135: 2024 runDisney Springtime Surprise Weekend Recap

As the final footsteps of the Run Disney season echo in our ears, we bring to you a tapestry of tales, woven with the joyous strides of our Rise and Run family. This episode is a kaleidoscope of memories, from the emotional finish lines to the laughter-laced community meetups, where over a hundred members eclipsed all expectations with their presence. Our shared journey doesn't just encompass the miles we've logged but celebrates every personal best, every first marathon, and the vibrant costumes that turned heads and warmed hearts. With the rustle of race bibs and the swish of tutus, we bring the magic of our springtime surprise weekend to your ears.

Imagine a sea of familiar faces, each one a story waiting to be told.  The generosity of spirit within our community shines through the thoughtful gifts we've exchanged, the cookies we've shared, and the laughter that's become our soundtrack. From the thrill of the  5K adventure to the strategic triumphs at the 10 Miler, we dissect our collective experiences, reveling in the camaraderie and the unexpected joys that only a Run Disney event can deliver.

But it's not just about the races; it's about the connections made and the obstacles overcome together. As we discuss the sweltering challenges of pacing in the spring heat, we shed light on the importance of race etiquette and safety. We recount the tales of runners who've pushed past their limits, and we offer a candid look at the areas where Run Disney could elevate the experience even further. So queue up this episode, lace up your shoes, and let's relive the enchantment of this season's races, the growth of our family, and the untold stories that make every step worth taking.

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Transcript

Speaker 3: 0:04

3 am 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. Hi everyone, it's Molly Moore from Peoria, arizona, and you're listening to the Rise and Run podcast.

Speaker 4: 0:43

Have a happy magical run. Bye.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Thank you, molly from Arizona. Thanks for the nice intro. We appreciate that. See, friends, that's all it takes. Molly did it, she nailed it, did it just perfect. We appreciate that. Hello, my friends, welcome to episode 135 of the Rise and Run Podcast. I'm Bob. I'm here with Greg.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Hey, hey, hey.

Speaker 2: 1:09

With John. Hey how you doing. With Lexi.

Speaker 4: 1:15

Hello.

Speaker 2: 1:16

And with Jack. Hi I had to. As I started talking here this evening, I had to pump myself up. Pump myself up Because I'm doing the same thing. I'm feeling this melancholy Gosh First of all and we'll get to it in great depth here on this episode. What a weekend.

Speaker 4: 1:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:40

What a wonderful, awesome weekend. People ask what's your favorite run Disney weekend. The answer, more and more, is becoming the one that just passed, and it's because of you, my friends you who are listening and you who are joining us as parts of the Rise and Run family.

Speaker 2: 2:08

But let's not get too bogged down in that yet. We'll get to that. So this week's episode, my friends, is the springtime surprise recap. No race report spotlight this week. We will get back to that. In fact, I hope we've had two majors go by Boston and London. I hope to talk to some of those folks for next week's episode. Speaking of next week, we'll be recapping the 23-24 season, the four races at Disney World and the return to Disneyland We'll be using if you sat down and talked with Greg or with me at the meetup we're going to use at least some of that material next week. It would be a great time for you to give a call on the hotline If you've got a favorite story of the 23-24 season, if you got a favorite costume you wore or that you saw, give us a call for that. 727-266-2344 is the number for that. We can use intros too, by the way.

Speaker 3: 3:12

And with that, if you enjoy the Rise and Run podcast, please share us with your friends and family and introduce them to the Rise and Run family.

Speaker 3: 3:21

This is the perfect time to do it, folks, because season's over them to the Rise and Run family. This is the perfect time to do it, folks, because season's over Training, believe it or not, for Halloween and Marathon weekend is going to be here before we know it. Get people into the group now so that they can start gathering all that information, making friends. It's going to pay dividends when it comes for them to sign up for their first Run Disney weekend, because we want to share in your and their Run Disney journeys. Please remember to follow us on Facebook at Rise and Run Podcast, on Instagram at Rise and Run Pod, and be sure to check out our YouTube channel and also be sure to visit our webpage, riseandrunpodcastcom. If you have a question, comment, race report or, as Bob mentioned, you know you want to drop your favorite memory from this past season. Be sure to give us a call again. The number is 7, 2, 7, 2, 6, 6, 2, 3, 4, 4, and leave us a recorded message.

Speaker 2: 4:19

Thank you, Greg. I I sit here. I know that as we left this weekend, the emotions were flowing and now, just as we begin this episode, I'm thinking but it's all going to be good, we're going to get through it. If you can virtually hold my hand, we'll make it. Hey, friends, we want to thank our Patreons, our Patreons who help keep this ship afloat, help keep the Rise and Run podcast rising and running. If you'd like to join the Patreon team, check out the website patreoncom. Slash rise and run podcast. Several levels. You can join, different benefits to each level. We would like to welcome our newest Mandalorian Patreon, and that's Sam. Sam. Welcome to the family, Welcome to the Patreon group.

Speaker 5: 5:11

Well, guys, we know the race season's over, but you have new races coming up. We have summer vacation coming up. If you want to book a trip down to Disney or Universal, check out our friends at Magic Brown Travel and get with Brad and with brad and maggie and, uh, book one of your vacations john, I think it was very clever of you.

Speaker 2: 5:31

I know our friends can't see the video, but it was very clever of you to wait for greg to get up and walk away before you mentioned. Oh, he's back. We'll just have to say the u word. Okay, we'll just have to call it that all right, because he's back. You know, we don't want, you don't want him to hear any more of that. We'll just have to say the U word. Okay, we'll just have to call it that All right, because he's back now.

Speaker 2: 5:47

We don't want him to hear any more of that. Magicboundtravelcom is the website. Check it out On a personal level. Apologies and alibis. I just need to get caught up, friends. I love hearing from all of you, whether it's on Facebook, whether it's through one of our message platforms, but right now I am way behind. So I want to get caught up and acknowledge some of the things that you've been sending and some of the things that we've been talking about. I'll get there eventually. Hey, you know we just ended a race season. Hey, you know we just ended a race season. So I've got this little interactive spreadsheet in front of me that tells me how many days we are to the next expo, how many days we are to this and that. Do you realize? We are only 12 days away from the start of the Jeff Galloway training plan, if you were doing one of the long events at Disneyland Halloween.

Speaker 4: 6:53

Goodness gracious.

Speaker 2: 6:55

I didn't, you know. I sat down. I said I need to check this out to see when it's going to be Figuring it would be in late May, early June. Nope, it is. Let's see. This is Thursday. It's not this Tuesday, it's the week after 12 days away, the training begins. So it won't be that bad guys, we'll be back together before long.

Speaker 2: 7:25

Well, the big topic on our minds and of course, not all of us here at the podcast tonight were there, but I expect, john and Lexi, I expect you to pop in with questions. Jack and Greg and I were there for Springtime Surprise and, oh my goodness, words fail me and I know a lot of words and at a point they fail me. We'll talk specifically about the meetup, but I'm going to start there just for that one, because that's the one where I was just totally blown away. This is a smaller race weekend. It was hot.

Speaker 2: 8:09

Saturday afternoon I think the temperature got up to 92 or so. Boy, that was a human meetup. Yep, yeah, and it was. The humidity was up. I didn't feel it too badly, but it was. I looked at the numbers and the humidity was up. I didn't feel it too badly, but it was. I looked at the numbers and the humidity was up. But, my friends, you never, ever, ever disappoint. So hey, let's kick it off. Anybody do yoga? Nope, okay. Okay, they had yoga. Hope you had a good time Expo day. I was actually there pretty close to the opening, which is unusual for me, but I've been chatting for a while now. Who had a good story or something to talk about from Thursday at the Race Expo? I?

Speaker 3: 9:02

don't think there was anything in particular that was super unique. But that being said though, it was still wonderful, as always, the fact that you bump into so many friends, whether that's from the Expo side of things, talking at the Galloway booth or going up to see Pam and Fluffy Fizzies or whatever. I know we say it every recap episode that this is the start of the family reunion. Yeah, and this is, and this was just another perfect example of that. Now I will say the one surprising thing was I was not at the meetup nearly as long as I have been in past years, I want to say probably from start to finish. I was maybe there three hours or so, which is considerably less than like hours or so, which is considerably less than, say, marathon Weekend, for example. But the one thing and now that I'm talking, the one thing that did surprise me about this meetup is how slammed it was, especially in the afternoon on Thursday.

Speaker 3: 10:20

I kept recollecting in my head and comparing last year to this year. I think my virtual queue got called around the same time, like just before lunchtime, and I remember walking into the merchandise area. They weren't even using that back room. It was just. You know, you walk the mile and a half around the underground concourse or whatever and then just went right to the expo. Both sides of that were filled with people. It was incredible to see, I mean, so many people that probably that room was like 20 degrees warmer than the floor where all the merchandise was and everything like that. Um, so that was absolutely wild um to experience. Again, I thought they did a really nice job with the merch. Um, nothing was really speaking to me. I just I grabbed the the general weekend shirt. Um, you know, once again, we know the hot item this year was the annual pass holder shirt and by the time.

Speaker 3: 11:27

By the time I got there, like I said, I probably got in there around 12, 30 or so and there was like a total of three shirts, and I think it was. One was an extra small and the other two were three x's or something like that. So that stuff just continues to fly.

Speaker 2: 11:43

They were gone by the time I got there. I went back, as I frequently do. I went back on Saturday. They had some Spirit jerseys and they had some T-shirts for the annual pass holders. I wanted to get one Spirit jersey. I'm not going to get because I'm not going to wear it here more than two days a year, but I wanted a T-shirt. They had exactly. They had small and they had triple X and that was it. So that was nothing doing there. I always have fun at the expo. Jack, when did you get in? Did you get to the expo on Thursday or was it later?

Speaker 4: 12:21

Yeah, I didn't get to go on Thursday. I flew in Saturday morning but I got to work the booth.

Speaker 2: 12:27

That's right. How'd that go?

Speaker 4: 12:29

Yeah, I got to work the booth for the Galloway pacing area and where you can meet Jeff. That was a lot of fun, very interesting, because I feel like I know I say this later on, but I feel like that I was a pacer in training, because there's so much to learn and for someone like me who doesn't run Galloway, pacing Galloway, I knew it was going to be a different experience, but working the booth was good because a lot of rising runners came in over and said hi, I got to talk to so many people who had questions about pacing and luckily they were easy enough questions for me to ask which the main one was so okay.

Speaker 4: 13:12

So if I'm pacing, for example, I was originally scheduled a nine minute pace mile. So if you're pacing nine minutes, what are you running during your run?

