Color in Motion 5k

This weekend was my FOURTH color run!  I represented this weekend by wearing a shirt from each brand of run that I have done!  When we picked up our run packets on Friday night, I was wearing The Color Run's shirt, then after we were done Color in Motion-ing, I represented with my Color Me Rad shirt.  It was definitely a colorful weekend!

Teh Greyhound Neighbors (wife and daughter, tGN-w/d) were my accomplices for this run.  Not having Miss Reflective was a change for me, since we always run together.  tGH-w found the Color in Motion 5k, so props to her since I had never heard of it.  She also found us Groupon coupons for the run, which meant that going was definitely happening!

We headed into DC Friday afternoon.  First stop was packet pick up where the line was almost out the door at the Sports Authority (where I've picked up packets before).  Queue unimpressed moment #1.  Not even The Color Run had a line halfway to do the door and I felt like The Color Run was a bigger race?  Maybe I'm wrong.

After packet pickup, we headed towards our hotel to check in, then made for the Metro to get dinner.  I had suggested Serendipity 3 in Georgetown, and since none of us had eaten there before, it was agreed on.  The worst thing about Georgetown in DC is that there's no Metro stop there.  We were reading on our phones about how to get there and we saw "Farragut" and ended up at Farragut north, at which point we learned that there are 2 Farragut stops... on different lines.  DC newb moment #1.  We had to get back on the Metro, switch lines again, and trek 1/2 a mile into Georgetown, but we finally made it to dinner.

Bacon cheeseburger with egg.  Nomnomnom.
Don't hate the egg till you try it.  It's delicious.

NOT a peanut butter frzzen hot chocolate.  I'm not sure what the guy in the kitchen thought he was doing, but this order was incorrect 2x and they actually didn't charge me since I wasn't satisfied, which was a plus for our waitress who had managed to incorrectly put in my entree order.

After giving up on life customer service, we were tired so we started the trek back to the hotel, with a stop at Marshall's since I forgot... underwear.  Seriously, Teh Megan?  Who forgets underwear?  Pretty sure we went into the snazziest Marshall's I've ever been in.  The Pentagon City Marshall's stock and name brand selection was HUGE and high-end.  I wanted to do all the shopping, but they were closing 20 minutes after we arrived and I had to pee so bad I was doing the dance anytime I stopped moving.

After acquiring new undies, we headed back to the hotel to try and figure out where we were going to get on the Metro Saturday morning since there was going to be construction.  After showers and storytime, we all passed out.

Saturday morning, we got up and got ready, had breakfast at the hotel, then headed towards the Pentagon (which was the closest I've ever been btw) to catch the Metro.  We thought we were going to be late, but the after switching trains we found LOTS more of our people!  There were so many people in white shirts at the Armory-Stadium stop that it was like a river flowing out of the ground when we all went up to street level.

The Color in Motion was very interesting.  We walked the whole thing due to tGH-w's "LLD" (light-limited duty for you non-Navy) status.  Not that she's in the Navy, I just like giving things Navy terms.  Whatevs.  The track was in the parking lot of the DC United Stadium.

I forgot to start my RunKeeper at the start line.  Oops.
Then I forgot to turn it off until after we were leaving...  Oops.

Clean photos required!

Being color blasted in your ear?  OUCH.
I still have pink coming out of that ear.
I had to get tGN-d to keep blowing in my ear to get the powder out.

After our first color zone!!

After our 2nd color zone..  That's my not impressed face.  I had barely any green.

The last color zone!

Post last color zone!!

Our fronts.

Our backs!

I looked like Sleeping Beauty's dress when the fairies have the color fight...

Please excuse the awful dutch angle.
A color toss on a gorgeous day!

While waiting on a color toss, we were dancing at the after party.

And there was this guy...

We do it Indian style in America.

tGN-d got the last mustache (yes this mustache might have been in my purse since the last Color Run).

Color happiness.

tGN-d all colored up.

tGN-d accidentially got tGN-w in the face with the green...
I completely understand her pain.

tGN-d also got green in my non-pink ear.  Ouch.
She had to blow some of this out as well.

Waiting on a color toss..

Final product before standing in front of the fans.

"clean"

On the Metro!  We started getting funny looks after we switched trains.

So spotty!

Can I just give a shoutout to the best camera ever?  I mean, my "new" point and shoot has now been through FOUR of these color runs.  Despite the powder all over the lens and in the buttons, she carries on, faithfully.  I'm sure that this does impact the life of the camera in some way and one day I'll be disappointed when she finally bites the dust (haha dust, like colored powder, get it?), but my last Canon point and shoot lasted almost 10 years.....

