I Am Iron Rad! (Race Recap)

Tyla and I started a team for Color Me Rad, a 5k event held in Winnipeg on Sat July 20th with a second event opened for Sun July 21st.  As you run the race, you get painted a multitude of bright colors in the form of a starch based powder.  We each recruited friends who in turn recruited friends, etc.  Our team Did Someone Say RUM? grew to 29 members.  Unfortunately closer the the event, 5 people had to drop out and we were able to replace them with 4 others.  Thursday marked the first day you could pick up your race kits.  Race kit pick up was held at the Convention Centre (for those not from or familiar with Winnipeg, that is down town).  I was not please with this choice of location.  For one, it's busy.  Two, you have to pay for parking.  Three, other events that I've participated, race pick ups were in a lower traffic area with free parking and you can run in quickly and leave.  Sure it's convenient for those who work down town, but I was driving back to the city from the cabin.  Now I have to deal with traffic and trying to find a place to park.

I paid for 30 min of parking, thinking that was more than enough.  I got into the Convention Center and it was a mad house.  Thinking it would be a quick in and out was quite ambitious.  I may have waited about 15-20 min and grew worrisome of my parking expiring.  I finally got to the front of the line and picked up race kits for myself, Sandra, Steve, Crystal and Carolyn.  This included bibs, shirts, sunglasses and temporary RAD tattoos.  I also picked up a pair of orange Color Me Rad socks and some guy behind the table told me they were $8.  I paid him $10 and waited for my change.  Before he could get to the register, some girls asked him about shoes and if the color will stain them or something.  He then put his leg up on a chair and was explaining something about his shoes and how the color will brush off.  I wasn't paying attention, because my patience was wearing.  Just give me my change already so that I can go to the next table and collect the shirts and glasses for the kits.  Now one of the girls behind the table joined the conversation saying the guy has been putting his foot on the chair all day because he loves showing off his calves.  He was claiming he was showing off his shoes.  Well he finally got me my change and I was able to collect the rest of the race kit.  I hurried back to my car and arrived with a couple minutes left on the meter.  Needless to say, worse race kit pick up experience ever.  

I got home and took the above pick.  I then wanted to try on the not so knee high, socks.  One size fits all, so they say.  I put on the right one and it run well below my knee and was tight around my calves.  As I attempted to try on the left sock, all of a sudden my left index toenail snagged.  My nail that turned purple from my Fargo half was hanging from the corner.  No!  Not now!  I have a race to do on Saturday.  Upon further examination, I realized my toe felt no pain and like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, another toe nail had grown underneath.  I can only hope that the same thing happens to my right index toe.
  
Fast forward about 36 hours to Saturday morning.  I got up at 7am, got ready and picked up Crystal at 7:50.  The plan was for everyone to meet the team at the Ex grounds at about 8:20, giving us an hour before the race.  I got an orange star helium balloon to use as a beacon so that everyone can find us easily.  This was Sandra's idea.

Just follow the orange star balloon

We took the perimeter, but as we were nearing the grounds, traffic got crazy.  It was down to a single lane along the cloverleaf due to construction and traffic was crawling.  We made the decision to exit right, back into the city and Uwie to avoid the back log.  Well, traffic through the city wasn't much better.  After being stuck at one set of lights while moving only one car length per green for maybe 10 minutes, I made my way to the inside lane to bypassed a lot of traffic and snuck back into the outside lane.  Traffic coming off the cloverleaf was slow, but once we got passed that bottle neck, we started moving at a decent pace.  We arrived about 8:45 and met up with Carolyn at the front gate.  I gave her her race kit and we suited up.  My main accessory was an Iron Man mask which I painted white and light grey as seen in pictures below.  We warmed up with Zumba at the Energy 106 stage while they shot purple powder into the crowd.  Slowly some of our team members located our Star Beacon.  Laura, Marissa and Taylor had now joined us.  Taylor had managed to forget his bib, but having picked up the remaining 4 kits the previous day, I had extras (knowing at least two weren't showing up).  Unfortunately they were in the car.  Taylor and I jogged back to my car and retrieved the bibs.  I decided to pin the other 3 to my side in case someone else showed up.  

