236. Takeaways from the 2024 Global Runner Survey

[00:00:00] You're listening to episode 236 of the Marathon Running Podcast. In this episode, we're going to look at the 2024 Global Running Survey.

[00:00:17] This is the Marathon Running Podcast by Letty and Ryan from WE GOT THE RUNS. Join us in our running community for weekly content that is motivational, educational, and inspirational, and let the Marathon Running Podcast take you from the starting line to the finish line and beyond.

[00:00:38] Hey, runners, and welcome to episode 236. My name is Letty.

[00:00:42] My name is Ryan.

[00:00:43] And we are back with a very interesting episode where we're going to talk about a lot of statistics and data that was collected by Running USA, sponsored by Active, where they looked at some trends in running.

[00:00:57] But before that, you've been traveling a lot, Letty. So you went to Greece, and you have uploaded already episodes about that, right?

[00:01:05] Yes, I went to Greece to join the European Running Business Conference and do some media stuff there.

[00:01:13] You guys can find these videos on our YouTube channel, which is basically a review of the Athens Marathon, as well as what the European Running Business Conference is all about.

[00:01:23] And that was fun, and hopefully we can do that in a couple of years when they hold the conference again.

[00:01:28] Yes, in Porto next time, 2026.

[00:01:31] And this last week, you were at TRE.

[00:01:34] Yes, I was at TRE.

[00:01:35] And TRE, for those of you guys that don't know, is the running event.

[00:01:39] Those are the, that's the acronym for it.

[00:01:41] It's an expo for vendors, and the people that come to it are retail companies, etc.

[00:01:48] We were able to attend that as well, going as media to kind of see what's new for 2025 and what's coming.

[00:01:56] So, during this last week, you actually got a lot of content, didn't you?

[00:02:01] I did.

[00:02:02] I had scheduled appointments with most of the shoe brands that you guys have heard of, and some of them probably not.

[00:02:08] And I recorded videos with the brand specialists, not just about what's coming out in 2025, but also more about their shoe line.

[00:02:17] And for someone who has not shopped their shoe line, how they organize it when it comes to recovery shoes, tempo shoes, and performance shoes.

[00:02:25] And so, you're going to come out with some videos for people to watch?

[00:02:28] Yes, I have so many of them, and I will release them over the next few weeks, hopefully.

[00:02:33] So, that way, you guys can get that insight and be excited about what's coming in 2025.

[00:02:38] So, Leti, were you surprised by anything coming out?

[00:02:41] I actually was very surprised, Ryan.

[00:02:44] Skechers.

[00:02:45] Skechers 2025.

[00:02:47] They are coming out with some actual real running shoes.

[00:02:50] Last year, when I was at TRE, they had a lot of pickleball shoes, but not really going down the rabbit hole of creating running shoes.

[00:02:58] But 2025, I think, is going to be quite a game changer for them.

[00:03:01] And then another brand I'm actually really excited about, too, is CEP.

[00:03:06] Have you heard of them?

[00:03:07] Sounds like a compression something or other.

[00:03:09] Yes, exactly.

[00:03:10] It's the compression sock brand, but they're coming out with shoes.

[00:03:14] And they're not just regular shoes.

[00:03:16] Those shoes are absolutely gorgeous, plated, and they look fast.

[00:03:19] So, I'm very excited to release that video as well and let you guys see what they're coming up with.

[00:03:25] It'll be interesting to see some of the people that are, you know, venturing into shoes that aren't the traditional brands,

[00:03:32] if they make it or if they form some type of grip with people.

[00:03:36] I agree.

[00:03:37] And I kind of feel it for all these running shoe brands at TRE because there are so many of them.

[00:03:46] And then you have the big ones, you know, Hoka, who's hosting the Hoka party for everyone invited.

[00:03:52] It's got to be hard to break into that market.

[00:03:54] But at the same time, as we will learn from this global running survey that we're going to talk about today,

[00:04:00] running is still on the growth and not to be stopped.

