It was a beautiful, frost-bitten Sunday morning (Oct. 16) in Pemberton as Seamus Frew happily crossed the finish line in first place in the annual Lumpy's Epic Trail Run.

The Whistlerite finished the One Mile Lake course in 37 minutes, 20 seconds, winning for a third consecutive year.

"The race went good — it's a nice morning; a bit cold at the start and then really nice when you get to the top. It was a pretty fast race today and it wasn't that muddy," Frew said.

Frew said he found the switchbacks the toughest part of the race, but after the initial uphill start "it’s a bit more cruisey."

Frew shaved six seconds off of his winning time from last year's race, in which the top-three runners finished within two seconds of each other.

But on Sunday, Frew had quite a bit more breathing room from second-place finisher Colin Ferrie, an 18-year-old newcomer to the race who finished with a time of 38:22.

"The flat section at the end was tough along the water — you come down the hill and you just want to stop almost, but you just have to keep going," said Ferrie, who trains at the Callaghan Valley Training Centre.

J.F. Robert grabbed the other spot on the podium, clocking in at 39:20. Stefan Sander-Green (41:15) and Kevin Hodder (41:41) rounded out the top five.

The first female competitor to cross the finish line was Vancouver resident Magi Scallion with a time of 42:08, giving her sixth place overall.

"It was really, really cold at the start and then by the time I got to the top of the hill it was so nice and sunny. It's beautiful," said Scallion, who also was competing in the race for the first time. "The downhill was the toughest part because it was really rocky and I am paranoid about rolling my ankle. So I just went really slow and a lot of people passed me on the downhill."

The top youth runner on Sunday was Austin Reith, who completed the course in 46:03 and finished 10th overall

No stranger to the race was 10-year-old Joe Davies. As one of the youngest competitors, he finished the race in 51:33 to take 19th place.

This is Davies’s second time competing in the Lumpy's Epic Trail Run alongside his father, John Davies. Joe’s favourite part of the run was the finish "because it was a long race," he said.

"It’s OK,” Davies said of competing amongst much older runners. “It’s still fun and I will do it again next year,"

Race director Delores Los was quite pleased with the race despite the cold weather.

"Everyone that came was really happy with the event,” she said. “It was a cold start but a very nice day to be running and everyone was very pleased with the race,"

Many of the racers this year are repeat runners from last year, although Los had hoped to have bigger turnout. In total this year, there were 43 people and next year, Los hopes to have about 60.

As the sun shone brightly and the runners trickled over the finish line, organizers and runners discussed pushing back the start time next year an hour later to stave off the cold.

"All in all, I think it was a very good event and we were very pleased to have all of our volunteers to make the event happen," Los said.

All proceeds from the event go towards the Spud Valley Nordics’ jackrabbit youth cross-country ski programming.