Hey! Michelle with a Mic: Running Cincinnati with the Flying Pig Marathon

On the very first episode of Hey! Michelle with a Mic, Michelle sits down with someone she’s known practically her whole life, Doug Olberding, CEO of Flying Pig Marathon and the force behind one of Cincinnati’s most iconic weekends.

From the history of the Flying Pig to what it really takes to pull off a 45,000-person running festival, Doug shares the heart behind the race, the community impact, and why people from all 50 states and more than 20 countries come to Cincinnati just to run with us. They talk about everything from PigAbilities and the Flying Fur race to bacon on the course, blue jean miles, and the incredible volunteers who make it all happen.

Doug also opens up about his personal journey, from tragedy and loss to purpose, passion, and leading one of the city’s most beloved nonprofit organizations. Plus, they dive into the $45.9 million economic impact the marathon brings to the region and what’s next for Pig Works in Cincinnati.

This episode is about more than running, it’s about community, resilience, and what happens when a city shows up for each other. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the brand new, very first episode of Hey Michelle with a Mike. It's what we came up with. I think it's cute. And I have a great guest with me. My first guest is someone I've known since like basically my whole life. We're up the street from each other, you know, grade school together, Doug Overdame. And he is the CEO of the flying pig Queen Bee. They call Pig Works. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Pigworks, yeah. Pigworks is the parent organization for all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Which is a lot. You have a lot going on. And it's the 20 going into the 29th year, it's ready to ready to roll here very soon.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Very soon. So we are, well, let's just say we're two weeks away from the opening of the expo. So we the expo opens at uh the first financial center. I gotta get used to saying that name the first financial center on uh May 1st. So we are two weeks away. Um we're super excited because um, you know, our registrations have been popping um this season, and and so we are expecting a record field um in a record field for Flying Pig Marathon weekend. We should have over 45,000 people uh here. Uh we'll have probably about 63, 6,400 in the marathon alone. So we're really excited about those marathon numbers.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes, and it's not just a day, it's a weekend. And there's so it's not just the big race. You have brought in so many others.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, it's really um, you know, in in the industry they call these running festivals. There's a difference between sort of a standalone race like the New York City Marathon. There's one marathon and that's what it is. Um, but but you know, over the last say 25, 30 years, this concept of the running festival um has emerged. And and the flying pig, you know, when we first started, we were just a marathon. Um, and then we added a 5K, and then that turned into a 10K. And then we said, well, let's add another race. And we had a relay, and then we grew off of Sunday uh to Saturday when we added the half marathon, um, and then we went from this Saturday and Sunday to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Um, then we started adding events around the calendar. Uh, but but that idea of having multiple events for athletes, you know, our mission is to provide events um for athletes of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. And so that means you can't you gotta be a little bit more than a marathon. And so that's what Flying Pig Marathon Weekend is. It's everything from your baby in diapers uh crawling in the diaper dash, you know, all the way to the 26.2 mile marathon and everything in between.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, with pig abilities, which I love, the disabilities run, right? Right. Isn't there a fur? Is there a yeah, yeah, so yeah, so we might as well just go through. Well, they're fun. I mean, there's just so many that people don't realize. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So what happens? It starts on Friday night with um the 50 West Mile and the Blue G Mile. Those are the same race. The 50 West Mile is a one-mile race. Um, and it's the only race where we offer prize money. So the very last heat of the 50 West Mile is an elite heat for the men and an elite heat for the women. And um we offer prize money for that. So all the fast people come and we'll do that and try and win some money. Um, but within the 50 West Mile, we have something called the Blue Jean Mile. And that is an event to raise awareness for teen mental health and suicide prevention. Um, it was started by a friend of ours, um uh John Grigoric, who was an elite runner in the 1980s. He works for ASICs now, and he lost one of his sons to suicide during the pandemic. And his other son, both of his sons were elite runners, um, his other son during the pandemic decided to try to raise awareness for mental health. And he said, I'm gonna try and set the world record in the mile, but running in blue jeans, right? And so there is that's something that we're that people do it, and they try. So the record for the blue jean mile was four minutes and eleven seconds. That is smoking. Yeah, no. And he trained and he did it online, and he ended up beating it. He ran 406, and then he started this event from it. So now what we do is ASICs is one of our partners. Uh John comes in and we do this event. It's wonderful. So that's Friday night. That's that's one I have not heard that. Well, it was new last year. It was new last year, and it came in really late. Like, I think.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Oh thank god, there's stretchy jeans in there. Yeah, there are stretchies. There are stretchy jeans. But people wear overalls. I bet you I bet the creativity is pretty good. It's very creative. Put George out there. George did it all.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Um but then Saturday, that's Friday, and the expo opens on Friday. Then on Saturday, um, we start with the 10K, uh, then we go to the 5K, and then we have um our 26th mile. That's our youth program where kids are uh throughout the school year are logging miles and they log 25 miles in their hog log, and then they come to Flying Big Marathon weekend and they run their last mile and finish at our finish line. We'll have about 5,000 kids doing that. Um then we have you mentioned pig abilities. Pig abilities is our race for our athletes with um developmental or physical disabilities. It is the race that if you are standing at the finish line and you are not sob, then I I have to question whether you're human or not. Because it is the emotion, it's just unbelievable. It's so great. Um, and and then of course we have our our flying fur, that's our pigs race. So, yeah, race with the, you know, the you bring your dog, people will put pigs in strollers and push pigs in strollers.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Seriously. I'm dead serious.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