[00:04:04] So, maybe there will be room for more brands.

[00:04:07] Yeah, time will tell.

[00:04:08] Exactly.

[00:04:09] So, you want to get into it?

[00:04:11] Sure.

[00:04:11] So, Leti, who did you interview?

[00:04:13] So, I talked to Jay Holder, who is the director of Running USA and was in charge of the survey.

[00:04:20] And yeah, he had presented that survey actually at the European Running Business Conference,

[00:04:24] which is how I found out about it.

[00:04:27] And yeah, it's super interesting.

[00:04:29] So, are you ready to hop into that?

[00:04:31] Let's do it.

[00:04:32] Perfect. So, without any further ado, we're now going to play my conversation with Jay Holder.

[00:04:39] All right. So, I'm on here with Jay Holder.

[00:04:41] Jay, thank you so much for joining me for this.

[00:04:43] Leti, thanks for having me. It's great to talk to you.

[00:04:46] Absolutely. And maybe you can tell our audience just briefly who you are and what you do.

[00:04:50] Sure. My name is Jay Holder.

[00:04:51] I'm the executive director of Running USA.

[00:04:54] Running USA is the sort of the community that brings together the running event professionals across the country in North America.

[00:05:04] We are a member-based nonprofit organization.

[00:05:06] We have almost 300 members and they make up race directors, race organizers, vendors who handle products that go into the race experience that runners have.

[00:05:18] So, metal vendors and t-shirt vendors.

[00:05:20] And we do everything from education to research to best practices.

[00:05:23] We host a big conference in February of each year where we bring everybody together and talk about what's happening in the running space.

[00:05:31] Absolutely. And speaking about research, you guys did the Global Runner Survey 2024 by Active.

[00:05:38] So, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what the goal of the survey was.

[00:05:44] Yeah. The Global Runner Survey, we do a lot of research, but this is sort of our marquee piece of research that we do each year.

[00:05:52] We set out to find out what runners are thinking, what they want to spend, where they want to race, what distances they want to race.

[00:06:01] And it's a pretty in-depth survey.

[00:06:03] So, this year we had 7,500 responses, people who are willing to sit down and spend 10 minutes talking about how they engage with running and walking.

[00:06:12] Our goal is to get 10,000 next year.

[00:06:15] So, we're working really hard on that.

[00:06:17] But it really gives some – you know, we've got a lot of number data in our database and at our fingertips.

[00:06:26] This really gives us some of that data that we can't get from looking at registration and finisher reports.

[00:06:34] So, it's a pretty comprehensive look at habits in the running space.

[00:06:37] Perfect. And before we hop deeper into that, maybe tell us a little bit about who these people were that took those 10 minutes of time to sit down.

[00:06:43] How did you reach them and what was that type of cross-selection of people?

[00:06:47] Yeah. So, we really kind of – we count on our members to help us reach them.

[00:06:53] So, we don't interact generally directly with runners.

[00:06:59] We interact with our members who are race organizers.

[00:07:02] So, we ask all of our members to put this out.

[00:07:05] We ask some of our vendors to put this out.

[00:07:07] So, these are people who competed in road races across the country and around the world in the past year.

[00:07:14] They are not people who don't identify as runners and walkers.

[00:07:18] These are people – they're not people who aren't participating in the sport.

[00:07:21] These are always people who are runners and walkers self-identified.

[00:07:27] And, yeah.

[00:07:28] So, we're really – but we're really reliant on our members, New York Road Runners, BAA, Twin Cities Marathon, Flying Pig, to put out these – to put this out to their participants and have them fill them out.

[00:07:40] 94% of our participants were from the U.S. this year.

[00:07:43] One of the reasons that, Ladi, we saw each other at the European Running Business Conference earlier this month was because we really would like more global responses to this.

[00:07:54] And so, interacting with race directors from around the world is key to reaching that goal.

[00:08:00] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:08:01] To implement the questionnaire in some way or another to have that available and accessible to their runners as well.

[00:08:06] All right.

