193: From Starting Line to Executive Suite: Leadership Lessons from the Running Trail

What can marathon training teach us about effective leadership? In this thought-provoking episode, we're joined by Celia, Executive Director of the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy, who draws fascinating parallels between conquering 26.2 miles and navigating the challenges of executive leadership.

Celia shares how she transformed from someone who "loathed running" during her time at West Point to a four-time Dopey Challenge finisher, and explains how this journey equipped her with crucial leadership skills. Her framework comparing her first month as Executive Director to the stages of a marathon offers brilliant insights into perseverance, mental toughness, and strategic thinking.

"It's 100% mental," Celia explains about both running and leadership. "The hardest barrier to overcome is in your head." From battling imposter syndrome to finding creative solutions during uninterrupted runs, her experiences demonstrate how physical discipline builds professional resilience.

We also welcome back Matt Bowen, known for carrying the American flag during runDisney races. Matt updates us on his fundraising efforts for Operation 300, supporting Gold Star Families, and shares moving stories of connections made along the race course. His passion for honoring military families through running inspires participants and spectators alike.

In our Race Report, we spotlight Tiffany's creative two-state challenge weekend, featuring races in Indiana and Illinois. Plus, we discuss the newly announced Princess Weekend themes for 2026 and explore whether they influence registration decisions.

Whether you're a runner seeking leadership insights or a professional looking for new performance strategies, this episode offers valuable lessons on turning physical challenges into professional strengths.

Matt’s Fundraiser Operation 300
The Most Magical Virtual Race on Earth.

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(00:27):
surprise topics suggested by you, our listeners.
Well, the alarm's gone off, solet's go.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Hey, this is Rob from Glenrock, new Jersey, at the
finish line of the RBC BrooklynHalf Marathon at the Marks and
Meads Park, which is the home ofthe Brooklyn Cyclones, the
single-aid affiliate of the bestbaseball team in New York, and
you are listening to the Riseand Run podcast.
Happy running.

(00:56):
Hi, this is Lynn and I'm hereat Disney Springs at the Rise
and Run meetup, and welcome tothe Rise and Run podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
So Rob joins us from the finish line of the Brooklyn
Half just a couple weeks ago andLynn goes back to Springtime
Surprise and we are delightedthat you're here with us for
episode 193 of the Rise and Runpodcast.
Episode 193 of the Rise and Runpodcast.

(01:24):
Hello friends, I'm Bob.
This week I'm here with Alicia.
Hello With Jack.

Speaker 5 (01:32):
Hiya.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
With Greg hey, hey, hey.
And with John hey, how youdoing.
I'm doing good, John.
I appreciate the question.
You hadn't been last for thelongest time, I think in the
last three weeks you've beenlast.
I think he comes into thequestion.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
You hadn't been last for the longest time, I think.
In the last three weeks you'vebeen last.
I think he comes into therecording sessions late on
purpose so he can be the lastone.
That's what it is, so you canhave this banter back and forth.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Yeah, I get very introspective when I get that
question and I have to stop it.

Speaker 6 (02:00):
Bob says I feel like crap today.
It's going to be a long episode.
It'll be a bad day.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Oh, golly.
Well, speaking of episodes,what do we got this week?
We have a rise and run friendof ours.
Celia is the executive directorof the American Council of
Academic Physical TherapyAmerican Council of Academic
Physical Therapy.

(02:28):
She came to our attention by apost that she made about
equating her new position andthe trials of a marathon, and
she's one of us gang.
She's a rise and runner, a runDisney friend and a fun
interview.
We're going to revisit ourfriend Matt, matt Bowen, who
carries the American flag.

(02:49):
He stopped by to tell us what'snew with him in the race report
Spotlight.
Our friend Tiffany got creative, created her own challenge this
weekend two races in two States.
She drops by to talk about them.

Speaker 6 (03:06):
If you enjoy the Rise and Run podcast, please share
us with your friends andintroduce them to the Rise and
Run family.
We want to share in your RunDisney journey.
Please remember to follow us onFacebook Rise and Run Podcast.
On Instagram Rise and Run Pod.
Check out our YouTube channeland visit our webpage
riseandrunpodcast podcastcom.
If you have a question, commenta race report or want to

(03:28):
introduce an upcoming episode,call us at 727-266-2344 and
leave us a recorded message wealso want to thank our patrons,
whose support helps keep therise around podcast rising and
running.

Speaker 5 (03:42):
If you'd like to join the patreon team, please check
out our link at patreoncom.
Slash rise around podcast.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And we want to thank cassandra for upgrading to the
plastic cheese level the risearound podcast is sponsored by
our friends over at magic boundtravel, even though we're still
many, many months away.
Just the other day, the gang wehad a big meeting and we
started talking a lot ofparticulars about the inaugural

(04:12):
Rise and Run cruise that will beoccurring right after
Springtime Surprise in 2026.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
320 days from now, Greg.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Oh, excellent Thank you very much, bob, and we are
very excited to be able to sharesome of those details with you
in the coming weeks.
But, all that being said, ourfriends over at Magic Bound
wanted us to tell you that theyonly have eight remaining
discounted interior stateroomsavailable on the Utopia of the

(04:45):
Seas.
That is the Royal Caribbean shipthat we will be sailing on for
this inaugural cruise.
If you are interested in one ofthose discounted cabins, you
need to make sure to contactMagic Bound as quickly as
possible, because those roomswill be released back to Royal
Caribbean on Father's Day, june15th, so you have just under two

(05:10):
weeks to be able to grab one ofthese.
So if you are interested in oneof those discounted rooms or
say you're not a big fan ofinterior staterooms and you need
to see the ocean or you need tohave a veranda or something
like that, they can still getyou booked into one of those
rooms as well too.
So be sure to visitmagicboundtravelcom to get your

(05:33):
no obligation quote for thatRise and Run cruise or any other
Disney or Universal vacation.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Sounds good.
Thank you, greg.
Friends, I mentioned it lastweek, episode 200 is coming up.
It'll be the end of July.
We don't have any huge plansfor it, but we would like you to
be a big part of it as possibleby calling us at our hotline
727-266-2344.

(06:02):
Hotline [phone], leavingus a brief recorded message.
Just be creative, whatevercomes to mind, have fun with it,
try to keep it short 30 secondsor so and we'll play as many of
them as we can.
Conversely, if you don't wantto call the hotline, you can

(06:24):
record a message and email it tous,
thegangatriseandrunpodcastcom,and we'll play the ones that we
get.
So help us out there.
That should be fun.
Upfront info.
I've got some things I want toput up, not necessarily alibis
and apologies, but some upfrontinfo.
Now John pointed this out to meI knew about it but didn't

(06:46):
check on it that you can sendwhat they call fan mail in
Buzzsprout so we can get podcastfan mail from the program that
we use to distribute the Riseand Run podcast, to distribute
the Rise and Run podcast.
We cannot respond to it, butnow that I know it's there, we

(07:07):
can at least acknowledge it.
Like, way back in January, bobfrom Winter Park and Christy
from Knopfel sent us a messageand just recently Melody sent us
a message that she said sheused Run Walk Run for the first

(07:27):
time at the Montana MarathonWeekend 10K and won her age
group.
How cool is that, melody?
This is near and dear to myheart.
When you get into the 70 plusage group, which you've told us
you are, you will find thatyou're a podium finisher much

(07:48):
more frequently.
It's one of the gifts that weget for being a little bit older
and still running.
So congratulations on that.
Hey, I got a couple ofhomecoming stories here and just
a follow up.
Our friend Jennifer and herhusband Dan are back from London
.
If you don't recall, or ifyou're new to the podcast,

(08:17):
jennifer went to run the LondonMarathon.
Dan ended up in the emergencyroom with a heart attack.
He's doing great.
They flew back.
Jennifer was very excited to beback in the humid Florida
weather.
She lives not terribly far fromfrom me.
This other one we've talkedabout from time to time, and
this one's a little emotional, Ithink Our friends Lola and
Chris.

(08:37):
Let me back up and again, ifyou're not familiar with the
story, lola was posting herhashtag run.
I don't know if it was rundopey or run princess or
whatever, but lola was carryingtwins and still running and then
, three months before the babieswere due, ended up with an

(09:01):
emergency C-section.
Miles and Benjamin were born,but Benjamin did not make it.
That's the sad part of thestory.
Here's the great part of thestory.
Miles, after being over 100days in the NICU, is home and I

(09:25):
think that's just wonderful.
Lola, chris, we're so excited,so happy for both of you.
That's just wonderful.
I'll share something here.
We have hashtag I'm just goingto call them hashtag run babies
in general.
If you have a baby who hasfinished a run Disney race

(09:50):
before gracing us with his orher presence in this world, let
us know, because we've got asmall gift for you.
But you've got to let us knowbefore your baby is 6 to 12
months old, because otherwise itwon't fit All right.

(10:11):
That's it, friends.
Uh, for upfront stuff.
So let's go.
Let's take a look at thetraining schedule.
Still, the only thing that wehave on the um training for
schedule right now is theHalloween race at Disneyland.
You've got 13 weeks now untilthat race.
You're in week five of trainingand if you're doing the
challenge, your long run.

(10:32):
This week it's three miles.
Taking a look at things thatare coming up, I think the next
big event we're still oh golly,we're still a couple weeks away
from starting training for Wineand Dine.
And, if my calendar is correct,we start training for Wine and

(10:55):
Dine the same day that weregister for Princess 2026.
And that's June 24th.
So they're coming up in acouple of weeks.
Well, speaking of trainingfriends, we have any training
updates for the week.
Anything that you want to sharewith our rise and run friends.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, bob, I got something.
So this past weekend my longrun was just a simple six miles,
you know, know unique that Ihad to do.
But the thing that I learnedabout myself is that hills are
starting to get easier for me,and granted, because of having,

(11:40):
you know, like we talked atlength last week with talking
about the burden hand race, youknow, and, and that race does
have a couple of doozies on it.
So, you know, coach twigs hasbeen preparing me for several
weeks now to get hill training,and I know he always likes to
say that hill training is almostkind of like speed work in in
disguise.

(12:01):
And I think this past weekend Ifinally was able to embody that
a little bit, where, you know,my run paces on a more flat
surface or downhill were alittle bit faster than what I
usually run, and then, when itcame time for those hills, I
wasn't nearly dreading them asmuch and I was getting up to

(12:23):
them a little bit quicker.
So I think incorporating thehill work into my training has
provided a two-fold benefit interms of I'm not nearly as
intimidated and also on that youknow.
Then my, you know my flat pacesare getting a little bit faster
too.
So I feel like I'm'm going tobe in pretty decent shape come

(12:46):
Bird Hand.
Now, granted that hill at milesix and a half seven, that seems
like it goes up and up and upforever.
I mean, sure, I'll probablyhave to take an extended walk
break on that one, but outsideof that there's a nice downhill.
Once you do get to the top ofit, and at least as long as they
don't change the water stations, they usually do have an aid

(13:13):
station at the top of that hillas a reward.
So I think I think the the, theitalian ice is about two miles
away after that point, but atleast it's something that you
can look forward to so well greg, your training's going well and
that's paying off.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
But there's something else that's paying off, I'm
sure.
How much weight have you lost?

Speaker 2 (13:26):
uh, as of this week, I am down 30 pounds since a?
Uh, a certain um because Idon't want k to get mad at me uh
, a certain football team fromthe philadelphia region uh, won
the super bowl this year that'samazing, amazing.

Speaker 6 (13:43):
So, no steak wands, then, huh no.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
In moderation.
Well, I'll tell you that'llflatten some hills for you.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
No, absolutely.
I mean, I will say, you know,it's interesting.
You know my wife and I havebeen going on a lot more walks
these past couple of weeks andshe was asking me, you know how
I thought my running had beengoing.
You know, with the weight lossand I was comparing it a lot.
The last time I've droppedweight like this was actually

(14:14):
during covid, I know, like oneof the big storylines you know
that people always talked aboutthat.
It was always like, oh well,because I home, I was snacking
more and people gained a lot ofweight during COVID, and I was
the opposite, and for me, Ialways kind of was able to
associate my weight loss withfaster paces, and they kind of

(14:36):
correlated with one another.
This time around I don't feellike those are in sync as much.
There is improvement, don't getme wrong, but it's not nearly
as much as that first go-round.
But at the same time, though, Ido need to put into my head
that just because I weigh lessdoesn't mean that it's going to

(14:58):
automatically translate to youknow faster paces.
I know plenty of friends thatare a lot smaller than me that
you know run.
You know similar paces, uh, toyou know what I do.
So you know, even though theweight's coming off, I still
need to work on thatcardiovascular as well too, and
I know that that will come intime but, no, very, very happy

(15:20):
with my progress.

