Sports / Downtown
Detroit Turkey Trot
Detroit's Thanksgiving morning tradition: thousands of costumed runners race down Woodward before America's Thanksgiving Parade steps off.
01 / The story of this place
Make time for these
The Turkey Trot was a Detroit News sportswriter's idea: Mike O'Hara figured that if the parade route was already closed, people might as well run it. In 1983 more than 2,300 runners showed up for the first 10K in 13-degree cold. It's produced by The Parade Company, the nonprofit behind America's Thanksgiving Parade, with Strategic Staffing Solutions as title sponsor since 2015, and it had grown to 21,000 runners by 2012. Today there's a 10K, a 5K and a one-mile race, and costumes are so much a part of it that locals call it the Parade before the Parade.
- Run down Woodward hours before the parade
- 10K, 5K and a one-mile race, plus combo entries
- Costumes strongly encouraged
- Finish on Atwater by the river, behind Huntington Place
Is this your venue? Update this page for free ↗
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-10-01
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
Events at this place
Published events automatically linked from our event guide. Times are local to the venue.
We have no published upcoming events linked to this place yet. That does not mean the venue has no events; check its official calendar too.
Official website & visitor information ↗