235: East River High School Choir: ChEAR Squad with a Soundtrack

You know that moment late in a runDisney race when your legs are toast, your brain is negotiating, and then you turn a corner and hear a choir lifting the whole road? We sit down with director Zach and students from the East River High School Choir, one of the groups that brings big, joyful sound to the final mile at Walt Disney World. They share how the runDisney relationship started, what Disney Entertainment actually means when they ask for a “gospel choir,” and how song choices are designed to push runners to the finish line.

We get into the real logistics too: a 2:45 AM school call time, warming up before sunrise, performing for hours, and timing the start of singing to runner flow. The students tell us what shocks them every time, from elaborate costumes and selfie stops to the emotional shift when a tired runner perks up, smiles, and starts moving again. If you have ever called the choir your “last-mile fuel,” you will hear exactly why that impact is real.

Then we pivot into pure community fun with Round 2 of our Disney animated features March Madness bracket, complete with debates, surprises, and Patreon tiebreakers. We also bring back Podcast We Listen To with a great chat featuring Peter and Kelly from The Lowdown On The Plus-Up, a theme park podcast packed with deep history, wild connections, and stories that get way darker than you’d expect from an attraction deep dive.

We wrap with updates, challenge results, and a loaded race report spanning first races, PRs, tough-weather wins, and even a 100-mile attempt. If you’re training for Springtime Surprise or just need a reminder that community can carry you farther than you think, hit play, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more runners can find us.

East River HS Choir
The Lowdown On The Plus Up

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Transcript

Welcome And Listener Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Hi, Rise and Run friends. This is Allison from Orange County, California. I just saw most of you at Princess Weekend, and I just completed the Los Angeles charity half marathon, and might have seen some of you who were also doing a marathon. I hope you guys had a fun race, stayed safe in the heat, and I look forward to seeing you guys on the Zoom calls. Happy running, everyone, and happy weekend.

SPEAKER_15 1:11

Thank you, Allison, for the lovely introduction. That's Allison from out in California. Just finished the LA half when she sent us that introduction. You guys probably know Allison. She shows up a lot on our Zoom calls, as she mentioned, and we're glad that she introduced this episode. This episode being episode 235 of the Rise and Run podcast. I'm sorry, Alicia, you shook your head and you made me nervous.

SPEAKER_06 1:36

No, I just am like, that's amazing. 235. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 1:41

I kind of forget about it.

SPEAKER_06 1:45

It is, but I was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_15 1:47

You know what? You're right. I I sometimes I type the numbers in every week and I look at them and I go, holy cow.

SPEAKER_07 1:55

I think when we hit 500, I'm gonna just be in shock.

SPEAKER_17 2:00

I hope we hit 500. That'll be sometime next week.

SPEAKER_07 2:03

You guys don't even think we'll get past 30 episodes.

SPEAKER_17 2:06

That's another five years.

SPEAKER_07 2:08

Oh.

SPEAKER_15 2:10

Well, friends, you're we're whatever number it is. We're glad you're here with us. Welcome. Glad you're spending some time with this crazy crew. And this crazy crew includes Jack.

SPEAKER_07 2:20

Hiya.

SPEAKER_15 2:21

And John. Hey, how you doing? And uh Alicia.

SPEAKER_07 2:24

Hello.

SPEAKER_15 2:25

And Greg. Hey, hey, hey. Good to see everyone this evening. Glad you're all here from different Greg's Greg's joining us from Denver tonight. How about that?

SPEAKER_17 2:36

I mean, the the uh air's a little light up here. Did you convert to a Broncos fan, Greg?

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Uh no, I I did not buy a Bonex jersey while I was here.

SPEAKER_15 2:46

A couple hours you've been there? Right. Well, friends, nice fun episode this week. A group I've been wanting to talk with for a long time, the East River High School Choir from Orlando. That doesn't sound familiar. That's one of the groups that greets us at the end of some of our Run Disney events. I know we had a lot of fun. I hope you have fun listening to that. Also, of course, we continue now with the next round of March Madness. It's round two of our Disney animated features playoffs. In the spotlight, a podcast we listen to, Spotlight episode. Peter and Kelly have a podcast called The Lowdown on the Plus Up, a Theme Park Podcast. Very interesting podcast, fun interview. We think you'll enjoy it.

Sponsors And Training Calendar

SPEAKER_17 3:37

If you enjoy the Rise and Run podcast, please share us with your friends and introduce them to the Rise and Run family. We want to share on your Run Disney journey. Please remember to follow us on Facebook at Rise and Run Podcast, on Instagram at Rise and Run Pod, check out our YouTube channel and visit our webpage, Rise and RunPodcast.com. If you have a question, comment, race report, or want to introduce an upcoming episode, call us at 727-266-2344 and leave us a recorded message.

SPEAKER_07 4:08

We also want to thank our Patreons whose support helps us keep the Rise and Run Podcast rising and running. If you like to join the Patreon team, just go ahead and please check out Patreon.com slash rise and run podcast. And we've got a few new Patreons. We have uh Donna, how you doing level. We got Kelly at how you doing. We have Jeff at the plastic cheese level, Cindy at the happy running level, and Mandy, how you doing.

SPEAKER_15 4:43

Much fun. Thanks, friends. Thanks for joining. That Kelly, by the way, is the Kelly we're going to be talking with later on in this episode. And there is no connection. He didn't buy his way on, I promise.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

The Rise Around Podcast is sponsored by our glorious friends over at Magic Bound Travel. And I get the feeling that like every other week the Walt Disney Company is putting out a new set of discounts to Walt Disney World. So much so to the point I can't keep track of them anymore. But you know who does keep track of them? Magic Bound Travel does. And what I find really, really interesting, and that's the blessing with working with a travel advisor, is that they do all the hard work for you. So if you already have something on the books, they will run all the numbers through all the deals to find the best possible deal for you so that you can go on that magical vacation for less. So if you're looking to book that summer vacation for this year, because I think a lot of those discounts pertain to the summer, visit magicboundtravel.com to get your free no obligation quote.

SPEAKER_15 5:42

Sounds good. Thank you, Greg. Let's take a look at the training schedule. Of course, springtime surprise is the upcoming event. It is three weeks away. We are in training week number 15. This week you've got four miles, one of those being a magic mile. Other notable dates coming up. Sailing day for the crew is just 25 days away now. Flying pig, those Yeah, I know. I know. Flying pig for those of you who are going. Flying pig is 36 days away. So get off the boat and head up to Ohio for that one. Friends, we've got a lot going on on tonight's episode, so we're going to skip over our training updates and head right to our first guest. But remember, we'll be back with the second round of March Madness right after.

SPEAKER_18 6:33

Caution Runners, change of topic ahead.

SPEAKER_15 6:46

Remember my first my first race at Disney 2016, friends, you know that I didn't know what to expect, and we turned the corner towards home, and there's a choir there. It's pretty cool. As my time running at Disney went along, first of all, during COVID, the choir was gone. Boo. After COVID, when the choirs came back, and we rounded that corner, and there they were. I'm telling you, I nearly wept. I have been so excited, so looking forward. Tonight, friends, we have with us members of the East River High School choir. They're the folks who were performing for us at the end of the Princess Tankey. Most recently, we're going to find out. I know that's not the only time they've been there. But let's welcome to the Rise and Rud Podcast, the choir director, Zach. Zach, good to see you.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Hey guys, thank you. We are so excited to be here. I've been like nervous and excited all day. Um, I I love what I do. And actually, I I do an after after like school choir and we we do a good thing session. What's your good thing that's happening today? And I was like, Well, I'm about to be on a podcast.

SPEAKER_07 7:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_15 8:00

I I'm I really am excited about this. I we have I am really been looking forward to talking with you. We have two of your choir members, your students, Avery and Catherine. Ladies, we're glad to have you here too. Welcome aboard.

SPEAKER_05 8:13

Hi. Hi, thank you for having us so much for having us. Very excited.

SPEAKER_15 8:18

Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. Listen, let's start out here. And I'd like to know, uh Zach, you probably can answer this best. How and when did the choir's relationship with Run Disney begin?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

So it's fun. Actually, my two students that are here with us, Avery and Catherine, they are both seniors this year. And we actually started our relationship with Run Disney, their freshman year. Um, so this is year five for us. And I don't know if you guys know this, but every choir that you see, like if you were to run a full weekend, if you were to do the Dopey Challenge, you're actually seeing choirs from four different schools. And so we were, yeah, we represent all of the Orlando and like surrounding area. So we've been doing this for almost five years. Now, I want to say that when I met you, Bob, we were on probably our 12th or 13th marathon in total over five years. So it's been really fun.

Choosing Songs That Push Runners

SPEAKER_15 9:12

Yeah, I was aware that they were different choirs, but I was also aware that I have seen East River before. I knew that. We love that. Yeah, it's it's great. So gosh, I got so many questions. I'm not sure where to start. Let's start with song selection. That's probably maybe where you start. What goes into selecting songs for uh for race day?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

You know, obviously, um, so we get the email from the Disney Entertainment team, and their email actually says that they want a gospel choir. That's kind of how they phrase the ask. And so when we started this four years ago, I was like, what does this mean? Do they only want, you know, religious music? Do they really want true gospel? And then I came to find out what they really mean is like high energy. They really just want high energy, they want songs that people recognize, um, and they want things because they always put that choir, like you said, on the last mile. So they really want music that's gonna drive people to that finish line and give them that final push. So um I remember, and um, Avery and Catherine are probably scarred. Our first couple years, we did a Queen medley. And it was just, you know, repeat. But I remember the Disney team, they were concerned about um which one was were they concerned about, you guys? Do you remember which song? Um, Another One Bites the Dust. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 10:40

Oh, that would make sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Well, and then came back and they were like, Another one bites the dust. Isn't that kind of about people like failing and like not finishing the race? And so I kind of went back and forth with them and they ultimately allowed it. But you know, they're very like Disney's so particularly about about everything that they produce. So I that was just a like a quirky moment. I was like, oh, interesting, interesting.

SPEAKER_15 11:05

Avery and Catherine, didn't you pair that with We Are the Champions?

SPEAKER_05 11:09

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_15 11:11

I remember it. I'm telling you guys, I'm telling you. It's a big deal.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

People like that one. Yeah.

2:45 AM Call Time

SPEAKER_17 11:18

Oh, yeah, it's a big deal. On race day, what time do you guys? Because I know we start really early as runners. What time do you guys have to be there? And how long are you guys performing on a race weekend?

SPEAKER_05 11:32

Well, for starters, our call time at our school is 2 45, which is really, really early for most of us. It is for me and her too. Um, we warm up for a while in the choir room and then we get on the buses, and we're about 45 minutes out from Disney. So we get there around four-ish, and then we have a lot of downtime to wait for you know at everything to be set up and prepared. Yeah. Because the road the roads are closed and they have to they have to set everything up. So um we usually start around like 5 30 and then perform from like two to three hours. So we're usually wrapped up around 8 30.

SPEAKER_13 12:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:14

So it's it's a long, it's a it's a long run, but um, yes. Very yes.

SPEAKER_07 12:20

Out of curiosity, when do you actually start singing? Does somebody be like, the first runners come and start the song? Or is it like you guys start at a specific time?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Or we have like a Disney entertainment coordinator, and they actually greet us at the back entrance of the park and they get on the bus with us, they drive with us to the location, and then we usually have their phone number. And so the Disney people that you know they have it down to a T. So on this race weekend, if we're starting at five, this mile marker should see the first runner at this time. And so they'll usually text me and say, like, hey, the first runner just passed mile marker, blah, blah, blah. You guys probably want to go ahead and get in place.

SPEAKER_15 13:02

We'll get into the reaction of the runners later, but I gotta believe there's a difference between those first couple runners who come flying by you, and then the rest in the back of the packers, like tall old guys in tutus who can't wait to just greet you. And there's got to be a difference, right? Whole different vibe.

SPEAKER_04 13:22

I think honestly, you're not wrong. The vibe is definitely very different because at the beginning of the race, you see the people they're running through it, they want to get that done really quickly. And for a lot of them, that's probably their milestone. And honestly, if you can run that fast, props to you.

SPEAKER_15 13:37

I can never sideline.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

But you know what? You got that. But definitely seeing as the sun rises and seeing all the other like runners, it's very encouraging for us as well. Just because you see so many people, they're not just running for themselves, they're also running for fun. Because a lot of these people they find the joy in this, and the difference between like the first people that are just bolting, and then the people that they're stopping to meet the characters, they're stopping to talk to us, to all of that. It's very the pictures that they also take with us, that whole moment that they have, it's very encouraging for us.