Speaker 4 (15:20):
You still need to train, but there's a correlation
your knees and ankles arehappier too.
Yes, yep, well, good for you,man.

Speaker 6 (15:28):
Thank you, I got out there.
I got out there again thisweekend.
I did five miles this weekend.
I was very happy about it.
You know, you start off you'relike, why am I doing this today?
You know I didn't realize thatJeff changed the whole training

(15:50):
schedule.
I had the old look, I'm lookingat this as a grace we had a
three-mile weekend.
Then I go, oh no, he changed it, now it's a five-mile weekend.
So I went with the five miles.
I'm like maybe I'll cut back atthree.
But I said you know what, let'sjust do the five Got it out of
the way and you know what itfelt good afterwards.

(16:11):
I mean, like I did the five,knees felt a little achy
afterwards but the next day theywere pretty much back to normal
.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Back to normal achy you know, john, I will say this
to you and obviously you youknow, you and I ran bird in hand
together last year and I'lltell you the same thing.
I kept telling lizzie over andover during that race and that
is remember why we're doing this.
We're doing this for the ribsthe ribs, the ribs yes, yes, we
are actually I'm actually uhthen.

Speaker 6 (16:43):
Then I said, okay, you know what, I'm going to sign
up for the 5K that's in myneighborhood Sunday.
So this Sunday I'll be runninga 5K.
So hopefully you know 5K.
A couple beers afterwardsincluded in registration.
That's a good deal.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
That's a good Sunday.
It is a good deal.

Speaker 6 (16:59):
And something else, like if you're out there
training and you want some kindof motivation or something to do
.
Our friend matt over at teamrun dis uh he's.
He gave us a little sneak peeka week ago of a new uh virtual
race he has set up on hiswebsite.
It's called the most magicalvirtual race on earth.
Basically, you're, you'rerunning through all of Walt

(17:24):
Disney world.
I forget how many miles it was.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
I don't remember.
It's quite a bit.

Speaker 6 (17:28):
It's more than 48.6.
And what's cool about it is you.
You go on his little form.
You put in okay, I ran fourmiles.
Today pops up a YouTube video.
It actually YouTube videos theroute you're on and then when
you stop at that four miles, itshows a picture of where you are
.
Then the next day you doanother four miles.

(17:51):
It'll go four miles through andshow another picture.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
Yeah, you'll pick up where you left off and continue
your journey.
How do folks get to that, John?

Speaker 6 (17:59):
It's on Matt's website.
I will put a link in the shownotes.
It's TeamRunDizcom and I thinkit's right on his front page
right now.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
Okay, yeah, pretty cool.
Matt does great stuff and I'mhappy that we're able to support
him.
That's pretty neat.
Let us see friends.
Disney graced us with some racethemes.
We just said that registrationfor Princess is June 24th.
We now know what the themes forthe races and the challenge are

(18:32):
going to be.
Which princesses will befeatured in 2026?
Alright, gang, let us have it.
What did you think?

Speaker 7 (18:42):
If you could choose your fate, would you Like it was
Merida?
She's only been on it once.
Let us have it.
What did you think If you couldchoose your fate?
Would you Like what?
It's?
Merida?
She's only been on it once.
As another curly-haired redhead, it's nice to see another
curly-haired redhead.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
You reminded me of something, jack.
Did you see who was in thephotos for that race, the 5K?
Did you notice who Disneyfeatured in the photographs?
Oh, I'm looking at it right nowpamela, pamela and, uh, tracy
oh, no, yes, yeah, oh, it's agreat photo, it's easy to miss

(19:16):
because she's got the red-hairedwig on.
It was pamela tracy and I'm notsure if there's somebody else I
recognize in there or not.
I'm not looking at it right now.
You guys will have to help meout if you got it up.

Speaker 7 (19:28):
But, like you guys, so we have a spreadsheet you
guys of, like you know, theepisodes and stuff that we do
and on this spreadsheet,specifically today for this
episode, there is a wholebeautiful graph of all the
princesses and what years theyhave either done the 5K.
Shout out to laura yeah, it's sogood, sam's mom sorry sam's mom

(19:51):
not laura, yeah but, like the,it's interesting to see what
years each princesses get andthe fact that um merit has only
been on it once and it was forthe 10k for 2018.
I've honestly been wondering ifshe's ever going to be like
popping back in, because I feellike you see the same princesses
over and over again after awhile, so it's kind of nice to

(20:13):
see another one come back, um.
But yeah, I think it's a reallygood weekend.
I mean, you got her.
You have Moana love moana.
Um, you have who who's the half?
Oh, rapunzel love her.
And then bell classic.
I mean it's really good.
Now, if they ever brought backpocahontas, I would definitely

(20:34):
do her like.
Like, if they brought backpocahontas, made her the half
marathon, I would sign up easily.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
But I think it's a good year looking at, looking at
laura chart Pocahontas was the10K in 2020.

Speaker 7 (20:48):
It's only been once, though, yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
John and I were talking also, though Sometimes
princesses show up in otherraces, other race weekends.

Speaker 6 (21:00):
Like springtime.
I think they were on a wine anddine.
Wine and dine metal at one timeCould be.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
I just want to be a fly on the wall, with Bob and
John exclusively talking aboutprincesses to one another, that
this is a conversation that Iwish I could have been.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
Oh yeah, it was exciting, it was, it was
exciting.
Yes, it was, it was, it wasokay, it was, it was, it was
okay.
And I, I said I was jokinglysaying you know what?
There's one princess they havenot featured yet on princess
weekend.

Speaker 4 (21:33):
We know who that is.
If John's saying it, you knowwho it is Princess Leia.
Come on guys, come on guys.

Speaker 7 (21:41):
Oh wow, I was not even going that direction, but
I'm glad you did.
She's a.

Speaker 6 (21:44):
Disney princess.
Now right, we were talking likeAbout the 13 original
princesses.
There's only supposedly 13, andactually, what's her name?
Is not a princess, what's hername?

Speaker 4 (21:59):
That's right.
It's one of the Frozen Elsa.
Elsa is not a princess.

Speaker 6 (22:05):
She's a queen.
It's one of the Frozen Elsa.
Elsa is not a princess, she's aqueen.

Speaker 7 (22:11):
Well, anna's now the queen, so she ain't no princess
anymore.
Sorry.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
I didn't see the second movie.
Now you ruined it.
I can't watch it.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Spoiler alert, if you hadn't watched it now you're
probably not going to watch it.

Speaker 7 (22:22):
So there you go, I think, the Spoiler alert.
If you hadn't watched it now,you're probably not going to
watch it now.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
There you go.
I think the themes make adifference to you.
God bless, that's great.
I think the only time I haverun a race because of a theme
was just recently, when we hadthe Muppets theme for the 5k and
I was only going to do thechallenge.

(22:50):
What was that?
Why did I last year?

Speaker 2 (22:53):
That was just last year, yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
I was only going to do the challenge but I brought
brought Sam Eagle back, I think.
But otherwise you know me, Ijust I go to be with my friends
and do the race and whatever thethemes are and the medals are,
I take them and I appreciatethem.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
I do have to say I really appreciate, like the
background images yeah.

Speaker 8 (23:21):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
I think the textures and, like the theming of it is
really cool.
Um.
I have noticed thatconsistently, though, they seem
to be reusing the same lettering.
Um, like where it says princess, half marathon weekend.
It's the same lettering thatthey used for halloween and, I
think, another race weekend, um,which is kind of interesting to

(23:43):
me because they used to changethe same font same style of
letters.
Yeah, okay but also the samecoloring.
It's got orange, um, where Ifeel like it's kind of like
browns and blues, I guess.
I guess there's some orangewith milana and merida, but

(24:03):
overall I feel like I don't know, I expected a little bit more
from that aspect of it.
But overall I think that thisis a pretty good one and I know
people are excited about it.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, alicia, I'm right there with you.
I think what stuck out to me inthis artwork is not necessarily
the princess themselves, butthe background associated with
it.
I thought that was a, you know,a really neat time, because I
remember, last year we hadcommented, when the princess
themes came out, that we likedhow there was the subtle nod to

(24:38):
the villain yep in thebackground.
So, like you know, so I likehow they've incorporated that
again.
So, you know, 5k, you know youhave, you know, the bear
silhouette, moana you have notonly her bow, but then also the,
the manta ray, you know,punsies got, you know, the
castle in the background.
The coolest one I thought,though, was the challenge where

(25:01):
you get the beast silhouette,you get the stained glass, you
get the rose.
I thought that was all really,really well done.
And then the other thing that Iliked about the artwork as well
, too and to be able to to seethese, you, I think, you have to
click on, like, the individualrace on the website, but I kind
of like how, for the 5k, in theletter k there was an arrow for

(25:25):
merida I thought that was areally neat touch um, and then
what was it?
the oh for the like the whole ofthe 10 for the 10k.
You know it looks like um heroar that she uses on the ship.
So just like those little nodsI think were were really really
nice uh and incorporate uh verywell, uh.

(25:46):
But I will say, scrollingthrough social media today, I, I
was kind of taken aback by, um,I don't want to call it
visceral hate, but the number ofpeople that have commented that
they're sick and tired ofseeing moana uh really featured.
Yeah, I mean, there was a lotof people that were, um, you

(26:06):
know, getting a little littletired of that, and I get, I get
it.
But at the same time, though,the second one makes disney a
lot of money I mean yeah, I mean, didn't moana to make over a
billion dollars at the box?

Speaker 4 (26:25):
office.
I think it's two billion.
It came out a little bit ago,it wasn't that long.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, so that doesn't shock me in the least bit
whatsoever.
But again, bob, going back towhat you were saying, though,
unless there's something liketruly, truly speaks to you, or
whatever, we do these racesbecause we love the product, we
love the camaraderie, you know,we love the physical activity.
This is just the icing on thecake so again a.

(26:51):
You know, a theme should never Ithink a theme should never
deter you from wanting to toregister.
I think it can only emphasizeit more for you to have that
motivation to sign up and dropall that cash.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Yeah, I cannot imagine thinking, gee, I was
going to go, but the theme isXYZ and I'm not going.
Now, I can't imagine that.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Correct.

Speaker 6 (27:13):
What other thing I wanted to say.
You know, registration, we said, was coming up in the 24th 24th
.
Just for you guys to realizeproof of time is September 1st
2025 for this race.
So you need to get a POT.
You need to submit it bySeptember 1st.
So the POT times have beenreally close to registration now

(27:38):
.
So you really need to thinkabout it if you really want to
try to get a POT for theseevents now.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Yeah, and if you live around me, that's not going to
happen unless you already haveit, Because you're not going to
get a POT in July or August.
Not likely.
I mean you could, but I mean.

Speaker 7 (27:53):
With all that being said, though, has this made you
guys want to do Princess?
Who's doing Princess?
Oh, I'll be there, I'll bethere.
I'm not sure I will probably.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
I know Bob is.
I'll be there.
Let's be honest with Bob.
I'll be there.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
I will probably run the challenge Probably.
Okay, I will almost certainlynot run all three, but yeah, I'm
going to go over there becauseit's an opportunity to visit
with our friends.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Well, and he also has a new shade of glitter lips
that he wants to try out.

Speaker 6 (28:22):
So you know that's kind of a given other thing is
this year too, which, which isinteresting.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
Uh, it's not the same week as gasparilla yeah, that's
good that I like that, becausegasparilla is a lot of fun and I
don't like going back and forth, although and we'll be heading
back to Disney here pretty soonI'm curious to see if the fixes
to Interstate 4 were a fluke theone time Becky and I went over,

(28:52):
or maybe we got something goingthere.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
I sure hope that it's the latter.
Alicia or Jack, are either ofyou going to sign up?

Speaker 5 (29:01):
I will not be there, no.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
How about you, Jack?

Speaker 7 (29:06):
I am not going to sign up.
I might maybe sign up twomonths out or a month out, if I
mean, if there's a spot open topace, I might pace, because I
really enjoyed myself last yearI don't think I'm gonna
personally sign up though Mightybusy time for you, jack.
I well, yeah.
So that's why I'm like, maybenot this year yeah, and we're

(29:30):
also by then.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
We're also talking about being close to springtime
and the cruise.
So a lot going on, a lot goingon, but I'll be out there, oh
wait, Disneyland happens andthen it's only three weeks later
is Princess.

