Hi team, I'm Fitz Kohler, your very noisy race announcer and fitness pro from fromfitness.com, and welcome to The Fitness Show. Today, we're going to talk about one of my favorite race weekends of the entire year, the Hoag OC Marathon weekend. It just happened the first weekend of May, and it was spectacular as per usual. I always get extra excited about this race weekend for a variety of reasons. Number one, it is the very first race I ever announced. So Rudy said.
Hey, would you like to come announce a race with me? And then he connected me with the race director, Gary Kutcher. And thankfully, Gary said, yeah, come give it a try. And as you know, I fell in love. And thankfully, more people gave me a chance. And I have this wonderful, fabulous part of my career because of the two men who are going to join me today.
But also, this thing is so much like a family reunion. I feel like the biggest amount of our running friends that we have very deep personal connections with show up here. So much like you get a class reunion every 10 years, we get to do that every single year at the OC Marathon. And then the other thing is I just freaking love working for and with Gary and his sidekick, Kelsey Peterson. It's a real blessing.
And yeah, we have a lot to discuss today. We're going to talk about all the highlights or as many of the highlights as we can squeeze in. And then there's some questions that I think need to be answered, addressed. There's minimal drama and there's all good reason for it. So here they are, the ones that I love, Rudy Novotny and Gary Kutcher. Hi, guys. How's it going today? So great. It makes me happy just to be with you guys. Sure. We're just kind of finishing up.
You know, we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We're sending out all of our virtual packages right now. So we're still kind of in that mode. How many virtual athletes did you have? I think we were 375, 400 packages had to be sent. So it's been crazy. And then they include things like our legacy water bottle, which doesn't ship well. There's the jackets that people pre-purchased. There's all the things beyond just a metal, a shirt, and a bib.
So it's been kind of crazy. We had the Beach Cities Challenge with our dolphins we have to mail. Now we have triple, there's just all these different things and every, every virtual runner is different. So it's all good, but we almost got all finished. Wow. The, the work never ends. So I want to start with some numbers of your race weekend because they're pretty impressive. So this was the 20th anniversary of the Hogue OC Marathon Running Festival. Congratulations.
20 flipping years. Can you believe that? It's a long time. Yeah. And I've been part of it for, well, for 19 years. I've been part of it from being on the board, but I really kind of took over about 15 years ago. So it's been, even that's a fairly good run. That's your quinceanera. Yeah, it's my quinceanera. Yeah, and it's Rudy's. Rudy's there for all 20 of them. So it's pretty exciting. Yeah, we're all celebrating. My 20th, Fitz's 10th, and anniversary of her first.
That's a big deal. Yeah, it's a tripleversary. That's exactly what we were doing with our other events. Tripleversary. Tripleversary. So 20 years. And this year we had 3,406 in the Hoag OC Marathon, which is huge. 11,012 in the half, 4,409 in the U.S. Bank OC 5K, 5,836 in Kids Run the OC, 21,100 total total finishers, 1,700 volunteers, and 22 countries were represented on our courses in 48 states. That's a monster event.
And you brought so much joy and goodness to your community and people far and wise. We had, for the businesses, 70 vendors, and those vendors were all so happy at your expo because they were slammed with nonstop customers. 25 charities were supported, $9.5 million raised over 20 years, 500,000 plus in 24 alone. And you had 70 corporate teams, 159 running clubs, over 400 family teams.
Gary, it's a colossal amount of goodness that you have provided to your your community and our country and those from overseas. So congratulations on your very meaningful work. No, that means a lot, especially when you put those numbers there. It really is. And it's a team that we have. I get to sit here and talk about how good the event was, but it wouldn't happen without our team. You already mentioned Kelsey and we have Adrian, who's so important for those teams.
That's really what's so good with her. She really manages those teams really well. Our kids, there's just so much good. And the more we're doing this, the cities are getting more involved. Even the city of Newport Beach won our corporate challenge for the medium-sized company. So they're really stoked about it. So it's just really a great event that's kind of coming into its own.
Wow. And you're changing lives. I mean, look how many people have lost weight or, you know, they've come back from heart attack or cancer or, you know, all these children that you are convincing that exercise can be really fun and rewarding. So you're certainly inspiring endless amount of goodness. And I'm confident you will never have any idea how much good you've done with this business of yours.
That's very nice. It really is to see the people coming across the finish line, to see the emotions of people who finally did whatever it is the milestone in their life, their bucket list, or they are coming back from something that was a loss of a family member they ran in their honor.
There's just so many stories out there on race day and, uh, and which, you know, I gotta be honest, seeing both of you up there, cheering them on, knowing so many of them being part of that family reunion that you already kind of talked about seeing these people who fits it with your own, with your own cancer and, and, and beating that and, and being there for so many others who have, who are experiencing those things or who have also, you know,
had had their own challenges and you being out there and hugging them and bringing them in. And, you know, it's, it really is a beautiful thing. Yeah. Yeah. Goodness galore. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it. So I like to always start at the start. And our first event of the weekend was your making waves celebration, kind of a VIP sponsor recognition, celebrate the legends. But there was one special legend that was added to the Hall of Fame, Rudy Novotny. Congratulations on that.
Thank you so much. It was a wonderful honor. And for once and for all, and for the last time, I had no idea that you guys totally stealthed me. You pimped me, especially you, Kohler, talking to me in advance when I'm being interviewed for a newspaper article. All right. Well, well, you know, Gary, Gary really did a good job on it. He just everybody did and informed me, Gary.
