Hello friends – hope you all had nice weekends (or are still enjoying them with the holiday today).
On Friday night, Matt and I had the fun opportunity to attend a new and different sort of race – LivingSocial’s Glow in the Dark 5k Dance Party.
LivingSocial was nice enough to give us both a press pass to attend the event for free. Matt was pretty pumped about being a “VIP.” 😉
So, what is a Glow in the Dark 5k Dance Party, you ask? Well, it’s a night race where everyone running wears all black along with a huge assortment of glow sticks. Then after, there’s a big dance party. Cool, right?
LivingSocial partnered with MercyCorps for the race to use some of the proceeds to literally “light up the night” around the world, just like the glow sticks in the race did here in DC. Pretty symbolic, I thought! Here’s what the flyer they gave us in our race packets said:
There are 2.3 billion people in the world without access to reliable electricity using hazardous kerosene lanterns for light. A portion of the proceeds from this race will go to 1,000 safe, bright, durable, and renewable energy solar lanterns from d.light design, which will be delivered by Mercy Corps to schools in the villages of Hargeisa, Borama, Burco, and Erigavo, all very poor communities in Somalia with no access to electricity.
You can learn more about their efforts at mercycorps.org/livingsocial.
Matt and I got there early to check in and get our bibs and race t-shirts. Check in was really quick and easy.
Then, we put on a million glow sticks. Everyone running the race got a t-shirt and a few glow sticks as part of their race fee, but most everyone seemed to also have bought extra glow sticks to up the ante. There were some really awesome glow stick wigs, glow shirts, etc. Matt and I stuck with glow bracelets and necklaces. 🙂
The only thing that wasn’t awesome about this race was that they ushered everyone outside REALLY early – like over an hour before the race started. It was freezing cold outside on Friday night so everyone was basically dancing around and eagerly awaiting the race start. If we did this race again, we would a) bring friends, b) go to happy hour first, and c) go outside at the last minute possible. 🙂 That said, it was really cool looking outside with everyone lighting up the night.
Matt stayed warm with a little glow stick running man. 🙂
Finally, it was time. Ready… set… glow!
Since we had a press pass, Matt and I were in the first corral and got to start the race first. They had about 9 waves so that it wouldn’t be too crowded out on the course.
We had a great time once we started moving and warmed up! It was cool seeing everyone’s glow outfits and fun to run in the dark, too. There were a few fun spray paint glow stations, some loud music, and also a couple of these cool “glow tunnels” along the course. Love this picture!
Matt and I were feeling speedy – it felt really good to be out and about and stretching out our legs. We ended up finishing in just over 24 minutes for about an 8 min/mile. Yay!
After we were done, we headed back in to the DC Armory, where the dance party was getting ready to begin. Also as part of the race fee, everyone over 21 got one beer post-race. Can’t say I’m a big Bud Light fan, but one doesn’t turn down free beer – we earned it!
Matt and I stayed for a couple hours for the dance party, too. It was actually really fun! The glow sticks made it all look really cool, and everyone was hitting balloons around and dancing.
Thanks again to LivingSocial for having us join in on the fun, and for their charity efforts around the world. LivingSocial seems like such a fun company to work for – they always have all sorts of awesome adventure events going on. Previously, we’ve purchased their adventure deals for Night Kayaking on the Potomac and White Water Kayaking + Wine Tasting!
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I have a call shortly with my UNC advisor to talk about my masters paper… here’s hoping she doesn’t want me to make too many edits. Have a nice day, everyone – hope the weather is as beautiful and warm where you are as it is here in DC.
