Birthday Run or Dye!

August 23  Plan:  4k steady   Actual:  5k steady-ish

It's my birthday!!!!!!

And what better way to start the day than with a race!? 

Yeah, I'm weird like that.  But it's fun!

I signed up for Run or Dye, one of those crazy colour races, months ago.  Thought that if there ever was a reason or time to give it a go, my actual birthday might as well be it.

I've always shied away from these kinds of events.  I rarely do these ones.  I'm not usually the type who enjoys getting dirty or all messed up. 

At all. 

But I went for it!  Made my own tutu and everything.

 Got up early and Micheal took me down to the race site where I met up with Andrea and a friend of hers.  Thankfully the friend is rather competitive and we therefore pushed our way up to the front, allowing a second wave departure which totally saved my butt from a timing perspective.  There were hundreds of participants and they let them go bit by bit which would have been downright excruciating, especially since I had a party starting at my house at 1pm!

We finally got rocking about 9:20 and we hit the trails at the Oshawa waterfront.  It was a loopy route, out and back kinda, with runners on each side of the trail.  We ran on grass for some parts, pavement on others, we were all over the place.

What I need to remind myself when doing these types of runs - the non timed, fun runs - is to just chill the hell out.  I'm not great at just running around other people for the hell of it.  Even leaving my watch and phone at home filled me with trepidation as for the very first time, I have no clue what my time was and I had to fake my own intervals. 

Once I got to a point where I could just - pardon the pun - run with it, things went relatively well.  I didn't get covered in colour nearly as much as everyone else did, mostly because I kinda ducked and cowered as I went through the dye stations.  Coloured cornstarch don't taste so good, yo!

Finished in relatively decent time, I think, and made my way back to the car where Micheal was waking.  We kept him far away from all the other participants to completely eliminate his chances of getting covered in crap himself.  Dumped what I could into garbage bags, toweled off what I could, then slid onto my garbage bag covered seat and home to one of the best (and longest) showers ever.

That stuff don't come off easily!!

And so I've done it.  And now, I never need to do it again.  :)