The Color Run ~ Tallahassee

I'm not sure my weekends can get any better than they have been lately! Lots of time with family friends, mostly involving football! Yesterday, we skipped watching College Game Day and headed to downtown Tallahassee for The Color Run. 

To be honest, when they announced The Color Run was coming to Tallahassee we were a bit surprised. None of the races like that have ever come to town so we were pretty excited to be able to participate in a fun like this in our own hometown! Riley was especially excited to be able to run this race with us, he was a little jealous when we did our first color race in Jacksonville last year. About a month ago a little rumor started flying that The Color Run organizers were having trouble with the permit because the city was concerned with about all the color product getting in the drains; therefore, causing issues with the water drainage downtown. By the way, it's only dyed corn starch! Luckily, there were some pretty awesome people working behind the scenes on this who were able to get the permit with plenty of time to spare! 

Friday evening Riley and I  met up with Crystal and Christina for packet pickup at our local Sports Authority. I am pretty sure that particular store hasn't seen that much business in years! It was very crowded, the line went from the back of the store out the front door. Needless to say us three Moms with our 4 kiddos were a little restless during the wait, ha! We waited about 30 - 40 minutes to get our packets. 

Not the best photo quality but you get the idea! 

Packet Pick Up - Complete!

Saturday morning the girls came the house to meet Riley and I so we could car pool to the race. Good thing we left early! I've never seen so many people in downtown Tallahassee at 7:45am on a non-football game weekend. We were able to park fairly close to the start line. We made it to the start line area in time for the Zumba party where Riley quickly let us know that was not an option for him, ha! We enjoyed a few good laughs while waiting to meet up with our friends from Badass Fitness and our local chapter of Moms Run This Town. Once we snapped a few photos with our friends we headed for the start line. 

 The Happiest 5K 

Tallahassee Moms Run This Town

Representing Badass Fitness 

The race started promptly at 9:00am with the first wave heading out. We were in the second wave and left about 9:15am. Riley and I quickly jumped up on the sidewalk so we could avoid the sea of people and get a good pace going! He forgot our pep talk about it being a race for fun and not time - HA! We made it through the first color spot with little blue on our clothes. Riley was very bummed by this so we had a to form a new game plan before the next color spot! On our way through the route we were cheered on by Ms. Shannon and some more of our Badass Fitness friends. We made our way around campus then weaved through downtown Tallahassee making sure we were hit with plenty of red, yellow and pink color, afterall this was The Color Run! Riley and I made it back to the finish in 32:00 minutes with plenty of color. We met up with Erin at the finish line, she killed that course! We were able to cheer on Christina as she finished her first 5K! We were able to cheer on Crystal as she finished the Happiest 5K ever! 

 I love being apart of one of my best friend's first 5K! Christina has been training hard during the heat of the summer to get ready for the race. I think it's great she chose a fun race with no time clock to get the first one under her belt. We always say "you will never forget the first race" and I am pretty sure this will be true for her, too. 

I love seeing Crystal at the finish line at most of our local races. She is always smiling at the finish line! Although she might not be if she doesn't get some new shoes after we calculated her miles on the ride home - LOL! It's time honey, it's time! 

I also love that Riley was able to run this race with me. We stayed together the whole time, he had to take a few walk breaks. The heat has kept him from training as much with us lately and it showed during the race. Around mile 2 he got very frustrated and we had to have a little pep talk! He overcame his minor soreness and finished the race sprinting! I love that he shares my passion to run and since he has decided not to play baseball this fall we will have plenty of time to train for his next 5K. He desires to get back to a sub-30 5K! 

Here's a few more post race pictures: 

This was the kickoff to my fall race season and if I had to rate this race on a scale from 1 - 10, I'd give it a 10! It was nice to see so many people out in the area enjoying a fun morning together. It's great for our community to have events like this! 

Up next for me is the 5K at 5th Avenue and I continue my training for the Women's Running Series Half Marathon in Nashville. I will share more on my recent training activity soon... very soon!