The Color Run 2015

BAM 4 MS–UK

 

Stronger than MS

MS has changed my life, oddly and yet profoundly for the better.

When I was first diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 2010 i was shocked and yet relieved to understand what had been happening to me for such a long while. Once i started to come to terms with my diagnosis in 2011 I felt ready to start fundraising. Around the 1st anniversary of my diagnosis, I decided that I wanted to raise money for the MS Trust, the wonderful charity that has helped me during my diagnosis & whom continue to help me every day with my MS.

Of all the things to do walking over fire seemed the most appealing! I told myself that if I could do that then I could cope with & be stronger than my MS!

A fun event

It was one evening last year, when I was with a group of friends that an event called The Color Run was mentioned. One of  my friends searched for it on the internet, just from the pictures that I saw, instantly I wanted to participate in such a fun event. The trouble was it was a 5k run, I can’t walk half a kilometre let alone run 5!

What made it even more appealing was that it was coming to Birmingham! Before I knew it I had  emailed the company asking if it was suitable for disabled to take part!

It didn’t take long for the company to email me back but whilst I was waiting I carried on looking at ‘the Color Run’ website.

The Color Run™, also known as the Happiest 5k on the Planet, is a unique colour race that celebrates healthiness, happiness, individuality, and giving back to the community. Less about your 10-minute-mile and more about having the time of your life, The Color Run is a five-kilometre, un-timed race in which thousands of participants are doused from head to toe in different colours at each kilometre. The fun continues at the finish line with a gigantic “Color Festival,” using more coloured powder to create happiness and lasting memories, not to mention millions of vivid colour combinations. Trust us, this is the best post-5k party on the planet! With only two rules, the idea is easy to follow:

1.       Wear white at the starting line
2.       Finish plastered in colour

Now the single largest event series on the planet, The Color Run is exploding since our debut event in January of 2012, with 1.5+ million runners in 2013 and over 2 million taking part in 2014.

Be Healthy. Be Happy. Be You.

Taken from the Color Run website http://www.thecolorrun.co.uk/

I knew from reading that how much I wanted to do it now & hoped that the course was wheelchair friendly & someone would be happy to push me when I needed it!

Then I read the next part on the website

“Color Runners” vary in demographics and reasons for running. With no winners or official times, The Color Run caters to anyone – 2 year olds to 80 year olds, first time runners to professional athletes. Some Color Runners participate as a celebration and capstone of their healthy living accomplishments, while others participate for reasons unique to them.

No stopping me

It still didn’t say anything about disabled & wheelchairs. I guessed it was pushchair friendly as no one is going to make a 2 year old walk/run 5k! I opened the email & was so excited to read that YES ‘the Color Run’ is wheelchair friendly!

That was it, no stopping me! I updated my facebook status asking if anyone else fancied the challenge! It wasn’t long until I managed to get a team of 10, including myself looking forward to the big day. I decided this time I wanted to raise money & awareness for MS-UK. A wonderful charity dedicated to giving support and information to anyone affected by MS.

I spoke to my Pilates instructor Kate King (standing to the left of me in the picture above) at ‘The Pingles Leisure Centre’ and told her what I wanted to do. My aim was to walk as much of the Color Run as possible, knowing it wouldn’t be much because of the pain & weakness I have in my legs. I thought that if I could work on my ‘Core muscles’ then hopefully that would help with my balance, always a must when walking! I also needed to strengthen my legs! Kate was up for the challenge!

Game on

That was it, that was my new challenge! I upped the amount of Pilates classes I attended and started going into the gym more often too. Gradually my friends joined me in the gym as well. It was fantastic, my moods started to get better, I was feeling much more positive about things and I was smiling a lot more!

I set up 3 different ways for people to sponsor us, the online ‘JustGiving’ page, sponsor forms and by text using ‘JustTextGiving’

We decided on a name for our team, BAM4MSUK. It made sense to us, By Any Means for MS-UK! I told everyone in the group that it didn’t matter how they wanted to take part in the event just as long as they had fun, after all this was to celebrate my 5th anniversary of diagnosis, proving that I am stronger than my MS! I knew I would be walking what I could and in my wheelchair for the rest, there were people who wanted to run and also people who wanted to be part of my support team to help push me!

3 of us in the team were ‘MegaSpecials’ *Amazing people who have MS* this made it even more special for me. I realised how incredibly lucky I am to have such wonderful friends!
There were a lot more of my ‘MegaSpecial’ friends that wanted to do it but just couldn’t for one reason or another. I get the feeling that after hearing how much fun we had they’ll be taking part in the next ‘Color Run’ or whatever challenge I decide to arrange.

The big day!

