2021 Niwot 'Turkey Trot' features a festival of miles on the track

Turkey Trots seem to be the ubiquitous activity of choice for many on Thanksgiving morning. These fun races vary in distance from 5k to 10k (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter) and usually feature more than a few people festively sporting a turkey outfit.

This year, in lieu of trotting, some Niwot runners opted to take their Turkey Trot to the track - for a speedy mile run at the Turkey Mile 4 REAL.

The event, which was put on by REAL Training, featured seven one-mile races hosted at the Niwot High School track. REAL Training puts on a number of running events throughout the year, usually geared toward middle school and high school-age runners. The Turkey Mile 4 REAL invited the rest of the running community to come compete.

Instead of waiting until Thanksgiving morning, REAL kicked off the miles on Wednesday, November 24, leaving runners the time to enjoy Thanksgiving morning - perhaps by sleeping in or (for the ambitious ones) double-dipping and running another race on Thursday.

The mile races kicked off at 9 a.m. with the youngsters showing the spectators how four circuits of the track get done. Both the boy and girls fields each had one under-5th grade youth runner make the full distance along with the middle schoolers.

From there, the Masters runners and high school/adult/elites toed the line. The calm, overcast weather with the temperature sitting right around 45-degrees was just about perfect for some speedy times on Niwot's oval.

In addition to prizes from Hoka One One, In Motion Running, and 303 Running, participants also had a shot at winning a very fitting Thanksgiving Day prize with each race winner taking home a pumpkin pie from Niwot Market.