A last chance for exercise before the Thanksgiving holidays will be available this weekend.

NIU’s 13th Thanksgiving Classic race will start off on Sunday, Nov. 17 at noon at the Student Recreation Center. There will be both a 15K run and a 5K walk/run.

Deb Owen, coordinator for intramural sports and this year’s race director, said the center usually has about 250 entries in the 5K and 100 entries in the 15K.

“We get quite a few students,” Owen said, “(and) we have already received entries from New Jersey, Michigan and Wisconsin.”

The race is open to men and women in ranges from 12 and under to 55 and over. For the first time this year, there will also be men’s and women’s wheelchair races.

The rec center will open at 10:30 a.m. Showers, saunas and lockers will be available, but runners must provide their own locks and towels.

Fees for the race are $8 for NIU students and anyone under 18 and $10 for everyone else. Those waiting to register until the day of the race will be charged an additional $2.

All runners will receive a long-sleeved T-shirt, and the first place male and female runners will have their names engraved on plaques that hang in the rec center’s lobby.

The first three to cross the finish line in each age division will also be rewarded with a certificate of recognition.

After the race, there will be a raffle to give away gift certificates and merchandise like sports bags, sweatshirts, socks and coolers.

“If it stays cold like this it will affect the entries,” Owen said. “I’m hoping it will warm up to at least in the forties.”

Students wishing to enter can contact the rec center.