Kindergarten teachers are all sorts of colorful!!

Today I had the great opportunity to participate in The Color Run in Grand Rapids! (Michigan). It was a ton of fun and I got to share it with my friend!

I also thought I'd blog about the experience of doing a 5k, just in case you're like me: not in awesome shape and pretty much a newbie!!:)

So here's the story:

I signed up for this event a few months back, I had heard about it from some online friends. Sounded way cooler than some plain old 5k!!

I also liked that the color run advertised that it was not a speedy race, but more about FUN! (and who is more fun than kindergarten teachers?)

I talked my neighbor into doing the run with me. Let me say that Grand Rapids is about 1 hr 15 min drive from here......

So we had GRAND plans of training..Then summer and all the stickyness and busy schedules came!

So, I think we walked 2 times? We also did some zumba classes (toning and aqua, her much more than me!)

I offered to drive. The alarm was set for 5 am. OMGOODNESS! I NEVER get up at 5am unless I'm going to Cedar Point or Cancun!! LOL!

I did okay going to sleep early last night, until the thump thump of the dog in the bathtub at 2a.m..... Let her outside, then flopped for a good 30 minutes before falling asleep.

Checked the weather in the a.m.: It was a forecasted 71 degrees! How AWESOME!

Drove to GR and my neighbor (and awesome friend!) spotted a SWEET parking spot in a lot one block from the start! (and it was FREE! Teachers LOVE FREE!) The best part of the sweet spot is that we could grab our color run tshirt and put it in the car! Put our towels on the back of the car seats to prep for the ride home, and  slammed a 5 hr energy drink on the advice of my teacher friend, Ann. (she's not only a runner/super athlete, but she's a middle school science teacher, so she had to be RIGHT!) Here we are all pristine and white..LOL! 

We walked up to get checked in. The paperwork we were emailed said, "get there early! The lines will be long!" Well, apparently most of GR picked up their packets the night before! It was super fast and we had time to take pics, walk around and let this small bladdered teacher find the porta potties..

We lined up in Wave 2. Did I mention there was 11 THOUSAND people participating? Oh my goodness!! Tutus, bride dresses, babies, littles, bigs, so cool!

SO there I was, NERVOUS as ALL get out. I knew I couldn't run it. I had only jogged maybe a 5 minute stretch once on the treadmill when doing C25K earlier this year. I hadn't run more than 1/10 of a mile since probably college! So, we got all pumped with the music, and saw the first wave GO!

There we were...and then the second wave (US!) moved up and were off!

Did I say I don't run? Or really jog? Well, I totally impressed myself folks. I decided that no matter what I should start and end the 5k jogging!! So, we jogged most of the first kilometer. The first color explosion area came up pretty soon!!  It was purple (my favorite color! Go Kstate!) There is no explaining the color zones. Okay there is, but until you DO it, you won't really get it!:) You walk by and tons of volunteers use bottles of colored corn starch powder and spray it all over you! The first station wasn't too dusty!

Well of course right after that my right leg started having a shin splint issue. I walked as fast as I could and the 2nd color zone seemed to take FOR EV ER!! After we got pummeled with orange, I stopped and did some ankle circles and stretched for a second. Oh my that ankle was TIGHT!

So on we went. I jogged every down hill of the race:) We got blasted with Pink and Yellow:) It was super!! The weather was gorgeous and a bit cool was awesome!

One of the coolest parts was the road back when you saw later waves of runners with their VERY white shirts compared to our very NOT white shirts!!

We jogged one more downhill, and I pushed myself around the corner of the next light. We walked one block and then I realized we were close to the FINISH!

So I kicked it in high gear and RAN the rest of the way (when there was a clear path!) . It felt GREAT to run across a race line!!

Did I say I was proud of myself yet? It felt GREAT! (and truthfully , if my leg didn't hurt I could have jogged a lot more, breathing wise I was doing great!)

After we finished we moved up onto the plaza. Every 10 or 15 minutes they would do a color throw. Each runner got a packet of color. Brandy and I had already thrown ours, so we went up to benefit from the big throw. It was COOL, Crazy, and a bit scary for a second!:)

AND we got COVERED! (as you can see in my pic above!)

So, there it is, Kindergarten teachers ARE Colorful! (and I think I'll sign up for another 5k and run a bit more next time!!)