[00:08:07] So, let's start with some of the main topics.

[00:08:09] Maybe tell me four or five main subjects that you thought were the most impactful and maybe most shocking as well.

[00:08:17] Yeah.

[00:08:18] I don't know if I could say anything is shocking because, you know, if you are around enough races and you're talking to enough people,

[00:08:27] you kind of know anecdotally that these trends are happening.

[00:08:30] So, I think it's more validating of what we're seeing.

[00:08:34] The big news here is that more people want to run and more people want to participate in races.

[00:08:40] We know from a numbers standpoint that participation from every major distance from 5K to marathon is up about 12% year over year.

[00:08:48] And the marathon distance is booming.

[00:08:50] It's up like 26% marathon finishers year to year.

[00:08:54] Every weekend you see news about a marathon having record participation.

[00:08:57] And we're seeing that people's desires and wants and needs match the finisher data that we're seeing.

[00:09:04] So, 60% of people said that they're going to do more races this year than they did last year, which is a huge number and super encouraging for the industry.

[00:09:13] And a lot of those people said, 44% said they're going to run a marathon in the next year.

[00:09:19] Which is the high, other than half marathon, that's our highest distance that people really gravitated towards.

[00:09:25] I think the key takeaway from, for me, and there's a lot of key takeaways, but the one thing that I've really kind of focused on and we want to help our members learn over the next couple months is the most important factor in how someone chooses a race is the location of their event.

[00:09:42] And that doesn't mean I'm picking the location because it's down the street from my house and I can sleep in my own bed.

[00:09:48] It means it, it could mean that, but it also means this is a location I want to go to.

[00:09:54] Race directors can't change the location of their race.

[00:09:57] If you are, you know, if your race is where your race is.

[00:10:00] So it's, it's, it's, it's really important that race directors and marketers understand how to market and make their location a destination.

[00:10:09] We see destination races having a real moment.

[00:10:12] I mean, we know the London marathon had 840,000 people applied to be part of it this year because London, besides being a fantastic event, one of the best in the world is a destination for people.

[00:10:23] We know the Disney races sell out year after year.

[00:10:25] We know the New York city marathon never has a problem filling the field turns tens of thousands of people away.

[00:10:30] But we also know that grandma's marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, which is a beautiful place.

[00:10:36] So not knocking Duluth, Minnesota, it's, it's a gorgeous part of the country, but I think you wouldn't call it a destination.

[00:10:41] And they sold out in 18 hours this year.

[00:10:43] So it's really important to, I think it's this, this shows how important it is for race organizers to market the location and create a destination event.

[00:10:54] Even if they wouldn't traditionally be known as a destination, that for me is probably the biggest takeaway from the whole survey.

[00:11:01] Some other things, you know, we talk about costs going up and we know that costs for everything that we do has gone up.

[00:11:08] And that includes races.

[00:11:10] And a lot of that is because the cost of doing business for races has gone up.

[00:11:14] It costs a lot more to, to rent fence and to rent port-a-potties and to buy shirts than it did five years ago.

[00:11:22] But it doesn't appear that most of our respondents and, and, and, and I want to, and I want to couch this with the fact that a lot of our respondents were, were of, of moderate to high income.

[00:11:32] I would call them upper middle class is a, is a good representation of, of the people we saw responding to this survey.

[00:11:38] But they're not saying that race fees are too expensive.

[00:11:42] They're not saying, and they're saying that they would pay more for, for better experience.

[00:11:47] So people are willing to spend money in this area.

[00:11:51] I don't know how, you know, shifts upcoming and unknown shifts in the economy will change that.

[00:11:55] But at this point, there is a willingness to spend money.

[00:11:58] Um, and I think that that really shows that if you provide a good experience, it can't just be a start line and a finish line and a bib.

[00:12:05] If you provide a good experience, people will pay for the experience.

[00:12:09] People aren't paying for the race.

[00:12:10] They're paying for the race as part of the, uh, part of an overall package.

[00:12:13] Um, so I think that that's, that's big.

