Rise and Run
Rise and Run
193: From Starting Line to Executive Suite: Leadership Lessons from the Running Trail
What can marathon training teach us about effective leadership? In this thought-provoking episode, we're joined by Celia, Executive Director of the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy, who draws fascinating parallels between conquering 26.2 miles and navigating the challenges of executive leadership.
Celia shares how she transformed from someone who "loathed running" during her time at West Point to a four-time Dopey Challenge finisher, and explains how this journey equipped her with crucial leadership skills. Her framework comparing her first month as Executive Director to the stages of a marathon offers brilliant insights into perseverance, mental toughness, and strategic thinking.
"It's 100% mental," Celia explains about both running and leadership. "The hardest barrier to overcome is in your head." From battling imposter syndrome to finding creative solutions during uninterrupted runs, her experiences demonstrate how physical discipline builds professional resilience.
We also welcome back Matt Bowen, known for carrying the American flag during runDisney races. Matt updates us on his fundraising efforts for Operation 300, supporting Gold Star Families, and shares moving stories of connections made along the race course. His passion for honoring military families through running inspires participants and spectators alike.
In our Race Report, we spotlight Tiffany's creative two-state challenge weekend, featuring races in Indiana and Illinois. Plus, we discuss the newly announced Princess Weekend themes for 2026 and explore whether they influence registration decisions.
Whether you're a runner seeking leadership insights or a professional looking for new performance strategies, this episode offers valuable lessons on turning physical challenges into professional strengths.
Matt’s Fundraiser Operation 300
The Most Magical Virtual Race on Earth.
Rise and Run Links
Rise and Run Podcast Facebook Page
Rise and Run Podcast Instagram
Rise and Run Podcast Website and Shop
Rise and Run Patreon
Passport to Run
Runningwithalysha Alysha’s Run Coaching (Mention Rise And Run and get $10 off)
Rise and Run Podcast is supported by our audience. When you make a purchase through one of our affiliate links, we may earn a commission. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Sponsor Links
Magic Bound Travel
Stoked Metabolic Coaching
Rise and Run Podcast Cruise Interest Form with Magic Bound Travel
Affiliate Links
Rise and Run Amazon Affiliate Web Page
Kawaiian Pizza Apparel
GoGuarded
3 am again. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? Welcome to the Rise and Run podcast. Join our group of Run Disney friends. As we talk about running at Walt Disney World and beyond. We'll discuss recent runs, training, upcoming races and surprise topics suggested by you, our listeners. Well, the alarm's gone off, so let's go.
Speaker 1:Hey, this is Rob from Glenrock, new Jersey, at the finish line of the RBC Brooklyn Half Marathon at the Marks and Meads Park, which is the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, the single-aid affiliate of the best baseball team in New York, and you are listening to the Rise and Run podcast. Happy running. Hi, this is Lynn and I'm here at Disney Springs at the Rise and Run meetup, and welcome to the Rise and Run podcast.
Speaker 4:So Rob joins us from the finish line of the Brooklyn Half just a couple weeks ago and Lynn goes back to Springtime Surprise and we are delighted that you're here with us for episode 193 of the Rise and Run podcast. Episode 193 of the Rise and Run podcast. Hello friends, I'm Bob. This week I'm here with Alicia. Hello With Jack.
Speaker 5:Hiya.
Speaker 4:With Greg hey, hey, hey. And with John hey, how you doing. I'm doing good, John. I appreciate the question. You hadn't been last for the longest time, I think in the last three weeks you've been last. I think he comes into the question.
Speaker 2:You hadn't been last for the longest time, I think. In the last three weeks you've been last. I think he comes into the recording sessions late on purpose so he can be the last one. That's what it is, so you can have this banter back and forth.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I get very introspective when I get that question and I have to stop it.
Speaker 6:Bob says I feel like crap today. It's going to be a long episode. It'll be a bad day.
Speaker 4:Oh, golly. Well, speaking of episodes, what do we got this week? We have a rise and run friend of ours. Celia is the executive director of the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy American Council of Academic Physical Therapy. She came to our attention by a post that she made about equating her new position and the trials of a marathon, and she's one of us gang. She's a rise and runner, a run Disney friend and a fun interview. We're going to revisit our friend Matt, matt Bowen, who carries the American flag. He stopped by to tell us what's new with him in the race report Spotlight. Our friend Tiffany got creative, created her own challenge this weekend two races in two States. She drops by to talk about them.
Speaker 6: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 in your Run Disney journey. Please remember to follow us on Facebook Rise and Run Podcast. On Instagram Rise and Run Pod. Check out our YouTube channel and visit our webpage riseandrunpodcast podcastcom. If you have a question, comment a race report or want to introduce an upcoming episode, call us at 727-266-2344 and leave us a recorded message we also want to thank our patrons, whose support helps keep the rise around podcast rising and running.
Speaker 5:If you'd like to join the patreon team, please check out our link at patreoncom. Slash rise around podcast.
Speaker 2:And we want to thank cassandra for upgrading to the plastic cheese level the rise around podcast is sponsored by our friends over at magic bound travel, even though we're still many, many months away. Just the other day, the gang we had a big meeting and we started talking a lot of particulars about the inaugural Rise and Run cruise that will be occurring right after Springtime Surprise in 2026.
Speaker 4:320 days from now, Greg.
Speaker 2:Oh, excellent Thank you very much, bob, and we are very excited to be able to share some of those details with you in the coming weeks. But, all that being said, our friends over at Magic Bound wanted us to tell you that they only have eight remaining discounted interior staterooms available on the Utopia of the Seas.
Speaker 2:That is the Royal Caribbean ship that we will be sailing on for this inaugural cruise. If you are interested in one of those discounted cabins, you need to make sure to contact Magic Bound as quickly as possible, because those rooms will be released back to Royal Caribbean on Father's Day, june 15th, so you have just under two weeks to be able to grab one of these. So if you are interested in one of those discounted rooms or say you're not a big fan of interior staterooms and you need to see the ocean or you need to have a veranda or something like that, they can still get you booked into one of those rooms as well too. So be sure to visit magicboundtravelcom to get your no obligation quote for that Rise and Run cruise or any other Disney or Universal vacation.
Speaker 4:Sounds good. Thank you, greg. Friends, I mentioned it last week, episode 200 is coming up. It'll be the end of July. We don't have any huge plans for it, but we would like you to be a big part of it as possible by calling us at our hotline 727-266-2344. Hotline 727-266-2344, leaving us a brief recorded message. Just be creative, whatever comes to mind, have fun with it, try to keep it short 30 seconds or so and we'll play as many of them as we can. Conversely, if you don't want to call the hotline, you can record a message and email it to us, thegangatriseandrunpodcastcom, and we'll play the ones that we get. So help us out there. That should be fun.
Speaker 4:Upfront info. I've got some things I want to put up, not necessarily alibis and apologies, but some upfront info. Now John pointed this out to me I knew about it but didn't check on it that you can send what they call fan mail in Buzzsprout so we can get podcast fan mail from the program that we use to distribute the Rise and Run podcast, to distribute the Rise and Run podcast. We cannot respond to it, but now that I know it's there, we can at least acknowledge it. Like, way back in January, bob from Winter Park and Christy from Knopfel sent us a message and just recently Melody sent us a message that she said she used Run Walk Run for the first time at the Montana Marathon Weekend 10K and won her age group. How cool is that, melody? This is near and dear to my heart. When you get into the 70 plus age group, which you've told us you are, you will find that you're a podium finisher much more frequently. It's one of the gifts that we get for being a little bit older and still running. So congratulations on that.
Speaker 4:Hey, I got a couple of homecoming stories here and just a follow up. Our friend Jennifer and her husband Dan are back from London. If you don't recall, or if you're new to the podcast, jennifer went to run the London Marathon. Dan ended up in the emergency room with a heart attack. He's doing great. They flew back. Jennifer was very excited to be back in the humid Florida weather. She lives not terribly far from from me.
Speaker 4:This other one we've talked about from time to time, and this one's a little emotional, I think Our friends Lola and Chris. Let me back up and again, if you're not familiar with the story, lola was posting her hashtag run. I don't know if it was run dopey or run princess or whatever, but lola was carrying twins and still running and then, three months before the babies were due, ended up with an emergency C-section. Miles and Benjamin were born, but Benjamin did not make it. That's the sad part of the story. Here's the great part of the story. Miles, after being over 100 days in the NICU, is home and I think that's just wonderful. Lola, chris, we're so excited, so happy for both of you. That's just wonderful. I'll share something here. We have hashtag I'm just going to call them hashtag run babies in general.
Speaker 4:If you have a baby who has finished a run Disney race before gracing us with his or her presence in this world, let us know, because we've got a small gift for you. But you've got to let us know before your baby is 6 to 12 months old, because otherwise it won't fit All right. That's it, friends. Uh, for upfront stuff. So let's go.
Speaker 4:Let's take a look at the training schedule. Still, the only thing that we have on the um training for schedule right now is the Halloween race at Disneyland. You've got 13 weeks now until that race. You're in week five of training and if you're doing the challenge, your long run. This week it's three miles. Taking a look at things that are coming up, I think the next big event we're still oh golly, we're still a couple weeks away from starting training for Wine and Dine. And, if my calendar is correct, we start training for Wine and Dine the same day that we register for Princess 2026. And that's June 24th. So they're coming up in a couple of weeks. Well, speaking of training friends, we have any training updates for the week. Anything that you want to share with our rise and run friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bob, I got something. So this past weekend my long run was just a simple six miles, you know, know unique that I had to do. But the thing that I learned about myself is that hills are starting to get easier for me, and granted, because of having, you know, like we talked at length last week with talking about the burden hand race, you know, and, and that race does have a couple of doozies on it. So, you know, coach twigs has been preparing me for several weeks now to get hill training, and I know he always likes to say that hill training is almost kind of like speed work in in disguise.
Speaker 2:And I think this past weekend I finally was able to embody that a little bit, where, you know, my run paces on a more flat surface or downhill were a little bit faster than what I usually run, and then, when it came time for those hills, I wasn't nearly dreading them as much and I was getting up to them a little bit quicker.
Speaker 2:So I think incorporating the hill work into my training has provided a two-fold benefit in terms of I'm not nearly as intimidated and also on that you know. Then my, you know my flat paces are getting a little bit faster too. So I feel like I'm'm going to be in pretty decent shape come Bird Hand. Now, granted that hill at mile six and a half seven, that seems like it goes up and up and up forever. I mean, sure, I'll probably have to take an extended walk break on that one, but outside of that there's a nice downhill. Once you do get to the top of it, and at least as long as they don't change the water stations, they usually do have an aid station at the top of that hill as a reward.
Speaker 2:So I think I think the the, the italian ice is about two miles away after that point, but at least it's something that you can look forward to so well greg, your training's going well and that's paying off.
Speaker 4:But there's something else that's paying off, I'm sure. How much weight have you lost?
Speaker 2:uh, as of this week, I am down 30 pounds since a? Uh, a certain um because I don't want k to get mad at me uh, a certain football team from the philadelphia region uh, won the super bowl this year that's amazing, amazing.
Speaker 6:So, no steak wands, then, huh no.
