color me bad

so, the color run.  because it's become such a popular "race," it's really more of a walk with the bazillion folks who register for it.  and for the bean, it became her first official 5K.

as i sat in the back seat of the minivan lilcee had borrowed from her folks, i noticed something on my bib - guess they're still using up a bunch of supplies from last year.

whatever.  we were still excited to have some fun.

pre-color.

by the time we arrived, most of the 10,000 people were already standing at the start line and waiting for the run to start.

lilcee and i seized this opportunity to go over and have our picture taken with the color run mascot, a unicorn.  who, i'm guessing in his confusion and limited visibility through that costume head, got all discombobulated as we posed together and inadvertently palmed my ass quite thoroughly.  i couldn't get away from it fast enough.

lots of folks in the crowd were already doused with color from head to toe.  pre-gaming, i suppose you could call it.

we were the very last wave to be released onto the course, and the announcer hopped up to toss out some final prizes via the air gun.

alas, we won nothing but the opportunity to finally start our 3-mile journey.  this is the first time i've been to this place in years.

after waiting around for so long, the bean was already complaining that she was tired.  i reminded her of how much walking she does at disneyland as we plodded along behind the rest of our crew.  and then the first color station proved to be a welcome distraction.

at the next one, she decided to lay down and make an orange snow angel.

her BFF mini cee was also not too big on this walking thing.  she spent most of the walk either riding on her daddy's shoulders or piggybacking with lilcee.  this was pretty much the only time she and the bean walked together.

yellow!

most people did not heed this sign.

my favorite color was the last station.  the bean decided to repeat her snow angel routine here.

with just yards to go, she finally pooped out and her sister gave in and carried her like a sack o'potatoes towards the finish line.

best group pics EVER.

yay, we finished!  and i was super proud of the bean for hanging in there for pretty much three full miles of walking.

i think she was pretty pleased with herself, too.

i knew quite a few folks who were coming to this thing, but we didn't actually see anyone until cousin seven came running up to us to say hello.

we were all pretty much over it and didn't bother to take part in the finish line color-bombing festival.  looked cool from afar, though.

as we headed back towards the parking lot, we decided to stop off with the dude wielding the gardening blower to get rid of some of the excess colored powder.

the start line was completely empty, ready for the next wave at 2:00 that afternoon.

like my blue 'stache?

too bad the bean ended up getting sick the next day.  she complained of a sore throat, and ran a low-grade fever.  i don't know if it had anything to do with the 5K at all, or if it was pure coincidence.  and luckily, it only lasted for a day.

i wonder how long it'll take her to agree to doing another one.  hmmm.

world of color

so i'd registered for the color me rad 5K out at the fontana speedway weeks ago, thinking it sounded like lots of fun.  from the looks of it, it was just a fun run/walk-type thing, with no timing chips involved.  and with the avon walk coming up this weekend (!!), i thought it might make for a nice training walk with the teen.  for me, if there's no clock to record my pace, it's not worth going balls-out,  especially since it was super duper hot.

since the hub was scheduled to be in the area the day before, he volunteered to save me a trip and head over to pick up our bibs and tees.  and we were pleasantly surprised to peer into the bags he brought home and find some extra goodies that he snapped up for us - fun knee-high socks and extra "color bombs" to toss at each other during the 5K.

the teen was none too pleased with me when i woke her up super early on a saturday morning.  with the first wave of runners scheduled to start at 8am, i wanted to get there with plenty of time to find parking and whatnot, so we were out the door at 6:45.

it wasn't too hard to figure out where we were supposed to go.

after finding a parking spot and pulling on the tutus i'd made, we decided to make good use of those "rad" temporary tattoos from our goody bags.

there was quite the impressive turnout of folks clad in white for this thing.

we stopped at the photo booth for a "before" shot.

and then had a nice lady take one with my phone outside.

despite the giant crowds, a friend from high school managed to find me to say hello.

being a huge "bachelor/ette" fan, i was bummed not to be closer to the stage when arie luyendyk jr. made an appearance.  i thought he was super cute, and that bachelorette emily was crazy not to pick him over that jef-with-one-f she ended up with (and apparently has already cheated on).

just past the start line, the route took us right to the infield area.  with a big race coming up, there were lots of folks camped out and partying like it was 1999 up in there.

we came upon the first colorbomb station pretty quickly - blue.

not long after that one, green.  at this one, it wasn't just colored cornstarch - these volunteers were armed with sprayers that splashed bright blotches of green on us from head to toe.

next up:  purple.

there was a water station set up about halfway through.  i don't typically wear my hydration belt for a 5K, but it was like the surface of the sun out there, so we joined the line for a cup.

too bad for us, though, because they ran out of freaking water before we got up there.  boo.  but i still look happy here, if not pretty stinking ridiculous.  par for the course, yes?

the final colorbombing was yellow.  these volunteers were having way too much fun with those sprayers.

mostly walking a 5K made it seem like it took forever, so i was really happy to finally see the finish line looming in the distance.  as we trudged along, sweating our asses off and creating bizarrely tinted rivers running down our backs, we totally side-eyed these chicks.  those things on their feet looked massively uncomfortable as they broke into a sprint and bounced on ahead of us.  craziness.

they saved the best color for last.

this crazy fool was straight up doing the freaking worm on the ground, trying to soak up as much color as possible.

and next to the final colorbombing area, firefighters perched atop their trucks happily picked up hoses and doused everyone with cool water.

here's our after shots, one pro and the other via the trusty iPhone.

this one would've been a great shot if not for the dude's finger in the way.  oops.  sorry, m'dear.

back at the car, we inspected the damage before toweling off as best as we could.  the tutus looked kinda cool.

my shoes escaped any serious damage.

but my nails.  ew.  good thing i was three weeks into my gel manicure and needed to go back in for a new one anyway.  they looked like a starbucks cup.

...which, of course, was a mandatory stop before heading home.

having seen lots of kids walking with their folks and riding in strollers, we decided that the bean gets to come with us next time.  she'd get a kick out of the colorbombing, and even better?  she'd get to go for free.

and we all know how much i love me some freebies.