Lessons From Organizing A Turkey Trot With My Dad

the punchline is we're doing it again at christmas

Stumpies! Welcome back for yet another week; I do love our time together. I’m sure everyone is also feeling like it’s that stretch of the year where time simply cannot move slowly enough, and yet it’s also a massive slog to our annual finish line… That being said, I’d certainly never grow weary of writing The Stump! Just like how you all diligently read this blog first thing when it hits the ol’ inbox like a kid on Christmas morning!

Well, today I’d like to share some reflections from my latest adventure. A few weeks before Thanksgiving, my dad and I were tapped to organize the Turkey Trot for our neighborhood. For those of you who are more couch-inclined, a Turkey Trot is generally a 5k run done on the morning of Thanksgiving. I think the spirit of the event is something like “let’s run 3 miles before we stuff our faces with preposterous amounts of gravy-laden food and enough pie to create a graph shortage.” In the neighborhood that I grew up in, this event falls under the category of Mildly Popular, with the event “Adult Night Where Everyone Is Just Drinking In The Parking Lot By The Pool” being Very Popular and “Pay Your HOA Dues Day” being Not Popular At All.

When my dad and I would run the Turkey Trot, there was generally moderately good attendance; however, the past three years, the neighborhood did not bother to hold the event at all. So, that’s where we - quite heroically - stepped in. I may not live in that neighborhood anymore, but I believe in fostering community, dammit! Even better if I only have to participate in the community 1/365 days per year.

i didn’t bother to ask dad if i could show his face on the blog but i think his Nebraska hat and cool shoes give you more than enough information to proceed

Now, reader, the event was a smashing success. I know, I know… I, too, wished something dramatic, insane, and/or catastrophic had happened because let’s face it - that’s better blog content. But there’s really no other way to put this: my dad and I stepped up to the plate, and we knocked it right out of the park. I see a bright future in event planning for both of us, conditional on the fact that neither of us are interested in doing anything more complicated than a neighborhood Turkey Trot.

But! The upside is that I learned plenty of lessons along the way, and now I get to share those lessons with you! So, without further ado, here is everything I learned from organizing a neighborhood run:

1) There are only three reasons to run…

Lesson #1 came courtesy of the neighborhood HOA president. Mr. President is a man with a strong southern accent and a tongue ring, which I think is cool as hell. The Turkey Trot started from the parking lot of our local pool, and the runners went in a loop to return to that parking lot. Once we had set the runners off on their course, me, my dad, and Mr. President hung back in the parking lot to await the first finisher. Cue shooting the shit time. Mr. President was a delightfully affable man [who is game to finance us bringing beer to the finish line of the next Turkey Trot], and when I gently needled him about not running in the race, he leveed an important piece of wisdom on me:

“There are only three reasons to run, and they kinda have to happen in order: 1) something has to be coming after me, 2) my life has to be in danger, and 3) my shotgun has to be out of bullets.”

Wiser words may never have been spoken. Alternately, for those who feel they “““need to””” run, Mr. President has just provided you with an excellent mental visualization exercise to increase your willingness to keep going.

2) People are clinically insane masochists for being willing to get up early to go running

In preparation for the Turkey Trot, my dad and I woke up at 6am the morning of. Okay, I woke up at 6am. My dad was somehow up earlier because my parents are vampires who only so barely need sleep to be alarmingly functioning human beings. The race didn’t start until 8am, but between marking the course and artfully laying out the bananas on the table at the finish line, there was work to be done!

who up at 7am driving they golf cart???

We were at the pool working on the setup by roughly 7am. People started arriving for the race by 7:30am. What the fuck. What are you doing?? Thanks for coming, but go home! Go sleep! Why are one hundred of you freaks willing to go running in a parking lot at 8am!! To write this blog, I woke up at 7am, and it’s going to make me a royal bitch to everyone who has the grave misfortune of interacting with me for the next two days until I’ve properly recovered. Like a Victorian lady with a delicate constitution, I don’t bounce back from distasteful situations easily. How are you all functioning before 9???? [I don’t want to hear lip from any parents on this one - they make children’s nyquil; use it, you coward].

Even more importantly, the Turkey Trot included an element of “Hey! Come chat with the neighbors! Hang out! Be chummy!” I’m pro-chatting, but you’re telling me over one hundred people were delighted by the prospect of talking to their neighbors before the sun was even properly above the horizon? Freaks! The lot of you!

Am I complaining about a race time we picked and advertised? Yes. Is it my god-given right to do so? Also yes.

