305/365
This morning I got up early and headed down into DC to do the Color Run with Betsy, Billy, and Felipe. Betsy and I had signed up for the Color Run last year but we both had to give up our spots. Betsy was out of town and I was trying out for roller derby. So when the opportunity came up again, we jumped at the chance. The fact that we also got to run onto the field of Nationals Stadium was a huge plus for us as well.
The fact that it was freezing this morning and that I had a cold didn’t deter me since I had already missed it once. We all met at Betsy’s house to drop our stuff off and then walk over to the starting line.
photo courtesy of Billy’s mom
Billy’s mom came with us and took some great shots before, during and after the race. (Her’s are the good quality ones. The others I took with my phone which I stashed in a plastic bag for the race.)
We got to the starting line right around the 9 AM start time and then proceeded to stand there for a while. They had wave starts so people didn’t bottleneck too much as they entered the stadium so it took a while. I don’t think we even started running until after 9:30.
Here’s a blurry picture I took of the stadium from the field as we ran through. They were pretty adamant about people not stopping so I tried to photograph on the move.
We ran on the warning track around the field, so we couldn’t actually run on the grass, but it was cool because we got to run by and see into the dugouts. I’ve done something like this at Camden Yards in Baltimore as well. Seeing a stadium from the field is really special, no matter the park.
The run itself ended up being pretty low-tech. It seemed like they tried to occupy as few streets as possible so the course looped around on itself a bunch of times. We ran on the concourse of the stadium a few times to take up some distance, but apparently the course wasn’t even close to being a true 5K. There weren’t any timing chips or anything, so this course was definitely a fun run.
The color turned out to be dyed corn starch. At each color station they had 8-10 people standing there with squeeze bottles full of the color and they sort of splashed it on you as you ran through. It was a much simpler, straightforward method than I had expected. We got sufficiently covered though.
And then, look who I found at the finish line!
Jen! I knew she was running the race and we actually saw each other on the course as we were looping around, but finding her at the finish line was kind of surprising considering how crowded it was.
As you finished, along with your granola bar they gave you little packets of color to toss on each other. So the five of us got together and made sure we really got a Color Run experience.
photo courtesy of Billy’s mom
It was a fun morning, but I paid the price later in the day. The rest of the day has been spent napping and trying to recover from this cold I managed to rapidly pick up. Still, I’m glad I finally got my opportunity at a Color Run!