Color Run

Overview

Each year, at the turn of winter to spring, Hindus celebrate Holi, a festival exalting colour that leaves participants saturated in bright hues. Holi serves as the inspiration behind the Color Run, a unique 5k race that has taken the U.S. by storm and is now heading to New Zealand.

Runners are invited to join the "3.1 miles of color madness" that comprise the untimed Color Run purely for the sake of a good time. The only race requirements are that all participants wear a white t-shirt and be willing to be greeted with a blast of coloured pigment upon completing every leg of the race.

The pigment, made of 100% natural food-grade cornstarch, is colour-specific for each portion of the race. After the first kilometre, runners are splattered with yellow; after the second, they are doused in blue. And so it continues until the end of the 5 kilometres, when each runner is covered head-to-toe in a brilliant mish-mash of every hue imaginable.

The Color Run will be in Auckland on January 26 at the Pukekohe Raceway.