You know, you know what, though? I want to if I may, I want to pedal backwards because all just for a moment, all those numbers were were really incredible. I mean, everything was so much bigger this year and it was just more participation. But the number two, the number two comes into play here.
Who were the two states that weren't there oh yes you know come on harry done that i you haven't done that they should be publicly shamed i'm on the only two states that weren't there i i don't even know what they were so i'm gonna have to do that right okay all right just curious i haven't haven't come out of the weeds yet from the other i didn't have time to look before but.
Understood understood we had two states not there well i and i know we definitely had alaska and Hawaii there because there was a ton of Alaska and Hawaii. So those folks were RRCA. So along with our OC Marathon weekend, we had the Roadrunners Club of America specifically plan their national conference to coincide with your race. Tell us about that, Gary. Well, you know, they've been around forever. This was their 66th annual conference.
And And we've been using them for insurance for a few years. And so last year I went to their conference in Chicago that coincided with the Shamrock run in Chicago last year. And I was so impressed. I've been going to these conferences for a long time. And it really felt family-like because so many of these of the RCA people are coaches. They they're not just some of the other ones. There's a lot more vendors involved. There's it seems more like.
Industry-centric, but not as close-knit with people that are there. When all of a sudden you get so many coaches who are going for their certifications at these conferences, as well as the insurance people that are there, and they talk so much about the runners themselves, about what the runners need and how the runners, from creating clubs, it's not just the coaching, but it's all the clubs.
They have so many clubs that are involved. And so from that, it felt way more intertwined with the running community to me. And I really embraced that when I was there in Chicago. And so I spoke to them. We had talked about them making a connection to Southern California and it worked out. So this is a little bit later than they normally do it. They normally try doing it in March, early April.
So it worked out well. I hope it was great for them. And we certainly tried rolling out the, the OC marathon carpet for them. And hopefully everyone really had a great time. They were fantastic. They, and, and disclaimer, I gave the keynote for their luncheon day prior, and I did a little icebreaker with them and they were such a fun audience. They were just so, so passionate about running and excited about each other. And they were chomping at the bit to get to you and race weekend.
And I mean, so many, over a hundred of them participated in our races and they just brought so much joy. They loved it, Gary. And we got nonstop feedback that they were just thrilled to death with their experience at the OC. Yeah, it was, it was really good. They, they actually posted something on their Facebook page afterwards of their haul. They must have won this. Eight or nine age group awards. They won so many different things.
They actually had someone come and win the 5K that was one of the RCA run club members and coaches. So that was exciting as well. We also were blessed to receive the Kids Run Award from Reverence Club of America this year as well. And then we were also the national championship race for the marathon. So, it really was a love fest as far as I was concerned.
We wanted to make sure they had a great time. I think there were way more than 100 that actually participated in both the marathon or half marathon on Sunday. And there were 150 or so just for the 5K. So, it was really a lot of them. So Rudy and I love that they, you know, we had formed a relationship with them before race weekend. So as they came through the finish line, so many of them were putting up the little hard hands for us and just love that.
It's so meaningful. I was like, oh, my new besties. They're fantastic. That was, that was a good pairing, a great pairing. But we, we were really to have the, the national marathon championship here to, to be able to go speak. We also did a seminar while we were over there on our Kids Run program, and we had a large audience wanting to learn more about how you can put on a program like this.
Our Kids Run program had 6,000 kids, 5,800 kids, like you mentioned already, but it's 117 schools this year. Back in 2019 was our biggest year. We had 170 schools and locations. And so to add that to an event like ours is quite a task. And so we have, we've worked on a lot of the wrinkles. We know what it takes. We know how to manage the wrinkles. The schools themselves. And part of our whole philosophy in doing that is we don't want to manage 5,800 kids.
We just want to manage 115 coaches and get them the information. And then they go out there and they disseminate our information to their schools. And that's how all of those kids then are introduced to running or our activities. And then they too, hopefully become lifelong runners. But so we won the award in addition to being able to put on a, you know, a one-hour seminar on how you incorporate a run like this or a program like this into your event weekend.
So Rudy, you and I host together, what, 50 to 60 different events around the country every year. Do you see anything that comes anywhere close to the Kids Run the OC program as far as children's races go? No, it really is unmatched. And boy, it was bigger. It was just so big this year. It was great seeing that number of schools. Gary, was that an increase from the last couple years as far as number of schools and participants?
Well, yeah. This is one of those things. We know that running's back after pandemic. These are individuals who finally say, okay, I'm ready. With schools, it took a decade of continuously organic building to get us where we were in 2019. And what I mean by that is teachers will be at a school. They realize how impacting this program is. And teachers move from school to school or parents who are runners, who bring it in, become the champion at their school.
Their kids then graduate out from that elementary school to a, to a junior high or something. And so what, what ends up happening is those teachers, as they move from school to school, whatever they bring this, the program, they say, we had this great program at our school at. Adams Elementary. And now I'm over here at Jefferson and I need to go ahead and get it started. So organically, it continues to build.
The pandemic has still kind of got a lagging effect on that because so many of those parents have had kids who are now three or four or five years older, and they're no longer at the school where they were helping out. In 2021, we didn't even have the program because outside programs were not allowed on campuses. Campuses were still closed in November of 21, if we remember. Last year was really our first year to, well, 2022 was our first year to introduce it. It was much smaller.
