As of last week, registrations for the venerable Maine Track Club Turkey Trot 5K Road Race in Cape Elizabeth were running 58 percent ahead of the same date in 2015.

Race director Bob Ayotte can’t say for certain why the 48th annual race, a nonprofit event that benefits Wayside Food Programs, seems more popular this year.

One reason could be increased social media marketing. Another might be guaranteeing a long-sleeved race shirt to everyone who registers by Oct. 15, instead of simply the first 400 who register.

Possibly the biggest reason of all, however, is that for the first time in three years, the Turkey Trot once more has the Sunday before Thanksgiving all to itself on Maine’s road-racing calendar.

Organizers of the Santa Hustle, a for-profit group that puts on a 5K and half marathon near the Maine Mall with volunteers dressed as elves and runners dressed in Santa hat, white beard and lightweight red hoodie, met with Ayotte and agreed to push back their event two weeks, to from Nov. 20 to Dec. 4.

“We didn’t really know about that existing event,” said Bryan Ganek, chief operating officer of Chicago-based Adrenaline Sports Management. “We’re not from the Northeast. If we had been aware of that, we never would have pushed for that date.”

Ganek reached out to Ayotte after reading a Maine Sunday Telegram story last September detailing the tensions between local nonprofit and out-of-state for-profit running events. Following banner years for the Turkey Trot in 2012 and 2013, Ayotte anticipated bumping up against his thousand-runner cap in 2014, only to discover registrations significantly down and only 570 finishers – less than half of the 1,611 who completed the inaugural Santa Hustle 5K.

Last November, finishers of the Turkey Trot 5K dwindled to 558 while those of the Santa Hustle 5K slipped to 1,341. A few days before the race, Ganek met with Ayotte and a few members of the Maine Track Club.

“He said he would be willing to meet with folks at the Maine Mall to see if they were willing to change the date,” Ayotte said. “He said it’s not (their) business model to barrel into town and bowl everybody over.”

Ganek received approval from the Maine Mall for a December date and finalized the schedule in April, after making sure the eight other Santa Hustle races put on by Adrenaline (mainly in the Midwest) didn’t conflict with local NFL games. The only Santa Hustle not being held in December this year is a first-time event in Newport, Rhode Island on Nov. 20.

“We pushed our race two weeks later not only to help them out,” said Ganek, whose event in South Portland donates $5,000 to Easter Seals Maine, “but also to show the area that we’re trying to drive a fun and interesting last couple weeks of the year in terms of running a race. We’re giving runners an opportunity to run not only a Thanksgiving race but a Christmas race.”

“This is a good example of how for-profit and not-for-profit races can work together,” Ayotte said. “Of course, this is my only experience, but it’s a positive one.”

Ayotte said two years of competition from the larger, better-financed event forced him to sharpen his approach to Turkey Trot registration.

“We’ve gotten much more serious about reaching out to previous runners to attract them back to the race again,” he said, noting an email distribution list with roughly 1,800 names on it. The Turkey Trot also is more active on Facebook.

“A small race will never have the funds or resources to compete with the big guys in terms of slick marketing and web sites,” Ayotte said. “but we can’t just sit back and expect people who ran previous races to come back.”

Not until race day will Ayotte know for sure whether the Santa Hustle date change is enough to return to the Turkey Trot to its former participation levels.

“If we’re back into the eight or nine hundred (registrants) as previously,” he said, “that would build a pretty strong case that it’s the date.”