[00:12:15] And then the last one I'll mention, I'm sorry, I'm not counting.

[00:12:18] You said, you said five, and I don't know if I've gotten to five.

[00:12:20] Um, we asked about communications this year for the first time.

[00:12:24] And, um, we found that 48% of respondents said that the frequency and timing of pre and post race event communications are important.

[00:12:35] Um, 40, 48% agree somewhat 27% agree completely.

[00:12:39] So that's 70%.

[00:12:40] Almost, yeah, that's almost 80% of respondents say that that frequency and timing of your post and pre event communications are important.

[00:12:48] Um, runners want to, they want to know what's going on.

[00:12:52] They want to be, they want, they don't want to get to the start line wondering where they're going to put their bags, where they're going to park their car.

[00:12:57] Um, so race communications, clarity, timing, having a communications plan, um, is super, super, super important.

[00:13:07] So that, that was another one that, that really jumped out at me.

[00:13:09] It's just, you know, and we knew it was important, but 80% saying that that's a big deal to them.

[00:13:13] Um, and that, that will, you know, be part of that experience that they're writing afterwards.

[00:13:19] Um, huge, huge for race directors to know.

[00:13:23] Okay.

[00:13:24] So that was quite a lot.

[00:13:26] All right.

[00:13:27] So before I hop into, you know, follow up questions with those subjects that you mentioned, I know that your survey has findings that something happens, but do you have an idea of why we saw these numbers influxing from all of stages and running?

[00:13:43] Yeah, I think I have a hypothesis.

[00:13:45] Um, so one of the areas where we saw, um, there was a question on here.

[00:13:51] We asked people how long they've been running and I've got my summary in front.

[00:13:54] I'm not, I'm not rattling these all off the top of my head.

[00:13:56] Um, I have my summary of findings here.

[00:13:59] Um, and we found that I got to find that slide.

[00:14:02] Yeah.

[00:14:02] Um, it's like 19% of runners, 20% of runners have been running for four years or less, um, in our survey.

[00:14:11] Um, if we think about what happened four years ago, um, we know that gyms were closed, uh, sports teams weren't happening.

[00:14:21] So, yeah, I'm sure you saw it.

[00:14:24] I saw it driving around in the midst of the pandemic.

[00:14:26] I saw a lot more people out running than I used to see.

[00:14:29] Um, so I think my hypothesis is that the pandemic and running, running stores will tell you this running, uh, shoe sales are at an all-time high.

[00:14:38] The pandemic created new runners.

[00:14:39] And now four years into their running journey, they're saying, you know what?

[00:14:44] I, I, I've been running all these miles.

[00:14:46] I want to run races.

[00:14:48] And so I think that that is a big part of it.

[00:14:50] And maybe two, three years ago, they were like, okay, I could run a 5k.

[00:14:53] And their confidence is built.

[00:14:56] Their base is built.

[00:14:57] And now they're now this group of people, this 20% of people, um, that consider themselves runners that came into the sport in the last four years are at the point in their running life cycle where they want to run marathons.

[00:15:09] So I think that the numbers line up, I mean, we can't, we certainly don't know, but the numbers line up very nicely to show that that, that COVID running boom, people who started running because that was the only way to get out and exercise during the pandemic.

[00:15:21] They're now, they're now showing up at start lines and it didn't happen immediately.

[00:15:24] I think we all thought, okay, 2021 is going to be here.

[00:15:27] All these people are going to come to races.

[00:15:28] That didn't happen.

[00:15:29] Um, because if you remember when you started running, like it takes a while to really consider yourself.

[00:15:34] You know, we all know that everybody can do it, but it takes a while to work up the courage to go to a race.

[00:15:39] And I think that now we're seeing those people show up and, and, and now it's, it's our job to keep them here.

[00:15:46] Okay.

[00:15:47] Perfect.

[00:15:47] Yeah.

[00:15:47] That doesn't make complete sense.

[00:15:49] We all take a while to go to those first races.

