. Everything got clean in one wash. Brian wanted to keep his shirt colored from the run, and we read online that vinegar might set the color, so we have his shirt in a Ziploc freezer bag full of vinegar right now. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes…

Have you run a Color Run or Light Up race? Would you do a 5k without a chip time or clock?