Chaos reigned in the "Weird Zone." If festival participants weren't getting splattered with orange goo, then they were dancing in it as part of a contest where the weirdest and strangest won.
"Weird it up, everyone," said Baker Harrell, the overseer of the kids' area near the finish line of the third annual Keep Austin Weird 5k race. "There's extra foam fingers in the truck if you need 'em," Harrell said. No normalcy was allowed in the Weird Zone.
As the blistering heat topped 102 degrees Saturday, 5,000 runners wearing tutus, lime-green inner tubes, fairy wings, capes and tiaras braved the heat in an effort to keep Austin weird on Saturday. Organizers estimated 5,000 to 6,000 festival attendees and 5,000 runners showed up to support local Austin businesses and to enjoy a unique marathon experience.
Health awareness was not the overriding goal of this race with the abundance of ice cream, donut, bacon, beer and cigarette stops to fortify or distract the runners along the route to the finish line where loud music and a Jell-O food fight awaited.
Free music performances included Damesviolet, Grady, Vallejo and Del Castillo.
People walking away from the race more closely resembled revelers leaving Mardi Gras than runners, wearing masks and strings of beads, though all were drenched in sweat.
Sergio Rodriguez, an applied music graduate student who was part of the RunTex-sponsored Gilbert's Gazelles running team, sported a lime-green children's inner-tube, swim goggles and a cape that matched his running mates who were equally oddly dressed for a race.
Hard-core runners were not the only Austinites who finished the race. Lindsey Rush and her father, both UT alumni, ran the race with Lindsey's two sisters, Rosalyn and Annie, who attend the university as a sophomore and senior.
"I prefer not to run, that's just me," Rush said. But she did it anyway.
Megan Harrison, who joined the Rush family, said she appreciated the marathon route through residential neighborhoods. "People came out and sprayed water and cheered," Harrison said.
Rosalyn Rush saw the event as a good kickoff for back to school and work.
"It's very Austin," the youngest Rush said. She, like many others, used the term 'Austin' as a synonym for eclectic, strange or a little bit off.
Keep Austin Weird is the catchphrase that the Austin Business Alliance has adopted to promote small businesses in Austin, said Dennis Satterfield, the founder of the race.
Satterfield noted the race was the only one of its kind in the country in that it emphasizes the importance of small local businesses and how they spend and keep money in Austin, rather than funding mass merchandisers outside the city and state.
"Small businesses make money that's spent in Austin and stays in Austin," he said.
Liz Jambor cheered for her 6-year-old son as he charged head-on for the opposing Team Weirdo in the Jell-O food fight.
"Once we hit the donuts, he thought this was the best race ever," Jambor said.
A resident of Austin for seven years, Jambor said she enjoyed supporting Austin.
"You can do and be anything you want, and it's totally accepted. Look around," she said, referring to the Jell-O-strewn field and oddly dressed inhabitants that included four brothers wearing pink kilts with no shirt and matching neon pink berets. "It's a pretty eclectic group," Jambor said.
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