While sweating, smiling and listening to the pump of reggae, a silent stampede of runners raced down South University Avenue yesterday on their way to the Big House.

The runners participated in Big House Big Heart, a series of races devoted to raising money for local charities and the University of Michigan Health System. Proceeds from the event, which featured a 5K, 10K and two one-mile races, support three UMHS programs: the Program for Neurology Research & Discovery, C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital and the Cardiovascular Center.

Big House Big Heart started in 2007 with more than 5,000 participants and a $150,000 contribution to charities. Since then, it has grown in runners and donations each year.

This year, the event had approximately 15,000 participants and 775 volunteers, of whom 200 are student-athletes at the University.

Colleen Greene, the logistics chair for Champions for Charity — the organization hosting the event — expressed enthusiasm about the growth of the event. The organization now raises money for 147 non-profits while also supporting UMHS, Greene said. She added that this year the organization hopes to top $1 million.

Significantly, the race was extended across the globe, with 500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan participating in the 5k and 10k races via a virtual feed.

Sgt. Christopher Wright, a volunteer for last year’s race, helped organize the run this year in Afghanistan.

At the race in Ann Arbor, runners finished on the 50-yard line in the Big House. Brandon Bethke was first to finish in the 10K with a time of 30:38.

Bethke is a post-collegiate runner based in Ann Arbor hoping to make the Olympics in 2012. He qualified for the 5K in the Olympic trials with a time of 13:25 at the Payton Jordan Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.

Bethke said he ran in the race to check his training progress, since he's preparing for the Pan-American Games, with the next Games scheduled to take place in Toronto in 2015. He added that he was excited to participate in the event.

“Running for a cause is what it is all about,” Bethke said before he shuffled off to take pictures with eager fans.

LSA junior Thomas Yeh, another participant, was supporting a charity called My Team Triumph. The organization, which has chapters in eight states, pairs people in wheel chairs with runners to push them through the race.

“It is about being able to reach out and help out,” Yeh said.

Yeh added that the races provide a forum for disabled people to experience something they otherwise couldn't.

This year, 45 runners from MRun, a University running club, helped push three wheel chair users in the race. MRun also volunteered with My Team Triumph for the Dexter-Ann Arbor Half Marathon and helped raise money for the charity with a bake sale and a team raffle.

For Karleigh Kroll, a student in the School of Education, the race was an opportunity to run with friends.

“I have been wanting to run a 10K, and a bunch of my friends were running it and I thought it’d be fun,” she said.

Though Kroll has been casually running for two years, this was her first race and she didn’t train much for it.

“I pretty much just got up and ran,” she said.

Despite it being her first race, Kroll said she really enjoyed it and finished with a time of about one hour.

“It was a lot of fun. If this is what all 10K’s are like, I’ll run them over and over again,” she said.