[00:15:51] Um, let's talk a little bit about the location and destination.

[00:15:54] You're mentioning that grandma's for example, is a course that now sells out within the first couple of hours or so you mentioned.

[00:16:00] Hmm.

[00:16:02] So what about the fact that, uh, where does it come in?

[00:16:06] What type of course there is?

[00:16:07] Obviously we know that there's faster courses and there's courses that you would run as a destination event.

[00:16:12] Do you have any insight as to how many people run races to simply finish those or to go to a good course?

[00:16:18] Cause obviously we know grandma is a very fast race.

[00:16:21] Yeah.

[00:16:21] Grandma's is a very fast race, but, uh, you know, I wouldn't consider.

[00:16:26] And again, these are great places.

[00:16:27] I'm just talking about like places that, you know, are constantly listed as tourist hotspots.

[00:16:32] I also wouldn't consider Cincinnati, Ohio, a tourist hotspot, but one of the best marathons in the United States is the flying pig marathon.

[00:16:38] Um, and that is a hard course.

[00:16:40] So I think, um, you know, we, when we asked this question, uh, a small percentage of runners consider themselves serious competitive runners.

[00:16:49] And, and, and it's up to interpretation what that means.

[00:16:51] That could mean I'm trying to break three hours for the first time.

[00:16:54] It could mean I'm trying to qualify for Boston.

[00:16:56] It could mean that I'm trying to compete against myself.

[00:16:58] We really don't know, but it's, it's 20% that say they consider themselves serious competitive runners.

[00:17:03] Um, which leads us to, to, to, to, uh, assume or know that, you know, a lot of people are doing this for the experience.

[00:17:11] I mean, we talked, we were talking before we started recording about, about Athens.

[00:17:14] You and I both did the Athens marathon and we were doing, if we were trying to set a PR, we probably wouldn't have chosen that course.

[00:17:21] It was brutal, but a lot of people just want to go out and have that experience of, of, of finishing.

[00:17:26] And time is, it's a factor, but it's, it's rarely the top factor.

[00:17:30] So I think that, that start to finish line experience, and that means from registration to the expo.

[00:17:35] And my dog is coming to start barking at me now, um, from registration to the expo,

[00:17:39] to the post race finish area are more important than how hard the course is.

[00:17:43] Um, I, I also think that, you know, I'll, I'll couch that or the caveat here is, you know, a brutal, ridiculous course.

[00:17:50] Like, you know, Pike's peak marathon is going to appeal to people who really want to, you know, to go up a mountain.

[00:17:55] But I think a hilly course is less of a turnoff for most runners, um, uh, than a bad experience or a less than perfect experience.

[00:18:05] Okay. Perfect. Thank you for clarifying that.

[00:18:07] And with that also, let's talk a little bit more about destination marathons, because we don't just have destinations.

[00:18:12] We've also have that series that's the world major marathons.

[00:18:16] That is a series that is in only six now, seven, I guess, um, places of, in the earth.

[00:18:22] And then we have other big city marathons that are also major marathons, but they don't have the title.

[00:18:27] They're not part of the series.

[00:18:28] Then we also have the half series that's happening in Europe.

[00:18:31] So maybe talk to us a little bit about how these series marathons and half marathons now play into being part of a destination race versus others like Stockholm or Sweden where it's different.

[00:18:43] Yeah. I mean, the six star, the six star system that, that Abbott world marathon majors did was brilliant.

[00:18:49] I mean, that made people want to, you know, come complete a task.

[00:18:53] So I do think that there is, there is something to, to be said about, about races that are part of a series because there is a feeling of completion when you get them all done.

[00:19:02] And of course, Abbott world marathon majors just added Sydney to the list.

[00:19:05] So now, now all of those people who spent all that money on, on, on six stars need to go to another city.

[00:19:11] I also, but I also think that there is a barrier there.

[00:19:14] Um, and so that's super popular, but you need to have a lot of disposable income and a lot of time on your hands to get that done.

