*UPDATE: Tyler’s recap for the Toronto Goodlife Half Marathon is up! Go check it out!
When we first learned that Color Me Rad would be making it’s way from America to Toronto for the first time, we were more than ecstatic (even though they didn’t change the spelling of “colour” to include the letter “u”). What could be more fun than intentionally throwing coloured corn starch at a group of your friends?! After the shrieking and jumping had died down, we submitted our registrations and refocused our brains on what was important: a fabulous team name. Alas, Glutamate Maximus was born. (Glutamate being the primary excitatory neurotransmitter, we were essentially the “excitatory butts” – go science background!)
Our cleanliness was definitely short lived
Amazingly, we were able to form a team with 5 other people who shared this love of coloured starch, and were free to join us that weekend. The 7 of us met up bright and early on Sunday June 23 to make the hour long trip down to Downsview Park where the run would take place. One of the members even brought a friend along! He unfortunately missed registration and couldn’t run with us, but was a fantastic photographer for many of our group photos nonetheless.
On the way there we got slightly lost, but made a new friend at the bus stop and eventually found the park thanks to the mob of white shirts and multicoloured sunglasses. We wandered the grounds for a bit, making the mandatory porta-potty stop and putting on our RAD tattoos. Originally we had signed up for the 10:15 am wave, but we ended up lining up for the 10:45 am wave…whoops. Finally, we made our way to the starting line as a group still bright and clean.
The GLUTAMATE MAXIMATORS at the starting line with our classy shades
The colour stations were situated at each kilometre mark, some were powdered colour while others were liquid. Before long, we were covered in purple cornstarch and jogging towards the cloud of coloured smoke in the distance. The heat and humidity made it exceptionally difficult to keep a consistent pace, and rivers were forming on our upper lips BUT we did not stop, no siree (High fives to all those people running in costumes in the heat). The first liquid colour was yellow, and it honestly felt/looked like neon urine (too many carrots, huh). When we reached the finish line, we had run through clouds of purple, orange, and pink; and raced through jets of yellow and green.
Just before the finish line, we grabbed one colour bomb each to pelt each other with in celebration of finishing the run. WHOOOHOOO!!! Exhausted from the heat, our first glasses of water tasted amazing. Once we had rested for a couple of minutes, we started to notice the colour-stain patterns on our bodies — the splotches on our faces, our eyebrows, in our ears, under our nails, and even in belly buttons. However, we had little desire to get clean right then – there were more important things to attend to. And by more important things, I mean photo-op time.
(We also lost one of our members, but thankfully we had an amazing teammate who found him: thanks, Jenn!)
Hot, sweaty, and colour-stained but smiling from ear to ear
HUMAN PYRAMID TIME
Somehow it turned out we were standing in a beautiful arrangement of height – completely planned, of course
With our best and favourite photographer – we obviously had to share some of the colour
By the time we got back home for lunch our stomachs were roaring so we stopped for bubble tea and food court yummies. The first thing we did upon arrival to the plaza was run into the bathroom to scrub our arms and faces – not all the colour came off, but we looked slightly less scary.
We had a blast running this race and met some new friends too. We’ve already begun discussing the next big race, and we’re hoping we can build up a team for it as well! Another race appetizer DONE, and it sure was an exciting one!
Runivores 