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Turkey Trots are family affairs

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Thanksgiving has long been the biggest family day of the year in America. Now it’s the biggest running day, too.

That’s not a coincidence.

Thousands of San Diego County residents did a Turkey Trot Thursday morning in at least a half-dozen events from Oceanside to Bonita, taking to the streets just as people did in cities all over America, huffing and puffing before some stuffing.

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It’s too early for a final count of participants, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the nationwide total topped last year’s, when 786,730 people ran or walked in 1,032 races, according to the non-profit advocacy group Running USA. That’s up from four years ago, when 677,885 people participated in 662 runs.

The growth of the events — Running USA calculates that Thanksgiving is the most popular racing day on the annual calendar — means more and more people are making early-morning exercise as much a part of their holiday as turkey and football. So much for that leisurely stroll around the block after dinner.

They do it for fitness, they do it for fun, and they do it for family.

“It’s a great time to get everyone together, and then we just keep going through the rest of the day,” said Barbara Farrelly, who walked Thursday with more than a dozen relatives — three generations’ worth, including a 9-month-old baby in a stroller — at the 14th annual Father Joe’s Villages 5K in Balboa Park.

She and her husband, Gerry, the matriarch and patriarch of the clan, live in Imperial Beach. Other family members came from as far away as Santa Monica and San Clemente. They’ve been doing the race as a group for about 8 years, and it now feels like tradition to them, several said as they headed out on a route that started along the Laurel Street bridge, turned north on Sixth Avenue, east on University, south on Richmond, then past the San Diego Zoo and ended on the west side of the Natural History Museum.

In Oceanside, Kim Kowalewsky and her husband, Andy, have been doing the O’Side Turkey Trot since it started 10 years ago. With 10,000 participants registered this year, it’s one of the 10 largest Thanksgiving Day events in the nation, says Running USA. (The largest last year was in San Jose, with almost 22,000 finishers, followed by Detroit, with more than 17,000.) This year organizers added a 10K that took racers out on the Oceanside Pier and back.

The size of the event doesn’t dampen its community and family feel, Kim Kowalewsky said. “Sometimes it’s hard to get up that early in the morning, but we always have such a great time we don’t want to stop going,” she said. This year, they met people they know from other parts of their life. They got a kick out of seeing the guy who’s always at one particular place on the route, boom box blaring “Eye of the Tiger” over and over.

Six years ago, when she was eight months pregnant with twins, Kowalewsky didn’t run the race, but she went anyway to cheer on her husband. The next year, they pushed the twins, Lizzy and Robby, in a stroller. This year, for the first time, the kids needed no parental assistance to cover the whole 5K route, which starts near the Civic Center and ends at the Junior Seau Amphitheatre along the Strand.

Afterward, in one of the Turkey Trot’s children’s events, the twins ran a quarter-mile race, too.

“Move your feet before you eat,” is the way Kowalewsky put it.

Blessings counted

Some people move their feet faster than others, and in some families, the Turkey Trots are competitive. Joe Saska had always finished ahead of his son, Joe Jr., in the Balboa Park race — until this year. Joe Jr., a freshman at San Diego State, beat him by one second, a passing of the torch that didn’t seem to bother Joe Sr. all that much.

Bev Saska, Joe Sr.’s wife, is the one who got the family interested in the Turkey Trot about a decade ago. She’s a runner who has done marathons and she thought this would be something they could all do together as part of the holiday. “We keep adding and adding people,” she said.

Thursday, there were eight in their group, and when they were done, they posed for pictures in front of the lily pond outside the Botanical Building. “It’s just a great chance to be together, and to do something that benefits the community,” Bev Saska said. Turkey Trots typically raise money for charity; the one in Balboa Park benefits the homeless services at Father Joe’s Villages.

Several runners and walkers mentioned the community-service aspect, and how it fit in nicely with a day that’s based on gratitude.

“We feel like we’re blessed and we want to share our blessings with those who aren’t as fortunate,” said Erreca Nash of Mira Mesa, who was there with two children, Troie Thomas, 7, and Trent Thomas, 10. They’ve been doing the Father Joe 5K for three years. “It’s our new tradition,” Nash said.

And then, like many others, they were off to an old tradition: the Thanksgiving meal. Trent said he wouldn’t mind if it included sweet potato pie.

Food was never far from the minds of the runners. “I feel better about myself before I go home and absolutely feast,” said John Flaherty Jr. of Spring Valley, who has been doing the Balboa Park race for five years. He was there with his father, John Sr., a veteran of more than a dozen of the races, and his aunt, Joyce Hines, a newcomer, who was visiting from New Jersey.

Steven Earl and his daughter, Sydney, a college freshman, were from out of town, too — San Jose — but this wasn’t their first Turkey Trot here. Every other year they come to San Diego and rent a beach house with relatives for Thanksgiving. The past four times they’ve come, they’ve done the run.

“We’re building a lot of great memories,” Steven Earl said.

They wore matching striped socks for the occasion. “Run now,” the socks read, “Gobble later.”

And do both as family.

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