127: 2024 Princess Half Marathon Weekend Recap

Ever wondered what it feels like to have your pulse race not just from the kilometers clocked but from the sheer enchantment of Disney magic underfoot? Our latest Rise and Run Podcast episode is your VIP pass to the Princess Weekend extravaganza, where laughs, thrills, and a few tumbles take center stage. Join Tara, Kristen, Mark, and Bob as they reminisce about the whimsical blur of race day, the community spirit at the expo, and those unexpected costume triumphs and trials. Whether you're a runDisney regular or toying with the idea of your first 5K, this conversation is the pep talk for your soles—and soul.

Linger a while with us as we reveal the insider secrets of the Disney resorts, your potential home-away-from-home for race weekend. We'll swap tales of deadbolts and dawn fireworks, weigh the merits of Saratoga Springs versus Pop Century, and even share a tip or two about snatching those coveted early park entries. It's more than just a race; it's about the meticulous planning that turns an ordinary run into a full-blown Disney vacation with all the perks (and quirks). Fasten your bibs and fine-tune your training regimens; we've got the lowdown on everything from pacing strategies to the best photo ops with your favorite characters.

As the mile markers pass by, we take a moment to reflect on the heartwarming narratives that define the runDisney community. Tales of first-time pacers, like Mark, conquering nerves to conjure smiles, and runners like "Wild Bill," whose seasoned legs have carried him to victory across the decades, remind us all why we lace up for these events. So grab your headphones, queue up our episode, and let's hit the ground running together for an experience that's part victory lap, part fairy tale—with all the Disney flair you can handle.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:04

3am again. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? Welcome to the Rise and Run Podcast. Join our group of Run Disney Friends. As we talk about running at Walt Disney World and beyond. We'll discuss recent runs, training, upcoming races and surprise topics suggested by you, our listeners. Well, the alarm's gone off, so let's go.

Speaker 3: 0:39

Hello, hi, welcome to the Rise and Run Podcast. I'm really excited to be here, welcome.

Speaker 5: 0:47

Gosh, we got little kids doing intros now. No, we don't. That's our buddy, brittany, doing one of the intros. She left for us last time we talked with her. We appreciate it. Brittany, you're the best Friends. Welcome to episode 127 of the Rise and Run Podcast. I'm Bob and I'm here with a bunch of friends tonight. Let me introduce the regulars first. Tonight, greg's with us, hey, hey, hey. As is John. Hey, bob, how you doing. And Lexi, hello. Okay, we have three special guests who have been with us before, but we've invited them tonight to talk about the Princess Weekend. Welcome back to the podcast. Tara, hi there. Mark, hi, bob, and Kristen.

Speaker 6: 1:40

Hey y'all.

Speaker 5: 1:41

Now you probably know Kristen better as running and makeup. It's not her real name, okay.

Speaker 6: 1:46

No, not yet, at least.

Speaker 5: 1:50

She hasn't been, she hasn't ever courted yet to change it.

Speaker 6: 1:52

Yeah, it's not for another couple months.

Speaker 4: 1:56

Well, it's funny because when we're talking about, like the different Christians in our chat. Oh, golly yes.

Speaker 5: 2:03

We'll say Kristen running and makeup like it's your last name, you have to specify the Christians, the Michaels and, in a different, in a different regard, the Jennifer's.

Speaker 6: 2:15

Yes, yeah.

Speaker 5: 2:16

But it's fun. We're just blessed and fortunate and love the fact that we have so many friends. Same name, different name. It's great. It's wonderful Speaking of wonderful and great friends.

Speaker 5: 2:27

If you enjoy the Rise and Run podcast, we really would appreciate it if you'd share us, tell your friends about it, introduce them to the Rise and Run family, to the podcast, to our Zoom get togethers and to all those wonderful things that we enjoy doing together. We want to share in their journey, just as we share in yours. Please remember to follow us on Facebook at Rise and Run podcast and Instagram Rise and Run pod. Check out our YouTube channel and visit our website, riseandrunpodcastcom. If you've got a question, a comment, a race report or you want to introduce an upcoming episode and we can use some more introductions, give us a call. 727-266-2344 is the number and we'll do our best to play that on a future episode.

Speaker 5: 3:18

We also want to thank our Patreons who support us and help keep the Rise and Run podcast. Rising and running Patreons, you're the best. If you'd like to join the Patreon team, please check patreoncom. Let us take a quick look at the training schedule and see what is ahead. Well, we know, with Prince House behind us now that there's only one more race this season, definitely no.

Speaker 5: 3:56

I know, calm down, we'll be okay. Other things coming up will be alright. But springtime surprise. Now, seven weeks away we're in week 11 of that training calendar and on that schedule the one that our friend Mark, who's with us tonight, has been so kind to make for us, your long event for this weekend is four miles, one of which one of the four is a magic mile. Remember, magic miles is a more of a measuring tool than it is a training tool, but it's what you use to set your future paces for training events. Now, this season ends in April. Next season begins in California in September.

Speaker 5: 4:45

Disneyland Halloween, 27 weeks away. However, if you're registered and racing there, your proof of time is due tomorrow. Watch first is the cutoff for proof of time for the Disneyland Halloween race. So if you got one, do yourself a favor and get it in. Guys, let's talk training just a little bit before we get into Princess Weekend. An observation on my part. Let me know what you guys think. I find that if I train, particularly if I train for Dopey Weekend, getting back into the regular training schedule after that is tough, because I feel, hey, look, if I can do that. The rest of this stuff, I mean it's just a half marathon. It's just a half marathon, just a half marathon. That's 13 dagga miles. There's no such thing as just a half. Guys, how are you doing in your training between these big events now?

Speaker 8: 5:54

Well, for me, I feel like I'm on the downward slope, coming off of Dopey my first Dopey. But I agree with you. Like after you've done the full marathon. After you've done Dopey, it's not so hard to get ready for a half marathon, and I can't wait to do a 10-miler in the spring. It's spring time.

Speaker 6: 6:13

Yeah, I know it's only 10 miles. I didn't do Dopey this last month, I did it in 23. Looking forward to doing it again in 25, but I remember finishing it. And then I think I only did just a handful of shorter runs. Maybe one long run between Dopey and Princess last year and then, because of the perfect season I had to go from Princess to then spring time. I think I only did maybe seven, eight miles max once or twice between the two. You don't just want to stop, because then you'll lose more than you think you will.

Speaker 6: 6:57

It was finding. I'm sure if you've done Dopey you can attest to this, but I think after I got home from Dopey I was like I never want to look at another pair of running shoes, not for a while anyway. Ever again, like Burnham, all in the backyard, like ever again. And yet here we are, over a year later, and we're still running.

Speaker 2: 7:18

I was saying, though, obviously I didn't do Dopey, I didn't do Princess, but the one thing that I continue to surprise myself with, in terms of at least the Galloway style of running, is that I've been doing this for a long, long time, and the fact that even to this day, I can continue to learn things still shocks me to my core. I shared this this morning on the customized training call. After all these years, I finally took the advice of both Jeff and Barb and I started counting my steps on a run segment, outside of doing the typical cadence drills, and, as someone who is looking to really push the pace to get a POT for one and dining, get a POT for marathon weekend, I was trying to find a strategy in order to be able to help me achieve that, and I was like let me just give this a shot, and after doing it for two runs, I'm kicking myself as to why I haven't been doing this for years.

Speaker 2: 8:23

So, if you ever feel like that you're falling into a rut with your training, just try something a little different and you really really might surprise yourself.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Yeah, I was actually going to mention customized training too. I was going to throw out there that my training has kept me fairly busy for reasons that involve my coach throwing interesting challenges at me, which I think we will talk about later on in the episode.

Speaker 5: 8:49

Oh yes, sure, that's a highlight.

Speaker 1: 8:52

So we don't have to get into those details yet. But the other thing I was going to say this idea that because I did dopey as well, this was my second and after my first I was kind of in that same boat and I had my first DNF. Because you finish dopey and you think you can do anything, yeah, you do. And I went out and ran my first trail half about three weeks later and I did not finish my first trail half three weeks after dopey, nope, less and less, and I did keep running. But just because you do dopey and you do kind of feel like you're on top of the world when you finish, that doesn't mean you can do anything and stop you from trying.

Speaker 4: 9:29

But be prepared that sometimes you can't do the thing, and you know, I think there's another side of doing dopey and doing all of these race weekends that some other listeners might be going through, in terms of burnout, of getting done with dopey and then kind of switching your mindset like, oh, I have to do princess again and I have to do springtime because I've signed up for all these races. First of all, change the mindset till you get to, because we had a time where we didn't.

Speaker 4: 10:05

But also I think it's really important to acknowledge burnout for what it is and take some time kind of how I'm doing of like I didn't sign up for princess and I didn't sign up for springtime and I'm taking some time to not run and focus on different aspects of exercising. And like my boyfriend and I just started going on hikes on Sundays and we're adding like a quarter of a mile each week to see, kind of you know, have a challenge to ourselves and I think it's been really good for my mental health side of running, because now whenever I'm thinking about going for a run, I'm like I think that might actually be really fun to, you know, get out there and speed a little bit. On the flip side of that, with me personally, I'm still recovering from my sprained ankle from a few weeks ago. It's still on the mend.

Speaker 4: 11:03

Yeah, but I can't quite run with the impact of it, Like I'm not limping anymore, but the Well that's progress. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5: 11:10

That's good. Well, I know, like I did this princess weekend, did all three runs and went out this morning and my legs retired and I didn't want to. But I did what I tell people to do over and over just go out, give yourself 10 minutes, see how it goes. Didn't get a lot better, but but it's okay. It got good enough that I was able to finish it and knock it out.

Speaker 4: 11:35

I really love that 10 minute thing. Yeah, yeah, I didn't. Yeah, I'm not good.

Speaker 5: 11:39

You know, I wish I had, but I didn't. But I definitely use it and I advocate.

Speaker 5: 11:46

Yeah, I've got a, I got a 10K this weekend that I forgot about and it's a good one. But yeah, friends, if I guess the moral of our story is, if you've done a bunch of the Disney races already and you're finding yourself having a little trouble getting your tail out the door to do your training, you are not alone, we understand. But it's important. Look, you've worked so hard, don't give up on it now. And, of course, for our friends who are doing springtime as their first Disney race and I'm sure we'll have plenty, yeah, that training is money important. It's going to make for a great weekend for you. Do the training. That's the hard part. Celebrate on the weekend and we'll see you there.

Speaker 2: 12:35

Awesome discussion there about training there, friends, but you know, the one thing that we forgot to mention in the front of the episode is that the rising round podcast is sponsored by our good friends over at Magic Bound Travel. And let me tell you and actually, as Mark could probably attest you, he was probably really really busy today, along with Brad, Maggie and the rest of our friends at Magic Bound, as Disney pulled a shocker on everybody, oh yeah, and said, hey, surprise, Uh, 20, 25 packages are going to be available. You know, starting today, the day of recording, so you know, two days ago, which is uncharacteristically early for them. So I know our friends at Magic Bound were busy, you know, chatting with their clients, getting everyone set for, you know, the upcoming year. So if you are interested in a room for marathon weekend, princess or springtime surprise, reach out to our friends over at Magic Bound Travel at their website, magicboundtravelcom.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Now, the reason why I left wine and dine out of that conversation is that right now they are only accepting reservations up through Halloween, 2025. Just to reiterate some notes that we got from Brad and Maggie about packages for 2025 is a lot of the same perks that we've been accustomed to the last couple of years are still available. There will be the 30 minute early entry for all resort guests every single day at every park. There will be the extended evening hours on those select nights for the deluxe and deluxe villa guests. But one of the new perks that they're throwing out there and I find this to be incredibly intriguing is that on your check in day you can visit either Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon absolutely free of charge. No, I mean in theory, you're probably paying for it in your package. At least there's no additional cost.

