A soggy, colorful mess! The Color Run — Phoenix

I kicked off my week­end in a totally crazy way with a com­pletely new endeavor for me! My first ever 5k:  The Color Run!! And in Seat­tle no less. Kid­ding! But with all the crazy rain here, it seemed like we were any­where but Phoenix (I’m sure the race orga­niz­ers were just as shocked)! I par­tic­i­pated in the race with a whole group of other fun AZ blog­gers, team: #AZCol­or­Blog­gers! Notice how I say par­tic­i­pated! We did not run the whole thing (not much at all actu­ally). But, we did it. The whole 5k in the rain! Here is the crew before we started with (pay spe­cial atten­tion to our crisp & clean appear­ance). Jessi from Shug­gilippo, Alli­son from All for the Boys, Heather from Brie Brie Blooms, Heather from Kus­tom Kissers, Karen from Desert Chica Ram­blings, Becca from Our­Crazy­Boys, Jen from Life Accord­ing to the Streets, Sara from Clever Pink Pirate, Me , Michelle from My Three Peas, and Court­ney from Wil­hem Fam!

Look at that weather! Crazy! For those famil­iar with the area, we started things on the Mill Ave. bridge. And, nor­mally, there would be a pretty view. Instead, fog & rain! Lots and lots of rain. We stood at the start with umbrel­las, but a bunch of us just ended up toss­ing them to the side, fully embrac­ing the wet! And have a “full” expe­ri­ence we did! Through­out the course, there were four color sta­tions: pink (which looked more like red), yel­low, orange and blue. They kept get­ting more and more intense. And, blue was insane! Not only were the color-throwing vol­un­teers at that sta­tion a bit overzeal­ous, but it has been rain­ing so much that there was now a giant blue lake. My feet had stayed dry the WHOLE time, but alas, with less than 1 mile to go, we had to trudge through the Smurf swamp and mud (my toe­nail beds are still blue)!Once we finally came through the fin­ish, we were quite a col­or­ful mess!! Remem­ber how clean we were to start? Well, here’s the after shot (with a few funny photo bombers too!):

We were all a soggy, muddy, col­or­ful mess!! Take a look at the lake form­ing behind us! And, the mud at the fin­ish?! Wow! Such a mess! That stage behind us is the post-race party! Some peo­ple needed to take off, but a few of us stayed for the after-party to brave the rain some more and do one more fun color toss! With your reg­is­tra­tion they give you a color packet. And, from the stage, they were toss­ing them out. So, here’s our last color blast: Fun, crazy stuff!

It was so great to do with friends! Sara from Clever Pink Pirate and I rode down to the race together (we took the light rail for part of the way). Here is one last before & after:

And, yes, we actu­ally rode pub­lic trans­porta­tion look­ing like that (no we didn’t sit down or get color any­where)! By that point we were drip­ping wet, freez­ing and hun­gry. So, once back at the car, we changed out of our wet shirts & put our dry, offi­cial Color Run shirts on with jack­ets. And, we braved going to break­fast in pub­lic like that! People’s reac­tions were awe­some. We expected just a lot of weird stares. But, the race had been all over the news, so peo­ple knew what was going on and were ask­ing us ques­tions and giv­ing us com­pli­ments! As long as you can walk, you can SO do one of these races. There were peo­ple there of all ages and fit­ness lev­els. I’m SO glad that we did it!! Some of us are already look­ing for our next fun 5k to do!

If you’re inter­ested in par­tic­i­pat­ing in The Color Run, check out their event list to see if they’re com­ing to a city near you! And, if you’re going to be doing any of races involv­ing color (I’ve learned there are quite a few dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies), stay tuned for a Color Run tips post soon!
Dis­clo­sure: I did receive a com­pli­men­tary race bib; how­ever, all opin­ions & crazy, messy expe­ri­ences are entirely my own!