Rise and Run
Rise and Run
225: Walt Disney World 2026 Marathon Weekend Recap
The kind of weekend that turns runners into storytellers started with lines out the door and ended with smiles wider than Main Street. We dig into the real Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend: the Dopey merch experiment that strained patience, a 5K power outage that couldn’t dim the vibe, and shoes, shirts, and sizing choices that had everyone talking. Then we lace up for the races—Epcot-forward 10K joy, half marathon strategy you can actually use, and marathon Sunday’s heat that forced smart decisions and small, lifesaving hacks.
You’ll hear what it’s like to push an adaptive athlete down Main Street USA and orchestrate safe space for fist bumps, and how a community rallied to bring Myra back to the start line—twice. We trade the best on-course tactics for hot weather: drink one cup, pour one cup, stash a wet sponge, eat the banana, and when needed, reset your brain with a ride on Expedition Everest or a vending-machine Coke. We unpack the Blizzard Beach cut, how it reshaped pacing, and why embracing joy can be the difference between finishing and fading. And yes, we celebrate Brittany Charbonneau—dominant on the course, generous at the finish.
Beyond the miles, the Disney Springs meetup proves why this community keeps growing: hundreds of friends, homemade cookies, raffle surprises, and quiet moments of encouragement before the last big push. Medal Monday reflections bring practical park tips and a few cautionary notes about embroidery lines. Whether you ran 3.1 or 48.6, you’ll find yourself in these stories—costumes, castle photos, new marriages, and first-time Dopey's crossing the line with tears and laughter.
Press play for a full recap, hard-earned lessons, and the kind of heart that makes runDisney weekends unforgettable. If this episode lifted you, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review to help more runners find our crew.
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SPEAKER_04:Good morning, friends. I hope your long runs, your short runs, your known, your day runs, your long runs are fantastic. It's Michelle from Erie, and I um officially, just unofficially did a dead last start for Reef, but I start thought it started at 9.30 and it started at 9. So I know what it's like. I hope everyone has a great day. Happy running.
SPEAKER_11:Michelle from Erie, Pennsylvania. Thanks, Michelle. Michelle was she left us that a little while ago. And in the hubbub of the holidays and the recording schedules and all that, this one sat around. That was Michelle. Remember when she told us about her dead last start? Although she really didn't do it on purpose. Uh she thought the race started at 9:30 and it started at 9. She got there at 9.15. But it all worked out and it made for a good intro for us. Thank you, Michelle, and thank you, friends, for joining us here on episode 225 of the Rise and Run podcast, the Marathon Weekend Recap episode. I'm Bob and I am here with John. Hey, how are you doing? With Greg. Hey, hey, hey. And the with the newlywed Jacqueline Molina. More on that in a little bit. I did I pronounce your last name correctly, Jenny?
SPEAKER_03:Alina, yeah.
SPEAKER_11:Alina, that's good. Yeah, that's not too bad. Nobody gets my last name right, but you know what? I don't care. It's all good. I've learned, especially around Disney, my last name is from the Rise and Run Podcast. Oh, it's Bob from the Rise and Run Podcast. And that's fine with me. I'm very happy with that. This week, we spend most of the time this week. We had some guests join us so that we could recap all of the races from a wonderful marathon weekend. Gosh, we'll get to it. But man, it was it was just great. It was exciting. Uh, we've all just gotten home here recently and haven't really had a chance to decompress, but we're gonna be talking about it this week. We'll probably be talking about marathon weekend for the next two episodes also, but more on that later. No spotlight this week. We'll get back to the race report spotlight, probably in episode 226.
SPEAKER_03:If you enjoyed 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 their Run Disney journey. So please remember to follow us on Facebook at Rise and Run Podcast and Instagram at Rise and Run Pod. Check out our YouTube channel and visit our webpage, Rise and Run Podcast.com. If you have a question, comment, race report, or want to introduce an upcoming episode, please go ahead and call us at 727-266-2344 and leave us a recorded message.
SPEAKER_11:And we need intros, friends. So if you could go ahead and give us a call. And when I do this, I usually get seven or eight and we're backed up for two months, but we need intros.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. We also want to thank our Patreons who support help us keep the Rise and Run podcasting rising and running. If you'd like to join the Patreon team, please check us out at patreon.com/slash rise and run podcast. And we'd like to welcome our newest Patreon, Kelly G, who joined the plastic cheese level. And thank you, Kelly. Thanks, thanks, John.
SPEAKER_11:Jack, what's new in YouTube?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Um, if you guys are wondering if I recorded the marathon, of course I did, you guys, and is going to be going on to the Rise and Run uh YouTube channel and some exciting news uh because I am running the 5K and 10K in Disneyland, and this will be potentially the last time those races will happen for at least the next few years. For a while, yeah. Oh, yeah. I will be recording the expo, the 5K and 10K, so that whenever Disneyland does come back, we have some references of what to look forward to again in the future.
SPEAKER_11:All right. Sounds good, Jack. Thanks. I look forward to seeing you out there. I'll be out there. We Jack and I are forming a relay team. She's doing the 5K to 10K. I'm doing the half, so we'll have all the miles covered out there in California. And since we're talking about that, the half marathon in California is now just two weeks away. You're in training week 16. If you're doing a challenge, you've got a four-mile walk and a 12 and a half mile run walk. And before I continue, I want to take a moment. Meetup. Yes, there will be a meetup in California. I will put it on the Facebook group page here before, hopefully, before this episode airs. So it should be there if you're looking for it. Uh, great place for a meetup there. My our friend Alan says there may be a conflict at the picnic area. That the uh the legacy runners may also have something at the same time. But we'll see in the meantime, expect it to be 3 p.m. on Saturday in the picnic area, just outside. I always want to call it Magic Kingdom, but it is Disneyland as you look at it, the picnic area out there. Uh let us further Princess Weekend. We are now, this is hard to believe, six weeks away.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_11:Six weeks away from the Princess Expo. Gosh. Uh training week 12, two-mile walk, nine and a half mile run walk, and the last race of this Run Disney season, springtime surprise, 91 days away, 13 weeks, training week five, four miles on the training schedule. And I'm gonna hand it over to Greg in a second. He's got some dates, but we're only four weeks away from registering for wine and die next year. Because we got this calendar for next season's races. What does it look like, Greg?
SPEAKER_10:Well, actually, Bob, before we get to the calendar, there's one important thing we left out here in the top of the episode, and that is the Rise and Run podcast, is sponsored by our wonderful friends at Magic Bound Travel. And, you know, Bob, you just said that, you know, we're, you know, how many weeks away is it now from you know, 90 something days away from springtime surprise? We're now under 100 days away from the inaugural Rise and Run cruise. And folks, there is still time to join us on that sailing. But the reason why we wanted to bring it up this week is that if you do want to join us, well, we just got a message from Brad and Maggie during Marathon weekend that final payments for that cruise are coming up soon. That's occurring on February 4th of uh this year. So again, if you want to join us on Utopia of the Seas immediately following springtime surprise, uh, be sure to contact MagicBoundTravel.com for your free no obligation quote.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, well, it's it's funny, it's funny that I would forget. Greg, that's the that's the only thing I've forgotten all day. And you're all listening to that with a straight face. Good grief.
SPEAKER_10:But anywho, go go going back to the your original segue. Uh yes, we uh, of course, Run Disney loves doing this to us. I think it was the day after the Jeff Galloway uh episode dropped. Run Disney uh was gracious enough to release the register.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, it was the day after we recorded. Oh, they had to record. That's right. Yes, so it was actually before the episode dropped, yeah.
SPEAKER_10:Correct. Yeah, so we got the event calendar for the 2026-2027 season. In the event that you have not seen it yet, I will quickly run through the dates. As Bob alluded to, first up, because again, there is no Disneyland uh after um these next couple of weeks. So everything takes place in Walt Disney World. 2026 Wine and Dine Half Marathon weekend, even though that got teased a little bit earlier because of the whole coast to coast thing. That is occurring October 22nd through the 25th. Club Run Disney registration is on February 3rd. General registration opens on February 10th. Then next up is the 2027 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend that is occurring January 6th through the 10th in 2027. Club Run Disney registration is on March 10th, and general registration is on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th. Then we move to the Princess Half Marathon weekend that is occurring February 25th through March 1st, 2027. Uh Club Run Disney registration occurs May 26th and general registration on June 2nd. And then the in-person season wraps up with the 2027 Springtime Surprise Weekend, or as what we're dubbing it in the hopes of John's sake, the Star Wars-themed uh Springtime Surprise Weekend that is occurring April 15th through the 18th, and Club Run Disney registration is on June 30th, and general registration occurs on July 7th. Now, because Disneyland is on a hiatus, uh, they did make some adjustments to the virtual Run Disney events. Uh, they are still doing their generalized uh virtual running series that occurs over the summer. Uh, that goes on sale on April 7th. Then they're going to be doing a what they're calling the virtual spook tacular. Uh, so we will run that event in the month of October and 2026. That goes on sale on August 11th, and then they are bringing back the virtual 12Ks of Christmas, and that goes on sale October 6th of this year. Now, the one thing when it comes to registration, and and this will help us tie into the theme of this uh week's episode in terms of marathon weekend, is the one thing that I found really interesting is that Good Morning America, uh, the uh the morning news show associated with ABC News, and we all know Disney owns ABC, so I understand the synergy there. But they made an announcement, I believe it was I can't remember if it was the morning of the 10K or the morning of the 5K, but that starting with Wine and Dine registration, they are going to be opening more registration slots for the 5k for all of next season. That's exciting news, but I'll I'll throw it out for I guess a real brief discussion here with the gang. How do you think they're gonna manage this? That that those 5k events are crowded enough to begin with. How are they gonna fit even more people into the events?
SPEAKER_03:I haven't done enough for the Disney 5Ks to even realize um the size of it. I think I've only done like two at Disney World, maybe.
SPEAKER_10:I just think about how crowded those character lines are. And if you're gonna be adding even more registrations in there, I hopefully they add more characters or or or something like that. It's gonna be intriguing to see how they handle it.
SPEAKER_03:I bet you they just add an extra corral. Because how far do they go back? Do they go back to G or F?
SPEAKER_01:Usually the 5k is one less corral. But for Marathon Weekend, it was the same amount of corrals for all the races.
SPEAKER_03:So really, yeah. How long how long did it take for them to finish the like send-off? Was it still an hour?
SPEAKER_01:About an hour.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow, I don't know how they're gonna do that.
SPEAKER_01:Two two things I hope they do. That they hold some of those registrations for the the day of the event or like at the expo so that people like when oh, I brought my mother, my mother wants to do the 5K with me. They can possibly get bibs at the expo instead of having to go through that whole rigmaro of uh registration.
SPEAKER_11:John, I like that idea. That's a good thought, but I don't see that happening. I really don't. I know you have a day of race registration at Disney? Oh, I can't imagine that.
SPEAKER_01:They used to have it. Like at the expo, I've I've heard people think they they've got their registration at the expo for the for the races because stuff was available.
SPEAKER_11:Well, maybe I believe you. Uh it's before my time. And I've been around a long time.
SPEAKER_01:Going back to the race weekends, one of the one of the uh somebody said they saw the leaked they put the artwork out for White and Dine already. They saw what the what i it looks like a brown derby-ish theme to me, but um that's besides the point.
SPEAKER_10:Oh yes, it was in that email that they like the the like the post-marathon weekend email that went out. Yeah, I did see that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But someone said they saw the leaked artwork for marathon weekend. They're saying it's Oswald because it's the hundredth anniversary of Oswald, which would be great because that would bring us to Star Wars being 50th.
SPEAKER_10:Oh, okay. Yeah, I I did find it interesting. Uh, I think yeah, it was during the half marathon course that the last character stop that was uh you know back behind uh Guardians of the Galaxy was Oswald, and I I I can't remember the the the female character um in the Oswald cards, but but it that that was the first time I ever saw that character out on a Run Disney course. So uh so very, very interesting. And actually, didn't Oswald used to be the 10K uh character associated with it before they moved into shipping band.
SPEAKER_11:I couldn't tell you which ones, but yeah, he has. Yeah, he's been once or twice, yes.
SPEAKER_10:Okay. Interesting. We'll have to wait and see if that comes to fruition or not.
SPEAKER_11:Greg, in response to your original question, registration will be a little easier. And I just think the course is going to be more crowded. I just think that's the bottom line. I they're not gonna invent new space, they're not going to change where they start and stop. Uh it's just but and this, as usual, you know, my attitude for things, this doesn't bother me. It's going to be more crowded, it'll be slower, so what? It's uh it's a fun event, it's a Run Disney event, and whatever we decide to do, especially for Marathon weekend, there'll be more of us. There's another one. We got it, you know, we need to work on uh next year's 5k theme for marathon weekend. We we got a little tradition going here. Maybe it's maybe it's Oswald. I don't have any ideas right now. I can't.
SPEAKER_10:Well, the good news is is we should know something soon because if registration is in March, that means in theory, we should be getting themes for both Wine and Dine and Marathon Weekend, and within the next couple of weeks, which is mind-boggling to think about.
SPEAKER_11:But 61 days till we register for Marathon Weekend. 61 days from today. Be here before we know it. Wow.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, change of topic ahead.
SPEAKER_11:Lots of talk about race weekends, a lot of talk about a past week race weekend coming up, but big event in the Rise and Run family. I guess technically the Rise and Run family got a little bigger over this last week. Jack, tell us how the wedding went on the cruise. We want to hear about it. Jack and Greg, I want to hear from both of you guys how it went. I'm excited. And of course, congratulations, as we've said many times and mean it. We're very happy for you. Um, how's the marriage gone so far? It's been what, four days?