SPEAKER_15 14:10

How do you prepare for this is like a marathon on your own? How do you prepare for it?

SPEAKER_04 14:16

I'm gonna be so honest, you don't. Adrenaline is gonna run, and you're gonna wake up at like two in the morning, you're gonna go get your coffee, you're gonna get ready. The best advice is just, and Pete, Mr. P. Gore, he yells at us a lot because he tells us this whole week. He's like, hey, it's a good yelling. He tells us and he encourages us make sure you drink water, you stay.

SPEAKER_15 14:42

You have to get hydrate, hydrate. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

Because some people are gonna try to bypass that, but I promise it's definitely needed.

SPEAKER_06 14:50

So you guys have said that you've done this more than once. How was the first race day performance like? What surprised you the most going into that?

SPEAKER_04 14:59

The most shocking thing for us is definitely seeing how the people feel once they get to us. Because normally we're just high schooler singing, but these people are excited because they're hearing our singing and it's going to them, knowing that they can finish the race, they can finish the school that they set for themselves. So I think that to me is just the most like shocking thing because I never would have imagined a bunch of people so excited and so excited to sing along with these high schoolers, just because you would never imagine that in a normal day.

SPEAKER_05 15:35

And I completely agree with Catherine, but also what really surprised me were the outfits. I love the outfits. I I was expecting just you know your basic average like running outfits. I was not expecting all the eccentric costumes, and that really makes it more enjoyable for us too, is seeing everybody take pride in, you know, dressed up, being dressed up as Minnie Mouse and like all these things. So that's really that was really surprising for me too.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

And I'll I'll just add to that, one of my most surprising things that I love to see is the actual morning, like getting there at so early at school. If you've never like had to deal with a high schooler at 2 45 in the morning. I can imagine that put your big girl pants on because it's either one of two things. Either they haven't been to sleep at all, like they just stayed up until call time, or they have been dragged out of bed by like a friend, parent, guardian, pet to make it to the school. And you know, like like we stop at Wah, like I always stop at Wawa for my coffee. And if there's a child over there at 2:30, there's an unspoken, like, we're not speaking yet. You're gonna order your breakfast sandwich, I'm gonna get my coffee, and we're not gonna speak for 15 minutes. So, and that's a beautiful, beautiful relationship that we all share. Yeah.

SPEAKER_17 16:54

When you see the runners coming through that last stretch of the of the race of their long run, what stands out to you guys the most?

SPEAKER_01 17:02

We the where like the place that we sing at and the place that we perform, it's cool. It's not only the last mile, like there's that big curve that you go around. So it's like extra dramatic, like seeing people come across that line. And I feel like you can sometimes spot the people who have never done a Disney race before, maybe, or they've never like they've never had this experience. And I think they're super impressed with with yes, with the choir, but also the production and the the value that Disney places on their performances. Like you're not paying just to run a race, you're paying for the experiences that you get along the way and like the high-level production. And and you know, Disney takes care of our students and they take care of us, and you know, they they pay for our bus. And I think that high value uh performance and the the impact that they put on the experience for the racers, you see it in people's faces when they come around the corner, which is really important.

SPEAKER_15 18:06

You you talked about the dramatic uh uh corner, the turn. I will share with you that when I do the long race, the dopey challenge, which I haven't done for a couple years, but when I'm here in this area doing my last training run, I will mentally come up the last road in my development and get to the corner and say to myself, the choir's gonna be right there. And that's how motivating it is for us.

SPEAKER_17 18:36

And what else? I I guess you guys don't know this, but you guys are sitting right behind uh Guardians of the Galaxy on that corner right there. So when we're coming down behind the back of Epcot, we're hearing you guys already before we even see you. And you know, the jams are coming on, and we're like, it's it's pumping us up, it's giving us that last little bunch to finish this race out.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 18:59

I didn't know that you could hear us before you quite like really wow, probably I don't know, what is that, like a quarter of a mile? Could before we get over to like actually physically seeing you guys, we can hear it. It's close, yeah. It's it's an amazing thing to just hear the songs and know you guys are there, especially having done the stuff done the races before and looking forward to that. I'm curious, is there a song that you all have done over the years that was your favorite? Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Honestly, and this is just personally, uh Never Again a Queen Medley, because no, we are scared for life for those. But I think my favorite has to be another day of songs. Oh, me too.

SPEAKER_07 19:43

Oh, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

It's ironic because usually when we're singing that, the sun's coming up, and then crowd of people are bursting through, so everyone's dancing to it, they're copying our dance moves.

SPEAKER_12 19:54

Ah, sweet.

SPEAKER_04 19:56

Yeah, sweet.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

I get worried that nobody knows that song.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Really?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, every time I feel like that's the one that people are like, I don't really know this. So I'm I'm surprised that that's y'all's favorite.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

All the girls are dancing to it.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:10

I do also really enjoy Cruising for a Bruising. I think that song is pretty fun and the movements that we we have along with it, like it gets people pumped up. And I feel like that's a pretty popular one that people recognize.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

And I feel like we have like we have actually our our theme for our last concert this year is Disney. And so it's funny. I've chosen our like opener and closer, which is all classic Disney songs, but I let the students pick their class songs, and all of it is like Disney channel, new Disney music. I've never heard of some of this before, and I'm like, what is this? So I feel like our medley has some things for our like classic Disney lovers, and then some things for people who, you know, maybe just got into Disney or like uh are my students generation.

SPEAKER_15 20:53

Yeah, classic Disney Zach, a virtual high five right here.

SPEAKER_07 20:59

Is there ever like one moment or like a memory that has stuck with you this entire time you guys have been doing this? Kind of like a Disney magical moment or of sense.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Something for me, and this is just the irony because my whole for you page is the balloon ladies. So when I love being front row, we're singing, and then I just see some people turn around to see if the balloon ladies are nearby, and then they're picking up their they're running. It's quite funny for me at least.

SPEAKER_15 21:38

And they're lovely ladies, they genuinely are. So the balloon ladies, any other uh any other to stick with you?

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I remember uh I love seeing the service animals that are in the races a lot of the time. And I think it was last year, maybe two years ago, and a runner had her service animal, and it was trained, it had the cute. Little puppy paw pads on, like it was adorable. And of course, you know what you respect, but you still you watch and you admire the little animals and the dogs. And she had her dog come stand right in front of us, and she had it trained to sit up on its hind legs and tuck its paws into its chest. So she was like, uh, whatever, rover, rover, that's the dog's name now. Rover in front of the choir, and the dog just went right in front of the kids and like paused and just posed for a picture, and we were we were all just like we stopped. We're just like, look at this dog.

SPEAKER_06 22:36

I've seen that picture, but I I can't remember the gal's name, but I know I know the dog that you're talking about many times.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Yeah, it was it was amazing, and then this um this last marathon that we were at, I don't I don't know if you guys saw, but we didn't actually have microphones for this marathon because it was raining outside. Right, right, yes. And like where we actually were, we were like right behind Guardians and the parking spaces. We actually weren't supposed to be there. They put us there to like protect us from the rain.

SPEAKER_13 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

And so when we got to Disney, usually it's like a take a 45-minute nap while the roads are closed, and we were like scrambling to try to figure out where we are gonna stand, how are we gonna get audio equipment? Um, so it was kind of a chaotic day, but it turned out to be one of our like my favorite races ever. It was just so fun. And the kids kept getting high fived, like they would go down the first row. I want to say like 15 people were doing the high five wave. And I had these two girls, two or three girls, standing on the very end, and they would stick out their hand for a high five, but they were just like too far from the curb, so they just never got high five. And and like one person finally like got to the end of the line, and we were all just like, Yes, you got your high five. I'm so excited for you. And it was a it was a good memory from this past one.

SPEAKER_05 23:55

I thought of one, I have one. Um I want to say this was like three marathons ago or so, maybe two years ago. Um, my voice teacher who I've been with for four years now. I I love her, she's she's amazing. Um, I knew she was going to the race, but like I figured I probably wouldn't see her because there's a lot going on. She probably wouldn't have, you know, looked for like, yeah. So we're performing, and all of a sudden I just hear Avery! And she's like running towards me in her cute little Cinderella outfit, and she just gives me a big hug, and that was really sweet. And it was just like, wow, like yeah, she's so much fun and that that's a special moment.

SPEAKER_15 24:29

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_06 24:31

So, having done these amazing performances and seeing all of these people finish these races because you're right at the end, has singing in the choir inspired any of you to do a race of your own?

SPEAKER_05 24:44

I think maybe one day a 5k. Don't know about a marathon. I'm not really a big runner girl. Um, but I definitely think I could be one of the people who hang out towards towards the end of the line, you know, like they're for the vibes, they're for the the costume. Um what about you?

SPEAKER_04 25:02

I can definitely I think with the right ears, I could definitely be persuaded to do one. Whether I finish it or whether the balloon ladies catch me, I don't know. But I could be persuaded for that.

SPEAKER_15 25:14

You know, there are no balloon ladies on the 5K.

SPEAKER_07 25:16

Yeah, it's literally just a party. You got loud music, they got characters everywhere. It's literally people just dancing.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Um, I I want to be a runner so bad. I I think if I were to jump into it, it would be for the community aspect. Yeah. And like the I mean, like what you guys, you know, what this podcast is all about, it's not, it's not necessarily the running that's the it. It's like the community that you build and the people that you meet. Um, I think if I were to ever like move out of uh Orange County and out of Orlando and I wasn't working at the marathons, I think I would be drawn back to it. But you know, I get my community marathon experience with my students.

SPEAKER_13 26:02

Right, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

You know, if I'm ever, if I ever go and decide to be an engineer, which you know I would I might I might jump into it for for those for that experience.

SPEAKER_15 26:13

Awesome. Yeah, we'd love I mean we we'd love to see you there. Heck. That'd be wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

I have friends now. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_17 26:19

Yes, you do, you absolutely do. And and Bob, Bob, another question. How many times when we talk to somebody on the podcast and they said, you know, I was really not really a runner. Now I'm doing dopey. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_15 26:31

Yeah. We we talk about running through the emotions of it. We've talked about the emotions of seeing the choir. Do you guys ever get emotional watching the runners go by?

SPEAKER_05 26:40

Sometimes it's really rewarding to know that like to be performing for these people who are putting their everything into this race and they're they're working so hard and they're almost at that finish line, and it really just like resonates with me that like we are we are the push that they need. And that's just like that sticks with me.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

I think for me, one of one of the biggest rewards is just knowing that what some people, when they get to us, they're very exhausted, they're tired, and rightfully so, it can be very exhausting. And some people even look like they're a little discouraged to finish. But them seeing us and seeing that we're cheering for them, we're here for them, we're here to encourage you to finish. And then they get a smile, they start jogging again, they're getting into it. That's just very rewarding seeing that we're doing that change in right in front of one person, just so that they can accomplish it.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

And I see a lot of people, not a lot of people, but I feel like sometimes we see people who are also running, um, like they wear their purpose on their shirt or they bring a sign and they, you know, are outwardly saying, like, I'm running for this, you know, and this is this is who I represent today, whether it's themselves, whether it's another person. And I feel like those are the people who are the most grateful and that have that biggest um look of satisfaction on their face. Like knowing that they're about to cross the finish line for themselves, for the people that they represent, it's really great.

SPEAKER_15 28:06

Awesome. Hey, we get to welcome Aiden to the group now. Aiden has made it. Aiden, where you been, son?

SPEAKER_16 28:14

I've been at a volleyball game, it's been fun. Yeah.

Costumes, High Fives, And Emotions

SPEAKER_15 28:17

All right. All right, that's approved. All right. Oh, thank goodness.

SPEAKER_07 28:23

So, what are some of the ways that runners uh like to thank you as they go by?

SPEAKER_05 28:30

Well, a lot of them will like clap and cheer really loudly, which is really sweet to see. And um, it's funny, like a lot of times we'll just be like scrolling through our feed on social media and we'll see like a TikTok or like a post of like a selfie, and we're like, wait, that's us. A lot of people like to make videos and um post them, which I think is really sweet and really silly.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Last marathon, I don't know if you guys were if you saw this, we had um somebody come up and she gave us a bunch of uh homemade like friendship bracelets. Cool. Oh, yeah, right. And she didn't stop. It wasn't like a hello, here are some bracelets for your students. It was like a hey, um, here are some bracelets, and then she kept going. And I was like left with this like giant pile of bracelets. And so when the when the race was finished and we had greeted our final runner, um, I just started, you know, pelting them at the children as you know as a personal form of great job, bam, bam, bam, duck in everywhere. Yeah. So some of them left with these really, really adorable, like personalized friendship bracelets. And um, I think a lot of runners will sometimes like usually they set up cones in front of us as like uh here, you know, here's the barrier. And some people just run right up and take selfies, you know, with the kids, and they'll stop singing. Still they'll be like, Oh, a picture? Here's my smile. We don't have to worry about singing right now.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

You gotta smile for the pictures.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah, you gotta smile for the pictures, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 29:56

Yeah, that's cool. You guys ever find yourself cheering as uh as much as singing?

