Thanksgiving In Manchester: 12K Entries, 4.737 Miles, Possible 4-Peat

MANCHESTER, CT — Registered runners for the 88th edition of the Manchester Road Race have topped the 12,000 mark, making the 2024 edition the largest in a half-dozen years.

Early Wednesday morning, the Manchester Road Race Committee announced that a total of 12,116 runners have registered for the Thanksgiving Day event. It is the largest number of runners to sign up for the 4.737-mile road race since 2018, when there were 12,425. Last Thanksgiving, 11,060 runners registered for the MRR.

"We are gratified that the number of participants at our race is back to pre-Covid levels," said Dr Tris Carta, the president of the Manchester Road Race Committee.

Registration for the road race has closed and no additional official entries will be accepted. Race officials had been discouraging poachers who are too cheap to pay an entry fee because a good portion of the proceeds are donated to local charitable causes.

The Manchester Road Race is one of America's oldest and most popular Thanksgiving races and it attracts both Olympians, other world- and national-class runners, along with recreational joggers, many wearing creative costumes ranging from pilgrims to ballet dangers to even Forest Gump himself.

Those who feel like running will hit the course off at 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day. The race starts and finishes on Main Street in Manchester, in front of St. James Church. About 30,000 spectators are anticipated to line the court this year. ECHN, Pratt & Whitney and Hoffman Lexus are the event’s Principal Sponsors.

A New Distance

The race course has shrunk for 2024.

The now-former 4.748-mile distance was measured in 1986, but it is now 4.737 miles.

The re-measurement was needed because of repaving work performed along the race route over the years, along with road and setback alterations at the corner of Main and Charter Oak streets when a big chain drug store was built there several years ago to replace a car dealership, race officials said.

The First Turn

The famed first turn in the Manchester Road Race will have a different look this year.

As the massive herd of runners makes a left from Main Street onto Charter Oak Street, the participants will encounter flexible plastic fencing, road race committee members announced Thursday. The premise is to simulate street width conditions that would exist if a permanent traffic roundabout is constructed at that location in the future.

The corner of Main and Charter Oak streets is located about a half-mile from the road race's start/finish line on Main Street in front of St. James Church. It is the first turn challenge that thousands of runners will encounter make as they compete in the road race, which is run annually each Thanksgiving morning on a 4.737-mile loop course through central Manchester.

The flexible fencing will be held in place by road race volunteers and can be moved in order to safely accommodate the flow of runners from Main Street onto Charter Oak Street. It will be positioned there prior to the start of the race on Thanksgiving morning and taken down immediately after the last runner makes the turn, event officials said.

This year's honorary chairman, Manchester and Irish running legend Mark Carroll, said the lead runners will not likely be affected because they will grab an inside slot after the gun sounds.

"It could have an effect on the recreational runners however," he said. "They will be in more of a pack and some will be on the outside."

A Four-Peat?

Olympian Weini Kelati will be seeking her fourth-straight victory at the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving Day.

The 27-year-old Kelati, who lives in Flagstaff, AZ, has won the MRR women's championship for the past three years and holds the women's course record of 22:55, which she set during her initial Manchester appearance in 2021.

Kelati's other two winning efforts — 23:21 at last year's event and 23:39 in 2022 — are also the second- and third-fastest times ever recorded by a female competitor on the course. In addition to winning the women’s title last Thanksgiving, Kelati placed 19th overall. She finished 18th in the race's open division during her record-setting run here in 2021.

A fourth victory this year will give Kelati the MRR record for most consecutive wins by a woman and place her in some very prestigious company. Olympic runner Amy Rudolph won the women's race five times (in 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2002) and Olympian Judi St. Hilaire had four wins (in 1985, 1988, 1989 and 1992).