One of the activities during Homecoming Week was the 5K Paint Run. Students competed against one another while having liquid paint thrown on them this year. For the last two years, a different type of paint has been thrown on the runners. As students ran, water was provided to keep them hydrated.
London Taylor/The Lion's Roar

The 5K Paint Run is an annual event hosted by Student Engagement. The 5K Paint Run was held at North Oak Park on Oct. 18 at 6 p.m. 

This year, liquid paint was used for the race.

“We’ve been doing the paint run for three years,” said Dr. Pam Rault, Director of the Office for Student Engagement. “The first year was with powder paint, the second year was with glow paint, this year is liquid paint.”

Teams were required to wear white shirts. Participants were blasted with paint as they ran towards the paint stations. This year, Cajun Timing came to help with timing all of the runners.

“There were chips in the race bibs, so we could track the runners’ time,” said Rault.

Rault mentioned that last year’s 5K Paint Run had a lot of risk management issues with the glow run taking place in the dark.

“It’s less risk and liability since it’s taking place during the day,” said Rault.

Hours before the race, she gave her thoughts about how she felt it would turn out.

“It’s going to turn out well,” said Rault. “Students look forward to it.”

First place winner, Derrick McGalliard, thought it would be exciting to run his first 5K event.

“I wanted to be involved in the Homecoming festivities some kind of way,” said McGalliard, a senior occupational safety health and environment major.

McGalliard shared that he did not expect to win first place and also shared that there was no preparation whatsoever for the race.

“Honestly, I didn’t even expect to come in the top 10, maybe top 25,” said McGalliard. “First place was a real shocker. I had just found out about the 5K run two days prior to the event. I had decided on the day of the 5K event that I was gonna participate.”

McGalliard reflected on what his thoughts were during the race.

“Why did I stop running and choose to only lift weights and eat, they were thoughts of regret,” said McGalliard.

The reason McGalliard participated in the race was because he had not previously challenged himself as far as running goes.

“I figured this 5K event would show me if I still had the ability to run as well as I could a few years ago,” said McGalliard. 

McGalliard expressed the challenge of running the event.

“The race itself was difficult giving the fact that I didn’t plan on really trying to place high,” said McGalliard. “When I decided that I wanted my pace to be the pace of the person in front of me, keeping up with him required my all. So, I kinda had to psych myself into believing if I stopped or slowed my pace, I would regret not giving it my all so, I would say the race was pretty challenging.”