It is hilarious. Um uh but anyway, the flying fur, and and then of course, Sunday is the big day that is the flying pig marathon and the half marathon and the full marathon relay, all starting at the same starting line at 6 30 in the morning and continuing through uh the entire day with the post-race party.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Uh I mean it just takes over the city and it's fantastic. One time I did, I walked jogged a half. I said, I'm a jogger, not a runner. Yeah. I'm a That's okay. Like, what happened to jogging? Nobody talks about jogging anymore.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah, well, yeah, you know, but I I feel like you are running. If you are putting one foot in front of the other and just getting any lift at all, then you are running. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Alright, then I'm gonna sit on the runner.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Say it.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Okay, so how many volunteers does it take to put this on?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

That's a good question. And I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask you, how many do you think it takes to put on flying pigmar for the weekend? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

I'm really bad at this. I just guess how many jelly beans are in the jar either. Okay. Um, okay. Um 3,000.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Uh low. We are 8,000 volunteers. 8,000 volunteers put the entire for the entire weekend. Oh my gosh. Um, we use throughout the year about 11,000 volunteers for all of our events. But I I say this. You on Flying Pig Marathon Weekend, I don't think that there is an available volunteer. Whatever the volunteer capacity at this region is, we use it all on Flying Pig Marathon Weekend. And these are people that are doing everything from stuffing bags, you know, the week before out at Scarlet Oaks, um, to being at the expo and taking your registration, directing traffic, um, the start line, the finish line, passing out water, everything, the water on the course, the fun stations. Um, it is a monumental operation. And um, you know, we are fortunate that we have uh this woman, um, Lauren Burlweis. I'm gonna call her out because she's pretty amazing. Okay. She ran with the volume. Coordinator. Volunteer. That's her key.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, she's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing. And talking about the course, so there's a change up this year because the bridges that threw a little glitch in your plan. Yeah, little is an understatement. How do we think that's gonna roll?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

It was a big, it was big.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

People probably come in and are prepared because they've run it before or they know the route and then people training, but now it's yeah, I think that the challenge was.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