[00:19:21] Um, so I think it's, you know, it's sort of, it's, it is a, there, there are pros and cons to this, to the series aspect of things.

[00:19:27] But I do certainly think that like, anytime you are creating a list that people have to check off to complete, um, you're adding a, you're adding a piece of marketing firepower that, that a lot of races don't have.

[00:19:38] So there's certainly, there is certainly a benefit to that.

[00:19:42] Okay, perfect.

[00:19:43] And now I want to move on to talking about the cost of a marathon.

[00:19:46] I personally am from Europe.

[00:19:48] So knowing the prices of marathons, comparing them to the marathon prices of the U S there's a huge difference.

[00:19:54] That difference is now getting a little bit smaller, but you could literally sign.

[00:19:57] And up for the Paris marathon and other marathons, even Berlin used to be a lot cheaper than the U S races that if they're even not majors there in the $200 and up, maybe talk to us a little bit about, um, that.

[00:20:09] And maybe there are some findings from people outside of the United States.

[00:20:12] I know you only had 6% that were global, but is there any information you can give us?

[00:20:17] Yeah.

[00:20:17] I, and I don't have, I don't have the spending desires broken down on, on global lines, but we did find that, you know, there are, there are, there's a, not an insignificant amount of people who think that, that, um,

[00:20:27] race fees are, are, are too expensive.

[00:20:30] 15% say they strongly agree with that, with the, agree with that statement, but overall people are not what their chief complaints are generally not the cost of, of the race.

[00:20:39] Um, and again, and it might be that our respondents do have more disposable income than the average, than the average, I wouldn't say American in this, in this sense, because 94% of our, of our respondents were American.

[00:20:50] Um, but we know that there, that, that people are willing to pay the prices.

[00:20:55] So there is no real reason at this point for race organizers to one lower them, but also the cost of doing business is a lot higher than it used to be.

[00:21:02] Um, you know, uh, the, while race fees have gone up, um, they haven't gone up at the same rate that the cost of putting on a race has gone on the cost for police, the cost for fences, the cost for port-a-potties, the cost for shirts.

[00:21:15] Um, and that, and that, those are going to continue to climb.

[00:21:18] These are not prices that are going down.

[00:21:19] So that's a big reason that we're seeing, that we're seeing race prices higher than they were five years ago.

[00:21:25] But again, it doesn't feel like it's driving away.

[00:21:28] Um, it doesn't feel like it's driving away competition.

[00:21:31] We know the New York city marathon can cost up to $300 to do, but they, every year they're turning away tens of thousands of people.

[00:21:37] Um, so at this point, you know, the, the, the, the, the costs sort of paces with the demand, um, for the product.

[00:21:47] Okay.

[00:21:47] Perfect.

[00:21:48] And I mean, last but not least, I guess I would like to ask you a little bit about your opinion on a subject, because I know you're very familiar with the Boston marathon and the influx of numbers that qualify and the cutting times, et cetera.

[00:21:59] So we all know that the Boston marathon starting line does not, is not able to, uh, host more than 30,000 runners.

[00:22:07] What are your thoughts on that?

[00:22:09] And are there any ways for Boston to expand and not leave runners that qualify hungry or alter the starting times?

[00:22:19] Yeah, it's really tough.

[00:22:20] As you said, you've been to Hopkinton.

[00:22:22] It is a, it is a very narrow street up there and they cram as many people as possible.

[00:22:27] I think it's really hard to predict the trends of, uh, of paces, um, that people are going to run when you're putting out qualifying times.

[00:22:36] So I think, you know, Boston tries to do this every year.

[00:22:38] It's an inexact science and every year people, people rise to the times and they, and they run faster than their qualifying times.

[00:22:45] And then there has to be some hard decisions made.

[00:22:47] We're actually working on a study right now at Running USA to show where trends in marathon times have gone on in the past five years.

[00:22:53] And I think that'll be some, some interesting, uh, those would be interesting statistics for people to see when, when we put that out.

