New Plans for Thanksgiving 2017

I'm pleased to update that I'll be handling finish line announcing and awards duties for this year's 28th Annual YMCA Run Thru the Woods Presented by Entergy.

It is a little bit of a departure from the last few years where I've made a commitment to run with Waverly on Thanksgiving Day.

However, since I have retracted a lot from the 37 races that I announced two years ago, there are some events that I want to remain involved in, especially in my local race community.

I had the pleasure of meeting with race director Roxanne Davis earlier this year to talk about the race.

There was some concern about numbers - and what I thought might be causing them.

I presented Roxanne with a graph of all of the races in the greater Houston area and all of the finishers numbers that I could find.

A year ago, Waverly and I had plans to run the Bay Area Turkey Day 10K for something different.

Nothing against the job that Roxanne and her team did, we just needed a change of scenery -- and we wanted to run five miles or more.

League City, with some local, ongoing road construction, forced the Bay Area race to only have its 5K.

We told the organizers to donate our entries to somebody who could use them and we headed even further south to Lake Jackson.

A fine race -- and one that I ran well in (under an hour in the 10K for the first time in about four years).

I showed Roxanne that Kingwood, I believe, had grown and taken many runners who in the past made the drive to The Woodlands as opposed to going downtown.

I saw the same type of trend in Pearland taking some from Sugar Land.

There were a couple of years that I did handle finish line responsibilities for Roxanne, but the biggest challenge -- and it will be no different -- is the sheer volume of runners that come across the line around 45-60 minutes into the five-mile race.

You simply can't announce them all.

A few years ago, Andy Stewart, one of Houston's most respected race directors and longest in tenure, had asked me to basically announce all of his races -- including Thanksgiving.

Working some of Andy's races, especially, for me, the 30K, has always been a great honor.

To both Roxanne and Andy - and I had been approached by Mark Coleman one year with working the Sheltering Arms 10K, I was consistent in that Thanksgiving Day was for me running with Waverly.

However, this year I think that she'll be reaching the apex of her long run mileage near Thanksgiving in her build-up for the Chevron Houston Marathon -- and she should have (and take) the opportunity to rock it out, if her fitness it there.

There's no more delight in what I do than in announcing the name of your child as they cross the finish line.

The Woodlands, though, is a community that I identify closely with -- and for me to well-represent it on Thanksgiving morning will once again be an honor.

And with a switch in timers, one that I've worked with, and being able to eyeball those results before making my way to the stage to handle the awards, I hope that I can help alleviate some of the issues in the past that the race has had with results messing up the awards ceremony.

In the meantime, I have the Memorial Hermann Ten For Texas coming up in three weeks for the first time ever -- and will have Nike South and Nike Cross for the sixth year this weekend and the weekend before Thanksgiving, respectively.

Great to work with The Woodlands Parks and Recreation Department as well as one of the top men's cross country and track programs in America.

I must say that I'm pretty fortunate.