A year down under: The Color Run

Before anyone says anything smart, they spell it the American way because that's where it started. I know how to spell colour. Now that we're clear on that, this morning's little mooch around Langley park was so much fun! Another item on the 'Australian bucket list', I'd seen photos of the kaleidoscope of colours from various friends and family in the states and decided I had to do it in Perth when it branched out to Australia this year. Better to do it here in the blazing sunshine than have to travel all the way to London to run in the fog eh? I was going to do it solo, but then I managed to convince the lovely Tamasin to join me as a celebration of freedom after she handed in her honours thesis this week. Also, Lucy was planning on doing it with all her friends from her UWA halls.

Considering the absolute failure on Transperth's part ("free public transport for all runners"... except the first ferry won't get there until after the start), Tamasin picked me up at a startlingly early 6:45am to give us enough time to head into the city and find a parking space. Luckily, we found a free one (bonus!) right outside the entrance to the event in Langley Park, looking straight out across the river at my home in South Perth. I'd skipped breakfast with the intention of finding some nutritious delight at a food stall, but unfortunately the closest I got was a coffee and a nut cookie from the coffee tent. We were a little concerned about feeling sick while running after our slightly rich breakfast, but were reassured and appaulled when we spotted others walking towards the stage for the warm up munching on kebabs and nachos from the takeaway stands. At 7am. So disgusting!

The warm up was introduced by a man dressed as a unicorn, or "Runicorn" as he was punnily named, before the motivational music kicked in and a group of ultra hot chicks started gyrating at us for the Zumba warm up. By this time it was probably 30 degrees and each of the six of them did a warm up track; I felt like I'd done a full workout before the start gun went off! As the warm up finished, we made our way to the start line. I couldn't quite hear whether the unicorn said there were 16,000 or 60,000 people there, but there were a lot of people. To avoid a bottleneck, they let groups of 1,000 go every five minutes and we were in the third wave. The countdown reached zero and off we went amongst the sea of perfectly white shirts; I was surprised to find that with only one trial run I found the course pretty easy, even in the considerable heat. At each kilometre mark we were pelted with blue, pink, orange and yellow powder by volunteers. There was something very satisfying about getting really grubby in the clouds of colour and I'm sure the staff armed with colour cannons found it very cathartic! Before we knew it, we were back in the field for the finishing festival. At this point we were reasonably colourful, but nothing compared to what we'd be after weaving our way back out of the crowds.

Everyone was given a colour packet in the goodie bag with plenty more being thrown into the crowd by those on stage. Every fifteen minutes or so, they did a countdown and people threw their colour in the air, creating beautiful clouds. I say beautiful; after the pitch black that descends initially and the coughing and spluttering caused by the inhalation of powder paint, your eyes start working again and you're free to enjoy the spectacle. At one point I turned to my left and who was standing next to us but Lucy and her friends! It was good to catch up with them amidst getting pelted in the face with a lump of paint, before they disappeared home. We then abandoned the finish festival, dusted ourselves off as best we could by the car, hopped in and headed home.

My kit, after a hefty cycle in the washing machine, is now free of every colour but purple and blue, which are clearly a little more potent. It doesn't bother me though; the shirt looks very pretty and the remaining splashes on that and my brand new running shoes will serve as lovely memories of the day. What does bother me, however, is the fact that I've had two showers this afternoon, yet my ankles, wrists, hairline and for some cruel reason nose still refuse to come clean. The mix of colours combined with the failed attempts at scrubbing has caused these areas to turn a dirty red colour, so I sure hope I'm clean on the third try before I have to go to work. Happy days! I had such an incredible day and I hope that the photos reflect just how awesomely mental it was. Back to reality now though...