Turkey trots are footraces, usually of the long-distance variety, held on or around Thanksgiving Day in the United States. The name is derived from the use of turkey as a common centerpiece of the Thanksgiving dinner. A few races in the United Kingdom during the Christmas period are described as turkey trots because turkey is traditionally eaten at Christmas there. In the United States, many courses used for these Thanksgiving events are run at a certified USA Track & Field road race distances between 5Ks and a half marathon; others are informal fun runs between and 5 km. The 5 km distance is the most common distance offered, with over 90% of the races being of that distance. The fun runs are often run as charity benefits and feature runners in costumes, particularly as turkeys. The oldest documented turkey trot, a still-ongoing annual event in Buffalo, New York, dates to 1896.
The Atlanta Marathon, which ran on Thanksgiving from 1981 to 2009, was the last full marathon to be run on the holiday. Since 2010 the Atlanta Track Club eliminated the marathon distance on Thanksgiving but continued to host a half marathon. Both the Yonkers Marathon and the Detroit Free Press Marathon (then known as the Detroit Motor City Marathon) started out as Thanksgiving Day races before moving to other dates.
In 2021, Molly Seidel participated in the Berbee Derby held in Fitchburg, Wisconsin and set the record for the fastest run for an individual dressed as a turkey.
An estimated 1,100,000 people took part in one of the 936 turkey trots that took place in 2024, spanning across all 50 states, with Florida having the most turkey trots with 56. Of those 936 races, 322 of them hosted a field of over 1,000 runners, up sharply from the 249 such races in 2023 and approximately 80 in 2017. These events raised over $3,600,000 in revenue, most of which went to charity.