Color Run, NASCAR, and Domestic Violence

Cincinnati was host to the 2015 MLB All-Star game, and one of the festivities was the Color Run.  15,000 people signed up to run or walk, and along the way, have people throw powdered paint at you.

Each station was a different color, and the first color we encountered was blue.  The paint handlers tossed the blue paint with great enthusiasm, and in their frenzy, I saw a stream of paint leave a canister, and landed directly in my eye.   It was blinding! I staggered around while they heaved more paint.  I could feel it getting in my hair, clothes, and shoes, as I stumble around awkwardly fearing a stumble and breaking my ankle.  

After several stations, and a rainbow of Technicolor assaults, we finished!  In the finish chute, I was busy trying to dig a giant chuck of blue paint that had settled in the bottom of my eye lid, and would randomly move up into my vision.  It would cover my whole field of vision in one eye, and then quickly dart back down as I attempted to remove it.  Like trying to catch an earthworm after a hard rain. As we crossed the finish line to get our medals, we were given more paint.  We each got a couple of bags of different colors, such as gold, silver, and purple.  The field at the finish line was a mess!  The band was getting people were tossing their paint bags in the air all at the same time.  It was quite a site from afar.  Everyone was a complete mess!

We had tickets that evening for the Kentucky Speedway Quaker State 400, so we quickly hit the showers to ready to head to the race.  Shannon came out of the shower with blue still under her arms, and all over her chest and neck.  It was difficult to get off, possibly because it was the first color thrown, and was on us the longest.  Whatever the reason, we could not fully remove the color.  Based on the placement, it looked like Shannon was a victim of some serious domestic abuse (see picture).

I joked about the fact she looked like the star of a TV drama on the Oxygen channel (of course played by Judith Light -she is always in those series), and thought she would fit right in with the rest of the NASCAR fans.

Not knowing the parking situation or lay of the land, we pulled into the first driveway, and the first spot we found.

If you are familiar with your math studies, and remember Pythagorean Theory, our parking to the speedway is the length of the hypotenuse, or in simple terms, the furthest f**king point from the damn track!  It was a giant hike to get to the entrance, but to shorten the distance, we dipped over a guardrail and attempted to travel down, and up the other side of steep ravine.

Due to a recent horrible ankle sprain, I inched my way down this steep hill, while my friend Dave helped Shannon ease down the hill.  Several other people followed us through this treacherous shortcut, and seemed to be going just as cautiously.

Near the bottom of the hill, nearing the trickling creek bed, Shannon slips and falls on her ass.  Dave, being the gentleman he is, is helping her up, when a girl in the trailing groups says, “doesn’t look like the first time you have taken a hit and fallen down.”

I remember looking down, and seeing a dumbfounded look on both Shannon’s and Dave’s face, followed by Shannon yelling, “I ran the color run this morning.”  But her words fell on deaf ears and the girl shook her head as if to say, “yeah, right.”

Guess you should never judge a woman by her bruises….