The Turkey Trot With a Second Start

Three turkey trots run around Tacoma on Thanksgiving morning, and they are not the same event in different clothes. One is a 1995 Parks Tacoma run with Northeast Tacoma hills. One is a Gig Harbor waterfront 5K that started with fifteen people and two cans of food. This one is the neighborhood race: a certified 5K through Proctor, a kids 1K an hour later, and a run the organizer pitches as “earning that pumpkin pie.”

The kids 1K gives the morning a second start at 10:15. If you have a kid, that second start is the whole point.

Here’s how it goes.

Before you go

The 5K is at 9am from Fleet Feet Tacoma, 3812 N 26th St. The kids 1K is at 10:15am from the same line.

The price steps up twice more. It is $62.50 through November 14, $67.50 from the 15th through the 24th, and $72.50 on the 25th and 26th. Even the early price is more than the Norpoint or Gig Harbor race charges on race day.

Teams are cheaper. Four people gets $5 off each, ten gets $10 off, fifteen gets $15 off. If you were already organizing the family, do it in the registration form rather than at the start line.

Pick up your packet Wednesday. Noon to 6:30pm at Ruston Waterfront Market, 5101 Yacht Club Rd. There is free parking there, which is the reason to do it. On race morning, pickup and gear check run 7:30 to 8:45am at the start, and online registration closes fifteen minutes before the gun.

Park where the race asks. Street parking around Proctor is free. There is no parking on N 26th between Proctor and Adams, and the race asks you not to use either Safeway lot. This is a working commercial district on a holiday morning, not a stadium.

Bring food if you can. Donations are collected at gear check and delivered to the Northwest Tacoma Nourish Food Bank. Non-perishable items. A portion of the proceeds also goes to the Humane Society of Tacoma & Pierce County, and you can add a donation when you register.

The 5K

The course is USATF certified — WA22024RMB, if you are the sort of person who checks — and it starts and finishes at the store. Results go up online shortly after you cross, timing is by Ready, Set…Time!, and photographs from CJ Photography are free to download the week after.

The awards are the detail that makes this race different. Age group ribbons go to the top five in eighteen groups, from 9 and under all the way up to 90 and over. Eighteen groups means there is a category for a 91-year-old. If you place, collect your ribbon at the results tent before you leave; they don’t mail them.

There is food and drink at the finish. Bring your own bag if you want gear check, and don’t put anything valuable in it.

The second start

The kids 1K goes at 10:15am, and it is $10 for ages 12 and under. Parents running alongside don’t have to register. Packet pickup for the kids closes at 10:00.

If you ran the 5K, this is the part of the morning nobody warns you about: you finish around 9:30, you cool down, you find your kid, and then you are standing at a start line again at 10:15 with a medal around your neck and no legs left to keep up. Plan to run it at their pace, which is the only pace available to you anyway.

After: Point Defiance

You are done by 10:30 with an hour or two before dinner. Point Defiance Park is about five minutes north by car, and the park grounds are open from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Keep it to a slow walk under the trees. After a 5K and a kids race, that’s the right amount of movement, and it beats standing in a kitchen.

The other two

Two other Thanksgiving races run the same morning. The Norpoint Turkey Trot starts at 9am in Northeast Tacoma, hills included. The Gig Harbor Turkey Trot starts at 8am on the waterfront and asks you to bring two cans of food.

Pick by neighborhood, not by distance. All three have a 5K.