SPEAKER_03:It's been almost a week.
SPEAKER_11:Almost a week.
SPEAKER_03:Tomorrow will be a week, tomorrow Wednesday would be a week.
SPEAKER_11:Still together and all that. Everything's still there. Okay, good.
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's been almost 13. Well, this year marks our 13th year of when we first met.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, that's cool. That's good, yeah. That's cool. Of course, I'm teasing, of course, but that I didn't realize you knew they were that long. That's neat.
SPEAKER_03:That's good.
SPEAKER_11:Well, please tell us about it. I'll hush.
SPEAKER_03:No, you're good. Um, honestly, I've I've always wanted to do a Disney wedding, couldn't afford the one on land, so the the cruise seemed like it was a good option. And I'm glad we did it because it meant that we got to spend more time or more time than we would have for a single day with with everybody on the cruise. And um it just felt right. We met at Disney, so we we should celebrate at Disney. And um, we got married on the Disney Dream on um Wednesday, uh January 7th while everybody was at the expo. And uh we we had a wonderful officiant, Greg, uh, whom I loved the speech um that he did. Um I was so nervous because I just didn't want to mess up. I was like, I'm gonna mess up my words. I was doing my vows, and I I I had worked so hard on these vows, and my eyes were tearing up that I actually couldn't read some of what I wrote.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, golly.
SPEAKER_03:And um, but yeah, it it was so good. It feels so good to finally be married to my best friend.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, that's perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we've we've been dating for five years. Um and um I don't know, Greg, how did it go?
SPEAKER_10:Well, I mean, first and foremost, and and most importantly, uh, you look beautiful. I mean, you always look beautiful every single day, but you were extra uh extraordinarily beautiful that day.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, thank you.
SPEAKER_10:Uh I I will admit when it comes to public speaking and such like that, I really don't get nervous because I've been doing theater since I was a kid and like different leadership organizations. You know, I I've spoken in front of large groups before. So nerves to me weren't really much of a thing, but I'm not gonna lie, I got really nervous morning of like to the point where I woke up early as the ship was pulling into Nassau. I went out to deck four and uh I ran a 5k around the ship to just yeah, like you know, help calm my nerves. And um, you know, I thought maybe like a Mickey Waffle at Cabanas would help, and that really didn't do anything. The moment my my nerves finally calmed down is now you know, because I don't I didn't have an international data plan, I just had put my phone. On airplane mode. But for some reason, I was still getting random texts on the ships. Yeah. And I find this very appropriate from a Run Disney perspective. Literally five minutes before uh you walked down the aisle, I received a text message uh from Tony, aka Hollywood, and it was a photo of him with Bob from the expo. But what helped call my nerves is Tony took an old Run Disney race shirt and made it into a crop top. Uh-huh. And it was hysterical, and that like just helped wipe away any and all fears that I had. So like maybe that was a sign from from the Rise and Run gods that uh that every that everything was gonna be okay. But um, no, it it Jack, that this was an honor of a lifetime. I I I hope I achieved all my goals of making you both laugh and cry all at the same time. And and I gotta admit, I I don't know if you and David picked the the music choices uh that the penis played, um, you know, as you know, everyone was filtering in. Where I almost got emotional. Don't ask me why. Um, as the bridal party was coming in, uh, you guys picked the theme music from Sorn.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah. And I was like, oh my god, this is beautiful. And so I'm like, like, but like, okay, keep it together, you know. Um, but no, it was great. Um, you know, the little like reception that we had um, you know, in the club evolution, that was wonderful. Uh, you know, getting to meet your family was great. Um, I I hope you've used uh your Vix Fapo rub uh that you received uh from your brother-in-law. I I thought that was a uh I thought that was a hysterical moment. Uh but no, it was it was glorious all around. Thank you again for the invitation. Thank you for the honor of uh letting me marry you two. And um yeah, so any other Rise and Runners out there, if you whenever we have the first Rise and Run wedding, uh now you can at least go to Jack for a reference in terms of me being your officiant.
SPEAKER_03:It's the it's the new Patreon. Um Patreon level.
SPEAKER_10:Sign up for that. I will officiate any any uh any family ceremonies for like it.
SPEAKER_03:But Greg, do you do you know those the um Soren was always planned as one of the songs, but the two songs we weren't allowed to play um for the prelude was actually we instead of A Thousand Years, which is what it we ended up had using because it was one of Disney's songs that they had listed, um, we were actually gonna do Lord of the Rings uh concerning hobbits.
SPEAKER_10:Oh, I thought you were gonna say eye to I.
SPEAKER_03:No, I could have actually that would have been freaking funny. I could have found that music and they would have let me. Dang, I didn't I should have talked to you further about this.
SPEAKER_10:It's okay. It's your wedding, not mine.
SPEAKER_03:And then one of the other songs is while the bridal party was going out, it was supposed to be Welcome to Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_10:Um Yeah, I'm not sure they want universal music if you played on a Disney cruise ship.
SPEAKER_03:No, they said we could play it at the reception, but at that point, I was like, it doesn't make as much sense. Um but yeah, it was it was good old fun. And you know what? Disney just truly uh makes things magical because like throughout the cruise, like everybody kind of knew who we were even before the wedding because all the cast members were like, oh, oh, you're the big wedding. Yeah. Or like uh we would have our our crew stateroom twice they did where where they put swans with um flower petals in a shape of a rose. They gave us chocolate-covered strawberries for like three days straight, and then they gave us like a bottle of champagne on the day that we got married, and um the wedding coordinator checked in on us a few times, and it was really great. And like honestly, the the the cherry on top, like you said, is Greg. You don't know how special it felt to have somebody who we knew who we knew partake and marry us, so that felt very special. So again, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_11:Of course, very good, wonderful. So happy for for everyone involved. That's terrific.
SPEAKER_03:Can I add one more thing?
SPEAKER_11:Oh well, you wait a minute, you're the bride. You can kind of add whatever you want.
SPEAKER_03:Well, uh, I just want to say thank you to everybody who congratulated David and I over the weekend at Marathon Weekend. We had so many people come up to us. No. But thank you so much for that.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, the topic is about to change right now.
SPEAKER_11:Well, this was it. The big weekend. Marathon weekend at Walt Disney World. Oh gosh, it's a wonderful and exciting time. And this is the episode where we get to retell as much of it as we can remember, which in my case, I'm getting old. I it won't be long, but fortunately, fortunately, we have other friends here to help us with that, to aid my memory. And joining us tonight, we have Alyssa.
SPEAKER_06:Hi, I'm Alyssa from Columbus, Ohio, and I ran my first dopey.
SPEAKER_11:Nice. Congratulations, Melissa. What did you do?
SPEAKER_07:Hi, I'm Melissa. I'm from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and I ran my second dopey this year.
SPEAKER_11:There we go. And Sarah, tell us what you did.
SPEAKER_05:Hi, I'm Sarah. I'm from DeBerry, Florida, and I ran my first dopey.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So we have all the races covered. We have the dopey and the goofy challenge covered, and we have a couple first-time gofies. That's a combination of gofi and goofy and dopey. Okay. Uh, we have a couple first-time dopeies. I'd love, I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts on the dopeies. I was telling before we got on, John and I picked Alyssa and Sarah up in a bar. That's why we're on the that's why they're on the episode. We were at Jock Lindsay's on Friday. I had Friday off. They had finished a 10K. They were heading over to another Meet and Greet with another new friend that we will get to uh meet later. Uh in not in this podcast, but in a future episode. And uh we recruited them. Melissa was stuck because she made the mistake of calling Alan Young. Well, he was also at Jock Lindsay's with John and I. And uh she got recruited immediately. Melissa's got a great story I want to talk about. Melissa's the sh we'll talk about it in a little bit, it's kind of secret. Melissa's the one who got Myra into all of this. Whoa. Pretty cool, pretty cool. But let's do like we normally do, friends. Let's kick it off. Race week starts on Wednesday with the expo, and uh I'm gonna start with our first dopeies and just ask what were your impressions of the marathon weekend expo and the dopeies, Alyssa.
SPEAKER_06:Well, it wasn't my first expo, so I knew what to expect. Okay, but I was not expecting to wait in so many lines.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:For the virtual queue, I mean, we got in what, around 11, and then we waited in line to get into the merch. And then from there we got into the you know, where they checked us in for the dopey merch, and that was another probably about an hour and a half or so.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, yeah. Tell us about that. I I saw that line.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, so Sarah and I we're sisters, by the way. I don't know if you knew that.
SPEAKER_11:I did not know that.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we are sisters.
SPEAKER_11:Melissa, you're not related to Sarah and Melissa, are you?
SPEAKER_06:I am not sure. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_11:All right, nothing.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we got there around 11:30 or so, and then this was new for the expo this year to be able to check into the Dopey merch, which in theory sounded like a great idea. Um, but in actuality it was kind of um a lot.
SPEAKER_10:Although I I want to ask a question about this because you know, similar to how, like, for example, the way that the expo is laid out in that athletic center, you know, most of the time, like annual pass merchandise is in its like own separate area and there's like a table in front of it and such. Was that how Dopey was set up, or was it set up in like the traditional sense of just in those long rows of merch for each particular race weekend?
SPEAKER_05:So the annual pass holder little booth was eclipsed. They were right next to each other, but you would have totally missed the annual pass holder booth because the dopey was so large and just the line was so long. Um I think we waited about 30 minutes of us just, you know, passing off. Like I would wait and she would wait and go check out other stuff.
SPEAKER_06:We would tag in and out of line looking at you know, marathon weekend merch. Um, and we would come back. And at one point, my sister Sarah, she went over and just kind of peeked around the corner and we kind of realized that they had none of our sizes. A lot of sizes pretty early on, so they're out of small, medium, large sweatshirts. Melissa, you look like you got the sweatshirt.
SPEAKER_07:I have one, but I was lucky because Alan and Grace pre-ordered it for me. And then I also pre-ordered the dopey pins, so I didn't wait in line, and then when I saw how long that line was in the expo, I was because I was I was like, maybe I'll get a t-shirt or something, but I saw that line and I was like, no, thank you.
SPEAKER_11:That line was outrageous.
SPEAKER_07:Everyone said it everything was just like you guys said, was selling out the sizes were gone.
SPEAKER_03:That's so wild. Yeah, you think Disney would learn to be like, you know, there's a lot of Dopey people, let's go ahead and order a few more.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, it's not like they don't know what shirt sizes we have. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I know. And how many dopeies there are. And it wasn't a case of people buying everything up this time. It was interesting.
SPEAKER_03:So wait, you still had a okay. So the new rule was you had to provide your bib or show proof of running dopey, correct? Yeah, like your check-in pass.
SPEAKER_01:It was one skew only, right? Or was it once item only? Like that sweatshirt, I can only buy one sweatshirt. I couldn't buy a small, medium, large, extra large.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Right. What do you guys think about that? Did you appreciate that? Because I know the resellers were just so bad the years that I've done dope.
SPEAKER_07:I did appreciate it, but it didn't seem to help the like didn't help the situation. Yeah. Oh, really? Like I think it's a good idea. Yeah. They seem to stock it better.
SPEAKER_10:No, Sarah you bring you bring up a fabulous point in that, you know, in theory, they have record so that you know they can get the race shirts, uh, you know, that we'll we'll talk about in a little bit here. But like, you know, so based on the fact that they know how many dopey runners there are, they can come up with a breakdown in terms of sizes. Sure, great opportunity. And and I, you know, even though it might not have been executed to its fullest potential, I do give Run Disney credit for taking this step to make sure that more people have the opportunity to purchase this stuff. But I mean, I I think we're all in agreement here that they need to continue to be able to provide extra stock. I understand that you know, Run Disney is a business and they need to make money and you know there's overhead in terms of purchasing this stuff, but obviously, if it's that in demand, they know it's gonna go regardless of you know the sheer you know number that you know that they were purchased. Because then even you know, even if it is you know a little bit of a more extra quantity, there's still three other days to that expo. And then Jack, as you have shown to us in the past, there is cast connections. They do put this stuff in you know the outlets, you know, you know, a couple of days after the race weekend. So there's still an opportunity for them to get a profit margin on this stuff. So I think they just they need to continue to up their quantity on this stuff.
SPEAKER_01:And and some of us are superstitious that we would not buy it or touch it until we do it.
SPEAKER_10:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:A lot of people saying that this weekend that didn't want to pre-buy it until they was done, because same thing, they wanted to finish it first. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And the only other thing I have to add to it, and this is just coming off of so uh in college I used to study a paral merchandise in product development with minor marketing. And I wonder if it's a a supply versus demand kind of thing or the elastic elasticity of it, meaning that like they want more demand if they have fewer amount of you know, items available. It creates that demand for it, it makes that exclusivity. So I wonder if it's something like that to make people really try and go for it right away and sell it out faster. And I don't know why they would do that, but I feel like I can see Disney doing that.
SPEAKER_01:But let's let's go back to Brooks. Brooks, we thought they were gonna be, oh, we're gonna it's gonna sell out at the expo, and then boom, Monday morning they're dropping the shoe. No, they didn't do it this they didn't do it yet, I don't think, but Monday morning they're dropping the shoes on their website.
SPEAKER_11:I was gonna talk about the shoes. Anybody buy the shoes?
