The Color Run and Color Me Rad

I don’t know if this is happening around your way, but there’s been a lot of talk the past year or so about The Color Run and Color Me Rad 5K. How many of you have done one of those before? Anyone done both of them? I’d love to hear what your experience is with them.   

The two pictures above are of me at the Color Me Rad run. My lovely friend and 5K partner in crime, Christina, ran that one with me. As you can see, we had a great time!

This 5K is more of a fun run and isn’t timed. We left in waves of 15 minute intervals since there were so many people. This helped prevent the color stations from getting bogged down with crowds and gave everyone the chance to get color. The colors stations were absolutely amazing and just cannot be accurately described unless you were there. At some stations people just threw handfuls of color at you, but at other stations the cornstarch mixture was in water guns they sprayed you with. Even the people at the color stations looked like they were having a great time. I definitely felt like a kid again running around to all the color stations. The music helped keep everything light hearted and fun, and it was just an all-around good time.

They give you an extra color packet for the end of the race. At 15 minute intervals everyone rounds together in a circle and throws their color packets up in the air and it’s just a big huge cloud of color everywhere! This was definitely one of my favorite parts. My other favorite part was having my hubby wait at the finish line for me and Christina. We were so full of color he didn’t recognize us, and I was able to color bomb him! He was a good sport about it. 

I recommend not bringing a cell phone or camera, unless it’s properly protected. Blue, pink, purple, green, and yellow colored cornstarch, as you can imagine, can and will get everywhere. I recommend bringing a change of clothes or coveralls to wear home—this one was a big mess of awesome!

It took multiple showers and hair washes to remove all of the color from my skin and hair but it was definitely worth it! 

Now on to The Color Run. As you can tell by the name this is a similar run to the Color Me Rad. I participated in this 5K with my momma (pictured above), and my sister (the one taking the picture above). This run was fun, but mainly due to the company I had.

The Color Run is similar to the Color Me Rad in regard to the color bombing, color stations, intervals starts, and not being timed. Sounds like the same run, right? Wrong. The Color Run, in my experience, was leaps and bounds less fun than Color Me Rad. I think the most fun I had was when we saw a deer running down the street.

The picture above is after my mom and I had been color bombed several times. It just really wasn’t as messy or as goofy fun. I also noticed that the colors weren’t as vibrant, so they didn’t show up as well. Don’t get me wrong, we still had a good time. I just felt like people, even the ones color bombing, weren’t as into it. The pictures online for The Color Run look more like what I experienced at the Color Me Rad run. The Color Run boasts that it caters to everyone and that 60% of its registrants are first time 5K participants and range from ages 2 to 80.

Once again I also recommend not bringing electronics unless they are properly protected. This run also uses colored cornstarch. Hubby got color bombed by me at the end of this one as well.

If I had to pick one or the other I’d definitely recommend a Color Me Rad over The Color Run but that’s just my personal preference. I am signed up for The Color Run again in November so I’m looking forward to comparing the two and seeing if maybe the one I went to was just a dud. After reviewing the websites it appears that The Color Run may be more family oriented and the Color Me Rad is more crazy, party oriented—once again, just my opinion. When the first sentence of your “About” section (taken from Color Me Rad website) states, “When Zoloft and balloon animals can't seem to raise your spirits, the best way to brighten your life is to run Color Me Rad 5K,” you know you’re going to have a good time.