On the bright, sunny day of November 27 th, 2025, GMAA’s 49 th annual Turkey Trot was upon us. The air was thick with anticipation as the volunteers eagerly set up registration tables, raffle prizes, food bins for Feeding Chittenden, and the timing and sound equipment for the annual event. Upon glancing at the RunSignUp list the night before, 965 participants had preregistered (last year was 535 pre-registered!) but on a temperate, sunny day like last Thursday, who could resist signing up? Set up was quick and flawless as Brad Sleeper, Anthony Downes, and Jan Leja ran off to mark the course and those inside set up the tables, chairs, and distributed registration papers, signed their volunteer forms, and put out course maps for the viewer’s pleasure. Around 9:15 am, the doors to Gutterson arena opened and in flooded hordes of trotters quickly making their way to the registration tables. However, with Tim Richmond,
Steve Merrill, Alissa Wilson, and Patrick Henry at the helm, there was little to worry about. As quickly as the racers arrived, food bins immediately started filling up with piles and piles of donated food for Feeding Chittenden, the local food shelf. It’s possible that Tim Richmond moves quicker when food is involved than he does otherwise as he motored through stacking, organizing, shifting, and moving cans, boxes, and bags of food items at record speed.
As time passed, more and more runners/trotters arrived. Many of the trotters had brought their young ones for the kid’s race, which was put on without setbacks and was led by GMAA’s very own, Turkey Ron! (Cleveland). Turkey Ron arrived in full Turkey suit and swiftly sprinted ahead of even the fastest youths to make sure that everyone followed the cones like one might do in gym class, if that even exists anymore. The kid’s race finished with last second sprints, laughter, and some tears but suffice to say, everyone in the kid’s race ran a PR!
At approximately 9:50 am, the runners/trotters were directed to make their way to the starting line by another seasoned veteran, Gordan MacFarland who graciously took to the microphone for the 15, 10, 5-minute countdown to the race start. At the starting line, race participants stretched back as far as the side doors to the arena, making a large ‘C’ shape down the bike path. It was later confirmed that 1,076 racers were registered to participate in the Turkey
Trot that day, which is about 300 more runners than last year. At the start of the race, we recounted how grateful we were to have everyone out there, runners, trotters, sponsors, and volunteers alike to participate in the Turkey Trot this year, especially with UVM’s Gutterson arena, bike path, and amenities at our disposal. At 10 am, the racers were off.
To no surprise, fast times were run with Gage Magnusen taking the victory with a time of 16:23 with Trevor Houches right on his heels with a time of 16:34, both runners being participants of the BFA Fairfax cross country team. Not too far behind them were about ten more male-identifying runners under 17:30 including GMAA’s Jurdan Mossburg who ran around a 17:10. Less than two minutes later, Loghan Huges came flying up the path with a time of 19:03,
which was the winning female time. Interestingly enough, Loghan had come in third the year before with a time of 20:09 so she was over a minute faster! The second-place woman, Megan Owens, held her own on the course with a time of around 19:10(ish). Unfortunately, we were not able to identify the 1 st and 2 nd place winners of the non-binary category despite making announcements every 2-minutes for the non-binary winner to approach myself and Gordon to claim the prize.
Following the conclusion of the race, the world’s greatest raffle was held with t-shirts, pint glasses, running socks, fleece blankets, gift certificates, and more were lying in wait to be won back in Gutterson arena. We had received donations from Starbucks, Ben & Jerry’s, Queen City Brewery, Mill River Brewing, Take Good Care Fitness, SkiRack, VT Juice Co., Sangha Studio, and Dunkin’ Donuts just to name a few. For the first time in the last four years of the
Turkey Trot, all of the raffle prizes, minus three tote bags, were taken, which I was quite happy
with after having to take 70% of it back to the storage unit post-race.
At the end of the event, when all of the participants had taken their leave in lieu of turkey dinners and family time, the monetary donations were counted up and the food was prepared to be shipped off to be weighed. With the careful eyes and mathematical prowess of Brad Sleeper and the use of a calculator, a total of $7,577 were raised between pre-registration and race-day registrants (which is a new PR for us over the last four years!) and 600lbs of food were obtained for Feeding Chittenden (100 pounds more than last year!). We hope that next year is equally as successful as this year however, having a mild, sunny day without the sleet, snow, and rain of last year’s race probably contributed to the improvements in numbers.
Until next year!
Hailing from Anchorage, Alaska, Silas was originally drawn to New England to compete in XC running and Nordic skiing while attending Dartmouth. Since moving to Vermont in 2018, he spends his time running, coding, and playing outside with his dog and family.
