Colour Run Lincoln 2016: Why I’m Glad I Tried Something New

Hey everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great week despite the freak British weather. We’ve had rain, sun, snow and sleet… What is going on?!

This post is a bit different from my usual, but I just HAD to write about my amazing experience at the colour run last weekend! In this post I will be showing you millions of photos and going through what you can expect from a colour run, and why you should take a big step out of your comfort zone and give it a try!

When we booked our tickets for the Colour Run, I didn’t really know what to expect; but one thing which we could all agree on was that we would take part for fun, and probably not run the entire thing. After all, I hadn’t run competitively before and I was concerned about injuring myself. Although 5k probably isn’t very far to most people; I absolutely LOATHE running, purely because I’ve never been very good at it. I always try to stay in shape and healthy because of my PCOS in order to keep on top of my weight, you can find more information on this condition on my previous posts, here and here.

If I’m honest, we totally forgot about the Colour Run up until the week before: I blame this on dissertation stress! So naturally we hadn’t trained AT ALL. The closest thing I did to training was that I managed staying on the bike at the gym for 30 minutes; a new personal best for me. But I didn’t do this with The Colour Run in mind admittedly. But regardless of our lack of preparation, the day finally came and we were all really excited to get messy!

 With the purchase of our tickets we received a really nice Colour Run t-shirt and our own running number to wear on the day as modelled on the morning by myself – before being absolutely covered in paint! But thankfully I did manage to get all the paint out and it is like new – so I have a lovely souvenir to remember the day by!

Pssst. I’m wearing my coppery eye shadow look from my Makeup Revolution Flawless Palette!

On the day of the event, we were really worried about the weather as it was forecast to rain randomly throughout the day  and the wind was incredibly cold.

But luckily, although the sun was popping in and out throughout the day, it was warm enough to just take a light jacket and to wear shorts! – I really didn’t want to have to wear my nice gym trousers.

 

The only issue I had with The Colour Run was quite a doozy – no locker rooms or bag holding areas were made available. Obviously we wanted to bring our phones, jackets, drinks, and money at a bare minimum. Considering that they were encouraging us to purchase more paint, you’d think that there would be facilities made available for us to store our possessions safely and out of harms way – but apparently not. So we were forced to strap our boyfriend’s up with backpacks. They weren’t all too happy with that, I’ll just say that much. But our argument stood – a handbag would be much harder to run with than a backpack (CURSE YOU WOMEN’S FASHION).

We were waiting for quite a while before the paint party kicked off, but that was because we arrived so early! It was quite chilly but they had a live DJ who kicked off the party and kept us in good spirits.

I can’t quite recall what kicked off the paint party. One minute we were all standing there anticipating the unknown, and the next the air was filled with colours! The atmosphere during the paint party was electric – I completely lost myself to the music and to the wonderful people.

I’m not going to lie, We thoroughly enjoyed covering each other in paint – and other people of course! We were forever catching each other off guard and getting each other’s face – at one point I managed to get it right in Kayne’s ear… Oops! Sorry Kayne! It was so therapeutic after my recent University stresses to just forget about everything and throw my cares to the wind, alongside powdered paint!

The DJs went through a warm up with us, which was pretty hilarious but I probably should have focused on that a bit more than on the paint in hindsight – my legs have been in utter agony all week! Lessons have been learned about the importance of a thorough warm up. 5k really did seem like much less in my mind.

Aaaand we’re off!! We began at a leisurely pace and remained as a four… for about two minutes until Kayne and Dan decided to go it alone, as we were running far too slowly for them! This wasn’t a problem until me and Katie realised that they had gone running off with our bloody drinks! Ah well, we soldiered on!

Hahaaa! These photos taken by the professional photographers are amazing. I have had a right chuckle looking through these and seeing how Dan and Kayne got on after abandoning us!

Hahaaaa! You can see these guys got Dan right in the face here. These paint-throwing check points were dotted out throughout the entire 5k course which was wonderful. It really kept you running! They were all shouting motivational things like “you can do it!” and “keep running!” which was fantastic and most definitely needed – especially on the final lap.

I’m really proud of Dan and Kayne! Even with their backpacks, they pushed on and ran the entire thing!!! Unfortunately, my will power is not quite as strong as that and I’ll admit to slowing down to a walking pace a few times.

I absolutely love this photo of Katie and me, and Dan has snuck into the background as well. This must have been right at the beginning when we were all together – the fact that we’re still smiling gives that away!

Eeeeesh! They got Katie right in the mouth! I tried to hide myself away from the paint and failed terribly – the only way to run is forward.

As I’ve said previously, Katie and I didn’t take the race too seriously and just saw it as a bit of fun. Having said that, we’re both fairly competitive and like to push ourselves so I know that we wanted to try our very best if nothing else.

HAHAHA!! The photos of us sprinting to the finish line are HILARIOUS! Dan hasn’t heard the end of it. I’m sorry Dan and I love you but… HAHAHA

Okay, I’ll stop taking the mickey out of Dan now… this is pretty horrific. But I’m very proud of myself for sprinting to the finish and my goofy face has a good reason behind it! Dan was standing at the finishing line cheering me on and this was me being very happy to see him and the to see the end of the 5k so… Yeah it’s still awful!

Dan and Kayne finished the race in roughly 30 minutes – which is amazing considering their backpacks and their lack of training for it. Katie and I finished in 40 minutes, which is equally impressive given our laid back attitude!

I’m so glad I took part in The Student Colour Run. It was so much fun – even more so than I had imagined – and was a fantastic way to rid ourselves of the academic years stress. It also showed me my potential and what I can do when I put my mind to it. I had no intention of being able to jog or run even half of the race, and the fact that I did has pushed me and reminded me of my level of fitness.

Even if you’re not very athletic… In fact, ESPECIALLY if you’re not very athletic, this kind of race is DEFINITELY for you!! It was so chilled out and relaxed on the day and I would have felt more than comfortable to walk the entire distance – there was no pressure to run or to be competitive which was great! Some people were even going it in jeans!

At the end of it all, the Student Colour Run was an absolutely fantastic experience and me and Dan are already talking about planning our next one. Just because I am very competitive with myself, I will be planning to beat 40 minutes next time – but if you’re simply focused on finishing – that’s totally cool as well!

You can find out more information about the Student Colour Run here – don’t forget: it’s not exclusively just for students, anyone can join! And there is another site for the big Colour Run, which includes more areas, you can find that here.

Have you tried something new recently which you would like to share? Have you ever been to a Colour Run or have done something like this? Are you interested in fitness and are not sure if this is for you? Please leave me a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you so much for reading. Don’t forget to follow me on my other social media accounts.

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