The Color Run!

If you are on Facebook, chances are you've seen photos popping up all over the place about an event called The Color Run--also known as the Happiest 5k on the Planet. Well, we ran in the event this past weekend in Minneapolis, and it definitely lived up to the hype!

Here's the basic premise of The Color Run. You start the race in a nice white t-shirt

and by the time you finish you look like this!

How this transformation happens is that at every kilometer of the race, volunteers spray the runners with a colored "elf dust"

Approaching the blue color station

and at the end of the race all of the runners have their own color packet to toss into the air for a final blast of color.

It was seriously awesome. And even though it was seriously crowded with tons of runners

One of many, many waves of runners--I think they were expecting a total of 20,000 runners by the end of the event!

the workers and volunteers did a fantasic job making sure everying ran smoothly. Plus they had an awesome soundtrack of songs playing to keep runners pumped up while they were waiting for their "wave" to start. Dance moves were definitely busted out.

We ran the race with my sister and her boyfriend, my brother's girlfriend Macy (who actually gets the credit for finding the event in the first place!), and my mom. My brother was supposed to run, but he injured his foot playing baseball, and didn't think that doing a three mile walk/run was the best idea. So my mom agreed to take his place--but when we showed her pictures from other events, she was definitely re-thinking her decision. However, much like everyone else at the event, she ended up having a great time--and we're all looking forward to running it again next year!

And, just for fun, here's a progression of the color madness over the course of the 5k--it really is the Happiest 5k on the Planet!