As for an assessment of the Color in Motion 5k....  eh.  I didn't leave feeling super impressed.  There were good and bad things.  Let me list them for you.

Good:

-It wasn't a dirt track (like Color Me Rad in VA Beach).
-It was in DC, which is close to home.
-At water points, there were hoses hooked up to pipes which were running continuously instead of wasting cups and having to have someone there to man the water station and someone afterwards to clean up all the cups that didn't make it into the trash bins (99.9% of them, it's not a marathon people, its a color run, get your trash in the bin!).
-Lots of open space on the track and the "party" area, so it was easier to avoid running into people and passing walkers was VERY easy for the runners (although we definitely tried to stay to the right).
-LOTS of porta potties at the start/end line (not that I used them because I learned my lesson at the last Color Run when I went in one after the race and ended up gagging myself out of the potty before I could even pull my pants down) and a few scattered around the course.
-They used the cell phone credit card thingies for purchases.
-LOTS of free stuff.  We actually caught: a t-shirt, a sweatband (which I gave away), and a color packet.
-There was security around the track (maybe this was because there was a game later in the day?) and they were motivating the participants!  AWESOME!
-Trash cans set up in the middle of the party areas for water bottles/empty powder packets.
-The concept of a bag check.
-4 powder color zones

Bad:

-It was in a parking lot so the track was sometimes difficult to navigate if there weren't people in front of you to lead the way via the people in front of them.
-Parking if you drove, but we didn't, so this didn't really apply.
-Wasting water (but this probably isn't as bad as the expense of the cups/cleaners, so this was negated).
-They used the cell phone credit card thingies for purchases and I'm not sure if these people were experts quite yet.
-LINE to pick up registration packets.  When we left Sports Authority, the line was out the door and down the sidewalk.  When picking up packets for The Color Run, we were there around the same time..  I do not remember a line longer than a few people EVER.  NOT impressed.
-People were snarky about NOT winning stuff.  WTF people?  get a grip.
-The cones to mark the track were kind of a hazard.. especially if you're turned around trying to scope out "the girl with the shaved head".....
-The concept of a bag check.  The line was a million years long.  From what it looked like, the bags were just being put in an enclosed area that was going to be supervised.  ALL THE BAGS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE.  There didn't seem to be a very good accounting of where bags were, judging from the folks that were circling inside the enclosure after the race looking for their bag.  The line was too long for us, we were going to check a bag, but instead I carried it around the track instead so we didn't have to wait in the line.
-Not letting waves go at quicker intervals.  We felt like we were ALWAYS waiting.  I understand wanting to get the participants pumped up, but we stood in the start zone for at least 30 minutes.  We did 2 count downs during that time for.. I'm not actually sure what we were counting down to... I was annoyed before we even started the race because of how long we were waiting and we actually jumped to the front of the line so we didn't have to wait so long.  I can't imagine how long we would have had to wait if we hadn't jumped into the starting zone.
-Small children tossing the color at the color zones.  Yes, its cute that your kids want to volunteer, but if I'm paying to get colored, your 3-8 year old probably isn't going to do it for me.  Your 13 year old, yes, definitely.  That's probably that kid who pink-ed my ear... but I was a walking breast cancer ad, that kid did his job WELL.  The orange and green color zones were so weak we didn't even stop to take a photo...
-Short color zones.  I'm used to very looooong color zones so that way you definitely get some color if someone has stepped back to refill their color container-thingy.  Not everyone at the zone would be at the refill station at once (like the green zone).  The zones were maybe 15-25 feet long.  If I had been running, it would have taken me a second to get through this, and that would explain why some people looked like they hadn't even ran the course.
-No color toss after we finished (right at 11ish).  We crossed the finish line right as a toss was going on (see photo above taken at 10:55am).  We waited 45 minutes for another color toss (since we had kept our color packets like you're supposed to).  Nothing.  There were several countdowns, again, for what I'm not sure.  There were people up on stage dancing and throwing out free stuff, but no color toss for 45 minutes?  Unimpressed moment #most significant.  This was Teh Greyhound Neighbor's first color run so I really wanted them to get to experience a toss, but we were getting irritated at waiting and waiting and waiting (and with the wife's prior military experience and my military experience, we're used to waiting...), but this was unreasonable.  Before we finally just tossed our color solo, we had several people come up to us asking for us to sprinkle them with the colors we had, so we obliged.  Then we tossed and left.

Overall, I'm not sure I'd do another Color in Motion run.  Obviously, there was a lot more bad than good for me.  Then again, I know I can be super critical.  We did go and have fun and got colored and we did some dancing and we all got to giggle in the shower when the water was brown and we all had blue boogers.


Linking up with all these ladies: