A Wild Turkey Thank You!
On a brisk, cool beautiful Thanksgiving morning in Salem, nearly 1800 runners, volunteers and spectators took to the streets of Salem to start their holiday participating in the 9thh Annual Wild Turkey 5-Mile Run!
On behalf of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salem, thank you to our participants for helping us to set a new record of 1789 registered runners! Your generosity and support of this annual event benefits our youth programs, and for that we are truly thankful.
Great weather, a great cause and the fifth year of the 2012 Salem Road Race Series combined to make this our biggest turkey race yet and the largest race on the North Shore. We added additional 170 registrations this year over last and 1500 additional runners since our inception in 2004! With this continued climb, this event has firmly taken its place beside other traditions such as High School Football, turkey and pumpkin pie.
Some interesting statistics from this year’s Wild Turkey 5-Mile Run: For the 6th year in a row, women runners outnumbered men, 57% to 43%. Runner ages ranged from 8 years old to 80 years old! A winning time of 26:12 was turned in by the first place finisher Caleb Evanter of Marblehead and Kelly Walton of Nahant in a time of 31:33. Competitors joined us from across the country, representing the states of Alabama, West Virginia, California, Virginia, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. W also had a few runners from Canada and England.
This great event could not be possible without the support of our community sponsors. Major sponsors include: New England Running Company, Brooks Sports Co., Ernst & Young, B&S Fitness, Dunkin Donuts, and Perry & Perry Attorneys at Law.
Additional race sponsors and donors include: www.salemroadraces.com, ToomeySports, North Shore Road Race Guide Cape Cod Potato Chips, Clarke Brothers Fuel, Boston Herald, Salem Moose Family Center, Orthowell Orthopedic & Sports Therapy, SideKim Foods, State Representative John Keenan, Hawthorne Hotel, CB Photography, Beverly Cooperative Bank, John J. Walsh Insurance, Serafini, Darling & Correnti, East Boston Savings Bank, Suffolk Downs, Sean Wynne, Esq. Murphy’s Restaurant & Pub, Zipcar, Capt’s Restaurant, Wire 4 Hire, Salem Trolley, Dr. Pat Curtin, Gorilla Printing, StephenOGrady.com, The Salem Inn, StephenOGrady.com, Vitawater, North Face and CB Photography.
Special gratitude to the many volunteers who donated their Thanksgiving morning to help at the race: Tom O’Shea, Joanne Scott, Tim Short, Beth O’Grady, John Neely, Melissa, Lucas and Ilene Simons, Connor Buso-Jarnis, Ed Zielinski, Sandy George, Jay Hanahan, Meghan Murtagh, Kathy O’Donnell, Ben Hartley, Tom St. Pierre, Lisa Cammarata, Andy Sousa, TR Ramsdell, Kerry and Natalie Phelan, Paul Cranney, Dave Drillis, Stephanie Haygard, Mario Fagone, Nancy Bellomo-Santana, Estella Moriety, Mike Toomey and the great cheering group from the Willows led by Malia Griffin. Special Thanks to Michele and Gif Campbell for the great photography they did at the race!!
Special Thank you to Salem Park, Recreation & Community Services for all their support!
Special Thanks to the Salem Police who did a great job of controlling the traffic during the race to keep the runners safe, and to the many Salem residents along the route who cheered our runners on!
While congratulations go out to all of our Wild Turkey finishers, special recognition goes to the 150 local runners who successfully completed the 2012 Salem Road Race Series by running eights Salem races ranging in distance from 1 mile to a half marathon. Commemorative Running Jackets were awarded after the Turkey race in recognition of this achievement. For those of you inspired to sign up for the 2013 Salem Road Race , see salemroadraces.com or email Tim Short at TShort@salem.com. Sign up soon so you can join us for the first race of 2012 on New Year’s Day: The Frosty Four.
Again, thank you to everyone for making this another great Thanksgiving Day event!
Doug Bollen
Wild Turkey Race Director
Chief of Operations
Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salem