Speaker 7 (29:43):
Wow, it's like three weeks, three weeks, and like bam
, bam, bam.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
I forgot I signed up for Disney.
I mean, I didn't forget.
I'm trying to remind you, bob,I didn't forget, I didn't forget
, but I kind of wasn't thinkingabout it.
I only signed up for the halfthere and I will say the other.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
I wouldn't call it a massive change by any means
whatsoever, but the one thing Idid see today is I guess there
is a slight change to yoga.
I guess in the last couple ofyears yoga has been at Magic
Kingdom, but I guess this timearound is being put in hollywood
studios okay uh, and again theyare.
It looks like this is the newtrend now is uh, yoga is now on

(30:23):
monday as opposed to thursday orand once again, it makes you
stay an extra day.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
Yep absolutely Makes you book a room for an extra
night, so I get it.
I understand.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
And now the countdown begins as we wait for themes
for Springtime Surprise, and weall wait in bated breath that
Jon's dream comes true and weget an anniversary Springtime
surprise star Wars theme.

Speaker 6 (30:55):
My anniversary, I'm saying, is 50, 50 years of star
Wars.
I mean, that's the.
If you're going to do it, yougot to do it right.

Speaker 7 (31:02):
Wait in 2026 or 2027, 2027, 1977.

Speaker 6 (31:07):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
So you, so you're thinking two years from now.

Speaker 6 (31:10):
Okay yeah, two years, two years Wow no-transcript.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
Last week I saw a really neat Facebook post by our
friend Celia, who used amarathon as an analogy for a
position, a significant andimportant position she had just
gotten into.
Celia is the executive directorof the American Council of
Academic Physical Therapy and arun Disney fan and a fellow rise
and runner.
And, Celia, we're glad to haveyou with us this evening.

Speaker 8 (32:17):
I'm so excited to be here and I'm obviously
fangirling, so just very excited.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
I'm glad you are.
That intro went a lot longerthan I expected, but that's okay
.
You deserved it.
That's good.
Do us a favor, celia Tell usabout your job, tell us about
the American Council of AcademicPhysical Therapy and what you
do there, what your position isand some of your
responsibilities.

Speaker 8 (32:41):
Sure, so I am a brand new executive director, which
in non-association world wouldbe the equivalent of a CEO.
I've been in there for awhopping four months now and our
members are basically all ofthe graduate programs of months
now and our members arebasically all of the graduate
programs of physical therapy.
So our membership are all theinstitutions and we oversee the

(33:01):
faculty, the student and all ofthe administrators and program
directors of physical therapy.
Um, I am not a physicaltherapist, never have been, but
I sold it in my interview was Iam physical therapy adjacent
because in order for me to runall these marathons, I need to
be really good friends withphysical therapists, and I had

(33:21):
actually my interview rightafter I had finished a Space
Coast marathon and I still hadmy KT tape on my knee, so I
think that's what really got methe job.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
So how about that?
I thought the article was wasreally clever.
How did you decide what?
What made you decide to do that?
That was, that was neat.

Speaker 8 (33:40):
I've been trying to get into the CEO role for over a
year and it was just a lot ofinterviews and getting to the
final stage and then they wouldgo with somebody else, so it was
just a really long time.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, that's life, yeah.

Speaker 8 (33:53):
Yeah, exactly.
And then, if I finally got thisjob and all of the people that
have been following my careersaid you need to do an article
of the first 30 days, because weall want to know what it's like
the first 30 days of this jobthat you've been wanting for
forever.
And as I was writing it, Irealized that I wanted to make
it something really personal,something about me and something
that would make it unique,something really personal,

(34:14):
something about me and somethingthat would make it unique.
So I kept thinking about how alot of the lessons that I took
into this new role came from merunning and from all the
perseverance and the work andthe training that I did to get
to this role, and it reallyparalleled my marathon training.
So I said, you know, instead ofthe first 30 days, let's do the
first 26.2 days, and so that Iwas able to really continue to

(34:36):
correlate it about making sureyou have the right shoes and
just because you keep puttingband-aids on blisters doesn't
address the problem, just likeif you don't have a good
strategic plan, you're not goingto, you know, fix all of the
issues that you have in yourorganization and making sure
that you put in the work andthat you're hydrating and that
you have people constantlycheering you on, so it was just

(35:00):
a really good parallel.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
You know, what I got a kick out of was when you
talked about learning the newlanguage.
Because you are an outside hire, you're into an entirely new
field.
It's like they're speaking intongues almost, isn't it?

Speaker 8 (35:16):
Yes, it took me a good while to get all of those
acronyms down.
And I mean kind of the samething when I first joined the
Run Disney race and people kepttalking about the balloon ladies
and I'm like, who are theseballoon ladies?
And then I'm like, oh, so now Iconstantly talk to people about
balloon ladies and then I haveto remember that they don't
necessarily know our lingo topeople about balloon ladies, and
then I have to remember thatthey don't necessarily know our
lingo.

Speaker 4 (35:35):
So it's true.
It's true, you don't know itwhen you get in, but once you
learn it, you assume everybodyknows it.

Speaker 8 (35:40):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Keeping up with the running and marathon analogies
in terms of your position andyour article.
Talk about the wall.
What was mile 20 for you in allof this?

Speaker 8 (35:54):
The imposter syndrome .
So I have a PhD from GeorgetownUniversity.
I have the CAE, which is acertified association executive
kind of certification.
I've done leadership.
I went to West Point, I've doneall these things, so I'm just a
natural born leader.
This is something that I'vewanted.
I finally get this role.
I'm in it for a few weeks andthen all of a sudden, one of my

(36:18):
staff members sends me an emailsaying hey, I need you to sign
this contract for one of ourconferences.
And I looked at that contract acontract that I've probably
seen a million times before inother roles and I said oh my
gosh, if I send this contractand it doesn't go well, I'm
going to bankrupt theorganization.
Now, it's my fault.
What am I doing?

(36:38):
How are they all putting theirtrust on me?
I don't know what I'm doing andall of a sudden, all of these
self-motivation and affirmationsthat I could do this, all of a
sudden was the imposter syndromekicked back in.
So it was a matter of just likewhen you hit the wall, you
breathe, you take a small break,you deep breaths.

(36:59):
You keep telling yourselvesI've done the training, I've
done this before, I can do itnow.
It's just a mental game.
And then you surround yourselfwith whether it's text messages
or whether it's emails, orpeople just in the stand saying
you can do it, just keep going.
You're almost there and that'show you overcome the wall.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
First off, I wanted to say congratulations on your
new position.
That's amazing and all youraccomplishments.
But okay, on the flip side ofyou shared with us the struggles
.
What are your wins, what arethose finish lines that you've
achieved so far and how is thatgoing?

Speaker 8 (37:35):
The best thing that I've done at my job is really
build relationships, which Ithink is one of my in fact it's
one of my strength finders.
When I took that strengthfinder test, the number one was
woo.
And talk about not knowingthese acronyms.
I'm like what does woo mean?
And apparently it's winningothers over.
I'm like, oh, I can do that,especially as a former Disney
cast member.

(37:55):
Of course I would be a woo.
So I've definitely builtrelationships with our
membership, with my board, withmy staff.
I've been able to people thatwere already ready to leave our
association because they justhad bad experiences.
I was able to set up meetingswith them, really meet them
halfway and bring them back toour organization.
I've been able to start lookinginto non-dues revenue to get

(38:18):
sponsorships.
I even got my foot in the doorwith Run Disney to see if we can
become one of those charitiesyou know in the future.
So, baby steps, but definitelya lot of really good operations
are underway to make this athriving organization in the
next few years.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
Awesome, Celia.
We had a chance to talk beforethis interview, but you're
dropping things on me that I wasnot aware of.
I didn't know you were a WestPoint grad.

Speaker 8 (38:42):
Yes, yeah, oh, I ended up going for about a year
and a half and then I gothonorably discharged.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Okay, yeah, okay so you.
So you didn't go on to activeduty out of college.

Speaker 7 (38:52):
No, what did you do as a Disney cast member?

Speaker 8 (38:55):
So I grew up in Miami Florida, I was born in
Venezuela and then I emigratedto Miami and Disney was a big
part of our lives.
And back then in Miami Florida,in one of the outlets we had a
character warehouse, um.
So I think it's very similar tothe one in Orlando, um.
So I had a part-time job therewhile I was going through school
and working at Starbucks,because I found out that by

(39:17):
working there it was not similarto the Disney store, because
there you actually got all thecast member perks.
So then I would bring magic inretail and then I would drive
myself up with my friends toDisney quite often and took very
good advantage of all thediscounts and being able to go
to Disney all the time, as youshould, as nice.

Speaker 7 (39:39):
I love that all right .

Speaker 2 (39:41):
So you talked about all these aspects of life and
how it's related to your career,and obviously Disney has played
a big part of that.
But obviously one of thereasons why we're chatting with
you here this week is you know,you're one of us.
You are a run disney runner.

Speaker 8 (40:00):
Give us your running and run disney origin story so I
went to west point the militaryacademy, and one of the reasons
that I was so excited to leavewhen I did is because I loathed
running Anytime.
I think, about running.
I would just want to just Idon't know.
I mean, I would think of anyillness that I could get to get

(40:23):
out of running.
I despised it.
Later on in life I did a coupleof half marathons in Miami my
early 20s and that was my bucketlist item.
And my husband and I vividlyremember going to Disney as a
cast member.
And one time we went in Januaryand we saw confetti on the
floor leaving Epcot.
We're like huh, what's that?
And then someone told us oh,they just did a marathon here.

(40:45):
And my husband and I looked ateach other and just laughed and
said that's never going tohappen to us.
And then, during the pandemic,some of my friends took up
sourdough, some of my friendstook up knitting and we said,
hey, we haven't left the housein days.
I think we need to do somethingactive and do something to get
us out of the house.
So, as most people did, westarted running.

(41:06):
But for us, if we didn't have aset goal in mind, it was going
to be one of those things thatyou wake up at six in the
morning and then just shut thealarm off and say, ah, I'll do
it tomorrow, unless we hadsomething to run towards that we
already invested time and money.
So we originally said why don'twe do a 5k at Disney?
But then I said, well, if we'regoing to do a 5k, we might as
well just do the 10k too.

(41:27):
And then it turned into wemight as well just do the half.
And then I'm like, oh, if we'regonna do the half, let's just
do the marathon.
And then we found out what adopey was, and my husband and I
said you know what, if we'rejust gonna go a one time bucket
list item, let's just go all theway and do a dopey and we will
never do it again and here weare getting ready for our fourth

(41:47):
dopey so, uh, it's surprisinghow many times we hear that
story

Speaker 4 (41:54):
yeah and it's surprising how many people will
do their first marathon at dopeyyep, that was um.

Speaker 8 (42:03):
I don't know if I recommend that um, but anytime
that I see on the on thefacebook, you know people
putting like oh, it's my firstmarathon on my first dopey, can
I do it like absolutely?
you can just do it just train,you train, but I mean other than
that um, and it's just become alifestyle now.
Now we really identify asrunners.
So we did the wine and dine thefirst year as our training run,

(42:26):
and we did the space coast,because the space coast marathon
just happened to overlap withour um simulation weekend yeah
um, which is great.
So I've seen you there, bob,and.
I've seen Jeff there too, andand yeah.
So then all of a sudden it wentfrom just doing only run Disney
races to now the Gasparilla.
We've done space post and Ithink eventually we want to get

(42:47):
to the point that we, that wequalify for the Tokyo marathon,
the London marathon, I don'tknow, for I mean, I don't know
if we'll ever qualify for Bostonand New York, but you know what
, why not Right, I mean?

Speaker 6 (43:01):
I never, thought.

Speaker 8 (43:02):
I would do a dopey.
And here we are, so yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:05):
So you do, do you run in costume?

Speaker 8 (43:08):
We do.
So.
The first dopey was survival Um, we just wore colors.
And then the second dopey, wesaid we're going to PR and fun.
So that's when we started, youknow, dabbling in the costumes
and the five and the 10K.
And then we said but the halfand the full are serious matters
.
And then this past one, we'rejust now running in all costumes
and our now 11-year-old son hasdone three 5Ks and two 10Ks

(43:32):
with us, including theDisneyland one this past one.
He's very upset that he can'tdo the dopey with us, but next
year will be the first time hecan do a challenge because he
can start doing the 10 miler asa 12-year-old.
Okay so he's very excited.
So we have done family costumestoo, and it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
It is what's your favorite that you've worn or
that you've seen, or maybe let's, let's do both what's the
favorite that you've worn, afavorite that you've seen?

Speaker 8 (44:01):
so favorite that we've worn um not run disney but
disney adjacent, because nowdisney plus it's on disney plus
um.
For the turkey trot we went asbob's burgers because they are
the queen of thanksgiving, so wewent as bob linda and they are
the queen of thanksgiving, so wewent as bob linda, and then my
son went as gene in his burgercostume.
So it's a lot of fun I likethat, that's cool in actual

(44:21):
disney.
This is the disneyland 10k wasahsoka themed.
We went as c3po, r2d2 and bb8,so that was really cute.

