I was invited to do the Color Vibe 5K in Greenville, SC by a friend of mine who is a non-runner. Her Zumba studio was invited to do the pre-race warm up and she was looking for some friendly faces in the crowd and to run with after, so I figured why not. Knowing that the small group that I would be running with were not typically runners, I went in know this was going to be just for the fun of it, and not a traditional race experience. I think it is safe to say that no one goes into any kind of color/themed run expecting to PR it.

I had heard pretty negative things about the Color Vibe series before, but looking at past reviews, it seems that they have changed a lot of the things people had complained about in the past. For example, in past events all swag items were sold a la cart at a pretty steep rate on top of registration, however, this year, what a "Classic Kit" which was built into the $29.99 registration fee. Kit included a T-shirt, sunglasses, temp tattoos and 1 color packet. You could purchase other merchandise as well, but I was satisfied with the kit.

There wasn't much pre-race communication, which is pretty common for these kind of national chain races. I later found out that my Event Guide email was routed into my spam folder. I live about 2 hours from Greenville, so I was unable to pick up my packet early, which was held the day before from Noon-5 pm at the race site, a really nice park on the outskirts of Greenville. My brother (who was running too and does live in Greenville) picked up our packets and said that overall, the pick up was pretty disorganized - staff seemed pretty confused about distribution, but didn't take too long as he was there pretty early (which may have contributed to the confusion).

On the morning of the race, getting into the park where it was held was a bit of a challenge. There is only a single 2-lane road leading into the park and it was backed up a long way to get in. Luckily, we arrived early and were able to make it 30 min before the start, but it was backed up for miles behind us. Once we got in, there was plenty of free parking as this park has an outdoor area that is used for concerts so it could handle the crowd.

Pre-race, Heart and Soul Zumba warmed up the crowd which was a lot of fun (esp since my friend was on stage). The DJ and Zumbaers threw out T-shirts and color packs to the crowd during the work out (my brother snagged a cool shirt and we both got about 3 more color packs). Afterwards, we made our way to the start, which was to be done in waves, a few hundred at a time starting at 9. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The first wave didn't get released until closer to 9:30, but once they started, a wave was released about every 2-3 min. My guess is the traffic back up to get into the park contributed to the late start, but there was never any official reason given or announcements made.

The route was pretty flat with just really 1 hill near the beginning that you first went down, then turned around at the end of the road and back up it. The race zig-zagged through the park on a clearly improvised course that was sometimes on grass, sometimes on paved trail and sometimes on gravel trail. There where 4 color dump areas (green, then blue, then purple and pink) that had plenty of volunteers lining both sides of the area to toss color at you. There was a single water station on the course just over a mile in handing out Dixie-cup sized water cups. Lots of walkers to dodge if you are wanting to actually run the course, but again, running isn't really the point of an event like this. My brother and I did what I would consider a consistent jog though the course while the others in our friend group mainly walked it.

When you crossed the finish line, there were volunteers handing out medals. They were dye-cut plastic ones on plastic ribbons, but they were cute and colorful, much like the race. According to my GPS, the course was about a half a mile short. In the finish area, bottles of water were being handed out and the event sponsor, Tum-E Yummies Juice, was giving out juice samples and had a cleaning station (wipes) and photo area. Back on the stage, the DJ and event staff was blaring dance music and throwing out color packets to a pretty pumped crowd doing mass color throws every 10 minutes or so. We met back up with our walking friends and stuck around to dance for about 45 min or so and had a blast.

Overall, it was a fun event and I would do it again if my friends wanted to, but I wouldn't really consider it a race. More like a mobile party.