The Happiest 5k on the Planet

I run for lots of reasons. I run because it's great exercise. I run to relieve stress. I run for charity. I run to test my limits. And most recently, I ran for color.

On June 16, the Color Run came to NE Ohio. I woke up happier than a kid on Christmas morning. I had been anticipating the run for months. They don't call it the happiest 5k for nothin'!

Color - or rather, uncolor - coordinated in white shirts as instructed, we arrived on scene with plenty of time to prep for our colorsome adventure. First, we carefully applied each other's Color Run tattoos. My running partner branded the inside of his arm while I opted for bolder placement on my cheek. Our then-white Color Run sweatbands were placed around our heads. We got our "before" photos taken by fellow color enthusiasts in the parking lot, then followed the slow and steady swarm of color(less?) runners toward the start line.

Patience was hard to come by as the start time neared. Because there were so many particpants, runners took off in waves of about 1,000. We were in the third wave. We looked behind us and saw a sea of people with two things in common:

1. They all wore white.
2. They all craved color.

As we stood waiting on one side of the road, unsuspecting travelers drove by on the other. Some waved and some honked, but they all stared. I don't blame them; I'm sure we were quite the spectacle! People of all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds, united by their willingness to give up their Saturday morning in order to get blitzed in "elf made" magical color dust.

After the third round of Miley Cyrus's Party in the U.S.A. (yes, the third), our time came. Our wave counted down and we were off and running, eager to lose ourselves in color madness. We headed downhill, rounded a corner, and saw it.

We didn't need the yellow flags that lined the street to know we had made it to our first color zone. Yellow color clouds exploded in the air, marking the territory for the color warriors that charged toward it. We sprang forward and ran through the sunshine colored gauntlet, welcoming color with more enthusiasm than a young bachelor welcoming a home cooked meal.

We continued our quest for color and approached the green color zone all too quickly. (We later established that the green zone was not adequately distanced a full kilometer away from the yellow, but that's okay.) Next came blue, which is when I quite literally began to taste the rainbow - ugh. The only rainbows I want to taste are made of Skittles in the bag and marshmallows in boxes of Lucky Charms. The color may be elf made, but I can pretty much guarantee that it's not a Keebler recipe!

  

Shortly after what they called the "pink" color zone (wich was really orange), we crossed the finish line. We participated in the Color Bombing of Richmond Heights 2012, joined what I would call the most unsuccessful conga line ever, and took "after" photos of each other and the street, which looked like a color crime scene. We made our way to the car, cleaned ourselves off to the best of our abilities with paper towels and water, and drove home to shower. I lathered, rinsed, and repeated. After getting out of the shower, I got back in because, after careful observation, I realized I looked like a victim of iodine (orange), abuse (blue), and jaundice (yellow). After scrubbing off my tan but not my color, I gave up. I'm lucky I'm not blonde, like my fellow Color Runner, who had purple spots on his head for at least the next 24 hours.

Now that it's over, all I have left are the memories and a very stained (and savored) once-white shirt. Color me bad glad, because I can't wait to go again next year!