Growing up in Webster, Bill Polito heard all about the town’s annual Turkey Trot, a running event held each Thanksgiving morning. In 1988, he moved to a house on Holt Road, a mile from the starting line, and decided to join in the fun.
“I ran in high school and decided to give the Turkey Trot a try,” he says. “This race recharged my running career. Since I started, I’ve run everything from 5Ks to marathons.”
Polito, seventy-three, has missed only two Turkey Trots in the past thirty-eight years. And, like many others, he has turned the Thanksgiving run into a family affair. In recent years, his two daughters and four grandsons have joined him on the annual November trek through Webster Park. “It’s just a big social event,” Polito says. “You can feel the buzz of excitement at the starting line.”
Thousands of runners—the quick and slow, the young and old—have competed at the annual Thanksgiving Day race (which offers 4.4-mile and 2.5-mile options) since its inception in 1972. They come from as far away as Alabama, Oregon, Maine, and Canada. Runners from at least twenty-three states are registered for this year’s race. Last year, more than 4,000 entrants registered for the trot—the Rochester region’s oldest annual run.
“We focus heavily on the tradition of the event and the family atmosphere,” says race director Dave “Boots” Boutillier, who has won the trot ten times. “Having fast runners is nice, but having a family of three generations is awesome.”
A high school practice becomes a holiday tradition
In 1972, Jim May was an English teacher and cross-country coach at Webster High School. He wanted an event that would motivate his runners to work out on Thanksgiving morning, so he told them to gather on Holt Road. About fifty people turned out—mostly high school athletes and their parents—and a tradition was born.
May served as race director until 1998 before turning the event over to Boutillier, a May protégé at Webster who earned All-America honors at the University of Rochester and was part of the national cross-country championship team in 1991. Boutillier runs the annual event with his wife, Ellen Brenner.
The couple owns YellowJacket Racing, a Rochester-based race management company that operates around fifty running and walking events throughout Rochester and Buffalo. They opened their first Fleet Feet Rochester store on Monroe Avenue in 2004 and in the twenty-two years since, Fleet Feet has become the running hub of Rochester.
There were 250 entrants when Boutillier took over in 1998. That number peaked at 5,272 in 2014 and has remained steadily near 4,000 ever since. The race runs rain, snow, shine—or global pandemic. Brenner says there was a year in the late 1970s or early 1980s when the snow was so bad that Jim May couldn’t get out of his driveway in Marion, but people showed up to run anyway. “In 2020, we had COVID lockdowns, but the Webster Police let us run with super strict restrictions,” Brenner says. “We only allowed 110 people to race in person, and each one went off every minute. About 700 did the race virtually that year. It was truly bizarre, but we wanted to make sure the event went on to keep the streak.”
The grand prize remains the same, year after year: a frozen turkey and a plaque.
“We’ve had winners that competed in the Olympic Trials,” Boutillier says. “But no one is racing because of the awards.”
A family affair before the big family dinner
Bob Hendy ran cross-country in Webster under May and regularly completed the Turkey Trot course with his dad, Jim. “[Jim] ran marathons and hundreds of road races, and by the time he passed away in 2014, he had run in pretty much every Turkey Trot to that point.”
Hendy says the trot was a Thanksgiving tradition for the family: “Trot, brunch, football, dinner.” The race was such a fixture in the family that Jim would tell his son he wanted to be buried along the course. That wish was granted in 2014, when he was laid to rest in Webster Union Cemetery.
Hendy coaches track and field at East Rochester and has continued to run the race every November. In recent years, he has been joined by his wife, Gretchen, and daughters Caroline and Beatrice. “When we run the Trot, I step off the course and go to the cemetery,” he says. “Not only is my dad buried there, but next to him is our daughter Teagan. We lost her in 2015 when she was six. I say a prayer before I get back on the course to finish the race.”
Sara Mroczek ran three Turkey Trots with her son, Jackson, competing in 2018, 2021, and 2022. “He was really into running at the time, and I thought, ‘This is a great tradition to start with one of my kids,’” she says.
The huge Thanksgiving dinner that followed hours later was also a drawing card.
“I’m thinking, ‘We’re going to pig out and eat this big meal, so let’s go and have some exercise before so we can feel good about the rest of the day,’” says Mroczek, a special education teacher at Holmes Road Elementary School in Greece. “The vibe is amazing, and the amount of people who run is crazy.”
Brenner says it’s “fascinating” to watch the event take shape. “The shuttle buses pull up and unload people, and suddenly it’s just people everywhere. The finish line is pure festivity. Then, within ninety minutes of starting, it’s as though nothing happened because the park becomes empty as people head home for their Thanksgiving meal.”
Until next November, when they do it all over again.
*REGISTER FOR THE WEBSTER TURKEY TROT*
The fifty-fifth annual race is Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 26), starting at 10 a.m. at Parkview Lodge, Webster Park.
Runners can choose between completing a 2.5-mile or 4.4-mile course. Runners can register at yellowjacketracing.com/races/webster-turkey-trot-55th-year.
There is no registration the day of the race, and strollers, dogs, and headphones are not permitted.
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2026 issue of (585).
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