Speaker 5: 14:41

No additional cost. Yeah, that's the way to say. You're right, man. How about that?

Speaker 2: 14:45

So it's nice to see Disney throwing the bone after years of goodbye magical express and goodbye resort package delivery and stuff like that. So really, really nice to see. But again, if you're interested in booking the vacation for any of those races, make sure you reach out to Magic Bound because, as we learned when we did our budgeting episode a couple of months ago, you want to add quickly, regardless if you get in for the race or not, because that's where you're going to get the absolute best price. But I think, in celebration of this really surprising news from the Walt Disney Travel Company I know we talked about this probably almost two years ago, if not longer, but we would just want to have a real quick discussion before we get into our Princess Recap and we'll go around the room here. And, john, I'll start with you. If you had to pick, what is your favorite or what do you think the best resort to stay at is during a run Disney vacation?

Speaker 3: 15:49

That's a really good question. I, of course, I'm DVC and I've been staying at Saratoga for the last three or four years at the events. So it's close enough to the park where the bus goes there. You're there within five 10 minutes. So I think that's my favorite. Right now. I would like to stay on the boardwalk, but my home resort's Saratoga, so it'll be easier for my wife to get out there and cheer. And when we run past and does have to Uber over to the resort to cheer.

Speaker 2: 16:27

But now, John, you really like staying at Saratoga when you're deadbolt works in your door.

Speaker 3: 16:33

Oh my God, that was a fun week. That was a fun night.

Speaker 2: 16:39

I needed something to listen to during my 10-miler this past weekend and I decided to throw on that old recap episode just to get me through and reliving that story. I would have been an absolute mess.

Speaker 5: 16:51

We have friends who don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3: 16:54

Okay, so I forget it was marathon weekend. I think it was marathon weekend. My wife has this thing she has to deadbolt the door. The minute we get in the room she deadbolts the thing, she goes. I got to go out Now the door won't, the deadbolt won't unlock, it's somehow jammed together and I'm like, oh God, what am I going to do? Looking at the bedsheets, oh, I can just. What do you call shimmy down the balcony, you know, jailbreak, you know jailbreak.

Speaker 3: 17:22

You know I'm like then. So we call up, you know, security, housekeeping, they get security. You know they got to do a whole investigation that I'm not like holding hostages in the room or anything like that. So then then I'm sitting there banging on the door. I finally get it open and when I look outside there's the ready Creek Fire Department coming up to my door to see what's going on because they couldn't get me in. I'm like, just get the guy next to me and open the adjoining room. Yeah, but I go, okay, I will just leave the door unlocked tonight. No, we can't leave it unlocked. What if someone breaks in? You got that little bar, that's fine. So then then maintenance is they're filing down the lock so that it fits right into the door. So that morning I got up a little earlier, a little earlier, just to make sure I can get out, and so I thought about all night was that door being locked? And I'm banging on the doors trying to get out for my bus trip, yeah right, absolutely Wow.

Speaker 2: 18:29

But yeah, that is such a great story. We'll move over to the ladies. Tara, what would be your favorite resort?

Speaker 8: 18:37

Well, primarily I've stayed at Pop Century. I love that resort. I think it's a great one for runners. I spend hardly any time in my room during a race weekend other than just, you know, sleep from you know, as soon as I can get to bed, until two o'clock in the morning. So I think it's a great, great place to stay. It's always great to be on the skyliner. It gets you where you need to go pretty quickly and they also have great transportation support there. Myra's there every morning cheering everybody on and they welcome you back to the resort afterwards. This year or this past weekend, they had well, actually the last two weekends at least, they've had a red carpet out for everybody as they get off the bus. At the end of the race they give out. They had water. They had celebration pins for each of the distances. Each day this weekend they really, just, you know, throw a little party for everybody getting off the bus. So I think it's a very welcoming resort and a great place to stay.

Speaker 2: 19:34

Now, lexi, when I said one resort, your eyes bugged out of your head. So I have a feeling you have more than one. What are your multiple choices?

Speaker 4: 19:43

Okay. So, like I really had to think about this, I am on the train that Tara is on. I really love having the skyliner. I think I'm going to go with Caribbean Beach as my favorite. I also really love that they have multiple bus stops so you can kind of plan based on like which one the bus gets to first. You kind of have multiple options, or if you don't want to walk very far, like you have one right close to where your room is usually, and I find that really convenient If I had to go solely with comfort because I mean, I am spending a lot of time in there as I'm sleeping. My favorite resort of all time is the Riviera, but I've never stayed there on a race weekend, so I don't know if it counts.

Speaker 2: 20:36

It counts. Yeah, true.

Speaker 4: 20:38

I just, I love, I love everything about the Riviera the ambiance, the colors, the landscaping, the architecture. I just adore it. And then pop century is just, you know, if you want a cheaper option, and it's really good, a good place to stay with friends too, because, I don't know, I feel like it's roomy enough to have multiple people Excellent.

Speaker 2: 21:05

Now, I originally said one or two and then all of a sudden, I know you all can't see the video, but Kristen holds up a notepad that's filled. So now, Kristen, I'll remind you I have to edit this episode at a reasonable hour tomorrow, so let's hear your list.

Speaker 6: 21:26

My list is as follows yeah, go for it. Pop century Surprisingly the one that I stayed at. Well, that I just got home from about an hour and a half ago. The new family suites in all star music. Oh walked in and I said this has no business being this nice at an all stars.

Speaker 5: 21:51

So okay.

Speaker 6: 21:52

So keep that on your radar, for sure.

Speaker 2: 21:54

Yeah, and I've heard that those rooms are actually cheaper than if you get the suite over at animation. Yep.

Speaker 6: 22:00

And there, and some of them are larger. Wow, that's crazy.

Speaker 5: 22:05

Good to know.

Speaker 6: 22:06

Keep that on. They were. It was like it was so good Again had no business being that nice at an all stars, porter Lane's French Quarter Caribbean Beach if you stay in Jamaica or Aruba. Jamaica is building 41, aruba is 56 or 55. Jamaica because you're the first bus stop as the race buses come in, so you'll be the first ones to load on. It's also the closest to the Joffrey stand at the Skyliner station.

Speaker 2: 22:38

I was going to make that joke, but I figured you would be mentioning it at some point.

Speaker 6: 22:42

See, that's why we're friends, because you know, me.

Speaker 6: 22:46

And then Aruba is closest to the Skyliner station at the Riviera. So if Skyliner is important to you, that's great. Coronado Springs, if you stay in the tower or in that first building, like if you're looking at the tower, the first building to the right which is either 8B or 8C, that's a great one. Grand Floridian is great. And then the one that I will never stay at again for a race weekend is Animal Kingdom Lodge. Oh really yeah, but just yeah. It just it wasn't it, it just it wasn't it.

Speaker 6: 23:20

The bus. Transportation was not that great. The room size for the price you could get a bigger room at a different resort for cheaper. We just felt like you were paying for the name. I guess like, oh, I'm staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge, but I mean, if you've got, if you've got DVC to do it, great. But if you're forking out that kind of money, maybe save that for not a race weekend, when you're only in it to really sleep and shower during normal you know normal times.

Speaker 2: 23:52

All right, we'll move over to Magic Bound Travel's newest travel agent, Mark. What are your picks here?

Speaker 1: 23:58

Well, I feel like I'm going to almost have to start repeating at this point, because we've covered a fair number of them, but I will throw out, like John, also MDVC, and I Love Wilderness Lodge. I'm not sure I'd call it the best resort for a race weekend, for reasons we may talk about when we start recapping the race weekend, but I still love the ambiance there, I still love the aesthetic. I am an overgrown child and I it feels like going camping to me it's a pretty place.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Yeah, yeah, I'd always love it for that. I was going to say for race weekends, porter Leans, french Quarter is fantastic. It's small. Benye's are a heck of a treat when you get back from running.

Speaker 1: 24:41

I will also throw out Old Key West. They also do an awful lot as far as celebration when you get back as a runner. I was there a couple of years ago for my first dopey, actually and felt almost like a celebrity when I got back from my first half marathon. They're like here we have, we have panels, we have pictures. You did a great job and I got back late because we were switching resorts that day and they still had all the party stuff out. It was fantastic, nice.

Speaker 5: 25:10

Robert, how about you? French Quarter and I'm dropping the mic right there. I really like it. We've been the last two Race weekends. A lot of the reasons have been said already. I love the small feel. Now, unfortunately, the pool is under construction there, so it was closed. I don't know that. I would have gone in the pool this weekend. Being Florida boy was kind of cool. I would have gone in the hot tub, though, and it wasn't open either. Yeah, the vignettes are great. The food court there is just mediocre, but you can easily walk over to. Is it boat rights over at Riviera, not Riviera Riverside? Riverside and boat rights is a very nice restaurant, underrated, I think.

Speaker 5: 25:57

When you're taking the bus to the race, the Port Orleans buses start at French Quarter. They may go through Riverside Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't but when you come back they stop at French Quarter first. There's always a little reception for you there. Now I'm eligible for Shades of Green, and Shades of Green is a nice hotel. It really is. The Department of Defense has three pricing structures on that, though. If you're a junior enlisted soldier or paying in the first tier boy, that's hard to beat. Shades of Green is really hard to beat. It's a beautiful hotel. I'm paying in the third level, though, so I'm paying about the same. I would pay for a moderate. In fact, I probably paid a little bit less at French Quarter this weekend, and I just really like it a whole lot. So that's it for me.

Speaker 2: 26:54

Yeah, and I will also throw French Quarter on my list as well, too. Now, for one reason I'll mention that none of you actually brought up is that I am a big fan of Disney Springs, and I love the fact that you can grab a boat down there and you don't have to worry about the bus and it's a nice little scenic route and everything like that.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Now I'm excited because it's been many, many years. But for springtime surprise I'll be over at Riverside. So I'll be interested to see if my rankings change at all after that race weekend. But the last one that I'll throw in before we officially leave this conversation is this past year I really enjoyed staying at the Polly in terms of at least marathon weekend.

Speaker 2: 27:42

Now, I wasn't running a race, so I didn't get to use the monorail or anything like that, but what I appreciated was the fact that I was able to cheer all of you on during the marathon. I was able to sleep in until like 5.15 and then I literally had like a three-minute walk over to the TTC and got a great spot. So it's really wonderful that you're so close to other resorts and if you are going to go on the cheering route, you have lots of options, especially there with the monorail as well too. So big vote for French Quarter and the Polynesian, but awesome, that was a great little combo. If you're looking for a new resort to try for a race weekend, give these a shot and again, contact our friends over at Magic Bound.

Speaker 5: 28:29

Travel. That's right. When you hit up our MBT friends, tell them what. In fact I did it already. I sent Missy a note. Thank her for the room. I always give credit to Missy when I get a good room. I realize she has. No, she has no say on what room I get, but I don't care. I give her credit anyway. I got a great room at French Quarter and told her to set me up for the fall for wine and dine and tell them we sent you. That's right, absolutely All right, friends.

Speaker 5: 28:58

Let's move on to the reason we're here this week, episode 127, and the reason we have our guests with us. Let's talk about race weekend. Just completed the princess race weekend. I'm going to kick it off and then kind of hide in the background here, if I can, because I'm excited to hear what Tara, mark and Kristen have to say. Of course, you know I can't stay completely quiet. I never can, but that's all right. Let me kick it off right here. We're going to talk Thursday expo 5k 10k half. Friends, it was a glorious weekend. The weather was spectacular. Now some may say it was a little chilly in the beginning, especially when you're just standing around the carousel. But man, what a great weekend we had, what a great feel to the entire weekend. But let's do it like we normally do. I don't want to monopolize this here. Let's talk. Let's start with Thursday expo day. And when you got there, how did things go at the expo? And I would like to start with Tara, please.

Speaker 8: 30:07

So expo is very easy for me. I'm, luckily, a platinum run Disney member and so I showed up really early. I went with my friend, josh, who were were a platinum run Disney buddies. We go to the expo each race weekend together and line up. We were able to. They gave us a choice this time, whether we wanted to go upstairs and get our bag with our bibs and our shirts or if we wanted to go right into the area for the Martian dice. So Josh and I chose to go upstairs and get our bibs and our things and then they had.

Speaker 8: 30:46

It was different than that. They had the area curtain off where you'd usually go down the steps. So I went and just asked the person like should we have to go back outside and get in line again to go into merchandise or do we just go downstairs? I said no, you can just go downstairs and look, the curtains are down, is that okay? And they're like yep. So we went down there and there was a little area to the side like a small group of us who had gotten our bibs were like sort of stand there because the line was extending obviously like much further out. It was all platinum run Disney members but we just sort of stayed aside and didn't seem to bother anybody and so we just sort of you know. Then they let us in, you know, to the merchandise rated 830. So it's pretty easy for me in terms of getting into the expo because of being, you know, in the first group of, you know, maybe the first 50 people or so to get in there.

Speaker 5: 31:34

Christian, how about you had the expo day go for you?

Speaker 6: 31:37

Oh, expo day is very long for me. It always has been, but I also got an early because of platinum club run Disney thank you, run Disney for that and I it's interesting because I also film for my, for my YouTube channel. So I've got multiple goals throughout the expo. One is to get the stuff that I want. One is to film everything. One is to meet people, you know, so it's it's. There's a lot of things to be done on an expo day, but I loved the merchandise this year. I thought it was such a nice change from the normal, like pastels of, you know, of princesses of the past. I thought the colors were great. The merchandise merchandise itself was really great. Actually got to meet some of the designers from who got to who designed a lot of the stuff for for the weekend and got to talk to them for a little bit. So that was really cool. Got to see a lot of y'all. It was. It was. It was fun, it was just. The expo is always fun for me, so I.

Speaker 6: 32:52

I was. I stayed in the, the main merchandise section, for I think I ended up being in there for close to four, four and a half hours oh, wow.

Speaker 6: 33:00

I mean filming and shopping and and all of that. So I got to see it steadily increase in the number of people in there and, having done so many expos in the past, the one thing that I loved that they changed is how they took the characters out of the official merchandise section and placed them over in the big pickup area and in doing that they widened the space where all of the merchandise was, so it didn't feel as crowded. It could have been just as crowded, but it didn't feel that way because we weren't just kind of like shoved in the center and made to stand, you know, shoulder to shoulder. So I liked how they changed that. I felt like it kind of opened up everything. But yeah, other than that, I mean it was just your typical, your typical expo day-long event. So but I enjoyed it. I always love expo day. It's one of my favorite days are fun.

Speaker 5: 34:00

They're. They're little little mini reunion mark how about you?

Speaker 1: 34:07

expo day was a blur for me. I got in early after nowhere near enough sleep the night before and then flew in first thing, and I actually had to work a little bit of the expo. Oh, yes, because that is part of the deal with the thing that we haven't formally announced well, it's hard of this episode, a lot of folks are.

Speaker 5: 34:27

We're talking about Martin. Yeah, tell them the.

Speaker 1: 34:30

We'll get into more of that story, I'm sure, when we get further along in the weekend. But I was pacing for the right time officially this weekend with the Jeff Galloway right and part of the deal when you are officially pacing is that you help out working the booth. As many of you know, if you go by the booth you can often meet a pacer or, if you get really lucky, the pacer that you want to run with. And that's why is because at various points through the weekend all of the Pacers take shifts at the booth just answering questions, helping out. So I had that to do. I had my bib to pick up.

Speaker 1: 35:06

I did swing through the merch area. I recognize that the merch is very well designed, like I like the style of the design, but also it's not really my aesthetic, which my wallet appreciated. Yeah, that I really didn't feel like I needed. I didn't have a deep sense of anything I really wanted to buy, but I liked the designs, just not as something I wanted to wear. I got you go back to my my thing that I really wish they do, like posters or something non wearable that we could have, besides the pins that are obviously always gone within the first hour these days, the met. You know the, the metal replicas, so I swung through there and then had a meet-up with give kids the world who I was.

Speaker 1: 35:54

I fund raised for they, yeah, they have a new coordinator and he is he's really gung-ho about kind of turning in for more than just a fundraiser into, you know, a community and a club, which I very much appreciate. We all know the value of community. So we had a yeah by the globe and then, a little bit of trivia, took a picture together. I went and did my shift at the expo, which was fun. It was really neat getting to meet people, getting to talk to people about their goals running, and after that I was supposed to have a dinner that evening at give kids the world. They do a dinner for the fundraisers and, truth be told, I got back to my room and passed out because I was exhausted and I didn't understand that but no, I it's first time I've been there that early.

Speaker 1: 36:45

The line moved at a good clip for as crowded as it was and even though it was winding all the way out of the building when I got there, it never. The line never really stopped moving, which was nice. Standing out in a stalled line, especially in the Florida Sun, is not my favorite experience, so, and it was just good getting to meet people. I mean, it was good seeing everything about this weekend. You know the best part of it was the community was getting to see friends, getting to make new friends, whether that be wandering around the expo or at the pacer table.

Speaker 3: 37:15

I got a quick question for you guys about the merchandise. Was there a lot of stuff available? I mean for I know maybe for tower and Kristen there might be more stuff available because you guys are going in early, but for Mark, was there stuff available for you?

Speaker 1: 37:29

there it seemed like again the difficulty was. I looked at and it went. None of this is really stuff that I'm I'm interested in. I got in there noon-ish, maybe a little after, and it seemed like most of the merch was there, aside the metal pins. But I've kind of come to the conclusion that the metal pins are just about the quickest thing to sell out every week anymore.

Speaker 6: 37:54

I actually went back to the expo because I had to second shoot some stuff for my expo video. I went back and shut it down on Saturday was actually like escorted off the property because we were some of the lot of people there yeah, and in the official merchandise there was still 5k stuff, 10k stuff, half stuff, challenge like there was still.

Speaker 6: 38:20

There was still stuff to pick from. It wasn't necessarily all picked over, granted, there was some limited sizes and some and some things, but there was still. I was shocked at how much stuff there was at closing time on Saturday. I mean that was the last day, but they closed at 3 o'clock. So again, if you've got your eye on something other than the metal replica pins because those were nowhere to be found, don't don't be completely disheartened that it won't be there when you get there. There were still jackets and tank tops and the what the weekend leggings and the Tervis tumblers. There was still some lug bags there on Saturday.

Speaker 2: 39:00

So my question is probably geared more towards Bob and Mark. I mean, obviously Princess is skewed very heavily towards, you know, the the female running audience and usually we've come accustomed to the expos where you know you have your unisex cuts and then your specific you know female cuts of clothing. What is like the ratio when it comes to Princess, you know, is it more you know, female cut dominated or is it just like any other? You know race expo?

Speaker 5: 39:35

well I? I don't know the answer to the question, but I know that the ratio of runners at Princess weekend typically is four to one, women to men. About 80% of the runners on Princess weekend are women and I would tell you candidly that for the first couple years I kind of shied away for that reason, but I'll also tell you that I think it's terrific. I enjoy the weekend very much in terms of merchandise. The only thing I wanted to add we get there late. As you know. I'm thinking of starting another podcast. I hate interstate for the podcast.

Speaker 6: 40:13

I don't even live in Florida. Can I join that?

Speaker 5: 40:16

yes, yes, you can be the co-host okay it's.

Speaker 5: 40:21

It's terrible, but that's from my other podcast, so. But Becky and I travel over. We leave here around nine in the morning because we want to avoid Tampa rush hour traffic and we typically get there on a good day before 11. On a bad day after noon, that's when I get into the virtual queue. I usually get to the Disney merch around three in the afternoon and I'm fine with that because, just as Kristen said, I have a great time at the expo at the vendor expo, as I call it and meeting and greeting with friends. It's terrific.

Speaker 5: 41:01

By the time we got there, things seemed to be great. Becky wanted a Princess weekend jacket. They had it. They had it in her size, so she's good to go. My one comment I want to make is that through the last few runs, the generic run Disney merchandise is getting better, I think. Yeah, I've purchased something each of the last couple races that I really didn't think I was going to, but they had some less. I got a generic run Disney singlet for training or for races coming up, so I enjoyed that.

Speaker 1: 41:35

I mean, I'd say, as far as merch in, in the main, disney merch there was some unisex merch yeah, we're unisex shirts but it definitely leaned very heavily towards the female cuts and I expected that. Well, yeah, I mean clearly, with the audience and, yeah, number numbers, you'd expect that it was similar. I would say I in the in the vendor area, most of the vendors selling clothes were, if not exclusively, female cuts, certainly dominated that way.

Speaker 5: 42:08

But again, that's what you would expect, that's what's gonna sell in that we do this weekend and by golly, there ain't nothing wrong with that. No, it's good. It was a great weekend. It was good. So our expo day, glorious weather, great day, right then rain that night. I'm trying to remember I think it did. Mm-hmm, it did. Yeah, I did. We're in, we're in the hotel, we hear the fireworks going off. Becky says let's see if we can see the fireworks. We open the door. It's pouring, but that was it. That was the only rain we saw all weekend. So we got up early Friday morning for the 5k. I thought it was a lot of fun. I think we all ran the 5k right?

Speaker 1: 42:58

yes, I think so yeah.

Speaker 5: 43:00

I think so, mark, what? What stands out for you about the 5k?

Speaker 1: 43:06

well, one was the return of the transportation issues that seemed to kind of come and go. Really. I was a wilderness lodge and we saw two buses that were driven by Academy go by the wrong bus, stop, turn and leave while we were out there waiting, ended up catching a lift with somebody else who got a big car and had room for people. Yeah it, it wasn't great. I did finally see the other people from from wilderness large. They said it took another 45 minutes. So the first bus didn't hit the lodge until something like 330 and then went by the contemporary because that was the way the route was going.

Speaker 1: 43:47

It went for wilderness, wilderness lodge, the contemporary, which is a lot of stops to be made this morning yeah, it is, as much as I love the lot, I do not love that travel period, that travel arrangement. As far as the race itself, though no, it was, it was lovely weather I continue to have a thing where run Disney doesn't want me to be in anything but the last corral for the 5k. And that was only a bummer, particularly because everyone else in the rise and run group wasn't no everyone else was an A, b or C that's true, which meant I kind of that's not true.

Speaker 1: 44:23

I did finally find somebody else from our community there, but it's a bummer not to be able to run with the people that you want to run with and I don't begrudge anybody in a higher corral starting there, because go have fun.

Speaker 1: 44:37

The 5k is, you know, a walk and the chance to hang out. Go have fun while you have the time. It also did lead. I think this was apparent in the 5k more than others. I had more difficulty. I wasn't running fast, obviously, I was trying to save my legs for later in the weekend, but I ran not physically. I avoided running into people who just kind of stopped dead in the middle of the course to take a picture. Yeah, far more I felt like than in any other run Disney event I've ever yes, yes, yes, yes, I don't want to make that sound negative, but it just felt like there was a lot more of.

Speaker 1: 45:17

I want to take my picture and I'm taking it right here, right now, without a lot of consideration that people were moving around them yeah, it was.

Speaker 5: 45:25

It was crowded. It was most definitely that. 5k was seemed to me about as crowded as I can recall and Becky and I in the corral lottery we left out of a there. That makes no sense at all but we did and still it was very, very crowded yeah, it was.

Speaker 1: 45:44

It was very congested by the time we got through. The picture lines were about what you'd expect for the 5k, especially late on oh my goodness, even through a.

Speaker 5: 45:52

They were really long, my goodness, crazy long. We didn't get in any of them. I even passed by the goofy photo.

Speaker 1: 46:00

That's how long the lines were yeah, I wondered how it was when you went by. I figured you might try for that one.

Speaker 8: 46:06

I thought about it, but we didn't do it the lines were really long during the 5k but I what I really liked and I don't usually stop very much anyway, but I really like that of all the stops on the 5k route, they had very large groups of characters. It wasn't just a single character, you know, given that the course is so short, you only have 3.1 miles and it's only so many character stops, but they had large groups. So it was, you know, cinderella and Prince Charming and one of the mice, and then there was, you know, a whole group with Aurora and the Prince and the three fairies or whatever. So it was really nice to see that they really the stops that they had. You know, it seemed like if you did wait in that line for 40 minutes or whatever, it would take you. I don't know how long it really took, but you would get a very cool picture out of that group.

Speaker 5: 47:02

I think they did well with the photos also, even though, as I said, I didn't stop for any of them. But there certainly were plenty of opportunities and that was great. I'm gonna ask everybody but Kristen, as our resident council of costumes person here, what did you wear for the 5k?

Speaker 6: 47:17

I was the crazed chef, louis from, and that was never thought.

Speaker 6: 47:27

I said in my event guide video on my channel you know it's like you know I've, when I, when I picture what it would be like to to be standing next to Walt Disney, you know, getting my picture made I never thought it would be dressed as chef Louis with a mustache. So when that ended up being one of the photo stops I told the group was of those, like y'all, I'm sorry, I have to, like I have to, I'm sorry. So that was. That was really cool, but we, like, like Mark said, we were all kind of separated out in different corrals and because it's not a time to race, we just chose to fall back and start with the latest one, which was in D. In fact, I think we nearly dead last started D because we got too busy talking, you know it happens me talking what?

Speaker 6: 48:16

no, no, but it was a lot of fun. We got to see all the care, you know, all the we didn't stop for all the characters, but we at least got to see them. But it was. It was great and there was. There was one thing that I this was a first, I had never seen this, on course, and it also one of my friends that I was with, who, mark, has dreams to be a Galloway Pacer one day. He actually ran with Twigs for the for the half the whole time, but anyway, he, he and I were together because I was doing an on-the-course show pony prance lesson.

Speaker 6: 48:54

And so we're going through this photo stop thing and these people dart in front of us and then just come to a dead stop, which we all know is not okay.

Speaker 5: 49:05

Not cool but then.

Speaker 6: 49:06

But then they get out their photo linking cards and try to hand it to the photographer to like link the pictures.

Speaker 5: 49:14

Oh geez.

Speaker 6: 49:15

Like he would do in the parks.

Speaker 5: 49:17

And.

Speaker 6: 49:17

I was like oh no, no, no, no, no, and their bibs were on their back. So it and I, just in all my years of, on all my six years of run Disney, I had I'd never seen that before. So, like, like we said, finding finding a positive on that. It brings up something that I will now be adding to my event guides is you don't have to, you don't have to show your card and please don't stop. You know, but but you know other than those little, those little things, that is. I mean, if you don't know, you don't know, so you know you can't really fault people for that.

Speaker 5: 49:55

that much but okay that I the PhotoPass link up. I agree with stopping in the middle of a race. You should know better.

Speaker 6: 50:04

You should know. You should know, I agree. I agree, that's what I was referring to, like trying to link your photos, Like if you don't know, you don't know but you should know and also just common courtesy, don't jut across the course and then just come to come to a dead stop. So but, but I loved, I loved the course. I thought it was great, even though it's the same one we've run 4,700 times.

Speaker 6: 50:24

Yeah, we're getting there, but but it's it really? It's. It's who you're with. That's what makes it so every time you're running that course, if you're a different people, it's going to be a different experience.

Speaker 1: 50:36

So yeah, I think that was. One of the takeaways for me is I think there were a lot of people who were. I think there were a lot of new people.

Speaker 1: 50:44

A lot of first time on Disney people there this weekend, more so than is typical, and I think it's it's good for all of us to remember that and make an effort, as experienced run Disney folks, to make sure that these new, these new runners are getting a chance to learn some of these things Like please don't, you don't need your photo cards, you should wear your bib up front. The picture will catch you that way and you don't have to do anything else. Run to the right, walk to the left. You don't need all the advice first. So you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 6: 51:14

Historically, princess is, I think, percentage wise, the one that has the most new yeah percentage wise, you're probably right. I mean, it was mine yeah.

Speaker 5: 51:26

Yeah, Just gross total numbers, just because marathon weekend so big. But I think percentage wise I think you're probably right. Yeah, Thoughts on the 5k. Real quick. One of the things I walk it with my wife Rebecca she retired last season but not really and was this the swan song or a springtime, the swan springtime, springtime. Yeah, Unless John, unless Diane signs up for a 5k, in which case Becky will do that one.

Speaker 3: 51:53

I think maybe marathon weekend she might be coming out of retirement again.

Speaker 5: 51:57

She'd do that for sure. So one of I mean, I love walking with my wife. I love the fact that she enjoys to run Disney and is part of the family. That's fantastic. But one of the things that makes it real easy is I really don't have to worry too much about being too cold or too hot because we're just strolling along. So I had a formal Prince Eric outfit and I had hair.

Speaker 1: 52:23

It was fantastic.

Speaker 5: 52:25

I had hair. I had hair like I had about 40 years ago. That was fun. That was fun. I appreciated that. But on a cool morning that was a great costume to have, so I enjoyed that. The 5k's are fun. Kristin, you're right. We're running the same route over and over again. I don't see that changing. It's just too easy to run Disney. It's too easy.

Speaker 5: 52:51

Otherwise, yeah, they have to set up and tear down a start line and a finish line, and this way it works for them. It's efficient, and while I'd like to see a little more variety, I understand that. Reverse it one year yeah. Go backwards, yeah.

Speaker 6: 53:07

I wouldn't mind that.

Speaker 5: 53:08

By the way, the choir was a choir used to be only at the end of the long races. Now the choirs are there at the end of baby race and they were, as always, awesome. Saturday, saturday Saturday, another cool day, 10k day, thoughts or anything in particular. Recollections of 10k Tara we ran together while we walked together on the 10k. No, we had our own brand of when we would walk and when we would run, tara, didn't we?

Speaker 8: 53:43

Yeah, we did the one run walk prance. We were doing your show, pony Kristin, we would.

Speaker 6: 53:52

I'm glad it's catching.

Speaker 5: 53:55

Yep, they suckered me into it too.

Speaker 8: 53:59

It's fine, Bob we talked Bob and I sent him a picture of him just doing the little show pony himself. So it's very cute.

Speaker 5: 54:06

Tara and Rachel and Heidi was with us and they talked me into doing the little prance, so I did as we went by the photo shop.

Speaker 6: 54:19

And I'm sure it was fabulous. Did it turn out? Just amazing, it was fabulous.

Speaker 5: 54:23

Especially when Tara isolated me in the photo and I'm the only one I was still wearing my gloves. I had the white gloves from the Prince Eric outfit and I ended up wearing them the rest of the weekend, at least at the start of the race, because it was chilly and they were comfortable. So I think I probably had my white gloves on. I did, kristin, I did. You're sorry, you should have seen it. I looked fabulous.

Speaker 6: 54:52

I'm sad. I missed it.

Speaker 5: 54:53

That's my story.

Speaker 3: 54:54

I'm sticking to it.

Speaker 6: 54:55

I got pictures, Okay good, send them my way. I'll add you to the showpony Hall of Fame.

Speaker 5: 55:05

Oh, other thoughts on the 10K Mark. Anything stand out for you on the 10K?

Speaker 1: 55:10

The thing I remember at the 10K is I was wearing a bit of an off kilter costume. I have been accused of picking obscure characters.

Speaker 2: 55:20

I was going to say that's what you're known for, Mark.

Speaker 1: 55:22

I know it's true and I'm fine with that Known for being unknown Known for having weird tastes, at the very least, and so I was dressed as a character and this was on theme. My 5K costume was in no way on theme. I dressed as Robin Hood for the Little Mermaid, so not on the theme in any way, this was on theme. I was dressed as a character from the Tangled TV series, which many people do not even know exists.

Speaker 6: 55:50

Oh, it's fantastic, I did it.

Speaker 1: 55:52

It's actually really good.

Speaker 6: 55:53

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:55

I will say just as a point of where on earth this came from. I didn't know about it either. One of the songs that is on my I need an energy boost to get through a hard part of the race playlist that I have is a song from that series called Ready Is All Ever Be sung by this character His name is Varian, performed by Jeremy Jordan, who is just amazing. So that's where this all came from. And the fun thing about that was, well, 95% of the people who are out running that 10K had no idea who I was. The 5% that did got really excited when they realized who I was. Especially, one of the cast members at the end of the race was just about dying when she realized who I was dressed up as. So that was a lot of fun. It was very bell curve. It was either nothing or just a full 10 out of 10 excitement about the character.

Speaker 5: 56:55

Very good Course. 10k man.

Speaker 1: 56:59

The same one. Yeah, not anything really new there.

Speaker 5: 57:03

No, to be honest, I don't even recall much of the course, but that's okay. Had fun, Weather was good, enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: 57:16

The company made that. That's it Really and truly. That company made the race.

Speaker 6: 57:23

I um that 10K course is not my favorite.

Speaker 5: 57:29

No.

Speaker 6: 57:30

It's um again, it's who you're with. So I was with um, my friend low and um, our friend Fred King, charming Fred Um, and we were approaching Hollywood studios. Um, he knew one of the? Um, I think more the citizens of Hollywood, but I know that's not their her official title, Um, but the ladies that were on the side of the road, um, like next to where there was like cornhole and all of that stuff. Um, she Jodi, who happens to be John Palke's wife. Um, if you didn't know that, there you go. Um, he had run up to talk to her and so low and I had stayed back and just in that, I mean that kind of massive people coming right across the five, came out. We got separated, so we called and he was like, oh, I'll wait for it, I'll wait for you right inside studios. Great, we'll be there in just a second. So we get in there.

Speaker 6: 58:29

And I had made the mistake of you know nothing new on race day. Well, I drank a protein drink that I had not ever had before and it was not sitting. Well, so we get to, we went into Hollywood studios and we get in there. It's the evil queen who come to find out she was switching with um Maleficent, but when we got in there it was evil queen. The line was just so, so long.

Speaker 6: 58:55

So I said I'm going to go on and go into the first real bathroom I can find, which is right there at uh, lightning McQueen's racing academy. And they said, okay, we're going to wait in this line and then by the time hopefully by the time you're done in there, because we knew the line was going to be long for the bathroom too, which that's another issue is, you've got a race of predominantly women and not a whole lot of available anyway. So so they, um, the line is long. So I'm, I'm in the restroom and um low texts me and says we're waiting for you by by the tower bathrooms. I said, great Cause, as you know, there's another set of bathrooms right by the tower of terror, and she's she said tower bathrooms, but she meant the ones that I was in, and so I'm trying to hurry and I, like I'm sure a lot of other runners do always carry those like wet wipes, like those, those potty wipes, for lack of a better term.

Speaker 4: 59:55

Okay.

Speaker 6: 59:56

Um, just because you never know when you're going to, you know get your hands sticky from your nutrition, like I did on on the half marathon day, anyway. So I'm like, okay, I'll save time, I'll, I won't repack my pack like in the bathroom, I'll do it as I'm making my way to them. Well, lo and behold, I come out and there's that first photo pass photographer there. So that first photo pass picture there, coming underneath the rock and roll poster sign, is me holding a pack of potty wipes.

