By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Entries for the 94th Thanksgiving Day Race were running about 1,000 ahead of last year's pace as of Tuesday.

So the phenomenal growth of Cincinnati's oldest race, which starts at 9 a.m. Thursday, continues. The 10-kilometer race last year drew a record 10,100 runners - up from 8,996 in 2001 and 6,464 in 2000. The race has set a record for participants each of the last six years. Only 3,537 ran as recently as 1995.

The race got a huge bump when the traditional Northern Kentucky-to-Cincinnati course was dropped for one that began and ended at Paul Brown Stadium. But the growth continues.

"I think there's a couple of reasons for that," race director Julie Isphording said. "More families than ever are running. It's unbelievable the number of families we have registering. More women than ever are running. And interest in running in general has escalated. All three of those things combined to keep it growing."

Isphording, a former Olympic marathoner, is also responsible for a lot of the growth. She was behind the move to the new course. And she has pushed for the corporate sponsorship on WLW-AM, Kiss FM and WKRC-TV that has gotten the race a lot of airtime.

Whether the race will set another record this year depends on the weather. The forecast calls for scattered showers and a high of 48 Thursday.

"A little sunshine will help," Isphording said. "I worry about everything else. I might as well worry about the weather."

The race is wide open as far as elite runners. Cincinnati's top runners - five-time winner John Sence and last year's winner, Henry Dennis - are not running.

Kathryn Krieger, who won the women's division in 2002 and last year, is not entered. Two-time winner Jill Tranter is expected to run.