(44:48):
I love that fiasco where wewere all waiting for like eight
hours to register and the sitewas down and and this group of
people actually printed out thescreenshot of we're working on
it and then they all justdressed up as that.
We had a really good laugh withthose costumes, yeah.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
You have a busy, busy job, busy schedule.
So what keeps you motivated torun, especially on the days when
it's difficult to get out there?

Speaker 8 (45:14):
I would say that, as much as I disliked running
originally, now running is theone time during my day that I
don't have to worry about a Zoomcall, I don't have to worry
about somebody paying me onTeams or having my son ask me a
million questions about baseball.
It's the one time that I eitherget to listen to my podcasts or
that sometimes I just even runin silence.
So it's the one time that Ieither get to listen to my

(45:34):
podcasts or that sometimes Ijust even run in silence.
So it's literally the only timethat I have for myself.
And what really also motivatesme is that I am so eternally
grateful that at this currentmoment in time, I can do this.
There are so many people thatcan't, whether it's because of
physical, um, you know, like aphysical illness or anything

(45:56):
that they just can't.
So I'm taking advantage of thefact that, as of right now, I
can do this.
I'm going to take advantage andrun for those that can't.

Speaker 6 (46:03):
So so are you.
Are you a morning person,evening person?
Do you put it on your scheduleas?
How do you do?

Speaker 8 (46:09):
Oh, morning person, 100%.
Um, I eat way too much duringthe day to uh.
If I left it for the afternoon,then there's no way I would get
out.
If I do go in the afternoonit's usually for a walk, um.
But in the mornings we usuallygo like around five in the
morning and just knock it out,um.
And then when we don't dorunning, we do F45 for weight
training.

Speaker 6 (46:30):
Do you find that gets your day going?
It gets your mind set to go forthe day.

Speaker 8 (46:35):
Oh yeah, because then by the time I get home I'm so
awake that I might as well juststart getting you know, jump on
the day and I start.
You know, I drink my coffee, Igo look at my garden, get stuff
ready, yeah, so it's, it's thebest way to start your day in
the night shower to people.
Don't believe me when I saythat, but it's true.
Like yeah, at that point you'realready awake, so you might as
well go see.

(46:55):
I truly love that.

Speaker 7 (46:56):
I wish I could be like that.
I'm trying, but every time Itry I seem to somewhat fail.
But um, you're an inspirationfor sure.
I wish I can get on a schedulewhere I'm like up every single
morning.
But with that being said, itsounds like you do a lot of fun
races, are.
Is there any that are like abig goal for you, or do you have

(47:19):
any dream races?
Or what do you have scheduledfor the year?
So?

Speaker 8 (47:23):
I think a big race would be to do Tokyo.
So we love Japan, and myoriginal, my original career was
a linguist, so you know I speakJapanese.
My son is learning Japanesewith me.
We've taken him to was alinguist, so you know I speak
Japanese.
My son is learning Japanesewith me.
We've taken him to Japan a fewtimes.
So in order for us to do that,obviously we have to start doing
more qualifying races.

(47:44):
So one of the goals was thispast Gasparilla, my goal was to
get a 215 half.
I've never run under a 215.
I've never run under a 230because usually've never run
under a 230.
Because usually it.
You know, we have so much funat Disney.
We try to go on Everest andlast year we went on Tower of
Terror.
So why, why would we even likereally time how much we're doing

(48:04):
?
But I said, nope, we're gonnado it this time.
Um, I didn't train to do under215.
I just said I'm to try it outand see how it goes.
But it's so funny when you'reout of your system, because in
Run Disney we're verydisciplined when we eat what we
eat, by what time we go to sleepGasparilla, because it's like
40 minutes away from our house.
We just said, ah.

(48:25):
So we went out to have Thai thenight before, had this big fried
fish pad Thai, drank some wine,went to sleep at 11.
And then the next morning youknow we're there, it's hot and
I'm running and I'm making.
I caught up with one of thepacing groups and I was making
really, really good time.
I even left my husband behindat one point.
I'm like I'll meet you at thefinish line and I think about

(48:47):
mile 11.
I said I don't feel so good andI pulled over and everything
from the night before came outand it just so happens that
there was this guy dressed as ahot dog with a megaphone and
saying, oh, we have some ladyhere throwing up.
And my husband passes me andsaid, hey, let's go, let's go.
We're almost there and I'm likeI can't, I can't Just go

(49:09):
without me.
So I ended up walking the restof the way go without me, so I
ended up walking the rest of theway and I got a two hour and 31
minute half.
I was so angry that it was byone minute, but, um, but it was
a really good lesson because, ofcourse, immediately after that
I just kept kicking myselfsaying I should have just pushed
, I should have just pushed.

(49:29):
And then my son calls me andsays you know, when I have a
really bad at bat and where Ihave a really bad at bat and
we're having a really bad game,you tell me that it's the
process, not the product, right?
So the fact that you even gotto a 231 is really impressive,
mom.
And I realized he was lookingat me kind of being like right,
right, and of course I have tojust put it back to you, yeah

(49:50):
absolutely.
You're absolutely right.
I'm so proud of myself, butnext time I'm going to for sure
PR doing it the right way.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
That's a good race.
Yeah, that's a good race, niceand flat.

Speaker 5 (50:06):
Yes, very flat, beautiful.
I think those are great lessonsthat you learned in that race
for anybody who is startingtheir running tourney.
What advice would you give tothem Everyone?

Speaker 8 (50:15):
would tell me this and I'm like, yeah right, yeah
right, but it really is 100%mental.
That is the hardest barrierthat you have to overcome.
If you're physically able torun a 5 and a 10K and a half,
the only thing that's stoppingyou from doing a marathon or a
dopey is really just that mentalaspect.
So it really is overcoming thatimposter syndrome and just

(50:38):
continuing to tell yourself Ican do this and you do it in
baby steps.
And I always like to quote Dory, you know, and like all of our
Disney movies, you know one footin front of the other or just
keep swimming Um, because thatreally is what a race is, it's
just one foot in front of theother and celebrate the small
goals that you have.
And I mean I've seen people inthe dopey that beat my time by

(51:02):
hours that I would look at themsaying, wow, I can't believe
that person is like almost 40years older than me and they're
doing it.
So if they can do it, why notus and why not you?

Speaker 6 (51:13):
Going back to your professional life does.
Do you find that running habitsinfluence your professional
life and, if so, how?

Speaker 8 (51:22):
Absolutely.
Um, it takes a lot ofperseverance to do a marathon,
to run these races, to wake upearly and, more importantly, I
always like what you guys alwayssay, um, that the race itself
is the victory lap and reallyeverything else is the training.
So I'm looking at my currentjob even when I have the really

(51:46):
bad days or the days that I justfeel like, oh my gosh, I can't
do this, it, I go back to thatperseverance that I can do hard
things.
I've been in places where itwas it was so hot, one dopey
like that I think it was themarathon itself.
It was so hot that they weregiving out sponges with ice to
put on our heads.
Then the next day it was 30degrees and we were wearing we

(52:11):
are like it was recent.
No, that was one marathon.
And then the next marathon itwas so cold that we went with
like several layers, thinking wewere going to strip them off,
and I still finished with all mylayers at the end of the
marathon and I would never thinkthat I could do that.
But we can do hard things, um,and what I keep telling myself

(52:34):
is you know what, regardless ofwhether I do well or not, by 1
PM, this will all be over and Iwill be eating at steakhouse 71
with my medals and I keeptelling myself that during the
really hard days, you know what,regardless of how it goes, at 5
PM, the day will be done andtomorrow I get a reset and, um,
I can always try again tomorrowand I can always give my best

(52:55):
tomorrow.
It's not, it's literally amarathon, like that's just life.
So it's not.
Everything is not going to bejudged by just one day or one
meeting.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
And then I guess you know to.
To wrap up, you know thisportion of our interview and
again, you're applying all theseprofessional skills to your
running journey.
Is has running provided you anyunexpected insights or
perspectives that you've appliedto your work, or vice versa?

Speaker 8 (53:23):
My best ideas come while I run.
Because, again, it really does,though because you just have so
much uninterrupted time thatyou start thinking about things
and you actually like when I dolike a one or two hour run,
there are times that I just haveto sit there and think about
things and then in my head I'llkind of go through a checklist

(53:43):
or I'll go through this entirescenarios and I'll start
compartmentalizing things andthen I'm like, oh my gosh, I
came up with this really greatidea for a new project by the
end of that run, Whereas if I'msitting at my desk working,
three emails come up.
My son barges in asking me aquestion, then someone calls me
on Teams, then I have a meeting,so you never have that
uninterrupted time to just fullyflesh out ideas.

(54:06):
So that's definitely one thing,and I think the second thing is
the blisters.
So before, when I was runningand I didn't like it I would
constantly get blisters all overthe place and I just kept
saying, well, blisters aresomething that happens when you
run.
It is what it is, Until I gotfitted for shoes that I realized

(54:26):
that I was running with half asize too small and I was not
using the proper socks, becauseboombas are life and I was not
putting Vaseline on my feet orglide and all these things which
might seem silly to somebodythat doesn't run.
But if you do your duediligence you will save yourself
so much heartache and painlater.
And I am super happy to notethat in the four dopies that

(54:49):
I've run the last three dopiesI've only gotten one blister and
it's because of the intensecare and preparation that I've
run the last three dopies.
I've only gotten one blisterand it's because of the intense
care and preparation that I putinto doing things that saves me
all of those blisters later.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
Very good.
I relate to the idea of runningwith a clear mind, coming up
with solutions, coming up withideas.
Problem is, at my age, by thetime I finish I can't remember
what I want to say.
It's been fun.
I knew it would be.
We've got a fellow risingrunner here, we got a buddy in
the crowd, so that's great.

(55:23):
But we've enjoyed theconversation.
Very insightful, very helpful.
I really think our friendslistening are going to get
something out of that.
Is it going to be a nugget inthere that they can apply to
their runs or lives?
But just so we don't get tooheavy, we've got some quick
answer questions we want tofinish this up with and Alicia

(55:44):
is going to kick us off.

Speaker 5 (55:45):
All right, so what is your favorite park to run?

Speaker 8 (55:48):
through Animal Kingdom Because we love trying
to get on Everest.

Speaker 7 (55:52):
Yes, Somebody else loves Animal Kingdom.
See everybody.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Thank you, thank you All right, I'm going to go back
to back here real quick.
Gaudia, do you have a go-tovictory meal or snack at Disney
World after finishing a race?

Speaker 8 (56:06):
Steakhouse 71 has been our tradition every single
time yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
For what meal?

Speaker 8 (56:12):
Oh, for brunch immediately afterwards.
We don't even change.
Okay, all right.
We just get on the contemporarybus, we curse all the way down
getting all the steps, and thenwe crawl over to Steakhouse 71
and then just have a really bigsteak and fries.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
Do you eat the plastic cheese first or after?

Speaker 8 (56:29):
Oh, always right after we get out of the run.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
That never goes to waste in our house Atta girl.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
All right, and then, if you had to pick one Disney
song to be your ultimate powerup anthem or power line anthem,
what would it be?

Speaker 8 (56:46):
I mean, I was going to say Eye to Eye, but now that
you said Power Line, my secondwould be Tailspin, the theme
song to Tailspin.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Oh we know, 100%.

Speaker 8 (56:55):
Yep, because I always imagine that the very last line
where Baloo is like going,that's me holding all my medals.

Speaker 6 (57:01):
So my favorite one Okay, if you could have any
Disney character as yourpersonal pacer, who would it be
and why?

Speaker 8 (57:12):
So I have to choose two, because I can't choose
between my babies.
The first one is SorcererMickey.
He is my all-time love and Iwant him to just be throwing
water and you know, like wavesat me while I'm running.
And the second one is Mirabelfrom Encanto, because she is my
soul sister.

Speaker 7 (57:30):
Alright, so what is your favorite non-running thing
to do at Disney World tocelebrate a successful race
weekend?

Speaker 8 (57:37):
I would say riding Guardians of the Galaxy and
hoping that I get September.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
Ah, cool, let me finish with this one.
What's your one piece ofmust-have gear besides shoes?
Okay, besides running shoesthat you always bring for a Run
Disney weekend?

Speaker 8 (57:56):
We bring a box of Crustables Uncrustables, sorry
and Celsius and we put it in ourhotel room and every single
morning on the bus we eat ourUncrustable and drink our
Celsius, and then that gets usthrough any single race.

