The Turkey Trot

By Jack Rightmyer

The first road race I ever ran was the 1974 Troy Turkey Trot. My friend and high school teammate Kevin Scheuer drove me and another friend to the race. I remember it was cold and icy when we arrived in downtown Troy. I was both excited and nervous to finally run a race on the roads and the Troy Turkey Trot was the biggest and most prestigious race in the area. We had signed up to run the high school race, and I remember it was a relatively short race, a little over two miles.

The three of us jogged around to warm up for the race but also to just warm up. It seemed to me that every good high school runner from the area was there, and we kept bumping into many of them on our warm up. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about distance running, how you can be competitive with other runners and at the same time be good friends with them. I also love how most runners when they cross the finish line they immediately turn to the other runners near and congratulate or shake hands with them.

As we crowded together to start the race most of us were wearing shorts and a cotton shirt, with a wool hat and leather gloves. This was 1974 so there were no tights and no spandex. 

When the gun sounded, we sprinted down the street. One of the things I’ve always loved about the Turkey Trot is that it’s an out and back course, so when the top runners make their turn, you can count what number you are and even cheer on your friends. Kevin Scheuer was somewhere in the top ten, and I was around number 50.

After our race we hung around to watch the main event, a five-mile race for college runners and older. We cheered on our coach Tom Clarke who finished in the top ten overall. I don’t remember if there were any refreshments after, and I don’t recall getting a race shirt, but I do remember most of the local TV stations were there filming and interviewing some runners and spectators.

Later that night I sat with my family and watched our favorite local news station and right near the end they did a three-minute report about the annual Troy Turkey Trot. They showed a few of the lead runners coming through, but mostly they showed the joggers and people running in turkey hats. My dad laughed, “Jack, they put that news segment on at the end when they always do some funny bit about crazy people in the area.”

“Crazy?” I was baffled. “There was nothing crazy about what we did.”

“Running around Troy in shorts on Thanksgiving morning when it’s 20 degrees is pretty crazy, Jack,” said my dad.

I never thought of that, but I kind of liked the idea of being a bit crazy, and for the next twenty years that’s exactly what I did every Thanksgiving morning.

I returned the next year as one of the top high school runners, and I remember there were 10 of us in all-out sprint to the end. I was never much of a kicker and I finished ninth overall, but I think I was maybe 10-15 seconds from first place. It was exciting and my mom and dad came that year to cheer me on.

The next four years were my college years. I was now running in the longer race. My college XC season had recently ended, and I was usually a bit burned out, but this was the Turkey Trot and it was now a tradition to show up and race. I was usually very tired at the starting line during those years because naturally I had to see all my high school friends the night before at our favorite bar and then we’d all meet up again the next morning at the race. After the race we’d all laugh and talk about how we ran and what we saw. “Did you see all those people drinking beers by that bar the Ale House?”

For the next 15 years the Turkey Trot was always one of the highlights of my fall. Rain, shine, snow, it didn’t matter. I had some good races and some mediocre races, but I always had fun because it was the place where I would see old running friends, coaches, high school teammates, and people I worked with.

As the race got larger, and my times got slower, it became more difficult to count what place I was at the turn, but I still yelled support to my friends ahead of me and people yelled out my name as I made the turn and raced for the finish, and the people were still yelling and cheering as they drank their beers at the Ale House, and the local TV stations were showing the lead runners and the joggers dressed as Turkeys and Puritans.

In the mid-90s I began taking my daughter Erin and my son Paul to the race so they could run in the kids’ mile. The race was getting enormously large now with numerous divisions, and driving down from Burnt Hills meant I had to leave very early to get a parking spot, and then there was the hassle of trying to get out of Troy after the race and get everyone home and cleaned up before our Thanksgiving meal.

“My friends are running in the Cardiac Classic in Schenectady,” said Erin. “Maybe we can run there next year.”

And that’s where our new Thanksgiving Day Road Race tradition has taken us to Schenectady’s Central Park.  

The Cardiac Classic has its own kind of charm, but every year I get that feeling to return to Troy on Thanksgiving morning, and in 2024 that’s what I’ll do to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my first road race. I’ll look forward to sprinting away from the start and waving to the drinkers at the Ale House and cheering on my friends ahead of me when they’ve made the turn and hopefully hearing a few people call out my name on my way back to the finish, and at night after we’ve eaten our meal, I’ll turn on the local TV news and watch the segment about the crazy runners in shorts and turkey outfits running through the streets of Troy.

Regardless of what turkey trot you run, take time to be thankful for your health, and savor that community feeling at your favorite holiday road race. Happy Thanksgiving.

Jack Rightmyer (jackxc@nycap.rr.com) of Burnt Hills was a longtime cross-country coach at Bethlehem High School and today is an Adjunct English Professor at Siena College. He has written two books “A Funny Thing About Teaching” and “It’s Not About Winning.”