The Color Run London Race Recap

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I had toyed with the idea of doing a Color Run many times before, actually this was probably one of the first runs I ever looked into as it looked like a blast and was aimed at runners of all abilities, so when my Nike Run Club buddy Kerry mentioned she was taking part, and I hadn’t run as much as I would have liked I signed straight up.

On the day, I was one of the first to arrive and after being lead into the main start area I was shocked to see how quiet it was, with not many people taking the extra time to get prepared. It wasn’t long before the crowds arrive, with many men dressed extravagantly with either a pink tutu or brightly coloured wig, it was clear I was under dressed for the run, arriving simply in a running shirt an shorts. So I headed over to pick up my race pack for the day, which containing :

  • Special Edition T-shirt
  • The Color Run and Skittles tattoos
  • Tropicolor head band
  • The Color Run face paint
  • Happiness Wristband
  • The Color Run event number

I donned the free Special Edition white T-shirt, put my Quad Lock band on and out cam my trusty Brooks sunglasses that I picked up free at the Hackney Half earlier in the year. And with that we were ready to go, as we stacked up into the starting pen it was clear just how much of a mixed bag the participants were, ranging from apprehensive kids not sure of what lay ahead, to excited teams ready to selfie the hell out of the course, to the parents who are there just for their kids, clearly unprepared and uncomfortable with the prospect of having to keep up with their offspring. And we were off…well almost, as once we were set off it was more like a fast walk that quickly turned into a queue, as the youngest of participants were ushered along by their parents, I got the distinct feeling they could have staggered the start into waves to make it better for those wanting to run as opposed to those with children that wanted to walk most of the way. After a while the crowd dispersed  and we managed to get a decent stride going, weaving in and out of the families and heading towards our first colour station, having been given the heads up to shut my mouth during as you run through to avoid a mouth full of dust I was greeted by a cloud of Red dust so big I couldn’t hold my breath that long, as I took a short breath of color dust in it didn’t taste like the rainbow, we had been lied too…Skittles I am coming for you haha. It actually wasn’t that bad but I definitely needed to work on my technique and timing on the next station. Sunglasses are definitely a must at Color Run, otherwise you will most certainly run blind.

As we made our way through the next two colour stations something surreal happened, somehow out of no where a car pulled onto the course, clearly a local resident looking to head out for the day and had failed to read any signs giving notice of the event, with no care of courtesy for the event he simply drove along the course, slowly mind you but it looked so surreal as two boys that were taking part, who must have been aged about eight ran in front of the car, it looks from a far like he was slowly hunting them down…how can this happen last such an organised event? And how can no one be stopping it? After what seemed like about 1km the car finally turned off and we could get back to running, approaching the final color station, the ‘Tropicolor’ Station, as I run through one of the volunteers gets a little carried away trying to cover me in the multicoloured dust and lets the bottle slip out their hand, hitting me….now even though running through them are a blast, when someone lets go of their almost full powder bottle and it hits you square on the groin it is far from ideal. With the final color station out the way we push towards the finish time, knowing that today was never going to be a day for PBs we enjoy the moment and then head to the festival.

At the festival we wipe down and observe mostly, behaving far too much, avoiding all color throws like they were releasing the plague.It looked like a blast if we were fifteen years younger, so we headed home early  getting some fantastic looks on the tube, overall a fun way to start the day with two amazing people, I definitely feel like some different starting waves sorted by age/ability would make it a much smoother experience.

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