Cold Winter’s Day 5K & 10K
Columbia, SC
- 10K, 5K, Kids Run
- Road (Paved)
- Official race website
Cold Winter’s Day 5K & 10K features a flat and fast course.
Local Historical Weather (Dec 26):
| 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
| H (°F) | 65 | 53 | 64 | 44 | 77 |
| L (°F) | 50 | 38 | 61 | 17 | 52 |
Find Nearby Lodging (hotel, rental, etc.):
Great Mid-Holiday Run
I always add cold winter's day to my race calendar - it's historically the Saturday between Christmas and New Years (IDK when they put it when Christmas is on a … MORE
I always add cold winter’s day to my race calendar – it’s historically the Saturday between Christmas and New Years (IDK when they put it when Christmas is on a Saturday, guess well find out in 2027) and a fun little end of the year celebration/motivator to keep up training during the last few weeks of December.
2025 was the first year they added a 10K option. I signed up for it since Columbia is sorely lacking in 10Ks. They also had an option to run both the 10K (starting at 9am) and the 5K (starting at 10am), but the price point was pretty high for one shirt/medal and no additional swag for doing both races. Looking at the results page, there wasn’t even a 15K option for awards/rankings, so I feel okay with my decision to just run the 10K. It worked out b/c I PRed by over a minute, so I’m glad I was able to just focus on one race.
This year was warm (60s, direct sun, 95% humidity), last year was 40s and rainy, the year before was in the 40s or 50s and overcast. So, it’s a gamble with the weather, but that’s early winter in South Carolina. But keep that in mind if you’re traveling down here and want to do the race – it may be warmer than you’ve been training in (looking at you Bangor, Maine woman who got first in my age group. Also looking at you Connecticut couple who did the race b/c you spent the night in Columbia on the way to Florida). But it’s a nice course – Strictly Running does a LOT of their races in this neighborhood and for good reason – there’s a lot of neighborhood to play with road wise (I did a 5 mile women’s race in the same neighborhood earlier this year and I think maybe one or two miles were a repeat). It’s hilly enough to keep things interesting and it looks like SC – lots of pines, nice houses with their xmas decorations, runs around a golf course and over a lake. The roads are open to traffic, but everyone was slow and respectful of the runners.
The only “oh” was the start and finish lines were in a different place than Strictly Running usually puts them. I think people just didn’t look at the map since the last 850 races SR has hosted here have all been the same course, so it created some confusion for both the runners and spectators who wanted to wait for their runners at the finish line. So that’s 95% on the runner for not looking at the map and 5% on the store for not mentioning “hey, look at the map, we’re doing something different this year” on the website/in the emails/at packet pickup. But if runners were good at communicating we’d all be doing team sports, not road races.
Huge finishers medal, it’s bigger than my last three marathon medals. Shirts are … the sizes are always weird. 2023 and 2025’s were both so small and 2024’s was big, so IDK what to tell you. It’s always a cotton long sleeved shirt and they usually don’t have extras at the finish line to swap, so I guess consider sizing up if rocking a race shirt is important to you.
Parking is fine – the race location is near a few shopping centers, so you can always park at Sbux or whatever and walk over for the race.
Overall, Strictly Running always puts on a solid event and this 10K was a nice replacement for the sorely missed Daybreak 10K.