I mean, you know, we knew that this was gonna happen uh a year and a half before it happened. We went to the Kentucky uh transportation cabinet out on uh I-75, and uh they brought us out and they showed us what they were gonna do, and at that point they said, you know, this is in the budget. If it passes through the budget, then this is gonna happen. It's gonna be December of 2025 or somewhere around there. And uh so we started planning after last year's race to try to find a new course. And so this is the thing about the flying pig. If you look at our mission statement, right, um, part of our mission is to uh put on premier running events that delight the emotions of all participants, regardless of age, ability, or background. So you we have an obligation from our mission to delight our participants, right? And one of the ways that you delight people is through the course. And if you look at what we do, it is probably the hardest course to get approved and certified. Um, the easiest thing we could do, like if you want a marathon course, well, we'll just send you out on Columbia Parkway for 13.1 miles and turn around and come back. That's a marathon. People would hate that, nobody would come. Um, so what we want to do is showcase the region. We look at it as a 26.2 mile tour of this region. So we go over the bridges, we go into Covington, we go into Newport, we come back into Cincinnati, we go all the way out to Mariemont. So, and and and so to do all of that stuff means that we are running in five cities, two different states, that's two state departments of transportation, that's five police departments, five fire departments, five city councils, and and one change over here means a change in some other part of the course. So, and all the people that we need to talk to are never at the same table. I can imagine. I mean, that is a lot.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

It is a lot. But I love how it does show our city. Yeah. And when people come here from, what's the furthest? What was the furthest last year participant? Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Well, I mean, other side of the world. So is China that the the furthest away from us, wherever the other side of the world is.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

And they are like, oh, point of Cincinnati on the plane.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