SPEAKER_16 30:02

Oh, a hundred percent. We do we do that all the time. Uh we we usually just kind of like every time a new group of runners come by, we just cheer for them. We make sure that they feel heard and they feel seen, and they can really push through through to the finish line. Sometimes they cheer so much that I'm like, guys, I'm supposed to be singing right now.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

And if you if you have like a particularly um like cheerful runner or like a runner that comes by and they're like super involved in the music, the kill the they'll just like, wow, yeah, we love you. And I'm like, the music's still happening, don't forget.

SPEAKER_15 30:41

For what it's worth, I've never heard it drop anything. You know, if you're cheering, that's great. The music still sounds wonderful. Of course, by the time I come through, you guys are probably so tired you're towards the end of the anyway.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

By the time you get there, the party's starting.

SPEAKER_15 30:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 31:01

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_07 31:03

So I remember my first time it was back in 2018, and um I didn't realize that you the choir was a thing that they did for every race. And so it's just such a nice moment. And you guys definitely left, I don't know if you realize this, but you guys leave such a good impact on people um as they get to that finish line. Like you're like you guys are probably one of the bigger memories from my first race because I wasn't expecting it. Um and so how does it feel knowing that you are part of someone's big moment in life, like big moments in life, like like their lifelong memory, because that's essentially a scrapbook moment.

SPEAKER_16 31:49

I was gonna say it's actually kind of inspiring for us. Like I know we're supposed to be inspiring them, but it's it's actually like a showing of character and showing of like who they are as people that they can do hard things, and it's just it makes me want to do hard things too. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 32:06

Another thing, like being a musician, we we learn music and they whether they're easy or difficult, what our main goal is to make sure that we can impact our audiences no matter what we're singing, whether it's with tears, with joy, and in the marathon, I feel like that's something that we can do. We can impact them through our singing so they can they can get the goal that they've been wanting to do.

SPEAKER_07 32:31

Well, and just to point this out there, a Run Disney race is not a Run Disney race without you guys at the finish.

SPEAKER_15 32:38

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

You know, kind of going like we talk in our class all the time, and we have different seasons of the year, right? You know, we have our our winter, our, you know, our Christmas stuff, you know, we have our fall things, and we have our our Disney end of the year concert. And, you know, kind of what Catherine was saying is like we talk a lot about what we can do to be a better performer for the audience, because that's who we're trying to invite in, you know, to what we're doing. And so to hear you say, Jack, that like we're such a big part of this, sometimes we we get there and you know, we have freshmen this year. This was their first marathon, and they just have no idea. And so sometimes when all all my students are watching the runners, like I'm watching my students, and they are equally inspired by everything that Disney has and every all the people that show up. And when the freshmen are like, what's something that's gonna surprise me? Or like, what am I not expecting? I'm like, you have no idea how many people you're going to see today. And that's a unique perspective from where we stand is seeing just how many people go by. And sometimes I'm like, I don't even, I didn't even think that there were that many people in the world. It's like it's like most people haven't seen a million dollars. Like, I haven't seen that many people other than being at a Run Disney marathon, and I'm just like, there's no way that that many people exist in this world, but yet they do going there, you've seen a lot of people.

SPEAKER_17 34:11

Is there a memorable or funny thing you've seen a runner do while passing you guys?

SPEAKER_07 34:16

There's gotta be many. I can only imagine. Besides Bob and those two, too.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

Honestly, most of the funniest experiences that we've had are when people are so dressed up. Like, I don't know, like a few years ago, some people were dressed up like the sun, they their costumes, people go all out on these costumes, and that is just like a it's a wow moment. It's definitely like a oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_16 34:44

I mean the Tinkerbell costume, like genius, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 34:50

Yeah, yeah, running in wigs. I don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_15 34:53

Running in wigs, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 34:55

Bob's done that, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 34:58

I might probably have eight or ten wigs. Because I have no hair, so I've got a new wigs.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Um, I'm trying to think of anything shocking or funny other than what those guys said. Um, uh not not necessarily shocking or funny, but I'm telling like I always see Captain Jack Sparrow.

SPEAKER_07 35:17

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

I always think he's like, I'm like, Johnny, are you under there? Oh, he's got it nailed, doesn't he? Can we please hang out? Can we be best friends? Um it's not Johnny Depp, but it's so convincing. Yeah, it's it's wild, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_07 35:35

I tried to get him on the podcast a few years ago, and I spoke it, I I wrote him a message in pirate language, which he much appreciated, but was still got turned out.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Oh no, really, that surprises me.

SPEAKER_07 35:50

Yeah, I mean, you know, he is he's a swashbuckler and he's got uh he's got lots of things going on, so makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

We'll get Johnny Depp on here. Johnny Depp, if you're listening, please you have to run a marathon first.

SPEAKER_07 36:06

I would cry. He was like my crush back in like middle school.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Yeah, like what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_15 36:13

If you had a chance, do you have a message that you would like to share with the runners who are listening here and who will be running by you in future races?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

I think my message before you guys go is the more pumped up the runners are, like they're gonna get so much more out of the singers. And you know, I know they have bands playing throughout the park. You know, there are a bunch of high school students there, and we love we love the craziness, we love the energy, and it gets them so pumped up. So don't be afraid to go all out with us because we want to go all out, and like we want people to go all out with us.

SPEAKER_07 36:54

But what do you mean by all out?

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Should we like people have literally gotten in in their faces, not in like a bad way, no, no, right? But like I'm telling you, when that we are the champion comes out, yeah, we have people kneeling in the street playing air guitar, you know, throwing their wig around, just like being crazy. And these these students, they eat it up, and they're they they forget to sing, like I told you, they just forget to sing because they're like, This is amazing, and like we love it, we love seeing that.

SPEAKER_04 37:27

Something I would tell them is no matter where you are in the race, we are there for you. So, like, if you want to go crazy, if you want any type of experience, we are there to provide. We have been there for hours, we've been away for many hours. So, trust us, if you like Mr. Pieper said, if you want to go crazy, we will match your level and surpass it times 10. So we have your back.

SPEAKER_15 37:53

Yeah. All right, friends. All right, friends, you've heard them. Okay, I'm talking to my friends who are listening right now, and there are a couple of them, so don't be surprised at the next race.

SPEAKER_17 38:04

Okay, so you guys are in the choir. I guess you guys, you said you have a vocal coach, you're musician, Aiden. Do you guys see music in your future?

SPEAKER_05 38:12

None of us are technically planning on like majoring in music, but um, me and Catherine for sure want to find an ensemble. Um, and we're going to University of North Florida next year, and we really want to somehow stay connected. I know it's not our like our career plan. We're really excited to find a way somehow to keep the music going.

SPEAKER_16 38:30

So for me personally, uh, I love the voices of Liberty. Uh they I want to at least try to audition and maybe get in, but that would honestly just be a pastime. I still want to be with Disney. Uh I'm going for an engineering degree. Uh I want to actually be a Disney Imagineer.

SPEAKER_15 38:51

So awesome. What a great goal. What a great goal. And and my observation of life is when you set those goals early and you drive toward them, your chances are pretty good. So I wish you all the best. And that's all. That's awesome. Yeah, things like that. If you can keep music in your life, you enjoy it, you're going to enjoy it throughout your life. So I hope you can do that.

SPEAKER_06 39:13

Well, and as singers, we can be anywhere and sing too. You can be in the car and sing so it doesn't go away. Um, but yes, it's great that you guys have um things that you're looking forward to in the future.

SPEAKER_07 39:26

But now that you guys will be graduating and I mean you're in Florida, you could just sign up for a Disney race and see what it's like on the other side of it.

SPEAKER_05 39:37

Yes, we could.

SPEAKER_07 39:38

You could you see.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

You know, we're moving to Jacksonville, so you know that's a really long drive.

SPEAKER_16 39:49

They could yeah, they could train.

SPEAKER_05 39:50

That's a bit more than a marathon.

SPEAKER_04 39:51

That's you're pushing your lost a line.

Choir Season And Fundraising

SPEAKER_15 39:56

Hey, before we leave, and you started talking about this. Let's talk about some of the other places you've performed, okay? You you alluded to what a typical season looks like. You want to give us a little more on what your typical uh school year choir season looks like?

SPEAKER_01 40:11

This is my fifth year at our school at East River, and it's been the best job. Like it's I just can't tell you how great it is to go to work every day. And we've probably all had jobs where it's not fun to go to work, and it's not a great experience. So I'm I feel very lucky every day when I wake up. Um, but I feel like we since that time, we've been doing so much more every single year. Like we've been adding to our plates. Um, the students will tell you like we've had so many field trips this year. I've forgotten to order buses for like several of them. Like multiple. Like, luckily, like I was able to, but let's like right before spring break, they showed up for a field trip, and I was like, here we go, guys. Oh, wait, there's no bus.

SPEAKER_15 40:56

Here we start.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

And that's not usually me. So it's been a really busy year, but um some highlights last summer in June, we um sang at Carnegie Hall in New York.

SPEAKER_07 41:06

Oh wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Super, super amazing, and it was a really great experience. Um, we usually do like a Busch Gardens or like a universal or Disney trip every year just as like a reward for the kids. Um we just had our performance assessment where we get rated kind of like our end of year exam, like you know, like math and science, but it's a performance exam. And these guys right here, they got straight superiors, which is the best score you can get. And so I'm super proud of them. Um, and I just I think it's cool that we sing in all different styles, you know. At at you know, at last uh last month, end of February, um, they were singing traditional choral music, just like beautiful classic choral music. And then, you know, they show up to the Dizzy Marathon and they're you better run, run, run. You know, um, so it's it's really cool that we get to sing in all different styles. And then Aiden is a junior and Avery and Catherine are seniors, and next year I'm taking a group of kids to Paris in London. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Aiden.

SPEAKER_07 42:13

They missed all on Paris in London, you didn't want to give it to them.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Like well, I invited, you know, I invited the the graduating seniors back, but they're gonna be such college girlies, like they're not they got their own lives to live now. Sure. Yeah, they don't care about us anymore.

SPEAKER_17 42:28

Yeah, you guys can always stay back, you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, listen, some of the these these kids in front of you right now. I'm like, man, if I could just fail them, keep them one more year.

SPEAKER_15 42:40

Like, I need to fail two of them, Zach. It's not that true.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

That's true. Well, but if Aiden stays a junior, then he will leave longer farther away, anyways. Right, right, right. F all around.

SPEAKER_07 42:53

So Disney invites you to go and do these performances for as a choir. Do they give you like free tickets to go into the park afterwards? Yeah. Oh good.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

Two pop popper tickets for the marathons and then two normal tickets for candlelight, which is really nice. So I've we've I've collected like I think 10 tickets this year, which is like amazing.

SPEAKER_07 43:19

Wow. So it's a good incentive. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

And the kids get their tickets, and they also pay East River choir. They give us a a small honorarium, um, just to kind of um to have because you know, prof we don't get money in the performing arts at school, so they they they help us out with that. And like I said earlier, they pay for our buses, which I'm gonna tell you like a charter bus just to transport you to Disney be upwards of two thousand dollars. I can believe it.

SPEAKER_07 43:52

Yeah, because you guys said it's like forty five minutes one way, and then and then the bus stays with us the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

So I mean it's so expensive. Expensive, so they really do what they can to incentivize us.

SPEAKER_07 44:04

I think we do.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

No, they don't feed us. No, those kids have their wahwa bay goals and their imagine, imagine this. It's 2 45 in the morning and a a high schooler, 15-year-old strolls through the door eating Cheetos, Puffs, and a soda. And you're like, what do you what okay, live your life. You do you boo.

SPEAKER_05 44:28

Yeah, where's your water? Where's your water?

SPEAKER_01 44:32

They're drinking monsters, you know, they're drinking their Celsius.

SPEAKER_04 44:36

Or you know, their diet cokes.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Leave me alone.

SPEAKER_15 44:44

Hey, when's the next time at Disney, guys?

