Turkey Leg Relays draw runners to benefit Casa Grande cross country squad

The 12th annual Turkey Leg Relays, hosted by the Casa Grande High School cross country team, drew dozens of out-of-town long-distance runners for a grueling 4-mile relay race Thanksgiving morning at Shollenberger Park in Petaluma.

Many of the participants in the foot race featuring two-person teams were visiting friends and family for the Thanksgiving holiday. The fundraiser for the Casa Grande cross country team gave students of all ages, parents and school alumni the chance to get a healthy start on the food-filled holiday.

“We’re hoping to inspire the next generation of runners,” said 23-year-old Tyler Harwood, whose team, “Beast Mode,” took overall first place in the race with a time of 23 minutes and 55 seconds.

Harwood, who used to run cross country and track at Casa Grande, now studies industrial technology and packaging at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He said the race has become a holiday tradition for him and his fellow graduates.

Harwood said he wants to show younger students that they can stay healthy and athletic beyond high school.

“It gives us the opportunity to beat up on high schoolers and middle schoolers,” he joked.

About 50 teams participated in the relay race, with individual runners ticking off separate ?2.1-mile laps around Shollenberger Park. As an entry fee, each runner paid a donation - $10 for kids and $15 for adults - that amounted to about $800, with proceeds going to cover team expenses throughout the season, including uniforms and travel, said Carl Triola, coach of the Casa Grande cross country team.

Triola said the race has become a Thanksgiving gathering for runners and families with ties to the high school and community at large.

“We have a lot of alumni who come back, coming from across the country,” he said.

Triola grew up in Pennsylvania, where Thanksgiving races, many of them called turkey trots, were extremely popular. He recalled one such race during his youth that easily drew at least a thousand runners. That gave him the idea to stage a run locally.

“I was looking for a fundraiser that I could do and thought, why not do something in Petaluma and make it something for the team, because there wasn’t one around here,” he said.

The first year the relay race was held, there were only about 10 teams participating, he said. The field Thursday was five times as large.

The running pairs competed in several different divisions, and not surprisingly, one of the most popular was the family division, which had at least 14 teams participating.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.