“I think we are the oldest here”, my husband muttered as we assembled for the Color Manila Nite Run: Black Light Edition.

Color Manila Nite Run- Black Light Edition

I laughed. “Don’t worry, we are here for the fun!” There is no age limit when it comes to fun and definitely none when it comes to fitness. Reality is I don’t like to run but I prefer to walk briskly. In fact, I have never joined any running events.

fun run

And well, why shouldn’t I try new things, get out of my comfort zone? When I attend the launch of this fun run a few weeks ago, I was told this is not your usual fun run and not a competition. I like that. No pressure to reach the finish line but just to enjoy the moment. Who knows, this might actually be the event to encourage me to even take the sport more seriously one day.

Color Manila Nite Run- Black Light Edition2

The Color Manila Nite Run: Black Light Edition is a “color festival, a fun run like no other, and a party rolled into one. It’s like that party but you wake up early for it, and never regret. The fun does not start at the finish line where you hear the bands. The party starts when you hear Gun Start. ”

powder at the color nite run

As my husband and I started running/walking to our goal, we literally encountered the most colorful confetti ever. I got bombed with pink colored powder that smelled of candy. The entire time that we started running, from the gun start, the organizers started to explode powder on us. We passed by three color stations along our 3 K route. Each station has a specific color assigned. They made sure we all the happiest colors of the rainbow (yellow, blue, green, purple, orange) formulated to glow under UV light.  Each of us had a blacklight headlight that reflected this powder. I felt like my body was “tie-dyed”

powder at the manila color run

Even the streets exploded with colored rain. The only sad people were those caught in traffic as we passed through intersections.

Color Manila Nite Run- Black Light Edition3

There was so much happy-spirit fever everywhere as colors transferred from one person to another. The best part is finishing the fun run as we each got our finishers’ medal. Mission accomplished. Fun and run! You know what, I am seriously considering joining more fun runs before I take this sport seriously.

Color Manila Nite Run- Black Light Edition finishers medal

The young ones continued to party as we sat by the grassy corner, wiping off our tinkerbell dust before heading off to our car. And by party, this meant being with “a bunch of happy, supersonic, neon-colored balls of energy dancing while singing” .

“Let’s look for another fun run”, says my husband .

Uh-oh,here we go.

About Noemi Lardizabal-Dado

You may contact Noemi (noemidado @ gmail.com) for speaking and consultancy services in the following areas: Parenting in the Digital Age (includes pro-active parenting on cyber-bullying and bullying) ; Social Business ; Reinventing One’s Life; and social media engagement. Our parenting workshop is called "Prep to Prime (P2P): Parenting in the Digital Age (An Un­Workshop)" P2P Un­Workshops are conducted by two golden women in their prime, Noemi and Jane, who have a century’s worth of experience between them. They are both accomplished professionals who chose to become homemakers. This 180­degree turn also put them on a different life course which includes blogging, social media engagement and citizen advocacy. They call their un­workshops Prep to Prime or P2P, for short, to emphasize the breadth of their parenting experience. They tackle different aspects and issues of parenting ­­ from managing pregnancies, prepping for the school years of children, dealing with househelp, managing the household budget, to maximizing one’s prime life and staying healthy through the senior years.

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