It is amazing. It is all 50 states, uh, you know, 20 plus form countries. So every year it's it's it's over 20. We've had as many as 30. But you know, part of it is this. I travel um around to other marathons. I go to the marathons, so one part of our you know strategy, we have like you know, a digital strategy that we use to market the event, but we have a ground game, and part of the ground game is just being in these cities where other marathons are happening, and we visit their expos. And one of the things that is really amazing about this, and people say, how how do you do it? Why are people coming? It is in a way because of the name.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I mean, if you think about it, if we called it the Cincinnati Marathon, I wouldn't be talking to you right now. Probably right. I don't know if the thing would still be happening. Right. But it's called the Flying Pig, and it invites a conversation. I go to, I was at New York Marathon Expo for four days, I was on my feet for 11 hours a day, um, with a you know, one of our uh our marketing VP. And I don't know how many times I answered that question. Why is it called the pig? Why do people want to come? Why do people so it just invites it invites a conversation? You know, why do you call it the pig? You can you there's a million things you can do, and the equity in that brand, you know, think about that. You know, a pig is a funny animal. It is a super funny animal, and it's a non-athletic animal. You know, it is the most non-athletic mascot of any sport, and so it just is funny. It's intriguing, really funny, and and people love that. And that's and then we, you know, of course, you know, as I said, we have to delight our participants, and we give our volunteers um creative license. You know, people say, How did you come up with that? We're gonna come up with serving bacon on the course. That wasn't our idea. That was a group out in Marymott that said, Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we served bacon on the course? And they did it, and we heard it. People were saying, Oh man, did you get the bacon? So now we buy them 400 pounds of bacon. Oh my gosh. And you go down to Marymott and you can run it down the path right now.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I smell it. You can smell bacon. That makes people pick up a pastry shirt. My street when I lived in Eastwalk Hills, they did mimosas at the end. Yeah, always at a table of mimosas on medicine. Yeah. And it was funny how people would come out and go, okay, all the man will probably isn't in their plan on when they're training, yeah, but sounds good at the time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It's um so it's it's doing all of those things and allowing people um to be creative because you know, we kind of uh called it um, you know, plan spontaneity. It's it seems it is spontaneous, you know. We will help, you know, but it's them coming to us with these crazy ideas, and we just say, Yeah, if you want to do that, go ahead and do it. As long as it's safe, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Well, I mean, it's it's so fun to watch. I loved it the split also, so which is great wherever you took the split. And the costumes and the outfits people wear running is insane. And you're thinking, okay, it's hard enough to run, but to run in an inflated pig costume or carry a flag or what all these people are doing, yeah. It is, and I think the participation all over the city of people cheering on. And I know after the race you've read, people from have you know are visiting and they're like, I have never run in a race that has people cheering you on from beginning to end.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah, that was um, so last year it was really funny, um, about a week before the marathon, um, we got a message um from this woman. Uh, her name is Jenny Simpson. You might not know her, but she was uh got a bronze medal in the Olympics in the 1500, and she was a gold medal in the world championship, and she excellent runner, and she retired. She officially retired, and her and her husband decided what they were gonna do was give back to the people that supported her. So they got an RV and they decided they were gonna drive to all 50 states. You know, take a year and just drive to all 50 states, and they would go and run these races. And we found out, she said, Hey, flying pig, can I run? Is it you know, so yeah, we got her in the race and everything like that. So she had heard that this was the race to run in Ohio. Uh so she came in and I didn't see her before the race. I didn't get a chance to talk to her, I didn't know where she was or anything like that. I kind of forgot that she was even there. Um, and she did the half. And so I'm sitting here at the half, and all of a sudden I see her coming, and she is in second place in the women's race. Oh, wow. And and she, you know, doesn't try to pass the person. You know, she was very and she came across and she was just hugging these other women, and they were like, and then she told us, she goes, I have never seen anything like this. Because she goes, there was people cheering the entire time. And we brought her into the VIP area, and she got the people clean, got her food and everything like that. And she came back this year and said, She was our ambassador for the Queen Bee. Oh, that's so she's a great friend of the marathon now, but all because of that experience she had last year.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah. So tell me, because I've obviously known you our whole lives, how your involvement, you know, I know we have some family way that this all became a passion of yours. Can you take us back a little bit and tell your story?