Speaker 6: 1:00:28

And I'm just like okay, here we go. Um so that was that was that was interesting. But um, and then once we got up to the boardwalk you know the evil, not the evil uh, the, the step sisters were there and, uh, lady Tremaine, and we were there right at seven. We got in line a little bit before seven and it was really funny to see everybody in that line getting out their phones to get on their virtual queue. And then right at seven you heard a lot of yay.

Speaker 5: 1:00:57

And then a lot of aw, yeah, same thing on Sunday, yep.

Speaker 6: 1:01:02

Yeah, but I've I always loved running the boardwalk. Um, I think it's really cool. There were a lot of people kind of hanging over their balconies waving at us.

Speaker 5: 1:01:11

There were some, this time through their rooms.

Speaker 6: 1:01:14

Um, so that was really neat. So, um, there weren't as many characters on the boardwalk as there had been previously, and I know that's because of the construction down at that where that cake shop is going to be, because that's usually where one of them is. So, um, the boardwalk was a little bit lack, little bit lackluster for us this time, but it was still. Um, we got a good, I got a really good show. Pony shot on the boardwalk, we're both feeder off the ground I'm levitating. It was great.

Speaker 5: 1:01:42

Oh, very good, it was good. It was really cool. What were you wearing for this one, kristen?

Speaker 6: 1:01:46

We were part of the princess baseball team and, um, we all had a different princess. And then the numbers on our back were actually the the year that that that movie released. So a little bit of a deep cut.

Speaker 5: 1:02:00

I missed that one too, dag nabbit. Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:02:04

So really the the quote unquote only controversy that I saw coming out of this entire weekend was that apparently there was a mishap with the 10k medals that got misplaced. Um, did that affect anyone here tonight or do we know what happened by any chance?

Speaker 6: 1:02:25

So apparently I. I didn't affect me, but I found out what happened and I and I know from experience from doing medals, steering one and dine those um medals come in on giant like flats, like crates. Um pallets that's the word I'm looking for, I'm tired y'all, it's okay, um anyway, and they're all there's, box upon box upon box. And so what ended up happening was one of those pallets was not removed from the truck, um, and then that truck got moved to a different spot. So when they went to look for it um in a different truck, lo and behold, they weren't there. Um, they were eventually found and then brought over to the runner relations tent. So everyone, to my knowledge, got their medals, but some people had to wait in a very long line at the runner relation tent um post race in order to get it.

Speaker 5: 1:03:17

So that's what happened. They had enough.

Speaker 6: 1:03:20

They just got misplaced.

Speaker 5: 1:03:21

Yeah, they were taking. They were taking addresses, names and addresses down. Um, writing them down, that would have taken forever and that I didn't understand. Why don't you just take a picture of the bib? That number has all the information. But yeah, I heard the same thing and, chris, and, like you said, uh, through our socials also, I didn't see anyone who left without a medal, but it was later on because I didn't have a problem with it. Uh, tara and Mark, I don't think they did either.

Speaker 5: 1:03:49

Not me either, but yes if you were back towards the end. Yeah, that shouldn't have happened. But thanks for the update on that. Chris and I. I didn't have all the details, but I'd heard pretty much the same thing.

Speaker 3: 1:04:03

Something I did here on the 10 K. There was a medical emergency and uh, and I did hear from other groups that the man is okay and everything is fine with him.

Speaker 6: 1:04:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One thing that I really appreciated with that was we, we came by that where that was. It was right, as you come off that ramp, before you make that switch back to head towards those, um, there was supposed to have been a character right there, um, where all of that was happening and we were coming by their right as they were still working on him, um, and so you know we are, we are a group that believes in the power of prayer, and so we, we said a prayer for him and uh, but, but the one thing that I really appreciated was how, um, respectful and reverent everyone was in that, because you could see it was a very serious situation, um, and what I found out about it later on from a medical um person was that it, yes, it was a very serious situation that happened. So, um, it was. It was good to see everybody just kind of come together just to support this person. That we didn't know, but we knew was, you know, out there to do the same thing that we were out there doing.

Speaker 6: 1:05:13

But the character attendant that was there, um, standing at that backdrop, cause, really, all that was left there was the backdrop, the person, a couple of people in front of me. I could hear them saying like, cause, it looked to be snow white is is who it was supposed to be, because the, the wishing well, was out and you know, you can just kind of tell who it is. Um, she said, oh, is she going to be back out? And the character attendant said no, out of respect for what's going on, she's just going to take a break. And that makes so much sense because here you are taking a picture with a character where you know 20, you know, or 10 yards away, somebody is fighting for their life.

Speaker 6: 1:05:51

Like that's probably not the most Um, and so everybody that that I saw in the brief moments that I was, you know, in that in that section, was very understanding, whereas some people could have been like, well, I paid for characters and blah, you know that kind of thing, and that was never. That was never. I'd never heard of anybody doing that. Everybody kind of got it, which was really it was really nice to see.

Speaker 5: 1:06:15

And through Disney fashion, we had a happy ending here. So that's good. That's good. Another successful 10 K in the books. Finish that up.

Speaker 5: 1:06:22

Another beautiful day in central Florida and we had to the food truck area in Disney Springs for our meetup. My friends, I was really impressed, really impressed with the showing number of people. It was fantastic. It was wonderful to see all of you there. I I think one of the things that makes me the most proud and most happy about this rise and run family is that I was the only podcast member there this week. But I'm not sure it really would have mattered if I was at the meetup or not, because you have gotten to know one another so well. You make friends so easily in the group. It's really, really exciting to watch. So we had a good time, good turnout. Most of the cookies are gone. Thank you for that. I don't have to deal with them here in the house. And let's see, we tried something I'll get back to in a minute. We tried a piece of remote podcasting equipment. I'll get back to that in a minute. But, christian, I know you couldn't make it. Mark and Tara, you were there. What were your thoughts on the?

Speaker 1: 1:07:35

meetup yeah, I hate to sound redundant One. I actually made it to the meetup this time and if you know my history with the meetups this running season, that by itself was something of a minor miracle, because the universe conspires to not let me attend these meetups to a major degree, and I still was late. You even made a photo.

Speaker 1: 1:07:57

Yeah, I was super excited. I literally had to take a rideshare to get there on time for the photo, but I got there and even the rideshare driver took me to the wrong side of Disney Springs. It's just kind of. It's really started just to be funny. Half the laugh you're going to cry, but no it was, but you did. It was fun. I did no, and it was fantastic seeing everybody. It was nice hanging out with a few of the other folks who were pacing, who helped settle my nerves a little bit about that because that was definitely something that had me nervous.

Speaker 1: 1:08:31

It's just the whole thing about this weekend was seeing the community, was seeing our friends and people like that through the podcast. That was what made the weekend.

Speaker 5: 1:08:41

I really felt it too this weekend. I feel it every weekend, but it's just seemed really strong this weekend. Tara, you were there early. What did?

Speaker 8: 1:08:49

you think.

Speaker 8: 1:08:50

Yeah, yeah, I thought it was a great meetup, as always. I agree that so many familiar faces, so many people that you have gotten to know and can catch up with them. If you haven't run into them already one of the race mornings or whatever, you can definitely catch up with them there. That's always great. I do think. I always am impressed. I was the new person once that just showed up and started to think I'd do it.

Speaker 8: 1:09:21

Now you guys have become part of my run Disney family, of course, but some people coming for the first time to a meetup and putting themselves out there to show up and say hi, then they stay and get to talk to everybody and start making friends. I think it's a really great part of the weekend for everybody. I think it's really an important part of people being able to see people face to face. Not everybody makes it to the morning meetups, even though we all try. I think this year for me it was making sure I got on the first bus every single time from my hotel which made my morning so much smoother. I got to do the pictures. I got to see people at the beginning. Having that meetup on Saturday afternoon catches everybody who can not necessarily get it together in the mornings.

Speaker 5: 1:10:17

We know that not everyone can make a Saturday afternoon. Also, we can totally understand that Some folks only get to Disney World every so often and they want to spend their time in the parks. Got it, you've got children, you want to be in the parks with them. Absolutely understand. We appreciate those of you who can get over there. One of the fun things, at least in the start. I mean I had a great time all the way through. As we've talked about, jeff Galloway's weekend is now three weekends away and he's asked us to do a live podcast recording there. So we have a new piece of equipment that I wanted to test out, so I set it up. My thought process was I'll invite people over to just chat a little bit and we'll record a little something here. Our buddy, monica, showed up with the Chaos Crew. Hey gang, I have met for the first time. Hashtag DopeyBaby.

Speaker 4: 1:11:20

Oh yay. Yes, I have, oh yeah.

Speaker 5: 1:11:22

First time ever, he's a cute kid. I did not know this Hashtag. Dopeybaby is a boy, I know.

Speaker 1: 1:11:31

Oh.

Speaker 5: 1:11:31

That's right. Okay, he broke the string. The rest are all girls. The girls loved the recording equipment and as soon as I can figure out how to transfer some of the files, we may have some entertaining material for an upcoming episode.

Speaker 5: 1:11:48

At least I hope we do. It was fun. They're always a good time. Becky and I had a dinner reservation. Fortunately it was at Haleos, which is all of maybe 150 yards away, because our reservation was at 430, and this happens all the time. We get there early, becky gets into this. We get there, oh gosh, no later than 2.30, usually earlier than that and we do what I call establish a beach head. We sit around till the first table comes open and we swarm, and then, as other tables come open, we spread out. So we'll usually get two or three tables for the group and that's fun. I've got a 430 dinner reservation. I look at my watch, it's for 20. I still have all this podcast equipment sitting out, so it all gets tossed in a box. We make it over to Helios at 431 and it was all great.

Speaker 5: 1:12:51

I saw a question online, at least one of the chat groups Are we going to do this for springtime? You, darn tootin, we're gonna do it for springtime. In fact, you can pretty much count on 3 o'clock. Saturdays, the day before the big long-running event, are our standard for meet and greets. The food truck area is great and that's what we'll do for the foreseeable future. We may move it at some point, but right now that's a great place to have it and we enjoy it, and we do thank those of you who were able to get there. And if you couldn't get there for this one, we hope to see you next time.

Speaker 5: 1:13:30

All right, gang, we're not quite done. We've got one more race to go through and the weekend? Well, the weekend ended on Sunday, but the race activities did not end on Sunday. They spilled over to Monday with the yoga, and we'll talk about that just a little bit. But let's talk about the half marathon. Thoughts on the half marathon. Let's see who happened. I started with. Yet, Mark, I'm gonna hold off on you for a little bit. We'll get you in a minute. I know you've been itching to talk about it, with very good reason. But let's see Kristen thoughts on the half.

Speaker 6: 1:14:07

Well, um, the half was the half.

Speaker 5: 1:14:14

Half of that, that's right.

Speaker 6: 1:14:15

Yeah, it was not a little over a half of a half. It actually was the full half marathon. It was so cold that morning.

Speaker 5: 1:14:25

I don't know what cold. Well, that's an old Johnny Carson thing. Nobody knows that. Go ahead.

Speaker 6: 1:14:29

I looked, it was 49 degrees. Yeah, that's good in Florida and and the wind was blowing, which was what made it worse a little bit.

Speaker 6: 1:14:37

And and what I was. And when I was in the corral I had my mylar on and I felt like it wasn't making a hill of a beans worth a difference. And and I turned to the friends I was with and I was like y'all, this feels colder than Disneyland and and Temperature-wise it was not, but the wind is what was making it Anyway. So I felt like I had kind of used a lot of my my energy Shivering before it even started. So it was. It was a bit of a rough start, but but we did it. I was super excited to get to run that course again. It's been a year since I've done that one because of what happened during marathon weekend with the half of the half right.

