More fun than sweat in Canberra's colorful run

CANBERRA－The cold rain on Sunday morning in Australia's capital failed to extinguish people's passion for the Color Frenzy.

Many people arrived at Canberra's Weston Park with friends and family, wearing white T-shirts. Some of them were sprinkling colored powders on each other, and some were busy taking photos together.

The color run is a five-kilometer paint race in which participants were not judged by their speed, but purely enjoyed the process of showering themselves with colored powders.

Cherie Russell came to the event with her husband, son and daughter. It was their first time to a color run.

"I thought it would be a fun thing to do with the family, although it's raining," she said. "It's a good way to get outside, not just run around the field, but in a way to kind of make it fun."

Event organizer Clayton Bielby said the Color Frenzy was started four years ago in Queensland with the purpose of raising money for animal rescues.

The event was introduced to Canberra in 2019 before COVID-19 hit. Last year, the event was postponed due to the pandemic. This is the second time it was hosted in the capital.

"We're here with Street Cat Alliance," said Bielby. "They do a lot of re-homing for cats around Canberra and the goal is to 5,000 Australian dollars (about $3,871)."

He said the event was also aimed to get people "out and moving".

"The best way to do that is to add some colors and bubbles," said Bielby.

Charming aspect

Talking about the charm of color run, the organizer said "you don't get messy on purpose very much in life. So people want to come in and just get messy and have some fun".

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, they were only allowed to have 1,200 participants. Despite the bad weather, Bielby believes more than 1,000 showed up. "They haven't been out for a while," he said. "We've got small groups of people who haven't seen each other for little long."

Those who finished at least 2.5 kilometers were eligible to receive a medal.

Kym Donovan completed her lap very early and was happy to put on the colorful medal she got.

"I have never done it before," she beamed. She was supposed to come with a friend, who failed to show up due to illness. But Donovan still decided to run alone.

"It's only for one day. If you don't come, you miss that," she said.

She liked running in competitions, though, color run was different to her. "There is no other time in my life when I have gone home looking like this," she said. "It's exciting."

Xinhua