Hundreds of students, faculty and residents of the Amherst area came out to the Goodell Building Lawn on Friday to enjoy loud music, inflatable sports games and tables with free snacks all in preparation for the annual University of Massachusetts Multicolor Mile, an event to raise money toward one of five departments on campus.
Hosted by the UMass Alumni Association, the multicolor run is a one-mile race where runners are sprayed with streams of colored paint as they run around the university starting and ending at Goodell Building.
“My favorite part about the UMass Multicolor run is seeing everyone at the start and the finish line, especially the finish line because no matter how cold it is or [if] it’s raining and people are soaking wet, everyone has a smile on their face,” said Rebecca Munroe, the event’s coordinator and a public health and sociology major.
Prior to the run, participants are given a brightly colored plastic ball and asked to place it in a basket dedicated to a department on campus. Each ball signifies a five-dollar donation from each registration fee to either the Center for Women and Community, Scholarships, Center for Counseling and Psychological Health, Veterans Services or Disability Services. The department with the most balls wins all of the money.
In addition to the SAA, members of the University Programming Council were also there to hand out free brownies, cake pops and chocolate, sugar and peanut butter cookies. UPC also provided small gifts such as stickers, mugs and pads. And with the help of their vendors Perfect Parties USA, UPC was able to set up inflatable basketball courts, trampolines and balloons.
Sharply at 5 p.m. the race began in front of Goodell Building as hundreds of runners took their first steps in the mile run while event coordinators sprayed streams of yellow, blue, red, green and purple paint over their bodies.
After the runners took off, it wasn’t long before a few members started sprinting back to the start line completing the race, namely Chris Hill, a senior English major, who took first place with a time of 5 minutes and 14 seconds.
“I’m pretty happy about [winning], I started fading off at the end, the guy in second really started closing in, but I managed to hold him off which I’m happy about,” said Hill. Hill has also been running track and cross country for nearly a decade.
For winning first place in the color run, Hill was awarded a 20-dollar gift card to the university store.
Shortly after him, a swarm of other runners covered in rainbows of paint and sweat crossed the finish line, celebrating their lap around UMass with laughs, hugs and pictures.
“I feel good, I feel pretty good [and] cold.” said Natalie Meyerson, sophomore management major, after completing the mile run. “The pre-activities were really fun and it was really fun to see everyone react to getting paint on them.”
Toward the end of the event, it was announced that for the first time ever there was a three-way tie between CCPH, CWC and Scholarships for donation money. According to Munroe, there may need to be some sort of tie-breaker.
Alvin Buyinza can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @abuyinza_news.
