Color Run San Francisco race report

Submitted by Brandie Garcia @BrandieCakez

Saturday morning and I'm waiting for Emily and Christina to get to my house by 8:15 so we can leave for the city for our run at Candle Stick Park. It's 8:18 and Christina shows up and tells me that Em just woke up. So we hop in the car and drive over to the next town to pick her up.

Both girls have an injury that Doctor's orders prevent them from running, but allow them to walk. I agree to walk the race with them; initially, Christina was my personal #run3rd dedication going into this 5k. Christina had gone to pick up our packets and shirts and she made sure that I got one of my favorite colors (teal or orange) as my color.

We were finally the next wave of people to go and the announcers helped to drown out the comments. The thing that I love the most about color runs is that they're just FUN. The events coordinators do such an amazing job. While you're in line waiting to go, the people commentating throw out goodies to the racers from wristbands, to frisbys, to drawstring backpacks, shorts, shirts, and sweatshirts—I'm telling you all the swag they sell they're throwing out for free! I got a wrist band from Emily before the race began, I thought that was really nice of her to pass off something she caught to me. It brightened my mood.

Once the race started we all moved over to the right which was the designated walker side. I thought that we would have a problem with walkers on the runners side, but surprisingly it was the other way around. I took the time to take the opportunity to look at my list I had of dedications and I started to tell both girls about the amazingness that is #run3rd. I told them how it works, about the people who had sent in dedications, and how motivating and uplifting this group of people from all over are!

They call it mello yellow! I just don't know what it is about that color but it truly does brighten your day and couldn't have come at a better time. Everyone was having fun, running through and getting color everywhere. We all walked out looking for each other with smiles on our faces ready for the next color.

Blue! Not all of the packets of color they pass out smell good, but if you're lucky to get one they're just like the smelly markers we had growing up. Yellow smelled like lemon and I could smell blueberry as we approached it. Best part was Blue was on the other side of the fence from where we were running... but the wind was blowing it our direction and covering us anyways. I remember seeing these two little African American boys just hanging on to the fence, and the both turned around to look for their family members and they were BLUE like SMURFs haha they were both pointing at each other and laughing. It was the funniest memory I have and my favorite.

We ran up the hill behind Candlestick park to my favorite color ORANGE. I asked them to get my entire hair covered in orange. It smelled like oranges, but they were running out of color. I saw a girl lay down and make a snow angel in the color on the ground. The trees in the area were no longer green, they were orange. It was an episode of Alice in Wonderland painting the roses orange instead of red. Just beyond the water station were volunteers spraying people. I thought it was like a mister to help cool off... nope, I was wrong. It was PURPLE wet color. It was dripping all over and looked so gross at first almost brown from mixing with the other colors. Once it dried, it was the best color we had on our shirts. I wish I had asked one of them to make a heart or a #run3rd sign on my back, oh well, theres always next time.

Back down the hill to blue we went and this was a fun part because the way the course was set up you run up a hill and come back down the other side. So you're able to high five all the runners running past you and everyone was taking their time to get in line to give supportive high 5s to complete strangers. This reminded me of the Run Disney events. Sometimes, you would get that one gross hand that was covered in sweat- all you can do is wipe it off and laugh.

It seemed like forever until the next color, and I saw a young girl on crutches. She only had one leg and she was literally almost done with the race!! I couldn't ever operate crutches when I had them from soccer injuries or even knee surgery! Here she was doing a 5k?!?! I led our group right up to that girl "Hi, I'm Brandie' I said, 'and I think that you're amazing for getting out here and doing this 5k you're a badass in my book!!! I don't think I could have ever thought of doing a 5k after my knee surgery! You're such an inspiration!" I told her a bit about #run3rd and asked her if I could run for her on my next race and she said she would be honored and she would check us out on twitter.

Before I knew it Pink was here and we stopped to get some pictures taken in front of the Pink signs. It was more of a coral color than pink, but I took my time making sure I had plenty of it on me. I don't remember what it smelled like, maybe bubble gum. Literally, a skip, hop, and step away was the finish line. People were posing for pictures throwing their color, grabbing their pretzels and moving on into the celebration area. There were tons of Taco trucks selling food and the lines were that of your favorite Disney ride on the 4th of July.


So we went to the stage and had fun dancing, singing, catching packets of color and throwing it all over us. I caught some free hand outs, I got a draw string bag and shorts that say 'paint this' on the bum. Christina got two fanny packs that say 'The Color Run.' We took tons of pictures if you have instagram you can follow me on there it's the same as my twitter handle BrandieCakez-   At one point I caught purple paint pack (all the paints are powder except for the purple we got sprayed with earlier) and I went to throw a bit on Christina's face to spot her like a dalmation and I accidentally didn't have it held tight enough so I threw almost the entire powder on her face. I felt so0o0o0o bad. It was in her eyes, nose, mouth- everywhere. I had to use my shirt to dig it out of her eye and she was crying purple tears! Lol she didn't hate me and luckily couldn't see right after it happened because she probably would have punched me. She was a good sport.

The fun part about the color run is the color. Running through it you get it everywhere. I literally spit the color of the rainbow that day. Everywhere you go after the race people want to know what you did, where, and how much fun it was. We always go out to eat after one of these races. You can get air blown off so the excess powder comes off which I would highly recommend. If you've never done one, bring towels to sit on in your car and baby wipes to wipe it off of anywhere or thing you don't want it on. Be careful though because at the celebration afterward by the stage they have designated color throw times, and during these powder is everywhere. If you have athsma or don't like to be covered in air you can't breath... you willl want to stay away from the middle of these sections. I'm glad I stuck it out and that it ended up being a fun time, I had to shampoo my hair an extra two times, but it was worth it.

I'm seriously considering doing the San Jose color run and trying to get a group of friends to go, the more friends you have the more fun this run is. If you're looking for a real 5k race then I would suggest you stear clear of this one, it's more for the fun of the color instead of actual running. If you're looking to have a fun time with friends and family of all ages, this is something that you can create lot of memories doing.