SPEAKER_07:I did. I got the ones, yeah. I really want the white, the like Run Disney ones, but I was like, I'll get the marathon weekend ones this time because I can't I know I won't be able to get them later, and hopefully at Disneyland I'll be able to get the Run Disney ones.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. I I re I regret not waiting until Disneyland to see what else might come out because I bought the Mickey shoes. I need the wide uh shoe, and of the four that they they offer four or five this time. Anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there was yeah, there's a the stitch, extra stitch, so that's why it was the fifth shoe.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, it was the fifth one. Um but two of them weren't available in wide, they were just available in the normal width.
SPEAKER_03:Was there a long line for Brooks at all?
SPEAKER_06:It wasn't too bad, it had its own section, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was freaking the try-on line wasn't as large as as past because I think people know from the last couple of weekends that you know these shoes are my size, so they're just getting the flyer, checking it off, and going right in to get their getting in the other big line to get into get their shoes.
SPEAKER_07:I just tried the same model on in the store before I flew down. So you're not so smart.
SPEAKER_11:Man, you're always thinking that's that's not fair.
SPEAKER_10:No, I mean talk about efficiency though. I mean, ever since the launch of Brooks starting this uh last year at Springtime Surprise, I mean, that has just been a flawless operation. So you know, really, you know, kudos to that partnership for for really knocking it out of the park. Um, but you know, good let's keep going with the Brooks conversation here. Obviously, the new shoe for this week. I mean, yes, there were several new shoes. There was you know the marathon weekend shoe and the new Mickey shoe. Right. But I think that the talk of the town, did anybody buy the Chip and Dale shoe?
SPEAKER_14:No, no.
SPEAKER_10:Our friend Tom Stokes did. Oh, he did, okay. What I love is, and and again, uh I'm gonna give my flowers here to Brooks. I love the aesthetic approach that they took to this for making the tongue and a little bit of it on the side fuzzy for the chipmunks. I thought that was an awesome, awesome design choice.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, that's how I I saw Tom on uh I saw Tom on Monday. And he was wearing his, and that's how I recognized him from the fur around his feet. The only thing I'd say about Brooks and and God bless him for having the sizes, but took a long time to find a pair of 15s. But they did. They found them. So I'm I'm grateful that they uh they stocked them and found them. My you know, I'm gonna expo in general. I got there at 10 o'clock, which is expo opening time. And a little trick I learned from my friend Stephanie is I head over to the vendor area first, because it is not crowded at 10 a.m. When you get there, it doesn't take long for it to get crowded. So I got a chance to talk with Mr. Galloway for a little bit, uh, say hi to Coach Twiggs, and I waited a little while. I I I probably went looking to see where Becky was, and I found her, and then I headed over to pick up my bib. It's the longest line. I've I've been doing this for ten years. It is the longest line. It wrapped around the baseball stadium. You know how you normally go into the baseball stadium and the line comes to your right? Why? You go in, you turn left, you go all the way out to left field, and that's where the line started. Went all the way around the ballpark, then it weaved around. It was long. The only thing the saving grace, it w maybe 30 minutes. Because the saving grace was you know how when you get inside and and you're going around the building inside, and you go up, you turn you turn right, then you go in. There's actually a gym, and there was a labyrinth line in there, usually. That wasn't there. You just went straight across. So that made up for a bunch of it, but yeah, it was a good, it was a good 30 minutes. It was impress it was impressive. What time did you get there, John?
SPEAKER_01:I got there right after right after you, Bob. Uh I parked about four cars away from you. And uh, yep, yep. Somebody goes, Bob goes, we're here. I go, yes, I know. I took a picture of a selfie with uh with your car. That was right next to it.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. My car is easy, it's easy to spot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Then then I did the opposite, Bob. I went straight to the because my queue time said I got this many notes. So I said, Um, let me go to uh the the the the line for my bibs. I went to the line for my bibs and yeah, they they did snake us through the baseball field, but we just went into the field, uh, around the concourse, out and back into the other building, and the line moved consistently the whole way through. So it wasn't that that bad. And then we're walking out, we're like, oh, we got like 10 minutes per se for RQ to get called. So I don't want to take that big line all the way through the vendor expo to get back out. So we said, Oh, you could go upstairs and come, you know, c go upstairs. I said, okay. I went up there because we were like 33, they weren't on 31, and I waited 45 minutes before my number got called. I thought there was a problem with the my Wi-Fi or something because it it never changed. The girl goes, No, this is the problem. There's too many people in the building.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, the dopey line was backing everything up.
SPEAKER_01:The boat the dopey line was back because no one was leaving the building. So the dopey line was backing everybody up. Then finally, boom, you know, it did hit after like 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_03:So well, that or you left your airplane load on. I've done that. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01:Pretty much just you, Jack. Pretty much. The first and next, we did the same thing. They said, I've been sitting here, same thing. I got 34. I go, okay, it's not me. I I just want to check maybe Wi-Fi went down or something like this. Because you know, when you're a large area, sometimes your Wi-Fi gets uh, you know, throttled or you don't get the good connection. But nope, that was it.
SPEAKER_10:So you know, I'm gonna be interested to see how they follow up to you know, or whether they keep this process or adjust it, because in my opinion, I don't see them employing this for the rest of the season because I mean, really, when it comes to merchandise that is super, super sought after, it is the dopey merchandise. I'm sure that you know you have the fairy tale challenge and you know the springtime challenge, but you know, the I don't want to say just it's a run-of-the-mill challenge, you know, but you know, it it doesn't it doesn't hold a candle to what Dopey is. So I'll be interested to follow the you know the rest of the season to see if they do bring this back and maybe try the work that kinks out with a smaller race weekend as opposed to dopey, so that when we hit marathon weekend 2027, it's a little bit more efficient.
SPEAKER_03:And and you know, Disney, if you're listening, you know, people love 48.6 miles. You might as well just make it one race as well as an option, and then you can have your first ultra.
SPEAKER_01:Imagine the merch you can sell. Jack, jack, jack, jack, slow down.
SPEAKER_11:Let's uh let's uh let's edit that part out.
SPEAKER_01:So going back to the dopey merch, the dopey merch was there. The table next to it was the annual pass holder merch, which also usually it's about four four tables wide. It was probably just two this year. And then I saw out if this was new, they had on the other side of the dopey merch the club run Disney merch table, which I think is new this year also.
SPEAKER_10:Now, in in terms of the the checkout, and I'll address this to our three special guests for this week, is in terms of like having to show your check and pass or show your bib, was there a separate checkout area for just the Dopey merch, or did did you just have to like you were you know, you got your stuff and then you moved on to the the checkout area? How how was that all policed?
SPEAKER_06:I actually don't know because we gave up.
SPEAKER_05:I I snuck around the table and took a peek at um what because you couldn't see the merch when you got in the line. You couldn't see what was there. You couldn't see what was there. So I snuck around it'll get better. Yeah, and we weren't it will get better.
SPEAKER_11:I mean Ron Disney's done this before. They try something new, it gets better. I can think of several examples.
SPEAKER_07:They made their own room or something for dopey or something, like that gym. Perhaps that gym was like the dopey, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Did people like hoard stuff to the side and then have it in like heaps and piles next to them, deciding what they were gonna get?
SPEAKER_01:You could I think Jack, I think you could only get one cue, one skew. So you could oh so if you couldn't grab like like like in past years at the dopey merch.
SPEAKER_06:I don't think you could have done that. No.
SPEAKER_10:Look now staying with the merchandise, though. One thing I wanted to chat about, but before I give my thoughts and feelings, I'll I'll open this up to the floor. I know we've spent a lot of time talking about just dopey specifically because this was such a huge change for this year. What did everyone else think of the remaining merch for the other races? Because I I have some opinions, but I I I want to I want to get our our guests' uh feelings on this as well.
SPEAKER_06:It was okay. Yeah, my line.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it was okay. I was really glad that there was no lounge fly or lug bags. I really want that. I really wanted one, and there was none. I at least I didn't see any, but there were so many people in there when I was in there. I was kind of at the point I just wanted out because like John was saying, it took so long to get in, even with like I think I was group 54, but it it I didn't get in till like 1215. It was so it took so long. Yeah, right. Close to one or something, like it was forever, and so I was exhausted by the time I got in. But I was like, meh, this like it was it was okay. I didn't really buy much like I usually do. Yeah, I think I bought a jacket and and the mug.
SPEAKER_11:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I got the shoe ornament and the quarter zip. But I had pre-ordered the jacket and the pins.
SPEAKER_06:So I did think that they did a better job of stocking like the jacket.
SPEAKER_11:I think they are in general doing that. Yeah. Um, what I got? I got I I got shoes. I already talked about that. And I got a uh I got a metal rack, which I thought was a pretty good value. Uh$30. I got my annual pass holder discount. The other thing was interesting is that the Run Disney merchandise, the generic Run Disney merchandise, which I kind of like.
SPEAKER_07:I liked it, yeah.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. It was also on sale over in Disney Springs. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But they had a little different items, I think, though, at Disney Springs.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, it was nice. It was nice. There's there's a lot of things they like. They had um, you know, those it's not nylon, but they had those synthetic sweatpants, which I kind of like.
SPEAKER_01:Rayon, isn't it like rayon? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. But I just think that's a good one. The old 90s starter jackets.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. I get to wear them like five days a year here because I just don't, you know. I mean, seriously, you know, Becky talks, oh, they're great. They are nice.
SPEAKER_10:They are in terms of the merchandise for me. I think this is the first Run Disney Expo where I walked in there and I walked out without purchasing a single thing. I mean, clearly, I everyone knows my feelings about the artwork for the half marathon. So I I wasn't in the market for getting you know just a half marathon shirt. But, you know, usually typically what I like to do is I always at least like to get like the generalized weekend merch, just you know, just to commemorate the year or whatever. And so I got over to that section and I see you know, and I I don't need a spirit jersey. It looked nice, but I I don't need it. So I was just looking for like the running shirt, and I looked at it, and my gut reaction was this is it. Like it literally was like Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend with an open book, and I'm like, there's no Mickey on this thing, like there, you know, and then I looked at and then I saw, oh well, here's a different um shirt that had like the main logo with all the characters on it. I'm like, that's nice, and all of a sudden I picked it up off the rack, realizing that it was a women's cut. So I was like, okay, so I'm like, let me look at this this really plain Jane shirt, and I'm like, I'm not spending$45 on something that's got the most uninspired artwork that I have probably ever seen on Run Disney merch. So I put that back. I almost bought the Melissa, I think you were talking about the the quarter zip, the the white one. I I I thought that was nice, but I didn't love it enough to be able to pull the trigger on it. And and the the funny part that I found after walking through the merch ex uh expo was that I remember when they did the preview uh social media reel, and um you know, the cast member who's in in charge of the merchandise was talking about we've received you know, we we took feedback from runners about not have not having things be like so like loud and and crazy, like a you know, more minimalistic approach. And I was like, where are you getting that feedback from? Because to me, that is what what you decided on was the complete opposite of you know, maybe some other stuff in the past. Like, you know, I'm just thinking of like other like I'm thinking like my springtime surprise shirt from this past year. Like it was really simple, it just you know just had the logo, it you know, it had the you know the characters that were featured for the weekend, it it had that cool like comic book print on the back. Like it wasn't loud in your face, but it pun intended here had more character than because they actually had them on there. So whatever feedback they thought that they were they they were trying to address, they they definitely missed the mark on that, uh, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_03:And and I agree with that. And uh I I got my magnet and my ornament, that's it. But when you look at everything in what you're saying, Greg, is like there is a difference between going from 100, they went down to almost zero. Like there's nothing super special for me to want to spend$100, a$50 or something like that on something so expensive if it's just gonna be plain Jane. And that's why I missed the days when Champion was there and there's such variety, and they had such a good job. And I don't know why they changed what their methods were, because I knew people liked it, people loved it, and it was different, and it wasn't super crazy stuff that was quote unquote loud, but it also wasn't super crazy, super simple stuff either. There was a method of the city.
SPEAKER_10:I have a segue for you right now. Let's talk about loud stuff and let's talk about the race shirts that were given to us in the year because look at you. Holy cow! What was that?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know, man. I don't I don't wear the long sleeve ones anymore.
SPEAKER_10:Like, like John, uh I I'm looking at at your your bubble right here. You're wearing the marathon shirt. None of the colors of the marathon logo, there's no teal in that logo. Why is it on a teal shirt?
SPEAKER_01:I that was my same comment, too. I mean, okay, I could I can get this, right? It's okay. The dopey shirt, I'm like, like, when is Dopey brown? I'm like, or is that it's like a brown color, right? Is that like the the uh minecart? I don't know. I don't know how they got that color scheme together. They didn't seem right. I mean, I don't like this big uh it's like something I got at the mall back decal. I got at the mall, the guy ironed down with the press thing.
SPEAKER_11:It does, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:A hunk of plastic.
SPEAKER_11:I wore that a bit of that, it's it's got that feel.
SPEAKER_05:I kept feeling like I had my bib on all day. Like wearing the biblical.
SPEAKER_10:Oh, that's that's a great analysis, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's actually the best way I've ever heard it.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, yeah. I mean, and they seem to be going. I I can't remember the um the wine and dine shirts off the top of my head. But I mean, I I feel like this, like actually, I think it it started since the the collaboration with Brooks with the race shirts. Right, you know, in terms of springtime surprise. I mean, to me, like I I wear my uh my Hercules 10K shirt a lot. Like that one I didn't feel like was too intrusive, but like the Groot one and uh the Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, like those were just really big. So like let's take like let's take a happy medium of tone down the race shirts, but the merch that we have to buy, let's up the ante on those and find find some happy medium there.
SPEAKER_07:Like the local, they're like so high up or something, like they look funny, you know.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, change of topic ahead.