SPEAKER_13 44:47

Oh, well.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

We haven't been scheduled for another marathon this year. Oh, shucks. Yeah. And I'll I'll say over the past five years, it started out like only a few high schools were asked to do this, but they have really expanded, which is is really great. Like it's so good that all of the schools, because we have such amazing schools in Orange County. Um, and it's so cool to be able to spread that wealth. So I was actually talking to a friend from a Popka high school. Um, and I was she was like, you know, where are you going? And I was like, Well, no big deal. I'm gonna be on a podcast. And I told her what it was for, and she was like, I'm so mad. I wanted, I want to be on the podcast. And I was like, Sorry, like I was at the right place at the right time. And she and her response was, Well, I'm going to a marathon on the 19th. So her kids are performing at the next one.

SPEAKER_15 45:41

If work gets out, if word gets out what I look like, I'm gonna get booed as I run by the choir.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

No, you're gonna get you're gonna get even a bigger round of it. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_15 45:54

Yeah. Um, hey, uh, you talked uh Zach, you you alluded to it again just a moment ago. This stuff that you do, you can't do it for free. I'm sure you're involved in fundraising efforts. Tell us, take some time, tell us about them, and tell our friends how they can help in some of the fundraising efforts.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Sure. I mean, um, you know, like I said, uh we do not get a uh budget from the districts, and everything that we do um is from fundraising. So anything helps, and I will I always say this, it always goes back to my students. Um, you know, whether it's paying for lighting design at a concert, whether it's paying for transportation to a trip that we're taking, it takes the cost off of the students that want to participate in the arts. So anything helps. Um, and if you just follow our Instagram at East River Choirs, um choirs ch o I r s, everything is on our Instagram page. And the there should be a donation link at the top. And$10 takes$10 off students who want to, you know, go to the the end of your trip, or it takes ten dollars for the pizza that I feed the kids at the concert. So anything is great. Nice.

SPEAKER_15 47:08

So there you go, friends. Check them out at East River Choirs on Instagram. Take a look. Zach, Aiden, Avery, Catherine. I knew this was going to be fun. I've enjoyed the daylights out of it. I know that we're going to see you again. It won't be at Springtime Surprise, which is coming up in three weeks, but I know we'll see you again. We can't wait. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_13 47:34

Thank you guys so much.

SPEAKER_18 47:37

Caution runners, the topic is about to change right now.

SPEAKER_03 47:43

Well, thank you, East River. Pleasure talking to you, and hopefully, we see you on a Run Disney course very, very soon. But you know, sometimes those choirs sing, we are the champions, and we're gonna try to get one step closer in our Rise and Run March animated madness. I see what you did there. See, you like that. I I guess I I've been I've been doing this podcasting thing for long enough to come up with segues like that.

SPEAKER_15 48:09

Very clever.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Uh, so for this week, what we're doing is we are going to do round two or the second weekend of this, and then next week we're gonna finish it off. And because it goes a lot faster, we're gonna do the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and the National Champion. So we got the same crew that uh we had last week. So we're gonna operate under the same pretenses. I am gonna abstain from voting unless you know one of my co-hosts here says, again, didn't see those. So, Greg, go to you. And then obviously all tiebreakers go to our Patreons. And I'm not trying to spoil anything for any of my co-hosts here, but I'll be very interested if we go to some Patreon votes because the way they voted could be very, very interesting for this bracket. But let's start in the in the Bob region at 1937 to 1979, our first matchup here, and Bob, since the region is named after you, we'll start with you. The number one seed Pinocchio goes up against the number eight seed Lady and the Tramp.

SPEAKER_15 49:13

Well, at this point, we get to the movies are all pretty good. So it's there's no it's hard to find a clear winner, but to me, in this case, the classic music, the classic characters, I'm in for Pinocchio for this one.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

Okay, Alicia?

SPEAKER_06 49:32

I'm gonna go with Lady and the Tramp on this one.

SPEAKER_03 49:35

Okay, one the one so far, Jacqueline.

SPEAKER_07 49:38

Full name now. Who's all okay, Gregory? Um I don't know if you can. Okay, anyways, I'm gonna stop laughing. I'm gonna get serious because we're in some madness right now, you guys. Pinocchio and Lady of the Tramp, but I have to go with my Lady in the tramp.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

Okay, two to the one for the dogs, John. What do you say?

SPEAKER_17 50:03

It's gonna be interesting because I'm going with Pinocchio. What? Pinocchio. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_07 50:09

I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_17 50:10

You know, Jimmy, Jimmy the Cricket, Pinocchio, our friend Kelly, who's later on in the podcast, Figaro.

SPEAKER_15 50:17

Yeah, right. We can't let him down. When you wish upon a star, come on.

SPEAKER_07 50:22

I mean, classic song.

SPEAKER_03 50:24

Okay. So that means we go to the Patreon vote. Come on, Patreon. With 68% of the vote, grab your plate of spaghetti. Lady and the tramp knocks off the first number one seed. Lady and the tramp moves on to the sweet 16. Okay. Jimmy the Cricket's gonna be upset. Jimmy is very upset. So if you if you see a cricket in a dark alley with some puppies, run.

SPEAKER_07 51:01

I know it's something different, but it's very, very different, Jimmy.

SPEAKER_03 51:07

All right. Well, Jack, since you're hot on the mic now, I'll I'll start with you in this round. The four-seed Fantasia versus the 12-seed Peter Pan.

SPEAKER_07 51:19

Oh, Peter Pan.

SPEAKER_03 51:21

Okay, easy enough, John. Peter Pan. Alright, 2-0, Bob.

SPEAKER_15 51:26

Yeah, Fantasia, I think, was a little ahead of its time. Uh, a beautiful work of art, but in terms of an entertaining movie, I'm going with Peter Pan.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Okay, it moves on, but Alicia, what would how would you have voted here?

SPEAKER_06 51:38

Clean Sweep, Peter Pan.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

Clean sweep. All right, a double-digit seed. Unlike chalk madness uh in the actual NCAA, uh, Peter Pan has enough NIL money to move on as a double digit seed to the sweet 16. All right, Alicia, I'll start with you in our third game in this region. Uh, and two underdogs going up against one another here. We start with the 11th seed, Alice in Wonderland, versus the 14th seed, the rescuers.

SPEAKER_07 52:11

I know how she's voted. Oh, come on, don't even think like you're thinking about it because I know what you're answering.

SPEAKER_03 52:16

Jack, it's Alicia's turn, not yours.

SPEAKER_07 52:19

She said it last week, so that's why I'm like, ugh.

SPEAKER_06 52:21

Well, right. So they're both great movies, but I have to go with the nostalgia of watching with my grandmother rescuers.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Rescuers, okay. Jack, now it's your turn.

SPEAKER_07 52:31

Well, no, I'm just saying because last week she said it was her favorite, one of her top favorite Disney movies growing up, right? Yeah, see? I I listen. The rescuers. I'm gonna shut up.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

All right, 2-0 and the rescuers, John.

SPEAKER_17 52:49

This is a tough one.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

So I know you're a big Bob Newhart, man.

SPEAKER_17 52:54

I know, I know a big Bob Newhart fan. But uh Alice in Wonderland also was a really interesting story. But you know, Bob Newhart. The rest of us.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

All right, it moves on, but Bob, how would you have voted here? Just out of curiosity.

SPEAKER_15 53:14

Well, I'm one of the world's biggest Bob Newhart fans, but I'm also a huge fan of classic Disney movies, so I would have voted for Alice.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

Okay. Fair enough. All right, our last matchup here in the Bob region, and Bob, I'll start with you this time: the two-seed 101 Dalmatians versus the 10-seed jungle book.

SPEAKER_15 53:35

I find this one a little bit difficult. Uh both good, both entertaining, but I will go uh with Cruella and 101 Dalmatians.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

Okay. Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 53:49

I also find this one difficult. I know I said the quote wrong last week.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

Um shout out to AJ's daughter from the One More Run podcast, who apparently called you out in real time.

SPEAKER_06 53:59

I believe it. Um, I don't know though. These are both really good movies. I think that I'm gonna go with jungle books, so okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

One the one so far, John.

SPEAKER_17 54:17

Yeah. Another tough one for me, but I've probably seen 101 Dalmatians more, so I'm going with 101 Dalmatians.

SPEAKER_03 54:29

All right, puppies take the 2-1 lead. Jack, what do you say?

SPEAKER_07 54:32

I feel so bad because I really do enjoy the jungle book, but the 101 Dalmatians, I mean, woof woof.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

All right, grab your canine crunchies. The puppies move on to the sweet 16. All right, we move down the bracket to uh the 1980 to 1999 region. And Alicia, I will start with you on this one: the one-seed Aladdin versus the eight-seed Hercules.

SPEAKER_06 55:02

What?

SPEAKER_07 55:03

Hercules.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

Jack, how would you vote?

SPEAKER_07 55:08

I mean, that's I mean, I I'm gonna vote Hercules, but that's not right.

SPEAKER_03 55:12

All right, 2-0 Hercules, John.

SPEAKER_17 55:15

Uh, I'm gonna go with Aladdin.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Okay, making it interesting here, Bob.

SPEAKER_15 55:20

Aladdin and Hercules. I I just the uh I just love Robin Williams. I'd said it last week. Robin Williams' performances, the genie is a classic, so I'm in for Aladdin.

SPEAKER_06 55:33

So it goes to the Patreons.

SPEAKER_03 55:35

That it does. It goes to the Patreons, and let's look it up here with 71% of the vote. Rub your magic lamps.

SPEAKER_07 55:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

Aladdin moves on. Good call, good call.

SPEAKER_07 55:52

But what was the percentages? Was it like 59?

SPEAKER_03 55:55

Are you listening? 71% of the vote, Jack.

SPEAKER_17 56:02

So that means Hercules got 29% of the vote. I are you calling for a video review, Jack? Are you throwing the challenge flag?

SPEAKER_07 56:10

I'm just I'm surprised, I guess, because I mean, I remember when I was little, Hercules was a thing. They even had a parade at like Hollywood Studios and everything.

SPEAKER_17 56:22

But remember, Hercules came out around what '97, '98.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

It was late 90s, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 56:27

Aladdin came out earlier than that.

SPEAKER_17 56:29

Yeah, like 19, probably 1989, 1999.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

And in fairness, Aladdin also had a parade too, because when Riley was re-watching uh where she was uh watching old episodes of Full House, and one of the episodes where they go to Disney World is the uh blow-up genie float that they used to have.

SPEAKER_07 56:49

So well, let me put this out there. I'm not denying that it's an amazing movie, but Hercules, right? I agree, Jack, but all right.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

Well, if you guys thought that matchup was tough, I think this one gets even tougher. And Alicia, I'm gonna start with you because your vote is a foregone conclusion here. The four-seed The Little Mermaid versus the five-seed Mulan.

SPEAKER_06 57:11

Oh, you know that my answer is Mulan.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Correct, that's why I'm going to you first. So one for Mulan there. Okay, Bob.

SPEAKER_15 57:18

Yeah, not fair for me to vote here. I did see Mulan, but I never did see The Little Mermaid. I know some of the music, but I I'm going to abstain.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

You're going to abstain? Okay, I will fill in for you. And uh, I mean, both really solid movies, both have really, really good music. Um, but so I can return safely uh to my home. Uh I'm gonna vote for the Little Mermaid because I knew where that was going. That is uh Meredith's favorite movie. So one so far, John.

SPEAKER_17 57:46

Yeah, like I said, tough getting tough, you know, four versus five seed. You know, the matchup's gonna be tight. That's like one of those. This is one of those what day of the week it is put picks, you know. Uh, but uh I'm gonna go with uh Mulan.

SPEAKER_07 58:01

All right, right answer, John.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

One Mulan, Jack. What do you say?

SPEAKER_07 58:06

I love that they made a female character just bad. Sorry, I'm cussing right here. She's a big one.

SPEAKER_03 58:14

I I had I had to bleep Alicia last week. I get to bleep you twice now this week.

SPEAKER_07 58:18

So but like she's just so cool because it's like you see so many Disney movies where it's like the female needs a man, you know, to go and rescue them. Whereas this one, a female is rescuing the man, and I just think that's so cool um to have like a strong female character that can whoop some butt, right?

SPEAKER_06 58:39

You know, and it's women's history month, so shout out to all the women. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 58:44

So Mulan for me, I think she's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 58:46

All right, Mulan is awesome. Shout out to Donnie Osmond also uh singing uh Make a Man Have You. Although quick beef with that movie, though. So Li Shang, the speaking voice is done by B. D. Wong, but the singing voice is Donnie Osman. B. D. Wong has been on Broadway. I'm pretty sure I think he wanted Tony as well, too. So why he didn't get to sing that, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_17 59:10

But obviously, Donnie Osman is probably doesn't look good in purple. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 59:15

Maybe, but anyways, I I digress. Mulan moves on. Uh, we'll move up to our third matchup in this region. John, I'll start with you. The three-seed the Lion King versus the six-seed Tarzan.

