Color Mania!

(Photos from the event were posted earlier.)

Way back in May, my girlfriends were talking about running a 5K similar to The Color Run, called Color Mania. They invited me join them and I looked into the date. I needed to be in the Houston area on August 10. We normally take a second summer visit in August and Ryan and I decided that would be a good time to go. I went ahead and purchased my ticket.

The Friday before, two of the girls and I headed to Houston for the evening to pick up our race packets and check into our hotel. We drove, literally, across the city a couple of times because nothing is ever convenient in Texas. We had dinner at Papasitos, picked up some extra things from Walmart and crashed for the night.

We woke up early, ate a little breakfast, got dressed and headed to the location for the 5K. It was planned to be at Reliant stadium, but changed at the last minute to a BMX/dirtbike dirt track. Okay... Once we got out of the car, it was hot, humid, sticky, and gross! There were markedly fewer people participating in this run than The Color Run.

Once we started walking, we knew it was going to be rough. I'd expected an experience much like TCR - an easy walk on flat concrete. Since it was a dirt track, there were tons of walking climbs, small hills and odd turns. Some of those hills were difficult to get over because the dirt was loose. About a third of the way in, I felt nauseous because of the heat and humidity. I knew I should have brought my own cold water.

Two of the girls were walking faster, but Robin walked with me. She's my hang-back buddy. She walked with me on the beach looking for shells and glass while a couple of other girls walked ahead of us. Anyway, we had our own fun! At one point, we emerged from the part of the track that was in a wooded area (thank goodness!) and were told we were too clean and totally got bombarded with paint.

Two thirds of the way in, one of the girls had to stop early. Robin and I pulled through and finished with a huge amount of paint coving our entire bodies. We finished with a bit of a jog - and our cheer squad named Amanda. There had been one paint throwing party that went without a hitch. However, our wave decided they wanted to open their paint and play with it before the run started and we didn't have much of a paint party. Just a dance session just before it started raining. My girls and I saved our packets and had our own paint war. Then it POURED. Jess and I played in the rain a bit but we had to walk back to the car in the downpour. We could barely see with the paint running down our faces into our eyes.

This run was amazing!
I really loved having friends there to share the fun with me.
I've signed up for two more. November's Color Run in Dallas and December's Run or Dye in Arlington.