SPEAKER_11:Let's leave the expo behind. Okay, let's because we got four races and a meetup to chat about. And let's get out there Thursday morning for the 5K. All right, who dressed like an alien for the 5K?
SPEAKER_02:I did.
SPEAKER_11:Melissa did. Oh John didn't. I didn't. John was the pizza delivery boy.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that was awesome. I loved that though. And the pizza, John that was great.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, I didn't. I did Buzz Lightyear.
SPEAKER_14:Yeah, that was awesome. It was fun, it was so cute.
SPEAKER_11:It was fun. Um Alyssa and Sarah, how'd you do with the 5k?
SPEAKER_06:We did great. We were uh the grannies from Bluey.
SPEAKER_11:Okay, there you go.
SPEAKER_06:I slipped on my beans. Yeah, I had a can of beans.
SPEAKER_10:Love it. And you weren't there, Greg. Nice parking spot, Rita.
SPEAKER_11:As is normal, I got early to the uh staging area, first bus or early second bus. And I always do this. I get over in our meetup area, the area we always get together, and there's nobody else there, and I'm going, oh gee, it's gonna be lonely this year. Yeah. Come on, Eeyore. It's gonna be okay. Next thing I know, uh, there's people all over the place. There's alien shirts all over the place. We got together for a photo right around 4 a.m. as close as we could. We had a fella who we recruited by handing him a camera. He was in the uh bleachers, and we figured, okay, if you get up on the top of the bleachers and turn around and shoot behind us, we can get a photo there. Hey, buddy, and we no problem. And in fact, uh we had to ask him to do it twice because uh somebody wasn't looking the right direction. I don't was I don't think it was me, but it might have been John. I don't know. Somebody wasn't looking the right way. Yeah, it could have been me. But we had a it wasn't as many as last year, but to be honest, we didn't push it as hard as last year with the Dalmatians. Uh, but we had plenty. Uh I'll I'll talk a bit more about it. Um it was fun. We had something new this year. We had a power failure.
SPEAKER_06:What? Yeah.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. Yeah. The uh somewhere I I went on I went out in group G. I always do I do that for the 5Ks at Marathon Weekend so that as many of the characters can go together, and we probably had about 50 people together go out of Corral G. But I'm trying to remember, and I would say somewhere around Corral C, all the power went out to the stage and the lights and not not the lights at Disney, the those portable lights, they have their own generators, so they stayed on, but the TVs went off. Uh Carissa and John had no microphones. I think they were trying to yell, I'm pretty sure. Uh 321 Go was uh hard to hear. But did you all experience that? Were you were you all still around when the power went out?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we um had lined up to the right side hoping we would get some camera time because we thought our costumes were cute. Um, and right as we got to that spot, everything went down. So we're oh okay.
SPEAKER_11:So it's it was your fault. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:You tripped on the plug, right?
SPEAKER_11:That was it was a great okay.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we were E. So we're probably about the second one. Oh, you were E.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, it went out at E. I thought it went out before that. Okay, but you would know.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I was I went out to C and it was uh so it was fine at C.
SPEAKER_11:Okay, well, I'm sure they're I'm sure uh listening. I don't know which yeah, which part is C in that. I'm sure they're right. Uh being back in G, it's kind of hard to tell. It's just somebody in front of it. I thought it was C, but uh I'm sure you're correct. Um it did come back. Oh it did back on. Yeah, it did. Uh and it came back kind of, it came back in stages, no pun intended, because the first things I saw were the light on the stage, and then the audio came back, and as we were lining up, and not only were we in G, we were towards the back of G. Um John and Carissa had their microphones, Riley had his microphone, and while the TVs came back on, they didn't bring the video cameras back out because there was nobody there to see it. Um John actually John started talking to me from the stage. You guys you guys all missed that, didn't you? So I can I can tell you what wonderful things he said. Well he actually was very nice. We had talked about him doing the uh well, I saw John on 4th of July here in uh St. Petersburg and talked to him for a while. He was getting ready for his half marathon in Memphis, and I talked to him about how important training was and all that, and he got on the stage and he said he wanted to thank me because I told him that and he did it and he was successful. And I talked to him later on and he said, I'm serious, Bob. I was just gonna blow some of the stuff off and kind of half-heartedly go at it and said, But you convinced me and it worked. So I was happy to hear that. Didn't he say something about like scotch and pizza or something? Yep, yep. I wasn't gonna do the training. I figured I I I'm talking to my buddy Bob. I figured he'd just tell me, ah, the heck with that, John, just uh have some scotch and pizza and show up and it'll be nothing to it. But I didn't. I told him, just like I tell you guys, do the training.
SPEAKER_01:So I was the pizza delivery guy for the 5K. And I decided I brought a pizza box from home and I said, let's get everyone that was around this weekend to sign it as a good souvenir for someone. So I'm running, I'm on the course, I'm like, hey, how you doing? Boom. Sign my pizza box, boom, boom, boom. And it was great. You know, it got soggy toward the end of the race because it was very humid out. But it was fun, and I guess people like like the idea. I mean, it was it was uh that's like a spur-of-the-moment type thing to do. Said, and uh it was fun. I mean, it was interesting. I know I I got a lot of signatures on it, and I think uh people really thought it was a cool idea. So hopefully I can try to do something like that with a propaganda.
SPEAKER_11:And it it showed back up at the uh meetup, which we'll talk about in a minute, but we had somebody we had a very excited alien at the 5k. Melissa, tell us about that.
SPEAKER_07:So we got to have Myra on the course with us, and it was so much fun, it was so exciting. She was like a she's a celebrity. Everybody see her on the course, and then they'd take a double take. Myra! And it was amazing. And she was having so much fun, like dancing through every photo. I don't think I've ever seen anyone have so much fun on the course, and just like giving all of her energy to everybody around her. It was so joyous, it was so magical, it was so exciting and so fun. And her light up shoes, like everything she brought with her to the 5k, and it was it was the best, it was awesome.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, if you wanted to find our group, you looked up and you could see me with my purple head, my buzz light, your purple head, or you look down, you could see Myra's light up shoes. But Myra did how did Myra get into the 5k?
SPEAKER_07:So you did it, Melissa. Yeah, I know. Um so that was the I think the Best Christmas gift that you rise and run gave us. So you I know it's not, it was you guys that did it.
SPEAKER_11:But well, it was one hectic morning, I'll tell you that.
SPEAKER_07:It was crazy, and I know you're recording, and I was bugging you, and I was like, There's gotta be a way that we can have Myra with us. Like, this just doesn't seem real. It's not marathon, it's not a weekend without her. And then um, I just put the question out on Rise and Run, and within seconds, Andrea had sent me a message like helping, finding Bibbs. We we found Bibbs, and then Myra was in Puerto Rico with her family for Christmas. I'm like calling her on her, like I like looked up her number on Facebook and I'm like calling her, asking her for information so we could get her registered. It was stressful, just like trying to get it. Oh, yeah. We're like, oh, we need it like now, now, now and then we got it in and and Rise and Run, thank you guys so much. It was the it was it was like opening the best Christmas gift. It was so exciting to be.
SPEAKER_11:It was a very hectic, I would say, 90 minutes or so where we're trying to find a bib, and then yeah. But I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we were able to do it. And it I'm glad you came up with it, and then you got her into the 10K too.
SPEAKER_07:Now I I backed out after that, but so after all that was done, um another Ryzen run friend sent me a private message. He doesn't want to to be named, so he doesn't? Okay, okay. I won't name him. Um he said, if you can find a 10K bib, I would like to get her in. I I would like her to do the 10K, like just let's do it. And so Andrea at the same time was like, I have a 10K bib. Do you want it? Do you want it? And I was like, Oh my gosh, I guess. And so we took it, and our friend just I can't believe it. He gave me his credit card information because he was at work to to to get it, and I got it. And then within half an hour, I was trying, I was going to put out the fundraising thing because I knew that we would fulfill it anyways. And he just said, nope, this is this is the Christmas gift that what a great cause. Um, I want to do this. And it was like it was for the teacher. I can't remember the exact charity.
SPEAKER_11:I don't I don't remember either one of the car uh charities we ended up with, but yeah, the second one was like for like a tea for teachers.
SPEAKER_07:I was a teacher, it kind of ended up like it was perfect, and then he just he paid the whole. I am still I can't I still can't believe it. Like I could not believe it happened.
SPEAKER_11:Well, he he was ready to pay for the 5k also, but I told him we could take care of it. Um yes, but a sincere look. I mean, it was fun, and and myra loved it, and it was fun for everybody involved. But a sincere thanks to Melissa because you were the moving force behind it. To Andrea, who I hope listens, because she was she she represents the Parkinson's Foundation. They didn't have bibs, so she had to uh approach other people who she knew and put us in contact with them. So that was a lot of work, but it was great. It was great, it was fun having Myra there. I'm glad it all worked out. Uh my only last thoughts on the 5K. We were in the back most of the time walking them. The group of aliens I was with were walking. We got to about just a little shy of two miles, and Buzz Lightyear was there for the photos. The line was 45 minutes long. So I there was a group of aliens about halfway into the line. I got in with them, took a picture, and then waited for another group of aliens who were next to the last, took a picture with them, and when we left, the golf carts were behind us. They were taking the water stands down. I mean, but there was no threat to take us off the course, it was no balloon lady type activity or anything. We just ended up walking through uh uh Epcot uh all on our own. It was fun. All credit to Run Disney on this one because as we went by and we truly were the last people, every water station was still there. Uh Disney cast members, kudos. They were out there cheering us, knuckleheads on, and we walked across the line arm in arm. There's about 15 of us. There's a photo on Facebook, you can see it. It was fun.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, the topic is about to change right now.
SPEAKER_11:All right, now the Rise and Run crew took a day off here for the 10K. So, Alyssa, Sarah, Melissa, you'll have to tell us all about it because as you know, I I was spending the day at a bar.
SPEAKER_07:Well, the 10K was another Myra race day, and everybody was so excited. And the funny thing is, is Rise and Run has made that spot by the bleachers its home, and it didn't matter. Like we all congregated there anyways, and Myra was there, and we had a blast before the race. She was like just getting everybody's energy up. I think she was a bit nervous because she had not done a 10K before.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um the power issues were fixed for the 10K. But I loved I loved the course. I thought it was so fun. It was this like through so much parks, and there was the characters. I don't know. I I I thought it was a great course. I thought it was really fun.
SPEAKER_01:I had I had a great time. What did you guys dress as? I mean, that did you guys dress up?
SPEAKER_06:Uh my Sarah and I were we were Chippendale Rescue Rangers. Aww.
SPEAKER_05:Cool. I thought I had the better, better deal on that costume because I got a cool bomber jacket and the Indiana Jones hat with the ears attached to it. Nice.
SPEAKER_06:So yeah, it was shirk-aligned, mind you.
SPEAKER_11:Oh golly.
SPEAKER_06:Very humid, hot morning.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, a typical Florida garment. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I was basing it on last year's temperatures.
SPEAKER_10:So you know, that's one thing that I just realized is that, you know, based on the whole idea of like the various themes of books and stories, appropriate that, you know, Chippendale, again, I I know they've been trying to get them into the 10K these last couple of years, but why, because they were mystery novels, why they didn't make them Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers in terms of the artwork as opposed to just regular Chip and Dale.
SPEAKER_06:That's what I thought. And also, I we learned that the only song that is Chip and Dale is Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers.
SPEAKER_10:Interesting. I never really thought of that. Okay, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_06:Time didn't know that. We never escaped that song. It was much like Olaf at the Wine and Dine 10K.
SPEAKER_10:And and this was the same course as the the new course that debuted at Wine and Dine, correct?
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it was just Epcot.
SPEAKER_10:And uh I mean I I've been hearing rave reviews about that course, the fact that it's you know that it's less highway and in theory more parks. So I'm glad to see that it's still it's still getting um positive reviews. So hopefully they keep that one for sure.
SPEAKER_05:I thought it was fun, and there's good area for spectation.
SPEAKER_11:So if that's if that's not a word, it should be. Okay. Spectation. I like it. Jack Jack will use it next uh race weekend. It's a good word. Um so 10k was fun, that's good. And then uh you had the rest of the day off. I know where Alyssa I know where Alyssa and Sarah went.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, yeah. Before that, we rope dropped Epcot and did Guardians.
SPEAKER_01:Love that as Chippendale. You stayed stayed there until it opened, or you yeah, makes sense.
SPEAKER_10:Just out of curiosity, how how how long of a wait is it if you do decide to rope drop Guardians?
SPEAKER_06:I don't think we waited more than 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_10:Oh, it's not terrible.
SPEAKER_06:They let us right into the park basically, and then we waited at the most of that was yeah, because we had to wait for them to open the ride.
SPEAKER_05:So we were there at um early entry, and then we waited what the the 15-20 minutes just to get up to that area and then another 15 minutes for them to open the ride. So okay.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:I recommend it. It was a good time.
SPEAKER_11:Sounds like you had fun.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_11:Melissa, Melissa, anything special about the 10K?
SPEAKER_07:The 10K? I I just really liked the course. I thought the weather was like still good, like pretty good. It wasn't crazy hot yet. Um I thought it was solid, it was good. I went to Animal Kingdom after and rode dinosaur and thought of you, Jack. And my two movies are also their favorite ride. And saw the new Zootopia show, which I thought was pretty cute. I don't think it was as good as Bug The Bugs one, but it was still cute.
SPEAKER_03:I agree. I agree.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, change of topic ahead.
SPEAKER_11:We'll move on from there. We'll move on to the half. Uh now Greg's back for the half. That's cool. John, what were you doing on the half?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I did what you did.
