With 658 registrants and 543 finishers, the 52nd anniversary of the Finger Lakes Runners Club’s Turkey Trot was a terrific success. A record $9,833 was raised for Loaves & Fishes. The weather was 35º and dry, and we were grateful to Ithaca High School for allowing us to use their gymnasium as a staging area for the event. Results are available on the race page, and we have a shared album with photos from the Turkey Trot.
This event is a fundraiser for Loaves & Fishes of Tompkins County, a local nonprofit that provides a place for free meals, hospitality, companionship, and advocacy for those in need in the community. They serve over 5,600 meals per month! Since 2014, this event has helped raise a total of $56,620 for Loaves & Fishes.
Donation History
2010–13: Truckloads of cans and boxes of food collected
2014: $2,024 collected with 333 participants
2015: $2,855 (423 participants)
2016: $2,756 (268 participants)
2017: $4,030 (397 participants)
2018: $2,549 (211 participants)
2019: $4,137 (312 participants)
2020: $4,192 (virtual, 157 participants)
2021: $4,251 (289 participants)
2022: $5,895 (390 participants)
2023: $6,730 (458 participants)
2024: $7,368 (547 registrants, 380 finishers)
2025: $9,833 (658 registrants, 543 finishers)
As this event is a prediction race, the winner is whoever completes the watch-free event closest to the time they predicted during registration. Jeff Milder took the cake (or the pie, in this case) by finishing exactly on his predicted time of 49:59. Jeff was in good company with prediction prowess, too–22 others were within 15 seconds of their predicted time.
A huge thank you to Steph Bailey for organizing the race and to the many volunteers who came together this holiday morning to make the event happen. Although there are too many to list, the race wouldn’t have been possible without Tom Hartshorne for his trail maintenance and organizing traffic control at our busiest intersection; Tonya Engst for managing bib pickup and day-of-race registration; Heather Cobb and Diana Hackett for selling pre-ordered sweatshirts and FLRC swag; Kelly Sauve and Mary Webber from Loaves & Fishes; the FLRC Timing Team of Adam Engst, Bob Talda, Jesse Koennecke, and Dave Kania–performing nearly perfectly on the largest race we’ve ever timed–and Amy Dawson and Scott Dawson for all their communications before, during, and after this amazing event!
See you next year!