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, um, well, I I kind of I think I'd always been a runner. I didn't know I was a runner when I was young, but I knew that when I played football or basketball or we were running around in the playground of St. Parts, that nobody could catch me. I it was fast. And I I wasn't very good at football, but I loved running laps because I would be the first one back. Um I was the only one on the football team that liked running laps. Um but anyway, I I started, uh I ran track, St. Bart started a track team in 2008. Uh and uh Mike Geiger was the coach, and then when I got into high school, I thought, well, I'm gonna play basketball, and of course I kind of cut on the first day. Um and I, you know, but but the coach of my very first day of school with Roger Bacon, um the cross-country coach came in and said, Hey, if you want to play basketball, um run cross-country. It's a great way to get in shape. And I didn't know what cross-country was, but I said, okay, I would do that. Um, and you know, it wasn't long before I was, you know, the second runner on the freshman team. Um, and then I ran track, um, didn't make the baseball team, so I ran track and they put me in the 800 and I didn't lose a race the entire and so then all of a sudden I thought I'm a runner. And and so, you know, I ran all through high school and uh went off to college. I went to Indiana University and ran cross-country and track there, but it was a disaster. I didn't, you know, I was injured the whole time. I mean, it was it was a different different level, it was a different time, the shoes were different, um, and it was probably the wrong place for me to be running. I should have, you know, there were Olympic athletes on that team, and it was it was before Title IX, and so it was a churn and burn situation. You get 60 guys on the team. If they can still run at the end of the cross-country season, they're probably gonna be in really good shape. And everybody else is so it was crazy. But anyway, um, I continued to run after that, and so um I, you know, my wife and I, we met, um, we got married, uh, we moved to Lexington, Kentucky. Um, and and you know, this is where the story, you know, is it changes a little bit. Um, you know, my family had a cottage in Williamstown, Kentucky, halfway between Lexington and Cincinnati, and we were there in May opening the cottage up, and everybody was doing their thing. Um, I had run the Boston Marathon about four weeks before that. And my sister Maria came to Boston to watch me run. And when I got done, she said, I want to do this too. And I said, Well, okay, I'll I'll put a training plan together for you. So there was no internet, you couldn't email anything. So I drew this training plan out and I faxed it to her. So I was faxing her things to her. Um, and so we were there on a Sunday, uh, opening the cottage up, and she said, Hey, I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna go home, I've got to get my run in. And so she left. And when we got done, my wife and I left, and we drove back to Lexington, and um, we were in bed, and this again was you know pre-cell phones. Every if you had an answering machine, it was one of those tape answering machines. And the phone rang at you know 11 something. We were asleep, and um and I could hear my dad saying, Doug, pick up the phone, pick up the phone. And I was like, What is going on? you know, and then I just you know kind of dozed back off, and then the phone rang again, and it was my dad again, and so I got up and I ran into the other room and picked up the phone. He said something like, Maria's been attacked, you've got to come to the hospital. And I was like, What? And I woke up Julie and it was really strange because I didn't know that she was dead, but I grabbed the suit and threw it in the car. And, you know, I put shoes and everything that I would need for a funeral, and I don't even know why I did that. And we drove um up uh to Cincinnati and went straight to University Hospital. Um, and when I got there, there was uh news, media there, and my cousins, um, my aunts and uncles, family and friends were all there, and uh that's when they told Julia that we know was dead. And you know, we went into this room and briefly, you know. I didn't want you to be prepared because there's only what I want to talk to you about and what happened. Um and uh then we went in into the room where she was, and um you know she was covered up except for her face, and um you know she was like me that if I spent time in Sonic Sun Troubles, you know, and we had all been on the sun and she had all these fresh sun troubles on her face, and um you know, we said goodbye, and um and you know it was. If you were in Cincinnati at that time, um it was about two weeks of it was the only thing that you heard about. And the person that did it was a 16-year-old kid or 15, he was 15 or 16 at the time, he had a fight with his parents. Um, Maria was running down Herschel to pay, and uh this kid came out of the house and he had a butcher knife in his hand, and he saw her knife, and he just started staring at her, and she died from the sidewalk. Um and so I and that story is. Important because at that time in my life I was like a financial analyst for this public interest nonprofit. I did all this research. And I had been thinking about what I wanted to do. And, you know, they say that you shouldn't make decisions when a tragedy is happening. But I did, and I kind of told my wife, I said, I think I'm gonna go back and uh get to work on my doctoral degree. I had started a doctoral program in political science, but I didn't, you know, it wasn't what I really wanted to do, I found out. But I wanted to try something different, and I had heard that the University of Kentucky had started this uh program and brand new at the time uh in sport management, you know, sort of a business degree in SER. And that really kind of excited me. I'd already talked to him, but I I hadn't I wasn't pulling the trigger, and this just got me to pull the trigger. Um, and and so I decided to leave my job and to do that. Um, but you know, sort of before that happened, you know, this was Maria died in May, and this was maybe June we were at the cottage and a bunch of friends were down there, and someone said, you know, we should, you know, we should we should do a race for Maria, we should do something for her. And we just started talking about it, you know, just spitballing like you do when you're sitting around having some beers. And somebody said, Yeah, we can call it the reggae run because she loved reggae music. And so anyway, you know, that was the origin of that event, and which of course became the largest 5K in Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I mean, that high the High Park area, that was like a holiday that day. It was it it didn't, I mean the first one, right? It wasn't like it took time to get any traction, it literally took off.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

