DaytonDailyNews.com

MIAMISBURG — It's going to take more than rain, snow, sleet or hail to keep Leon Burk from running this week's Turkey Trot. This Thursday, Nov. 27, the Ohio River Road Runners Club will put on its 30th annual Thanksgiving morning five-mile race.

Burk, 68, hasn't missed one yet. And despite a minor injury that's kept him off the road for the last two weeks, he doesn't plan to miss this one — no matter what the forecast.

In the past three decades, he's seen just about everything. One of the worst for weather, he says, was one of the first races, in 1978 or 79, when the trot was run out of the long-gone Speedy-Feet running store in Centerville.

"It was snow-rain-sleet," says the slender Burke, who lives in a farmhouse just outside Tipp City. "It was terrible."

But he did it, and he was glad he did.

And then there was what should have been called the Hypothermic Trot five or six years ago when the race was run in a steady, mid-30-degree rain.

That was, I can tell you from personal experience, a somewhat less than inviting morning for a run. But here's the thing about the Turkey Trot — it's more of a party than a race.

When you're crammed in with 6,000 or so hyped runners (and wannabes) there in the mosh pit on First Street in downtown Miamisburg waiting for the start, it just doesn't matter what the weather is.

It also doesn't really matter who wins, unless maybe you're talking about the costume contest. There are the obligatory turkeys, Pilgrims and Indians. But there is much more. One year, a team of cranberries ran, says club spokesman Joe McLaughlin. Another time he saw a group running in tandem as a fully set dining room table.

And then there's always the legendary Flipperman, who runs — I'm not making this up — in a wetsuit (or Speedos) and swim fins.

Burk, like many of us, doesn't go for the costumes. But he does keep track of Flipperman. For many years, he says, his goal was to beat the guy running in swimwear. But these days, the retired toolmaker from GM just thinks about finishing.

Burk admits there have been times when his resolve wavered. The cold rain a few years back, for example, definitely made him think twice.

"I didn't know if I wanted to do it or not," Burk says. "But I did. I think the fact that there were so many people there. If they can do it, I can do it, you know?"

There's also the allure of the Turkey Trot gear — I still use the wind shirt I got in 2002 — and the added motivation a late season race gives you to keep running when the weather begins to turn.

But there's another real draw for many of us: the pre-feast, guilt-killing, preemptive calorie burn.

More than anything, that's what's worked to keep Burk's streak alive.

"I just like it because you can go and eat more," he says. "And it turned out to be a tradition."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2393 or

kmccall@DaytonDailyNews.com.