So this is really just our third year of building that back up again. And I fully expect that by next year, we'll be back into 130, 140 340 schools and, and well over 6,000 kids. So go on Rudy. No, just for people who are listening or watching the, who might not be familiar with the program, the essence of it is the kids go through this multi multi-week program and, and get in like roughly 25.2 miles. And they come to the, to the OC marathon weekend and run that final mile and
celebrate their marathon, which is just really cool. There's so much joy. And the kids are loud and proud. And I think we had some really exceptional moments in the beginning of a couple races that Fitz kind of marshaled up that was exceptional. Yeah. So very proud to say I wear my patriotism on my sleeve and I'm always, grateful to be in a position to inspire other people to show off their patriotism as well. And so we did have two of our eight heats. And mind you, folks,
these heats were about 800 kids each heat. So we had eight throughout the morning. And the first two, we had individual youth performers sing the anthem. But as soon as they finished theirs, when we got to that third heat, I went straight for patriotic sing along and, you know, the opportunity to tell those kids, sing loud, sing proud. This is your country. Freedom manner matters. And boy, did they belt it out.
I mean, you know, when you look around this country and you see some of the things that are going on right now, it really is refreshing. And just good for the soul to hear their beautiful little voices just shouting the anthem. them, right? Six times. It was perfect. It was, it was so amazing. I, I have a video. I think I've shared it. I need to share it again if I, if it didn't come across it, but there's one boy who's saluting.
There's, you know, you see so many of them with their hand on their heart and, and they, they not only know the words, but they pause perfectly at every time they should. I mean, It really was special. To hear 800 or 900 kids all singing the national anthem perfectly, it warms your heart. It is so good. Actually, I think I've found a way to pull up this video, so let's listen to it. Here we go. We want this handsome, handsome coach in the gray shirt. Come on up, handsome coach. That's you. Yep.
Do you know what's happening? I know. I love that. That's low again. All right, handsome coach. What's your name? Phillip, where are you from? Phillip from Irvine and Alderwood Elementary, right? Does everybody love Coach Phillip? Yeah, of course we do. So this is a time where we are going to honor our country, our freedoms, and those who serve with the national anthem. Who knows the words of the national anthem? That should be everybody.
So our goal here is to sing as loud and proud as we can. If you can stand, please do. If you're wearing a hat, please remove it. And Coach Phillip is going to start us off with the first four words of the national anthem, Oh Say Can You See. And then we're all joining in. And Coach Phillip just went, uh-oh. But you can hear it. Are we ready, Coach Phillip? We're ready. Are you guys ready? Is everybody ready? Whoop the tongue a little louder.
Jeff Hugh, Jeff Hugh. I apologize to the band. Oh, say can you. Music. Makes me even more proud to be an American. That was awesome. And that happened six times like that. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I just burst. I don't know. It's a very selfish six moments in your race weekend where it's completely selfish. But I think the rewards are for everyone, right? Yeah. And, you know, Fitz, you had mentioned that our waves were 800, you know, like 800, 900 a wave.
If you think back on the races that we do, and they're all great. They're all wonderful. But they would kill, the races that we do would kill for one wave that was that big. Yeah. Country-wide, Gary, you have something that's very, very, very special. And kudos to Grace who gets any child out there to exercise. But you do an extraordinary job. You and Kelsey. I know, of course. Okay. So we have a lot of big, important things to cover. I want to jump right to Marathon Day, Sunday.
And I don't want to, well, let's quickly, let's chat about the 5K. What do you want people to know about the 5K, Mr. Kutcher? Well, listen, it was our largest 5K. We ended up having multiple heats. It was so good to see the families out there. So good to see all the RCA people out there. It utilizes one of our colleges right off the campus. Not to really get into it too much, but it was, you know, it's 4,000. We had to close registration early at 4,400. We had.
Just our largest event ever on that. We had music on the stage all afternoon long. And then we had a band that Rudy already referenced, Robert John and the Wreck. They were on the stage prior to. They stopped for the run. We brought them back afterwards. There were so many people watching them post-event. And that's what it's all about. That's a little thing we also call the Celebrate OC Festival. So it was in force. The people stuck around and enjoyed it. And that,
that was really Saturday night. It ends right about sunset. Weather was, was absolutely perfect. So that's, that's Saturday in a nutshell. And then we, then we get into Sunday. day. Yeah. And to add on to that, I mean, the 5k is that perfect family event where almost anybody can go the distance. We of course even had athletes in a chair. We had a four-year-old with, I believe a cerebral palsy and he had his little Walker that was Larson.
I just wanted to devour him. I mean, this is accessible to the masses. And so it's so great to see all the people of all the races, religion, fitness level, ages coming out to participate. And, and we have that special walking division now. So the people in the back there, they are welcome to walk. They are, they're encouraged to walk and they, they did. It was really, it was really spectacular. Rudy, is there anything you'd like to add?
Not really. It was just, again, as Gary had mentioned, the largest ever. It just went on. The start just went on and on. I was worried about the people in the back getting run over by finishers that were coming back in. No, it was super fun. What I like best about the 5K is it's a rather rare event when we have an evening presentation like that. And there's so much going on.
You know, there's just the way the fairgrounds is set up where people can enjoy after the, you know, the beer garden going on, food available, music. It's really, you know, it's a race, but it's so much more, you know, so just an exceptionally fun part of the weekend. I can only imagine how much coordinating goes on behind the scenes for the food trucks and the bands and everybody. Just colossal effort. But let's go to Sunday. We have marathon, half marathon, huge numbers.
