Overview The Celtic Solstice Five-Miler is Baltimore's December road race, five miles run entirely inside Druid Hill Park and finished with bagpipes, Irish Wolfhounds, hot soup and hot wassail wine. It starts at 8:30 on a Saturday in mid-December beside the Maryland Zoo, and the field is capped at 3,000 runners. Corrigan Sports Enterprises, the Maryland company behind the Baltimore Running Festival and the Bay Bridge Run, produces it. CSE was set up in 1991 to build sports marketing around endurance events. On site Every edition gets its own animal and its own logo; artist Cari Buziak drew them for the race's first 25 years, and 2026 was named the year of the otter. Each year's runner premium is new too; for 2026 it was a custom puffer jacket, gray outside and dark purple inside, with the logo embroidered. The post-race party runs at the finish. Age-group winners take home a Christmas ornament, and a virtual version runs for people who cannot get to the park. Audience Runners come in packs. Groups of ten or more register as social teams and get money back on entry, teams past 40 get reserved tent space on race day, and prizes go to the biggest team and to teams that turn up in matching shirts or costumes. Runners 17 and under enter at a discount. Track record The first race, in 2000, had 123 finishers and a torrential downpour with lightning. Finishers: 123 (2000), 949 (2005), 1,926 (2008), 3,131 (2012), 2,608 (2025). The 2009 race ran after 17 inches of snow and 388 people finished it, and 2020 went virtual. Julia Roman-Duval won her sixth women's title in 2025. In 2004 race-day fees went to the Parks and People Foundation. Brand presence Twelve sponsors were on the race's sponsor page for 2026, among them Heineken Silver, Boordy Vineyards, Dunkin, State Farm, Sinai, the Maryland Sports Commission and the James Joyce Irish Pub.