Speaker 4: 13:22

And it's like well, so more than likely because of the way the mile is set up and how everything could change per mile based off of your walking breaks if one gets added to the next one, because of just how it times out. I mean for, for example, for a nine minute, you're probably running anywhere between an eight 20 to an eight 30 minute mile. Um, during the running portions, um, which for that um pace it was like a two minute run and 30 second walk. And I will say I was kind of like I had a little laugh because one guy who I was chatting with, he had a really cute dog. I was like, oh, it's so cute and we were chatting about, you know, pacing. And he was like, yeah, I think I might try for the nine minute pace and I said, oh, really, that's gonna be with me. And he said, oh, you.

Speaker 4: 14:12

And then we kind of I kind of laughed with him. I was like, okay, well, I mean I could pace a nine minute mile. He's like, oh, okay, but maybe I just don't look like I could, I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 14:25

Jackie, you look like you could to me. I know you better, but you look like you could to me.

Speaker 4: 14:30

Yeah, I met so many wonderful people and I got to meet, finally, all the other Galloway Pacers, because I don't think I've ever really talked. I know I talked to a few of them before, but this was my first time really meeting some of them and getting a chance to truly have a conversation with them. And I got to meet my pacing partner, hamish, who was really, really funny and he's like I'm going to take you there. I think I worried him a little bit when I said it's going to be hot. I don't know, it's going to be interesting. He's like you've ran a nine-minute mile before. I was like, yes, I have, but I'm so nervous. But in terms of doing the booth, it was a lot of fun. I can't wait for my next experience. And I got a free gym boss Bob.

Speaker 2: 15:09

Oh good.

Speaker 4: 15:12

Yeah, that thing beats so loud but in terms of if you guys are going to go on the last day it was completely dead in the Disney merchandise area. It also felt completely naked, but one of the cool things out that I found out that day because I met up with Mark, who is also one of the pacers, but we've had him on before. And did you know that you could purchase the signs?

Speaker 2: 15:34

Yes, I did know that.

Speaker 4: 15:35

I didn't know that they're like what, 60 bucks or something like that. But yeah, I had no clue. You do it on the last day. Yeah, how cool is that.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Yeah, you see people walking around carrying signs. Yeah, yeah, on their way out of the park. I did know that. Well, jack, that's cool. We're going to talk about that pacing bit a little bit later on, but I'm proud of you and that would be fun. Thank you. The Rise and Run community is pretty well represented amongst the pacers, I know, so I'm proud of that too. All right, let's see. That's thursday, friday, 5k 2, 30, 3 o'clock in the morning. There we are. It's dark, it's not raining, that's good, it's pretty warm. There were some people with mylar blankets. Riley, not Riley John from the stage, if you have a mylar blanket, why in the world would you have a mylar blanket? But some people did 5K thoughts. We got together a bunch of us us and walked that thing together.

Speaker 3: 16:46

That was fun well, I I actually like the the start off the 5k conversation because my memories of the 5k started before I even got on the bus. Uh, as many people in the community know, um, I had the distinct honor, dare I say, pleasure, of rooming, uh, this entire weekend with the one and only mr hollywood and oh goodness and for weeks he kept dropping hints about what his, his 5k costume was going to be, but he would refuse to tell me.

Speaker 3: 17:27

And he woke me up as as a as a good roommate does, and he goes okay, I'm gonna go put on my costume to the to the point where he was putting on a show. He literally drew the curtains between the bathroom area and the bedroom and then proceeded to do this dramatic opening to reveal him in the mermaid tail, wearing a bikini top made of starfish.

Speaker 3: 17:58

Yeah, it almost looked like starfish pasties, you know yes absolutely, and the fact that that reveal was probably one of the first things that I saw that entire day. Yeah, I knew I was in for a heck of a day yeah but, but. But as well, as we'll talk over the course of this weekend. The fact that tony forgot to pack shirts was was very thematic for the entire weekend.

Speaker 2: 18:30

He's awesome yeah, oh well, tinker Bob was back for the five oh, yes, and that is the other one, yes, that was fun. Tinker Bob was almost lost in the crowd of Tinkerbells, though, although I think I was taller than all the others, because the only other guy I saw Almost lost in the crowd of Tinkerbells, though, although I think I was taller than all the others Because the only other guy I saw dressed as Tinkerbell was our friend Tom yeah, tom from Tom Stokes, and he had the same wig and the same tutu.

Speaker 2: 18:56

I have no idea how people could tell us apart, except he had blue lipstick on. But other than that you know we looked identical. I thought what are you laughing at?

Speaker 4: 19:09

Oh, I laughed at Greg. He laughed.

Speaker 2: 19:15

I was glad to see Tom there. I know he's there all the time but I usually miss him somehow. But I got to see him before and after the race this time. It was fun.

Speaker 3: 19:25

I do have to say one comment about to see him before and after the race. This time it was fun. I do have to say one comment about Tom that I thought was adorable for the not just the 5K but the entire weekend is. You know, when we had him and Adam on a couple of weeks ago, you know Adam was telling us about how you know he got his dates mixed up or whatever and playing this cruise, thinking that springtime was going to be a different weekend and all that jazz Tom for all three races, carried with him a plush Stormtrooper doll and put a tutu on the doll.

Speaker 2: 19:57

I didn't notice.

Speaker 3: 19:58

Yeah, so I thought that was an absolute wonderful homage to Adam for the entire weekend. But going back to what you said before, bob, it was so wonderful. We had this one big group costume of Peter Pan, we had everyone, we had all the darling children and we had. Tinkerbell and Pan and Pan Shadow. But there's one factor of this entire 5K that needs to be discussed, and that is we had somebody in our group who had a corral for the 5K. Anybody want to take a guess? Who had that bib?

Speaker 2: 20:40

It's cheating. I know the answer. Go for it, bob. Miss Rebecca the cookie lady had that bib and I have a theory. I have a theory. My theory is that someone at Run Disney not only listens to the podcast but attends our meetups and said, oh, that's Becky who makes the cookies. I'll put her an A correct. But yeah, becky had an A bib, becky had an a bib. I had a b-bib for the weekend.

Speaker 3: 21:08

That surprised me too, boys and girls, because my I have no proof of time at this time, and yet I had a b corral for the weekend so, but it was interesting because I know we had, you know, we had gathered the group of us and obviously we all wanted to go out together and spend the entire race together, and so we were analyzing bibs and then we thought our last letter was C. But then I want to say one person had D, yeah one or two, I don't remember.

Speaker 3: 21:40

Yeah, so we fell back to D. But then, the more and more I thought about it, I'm like how cool would it have been. You know I was teasing Becky about this. I was like, Becky, you should go out of A and just walk, and the rest of us will leave out of D and let's see if we can catch you on the course. I thought that would have been a wonderful challenge.

Speaker 2: 22:01

It might have been.

Speaker 3: 22:05

But obviously I know she likes to enjoy in the fun and frivolity that we all have together. So, yeah, so it was. It was a blast, you know, course, usual course, as always, but, um, you know, just being able to be together as a group and then doing our following the leader, um, march across the finish line was, uh was pretty special as well I got a chance to explain to riley before the the race that I wasn't really.

Speaker 2: 22:26

He thought I was Tinkerbell. I explained that I was no, in fact, tinker Bob. Tinker Bob is actually Tinkerbell's uncle, tinkerbell's very small. I'm not, and that worked. We also you're talking about corral placements, greg. We have a new rise and run term. Oh, yes, yeah. As we were heading to the corrals, some of our friends drifted off towards the porta potties and when I asked what corral they were going to, they pointed over there and I said oh, you're going to corral P, are you? So now we have a new race term corral p the number of people over the weekend were like you need to have t-shirts made that say corral p.

Speaker 3: 23:11

I'm like you didn't know what they were talking about. Well, no, I I knew what they were talking about, but I was like trying to think of the design and like how to keep it like classy and professional yeah, and I think we should do it in honor of lexi. You know, if we just, if we just have a tilted over port-a-potty and then somehow turn that into a pee, I think that would be a brilliant idea. So if we have any graphic, designers out there, please let us know.

Speaker 4: 23:35

And also I want to say the most beautiful thing I saw out of your guys' 5K, because I wasn't there. I think I was, I think the day of the expo. I was flying back from Disneyland Paris so I didn't get to do the whole weekend like you guys. But your guys' 5K first of all looked epic. Second of all, the most adorable thing I think I've ever seen was the following the leader at the finish line with Kay as the lead, and I think she was dressed up. Was it John with the umbrella?

Speaker 2: 24:06

Yeah, she was John. She was From Peter Pan.

Speaker 4: 24:09

And you guys. I got to see the video. Maybe we could see if we can get to post it on Instagram so everybody could see how beautiful it was. But the fact that I think I heard you guys made Carissa speechless and made her cry a little bit. Those are moments that make run Disney so beautiful and so magical, you know.

Speaker 3: 24:29

Yeah, well, the one thing that. I found interesting. You know, in terms of like, the ambience of the five K was they were playing a lot of the music from the Kathy Rigby version, the, the the stage musical of Peter Pan which. I know is not technically a Disney property, but that was just cool to hear songs like I Got a Crow and I Won't Grow Up and everything like that, so that was pretty cool to hear throughout the race.

Speaker 2: 25:02

I heard I Won't Grow Up very clearly when I stopped in Corral P in the American area and I'm thinking I'm a 70-year-old man dressed like a fairy and they're playing. I won't grow up.

Speaker 4: 25:16

How appropriate is that I will never grow up.

Speaker 2: 25:22

So 5K was fun. Weather held out for us, really. I really thought the weather was fine for. So 5K was fun Weather held out for us. I really thought the weather was fine for the 5K. Not too much exciting. I don't recall doing much during the day. I don't know if you guys did anything exciting during the day. I did go back to the expo, as I like to do. It's my best chance to visit with Jeff. I usually on the busy day, opening day I I wave so he knows that I'm there in case I don't get back. But when I get back the next year I'd get a chance to see him and that's. I enjoy that and I always meet up with other friends too when we get back there.

Speaker 3: 26:00

I would say my only highlight for the rest of the day on Friday was our friends. Rachel and Tara were so lovely to invite me out to spend the day with them in Hollywood Studios, and then our buddy Allie without a knee tagged along as well too, and we were just enjoying that. We had lunch at Roundup Rodeo Barbecue, which was fantastic, and then slowly becoming one of my favorite meals on property right now that that mac and cheese I'm still having dreams about. Um, but you know, we did a couple of rides and everything like that, and we were just trying to bounce from air conditioning to air conditioning as much as possible yeah, it's a good idea but the one thing that I kept teasing tara and rachel about the entire weekend was you.

Speaker 3: 26:44

we ended up linking up in my Disney experience and they had all of these days of reservations of meals at all. You care to enjoy establishments?

Speaker 2: 26:56

Yes.

Speaker 3: 26:57

And so, for example, on Friday we had Woody or the roundup rodeo barbecue. They had that for lunch, and then the girls were going to go to Sebastian's Bistro for dinner and I know, probably maybe about two hours after lunch, everyone was like there's no way, I can do this again. So we pulled an audible and we went for apps and milkshakes over at 50's Primetime Cafe, and that was actually the first time I had ever been in there before, so yeah, so all I really wanted was the, the famous peanut butter and jelly milkshake.

