Seidel wouldn’t argue if you described her run in the 2019 AJC Peachtree Road Race as a turkey. “And then the person next to him was like, ‘and it’s a girl!’” “I passed this guy and somebody on the side was like ‘dude you can’t get passed by a person in a costume,’” she recalled. The sight and shock of a turkey flying by caused a visceral reaction from those left in her feathers. Since then, she’s signed a pro-contract with Saucony, and the costume has mostly been reserved low-key events – although in 2016 she ran 34:29 as the turkey to win the Berbee Derby 10K on Thanksgiving Day in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The costume, which is neither form-fitting nor aerodynamic, made its debut at a small-town Wisconsin Turkey Trot when Seidel ran with her family fresh off winning the NCAA Cross Country Championship for Notre Dame in 2015. Seidel has been showing up to local road races in a turkey costume since 2015. “I legitimately don’t know how fast I am going to be able to run this 10K coming off marathon legs,” said Seidel, who ran the socially distanced London Marathon on October 3.

She thinks she’ll run at least 30 seconds faster without the costume, but is hesitant to predict a time. On that Sunday, she’ll don her normal running clothes and run the same course to see how much faster she can go. She’s calling it the FKT, or Fastest Known Turkey.Īnd that’s only part of the challenge.

On Thanksgiving morning, she’ll stuff herself into the costume and attempt to cover 10K faster than anyone in a full turkey costume ever has. Seidel, 26, will be with her family on the appropriately named Great Cranberry Island, off the coast of Maine.

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