SPEAKER_11:All right, it's it's an inside joke, okay? So John and I were together. John and I were together.
SPEAKER_01:We decided to be. We decided, you know what? Enough sleeping in. We got to get up early. Yeah, we did. Yeah. We got to get up early to see you guys.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:That was so nice. I was shocked to see you. I was like, why are you guys sleeping? You're crazy. Thank you. That was so nice anymore.
SPEAKER_11:Our family was up, so we got up. Not my immediate family, she was still in bed, but we were out on Main Street. I had never done that. I've I had never gone on the Main Street to cheer. What'd you think of it, John?
SPEAKER_01:I I think it's great. I mean, the watching the emotion of people running down Main Street on the other end of it, right? Yeah, you know how your emotion is going down, but watching people coming down, you know, that look they they're they're they're coming through, they're seeing the castle, they're the energy is was great the whole time. I think it's it's a fun thing. Something that if you don't do, if you're doing a race weekend, that's something you should try. Cheering on mainstream.
SPEAKER_11:The ear-to-ear grins. Now, Greg, I know where you were. How did it work out, Greg? I know what you did on the half, but tell us about it.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, so I I really didn't have any plan going into this race. I mean, you know, I've am very blessed to have made such wonderful friendships and relationships through this podcast. And, you know, I I have had the opportunity to run with so many friends, and you know, the friends that I have run with in the past, a majority of them were doing dopey. And I knew that I really wanted to run some of this race, and I knew that that wasn't the smartest thing for them because you know, the number of times we have talked to Jeff over and over on this podcast and at the expo, you know, walk as much of the half marathon as possible. So I I wasn't looking to put any of their races uh into jeopardy. Right. So I came up with this idea actually when I was cheering at the Marine Corps Marathon uh this past October when I was out there with uh Michael from the Will Run for podcast. And in all the spots, I was just so happy to see how many duo chair athletes there were, especially in the Ainsley's Angels uh community. And that is an organization that I have the utmost respect for. I had the opportunity to participate in two Ainsley's Angels races. I got to push my goddaughter uh a couple of years ago uh in a race, and I really, really missed doing that. And Marine Corps reminded me uh how much I missed doing that. So all of a sudden I was like, you know what? I'm gonna send a message to our buddy Kim and Woody to see what they were planning on doing this marathon weekend because I I know in the the the past couple of years, you know, through you, Bob, you know, they've done dopey, and I think that's you know an incredible feat. So I reached out to Kim and she got back to me right away, and she's like, actually, we're just like you. We're just doing the half marathon, but it's it's just the two of us. I don't have any help. And I was like, perfect. I was like, you let you know, you let me know what I need to do to be able to help you out. And she's like, Well, we'll try to sneak you into AWD. And I was like, Yeah, I don't know how comfortable I feel doing that because number one, literally, yeah. Yeah, because I mean, I I I didn't, you know, I didn't want to put them into a compromising position. Not to mention, I was wearing a rise and run shirt and having that plastered over my chest and trying to do something like that. I just didn't feel comfortable doing that. So what I decided to do in terms of my game plan was, and I was like, this will be a good test to see how my new paces are working out. And I I send a message to Kim once I had gotten my bib, uh, to say, hey, I got Corral D. Uh, I know you're most likely gonna be going out of B. I'm gonna catch you, and then when I catch you, then I will do whatever you need me to do. But I guess apparently this race weekend there was a slight change, and a lot of the AWD athletes went out of C this time as opposed to B. Uh, at least at least that's what Kim told me. Uh so I, you know, so I didn't have as much catching up to do as I thought, but I did end up catching them just after the 5k mark, uh, right before we got to the Polynesian and the Grand Floridian. Now, leading up to that moment, though, I almost didn't catch them, and that is because I almost took a major spill in this race. Oh uh, there was it it I didn't pull a jack. You know, it wasn't one of the um it wasn't one of the like the reflectors in the road. It was just it was in that stretch leading up to the construction before before the Polynesian, where they're doing all of that road work on Floridian Way, and my foot caught the Macadam where they had laid new pavement, but there was still old pavement there. And all of a sudden I hit that, and then I just lost my balance, and I probably did a funny awkward dance for about 20 steps. Apparently, there were about 15 people behind me that were holding their breath the entire time, and I was able to catch myself. I like gently put my hand uh in on a woman's back that was in front of me, and thankfully I never went down, she never went down. I profusely apologized to her and anyone else that was with me in the area. But I was like, if I would have gone down, who knows what the rest of my race would have looked like. So I was very, very fortunate in front. Yeah. Again, caught Kim and Woody, you know like I said, before the Polynesian, and then I was looking forward to this because the this is a joke um that I have going with Woody is um if there are three things that I know Woody loves, uh it's he loves fist bumps, he loves his fireball, and most importantly, he loves Penn State University. And being a temple alumni uh myself, uh I mean, not to say that there is a rivalry because I mean Penn State football and temple football are in two completely different echelons. But based on the fact that the season that Penn State had and the whole James Franklin thing, I have been looking forward all year to giving Woody crap about Penn State, going from the number two team in the nation to the whole situation that they were put through. So the moment I got up to Woody, I was like, Bud, I'm I'm really looking forward to uh doing this race with you. But I gotta ask, what's going on with Penn State? So, yeah, so after I I I gave Woody crap about that, uh, you know, then I was just I was chatting with Kim and I was like, okay, you tell me what is the the best process here. You know, do you want to run? Are you just walking this? And she's like, Greg, we're just gonna be walking a majority of this. So I said, that's perfect. Uh, you know, we we took turns. You know, Bob, I was thinking of you. I offered to take any and all hill duty, and I I must say, pushing for 10 miles actually seemed a little bit easier than I thought. Because I mean, Woody is a solid guy. I mean, he is a grown man, and based on you know your experiences, you know, I was fully expecting like you know, really having to you know have strong arms and a strong back. And I was I was floored by how light I thought the whole thing was.
SPEAKER_11:Yes, push is relatively easy. Yeah, Woody's 6'5, about about 200 pounds.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, but I mean, he the whole time, anytime I was be behind those handlebars, it it felt like a feather, which I think made uh the experience a lot easier for me. Um, you know, highlights for me in terms of the rest of the race, you know, helping push those last 10 miles, you know, like you guys said, was was uh Main Street. I I didn't get emotional like I did in my first trip down Main Street, but just seeing how excited Woody was to hear the roar of the crowd, and you know, he knows what to do. He immediately puts out the hand. Sometimes we have to tell him what hand to put out, but you know, once he gets the the appropriate handout for his fist bumps, he just wants to be able to dap as many people as possible. So what I was like, you know what, Kim, you deserve the moment of pushing your your son up Main Street USA. So you go ahead and do that. So what I did is I kind of flanked the right side of his chair so that we could create a safe space between the rest of the runners so that they remained safe, but Woody could still get his fist bumps. And he was having a blast with that. Thankfully, I was there because a couple of times his wheel was getting stuck in the trolley tracks. So I, you know, I so I was able to help her maneuver the chair out of that. But because I was kind of creating that perimeter for him and staying a little bit ahead of him, I was able to like yell to the crowd, he wants fist bumps, he wants fist bumps. So then that you know told more people that it's okay to engage with him, which I think he he really loved. And you know, we got to do that Main Street, we got to do that uh at the TTC, and then the other you know, real big highlight that I think I had is I never realized that when Kim and Woody participate in these events, they really don't spend a lot of time taking pictures. And I encouraged Kim, I said, let's get a couple of photos here. We knew you know, based on our paces, you know, we we were probably pushing a little bit slower uh than Balloon Lady pace. So I knew we were gonna be fine. So once we came down the ramp uh from Cinderella's castle, I I quickly veered him off to the right. I was like, Woody, we're getting a castle photo. And I, you know, so I was just going to push him into the hub and you know, just wait in line like anybody else. And one of the cast members was very gracious, saw us coming, and actually just told us to come off to the side as opposed to getting into one of the lines. And then they just, you know, very politely explained to the people that were in the the closest line to the race course if it was okay if we could step in after a few photos. And those people were very, very accommodating to that. So to those friendly random strangers, thank you so much for allowing us to have that moment. We waited in a short line in Epcot to get a photo with Spaceship Earth, which was really cool. And you know, once the PhotoPass photos did load, um, what really made my race, even though it happened afterwards, was just sheer seeing the grin or the the ear-to-ear grin on Woody's face crossing that finish line and having his arms up like he was a champion. And I was just I was incredibly blessed to be able to share that moment with uh with Woody and Kim, and hopefully I get the opportunity to um to help them out in the future as well, too. But yeah, it was an awesome experience.
SPEAKER_11:Well done, sir. Uh it is, yeah, it's a thrill and an honor. But uh let's get back to our our dopey runners and ask how the how did the half marathon go for Sarah Melissa and Alyssa.
SPEAKER_06:I I mean I I had heard that the half day was the not the worst, but the hardest day of the four races. I had seen several people say that, and I think that's pretty true.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Um and you had told us when we met you at Jock Lindsay's, you were like, make sure you walk the half.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, take it easy. That's yeah, that's that's straight from Jeff Galloway.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, so we we we sort of did that.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, right. Understood, sure.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, I think we did what 30-second run shuffle, 60-second walk, and that seemed to work pretty well. Um and I think our number one goal for the whole week, well, we had like a bucket list of not time goals, but um things to check off our list that we'd never done before. So I think one of them was what a castle photo and a character photo, and um for me for the marathon, we'll we'll get there, but there was there was something else there. But we did get to do two of those things that we had never done before.
SPEAKER_11:So awesome. Now I'm interrupting. I I know we've got a couple first dopeies. Was anybody making their first trip down Main Street in this half? No, you'd done it before, huh? Princess or yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, boy, nothing beats that. Oh, it was amazing. It's still oh, it still gets to me. 17 times I've gone down Main Street. It still gets to me.
SPEAKER_06:So yeah, we we got our castle photo, which that was really fun to check off our list. And then the lines were pretty long until we got back into Epcot. And then there was what was it? Mira and the royal detective. I don't know, my my daughters watch it. So that one that line was pretty short. So it wasn't an exciting character, but we were able to check the balance.
SPEAKER_11:That's what you like, yeah. Sarah, any thoughts?
SPEAKER_05:My bucket list was to see the electric water pageant before the sun comes up. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_11:Um and you made it, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:We made it, yeah.
SPEAKER_11:Good, good for you. Good for you, yeah. Uh, how about you, Melissa?
SPEAKER_07:Well, I should have gone to where you guys went for lunch the day before so that you could tell me to walk it. So I ran and it and it the first half felt great, and then like I have I I need to learn how to run in humidity. I'm from such a dry climate. And so it's so hard, like it felt so heavy, and I was I could feel my body just like not accept like it was not acclimating, and so I decided, okay, I'm just gonna stop at all the characters on the back half, and so I did, and then I crossed the finish line, but it was fun. I had a good time. I don't usually stop for characters, so this year was good because it the the hot weather forced me to so that I wouldn't I would cross, I wanted to cross safely, but I woke up Sunday morning very sore.
SPEAKER_11:So clearly I appreciate what everybody, you know. I appreciate what you're saying about the humidity because if you are not accustomed to this kind of humidity, it seemed high. For Florida, it was low. Honest to goodness. Oh my gosh. The uh the dew point on the 5k was 60, which is borderline, but for around here, no, it was low. So it gets much worse. Um, yes, I have developed, and I'm willing to share this with anybody who wants to try it, the walk photoshop walk, or walk, photo pass, walk method of handling the half marathon, where you walk until you see the green tent, then you run until you're two steps past the green tent, then you walk the rest of the way. And that seems to work pretty well for a half marathon.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, we did that for sure.
SPEAKER_11:Okay, so walk, walk, photo pass, walk. Uh, you know, you know, you can use it. You don't owe me anything for it. It's all right. I haven't copyrighted it or anything, but the book comes out next year. Yeah, it might. We'll see. Yeah. Maybe I'll put it on you. I'll put it on YouTube, right, John? Yeah. Or Jack, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I also learned um a new pose for me. It works, but it may work for somebody else. Instead of stretching your arms out, you know, in a diagonal where you wasn't see someone. So don't do that. What you do is you put your arms straight up. So one arm straight up, one arm straight down. So you're you you still look kind of cute.
SPEAKER_11:Kind of 1230, right?
SPEAKER_01:1230.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it's 1230.
SPEAKER_01:It's still Wisowski Bob that way, though.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, that's true.
SPEAKER_11:Fair warning. If you're with me, you're going to get Wazowski'd once. I'm going to do it. I promise. It's it's a rite of passage if you run with me. Uh well, half's always fun. And what kills me about the half though, Dopey Runners is at some point, and uh, you know what, you all know I've done Dopey. Um I'm saying to myself, oh my god, can I do this twice tomorrow? And then the other thing you think about is and when I finish, I'm not half done yet.
SPEAKER_14:Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_11:While 1.9 the next day is the halfway point. I think Disney should put up a sign. Congratulations, Dopey Runners, you're halfway through. I don't know if that would be uh exciting or demoralizing. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:So me and Bob stay to the end of we saw the first runner come through. First, actually, it was the wheeled athletes come through first.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then we saw the last runner running down Main Street.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well well behind the balloon ladies, but yeah, and you knew this was it, it was it for her, but the she had the biggest smile on her face, you know, going down Main Street, videotaping it, getting cheered on by whoever was left there. I think that was uh one of the highlights of the entire uh half marathon for us.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, it was clear she wanted to make it to the castle, and she did. And that was, yeah, I agree with you, John. That was a big deal. And then, and I don't want to go into much detail about it. Getting back was, I think, worse than trying to get out of uh Magic Kingdom after the fireworks. But John and I ended up with, and again, I'm not gonna go into detail. John and I ended up with a private bus ride back to our resort. Two separate resorts. John's in one seat, I'm in the other. He's going to Saratoga, I'm going to French Quarter. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, the topic is about to change right now.
