Color Me ArtFields 5K

This weekend was my first-ever color run. And it was fun.

In a small town near my hometown, the second annual ArtFields is being held. ArtFields is a 10-day art competition and exhibition in tiny Lake City, SC. The winner of the competition gets $100,000, so it's a big deal.

We drove down for the race on Saturday morning and I'm glad we did. The boys really wanted to run it, but when they saw everyone covered with paint, they decided not to. I don't blame them. I wasn't crazy about getting covered in paint either!

With my mom before the race.

There were three competing races run on Saturday and truth be told, I was sad to be missing my favorite trail run which is really one of my favorite runs. But, in the spirit of points for the Grand Prix, I decided to run the ArtFields run this year.

I didn't have a set goal for this race. I just wanted to go out, have fun and finish strong. Throughout this month, I've been participating in a challenge with my run club. My goal is to run 100 miles in April and I'm almost there, so needless to say, I didn't take a rest day before the race.

I started off the race really strong. It went through what I consider an unsafe part of town, so I wanted to stay as close to the three men ahead of me as I could while conserving what I needed to finish strong. I managed to stay around 50 yards or so from them (if my estimate is right) through the first part of the race. I did get chased by a dog at one point and had some guys yell at me at another, but for the most part, I felt safe during the race especially as there were police on almost every corner at each turn.

My first mile was run in 5:59. I was excited. About 1.6 in, I was under 10, so I felt like I'd PR this race (current PR is 19:48). I didn't pay much attention to my Garmin while I ran and really just enjoyed the race. The weather could not have been better.

There were stations along the route where people were dumping colors on the runners. At the first station, I told them no color, but got some anyway. The rest of the stations asked me, so I was able to say no. It's not that I didn't want color so much as I knew we were going to walk around the festival after the race and I really didn't want to be all painted. Plus, there was no use in them wasting color on me as I was by myself.

My mom teaches school in this town and I saw many of her students along the course. It was fun to hear my name yelled out as the last part of the course used the same street as the middle.

When I got near the end, I looked down at my watch and saw that I was close to my PR. I also saw that the distance on my Garmin was already 3.1.

When I went across the finish line, I got covered in the colored corn starch. It was fun though!

I finished the race in 20:10 (6:30 pace) as fourth overall and the first female. I wish I had pushed it near the end as I had plenty left.

After the race, the boys went for a cool down run with me. I can't wait until we can really run races together!

They were pretty excited about the trophy, too!