Gathering the MegaSpecials

It was finally here, the day I had been waiting for! All the arrangements were in place for the team to meet. I was going with my closest friend and chief wheelchair pusher ‘Debbie’

My ‘MegaSpecial Sistahh’ Sare had come down from Doncaster, South Yorkshire with her Son Lewis, who wanted to take part in ‘the Color Run’ to celebrate his 16th birthday.

We were meeting my other ‘MegaSpecial girly’ Angie closer to the event location & then everyone else in the team were meeting us there. As long as the ‘MegaSpecials’ were together I was happy!

 

 

 

This was such a big thing for me! There was going to be thousands of people there! Since having MS I have learnt that the anxiety I have suffered, for such a long time is actually part of my MS! I’m not on my own with this, which is why it was so nice to have other ‘MSrs’ around me, we all ‘get’ each other!

Screaming with excitement!

All the team arrived and we were all ready! Wilma (my wheelchair, yes I’m one of those people! I like to name things) was all ready with the MS-UK t-shirt attached to the back. Everyone in the team had the official ‘Color Run’ t-shirts on as stated in the rules and we all had paint and glitter on our faces supplied by ‘The Color Run’

We all huddled together and said our bit, this mainly consisted of me screaming with excitement and then we made our way to the start!

Remember to breath!

There were so many groups of people, like i said before thousands! My heart started to race, I’d never done anything like this before! I remembered my ‘Pilates breathing’ to help calm me and kept telling myself ‘just breath, just breath!’

We started to move again, not for long! Stop, start, stop, start! When would we really be starting? We realised they were letting groups of people go & then waiting. Finally, we were off! 5k here we come!

And they’re off!

I started off walking with Angie and a member of the support team Sharon who I stuck to like glue, I was still very nervous even though the crowds of people had dispersed into the distance! Sare was in the wheelchair being pushed by Debbie ahead of us with 2 other members of the support team, Sarah C *AKA Giggler* & her partner Mike. 3 other members of the support team had decided to run ahead, Sare’s son Lewis & another close friend Adam decided to run the course and meet us at the end. Sharon’s son was also with us, because of his age he was only allowed to run to each kilometre marker. He then had to wait for us before he could run ahead again.

We reached the first kilometre marker! The ‘Color Run’ volunteers were so much fun, they kept running up to everyone high fiving us followed by a dousing in color! Yellow, yellow, yellow, everywhere, the smell was awful & it didn’t taste too good either but it was so much fun!

 

Collecting the colors

As we made our way around the course we started to acquire more colors, Blue was the second, followed by my favourite: pink & then the final color at the 4th kilometre was orange.

 

We laughed & threw paint powder all over each other & laughed some more! We shared the wheelchair as & when we needed to being pushed by only one person, Debbie, because she was in the zone! She had been training for this for weeks and wasn’t going to let anyone else take over!

Meeting Jazz

I’d had a conversation with a young girly who I knew was going to the Color Run.  I met Jazz (who also has MS) through twitter, we’d spoken about how great it would be if we bumped into each other on the day as we’d been chatting online for such a long time but had never yet met! We also laughed about how it would be virtually impossible to bump into each other as there would be so many people there!

Enormous amount of pride!

We realised that not long after we started we were soon overtaken by the next wave of runners/walkers and then the next and the next and the next! It wasn’t long until we noticed the ambulance behind us! You know, the ambulance that signifies the end of the race, the last ones! We’d gone from being one of the first groups to start to being the last to finish, in that moment right there I felt an enormous amount of pride!

 

The last to finish

The last color was in sight! The last hill, the last marker! We were the last group to finish which could only mean one thing to the volunteers, use up all the paint powder they had left and cover the last people to cross!

 

 

Finish in site!

Hip hip hooray! We did it!

Our own private colour party!

We did it but it didn’t finish there, we made our way to the final area where the remainder of what looked like a rave had taken place. Once we got to the ‘party zone’ we were given loads of packets of paint powder, this was basically to throw all over ourselves as a group!

We watched the small crowds of groups at the bottom of the hill by the party stage, luckily we could hear them. They started to count down & paint bombed each other with those packets we were given! Wow! At that moment, I had tears in my eyes! That might seem odd to some people but for me it was magical! All that colour, it was like a plume of rainbows!

Our turn! As a group, as a team, the runners had rejoined us. We counted down 3, 2, 1, paint powder everywhere! It wasn’t until I opened mine that I realised I had the best colour ever, pink, my favourite!

Remembering how my vision is and how i have lost contrast, to see all that colour was something that I shall always remember, and if I don’t remember because MS is also interfering with my memory then I have the photos to look through.

 

The long walk back to the car!

 

What an incredible day!

 

With special thanks to

‘Wilma’

The ‘Avatars’

And everyone that sponsored us!