A turkey trot is a fun run or footrace, usually of the long-distance variety, that is held on or around Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Americans anticipate indulgent Thanksgiving feasts and run in turkey trots to burn off calories before the big meal. Turkey trots are also held in the United Kingdom, usually shortly before or after Christmas Day.
In many parts of the United States, turkey trots are as associated with Thanksgiving tradition as the meal itself. Many courses used for these Thanksgiving events are run at major certified USA Track and Field road race distances between 5,000 and 42,195 meters (although no races, as of 2012, use the full marathon length). Some organizations hold their turkey trots the week prior to Thanksgiving in order to provide festive holiday meals to homeless and low-income families in their community. Turkey trots range in size from just a few dozen runners to tens of thousands. Most turkey trots benefit local charities. First prize for winning turkey trots is often an actual frozen turkey that the winner can use for his or her family's Thanksgiving feast.
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Famous quotes containing the word turkey:
“It has been an unchallengeable American doctrine that cranberry sauce, a pink goo with overtones of sugared tomatoes, is a delectable necessity of the Thanksgiving board and that turkey is uneatable without it.... There are some things in every country that you must be born to endure; and another hundred years of general satisfaction with Americans and America could not reconcile this expatriate to cranberry sauce, peanut butter, and drum majorettes.”
—Alistair Cooke (b. 1908)