Color Me Rad "Race" Recap

Lessons from Color Me Rad Boston

1- Baby wipes are excellent at smearing the color around, but not that good at actually removing the color
2- They spray you with liquid color, which will soak through your shorts and create a really odd tied dyed pattern on your underwear
3- Your snot will be multicolored (or at least a weird shade of blue) for a good 24-48 hours
4- Wear a bandana around your nose and mouth (yeah, like a "bad cowboy"). It will limit the amount of horrible tasting stuff you inhale. It will not prevent Colored Snot (see item 3).
[Edited: Item 5-7 don't matter! Once you wash the clothing, all of the color comes out!  The only exception was on my husband's shirt. You can see in the photo where he sweat through his shirt, those areas kept the color. If your kids really want a souvenir, buy a tie dye kit and tie dye the shirts after the race.]
5- Soaking the colored clothing in vinegar, followed by ironing will fix the color, but will also turn what few white parts left on the clothing to an odd blue-green color. Use a spray bottle of vinegar if you want to preserve the pattern as is.
6- Wait until the clothing is completely dry after the vinegar soak and shake off the excess powder before ironing without steam.
7- When you iron the damp clothing or use steam during ironing and transfer the dye-vinegar paste to your iron, take a stack of paper towels and wet them, then iron the wet towels until your iron is clean again.



A very colorful family, post run. They may not look it, but they had fun!

All in all, it was a fun day. The race was short, as it was only 2.5 miles instead of the advertised 5K, which was a bit of a bummer. We had to get the boys up at 5 am, to get to the race at 630 for check in. It worked out well, as we got right into the parking lot and really didn't have a wait at the check in. Instead of waiting for the 830 heat we signed up for, we just jumped into the first wave, which worked out really well. I'm super proud of my boys (ages 5 and 7) for running the 2.5 miles in 37 minutes.

The course was in a mall parking lot, so it was not a very scenic course, but since we were there for the coloring, it really didn't matter all that much. We let the boys set the pace, and it was interesting seeing kids trying to run in a road race. Apparently, they can't run in a straight line yet. There was one near crash, but no one actually got injured, which was wonderful!

A few suggestions for the folks at Color Me Rad:

• If you bill it as a 5K, make it a 5K. Otherwise, just call it the Color Me Rad Run.
• Don't hide the whole "you have to pick up your bib the day before" in an attachment in the reminder email and in the FAQs. Announce it very clearly on the home page, the registration day, etc. And if you're going to have bib pickup the day of, say that as well. I had to find the info for same day pickup in a comment on the Facebook page.
• Don't have people register for a wave, if you then tell everyone to show up 45 minutes (if they got their bib or 90 minutes if they need to get their bib) before the first wave. Then completely ignoring all the waves and have starts every 5ish minutes just adds to the frustration. Just be honest, and tell everyone to get there between 630 and 8 am for check in, last person can cross the start line at 9.
• Tell the volunteers to aim for clothing not faces. The handful of blue dust in my hair and ear really didn't contribute to the cool tied-dyed effect on my shirt.