Speaker 4:In moderation. Well, I'll tell you that'll flatten some hills for you.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. I mean, I will say, you know, it's interesting. You know my wife and I have been going on a lot more walks these past couple of weeks and she was asking me, you know how I thought my running had been going. You know, with the weight loss and I was comparing it a lot. The last time I've dropped weight like this was actually during covid, I know, like one of the big storylines you know that people always talked about that.
Speaker 2:It was always like, oh well, because I home, I was snacking more and people gained a lot of weight during COVID, and I was the opposite, and for me, I always kind of was able to associate my weight loss with faster paces, and they kind of correlated with one another. This time around I don't feel like those are in sync as much. There is improvement, don't get me wrong, but it's not nearly as much as that first go-round. But at the same time, though, I do need to put into my head that just because I weigh less doesn't mean that it's going to automatically translate to you know faster paces. I know plenty of friends that are a lot smaller than me that you know run. You know similar paces, uh, to you know what I do. So you know, even though the weight's coming off, I still need to work on that cardiovascular as well too, and I know that that will come in time but, no, very, very happy with my progress.
Speaker 4:You still need to train, but there's a correlation your knees and ankles are happier too. Yes, yep, well, good for you, man.
Speaker 6:Thank you, I got out there. I got out there again this weekend. I did five miles this weekend. I was very happy about it. You know, you start off you're like, why am I doing this today? You know I didn't realize that Jeff changed the whole training schedule. I had the old look, I'm looking at this as a grace we had a three-mile weekend. Then I go, oh no, he changed it, now it's a five-mile weekend. So I went with the five miles. I'm like maybe I'll cut back at three. But I said you know what, let's just do the five Got it out of the way and you know what it felt good afterwards. I mean, like I did the five, knees felt a little achy afterwards but the next day they were pretty much back to normal.
Speaker 2:Back to normal achy you know, john, I will say this to you and obviously you you know, you and I ran bird in hand together last year and I'll tell you the same thing. I kept telling lizzie over and over during that race and that is remember why we're doing this. We're doing this for the ribs the ribs, the ribs yes, yes, we are actually I'm actually uh then.
Speaker 6:Then I said, okay, you know what, I'm going to sign up for the 5K that's in my neighborhood Sunday. So this Sunday I'll be running a 5K. So hopefully you know 5K. A couple beers afterwards included in registration. That's a good deal.
Speaker 4:That's a good Sunday. It is a good deal.
Speaker 6:And something else, like if you're out there training and you want some kind of motivation or something to do. Our friend matt over at team run dis uh he's. He gave us a little sneak peek a week ago of a new uh virtual race he has set up on his website. It's called the most magical virtual race on earth. Basically, you're, you're running through all of Walt Disney world. I forget how many miles it was.
Speaker 4:I don't remember. It's quite a bit.
Speaker 6:It's more than 48.6. And what's cool about it is you. You go on his little form. You put in okay, I ran four miles. Today pops up a YouTube video. It actually YouTube videos the route you're on and then when you stop at that four miles, it shows a picture of where you are. Then the next day you do another four miles. It'll go four miles through and show another picture.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you'll pick up where you left off and continue your journey. How do folks get to that, John?
Speaker 6:It's on Matt's website. I will put a link in the show notes. It's TeamRunDizcom and I think it's right on his front page right now.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah, pretty cool. Matt does great stuff and I'm happy that we're able to support him. That's pretty neat. Let us see friends. Disney graced us with some race themes. We just said that registration for Princess is June 24th. We now know what the themes for the races and the challenge are going to be. Which princesses will be featured in 2026? Alright, gang, let us have it. What did you think?
Speaker 7:If you could choose your fate, would you Like it was Merida? She's only been on it once. Let us have it. What did you think If you could choose your fate? Would you Like what? It's? Merida? She's only been on it once. As another curly-haired redhead, it's nice to see another curly-haired redhead.
Speaker 4:You reminded me of something, jack. Did you see who was in the photos for that race, the 5K? Did you notice who Disney featured in the photographs? Oh, I'm looking at it right now pamela, pamela and, uh, tracy oh, no, yes, yeah, oh, it's a great photo, it's easy to miss because she's got the red-haired wig on. It was pamela tracy and I'm not sure if there's somebody else I recognize in there or not. I'm not looking at it right now. You guys will have to help me out if you got it up.
Speaker 7:But, like you guys, so we have a spreadsheet you guys of, like you know, the episodes and stuff that we do and on this spreadsheet, specifically today for this episode, there is a whole beautiful graph of all the princesses and what years they have either done the 5K.
Speaker 7:Shout out to laura yeah, it's so good, sam's mom sorry sam's mom not laura, yeah but, like the, it's interesting to see what years each princesses get and the fact that um merit has only been on it once and it was for the 10k for 2018. I've honestly been wondering if she's ever going to be like popping back in, because I feel like you see the same princesses over and over again after a while, so it's kind of nice to see another one come back, um. But yeah, I think it's a really good weekend. I mean, you got her. You have Moana love moana. Um, you have who who's the half? Oh, rapunzel love her. And then bell classic. I mean it's really good. Now, if they ever brought back pocahontas, I would definitely do her like. Like, if they brought back pocahontas, made her the half marathon, I would sign up easily.
Speaker 4:But I think it's a good year looking at, looking at laura chart Pocahontas was the 10K in 2020.
Speaker 7:It's only been once, though, yeah.
Speaker 4:John and I were talking also, though Sometimes princesses show up in other races, other race weekends.
Speaker 6:Like springtime. I think they were on a wine and dine. Wine and dine metal at one time Could be.
Speaker 2:I just want to be a fly on the wall, with Bob and John exclusively talking about princesses to one another, that this is a conversation that I wish I could have been.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, it was exciting, it was, it was exciting. Yes, it was, it was, it was okay, it was, it was, it was okay. And I, I said I was jokingly saying you know what? There's one princess they have not featured yet on princess weekend.
Speaker 4:We know who that is. If John's saying it, you know who it is Princess Leia. Come on guys, come on guys.
Speaker 7:Oh wow, I was not even going that direction, but I'm glad you did. She's a.
Speaker 6:Disney princess. Now right, we were talking like About the 13 original princesses. There's only supposedly 13, and actually, what's her name? Is not a princess, what's her name?
Speaker 4:That's right. It's one of the Frozen Elsa. Elsa is not a princess.
Speaker 6:She's a queen. It's one of the Frozen Elsa. Elsa is not a princess, she's a queen.
Speaker 7:Well, anna's now the queen, so she ain't no princess anymore. Sorry.
Speaker 6:I didn't see the second movie. Now you ruined it. I can't watch it.
Speaker 4:Spoiler alert, if you hadn't watched it now you're probably not going to watch it.
Speaker 7:So there you go, I think, the Spoiler alert. If you hadn't watched it now, you're probably not going to watch it now.
Speaker 4:There you go. I think the themes make a difference to you. God bless, that's great. I think the only time I have run a race because of a theme was just recently, when we had the Muppets theme for the 5k and I was only going to do the challenge. What was that? Why did I last year?
Speaker 2:That was just last year, yeah.
Speaker 4:I was only going to do the challenge but I brought brought Sam Eagle back, I think. But otherwise you know me, I just I go to be with my friends and do the race and whatever the themes are and the medals are, I take them and I appreciate them.
Speaker 5:I do have to say I really appreciate, like the background images yeah.
Speaker 8:Yes.
Speaker 5:I think the textures and, like the theming of it is really cool. Um. I have noticed that consistently, though, they seem to be reusing the same lettering. Um, like where it says princess, half marathon weekend. It's the same lettering that they used for halloween and, I think, another race weekend, um, which is kind of interesting to me because they used to change the same font same style of letters.
Speaker 5:Yeah, okay but also the same coloring. It's got orange, um, where I feel like it's kind of like browns and blues, I guess. I guess there's some orange with milana and merida, but overall I feel like I don't know, I expected a little bit more from that aspect of it. But overall I think that this is a pretty good one and I know people are excited about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, alicia, I'm right there with you. I think what stuck out to me in this artwork is not necessarily the princess themselves, but the background associated with it. I thought that was a, you know, a really neat time, because I remember, last year we had commented, when the princess themes came out, that we liked how there was the subtle nod to the villain yep in the background. So, like you know, so I like how they've incorporated that again. So, you know, 5k, you know you have, you know, the bear silhouette, moana you have not only her bow, but then also the, the manta ray, you know, punsies got, you know, the castle in the background.
Speaker 2:The coolest one I thought, though, was the challenge where you get the beast silhouette, you get the stained glass, you get the rose. I thought that was all really, really well done. And then the other thing that I liked about the artwork as well, too and to be able to to see these, you, I think, you have to click on, like, the individual race on the website, but I kind of like how, for the 5k, in the letter k there was an arrow for merida I thought that was a really neat touch um, and then what was it?
Speaker 2:the oh for the like the whole of the 10 for the 10k. You know it looks like um her oar that she uses on the ship. So just like those little nods I think were were really really nice uh and incorporate uh very well, uh. But I will say, scrolling through social media today, I, I was kind of taken aback by, um, I don't want to call it visceral hate, but the number of people that have commented that they're sick and tired of seeing moana uh really featured. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of people that were, um, you know, getting a little little tired of that, and I get, I get it. But at the same time, though, the second one makes disney a lot of money I mean yeah, I mean, didn't moana to make over a billion dollars at the box?
Speaker 4:office. I think it's two billion. It came out a little bit ago, it wasn't that long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that doesn't shock me in the least bit whatsoever. But again, bob, going back to what you were saying, though, unless there's something like truly, truly speaks to you, or whatever, we do these races because we love the product, we love the camaraderie, you know, we love the physical activity. This is just the icing on the cake so again a.
Speaker 2:You know, a theme should never I think a theme should never deter you from wanting to to register. I think it can only emphasize it more for you to have that motivation to sign up and drop all that cash.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I cannot imagine thinking, gee, I was going to go, but the theme is XYZ and I'm not going. Now, I can't imagine that.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 6:What other thing I wanted to say. You know, registration, we said, was coming up in the 24th 24th. Just for you guys to realize proof of time is September 1st 2025 for this race. So you need to get a POT. You need to submit it by September 1st. So the POT times have been really close to registration now. So you really need to think about it if you really want to try to get a POT for these events now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and if you live around me, that's not going to happen unless you already have it, Because you're not going to get a POT in July or August. Not likely. I mean you could, but I mean.
Speaker 7:With all that being said, though, has this made you guys want to do Princess? Who's doing Princess? Oh, I'll be there, I'll be there. I'm not sure I will probably.
Speaker 1:I know Bob is. I'll be there. Let's be honest with Bob. I'll be there.
Speaker 4:I will probably run the challenge Probably. Okay, I will almost certainly not run all three, but yeah, I'm going to go over there because it's an opportunity to visit with our friends.
Speaker 2:Well, and he also has a new shade of glitter lips that he wants to try out.
Speaker 6:So you know that's kind of a given other thing is this year too, which, which is interesting.
Speaker 4:Uh, it's not the same week as gasparilla yeah, that's good that I like that, because gasparilla is a lot of fun and I don't like going back and forth, although and we'll be heading back to Disney here pretty soon I'm curious to see if the fixes to Interstate 4 were a fluke the one time Becky and I went over, or maybe we got something going there.
