Planning to start Thanksgiving Day on the run? Want to burn off a few hundred calories before indulging in a few thousand later that day? Join the pack! Thanksgiving now ranks as the single biggest running day of the year. How so? Think scores of turkey trots in all 50 states. RunSignup reported a record-breaking 833 Thanksgiving fun runs across the country last year, drawing 920,761 participants. Indiana typically hosts more than 30 turkey trots, with the Drumstick Dash in Broad Ripple being the granddaddy of them all. The race, which benefits Wheeler Mission, marks its 22nd year this week.
Mark Pitts, who’s 81 years old and lives in Indianapolis, has run every single one.
Pitts says when he signed up for the inaugural race in 2002, “[I thought] it was something different and kind of humorous. I could burn off some calories and not worry about the big Thanksgiving dinner.”
But not everyone thought the fun run would take off. Steve Kerr, Wheeler Missions’s chief development officer at the time, pitched the idea after he and his wife ran a turkey trot in 2000 while visiting family in Ohio. Kerr recalls it as “quirky and fun … and we were wanting a signature event for Wheeler.” A run hosted by Wheeler Mission in Eagle Creek Park during the month of March never gained enough traction, but after Ohio, Kerr thought a turkey trot might have legs.
Yet, when he shared his idea with Wheeler Mission’s then-president Rick Alvis, Kerr says, “He looked at me as if lobsters were growing out of my ears.” Kerr laughs. “But [he] said to give it a try.”
Back then, fun runs on Thanksgiving were something of a novelty.
Kerr and others expected maybe 200 people to sign up. They were gleefully wrong. The first fun run drew 1,300 entrants. “Which blew us away, and the rest is history,” Kerr says.
They called it the Drumstick Dash, immediately (and wisely) applying for the trademark. The Drumstick Dash grew bigger each year, reaching 20,000-plus participants in 2016. As more turkey trots popped up across Indiana and elsewhere, the Drumstick Dash leveled off around 15,000 or so. Sill, Wheeler Mission grossed a record $1 million last year thanks in large part to race sponsorships and peer-to-peer fundraising.
Brian Crispin, Wheeler Mission’s director of community relations and development, stresses that every single penny—100%—goes to the organization. “The motto is, ‘Move your feet so others can eat,” Crispin says. “That’s why we do it, to raise awareness about people in our community who are struggling and need our help.”
The Drumstick Dash (which offers both a 4.3-mile and 2.6-mile course) is not the largest Thanksgiving Day run in the country. Silicon Valley and Dallas share that title, each drawing as many as 25,000-plus participants. Buffalo, New York wins the distinction of having the oldest, with the Buffalo YMCA holding the first organized race of any kind on Thanksgiving Day in 1896 to raise money for its programs. Six men signed up for the inaugural 5-mile run along dirt roads, with four finishing. Back then, runners typically wore leather Oxford-like shoes with spikes on the bottom. Ouch! But Buffalo’s race endured through world wars, pandemics, and blockbuster blizzards. One significant change came in 1972, when women were allowed to sign up … the same year the Boston Marathon admitted women for the first time.
While the Drumstick Dash hasn’t missed a year, during the pandemic in 2020, Wheeler Mission hosted a virtual run, with 10,000 people signing up. And unlike Buffalo, the weather has for the most part cooperated. Pitts remembers just one year when conditions were less than ideal. “Probably 40 degrees and 20 mph winds out of the west,” he recalls.
But he keeps coming back with family and friends, in the last few years dressed as a pilgrim. (Costumes have become part of the tradition.) Pitts says that while it’s great to burn off a few calories, “it’s really about helping Wheeler and all the things they do for people in need.”
Crispin knows firsthand. He initially arrived at Wheeler Mission in 2006, not as an employee but as a young man desperate for help. He had just graduated from college with a severe drinking problem. While in recovery, he helped with the race. “I’ll never forget watching all the people coming out to support an organization you’re a part of and thinking, This place is saving lives. … it literally saved mine.”
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