Speaker 3: 27:33

But the waitress was nice and brought out rounds of water for everybody and I sucked mine down because I'm like I need to stay hydrated because of everything.

Speaker 3: 27:42

and now I thought this shtick only happened over at whispering canyon, at wilderness lodge. But all of a sudden our waitress brings me what essentially is a wine carafe of water and she took two of the milk um, milkshake straws and, like, combined them together to make this massive straw for me. Because she just kept harassing me, because, again, there is a shtick there too about don't have your elbows on the table, make sure you have a clean plate, all that jazz. So somebody took a photo of me and I was like this just has to go on Facebook. I'm like so here's your reminder folks Be sure to stay hydrated. And of course, just that big carafe of water was a running joke for the rest of the weekend, but that was the big highlight for me for sure.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Same two culprits. Greg, After leaving breakfast at Crystal Palace late breakfast, 10.30 until about 11.30, breakfast slash lunch I end up at Roundup Rodeo at 4 that afternoon. Oh boy, it did not go well. But I agree that's a great place. I want to go back there where I can actually eat something. I I was very pleasantly surprised and pleased at both places. All right, Let us move on. Saturday morning 10 K Gregreg, you already asked me if you could kick off the 10k.

Speaker 3: 29:07

Oh yes, okay, so I feel like I know this race had a name, but I feel like it needs to be adjusted ever so slightly. This should have been called the adventure is out there 10k. Sponsored by kawaiian pizza apparel yeah I I have never seen so many kpa russell wilderness explorer shirts in my life and it was, and the carl shirts and the carl shirts, yes, and I even saw a bunch of um kevin dresses as well too.

Speaker 3: 29:44

But I mean, obviously I know people you know will buy this stuff and you know, like the shirt I wore, you know, my kpa shirt. I've had that for years, I've worn it for several races. But I'm like boy alec must be having a great business, you know, especially, you know, these last couple of months, because she just has all this wonderful material, um, you know, that can be used for this specific up themed race and it was just, it was really cool to see, but I was like, yeah, kawaiian piece, apparel should have definitely been the sponsor of of this particular race we need to talk with alex and get her back on the episode again here as we get closer to the race season.

Speaker 2: 30:21

But I need to talk to her about the 101 Dalmatians, which I'll mention again in a little while. We'll let that go. Yeah, I got to do. Every now and then there's a theme where there's a character that just calls out to me uh, during the the race car. Doc Hudson was perfect and Carl was just a perfect character for me to do. So. I did a Carl. I had to get a wig because, even though my hair is the right color, I don't have enough of it.

Speaker 2: 30:54

So I had a Carl wig, I got the glasses, I carried my cane with me, which at times was a little bit of a pain, but I liked it. I enjoyed, had fun, had fun Again. We were with groups of Rise and Run family friends the whole time and that was pretty awesome.

Speaker 3: 31:14

Yeah, 10k was a bunch of fun because I think a majority of our group left out of B which I think we'll have a conversation about corral b especially for for the 10 miler in a little bit here but, um, I think the only two uh was just myself and k um, we both went out of c and we, and even though we thought we got in there late, we somehow ended up in the first wave of C for both the 10K and the 10 miler. So, even though there was a sizable distance between the big rise and run group and then Kay and I, we were able to catch up with you guys at some point I forget at what time it happened.

Speaker 2: 32:07

It was relatively quickly.

Speaker 3: 32:09

Yeah, so you know, it's a situation where, you know, I went into this weekend not exactly knowing like what my race plan and my race strategy and race, of course, outside of the 5K of course, but so the fact that you know, know, k and I got to hang out together and, you know, I really got a chance to get to know her, um, you know, and become even better friends that we already once were, what was a really special moment and highlight for me for the weekend.

Speaker 3: 32:38

And then, don't worry, k, we're gonna get back to you a little bit later on this recap. Um, but course is awesome, as always, you know. I, I know the. The phrase that I use is this is the perfect 10k course. Um, absolutely love it. I thought they did a really nice job with the characters as well, too. Lines, you know, seemed pretty manageable, um, but yeah, just overall, a ton of fun it was. It was great to be able to bump into everybody, um, you know, relatively early on in the race.

Speaker 2: 33:08

Big thanks to Rachel, another Rachel who was our scout. Rachel was running at about an eight minute pace, so she would head out, get into character lines, wait for the group to catch up. We all do one photo. Nobody seems to have any. That seems to be run disney protocol. We're not the only people who do that, and so that's that's.

Speaker 3: 33:31

Another thing that helped you catch us, greg, is we were able to do that and stop for photos yeah, that that is one thing I did want to bring up just just as a general overall comment from the weekend. I really never was part of big group photos like that until this past marathon weekend during the half of the half, and for some reason I have always been extremely hesitant to do that because, you know, whenever we're waiting for an attraction at Disney World and people are like oh I got to meet up with my family or whatever you know.

Speaker 3: 34:09

Sometimes you know there's thoughts of doubt and everything like that.

Speaker 3: 34:13

But I am very proud of the Run Disney community that if there are these types of situations where you know, like Rachel, you know ran ahead and held a spot and you know you, just you know, ran ahead and held a spot and you know you just are telling the entire line. This is just one photo and I promised your weight is going to get a heck of a lot shorter in just a few minutes. The fact that there's no residual anger or, you know, sly comments or anything like that associated with it is slowly helping me mentally participate in those a little bit more, and I'm just glad that there isn't a ton of negative stigma around that practice and I hope that continues on for race weekends to come.

Speaker 2: 34:58

Yeah, because we were very, very careful to get in and out as fast as we possibly could and we did not take any. Well, we did not take much longer than a single person and occasionally there'd be small groups with two or three who would take longer than us. So I didn't feel bad about that at all. But thanks, rachel for helping us out with those. We appreciate that. Anything else on the 10K, I'm trying to think Nothing too exciting well, I mean the other.

Speaker 3: 35:27

I guess the second exciting thing is now.

Speaker 3: 35:29

This is day two of uh tony forgetting to wear a shirt now, folks, let me tell you obviously, you know, and, by the way, just flashing back to the 5k for a second, um, I want to give a big shout out to race announcer Tracy. Yeah, the way that she set up that interview to interview Tony on the big screen, about really that you know we have the stars of run Disney because you know he had the starfish brawl on and everything like that. I just thought that was absolutely brilliant. And of course, lots of videos and photos were getting shared of Tony across the entire rest of the day. We wake up Saturday morning and he is jubilated beyond a shadow of a doubt because he woke up to a notification on his phone that Carissa Galloway was now following him on Instagram and that was really cute to see. But I remember he was a little nervous getting dressed for the 10k because he was dressing up as one of the squirrels you know because you know we dug gets distracted by them so easily that's funny.

Speaker 3: 36:41

You know he had this like furry vest or whatever, but he couldn't find a brown running shirt to go with the costume.

Speaker 2: 36:50

I bet he didn't look very hard, yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:53

And then I think he put like a die cast, like belly circle on there and he was, like you know, looking at the forecast like there's just no way I can wear this. So this is why he went day two shirtless. And then he decided, you know, by the end of saturday, that, um, yeah, might as well go three for three on this one all right, I'm with you, bro, tony.

Speaker 2: 37:16

That's your story and you're sticking to it. All right, we're good, okay. All right, let us move forward. Let's get to sunday, the last race wait, wait, wait oh golly did you guys meet up? I thought I saw some golly, golly.

Speaker 2: 37:32

How was I gonna? I'm embarrassed, thank you, because how in the world could I miss that? That was, and I I teased it in the beginning. That was just amazing, just amazing. This family never. Becky was last week. I was sitting out here where I am now. Crickets were where they usually are and, uh, I could see in the kitchen window and Becky's in there baking cookies, which he had been doing most of the day. I believe, all told, she makes about 20 dozen and I'm thinking, becky, we're not going to have that many people. This race is not as big as Marathon Weekend. It's probably the size of Princess, maybe possibly even a little smaller, and it's going to be really hot. People are not going to want to come and sit out there over in the food truck area.

Speaker 3: 38:38

Well, think about it Last year at this meetup, we maybe only had 20 to 25 people.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Really, yeah, it wasn't that many.

Speaker 4: 38:49

Oh.

Speaker 2: 38:51

It's just emblematic of what has happened within the community, within the family, as I love to call it, is that people look forward to it because they look forward to seeing one another look forward to it because they look forward to seeing one another. And whether you've been with us since October of 2021, or whether you joined us three weeks ago, you, I hope, you have learned how welcome you are and how not only how much we want you we, those of us who are sitting here behind microphones this evening, but the rest of the family wants to see you and know you too. Anyway, the meetup the meetup was scheduled to start at three. My sweet wife, I call it. She gets there early and establishes a beachhead, meaning she grabs a table and as many chairs as she can. She did that at 1.30. Oh geez, it's hot. I'm thinking I won't do this. This is too early.

Speaker 2: 39:54

Becky, let's go over to the Splitsville and we'll sit at the bar and have a drink and come back in about 45 minutes. Nope, she insists, we need to do this. Go get the cookies. She says. I have to go back up to the car in orange garage, pick up the cookies and and the recording equipment, which, which isn't that much. It gets a little heavy after you're carrying it for a while, but it's not too bad. Uh, that's fun. Getting by security with the recording equipment. They, they're actually really decent. They treat it like oh yeah, this happens every day. Do you offer them cookies, bob? I do Every time. I have Every time, and they always chuckle. I guess they have a rule that they can't have them. I'm sincere. If they want one or two, of course they could have them.

Speaker 5: 40:37

I know I gave them to one of our waitresses after and he goes oh, these are great.

Speaker 2: 40:48

I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I would definitely do it, no doubt about it. Uh, so 1 30. So I've got the cookies there at about two o'clock. It's still at that point. It's just becky. That didn't last long, about quarter after after. I forget who got there and I'm sorry because we were talking and I know who you are and I just kind of forgot who it was. But we were chatting a little bit and I mentioned something about Alan Young and then, over my shoulder, here comes Alan Young and Grace at about 2.15, 2.20. There were probably 50 people there by 3 o'clock and it grew. We took a photo about 3.30. Some folks had already left. I think I haven't tried to count them. Greg, have you tried to count the people in the photo?

Speaker 3: 41:46

I started to it gets hard. Yeah, and then I I couldn't enlarge it enough on my phone to get an accurate count, so I'll need to like take it in the Photoshop or something like that and blow it up to, but no, it was guys we had over a hundred people there, yeah no, it was. I would put it on par with the same amount of people, if not more than, what we had at Marathon Weekend this past year.

Speaker 4: 42:15

Crazy Wow.

Speaker 2: 42:18

Yeah it left me speechless.

Speaker 4: 42:20

And I just want to slightly apologize so I was a little late to the event. I got there about 3.20. Because if you are invited to pace the event, you actually do have to work the booth over at the expo. And because I flew in Saturday morning, the expo is only open for so long.

