The Turkey Trot 2009 By Tom Meany

The Turkey Trot 2009

By Tom Meany

This was the Club’s 7^th Turkey Trot race and by far our most successful. We had 2,000 entries! This was the most organizationally prepared race we have ever put on. This race commands a monthly meeting 12 months of the year solely dedicated to this event, with an increasing dedication to detail.   The new course was born out of necessity due to construction of the Wellhouse drive bridge, with great thanks to the creativity of Doug Olney. There was a great deal of positive feedback about the new course. It geographically spread out participants and spectators avoiding crowd congestion. The parking lot exit was taken off the course, which helped. The Club open forum and website received an overwhelming majority of positive feedback in addition to all the participants on race day.

 The Ford kids worked very positively, particularly under pressure at the finishline chute. Our new signage looked great and everyone was pleased with the high tech hat and fleece glove giveaways.         What you may not have noticed was that we had AIRES, a local hand radio team of 15 along the course, working with our own EMS team in coordination with the Bravo ambulance team monitoring the need for medical services. Fortunately there were none needed.

The volunteer core of 60 plus showed up at 7 A.M., worked registration, the parking lot, refreshment and water stations, finishline, and the clean up was over by 11 A.M.!

This was not without it’s challenges. We had 1290 finishers last year and we were targeting 1500 finishers this year, but in the beginning of November the projected numbers started to point closer to 2000! So the week of the race we ran out and purchased an additional 125 gallons of water, 4000 cups, 700 bagels, fruit, hot chocolate, etc. Almost everything was consumed on race day.

So the race was a great success, but there are always many lessons learned. I want to thank all the Club members who gave of their valuable time to volunteer. It’s much easier to give money than to give the most precious and valuable gift and that is your time. The great thing about volunteering is that it’s the gift that gives you back more than you give it.