Angela's Adventures

Angela's Adventures: Color Me Rad 5K Run

Posted: Oct 29, 2012 10:08 AM by Angela Douglas - Q2 News
Updated: Oct 29, 2012 10:19 AM

BILLINGS - Every autumn, Billing residents are used to seeing all sorts of colors in Billings, but on Saturday the colors were a bit more vibrant.

From pink, to blue, to purple and yellow, MetraPark was engulfed in colorful paint for the first-ever Color Me Rad 5K run.

"We created Color Me Rad in February," explained Color Me Rad Co-Founder Scott Crandall. "By the end of the year we'll have been to 35 cities or so and we had to make Billings one of those stops."

And it's a good thing because 2,500 people of all ages turned out for the event, ready to be painted from head to toe.

"Probably 50-percent of the people out here have never run a 5K before. It's really not about a run or breaking any records; it's not timed," explained Crandall. "It's just totally for fun. We have people out here that brought their kids, are pushing them in strollers, it's just really a fun family event."

Color Me Rad teams up with a local non-profit in every community they visit.

For the Magic City event a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Billings Family YMCA.

Of course, when you're starting a paint project it is always nice to have a blank, white canvas; and this scenario was no different.

The vast majority of the 2,500 participants, myself included, donned white sweatshirts, T-shirts and pants, hoping to transform into an array of color by the end of the run.

Turns out, Color Me Rad stayed true to their name.
Throughout the entire course we ran through explosions of bright, neon, powdery paint.

The run was filled with laughter, cheers and plenty of smiles as we made our way from station to station, before proudly crossing the finish line.

"Super fun, awesome and colorful!" screamed a few teens from Cody, Wyoming.

Others agreed.

"It was awesome the energy was really fun," said one participant. "Everyone was excited, it was really well put together."

At the end of the race, each participant received a bag of powdered paint, and on Crandall's cue we tossed them high into the air surrounding ourselves in a cloud of colorfulness.

It's an adventure that more thousands of people experienced this weekend and by far the most colorful one yet.