Speaker 6: 1:15:25

So it was a. It made Main Street extra sweet Because it had been right out of year since I had been able to run up Main Street and not get in trouble for running up Main Street. So that was that was really. That was really special. And our group costume was Probably my favorite to date. We were the princess dapper dance. So we all were different princesses dressed as the dapper dance. So we stopped and got our picture in front of the Confectionery and we had all practiced our pose where our friend that was taking the pictures, like okay, ready, and we all just put the hand on the hip and the other hand on the tip of the, the brim of the hat, and the rest is history. So, so that was really really neat. Um had some, some special friends waiting for for me there on Main Street, which is always fun to have a familiar face amongst the crowd. It's great.

Speaker 6: 1:16:23

Trying to think of what other like big oh, oh. I can now celebrate. It has been one year Since my face ate the asphalt on the princess half marathon course.

Speaker 5: 1:16:35

I forgot about that.

Speaker 6: 1:16:37

We are one year, 365 days without a fall, so I know it was very was very, very exciting, very exciting that was.

Speaker 6: 1:16:47

That was obviously we're celebrating. That was my 24th half marathon, so that was another cool thing to run your 24th half marathon in the year 2024. The one thing that I noticed was a little bit I feel like there were less characters back in cone alley than there normally are, and I know that that's because of the construction that's going on around that golf course. So Again, we noticed there was a lack of it, but we also could see why. So we I didn't really hear anybody complaining, it was just more more of an observation that there aren't as many out here. Okay, cool, we'll look forward to it next time, trying to think what else. The rest of it was just kind of par for the course. It was. It was nice to run through Epcot with not so many construction walls up, so that's true.

Speaker 6: 1:17:42

That was good.

Speaker 5: 1:17:43

But we weren't there for long.

Speaker 6: 1:17:45

No, we weren't, we really really weren't so and I loved backstage. I don't know if you noticed backstage at Epcot, they had all of the the flowers out sure ready to be planted for for flowering gardens. So that was really. That was really cool to see that which starts Friday, I believe. Yeah, really 29. Yep Starts tomorrow and I think wine and food and wine starts, you know, in like a week later or something. No, I don't know, it's really.

Speaker 5: 1:18:19

Sure does, sure does. Now, terry, you and I were together yeah, we ran the whole race together. That was fun with Rachel and oh, there's Heidi over there. Okay, hashtag, that's so Heidi.

Speaker 3: 1:18:34

Munchkins involved?

Speaker 5: 1:18:37

Well, yes, in a way there were, but it wasn't Heidi providing them. No, rachel, rachel.

Speaker 8: 1:18:47

Got what's all Sprout souls before the race started and brought them up and, like it was, Heidi, adjacent is what it was. But Heidi, in her typical fashion, she found us in the in the corral right before, as we were getting ready to go into the shoot to start lining up. So she found us right, right before we were moving out. Yeah. So it was great that she joined us and the four of us spent the entire race together and had a really fun time.

Speaker 5: 1:19:22

Friend Heidi. We tease her. We levered to death Absolutely wonderful human being. We tease her hashtag. That's so, heidi. Heidi lives not far from me, a little bit south of here. She drove to Disney World on Thursday to pick up her bib, or maybe it was Friday, I think it was Friday. She drove to pick up her bib and drove home. She drove over on Saturday to run the 10k and Then drove back here and then drove over on Sunday to run the half.

Speaker 3: 1:19:53

Oh, my god, what time did she get up like she's I?

Speaker 5: 1:19:56

don't know, but she's going to be another co-host for the. I hate interstate. I promise I had a couple thoughts, but I'm going to hold off and I would like to hear Mark talk about the experience he had as a first-time Galloway Pacer. Yeah, this.

Speaker 1: 1:20:18

I've been pondering how, how I wanted to talk about this because I could talk about it for hours probably, and I don't.

Speaker 3: 1:20:24

We prefer you don't do that, but it's a big. I imagine I'm as you got it for I.

Speaker 1: 1:20:31

Will say, as a long-time rise and run listener, that I, when I first heard the episode where you interviewed Chris twigs about pacing, that even then I was like that's a thing I want to do and there was no way at the time that that episode aired that that was a reasonable thing for me to do.

Speaker 5: 1:20:50

Certainly not at the pace that you did.

Speaker 1: 1:20:53

Yeah Well, no, at any. I always I was training for to run, like you know, a a six hour and 45 minute marathon and the idea when you're pacing is that it's a comfortable pace. Right, you're not not Absolutely edge of what you can do, which makes sense. Oh yeah, because you need to be able to adapt when things may not go the way you hope. Mm-hmm, which happens at Disney races, which happened in a sense at this race. I believe it. It did, absolutely did happen. So I Got the opportunity to sort of audition as a pacer at marathon weekend. I helped with one of the groups that only had one pacer, because they only have so many bibs and.

Speaker 1: 1:21:37

They have more groups than they have bibs for the marathon. So I got to help out there and had had a really good time and I learned a lot. Sarah Greenwood is a Fantastic pacer. She was out there again this week and yeah. Then then my coach, you know, texted me out of the blue and said do you want to pace at princess? I said sure. He said how do you feel about pacing the 240 group and I don't want to turn this into a conversation about speed. Suffice it to say, I had actually never run a 240 marathon half marathon Ever. Yeah, and he was asking me to do that. Apparently. He was telling other people that he really enjoys having customized training people pace because he knows exactly how fast they can run, because he has all of their records have the data right here, mr, because he's a, he's my coach, so I I.

Speaker 1: 1:22:31

When he said that I don't know, that's really on the fast side of what I'm comfortable with. He's like, well, think about it, but don't think too long. And I said, well, I'm due to do my long training run for princess this weekend anyway, so how about I go out and do that? Let me see how I feel about it at that pace? And I did. It was one of the worst runs I've had in this training season. Just straight up, I did not feel well that morning but it was the only day I could do a long run and we were talking earlier about how the first couple miles lie. So I went out and I tried anyway and I got through 10 miles at that pace and it was not a pleasant experience, but I got through it. And then I walked the rest of my long run from there because I was just absolutely toasted and I texted the bags I really don't know about these, you'll be fine.

Speaker 1: 1:23:21

You know how these things go. He's at the interperson Tuesday. You know how bad dress rehearsals go. I said, okay, and and Chris twigs is a very smart man and he knows that I'm a performer and there is a thing about you know once, once you're out there and you're performing and to a degree, pacing is performing because you're leading the group and you're encouraging them and the last thing in the world you want to be as unconfident when you're trying to help other people reach a goal. Oh right, so and he knew that, and he knew that about me, that if he's gonna put me in a spot like that, there's no way I'm not gonna give everything. I have to make sure it works. So it was big deal. I was, I was excited, I was so nervous though Really was and and I like said at the beat up, I chatted with some of the other Pacers and they're like it's fine, this is a really good course.

Speaker 1: 1:24:13

The weather is gonna be good, aside how cold it was that morning and I live in North Carolina, so it didn't actually feel as bad to me as it perhaps did to some other people and we're not seeing any major choke points on the radius course and it's gonna be great. I got out there. It's running with somebody I hadn't met before, but that's fine. And there were, as other people have probably heard or mentioned, the first two miles of the course, were a choke point, at least from where I ran. They've moved the start light into Epcot. They don't do the walkout on the world drive anymore, and that first On ramp that was. It's a single lane wide. Yeah, there was just nowhere to maneuver, yep right.

Speaker 1: 1:24:57

It was completely. You know, it was four wide people were walking or running very slowly and when I, as a Myself if it were just me running I could duck around them, and I've done that. Go up around the grass, get around them. You can't do that when you're leading a group no, you can't because, because a whole group cannot duck up onto the grass, and I've actually seen comments. We lost people in that first couple miles. They just couldn't get through the congestion and stay with us. We was a bummer.

Speaker 5: 1:25:25

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:25:26

I. There's nothing I think that could have been done on our end about it, but it it. It's sad because we would have loved to get everybody through. It's a very different way to run, because you're you're constantly Thinking about everything, but running You're thinking about your pace, you're thinking about the fact that you're two minutes behind Because you got stuck in all that congestion in the first two miles. And how do you catch that up in a way that's sustainable for people who are running at that pace, possibly as their PR limit? You can't go a whole lot faster than that pace or you're gonna lose them. And You're thinking about you know Connolly is coming up and you're probably gonna do this song and dance all over again. Oh, in some ways it was helpful because I got over the nerves real quick, because I was too busy trying to figure out.

Speaker 5: 1:26:21

Right, I got you yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:26:23

Yeah, sometimes just throw yourself into the fire. It's the easiest way to learn.

Speaker 1: 1:26:26

Yeah, it really is and I know, like I said, I think Chris knew that that was just gonna be the best way to have me do it. This is the first time I've ever gotten to run up Main Street before the Sun was up. It's something I've always wanted to do. It was something I was planning to do at Adobe and obviously that didn't happen, and it was really something to tell other people, because we had at least two or three people running with us who this was their first time running at Disney. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:27:01

Yeah, you just savor this Because Main Street. We've said many times that that turn on to Main Street is incredible and for me, aside the general emotion of running at Main Street and all of the emotion that comes with that, doing it while the sun was still coming- up meant a lot. Oh yeah, absolutely. I've been working really hard to get to a point where that was the thing I could do and doing it in that company, and in that way was, as you can now hear in my voice, no, I can't. I'm overwhelmed.

Speaker 5: 1:27:40

I'm not surprised. I was excited for you. I had all the confidence in the world. I knew how seriously you take this and the level of effort you would put into it. And it showed you were in the 240 group and you finished at 239, 29. Is that the best you could do? It's funny.

Speaker 1: 1:28:06

I just got the email from Chris, the follow-up email. As far as Pacers go, I didn't do that well.

Speaker 5: 1:28:14

Well, but you did mighty, don't?

Speaker 1: 1:28:18

well, no, I'm mostly just so you understand. There is an enormous competition among the Pacers to see who can get the very closest to their pacing time. There were apparently three groups that actually hit it.

Speaker 5: 1:28:34

Nailed it wow.

Speaker 1: 1:28:35

On the doldrum Even with all that congestion, which is just incredible.

Speaker 5: 1:28:40

Yeah, that's remarkable. That is remarkable. So proud of you, man, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:28:48

And I wanna say it again. I feel like I said it a million times already tonight but this community is, it's what made the weekend, and it meant the world to me, even if I didn't know how to say it, that even though I was very nervous about my ability to do the thing, everyone else seemed to have no such concerns about my ability to do the thing, and that means the world to me.

Speaker 5: 1:29:17

Yeah, we're confident. We're confident, we're proud of you.

Speaker 4: 1:29:21

As someone who has been unofficially paced by you.

Speaker 1: 1:29:26

Several times. We've had a lot of fun.

Speaker 4: 1:29:28

Oh yeah, yeah, I had no worries at all. I'm like, no, he's gonna be great, like I knew. Every time that you paced me, I was just like, okay, mark's got it. Only have to think about it.

Speaker 1: 1:29:41

No, it was a lot of fun. We named different princesses while we were running along different names of the alphabet. We ended up with two Fs and no Es because weirdness happened, as it often does on the race.

Speaker 3: 1:29:53

We said it was four, and four Couldn't come up with an Elshan.

Speaker 1: 1:29:56

The problem was. So I enjoyed pacing at Marathon Weekend. I got to, I was near the back and I could actually do character stops, which was also a new thing for me, and I knew I wasn't probably gonna have that opportunity. It was my first time pacing. It was a decent pace for me, but I did have to stop and use the bathroom. And playing catch up when you're running 60, 30 intervals is tough. It is tough, yeah, and I didn't wanna stop, but I was gonna have to and I knew that there were signals that said I was going to have to and it was.

