Travis Snyder, an entrepreneur best known for founding The Color Run, has died following a battle with acute myeloid leukemia. He was 45.
People reported Sunday that it had confirmed Snyder’s death after an apparently posthumous message penned by the Utah native was posted to his Instagram page.
“Please don’t say I ‘lost my fight with cancer,’” he wrote. “I lived and battled and was blessed with eight years of life after a devastating diagnosis. At one of my more difficult moments, I told my friend I was sorry they had to see me. Her reply was quick and direct, ‘All I’ve ever seen when I look at you is a warrior.’ That is how I’d like to be remembered.”
That’s how he was memorialized by the actor Jason Momoa, a friend he met through “happenstance and mutual friends” after his diagnosis in 2015, Snyder told People last year.
In a comment on the post, Momoa addressed his friend’s widow and three sons, saying Snyder “is the strongest man I have ever met. In truth he is one of the greatest humans I have ever met.”
“I will spend the rest of my life sharing stories with you about how impactful he was to me,” he continued. “Your Dad lives in us forever he is a warrior.”
Momoa, who was in Brazil over the weekend to promote Aquaman 2: The Lost Kingdom at São Paulo’s Comic Con Experience 2023, apologized to the family for not being with them. “All my aloha and mana to you,” he wrote. In a repost of the posthumous note on his own page, Momoa added that Snyder was “in my soul and in my bones im so grateful to have been your friend.”
“Rest brother,” he added.
Snyder wrote in his message that he owed many of the most “beautiful moments” of his life to his sons and wife, Heidi. “The bonds of relationships are the only things that will endure beyond this life,” he said.
He also expressed gratitude for his work with The Color Run, saying he had “found something to create and give me purpose.”
Snyder founded the 5-kilometer race, in which participants run while getting doused in colored powders, more than a decade ago. An event producer with years of experience creating triathlons and relay races, Snyder conceived The Color Run a “nonthreatening running environment where professional and novice runners could come together,” according to the race’s site.
“There is something really awesome about making a goal to run a sub-20 minute 5K and doing it,” Snyder told the Deseret News in 2012. “That has a distinct set of satisfactions and highs. But going and doing the Color Run, it’s much more about being social, a little more about the experience and just about being. It’s a lot less about expectation; it’s just about fun.”
Within a year of its founding, The Color Run had exploded in popularity, with more than 600,000 runners participating in 50 events across the United States, organizers told SFGATE in 2013. On a press page from 2017, the company said it had hosted a total of more than 300 events in 35 countries, and donated more than $5 million to charity.
Snyder wrote in his Sunday note that he had been “fortunate to fulfill my dreams and travel the world while hopefully generating some goodness along the way.”
In a postscript, he urged supporters to “please please keep advocating for raising the bone marrow registries.”
“The cold reality is I might still be kicking’ it if I would had matches,” he said. “Many out there still waiting.”
Snyder worked frequently with Be the Match, a nonprofit that connects patients to bone marrow donors. In a statement, the organization told People that Snyder had been “selfless” in his advocacy efforts.
“He inspired thousands of people to join the Be the Match registry, and we know his efforts will help more patients in the future get a second chance at life,” the nonprofit added. “He was a warrior, and his life made a difference.”