Speaker 4 (58:09):
That is a good way to get started.
I like it.
I like it and we've enjoyedtalking with you.
Celia, Thank you so much forjoining us and giving us some of
your valuable time.
That was a lot of fun.

Speaker 8 (58:23):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
It was fun talking with Celia.
I love the Rise and Run family.
We have a lot of interestingand fun folks in it and that was
a great deal.
Hey, speaking of our friends,our respected coach, chris
Twiggs, is doing a 100-mile runthis weekend in San Diego, the

(58:46):
San Diego 100 100 mile endurancerace.
You can search for that andfollow Chris this weekend.
This is a race where he saidtoday on Customize that if he
can maintain a climb rate of1000 feet per hour in this race

(59:06):
he'll be happy.
That's a lot of climbing andthis is from Mr Hard Rock
himself talking about theclimbing.
But here's something I'd likeyou to do, friends.
Chris loves the holler hypes.
So when you see Chris out therethis weekend, send him a hype.
He won't have his phone on thewhole time, but I think what

(59:27):
will happen is once he turns itback on, he'll get shotgunned
with the hype.
So look for Chris Twiggs on therace this weekend and hype him
up.
We had another guest drop by tovisit with us.
Another Rise and Run friend,matt Bowen, the guy who carries

(59:48):
the flag in the races, joined us.
Friends, we want to welcomematt bowen back to the podcast.
You may remember matt, was onwith us last season.
You, if you don't recognize thename, if you've been to run
disney, you know who this is.
Match the guy who carries theus flag on every one of the runs

(01:00:08):
.
Matt, welcome back to thepodcast.
Hey, thanks, guys.
I really appreciate it.
Always good to see you, myfriend.
Thanks for joining us.
Well, let's do a little quickwrap.
How'd things go last season foryou, matt?

Speaker 3 (01:00:22):
You know it was good.
I had a rough dopey challengefor my eighth dopey challenge,
number eight.
I committed the cardinal sin.
I stepped off the course to goto the restroom and I ran in the
grass like you're not supposedto, and I think I probably told
a hundred people do not ever runin the grass because there's

(01:00:42):
potholes and you'll catch yourfoot on a curb.
And that's exactly whathappened I caught my foot on a
curb, went down.
I was able to save the flagfrom the ground rolled, but I
did roll my ankle pretty badly.
Um and so I, uh I had to.
I had an assisted finish of myuh dopey challenge, but I did
finish all 48.6 miles on theankle and um.

(01:01:03):
I did a lot of walking, more sothan I would have liked on the
marathon, but I was able tofinish.
And then, two weeks later, Iwent out to Disneyland, ran all
three races out of Disneyland.
I even did the yoga, which wasinteresting.
It was fun, it was neat.
It was neat to do yoga right onMain Street there.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
Now no flag for the yoga right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
No, sir, no sir.
You know it's funny as I wascoming in because if you guys
have ever done and I sure youhave the 5ks and the 10ks at
disneyland like the 5k starts onmain street, it does, yeah,
entirely inside the park, whichis a super cool experience.
But as we all know, these racesare extremely populated and it
was so crowded and as I wascoming through the security gate

(01:01:45):
I had to unroll my whole flagand I had to stand there for
five minutes before they weren'tgoing to let me bring it in.
They were telling me I couldn'tbring it in and they had to
call and get approval and I hadto.
They had to measure it to makesure it was standards.
It was, it was a little bit um,but I was like come on, I, you
know I.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
I little over the top , correct yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
But I got in and it was fine and I did carry the
flag for the five, ten and ahalf and I and I had, um,
probably my, it was my fastesthalf I've ever run with the flag
, because I find that the flagadds about a minute and a half
to two minutes per mile, becauseit makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, dragging, I did myhalf I think I was just over 230
in the house excellent yeah,and I was really.

(01:02:27):
I felt great about it and youknow the races are different out
there because you run verylittle in the park for the, for
the half marathon it's true,true, very little of it is in
the park.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
However, you run through all of the parks,
correct?

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
yeah, correct, and it was so then, and then I
followed that up with theprincess, got my daughter ran
her very first disney 5koutstanding morning and it was
so cold we were wrapped up inour blankets and um, and then I
got strep throat getting when Igot home and I lost eight pounds
in four.

Speaker 4 (01:02:56):
Oh wow, good money so the end of the party shout out
time.
What's your daughter's name?

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
natalie.
My daughter is natalie bowen,she natalie.
Congratulations on your first5k natalie, she and she says to
me afterwards I'm not doing thatagain, this was too early,
natalie Bowen, natalie,congratulations on your first 5K
, natalie.
And she says to me afterwardsI'm not doing that again, this
was too early.
She had fun, but it was veryearly.
It was wonderful because Ireached out to John Pelkey and
Carissa Galloway and Riley andTracy and they all came down and

(01:03:23):
did a group picture with me andmy daughter, which was really
neat, oh very nice Prior to therace.
So we had some great memories,great experiences.
Um, I believe I will probablybe doing the majority of my
races moving forward by myselfagain, which is fine.
Um, yeah, she may surprise you,you don't know.
Yeah, maybe I have lots of uh,obviously run Disney family and
friends.
You guys included obviously inthat group um, that I get to

(01:03:45):
really visit with and spend timewith.
So the season ended up great,had a wonderful, made a ton of
new friends, new people who Iare near and dear to my heart
now and again you guys included.
The Rise and Run groupobviously has been so wonderful
and you know, getting recognizedin the wild is pretty cool as
well.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
That's what it's well , yeah, the family, the
community, is what it's allabout.
Matt, remind our friends.
You carry the flag and you useit to raise money for charity.
Tell us about the charity thatyou work for or that you raise
money for.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
Sure, I raise money for Gold Star Families, a group
called Operation 300.
So for people who don't know,who didn't hear last year's
episode, gold Star Families, agroup called Operation 300.
So for people who don't know,who didn't hear last year's
episode, gold Star Families arefamilies who've lost a loved one
in war, whether it be overseasmom, dad, brother, sister, what
have you?
They've become your Gold StarFamilies.
What Operation 300 is is it'san organization in southern

(01:04:45):
Florida that's in honor of NavySEAL Aaron Vaughn, who was
killed in Extortion 17 when hewas part of DEVRU SEAL Team 6.
His sister and brother-in-lawstarted Operation 300.
And what they do is they providecamps for Gold Star kids.
They bring these kids in andthey let them be kids, because a
lot of these kids are losingtheir moms or their dads when

(01:05:08):
they're two, three, four, fiveyears old, and so they pair them
with a military mentor who are,you know, an adult mentor, who
most of the time is a formermilitary member or somebody
who's been associated with themilitary at some point in their
lives, and they help these kids,you know, learn how to tie a
tie or go on their first jobinterview, and they, they bring
them to these camps and they letthem be kids.

(01:05:29):
They just let them be kids andgo out and throw rocks in a pond
and shoot bows and arrows andBB guns and get dirt on their
hands and all over the pants andjust be kids.
And this group is a wonderfulgroup of people who have slowly
started to build some reallygood recognition across the
country.
I believe this year in a Bushseries or the lower NASCAR race

(01:05:49):
yeah, I don't know what theycall it now.
Yeah, yeah, I don't either, butthey had a car, operation 300.
It's AV with a trident throughit as their logo, and so they're
really great, garnering somegood interest and some good
support, which is wonderful,because they've been very
underfunded for a really longtime and had some great
benefactors that have kept themgoing and they're now doing some

(01:06:10):
really, really wonderful things.
So not only did they take thesekids to the camps, they also
take the surviving spouse andthey let them go just relax for
a weekend and they put them in aspa or they give them spa
treatments or what have you,because at the end of the day,
these parents end up becomingmom and dad, and so getting that
break has been wonderful.
So last year we were able toraise almost $10,000 for 300.

(01:06:31):
And my goal is to do is to dothat again.
This year.
I will be raffling off all ofmy American flags.
Allegiance flag company againwas wonderful.
Yes, they sent me 15 or 10 moreflags, outstanding 12 going
into the season.
They're going to send me 10more as the season goes on,
because I do I do plan on doinga perfect season this year.
Um, I've registered for umhalloween, although that won't

(01:06:54):
be included it because it'sgoing to be the 26th, but then
I'm doing wine and dine dopeyprincess springtime, and then I
will do wine and dine againstnext year.
So I'll be doing um the flagand every one of those races.
Um, last year I had somewonderful opportunity to be able
to present the flag to peopleon the spot, either at the end
of the race.
I know we didn't end upconnecting, but Bob got the 5k

(01:07:14):
flag from last year's marathonweekend.
John came by my hotel andpicked that up, and so we're
going to be doing some of thatthis year and I'm going to try
and come up with some othercreative ways to raise some
money, either raffling off myoutfit or songs on my playlist
or what have you, sponsorshipfor miles.
I you know I'm open to allkinds of different ideas.
Um, last year I had a friend whodid for his charity.

(01:07:36):
He raffled off.
If he ain't raised enough money, he'd wear a tutu and and
tinkerbell wings on the on the5k or the 10k, and I'm
completely open to anything likethat I do that I do that for
free.
You dressed as corella devillelast year, man, and you had 101
dalmatians running around you.
We had a couple hundred, yeah,yeah, it was awesome, so cool,

(01:07:56):
so cool, and I'm I'm hoping toget to run with you guys in one
of these oh heck yeah join thegroup and I'm always up in b and
I say to my friends a lot oftimes I don't like to wait
around for yeah it's so earlybut at the end of the day to to
be able to my friends a lot oftimes I don't like to wait
around for it's so early, but atthe end of the day to be able
to run with such a great groupof people, I'd love to come join
you guys and, wherever,whatever crowd you're in, we'll
do one of the five Ks or 10 Ksor something together.

Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
We'd love to have you , my friend, absolutely Love to
have you, your charity.

Speaker 6 (01:08:22):
If someone wants to help, support getting involved
in this charity, how do theyreach out to?
You reach out to thisorganization, so we have.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
Operation300.org is the website.
I also have a QR code which Iput up from time to time.
I'd be happy to send it to youguys if you want to put it in
the show notes, which they canclick right on that and that'll
take them to my fundraising page.
That's been set up by them todonate directly to it.
The way I did my flags lastyear is, if anybody did it I
think we did $10 last year I'mgoing to raise it a little bit

(01:08:53):
this year.
Just because it went so welllast year and because the flags
have generated such greatresponse, I think I'm going to
do $10, $20 donations or $200flat donation on the flag and
you get it.
I had some cool things happenlast year where a couple of
people who won the flag inraffle did and turned around and

(01:09:14):
redonated it to somebody elseor had me donate it to somebody
else I had.
You know, as an example I havesomebody from Rise and Run, a
group, a young couple, that ranthe Urban Bourbon here in
Louisville, kentucky, where Ilive, and they were in on the
raffle and they did not win andthe guy who won was a friend of
mine and the gentleman of thecouple was a veteran and I

(01:09:35):
reached out to my friend and Ilet him know and he said well
then, they deserve that flag.
And he had me send them thatflag.
And they were listeners of thispodcast Such great people.
I got to meet them out of thebase, took a picture with them
and they ended up getting thatflag and they have it hanging by
their treadmill in theirbasement.
They sent me a picture.
Such wonderful situation.
So, yeah, I will be doing that.

(01:09:55):
So how we did that last year wasjust donate, make a $20
donation to Operation 300through my link and just send me
a message and then I put thelist of.
I make a list of names and thenwhen it comes before that
weekend race whatever the raceis that that list fills out on,
I just run a little spin wheelon my computer and I put it up

(01:10:15):
on a Facebook Live and showwhoever won the flag.
And I handle the shipping ofthe flag to whoever wins it.
I triangle, fold it back up,put it into the box from
Allegiance and I ship it out tothem, like I did for you, bob
Right absolutely.
It's well well presented.

(01:10:36):
Yes, sir, yeah, and you knowI've put sometimes I've written
on the on the white stitchingwhat race it was.
But you know I generally put itjust kind of on the box.
That way you can do whateveryou want with the flag.
Some people want to, somepeople want to fly it.
I actually had a doctor friendof mine who had me on his
podcast, who I sent him one ofthe flags and he's got it on a
boat out in Seattle Washington.
So just you know lots of.
My brother was a Marine.

