Color Me Rad 2014

Color Me Rad is a 5K run held all around the United States. The goal is to enter the race white and squeaky clean and end it as colorful as possible. I was able to hook my young girlfriend, Kendra, into coming with me. I invited each of the children to come with us (minus Nathan because he had a soccer game) Kaeley was the only child who wanted to come. Alynna took one look at the website photos and said, "No. No. No. No." And that was it. She would not reconsider. That girl, when asked by a stranger in line, why she wouldn't join me in the race, said, "People have died!" Next year I am totally bringing all four children with me and they don't get a choice. Because I'm a cool mom. And they'll thank me when they're done!

Before

Squeaky clean

Now Kendra was not going to run. We had a goal of moving forward rather than backwards. I even had flip flops on, which seemed to cause quite a stir on Facebook with family members who actually do run (for some reason I can't fathom) and figured I did the same in flip flops. Well, we're standing in line waiting to begin the race and Kaeley starts getting antsy. She decided right then and there that she was going to run the race. Well, I'm in flip flops and Kendra was not going to run, so I suggested to Kaeley we just walk as fast as we can. Anyone who knows Kaeley knows she is not easily swayed from a decision that she's made (I don't know where she gets that from) so it was finally decided that we would all stay to the right hand side of the road and if Kaeley ever stopped for a rest we would eventually catch up to her and find each other easily. At least that's what I hope. The whistle blew. Kaeley ran off ahead. I crossed my fingers. Kendra began running. I wondered what had happened that I was the only one walking forward (though not moving backwards).

Kendra and I mostly jogged or walked. At various sections of the race runners ran through a color station. Here's our first station: yellow.

It was here we learned to run through with our mouths closed.

Here we had gone through a few different colors (still no sign of Kaeley) and we weren't too colorful. We looked instead like maybe we had experienced a bad spray tan.

I didn't see Kaeley for a long time and I began to wonder if I had made the wrong decision and how I would find her in a crowd of hundreds of people all the same mess and color-scheme.

Wouldn't you know that the girl ran pretty much the entire race by herself and was waiting at the finish line for us to catch up to her! I was quite surprised and very proud.

At the finish line they hand out free "color bombs" for you to really experience the Color Me Rad. And we used them!

Poor Kaeley. I asked her if she wanted me to throw the red at her, which was a beautiful color. She shrugged, "Sure." She braced herself, I counted to three, and without thinking I let the color soar out of the bag... right... across... her... face! A small cloud of pink made a "puff" sound and poor Kaeley's face was now red. I laughed hysterically while offering the most sincerest (minus the laughter) apologies. I honestly didn't think that one through. Poor thing. 

This was before I won the Mother of the Year award.

As if she needed any help from me.

And this (right) is the after. I really am sorry, Kaeley. She said she was okay and eventually did wear it with a proud aura about her, but tried cleaning the pink dust out of her ear for a while.

I mean, she really is pretty, isn't she?

Kendra and I made mention of closing our breaths through the color station. When I asked our solo runner if she had learned that lesson too, she said, "No. I just wanted to take the whole thing in." I appreciate her spirit. She indeed had a few green teeth.

We even had color in our fingernails!

I now have a pair of pink flip flops. 

After