Speaker 2:I sure hope that it's the latter. Alicia or Jack, are either of you going to sign up?
Speaker 5:I will not be there, no.
Speaker 2:How about you, Jack?
Speaker 7:I am not going to sign up. I might maybe sign up two months out or a month out, if I mean, if there's a spot open to pace, I might pace, because I really enjoyed myself last year I don't think I'm gonna personally sign up though Mighty busy time for you, jack. I well, yeah. So that's why I'm like, maybe not this year yeah, and we're also by then.
Speaker 4:We're also talking about being close to springtime and the cruise. So a lot going on, a lot going on, but I'll be out there, oh wait, Disneyland happens and then it's only three weeks later is Princess.
Speaker 7:Wow, it's like three weeks, three weeks, and like bam, bam, bam.
Speaker 4:I forgot I signed up for Disney. I mean, I didn't forget. I'm trying to remind you, bob, I didn't forget, I didn't forget, but I kind of wasn't thinking about it. I only signed up for the half there and I will say the other.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't call it a massive change by any means whatsoever, but the one thing I did see today is I guess there is a slight change to yoga. I guess in the last couple of years yoga has been at Magic Kingdom, but I guess this time around is being put in hollywood studios okay uh, and again they are. It looks like this is the new trend now is uh, yoga is now on monday as opposed to thursday or and once again, it makes you stay an extra day.
Speaker 4:Yep absolutely Makes you book a room for an extra night, so I get it. I understand.
Speaker 2:And now the countdown begins as we wait for themes for Springtime Surprise, and we all wait in bated breath that Jon's dream comes true and we get an anniversary Springtime surprise star Wars theme.
Speaker 6:My anniversary, I'm saying, is 50, 50 years of star Wars. I mean, that's the. If you're going to do it, you got to do it right.
Speaker 7:Wait in 2026 or 2027, 2027, 1977.
Speaker 6:Okay.
Speaker 2:So you, so you're thinking two years from now.
Speaker 6:Okay yeah, two years, two years Wow no-transcript.
Speaker 4:Last week I saw a really neat Facebook post by our friend Celia, who used a marathon as an analogy for a position, a significant and important position she had just gotten into. Celia is the executive director of the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy and a run Disney fan and a fellow rise and runner. And, Celia, we're glad to have you with us this evening.
Speaker 8:I'm so excited to be here and I'm obviously fangirling, so just very excited.
Speaker 4:I'm glad you are. That intro went a lot longer than I expected, but that's okay. You deserved it. That's good. Do us a favor, celia Tell us about your job, tell us about the American Council of Academic Physical Therapy and what you do there, what your position is and some of your responsibilities.
Speaker 8:Sure, so I am a brand new executive director, which in non-association world would be the equivalent of a CEO. I've been in there for a whopping four months now and our members are basically all of the graduate programs of months now and our members are basically all of the graduate programs of physical therapy. So our membership are all the institutions and we oversee the faculty, the student and all of the administrators and program directors of physical therapy. Um, I am not a physical therapist, never have been, but I sold it in my interview was I am physical therapy adjacent because in order for me to run all these marathons, I need to be really good friends with physical therapists, and I had actually my interview right after I had finished a Space Coast marathon and I still had my KT tape on my knee, so I think that's what really got me the job.
Speaker 4:So how about that? I thought the article was was really clever. How did you decide what? What made you decide to do that? That was, that was neat.
Speaker 8:I've been trying to get into the CEO role for over a year and it was just a lot of interviews and getting to the final stage and then they would go with somebody else, so it was just a really long time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's life, yeah.
Speaker 8:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 8:And then, if I finally got this job and all of the people that have been following my career said you need to do an article of the first 30 days, because we all want to know what it's like the first 30 days of this job that you've been wanting for forever.
Speaker 8:And as I was writing it, I realized that I wanted to make it something really personal, something about me and something that would make it unique, something really personal, something about me and something that would make it unique. So I kept thinking about how a lot of the lessons that I took into this new role came from me running and from all the perseverance and the work and the training that I did to get to this role, and it really paralleled my marathon training. So I said, you know, instead of the first 30 days, let's do the first 26.2 days, and so that I was able to really continue to correlate it about making sure you have the right shoes and just because you keep putting band-aids on blisters doesn't address the problem, just like if you don't have a good strategic plan, you're not going to, you know, fix all of the issues that you have in your organization and making sure that you put in the work and that you're hydrating and that you have people constantly cheering you on, so it was just a really good parallel.
Speaker 4:You know, what I got a kick out of was when you talked about learning the new language. Because you are an outside hire, you're into an entirely new field. It's like they're speaking in tongues almost, isn't it?
Speaker 8:Yes, it took me a good while to get all of those acronyms down. And I mean kind of the same thing when I first joined the Run Disney race and people kept talking about the balloon ladies and I'm like, who are these balloon ladies? And then I'm like, oh, so now I constantly talk to people about balloon ladies and then I have to remember that they don't necessarily know our lingo to people about balloon ladies, and then I have to remember that they don't necessarily know our lingo.
Speaker 4:So it's true. It's true, you don't know it when you get in, but once you learn it, you assume everybody knows it.
Speaker 8:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Keeping up with the running and marathon analogies in terms of your position and your article. Talk about the wall. What was mile 20 for you in all of this?
Speaker 8:The imposter syndrome. So I have a PhD from Georgetown University. I have the CAE, which is a certified association executive kind of certification. I've done leadership. I went to West Point, I've done all these things, so I'm just a natural born leader. This is something that I've wanted. I finally get this role. I'm in it for a few weeks and then all of a sudden, one of my staff members sends me an email saying hey, I need you to sign this contract for one of our conferences. And I looked at that contract a contract that I've probably seen a million times before in other roles and I said oh my gosh, if I send this contract and it doesn't go well, I'm going to bankrupt the organization.
Speaker 8:Now, it's my fault. What am I doing? How are they all putting their trust on me? I don't know what I'm doing and all of a sudden, all of these self-motivation and affirmations that I could do this, all of a sudden was the imposter syndrome kicked back in. So it was a matter of just like when you hit the wall, you breathe, you take a small break, you deep breaths. You keep telling yourselves I've done the training, I've done this before, I can do it now. It's just a mental game. And then you surround yourself with whether it's text messages or whether it's emails, or people just in the stand saying you can do it, just keep going. You're almost there and that's how you overcome the wall.
Speaker 5:First off, I wanted to say congratulations on your new position. That's amazing and all your accomplishments. But okay, on the flip side of you shared with us the struggles. What are your wins, what are those finish lines that you've achieved so far and how is that going?
Speaker 8:The best thing that I've done at my job is really build relationships, which I think is one of my in fact it's one of my strength finders. When I took that strength finder test, the number one was woo. And talk about not knowing these acronyms. I'm like what does woo mean? And apparently it's winning others over. I'm like, oh, I can do that, especially as a former Disney cast member. Of course I would be a woo. So I've definitely built relationships with our membership, with my board, with my staff. I've been able to people that were already ready to leave our association because they just had bad experiences. I was able to set up meetings with them, really meet them halfway and bring them back to our organization. I've been able to start looking into non-dues revenue to get sponsorships. I even got my foot in the door with Run Disney to see if we can become one of those charities you know in the future. So, baby steps, but definitely a lot of really good operations are underway to make this a thriving organization in the next few years.
Speaker 4:Awesome, Celia. We had a chance to talk before this interview, but you're dropping things on me that I was not aware of. I didn't know you were a West Point grad.
Speaker 8:Yes, yeah, oh, I ended up going for about a year and a half and then I got honorably discharged. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah, okay so you. So you didn't go on to active duty out of college.
Speaker 7:No, what did you do as a Disney cast member?
Speaker 8:So I grew up in Miami Florida, I was born in Venezuela and then I emigrated to Miami and Disney was a big part of our lives. And back then in Miami Florida, in one of the outlets we had a character warehouse, um. So I think it's very similar to the one in Orlando, um. So I had a part-time job there while I was going through school and working at Starbucks, because I found out that by working there it was not similar to the Disney store, because there you actually got all the cast member perks. So then I would bring magic in retail and then I would drive myself up with my friends to Disney quite often and took very good advantage of all the discounts and being able to go to Disney all the time, as you should, as nice.
Speaker 7:I love that all right.
Speaker 2:So you talked about all these aspects of life and how it's related to your career, and obviously Disney has played a big part of that. But obviously one of the reasons why we're chatting with you here this week is you know, you're one of us. You are a run disney runner.
Speaker 8:Give us your running and run disney origin story so I went to west point the military academy, and one of the reasons that I was so excited to leave when I did is because I loathed running Anytime. I think, about running.
Speaker 8:I would just want to just I don't know. I mean, I would think of any illness that I could get to get out of running. I despised it. Later on in life I did a couple of half marathons in Miami my early 20s and that was my bucket list item. And my husband and I vividly remember going to Disney as a cast member. And one time we went in January and we saw confetti on the floor leaving Epcot. We're like huh, what's that? And then someone told us oh, they just did a marathon here. And my husband and I looked at each other and just laughed and said that's never going to happen to us.
Speaker 8:And then, during the pandemic, some of my friends took up sourdough, some of my friends took up knitting and we said, hey, we haven't left the house in days. I think we need to do something active and do something to get us out of the house. So, as most people did, we started running. But for us, if we didn't have a set goal in mind, it was going to be one of those things that you wake up at six in the morning and then just shut the alarm off and say, ah, I'll do it tomorrow, unless we had something to run towards that we already invested time and money. So we originally said why don't we do a 5k at Disney? But then I said, well, if we're going to do a 5k, we might as well just do the 10k too. And then it turned into we might as well just do the half. And then I'm like, oh, if we're gonna do the half, let's just do the marathon. And then we found out what a dopey was, and my husband and I said you know what, if we're just gonna go a one time bucket list item, let's just go all the way and do a dopey and we will never do it again and here we are getting ready for our fourth dopey so, uh, it's surprising how many times we hear that story
Speaker 4:yeah and it's surprising how many people will do their first marathon at dopey yep, that was um.
Speaker 8:I don't know if I recommend that um, but anytime that I see on the on the facebook, you know people putting like oh, it's my first marathon on my first dopey, can I do it like absolutely?
Speaker 8:you can just do it just train, you train, but I mean other than that um, and it's just become a lifestyle now. Now we really identify as runners. So we did the wine and dine the first year as our training run, and we did the space coast, because the space coast marathon just happened to overlap with our um simulation weekend yeah um, which is great. So I've seen you there, bob, and.
Speaker 8:I've seen Jeff there too, and and yeah. So then all of a sudden it went from just doing only run Disney races to now the Gasparilla. We've done space post and I think eventually we want to get to the point that we, that we qualify for the Tokyo marathon, the London marathon, I don't know, for I mean, I don't know if we'll ever qualify for Boston and New York, but you know what, why not Right, I mean?
Speaker 6:I never, thought.
Speaker 8:I would do a dopey. And here we are, so yeah.
Speaker 4:So you do, do you run in costume?