SPEAKER_17 59:31

Yeah, okay. All chalk in this region, by the way. I know. This one, you know. Tarzan, better soundtrack.

SPEAKER_03 59:40

Damn straight.

SPEAKER_17 59:42

Uh, but I think I know Phil Collins, like I think just blew it up on that one. But I think I have to go with the Lion King.

unknown 59:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Oh, Alicia, by the way, uh, quick update. Apparently, uh, you and I were, I believe, chatting uh in the course of the past week. Uh, the guy who wrote that song apparently is suing that comedian now for$27 million over that joke. Yes, for misinterpreting him and libel and all this stuff. Apparently, the guy was giving a comedy set at the Laugh Factory when he was served his papers. So that's a little quick update on that story about the Lion King from last week. But uh how how you vote here between Lion King and Tarzan.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:25

Oh, this is really hard. Lion King needs that uh that money now for the guys.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:41

Oh, things are getting really hard. I think I'm gonna go with Lion King though.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

Okay. Too O Lion King, Jack.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:51

I gotta interpret this right. Hold on. I gotta be away from my mic. Oh, here we go. Strap in, folks. Is that how he does it? That was pretty good. That was pretty good. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

So for those of you that don't speak elephant, uh, that was Jack Saint Tarzan. Bob.

SPEAKER_15 1:01:17

Look, there's a lion over there. That's good. I like that. We're gonna be parties to the suit now. Yeah, Lion King for me. Oh, great.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

As the fake legal counsel for for our podcast, I don't know how well I'm gonna hold up to that.

SPEAKER_15 1:01:34

That's why we're an LLC, baby. We don't have that many assets.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:40

All right, so Hakuna Matata. Lion King moves on. All right, last matchup in the region. Jack, I'll start with you. The two-seed Beauty and the Beast versus the seven-seed Rescuers Down Under.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:57

Why are you always doing this to me, Greg?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:00

I'm not doing anything to you. I'm just reading out the bracket falls.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:03

You're making me upset.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:07

As you should be. Um, I'm gonna have to go with one of my top favorite movies animated that Disney's ever done, and that'll be Rescuers Down Under.

SPEAKER_15 1:02:18

Okay. Bob? Hmm. Interesting you say that because one of my top favorite movies that Disney's done is Beauty and the Beast.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

All right, one to one. Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:33

I'm gonna go with Beauty and the Beast.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:36

Okay. Two to one. John comes down to you.

SPEAKER_17 1:02:41

I go against Bob Newhart again. Come on. I'm hoping for a New Hart uh final. New Hart Final Four? Yes. Uh Rescue Down Unders is a good movie, but I think like going with Bob Beauty and the Beast. Wait.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:57

Can I can I find out though? Because I feel like Rescuers Down Under is a is an extremely underrated movie. What did the um uh Patreon say?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

How did the Patreons uh well let's put this in the basketball terms, Jack? I'm not gonna go with the men's tournament here. I'm gonna go with the women's tournament. This was like uh Rescuers Down Under going up against a Yukon women's basketball team. The percentage was 92 to 8%. Wow.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:24

8%? You're telling me I got eight percent?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:28

You got eight percent.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:31

Wait, then maybe they just didn't watch it. They needed to go on Disney Plus. Go subscribe to Disney Plus as well as us.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:37

Well, actually, Jack, that's a great segue because that brings us to uh our commercial intermission. So uh that half the bracket was unofficially brought to you by Disney Plus, where Jack tells you to co-watch the rescuers down under and Bob Newhart. It's a fantastic movie, and now we kick it back to the studio with Bob to introduce the next segment.

SPEAKER_15 1:03:57

Hey, let's take a break and chat with some friends about a podcast they're doing. Caution Runners, change of topic ahead. Hey friends, let's bring back our podcast we listen to segment. We haven't done this for a little bit. Joining us on this week's episode are friends Kelly McCubbin and Peter Overstreet, and their podcast is called The Low Down on the Plus Up. Guys, welcome to the podcast. We're glad you're here. Hey, thanks very much, Bob. Yeah, thanks for having us. All right, let's kick us off with a hard-hitting question. Uh-oh. Who who plays the tuba in your intro?

SPEAKER_12 1:04:40

Well, that's my wife. Um I believe that.

SPEAKER_14 1:04:47

No, we do we did the thing that a bunch of I I noticed a bunch of podcasters do, which is we went out and um found some some free to license music. And we were like, Yeah, how about this? How about this? How about this? And and I found that. And I was like, Pete's either gonna love this or he's gonna hate it. And I was fine either way.

SPEAKER_20 1:05:07

So he didn't run it by me at all. He was just like, hey Pete, the episode's up. And I turned it on, and it's and I just went. At first, I was like, what does he think? No, this is brilliant. Like I had like 10 seconds of like what the and then I kept listening. I went, no, this is this is us, this is totally us.

SPEAKER_15 1:05:25

That's great. Because I I kind of had the same reaction myself. I go, What we got an eighth grader playing tuba? What's going on? And then it grew on me real fast.

SPEAKER_20 1:05:36

Yeah, so uh it makes us distinct. I I give you that. Yeah, you know. There you go. There you go, friends.

SPEAKER_15 1:05:41

We got a reason to listen now. There you go. Got a reason to tune into the lowdown on the plus up. Um hey guys, when'd you get started?

SPEAKER_14 1:05:49

Well, it's been a couple years now, almost two years.

SPEAKER_20 1:05:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_14 1:05:53

And uh as as all great things, uh it started uh because our wives told us to. There you go, blaming the wives again. Yeah. Yeah. We would that Pete and I have known each other for a pretty a long time. And we would we would get together and with our our partners and and like we'd have dinner and whatever and our kids would play and stuff. And and Pete and I would always end up in the corner and like two hours in we'd be talking about like Planet of the Apes.

SPEAKER_13 1:06:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 1:06:22

And it would be like deep in the Logan's Run TV series.

SPEAKER_20 1:06:28

And of course, you know, Disneyland popped up because you know we both have you know huge book collections, and and you know, we're we've we've learned that we were both majorly into the creative aspects of theme park design and not just that, but the deep diving history behind so it wasn't just you know the usual Disney trivia. It was no, no, this leads to this, which leads to this, which leads to this, which we finally get to Bob Ger, you know, designing cars or that and that sort of thing fascinated us. And eventually, uh our uh our partners basically looked at us and said, Why don't you two start a podcast? You guys should do this. And we like half joking, we looked at each other for a minute and we go, Why don't we?

SPEAKER_13 1:07:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_20 1:07:11

So Kelly invited me over to his place where we record all the episodes, and he got everything set up. And he says, Okay, what are we gonna talk about? And I said, I'm Mr. Lincoln, why not? Yeah, okay, yeah. So we did, you know, uh adventures great moments with Mr. Lincoln.

SPEAKER_14 1:07:27

Well, I like adventures with Mr. Lincoln, Adventures with Grover Cleveland, yeah.

SPEAKER_20 1:07:32

And uh but yeah, we did great moments with Mr. Lincoln and uh we it we were done. We just looked at each other as soon as he says, okay, and we're done with the show. And we looked at each other, we said, Well, that went pretty good. That was that was a good amount of material there. And then we put it up online and people started reacting, and we started getting a couple of you know really interested people here and there, and it just started to expand.

SPEAKER_15 1:07:58

And we just both of you is most impressive. Tell us a little bit about your backgrounds.

SPEAKER_14 1:08:04

Oh, thank you. Uh what why don't you go first? Me go first. Your background is more impressive than this. Oh, stop it.

SPEAKER_20 1:08:11

So um so I'm an ill, I started off as an illustrator and an animator. I was actually trained at San Jose State for um animation 2D. Unfortunately, when I got my degree, it was the exact same month that uh Disney, Warner Brothers, uh DreamWorks, and just about everybody else shut down their 2D animation work because of uh Toy Story 2. And um nothing, I mean it is what it is. That's just but I had I basically wound up training for a job that doesn't exist anymore. And um, but I did turn it around and I worked in video games, and then I eventually just said, you know, I've got this eclectic mix of stuff in my head. So I've worked in games, I've worked in film, I've worked in commercials, comics, that kind of stuff. And about 13 years ago, I settled into becoming a college professor. Uh, and so now I teach film and I teach art and I teach my main specialty is animation uh in the 2D and um storyboarding design and um history realm. And so it's a lot of it's a lot of that. So it's just having ADHD and hyperfocusing enough and and a and a and a hard drive inside my skull that could, you know, as my partner loves to say, it's not how do you know the stuff, why do you know the stuff? Yes, that's my background.

SPEAKER_15 1:09:31

Yes, I get that sometimes, not in this genre, but I get that sometimes myself.

SPEAKER_14 1:09:36

I I you know, I I have to tell you a thing about Pete is like he will come in, he will say things on the podcast, and I I I tend to edit them. And so whoa! And I he'll say things on the podcast, they'll be like, that cannot possibly be true. I'm gonna have to go fact check them. Yeah, and every single time it's true.

SPEAKER_15 1:09:57

Lo and behold. Lo and behold, yeah.

SPEAKER_20 1:10:00

You you think I'm full. No, I carefully I do we do sometimes, we will when we do an episode, we will say, What are we doing? and we will start researching and so forth. And I think the two of us walk in with these lists to try and out deep dive each other. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_14 1:10:16

It shows.

SPEAKER_20 1:10:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_14 1:10:18

Kelly, tell us about your background, please. You bet. Um, so I uh, you know, I grew up in Texas, but I went to college in western Massachusetts, uh, where I studied theater. I, you know, went through college, studied theater, never did theater again. Um came out to um the Bay Area, moved, moved to San Francisco and kind of started doing music for a while here. And uh then just ended up actually I did I did do one theater show uh along the way where we decided that we were gonna replicate an old time radio show on stage. And so uh I we we we wrote it as if it was an old-time radio show and put people up in front of microphones and and did it.

SPEAKER_20 1:11:02

Which is how we met, actually. That's right. Yeah. I met him because I went and saw the show and I went, This guy's awesome. Yeah, you know, and we we started talking from that point on.

SPEAKER_14 1:11:11

But you know, from there I just you know, I moved in kind of kind of my day job, stay stayed in uh music for a while, and then just you know, I started uh several years back all uh writing for this uh Disney News website, this website called Boardwalk Times. And um so that kind of got that all flowing again. And I'd always been a huge fan of the parks. Like, you know, I I think the first year, I think the first year both of us went there was like 1976. So the bicentennial year. And so I just I became real obsessed with it. And as we started doing this, I realized that um that I I really wanted to give people a sense of why these places seemed really cool to us when we were kids. And to do that, I felt like we had to find some pull pull some background in and say, this is what it was like around that time. This is why things were like this. And that's why this is this thing is special. Like, you know, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln or Adventure Through Enterprise is special.

SPEAKER_17 1:12:19

The name of the podcast is the low down on the plus up. How do you guys come up with that I that that that name and what does it mean?

SPEAKER_14 1:12:28

I think I think we just um I think we just spitballed for a while, and then uh we decided that we were gonna the grab onto that gimmick of at the end of every episode, we were gonna come up with a a plus up, which was an old Walt Disney phrase. It was, you know, he was constantly plussing up his attractions. And um, so we just we we kind of were spitballing, and then it was like, well, what would what's before the plus up? The lowdown. And then it just kind of described what we did.

SPEAKER_20 1:12:56

Yeah. And now it's be now it's become the framework of our show where we start off the first part with diving into whatever history or explanation of what we're doing, commentary, and then we get to end with an entire plus up. And we've done two episodes that are nothing but plus up. Yeah. So that's uh we can talk about those later.

SPEAKER_17 1:13:15

So talking about the podcast, uh, what can you tell our friends what the podcast is all about?

SPEAKER_14 1:13:22

Yeah. It's it's about a lot. We um, you know, it's a it's about theme parks, obviously, and and theme park attractions, and and our our definition of that is very broad. Um we did, and this is one of my favorite things we uh ever did. We did an episode recently about like roadside attractions that are sort of those odd little gravity shacks where you you know you go in and all the gravity's off and water flows uphill. And and there's a bunch of them, and they have a weird mythology to them. And so we we included stuff like that. But we also lean into Disney and Universal and uh Knotts a little bit, and you know, I I grew up six months over the text.

SPEAKER_15 1:14:05

That's for for non-West coasters, Knott's is not very farm amusement park.