Speaker 2: 42:41

Right, right, I understood that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 42:43

I was very happy to make it. I I still I know everybody says this with us and everything and just want to say thank you so much for everybody coming and chatting with all of us. I hope you, I hope you, truly understand how amazing and wonderful it feels to meet your, you know, meet your people in terms of like your community and your friends, and you're just like I am so thankful every single day for the, for this community. Um, you guys are absolutely lovely, so wonderful to meet you guys. I wish we had more time to chat.

Speaker 2: 43:18

I feel like the meetups aren't long enough now well, we'll have to see and we we may have to find a bigger area no, that, no, that that was something I was going to bring up because, uh, we got.

Speaker 3: 43:31

I was again still hanging out with rachel and tara because we had attempted to try dapper day over at epcot before coming down to the meetup and that was just torturous to a certain extent because, you know, wearing nice clothes and that heat and where there's not a lot of shade in world showcase was an adventure and a half for sure. Um, but I know that the girls were looking for, I think, like a small world dress. So we went. So we went over to like the the world of disney side, um, because I thought maybe would be in there, and they're like, oh no, go go look in this shop or whatever.

Speaker 3: 44:12

And we had to pass by um, dockside margaritas in order to get right and I and I made the joke that I was gonna post something in the springtime surprise chat. That'd be like change of plans. We're moving the meetup back to the original location because there is a lot more shade over there than there usually is by the food truck area. But and but then once seeing the sheer number of people, I'm like, okay, it took us a year and a half to outgrow dockside margaritas and we're starting to get pretty close that we could be outgrowing um, you know the food truck area, so we definitely should put our thinking caps on, for you know other places and folks. If you have ideas as well, do please send them our way. We'd be really interested to hear some ideas. But yeah, again that just the sheer number of people and and so much love that was that was at that meetup.

Speaker 3: 45:10

What was incredible and the one profound thing that that really really washed over me, um, um, during, you know, that span of two hours, was something you said, bob, and, and I think you might have said I can't remember if you said to me in private or to a very small group of us.

Speaker 3: 45:31

You know, you have a strong, positive, motivating family based on the fact that you, me and Jack and Alicia Alicia was there and she's on a vacation right now and we'll get her thoughts on everything next week the four of us could have left that thing, yeah yeah and there would have still been dozens of people there chatting with one another and and that, and that's incredible, and that's a and folks, that is a testament to you of, oh yeah, helping build this amazing community that supports one another in their running journey, and I just I love where it's grown to and I can't wait to keep growing it. It's, it's absolutely awesome.

Speaker 4: 46:19

I love that you speak so eloquently and so perfectly about, like, the community in general and I'm just like, oh, I agree with everything you say. You guys are our whole art. I can't word, this is so hard. You guys are our ohana. Yeah, ohana means family, and families stick together, and I just want to say thank you so much for being in this wonderful, beautiful family that I completely am thankful for every single day.

Speaker 2: 46:48

I was chatting on the same subject with one of our friends Again, I don't remember who, and a brief aside, friends, thank you for being patient with me when I say I can't remember your name or I can't remember who I was talking to, because it is literally hundreds every weekend. But I mentioned that same thing, that I loved looking around and going. Those people over there who are together having a wonderful time would not have known each other absent the Rise and Run podcast. They probably wouldn't have. It could have happened, but the Rise and Run podcast was the catalyst. And whoever I was talking to said to me yeah, it won't be long before somebody gets married in this group, oh my gosh, the first Rise and Run baby, stop it.

Speaker 4: 47:43

You're going to get a onesie. They didn't have, you know, in this group because they met. Oh my gosh, the first rise and run baby, stop it they didn't.

Speaker 2: 47:48

They didn't have. You know, we didn't have anybody in mind. If you're out there, don't get. No, we didn't have anyone in mind, we did. It was just a thought that someone had thrown out. I said do you really think so? I said, oh yeah, I really think that will happen you know, jack.

Speaker 3: 48:03

I want to go back to something you just said before about you know onesies and babies and everything like that. We do need to give a shout out to somebody who, who was at the meetup, but not physically at the meetup, and that is baby George. All of a sudden, I was using the recording equipment I think I was, I think I was recording it was k or or somebody else and my phone is buzzing and it's a video call from david and he and he sends me a message and he's like are you guys at the meetup? And so I video chat him back and, as a as a congratulations to them, we had, uh, here at the podcast, we had sent them a rise and run um logo onesie. And all of a sudden, so I'm chatting with david and he goes, oh, somebody wants to say hi. And he turns the camera and there's baby george wearing his rise from one onesie. So he. So, jack, I brought the phone over to you at one point.

Speaker 4: 49:04

You, you don't remember this. No, you know what? It was a very long day and I had no sleep, so I apologize. So I'm reliving the beautiful moment again.

Speaker 3: 49:13

Okay, All right, but, yeah so, but it's so cool that that you know, the meetup can even extend outside of the physical meetup itself, which is great.

Speaker 2: 49:22

David, you know that's a collector's item. That is a unique John DeMarco designed, one-of-a-kind baby onesie.

Speaker 4: 49:31

I do remember that picture.

Speaker 2: 49:34

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 49:34

Hold on Sorry.

Speaker 5: 49:38

It just got brighter in there, the light just went on. It was amazing. Light just went on it was.

Speaker 3: 49:44

But you know, you know, speaking of other gifts too, I, I know we we tried to to limit the, the number of shout outs and everything like that. Um, I just want to give um two massive thank yous real fast, uh. First to the leader of the chaos crew, monica. Um, I don't know where she found them, um, but she had gotten me some of the?

Speaker 3: 50:05

um power limes or um the power line candy, laffy taffies for me and I actually ended up finding them a little bit later on the trip. Uh, so I bought a bunch um, but that was really, really sweet. And then the other one too is um to our friend stephanie, who is just a tremendous beacon of light in our community with her story. Right now she had made us these wonderful Bob is reusable bag, the correct phrase here.

Speaker 2: 50:39

Reusable vinyl bag that folds into itself basically and easily fits into your pocket of your running shorts.

Speaker 3: 50:47

And then that's great. So as you're going through the finisher shoot, you can throw the Gatorade and or the or sorry, powerade Coke products you know, the Powerade and the banana and the bottles of water and the snack box. So that way you're not, you know, fumbling with it at, you know, as you go through the shoot. That was just such a precious gift and I ended up using it throughout the rest of the weekend. So that so, stephanie, thank you so much for making that. That meant a lot, and what I really appreciate is that she put catchphrases on them for us. You know.

Speaker 3: 51:17

Mine said hey, hey, hey, Bob, I can't remember what yours said, the tall old guy remember what yours said the tall old guy, tall guy, yeah.

Speaker 2: 51:29

And then, uh, alicia says I love that and I know stephanie's got more of those. Uh, jack, what did you see? You got one, I forget I forgot, oh for crying it's been a very long week. I'm sorry but yeah, it was beautiful. And Greg. I kind of. That's something I need to catch up on and I'm going to stop again. I would say thank you to Stephanie also, but I'm going to stop there because I got other people to thank and I'm not prepared, so I'll have to do that later.

Speaker 3: 52:00

Now, one thing that I just realized. Um, I would like to before we get into Sunday. There is a glaring thing that we just skipped over in terms of a massive event that happened on Saturday and that is. On behalf of everyone here at the Rise and Run podcast, we would like to congratulate John Pelkey on running his first ever 10K.

Speaker 2: 52:24

Pelkey congratulations first ever 10K Pelkey, congratulations. Insert PR bell here.

Speaker 4: 52:30

I love it.

Speaker 2: 52:31

Yeah, it was fun, and Stephanie helped him on that. Stephanie stayed with him through the whole thing. Yeah, it's been fun. That's another thing that's been fun is getting to know the announcing crew. It's been wonderful, the announcing crew, it's been wonderful.

Speaker 2: 52:48

I'm just going to conclude Saturday by saying that we got there at 1.30. We had dinner reservations at 5, and when I left there were still folks there. Now, there weren't a lot, but there were still folks there, as we described earlier. Still folks there, as we described earlier, talking amongst themselves new friends. So a message to those of you who maybe are new to this maybe you've picked us up a week or two ago. Maybe you couldn't make it to the meetup. This is what it's all about is this family that grows, that gets to know one another not just us gets to know one another, and we hope you will become part of that. All right, now I think I'm safe to move on to Sunday. I jumped the gun a little bit there. I'm safe to move on to Sunday and the final race of the 2023-24 season. Yeah, I know. Yeah, oh well, ten Miler. How'd it go, jack? How'd it go Well, bob.

Speaker 4: 53:55

It was an experience I think I'm so used to kind of. I usually just kind of run on my own and I literally will sprint to characters, um, so it was really different this time around to not be able to see the characters yeah, yeah, right right, um, and I will say I was kind of slightly devastated because my um favorite movie is rescuers down under and uh, bianca and bernard were out and I've never seen them out before and I couldn't stop for them and I wanted to cry internally, but on the plus side, you guys, besides that, um, I think overall the race was good.

Speaker 4: 54:43

Um, I think I sometimes get anxiety in crowds, um, so the first few miles were a bit rough for me and I, I my my biggest fear was losing hamish um in the midst of the crowd, um, because it was just jam-packed entire time, shoulder to shoulder. So much so that when I was in our walking section and we were off to the right, um, I accidentally um stepped on someone's um, uh, shoe like the back of their heel, and I felt so bad and I looked at her. I'm like I am so sorry, oh, my God, are you okay? And, um, she, she, she looked at me and just kind of looked at me and I was like, okay, I'm so sorry and it was purely accident, but it was like in one of those areas where it's like we were packed like sardines and I hate using that as like a metaphor of any kind, but yeah, it was really extremely crowded and I just I just had a fear of losing my, my partner, because I was like, if, if, if I lose him, how am I going to find him?

Speaker 2: 55:52

He had a big stick with a flag on it, Jack.

Speaker 4: 55:55

Yes, makes it a little easier. Yeah, so actually let me go back a little bit. In the beginning of the corrals, I was really excited because we started meeting people that we're going to attempt to. We started meeting people that we were going to potentially pace with, which was really cool, and we had great conversations and you guys guess what?

Speaker 2: 56:13

I have no idea.

Speaker 4: 56:15

I think you do, because I kind of told you beforehand. But it's okay. I was really excited because I had found during the corral time, since we had an hour to wait I found 43 running jokes and I've never felt so proud of myself for finding them and I told Hamish and I.

Speaker 4: 56:35

I got him laughing and I turned to the people who are going to be in our pacing group. I was like you guys, you guys are going gonna get some running jokes, probably around mile five, but I was very proud of it because I was practicing my timing, because timing is everything when the jokes are like you know, but um, do you remember any of them jack, um actually I I screenshot them all so give us one or two all right, it may not not be one that I said during the race.