SPEAKER_11:All right, so after the half, uh a big deal, and to me, uh absolute highlight of the weekend is the meetup over in Disney Springs. There were there were approximately 200 people there. Uh we know this because John uh did his level best and probably did a really good job of counting the people. He does it every year. Well, you can tell them what you do, John, how you count the people.
SPEAKER_01:So I take the picture, I blow it up on my screen, and in Photoshop, I put a little dot over everyone's head I count, so I don't re-count them. So and I think I got up to 178 people.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. First year he did it, he did it, he did it, he used a Sharpie, but he had to clear this, clean the screen.
SPEAKER_01:It was a the first year the first year was easy. Yeah, it was only six or something. No, uh those photos are up on the Facebook post right now.
SPEAKER_11:If you well time around, I pin I pinned it actually. I pinned uh the one photo that uh Greta took. I pinned it to the top.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so yeah, so Greta was actually not counted in the photo who took the photo.
SPEAKER_11:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And and there's other people just did not leave their seats during the photo shoot.
SPEAKER_11:And some people uh probably a handful left before, a handful came after. Yeah. Uh we were giving away. If you were there, you know we gave away uh we had a raffle, our friend Matt uh Rise and Run had paid the uh charity. We we bought up, he raffles off the flags that he runs with for charity, but he limits the number of tickets that he sells. So we bought up all the tickets and we had that uh flag to raffle off. We had John's Pizza Box to raffle off, and suitable for framing, by the way. And then our friend Mario, who is a relatively new friend to the Rise and Run podcast, contacted us and said, Hey, I've got these challenge coins that I want to uh disperse at and he had a couple places he wanted to do it, but he said, I'll be at the meetup. We ended up including those in Raffle. Those those were gorgeous. You guys see those?
SPEAKER_07:So cool.
SPEAKER_11:Did anybody win one?
SPEAKER_07:I think Mario gave me one. So I was like, Did he?
SPEAKER_11:Okay, so you got one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:They are beautiful. We are a picture of it. And they're like magnetic and take each like metal out, like the 5k, the 10k, like that one, and you can put on the front to the magnet so dopey's holding it. It's so beautiful.
SPEAKER_11:Well, they were really neat. I I saw uh on a Facebook comment earlier today, because I wrote in another comment thanking him for doing that, and he mentioned something about either having more or having an opportunity to to raffle some more, so we'll have to pay attention to that because those were those were gorgeous. I didn't take a ticket. I didn't think it would look right if I drew up drew my own number, but uh yeah, I would have I would have appreciated having one of those. Um I want to before we get lost, I want to call out some folks. Um of course the cookies, my wife, God bless her, she it was therapy for her this year. It was uh shoulder rehabil rehabilitation to scoop the cookies out and and put them on the cookie sheet. But she spends uh a full two days uh baking the cookies for the podcast. We had our local friends who we've met through running here in the St. Petersburg area, Richard and Krista and their son Barrett came over to the house and spent hours decorating those sugar cookies, the ones that were shaped like shoes and uh and Mickey Mouse. And boy, you talk about getting into it. And Barrett, for a 13-year-old, I mean, when I was 13, I I didn't want to sit with a bunch of old people and decorate cookies, but he was all over it, I will tell you. He I was proud of the young man, he did a great job, really, really great job. Uh, the other thing, our friend, I think it was Amy who made us those ears, right?
SPEAKER_09:Yes, I wanted to bring that up.
SPEAKER_11:Yes, yeah, yeah, those were really cool. Not a big ears guy, but she did a great job on those. I want to thank her for those.
SPEAKER_10:Um, I mean, I also loved how she embraced the the new intro in terms of the one ear, yeah, uh, you know, fueled by community and friends. Like, you know, to be able to incorporate that into the design that she made was incredible. She individualized all cherishable. Yeah.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. Yeah, that that was wonderful. I greatly appreciate it. Uh, I picked up a couple other things. I I I hate when I do this because I forget people. Um, I gotta yeah, I'm just gonna stop there. Uh, I another thing I enjoyed was seeing some friends from other podcasts or other social media groups at our meetup. And I I loved that. Thank you. I saw Jar from Jar Ox and Spoon was there. I think Lynns was there, but I'm not sure. I expect she was with Jar. Um AJ and Erica from One More Run were there. Really happy to see them. I saw Jody from Did Disney with the ducks. I think Lonnie was at the meetup. I uh again was there.
SPEAKER_01:I talked to Lonnie.
SPEAKER_11:I'm getting foggy there is I remember seeing I remember for sure seeing Lonnie on the course a couple of times, and I I got confused over that and the and the meetup. But it's overwhelming.
SPEAKER_10:The response is overwhelming, and it's I mean when when I when I got there and started, and especially when we started formulating for the the group picture, what what what what's the the quote from Jaws? I think we're gonna need a bigger vote. Yeah. And I mean, sure, when you know when we first started to have the meetups over at Dockside Margaritas, you know, I'm not gonna lie, I thought we could outgrow that space. And then, you know, when when we whoever made the suggestion, you know, within our planning groups about you know doing the food truck area, I was like, this gives us space to spread out and such. But I mean, I I think for like a princess of springtime, a wine and dine, yeah, I I think that that space is still completely suitable for us. But when it comes when it comes time for Marathon weekend, I I think in our next planning meeting, we're we're gonna have to start, you know, brainstorming some places to go because I mean not that you know the there wasn't enough room, but you know, to be able to have even more space with you know maybe more shade or more seats or or or something like that. Because you know, especially for our topia runners, you know, in this community, you know, you you've already done you know almost you know over 20 miles, and now you're staying on your feet for you know 90 minutes to two hours. Yeah, you're almost halfway done. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but I mean from the bottom of my heart, I mean, it just it continues to the floor me in terms of how this community has grown and and the the generosity within the the community and just the the kind words that everyone has you know the the share with us and how you know the the number of times we hear the story about you know you you know you guys got me through you know this training cycle and you know we I I know we all do it, you know. We always love to say, well, no, you you were the ones that that did it, we were just the ones in your ear giving you advice, or in my case, like telling bad jokes or or or something like that. But you know, to to be able to be a part of someone's running journey and to be able to share that with the community in person is just it's something that I will treasure for a lifetime. And I I I know we re we repeat very similar things year after year in terms of these meetups, but but it's the honest to God truth that you know it is one of the ultimate highlights of the weekend, and I I don't want it to stop anytime soon. I I want it to I want to keep growing it and I just appreciate each and every one of you.
SPEAKER_11:We run out of words, but instead of going on, I I wanted to ask our guests if they were there and had you been to others, and if so, what'd you think?
SPEAKER_07:I I think it was my third one that I had been to Disneyland. I was I like to see for a short time, but then I went to the Disneyland one and then this one. But it was awesome, everyone's so friendly, it's so nice to even more friends. I was saying to people like every time I go to another Run Disney event, like it's even better and better and better and better. Meet more friends. I don't know. It was amazing.
SPEAKER_11:It is that's what I want. I I love hearing that.
SPEAKER_06:We we didn't make it, we were really sad. Um, but we we just kind of wanted to chill. We noticed.
SPEAKER_11:We noticed. John mentioned it to me.
SPEAKER_01:They they had the bar meetup with us, so that was fine.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we did the bonus.
SPEAKER_11:Um we didn't, you know, they went to Dr. Alley's meetup. They didn't come to her.
SPEAKER_06:Um, yeah, run run Disney DPT. She's um great. I used her training plans and I did her stronger faster finisher program.
SPEAKER_11:That's that's cool. I I had a chance to say hello to her, and I will be in touch with her later. That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, she's great. Um, so we went to that and then we spent the rest of the day in the hot tub.
SPEAKER_11:So not a bad idea. Not a bad idea for those doing dopey. You know, I God bless it. I I know I I'd love for everybody to be at the meetup, but you can't all make it. I understand there are a lot of reasons, and that's a very good one. So, all right. All right, well, thank you all who came and helps make our day, uh, help make our weekend bright. We love someone said it earlier. Um I forget, as you can tell, I don't remember things very well, that it we don't have to be there. The Rise and Run hosts don't have to be there for the Rise and Run family to be represented and to get along with one another. And that means the world to me. I think that is just fantastic.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, the topic is about to change right now.
SPEAKER_11:All right. Now we're towing the starting line for the marathon on Sunday. It's warm, gonna get warmer. And we let's see, Greg, you didn't do this one because you wrapped up with the half, but the rest of us got out there and did this one. I think we all have stories, so I'm gonna start and ask John to kick us off, please.
SPEAKER_01:Marathon was a tough marathon. The heat was not what I expected this weekend. Compared to the last fourth that we did here, this one I think the heat was the worst for for me.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, I this is the warmest it's been since uh 2020. 2020 and 2022 were pretty hot, but it was at this was at least as warm as those.
SPEAKER_01:So I started running with uh Laura and uh Kay. So we were we were going fine. Mile four hits where the band is, somebody decides to like cut me off, I went down. And I probably did more damage than I thought I did at the time, you know, because adrenaline runs you, but uh I and I I don't think I even stopped that knocked me over and tripped me up because when I looked up, all I saw was Laura and uh and Kay, and that was it. So I got up, you know, went kept going through, but then with the heat and my knee was acting up, and uh and I probably bruised a couple ribs. It was not getting fun. So it was a tough one for me. So I was able to stay with I was able to stay with them until about mile 11, 12. I said, you guys go. I don't want to hold you back. Just go. And they said I'm fine. Anything happens, I'll what do you call it? I'll call it in. But so basically first half of the marathon was almost okay. It was the second like it's this is where the heat started kicking in again. That Magic Kingdom parking lot you know you're right off the bat, you're hitting that heat right off the bat, which I think they gotta find different miles there. I mean and we all know about Blizzard Beach, but this is like Blizzard Beach part two, but it's earlier on in the race. It's before my it's before the like it's miles 11 and a half to 13. Boom. Got that met up with some friends on the course ran with them for a while but coming out of Animal Kingdom it was just I was I was spent I was sure but the heat was coming but I was smart I was smart two cups of water one to drink one to pour on me one to drink one to pour on me. Coming out of there I said let me get some ice we're out of ice I'm like oh god that's not good so uh made it down saw our cheer our cheer squad at mile 20 you know lexi uh I don't know Valeria I don't want to add everybody else's names but you know JJ was JJ was there. JJ was there JJ was a lifesaver gave me a bottle of water to take with me so there was something else to drink and dump on me when I was getting hot uh but then goes okay you got time the balloon leaders are just exiting Magic Kingdom so you're doing well so I thought I go down make the turn going to Blizzard Beach going in starting to turn I go there's nobody coming into the Blizzard Beach area am I that did I just like go get that slow that I don't know then halfway through Blizzard Beach I was they cut the course I go we're stuck in Blizzard Beach and they're all going partying John we were dancing in the streets baby yeah so I don't have to run that far do do do see we were doing all that John I I I I saw you Bob yeah and I was like okay so right now we're like now now like I have a thing I see the 645 seven hour pace group I know it's time to start booking I never saw him so we I wasn't worried so I hit that corner and then I saw no one he coming into Blizzard Beach where we're coming out of like this is not this is not a good thing. So what they cut about a mile and a half Bob I think they said approximately yeah yeah so uh and but with but with them doing that that it made it kind of worse in a way because now that walkway that that roadway going back to uh Hollywood Studios is twice as Hollywood right is twice as powerful there were more people yeah yeah so it it was it was tough I mean I just kept telling myself just one more mile one more mile one more mile and I'll get through and I I I ran with Alicia for a while Alicia was worried about me goes John are you gonna be okay I go I'll be fine if anything happens if I get dizzy if I feel bad I will quit I will not push myself says okay G Chap kept going I probably lied to her a little bit but uh it was it was it was fun uh but yeah uh but yeah so I got there and then made it once I made it to uh the boardwalk and got got into Epcot I'm like we're gonna do this and uh finish the race I'm running in I see some tall guy on the corner talking to uh Riley and John I go oh there's Bob he got in front of me I wonder how that happened. Ah you just got you know you got to know how to play this game John what can I say to you? Yeah so made the finish line I was proud I was proud of myself there was many times I wanted to throw it in but I said I got to keep pushing and this is like my free your first marathon's great I mean I'm really proud of myself with this one because it was a real it was a real struggle for me.
