2012 Pinedale Turkey Trot attracts 203 participants
by Craig Sheppard
November 24, 2012
The Pinedale Turkey Trotters woke up to a beautiful Southwest Wyoming Thanksgiving morning with temperatures hanging right around 20 degrees and no wind. The route was virtually free of snow and ice which set up some pretty good times and also led to a great turnout. There were 203 registered participants in this year’s event. This makes three times in the historic 22-year run of this event that we have had over 200 participants. Not bad for starting with only 18 members in the inaugural trot.
Head turkey, Craig Sheppard, was out of the race due to an ankle injury so he decided to take over recording times and places instead of running. In the past he has been critical of his helpers Ellen and Wyatt Sheppard when they even missed one time and name. Well it only took about 15 entrants going by when he realized that he wasn’t up to that task. It is a lot easier to run the race than to record it. Because of all this, hopefully we got most of the results correct and I guarantee next year he will be back to running and not complaining about their record keeping.
27-year old Kristopher Holmes of Daniel was the first across the finish line in a time of 20:13 followed by Ken Konicek only 3 seconds later. Nine-year old Grace Davis on her bike was the next in with a time of 20:34. I remember when her dad, Mike, pulled her and her sister in a bike stroller in their first race. Elise Sterck finished fourth and was the first female runner to finish in a great time of 21:57. By far the most entrants are in the walking class, but by that time the recorder was way out of touch with who and when the people were coming in. As close as he could tell the first true walkers to come across the finish line were Dan Stewart in a time of 39:34 and Karen Stewart in a time of 40:18.
The good part about recording the results and not participating was that you could watch the many families come in together (from the grandparents through to the grandchildren), seeing former students after many years, greeting many participants that have been in the race year after year and also watching parents and kids battling out to see who would make it to the finish line first. Like Larry Proud and Lincoln Proud dueling to a Lincoln victory. Also David Rule is always an amazement riding his unicycle for the entire 3 mile route.
In a recent article in the magazine Runner’s World they state that Thanksgiving morning has more races held than any other day of the year. I guarantee that ours definitely would be one of the coolest (temperature and scenic view wise) and one of the highest in altitude of any of the other Thanksgiving races. But even though Wyoming people pride ourselves in being tough we still had participants from nine other states this year. There were trotters from Utah, California, Colorado, South Dakota, Washington, Alaska, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Texas and Wyoming participating.
Many thanks go out to the Pinedale School District and Pinedale Half Marathon committee for use of their equipment each year. The Sheppard’s also wish to thank everyone for the support of this Pinedale holiday tradition and hope to see all of you and many more next year on Thanksgiving morning to once again run/walk the classic Pinedale Turkey Trot course.
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