From Rudy and I's perspective, it was perfect from start to finish. Gary, that start line structure, gorgeous. And as the sun rises upon it and all those tall palm trees line the streets at Fashion Island, it was majestic. And 100% of our athletes showed up with happy faces on race morning. Yeah, it was a beautiful start. And I'll tell you, at 1 o'clock, well, about 1.15 when I started heading down to the start line, it was pouring down rain.
And, and we had fireworks. I got to the start line about one 30, one 40. And, uh, and it was, it was, it was raining. We had our fireworks guy already putting things out. He was telling me that no worries. We can, we can still do this. We had probably two hours, pretty consistent, Just a heavy mist. And we were kind of worried about it. But boy, it stopped.
The skies opened up to this gorgeous cloud-covered sky with the sun coming through and hitting them and creating all these different blues and oranges in the sky. It was gorgeous. And so, yeah, we started at 5.30 a.m. with our marathon with fireworks and 3,400 registered runners and that. You know, we had, we had some shuttle issues that we're still looking into.
We're going to figure out what happened between the marathon and the half marathon, but, but that did create another problem that we can get into. But the, the marathon was, was fantastic. The half marathon was 11,000 plus as far as the registered. And I think they were all there. We had, again, going back to these shuttles, we had people arriving later than we'd like, but we'd already started the race at 630 instead of 615.
So it helped us out a little bit there, but I've never seen so many people. It was, it was just incredible. Yeah. And they were in such good spirits. And as you know, I'm a bit of a start line junkie. I live for the fun people at the start line and, and kudos to our marathon runners, Rudy, cause they were awesome. They brought big energy, right? They were very excited. And Gary, was that the largest group of marathoners in the race history?
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, prior to that, I mean, that was probably 600 more registered runners we've ever had. And likewise, about 600 more finishers. Yeah, pretty close, though. Pretty amazing. And, you know, that's one of the things that's kind of bucking the trend at so many other races is that the marathon has really continued to slip while the half marathon has gained so much traction.
I don't know that I can truly put my hand on why our marathon really went through the roof as far as final tallies, but it was fantastic. And the fact that I spread out the marathon and half marathon by that extra 15 minutes, the idea was to try to give those marathoners a little bit more of a leeway before those fast halfers start coming through. Because there are a couple of tight parts on the course that we want to be careful of. Well, very thoughtful and very well executed.
Even if somebody got on a shuttle later than they should have, everybody arrived in time. In fact, with absolutely every single race that I announce across the country, all y'all go and a monstrous group of people make it through the start line on time. And then there's these stragglers. Where did they come from? Where were they? So I would say this year we had less than normal. We had fewer than normal stragglers at the end of the half marathon.
So if there was a shuttle issue, it didn't show because we had almost everybody take off with the pack. So that was great. And then of course, finish line, major excitement nonstop throughout the day. In fact, we had, it was so busy and I don't know if everybody really gets the gist of what Rudy and I do, but yes, we have computers that will give us the names of our athletes, usually about 20 yards before they cross the finish line.
We don't memorize everybody's name, age, hometown, right? Rudy, are you still memorizing? No, now you're just blowing it all there, Fitz. I mean, I had people convinced that we memorized, you know, 16,000 names, 17,000 names. We have a limit though. And more than that, we're going to need a little help. A little help. Anyway, go ahead, tell them. So we have the computers and then, but we're not only just looking for names, we're looking for, you know, what causes people are running for it.
They have certain logos on their shirts, or if they're wearing a great outfit, or if you're like Grant, who's wearing nothing more than a Speedo or one of our firefighters. So we're always trying to actually connect with our athletes and see them. And so that makes our ability to make the experience more colorful for everybody, for the spectators and for our athletes, when we recognize something interesting they've done or they're doing.
And then we're looking for our friends. And because we have so many people at the OC, we're laser focused, trying to catch everybody. buddy. And it was so busy that I think we caught less than 50% of our OC besties. And I would have felt bad about it, but I didn't because it was just so busy. I'm just a human person. He's a human person and his throat wasn't feeling so good. So he took little breaks and I just threw my hands up at some point. I was like, okay, I just can't catch everybody.
I'm not going to cry about it this year. It was big time. It was big time. And it was cool that we had birthdays. We had birthdays on our computer, which was a nice add. That's right. Yeah. So when someone comes to finish, we were able to say, oh, it's your birthday. And they liked that very much. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it was great. And we passed up over something real quick. So Fitz really does enjoy that start line. And I have to bring Rudy to the finish line to get him there for those first
finishes. But Fitz loves being there to the very last starter at the start line, and I can't get her out of there. So, Fitz, thank you for being so, you know, just devoted to every one of those people to get them across the start line. And then you get to welcome them at the finish line. Yeah, yeah, thank you. And I know Rudy enjoys the start line, too. He gets a little sad. He voluntarily leaves me at the start line knowing that I would cry buckets if he made me leave.
So thank you, Rudy, for doing that. This is one of the things we did at the start line. You didn't get to see, Gary, is for all the half marathoner, I gave each corral their own separate pose. So, you know, maybe the first corral did the number one finger and the second corral did two number ones. But then the third finger I told or the third corral, I said, you guys point at the camera.
