I don’t like getting up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning, but I had a really good reason today. Daughter, a group of friends and I ran/walked The Color Run, a 5k paint race whose goal is to “promote healthiness and happiness by bringing the community together to participate in the Happiest 5k on the Planet.” And it raises money for a health-related organization.

While the teenagers ran the race, the moms walked. But we all started out wearing white and finished with our clothes and faces full of pink, purple, blue, yellow, orange, silver and gold paint. And sparkles. Can’t forget the sparkles!

If The Color Run comes to your city, you should do it. Really. It’s so much fun. Whether you walk or run, you go through five stations where volunteers spray you with dry paint. Everyone is laughing and cheering you on — it’s exhilarating. At the finish line, you get a medal and two more packets of dry paint that you toss up in the air to add more color to your hair, shirt, shorts and skin.

I like that the event benefits a charitable organization in the area, too. The one that will benefit from the Austin event is Color Cancer, which provides free at-home care supplies to cancer patients in need. According to The Color Run, it has donated more than $3 million to charities since 2012.

I call that a win-win kind if event. We got some exercise and had fun, while helping out a worthwhile cause. And did I mention sparkles were involved? How can you beat that?