Olympia's Titan Trot 5K returns to blossom soccer and community growth

Olympia High girls soccer head coach Daniel Vincent attended high school in Atlanta, where he was surrounded by local 5K races.

One day an idea emerged inside his high school soccer team: Why can’t we try to do this?

So they did. 

They began a road race to help support the soccer team and the tradition lasted for 25 years, he said.

Thirty years later, Vincent found himself at Olympia and brought back the idea from his childhood to create the Titan Trot 5K under the same original idea of fusing community with soccer team support. They aimed to connect the players with the businesses they interact with on a daily basis, such as a local ice cream shop or Starbucks. 

After a successful inaugural year in 2025, the Titan Trot is returning for its second year Saturday, Jan. 24. The dream is to bring the same joy from last year but most importantly continue to support the returning district champion girls soccer team on its mission to glory. 

Vincent said girls soccer is one of the least funded programs in high school athletics. Not all families can spend the $500 or more some sports  require to participate.

Through the Titan Trot’s fundraising efforts, Olympia was able to support purchasing new equipment and provide each of the 40 girls with a ball during practice. They obtained practice nets and provided each player with a uniform, enhancing the sense of belonging on the team. 

“Providing stuff like that for these kids is phenomenal,” Vincent said. 

Vincent hopes running the 5K will teach his players ways to be creative when asking for help raising money. It’s a larger lesson about how fundraisers can serve to connect the community and give back to those in need. 

On race day, at least 20 players will arrive before sunrise to set up the tents, hydration stations, start and finish lines — everything that goes into coordinating a community 5K.

The biggest challenge wasn’t finding a venue or waking up early. Rather, it was when small groups of players were required to visit local businesses to ask for sponsorships. 

“Last year and even this year, we took small groups of them out, and I said, ‘OK now you guys are going to pitch this business,’” Vincent said. “And you can see it’s interesting. You can see that a lot of these kids don’t have really much confidence in pitching someone on this. … It was cool to get them to go out, because you can see it’s got this little mini evolution going on.”

At first, the players’ reactions were “No, we can’t do that,” but the narrative quickly changed. The girls learned to pop into a business, introduce themselves and share what they’re doing with confidence. 

It paid off and the 5K gained sponsors from local businesses such as Chick-fil-A and Starbucks to fill bags for the race participants with cards for a free ice cream or discounted drinks. It created a sense of unity between the community members who frequent the businesses and the owners who rely on the sales. 

Titan Trot gives competitive runners the opportunity to share the course with families and first-time participants. Dogs can run in laps alongside their owners around Turkey Lake, and people across the country can track their favorite canine through the Titan Trot app.

“We can actually track the dogs in real time as they’re running, and we have a dog leaderboard,” Vincent said. “This is just our second year, so it’s still an extremely small event but it’s got a lot of potential, and I hope that we can grow it into something more meaningful and larger as the years go by.”