[00:22:59] Um, I think Boston does a, does a great job of, of, uh, of, as I said, an inexact science.

[00:23:06] I'm not sure you could grow that race.

[00:23:08] Um, I think that, you know, that maybe some more charity entries, um, to allow people to get in.

[00:23:13] Um, I do think that the qualifying standards are, um, I think it's the one race in the country that has qualifying.

[00:23:21] Um, and I, in the world really that has qualifying.

[00:23:23] Um, and I do think that's a unique aspect to the Boston that, you know, to, to what makes Boston, Boston.

[00:23:29] Um, I also think that, you know, it's, it's hard to make any major changes to a race like that.

[00:23:36] Not because of tradition, because people talk about tradition a lot, but because of the number of people that are the number of, um, governing bodies, uh, sponsors that are involved in this event.

[00:23:46] They run through eight cities.

[00:23:47] So expanding, maybe making it a two day race, all of that would require so much buy-in from so many different people that I think it's a really hard thing to change.

[00:23:56] So I know that they're always looking for, for ways to make that race more accessible.

[00:24:01] I know the BAA, here's the, here's the feedback, here's the complaints.

[00:24:04] Um, here's the, here's the praise.

[00:24:06] Um, but I know that any change to that race is going to be glacial just because of the, the amount of moving parts that are involved with, with making it any different than it currently is.

[00:24:17] Okay.

[00:24:18] Okay.

[00:24:18] Perfect.

[00:24:18] And Jay, maybe you can let us and our listeners know where we can find the survey if they want to read the full thing.

[00:24:24] Yeah.

[00:24:25] You can go, you can go to runningusa.org.

[00:24:27] We have that in our marketplace and we've got lots of research in there.

[00:24:30] We have over 400 million race results at our fingertips and we're constantly trying to comb through those and see what, what new data we can find about what's going on in the running space.

[00:24:39] Perfect.

[00:24:40] Thank you so much.

[00:24:41] Thanks, Leti.

[00:24:45] Thank you, Jay, for speaking with me and giving me all this information.

[00:24:49] I hope you guys learned something interesting about our favorite sport.

[00:24:54] I think surveys are always interesting because it kind of can show you the trend of what people are thinking or doing.

[00:24:58] Exactly.

[00:24:59] And hopefully we will be able to have a even more broad pool of participants in next year's survey by increasing the number of participants from outside of the country.

[00:25:11] Yeah, that will be interesting.

[00:25:13] So speaking about global running, you're planning a trip to Kenya.

[00:25:17] I am planning a trip to Kenya and it's going to happen rather soon.

[00:25:20] We are hoping to go to Kenya to explore a professional running training camp.

[00:25:28] And I'm super excited about that.

[00:25:30] Are they setting up like vacations too or like things for normal people or for anyone else to go and visit?

[00:25:36] So this particular training camp is trying to expand and get to that point.

[00:25:42] And we are basically going to be the first set of testers for that.

[00:25:47] So that's kind of exciting too.

[00:25:48] Also very exciting is that it's a not just a training camp, but it's with the professional athletes.

[00:25:53] And, you know, within the next couple of weeks, once we finalize all the planning, we can kind of hop into which runners we're going to be interviewing.

[00:26:03] And I guess motorbiking next to since we can't keep up with them.

[00:26:09] So you'll have to tune back in to see how the trip to Kenya turns out.

[00:26:15] Absolutely.

[00:26:15] And also be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.

[00:26:20] We are at running podcast on YouTube because I'm sure I'll be releasing tons of video footage on that because that's going to be a very, very exciting trip for us.

[00:26:29] So stay tuned.

[00:26:31] Absolutely, Ryan.

[00:26:32] And stay tuned for next week's episode.

[00:26:34] Hopefully soon we will have a gift guide for you guys like we do every year.

[00:26:39] And with that.

[00:26:40] Have a good week of running.

[00:26:44] Thanks for tuning in.

[00:26:48] For more information and marathon running news, please head to www.marathonrunningpodcast.com and we'll be back next week.