This right here is why you should never – under any circumstance – participate in the blasphemous event known as the “Turkey Trot.”
I don’t know who came up with the idea of running on Thanksgiving morning, but whoever is responsible should respectfully be launched into the sun (sorry for being harsh there). Turkey day is for stuffing your face and consuming way more calories than you burn. Not for Turkey Trotting… and then posting about it online to make everyone else that didn’t participate feel bad about themselves.
On the glorious day of Thanksgiving, the only form of voluntary movement should be from the couch to the kitchen table (and vice versa). And I’ll also make an exception for the “Turkey Bowl” football games, where generally inactive people all get together to test their luck (and their ACLs) by playing football before they dig into turkey and dressing.
But really, why are people putting themselves through “Turkey Trots” in the first place? The thing I’ll never understand about 5Ks and marathons is that in order to participate in them, YOU have to pay the event organizers money. If my ass is running more than one mile, especially on Thanksgiving day, someone better be paying ME to do it. I don’t understand why people sign up to do things like this.
Especially when you consider that nature could show its teeth during these runs. If you live in a portion of the country that starts to really feel like winter around Thanksgiving time, you could be running the Turkey Trot in below freezing conditions (especially since most of them take place in the morning). And not do you have to worry about the weather being bad. You could also have some unpredictable wildlife decide to participate in the Thanksgiving morning run and not give anyone a heads up about it.
That’s what happened to these runners during their annual “trotting of the turkeys.” The Turkey Trot quickly turned into a reindeer run when a herd of deer came sprinting at full speed through all of the runners. Some kept up their pace, while others froze in place. It was the people that stopped in their tracks that ended up getting violently plowed over by one deer that evidently didn’t have much spatial awareness.
According to the person that posted the clip online, one woman was struck so hard that she had to go to the hospital to be evaluated for her injuries:
“We ran the Turkey Trot this morning and look what happened! One woman went to the hospital, but with minor injuries.”
That’s gotta hurt in the morning.
Nothing like a trip to the hospital on Thanksgiving Day. I’m sure all of the medical providers that had to work on the holiday were happy to see a woman who came with deer-induced injuries. Glad she ended up being okay, though I’d advise her to not look at the comments below the post.
There was an opportunity for an easy joke (you are probably thinking of it in your head right now) and online commenters took advantage of it:
“Grandma really did get run over by a reindeer.”
“They seem so offended that the deer were in their way outside.”
“Those things will total a truck but that lady got right back up.”
“Donner and Prancer hit the eggnog a little hard the night before apparently.”
“This will never happen to me because I will never run in a turkey trot.”
BOOM… exactly. You can’t get run over by a deer while jogging on Thanksgiving morning if you don’t ever jog in the first place. Remember that.
