BestRacesThe live South Carolina rankings are updated every day. This piece looks at the list as it stood on November 3, 2026.
South Carolina has 131 races in our index. Of the 69 still to be run, 19 clear the bar for our state rankings: 27.5%. Of the 11 state lists with at least a dozen ranked races, that is the highest share, ahead of Alabama (25.9%), New Jersey (22.3%), North Carolina (17.3%) and Texas (9.2%).
The list is short on variety. Seventeen of the 19 lead with a 5K, and the No. 1 is a 5K run in Charleston two weeks before Christmas.
The South Carolina twelve
| # | Race | City | Date | Distance | Field | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reindeer Run/Walk | Charleston | Dec 12 | 5K | 3,093 | 58.2 |
| 2 | YMCA Hair of the Dog Run | Spartanburg | Jan 1, 2027 | 10K / 5K | 130 | 53.1 |
| 3 | Myrtle Beach Turkey Trot | Myrtle Beach | Nov 26 | 5K | 1,497 | 52.7 |
| 4 | Electric City Gobbler | Anderson | Nov 26 | 5K | 1,030 | 51.6 |
| 5 | Pawleys Island Turtle Strut | Pawleys Island | Nov 14 | 5K / 8K | 109 | 50.7 |
| 6 | Surfside Beach Rotary Turkey Trot | Surfside Beach | Nov 26 | 5K | 1,065 | 50.6 |
| 7 | Edouard Michelin Memorial 5K | Greenville | Aug 7, 2027 | 5K | 586 | 50.0 |
| 8 | Cupid’s Chase 5K | Greenville | Feb 13, 2027 | 5K | 400 | 49.0 |
| 9 | Dog Daze 5K | Columbia | Feb 6, 2027 | 5K | 338 | 48.5 |
| 10 | Building Healthy Communities 5K | Charleston | Feb 13, 2027 | 5K | 264 | 47.8 |
| 11 | Cocoa Cup 5K | Summerville | Dec 19 | 5K | 1,639 | 47.6 |
| 12 | Be the Buffalo Memorial Run | Lexington | Feb 6, 2027 | 5K | 228 | 47.4 |
The other seven are on the full South Carolina ranking.
Race pages carry more than the score. In Spartanburg the New Year’s Day high ran from 53°F to 75°F between 2022 and 2026, and the low from 25°F to 62°F; the Hair of the Dog page shows it year by year. The Reindeer Run’s 5K entry is $40 today and goes to $45 on November 18; the Reindeer Run page will email you before it does.
Four things the list tells you
One race carries a quarter of the state. The Reindeer Run’s 3,093 runners are 26.1% of the 11,860 across all 19 races. It is also one of only three South Carolina races measured on three of our four components, with the Hair of the Dog and the Cocoa Cup. The other 16 are scored on two.
Thanksgiving is the biggest morning, not the best one. Five of the 19 run on November 26, with 4,415 runners between them, 37% of the list. Three are on the Grand Strand: Myrtle Beach (No. 3), Surfside Beach (No. 6) and North Myrtle Beach (No. 18). Add the Turtle Strut in Pawleys Island and the Little River Rotary 5K, and the coast between them places five races on the list.
Certification is common here. Twelve of the 19 are USATF certified, 63%, against 51% across every state list; among the large lists only Georgia (78%) and New Jersey (74%) run higher. Each certificate scores 40 of 100 on our credentials measure, below the neutral 50, so it earns a race its place without lifting it. That is Nos. 7 through 10: four certified 5Ks, all without a history score, between 47.8 and 50.0.
The ceiling is low. No character scores and no Boston qualifiers: not one of South Carolina’s 131 races is flagged as one. A race measured on half the formula is pulled toward 50, so the No. 1 tops out at 58.2. Among the 11 large lists, only Alabama’s No. 1 (53.0) and North Carolina’s (56.0) score lower.
Age, read off the bib
Ten of the 19 earn a history score, and only the Cocoa Cup has a founding year on record (2014). The rest carry their age in their names. The YMCA Hair of the Dog Run is in its 45th edition, the oldest on the list, and that is how a 130-runner New Year’s Day race in Spartanburg reaches No. 2. The Reindeer Run is in its 35th, the Turtle Strut its 33rd.
What is missing
Of the 50 upcoming South Carolina races that miss the list, 21 have no measured signal and 28 have exactly one, for 20 of them a field size with nothing to pair it with. The largest is the New Year’s Day Champagne 5K in Simpsonville: 732 runners, a bigger field than 14 of the 19 ranked races, and unranked because a field size is all we know. The 50th is a multisport event, scored on the triathlon list. Three more races we can date but not score sit in their own tier on the state page, ordered by age.
A race that has posted results for years but never said when it started looks, to our formula, exactly like one that started last year. Claiming a listing is free. It lets an organizer add a founding year or a certification, and it cannot buy a better rank — only a more complete one.