The Color Run in London

Actual date of this event: 28 September

The Color Run? It's totally old news nowadays. BUT I never had the opportunity to participate in one until recently (like 9 months ago - hah!). These fun runs became popular just a few months before Luke and I moved overseas. All of my friends gathered for the Color Run in New Orleans while Luke and I were preparing for our move. That was three years ago. Wow - THREE YEARS AGO. Since then, a million other types of runs - Color, Black Light, Bounce House, etc - have started up. When I heard that the Color Run was coming to London, I jumped on it! Finally!!

Luke and I were joined by our friends Sara, Mike, and Faye. We hopped on the tube to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where the 2012 Olympic Game were based. This was our second time visiting the park, the first being the Vampire Weeks and Mumford & Sons concert two years ago - wow, TWO YEARS AGO. Thankfully, we were blessed with a gorgeous late-September day. It was a tad chilly in the morning, but the sun and run warmed us up quickly.

Everyone gathered in a car park where a DJ was preparing the runners for the 5k - stretching, dancing, stretching, jumping, stretching, and more dancing. Sounds fun, right? Um, it wasn't all that to be honest. When the race began, everyone started funneling to the start line. A large group would go, and the rest would be held back. While waiting, the volunteers of the run tossed colored glasses, t-shirts, etc out to the crowd.

It was nice to get moving once we finally did! And we eventually reached the 1k mark where would receive our first color of PINK. I decided to take this party to the next level and twirl my way through the color splash. Bad idea. As I finished a twirl, a huge chunk plopped right in my eye. Ooops. Quite painful! Luke had to wipe some off so I could open my eye. I learned my lesson though to NOT twirl through, and instead, skip through each one :-)

I am not sure what it was, but my Color Run experience was not at all like I pictured it. I pictured a huge group of people being lively and fun and goofy and energetic. I honestly felt as if I was the only one. Where was the party? Was everyone still asleep? Was a 3.1 mile snail-paced jog too much for everyone? Was everyone too mature to have fun? Did the Color Run company lie about how HAPPY it is? Or maybe it is just a London or British thing? The happiness felt non-existent. I did my best to make my own fun, but it was really difficult. I just hopped along hoping it might get better.

We finished the trot and were given our color pack. All of us ended up with purple or blue or whatever it was. That was disappointing since we couldn't splash each other with different colors.

We headed to the after party where the crowd was pretty thin. We decided to use our color packs on each other rather than break them in the rest of the crowd

Then we decided it was time for a drink, so we left that party to make our own! The Color Run provided everyone with a poncho to wear on the tube so the colored powder wouldn't get all over the seats. None of us brought our ponchos since we didnt mind standing. Unfortunately, the non-color runners didn't pay attention to us and did the ole tube-ride-shoving causing them to get color on their clothes - ooops. Anyway, it wasn't as much fun as I expected, but it was a good reminder that things don't always go as planned.

Have you done the Color Run? What was your experience like?

RANDOM FACT:
The Color Run is an American company which is why "color" is not spelled "colour".