Race Recap: The Color Run NYC

In case you haven't heard (or aren't yet sick of hearing...) this past weekend was The Color Run NYC.  The Color Run is labeled the "Happiest 5K on the Planet", where at each "K" runners get splattered with a different color powder (corn starch).  

Since this fun run is super popular, TWO race days were offered...which both sold out within 48 hours of registration opening.  Only two of my planned "team" made the cut-off and we opted for the Sunday race.  

So...on Sunday, my alarm clock went off at 5:30am.  I woke up to this:

Wake up, Mom! It's time for The Color Run!

We got on the road at 6:15am, knowing we'd have to deal with race day packet pick-up and anticipating traffic!  The Color Run continued to warn about the ridiculously long lines we'd be facing if we picked up our numbers the morning of the race.  Ya know, because there were 10,000 runners each day. Well, I guess we were a little overly zealous because parking was a cinch and packet pick-up took less than 5 minutes.  Way to over exaggerate, Color Run.  

We had over an hour to wait for the start, so we had some free time to pose for fun free pics! The Chevy Spark tent had a fun photo op with cute props! You probably can't see it, but my sign said "Ummm we like color...Ummm we like running."  

So fresh and so clean, clean.

And that killed a solid 5 minutes.  So we headed to the start around 7:45 and ended up in the 2nd corral.  Groups took off every 5 minutes, which was an effort to keep congestion down.  Because this is not a timed race and most "Color Runners" are just doing this for fun, the corrals were not divided by pace and it was a mix of runners, joggers and walkers.  I was shocked that despite the thousands of people, congestion really wasn't a problem.

At about 8:15, Team CT took off and ran-walked our way through all 4 color stations: yellow, red, blue, and pink! 

Clockwise from top left: yellow, red, blue, pink!

The course was an out and back with a water station at the turn-around.  There was a DJ at the start and right before the half-way point which added to the fun of the race.  The volunteers at each color station had squeeze bottles to squirt us with the designated color.  I do have to say that we definitely had to slow down and walk directly by a person to get color on us.  We each also had a packet of color with us that was meant to be used at the post-race "Color Festival".  A few people even preemptively opened these packets to add extra or different colors to each other during the race!  This was probably a good idea because when we were finished with those 4 color stations, we just looked kind of blah.  I kept seeing orange, magenta and bright purple colors, which looked the most fun...yet were missing from the race stations! 

So after our sweaty 3.1 fun was done, here's how we looked:

The End Result.

We grabbed our post-race fuel...more water, KIND bars (my fave!), Yasso frozen Greek yogurt (no relation to Bart) and Fuze (not a fan).

Mmm Greek Fro-Yo!

Finally, we headed to the post-race color fest!  Essentially, this was a mosh-pit in front of the DJ stage and every few minutes finishers toss their color packets into the air and paint each other.

Pretty colors!

And we took some more fun pics of course!

Hooray for Color Run!

Apparently there were "blowers" to help runners get rid of excess color before heading home.  We didn't see these, but no worries!  I'm always prepared and had read up on tips in advance.  I brought blankets and towels to protect the car, baby wipes to clean ourselves up, a change of clothes and bags to wrap up our rainbow colored gear.  

[Side note: to any runners thinking about doing a Color Run:  You can't go into this being competitive or thinking it will be like a normal 5K.  It's advertised as a fun race to do with fun people, and that's exactly what it is.  It's not timed.  And more importantly, most people don't have any sense of running "etiquette".]

So am I going to do this race again?  Probably not.  I definitely had a blast being silly with my "team" (shout outs to Stephy & CT!) and I'm all about events that gets people active while having fun.  But I think I got my fill of color fun for quite some time!

Next up: NYRR Back to Football Run on Thursday!

Have you done a Color Run? Thinking about doing one?  Running the Back to Football 4-miler? Tell me about it!