Original photo by Maridav/ Shutterstock
When it comes to famous American footraces, competitions like San Francisco’s Bay to Breakers or the Boston Marathon likely come to mind. But neither of these races is the nation’s oldest continuously run footrace — that distinction belongs instead to the Buffalo Turkey Trot, an 8K race held every year on Thanksgiving Day as a fundraiser for the YMCA in Buffalo, New York. During its first race back in 1896, only six runners participated (and two dropped out along the way), but today some 14,000 participants run the Turkey Trot down Delaware Avenue through the heart of the city. There are now more than 200 Turkey Trots around the U.S., all inspired by that original race more than 125 years ago.
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It's a fibAlthough domesticated turkeys can’t fly because of their plumpness, wild turkeys can fly upwards of 50 miles per hour thanks to their nearly 5-foot wingspan. But they can only pull off the feat for short distances of around a quarter of a mile.
Although the Turkey Trot is one of the U.S.’s oldest races — it even beats out the Boston Marathon by five months — it isn’t the oldest race on the continent if you’re counting races that have occasionally been canceled. Ontario’s Around the Bay Road Race and Massachusetts’ Bemis-Forslund Pie Race, which is the oldest U.S. footrace of any distance, predate the Turkey Trot by a handful of years. However, both races have been canceled for a variety of reasons, including world wars and the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these world-altering calamities, the Turkey Trot trotted on, and is now officially the nation’s oldest continuously run footrace. In fact, it claims to be the oldest continuously run footrace in the world.
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The marathon’s exact distance, 26.2 miles, is because of the British royal family.
The marathon race’s well-known ancient origins date back to the fifth century BCE, but today’s 26.2-mile length is a much more modern invention. An ancient legend states that in 490 BCE, an Athenian messenger named Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver a one-word message regarding the outcome of the city-state’s battle with the Persians: “Nike” (meaning “victory”). After running 25 miles nonstop, Pheidippides allegedly died from exhaustion. Some 2,400 years later, the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens commemorated this moment in Greek history by establishing a nearly 25-mile marathon run. However, 12 years later, during the 1908 London Olympic Games, that historic 25-mile distance didn’t quite line up with Britain’s plans. The story goes that Princess Mary (Mary of Teck), wife of the future King George V, requested that the race begin on the lawn of Windsor Castle (so the young royals could see it) and finish at the royal box at the Olympic stadium. This request, along with other route complications, extended the race from 25 miles to exactly 26 miles and 385 yards — roughly 26.219 miles. (An alternate telling of these events says that the private location for the start of the marathon was meant to help with crowd control and minimize public interference.) The London length became the standard when the International Amateur Athletic Federation set the official marathon distance at 26.2 miles in 1921. Today, that seemingly random mileage remains the set distance for marathon races around the world.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