Speaker 8:We do. So. The first dopey was survival Um, we just wore colors. And then the second dopey, we said we're going to PR and fun. So that's when we started, you know, dabbling in the costumes and the five and the 10K. And then we said but the half and the full are serious matters. And then this past one, we're just now running in all costumes and our now 11-year-old son has done three 5Ks and two 10Ks with us, including the Disneyland one this past one. He's very upset that he can't do the dopey with us, but next year will be the first time he can do a challenge because he can start doing the 10 miler as a 12-year-old.
Speaker 8:Okay so he's very excited. So we have done family costumes too, and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4:It is what's your favorite that you've worn or that you've seen, or maybe let's, let's do both what's the favorite that you've worn, a favorite that you've seen?
Speaker 8:so favorite that we've worn um not run disney but disney adjacent, because now disney plus it's on disney plus um. For the turkey trot we went as bob's burgers because they are the queen of thanksgiving, so we went as bob linda and they are the queen of thanksgiving, so we went as bob linda, and then my son went as gene in his burger costume. So it's a lot of fun I like that, that's cool in actual disney.
Speaker 8:This is the disneyland 10k was ahsoka themed. We went as c3po, r2d2 and bb8, so that was really cute. I love that fiasco where we were all waiting for like eight hours to register and the site was down and and this group of people actually printed out the screenshot of we're working on it and then they all just dressed up as that. We had a really good laugh with those costumes, yeah.
Speaker 6:You have a busy, busy job, busy schedule. So what keeps you motivated to run, especially on the days when it's difficult to get out there?
Speaker 8:I would say that, as much as I disliked running originally, now running is the one time during my day that I don't have to worry about a Zoom call, I don't have to worry about somebody paying me on Teams or having my son ask me a million questions about baseball. It's the one time that I either get to listen to my podcasts or that sometimes I just even run in silence. So it's the one time that I either get to listen to my podcasts or that sometimes I just even run in silence. So it's literally the only time that I have for myself. And what really also motivates me is that I am so eternally grateful that at this current moment in time, I can do this. There are so many people that can't, whether it's because of physical, um, you know, like a physical illness or anything that they just can't. So I'm taking advantage of the fact that, as of right now, I can do this. I'm going to take advantage and run for those that can't.
Speaker 6:So so are you. Are you a morning person, evening person? Do you put it on your schedule as? How do you do?
Speaker 8:Oh, morning person, 100%. Um, I eat way too much during the day to uh. If I left it for the afternoon, then there's no way I would get out. If I do go in the afternoon it's usually for a walk, um. But in the mornings we usually go like around five in the morning and just knock it out, um. And then when we don't do running, we do F45 for weight training.
Speaker 6:Do you find that gets your day going? It gets your mind set to go for the day.
Speaker 8:Oh yeah, because then by the time I get home I'm so awake that I might as well just start getting you know, jump on the day and I start. You know, I drink my coffee, I go look at my garden, get stuff ready, yeah, so it's, it's the best way to start your day in the night shower to people. Don't believe me when I say that, but it's true. Like yeah, at that point you're already awake, so you might as well go see. I truly love that.
Speaker 7:I wish I could be like that. I'm trying, but every time I try I seem to somewhat fail. But um, you're an inspiration for sure. I wish I can get on a schedule where I'm like up every single morning. But with that being said, it sounds like you do a lot of fun races, are. Is there any that are like a big goal for you, or do you have any dream races? Or what do you have scheduled for the year? So?
Speaker 8:I think a big race would be to do Tokyo. So we love Japan, and my original, my original career was a linguist, so you know I speak Japanese. My son is learning Japanese with me. We've taken him to was a linguist, so you know I speak Japanese. My son is learning Japanese with me. We've taken him to Japan a few times. So in order for us to do that, obviously we have to start doing more qualifying races.
Speaker 8:So one of the goals was this past Gasparilla, my goal was to get a 215 half. I've never run under a 215. I've never run under a 230 because usually've never run under a 230. Because usually it. You know, we have so much fun at Disney. We try to go on Everest and last year we went on Tower of Terror. So why, why would we even like really time how much we're doing? But I said, nope, we're gonna do it this time. Um, I didn't train to do under 215. I just said I'm to try it out and see how it goes. But it's so funny when you're out of your system, because in Run Disney we're very disciplined when we eat what we eat, by what time we go to sleep Gasparilla, because it's like 40 minutes away from our house. We just said, ah.
Speaker 8:So we went out to have Thai the night before, had this big fried fish pad Thai, drank some wine, went to sleep at 11. And then the next morning you know we're there, it's hot and I'm running and I'm making. I caught up with one of the pacing groups and I was making really, really good time. I even left my husband behind at one point. I'm like I'll meet you at the finish line and I think about mile 11. I said I don't feel so good and I pulled over and everything from the night before came out and it just so happens that there was this guy dressed as a hot dog with a megaphone and saying, oh, we have some lady here throwing up. And my husband passes me and said, hey, let's go, let's go. We're almost there and I'm like I can't, I can't Just go without me. So I ended up walking the rest of the way go without me, so I ended up walking the rest of the way and I got a two hour and 31 minute half.
Speaker 8:I was so angry that it was by one minute, but, um, but it was a really good lesson because, of course, immediately after that I just kept kicking myself saying I should have just pushed, I should have just pushed. And then my son calls me and says you know, when I have a really bad at bat and where I have a really bad at bat and we're having a really bad game, you tell me that it's the process, not the product, right? So the fact that you even got to a 231 is really impressive, mom. And I realized he was looking at me kind of being like right, right, and of course I have to just put it back to you, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 8:You're absolutely right. I'm so proud of myself, but next time I'm going to for sure PR doing it the right way.
Speaker 4:That's a good race. Yeah, that's a good race, nice and flat.
Speaker 5:Yes, very flat, beautiful. I think those are great lessons that you learned in that race for anybody who is starting their running tourney. What advice would you give to them Everyone?
Speaker 8:would tell me this and I'm like, yeah right, yeah right, but it really is 100% mental. That is the hardest barrier that you have to overcome. If you're physically able to run a 5 and a 10K and a half, the only thing that's stopping you from doing a marathon or a dopey is really just that mental aspect. So it really is overcoming that imposter syndrome and just continuing to tell yourself I can do this and you do it in baby steps. And I always like to quote Dory, you know, and like all of our Disney movies, you know one foot in front of the other or just keep swimming Um, because that really is what a race is, it's just one foot in front of the other and celebrate the small goals that you have. And I mean I've seen people in the dopey that beat my time by hours that I would look at them saying, wow, I can't believe that person is like almost 40 years older than me and they're doing it. So if they can do it, why not us and why not you?
Speaker 6:Going back to your professional life does. Do you find that running habits influence your professional life and, if so, how?
Speaker 8:Absolutely. Um, it takes a lot of perseverance to do a marathon, to run these races, to wake up early and, more importantly, I always like what you guys always say, um, that the race itself is the victory lap and really everything else is the training. So I'm looking at my current job even when I have the really bad days or the days that I just feel like, oh my gosh, I can't do this, it, I go back to that perseverance that I can do hard things. I've been in places where it was it was so hot, one dopey like that I think it was the marathon itself. It was so hot that they were giving out sponges with ice to put on our heads. Then the next day it was 30 degrees and we were wearing we are like it was recent.
Speaker 8:No, that was one marathon. And then the next marathon it was so cold that we went with like several layers, thinking we were going to strip them off, and I still finished with all my layers at the end of the marathon and I would never think that I could do that. But we can do hard things, um, and what I keep telling myself is you know what, regardless of whether I do well or not, by 1 PM, this will all be over and I will be eating at steakhouse 71 with my medals and I keep telling myself that during the really hard days, you know what, regardless of how it goes, at 5 PM, the day will be done and tomorrow I get a reset and, um, I can always try again tomorrow and I can always give my best tomorrow. It's not, it's literally a marathon, like that's just life. So it's not. Everything is not going to be judged by just one day or one meeting.
Speaker 2:And then I guess you know to. To wrap up, you know this portion of our interview and again, you're applying all these professional skills to your running journey. Is has running provided you any unexpected insights or perspectives that you've applied to your work, or vice versa?
Speaker 8:My best ideas come while I run. Because, again, it really does, though because you just have so much uninterrupted time that you start thinking about things and you actually like when I do like a one or two hour run, there are times that I just have to sit there and think about things and then in my head I'll kind of go through a checklist or I'll go through this entire scenarios and I'll start compartmentalizing things and then I'm like, oh my gosh, I came up with this really great idea for a new project by the end of that run, Whereas if I'm sitting at my desk working, three emails come up. My son barges in asking me a question, then someone calls me on Teams, then I have a meeting, so you never have that uninterrupted time to just fully flesh out ideas. So that's definitely one thing, and I think the second thing is the blisters.
Speaker 8:So before, when I was running and I didn't like it I would constantly get blisters all over the place and I just kept saying, well, blisters are something that happens when you run. It is what it is, Until I got fitted for shoes that I realized that I was running with half a size too small and I was not using the proper socks, because boombas are life and I was not putting Vaseline on my feet or glide and all these things which might seem silly to somebody that doesn't run. But if you do your due diligence you will save yourself so much heartache and pain later. And I am super happy to note that in the four dopies that I've run the last three dopies I've only gotten one blister and it's because of the intense care and preparation that I've run the last three dopies. I've only gotten one blister and it's because of the intense care and preparation that I put into doing things that saves me all of those blisters later.
Speaker 4:Very good. I relate to the idea of running with a clear mind, coming up with solutions, coming up with ideas. Problem is, at my age, by the time I finish I can't remember what I want to say. It's been fun. I knew it would be. We've got a fellow rising runner here, we got a buddy in the crowd, so that's great. But we've enjoyed the conversation. Very insightful, very helpful. I really think our friends listening are going to get something out of that. Is it going to be a nugget in there that they can apply to their runs or lives? But just so we don't get too heavy, we've got some quick answer questions we want to finish this up with and Alicia is going to kick us off.
Speaker 5:All right, so what is your favorite park to run?
Speaker 8:through Animal Kingdom Because we love trying to get on Everest.
Speaker 7:Yes, Somebody else loves Animal Kingdom. See everybody.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you All right, I'm going to go back to back here real quick. Gaudia, do you have a go-to victory meal or snack at Disney World after finishing a race?
Speaker 8:Steakhouse 71 has been our tradition every single time yeah.
Speaker 2:For what meal?
Speaker 8:Oh, for brunch immediately afterwards. We don't even change. Okay, all right. We just get on the contemporary bus, we curse all the way down getting all the steps, and then we crawl over to Steakhouse 71 and then just have a really big steak and fries.
Speaker 4:Do you eat the plastic cheese first or after?
Speaker 8:Oh, always right after we get out of the run.
Speaker 4:That never goes to waste in our house Atta girl.
Speaker 2:All right, and then, if you had to pick one Disney song to be your ultimate power up anthem or power line anthem, what would it be?
Speaker 8:I mean, I was going to say Eye to Eye, but now that you said Power Line, my second would be Tailspin, the theme song to Tailspin.
Speaker 6:Oh we know, 100%.
Speaker 8:Yep, because I always imagine that the very last line where Baloo is like going, that's me holding all my medals.
