The Color Run: I Wish I Thought of it First!

A little over a week ago we at the Hook household were sitting down on Saturday evening getting ready to watch the Penn State vs. Rutgers football game. The nachos were prepared and the beverages were cold.

Then my son decided that it was the perfect moment to ask dad for a favor. “Daaa-aaaaad” he started. Around our house whenever the word dad is broken into two syllables it signifies that my money clip is about to get lighter. “Would you pay $45 so I can run in a 5K tomorrow morning?”

Now, my son knows I am all in favor of anything he does that involves athletic activity. One sport that I’ve tried to get him to do with me is to run a 5K every now and then, which he almost always politely declines — something for which I can’t really blame him. When I was 13 if someone asked me to run 3 miles my response would have been a loud, “Are you crazy?!? Run 3 miles?!” 

So he knew this request to run a 5K had a good shot at succeeding, because he had the “But Dad, you’re always asking me to run 5K’s” card as a follow-up to any negative response I gave.

And I did have a negative response. “Forty-five dollars?!” I said. “What race around here charges 45 bucks?” 

A little background … In the last ten years I have run just shy of 100 5K races in the area (not fast though!). The most I can recall ever paying was $25 – and for that I got to finish on the 50-yard-line in Beaver Stadium and high-five Franco Harris as I crossed. A pittance compared to the value received! Almost every other 5K has been $20 or less – and all went to worthwhile local charities. 

So my question was really what local charity decided to think out-of-the-box and break the traditional low-price barrier that everyone in the area sticks to? (Full disclosure and gratuitous self-promotion: I am involved with planning the Mt. Nittany Marathon to benefit the Mount Nittany Conservancy and although we did charge $50 – or $75 for late registration – that is a 26.2 mile race that still charged FAR below what other marathons charge.)

“The Color Run,” he replied. 

I’m well-versed in the names of most of the races around here, keep up on the Nittany Valley Running Clubs race calendar, and feel confident I know when one is imminent. I vaguely remembered hearing about this Color Run and wondered how I could have missed it.  And on top of that they are charging $45. I thought to myself, a race nobody knows about that overcharges – they’ll be lucky to get ten people to show up. 

So I said no. 

The next morning I went out for a jog and headed up on campus. As I crossed the IST bridge there was a huge dust cloud blocking the view of Pollock Road and there were hundreds of people on the streets. I turned up Burrowes Road and went along with the crowd for a bit and noticed their race bibs read, “Color Run.” So this is the Color Run, I thought. Wow. That is a heck of a lot more than ten people!

After about a mile I went in my own direction, shocked by how many people – including babies in strollers – were participating. I must do some investigating and find out what this is about, I thought, because if that many people paid $45 some charity was having a great day! 

The first thing I discovered is the race isn’t run by a charity. On the Color Run website they are very clear about stating The Color Run, LLC is a “for profit” event company. They do have some nice touchy-feely language about helping charities, but they make it plain that “The Color Run’s number one goal, as it relates to local charities, is to increase cause awareness.” In other words, their goal is not to raise money. Which I found interesting, if only because so much money was clearly changing hands. As someone who works in the nonprofit industry my spidey-sense was tingling.

As you dig deeper you find all sorts of interesting things about this run – that just about everything associated with it is done as inexpensively as possible. 

They don’t time it. Timing is easily the largest time-consuming logistical issue any normal race has – matching up runners with bibs and timing chips, getting an accurate time for them, and reporting it. They use white t-shirts – the least expensive shirt color to buy. They don’t measure the course – the Penn State course was actually a quarter-mile long (if it followed the course map they listed online).  They used minimal staffing at the various water and “fun” stations I saw.  

Then to top it off, they spray you with powder at various intervals along the course. This explained the cloud of dust I saw. According to the fine folks at The Color Run the powder “is food grade cornstarch and is 100% natural.” When I hear that sort of talk I think, “Well, I’m sure that’s what the mining company told my grandfather before he died of black-lung disease – that coal dust is 100% natural, it comes right out of the earth.” Although the Color Run says that some runners “opt to… use a bandana or dust mask for their mouths” I saw no one with a mask on their mouth.

Massively intrigued by this information I did some calculations. This Color Run had 12,000 entrants. Based on when and how you registered (early registration was less, “team” registration was less) some runners paid $45, some $40, and some $35. Using $40 as an average means the run could have taken in $480,000, and this doesn’t include the merchandise they sold at the finish line! 

What did runners receive for this?  A t-shirt, bag, bandana, bracelet, color packets, tattoo, bib, and pins.  Between those and the processing costs, the expense to supply each runner is $5 maximum or $60,000 for the run. Their other direct run-related costs might be $50,000 (but could just as easily be $20,000 or less). Meaning there was $370,000 floating around out there somewhere!

Since Penn State Homecoming welcomed the Color Run as part of their Homecoming Celebration they will reap a few dollars from the run. The projection is it will be less than $30,000. And to be fair, Homecoming didn’t in any way promote this as a fundraiser, and as I noted above the Color Run clearly is not about raising money for charities.

But should the Homecoming Committee be looking for a suggestion, as I write this the domain name “TheHappyRun.org” is available for less than $10. Next year schedule “The Happy Run” instead and raise a few dollars for some local charities. And use paint instead of powder for the shirts– there are plenty of options available that will eliminate inhaling dust.

Lastly, please don’t think that I am against the Color Run. I’m all about community events that bring people together and support charitable causes.  It’s just that I’m jealous – I wish I thought of it first as a great fundraiser for local charities!

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