Sun, Dec 6, 2026
La Jolla, CA
The Festival of Lights Run is a Hanukkah-themed race in La Jolla, with several distance options to suit different goals. The shorter fun run is open to walkers, while the longer distances draw runners looking for a timed effort. Age divisions span a wide range, from young kids through runners well into their eighties.
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Going by the 2025 results, this is a small, friendly field, and the spread of finish times is wide, so this is a mostly recreational race rather than one for club runners.
Top 3: Kate Pendergraph (18:06) · Emilio DeSoto III (18:37) · M. DeSoto (19:08)
Top 3: Joshua Kheder (9:10) · heston Killip (9:15) · H. Weinrib (10:07)
Top 3: Stephen Baker (35:32) · Ben Schenk (38:44) · Jordan Kurland (42:31)
The Festival Of Lights Run has been held every year since at least 2025. That is as far back as RunSignup's records for this race go, so it may well be older.
Enter a finish time to see where it lands against the most recent 5K results.
How we calculate these stats: RunSesh calculates these figures from the most recent published results of past editions, sourced from RunSignup. We show aggregates only: field size, winning and median times, and the cutoff. We never publish individual finisher tables. Last updated Oct 25, 2026.
Set a goal and get a pace band: every mile split on a card sized for your phone lock screen, so race morning needs no math.
Not sure what to aim for? The 5K pace chart lists the pace for every finish time.
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Almost certainly not. Half the 5K field finished slower than 34:58, and the last recorded finisher came in around 1:13:26, so there is a long tail of runners behind the middle of the pack. Most fields are far slower than people expect.
It is a small race (73 finishers), which is friendlier and less intimidating than a big-city event, though the field thins out. There is no qualifying time, and the finish-time spread above shows how varied the field really is. If it is your first 5K, that spread matters more than the winner's time.
The 5K winner ran 18:06 while the median finisher took 34:58. That spread points to a broad, mostly recreational field rather than a race dominated by club runners.
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