This recap won’t take very long to write. The race was a ridiculous mess. I signed up with several people as a team for the 9:20 wave. I ran with Artboy and couldn’t have been done fast enough.
We headed over to Marymoor Park slated to arrive about 30 minutes early. We were met with a line of cars waiting to get off the freeway, and then another slow line of cars to the parking lot. Of course, if the race didn’t run through the park’s parking lot, there might not have been so much congestion. We arrived about 9:45ish. We didn’t even bother to try to find our teammates. We just wanted to run and get out of there. Turns out a couple of them arrived even later than us, after 10!
Oh, and as we were in line for almost an hour, about 3/4 of the way to the parking lot, a volunteer from the park knocked on our window and told us it was $5 to park. There was no way out of the line, no way out of the park. We had to pay the $5. Luckily, I had grabbed my emergency running cash out of my run belt just in case. I had the $5 cash. No mention of having to pay to park in any of the race info, including the final email.
The view from the walk to the parking lot. Yes that’s a parking lot they weren’t using we’re walking through
At some point on this journey, I was concerned about missing our wave and not being allowed to start. Artboy mentioned how the bibs were assigned at random based on when you picked up. So obviously there was no way for anyone to even know what wave we should have been. I could have slept in. I also noticed runners with a bit of color running along the road we were snail crawling along. I started to question the course as well.
Cute girls in tututs running along the road as we sat in traffic!
We parked. We walked .92 miles to the start line, avoiding all the crap to the left that seemed like people throwing colors and maybe some vendor booths. I did stop at the Portapotty and it was out of toilet paper, as were the five next to it, so I gave up and used a seat liner. As we funneled into the start, I got hit on the back of the head with an bag of color. Sigh. I managed to duck or avoid the rest of the bags being thrown around.
After 5 minutes or so, we were off. Runners to the right, walkers to the left. It was a sidewalk; I don’t really know how anyone was supposed to move one way or the other. The course wound through fields and parking lots to the street and then back to the finish line. At several points, the course double backed on itself and people either out of laziness or sheer stupidity went the wrong way. I’d say 30% of the people who were running near me, skipped about 1/2 mile of the course at the first loop. And really, we should have as well; it’s not as if there was color or anything being thrown, just a pointless loop around a field.
Start!
Oh, and the color. I like color runs. I’ve tossed my fair share of color at friends. This one was different. It wasn’t just that colored corn starch that makes your shoes smell like a locker room. There were hoses of green food coloring being sprayed at us as we ran. So now I had powder, sweat, and green liquid forming an unpleasant goo on my body. The liquid was a small nightmare.
Artboy making his way through the color behind the gaggles of walkers.
We finished. Well, I went to run across the finish line and some guy turned around, ran directly into me, slammed into me really, rolled off of me, almost ripped my phone out of my hand (I was holding it and running ahead to take a finish line photo of Artboy), and then gave me a confused look: Why would someone be running behind me at a finish line? My two finish line photos have him slamming me and then me checking my phone to make sure it didn’t break. Great shots! Those were the only two photos.
We finished. Our mostly walking pace was 13 something or other, we finished in 40 minutes. I finished in front of any little bunny hopper runners I could find. Have to do at least that.
The chick giving water wouldn’t give me a water, so I went behind and got one out of the boxes. They had coconut water (I’m allergic) but no bananas or protein bars. We got in our car (after the .92 mile walk and a wipe down) and left.
I’m glad this was not my first color run, so I know that they can be better. I’m sure if I was 22, drunk, and with 30 friends, this would have been an awesome time. The most I can say is that the shirt is a well-fitting blue V-Neck. I might wear it!
Having fun at the CMY5K. A color run that was actually fun!
