The Color Run

   This morning was The Color Run, another in the line of popular "adventure races", and the first of its kind in Kansas City. I was up bright and early (5:15 am... shudder) to head out to the sports complex where the Chiefs and the Royals play—with 15,000 of my closest friends—to join the fun. The event was so popular that they expanded it to Saturday AND Sunday, and had 30,000 registrants. They said this is the highest registration anywhere in the country for the Color Run so far. Yay, KC! Hopefully they will make a ton of money to benefit the Ronald McDonald house! This is also one of the biggest runs in KC that I'm aware of (Trolley Run has been hovering around 12,000; the October KC Marathon may be the only race which eclipses it?). 

   The process is pretty simple: show up in a plain, white shirt. Line up in 1,000-person waves, which launch every 5 minutes, beginning at 7:30 am. Here we are lining up in a huge chute... in our nice, clean, white (but not for long!) t-shirts:

   Clouds of color marked the race in four "color stations", where volunteers douse you with giant squeeze bottles full of intensely-colored paint powder: yellow, orange, blue and pink! (This is pink, but it's so dense and hazy that you almost can't tell!)

The runners gathered to cheer on the others as they came in to the finish line:

Here's a montage of the color dust all over the road:

   So why is this run so happy?  Maybe it's the charity. Maybe it's the color. Or maybe because this event isn't timed? As we ran, we each carried along our personal color packet, given to each registrant (mine was super-intense-purple—but I never threw it. I saw a little boy without any and gave mine to him. He was thrilled!). At the finish line, everyone danced to the DJ and when he told us to throw our colors up in the air, we created a technicolor cloud over the mosh pit.
   It was awesome living it up with all the other Color People, including the sumo wrestler (how he didn't incinerate while running in that suit, I will never know!)

Oops, I used the same photo twice. No more wine while blogging!

   This race was all ages, all skill levels. Many people ran with their kids in strollers. (I swear, next year, I'm taking Taylor!) A few people decided to get extra color for the ride home by rolling on the ground. Color craziness, I tell you! It was a total blast & I would for sure do this run again!!!