SPEAKER_20 1:14:10

That's that's right, right. Yep. And we find we find that with our deep dives, that a lot of the amusement entertainments, their histories are so I'm gesturing, I realize that this is mostly gonna be audio, but but things are things are so interlocked, you know, uh of one thing leading to another. Or did you know that this guy started working at Knott's and now he's working at Disney? And vice versa, you know, Rolly Crump said adios Disney and was gonna go work on berry tales, you know, that kind of stuff over at Knott's berry farm. And um, so we're we're just fascinated by those connections. Right. Um, and and whether at first they seem innocuous and entertaining, or sometimes some of our stories have actually gotten kind of dark. Yeah. Because say, oh, we've gone down some dark roads with some of them. And we you wouldn't realize it when you when you think about some of these attractions, but actually they're yeah, they it's uh there there can be grim stories. Grim stories, yeah, very grim stories.

SPEAKER_15 1:15:05

Yeah. Not not grim with two M's in this case. No, no.

SPEAKER_20 1:15:09

I mean litigation. Yes.

SPEAKER_15 1:15:13

Small G. Small Grim. Small G, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_17 1:15:17

If you're new, if if you want to start out your podcast, what episodes would you recommend someone new to listen to?

SPEAKER_20 1:15:24

One that I think we're very, very proud of uh was our Disneyland Hotel episode, which was strangely fascinating. We we said might as well get it over with. We're gonna have to talk about it. And we got through it.

SPEAKER_14 1:15:38

Disneyland Hotel book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_20 1:15:41

He's holding it up, he's got it right here by his desk.

SPEAKER_14 1:15:46

Yeah, or ruffle the pages. Yeah.

SPEAKER_20 1:15:49

We also have an episode, it's a two-parter about the Rocket Man of uh uh Tomorrowland and the Rocket Belt, uh, which this is one of those grim episodes where it leads to murder, kidnapping, extortion.

SPEAKER_14 1:16:04

It's the craziest story you've ever heard. And all true. You know, we go back to Bell Labs and and like their initial invention of the rocket belt for the for the army and and kind of what happened to that, and then some other people trying to invent follow-up ones, and then it just turns into this weird espionage story, and it's one of the strangest things we've ever looked into. And every every time we found out something new, we would go, What?

SPEAKER_13 1:16:28

How can how is this true?

SPEAKER_20 1:16:31

That's 100% true. And we tie it with the Rocketeer and the guy who's jumping over Tomorrowland on the wonderful world of Disney, that kind of stuff. And that's the rocket belt that led to crazy shenanigans.

SPEAKER_15 1:16:42

Well, when you when you started talking about it, it includes murder and intrigue and espionage. You hooked half our audience right away. I guess we got we got I I I promise you we've got a lot of uh was it real life uh true crime. True crime. We got a true crime listeners.

SPEAKER_14 1:16:59

Yeah, yeah. This is this is the story for them. I mean, it is it is amazingly weird. Um and and I'm also really proud of the one we just finished. We just did uh Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. That's very good. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, we tried to go back and really give it some historical context and talk about what the mythology of the American West was, yeah, how we got there.

SPEAKER_20 1:17:23

Yep. And it's it's the one episode with the most Dal McKinnon impersonations ever.

SPEAKER_15 1:17:28

And Peter does some really good voices in that one, too.

SPEAKER_20 1:17:31

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's it's the one episode that has the most Dal McKinnon you've ever heard in your life. Um I don't know why I wound up being such a good Dallas McKinnon impersonator. I've actually I've actually laid out uh Disney cast members on both the east and west coast by doing the haunted mansion spiel in the stretching room elevator. Um and then the the doors will open and the butlers behind there just kind of like trying desperately to keep a straight face. He goes, Which one of you was it?

SPEAKER_14 1:18:01

Give him a little Dell McKinnon.

SPEAKER_20 1:18:03

Oh, um when hinges creak in Dorless Chambers and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls. Whenever candlelights flicker, when the airs deathly spill, that is the time when ghosts, when ghosts are present.

SPEAKER_15 1:18:21

Hey, I'll tell you, I'll tell you honestly, John and I were talking last night, and uh we had heard the beginning of the episode. And I didn't hear the later on in the episode, you explained that it is you. In the beginning, John says, Boy, that guy Peter does great voices. And I said, I think those are recordings, John. I don't think that's really him. Ah, that man.

SPEAKER_14 1:18:40

We did a live episode. We were invited down to Anaheim to do an episode um in the the uh Suite of the Future, which is across the street from Disneyland. The Howard Johnson's there. Howard Johnson from the park.

SPEAKER_15 1:18:52

Oh, I know they are it is.

SPEAKER_14 1:18:53

Yeah, and they um there was we did a show in front of a bunch of podcasters, and after the show, people were going up to Pete with their phones and going, Could you say this as the prospector in recording?

SPEAKER_20 1:19:07

Recording, yeah. I mean, now that they're doing, you know, now that they're doing refurbishments over at the park uh on Big Thunder, especially in Florida. Um, I have actually heard from a couple of people on Instagram, like, are you sending them your reel so that way you can that you can re-record the the line spiel so you can actually be the voice of keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times?

SPEAKER_15 1:19:29

And your kidneys, too.

SPEAKER_20 1:19:30

And your kid, yes, my kidney.

SPEAKER_15 1:19:32

You gotta listen to the episode, friends. Gotta listen to the episode. Speaking of, if our friends are gonna listen, where can they download you?

SPEAKER_14 1:19:40

Well, we're on we're on all of the the podcatchers. We're we're pretty much you can get us Apple, Spotify, um uh whatever find the podcasters are sold, right? Yeah, and uh you can also listen to us straight from the website, which is uh low down uh lowdown-plus-up.com. Um you can get it from there as well. But we're we're we're everywhere. We've we've saturated. YouTube of you. We can you can find us everywhere. Yep, we're on YouTube. Yep. Good stuff. No video though, nobody wants to see that.

SPEAKER_17 1:20:15

Well, we we we me and Bob had to stop doing that because we're like uh, you know, too eye candy, too much, too much eye candy.

SPEAKER_14 1:20:23

We're sending you gifts. It was weird. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_17 1:20:30

We got faces for radio, right? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_15 1:20:33

All of us in the same boat. That's it. I get that all the time. You got a voice for radio. I go, yeah, I know. Faces video too.

SPEAKER_20 1:20:39

Um you asked earlier about uh episodes, real quick. Yes, please. One episode that I would not recommend, like we're it's one of our favorites, but I wouldn't recommend you start with it. You should have you should listen to a couple of episodes first to really get the meter of it. We do once a year, we do what we call our what if universe episodes, in which we do that's what we said the whole episode is a plus up. So one of our episodes was what if Ray Bradbury got to do his theme park uh for Disney? Yeah. Um, a proposal that he actually had, which was crazy. And we talk about it as if it actually exists on the show. And at the end we go, ha ha, Orson Wells, you know, for the world's kind of thing. This is all a hoax, don't worry about it, it didn't exist. But we also did one in which we asked the question, what if Walt Disney Snow White did not make money? Who would have actually made the theme park? And we actually said Max Fleischer of Betty Boop Fame, and what would Fleischer Land actually look like? And our description, we we had a couple of fans write in says, You had me until Coco's pants arrived at Coco's Coco Clown's pants. So we wouldn't set we wouldn't recommend you start with that one, but it's definitely worth a listen because it's one of our faves.

SPEAKER_15 1:21:53

Hey friends, uh it's been real a lot of fun. Uh, but I I've got to let you go. Yep. No problem. Thank you so much for joining us, and uh we appreciate your time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_20 1:22:07

Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_15 1:22:09

So there you go, friends, another podcast we listen to. Um, I'll tell you candidly, I I hadn't listened to a lot of episodes before we talked with uh with Pete and Kelly, but now that they're gone, I'll tell you it's a really interesting their their knowledge, I called it encyclopedic, they really know their stuff, and it's fun listening to them play off of one another. It's not a typical kind of podcast that we've listened to or had on the PWLT segment in the past. But if you are at all interested in history and not just the history of ballparks, but the history of the country are of expansion, this is a great episode to listen to. Highly recommended.

SPEAKER_14 1:22:52

Hey, hey, Bob, Bob, we're we're still here. We can hear you. Oh. Oh. Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_20 1:23:00

Now you know what everyone thinks. Okay. Well, okay. Maybe we should take off now. See you later.

SPEAKER_15 1:23:10

This time I mean it, fellas. Thanks a lot. Thanks, guys. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Yeah, you too.

SPEAKER_18 1:23:15

Caution runners, the topic is about to change right now.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:20

All right, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Please, everyone, please go check out their podcast. A wonderful, wonderful listen. And uh, Kelly, I know you in uh the Patreon chats for all the matchups. I know you were really pulling for Pinocchio, and uh, our deepest condolences to you.

SPEAKER_17 1:23:37

But um I cried, Kelly. So did I.

Bracket Voting Continues And Upsets

SPEAKER_03 1:23:40

But let's now move to our third quadrant here in the round of 32. These are movies released from 2000 to 2026. And Bob, I'll start with you here. Our first matchup, the one-seed Zotopia versus the nine-seed Tangled.

unknown 1:24:00

Oh, what?

SPEAKER_15 1:24:01

I wanna again, I want to be fair, and uh, I did not see Tangled.

unknown 1:24:07

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:08

All right, so I'll step in here. These are both movies that I liked, but I didn't love. Oh but I think with this particular one, I'm gonna go with Tangled. Um, because to me, like a quintessential Disney animated movie has some type of musical element to it. Uh Zootopia had a lot of great comedy, but I'm gonna I'm gonna tip the tip the cap over to Tangled for this one. Uh Alicia?

SPEAKER_06 1:24:40

I think that's fair what you said, but I am gonna go with opposite and go with Zootopia.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:46

Okay. One the one. John?

SPEAKER_17 1:24:49

Uh I'm gonna go with Zootopia.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:54

Okay. Two one Zootopia, Jack. What do you say?

SPEAKER_07 1:24:58

You're crushing me. Because that's like my favorite Disney princess with one of one of my top favorite animated movies in general. I guess there's gotta be a winner somewhere, but like what were you gonna say? So this is how I felt last week. Let's I I really want to say let's get our frying pans and let's go whack anybody that's like dangerous, which you know, like tangled. But um, I'm gonna say let's go get zoo together.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:34

All right, well, just like um Flash at a DMV. Zoo toe P. Pick it up, great pick it up, moves on to the sweet 16. All right, John, we'll start with you for the next game. And what I love about this region is we got a lot of double-digit seeds, which is gonna make a lot of fun here. So, our next matchup, the 12 seed, princess and the frog versus the 13 seed, Lilo and Stitch. Easy, Lilo and Stitch. Okay, Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:16

100% Lilo and Stitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:18

All right, 2-0 for the alien, Jack.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:25

Uh Lilo and Stitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:29

All right, that advances it, but Bob, how would you have voted? Oh, that made it easy, yeah.

SPEAKER_15 1:26:34

That little critter. Lilo and Stitch. I would be comfortable there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:38

That's a hard one, too. And Lilo and Stitch move on. Okay, next matchup here. Another pair of double-digit seeds. And uh, Bob, I'll start with you. The 11 seed Wreck It Ralph versus the 14 seed Emperor's New Groove.

SPEAKER_15 1:27:00

Yeah, announce who they are so I can say I haven't seen either one.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:05

Uh, I will step in here and I will go Wreck It Ralph on this one. Kind of like how I have had feelings in the past, you know, up until watching the live action. I will say, live action Lilo and Stitch was very, very good. I could never get through the cartoon for some reason. I don't know why. But conversely, though, I know there's a huge cult following for Emperor's New Groove. I don't get I don't get the love, I don't get the hype, which is fine. Everyone's got their own personal preferences, so I'm gonna go uh Wreck it Ralph here. Uh John? Wreck it Ralph. All right, 2-0 for Ralph. Jack.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:40

So I do get the love, and I do love Emperor's New Groove. And if I will say it again in hopes that Disney's listening at some point, um, you need to make that roller coaster over in Villains Land. I think it'll be epic.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:55

All right, so 2 to 1. Ralph has the lead, but Alicia, what's gonna Happen here.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:00

But I also get the hype, and I love Emperor's New Groove, so I'm gonna go with that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:04

Alright, it goes over time to the Patreons. Oh, that should be good. And with 60% of the vote, which means Jack, the other movie got 40%. With 60% of the vote, pull the leverkrunk. Emperor's new groove moves on.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:26

All right. And our last matchup in this region. And John will start with you. The two-seed Moana versus the seven-seed Big Hero Six. I'm going Moana. Okay. Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:42

Both great movies, but I'm going to go with Moana.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:45

Okay. 2-0 for the ocean, Bob.

