by Leah Hoffherr
Waking up at 4:00 a.m. was not the easiest thing to do after
spending the previous evening at a Cardinals Game, but I was excited to begin
our 24 miler. With lights turned on fuel
belt/handheld water bottles filled we were off into the streets of STL. It was
my first time to run this city, so I was excited to see the city by foot. Jeff had mapped out a route that showed off
some of STL’s best sites. Starting from The Pear Tree Hotel (downtown on Market
St.) we ran through St. Louis University.
I really enjoyed seeing the old hotels converted to dorms for the
university. They were very tall and full
of character. After a few miles we came
to the entrance of Forrest Park, which I heard was pretty hilly. It was pretty dark, so it was difficult to
see much of the park, but still enjoyable. It was also comforting see a running
group running in the park and it made us think of the BOR. It brought a smile to my face.
We reached
the furthest point of the park and headed towards the zoo. One thing I remember was a huge T-Rex statue
that caught my eye. By this time we were
approaching mile 9ish and exiting the park.
We passed Barnes Hospital, which was huge. Somewhere around the hospital we were teased
with the smell of donuts. Then, I looked
ahead at the arch and saw the sun beginning to make its appearance. I turned to Jeff and asked if he planned the
arch with the sunrise in the background.
He just smiled.
By this
time, around mile 12, we were running through a different part of the
university and approaching the downtown area again. Color stations were being set up for the
color run and it put a little pep in my step.
We caught up with another runner and shared running stories and wished
each other a good time at the Color Run.
I looked at my watch and I knew I wanted to get 21 miles in before we
lined up for the Color Run. The Color
Run began at 8:00 a.m., but needed to be lined up at the start at 7:45ish. I wanted to cross the Color Run finish line
and be done with our run.
We
approached the arch and ran the trails along the river, which took us by many
other runners. We ran down by Laclede’s Landing. Jeff and I headed back uptown
towards the groups of people all wearing white tanks and Color Run sweat
bands. I was getting more excited to get
to the start line….I was told to relax and slow down. We had one pit stop at the Hotel to retrieve
our bib at the front desk and out we were to head to the start line. We got in all 21 miles before lining up at
the start (and that last mile was running around the same block about 25
times…thought Jeff was gonna kill me if I went around that block again).
I thought
it was a typo when I read 25,000 runners for the Color Run, but it really was that many people. We talked to a really neat lady at the start
line that had completed many marathons and 2 Iron Man competitions. She was a real inspiration. We had to wait
about 8 minutes before our wave was released.
Those first few steps were pretty rough, must have tightened up
waiting. But Jeff and I were ready to
get our COLOR ON! We got our first color
at the 1k and I believe it was red.
There were people with bottles of red powder that shook it on you as
your ran by. I seemed to always get more
color then Jeff…he he. I noticed lots
of walkers, joggers and runners participating
in this run. The Color Run is truly for
ANYONE. There is no chip and no clock,
which definitely made it appealing to me. Just fun.
At the half
way point of the Color Run we approached the water stop and I grabbed a cup and
threw it over my head and I saw Jeff gulping water down. The people around us probably thought those
1.5 miles really kicked our butts. We
had 3 more color stations we ran through.
The cool thing about running through the color stations was that it was
just a haze of color. It was sometimes
even tricky to see because there was so much color powder in the air. Our watches dinged 24 miles and we gave each
other a high five as we kept running to the finish line. When I got to the finish line I rubbed the color
off my watch to read 24.32 miles. Jeff and I congratulated each other on
another long run together.
We were
full of color and headed toward the sound of the pop music…One Direction. This is where we found everyone gathering by
the stage, dancing, and throwing color packets on each other. They had given us a color packet in our goody
bag. At one point they did a BIG color
toss. It was a big color mess; so much
that you truly could not see anything but color.
I recommend
the The Color Run if you are looking for just a good time. Our run was a charity for autism, which a
good cause always makes me enjoy the event even more. I also recommend to do this run if you have
kids and want to include them in your running.
Kids love it! I still have color
on my shoes and refuse to clean them because it was such a good memory.
Caution: I blew my nose the following day and it was
blue.