When you come to the finish line, point at the camera. And so I see so many people pointing, and that's a great maneuver. If you're listening, next time you run a race, try that one. We gave some of them the muscle pose. Some of them got the hard hands or a little chin on their hands. And so as the day went by, if you saw some people doing some pretty kooky stuff at the finish line, that was all predetermined at our start line.
And I encourage you to look through many of your marathon photos pics because they were good listeners, and they did as they were asked to do. That's awesome no i didn't even know that so that's pretty cool i i wonder how many of them coming across the finish line for their first marathon do this right here and go yeah great a bunch of them did and it just worked it's the why on earth would i do that.
Jeez like that it looks perfect it just looks very you know extra points for the fun people who aren't going to, you know, walk through looking at their shoes or looking at their watch, you know, to give them the, an assignment actually brings some of them out of their shell. So, so, so yeah, fun, fun, fun. So let's, let's go back to our marathon champion. So if folks don't know, we had to disqualify the first male to, uh, he was actually the first person to finish the marathon.
So explain that for us, Gary. Yeah. The, if they don't know, they haven't turned on the news for the last week because I think it's been just about everywhere but unfortunately I learned shortly after the race that the runner that was came across the finish line first had been receiving unauthorized assistance and. There's a lot of different things that can be unauthorized assistance. It can be drinking from a water bottle or something given to you by someone.
It can simply be a bicycle rider riding beside you for a period of time in illegal pacing. It can be conveying information about the runners catching behind you or you're looking good. Or even someone saying the road's turning right up here. The runner, it's incumbent upon the runner to know the course. So all these different things, you cannot offer assistance to a competitor that's not available to everyone else right behind you.
And when I say everyone else, I don't mean the 10,000 people behind. No one's looking at the person in 7,000th place, whether they received a bottle of water from somebody. But those elite runners who receive an elite runner code, who are running, trying to be one of those top spots in the race, they should know the rules and those rules apply to them. Go ahead, Fitz. Question. Do you make the rules or does a sanctioning body for the entire sport of running make the rules?
And if so, who is that? Yeah, so it's a USA track and field. And so that is a, we were a sanctioned race. In addition to being a certified course, we were a sanctioned race. And so with that in mind, the USATF rules come into play. And there's a couple different rules in their large handbook that addresses this. One is rule 144, the other is 241. want. Both of them are kind of aligned. One of them is meant more for the track and assistance. The other is more for road racing.
But in both cases, they address the issue of one competitor receiving assistance that's not available to someone else. And so they're. You know, there's other rules that the elite runners get also, although everyone else runs by their chip time. So if they come across the start line 20 seconds later or 30 seconds later or 15 minutes later, their time begins when their chip goes across the start line. But if you're one of those competitor elite runners, it's the gun time.
So if you happen to be coming across the start line later, it doesn't matter. or we go by your gun time. So there are these rules that apply to the elite runners that don't apply to everyone else. But that's been a lot of things in the media. It's like, wait a second, should everyone be disqualified or receive something from a neighbor or something else? And no, that's not that case at all. It's really that this particular person's assistance was given to him specifically to him.
And it doesn't matter whether it's his family member or whether it's a friend or what doesn't matter, but the assistance was only provided to him and not to anyone right behind him. You know, one of the interesting things that was actually explaining to my mom today, because I believe there was a 17 second distance between first and second, is that correct? So, and we probably have close to 17 water stations on the course.
So whenever an athlete has to step to the side to grab water from a volunteer station, a hydration station, it's probably dropping them at least a second off their pace. And so 17 stops or let's say not stopping, but slowing down to grab some water. That certainly slows an up pace down at least by 17 seconds. And an athlete that has a cyclist riding alongside them and they don't have to pull over to the side to grab their water instantly.
They're doing at least 17 seconds better than anyone else on the course. Doesn't matter if it's water or Gatorade or tequila in that water bottle, it's still a benefit to a person who doesn't have to slow down to make up that time to get hydration. Yeah. In addition to that, our water stations are set up about a mile and a quarter to mile 1.4 apart.
And so when you have someone who's providing your nutrition, your hydration when you need it or when you think you're thirsty compared to having to wait that extra half a mile, it makes a big difference. And, you know, so once once I was. Given some information about this was happening. I called over our, our cycles, cyclists that are part of our lead cyclists that go with all of the lead runners.
And so they had video of the entire course from the very beginning to the very end, I mean, two hours and 30 minutes of video. And so we were able to see a lot of instances where this occurred and it's unfortunate. I trying to do anything wrong. I don't think he really, I don't think there was a premeditation to, to do this and not be available. I really don't. I think it was a young, talented runner who, who I think just needed to, to learn the rule on that.
And, and I hope that he learned that this is something that is, you know, something he just can't do in the future. It's that that's a much better, I mean, he, he had mentioned that we didn't have water stations ready, other things out there. And I think that's unfortunate. I think our water stations were ready, but even to that, we just talked about the difference between those water stations.
If there was a water station that wasn't ready, that means it's not ready for the guy 17 seconds behind him either. And so instead of getting your water every 1.25 miles, that one might be three miles. Well, that does make a difference when you're running in a 26 mile race. So it would still be fair if one of our water stations wasn't set up and that particular runner didn't get it for one, you know, three miles and the guy behind you didn't, they both are still on the same playing field.
As soon as one person starts getting it at intermediate levels in there and other nutrition, who knows what's in those water, but it might be a type of electrolyte that this person really likes. So there's other, there's all kinds of things that's the elite runners use. Are the elite runners allowed to carry their own water? Absolutely. Anybody can begin with their water. They, so that's also, it's, it's one of the rules within those two rules that I already mentioned.
