[the happiest 5k on the planet]

Y'all. It actually feels like fall outside. And it has since Sunday.

I LOVE it.

I do have one complaint: I'm not really entirely sure if I should start the wardrobe turn over process. This is my fourth time doing this and yet somehow I still have not mastered the timing of pulling my sweaters out of storage and putting away my summer clothes. Somehow, every single year I manage to jump the gun: as soon as I make the change, the weather heats up and I have to slide the storage bins back out from under my bed. Then my whole bedroom just ends up being a hot mess. No fun.

Although if the old women of Baltimore are to be believed, all this early cool weather means we're in for a really rough winter. Apparently Jesus is trying to warn me that I may freeze to death this winter. I don't really know. I don't want to get my hopes up for a real winter, but at the same time I'm starting to worry because at least once, if not twice, a day some old woman walks up to me to remark that the weather is lovely and we're going to have a beast of a winter this year.

This whole winter thing still baffles me. A childhood in Houston and Atlanta has left me utterly unprepared to handle winter, even after all these years.

Anyways, enough about the weather.

Sunday we took advantage of the beautiful weather for the Color Run! Okay sorry, that was about the weather too. Let me try this again.

Sunday, Kristen, Ryan and I did our first ever Color Run at National Harbor. Essentially the Color Run is a 5k in which the sole purpose is to get completely covered in colored powder. The powder is similar to corn starch: non-toxic if you get a mouthful and environmentally friendly when it washes into the harbor. At each k along the race there's a color station. Volunteers line the color stations with condiment bottles full of one color powder and squirt it all over runners as they dance their way through the station. There's music playing at each station too. They encourage people to take their time with the race--after all this one is about playing in the color, not about setting a personal record.

After you cross the finish line there's a big party! They had a DJ who did "color drops" every so often. When a color drop would happen, the DJ would toss packets of the colored powder into the crowd. People caught the packets and tossed the contents into the air. The air got so thick with color that we couldn't see! Everyone jumped and jumped and jumped and got covered in various colors. If you don't like getting dirty, I would not recommend a color run.

Kristen, Ryan and I walked (almost) the whole race. We did run the last little bit and dance through the color stations. Our goal was to get as colorful as possible! We wore our white race shirts and knotted the white sweat bands they gave us around our wrists. We tried to tie on our bandanas too but they wouldn't stay put.

I made the mistake in the red station of opening my mouth while going through the station. Mouthfuls of powder are not fun, at all. They actually gave out whole bottles of water instead of the customary cups to counteract the fact that we were all getting mouthfuls of powder. The water bottles were definitely welcome!

Somewhere along the way, Ginger decided she didn't want to run with us anymore. Rude. All I know is that I had her at the halfway point (I took a few pictures of us with her) and when I crossed the finish line, my armband was empty. As a result, all of the post-race pictures were taken by Katy and Kristen.

If you ever want to look like a crazy, backtrack through a race without explaining to anyone what you're doing. Trust me--people will stare at you like you sprouted horns. I had to find Ginger though! I only backtracked part of the way before tracking down a race volunteer and explaining the situation. I was finally pointed towards lost and found who had not received Ginger yet.

While Ginger was out having fun with someone else, we decided we might as well enjoy ourselves too.  Katy had come for the race and I had seen her as we finished up. With Ginger missing though I had no way to contact her post-race. It turns out losing your phone makes it really hard to make post-race plans with people, especially when they're all going in different directions. Since we couldn't find any trace of Ginger or Katy, Kristen, Ryan, and I decided to take Lady Gaga's advice and just dance! We danced our fool heads off and participated in a few color drops before going to check on Ginger one more time.  Still no Ginger but there was a Katy wandering around!

Now that everyone was united we just had to wait for Daniella and Zeke to join us for lunch at Potbelly's. Thankfully the good people of the Color Run thought of everything: they had volunteers with leaf blowers that would blow some of the excess powder off of you before you went in any restaurants or cars. We hopped in the leaf blower line and then decided to wander towards Potbelly's. There was a super long line so we went ahead and hopped in it. Daniella and Zeke caught up with us while we were still pretty far back in the line and we all sat down for lunch together. Katy fit right into the group which was awesome; I like all of my friends to be friends with each other too. That way we can all be one big happy family, regardless of how we became friends initially.

After lunch we wandered around the area for a bit and finally decided to sit by the water for a bit. Katy got a phone call from my mom while we were lounging and chatting about life; apparently someone had found Ginger and wanted to return her to me! It turns out some nice race participant had found her, tried to find lost and found, and then just started calling people in my phone. He got a hold of Mom, who called Katy's mom who gave her Katy's number. I called him from Katy's phone and found out Ginger was in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, about twenty minutes from where we were. Kristen & Ryan were kind enough to drive me to get Ginger before we all headed home to attempt to shower some of the color off us. Sometimes I swear Ginger would rather live with someone else than with me. Silly Ginger.

To make a long story short, I highly recommend doing a Color Run if one comes near you!! The tagline for the race is quite accurate--it truly is the happiest 5k on the planet.