It took off like when we we called John Coddley, this is so funny, and said, Hey, you do races, you know, would you do this? And he always tries to talk you out of it because say, Well, why don't you do a bake sale? You make one easier. Um, and and and so, but we said we were gonna do it, and he said, Okay. And this was like we had, you know, we started planning in July for a an October race, actually, ridiculously short time frame. And um, so it was maybe two weeks out, and um, you know, he had called my mom and dad and said, How many people are you planning for? And my mom said, Well, you said there wouldn't be very many people, so we were thinking like two or three hundred. He goes, No, it's gonna be like three or four thousand. And my mom flipped out. She was like, you know, my mom is that generation where the her worst fear is having people over and running out of food. Yes, and so she and her friends and and my aunts and uncles and cousins, we just went out and everybody was trying to find, you know, it's what we call the roses. Roses just said, no worries, we'll bring a truck up there, it's all free. And so people just started showing up, and that was that's sort of the genesis of this idea of well, it's kind of a party with a run attached to the front end, and we got her favorite reggae band to come in. It was so fun. It was it was imaginable.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

On every corner there was somebody playing some kind of reggae music. That was it was a definite.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

But that that that's how I kind of get that was sort of this transition thing, and and I had this passion for running. I was the one in the family that, you know, Maria, and my brother Mike too, but but I was the one that it was like still in me, and I was still doing it, I still love doing it. Um, and and so that was sort of you know, kind of my introduction into to all this. And then in in 1997, so it was like our third or fourth year of the reggae run, I get this call from a guy that I knew. Um uh uh his name was um uh sorry, uh I forgot his name. Uh uh sorry, Mike, hang on for a second. Mike Boyland.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

There you go. Fix this.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

I got a call from this guy, a friend of mine named Mike Boyland. Um, and he said, Hey, Doug, we are starting a marathon here in Cincinnati. Can we have a booth at the reggae run to talk about this marathon? I was like, yeah, sure, you can do that. And so these folks came up and they set up the booth and they said, Hey, we're doing this thing called Flying Pig. And and so we got involved with the reggae run at that point, but then also um we took the water stop. Our organization took the water stop in Hyde Park Square. So it came right down through uh um down observatory at the time, and then it turned on uh uh to over to Erie and went through the square. It didn't come down Erie the whole way back then. Um but anyway, we had that that water stop right there, and and so that was sort of that beginning. And then um I finished my doctoral degree. I knew I was gonna finish in 99. I'd done everything except my defend my dissertation by Christmas of 98, so I knew I was going to be done, and I started to think I actually need to find a job. Um I was coaching the cross-country team at Transylvania University. Part of me was thinking, like, wow, that'd be great if they just hire me to be a professor there and I can post cross-country. Um but my wife Julie uh came in, she brought the Chronicle of Higher Education, she goes, look at this. And I opened it up and she said, There's a job. There is uh position posting for a sport management professor at Zegger University. I was like, What?

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Oh my gosh, totally meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