3) Hot chocolate is alarmingly popular

I have to throw this one up to my dad for having his thumb on the pulse of the people. Given my aforementioned gentle displeasure for being conscious before 8am [it takes me until at least 10am each morning to come to grips with the concept of having woken up yet another day], I looked at our rather generous $500 budget for planning this race with a single-minded eye: coffee! Everyone loves coffee. Everyone needs coffee. Coffee is the lifeblood of humanity, particularly if you want me to communicate in anything other than grunts before 8am. I should’ve tried grunting at the neighbors and seeing if I got an HOA violation.

But, my dad had a vision, a dream. A dream of also spending $30 on a carafe of piping hot chocolate. Lo and behold, it was a smashing success! Turns out people also like chocolate, who knew? Also, it turns out like 30 children showed up [I have to assume at gunpoint], and children cannot have coffee, or so the legend goes.

4) Lower the bar

Another feather in my dad’s cap for this event was the concept of making it a run with two courses: there was a standard 5k (3.1 miles… which was really more like 3.4 miles oops sorry!) and a new short course that only went 2.5k (~1.6 miles).

I cannot say for sure that the two courses are what caused our turnout to be roughly 70-90 more people than we expected, but the short course certainly was a popular course! People hate running, but they love the concept of having ran. In fact, people generally love the concept of being Good. Did you run a 5k today? No, but did you do more than Uncle Eddie who has seemingly melted into the couch since being here? Yes! Everyone wants to fancy themselves healthy, and lowering the bar to entry of that mental high horse is something I am happy to get on board with. The teenager who won by running a 5-minute mile for 3.4 miles isn’t better than me! We both showed up to the same damn Turkey Trot and trotted like damn turkeys! Our victories are equivalent.

the editor was being VERY MEAN about this photo and said “this looks more like a Turkey Crawl” and kept asking “why are there just people in regular clothes? they aren’t running,” as if the editor had the stones to walk three miles in a turkey hat before the sun was up!

5) Liquid courage will make you a better runner

After all runners had run, walkers had walked, and talkers had talked, my dad and I were finally free. We have fulfilled that obligation and can happily pawn it off on the next poor suckers dumb enough to volunteer to host such an event [we may or may not be hosting the jingle bell jog we’re addicted to the applause, okay???]. Once we had wrapped up, there was still one little bugaboo left… running.

We embarked on this endeavor to save our beloved neighborhood Turkey Trot, but we thanklessly [jk everyone thanked us like a million times it was really uncomfortable] let the others have the fun while we manned the stopwatches. So, before we could start putting back the charcuterie, we had to run our race.

Now, if you’ll remember reader, I had been up since 6am. My dad had been up since ??? Both of us are pretty good chatters, but I would also venture to say it drains both of us to chat. I think it’s safe to assume neither of us were particularly jonesing for a run at this point [dad, you read the blog, so feel free to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong here]. But again, quite heroically, we summoned our courage. Our liquid courage. The so-called “doctors” may not recommend tossing back a shot of bourbon on an empty stomach before running 3 miles, but they would be wrong! That shot warmed up the blood and gave me my second wind to outrun any bird that I might find on my dinner plate later. We made our 5k in good time, and I’m sure the fact that I kind of wanted to die from miles 0.75-1.5 is wholly unrelated.

at this point in the day my dad looked fine but i look like shit so why is he the one who gets the charming smiley face cover up??

Time to cross the finish line…

Stumpies, I have gifted you a lot of grade-A wisdom here borne from my blood, sweat, and tears organizing this race. You have no idea how taxing it is to craft the proper event email announcement!!! I’m sure for some of you, reading The Stump leaves you as exhausted as a marathoner [totally because my posts are so invigorating, not because I’m longwinded], so I will mark the finish line here. Please make your way to the imaginary table for water, an apple, and some hot chocolate. And then, just like a real race, why don’t you stick around to chat? Substack is really into the idea of ending your blog with questions, and as the avid community champion I am, I’ll try it to see if we can get the conversation rolling. So, tell me below:

1. How big of a thing would have to be chasing you for you to run? If you regularly run, how big of a thing would have to be chasing you to PR?

2. Why do you hate waking up in the morning? If you tell me that you don’t hate it, I will bully you in the comments, be prepared.

3. Hot chocolate vs. coffee?

4. What is something you perceive as good (e.g., diet, exercise, etc.) that you want me to give you permission not to do?

5. Best bourbons??? Currently a big fan of Woodford Reserve Double Oak.

love the blog? buy me a little liquid courage. i’m trying to run a total of 300 miles by the end of the year and i have 25 left so i need the help!