Benefield: Tour de France champ Cadel Evans just misses Healdsburg Turkey Trot podium

Runners will be forgiven if they missed him.

Tucked in among those wearing felt turkey hats, the guy dressed up as a wine bottle (I see you Press Democrat contributor, Matt Villano), 47 dogs, one goat and two cats who lined up to run Healdsburg’s ever-festive Turkey Trot last week was a four-time Olympian and Tour de France champion.

Cadel Evans, winner of the maillot jaune in 2011, traded a road bike for running shoes and joined the hordes of runners who ran the Healdsburg race on Thanksgiving Day.

Turns out the guy who can ride a bike pretty well can also run at a speedy clip. He finished sixth at an impressive 15:41.

Aside from the fact there were a number of speedy folks off the front, finishing times tend to be neither here nor there for an event like the Turkey Trot, which for years has been run in support of the Drew Esquivel Memorial Scholarship.

And in the wake of the massive and scary upheaval brought on by a global pandemic, seeing more than 2,000 people getting together to run around with funny felt hats on seems like a huge win.

But back to the superstar among us.

‘We are running nerds’

Evans, who started his career as a world champion mountain biker, went on to compete in four Olympic Games and won road cycling’s biggest event before retiring from pro cycling in 2015. He has popped into Healdsburg Running Co. a number of times over the years, said Skip Brand, the shop’s owner and race director for the Turkey Trot.

The Sonoma County connection makes sense.

He spent years (and the year he won the Tour) riding for BMC, a cycling team with local roots via Gavin Chilcott, a Santa Rosan who was for years the team’s chief operating officer. Evans has likely trained here a time or two.

Back in the days when the Tour of California rolled through Sonoma County annually, it was not unusual to see BMC riders rolling around town or out on our country roads.

Still, the first time Evans walked into the shop way back when, Brand, a runner not necessarily a cyclist, didn’t recognize him.

But he recognized his fitness.

“When we first opened, he comes in, great accent, says, ‘I was told by my doctor I need zero drop shoes,’” Brand recalled of their first encounter about six years ago.

Evans bought a pair of shoes that day. He liked them so much he came in the next day to grab another pair and, as Brand recalls, offhandedly remarked that he’d taken the first pair on a three-hour trail run around Lake Sonoma.

“So, the guy can haul ass,” Brand remembers thinking, still having zero clue who he was.

Brand can laugh about that now.

“We are running nerds. We had no idea who a Tour de France winner was,” he said.

‘Yeah, I’m in’

Fast forward to last week. Evans was back in town and Brand now knows who that guy with the Australian accent and uber fitness is when he drops into the shop.

So Brand let Evans know that a little trot was planned for Thursday morning. It’s a 5K with a few thousand friends and a good way to start the holiday. Might Evans want to give it a go?

“He’s a confident guy,” Brand said. “He says, ‘Yeah, I’m in.’”

Confident and competitive.

It took about six minutes to get more than 2,000 runners under the balloon arch and across the downtown start line. Somewhere in that sea was one of 65 guys who have won the Tour de France in the past nearly 120 years.

That means a four-time Olympian and Tour de France winner had to dodge and weave a fair number of trotters, dogs, and perhaps a goat, to find room to stretch his legs and go, Brand said.

And with all of those folks he had to pass to move up to the leaders, the cat was quite quickly out of the bag that a superstar was among them.

“We have amazing cyclists,” Brand said. “They knew right away.”

‘They want a chance to celebrate as a group’

Whether people were drawn to support the scholarship in honor of Healdsburg High alum Drew Esquivel, or to make a preemptive strike on holiday gluttony, the trot has grown into a must-do for many locals.

Esquivel, was a standout wrestler for the Healdsburg Hounds, as well as an Eagle Scout, who went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 2013 to study computer science on a full scholarship courtesy of the James Family Foundation. He was killed by a drunken driver in New York City in the summer of 2016.

The motto “Live Like Drew” has been adopted by a number of events which raise funds for the scholarship.

So on Thursday, the mood was celebratory, albeit with caution, Brand said.

“People feel more comfortable outside. They want a chance to celebrate as a group,” he said. “It just feels good to collectively be a community again. I think that’s what it is all about.”

Brand said Thursday’s race roster was the biggest ever, evidence of a need to do something as a group, a group that included 2,000-plus humans, 47 dogs, two cats and one goat and a Tour de France champ.

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @benefield.