What separates the Color Vibe run from other 5K races is the color, of course—runners are blasted with colored powder just as often as they take water breaks. Noemi Mariscal, 22, has run nearly a dozen 5Ks, but somehow managed to miss Color Vibe every year. That finally changed on Aug. 12 when she ran the 2017 Color Vibe at the Santa Maria Elks Rodeo Arena.
Mariscal lives in Santa Maria and works in Guadalupe as a preschool teacher at Bonita Migrant and Seasonal Head Start. When she isn’t working, you’ll probably find her doing homework. Mariscal currently studies psychology, with an emphasis in child psychology, at Brandman University.
Working with kids brings out Mariscal’s inner youth, she said, and her experience at the Color Vibe had the same effect. Running this particular 5K made her feel like a kid more than any other, she explained.
“Getting colored was the best part! It gives you something to look forward to throughout the race,” she said. “Every checkpoint you pass, you get more color.”
Mariscal said she didn’t quite know what to expect from her first Color Vibe experience. She’d been running before, but wasn’t sure how the colored powder would feel as it was thrown on her throughout the race.
“It gets everywhere and it’s as light as baby powder,” she said. “I was really careful not to rub any of it in my eyes. But it was really easy to get off afterwards.”
She was also careful not to get any powder in her mouth, although she later found out it was completely edible.
Now that Mariscal has finally conquered Color Vibe, she hopes to cross off another race that’s been on her bucket list for far too long—the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend, which takes place Aug. 31 through Sept. 3.
What always makes running 5Ks, including the Color Vibe, special to Mariscal isn’t the race, it’s who she races with.
“My mom runs every 5K with me, she’s usually the one who gets me involved to begin with,” she said. “She tries to get all of us involved. My dad and brother were supposed to join us for the color run, but they both got called in to work.”
One of her family’s favorite parts of Thanksgiving is the Santa Maria Turkey Trot Fun Run, which takes place every November. Mariscal wouldn’t refuse any holiday-themed run, except if the holiday is Halloween, she said.
“I would never do one of those zombie runs. Zombies freak me out way too much,” she said. “If they did a clown run instead, I wouldn’t mind that. Clowns don’t scare me at all.”
This article appears in Aug 24-31, 2017.