Speaker 6:So my favorite one Okay, if you could have any Disney character as your personal pacer, who would it be and why?
Speaker 8:So I have to choose two, because I can't choose between my babies. The first one is Sorcerer Mickey. He is my all-time love and I want him to just be throwing water and you know, like waves at me while I'm running. And the second one is Mirabel from Encanto, because she is my soul sister.
Speaker 7:Alright, so what is your favorite non-running thing to do at Disney World to celebrate a successful race weekend?
Speaker 8:I would say riding Guardians of the Galaxy and hoping that I get September.
Speaker 4:Ah, cool, let me finish with this one. What's your one piece of must-have gear besides shoes? Okay, besides running shoes that you always bring for a Run Disney weekend?
Speaker 8:We bring a box of Crustables Uncrustables, sorry and Celsius and we put it in our hotel room and every single morning on the bus we eat our Uncrustable and drink our Celsius, and then that gets us through any single race.
Speaker 4:That is a good way to get started. I like it. I like it and we've enjoyed talking with you. Celia, Thank you so much for joining us and giving us some of your valuable time. That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 8:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4:It was fun talking with Celia. I love the Rise and Run family. We have a lot of interesting and fun folks in it and that was a great deal. Hey, speaking of our friends, our respected coach, chris Twiggs, is doing a 100-mile run this weekend in San Diego, the San Diego 100 100 mile endurance race. You can search for that and follow Chris this weekend. This is a race where he said today on Customize that if he can maintain a climb rate of 1000 feet per hour in this race he'll be happy. That's a lot of climbing and this is from Mr Hard Rock himself talking about the climbing. But here's something I'd like you to do, friends. Chris loves the holler hypes. So when you see Chris out there this weekend, send him a hype. He won't have his phone on the whole time, but I think what will happen is once he turns it back on, he'll get shotgunned with the hype. So look for Chris Twiggs on the race this weekend and hype him up.
Speaker 4:We had another guest drop by to visit with us. Another Rise and Run friend, matt Bowen, the guy who carries the flag in the races, joined us. Friends, we want to welcome matt bowen back to the podcast. You may remember matt, was on with us last season. You, if you don't recognize the name, if you've been to run disney, you know who this is. Match the guy who carries the us flag on every one of the runs. Matt, welcome back to the podcast. Hey, thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. Always good to see you, my friend. Thanks for joining us. Well, let's do a little quick wrap. How'd things go last season for you, matt?
Speaker 3:You know it was good. I had a rough dopey challenge for my eighth dopey challenge, number eight. I committed the cardinal sin. I stepped off the course to go to the restroom and I ran in the grass like you're not supposed to, and I think I probably told a hundred people do not ever run in the grass because there's potholes and you'll catch your foot on a curb. And that's exactly what happened I caught my foot on a curb, went down. I was able to save the flag from the ground rolled, but I did roll my ankle pretty badly. Um and so I, uh I had to. I had an assisted finish of my uh dopey challenge, but I did finish all 48.6 miles on the ankle and um.
Speaker 3:I did a lot of walking, more so than I would have liked on the marathon, but I was able to finish. And then, two weeks later, I went out to Disneyland, ran all three races out of Disneyland. I even did the yoga, which was interesting. It was fun, it was neat. It was neat to do yoga right on Main Street there.
Speaker 4:Now no flag for the yoga right.
Speaker 3:No, sir, no sir. You know it's funny as I was coming in because if you guys have ever done and I sure you have the 5ks and the 10ks at disneyland like the 5k starts on main street, it does, yeah, entirely inside the park, which is a super cool experience. But as we all know, these races are extremely populated and it was so crowded and as I was coming through the security gate I had to unroll my whole flag and I had to stand there for five minutes before they weren't going to let me bring it in. They were telling me I couldn't bring it in and they had to call and get approval and I had to. They had to measure it to make sure it was standards. It was, it was a little bit um, but I was like come on, I, you know I.
Speaker 4:I little over the top, correct yeah.
Speaker 3:But I got in and it was fine and I did carry the flag for the five, ten and a half and I and I had, um, probably my, it was my fastest half I've ever run with the flag, because I find that the flag adds about a minute and a half to two minutes per mile, because it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, dragging, I did my half I think I was just over 230 in the house excellent yeah, and I was really.
Speaker 3:I felt great about it and you know the races are different out there because you run very little in the park for the, for the half marathon it's true, true, very little of it is in the park.
Speaker 4:However, you run through all of the parks, correct?
Speaker 3:yeah, correct, and it was so then, and then I followed that up with the princess, got my daughter ran her very first disney 5k outstanding morning and it was so cold we were wrapped up in our blankets and um, and then I got strep throat getting when I got home and I lost eight pounds in four.
Speaker 4:Oh wow, good money so the end of the party shout out time. What's your daughter's name?
Speaker 3:natalie. My daughter is natalie bowen, she natalie. Congratulations on your first 5k natalie, she and she says to me afterwards I'm not doing that again, this was too early, natalie Bowen, natalie, congratulations on your first 5K, natalie. And she says to me afterwards I'm not doing that again, this was too early. She had fun, but it was very early. It was wonderful because I reached out to John Pelkey and Carissa Galloway and Riley and Tracy and they all came down and did a group picture with me and my daughter, which was really neat, oh very nice Prior to the race.
Speaker 3:So we had some great memories, great experiences. Um, I believe I will probably be doing the majority of my races moving forward by myself again, which is fine. Um, yeah, she may surprise you, you don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe I have lots of uh, obviously run Disney family and friends. You guys included obviously in that group um, that I get to really visit with and spend time with. So the season ended up great, had a wonderful, made a ton of new friends, new people who I are near and dear to my heart now and again you guys included. The Rise and Run group obviously has been so wonderful and you know, getting recognized in the wild is pretty cool as well.
Speaker 4:That's what it's well, yeah, the family, the community, is what it's all about. Matt, remind our friends. You carry the flag and you use it to raise money for charity. Tell us about the charity that you work for or that you raise money for.
Speaker 3:Sure, I raise money for Gold Star Families, a group called Operation 300. So for people who don't know, who didn't hear last year's episode, gold Star Families, a group called Operation 300. So for people who don't know, who didn't hear last year's episode, gold Star Families are families who've lost a loved one in war, whether it be overseas mom, dad, brother, sister, what have you? They've become your Gold Star Families. What Operation 300 is is it's an organization in southern Florida that's in honor of Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn, who was killed in Extortion 17 when he was part of DEVRU SEAL Team 6.
Speaker 3:His sister and brother-in-law started Operation 300.
Speaker 3:And what they do is they provide camps for Gold Star kids.
Speaker 3:They bring these kids in and they let them be kids, because a lot of these kids are losing their moms or their dads when they're two, three, four, five years old, and so they pair them with a military mentor who are, you know, an adult mentor, who most of the time is a former military member or somebody who's been associated with the military at some point in their lives, and they help these kids, you know, learn how to tie a tie or go on their first job interview, and they, they bring them to these camps and they let them be kids. They just let them be kids and go out and throw rocks in a pond and shoot bows and arrows and BB guns and get dirt on their hands and all over the pants and just be kids. And this group is a wonderful group of people who have slowly started to build some really good recognition across the country. I believe this year in a Bush series or the lower NASCAR race yeah, I don't know what they call it now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I don't either, but they had a car, operation 300. It's AV with a trident through it as their logo, and so they're really great, garnering some good interest and some good support, which is wonderful, because they've been very underfunded for a really long time and had some great benefactors that have kept them going and they're now doing some really, really wonderful things. So not only did they take these kids to the camps, they also take the surviving spouse and they let them go just relax for a weekend and they put them in a spa or they give them spa treatments or what have you, because at the end of the day, these parents end up becoming mom and dad, and so getting that break has been wonderful. So last year we were able to raise almost $10,000 for 300. And my goal is to do is to do that again.
Speaker 3:This year. I will be raffling off all of my American flags. Allegiance flag company again was wonderful. Yes, they sent me 15 or 10 more flags, outstanding 12 going into the season. They're going to send me 10 more as the season goes on, because I do I do plan on doing a perfect season this year.
Speaker 3:Um, I've registered for um halloween, although that won't be included it because it's going to be the 26th, but then I'm doing wine and dine dopey princess springtime, and then I will do wine and dine against next year. So I'll be doing um the flag and every one of those races. Um, last year I had some wonderful opportunity to be able to present the flag to people on the spot, either at the end of the race. I know we didn't end up connecting, but Bob got the 5k flag from last year's marathon weekend. John came by my hotel and picked that up, and so we're going to be doing some of that this year and I'm going to try and come up with some other creative ways to raise some money, either raffling off my outfit or songs on my playlist or what have you, sponsorship for miles. I you know I'm open to all kinds of different ideas.
Speaker 3:Um, last year I had a friend who did for his charity. He raffled off. If he ain't raised enough money, he'd wear a tutu and and tinkerbell wings on the on the 5k or the 10k, and I'm completely open to anything like that I do that I do that for free.
Speaker 3:You dressed as corella deville last year, man, and you had 101 dalmatians running around you.
Speaker 3:We had a couple hundred, yeah, yeah, it was awesome, so cool, so cool, and I'm I'm hoping to get to run with you guys in one of these oh heck yeah join the group and I'm always up in b and I say to my friends a lot of times I don't like to wait around for yeah it's so early but at the end of the day to to be able to my friends a lot of times I don't like to wait around for it's so early, but at the end of the day to be able to run with such a great group of people, I'd love to come join you guys and, wherever, whatever crowd you're in, we'll do one of the five Ks or 10 Ks or something together.
Speaker 4:We'd love to have you, my friend, absolutely Love to have you, your charity.
Speaker 6:If someone wants to help, support getting involved in this charity, how do they reach out to? You reach out to this organization, so we have.
Speaker 3:Operation300.org is the website. I also have a QR code which I put up from time to time. I'd be happy to send it to you guys if you want to put it in the show notes, which they can click right on that and that'll take them to my fundraising page. That's been set up by them to donate directly to it. The way I did my flags last year is, if anybody did it I think we did $10 last year I'm going to raise it a little bit this year. Just because it went so well last year and because the flags have generated such great response, I think I'm going to do $10, $20 donations or $200 flat donation on the flag and you get it.
Speaker 3:I had some cool things happen last year where a couple of people who won the flag in raffle did and turned around and redonated it to somebody else or had me donate it to somebody else I had. You know, as an example I have somebody from Rise and Run, a group, a young couple, that ran the Urban Bourbon here in Louisville, kentucky, where I live, and they were in on the raffle and they did not win and the guy who won was a friend of mine and the gentleman of the couple was a veteran and I reached out to my friend and I let him know and he said well then, they deserve that flag. And he had me send them that flag. And they were listeners of this podcast Such great people. I got to meet them out of the base, took a picture with them and they ended up getting that flag and they have it hanging by their treadmill in their basement. They sent me a picture. Such wonderful situation. So, yeah, I will be doing that.
Speaker 3:So how we did that last year was just donate, make a $20 donation to Operation 300 through my link and just send me a message and then I put the list of. I make a list of names and then when it comes before that weekend race whatever the race is that that list fills out on, I just run a little spin wheel on my computer and I put it up on a Facebook Live and show whoever won the flag. And I handle the shipping of the flag to whoever wins it. I triangle, fold it back up, put it into the box from Allegiance and I ship it out to them, like I did for you, bob Right absolutely.
