Saturday morning was all sunshine and rainbows, unicorns and sweat. The Color Run, the so-called “happiest 5,000 meters on the planet”, came to town!

If you know me, I’m so not an exercise junky. I run maybe once a week. Full disclosure: my body is still sore from this run and it happened four days ago. That’s my level of fitness. So listen up when I say the Color Run is the PERFECT 5K for people who really aren’t that into running but want to try!

This is my I’M READY. LET’S DO THIS face at the starting line inside CitiField. This face is far too serious for this event but my Dear Evan Hansen sweatband and the ladies in back of me are just perfect.

You know how professional wrestling is called “sports entertainment”? The Color Run is what I would call “run entertainment”. Come expecting a serious workout and you’ll be colored frustrated.

My friends and I ran the whole 5K and we were total overachievers among the crowd, weaving in and out, dodging walking participants. Running around the CitiField diamond and through the Mets dugout.

Running inside Mets Stadium was by far the sweetest part of this event in NYC. Look at me, I’m at home plate!

Photo-ops are a big part of the “run entertainment”. Put your phone in a plastic bag and bring it with you on the Color Run!

The COLOR part of the Color Run

So the whole point of the Color Run is that periodically through the race you get doused with different powdered colors. It looks epic in all the promotional images. In real life…it’s still fun and also kinda weird. Volunteers on the side of the track squirt the color at you as you run by. You cover your mouth and nose with a cloth (provided by the event) to keep from inhaling it – not that it would be a huge problem if you did, it’s non-toxic. I recommend wearing sunglasses too – worrying about getting colored powder in my contacts was the least fun part of the morning.

The color stations broke up the 5K into small chunks, which made the full distance smaller. As we got sweatier, the color stuck to us more. After the start of the race around CitiField, the majority of this run was in the CitiField parking lot. A bit of a bummer for “THE HAPPIEST 5K” (is anyone ever truly happy in a parking lot?) but easy for clean up – crucial at an event like this!

The attendance of this event was pretty awesomely diverse. Groups of adults, lots of families, even teenagers came out and appeared to be having fun #myunicornlife. Tiny little kids participate in the Color Run and oh boy are they cute in rainbows and tutus. Hey, if you are worried about being slow running a 5K, there is NO WAY you will be slower than a toddler!

The Color Run: the CHILLEST 5K. No one takes the running part of this event too seriously.

Though I paused a couple times to take pictures, all and all I ran the whole thing! Yay 5K success! Here I am approaching the anticlimactic finish line!

Celebrated with a big assortment of tents from the many sponsors of the event. The Color Run is a for-profit event…which made me a bit skeptical…but after a dive into their website I learned they DO partner with a charity for every single event. This made me feel better! They’ve donated a total of 5 million dollars to charities since 2012 – not too shabby!

After you run a race like this, all I really wanted was cup of water and a photo with a unicorn. I got both.

If you like unicorns, rainbows, and want an excuse to say you ran a 5K but not take it too seriously? There is the PERFECT event for you! They have events coming up across the country all summer, see if one is near you on their event page: https://thecolorrun.com/#events

Disclosure: I was provided free tickets to this event.