Speaker 4: 57:06

Okay, so I didn't say this joke, but it's kind of stuff like this why did the snowman get a cramp?

Speaker 2: 57:14

Jack, I don't know why did the snowman get a cramp?

Speaker 4: 57:16

I'm so excited. No, no, no, that wasn't it Sorry. Because he did not warm up. I thought it was funny, okay.

Speaker 2: 57:30

Oh golly.

Speaker 4: 57:32

Why don't sprinters have long careers? Because they're only good in the short run.

Speaker 2: 57:39

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 57:42

But anyways, yeah, I was so excited there was like 43 of these jokes.

Speaker 2: 57:47

that's enough we've heard enough.

Speaker 4: 57:49

No, I wasn't gonna tell him it was enough no, no, but I'm just saying like, I just felt bad that by the time I got to tell the jokes it was around mile seven and I only got to tell five of them and, um, I think, because of the way when you pace, if you fall behind, we were off by 40 seconds in the first mile and we weren't able to catch any other miles in the first three miles. So we had to gain everything within between miles three and six and we were finally at our average mile around mile six. It's just, at some points you have to, unfortunately, do a lot faster pace and I felt so bad, um, because the people pacing with us, we weren't really doing at that point a 10 minute mile because we were catching up. We were doing I think our fastest was a nine minute and 22nd mile for a 90 30. But, um, I don't know about you guys, but I had a problem with the heat. I was so heat exhausted um mile seven and I got really quiet.

Speaker 2: 58:47

Well, jack, as long as we're talking about pacing, we've got a guest with us tonight, so let's bring him on and we'll talk about it a little more. Well, while we're on the 10-miler the 10-miler being the long race this weekend was the only one that had pacers, so let's talk pacers a little bit, particularly as they apply to the springtime. Surprise, we've got a guest with us this week. He's been here before. A lot of our friends know Adam. Adam's been a Galloway pacer for a while. Adam, it's good to see you. Buddy, how you doing?

Speaker 1: 59:20

I'm doing wonderful, happy to be here.

Speaker 2: 59:23

We're glad you're here Now I'm going to talk with you. We're going to talk with you about this next thing I'm going to say later, but Adam just got back from Boston in time to do the pacing here at Springtime Surprise. Ah, pretty cool. Pretty cool, buddy.

Speaker 1: 59:41

And nice and barely recovered, I imagine. I imagine.

Speaker 2: 59:44

I imagine that's pretty cool but, like I said, we're going to talk more about that on a different episode. That'll be fun. Jack, you were pacing and this was your first time to pace, right?

Speaker 4: 59:59

Yeah, it was an experience.

Speaker 2: 1:00:01

But you were not with Adam, you were with no, I was with Hamish.

Speaker 4: 1:00:06

So originally I was scheduled to run the 130 group, which was an average of nine minute mile. Due to the heat index and as a reference in general, if it is like around 70 degrees, I believe Adam can correct me, but if it's about 70 degrees, including with the inclusion of dew point, I know you'd be like that, bob, we will get pushed back a group. So I was with the 140 time in Corral B.

Speaker 2: 1:00:35

There's a term for that, jack, and I don't know if it's strictly a military term or not. It's called a wet bulb index, where you combine the heat and the humidity. The dew point was in the high 60s, which I was surprised. I didn't think it was that high, but it was. It was 68. It was 68 when we finished, and dew points do not vary that much during a day unless there's a front or something, and once again I'm getting way too bogged down. So see what happens. You, um, what tell us about your experience pacing this one? Uh, adam, why don't you kick it off for us?

Speaker 1: 1:01:09

yeah. So I mean it's always a pleasure and honor to come and pace, right? So, um man, that's funny. This is my first perfect season completion of pacing, so that was really cool. And this race you said it was hot, it definitely was.

Speaker 1: 1:01:28

And this pacing to me was, I mean, all of our pacing has challenges, right? Because in Disney races you're always going to run into congestion at some point some point of the course. Congestion at some point of the course it's going to happen. So our goal, job, I should say, as a pacer, is to guide not only our group but anybody else around us safely through any of the pinch points as well. As you know, carrying the flag at a consistent pace, right? So our number one priority is safety, followed by you will know where you are on the course by looking at the flag. We're supposed to be as consistent as possible. We play a fun game just to be able to do that. We play closest to the pin. But that comes second to safety, of course.

Speaker 1: 1:02:18

And this race, the 10 milers, are more challenging to pace because of the shorter distance, so there's less, there's less room for error. So if we get behind, it's a lot harder to make it up where you get to a half marathon or a marathon. We can spread that out and not worry as much in the beginning. As we go on, we can slowly chip away at that time. And for this one, we, you know they start slowly chip away at that time. And for this one, we, you know, they start you off right in the parks. And you know, I've I felt from my pacing time that I didn't really get any major congestion until maybe mile two.

Speaker 1: 1:02:58

We were, we were in, we were in Epcot, I think it was, we were in Epcot, I think it was. And then when the biggest point that we had and it's a consistent problem I've seen between last last 10 miler and this one was between the parks, because as you go around along the canal, not only does it get narrow but they put a water stop there, and last time that was really difficult and last time that was really difficult and I was really hoping they wouldn't do that this time but they did and you've got maybe five, six feet. It's not a big sidewalk. And then the other thing about it is they put it on the left side and the normal race etiquette is you want to walk on the right and run on the left, and that's what we always guide our groups to do, because we want to do that for safety, so that runners can keep going around us if they want to, and we're not going to swarm or cut anybody off.

Speaker 1: 1:03:56

So, for that water, stop. When the water stops on the left, most individuals are going to go and grab water, slow down a little bit, walk a little bit, drink the water which is the right thing to do and then get going again. Well, that reverses the etiquette on the course. So I kind of thought that maybe if they moved it even a little bit further, you've got a big parking lot coming up, you've got a ton of space going into Hollywood Studios, that you could spread that out a little bit it definitely opens there, you're right or just reverse the course.

Speaker 4: 1:04:26

So you start on the highway, you give people the space which I know we're going to get to in a second on a different topic. But that way you increase the space for which people can run. So it's not so congested in the beginning and people can spread out in that aspect. So when they do get to the parks and there are um, quote-unquote pinch points or just smaller lanes of which we're running on, then it's a little bit more spread out by the time they get there.

Speaker 3: 1:04:52

That's just yeah the one thing that I'm intrigued by. I think the first half of this course is absolutely wonderful. Right, it is. The second half of that course is a drag, a stall, yeah, and I wonder if, but. But I can see why you can't do it. I wonder if you ran it in reverse. But I understand, though, why we do it that way, because, as you're coming along that pathway by the boardwalk, heading towards studios, then, yes, you get this straight shot down hollywood boulevard to see the chinese theater, and then, after you loop through galaxy's edge and toy storyland, then you're getting the straight shot onto tower of terror so again I.

Speaker 3: 1:05:34

I understand that but, like I again, I wonder if my enjoyment of the course would be any different if it you know it could be tweaked in that way I know this race was a very hot weekend and I know what you guys were training to pace.

Speaker 5: 1:05:49

I would assume, at a certain pace, that all of a sudden day before the race, they say guys and girls you have to cut back a minute a mile on your pace. So how does that affect you guys as pacers?

Speaker 4: 1:06:04

A lot, to be honest, if I mean, I don't know about you, but like for my pacing. So I was scheduled to run a two minute run, 30 second walk, and that's what I was practicing. And, um, they did say, you know, just in case, try and do 90, 30, like you know, try and do the other ratios which you could be. And so when, before I found out what my time was, I was practicing um 90 seconds run, 30 seconds walk in an as an 11 minute average pace. The one pace I didn't practice was a 90, 30 at 10 minutes. Um, so I, to be honest, I was kind of like trying to be a sponge.

Speaker 4: 1:06:42

I was following my um pacer, my partner Hamish, the entire time, cause I wanted to learn as much as I could. So I was kind of more quiet during the race than I would have normally been, um, and I was just kind of like a sponge, but getting trying to figure out how to do the 10 minute mile as we're trying to pace. I mean the time I guess didn't matter as much in the beginning because we were so congested and I'm sure I'll talk about my experience later, so I won't get too far into the details about my overall experience but trying to get used to a different time. I'm glad that they shifted it back, because if I had to run a nine-minute mile, not only with the heat but the huge congestion that was the beginning it would have not ended well, because there's not as much time to make up for what was basically dealt, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:32

Lexi, are you proud of your friend Jack? She used to be. She used to be just a goldfish, now she's a sponge.

Speaker 4: 1:07:38

Yeah, yeah, I mean you know, it's an. It's an evolution.

Speaker 2: 1:07:43

I don't know if you picked up on that or not, but you used to be a goldfish, not anymore.

Speaker 4: 1:07:48

I'll take it, Bob Not anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:07:50

It's a step up. I need to make you a new bracelet. I'm a sponge, so were there any other issues, any other things you wanted to talk about about pacing this one? There were things that made it I don't want to say unique, that's the wrong word, but made it different or more challenging. Obviously, anything else you wanted to talk about here?

Speaker 4: 1:08:09

So I'm happy that we got pushed back again with times, for again for a 10-minute pace, because if we were to have paced a nine-minute with where we were situated in Corral B, we wouldn't have been able to catch up to that last mile Corral B, we wouldn't have been able to catch up to that last mile. The thing that I really wanted, first of all, the most important thing that I really wanted to mention that I hope Disney listens to, is the safety situations that I saw within the first three miles, especially for awd, was astounding. Corral b was so congested and normally awd and adam can vouch for this because he has friends that have confirmed it they usually go in between corral a and corral b, but instead this time around they were put into the large corral which, by the way, had 13 waves, which is unheard of in the first place.

Speaker 4: 1:09:06

But for Corral that is normally situated for proof of time in AWD, they weren't given the space that they need to have starting out, especially in the beginning of the race, so that way they can have the most successful race possible. But instead they put him in a massive corral where it was shoulder to shoulder for almost the first two and a half miles, from what I saw, and it was not safe. You had people that were stopping in the middle of water, stops taking pictures, and then you had people linking arms. There was one person in our pacing group at the very beginning. I felt so bad. It was so congested, I know I think he decided to fall off a little bit, so I didn't see him from then and I know he finished, so congrats to him.

Speaker 4: 1:09:59

But he had a GoPro and he literally caught footage of people linking arms and whatnot across the entire walkway and they're walking when normally running's on the left if you're going to walk on the right. And I understand I'm still learning as a pacer as well, so I mean I have a lot to learn and I will continue to be that sponge so that I can do it in the most safe way possible. This was a new experience for me, and so I was following what my my pacer was, because he was teaching me along the way, but there were so many safety situations that I saw like somebody jumping over a wheelchair. In no way I didn't see this happen, but in no way that should have been done. You give them that space and you know it, know it's out of respect and you know. I mean I know Adam had a few thoughts about it too.