Speaker 3:It's well well presented. Yes, sir, yeah, and you know I've put sometimes I've written on the on the white stitching what race it was. But you know I generally put it just kind of on the box. That way you can do whatever you want with the flag. Some people want to, some people want to fly it. I actually had a doctor friend of mine who had me on his podcast, who I sent him one of the flags and he's got it on a boat out in Seattle Washington. So just you know lots of.
Speaker 3:My brother was a Marine. He was in the Marine Corps for 23 years. He actually won one of the flags, did a bunch of donating, just happened to win. It was very random, he won and he's as a former Marine, he's got one of my flags. As a former Marine, he's got one of my flags. And the cool story behind that is when he was in Afghanistan I'm sorry, in Iraq, during the Battle of Fallujah, he bought a flag, put it in his flight bag, flew it the entire battle over Fallujah. Every time he was up flying he flew it with him on my birthday, flew it above his spaces and then sent it to me for my birthday one year and I have it framed up in my front.
Speaker 4:Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 3:Just nice full circle type moments. Um, obviously it's really great when somebody that I'm running with or somebody that I know it, wins the flag because I can present it to them right there on the spot. We had some very emotional uh presentations last year with some of some friends of mine that ended up, you know, that had either paid outright for the flag or something like that. It was pretty cool, yeah matt, it's good stuff.
Speaker 4:It's good stuff. What you're doing is neat. Uh, you're representing well the charity you're working for. I mean, you just do a nice job and I'm glad we can at least lend a little bit of uh, I don't say publicity, but you, you, give me a you, give me a voice, you guys give me a voice.
Speaker 3:John, that's the word and it's. You know. What's cool is, as I told you, you know, having people come up to me at the expo and say, hey, were you the one that was on Rise and Run. I'm like, yeah, that was me. And they're like that's so great. How do we donate? Or how can I donate money? Or we love what you do. Or the best part, quite honestly, is people stopping me and telling me a story about their loved one who was in the military, or the time they served in the military, or somebody they lost who was in the military. You know, hearing those stories and having people I've had. As a matter of fact, last year, during the half marathon, I had a girl who caught me and she was crying when she caught me and she said that she had to catch me because the man who introduced her to running was a Marine who had committed suicide.
Speaker 4:Oh, my A year before. Oh my goodness, Too much of that going on.
Speaker 3:She had to catch me to tell me how much it meant to me that I was carrying the flag for him and I let her carry the flag for a minute. And you know, a lot of times that's what I'll do. If someone comes up and tells me a story, I'll be like, hey, you know a photopass photographer coming up once you take the flag and oh nice, no, I love you, I love doing that. And, um, last year during the marathon and half marathon, we were running up main street. I, with guys I was running with, like hey, run with the flag. It's a completely different experience running up main street with the american flag because it's loud, but it gets so loud when people see you and you raise that flag up and you start, you know, making a lot of noise with noise with it. It's that. And then the finish line, because John and Carissa and Riley and Tracy, and those guys always call me out as I'm coming down and they always talk about the cause and it's. It's a wonderful feeling.
Speaker 3:I was actually running the princess half with a friend and we were finishing and she had had an accident, so I ended up walking the last three miles with her Cause she tripped and fell and hurt her ankle and I was like I caught her. I got caught up to her right after it happened. She was crying and sad and I was like, hey, look, let's just go, let's finish this thing together. And I stuck with her and I said stay with me. At the finish it's probably one of the coolest things you'll ever experience and the way a it's a, it's a.
Speaker 3:It's a very cool experience and I tell people all the time it's it's not about me, it's about the message that I hope to carry and the messages that people can share with me. And you know it's. It becomes therapeutic for me, becomes therapeutic for other people around me, and that's that's the whole goal is the end of the day, we don't know what other people are battling. We don't know what other people are dealing with, and being kind is really the only answer. You know there's no reason to be out. Go out of your way to hurt people and hear their stories and listen to people. Sometimes people just need to be listened to.
Speaker 4:Matt, I'm going to drop the mic right there. I think you've summarized wonderfully well. Thanks for taking the time to join us. It's a pleasure. We love what you're doing. We're glad we can add just a little bit of support and we'll see you at Disney World.
Speaker 3:We'll see you guys running.
Speaker 6:Come see everybody. Good luck on your registrations. Thanks, matt. I mean what you're doing is a great thing and we really appreciate your cause, something else that we going back to training and getting yourself a little hyped up, or whatever it is. Last year we did the Rise and Run mixtape for training. With training starting in a couple of weeks, I'm going to set up the Spotify link, put it in our Facebook feed and where you can add two or three songs of your choosing that get you pumped for training and we'll share it with the entire group. Last year we had a very interesting eclectic combination of songs.
Speaker 2:Oh God, what was my favorite? My favorite last year was when I listened to it. I think we went from a song from Moana to Eminem Lose Yourself. That was quite the transition.
Speaker 4:By the time it was done, I think we had almost what Five or six hours worth of.
Speaker 6:Oh, absolutely Six, six hours and 39 minutes Just looking at it now from last year.
Speaker 4:I can even finish a marathon in that time. That's a lot. That's good. Yeah, that's fun, john. That's good. Yeah, that's fun, john. It's a neat thing you do, and I know the friends like our friends like it. So yeah, let's get that kicked off again here.
Speaker 2:What you say, kicking it off next week, next week I'll put that out, yep hey gang, one note that I want to just quickly pass along to everyone uh, the other week I received an email from uh, the gentleman who now heads up the running team over at give Kids the World. His name is Mark. He's been doing an absolutely phenomenal job. He had sent me a nice note. He wanted to share with the Rise and Run community that the village just hit a really big milestone the other week, and that is they have now officially welcomed their 200,000th wish child to the village, which is just awesome to hear that so many children and their families have been able to not only experience the village and the amazing resources that they have, but they really have some dreams come true, and I think that's really, really special. And to mark the occasion, they are doing a program called Share your Light, which is going. So it's a fundraising campaign, so you know they are raising funds, but this special event is going to be taking place on Saturday, june 21st, and you know hence you know the title being share your light. They want to be able to illuminate the village with the lights you know that children provide us in our everyday lives and what you can do is, if you do give a donation you can actually donate to have a water lantern be lit up during this event, which I think is really cool. It ties into, you know, when we're talking about the princess themes. Before you know, rapunzel is, uh, the princess for the half marathon and obviously she had her lantern festival, uh. So there's a lot of different cool options that, um, you can donate to have, you know, your remembrance as part of this event. So if you're interested in any of that, be sure to head over to the Give Kids the World website to find all that information there. And speaking of our friends over at Give Kids the World and Princess Half Marathon Weekend, they do have their bibs on sale right now for the race weekend. So if you want to get into the race and not have to deal with the stress of registration on june 24th, that is one avenue that you can definitely go down.
Speaker 2:But the other thing that is going to be really, really cool that we're going to be doing here on the podcast in the next couple weeks I know we have talked a lot about a lot of great charities. We talked about Matt's charity in terms of the flag. We talked about give kids the world a lot here on the podcast, but we're going to be making a conscious effort in the next couple of months to be highlighting a different charity every single month here on the podcast and try to get a representative available. So that's a series that we're really, really looking forward to and, speaking of things that we're looking forward to as well, on next week's episode, we are going to be doing some listener questions. I did a post, uh, just the other day. We got some great questions that I've already filtered in. So if you have questions about run Disney, disney World, disneyland logistics, you want to know more just about us as the host, or you have specific like training questions or running questions, we will will try to answer as many as we can, and then in two weeks we got a really big show for you.
Speaker 2:Miss Dopey herself returns. Brittany Charbonneau is coming back on the podcast and we cannot wait to chat with her. So that's what we have coming up here in the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 4:All right, my friends, it's time for the Race Report. The Race Report sponsored by Thomas Stokes Stoked Metabolic Training. Stokesfit slash riseandruncoaching is the site. Thomas was with us last week told us about his challenge starting next month, july 7th. The link for that is at the top of our Facebook group page in the featured section. Remember first 20 people to enroll will get a free one-on-one call with Tom. That's a good program, my friends. I've done it the last couple of times that he's had it, and for $47,. You can't beat the training and assistance that Tom provides. So I recommend looking into it. It's a good deal and, tom, we appreciate you. All right, let's start. We have one on Wednesday over in London, don't you know? Battersea Park, london, england. Mark and Season were out chasing the sun on the Chase. The Sun 5K Happy birthday. Season Running on her birthday. Good turnout.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I think that's cool. I don't get to run on my birthday, but it's okay. Not many Christmas.
Speaker 2:Eve runs. I was going to say there's not many Christmas.
Speaker 4:Eve races.
Speaker 4:No, About 800 runners. That's great for a middle-of of the week run. Flat course, great weather, nice and cool and enjoyable. Mark and Season were pleased to discover that their chip times showed they'd beaten their previous 5K personal records by 35 seconds. Records by 35 seconds. Way to go. Let's get to the weekend now.
Speaker 4:Kind of an unusual weekend for us. Not much going on on Saturday. I'm not sure why Most of the events were on Sunday this week. Let's start in Washington DC where Kate ran the Tracksmith Twilight 5000. This is Kate's first ever track race, which is interesting. We don't see a lot of those Now. I get a kick out of this. Kate said she latched onto the 21 minute pacer and they just zoned out. She zoned out so much that she ran past the 5k mark, ended up doing another three quarters of a lap, didn't even realize it. That's being in the zone, baby, that's pretty cool. But when her timing was posted she managed a 34-second PR over her 5K PR from two weeks ago. And again, we're talking 21 minutes in a 5K, Kate. That's awesome Way to go. Let's go out to Kansas City, the Kansas City's Hospital Hill half. Alexandra ran that one. Greg, I don't know that I would run a Hospital Hill race.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it has Hill in the name, I'm not running it. And then hospital.
Speaker 4:True Touche. And then hospital. True Touche, golly, golly Anyway. Alexandra's first race, first half marathon since starting PT for a knee injury. Not quite back to full speed but really thrilled to achieve a course PR, beating her previous course time by 25 and a half minutes. Nicely done. As the name suggests, this race brings a whole slew of tough hills, but Alexandra's knee held up like a champ, good job.
Speaker 2:Someone who we had on the race report spotlight. A couple of weeks ago our buddy Ravi ran the run for the Brave 5K in Boca Raton, florida, then moving north up to Charlotte, north Carolina.
Speaker 2:Anna ran the Noda 5K coming off of her run at Flying Pig. I think, bob, you saw our buddy, julie you know, when you were up there. A couple of weeks ago, julie ran the Red Legs Run 10K which took place in Cincinnati, ohio, and, granted, we haven't heard of Fishers, indiana, in a while, because we always said that was the racing mecca.
Speaker 2:So we're going to move to one of the other racing meccas in the United States, and that is Fort Smith, arkansas. And if it's Fort Smith Arkansas, that means one thing and one thing only. That's our buddy Joe, and one of the Amigos not all the Amigos, for this one. Joe took place in the Hot Foot Races. He took second place in his age group in the 5K and his amigo Gary took first place age group in the 10K. Way to go, gentlemen. This was Joe's first race after being sick with allergies or something or whatever is going around. So yeah, and he dealt with it for over two weeks, but he was feeling really good. So way to go, joe.