And so, yeah, runners can begin with their own fuel, the whole bit. And so, yes, but they can't be handed anything from an unauthorized party of that. Hey, and we, we all know this. We've all run with water. There's a burden to carry your own water, right? It slows you down. It jostles. It's awkward. So you can do that, but it's certainly not much of an advantage. You know, there's a, there's a burden to carrying your own as well.
So, you know, not everybody understands and people on social media, they're, they're really hot and heavy and it's easy to hide behind a computer screen and I'm going to ban the OC marathon because they did this horrible thing to this guy. So to be clear, They're not Gary Kutcher's rules. They're not OC Marathon rules. These are the national rules of the governing body of our sport, correct?
Yes, absolutely. And if the same exact thing happened at the New York City Marathon or Boston or Chicago, the same outcome would come about, correct?
Absolutely. Not only that, but once we had the video, once we knew this happened, I contend it would would have been just as big a story if not more if the second place runner came to me and said gary that person should be disqualified he didn't say that i just want to make sure the second place runner did not ever make a statement about as far as whether the first place guy should be disqualified that was my ruling solely but if i chose not to disqualify with knowing this information
and there was a complaint lodged against us. I think that story would be equally large, if not more, that we allowed this to happen knowingly as a sanctioned race with the governing body of the USA Track and Field. So yes, it was something that had to happen and it's unfortunate. And if you don't uphold the rules, isn't it quite likely that you could you could lose your certification and you wouldn't even be a Boston qualifier anymore.
There would be severe ramifications for your race if you did not uphold the rules of the sport, correct? Yeah. I mean, it might, it might affect us getting a future sanctioning for it. So, you know, I, I don't know that we've always tried to, to. You know, apply the rules fairly and across the board. So I don't know. Once I, once I knew that I had to make that decision. So it was something that was actually fairly easy in the moment because I knew what I had.
Yeah. And, and, you know, a minute prior before getting this information, us three, everybody there at that festival was elated for runner number one. Everyone was excited about him and there was no personal vendetta against this guy. It was nothing but joy and accolades until you got that information. And it's, it's a hard thing to have to do. I'm sorry you had to do it. I'm sorry you were put in that position, but kudos for you for doing the hard thing.
It's, it's sometimes the right thing is the hard thing. Yeah, absolutely. Well, fortunately also, go ahead, go ahead here. No, finish. I'm sorry.
No, I was just going to say, I think that, you know, I would like to think that future runners who are going to be doing the OC, whether they are the elite or whether they are, you know, somewhat back from that, that they recognize that what we were doing was, was applying the rules fairly, that we are a race that you can come and recognize that we are going to abide by the rules of the sport and that, you know, they're going to come here and get a quality race because of that.
Rudy. Yeah. I mean, and I'd like to, I'd like to bring up that, you know, you are, of course the onus is on you. You are the, the, the first line of defense of the carrying out of USATF rules and regulations and you're required to do so, you're also very familiar with the particular rules and regs as they regard illegal assistance because we've been there before. Yeah. Back in 2014, it happened where the runner one was receiving assistance, mostly illegal pacing that we found out about.
I think there was some also some other things, But that instance was the second place runner's family came up to me and they were part of running legend, not necessarily in a good way. So Stephen Shays is who became our winner that year, great runner. And unfortunately, he had been in the news or his family had been in the news. His brother was running a New York marathon as a trials for the New York trials and passed away during the race. And so that happened. Oh, six Oh seven.
I I'm not exactly sure, but, but Stephen Shea was running a great race. The, the gentleman in front were receiving, was receiving illegal pacing. Stephen's brother came to me immediately after the race. We had a conversation and I told him then I couldn't make that determination yet. I didn't have the, I didn't have the video.
Proof that, that I had this time. I was then given some of that from them and, uh, and heard other, you had to do some of the research on that, but then made the decision a couple of days later, you know, that, that made the news as well. But, you know, it's just, it's one of those things. It doesn't happen very often. It happened last year in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia marathon. A young man was trying to run a time that would get him into the Olympic trials.
Trials he ran a 217 he would have made the trials and unfortunately he was provided with hydration from someone who wasn't an official of the race and they disqualified him and so you know he said i i'm not a fan of of the way this rule was applied but i accept it and i'm gonna learn from it and and so you know it was he he was above he really took a good tact as far as how he dealt with that, that race. And, and unfortunately he didn't get to run the Olympic trials.
So it's a, it's a heavy rule when it's applied to the person who's, who's, who does that. I mean, it's doesn't seem fair and you could argue, you know, that didn't make the difference of the race, but the, the, the race officials have to make the rule to keep it fair for everybody.
Yeah, for sure. Just like every other sport, football's got their rules, soccer, soccer baseball everybody's got roles and it's up to the event organizers leadership to make sure those rules are upheld so let's jump in i we we've actually got a deadline here so i want to cover the other two most interesting topics so let's talk about the parking lot gary you know this is something that's been our my my the biggest issue for us that we're dealing with right now Now,
we had people that were stuck in the parking lot for two hours after the event. And, you know, the one interesting or the one problem with our event is that everyone finishes that, you know, we know how the curve of runners. There's very few finishing it at two hours and 25 minutes, and there are a lot finishing at four hours and 15 minutes. And similarly with the half marathon. That does put an awful lot of burden on the exiting of that parking lot.
