Color Me Rad hosts race in Columbia for first time
By the end of the race, they were covered. In pink, in blue, in green — it was everywhere.
Advertised as “the most colorful 5K you will ever run,” Color Me Rad left every runner a mess.
Some 6,000 people participated in the race, the first Color Me Rad event Columbia’s hosted, Saturday morning.
The unconventional race, which began at the Colonial Life Arena, circled campus and included four “Color Bomb” stations where participants were showered with paint.
“It was colored powder made of corn starch, almost like the dye for tie-dye before you add water,” said Christine Sharp, a fourth-year hospitality student who ran the 5K. “[Volunteers] threw paint, squirted us, and we picked up paint to throw too.”
For $40, runners received a Color Me Rad T-shirt, a race bib and a pair of sunglasses to keep the corn starch out of their eyes.
The proceeds went to Happy Wheels, a non-profit organization that collects books and toys and donates them to local hospitals for children with cancer, leukemia and other heart and lung diseases.
Third year-exercise science student Amanda Snow said the event attracted a variety of members in the community.
“Not only was it fun for people my age, but there were kids in strollers being pushed by their mothers,” Snow said. “There even was an elderly couple in their power scooters participating in the controlled chaos.”
But it wasn’t much of a serious race, Sharp said, and many participants walked the course, though Sharp joined a group of 7 that opted to run. In any case, they left covered head to toe after they were plastered with paint by volunteers.
At the end, runners had a chance to fire back, which many said was their favorite part. “Everyone who finished did a huge color bomb where we all had a packet of color and threw it in the air at the same time,” Sharp said.
The energy then, Snow said, was “phenomenal.”
In addition to the paint and merchandise they got when they registered, participants had the chance to purchase other wares at the CMR store at the finish line.
“The coordinators were giving away free stuff and color bombs amidst multiple color throws,” Snow said.
Because there were so many runners, the race had no single start time. Runners ran in heats, leaving every 5-10 minutes — until everyone had been “color bombed” at least once.
“The course was pretty easy, and I would totally do it again,” Sharp said. “It’s a lot more fun having a big group to run with.”