SPEAKER_15 1:28:49

Let's put it over the top. I like Moana. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:53

Thank you. I appreciate that. But Jack, how would you have voted?

SPEAKER_07 1:28:56

I really, really, really, really, really do love Moana. I think it's epic in so many ways. But Big Hero 6 pulls at my heart. And so I'm going to have to say Big Hero 6.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:04

Okay, well, again, it doesn't really matter. All right. And our final four games in the last region here, the Pixar region. And Jack, I'll start with you. The first matchup here is the one-seed Toy Story 2 versus the 8-seed, the Incredibles.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:26

Incredibles. Okay, Bob. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:29

Hmm.

SPEAKER_15 1:29:32

I I hmm. I'm going to go with the. I know we got a bunch in the Toy Story franchise here, but I'm going to vote for Toy Story 2.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:42

Okay. One the one so far. John.

SPEAKER_17 1:29:46

I'm going with the Incredibles.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:47

All right. 2-1 Incredibles, Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:50

I'm also going with the Incredibles. Give me that super suit.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:54

All right. Another number one seed goes down and the Incredibles moves on.

SPEAKER_17 1:30:01

I think Toy Story 2 is ranked too high personally in this list.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:05

Oh, I disagree. I actually think Toy Story 2 is the best one out of the franchise. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. The amount of adult satire in that film is unbelievable, and I I love it so much. But anyway, my vote doesn't count in this particular round. So we're going to move on. All right. Jack, I'll start with you for the next game. This is a really actually, I think these last three games are really tough matchups. The four seed inside out versus the five seed Toy Story Three.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:38

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:38

Folks, if you could see her face right now.

SPEAKER_07 1:30:41

I'm going to say inside out, because when that came out, I just thought it was such a unique and good movie. And when you see all the characters from everybody's minds, like the parents' minds, the kids' minds, I just thought that was so creative and good. And yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:55

Okay. Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:57

Um, this one to me is a no-brainer. Inside out. I I have to go with core memories.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:03

All right. 2-0 for the emotions.

SPEAKER_17 1:31:05

John. This should have been a number one seed in this bracket, Toy Story 3. Okay. Fighting words from John. Bob, what do you say?

SPEAKER_15 1:31:17

I say that it's close enough between these two that I want to toss it to the Patreon. So I will. Toy Story 3 is a great movie. Both good movies. So I'm going to vote Toy Story 3 so we can toss it to the Patreons.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:31

All right. And we go to overtime with the Patreon vote. And believe it or not, this was a blowout.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:40

Is it like an 8% blowout, or is this not that bad?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:44

But with but with 80% of the vote, Inside Out moves on. Wow. 16. And another another Toy Story movie goes to the wayside.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:00

It's a fantastic movie. It's just inside out, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:04

All right. John, I'll start with you. The pen ultimate game here. The three seed, finding Nemo versus the six seed up.

SPEAKER_17 1:32:19

Yeah. Two different movies. Well but I'm gonna go with uh Finding Nemo. Because Fisher Our Friends, not Food.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:30

Not food, that is correct. Alicia.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:33

This one's really hard for me. I really, really like both of these movies. Hmm. I it's not easy. Another really hard one for me this week, but I guess I'm gonna go with finding Nemo.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:53

Okay, 2-0.

SPEAKER_15 1:32:55

Bob. Another of my favorite Disney movies, up. So let's make it two to one.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:00

All right, two to one, Jack.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:02

You gave me crap last week, though. Yeah, because last week when I said I haven't finished watching up, and you're like, that isn't that your wedding song? And like, now I feel like I can't not vote against it because it's my wedding song.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:20

All right. So that's a final answer.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:23

I like finding Nemo, but Up is really good. I still gotta finish watching the last 20 minutes, but yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:33:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:30

Well, then Disney Plus, you know. Yeah, another movie you could Disney Plus. Which you get a discount code from, but you know what?

SPEAKER_07 1:33:36

I'm gonna watch it just so that if this goes on to the next week, I'll say that I've I watched it all the way through.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:42

Okay, well, that takes us to another overtime game to the Patreons and with a vote of 51 to 49%.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:54

That's close.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:55

That's close, Jack.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:58

8% close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:01

Finding Nemo hits the buzzer beater shot. Wow. And moves on to the sweet 16.

SPEAKER_17 1:34:07

It's kind of like that St. John's game the other night. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:10

I'll still watch the movie, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:13

Yeah, you should. All right, and our final game here for this week. And uh John, I'll start with you. The two seed Toy Story versus the 10-seed ratatouille. I'm going with Toy Story.

SPEAKER_15 1:34:32

Bob? Back in the days when we were still coming to this particular area where I now live to visit with family. Uh I have two little grandnieces. My golly, they were just little kids, four and five years old. I took them to see Toy Story, thinking I'm doing a big favor for them, and I think I enjoyed the movie more than anybody there. So Toy Story for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:56

All right, 2-0 Jack.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:58

I'm actually gonna go Toy Story on this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:00

Okay. It pushes it over the top at Alicia. Just out of curiously, how would you have voted?

SPEAKER_06 1:35:05

Clean Sweep Toy Story.

Zoom Plans And Next Guest Tease

SPEAKER_03 1:35:06

Clean Sweep. All right, Toy Story. So at least one Toy Story film makes it into the Sweet 16. So that concludes this week's round of March animated madness. And like I said, next week, we will do the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and the title game. And Patreons, you will have the ability to be our tiebreakers at least for the Sweet 16. And then I guess I'll be the tiebreaker for the final ones, but we'll see how that goes. So again, thank you to everyone of our Patreons for voting. Thank you to my co-host for playing along. And uh once again, Bob, we'll kick it back over to the studio to you.

Challenge Results And Host Update

SPEAKER_15 1:35:44

Well, that was fun. All right, let's take a look at what's coming up. It is not a Zoom Thursday week. We've got Zoom Thursday coming up next week, which would be uh it's sometime early in April. I don't have a calendar in front of me. Uh it would be it's either March 33rd or April 2nd or something like that. April 2nd, Bob. April 2nd. Okay, thank you. Thursday, April 2nd. Uh so that's our next Zoom. And that'll be the last Zoom before we are on our way to Springtime's Prize. So hope to see you there. Uh next week, we I'm not going to announce next week because we do have a guest, but we haven't don't have it firmed up completely yet. So someone who participated in a very interesting ultra marathon, we hope to have her join us. And now please stand clear of the door. It's time for a race report. The race report sponsored by our friend Tom Stokes of Stokes Metabolic Training. Stokes.fit slash rise and run coaching is the website. Tom had his six-week challenge that ended on Sunday. And I am here to announce the results of that. Top point earner was Christine. Overall winner for the men, Todd lost 22 pounds or 9% of his body weight. Outstanding. Top female winner lost 7.7% of her body weight. That's just a little less than 15 pounds. That's Heather. Heather's been with Tom from the very first challenge that he's done, and in that time she's lost 70 pounds.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:41

Congratulations.

Race Reports And PR Bell Moments

SPEAKER_15 1:37:42

Great job. Congratulations, all three. Tom, uh not Tom. Well, congratulations to you too, Tom. But uh Todd, Christine, and Heather. Tom will be with us next week to tell us what's next. Oh, and let me wrap up. I've been doing a little accountability thing here. Uh in the six weeks of the challenge, I lost nine pounds. I'm happy with that. Good job. That's not bad. It's uh I've slowed down. Last week I lost three tenths of a pound. But it's didn't at least I didn't gain any. And I need to get back to it and uh we'll see how it goes. So I feel better about that. And I I feel better about it, and even though even though I'm still a good bit heavier than I want to be, I can already tell the difference just in uh a couple of training runs. So yeah, Tom will join us next week to tell us what happens, what challenges are coming up next. Let us see. Let's go right to the report then. On Saturday, 45,000 runners showed up in Virginia Beach, Virginia for the Yingling Shamrock Marathon weekend. We had an 8K on Saturday and a half on Sunday. Andrew and Joseph did the 8K, I believe. Samantha did the 8K. It was her first race and longest distance since giving birth to her son three months ago. Three months ago, not bad. 8K after that. Not the best race pace. Give yourself some grace there. Samantha, this is awesome. G go to distance. Uh, fifth shamrock in a row. So she is now officially a legacy. She ran with her friend Alexis. See us at springtime. Sounds good. Uh the Dolphin Challenge involved the 8K on Saturday, the half on Sunday. I remember this. We've we've talked about this race before. I remember that dolphin challenge. Catherine did it. Uh let's see. Kayla. Kayla did the 8K. Then she hung out with her rise and run friends, took it easy to save energy for the half on Sunday. It was warm on Sunday, told herself she was going to party page and did this, did just that. Had some, what she's referring to as liquid luck, the rest of us call it beer, before the first five miles were through. Uh, she's only ever seen this many people at a Disney race. I'm not sure you've seen that many people at a Disney race, Kayla, 45,000. Uh it was amazing. Crowd support was great, especially the last two miles. So for Kayla, state number six in her quest to do 50 halves in 50 states is done. Kerry was there. Jen did the 8K on Saturday and the half on Sunday, that Dolphin Challenge. Uh, weather was great. After a long cold winter, and both courses being flat, she really enjoyed both of those. Race was well run. Everybody had a good time at the post-race party. Alexis doing a walking recovery race between Princess Weekend and Springtime Surprise. Started off chilly, turned into a beautiful day, an amazing beach sunrise. Let's go to Cape Carl, Florida, where Rob with his son Will and Beckham and Ash the Wonder Dogs did the walk, wiggle, wag, and 5K run for the Cape Carl Animal Shelter, near perfect weather. By the way, the weather has been really nice in Florida for running the last couple weeks, which only guarantees that springtime surprise will just be hot and extremely humid. But right now it's great. Let's see, Rob says the four of them had near perfect runs in this near-perfect weather. We'll finish sixth overall. That's awesome. Ash and Beckham were first and second dogs, and Rob did all right with an age group win and a 26-ish minute 5K. Good stuff all. Congratulations. Glad to support the uh animal shelter again, says Rob. Jake was in Old Orchard Beach, Maine for the on-the-run half marathon. A nice small, flat as a pancake, community organized run along the main coast with about 250 entrants. Jake did a 209. That was an over 10-minute PR. Really proud of that. That's awesome. Struggled a bit after mile eight, but clearly not too much. Didn't come in at 100%. Also started off a little hot, but rallied, finished strong. Felt great about this, as you should. More evidence, pay attention, friends. More evidence and hard that hard work and training pays off. You're going to hear that a lot, those of you training for Marathon Weekend. Now Jason took on an Ultra, the Blackbeard's Revenge Ultra 100 mile race in the outer banks of North Carolina.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:57

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_15 1:42:58

Yeah. He was feeling pretty good about it until somewhere in the mid-60 mile range when his feet started to hurt. Got to the mile 72 aid station, figured he might have some blisters. He was going to have his wife Missy, and who would we have to say Jason says that's the best crucif there is. Missy is. I believe it. His plan was to have Missy meet her meet him at mile 78 with his blister kit. But Jen was helping Jason also. So Jen and Jason started to leave 72. He knew something was wrong. Jen convinced him to turn around, go back to the aid station, have Missy meet them there at mile 72. Turns out he had multiple blisters on the bottoms of both feet. He gave it a couple more tries, just wasn't in the cars. So Blackbeard's Revenge third belt buckle will have to wait for another year. Hey, Jason, 72 miles, brother. You tow the line on an ultra like that. There's no guarantee of finishing. So be proud. You did a great job. We are proud of you. Absolutely, we are. And yeah, and you'll get them next time, man. Here in Florida, the Lake Miniola half marathon. Jenny said there was a gorgeous sunrise and a run around this lake through the park. Jenny set a new 10K PR. She beat her old time by over six minutes. Ran into another fellow multiple sclerosis warrior at the finish line. She loved the PR bell that they had there. I I don't think I think ours is better, but anyway. A lot of people got to ring it yesterday. A lot of that has to do with a nice course and nice weather. So much fun to celebrate everybody's win. Speaking of PRs, Heather was there. She rolled to a new half marathon PR. Creeping closer to her goal, this Lake Miniola race. They have a 5K, 10K and a half. Great if you're in the area. Now, bonus if you dress to match the finisher's medal. Now they didn't give us a shot of the finisher's medal, but she and Jenny, who I talked about just a moment ago, were dressed an awful lot alike. Had like red tops and blue jean pants on. So I'm guessing that was the color scheme for the medal. Anyway, looked good. Good job to both of you. Who else was there? Jared was there. Abigail was there. Abigail thinks the course was a little bit long, so she missed her A goal, but she got a new PR. Two hours 18 minutes for the half marathon. Great race. First time running a race that had a PR bell. So she was excited to ring it. So we got your second PR bell for you this evening, Abigail. Finally, Mary Joe did the 10K. She's done this race three times, enjoyed it each time. Guess what? New PR. Beater old time from last year by nearly three minutes. And is happy to see a 10K time of under one hour, 30 minutes. Good job all of over in Lake Mineola. Going the other direction to the west to Shreveport, Louisiana. Jessica was at the rodeo stampede half marathon. Hot in Louisiana. Race didn't start till 9 a.m. There was not a bit of shade. It's the first one where the water stops were all self-served. First one that she's run like that because there are no volunteers. The good news is despite being upset because she felt like she tanked the race, she got first in her age group. I saw that on the metal. Nice, Jessica. Good for you. Trailrun was along the Red River. She thinks because oh, this is funny. Trailruns along the Red River, right? I mean, right on the banks of the Red River. So when she gets done, Runkeeper decided that she must have been kayaking. At this 10K in Shreveport, Louisiana.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:27

Way to slay that stroke, Jessica.