SPEAKER_11:Any finish line and any marathon.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah it was a real struggle yeah yeah and Greg I I remember seeing you right on I want to I want to ask Jack next because Jack also did uh Jack only well newly married at this point Jack her only running event this weekend was the marathon Jack how'd it go so I did everything I don't normally do prior to the race like get married yeah you I I don't recall the last time you got married before a race this is the first time right yeah but um no so we got off the cruise Friday and then um honestly we went we went to the expo had uh me and my husband um we we enjoyed ourselves we went to the expo we went to the parks afterwards and it felt nice because I didn't have to get up early and then we went to the parks again at Epcot and normally I never go to the parks before races and I also don't drink before races but we were going around the world at Epcot Saturday so I didn't mind it. It was nice um didn't go too crazy but definitely had a few drinks and you know like it was it was nice went up to the meetup and then prior and normally I have like pasta didn't have pasta I had a bacon cheeseburger with fries and I said I don't care what I'm gonna eat I'm gonna eat what I want before the marathon woke up with upset stomach but it's fine the Tums did absolutely nothing and it it went away um basically right at the start thankfully Jack you should have gone real wild and had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah it just sounds awful sorry you guys but can I just say something so I could not believe it took me this long to figure it out what was going on with like the character outfits it took me six miles to figure out that the Fab Five were dressed up in fantasy clothes and I was like wow that's weird they're all in fantasy why and then I looked down it's because it's fantasy themed and I totally forgot what the theme of the race was it took me six miles to remember that that's what the theme was because normally I feel like marathon weekend doesn't have like a theme per se other than they're dressed up yeah that's true. But yeah so that was and honestly this race I felt a sharp pain in my hip at mile two and I was like oh God that's gonna be a race. Yeah and then it only ended up being that time but my muscles were so tight I had to stop a few times at medical to get that biofreeze stuff on me. Yeah and so those ended up being my equivalent to some of my character stops I would have saw because I didn't want to be too long. Because here's the other thing is is like I didn't ask right away when we got to the hotel to see if I can get an extended um checkout. Yeah late departure yeah yeah it because we were we were checking out of the hotel that morning and checkouts at 11 and they said well we could try and put you to 1230 and it was pending so when I went to go check at 2 a.m in the morning they said oh it's still pending so I'm like great so I only have five hours to do this marathon. Okay whatever and just duly notate if you guys are trying to check out the same day as the marathon you want to take a shower after and grab your stuff um see if you can get a checkout way before the day of or the day before like we I mean we put it in the day before it was still pending but still just notate the fact that you might want to book an extra day and it would sell.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah a lot of hotels won't won't give you the tell you about late checkout till that last day anyway because even you ask a week before they're not to tell you till the last day anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah so I was really really worried about time so I didn't see as many characters as I would have liked. Still still a good amount and but I mean some of the stops again was the medical stops and then um I finally got to use a real bathroom during the race I'm very proud of myself. I was gonna say I'm proud of you Jack yeah which one it was the one by the T's too far for me Bob I want to go the marathon didn't go past that anyway. Well I guess it did early on didn't it did yeah yeah in the very beginning yeah but I felt so excited because there was like only me and like one other person in the bathroom I was like ho ho ho no one knows about the sauce but um the race was good um I did get to ride Expedition Everest which I was super excited about I I made a one second decision saw it was five minutes and added 10 minutes to my my runtime because of it um in total but I was still pretty excited because I've never done a ride during the marathon before and I was like check that off my bucket list. But yeah it was a grand old time and then I crossed the finish line and there I see David with our good friend Steven which is Ileana's husband and I pointed at my husband said that's my husband and granted no one knows that we just got married but like it was a nice little moment um and um it was good and we saw Ileana finish and then we had to go back to the hotel um because we didn't need to get um our stuff before checkout.
SPEAKER_10:Jack I I thought you were gonna say when you saw David I saw David with our luggage next to him and we didn't get the late checkout.
SPEAKER_03:So so I finished the race and I asked him I was like so did we end up K in that late checkout? He's like yes we did and I was like oh now I find out after I went for the run. But um see that's part of being married now he's not gonna tell you things to be fair though I didn't look at my phone a single time during the race um because my pockets were so full of all this crap I didn't want to pull it out and then have something dump out. Like even during Expedition Everest I had my pockets and I was like oh my God something I hope these don't come out so I'm holding my pockets tight during the ride. But it was still fun. But yeah it was a grand old time um David and I had an absolute blast the entire week and um and including marathon weekend. So marriage is good and it's a great start to the new year.
SPEAKER_11:So far huh that's good. Yeah that's good Jack. That's good. I'm pleased for you I'm not even gonna make some silly joke. I really am pleased for you. Congratulations now I have our three dopies here I definitely want to hear from you let me just real quickly my full marathon I had uh many of my many of our friends know I had interruption in the the training plan. I basically started over again after that surgery in late August so uh my friend Josh our friend Josh at uh dinner on Saturday made a comment that turned out to be I think prophetic or maybe it was it was after the marathon that's right it sure was and uh well dinner Sunday would be after the marathon wouldn't it anyway um he says I'm learning something that I shouldn't learn I'm learning that I can do a marathon without being fully trained up I I kinda am too but it's just like I tell people when they ask we always get those questions what will the weather be like and is it too late to start training and my answer on the too late to start training is typically no but you're not going to enjoy the race it's going to hurt and you're gonna hurt the day after. Well I couldn't help it I had the interruptions to training and I did have a terrible time. However I want to thank my friend Mark for pacing me through the first oh gosh uh probably well through uh till we get out of Animal Kingdom uh Mark did a he wasn't necessarily trying to pace me but he was pacing me and he was drawing me along I I will I will tell you I didn't tell Mark this that I I just was not feeling it I wasn't feeling well I was hurting uh wasn't gonna make it got to Main Street I thought let me get to Main Street get a castle photo I'll be happy got to Main Street and that adrenaline rusher running down Main Street got me going. So I said all right I'm feeling a lot better now I'll keep it up anyway uh thanks to thanks to Mark for getting me through Animal Kingdom then I met up with Kevin Kevin was also struggling a bit uh Kevin and I ended up going the rest of the way together uh I hit the cutoff heading to Blizzard Beach and they were starting to put the cones out to move us the other way and I I almost dropped to my knees in gratitude and prayer and oh thank you thank you. I needed that because I I'm no joking uh I'm not sure I would have finished that had I gone all the way to Blizzard Beach and around but but I didn't and I I did finish and so like I like to say I didn't cut off Blizzard Beach I just got a lightning lane pass for that last mile and a half there and away we went. I I hope to return to full training here real soon. That's the other thing I finished and I did not injure anything more I felt pretty good I know I felt miserable at the end but I within the next day I felt pretty good and so I didn't have any uh uh loss of sensation in my legs that I've had in the past or any problem with the spine so it feels good I did have the worst blister I have ever had but that'll go away that'll yeah I don't I can't explain it Jack the shoes weren't new I've worn the socks before was it uh on your foot outside of my big toe oh it was a well anyway look uh TMI um it uh it'll get better you know that's gonna get better as I said this morning on customized training that's small potatoes and then I said come to think of it it was about the size of a small potato anyway uh we'll move on now look I'm done that was dopey I didn't do dopey that was uh marathon number seven at Disneyland at Disney World for me so I don't know how many more I have left but that's not important right now um now we have three guests we invited to be here and they've been sitting patiently and listening to us for the last 20 minutes I want to hear how the marathon went and how finishing dopey felt especially that first time well I was surprised waking up that last day how good I felt um I kind of felt like every day progressively felt better like the 5k was a struggle getting up with that first time in the morning um by Sunday it was like old hat you know you're in the routine and let's just go to work.
SPEAKER_05:We did pretty good um uh Alyssa my sister had a goal to write Everest um Everest is not kind to me on a good day the ice cave gets me every time so um my goal was to get her there so we kind of we boogied to Magic Kingdom and that kind of halfway point and then I kind of dropped back um and told her to go on go climb her mountain um but I was great I put on my headphones and put on some music and just me and you know myself and thoughts um and it was great until the sun came up and then it was very hot. I'm from Central Florida so I'm used to the heat I'm used to the humidity but the sun there was no escaping it.
SPEAKER_11:No you're right Sarah it was warm. You're absolutely right.
SPEAKER_05:The Blizzard beach area I never saw the balloon ladies the whole time and I kind of thought okay well I'm gonna relax a little bit my pace was okay and I had the alerts coming through on my phone and I thought well I got a two mile buffer on them yeah you know I can I can take it easy for a mile or so um 14 was my favorite mile of course for the Star Wars um but right after that going into I I noticed that they were kind of gaining on me. So I'm like all right well let's let's step it up a little bit and then when I hit Blizzard Beach um when I was coming out nobody else was coming in and I was like there is no way I have gone that slow and they've caught me and I I didn't get any of the messages about course cutting or anything. So for that whole stretch between Blizzard Beach and Hollywood studios I um picked the pace up about two to three minutes per mile just because I was terrified that I was going to get caught um little did I know what had happened. But you know once you hit basically uh Hollywood that it's a it's the home stretch.
SPEAKER_06:So just older on how this was your first one right my first dopey my second marathon first dopey yeah first dopey you gonna do another one as soon as I crossed the finish line I told my sister that's it I've retired from marathons you can have them and then later on I was like you know what I don't feel that bad maybe maybe I could be convinced to do this again they get addictive it's like birth and your brain just forgets a very a very typical reaction I don't remember but yeah oh yeah I've been there yeah I get it but that's a very typical reaction I was the unusual one I my first dope was 2019 I finished I said I can't wait to do it again all right well sister how'd you do on on your first opi right first dope second marathon um the marathon last year was actually my very first race ever so oh wow yeah the 5k this time of my dope was my first 5k I forgot to say that it's like oh it's my first oh my gosh PR PR my 5k um no I surprisingly I felt I mean it was hot um but I grew up in central Florida I kind of knew what I was getting into but I felt great I if it if it weren't for the heat I think I would have majorly PR'd in my marathon but yeah I knew I had to take it you know take it easy and not be stupid basically I was riding Everest oh my gosh it was everything I ever dreamed of um so last year last year's marathon was just to survive you know right yeah sure I had I had some checklists to do um was it Thursday after the expo we went to Animal Kingdom and we were riding Everest and I don't know what possessed me but I threw my hair tie where all the hair ties are I know where you mean yeah and I had the thought I was just like I'm just gonna make an offering to Everest so that the marathon will allow me to come back. And it did it worked. So maybe make that a thing now so on Thursday after the expo everybody go go ride Everest if you want to ride it.
SPEAKER_11:Do I have to throw a hair tie?
SPEAKER_06:Yes That is the sticky.
SPEAKER_11:That's gonna be tough. I need to get it. Oh listen, I need hair.
SPEAKER_06:No, Everest was awesome. Um, after after that, I mean it it got real, uh of course.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Uh that that sun beating down on you between you know Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios is is rough. It is yeah but I put on my headphone.
SPEAKER_11:Did you leave your garment running on the ride?
SPEAKER_06:I did it on purpose because I for science. Really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_11:I I would like a twenty you know a two-minute mile or what something like that.
SPEAKER_06:Oh yeah, it was awesome. I mean, I didn't care about the time. I just wanted to see what it looked like on my on my Strava.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, that's true too.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, you can go look at it. But yeah, I put on my headphones, you know, that that hard stretch, and I I kept trucking. Um the wet sponges were lifesavers. Um I shoved one down the back of my shirt, and every water stop I would just pour it onto the sponge.
SPEAKER_11:Very smart.
SPEAKER_06:And that that that did help. And then there was an absolute angel at the boardwalk who had she had filled up her trash bucket full of hotel ice.
SPEAKER_11:Ice, yes, yes, I saw that.
SPEAKER_06:And she was like, Who needs ice? And I I ran over. I was like, Are you comfortable shoving it down my bra? And she said yes, and she did. And it got me through the last mile. Um so getting there, I I think the best moment of the whole marathon for me was coming into Epcot and seeing just the massive crowds. I didn't like even last year, I don't remember it being as energetic as it was. It made me super emotional turning into connections. Yeah, it was amazing. Um, it kind of amped me up and kept me going. And I didn't realize until later we had a lightning lane for guardians. It was like I probably did have enough time. That's my next year. That's my next dope.
SPEAKER_11:Don't get greedy. Okay, don't get greedy.
SPEAKER_06:But no, yeah, pushing it to the finish was it, it was it was a very triumphant finish, and it was one that I was hoping.
SPEAKER_11:Uh I've done nine marathons now, and on every one, there comes a point where I realize I'm gonna make it, and uh sometimes it comes pretty late. This one came really late, but gosh, what a feeling when you hit that feeling like I'm gonna make it. Oh, it was did you get that?
SPEAKER_06:Yes, it was great. Oh, I did pull a jack once. Um so I had my headphones on, and then I my headphones kept turning off, and I was like, Well, why? Why like I really need my hype music right now? And I had I don't know how, but my phone was on airplane mode.
SPEAKER_11:Airplane mode. There you go, Jack.
SPEAKER_06:During the American I'm so sorry. It's okay.
SPEAKER_01:Next time, download your playlist before you start.
SPEAKER_06:That's a good idea. I'll have to do that.
SPEAKER_11:All right, Melissa. You know what this means? You get to you get to you're you're running anchor leg here. You get to bring it on home. Now, second dopey for you.
SPEAKER_07:Second dopey. I did goofy last year, so third Disney marathon again.
SPEAKER_11:Third Disney Challenge, Disney race weekend challenge, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So I thought the first half went really well. Went and then when it got hot, I was struggling. I I joined the struggle bus. Um the Magic Kingdom parking lot. I was like, I don't know why people complain about Blizzard Beach now, because I am not enjoying this parking lot, and that's when I decided I just need to adapt. And now I'm I was changing my plan to plan C to just go out and have fun. And I did. So I finished that parking lot, and then all I could think of is like, I want a Coke. And that I've never done that before. I was like, I want Coke, and so I was like, if if something's open in Animal Kingdom, I'm getting myself a Coke. So I ran, and when we entered Animal Kingdom, there was a vending machine. I stopped and bought myself a Coke during and then all these people were like, What? Yeah, and they all came so we were all buying Cokes. And we ran and I also like I wasn't planning on it. It was just this weird split decision decision. I was like, all right, I'm going on Everest. And I did, and it was so it was crazy and fun because the first time I did Dopey, I remember getting there and thinking, if I sit down right now, there's no way I might not get back up.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I got it.
