Sept. 06--The skies were gray when the Zion Jubilee Days 5K run kicked off Saturday morning, but by the end of the race, the runners were quite colorful.
For the past few years the run, part of Zion's annual Labor Day weekend festival, has been a color run, where volunteers stationed along the course pelt racers with fistfuls of brightly colored cornstarch for a head-to-toe tie-dye look by the time they cross the finish line.
The first to do so Saturday was David Schroeder, 25, of Zion, winning his first-ever road race. Schroeder said he's been running for a couple years but started training seriously just this summer.
"It feels good to win," said Schroeder, eyes partly hidden behind glasses clouded with gobs of green and blue powder. And the dye-tossing? "I can take the abuse," he laughed.
The event was a fun run, with no formal timing, meaning the first female finisher, Molly Balch, still isn't quite sure how quickly she covered the course. Just a few feet from the finish line was the final color-tossing station, manned by cheerleaders from North Shore Elite armed with orange and purple powder.
"I was getting blasted by colors," said 13-year-old Balch, from Kenosha, Wisc. Though she didn't see her time on the clock as she passed, Balch said she's just running for fun. She's on her middle school track team, she said, and plans to take up cross country in high school.
With about 65 runners, this year's race was smaller than some, said Zion Park District executive director Marilyn Krieger, who chalked it up in part to the proliferation of mud runs and obstacle races. As in years past, all funds raised through the event go to the park district's foundation and fund scholarships for kids to participate in parks programs, she said.
The race's theme this year -- Color Your World With Character -- was meant to fit with the overall theme for Zion's Jubilee Days, A Community of Character. "It's something everyone in the community is trying to focus on," volunteer Tara Caldara said.
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