(01:10:56):
He was in the Marine Corps for23 years.
He actually won one of theflags, did a bunch of donating,
just happened to win.
It was very random, he won andhe's as a former Marine, he's
got one of my flags.
As a former Marine, he's gotone of my flags.
And the cool story behind thatis when he was in Afghanistan

(01:11:18):
I'm sorry, in Iraq, during theBattle of Fallujah, he bought a
flag, put it in his flight bag,flew it the entire battle over
Fallujah.
Every time he was up flying heflew it with him on my birthday,
flew it above his spaces andthen sent it to me for my
birthday one year and I have itframed up in my front.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
Very nice, very nice.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
Just nice full circle type moments.
Um, obviously it's really greatwhen somebody that I'm running
with or somebody that I know it,wins the flag because I can
present it to them right thereon the spot.
We had some very emotional uhpresentations last year with
some of some friends of minethat ended up, you know, that
had either paid outright for theflag or something like that.
It was pretty cool, yeah matt,it's good stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
It's good stuff.
What you're doing is neat.
Uh, you're representing wellthe charity you're working for.
I mean, you just do a nice joband I'm glad we can at least
lend a little bit of uh, I don'tsay publicity, but you, you,
give me a you, give me a voice,you guys give me a voice.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
John, that's the word and it's.
You know.
What's cool is, as I told you,you know, having people come up
to me at the expo and say, hey,were you the one that was on
Rise and Run.
I'm like, yeah, that was me.
And they're like that's sogreat.
How do we donate?
Or how can I donate money?
Or we love what you do.
Or the best part, quitehonestly, is people stopping me
and telling me a story abouttheir loved one who was in the

(01:12:27):
military, or the time theyserved in the military, or
somebody they lost who was inthe military.
You know, hearing those storiesand having people I've had.
As a matter of fact, last year,during the half marathon, I had
a girl who caught me and shewas crying when she caught me
and she said that she had tocatch me because the man who
introduced her to running was aMarine who had committed suicide

(01:12:50):
.

Speaker 4 (01:12:50):
Oh, my A year before.
Oh my goodness, Too much ofthat going on.

Speaker 3 (01:12:54):
She had to catch me to tell me how much it meant to
me that I was carrying the flagfor him and I let her carry the
flag for a minute.
And you know, a lot of timesthat's what I'll do.
If someone comes up and tellsme a story, I'll be like, hey,
you know a photopassphotographer coming up once you
take the flag and oh nice, no, Ilove you, I love doing that.
And, um, last year during themarathon and half marathon, we
were running up main street.
I, with guys I was running with, like hey, run with the flag.

(01:13:16):
It's a completely differentexperience running up main
street with the american flagbecause it's loud, but it gets
so loud when people see you andyou raise that flag up and you
start, you know, making a lot ofnoise with noise with it.
It's that.
And then the finish line,because John and Carissa and
Riley and Tracy, and those guysalways call me out as I'm coming
down and they always talk aboutthe cause and it's.

(01:13:37):
It's a wonderful feeling.
I was actually running theprincess half with a friend and
we were finishing and she hadhad an accident, so I ended up
walking the last three mileswith her Cause she tripped and
fell and hurt her ankle and Iwas like I caught her.
I got caught up to her rightafter it happened.
She was crying and sad and Iwas like, hey, look, let's just
go, let's finish this thingtogether.
And I stuck with her and I saidstay with me.
At the finish it's probably oneof the coolest things you'll

(01:14:04):
ever experience and the way ait's a, it's a.
It's a very cool experience andI tell people all the time it's
it's not about me, it's aboutthe message that I hope to carry
and the messages that peoplecan share with me.
And you know it's.
It becomes therapeutic for me,becomes therapeutic for other
people around me, and that'sthat's the whole goal is the end
of the day, we don't know whatother people are battling.
We don't know what other peopleare dealing with, and being

(01:14:27):
kind is really the only answer.
You know there's no reason tobe out.
Go out of your way to hurtpeople and hear their stories
and listen to people.
Sometimes people just need tobe listened to.

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
Matt, I'm going to drop the mic right there.
I think you've summarizedwonderfully well.
Thanks for taking the time tojoin us.
It's a pleasure.
We love what you're doing.
We're glad we can add just alittle bit of support and we'll
see you at Disney World.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
We'll see you guys running.

Speaker 6 (01:14:58):
Come see everybody.
Good luck on your registrations.
Thanks, matt.
I mean what you're doing is agreat thing and we really
appreciate your cause, somethingelse that we going back to
training and getting yourself alittle hyped up, or whatever it
is.
Last year we did the Rise andRun mixtape for training.
With training starting in acouple of weeks, I'm going to

(01:15:19):
set up the Spotify link, put itin our Facebook feed and where
you can add two or three songsof your choosing that get you
pumped for training and we'llshare it with the entire group.
Last year we had a veryinteresting eclectic combination
of songs.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Oh God, what was my favorite?
My favorite last year was whenI listened to it.
I think we went from a songfrom Moana to Eminem Lose
Yourself.
That was quite the transition.

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
By the time it was done, I think we had almost what
Five or six hours worth of.

Speaker 6 (01:15:54):
Oh, absolutely Six, six hours and 39 minutes Just
looking at it now from last year.

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):
I can even finish a marathon in that time.
That's a lot.
That's good.
Yeah, that's fun, john.
That's good.
Yeah, that's fun, john.
It's a neat thing you do, and Iknow the friends like our
friends like it.
So yeah, let's get that kickedoff again here.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
What you say, kicking it off next week, next week
I'll put that out, yep hey gang,one note that I want to just
quickly pass along to everyoneuh, the other week I received an
email from uh, the gentlemanwho now heads up the running
team over at give Kids the World.
His name is Mark.
He's been doing an absolutelyphenomenal job.
He had sent me a nice note.

(01:16:33):
He wanted to share with theRise and Run community that the
village just hit a really bigmilestone the other week, and
that is they have now officiallywelcomed their 200,000th wish
child to the village, which isjust awesome to hear that so

(01:16:56):
many children and their familieshave been able to not only
experience the village and theamazing resources that they have
, but they really have somedreams come true, and I think
that's really, really special.
And to mark the occasion, theyare doing a program called Share

(01:17:22):
your Light, which is going.
So it's a fundraising campaign,so you know they are raising
funds, but this special event isgoing to be taking place on
Saturday, june 21st, and youknow hence you know the title
being share your light.
They want to be able toilluminate the village with the
lights you know that childrenprovide us in our everyday lives
and what you can do is, if youdo give a donation you can

(01:17:46):
actually donate to have a waterlantern be lit up during this
event, which I think is reallycool.
It ties into, you know, whenwe're talking about the princess
themes.
Before you know, rapunzel is,uh, the princess for the half
marathon and obviously she hadher lantern festival, uh.
So there's a lot of differentcool options that, um, you can
donate to have, you know, yourremembrance as part of this

(01:18:09):
event.
So if you're interested in anyof that, be sure to head over to
the Give Kids the World websiteto find all that information
there.
And speaking of our friendsover at Give Kids the World and
Princess Half Marathon Weekend,they do have their bibs on sale
right now for the race weekend.
So if you want to get into therace and not have to deal with

(01:18:32):
the stress of registration onjune 24th, that is one avenue
that you can definitely go down.
But the other thing that isgoing to be really, really cool
that we're going to be doinghere on the podcast in the next
couple weeks I know we havetalked a lot about a lot of
great charities.
We talked about Matt's charityin terms of the flag.
We talked about give kids theworld a lot here on the podcast,

(01:18:54):
but we're going to be making aconscious effort in the next
couple of months to behighlighting a different charity
every single month here on thepodcast and try to get a
representative available.
So that's a series that we'rereally, really looking forward
to and, speaking of things thatwe're looking forward to as well
, on next week's episode, we aregoing to be doing some listener

(01:19:17):
questions.
I did a post, uh, just theother day.
We got some great questionsthat I've already filtered in.
So if you have questions aboutrun Disney, disney World,
disneyland logistics, you wantto know more just about us as
the host, or you have specificlike training questions or
running questions, we will willtry to answer as many as we can,

(01:19:45):
and then in two weeks we got areally big show for you.
Miss Dopey herself returns.
Brittany Charbonneau is comingback on the podcast and we
cannot wait to chat with her.
So that's what we have comingup here in the next couple of
weeks.

Speaker 4 (01:20:03):
All right, my friends , it's time for the Race Report.
The Race Report sponsored byThomas Stokes Stoked Metabolic
Training.
Stokesfit slashriseandruncoaching is the site.
Thomas was with us last weektold us about his challenge
starting next month, july 7th.

(01:20:24):
The link for that is at the topof our Facebook group page in
the featured section.
Remember first 20 people toenroll will get a free
one-on-one call with Tom.
That's a good program, myfriends.
I've done it the last couple oftimes that he's had it, and for

(01:20:50):
$47,.
You can't beat the training andassistance that Tom provides.
So I recommend looking into it.
It's a good deal and, tom, weappreciate you.
All right, let's start.
We have one on Wednesday overin London, don't you know?
Battersea Park, london, england.
Mark and Season were outchasing the sun on the Chase.
The Sun 5K Happy birthday.

(01:21:12):
Season Running on her birthday.
Good turnout.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Happy birthday.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's cool.
I don't get to run on mybirthday, but it's okay.
Not many Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
Eve runs.
I was going to say there's notmany Christmas.

Speaker 4 (01:21:23):
Eve races.
No, About 800 runners.
That's great for a middle-of ofthe week run.
Flat course, great weather,nice and cool and enjoyable.
Mark and Season were pleased todiscover that their chip times
showed they'd beaten theirprevious 5K personal records by

(01:21:45):
35 seconds.
Records by 35 seconds.
Way to go.
Let's get to the weekend now.
Kind of an unusual weekend forus.
Not much going on on Saturday.
I'm not sure why Most of theevents were on Sunday this week.
Let's start in Washington DCwhere Kate ran the Tracksmith

(01:22:14):
Twilight 5000.
This is Kate's first ever trackrace, which is interesting.
We don't see a lot of those Now.
I get a kick out of this.
Kate said she latched onto the21 minute pacer and they just
zoned out.
She zoned out so much that sheran past the 5k mark, ended up
doing another three quarters ofa lap, didn't even realize it.
That's being in the zone, baby,that's pretty cool.

(01:22:35):
But when her timing was postedshe managed a 34-second PR over
her 5K PR from two weeks ago.
And again, we're talking 21minutes in a 5K, Kate.
That's awesome Way to go.
Let's go out to Kansas City,the Kansas City's Hospital Hill

(01:22:57):
half.
Alexandra ran that one.
Greg, I don't know that I wouldrun a Hospital Hill race.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
Yeah, if it has Hill in the name, I'm not running it.
And then hospital.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
True Touche.
And then hospital.
True Touche, golly, gollyAnyway.
Alexandra's first race, firsthalf marathon since starting PT
for a knee injury.
Not quite back to full speedbut really thrilled to achieve a
course PR, beating her previouscourse time by 25 and a half

(01:23:32):
minutes.
Nicely done.
As the name suggests, this racebrings a whole slew of tough
hills, but Alexandra's knee heldup like a champ, good job.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
Someone who we had on the race report spotlight.
A couple of weeks ago our buddyRavi ran the run for the Brave
5K in Boca Raton, florida, thenmoving north up to Charlotte,
north Carolina.
Anna ran the Noda 5K coming offof her run at Flying Pig.

(01:24:08):
I think, bob, you saw our buddy, julie you know, when you were
up there.
A couple of weeks ago, julieran the Red Legs Run 10K which
took place in Cincinnati, ohio,and, granted, we haven't heard
of Fishers, indiana, in a while,because we always said that was
the racing mecca.
So we're going to move to one ofthe other racing meccas in the

(01:24:29):
United States, and that is FortSmith, arkansas.
And if it's Fort Smith Arkansas, that means one thing and one
thing only.
That's our buddy Joe, and oneof the Amigos not all the Amigos
, for this one.
Joe took place in the Hot FootRaces.
He took second place in his agegroup in the 5K and his amigo

(01:24:51):
Gary took first place age groupin the 10K.
Way to go, gentlemen.
This was Joe's first race afterbeing sick with allergies or
something or whatever is goingaround.
So yeah, and he dealt with itfor over two weeks, but he was
feeling really good.
So way to go, joe.

Speaker 4 (01:25:09):
And Gary, Greg, I got to come clean on this one.
Uh, Joe posted the race but hedidn't post where it was.
I just assumed it's Fort Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
We're going to go with that and granted, if
there's one person who will factcheck us it's Graham.

Speaker 4 (01:25:26):
Yeah, that's cool.
Well, let's take a look.
We had a couple of weekend longevents.
Uh, one out in san diego,california.
The rock and roll series wasout in san diego.
There was an event called theremy's challenge a 5k on
saturday and half on sunday.
Bethany did that.

(01:25:46):
Really nice weather it's sandie, I think.
It's supposedly known for niceweather cool and cloudy, some
sprinkles on Sunday, though Ididn't think it ever rained in
Southern California, but I couldbe wrong.
The 5k goes in and around thebeautiful Balboa Park, while the
half goes through downtown andthe residential streets.