Speaker 4:And Gary, Greg, I got to come clean on this one. Uh, Joe posted the race but he didn't post where it was. I just assumed it's Fort Smith.
Speaker 2:We're going to go with that and granted, if there's one person who will fact check us it's Graham.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's cool. Well, let's take a look. We had a couple of weekend long events. Uh, one out in san diego, california. The rock and roll series was out in san diego. There was an event called the remy's challenge a 5k on saturday and half on sunday. Bethany did that. Really nice weather it's san die, I think. It's supposedly known for nice weather cool and cloudy, some sprinkles on Sunday, though I didn't think it ever rained in Southern California, but I could be wrong. The 5k goes in and around the beautiful Balboa Park, while the half goes through downtown and the residential streets. Bethany took the 5k nice and easy to save her legs for the half. Glad she did, because despite having the most and the steepest hills of any course that she's done, she still managed a two-minute PR in that half marathon. Now I think this is cool. After the race, the hotel that they were staying in hosted a post-race brunch in their rooftop restaurant, so you could look down to the finish line and see the marathoners finishing. Very cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is. Now. You could wear your medal or your bib to get a discount and every time somebody walked into the restaurant wearing a medal, the whole place cheered. I think that's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah, that's neat. Let's see Megan was there. Megan did the half, agreeing that the hills were rough. Kevin did the 5k and half, as Bethany did, and Jennifer was there to run the half. In the other weekend long event, tiffany created her own challenge and well, she's here to tell us about it. Hi, tiffany, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 9:Hi, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 4:You're welcome and thank you for taking your time to join us. So you did two races in two locations, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, Yep, and we're going to let you tell us about those in a minute. But you know, standard spotlight question number one Tiffany, how did you get started running?
Speaker 9:Yeah, so, um, I've actually kind of been a runner pretty much my whole life. It's always just, even as a little kid, I just always just liked running. And then when I got to middle school, that was when in gym class you had to start running the mile, and I was just pretty good at it.
Speaker 4:So I was going to say I'll bet you were good at it.
Speaker 9:Yeah, so the gym teacher was actually the track coach for the middle school track team, so she encouraged me to come out and do that. I did the mile and the two mile in the middle school track and then was kind of planning to keep on the track team and cross country in high school but I got injured and you know then kind of got sidetracked with, like you know, college applications and just you know, all that that comes up in high school. So I kind of, you know, wasn't like on a team or really being competitive for a while. I was, just, you know, kind of running like a couple of miles a few times a week, just you know, staying in shape. And it wasn't, you know, like you know, through high school and college and like I knew that they were like races and like 5ks, but it never like occurred to me like, oh, maybe I should go run one of these.
Speaker 9:And then so after college I moved to Chicago for work and so actually way back in middle school our school library actually got Runners World magazine and so you know, back when I was on doing track then I was kind of flipping through and then there was an article about the Boston Marathon and I'm like I'm going to run a marathon one day. So I was like 13 at the time. I'm like I'm totally going to run a marathon. So I moved to Chicago after college and that fall the marathon was going on and I was like that's so cool and like I was like you know, when I was younger I always said I was going to run a marathon someday. So I'm like, why not? Now, you know, it's like right here, I don't need to travel. So it's perfect.
Speaker 9:Nothing else to do, right, yeah, so I got a training plan and so technically my first actual race was the Chicago Marathon. Wow, which sounds ridiculous, but I'm like at that point I had already been running for like 10 years, so it wasn't like I just kind of pulled off an error or anything like that. But yeah, so. And then after that, you know I just I was like okay, well, now you know what other races can I do. And you know it, just I was like okay, well, now you know what other races can I do. And you know start. You know it's like now that I've run a marathon, maybe I'll try a 5k.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's all downhill now. I mean you start with a world major, where do you go?
Speaker 9:Yeah and uh. So actually that was uh, 2004. So the world majors actually didn't even exist then. It wasn't a thing. So so I guess I've technically been running probably for about I'm 45 now, so it'd probably been about 32, 33 years that I've been running and doing races for about 21 years. So yeah, it's been. You know it's been a while.
Speaker 4:Good story Now. So tell us about this weekend. You started on Saturday in Indiana. I believe that was a 5K 5K trail race yeah. Yeah, tell us about it.
Speaker 9:Okay, so it's the Dunes Dash at the Indiana Dunes National Park and the charity that it supports is the Save the Dunes Foundation, which raises money for conservation of the dunes area, and it was just something I wanted to do with a lot of the funding cuts for national parks lately. It was just a cause that I wanted to support. So I knew it was a trail race, didn't realize how much of it was, yeah, but now it's affecting, like you know, packed dirt. You know a nice, you know a trail race, didn't realize how much of it was, yeah, but now it's affecting, like you know, packed dirt. You know a nice, you know a trail, but, uh, majority of it was actually a lot of sand. So, um, when it, when it wasn't sand, it was a lot of stairs, um, going up to different, uh, overlooks around the area. It was beautiful, really gorgeous course, but very, very challenging.
Speaker 4:It was diabolical. It was definitely yes, that's what someone. I'm looking at your report. That's what someone yelled out in the middle.
Speaker 9:Yeah, it was literally every time. You thought you were at the last hill. You turn around a corner and there'd be another hill.
Speaker 4:Oh, I hate those.
Speaker 9:It was like a quarter mile to the finish and I'm like, ok, there's got to be. You know, we're done with hills. We've got to be done with hills by now. And then we came around there's another giant hill and this guy is just like this is. Diabolos.
Speaker 4:I hate those. I would stop turning corners if I kept seeing those. All right, but nevertheless it was fun. You stuck it out, you did well.
Speaker 9:Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4:And let's see that one you won your age group. No, you won Masters right, masters, yeah. Yeah, so that was yeah cool Congratulations.
Speaker 9:Yeah, that was kind of a surprise, because I mean when you run on a trail it's always slower than like running on roads, and also just because it was so challenging. I was like for me it was like one of my slower 5Ks, but then I saw the results and I'm like, oh, that that was a surprise that's cool yeah now part of this challenge, you did another race on sunday.
Speaker 9:Uh, that was in illinois yeah so, uh, it was in highland park, which is, uh, about a 30 minute drive north of chicago here. Yeah so, uh, that was a half marathon, um, and it was actually a race I had done before, but not recently.
Speaker 9:Um, I don't remember the last time I did it, but I want to say it was at least 15 years ago um but I at the time it was a another really pretty course, and so I had always thought, oh, I like to do this one again. Um, and it just the the timing never worked out. I always had something going on that weekend and so this particular weekend I happened to have that date free and you know, even though I was already doing this 5k on Saturday, I was like, why not make a challenge of it? You know, do them both? Yeah, so went up there on sunday and, yeah, it was, uh, a little more hilly than I remembered. A lot of rolling hills. I don't know if it was the exact same course. Um, there was, I remembered from before, there's one giant hill, and so I I was expecting that one and like that was still there.
Speaker 4:Um, but other than that, it was a lot of rolling hills, and I kept thinking I don't remember this many hills before um you know tiffany I don't know how many people that I read their race report and they say I haven't done this one in a while and I forgot how hilly it was. And it's very common and I think you forget. I think human beings, we try to forget the hard stuff. Yeah, remember the fun stuff. I think that might be what it is.
Speaker 9:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You won masters in the 5k, but no medal right.
Speaker 9:But we know, we know you won For for the masters. I got um like uh, I took, put a picture of it. There's a, it's a big wood medal, oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, very good wood metal.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very good. That's for, that's for finished, that's for winning masters. That's cool, yeah, I like that was. It were there medals and t-shirts for the half yeah.
Speaker 9:So, um, we actually got a really nice um it was like a half zip fleece um, which you know is super cozy. Actually, like you know, it was really this weekend was actually pretty cool and it was cool, wasn't it yeah?
Speaker 9:yeah, it was uh like in the 40s, so I mean it was. You know that was nice and cozy when you weren't running, um. But yeah, so it's nice, nice fleece jacket and, uh, nice metal. They had food after the race and, um, some music and you know, it's just a really fun atmosphere. So, yeah, I really enjoyed it what's next?
Speaker 6:I'm guessing, the way you go, it's probably dopey at disney let's go straight to the heavy stuff, right but, when's the next time you're going to be at disney and what's going on over there?
Speaker 9:yeah, so, uh. So I've actually never done dopey. I'm not. I keep saying I don't. I'll never say never to anything, but you know it's not currently in the plans Right now. My next I just saw Princess themes today, so you know I'm pretty. I'm already thinking about doing the challenge for next year and now that I saw the themes I'm like, yeah, take my money. So fingers crossed for registration that I can get in. I've been lucky so far with everything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know the secret. Tiffany is to join us in our chat group for the weekend.
Speaker 9:Yeah.
Speaker 4:On registration day.
Speaker 9:Yeah, I usually do. I've never needed help so far.
Speaker 6:That's a good thing.
Speaker 4:But it's there, yeah, yeah. So if you've not done dopey, have you done the marathon at disney? Yeah, I have okay, okay, so you've run through the castle yes, yeah, that was uh that's cool epic, I love that it is, it is absolutely. Running down main street is a joy.
Speaker 9:It's wonderful, yeah yeah, I just I, when I was coming down main street I just I stopped and I like took out my phone and I just just took a video of the whole street. I was like this is just.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember the first time and I was running better back then and I'm running down main street and I all of a sudden went what's your hurry? Take your time here. This is is great, so that's terrific. Uh, let's see. So next time at disney's in. Uh, it's princess, right, princess?
Speaker 9:yep, okay, anything big coming up between now and then um, not right now, mostly, um, my kind of big goal race, or it was earlier in, uh, may. I wanted to update my proof of time to see if I can back into a corral. Um, so I actually did a half at the beginning of may and I got I ran that in like 152, 35, so that should be good for a corral, I'm hoping oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, I see even this 157 you have on this weekend is that'd be close, I think. So that's good stuff yeah.
Speaker 9:So that was kind of the big goal for the year and I was like you know, because originally I was like, well, if I don't run a good time on that, maybe I'll pick up, you know, another half later in the summer or something, and um, so I'm happy with that time and I'm like, okay, let's have some fun, do some fun 5ks and just you know, kind of just enjoy the summer.
Speaker 4:So well, good for you, tiffany, that's terrific. Uh, thanks for joining us. It sounds like you had a good weekend and we'll see you in february hopefully way to go.
Speaker 2:tiffany great work. We now move to Sunday where we had the Covered Bridges Half Marathon in Palm Front, vermont. Avery ran that race and then our buddy Steve ran the Noah Farley Run 10K and 5K in Binghamton, new York. Steve completed the double challenge, so both of the races. He finished the 10K first, then had the chance to change all of his race gear and run the 5K with his wife, brenda. It's quite a hilly course, with two particular long ones that are very steep. So what I like to call this, because I know Steve's doing bird in hand very good bird in hand training.