SPEAKER_15 1:47:29

Way to go. Let's go to Louisville, Kentucky, where Ashley did the Derby City 10K. Ashley says in her report, I love the report. Thanks for the holler hypes, but I'm just here for the PR bell. Hit it. There you go, Ashley. In Hurricane West Virginia, Ileana did the Muddy Mutt 15K. Whole time she was running, she kept thinking of Aaron in her quote, run all the miles, pet all the dogs. Yeah, she loves the races. A lot of doggies on the course. Uh, some dragging their owners, some being dragged by their owners. It's the Muddy Mutt 15K. There was, in fact, mud, lots of climbs, and a good time everywhere. Had a goal of beating her time from last year. Managed to finish at a course PR of an hour 58 for this 15K. Finisher's got wooden dog tags. Lori was in Canal Fulton, Ohio, doing the get lucky 50-50-25K. Feels good about where she is with her intervals now and how far she's come since last year when she had her knee replacement surgery. Or I forget exactly when it was. She beat last year's time by 20 minutes. For the last five miles, she kept hearing feet scuffling in the dirt behind her. She expected to be past, but at the finish, the guy who she heard said, Hey, thanks. You paced me and you got me through those last couple miles. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, it was a woman. I'm sorry. It said it was a guy. It was uh it was a woman. Turns out she was pacing with run, walk, run, keeping Jeff's memory alive. Out in Seattle, Laura and Brian, the Diamond-5K at T Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners. You take a water taxi over to the park. When they got there, they spotted the team's mascots along the way. Those were photo stops. The race wound through different levels of the stadium and the parking garage, finishing on the warning track. Ran walked with some fellow Run Disney friends and then wrapped it up with a walk back to the water taxi and a warm coffee from Pioneer Square.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:45

Wait, so there was a water taxi they didn't have to canoe either? Or kayak?

SPEAKER_15 1:49:49

Kayak, no, no kayaks. They hit the water taxi on that one. I don't know if they PR'd their water taxi or not, though. Our friend Brandy was in Houston for the Miles for Migraine. 5K after what she did first is she did a training run with her blind Achilles athlete. Uh Brandy's joined Achilles as a race guide. I know she's very proud of that, and we're proud of her for it too. She's doing a great job. She was about to walk out of the park and she saw a 5K about to start. She says, Are you full? They said, Nope. Jump on in. So she did. Plus, the medal had a brain on it, which is new for me. Now, Brandy, I read that line a couple times. Had a brain on it, which is new for you. I'm not gonna touch that line. Friends, it's up to you. Anyway. So here we go. Let's finish up now. Brandy raced with zero plan. Zero, I just took off. Remember, she's already done a training run. Now she's got a brain. Oh golly, I said it, didn't I? Anyway. She gets a PR. How cool is that? So the moral is just go out, run, have fun, see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:05

By the way, did you see Brandy's post this week about weighing all of her medals to bring with her the springtime surprise for her?

SPEAKER_15 1:51:11

Yeah, they were 136 pounds.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:13

You know, I the first time I saw that, I also read it's 136 pounds. And I was like, wait a second, that ain't right.

SPEAKER_15 1:51:21

Did I uh did I misplace a decimal point? I think you did.

SPEAKER_17 1:51:25

What's the percentage of that? Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:28

Wow, John.

SPEAKER_15 1:51:30

Oh, moving right along. Our friend Lisa was in Indianapolis for the holiday park trail run five miler. She prefers road races, but made the best of the trail race. Lots of stairs, hills, tree roots, rocks, etc. She ran with her boys who were 13 and 11. They can kick rocks literally and figure figuratively at their mama on this trail. Uh the 13-year-old placed in the top 15 overall, and the 11-year-old squeezed into the top 50. That's that's awesome. That's really awesome, Lisa. That's cool. Congratulations to the boys. Emma was in Ovito, Florida for the spring rising 10K. Of course, might have been long on this one, also. She ended up with a chip time of one hour five seconds. I'm sorry, one hour five minutes, which she thinks will be good enough for a POT. I think it will too. I think the 10K is like an hour six, hour seven, something like that. Uh her actual time for her watch was about 1.04 and a half, and that's a PR. It was tough since she hasn't been running as much as she was when she was preparing for Dopey. Nobody does. But she absolutely loved the Run Disney community and the need to keep coming back. Aaron was out in Fair Hope, Alabama for the Spring Fever Chase 10K. A different Aaron and Sarah were in Haddonfield, New Jersey for the adrenaline 5K. Wasn't setting out to PR, but that was a welcome surprise. Aaron and Sarah had fun running through their town. Aaron helped Sarah save shave off one minute and eight seconds from her previous time. She thinks that running with a tall person might be the way to go. No, it's not. No, it doesn't work. I promise. No one's told me it works. Anyway.

SPEAKER_17 1:53:36

Well, it's good, Bob, when like you're in front and the wind's blowing.

SPEAKER_15 1:53:39

Yeah. It's it's it's a good draft. You can draft, yeah. That's always, yeah, especially, yeah. You're right. Let's see. It's been tough to get out after Princess. Yeah, we understand. After a big event, it's tough, but today felt great, so good job. Let's move to Sunday. The Rome Marathon was Sunday, and I know we had more than just Ruth there. I know Coach Twiggs was there. I know uh the uh the Galloway Pacers were there. I know Jennifer was out there. They I believe they had a large enough pace group that they ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records somehow.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:12

Yes, I did see that.

SPEAKER_15 1:54:13

Yeah. That's it. We'll have to find out. Yeah, we will have to find out more about that. But meanwhile, for Ruth, this was marathon number 17, overcoming lots of setbacks just to get to the start line on this one. Decided to shift her strategy to a more conservative run-walk ratio. That felt pretty good. Proud of herself, stayed very disciplined in her pace, very consistent. Finished a time of five hours, 11 minutes, with which she was very happy, and I understand that. That's outstanding. Even better, she was able to run part of the race with her son, who ran his first full marathon in Rome. Pretty nice. In Elverson, Pennsylvania, they had a March Madness 10-hour endurance trail race, and Alicia was there. One signed up for it, but after a bad attempt and a long run on Saturday, she needed something on Sunday for extra motivation. So this one was as many four-mile loops as you can do in 10 hours. She had some IT band issues, wasn't sure what she'd be able to do. Ultimately, decided to call it quits after six loops, 24 miles plus enough of an out and back to make it up to a marathon distance. So she ended up right at 26.2 and a little under seven hours. That'll beat the balloon, ladies. Uh, spent a lot of time eating the unique and yummy age station food after each loop. Like Jack, have you ever had a hot dog and pickle pancake?

SPEAKER_07 1:55:47

No. Sounds I'm gonna say this in the nicest way possible. Um awful.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:58

I couldn't imagine the pancake part would be okay. I don't know about adding the hot dogs too.

SPEAKER_12 1:56:03

You know, I can't I can't do a pickle.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:06

I try to do eat a pickle like in my McDonald's cheeseburger, and I just can't. Yeah, you're the only one of us that doesn't like it.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:13

Now, once right pickles and peanut butter check, then how would you handle that?

SPEAKER_07 1:56:17

How would you like it? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_15 1:56:20

Yeah, you know, I knew we were going there, yeah. And the answer is no, I wouldn't do that either. But I don't know that I'd do a hot dog and pickle pancake.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:28

I have so many ideas now for loopy looper. This is gonna be fantastic.

SPEAKER_15 1:56:33

Uh let's see. Uh in Huntsville, Alabama, the race to space. Brooke did it, and Brooke actually put in a report that said, I PR'd this race. So there you go. Good job, Brooke. In Chicago, the Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8K. Dan was there. First of three races in the Bank of America Chicago Distance series. You do all three, you get a challenge medal, and then guaranteed entry into the following year's Chicago Marathon. So that's a big deal. Yeah, chilly and windy in Chicago, imagine that, but the vibes were great. Crowd was pretty good. Not nearly what it is for the marathon. Well, you wouldn't expect it to be. Still lots of dogs, fun signs, plenty of people cheering them on. Added miles before and after to make it a 23-mile training day. That's dedication, Dan. Like doing it before I get doing it after, that's tough. Let's go to Cabot, Arkansas, where Shelby Allison did the Spring Fling 5K, running as a pacer for the first time. Yeah, good for you, I say. Yeah. She's been she's really been putting in some. We haven't heard from her for a while, but I know she's been putting in some hard work and and improving her running. After the awards ceremony, they had the Arkansas RRCA Awards for 2025. She came home with second place in the women's 35 to 39 category, voted as the most improved female runner. See, I told you she was improving. Congratulations. Yeah, good job. There was a point-to-point race in New Hampshire, the eastern state's half marathon. It goes from Rye to Hampton. Mike was there when he signed up for it in December. Seemed like a promising spring race. Almost the entire length of New Hampshire's coastline. Run was along Ocean Boulevard, and it should have been beautiful. You know, nice spring day in New England. Ah, it was 35 degrees with 26 mile an hour winds. Oh, yuck. Wind chill. 23. Oh. And it was raining. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Despite that, the run went well. Mike felt strong, had fun, and honestly, he's most proud of figuring out what to wear, how to dress for this thing cold and wet, but uh never had to deal with it. Done dealt with cold before, dealt with wet before, but never to that extreme. Christina, in her comments, added apparently she was there. She is just thawing herself out from this one, so she couldn't make a bigger report. Way to hang in there, guys. In Knoxville, Tennessee, Jennifer ran the moon pie half marathon. Beautiful but tough course. 900 feet of elevation gain. Still managed to shave 10 minutes from last year's half marathon time. Nicely done.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:29

Now, would you put pickles and peanut butter inside of a moon pie?

SPEAKER_15 1:59:35

I'm just asking. I'm just asking. Greg, in certain parts of the country, you can be hanged for that. I'm pretty sure. Parts of Alabama, Tennessee. Yeah. In fact, I think isn't Mobile, Alabama the place where they dropped the moon pie at uh New Year's.

SPEAKER_17 1:59:51

It could be. Yeah, I think so.

Closing Thanks And Happy Running

SPEAKER_15 1:59:53

I think it is. All right. Let's go to Gross Isle, Michigan, where Nicole ran the Rock C.F. Rivers half marathon as a local race around a residential island in the Detroit River. Goal for the race was to run with her friend running her first half since having kids. Nicole twisted her ankle during her long run last weekend and was not sure she was going to start, but it felt better by Friday. So she ran the whole race with no pain. That's great. Race was well supported, even for folks in the back of the pack. I'm always glad to hear that. They finished, had lots of fun listening to their shared playlist, got to spend time together without the kids, which made it great. Well, I hope the kids aren't listening, Nicole. Let's go to Wichita, Kansas, where Lena did the Time to Patty 5K, shaved five minutes off for 5K time, even though the route would have done well in a horror movie. Didn't get any more explanation than that, but you can kind of picture it, I suppose. We wrap up the week in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with the great Cupid Run 10K. Yvette said it started out chilly but warmed up after they got going. Training over the winter was, well, non-existent. She's just getting back into things. Came in last, but felt pretty good. And that was totally okay with her. And that's okay with us too. The hilly course, take it as a win. Good job, Yvette. And that, my friends, is the race report for episode 235. Friends, and if you run, you know you are our friend. Thanks for hanging with you. Hope you enjoyed this episode. We really enjoyed talking with the choir. Had a lot of fun talking with our friends from the podcast we listen to. Again, no Zoom this week, Zoom next week. Not far from springtime. I think you'll have your longest training run for springtime next weekend. But until then, happy running.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:20

Any information about this podcast is nothing to do with medical flights.