RunSignup reports record-setting Thanksgiving day race participation

RunSignup, the leading US technology provider for endurance events, releases their event participation numbers for Thanksgiving Day 2025, the biggest US running day of the year. This year, the platform had a record 1,330,726 participants registered to participate in 1,056 races across the country, with more than $3.2 million dollars raised for charities. 

The good news: running participation on Thanksgiving appears to continue to grow, both in terms of available races and overall participation. Registrations on RunSignup increased 20% compared to 2024, with three identifiable reasons: 

• Increasing market share: RunSignup continues to pick up market share, with fifty two races moving to RunSignup from a competing platform in 2025 (compared to 8 races leaving RunSignup for another platform.
• New turkey trots emerging: Turkey trots are still cropping up around the country. At least 48 inaugural Turkey Trots were added on RunSignup in 2025, while just 10 races that took place in 2024 were cancelled.
• Per-race growth: Existing turkey trots are still growing. When comparing races on RunSignup in both 2024 and 2025, the average race grew 11% in 2024, the third straight year of double-digit growth.

Impressively, the RunSignup platform managed 57,800 requests per minute at peak while maintaining 100% uptime and speedy responses. To ensure the platform’s infrastructure could handle the high traffic, RunSignup added server capacity and monitored utilization throughout the morning.

Additional key takeaways from the report include: 

• Thanksgiving Day races are larger than most annual races (and growing), with an average of 1,260 participants per race. 37% of all Thanksgiving Day races exceeded 1000 registrants.
• While races with fewer than 500 participants grew the most (27%), even large races with more than 5,000 participants grew (7%). 
• Turkey trots come with a variety of distances, but 5Ks are easily the most popular, with 91% of races including a 5K. Other popular options include a Kids Run, a 1 Mile, and a 10K.
• The majority of turkey trots (76%) supported one or more charities. The community impact is significant: Thanksgiving Day races raised a total of $3,175,112.The RaceDay CheckIn App was used by a majority of races, with 58% of races using the app to check in 72% of registrants.
• The no-show rate on race day was low, with 94% of registered participants checked in (among races using the app).

RunSignup Founder and CEO Bob Bickel said about the day, “Thanksgiving Day is always celebratory for RunSignup. We love seeing all our various technologies put into action at once, seamlessly, to bring joy to runners across the county. With continuing signs of growth for turkey trots, we look forward to breaking even more records next year.”

There is no single-source of turkey trot participation numbers across registration platforms, making it challenging to ascertain full national participation. However, the consistent increases across all metrics suggest that participation has grown since the last cross-platform report when Running USA reported 961,882 finishers in 2016. So far, turkey trots show no signs of slowing down.

For more information, visit: https://info.runsignup.com/2025/12/01/2025-turkey-trots/