(01:26:08):
Bethany took the 5k nice andeasy to save her legs for the
half.
Glad she did, because despitehaving the most and the steepest
hills of any course that she'sdone, she still managed a
two-minute PR in that halfmarathon.
Now I think this is cool.

(01:26:29):
After the race, the hotel thatthey were staying in hosted a
post-race brunch in theirrooftop restaurant, so you could
look down to the finish lineand see the marathoners
finishing.
Very cool.
Yeah, it is.
Now.
You could wear your medal oryour bib to get a discount and
every time somebody walked intothe restaurant wearing a medal,

(01:26:51):
the whole place cheered.
I think that's really cool.
That's really cool.
Yeah, that's neat.
Let's see Megan was there.
Megan did the half, agreeingthat the hills were rough.
Kevin did the 5k and half, asBethany did, and Jennifer was
there to run the half.
In the other weekend long event, tiffany created her own

(01:27:14):
challenge and well, she's hereto tell us about it.
Hi, tiffany, welcome to thepodcast.

Speaker 9 (01:27:20):
Hi, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 4 (01:27:22):
You're welcome and thank you for taking your time
to join us.
So you did two races in twolocations, one on Saturday, one
on Sunday, Yep, and we're goingto let you tell us about those
in a minute.
But you know, standardspotlight question number one
Tiffany, how did you get startedrunning?

Speaker 9 (01:27:42):
Yeah, so, um, I've actually kind of been a runner
pretty much my whole life.
It's always just, even as alittle kid, I just always just
liked running.
And then when I got to middleschool, that was when in gym
class you had to start runningthe mile, and I was just pretty

(01:28:03):
good at it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:04):
So I was going to say I'll bet you were good at it.

Speaker 9 (01:28:07):
Yeah, so the gym teacher was actually the track
coach for the middle schooltrack team, so she encouraged me
to come out and do that.
I did the mile and the two milein the middle school track and
then was kind of planning tokeep on the track team and cross
country in high school but Igot injured and you know then

(01:28:28):
kind of got sidetracked with,like you know, college
applications and just you know,all that that comes up in high
school.
So I kind of, you know, wasn'tlike on a team or really being
competitive for a while.
I was, just, you know, kind ofrunning like a couple of miles a
few times a week, just you know, staying in shape.
And it wasn't, you know, likeyou know, through high school

(01:28:49):
and college and like I knew thatthey were like races and like
5ks, but it never like occurredto me like, oh, maybe I should
go run one of these.
And then so after college Imoved to Chicago for work and so
actually way back in middleschool our school library
actually got Runners Worldmagazine and so you know, back

(01:29:11):
when I was on doing track then Iwas kind of flipping through
and then there was an articleabout the Boston Marathon and
I'm like I'm going to run amarathon one day.
So I was like 13 at the time.
I'm like I'm totally going torun a marathon.
So I moved to Chicago aftercollege and that fall the
marathon was going on and I waslike that's so cool and like I

(01:29:32):
was like you know, when I wasyounger I always said I was
going to run a marathon someday.
So I'm like, why not?
Now, you know, it's like righthere, I don't need to travel.
So it's perfect.
Nothing else to do, right, yeah,so I got a training plan and so
technically my first actualrace was the Chicago Marathon.
Wow, which sounds ridiculous,but I'm like at that point I had

(01:29:54):
already been running for like10 years, so it wasn't like I
just kind of pulled off an erroror anything like that.
But yeah, so.
And then after that, you know Ijust I was like okay, well, now
you know what other races can Ido.
And you know it, just I waslike okay, well, now you know
what other races can I do.
And you know start.
You know it's like now thatI've run a marathon, maybe I'll
try a 5k.

Speaker 4 (01:30:14):
Yeah, it's all downhill now.
I mean you start with a worldmajor, where do you go?

Speaker 9 (01:30:31):
Yeah and uh.
So actually that was uh, 2004.
So the world majors actuallydidn't even exist then.
It wasn't a thing.
So so I guess I've technicallybeen running probably for about
I'm 45 now, so it'd probablybeen about 32, 33 years that
I've been running and doingraces for about 21 years.
So yeah, it's been.
You know it's been a while.

Speaker 4 (01:30:45):
Good story Now.
So tell us about this weekend.
You started on Saturday inIndiana.
I believe that was a 5K 5Ktrail race yeah.
Yeah, tell us about it.

Speaker 9 (01:30:57):
Okay, so it's the Dunes Dash at the Indiana Dunes
National Park and the charitythat it supports is the Save the
Dunes Foundation, which raisesmoney for conservation of the
dunes area, and it was justsomething I wanted to do with a
lot of the funding cuts fornational parks lately.

(01:31:18):
It was just a cause that Iwanted to support.
So I knew it was a trail race,didn't realize how much of it
was, yeah, but now it'saffecting, like you know, packed
dirt.
You know a nice, you know atrail race, didn't realize how
much of it was, yeah, but nowit's affecting, like you know,
packed dirt.
You know a nice, you know atrail, but, uh, majority of it
was actually a lot of sand.
So, um, when it, when it wasn'tsand, it was a lot of stairs,

(01:31:43):
um, going up to different, uh,overlooks around the area.
It was beautiful, reallygorgeous course, but very, very
challenging.

Speaker 4 (01:31:52):
It was diabolical.
It was definitely yes, that'swhat someone.
I'm looking at your report.
That's what someone yelled outin the middle.

Speaker 9 (01:32:03):
Yeah, it was literally every time.
You thought you were at thelast hill.
You turn around a corner andthere'd be another hill.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
Oh, I hate those.

Speaker 9 (01:32:12):
It was like a quarter mile to the finish and I'm like
, ok, there's got to be.
You know, we're done with hills.
We've got to be done with hillsby now.
And then we came around there'sanother giant hill and this guy
is just like this is.
Diabolos.

Speaker 4 (01:32:26):
I hate those.
I would stop turning corners ifI kept seeing those.
All right, but nevertheless itwas fun.
You stuck it out, you did well.

Speaker 9 (01:32:34):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 4 (01:32:37):
And let's see that one you won your age group.
No, you won Masters right,masters, yeah.
Yeah, so that was yeah coolCongratulations.

Speaker 9 (01:32:46):
Yeah, that was kind of a surprise, because I mean
when you run on a trail it'salways slower than like running
on roads, and also just becauseit was so challenging.
I was like for me it was likeone of my slower 5Ks, but then I
saw the results and I'm like,oh, that that was a surprise
that's cool yeah now part ofthis challenge, you did another

(01:33:10):
race on sunday.
Uh, that was in illinois yeah so, uh, it was in highland park,
which is, uh, about a 30 minutedrive north of chicago here.
Yeah so, uh, that was a halfmarathon, um, and it was
actually a race I had donebefore, but not recently.
Um, I don't remember the lasttime I did it, but I want to say

(01:33:30):
it was at least 15 years ago umbut I at the time it was a
another really pretty course,and so I had always thought, oh,
I like to do this one again.
Um, and it just the the timingnever worked out.
I always had something going onthat weekend and so this
particular weekend I happened tohave that date free and you

(01:33:51):
know, even though I was alreadydoing this 5k on Saturday, I was
like, why not make a challengeof it?
You know, do them both?
Yeah, so went up there onsunday and, yeah, it was, uh, a
little more hilly than Iremembered.
A lot of rolling hills.
I don't know if it was theexact same course.
Um, there was, I rememberedfrom before, there's one giant

(01:34:14):
hill, and so I I was expectingthat one and like that was still
there.

Speaker 4 (01:34:18):
Um, but other than that, it was a lot of rolling
hills, and I kept thinking Idon't remember this many hills
before um you know tiffany Idon't know how many people that
I read their race report andthey say I haven't done this one
in a while and I forgot howhilly it was.
And it's very common and Ithink you forget.

(01:34:39):
I think human beings, we try toforget the hard stuff.
Yeah, remember the fun stuff.
I think that might be what itis.

Speaker 9 (01:34:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:34:47):
You won masters in the 5k, but no medal right.

Speaker 9 (01:34:52):
But we know, we know you won For for the masters.
I got um like uh, I took, put apicture of it.
There's a, it's a big woodmedal, oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
very good wood metal.

Speaker 4 (01:35:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very good.
That's for, that's for finished, that's for winning masters.
That's cool, yeah, I like thatwas.
It were there medals andt-shirts for the half yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:35:11):
So, um, we actually got a really nice um it was like
a half zip fleece um, which youknow is super cozy.
Actually, like you know, it wasreally this weekend was
actually pretty cool and it wascool, wasn't it yeah?
yeah, it was uh like in the 40s,so I mean it was.
You know that was nice and cozywhen you weren't running, um.
But yeah, so it's nice, nicefleece jacket and, uh, nice

(01:35:34):
metal.
They had food after the raceand, um, some music and you know
, it's just a really funatmosphere.
So, yeah, I really enjoyed itwhat's next?

Speaker 6 (01:35:44):
I'm guessing, the way you go, it's probably dopey at
disney let's go straight to theheavy stuff, right but, when's
the next time you're going to beat disney and what's going on
over there?

Speaker 9 (01:35:53):
yeah, so, uh.
So I've actually never donedopey.
I'm not.
I keep saying I don't.
I'll never say never toanything, but you know it's not
currently in the plans Right now.
My next I just saw Princessthemes today, so you know I'm
pretty.
I'm already thinking aboutdoing the challenge for next
year and now that I saw thethemes I'm like, yeah, take my

(01:36:16):
money.
So fingers crossed forregistration that I can get in.
I've been lucky so far witheverything.

Speaker 4 (01:36:25):
Yeah, you know the secret.
Tiffany is to join us in ourchat group for the weekend.

Speaker 9 (01:36:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:36:32):
On registration day.

Speaker 9 (01:36:33):
Yeah, I usually do.
I've never needed help so far.

Speaker 6 (01:36:39):
That's a good thing.

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
But it's there, yeah, yeah.
So if you've not done dopey,have you done the marathon at
disney?
Yeah, I have okay, okay, soyou've run through the castle
yes, yeah, that was uh that'scool epic, I love that it is, it
is absolutely.
Running down main street is ajoy.

Speaker 9 (01:36:58):
It's wonderful, yeah yeah, I just I, when I was
coming down main street I just Istopped and I like took out my
phone and I just just took avideo of the whole street.
I was like this is just.

Speaker 4 (01:37:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember the first time and I
was running better back then andI'm running down main street
and I all of a sudden wentwhat's your hurry?
Take your time here.
This is is great, so that'sterrific.
Uh, let's see.
So next time at disney's in.

(01:37:27):
Uh, it's princess, right,princess?

Speaker 9 (01:37:30):
yep, okay, anything big coming up between now and
then um, not right now, mostly,um, my kind of big goal race, or
it was earlier in, uh, may.
I wanted to update my proof oftime to see if I can back into a
corral.
Um, so I actually did a half atthe beginning of may and I got
I ran that in like 152, 35, sothat should be good for a corral

(01:37:54):
, I'm hoping oh, yeah, yeah,yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:37:57):
Well, I see even this 157 you have on this weekend is
that'd be close, I think.
So that's good stuff yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:38:03):
So that was kind of the big goal for the year and I
was like you know, becauseoriginally I was like, well, if
I don't run a good time on that,maybe I'll pick up, you know,
another half later in the summeror something, and um, so I'm
happy with that time and I'mlike, okay, let's have some fun,
do some fun 5ks and just youknow, kind of just enjoy the

(01:38:23):
summer.

Speaker 4 (01:38:24):
So well, good for you , tiffany, that's terrific.
Uh, thanks for joining us.
It sounds like you had a goodweekend and we'll see you in
february hopefully way to go.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
tiffany great work.
We now move to Sunday where wehad the Covered Bridges Half
Marathon in Palm Front, vermont.
Avery ran that race and thenour buddy Steve ran the Noah
Farley Run 10K and 5K inBinghamton, new York.

(01:39:00):
Steve completed the doublechallenge, so both of the races.
He finished the 10K first, thenhad the chance to change all of
his race gear and run the 5Kwith his wife, brenda.
It's quite a hilly course, withtwo particular long ones that
are very steep.
So what I like to call this,because I know Steve's doing
bird in hand very good bird inhand training.

(01:39:24):
Lots of post-race treats with adouble dip of ice cream for
those who ran the double dip ofraces.
I see what you did there.

Speaker 4 (01:39:30):
As it should be, yeah .

Speaker 2 (01:39:32):
This is the seventh and final year of this event.
It's near an event that's nearand dear to him.
This was the first 10K that heever ran to this day and still
holds his 10K PR.

