It’s a little before 9:00am on Thursday November 26, 2015, and the streets of downtown Noblesville, IN have become a sea of people 
wearing matching black long-sleeve shirts. Although the shirt color changes from year to year, this, a scene that would seem bizarre for most any other Indiana town on a holiday morning, has become the norm here in Noblesville on Thanksgiving Day. Runners, walkers, competitors and families have gathered for the community’s annual charity 5K run. The sprawling mass chats and stretches as the public address announcer Jeff Hood herds the flock towards the intersection of 9th and Logan Street. This group of close to 2,000 people is nearly ready to participate in the Michael Treinen Foundation 8th Annual Turkey Trot.
Hood hands the microphone over to Meredith Treinen, Michael Treinen’s older sister, who gives the pre –race speech. She thanks the sponsors for their donations that will he
lp cover the costs of the event. She thanks the participants for their time and for their entry fees that will be donated to charity. One hundred percent of the trot’s proceeds are donated to various philanthropic organizations including Riley Hospital for Children and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The microphone is passed again, and the runners are invited to bow their heads in prayer. The invocation thanks God for the opportunity to help such a great cause and remembers “Mike T” and others who have died from cancer. The prayer ends with a chorus of “amens” from the crowd followed by a countdown over the microphone, “3, 2, 1!” Hundreds of orange, purple and pink balloons ascend into the overcast Indiana sky. Runners can purchase balloons for $1 each with different colors representing different forms of cancer. Participants release the balloons prior to the start of the race to honor deceased loved ones who have suffered from cancerous diseases.
With the pre-race fanfare concluded, it’s finally time for the eighth installment of the event to begin.
To get to the true starting point of this Michael Treinen Turkey Trot story, we have to go back nearly a decade to Michael’s senior year of high school.
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In the fall of 2006, Michael Treinen began his senior year of high school at Noblesville High School along 500 other classmates. As the fall semester began, the typical senior year feelings of excitement, hope and optimism for a future with boundless opportunities permeated throughout Noblesville’s graduating class. Treinen’s future seemed as bright as any. Impressive for anyone at a high school containing 2,000-plus students, Treinen was a three-sport athlete. He was a defensive back on the football team, a winger on the hockey team and a defensive midfielder on the lacrosse team. Treinen was a notorious troublemaker – as playful and outgoing as they come. Joe Greiner, a classmate and hockey teammate who is now a foundation board member, said that labeling Treinen a “goofball” would be huge understatement.
In a 2014 interview with The Current in Noblesville, Treinen’s mother Kelly Treinen said her son was never afraid to put himself out there.
“He could talk to anybody,” she said. “He was goofy. He truly lived life to the fullest every single day. Sometimes it got him into trouble.”
Those senior year feelings of excitement and optimism turned into a very different sentiment in the spring of 2007 for the Treinen family. Treinen began noticing lumps on his throat. After doctors investigated, Treinen was diagnosed with Acute Myleoid Leukemia on May 8, 2007, just a few weeks prior to his high school graduation ceremony. About a week later, Treinen was admitted into Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis to begin treatment.
Although the news was jarring, Treinen’s classmates remember feeling optimistic about the situation.
Greiner remembers thinking to himself, “He’s 18. He’s got cancer. They’ll just cut it out of him.”
Optimistic though some were for Treinen’s overall outlook, most doubted his chances of walking at the graduation ceremony. After all, he’d been hospitalized mere weeks prior.
To everyone’s surprise and utter delight, on June 1, 2007, Treinen, bald and weakened by chemotherapy, walked across the stage inside Loren R. Williams Gymnasium (“The Mill”) and received his diploma. Everyone in the stands in the packed 4,200 person capacity gym plus the 500 graduating seniors on the floor were on their feet. The ovation was deafening.
For Scott Beesley, a current foundation board member who graduated with Treinen that night, this moment is etched vividly into his memory.
“When Anita Petty (the Noblesville High School Principal) called out ‘Michael Thomas Treinen,’ the whole graduating class started cheering and clapping, which turned into several parents clapping,” he said. “Before you knew it, we were standing, and The Mill was just as loud as a sectional basketball game. Mrs. Petty even stopped reading names for a moment just to soak it in. It was one of the coolest moments I have ever been apart of because it was just a spontaneous act of appreciation for a classmate who was fighting for his life.”
This was not the first but far from last time the Noblesville community would rally behind Treinen’s cause.
After graduation, as his classmates made preparations to take the next step in their lives, Treinen stayed back and continued his battle with Leukemia. Over the next seven months he was in and out of the hospital undergoing five rounds of intensive chemotherapy including one round that kept him in the intensive care unit for three weeks.
On December 11, 2007, Treinen and his family finally received some incredible news: the cancer had gone into remission. After a brutal seven months of treatment, Treinen was declared cancer free.
