Imagine a 5K run where they don’t bother giving you a timing chip, nor organising you into time-segmented corrals despite thousands of participants at the start line. Instead, you’re instructed to turn up in your tennis whites, ready to get clobbered by The Colour Bomb Squad. Losing would mean finishing the race clean. Winning happens to those who come out looking like a tie-dyed hippy batting flecks of coloured corn starch from their eyelashes. This is “Color Me Rad”.
Colo(u)r Me Rad is a ridiculously fun event – we had such a blast! Check out the video above to see the action. Shout out to the crew from Dave’s Run Club at Lululemon St. Catherine, and to the peeps at my Lululemon store on Greene Avenue (where I’m a proud Ambassador). So cool running with you guys!
Now, this was a proper event after all and for the record, a well executed operation. Packet pick-up was a breeze. The staffers were cool. The official race shirt is a casual cotton tee with a sweet design – I’ll actually wear it. We also got some cool sunnies and a “RAD” temporary tattoo. The event course was well marked. Plenty of Porta Potties at the start. I didn’t use the coatcheck, but it was available, for free. Starting and finishing at the Olympic Stadium gave the event a cool backdrop. All in all, solid marks for a well-run event.
Now, a few tips for those who plan to do an event like this:
- Don’t come planning to “run a good time”. You’ll have to time yourself for starters, and more importantly, you’ll be missing the point. Get a crew of friends together and come ready to get messy!
- There are a lot of people and believe it or not, you kinda can’t rely on getting lucky to get coated with colour. If you wanna come out looking like you just went to war against an army of Skittles, get in front of the volunteers who are hurling colour powder and shout for some love. They’ll happily oblige. Sometimes with an entire box of it.
- Bring a waterproof / dirtproof camera so you can capture the action and some priceless shots on the course. I ran with a GoPro Hero HD. A ton of people carried their smartphones in ziplock bags which worked fine. A few carried smartphones without ziplock bags. Not sure those phones still work…
You might be wondering how you clean all that colour off. Well, it comes off pretty easily, but 36 hours post-race and my buddy Dave’s inner ear is still stubbornly blue and my feet look like they’ve actually been tie-dyed. It’s not for lack of scrubbing, let me tell you. Oh, and we’re still blowing blue boogers! Might sound gross, but it’s kinda like what you’d get if you surfed a rainbow and got dunked – souvenirs of a great day.
Would I recommend? Absolutely. It was Canadian Thanksgiving (Sunday, October 7th) and getting together with a big crew of mates to run and laugh our heads off was the perfect way to get it started. And, looking back over the 2012 race season which included obstacle races, half marathons and other more intense physical challenges, this was a fun way to cap it off before we start thinking about winter sports.
Dave, TK and me