At what point did you realize that these races at Disney were becoming something much bigger than originally expected?

To be honest, it wasn't till, uh, probably around year five.

Um, and I say that because something, um, uh, really amazing was happening, um, in, uh, '96.

And, but it was amazing, but it also almost cost us, well, potentially almost could have been, uh, the end of the marathon.

And that is because you might have heard of this little race in Boston.

It was turning 100 years old.

Now, you th- that's phenomenal, right? That's great.

What, what are the evolutions of these races? Like, did you guys bring this up, or did Disney bring this up to you guys? "Let's add some more race weekends"?

[laughs]

But I was curious because in my mind, there were only literally a handful of running stores in the '70s, uh, late s- you know, mid to late '70s.

So I asked AI, and I swear to you this is the answer it said.

It said, "There were a handful of running stores" in the...

And I said, "Well, that's exactly what I said." So, um, it was very unusual and not, uh, easy by any means to try to be opening a running store in the '70s.

And so, um, a- and, and I may say this several times just 'cause it's, it's the truth from back then in the '70s, mid '70s when I was running to now, is I, I love running so much.

I've always wanted to share that.

Please.

Uh, can you tell us a little bit about your involvement with this iconic series of events?

Sure.

Um, in '92, um, Michael Eisner was at the helm, and Disney decided they wanted to, um, to find other ways of marketing, obviously to get folks to come to the parks.

And, um, we were talking to one of their marketing folks, and, uh, we actually had, had suggested this a few years before.

Um, so but this time they seemed to be s- really serious about maybe wanting to do something, but, um, didn't know what.

So we presented what we'd presented to them earlier, which was to become a destination marathon-

... 15-month-old granddaughter

... my gosh, almost a year has passed.