However, we don't have an exact answer yet as to what happened, but we have multiple solutions. I've already met with the police, the local police. I will be speaking even more with the OC Fair and their parking staff, and I am extremely apologetic to those people who were stuck in the parking lot. It's not a safe situation to be not able to get out.
In addition to that these are people who just ran either a half or full marathon they're just wanting to get food or meet their loved ones or or get to lunch or whatever it might be and and so yeah we had some real issues and so i think what we can say is that it's the first time it's happened like this we had it happened well over a decade ago when we had a different course that really impacted the the parking lots differently
but we changed that and haven't had a single issue like this for the last 10 years. And so I think that this is something that we will solve. I'm working with multiple agencies to make sure this does not happen going forward. And I just, I hope that people who see this will give us a chance again to come back out and see that we're able to fix this. Now, I heard rumblings that there was a cranky customer in the car that became. Maybe aggressive and perhaps threatening.
And some of the parking attendants that could have have kept the traffic moving smoothly were pulled off of their job because they were concerned about their safety. Is that true? It is true. I don't know that I, we have an awful lot of law enforcement around there. I think that maybe a different decision could have been made with regards to, you know, pulling people who are trying to move cars around there. But we have some real champions who got out of their cars.
Wearing their medals even, and helping direct traffic. So, you know, listen, it's a real issue, and I'm very sorry that it happened to so many runners. We worked for a year planning all of these amazing things to put them to come together. And then for the last experience that someone has, that's really hard for us.
You know, they had a great day from getting there to their run, to receiving their medal, to enjoying the festival for a little while and then only to have their day, I don't want to say ruined, but certainly dampened by what happened. Yeah, affected in any way. Right. Yeah. Right. Well, you know, it's so, you know, similar as I'm a Florida Gator. We've got a big deal football school and big deal football games. And sometimes you win that heartbreaker. It is incredible.
And everybody tries to leave the stadium at once, all excited. And then everybody's trying to leave at once and they're all cranky. And so this is not a new issue just to you. It's an issue that major sporting events experience globally. And I know you do your best. And I know our athletes, they had a blast at the start and they enjoyed every step of that course. And the party was raging and the snacks and the drinks were flowing.
And so I'm hoping that these are the type of people that will have forgiveness in their heart if they were delayed a couple of hours after such an extraordinary athletic adventure. And not hold it against you. It's interesting, again, going back to people get so ragey on the internet and maybe they just need a few moments to settle down and look at the big picture, correct?
Well, a hundred percent. And I'll kind of cap that off a little bit, maybe more where you need to lay the really important factors. You know, I'm someone who prays daily, and my prayer the entire week and months leading up to it was making sure that everyone goes home to their family members safely, that we have a safe event, that nothing bad happens, not just to a runner, but someone on court, anything.
And so we can say that we had our most successful year ever, the least amount of medical issues. Runners were safe everywhere. where it really was a huge success from the public safety point of view and the runner safety point of view. And so to me, the event was, it couldn't be better when you apply that benchmark. Then these other things are all things that we can make better. Absolutely. Yeah. Priorities, perspective.
Also, there's a question about UPS truck. One of the UPS trucks got stuck in the mud in some regard. Tell us about that. Well, that was one that we already have a solution. So So Oliver Jones has been our UPS liaison for just forever. And he is just the most wonderful human being. And he retired and wasn't able to be there this year.
That's not the reason, but it was, he's so good about pivoting, making, you know, those decisions that require, you know, we see something and things are changed as a result. So what really happened was I mentioned early on the shuttle issue. We had some shuttles that were being delayed. We think it had to do with, as they were getting near the start line, they were all crunching down to turn left into one turn lane, and there were a lot of cars getting into that.
So we're going to modify how those shuttles come in. First time we had that problem. But then what happened was the UPS truck started taking off on their normal time grid to lead the start line. Go ahead. Let's explain that UPS was our gear check. So people that wanted to check in their bags full of dry clothing and shoes or whatever, they put their bags in a UPS truck. The UPS truck drove to the finish line. And then people, once they cross the finish line, could go retrieve their bags.
Okay. So just explain. Yeah. So the UPS personal item storage, they've been partners of ours for 15 years. And so then what happens is people take their clear gear check bag that has their bid number on it, and they drop it into the truck, the corresponding truck. But in the past, what we've been able to do is start pulling those trucks so that they all don't leave at the exact same time. Each of those trucks has to go through a bomb sniff check once they get back to the finish line.
That's all from the Boston Marathon still. That's a holdover. And so what they have to do is they go through that. That takes a little bit of time as well. So we start getting them to leave. Well, with this shuttle issue of people arriving late, we were down to one or two trucks remaining when a lot of buses finally were able to get through. And once they got through, there was only these couple of trucks left and people are frantic trying to get to the start line.
They were throwing their bags into the remaining UPS truck or trucks. And by the time those trucks then got to the finish line, one truck was really the heaviest, heaviestly impacted. That they just never got caught up after that. And so, again, we know how to solve that. We won't have UPS trucks leave early. We had never had this problem like this in the past. And so we had a couple of these things that we haven't witnessed before.
We have solutions that we're going to make sure they don't again. And then I go back to that previous thing. Our benchmark was safety and people going home. And that all happened. So these are the other issues that we're going to fix. I love it. I love that you take ownership. You've done research, you've investigated issues, and you've come up with solutions.
