The Seymour Oktoberfest 5k is a small, very friendly and relaxed but fast course. This race is put on in conjunction with the city's annual Oktoberfest festival. Think: beer garden, carnival rides, arts & craft booths, parades, contests (brat eating, stein hoisting, etc.) and plenty of food and music! I've done this race in the past but this was the first time in several years. Also a small disclaimer: I ran this course hundreds of times during high school XC training so it brings back great memories and all of the "cons" mentioned below didn't matter to me and didn't impact my race experience at all.

You can register online in advance (if you're able to find the registration page buried on the festival's general website) or you can sign up in person the morning of the race; however, if you wait until the day of, participant shirts are on a first-come-first-served basis. I signed up the morning of the race about 15 minutes after it 'opened' and I received one of the last (long sleeve cotton) shirts they had. The majority of day-of registrations did not receive a shirt.

The pre and post race activities are held inside the high school gym. You can stay warm and dry if the weather is unfavorable and you can use real bathrooms! The race provides very basic things for the runners: water, Gatorade, granola bars and bananas. There were also a couple of physical therapists on hand to do stretches, massages and injury screenings.

You can stay inside the school right until the start of the race. Everyone walks to the start together and once you get there, they don't waste much time. The course is clearly marked and has at least one volunteer or police officer at every turn and street crossing. There was one aid station about half-way through the race that was manned by a few people. There aren't many people cheering along the course.

The race does hire a legitimate timing company to have a clock at the finish line; however, due to the small size of the race, you are not given a timing chip. They record the finishing time whenever someone crosses the finish line and they also keep track of bib numbers as they cross. You are warned at the start of the race to stay in the finisher's chute until your bib number is recorded so that you don't mess up the results. This year they advised that 5 people exited the chute prematurely so some bib numbers were not matched with the correct finishing time.

They provide awards to the overall male and overall female (for 2016 it was a medal + plaque + gift certificate to local running store) as well as age group awards (for 2016 it was a medal + gc) in both a run category and a walk category.

I would definitely recommend this race to anyone who is visiting Seymour for the Oktoberfest or who lives close by. I love this race!