COLOR RUN

There are few things that you would be really excited to wake up early for on a Saturday morning. The Color Run is one of those things. Butler, Emma and Milly all met me at my apartment and we drove downtown together to the White River State Park. We immediately ran into Elise Ruby and her mom. This color wall is one of my favorite things downtown and so perfect for the color run.

My girls had to wait in ling for their race packets. Meanwhile I hung out with sisters Emily and Ava Peterson, their awesome mom and their friend Charity. Then I ran into Katie Pimmler--we'd just run into each other at Bob Goff on Monday and she'll be at Tecumseh all summer.

I did Color In Motion last year and it's basically the same thing, but Color Run claims to be "The Happiest 5K On The Planet!" I do have to say that the color run wins for tshirts and sweatbands.

Soon we gathered our whole gang. Taylor Fischl and Taylor Hoftiezer arrived and we united the Tecumseh and Young Life girls. Things are more fun when you do them in a pack.

Music was blaring in the park pre-start and people close to the stage were doing Zumba. We took the opportunity to take pictures while we were still clean. Then we followed the giant conga line to the start and danced/walked/sang our way to the front. 

Kiersten Peterson was our fabulous photographer the whole morning and she got so many fun pictures. We did our best cheer leading stunts.

Emma jokingly told Milly to throw her bag into a tree near the start. Of course Milly accepted the invitation and chucked it up there. Unfortunately the bag held our sweatshirts and assorted other things. I made a quick plan--Emma and I lifted up Butler and she poked and hit the bag with a giant stick until it fell down. Apparently everyone in the crowd had been watching because they clapped and cheered when we got the bag back.

From the start we ran to the first color which was maybe a minute down the road. We got covered in pink right away which is fabulous color to start with. 

When you go through each color spot there are volunteers with basically giant ketchup bottles with the tops cut off spraying the powder in the air at you. It creates this cloud of the color that you can see from a distance. 

We developed a perfect color catching method last year that I passed on to these girls. Rather than getting just a squirt of color we all laid down and rolled in the excess color on the ground. It's awesome. 

We stayed hydrated along the way, even had a spitting contest. We cheered on participants for a little while which was confusing because we were obviously doing the 5K too.

As we walked we sang High School Musical, all of the Tecumseh Unit Cheers, the DC Field Trip cheer and anything else we could think of. We did not run. These friends were all so fun to play with this morning.

I'm thankful for CILT girls that I get to see all year long. Girls like Taylor, T Fish and Emily that take opportunities and aren't afraid to get a little purple.

I'm thankful for Young Life girls like Emma, Butler and Milly that make me laugh and are rather ridiculous most of the time. They make life more fun.

I heard, "Is that Miss Wright?!" behind me and turned around to spot Isa and Cailin, two of my old students that are now Juniors in HS. I love running into people in the midst of really fun things like this.

We walked through the blue on the bridge and it sufficiently covered all of our colors. While we waited for the YL girls to catch up we had time to take more pictures. We just couldn't take one that wasn't fun.

Can you read this?

We were going for JOY.

Near the last part of the run I spotted Mrs. Cooper, another English teacher from my building that Emma and Milly had in class last year.

At the finish of the race everyone gathered by the stage to throw up color packets about every 15 minutes. We all automatically got a packet of color and then they kept throwing more out into the crowd. You can see all the individual colors for about a second before it turns into this thick fog of color. 

It is seriously so fun. We kept saying it would be amazing to be able to do this at Tecumseh in the summer. Anybody know how to get a couple barrels of color?

By the time we left we were beyond covered in the powder. All the girls had started blending together and we started getting worried it might never come off.

The Color Run was definitely a major success. I would happily do it again next year.

I said good-bye to all the camp girls and took one more picture before we headed out.

They have a station of people with leaf blowers that blow a lot of the excess powder off so you don't totally wreck your car. It definitely helped but didn't get us all the way clean by any means. We though ahead to bring beach towels for the seats so my car was fine.

Milly, Emma, Butler and I stopped at Steak n' Shake for lunch. We got plenty of stares in the restaurant and one mom came over to ask us about the race because she had thought about doing it. We washed our hands in the bathroom before we ate but got a little nervous when barely any color came off. Maybe this would become a permanent thing.

Luckily all the color did come off and I was back to normal by the time I headed South to Greenwood for Jamie night! One of my great friends, Jamie Z, is getting married in a month and a half and tonight we got to celebrate her. We met for dinner first--Jamie's sisters, cousin, soon to be sister in laws, a friend from college, and two other camp friends and I. We talked around the big table and ate delicious food.

We went back to her sister Jenna's house to eat desserts, open presents and do some canvas art. I love when there is a project to do and we all got to chat while we worked on our own piece. I'm thankful for time to hang out with Katherine, Mel and especially Jamie Z tonight. We're so excited for her and KJ and can't wait for their wedding later this summer!