Speaker 2:Lots of post-race treats with a double dip of ice cream for those who ran the double dip of races. I see what you did there.
Speaker 4:As it should be, yeah.
Speaker 2:This is the seventh and final year of this event. It's near an event that's near and dear to him. This was the first 10K that he ever ran to this day and still holds his 10K PR.
Speaker 4:So way to go, steve. How about that? Steve credits Allie for the changing of the socks and shoes. As Allie used to describe it, it's like putting on new feet, new feet, yep, exactly. Let's go to Youngstown, ohio, for the Soul to City Half Marathon. Megan did this one with her friend Christina from Georgia. Let's go to Youngstown, ohio, for the Soul to City Half Marathon. Megan did this one with her friend Christina from Georgia, and they said it was cold in Youngstown, ohio, which I think is a surprise for this time of year. Now, they were supposed to drive to the finish and then get a shuttle to the start, but the shuttle never showed up, never a good sign, not good, not good.
Speaker 2:So they drove to the start, but the shuttle never showed up, never a good sign.
Speaker 4:Not good, not good. So they drove to the start and then I know what I'd be thinking. Okay, I'm going to run the race. How am I going to get back to my car? Well, fortunately the shuttles did show up after the race and they got back. That way, great race. Megan went out a little fast. Things were going really well in this half marathon until about mile nine and it got tough. She hung on. She had set herself an A goal of finishing under four hours, which she did. She passed up the post-race beer for the PT tent and got some outstanding help there, thanks to the PT professionals in Youngstown, ohio. In Ann Arbor, Michigan, sean did the Dexter Ann Arbor Run Half Parathon, mostly downhill except for one big one just before mile 13.
Speaker 4:That's never nice, no, no, no. I have a story I'm not going to tell now about a race in Charlotte, north Carolina, that ended, oh my goodness. Anyway, this is Sean's race Great weather, beautiful course, fantastic spectators. Sean even snagged himself a 2.10 finish time for his next Disney proof of time. All in all, a great race. Way to go, sean, disney proof of time. All in all, a great race. Way to go, sean.
Speaker 4:The hometown half took place in Milwaukee, wisconsin. We had a couple folks there. Noelle did the half Says not her comeback run yet, but she still felt really good, made it to mile nine where she took a bad step off the path, twisted her ankle, fell, scraped up the knees and the elbows, got a sore back, picked herself up, walked for a minute to get through the pain and started running again. I know I know what that's like. I kind of talk, I think about it like I'm taking inventory Okay, Ankles, okay, knees, okay, okay, knees, okay, okay, I'm okay, yeah. So she was all right, started running again, finished in two hours 41 and earned a huge medal.
Speaker 2:These are, these are space coast size medals, these absolutely when I saw the picture I was I mean again, not space coast level, which I feel like is the size of a dinner plate this I thought could have passed for a small dessert plate, or maybe a saucer for a teacup or something like that. It was big it had quite the circumference to it.
Speaker 4:It was big. All right, amy was there too. Amy did the 10K. She did it.
Speaker 4:This race took place on the Greenway where she used to train, but apparently it was a while back because she forgot how hilly it was. Now the half did the course twice. So she got to see the half marathon leader a couple times. It was a young man and he was cooking and he just had this amazing smile on his face, this amazing smile on his face. So when amy finished, got her medal, the girl who's handing her the medal says to her oh, by the way, you also finished first in your age group. Yeah, way to go. Never been first in anything. Well, there you go, you are now. Uh, she saw the winner after the race and they had a nice little conversation where Amy says to him you know you're? You look like you're having so much fun. Your smile inspired me and he said to her yeah, I thought I saw you out there and as I ran past I thought, gee, I might've just inspired somebody. So there you go. Awesome, you never know, huh.
Speaker 2:A couple of hours north of me, in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, we had the Mud Girl event and Jennifer ran this. She said it was cold and windy. She slipped in the mud quite a few times, she caught her foot in a tree root and then she froze in all of the water obstacles. Uh, apparently one obstacle caused a minor wardrobe malfunction. Uh, but thankfully a teacher friend that she ran with helped her out. Uh, dry socks and shoes at the end were a gift from above and a great time was had by all.
Speaker 2:You gotta love those, those mud events you know, and actually speaking, speaking of those crazy events, uh, now, great, I have never registered for one. I don't plan on registering for one but for some reason, the other day in my instagram feed I got an ad for a spartan race. Oh boy, guess who was featured in that ad? Taron, yes. Our buddy, taron was part of the ad, so yeah, so if you ever want to venture into that realm of races, definitely reach out to Taron or Jennifer, and I'm sure they'll be able to give you plenty of advice for that one.
Speaker 4:Years back. I did Remember when the TV show Wipeout was big. Yes, well, they took a little Wipeout on tour type thing. I do remember this. Yeah, it was mostly fun. It was at the Atlanta Motor Speedway and it was a chilly day to be in the water but it was fun. But that was back when I was a young man, like 66 or something. That was back when I was a young man, you know, like 66 or something.
Speaker 4:Let's go to Highland Park, illinois, for the North Shore Classic Half Marathon. Laura in fact I think this is the same race that our friend Tiffany did in her challenge, I'm pretty sure Says the weather was great, the course was gorgeous, wanted a proof of time but I wasn't really feeling it, wasn't quite ready for it. This morning Tried, realized it wasn't going to happen by about mile nine. I've been in that position. I get it. Laura, still happy with her finish time of around 240, which is very solid, nicely done. Metals, nice and large. This was the other, greg. We were talking before we recorded about big metals. This was the other big metal, maybe not quite as big as the one we were just talking about, but it's a good size. Quite, a few vendors giving away food and drinks after the race, including one of the most interesting cereal boxes she'd ever seen, and I saw the. Yes, the, I think the name of the cereal is, and I quote poop like a champion. Hmm, you buying a box, greg?
Speaker 2:uh, I don't eat cereal much anymore, so I'm gonna pass on that one.
Speaker 4:Like they, they pass also Back in Ohio. In Columbus the Columbus 10K Carol did this out and back through downtown Germantown in the Brewery District. Beautifully cool morning. Bit of a smoky haze. That may be some of the smoke coming out of the fires in Canada, not sure. Around halfway there was a dog handler herding a flock of Canadian geese on the grass to keep them running through the runners. So that was neat to watch. Columbus is a great city with lots to do and the medal was very cool the medal.
Speaker 2:It was very cool. Over in sin city in las vegas, nevada, we had the dog days of summer 5k. Chris ran this race as well as sarah. Sarah started off, um, with a 0.6 mile dog parade. That's always fun, yeah, uh. Now this is the part I love.
Speaker 2:She got to borrow a friend's dog to participate so uh, all dogs got a bandana and a friend of hers, um, took over dog handling duty for the 5k. Uh, and she's blaming herself for her slow finish time on toby. Uh, the dog, not her friend. Uh, you know needing to have to, you know stop for nature and water breaks and not adjusting to the heat, so uh, but uh, sarah loved the opportunity to get to say hi to chris this race. I love it when rising runners get to meet each other.
Speaker 4:Yeah, me too. That's awesome. Yeah, I didn't hear from chris on this, but I'm willing to bet Woody and Jesse were there for this event.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the Beagles. Yep, let's go to St Louis where Katie did the Gateway Resilience Run and Ride. Now, a few weeks back, this part of the country was hit with some terrible tornadoes terrible tornadoes, but the amazing folks at Go St Louis, which is the organizer, got this event up and running in just nine days. Nearly 500 people registered. There was a one mile and a 5k option around the track at a local high school, as well as a 15 mile bike ride. They were able to raise nearly $19,000, all of it going towards tornado relief. So, katie, glad you got to do that. One, dan.
Speaker 4:The Chicago Half Marathon. The Bank of America Chicago Half Marathon unusually chilly, as expected for a race in this series course. Support was superb, lots of aid stations. He even had a friend that he met through the Run Disney community. Give him a hug and cheer him on as they. The friend was working at one of the aid stations about halfway through the race.
Speaker 4:He learned on this one he didn't like Morton gels. Okay, everybody's got their preferences. I like those, but you don't. You tried them. Doesn't work. What gets me? They were giving them away on the course. Wow, yeah, that's impressive. Those things are about five bucks a piece. Yeah, not, not cheap. Yeah, uh, let's see. Dan had a loose goal of around one hour 50, 50 minutes, ended up knocking him out at 149, 48 and a shiny new half marathon PR. Way to go, dan.
Speaker 4:I love the title of this one, the Deadwood Mickelson Trail Half Marathon, and it's run somewhere in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I don't know if Rocky Raccoon was there or not. Kayla was there, though. It's a point-to-point race on a rail trail, mostly downhill. It finishes in Deadwood, south Dakota, beautiful scenery in the Black Hills. Kayla had some great photos. 25th anniversary of the event had nearly 2,000 runners, pretty warm this year. She was lucky to run this race with a group of friends, had her daughter cheer her on at the finish line and her daughter even snuck onto the course to run a little bit at the end in jeans and Crocs, her the end in jeans and Crocs. Her daughter was in jeans and Crocs, not.
Speaker 2:Kayla, I was going to say yeah right Kayla good job. Now that the calendar has turned to June, it is Pride Month and we had a couple of Pride races here on the Race Report, our first one in our nation's capital, in the congressional cemetery the pride 5k. Megan ran that. She said it wasn't too spooky, uh, especially since there was a drag show at the finish line. Uh, she stayed within her goal pace and had an absolute blast. They run from a cemetery to a drag show a drag show only in, only in America.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's right. Just your normal Sunday afternoon 5K, right?
Speaker 2:And also our buddy Jimmy ran the Atlanta Pride 5K. He said it was a bit warm but he really enjoyed the race and he will definitely keep it on his annual list. So to all of our Rise and Runners who are part of the LGBTQI plus community, happy Pride everybody. To all of our rise and runners who are part of the LGBTQ I plus community, happy pride everybody.
Speaker 4:Let's wrap this one up in college Dale Tennessee, where there is in fact a little Debbie park, little Debbie the snack treats.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I, I'm. I'm really hoping that when you finish this report, that there is an abundance of snacks at the end.
Speaker 4:I don't know, we'll find out. Uh, let's see the little debbie, seven miler amanda did this one. Amanda says it's amazing what a different six months makes, because she did this, uh, same location, same course, six months ago and she shaved off almost a minute per mile. That's awesome, awesome, yeah, it's great. Doesn't mention snacks, greg, but says that she's more and more confident with every race that that marathon goal of hers is achievable. So good job, amanda. And with that we wrap up the race report for episode 193. All right, my friends, and if you run, you know you are our friend. That's a wrap for episode 193 of the Rise and Run podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. It's a Zoom week. See you on Thursday evening. Instructions for how to get in and join us are on the Facebook page. Stop by. If you haven't done it before, stop by. You'll get to meet and make new friends. It's a lot of fun. That'll wrap it up Training time. Get out there, have fun, be safe, kind of go easy in the heat Until we meet again. Happy running.
Speaker 2:The Rise and Run podcast discusses general information about Run Disney and is in no way affiliated with Run Disney or the Walt Disney Company. Any information or advice discussed on this podcast should not be considered medical advice and should always consult with your health care provider or event organizer Organizer.
