In the end, she'd
won their race. It wasn't exactly a race, except in the sense that both her and Carl are/were career military, and thus competitive as hell. Trudy is younger, fitter, used to going for her runs in an environment harder than Earth and, yes, she did whoop with triumph.
Which lead to, among other things, the fact that tonight it's up to Carl to bring the candy while Trudy makes the sheet-fort.
She's a glorified engineer, she can make a sheet balance over some chairs so it won't fall down on the candles.
After all, what is a tent without candles?