Nearly 8,000 runners, mainly young people, converged at Hastings Park on Saturday for Vancouver’s first ever ‘The Color Run’ or what has otherwise been billed as “the happiest 5 km on the planet.”

The Color Run is an untimed fun run and open to all ages and abilities. All participants are given a white t-shirt to wear prior to the start of the race, and throughout the running course participants are doused in different colours of powder made of corn starch and food-safe plant dye. This year, Vancouver’s race colours were a vibrant mix of blue, orange, pink and yellow.

The event was first launched in 2012 at Phoenix, Arizona, and has since quickly made its way to hundreds of other cities around the world.

Photography by Yonathan Wezeli