#Leone timing turkey trot 2018 how to#

They felt it was the fairest approach.īut there was a twist. The discussion made its way all the way up to the executive level at the YMCA's association office where president and CEO John Ehrbar and vice president of financial development Mario Hicks made the final call. We had people who wanted to recognize YMCA members, then there was another group who wanted to recognize our costume contest winners.' Another group wanted to recognize former winners. It's about 400 people who have run it over 25 times. 'A lot of people wanted us to weigh heavier on a group called the Quarter Century Club. 'That's the part of the event that everybody had an opinion on,' said Streeter with a hearty laugh. After a lot of discussion, they decided to select the runners randomly out of the pool of virtual entrants. YMCA officials, with support from Erie County and the City of Buffalo, liked the idea but how would the 125 be selected? The race is extremely popular, and had almost 12,000 finishers last year. Working with leaders at the YMCA Buffalo Niagara Association, the not-for-profit organization which owns the event, Streeter and Leone proposed a hybrid race with most athletes running virtually, but 125 -one for each year of the race's tenure- could run in-person. But to preserve the record, the streak, we needed to do something live.' 'Obviously, with some of our success with virtual racing in the spring, we were going to have that component, regardless. 'We knew that we needed to do something live,' Streeter told Race Results Weekly in a telephone interview earlier this week. He and Leone Timing's president Pat Leone started to look for a way forward. Streeter, a vice-president at Leone Timing, the event management and timing company which oversees the operation of the race, felt strongly that the streak should continue.

#Leone timing turkey trot 2018 how to#

So when the pandemic struck last March, race director Rick Streeter quickly began thinking about how to put on the 125th edition as a safe, in-person race. It was actually founded one year before the Boston Marathon. Remarkably, the Buffalo race has been held for 124 consecutive years without being cancelled, making it the longest running public road race in the world. The rest will be held virtually, or have simply been cancelled.Īmong those six, are two of the nation's oldest road races, the YMCA Turkey Trot 8-K in Buffalo, N.Y., founded in 1896, and the Run for the Diamonds (9 miler) in Berwick, Pa., founded in 1908. Out of a representative sample of 39 well-established turkey trots tracked by Race Results Weekly, only six plan to stage in-person races this year. 'The vast majority of participants are running with partners, children, other family members, friends, and even multi-generational branches of their family tree.'īut the pandemic will put a huge dent in race participation on Thanksgiving this year which falls on Thursday, November 26. 'As the popularity of turkey trots grows, we increasingly see them as healthy activities for the whole family on one of the biggest holidays of the year,' observed outgoing Running USA CEO Rich Harshbarger through a statement in 2019. It's the perfect activity before families sit down to their Thanksgiving feasts and hours of watching football. According to the running industry trade group Running USA, about 1.2 million Americans ran in a 'turkey trot' in 2018, up 71% from 2011 when the organization first began tracking participation. (03-Nov) - Each year on Thanksgiving Day more Americans participate in running races than on any other day. FOR A LUCKY FEW, 125th BUFFALO TURKEY TROT WILL BE LIVEīy David Monti, 2020 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - Used with permission.