Dec 14: The colour run

This is the fourteenth post in the FastMail 2015 Advent Calendar. Stay tuned for another post tomorrow.

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This blog post is much less technical than some of the others in our advent series.

Three weeks ago Team FastMail took part in our first Colour Run. Being based in Melbourne means our summer occurs when most of the world is having winter, and we thought this would be a great opportunity to drag some of the team out of the office and in to the fresh – well, coloured – air.

Before

Team FastMail: Chris, Alfie, Richard, David & Nicola.

The Colour Run is a 5k fun run that takes part in various cities around the world, this one was held at Flemington Racecourse, Victoria. As the event isn’t timed and there are no prizes, the ratio of fun to running was about 80:20. Coloured powder is thrown at runners at checkpoints along the race, inspired by the Hindu festival of Holi.

After

As a picture is worth a thousand words…

Team FastMail: Chris, Alfie, David, Richard & Nicola.

Remote runner

One of our team members wanted to join in, but happened to be travelling during the race weekend. So instead, he participated in Team FastMail as a remote runner. With the use of mobile technology, email and slack, the course was extended to include a parallel run in Tasmania.

With tens of thousands of people waiting to get to the start line, a 40 minute wait meant that our remote runner had completed his 5k run by the time we got to the start line.

Thanks to all the volunteers who helped run the event. We had a great time!