The Color Run comes to London!

London is currently in the middle of a heatwave. Ever since we got back from Sicily almost two weeks ago, it has been at least 29 degrees everyday, and we have had no rain for about three weeks.

After an endless winter, Londoners have emerged from their houses squinting in the bright sunshine, women are putting on their bikinis, men are taking off their shirts and everyone is flocking to the parks and the seaside.

We have had dinner in the park every night this week since our house is like an oven. London houses may have excellent central heating for Winter, but there is no defence against the hot sun, especially when you're on the 4th floor of an apartment building.

So it's in the middle of this heatwave that the Color Run came around. We booked months ago when we were still wearing our winter coats, so it was with slight trepidation that we put on our running clothes and headed into the afternoon sun to do a 5km fun run/walk.

The Color Run was founded by Travis Snyder from Utah, and the first official run took place in January 2012 in Arizona.

The Color Run is a non-profit organisation and always partners with a different charity in each city the run takes place. The charity for the UK is Stand Up To Cancer, so not only is the race an insane amount of fun, it's also for a good cause.

The event itself is a 5km run/dance/walk where at every 1km there is a colour station where participants are showered in brightly coloured powder thrown by volunteers as you run through. Depending on how slow or fast you run, and if you lie down in the road like we saw some people doing, it's very easy to get covered from head to toe in powder.

The London Color Run was held at Wembley Stadium, with 15,000 participants, some of whom had flown in from all over Europe.

The idea is that everyone wears as much white as possible, and in your event pack you get given a Color Run t-shirt and sweatband to wear. Unfortunately Bradley's was too small so we visited Primark the day before and picked up a white t-shirt and some white sneakers for both of us.

Due to the hot weather, I also made some adjustments to my t-shirt, cutting the sleeves, bottom and neckline to make it looser and tying ribbons so I didn't get t-shirt lines.

We were doing the run with our friend Di, who you may remember from here and here, and lots of her lovely friends. It was so much more fun to do it with a big group of people.

We got to the stadium quite early, and relaxed in the shade outside while waiting for everyone to arrive. I couldn't believe the amount of people streaming into the stadium, so many people in identical white t-shirts (and some in wedding dresses!), we all had to hold onto each other when moving through the crowds so we didn't get lost.

When we got inside we headed over to the start line, along with the thousands of other people. We slowly inched forward closer and closer to the start line. They were releasing people in groups of approximately 1,000 at a time, so while we arrived at the start line at around 2.30 p.m., we didn't actually get going until after 3.30 p.m.

This part was not managed particularly well, I don't think they had enough staff and no-one could hear any announcements, so no-one knew what was really going on. This was all forgotten as soon as we got to the actual start line and started the run!

While the rest of our group ran off, Bradley, Di and I walked at a brisk pace. It was way too hot for running, and luckily the crowds dissipated as soon as everyone started the course.

We were lucky the roads around Wembley were so wide, so it never felt too crowded, though I think for next years run, it would be better if the event was capped at 8 - 10,000 people.

We approached the first Color Stop after no time at all, and we could see the pink clouds hovering in the distance. All three of us came through with a fair bit of colour, the pink seems to have held on the longest, I still have some pink in my hair after several washes.

We stopped to take photos after every Color Stop so we had a fun timeline of our journey. I got hit the most at the purple stop, I got a huge clump of purple from the right hand side that went all down my neck, front and back and coloured my ear and half my nose completely purple.

Covered in purple!

We all got off pretty unscathed after the Yellow Stop, just a few patches here and there, mostly on our legs.

The last stop was Orange and that was the one that got us the most after Purple, my whole right arm was Orange and Di's entire right side was hit.

With the end in sight and the music pumping, we danced and skipped towards the finish line. It was amazing to finish with everyone cheering, and there were official photographers taking photos of everyone.

After the run we got sent a link to our photos if we wanted to purchase them. Needless to say none will be purchased, no-one looks good dancing and skipping like a crazy person!

After the run everyone was given packs of coloured powder. There was music playing and there was a big party at the finish line.

Close up of my purple ear

Once everyone had finished the race we all gathered in a huge group with the thousands of other people and as the DJ counted down everyone ripped open their colour packets and threw them into the air.

If we thought we were covered in powder before, we were saturated after this.

Everyone turned the same shade of slightly pink/orange colour afterwards. It was amazing to think how white everything had been when we started!

Group photo!

We headed out of the crowds after the first few colour explosions, and it was awesome to stand back and see the colours going up in the air after every countdown.

Completely exhausted and hot, we headed home in the late afternoon. Walking through Wembley Stadium, we saw the entire grounds had turned pink and orange.

It wasn't until we got to the train station and away from the other runners, that we realised how colourful we were. My hair was completely pink, with some purple spots scattered through and the colours on our bodies had merged together so we were a purpley blue colour.

We got a lot of looks and questions on the way home, everyone wanted to talk to us and ask what we had been doing and why we looked so crazy. We also had to perch on the train seats and try not to brush up against anything as the powder got everywhere.

After we got off the train, we walked the back streets to our house to avoid as many people as we could, but we still ran into people who wanted to stop and chat. Definitely not used to Londoner's being so friendly that they stop you in the street for a conversation!

Looking bright on the steps of our building

Look how white my teeth look!

When we got home we took off our shoes at the door and headed straight for the bathroom. We both took about half an hour in the shower to scrub all the powder off, and Bradley had to scrub my back with the flannel while I was in the shower as the purple was on so thick!

We had such an amazing day and will definitely be doing it next year if it returns, but hopefully with a few less thousand people.