Around 7,000 people descended on downtown Lawrence yesterday for the first Color Run in the city, and we had a blast with it!
If you don't know what a Color Run is, it's a fun 5k run/walk that's not timed, so it's perfect for people (like me) who don't run but like to have fun. Color stations are set up at intervals throughout the run where volunteers douse the runners with a colored powder mixture. By the end of the run, the participants- who started out wearing white- are rainbow-colored.
Serious runners might make fun of this event, but if it gets people out of their house and doing something active, then that's a good thing. And if they're having fun and being silly? Even better.
The Lawrence event started downtown and 8th and New Hampshire, with waves of runners starting every five minutes. From there, participants walked or ran east through various old East Lawrence neighborhoods. It was a nice scenic route that ended up at 9th and New Hampshire, next to the Arts Center where the post-race village and party took place.
First of all, an apology.
We were totally unprepared for this event. Which is silly, but it's true. We thought the event started a block away, not right outside our front door, and we also didn't have enough people working.
So if you waited too long to get a drink, we're really sorry.
Thanks to the Sandbar runners!
Several people joined our Shark Attack team, and even more of you bought white Sandbar T-shirts to wear. Thank you all, we appreciate it and we hope you had fun!
Here's a couple of post-Color Run photos:
Here's a shot of the "color cloud" at the post-race party. Every participant got one packet of colored powder to save for the end of the race, and as the emcee counted down, everyone threw their powder in the sky to create a color cloud. It looked really cool at first- like the photo above- but as more color was added and it all blended together, it looked kind of ugly and foggy.
And here's a post-race photo of Sandbar walkers Stacy, Bettina and me.
For more pictures of the Color Run, check out our Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/thesandbar. We've retweeted some of our favorite photos there. And check out the Visit Lawrence Facebook page for an album full of fun photos! If you've got a fun photo, send it to us and we'll post it.
We really hope this event comes back next year!