Pre race, all nice and white (or blue :S) - Taylor, Marissa, Crystal, Laura, Me, Carolyn

Catherine arrived shortly after and her friend had also forgotten her bib.  So I gave her one of our extras.  9:20 was nearing and only a quarter of our team was here.  Sandra texted saying she and Steve were stuck in traffic.  We went to the starting line and waited for them to release us in waves.  We started off in a slow jog as volunteers threw blue powder at us.  We approached the 1km mark and slowed down as there was a short line up to get blasted.  This time they threw purple powder at us.  People started rolling on the ground (which was covered in plastic) in order to take in more color off the ground. We got back into a jog and carried on.  Towing the Star beacon, a girl ran up beside me and asked me "has anyone told you that you're a star today?".  I responded "no, not yet".  She then told me "well you're a star" and I said "thanks", as she and her friend accelerated and ran ahead.  Unfortunately I didn't see her in the crowd after the race and probably should have ran up with them for a bit.  Oh well.

We approached field terrain which had a wide path mowed through.  The second check point  featured a green spray.  We ran through getting blasted with the green paint.  Crystal isn't much of a runner, so Laura and I slowed to a walk occasionally with her.  We eventually lost Carolyn, Taylor, Marissa, Catherine and her friend.  Check point 3 had bottles of water and now red powder, or was it pink?  I couldn't really tell with our Rad sunglasses on.  Either way, I told the volunteers to throw it to my face to cover my mask.  We walked a bit and chatted.  Frosty was standing on the side with his friend and called my name.  He couldn't see faces from far, but some how picked out my voice out of a crowd.  They walked with us for a bit, then we went into a run and he waited for some friends. 

The 4th check point was again a spray, this time we got a dose of yellow.  As I ran through, I spun around, making sure my back was sprayed.  Now we were back on a gravel path as we snaked around some parking lot areas.  Before we knew it, we were approaching the finish line.  We met up with Marissa, Angela and her sister, Jacquie and her friend and decided to line up for the photo booth.  It was a long line so I took the balloon in hopes to find more team members while they waited.  Taylor and Caroline found us and we took a pic.  I had also lined my phone with a modified ziplock and tape to protect it dust damage.  With the sun so bright, it was difficult to see while taking pictures or viewing them afterwards.  I suppose there was powder on the plastic covering the lens, causing my pics to appear a bit foggy. 

Post race - Back - Me, Angela's Sister, Angela, Laura, Mariss - Front Carolyn, Crystal

 Afterwards, we walked around looking for more members.  Sandra was going to catch a ride home with me, so we needed to find her eventually.  We did split up a bit and a few of us got a smoothie samples from the McDonald's booth.  We also saw people raiding some boxes of bright yellow volunteer Color Me Rad shirts and we each got one ourselves.  We ended up back to the Energy 106 stage and partied as they played music, threw swag into the crowd and everyone launched color packs.  By now, more team members found us by way of the Star Beacon.  Great idea Sandra!  We were now reunited with her, Steve, Dave, Steph, Tyla, Danelle, Natasha and Marci.  We took more pics and enjoyed the colorful dance party.  

Back - Steve, Crystal, Sandra, Laura, Me - Front - David, Marissa

Photo bombing - Crystal, Sandra, Steph

Me, Marci, Marissa, Steph, Natasha, Danelle

After a while, teammates decided to leave for other commitments.  Some had to work, others were playing volley ball at Super Spike.  I left with Crytsal and Sandra and headed toward my car.  We toweled off as much color as we could, removed some of our colorful clothing and placed them in garbage bags.  We then lined my car seats with blankets and towels to protect them from staining.  Exiting the Ex grounds was a lot easier than entering and made our way home a lot quicker than arriving.  This was a very fun event.  It gets people out being active, we get blasted full of color and people dress up in fun costumes.  I definitely want to do this again next year.  What I would do differently is to get up earlier, convene at a common location and car pool.  Although I enjoyed the run with the company I had, it would have been even more fun had we all ran together.  With the traffic and the late arrivals of team members, we all ran at different times. 

Love this Ript design.  Plan to add today's shirt to my collection.  Mash up of Bad Robot's production company logo and Megatron.