And I was like, oh my god, so so I took that. I was like, okay, you know, this is like December, and I I got my Vita together and and sent it up there. And about a week later, I get a call um from Ron Quinn, um, and he was the chair of the department at the time, and he goes, Um, and I had met him one time before, and he goes, Are you serious about applying for this job? And I said, Yeah. He goes, Well, it's gonna take a it's gonna take us a while before we can start interviewing. Um, but if you get another offer, uh please give me a call and let me know. And I was like, That's a good call. So it was a good call. So anyway, I interviewed for the job, and and I didn't tell my mom because I knew she'd flip, and because our son was just born. And um, so anyway, um I got the second interview, and on the second interview, I called my mom and said, Hey, I just want to let you know, I'm coming up to interview at Xavier, and of course she went through the roof, and um that meant we were coming back, and so we moved back in in the summer. Yeah, and and and so and then and then being you know back at Xavier, you know, if you're a professor, you keep your job by being a good teacher and by doing research, right? You have to generate you know original research. And so I thought I had some things that I had done. Um, most of my research was on, you know, sort of the national governing bodies of Olympic sport and everything like that. But I got up here and I thought, you know what, I wonder if anyone's ever done an economic impact study of flying pigs. I reached out to the organizer and said, hey, would you guys want me to do an economic impact study? And they said, Yeah, absolutely. Um, so they gave me the data, and I worked with one of my colleagues at Xavier, Steve Cobb, and we did this survey and we did this economic impact study, but I was like in the middle of doing the results, and they called me up and said, Would you like to join the board of directors of the flying pig? And so that was like 2002, I think it was 2002, if I'm remembering right. So I joined the board in 2002 and um served as board chair twice and you know for the last like 15 years. Um, in addition to everything else that I did, I continued to do the economic impact study as just you know part of what I contributed. Uh but I did uh the television broadcast on channel 5, so I was a color commentator and I'd be on it.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Without knowing that was going to be your end goal for a long time. Without knowing it. Right. Without evening. And I love how the the Radio Run like was the beginning for the fine day. It's just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah, and it was you're you and you're right, it wasn't like like intention, like I wasn't thinking, like, I have no idea, I don't want to run this or I it was literally a conversation in April, about this time of year, right before the pig in April of 2023. And Iris and I were talking on the phone on a Saturday morning at like seven in the morning because we would, you know, she would say, Are you wake yet? You know, and we would, you know, we were talking about whatever we were talking about. And I was down in the basement, um, so I wouldn't wake everybody up in the house. And um she said something like, Doug, you know, I I she wanted to step back. She'd been the CEO for a long time, and and we had a plan, but the pandemic happened, and it's you know basically changed everything. Um, our succession plan kind of crumbled around the everything that happened with the pandemic, and Iris didn't want to leave because we needed to, the organization to survive through this, right? Um, and so it was on the other side of that, and she was talking, and I just said, I mean, I didn't even say it with any confidence. I said something about, well, I don't, I mean, do you I mean if you think I could do it? I mean, that's about how it sounded. I mean, literally, it sounded like that. And she goes, Do you want to do this? And I said, Yeah, I well, I don't know, I think I would. Yeah, I I hadn't really thought about it until now. And so we started talking, and I went upstairs and Julie was, you know, having her coffee sitting on the couch, and I said, I think I just said so that's really literally how it happened. We didn't, you know, so that was right before the marathon. And and so, of course, the marathon happened, and we had to get through all that. This is a very, very busy time. And so it got into the summer, and Iris and I resumed the conversation, and I said, Yeah, I I think, and she goes, Well, you know, we had our June board meeting, and we don't have another board meeting until September. And so we decided that she would kind of socialize this with the executive committee. I'm sure there were not very many people that thought this is a bad idea. Well, you know, what they decided, they had to they decided that they had to open it up, you know, post the position and see what was out there. Um so I went into the September board meeting and I um stepped down from the board and I submitted my Vita and everything like that, and interviewed, and and you know, I did an interview in like late September and another like interview in October or something like that. And I think they were interviewing other people. I don't even ever asked who they interviewed. Um, and then uh it was like Thanksgiving, right after Thanksgiving, like the Monday after Thanksgiving. Um I was driving back from uh Washington DC and um the phone rang and it was uh Jamie Smith, our board president, and he offered me the job. And I said, Well, I guess I'm doing this now. So I taught my last semester at Xavier in the spring of 2024, and I was shadowing Iris and doing everything like that. We did the marathon in 2024, and then on June 1st, I always tell people I I retired from Xavier, so I was only retired for 12 hours. Couldn't sit around long. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Um okay, and to kind of wrap it up a little bit, but tell me the economic impact. And I know it's a philanthropy. I mean, the flying pig is a nonprofit.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

We are a nonprofit organization. A lot of people um do not know that, or they just don't realize amazing. Um, but we've been a nonprofit for our entire existence. And um for the most part, we have, you know, we've paid our own way for everything that we've done. Um, the economic impact um of the flying pig marathon, we did it on Flying Pig Marathon weekend only. That's the way we've always done it, not the whole organization. So it's just the weekend. Um, last year in 2025 was like $45.9 million. I mean, that is insane. Yeah, $45.9 million. And and what the way economic impact works, not to be uh followed up by Professor Bow again, but but essentially what it is, it's it's spending that happens because of an event by residents who are from people who are non-residents of the community. So for us, you know, our area of impact is the 13th County Metropolitan Statistical Area. So it goes into Kentucky, Indiana, just south of Dayton. So it's people that do not live in that area that are coming here to spend money. Um and so that's that's what drives it. It's basically people from all 50 states, you know, more than 20 foreign countries that come here and they stay. They don't just come for the day and turn around and leave, they're here for four or five sometimes a week. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