Speaker 1: 1:30:30

While I was stopped on my break, my partner forgot to keep asking for names. So by the time I got back we realized there was no E and we asked for an F and somebody said Florent Fauna. And then I asked what the E was and they said there wasn't one. I went great, it's Florent Fauna. Now, that's both of them. It counts. We also had Princess Iago at one point and Princess Hercules. It was really quite a lot of fun. It was just a way to keep people playing and distracted and not thinking about the fact that they were hot and tired and sore.

Speaker 5: 1:31:07

And had nine miles to go.

Speaker 1: 1:31:09

Yeah, well, by the time we got to Princess Hercules, they were only three or four miles to go, mark, great stuff, congratulations.

Speaker 5: 1:31:17

Thank you again, everybody. One more time, proud of you. It's a big deal. I'll throw out a couple of thoughts on half marathon. There is nothing nothing that I know of in the racing world like running down Main Street. This was my, and I got it wrong. Tara, I was wrong. This was my 10th trip down Main Street at a Disney run. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I do 10 more or 20 more or whatever. I'm gonna get the same feeling. I'm gonna be choking up, I'm gonna be emotional. It's spectacular, the setting makes it spectacular, but so maybe even more so does the crowd.

Speaker 5: 1:32:05

If you are amongst those folks on the side of the road cheering for people you have never met before and will never meet again, I promise you it meant something to them. I started, maybe not the first time, but early on. I make a habit of heading to the side and telling dear strangers I may never see you again, but I love y'all and thank you for being here. And now, more often than not, somebody knows, somebody knows, but it's okay. I still have that same feeling. One of the things that I met two people, on course. I met a lot of people on the course, but there are two. I wanna comment on Our friend Brandy I believe it was, I didn't write her name down here, but I believe it was came by and she says it's me. Look, I've got a tag on my back it says hashtag fairy tale challenge. Baby, I'm gonna call her. She actually did that. I thought that was awesome.

Speaker 5: 1:33:17

In Cone Alley I came upon an older fella a phrase I don't use much anymore. But I came upon an older fella who had a T-shirt that said wild bill. He was moving out, he was walking, but he looked great and I said to him wild bill, you look terrific. We talked for a minute. I said this old guy has to stick together. He goes. You don't look that old, which you know. I kind of appreciate that. I said I'm 70, bill, how old are you? He says 83. Bill was 83. And I checked.

Speaker 5: 1:33:52

We talked for a couple of minutes and as we left, I wished him luck and he said well, look, you just gotta keep moving. How many times have you heard me say that If you wanna keep moving, you gotta keep moving? I checked before we went on air tonight and Bill made it. Bill finished, in fact Bill won his age group. He won the over-80 age group. There were in fact two over-80 finishers. That's pretty cool. Man, I didn't look at women. There probably were over-80 women Also I forgot to check that two over-80 men. So that was pretty cool.

Speaker 6: 1:34:26

I just had to add this about the people on Main Street. You know, having been on both sides of the rope on Main Street, as a runner and as a person spectating. It feeds the souls of both sides.

Speaker 5: 1:34:42

Oh cool.

Speaker 6: 1:34:43

You know it means a lot to be there cheering, because you never know what your cheering will do for that person in that moment, because you don't know the battle that they're fighting internally, you don't know what it took to get them to that mile five, which is where it was last night.

Speaker 5: 1:35:01

It was this time, yeah, last weekend.

Speaker 6: 1:35:04

Or where it was on the marathon course or whatnot, and you just simply being there and cheering, and you know our names are on our bibs most of the time the last couple of times mine has not been because I got my bibs late, but most of the time names are on the bibs and so to have somebody see your name and call out your name is so cup-filling. That was a phrase that we used a lot amongst our little friend group this weekend. Was this was so cup-filling. And then, on the flip side of that, being the runner and just seeing everyone lined up and you know just, you can see the different emotions on people. So you see people crying, you see people.

Speaker 6: 1:35:47

There were spectators crying Like there was. It was just this big emotional trip up Main Street that benefited both sides of the rope, you know. So I just I love it. I've always said that when I can't run it anymore, I will forever go back and cheer it, because I know how much it means.

Speaker 5: 1:36:07

It is. It's the best. When we came back out of COVID, the crowd wasn't quite there, but it wasn't much more than a year or so later they were back, and what a difference.

Speaker 6: 1:36:16

And we actually walked out with Wild Bill to the-. Did you, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5: 1:36:21

Did you? How about that?

Speaker 6: 1:36:23

Yeah, so he was so nice.

Speaker 5: 1:36:25

That's the first I recall meeting him, but I told him. One of the things I said to him is Bill, you're what I want to be when I grow up. So that's pretty cool. John, you'd look something up while we were talking.

Speaker 3: 1:36:35

So there was no 80 plus women, but there was a 79 year old lady that did finish it and there was probably about 10 people in the 75 to 79 age group for the women.

Speaker 5: 1:36:47

Okay, okay, outstanding.

Speaker 3: 1:36:51

Another quick number for your numbers. People Like talk about this race. There was 15,505 participants in the half. Is that?

Speaker 5: 1:37:04

finishers John.

Speaker 3: 1:37:05

Finishers, finishers, okay, okay. 12,600 of them were women.

Speaker 5: 1:37:11

Okay, so 15,000, about 3,000, about 12 and three, right, yep, about 12 and three, so it is so that's 20%. Yep 20% 80, 20, yeah.

Speaker 4: 1:37:21

That's bigger than what Princess has been in the past several years, isn't it?

Speaker 5: 1:37:25

Oh yeah, numbers Numbers wise. Yeah, it was big, it was.

Speaker 4: 1:37:29

Yes, it's gone up. It felt big.

Speaker 5: 1:37:31

Friends. To wrap up, we did, and I appreciate this. We got one hotline recording about the half or just before the half, I can't quite remember. Our friend, natalie from Nebraska left us this message hey there, Ryzen Run Family.

Speaker 7: 1:37:49

This is Natalie from Nebraska. Come and get you live from Blizzard Beach. I just ran Princess Taff Marathon weekend and I had an amazing time but, most importantly, got a PR and proof of time in the half marathon. The the Can't be more grateful for the overall community, the Galloway Pacers and just everything. This was the sweetest way to cap off my 2023, 2024 season. I look forward to seeing you all again later on this year and keeping in touch. In the meantime, while we continue to train, Take care, thanks, everyone.

Speaker 5: 1:38:28

Only a person from Nebraska or maybe another, maybe not Nebraska, but certainly no one from Florida was spending Saturday at Blizzard Beach. So I'm guessing, natalie, you weren't fighting a lot of crowds at Blizzard Beach this weekend, but I'm glad you were there, glad you had a good time and thanks for leaving us the recording Friends. Before we leave, there was one more activity and I don't think any of us made it, but that was the yoga. Kristen, you said you wanted to comment on the yoga.

Speaker 6: 1:39:03

Yeah, I was supposed to have been there.

Speaker 8: 1:39:06

Uh-oh.

Speaker 6: 1:39:08

And I had a. Do you call it a bib? No, I had a spot. I had a spot reserved. So yoga this year was on Monday morning, where historically it's been Thursday, which is the morning of the expo, and it just come Monday morning and it was so. There were four of us in our suite at the All Stars. Three of us had spots to be there. We were so exhausted come Monday morning that we actually got up with our alarm, put our yoga clothes on and then pulled the executive decision of this is not no, no. So we laid back down and went back to bed. So one of the girls in our room, tara she actually went and stood out on our like right outside the door of the room and like in what she was gonna wear to yoga and she's like. She came back in and said I'm so tired of being cold.

Speaker 6: 1:40:22

Yeah, it was cold again, Tired of being cold and having been out in the cold in Disneyland and come back sick from that, that was just not it just it wasn't in the cards. So we ended up missing it and I really I hope that they take into consideration that having it on the day after the half after a long, jam-packed weekend might not be the best thing, especially when it's that early, because you've essentially forced a lot of people to wake up. A dopey amount of morning.

Speaker 5: 1:41:06

That's right, you got it.

Speaker 6: 1:41:08

So because those of us that are in Clever and Disney Gold or Platinum you're up early for the expo on Thursday, so that's a morning. Then if you're doing all the races, if you're trying to do a clean sweep, then you're up Friday, saturday, sunday and now Monday, whereas before, if it was on Thursday, most people would just do the yoga and then come straight to the expo. And you're not sweating during yoga, so you're not gonna stink while you're there.

Speaker 6: 1:41:39

It was just by the time it finally came to it on Monday. It was just it was too much, it was too much, so I hope they move it back to Thursday. I really do. I understand that, but it was just we were just tired of being cold and risking being sick too. That was the other thing.

Speaker 5: 1:42:01

Yeah, I get it. So good call. Well friends, another great Run Disney weekend comes to a close. One more to go in this race season seven weeks from now. But as always, each one has their own little identity and something special about it. This last weekend was no different. Tara, kristen, mark, we appreciate so much you taking your time to come and share your experiences for this race weekend with us. Thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you again.

Speaker 8: 1:42:42

Thanks so much. Great to be here and can't wait to see you guys again in seven more weeks.

Speaker 6: 1:42:46

Thanks for having me. It was so much fun and I will be watching from Texas in seven weeks unless something, unless some Disney magic happens.

Speaker 1: 1:42:56

Okay.

Speaker 6: 1:42:57

Which is possible.

Speaker 1: 1:42:58

Yeah, thanks for having me back. It's always great to be here and I look forward to seeing everybody in seven more weeks.

Speaker 5: 1:43:05

Friends, let's take a look at a couple of announcements. Bunch of stories always a bunch of stories in the Rise and Run family. I feel funny sometimes singling one out, because I know there are many others, but I want to wish our friend Stephanie the best. She's scheduled for surgery on Friday, I believe March 1. It's already talking about being at Jeff Galloway's weekend, though, so I look forward to seeing her there. Good luck, stephanie.

Speaker 5: 1:43:36

Speaking of Jeff Galloway's weekend, that's coming up in March, we talked with Jeff last week. It was great to see him at Princess Weekend. We hope, I really hope I personally, because I'm going to be there. I really hope you can make it. I know it's still in a little bit of a state of flux, but I can pretty much promise you it's going to be a fun weekend, if nothing else than to sit in the audience and watch me sweat bullets as I try to figure out what to do on a live podcast. That I really have no idea what I'm doing, and you know Alexi and Jack will be there too, but they don't have any more idea than I do, so it could be fun. Remember, if you do decide to go and I hope you do when you register, use the code RISE and RUN. All one word it's a 15% discount.

Speaker 3: 1:44:28

I know we talked costumes this episode and you know we had some nice costumes. If you're still looking for like a costume or something quick and easy, kpa for springtime If you use the code RISE and RUN, you get a 10% off. And also I texted them and asked them what's the deadline for springtime? If you order no later than March 15th, you should get it as a regular order, as a non-RUSH order, sorry, and April 1st for Rush order. So if you want something for springtime, get it in now.

Speaker 5: 1:45:01

Yeah, that's a Hawaiian piece of apparel, john. I ordered my shirt for the 10K just last week from Alex, so I'm obviously not a Rush order. I'm looking forward to that coming in.

Speaker 2: 1:45:15

And speaking of springtime surprise, what I had to laugh about this week is, you know, literally less than 24 hours after Princess weekend is over, the springtime surprise chat is now all a buzz and wanting to know if there's going to be a meetup. And we are happy to announce that Bob Alicia and I will be having a meetup during springtime. The details are as follows very similar to our previous events. This is going to be occurring on Saturday, april 20th, which is the day of the 10K, will be three o'clock at the Disney Springs Food Truck Area. So same bad time, same bad channel. We would love for as many of you to come out and join us, and we'll determine at a later date if there will be cookies or not.