Speaker 1: 1:10:50

Yeah, it was. There was a lot of congestion. I know the linking of arms issue was big this weekend. I think as pacers we had to work significantly harder than we have in the past. I know this is five or six consecutive Disney races I've done and there's always tough spots. But this was a more difficult one and we always guide our runners and it's hard. It's hard to stay in a group and stay what we call skinny group.

Speaker 1: 1:11:29

We say okay, come on, group, stay skinny, stay, you know, to a breast, please, if at all possible, run to the left. And we call it when we, when we call it out, we, we do the three, two, one running running to the left, and we we call out okay, walk, break in three, two, one walking to the right, please, Everybody over. And I'm doing hand signals left and right and constantly turning around to make sure everybody's listening. Right, Because it's about safety. I have seen runners go down hard in Disney races and we don't want that for anybody, Nor do we want to accidentally cut anybody off.

Speaker 1: 1:12:03

I've been in a pacing situation where we got stuck and I had to go around to the right and the second you get put into that position as a pacer, you want out of it immediately because you feel uncomfortable, you feel dangerous. So whenever I get into that position, we purposely slow down, I stop caring about time and I care about getting in the right position and then we can pick up the time later. Right, Because a lot of you know, we know the first, say, five miles of a Disney race are going to be slower. We expect that. We communicate that to our group too. I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned moving forward in pacing is don't be afraid to say you're slowly off or you're behind. I communicate that directly with them and my big line is you know what we're going to get behind in the first couple of miles, but if we, the pacers, do our job right, you won't know it or you'll barely know that we've made up the time.

Speaker 4: 1:12:57

Again, my biggest thing if Disney can find some way to truly give AWD what they need to have a very safe and successful race. That's all I'm asking. You know what I mean? I just like I just I've heard of too many things, especially in the Corral B situation, of how large it was, and I just I felt so incredibly bad.

Speaker 3: 1:13:20

I am really looking forward to next season to see how run Disney and track shack do the corral system for um for this upcoming race season because, being in C, obviously we were there to experience all the waves and I remember I think Carissa had made a comment that in total there were going to be, I think, 28 waves for the race. Jeez, almost half of those waves were corral b. Yeah, and I wonder if, yeah, and having to catch up and everything like that, I wonder if there can be some type of adjustment that can be made to just help evenly space things out a little bit better. Bob, when you and I started doing Run Disney, it was corrals like A through P or O or something like that. Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 2: 1:14:43

O, but that's only 15 cor. 15 corrals, well, that's a lot of corrals. But yes, they didn't. They didn't do uh waves inside those corrals though correct.

Speaker 3: 1:14:53

So like the thing that I'm intrigued to know is, from a race logistics standpoint, what is more effective? Five corrals with waves within each corral, or just separating everybody into their own legitimate corral and having them go off Again? I don't know what the right answer is. That's why there are people who do this for a living, but yeah, again.

Speaker 4: 1:15:20

I wonder better things that Disney could do.

Speaker 1: 1:15:22

I know Adam had a thought or a suggestion to kind of space out maybe a better improvement on it, I guess you could say I know they've done work in the past with putting a lot more time between the wave releases and I know like. So it's a mixed group in B normally, right. So you've got Club Run Disney. All those wonderful members get put up there and that's a wonderful perk.

Speaker 1: 1:15:51

And as a Club Run Disney. That's what you're after. You want to be a part of the club. You want to get these wonderful perks. You get to register early and that's amazing. I wish I could do it. I know right.

Speaker 1: 1:16:06

But I think from just a running perspective and a safety perspective, I feel like proof of time would still be a wise thing to do in general. But then maybe give club Disney members them like a corral advancement of one right, so where you would normally fall you're going to get the benefit of a bump up. But I think in this what we've seen over time is, with B getting so congested and so crowded, it really has, in my opinion, added to a safety factor. That's. That's a little concerning and I think we saw that this weekend. I don't, I don't believe there was any major, major issues, injuries, but again, I don't see the report, but to me I felt like there was a lot of close calls.

Speaker 4: 1:17:02

Yeah, a lot of unnecessary close calls.

Speaker 1: 1:17:05

Yeah, it was still a great weekend. I don't want to play it down that it wasn't a wonderful weekend and so much fun and we still had amazing pacing groups and we had a ton of success across the board. I just would like to see a little bit more risk avoidance if possible.

Speaker 4: 1:17:23

And I think the last thing and to kind of divert the topic just slightly, but just so everybody has an idea of what it's like running with a pacer and I kind of got this idea, obviously because I got to finally experience it. I've never paced with anybody before, but just so you have just a much, a quick idea about running with a pacer. As kind of a summary before we wrap this part up, is that when you are running with a pacer, like Adam said, you may be behind on time at the beginning. You will work over that time later on to catch up to it. Just know that when we say we're averaging like again, what was yours? I know mine was 10. What was your average mile?

Speaker 1: 1:18:05

I was a bump back to 1330.

Speaker 4: 1:18:08

Yeah. So if you're running a 1330, that's an average across all that time, across the 10 miles. So you, there may be times, you we may be doing faster than that. Just kind of be aware of that. But we act as the finish line. When you see a pacing group with that flag, we are quoting that finish line as we are either running with you passing you or you passing us. You're getting the head, which yay, prs. But we do act as a finish line and I think the most rewarding thing as a pacer is getting to talk to people along the way and encouraging people and seeing them. It's like when you're if you have little kids and they graduate high school or even kindergarten and you're kind of like, oh my gosh, it's like 0.2 away. Fly my little birdies, fly, go get that PR.

Speaker 1: 1:18:59

It's so true.

Speaker 4: 1:19:01

I wish you guys could see Jack, because she's doing the little arm motions like she's flying right here in the room Because somebody wanted to stay with us. They wanted to stay with us and Hamish was like no, go get your time. You can do this. Go crush it. And as much as we appreciate you being with us, you're right there. Go and beat this time.

Speaker 1: 1:19:25

So that is a huge, huge thing for us. We loved that part. I mean, first of all, Jack did amazing pacing she doesn't give herself enough credit. She did an amazing pacing job. So huge, huge, huge kudos to Jack, especially in your first one, because it is nerve-wracking my first pacing.

Speaker 1: 1:19:44

I was a nervous wreck and I I did it with our good friend, tina rourke, and she's an amazing veteran pacer and helped along the whole way. We learned the alphabet game. So I give her all the credit for the alphabet game that I will use every time I pace. But when we get to the last couple miles, that's our favorite part, right, just like you said, I always turn around and say you know what? I got good news and I got bad news. The great news is is you're going to meet your goal. You stuck with us. You have done an absolutely amazing job. The bad news is we want you to leave us and go crush the ending. Right, we want you to, just like you said, fly like a bird and get that time. And most do, but not all do.

Speaker 4: 1:20:32

And they just kind of cruise along and go. And as a future reference, I was going to do a video for this for YouTube. But because I feel like I'm more in training at the moment with pacing, I didn't feel comfortable doing any kind of videos during that event, and I'm glad I didn't, because there was a lot going on and it was very quick and I had a lot of learning to do. But there will be a future video, so that way, if you guys ever had any questions about, um, running with a pacer, what it's like and so on, um, there will be a video out in the future about that, because there's so much I didn't know that I would still love to share.

Speaker 2: 1:21:00

But good stuff. The uh, the Galloway Pacers at disney well, at any place you'll find a galloway pacers do a tremendous job. They're professionals, coach twigs kind of uh, heads up that group and they provide a wonderful, wonderful service. So thank you, guys, thanks for doing it and, adam, thanks for dropping by and chatting with us about it for the Springtime Surprise event.

Speaker 1: 1:21:27

My pleasure Anytime I get to come on the podcast. I'm a giddy little girl.

Speaker 4: 1:21:34

Other than that, it's very rewarding seeing those people that you're pacing with hit those goals and hear how well they did with hit those goals and hear how well they did and, like you know, like 0.2 miles away you get to see somebody finish and crush their goals because their goal was to try and get a 140, which is what we were doing or any other goals, and it just feels very rewarding and that was the thing that I was really excited for and you guys. Last thing so I'm going down the last point, one of the miles towards the finish, and all of a sudden I can hear Carissa saying my name Jacqueline Wiederman, coming to the finish, and there was a slight pause and then she looks over at me as we pass them. She's like, is that Jack from Rise and Run? And I look over. I was like bye. As I'm crossing the finish line, she's like, oh, look at Jack, she's pacing for the first time. I was like, oh, stop it. You made me smile, but thank you for that.

Speaker 2: 1:22:37

Jack, we're proud of you. That's neat. I hope you got a big kick out of pacing and I hope you want to do it again. I think that's really cool.

Speaker 4: 1:22:46

I just want to give a huge shout out to the Galloway Pacers after this uh experience, I just want to give you guys a huge respect to you guys. You guys work extremely hard and get people to their finish times and goals and are so encouraging and you are so wonderful and I just want to give you guys huge props for everything that you do and it's I hope you know it's greatly appreciated.

Speaker 2: 1:23:10

Very good, jack, very good Thanks. All right, 10 miler, 10 miler for me. Last run of the Walt Disney world. Perfect season Four weekends, 13 races. I forget how many miles, but it's a couple.

Speaker 2: 1:23:31

Hey, two years after having a total knee replacement, year of my 70th birthday, less than two years after having my heel reconstructed and my achilles tendon fixed, fixed, I felt pretty good about that. I enjoyed the run. It was hot. Florida boy here didn't think it was that bad, but I certainly folks from other parts of the country were having trouble and I get it. I do, I do genuinely get it. Do point in the upper sixties. That's significant. We we do acclimate to it some here, but it's still a big deal Loved the fact that we had a big group and we the group, seemed to float.

Speaker 2: 1:24:12

I'd be with these 10 or 12 people and then I'd be with these eight or 10 people and it was fun. It was neat. Course was okay. Kind of a long drag on the finish, a great start, then kind of a long drag to get done, but golly, pace was okay. We didn't set any speed records, we weren't trying, we had fun.

Speaker 2: 1:24:38

I did get into Epcot and I kept thinking I really don't want this to end and I kept thinking I really don't want this to end. I started slowing down. I don't want this to end. I got to see Jeff, which has become now a tradition, which is wonderful. I got to see the rest of our race announcers and then we finally had to suck it up and cross the finish line and it was hung together.

Speaker 2: 1:25:05

I appreciate you guys hanging out while I was visiting and I know some of you visited also because that group has become friends of ours as well, which is just wonderful and eventually we had to cross the finish line and we had to put the 23-24 season to rest and that was it. Well, no, not quite. We have one more thing to talk about after this, but I will try to get it a little bit better together for next week. When we talk about season recaps, when everybody wants to talk about their season recap, a reminder if you've got something, you can call us on the hotline and leave us your favorite part of the season. But, greg, any thoughts, recollections, highlights on that 10-miler for you.