SPEAKER_07:So and I felt like kind of okay still. And then after that, I did like almost I think all most of the characters on the way back, and then I got so hot. I was doing the same thing as John. Take one cup to drink, one cup to pour over my head. Much more pouring over my head, and I think it helped a lot. And the bananas, I have to say, like, those bananas are the best tasting bananas I've ever eaten in my life.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_07:I'm like, I don't know if it's because I'm starving, but they taste so good and they're delicious. And then, yeah, there was just a point where I was like, okay, run for the ears. That's my favorite part of the marathon. Run for the ears, get to the ears. And then I did. And then, and then so I finished. I was so happy, and it's just so emotional. And then I ran and I like got my challenge medals, and I came out, and like one of the volunteers just looked at me and she's like, Can you believe you did that? And she starts tearing up, and I'm like, Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, how about that?
SPEAKER_07:The biggest hug. It was so sweet. And then, and then I went to the finish line to watch you guys all come by it. Like, and you know, Alan and Grace wanted to see them finish, and Christy, our friend Christy was her first marathon, and then, but you know what? Brittany Charbonneau winning the that marathon and staying for that final finisher. Like, there is nobody like what we are so lucky to have her in this running community. Like, what a role model for everybody. Like, she was amazing, and she got that girl over that finish line, and like I'll never forget watching that moment ever.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, I I'm officially labeling Britney as the Run Disney GOAT. Yeah. Just in terms of what she has accomplished on the course itself and off the course as well. I mean, she is just it in my mind, she is reaching like an ambassador level to Run Disney as that of Jeff Galloway. And and I I I think she's wonderful for it. I mean, I I was sharing that uh mile 11 and a half at it at the uh TTC. Yeah, yeah. And you know, going back to Britney, you know, obviously, you know, you knew when a leader was coming because there would always be, you know, the the two bikers with them. And when they were announcing first female, I with the people that I was standing with, I was like, oh, I wonder if it's Britney, I wonder if it's Britney. And then all of a sudden I see this skunk fly by me, and I'm like, Yep, that's Britney. But then the part that I was interested in was how much of a lead did she have at that point. So I was maybe delayed by maybe like 30 seconds or something like that. So I pulled my phone out and I had a stopwatch going, and I timed where I where I stopped the stopwatch when the second place female came through. And even at that point in time, she had a two and a half minute lead on uh second female. So I was like, so I was, you know, I mean, obviously constantly checking the long list of people that that I was cheering during the race, but you know, kept checking Britney, and by the time she hit the 20-mile mark and was still keeping an even pace, I said to everybody around me, like, she's got this in the bag, and and she did, and I think she won by four and a half minutes or something like that. So it was it was an impressive victory for her.
SPEAKER_11:Well, I I got a chance to talk with her as I was finishing because you know I had nothing else to do. I was just walking along there, and and she actually hollered, got my attention. But uh, we can ask her next week when she's on the podcast. How about that? There you go.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_11:Little special announcement, she'll be back with us next week. Yeah. I I stopped and talked to her, and she told me I said, she says, How are you doing? I said, I'm dying. She says, Me too, but I won. Said, Great. I said, You know, we have a tradition, we always have the marathon winner on. She goes, Well, we can't break that tradition. So Brittany will be with us next week. And uh, I think Greg's actually lined up the male champion too for a couple weeks out. So we're excited to talk with him. Who went to Metal Monday over at Magic Kingdom? What'd you think?
SPEAKER_05:We were lucky enough to find a photographer that wasn't in a normal space and didn't have anyone waiting.
SPEAKER_06:So in shade, too. We didn't get there until about 11. So the sun was blazing. So it was to the right of the castle in between the hub and the porticos. So we got some nice. I'm a photographer, so it was like some nice evenly distributed light. Um, so that's what I was happy about.
SPEAKER_10:I I did have a question about Metal Monday. Now I was already home by the time Metal Monday occurred, but I saw something on social media that there was like a sign printed where it was if you ran specific events to go to that area throughout Magic Kingdom and maybe they already had the medals set up to help things go faster. Was was that the case? And if so, how did how did that help the flow at all? Because I mean, I remember last year waiting in the line in the hubgrass, and I stood there for so long, I saw the castle show three times. And so, I mean, I was able to do the choreography by the end of the day. So I was just curious what that experience was like.
SPEAKER_06:I didn't see a sign.
SPEAKER_11:I I did, I did see signs. I saw signs, and I thought they pointed out to where photographers were. Uh did they have medals? Yes, they did have medals there. Uh, I don't know if they had all the permutations of like uh if John and I said, hey, we did the 5K in the full. I don't know if they had that, but they certainly did have medals. They had uh dopey medals on in a row, or you know, yeah. So it was helpful, but oh my goodness, it was crowded. Uh John, did you ever get your uh you ever get your ears?
SPEAKER_01:Uh okay, so that was no, so there's one. So I went to get we got in, I went up to get my ears embroidered. They go, we're not embroidering ears anymore today for now. We have to wait till after three o'clock. We're we're putting a pause on embroidery. I go, but I don't care. I go, I I I don't need them today. I'm leaving. Just ship them to me. No, you have to come back after three o'clock to get your ear, to see if you could get your ears embroidered. So basically, I had to get my ears embroidered this year because I guess too many people went there early enough to do it. I mean, the last couple of years I got them shipped home anyway, so I really didn't care. But I was kind of upset that I couldn't because I had a five o'clock flight, so there was no way I could come back at three o'clock to get it embroidered. That was a that was a disappointment, I think, but you know, I I get it. And and I and to me, it also says if you're, you know, the the one family person that wants to buy Mickey ears for their first visit, you weren't getting Mickey ears either because they weren't embroidering anything, which I think kind of was like so they weren't even doing embroidery for day guests? I don't know, because they said all embroideries closed. Wow.
SPEAKER_10:I mean, I I I I could see them saying something in terms of like, oh, we're not embroidering the marathon, you know, ears or something like that. But like, you know, if there was like a little kid on, you know, on Main Street who wanted to get ears embroidered, I'd figured they would do that because it's no, they're purchasing the ears and then they're purchasing the embroidery.
SPEAKER_01:After three o'clock, they say you could come back and see where we stand. I'm like, wow, there's no line in here. This is great.
SPEAKER_11:Oh, we suckered in, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01:Then when I'm walking in, I'm going walking out, and someone goes, Oh, we've got your ears embroidered. Go, you gotta come back after three. He goes, What do you mean? They go, No, they're telling me three. I go, I mean, that's a that's something else I think they need to kind of uh work on, I think, too. I mean, because I think everyone wanted their ears embroidered this year, and I think they either need to have more places available for it that can that can do it than just Magic Kingdom.
SPEAKER_03:So there is down uh Disney Springs.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, there is, that's right. Yeah. All right, let's let's bring this to a close. Kang, first of all, wonderful weekend. Thanks for thanks for being there to share it with the Ryzen Run family. And thank you, uh, Alyssa, Melissa, and Sarah for joining us to help us recap. Friends, I hope if you've uh if you've been listening to this, I hope some of what we talked about spurred some wonderful memories for you or made you think of your own stories, which uh we'd love to hear about in the Facebook group or on our Zoom call on Thursday night. Congratulations on your dopeies, first dopey, second dopey. Awesome stuff. We're proud of you.
SPEAKER_07:We did it, we did it.
SPEAKER_08:Caution runners, change of topic ahead.
SPEAKER_11:Okay, friends, I want to remind you that this is a Zoom Thursday. This could be a good one. Anything that we failed to mention in the recap, you get a chance to tell us about it in Zoom Thursday. So we hope to see you there. Information is pinned to the feature section of the Facebook group page. And as I mentioned in our conversation, Brittany, Britney Sharpnoe's back with us next week. We are excited and tickled to death to talk with our friend Brittany. And now, please stand clear of the door. It's time for a race report. The race report sponsored by our friend Tom Stokes of Stokes Metabolic Training. Stokes.fit slash rise and run coaching is the site to learn more about what Tom has to offer. I ran into Tom on Monday following race weekend. We were over at the Tune In Lounge in Hollywood Studios. Tom came in with Adam, his wife Kim. Uh uh, Chris Turner was there with us too. CeCe Turner was there. And I am forgetting the names of the other young lady who was there, but in in many, many cases, I hope people listen to the podcast. I hope she's not listening because it's embarrassed that I can't remember her name. Of course, if she'd listened to me throughout the night, she knows I don't remember a lot of things. All right. Uh let us take a look. This is going to be a kind of a crazy race report. I've got a feeling I've missed a lot of things. Uh, I'm trying to catch up between January 1st, and I'm also trying to catch up on the races that occurred this weekend while many of us were at Disney World. Uh so let me just go through what I have here. And if I miss something important, please let me know about it. Uh, our friend Lauren did a 10K on New Year's Day, the Asheville New Year's Resolution run in Asheville, North Carolina. Uh Michael and Terry were in Copley, Pennsylvania for the Lehigh Valley New Year's Chaser. Michael finished second in the age group, and Terry PR. In Seaconk, Massachusetts, the chili-willy half marathon. This is on New Year's Day. Rachel did it in a very snowy and cold Massachusetts New Year's Day. Uh Ashton and Thomas ran the first day 5K in South Carolina. This is a pregnancy PR for Ashton as she ran with hashtag 5K baby in the third trimester. Martine did a first day 5K also. Not sure where that one was. Races on January 3rd, the polar opposite peach tree race. Joanne did the 10K, a fun way to get ready for Disney World. Beth did it. Brooke ran this one three months after giving birth. Ashley got a second place in her age group and a PR sub-30 at the Casino Bridge 5K run in Biloxi, Mississippi. Kathy ran a 10K in Clearwater's Say No to Drugs run. Rob finished the season strong at the Winter Classic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Shamika was volunteering at the January 26th LVR Ice Scraper 5K. It was freezing cold. I don't think the volunteers get enough credit. Generally, and especially in crappy weather, cold weather or rainy weather. The runners get to generate some body heat. The volunteers are just kind of hanging around. So Shamika, great job. Katrina and her family ran their first 5K of the year at the Sam Houston Race Park in Houston, Texas. Derek ran the USA Fit Resolution 5K in Lake Pflugerville, Texas. In Tallahassee, Lola ran the Swamp Forest Trail Run. She ran the quarter marathon distance. It was her first quarter marathon. That's a PR. Greg, we've run a quarter marathon before. We've told that story many times before, too.
SPEAKER_09:Yes, we have.
SPEAKER_10:Have you ever run another one? No, because that race that we ran switched it from a quarter marathon to just a 5K.
SPEAKER_11:So I've never been able to do it. Start crying out loud. I've not run another one since either, Greg. I'm not sure there are that many around. Let's see. On Saturday, uh January 10th in Tallahassee, Florida, the World Athletics Cross Country Championships. Lola was there. Big event. Representation from 60 different countries. This was, in fact, a World Athletics Championship. So the elites run the championship first. Then the course opens up for the rest of the runners. Lola's first 2K. That's a PR. Finishers got a medal replica of the World Championship medals. That's pretty neat. Kayla out in Riverside, California, did the 10K and the kids' races at the Citrus Herb. Heritage run. Kind of chilly weather for Southern California. They ran past the exact spot where Kayla and her husband were married 18 years ago. There you go, Jackie got something to shoot for. The uh the first five the first 5k in this 10K race included some off-road running through the hilly orange groves of the Citrus State Historic Park, and the second 5K was all road miles, palm line streets, snowy mountain views. A lovely event. Rob ran the New York Roadrunners Joe Kleinerman 10K and left us this report.
SPEAKER_00:Good morning, everybody. This is Rob from Glen Rock, New Jersey, at the finish line of the Joe Kleinerman 10K here in Central Park, the first New York Roadrunners race of the year. Finished with my cousin Rachel, which was fun because she said, you know, I've never had anybody to run with before. And I thought, oh, have I got a group for you? The race was great. The weather was absolutely fantastic. Not as warm as where most of you are in Disney, but I guess we'll do what we can. This was going to be a shakeout run for me, a nice, easy start to the year. And that lasted until the person said three, two, one, go, and the horn went off. And of course, then I can't help myself. Finished in just over 55 minutes, which I'm really happy with. Looking forward to a great season. I hope everybody travels safely, coming back from wherever they are. Happy running. Have a great week.
SPEAKER_11:And we wrap up. Audrey and Sophie did week two of the Fudge Sickle 5K series in Tewkesbury, Massachusetts on Saturday. Most of the course was super icy. It's a fudge sickle race. You gotta be icy, otherwise the fudge sickles would melt. So they decided to take the early option and walk it instead of risking running it. A wise decision and a win for Audrey and Sophie. And that's it for the race report for episode 225. Friends, if I miss one, like I said, and it's important, let me know. We'll make it up to you. But I think we'll start getting back to a more normal routine with race reports and race report spotlights. That wraps it up for episode 225 of the Rise and Run podcast. What a week it's been. Well, it took us a while. We tried to paul put it all into words, but no doubt we still left some emotions out. It is so wonderful to see everybody in this fantastic family. Once again, congratulations to Jack and David. Congratulations to you for whatever you accomplished at Marathon Weekend. Your first 5K, your first marathon, your first dopey. Or maybe your 33rd Disney Marathon. That's right, Alan. I'm talking to you. Alright, my friends, and if you run, you know you are our friend. We appreciate you so much. Training continues. I know it's tough. We'll talk about it probably a little bit more later, but training continues. The race season continues. We loved seeing you this last weekend. We look forward to seeing you again. And until that happens, happy running.
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