And I hope anyone who's listening that didn't know before, Gary Kutcher cares desperately about not only his event, but every single person that participates, whether you're a runner or a spectator or a volunteer or a vendor, you're the most sweet person. Just thoughtful, decent man on earth. And so, you know, but my, my, my family motto is perfect, boring, and I know you strive for perfection, but it's human error.
And, you know, the commitment to do better and be better is always, you know, as always should be accepted and celebrated. Yeah, listen, we, we have a lot of these different, there's a lot of different things that go on from From shuttles to start line to closing roads. There's so many different layers that have to work well. And we had a couple that didn't this year. And I think that that's where we're going to be. You know, going back to UPS, we had that rain leading off the day.
Not trying to make an excuse, but we had more people wanting to use the personal item storage than typically does on a 60 degree morning here in the OC. see. So you had a lot more people who said, you know what, it's raining or it's misting. I'm going to wear this little jacket. I'm going to go ahead and toss it in UPS. So I think we had more people utilizing the service. We had these issues that compounded that. And so, you know, we're going to, we'll be better because of it.
And I really, again, we're sorry that people had to wait in a UPS line and certainly those that were in the parking lot, but give us a chance next year. Those won't be problems and we hope nothing else will either. Yeah. I have good faith. Rudy. Final thoughts on the OC Marathon recap. Hoag OC Marathon recap. Well, is registration open right now, Gary? Registration is open already. We've got about 1,200 people registered already.
There's 1,200 already. And we're going to be closing registration here in a couple of weeks and then we'll reopen in the middle of July to more fanfare. But yeah, there's registrations open right now, still at the, at the expo rates. So I don't know when we're putting this out there fits, but if anyone sees it, get registered before we close. Yeah. Register now. Hey, it's just a great race.
What I love most about it is there is absolutely something for everybody and anybody of any age, of any ability, running, walking, listening to music. It's just, it's so much. It's all of that. And Gary, as we start moving into the summer, OC Fair 5K coming up, right? OC Fair 5K, August 11th. We're working on that right now. That will be opening registration on Monday. And that's going to be exciting. And then our run for a applause in December. So we've already moving to the next things.
So much goodness. Gary, is there anything else you'd like to add? No, I just want to thank you guys. It's so important to our race. The runners who get to hear your voices, Rudy for 20 years, Fitz for 10 years. And it really is great hearing both of you out there, seeing both of you. And I know that runners, they can't be more happy when they come across the finish line and see you guys up there.
And I appreciate that. Hey, we started it this way, but I want to go back with a few numbers because freaking incredible 21,100 finishers, 17 human volunteers that came out of the goodness of their heart to make this weekend. Fantastic. 22 countries sent athletes, 48 States were represented and wow, you, you, you really created something spectacular here. So congratulations to you and Scott Baugh and we'll be there next year.
Awesome. Fitz, we will see you. you all right love you guys thanks love you guys see you bye-bye aren't they the best they're just so wonderful and i'm so fortunate to get to work with both of them and they are dear dear friends just such a lucky girl listen i had to kick them out because i had somewhere to be but i did not forget the song of the week that's right i did not forget the song of the week i asked gary kutcher to make a recommendation.
What would he like you guys to add to your playlist this week? Something to pump up your workouts, whether you're doing yoga or playing soccer. I don't know. Whatever you do for your workouts. And he suggested an oldie but a goodie, Beautiful Day by U2. And yeah, of course, that makes sense because... His, his race weekend was nothing but beautiful, beautiful days. If you haven't done so already, please visit ocmarathon.com.
Check out that race weekend and register for something. It's worth the trip. If you live far away, great. Make the journey. It's, it's certainly worth the effort. And Rudy and I, we promise, you know, it's one of those races we can stand in front of by and behind because it's so good. And yeah, yeah. Yeah. Follow them. They're also OC Marathon on Instagram and Facebook. If you haven't done so already, you can follow Rudy. He's on Facebook. He's on Instagram, but he doesn't really use it much.
And then of course, I'm Fitzness everywhere. That's F-I-T-Z-N-E-S-S on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and of course, Fitzness.com. And if you haven't done so, visit Fitzness.com. It's been newly renovated and I would love your opinions. You can tell me if it's easy to navigate, If you think it's pretty, if you like the content or not, I'm up for suggestions. And then I'm going to make it available to you guys first.
I have a contest this month where I'm going to be giving a free hoodie away to one lucky winner. And to enter, you have to find the pink microphone on my website. Now, it's not an actual microphone in my hand in a photo. Of course, I use many different colored microphones. Windscreens from my microphones. This is a graphic of a pink microphone, but I think it's pretty easy to spot.
When you find it, you click on the microphone and that will lead you to a little form that you fill out and then you are entered to win the randomized drawing for a Fitsness hoodie and I will choose that winner at random and then notify the winner and we will also publish who who the winner is on fitness.com. So leave a review, leave a review, Spotify, Apple music, pop wherever you listen. And yeah, go have a wonderful day. In fact, forget that. Have a beautiful day. Get to work team.
Love you. Hi, this is Rudy Novotny, the voice of America's marathons. We all love how much running has benefited every aspect of our lives. So much so that most of us only wish we'd started sooner. Wouldn't it be wonderful to gift the opportunity to children of today? Well, you can. The Morning Mile is a before-school walking and running program that gives children a chance to start each day in an active way while enjoying fun, music, and friends.
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