Speaker 5: 1:46:12

Oh, there'll be cookies. Yeah, there'll be cookies. I mean, there's a meetup, there'll be cookies. I want to. We're all guilty of it, my friends, all of us. We assume people know what we're talking about. There's always somebody joining the podcast, new, always somebody who's going to be having their first race of springtime. We really want you to be there. It's a lot of fun. Please meet the family. And no charges. We don't. There's nothing that we charge for. There's no cost associated with this, so we hope you can make it Coming up next week, episode 128.

Speaker 5: 1:46:48

I got confirmation earlier today. The two, two guys, thomas and Adam. I ran into them on the course. Fortunately I didn't literally run into them. That might not have been a good idea. I saw met with them on the course at Princess weekend. Great bunch of guys really excited to have them on the episode. They'll be with us next week. Okay, my friends, it's time for the race report. Now I'm going to go back. We got a report.

Speaker 5: 1:47:23

Monday of last week there was a race. It was president's day. There was a race in Honolulu, hawaii, one that is really, really near and dear to my heart the great Aloha Run, a point to point race that goes from the tower at Waikiki Beach to the stadium where the University of Hawaii plays their home football games, aloha Stadium, in the middle of the island. Our friend Valerie was there and ran it. Now this is an I don't know 8.1 or 8.2 mile race. It's a distance that nobody else runs. This is the first time Valerie's done the great Aloha Run, so she set a PR at that distance. Beep, beep, beep. There were bands, a DJ, hula dancers, drummers. There were some florists handing out floral arrangements, headbands, either real flowers or flower hair clips. Valerie highly recommends this event.

Speaker 5: 1:48:27

I have to take a moment to tell a couple of stories. One of them, I think I've told on the podcast before 1986, was the second running of this event. It is a point to point, but it was the second year was the first time that they offered transportation. You could get a ticket for transportation from the start to the end or from the end to the start. So I drove to the end, got on the bus to head to the start. The buses you want to. You complained about the buses at Disney World. The buses were so disorganized and so late that when we got to the starting point eight point something miles away it was nobody there. They were all gone and at the time there were about 30,000 people in this eight point something mile event.

Speaker 5: 1:49:17

Now this is the first organized race I had ever done. Didn't know what to expect and now I'm eight miles away from my car and have to run by myself. Here's what happened. I got about three quarters of a mile or a mile into it and I caught the back of the pack and I just see this huge group of people in front of me. Well, it's the back of the pack, got people walking, we have people pushing strollers. I now and I don't know what kind of pace I was running back then, it wasn't that fast, but I spent the next seven and a half miles passing people, feeling like a million bucks and being absolutely sold on organized runs. So that got me started.

Speaker 5: 1:49:59

The other thing and this has changed, valerie they used to have a drawing at the end of this race. You would come into the Loja Stadium, go through the finishers, shoot and then you go into the stadium and take a seat in the stadium and, golly, they'd have again, like I said, 30,000 runners or so and 15 or 20,000 would stay around, because if you wanted to win a prize, you had to be there, and some of the prizes they gave away back in those days fur coats they gave away a car at the end of this race, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:50:36

Yeah, is this a run? Or the price is right for crying out loud yeah.

Speaker 5: 1:50:41

But you had to be present to win and one of the things I remember like happened yesterday. What would happen is they would call off a number and the winner of the new car is bib number 2376 and almost in unison the crowd would shout out he went home. So things have changed a little bit. It's a great run. Glad you enjoyed it. Valerie. The great Aloha run, honolulu, hawaii. If, honestly, friends Valerie said this, I say it to if you Can be there, if you happen to be there, it's a great event it's. She says there was about I think she Said about 15,000 runners this time. That's significantly smaller than it used to be, but still a pretty big event, still worth doing. Okay, all right, my, my stories are done. Sorry, valerie, I hope I didn't seal too much of your thunder. That was your story, but you got me excited. A race that I will never forget. Series of races. I actually ran numbers two, three, four and five. I'm done.

Speaker 5: 1:51:48

Saturday of this week the lost 100k Lake Okeechobee scenic trail. Jacqueline did that one. I Looked and looked. I don't have a report from Jacqueline. I hope you did great hundred K. That's a big deal if you're too tired to make a report and want to drop it in next week. We will get back to you. You finish 100k. You deserve to be recognized.

Speaker 5: 1:52:09

In Key West Florida, the inaugural USA women's half marathon, kayla Kayla was there. Kayla said there was no expo for this thing, hardly any race support, the the obligatory race support like water and restrooms. At least they were adequate. That's helpful. Post race was Not too bad, actually better. They got some decent food, some bagels, fruit for breakfast, free mimosas. That can't be all bad. And Instead of a medal they got a Kendra Scott necklace. Now Kayla Finished this thing with a PR. Says it was a great experience, great reason to travel, but as far as she's concerned, this event was a one and done for her.

Speaker 5: 1:53:07

In Greenwood, arkansas, vfw post 6, 5, 2, 7 did their run walk for warriors. Speaking of warriors, our favorite warrior, joe, was there. Joe says the amigos are back. Johnny and Gary got first and third in their age groups. Allison and Joe got second in theirs. A way to go, amigos, we're proud of you. In Claremont, florida, honoring the fall in 5k, laurie Laurie, who resides in Canada We've spoken with Laurie before Says it, florida has been very kind to her. Another age group first for Laurie, who's just doing a great job.

Speaker 5: 1:53:51

Lately In Wilmington, north Carolina, the Wilmington Marathon. Alex completed that one, as did Kristen. Kristen said this was her eighth Marathon Great, well organized race, one that you need to check out if you get an opportunity. She used it as a catered training run for London. She says she followed Kristen another Kristen, another Kristen friend of ours. This is not the Kristen we were just talking to. This is run fit mama. Kristen, who has wonderful pre-race nutrition plans, said they Really worked for Kristen. This is another Kristen, the Kristen that ran the race. Uh, and it's the reason that the Kristen that ran the race, using the Kristen who gave her the nutrition plans, was able to set a PR.

Speaker 3: 1:54:51

Well, it's Kristen with an, I Kristen with an E. Yeah, did you follow all that.

Speaker 5: 1:54:56

It's got it up. Do we need to record it again? I think we're good. I think we're okay.

Speaker 5: 1:54:59

I think we're good, we got it Okay, kristen. Congratulations. All kidding aside, congratulations on your PR. And not only that, not only she PR the daggum thing. Eighth marathon felt great at the end of it. That's, that's the way to do it, congratulations. Let's move to sunday, las Vegas and Nevada. The rock and roll Las Vegas half marathon had a bunch of friends there. Jennifer was there. Jennifer did put a report in facebook, jennifer. I don't know why, but if you look at it it says content not available. I'm sorry, but I do share a sharing issue. Yeah, I do want to recognize that. She was there, as was our buddy jack. Jack was there. I know jack got to meet another friend of ours, a friend from the customized trading plan group, claudia. Apparently jack and claudia had A great time.

Speaker 2: 1:55:56

I was like that apparently they hit the dance floor quite hard post-race.

Speaker 5: 1:56:00

Sounds great. Uh, I'm. I'm glad they got there, glad they had a wonderful time. Our another friend, taren, was supposed to be there but at last minute was not able to make it. I know she's disappointed she couldn't make that one, a big one. That goes on here In the Tampa Florida area and it's always the same weekend as Princess, and that's the gasparilla Distance classic. They Run Four different distances here, two on each day. You can actually do all four. It's. It is a challenge, both literally and figuratively they name it as such and it's a literal challenge to you to do that. Our friend from a previous episode, who I have not seen yet in person fits color Was the race announcer. I've got to catch fits at one of these. She seems like a heck of a lot of fun.

Speaker 5: 1:57:04

One of america's premier distance runners, meb kowalski, plays a big part in this one. I think he ran the half this year. I'm not sure about that, but there's another. I keep missing a chance to meet meb. A lot of our friends did run. Cj was there.

Speaker 5: 1:57:25

Cj did the 5k and the 15k on saturday. He started with a friend and fellow Ryzen runner, tammy. They did. The 15k was the longest run that CJ's done so far. So that's a PR. So PR is the 15k. Then you come back and about an hour later you start the 5k. Cj ran the 5k With the 17 year old daughter. He kind of hit the wall, and which I can understand, having finished a 15k just an hour prior. However, his daughter prd and he finished.

Speaker 5: 1:58:13

So Dylan took on what's called the mick ultra challenge here. That's the 15k and the 5k on saturday and then the half and the 8k on sunday. Now this was Dylan's first 15k and first 8k. So those are prs. Love the event, beautiful event. Talked about seeing fits and meb love the race. But Dylan's ready to resume her regularly scheduled run Disney programming. Her word is not mine. I appreciate that Our friend Karen was there. Karen's did what I am labeling the princess to pirate challenge, that is, she ran the princess 10k on saturday and then drove to Tampa to run the half at Gasparilla. Love the organization, love the crowd support. And the half medal at Gasparilla is really cool. Kind of a pirate, obviously a pirate theme. Kind of a skull and crossbones type deal. Really neat looking metal. Let's see who else was there. Laura was there for the half. Mary joe took on the mykolobe gold challenge the 15k on saturday and the half marathon on sunday. Peyton was there, ran the half, robert ran the half. This was his second half Switched up his training approach for the Gasparilla half to Jeff's marathon for beginners plan back in mid-january.

Speaker 5: 1:59:57

How often does this happen when someone switches to a Jeff Galloway plan, starts doing a run walk, one result, a new pr and the best part and Jeff would love to hear this too Felt a little bit weird. I love to hear this too. Felt great after work. Good job, robert. Esther signed up for the ultra challenge.

Speaker 5: 2:00:16

I saw one with all four events but couldn't start the 8k. I get it the. I did this event a couple years back. The timing between the races is not that long and if you're not hustling on that half, if you don't finish it within a, I don't want to guess at what time you have to do it, but you got to do it pretty quickly. You get back in time just to start the 8k. So after good effort, says it's gonna be back next year and give it a try, and she got to run with her friend ashley in this one. Let's wrap up the race report in santa clarita, california, with the marty grah madness 10k. Jackie was there Fun time at this small, fun local race which happened a lot on her normal running trail. When she trains on a lot that's always fun to do. Lots of costumes and lots of dogs At the race and my friends. That's it for the episode 127 race report with an asterisk.

Speaker 5: 2:01:24

Lots of you sent us race reports For princess weekend and we appreciate it. I think you can understand that With the hundreds of you that were there we can't go through all of those. We just don't have time. I Tried and I went back through. First of all, to all of you who ran it for the first time at that distance, ran a distance for the first time, that's a pr. I also tried To go through the info. I had to see who said to me I got a pr and I really didn't come up with that many. But I want to recognize susan and jim, lisbeth and Gina who said they pr'd in the brint at princess weekend. I'm sure there were more. So for all of you who pr'd at princess, this pr bills for you. I feel bad that we can't do more Than that because I know I know it means a lot to you, especially if it's your first time or your fastest time, but we'll do it, we can. What did you just say, john? How many were there in just the challenge? The?

Speaker 3: 2:02:38

challenge. We ran off 84 names. That's including people running with others too, so there's, I was more than 84.

Speaker 5: 2:02:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, and that's just a challenge. I think we probably had Close to 200 names in our race report.

Speaker 3: 2:02:56

How easily.

Speaker 5: 2:02:57

Yeah, so it's it's. It's tough, my friends, but again, knowing how much it means to you, we hate to leave it out and congratulations to you. All right, friends, no zoom this week. We will resume the zoom Next week. We always look forward to that. Keep training Season's not quite over. Don't lose what you've worked for. We look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks. Until that time, happy running.

Speaker 2: 2:03:40

The rise and run podcast discusses general information about run Disney and is in no way and is in no way affiliated with run Disney or the Walt Disney Company. Any information or advice discussed on this podcast should not be considered medical advice and should always consult with your healthcare provider or event organizer.