Unfortunately, the victory did not last long. On January 25, 2008, Treinen relapsed and the cancer returned.
The second time around things progressed quickly and the situation became dire. The Treinens learned that Michael would need a bone marrow transplant to have any chance at survival. A match was found quickly and the procedure was scheduled at a children’s hospital in Seattle, WA. Just days before the operation date, the hospital notified the family that, in only 10 months, Michael had already reached his $1 million insurance lifetime maximum. The Treinens would need to send the hospital a check for $500,000 in order for the operation to proceed.
With nowhere left to turn, the family turned to their community for help, and via emails and word of mouth, the word spread. The community again rallied behind Treinen and quickly raised well over the needed amount. According to a report at the time from the Indianapolis Star, nearly $1 million in community donations were raised.
Even with the rapid outpouring of support, precious days had been lost due to the insurance issue. Michael was unable to get the transplant in time. On May 25, 2008, Treinen lost his bout with cancer and passed away six days before his 20th birthday.
The passing of Treinen was a tough blow to the Noblesville community who had watched him bravely cross the stage at graduation and then rushed to his aid financially a year later.
Looking back on it years later, classmate and lacrosse teammate Matt McGinn said that it was the first team he realized how pervasive cancer really could be.
“Treinen was so fit and such an athlete,” he said. “If it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.”
Treinen died early in the morning, and later that night numerous classmates and community members gathered at the Noblesville High School flag pole for an impromptu memorial service. According to an Indianapolis Star report, over 500 people were in attendance.
A few months after Treinen’s death, the Treinen family and other members of the community began their efforts to raise money to help fight Leukemia in Michael’s memory. The first annual Turkey Trot was held on Thanksgiving Day 2008 in the Treinens’ Noblesville subdivision.
Treinen family friend and neighbor Chris Yeakey came up with the original idea to do a memorial 5k run. The first trot had 50 people participate and raised $800 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The Treinens held the run again in 2009, this time attracting 300 participants. The event was gaining support and momentum, and due to the increasing size, a venue change was in order. The third year the trot was moved to the Noblesville Square and had over 1,000 participants.
An event that started out as a way for the Treinens and their close family friends to memorialize Michael’s life was well on its way becoming an annual tradition for the entire community.
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After the releasing of the memorial balloons, the 2015 Turkey Trot race is underway. One of the major reasons the race has grown in size over the years has been the implementation of individual time keeping. An event that started out as simply a family oriented charity run has evolved and expanded into a chance for competitive runners to compete and track their time in a legitimate race.
As the race begins, the competitive runners are the first to run under the fo
undation’s 25-foot tall orange inflatable archway adorned with the foundation’s name and logo, a cartoon turkey wearing a Noblesville hockey jersey with Treinen’s traditional number seven. The archway is a new addition to the event this year, and board members are quite proud it. Greiner and fellow board member Kyle Campbell, both claim the archway helps add legitimacy to an ever growing event.
After participants pass below the archway, they head north on 9th Street crossing the Logan Street intersection. This is a change from year’s prior. Traditionally the race began a block west of here. The problem with the former starting line was that it led quickly to a narrow walking bridge over the White River causing a bottleneck issue for the competitive racers. As the number of serious racers grew, so did the number of complaints about the bottleneck. With this year’s route change, the competitive runners have room to race freely up wide 9th Street.
The route heads north for multiple blocks up 9th Street before heading west on Field Drive. Field Drive crosses the White River and State Road 19 and then bends through Forest Park before ending back in the Noblesville Square in front of Syd’s Bar and Grill, the local watering hole where many of Michael’s old classmates gathered the night before.
As runners and walkers alike cross the finish line, cheers from two of the foundation’s board members, Campbell and Michael Osborne, greet them. Both Campbell and Osborne were friends of Treinen’s at Noblesville High School. Campbell makes it his personal goal to high five every person as they cross the line. It’s his personal tradition within the greater tradition of the trot and his favorite part of the entire event.
Joe Lemna, 20, is the first to cross the finish line with a time of 16:16 closely followed by Aaron Becker, 25, who comes in at 16:22. Both men are Noblesville natives and former runners on the Noblesville High School Cross Country team. The top female runners are Renee Studt and Peyton Ali who finish at 19:49 and 20:00, respectively. In addition to the Campbell high five, the top 10 male and female finishers receive a pumpkin pie as a prize.
All participants are through the finish line within 45 minutes. If Campbell reached his high five goal, he’s given out nearly 2,000 of them at this point.
The Michael Treinen Foundation Turkey Trot has come a long way from having 50 people jog through the Oak Bay subdivision. Here’s to many more years of raising money in honor of our old friend.
Jack Carney Sports 