And then what are the uh the nonprofit? Where does the money? Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

So yeah, so we are, as I said, we're a nonprofit organization and we've really evolved. You know, part of it was just a business decision to make it a nonprofit. That was just a smart thing to do. Uh but over the years we have um grown what I call our community-facing assets. So things like pigabilities, um, our 26 mile program, fly up to the 5K, our scholarship program. So these are all populations that we serve, you know, that that true to our mission, that we want to, you know, you know, create these experiences that you know delight and satisfy the needs of our athletes of all ages and backgrounds. So so um part of the money goes back into the scholarship program. Uh last week, yes, last Thursday, a week ago Thursday, um, we gave away, we awarded um 24, $20,000 college scholarships. So these are uh $5,000 a year for four years to 24, 12 men, 12 women, uh high school seniors um from this area. And it's you know, it's one of those special days where you're just there and and the parents are just you know, there's I mean that's you put kids through college. If somebody said, hey, here's $20,000, you'd be like, all the parents will be smiling. Yeah, or sure. Yeah, but but you know, our youth program is you know serves over 5,000 uh athletes in this region. Um and and so you know, part of our you know, what we're doing now, like the thing that's really exciting, and people say, Wow, you must you know running all the time, this is great. You know, I would say about 25% of my job is kind of with the race and everything like that. Um 75% of it is is you know basically positioning the pig, positioning paperwork, so that in 30 more years, our 30th anniversary is going to be in 2028. Um in 30 more years, in 2058, that the organization is more deeply embedded into the family of this community. That it's something that everybody in this region can be proud of, and it is vibrant, and it is getting people moving. I love it. So we are we you'll be successful. I see it, I see it happening on a 2058. I'll be 92. I'll be 92. I won't be doing this. But it's been really fun, and and part of that that that vision in doing that is um, you know, sort of the purchase and uh uh construction of uh Pigworks' new pig pen up in Walnut Hills. So we have um we have purchased a building up there. I signed the construction manager uh documents uh last week. Um we will be sticking shovels in the ground and starting the renovation on uh right now it says June 29th, and we will be moving into this place um hopefully uh after Christmas this year. Um and it'll be wonderful. It's a place for us to keep our stuff, it's a place for us to go to work, um, but it's also a place where we are going to activate the community, we're gonna invite people in.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

That area is kind of becoming that. Yeah, makes it seem beautiful, artworks like that area has become kind of like the arts and areas.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Yeah, so we're really excited about continuing that momentum there. It'll be cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Alright. Well, I have one uh my final little question for you or since anything. So, what's your go-to treat snack um after the race? What do you treat yourself? What's your goal? Have you had the greater swine pig? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So good.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

It is really good. Well, I'll tell you what I do is um when I get a break, I I try to be at the finish line, um, but but there are times like usually after about four or five hours, I'll make a lap through the post-race party. And one of the reasons why I do that is um I run with all of the running groups. So I think last year I ran with 38 different running groups uh in this region. Yeah, and so I'd like to go to the post-race party and visit all the camps. Because it is, it's like a gathering of the tribes, and so I'll be honest with you that usually what I do when I go there is I've got a beer. That's a treat.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Somebody's gonna hand me a beer and I'm gonna think I'll bring it in here. Perfect, that's perfect. Well, uh since he hats give us, you probably have a whole collection.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

We have lots of since he hats, but since he hats a tiny carousel.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

So cute. Little pig on the side, yeah. Yeah, adorable. So yeah, it's a little bit. Let's take that time for a second. Oh here we have. Take that one off. Let's put this one on.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

It's adjusted. Oh, it's perfect. Yeah, yeah, like that. It's adjusted at all.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

It goes perfectly with your outfit. Yes, it does. Well, thank you so much for being my first person on. Hey, Michelle with the mic, bringing good people in, talking about great things. I love it. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you so much, and good luck with everything. Thank you for having this amazing event for our city. Thank you. Yes, it's a pleasure.