New Year's EVE At Noon 5K

New Year's EVE At Noon 5K takes place in Athens, Georgia, on December 31, 2026, with a single 5K (3.1 miles) starting at noon. The midday gun is the whole idea: no early alarm, and the race is done well before any New Year's Eve plans begin.

A noon start is unusually easy to prepare for. Have a normal breakfast three or four hours beforehand, keep it light, and give yourself a fifteen-minute warm-up jog rather than arriving cold. The 3.1-mile distance means you can race this off your ordinary weekly mileage, so treat it either as a hard effort to end the year on or as an easy social run. If you want a fast time, run the first mile at goal pace and trust that the last mile will feel harder than the first two.