Speaker 4 (01:39:47):
So way to go, steve.
How about that?
Steve credits Allie for thechanging of the socks and shoes.
As Allie used to describe it,it's like putting on new feet,
new feet, yep, exactly.
Let's go to Youngstown, ohio,for the Soul to City Half
Marathon.
Megan did this one with herfriend Christina from Georgia.
Let's go to Youngstown, ohio,for the Soul to City Half
Marathon.
Megan did this one with herfriend Christina from Georgia,

(01:40:09):
and they said it was cold inYoungstown, ohio, which I think
is a surprise for this time ofyear.
Now, they were supposed todrive to the finish and then get
a shuttle to the start, but theshuttle never showed up, never
a good sign, not good, not good.

Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
So they drove to the start, but the shuttle never
showed up, never a good sign.

Speaker 4 (01:40:23):
Not good, not good.
So they drove to the start andthen I know what I'd be thinking
.
Okay, I'm going to run the race.
How am I going to get back tomy car?
Well, fortunately the shuttlesdid show up after the race and
they got back.
That way, great race.
Megan went out a little fast.
Things were going really wellin this half marathon until

(01:40:44):
about mile nine and it got tough.
She hung on.
She had set herself an A goalof finishing under four hours,
which she did.
She passed up the post-racebeer for the PT tent and got
some outstanding help there,thanks to the PT professionals
in Youngstown, ohio.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, seandid the Dexter Ann Arbor Run

(01:41:16):
Half Parathon, mostly downhillexcept for one big one just
before mile 13.
That's never nice, no, no, no.
I have a story I'm not going totell now about a race in
Charlotte, north Carolina, thatended, oh my goodness.
Anyway, this is Sean's raceGreat weather, beautiful course,
fantastic spectators.
Sean even snagged himself a2.10 finish time for his next

(01:41:38):
Disney proof of time.
All in all, a great race.
Way to go, sean, disney proofof time.
All in all, a great race.
Way to go, sean.
The hometown half took place inMilwaukee, wisconsin.
We had a couple folks there.
Noelle did the half Says nother comeback run yet, but she
still felt really good, made itto mile nine where she took a
bad step off the path, twistedher ankle, fell, scraped up the

(01:42:04):
knees and the elbows, got a soreback, picked herself up, walked
for a minute to get through thepain and started running again.
I know I know what that's like.
I kind of talk, I think aboutit like I'm taking inventory
Okay, Ankles, okay, knees, okay,okay, knees, okay, okay, I'm
okay, yeah.
So she was all right, startedrunning again, finished in two

(01:42:26):
hours 41 and earned a huge medal.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):
These are, these are space coast size medals, these
absolutely when I saw thepicture I was I mean again, not
space coast level, which I feellike is the size of a dinner
plate this I thought could havepassed for a small dessert plate
, or maybe a saucer for a teacupor something like that.

(01:42:50):
It was big it had quite thecircumference to it.

Speaker 4 (01:42:52):
It was big.
All right, amy was there too.
Amy did the 10K.
She did it.
This race took place on theGreenway where she used to train
, but apparently it was a whileback because she forgot how
hilly it was.
Now the half did the coursetwice.
So she got to see the halfmarathon leader a couple times.

(01:43:13):
It was a young man and he wascooking and he just had this
amazing smile on his face, thisamazing smile on his face.
So when amy finished, got hermedal, the girl who's handing
her the medal says to her oh, bythe way, you also finished
first in your age group.
Yeah, way to go.

(01:43:34):
Never been first in anything.
Well, there you go, you are now.
Uh, she saw the winner afterthe race and they had a nice
little conversation where Amysays to him you know you're?
You look like you're having somuch fun.
Your smile inspired me and hesaid to her yeah, I thought I

(01:43:54):
saw you out there and as I ranpast I thought, gee, I might've
just inspired somebody.
So there you go.
Awesome, you never know, huh.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
A couple of hours north of me, in the Poconos in
Pennsylvania, we had the MudGirl event and Jennifer ran this
.
She said it was cold and windy.
She slipped in the mud quite afew times, she caught her foot
in a tree root and then shefroze in all of the water
obstacles.
Uh, apparently one obstaclecaused a minor wardrobe

(01:44:29):
malfunction.
Uh, but thankfully a teacherfriend that she ran with helped
her out.
Uh, dry socks and shoes at theend were a gift from above and a
great time was had by all.
You gotta love those, those mudevents you know, and actually
speaking, speaking of thosecrazy events, uh, now, great, I
have never registered for one.

(01:44:50):
I don't plan on registering forone but for some reason, the
other day in my instagram feed Igot an ad for a spartan race.
Oh boy, guess who was featuredin that ad?
Taron, yes.
Our buddy, taron was part ofthe ad, so yeah, so if you ever

(01:45:12):
want to venture into that realmof races, definitely reach out
to Taron or Jennifer, and I'msure they'll be able to give you
plenty of advice for that one.

Speaker 4 (01:45:21):
Years back.
I did Remember when the TV showWipeout was big.
Yes, well, they took a littleWipeout on tour type thing.
I do remember this.
Yeah, it was mostly fun.
It was at the Atlanta MotorSpeedway and it was a chilly day
to be in the water but it wasfun.
But that was back when I was ayoung man, like 66 or something.

(01:45:42):
That was back when I was ayoung man, you know, like 66 or
something.
Let's go to Highland Park,illinois, for the North Shore
Classic Half Marathon.
Laura in fact I think this isthe same race that our friend
Tiffany did in her challenge,I'm pretty sure Says the weather
was great, the course wasgorgeous, wanted a proof of time

(01:46:06):
but I wasn't really feeling it,wasn't quite ready for it.
This morning Tried, realized itwasn't going to happen by about
mile nine.
I've been in that position.
I get it.
Laura, still happy with herfinish time of around 240, which
is very solid, nicely done.
Metals, nice and large.
This was the other, greg.
We were talking before werecorded about big metals.
This was the other big metal,maybe not quite as big as the

(01:46:33):
one we were just talking about,but it's a good size.
Quite, a few vendors givingaway food and drinks after the
race, including one of the mostinteresting cereal boxes she'd
ever seen, and I saw the.
Yes, the, I think the name ofthe cereal is, and I quote poop
like a champion.
Hmm, you buying a box, greg?

Speaker 2 (01:46:56):
uh, I don't eat cereal much anymore, so I'm
gonna pass on that one.

Speaker 4 (01:46:59):
Like they, they pass also Back in Ohio.
In Columbus the Columbus 10KCarol did this out and back
through downtown Germantown inthe Brewery District.
Beautifully cool morning.
Bit of a smoky haze.
That may be some of the smokecoming out of the fires in
Canada, not sure.
Around halfway there was a doghandler herding a flock of

(01:47:26):
Canadian geese on the grass tokeep them running through the
runners.
So that was neat to watch.
Columbus is a great city withlots to do and the medal was
very cool the medal.

Speaker 2 (01:47:47):
It was very cool.
Over in sin city in las vegas,nevada, we had the dog days of
summer 5k.
Chris ran this race as well assarah.
Sarah started off, um, with a0.6 mile dog parade.
That's always fun, yeah, uh.
Now this is the part I love.
She got to borrow a friend's dogto participate so uh, all dogs

(01:48:08):
got a bandana and a friend ofhers, um, took over dog handling
duty for the 5k.
Uh, and she's blaming herselffor her slow finish time on toby
.
Uh, the dog, not her friend.
Uh, you know needing to have to, you know stop for nature and
water breaks and not adjustingto the heat, so uh, but uh,

(01:48:32):
sarah loved the opportunity toget to say hi to chris this race
.
I love it when rising runnersget to meet each other.

Speaker 4 (01:48:37):
Yeah, me too.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I didn't hear from chrison this, but I'm willing to bet
Woody and Jesse were there forthis event.

Speaker 2 (01:48:43):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:48:44):
Yeah, the Beagles.
Yep, let's go to St Louis whereKatie did the Gateway
Resilience Run and Ride.
Now, a few weeks back, thispart of the country was hit with
some terrible tornadoesterrible tornadoes, but the

(01:49:07):
amazing folks at Go St Louis,which is the organizer, got this
event up and running in justnine days.
Nearly 500 people registered.
There was a one mile and a 5koption around the track at a
local high school, as well as a15 mile bike ride.
They were able to raise nearly$19,000, all of it going towards
tornado relief.
So, katie, glad you got to dothat.

(01:49:28):
One, dan.
The Chicago Half Marathon.
The Bank of America ChicagoHalf Marathon unusually chilly,
as expected for a race in thisseries course.
Support was superb, lots of aidstations.
He even had a friend that hemet through the Run Disney

(01:49:48):
community.
Give him a hug and cheer him onas they.
The friend was working at oneof the aid stations about
halfway through the race.
He learned on this one he didn'tlike Morton gels.
Okay, everybody's got theirpreferences.
I like those, but you don't.
You tried them.
Doesn't work.
What gets me?

(01:50:09):
They were giving them away onthe course.
Wow, yeah, that's impressive.
Those things are about fivebucks a piece.
Yeah, not, not cheap.
Yeah, uh, let's see.
Dan had a loose goal of aroundone hour 50, 50 minutes, ended
up knocking him out at 149, 48and a shiny new half marathon PR

(01:50:31):
.
Way to go, dan.
I love the title of this one,the Deadwood Mickelson Trail
Half Marathon, and it's runsomewhere in the Black Hills of
South Dakota.
I don't know if Rocky Raccoonwas there or not.
Kayla was there, though.

(01:50:52):
It's a point-to-point race on arail trail, mostly downhill.
It finishes in Deadwood, southDakota, beautiful scenery in the
Black Hills.
Kayla had some great photos.
25th anniversary of the eventhad nearly 2,000 runners, pretty
warm this year.
She was lucky to run this racewith a group of friends, had her

(01:51:15):
daughter cheer her on at thefinish line and her daughter
even snuck onto the course torun a little bit at the end in
jeans and Crocs, her the end injeans and Crocs.
Her daughter was in jeans andCrocs, not.

Speaker 2 (01:51:27):
Kayla, I was going to say yeah right Kayla good job.
Now that the calendar hasturned to June, it is Pride
Month and we had a couple ofPride races here on the Race
Report, our first one in ournation's capital, in the
congressional cemetery the pride5k.
Megan ran that.

(01:51:47):
She said it wasn't too spooky,uh, especially since there was a
drag show at the finish line.
Uh, she stayed within her goalpace and had an absolute blast.
They run from a cemetery to adrag show a drag show only in,
only in America.

Speaker 4 (01:52:02):
Yeah, that's right.
Just your normal Sundayafternoon 5K, right?

Speaker 2 (01:52:07):
And also our buddy Jimmy ran the Atlanta Pride 5K.
He said it was a bit warm buthe really enjoyed the race and
he will definitely keep it onhis annual list.
So to all of our Rise andRunners who are part of the
LGBTQI plus community, happyPride everybody.
To all of our rise and runnerswho are part of the LGBTQ I plus
community, happy prideeverybody.

Speaker 4 (01:52:25):
Let's wrap this one up in college Dale Tennessee,
where there is in fact a littleDebbie park, little Debbie the
snack treats.

Speaker 2 (01:52:34):
I was going to say I, I'm.
I'm really hoping that when youfinish this report, that there
is an abundance of snacks at theend.

Speaker 4 (01:52:41):
I don't know, we'll find out.
Uh, let's see the little debbie, seven miler amanda did this
one.
Amanda says it's amazing what adifferent six months makes,
because she did this, uh, samelocation, same course, six
months ago and she shaved offalmost a minute per mile.

(01:53:01):
That's awesome, awesome, yeah,it's great.
Doesn't mention snacks, greg,but says that she's more and
more confident with every racethat that marathon goal of hers
is achievable.
So good job, amanda.
And with that we wrap up therace report for episode 193.

(01:53:21):
All right, my friends, and ifyou run, you know you are our
friend.
That's a wrap for episode 193of the Rise and Run podcast.
Hope you enjoyed it.
It's a Zoom week.
See you on Thursday evening.

(01:53:42):
Instructions for how to get inand join us are on the Facebook
page.
Stop by.
If you haven't done it before,stop by.
You'll get to meet and make newfriends.
It's a lot of fun.
That'll wrap it up Trainingtime.
Get out there, have fun, besafe, kind of go easy in the

(01:54:06):
heat Until we meet again.
Happy running.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):
The Rise and Run podcast discusses general
information about Run Disney andis in no way affiliated with
Run Disney or the Walt DisneyCompany.
Any information or advicediscussed on this podcast should
not be considered medicaladvice and should always consult
with your health care provideror event organizer Organizer.