Speaker 3: 1:25:59

One of the biggest memories that I had from the 10 miler and this kind of goes back to being a testament to the community that we have here decided that I was going to run again with Kay because I just had such a wonderful time running the, or at least starting the 10K with her. And there was a new-ish listener. There was a new-ish listener, um, her name was nicole. I believe that she had come over and introduced herself to all of us and everything like that, um, but she didn't have anybody to run with and, uh, you know, at least that was going out to see. So you know, k, and I told her to tag along with us and it was just wonderful to get to meet her. And then she ended up actually finding a friend on the course at a character stop, and so we ended up getting separated. But what's the beautiful thing about Run Disney is, even though we got separated, we literally crossed the finish line almost together.

Speaker 2: 1:27:02

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:27:03

We ended up seeing her again in the finisher shoot, which was absolutely wonderful. But again, very similar situation to Saturday Started out with Kay, nicole and then all of a sudden, it didn't take long but we caught up to you and the rest of the big Rise and Run crew that went out B.

Speaker 3: 1:27:25

Speaking to the weather now, bob, you hit the nail right on the head. As a Floridian, southerners probably had a little bit easier time with this race. I know you and I had a conversation as we were entering Hollywood Studios, trying to take guesses to see what and this is a phrase we haven't brought up on the podcast in a while what the dew point was, and I remember by the time I think we had made a guess, that the dew point was 65. Right, and by the time it ended it was like 69 or 70.

Speaker 2: 1:28:01

It wasn't 70. It was either 68 or 69. Okay, which is still significant, especially again if you're coming from a northern state.

Speaker 3: 1:28:08

Yeah, because I mean my barometer as someone in the northeast is. They say on the local weather stations here that a dew point for here anything above 60, is technically humid to us and everything like that. So I never quote-unquote struggled technically, you know, humid to us and everything like that. So you know, um, you know I I never quote unquote struggled, but I mean I have never been so damp before in my life.

Speaker 3: 1:28:30

I mean, I, I literally could wring my hawaiian shirt out. It was. It was that bad. Again, just a ton of fun going from character to character, just having a blast with friends. Two special things that I do want to shout out, um, the first is and I learned this fact through um, the gentleman who we've mentioned several times on this episode, tony, who again decided not to wear a shirt as refugio he was. He was with a group of people. Uh, getting their photo was just before mile seven with powerline max and out of the corner of his eye, tony saw Alan and Grace. Alan, you know, as we know, perfect marathoner, you know, is a legend in his community. Hollywood was able to convince him and Grace to get off the course and join him and his group for a photo with powerline max.

Speaker 3: 1:29:27

Did you know that is the first ever character stop that grace and alan have never done no I didn't know no so do that math and figure out how many characters stops the two of them who have bypassed.

Speaker 3: 1:29:42

So bravo um to hollywood for convincing him and bravo to grace and young for having picking the best character, um, the, the best character to, uh, you know, get their photo taken with in terms of how about that? So that was really cool, uh. But then the last thing I'll bring up and I know I I was teasing her earlier in the episode we got to talk about k, because I think she is going to usurp hollywood in terms of run disney public relations and media.

Speaker 3: 1:30:14

Because, um, during the follow the leader um section of the 5k, um, you know, k let us in and mark was beside her and um the so mike took a photo of the two of them and, lo and behold, um k and and mark were featured during um the run disney instagram post. Uh, for the 5k. So then k and I crossed the finish line with Bob on Saturday and all of a sudden, we're walking through the shoot and there is a Run Disney PhotoPass photographer that asks Kay to come over to the side, takes her photo. Now, she did not get featured that day, but at least she was pulled out of line. So after that happened and I saw her at the meetup, I said, kay, this is what's going to happen when we cross the finish line of the 10 miler, because we're going to cross as a group and one Disney pulls you out of the crowd. You are going to bring all your friends with you so we all can be part of this wonderful celebration. And she was all embarrassed and she thought it was cute and everything like that, and she's like, I'll see what I can do, but it's probably not going to happen. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 3: 1:31:31

And all of a sudden there was some type of miscommunication. I thought we were all done talking with Pelkey and Carissa and Tracy and Riley, and I was like, all right, everybody, here we go, let's finish strong. And Kay bolts off and I bolt off and then all of a sudden I turn around and everybody's still there talking and so, like I was like trying to like hold the line to see if I could get more people to cross with us and everything like that. And wouldn't you know, I crossed the finish line. And who is finishing up their photo shoot with a Run Disney PhotoPass photographer?

Speaker 3: 1:32:10

But Kay. And as we all know now, kay was the featured first photo in the Instagram post and on the Facebook page. So bravo, kay, you are Run Disney royalty. Now you have to pick your name in terms of how you want to be referred to. I know I've been calling you Beverly Hills, tony's been calling you 90210K, so we need to come up with a great name for you, but it was great to see her get featured so many times during this race.

Speaker 4: 1:32:42

Absolutely. She has some of the best costumes every single weekend.

Speaker 3: 1:32:46

And here's the part that I didn't realize. So she had her face all done up in lion makeup. Right, I thought she did that on her own. I did too. She had it done at Disney Springs.

Speaker 2: 1:33:00

Right.

Speaker 3: 1:33:00

She went to the meetup or she went down to disney springs early, found the people, asked them if they could do the line, said yes, went to the meetup, then left the meetup. Went to sephora, got the free samples of the face cleanser so her, her skin was, you know, nice and clean and everything like that. Then they proceeded to do the makeup, then went back to sephora and got free samples of the like setting, like foundation or whatever and then again I, I don't know these things.

Speaker 3: 1:33:38

And then she said she proceeded to walk at a snail's pace back to the bus so that her body wouldn't get hot, so it would melt. And she literally slept Saturday night in that makeup and made sure not to roll over so that it could be pristine for the entire race. So, Kay, that is dedication to another level that I don't think Hollywood would ever do. So good on you.

Speaker 2: 1:34:07

But I thought that was an awesome story.

Speaker 2: 1:34:09

It is hey. Before we left on Sunday, we went over to the splash party at Typhoon Lagoon. Greg, it was just you and me, the folks who are here. Becky was with us. I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. We got there. We drove over together. We got there a little after it started. We always want to ask the question is it worth the $85? You start asking that question at Disney World. You're not going to do a whole lot of stuff. I enjoyed it. If it comes up again, I would do it again. I found it relaxing. I had a good time. I had a mickey bar, I had some popcorn, had some soda and rode some water rides that I would not have normally done. You guys tried to kill me, but that's okay. I survived. I. I thought it was, and it was a pleasant evening. It wasn't terribly hot. It probably could have been a few degrees warmer and we'd have felt maybe even a little better but, it was a pleasant evening.

Speaker 2: 1:35:10

What'd you think?

Speaker 3: 1:35:12

I really enjoyed the event. I thought it was very well done. After experiencing it and then having some time to think on it and I've seen a lot of posts on Facebook asking people is it worth it and would you do it again. To me, what made the event successful was and this goes back to something we've been talking about this entire episode is the community and the family that you're with. Being with the people is what made that event awesome for me, yeah. So to me, if included fountain beverages, mickey bars, mickey sandwiches, the fruit bar, the popcorn and the commemorative item yeah, right. Um, the popcorn and the commemorative item yeah, right. If, if those things are not important to you, then, in my humble opinion, the 50 off water park ticket that they have been offering for all the race weekends. I think that is a better value than what this event was. But that being said, though, would I do this event again? If I knew a bunch of my Rise and Run friends were doing it, then, yes, I would do it again.

Speaker 2: 1:36:34

Yeah, there's the difference right there.

Speaker 3: 1:36:37

The only thing, though, that I in Run Disney, if you are listening. The only other logistical changes that I would make now granted, I did not, I will be. I will fully admit this. I did not experience this firsthand, but this is secondhand information from other friends I talked to over the course of the night is for that price point, I think there should be direct transportation from your resort to Typhoon Lagoon. Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:37:07

What they were asking people to do is to take a bus to Disney Springs and then a bus to transfer over to Typhoon Lagoon, because they're literally right down the street from one another and a couple of friends I was chatting to about this.

Speaker 3: 1:37:23

The point that I was making and I think this is justifiable is we know, and Jack, as you mentioned earlier in the episode, the expo on the last day is pretty dead and there's not a ton of people that go to it. But in theory you can still get resort transportation to and from your resort to the expo. So if they're willing to offer that, then I feel like they should be able to offer, you know, the motor coach transportation from your resort to to this event, to this event and apparently from friends I was talking to. That conversation was brought up on the buses between several people that were riding it. So I think that would be one change I would like to see. And then the second thing too is and maybe this was offered, but I just didn't see it, it's just maybe a map of where the different snack locations were um you know where you could get the mickey bars and the popcorn.

Speaker 3: 1:38:29

And then also there were, you know, there were special character greetings as well. I remember, I think it was when we were walking over to the um, I can't remember the name of the attraction, but essentially the water roller coaster. We were like, oh there's. Grush and.

Speaker 3: 1:38:43

Guster Grush, thank you. There's Doug and Carl and Russell doing a character line and there really wasn't much of a line. But unless you weren't walking around that area you would have had no idea that those characters were out meeting and greeting and everything like that. So, um, but outside that I thought it was very well organized. I think it got uh received with a lot of um, positive feedback. Um again, just twinker, a few of those things, but I I really really enjoyed myself for, um, you know, the second year in a row of doing typhoon lagoon in some fashion post uh, springtime surprise so I just have like two or three questions that are pretty quick.

Speaker 4: 1:39:28

What was the commemorative item?

Speaker 4: 1:39:31

so it was a waterproof bag which I was probably only big enough to maybe fit like one swimsuit in it um a plastic cup that had the springtime surprise logo on it, a glow stick and like a little glow up necklace that had stitch on it that was the that was the commemorative item yeah, it wasn't that big of a deal, jack, I was going to say, if you look at how much the H2O Glow parties are, which are about, I think, $65 per night, and then you compare it to the $85, I just figured that $20 difference would have been what the commemorative item would have tallied up to?

Speaker 2: 1:40:17

Yeah, I don't think so.

Speaker 4: 1:40:19

No.

Speaker 2: 1:40:20

No, maybe seven or eight Mickey bars, maybe. If you ask them no, no, maybe seven or eight Mickey bars, maybe.

Speaker 4: 1:40:23

And then I guess my other question is was it crowded? Because I know they were still selling those tickets online, because you know how, like for Wine and Dine, you have that event that's free for everybody. That did the half marathon or challenge or whatever. So I know that's usually crowded. Was it crowded for this event?

Speaker 3: 1:40:40

No, but there were a lot of people there, but but it even though there was a sizable number of people there, which was great to see no it didn't it never felt crowded? You know very easy to get um. You know a beach chair um.

Speaker 3: 1:40:54

You know, probably the longest we waited for an attraction was two minutes oh yeah but which is why I was making the comparison in terms of value to the 50% off ticket, because to me we had the exact same experience when we did the 50% off ticket last year. Again, wasn't overly crowded, was easy to find a chair, barely waited for attraction times. So you know hence why I'm making the apples to oranges.

Speaker 4: 1:41:24

Oranges yeah, oranges are our perspective there. We're friends to each other's sandwiches, Greg.

Speaker 2: 1:41:32

All right, my friends, as it did in real life. This season must come to an end. Next week we want to talk about the season as a whole, share some memories from the 23-24 season, but that's it for Springtime Surprise. If you were there and we saw you, great. If we didn't, wonderful. We hope you had a great time and we hope we see you next time. Let's move on a little bit, clean up a couple things and we'll get out of here the 101 Dalmatians idea for the 5K of next year's the 2025 Wine and Dime Marathon Weekend 5K is taking off. We've got some legwork to do, some planning to do, but I want to get on that here in the next week or so and see if we can get things going. Hey, greg, did you ever finish your rides over there at Magic Kingdom?

Speaker 3: 1:42:38

Yes, I did. It was a journey, some would say. I got started on Thursday afternoon, which is why I probably also did not spend as much time at the Expo as I did in the past in that time frame.

Speaker 3: 1:43:00

uh, the final tally came out to nine rides on the people mover and nine rides on the magic carpets oh, okay so, uh, I knew I had some work that I needed to put in, so hence why I went over there the first day. I did seven rides on the carpets, um, and then three on the people mover, and at one point I think it was after like my fourth ride uh, the one cast member was like hi, welcome back, um. To which my response to her was thanks for having me back, um, just to let you know, I'm not some 38 year old creep who has an obsession with distraction without a small child with me. And I explained to her that I was doing this for charity or whatever, and she's like oh, I absolutely love it when people do that. We actually just had a guy in here last week who rode this thing 16 times in a row and I was like boy and I thought nine was bad.

Speaker 2: 1:43:59

There's the bar man.

Speaker 3: 1:44:01

Yeah, that is a bar, that's for sure. Um, so pretty much um all of thursday. And then I went, yeah, so after the 10 miler on, uh, sunday, um, got more rides done, but this time it was a lot of fun because I was doing it with friends. Yeah, um, so I got to do a couple of rides with jack and Allie without an E, and Tara and Rachel, so doing those was a ton of fun. And then I know at one point Kay had said to me that she wanted to be there when I went on my last magic carpet ride. So she did the last two with me and she absolutely loved it. When the fact, when the ride first took off, I immediately got spit on by a camel and, for those of you that are wondering, my spit count ended at five times over the course of the entire nine rides, so that was a ton of fun.

Speaker 3: 1:45:00

So to everyone who donated for this attraction challenge on behalf of give, give kids the world, I greatly appreciate it. You know you're really doing, you know your money is going towards a extremely noble cause, so that children who are in a critically ill nature have the chance for a vacation lifetime. And from the bottom of my heart, I just want to say thank you again.

Speaker 2: 1:45:24

Good deal. Well done, my friend. I'm looking at my notes here. One of the questions I had to answer and we're going to put this off is all right, the season's over. What do we do now? We'll talk about that next week. I've mentioned it a couple times that the Rise and Run merchandise shop is going to shut down here in the near future. We will make sure that our orders, those that have been placed, are up to date and shipped before we shut everything down and swap stuff out. So if you're having a problem, please let us know. I know I've already heard from one friend, but we're going to check on that and make sure everything is out before we swap things over.

Speaker 5: 1:46:05

There's only a couple of orders still out there and they should be processed soon Sounds good, John, Thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:46:13

Questions starting to pop up in the chat group for Disneyland Halloween. Will there be a meetup? Oh, come on. Yeah, there'll be a meetup. How can I go someplace and not have a meetup? There'll be a meetup. Oh, come on. Yeah, there'll be a meetup. How can I go someplace and not have a meetup? There'll be a meetup. Now I'm not flying across country, nor is Becky with 20 dozen cookies. Somebody on the West Coast wants to bring cookies to the meetup? Get with me, Bob, at riseandrunpodcastcom. We'll chat, but there will be a meetup. I sure hope to see you there. Upcoming episodes 136. We've talked about it several times already the season recap. I will remind you one more time. If you'd like to leave us a note, something, a story about this season 727-266-2344. Give us a call, Leave us a recorded message. Okay, friends, it is time for the Race Report. The Race Report is brought to you by Stoked Metabolic Training.

Speaker 4: 1:47:25

Yes. So if you guys are looking to get muscles by Tom from the tutu guys, please go to stokesfit slash, rise and run coaching where you can get $50 off a month and it's really great and I'm loving my experience. And remember, the consultation is free, so all you do is just go ahead and schedule a chat and see if it's for you.

Speaker 2: 1:47:51

Thanks, jack. Tom's a good guy and we appreciate him being part of the family and we appreciate that offer he extends to our friends. All right, a little bit of a different report this week and I'm not sure why this is. I think perhaps our friends who were running looked at the volume of reports from the weekend at Disney. I went and searched the best I could but I'm missing. There are a lot of folks who said they were running this weekend and I don't see reports from them. Let me say this right now If you left a report and I'm not alluding to it tonight, let me know. I'll catch up with it next week. But here we go.

Speaker 2: 1:48:36

On Saturday in Milwaukee, wisconsin, the Brew City 10K. Katie was there. Oh boy, here we go. I get to do Dutch words, but I'm not sure. This is in Russellville, tennessee, the Nolichucky Wine Run. I'm going with that. Not a Dutch word, apparently an English word Nolichucky Probably. I wonder if that's a Native American word. Anyway, megan could probably tell us. Megan ran that one. The Kraft Half Marathon and 5K. Jeremy ran the half marathon In Olathe, kansas, the Garmin Olathe Marathon in the land of Oz. Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:49:21

Riley did this State. Number 27 for Riley. I'm pretty sure Riley's trying to run marathon in all 50s. So over halfway there In Caseville, michigan, the Thumb Coast Ultramarathon 50K. Now, if you're not from michigan you might not get this, but if you are, or if you've ever met anyone from michigan and you ask where they live, the first thing they'll do is hold up their hand like it's a mitten and say, oh, I'm over here by the thumb. Or I'm over here because the basic part, not including the Peninsula, is shaped like a mission, not like a mission like a mitten. So if you hold your right hand with palm forward, caseville is up there at the tip of your thumb. Hence the Thumb Coast Ultramarathon. That's a long way, jeanette, to describe what you did for your first ever ultra marathon. Good job Goals for the first ever, and these are great goals for a first ever ultra. Number one don't get lost. Number two don't die. And number three try to finish. She all three that's a pr finishes 50k and under seven hours 653 to be exact, better than she expected. I think that's pretty darn decent. Especially it was 25 dag gum degrees up there in case phil, with 25 mile an hour winds. I almost forget that there are still temperatures like that in the country at this time in the spring. It snowed from miles 21 to 23. Nonetheless, jeanette says the race was well organized, well marked, well supported, a great experience. Hey look, anybody want to come 2025? It's not always 25 degrees in April in Michigan, you might get 30. How's that?

Speaker 2: 1:51:27

In Springdale, arkansas, the Hog Eye 10K. Shelby Allison ran it. Lots of green fields, shady trees, creeks, ponds, little hills to keep her entertained. She had a PR three weeks ago at a 10K and now she's got another one. Shaved seven minutes off in the last three weeks. Shelby Allison, nice job. Seven minutes off in a 10K, that's better than a minute a mile.

Speaker 2: 1:52:02

Fort Smith, arkansas, can only mean one thing our buddy joe, the mains and miracles 5k of the amigos. There were only two this time, but their groupies were out in force. Joe's buddy johnny got first place. Joe finished fourth in the age group. Everything was fine. They all had breakfast afterward had a good run Over in Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, japan, at the Bob Hope Elementary School's Month of the Military Child 5K, katie and her 8-year-old son, hunter ran this one.

Speaker 2: 1:52:38

Hunter ran this one last year. Got sick, didn't finish. Nailed it this year, hunter, way to redeem yourself. Congratulations on a good run. Let's move to Sunday.

Speaker 2: 1:52:53

In Augusta, georgia, doug and Nona ran the Whiskey Run 10K London Marathon. I hope to get together with some of these folks here in the upcoming days. But for those who put in reports, amy was there. Amy set a PB in the marathon. See, I can translate British to American. Pb is a PR. So good to go. London crowds were epic. I don't doubt that at all. Amy Around mile 19,. She wasn't sure she was going to make that goal. She wanted to do sub five but she sucked it up, stayed on target 4.57 for this personal best. That's a 13 minute course improvement time over 2022 and even two minutes better than she did in berlin not long ago. Katie was there.

Speaker 2: 1:53:52

Katie did her first london marathon feeling great at the halfway point sub two and a half, really good on a marathon pace, and she started to get into some little head games, little mental struggles around mile 16, turning right onto the mall in London Seeing the finish line was a true. I cannot believe this moment, but the feeling of crossing the line says Katie was almost as good as finishing Dopey 23. Quite a comparison, katie. I got to imagine. Both of those are really, really impressive and emotional Congratulations. Let's see who else was there. Kristen was there, michael, danielle, rob and that is all I see on our list. So congratulations to our london marathon world major runners. Great job.

Speaker 2: 1:54:50

In the netherlands, in laura's home town of ensiday, the ensiday half marathon, laura's been dreaming of a sub two 15 half for a long time. Her PR going in goes back to 2017, which was right about two hours and 19 minutes, not anymore. She crushed it this time. She ran the same course in two 1240, followed the two 15 pacers, had enough in the tank at the end to kick it in and knocked out a new PR. Although she is no longer a client, laura wanted to thank her friend, runfit Mama Kristen, for helping her out getting to this point.

Speaker 2: 1:55:40

In Baton Rouge, louisiana, the great Rover Road Run 5K. Emily was there and we finish in Ann Arbor, michigan, at the Big House 5K. Doug and his son, noah. This is Noah's first race ever. This particular race ends at the home of the 2023 NCAA Division I National Football Champions. I'm just reading what Doug wrote no commentary. Of course, that's correct, 100% correct. Noah's first race ever. He did great. They did some shorter practice runs in the weeks leading up and then did 60, 30 intervals for the entire 5K. Noah buddy, that's a PR and this bell is for you. And that, my friends, concludes the episode 135 race report.

Speaker 2: 1:56:36

Friends, there is a Zoom this week. I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to hearing your stories from Springtime Surprise. We'll have it recorded, posted in the Facebook group and the audio available for our Patreons later in the week. I'm going to kind of let things go here. I have a lot of emotions still running around in my head and I'm going to get a week to kind of sort things out. But it's been amazing, it's been wonderful and so so very much of it comes back to you and we appreciate that, my friends. And if you run, you know you are our friend and while it may be a little while, until we see you again, Happy running.

Speaker 3: 1:57:36

The Rise and Run podcast discusses general information about Run Disney 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.