RISE RACING: Rob Goyen's Big Comeback to Texas Trail Racing

DFW Running Talk: Rob Goyen
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome to a another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Detzel, and today we have special guest Rob Goyen. Rob, welcome back. Thanks. Glad to be here. It was a little longer than anticipated, but yes, we finally

Rob Goyen: got back.

Chris Detzel: Yeah, you and I've been talking for a long time now, and you're finally back here in lot of exciting things that are going on with the trail running community and with what you're doing.

I'm not gonna give that away as of yet 'cause I want people to stay tuned and listen. But we do have some big announcements, which later on today you're gonna be announcing anyways. But before we do go into that, tell me what you've been up to at Ultra Signup and kind of those kinds of things and where your thinking is today.

Rob Goyen: Yeah, I mean I I essentially stopped race direct in full-time 2022. Yeah. So I actually just celebrated my three years. Of being an employee at Ultra Signup, but essentially, I ended race directing in like May of 2022, and I've told this before, but ended up in Tahoe to meet friends from another country and ran into the [00:01:00] CEOs of ultra signup, which are David and Jay.

They had asked to have coffee with me in the village and just talk about, race directing and some of just like thoughts and ideas and yeah, it ended up being 30 minute conversation ended up being like a three hour conversation and they had some really I would consider wild ideas for a registration platform. Which obviously now we're seeing come through a lot. But they had some just like really outside of the box ideas and they said, Hey, would you wanna work on those ideas? And a lot of those ideas are like, dirt circus, which is the traveling, community runs.

It's, how do we engage properly with race records? It's how do we start to make branded merch to give away it, it was just, it's just all these ideas of getting the platform off like offline and getting it online, right? So trying to give back to the communities on a very granular level and get back to the groundwork, which obviously I had built a race company like that before, from the ground up by myself, so I knew how to do it.

So yeah, the last three years have been. A lot of that. And then maybe [00:02:00] January of this year, the one of the original ideas is they wanted me to be like an all-in-one resource for race directors. And then towards the very end of last year, third circus went to some people that could do it inside of our organization to run it.

And then I moved over fully into like race director resources. So I spend my days helping race directors come on platform. I spend my days helping race directors with questions. And it doesn't matter the question, I can get a call on, hey, I'm having a problem with a permit, or I'm I getting a call with Hey Rob, can you give me the person that actually makes the inflatable and help me with it?

And it could just be education peaches which I do for us. I get on podcasts and do some resources on that. But at the end of the day, like my job is to help every race director that uses the platform. Essentially, my phone is open twenty four seven. I've used the platform since 2011, and also I have the knowledge of changing what's coming, what are some of the improvements that are happening all the time.

So yeah, I'm just, I'm there to try to help our [00:03:00] race directors put on good events because it is, it's our. Runners go to a race and we think that if we can help our race directors be the best that they can be, then we essentially can help our runners get the best experience that they can and they use the platform.

So the last thing that we want is we don't want someone who says, I really, I feel drawn to be a race director. I wanna put on let's say a 50 K. We don't want that person to put a 50 K up on the website and open it for registration and then feel like they have nowhere to go. Yeah. Like maybe they've done some of the research, but they don't know they have a lot of questions and instead of just saying, hope you figure it out.

Which could probably lead to a bad experience, not only for the race director, but for also all the people running. Yeah. We choose the opposite. We say, listen, Rob Goyen is there 24 7 book an hour with him and let's do it. And the fun part about that for me is I did that when I was a race director before for free.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: I still do it for my friends that are not even on the platform. I have plenty of my friends that don't use our [00:04:00] platform, that call me for advice on race directing. And I take the calls because to me I wasn't treated that way when I got into sport. It was a very like, Hey, you wanna race direct? You wanna come in here and come against us?

We're not gonna help you, we're not gonna help you beat us. That kind of mentality. So my mentality is the opposite. Information is free execution as we talked about is everything. So I want try to give people the information that I think makes them better. Race directors,

Chris Detzel: I think that's pretty cool. Ultra Signup is looking at trying to be this all in one platform to where they j not just is a place for people to sign up their races, but it's a place to help race directors get the most out of their race directing.

And yeah, having a professional like you that have been there, done that, started something from ground up and was highly successful in the past, having you an expert, is, there's something said about that. I like that a lot. I guess I didn't put that together, but whenever we first spoke, and that makes more sense.

I like that,

Rob Goyen: They're trying to also see it from our eyes, right? If we make an internal change, maybe they have an [00:05:00] internal change they're thinking about making, they could say that change internally and it may be like, yeah that change makes sense.

Then you put it in front of me and I go, our race director's not gonna like that. And let me tell you why. Because it may look a little bit different than you think. Or they may read it a little bit differently than you think it is. So we need to make it we need to open it up. We need to more be more clear about it.

So the race director lens is not the same as the runner lens. That uses the side on a regular basis. They're both essentially, it sounds different, but they're both essentially our customers. Yes. Race directors are hosting races and we're helping them. And runners are essentially coming to us to register for races.

So we have to look out into both ways when we decide to make changes. A

Chris Detzel: hundred percent. It makes sense and you've gotta first get the race directors to use the platform. And how do you do that? Yeah. And one way is, bring an expert like yourself in to just guide them, help them and be successful out there.

'cause the more they're successful, the more you guys are successful and people are coming to the race. And then you can also, I assume you can market out to their customers because they're on your site. I dunno how that [00:06:00] works, but there's probably something like that there.

Rob Goyen: It's, ultrasound is set up as a marketplace, which is why so many people use.

Yeah. I mean it's essentially, so many people use the platform and it's also the same reason why on a very granular level, dirt circus has been such a hit traveling across the country. I think Chicago is at a couple of weeks, which I wish I could make that one just 'cause Chicago's beautiful. Yeah. Of course the Dallas one's in, or the one up there's in October.

I didn't see you on there. Are you gonna be there? I allegedly might be there. I, it's my daughter's off week for school. Okay. But I think I might slide in on Saturday to I obviously I want to come. I love it. Yeah. Those are designed for us to give your average person that uses the site or the people that have never used the site.

Just the taste of what trail running feels like at a race. And that's why we invite all of our race directors there because our goal in those is the same thing. We're trying to get people to come and see trail running as a little small snack. You go have fun, you go to a great running store, you have great entertainment, and then you also get a chance to meet your race directors when they're not [00:07:00] race directing.

Like I had a, I had at times like a, people would be like, oh, you're, you're gruff at your races. You're, you're rough around the edges. And I would tell people, listen that. I'm really serious when I'm race directing. Yeah. And it isn't, and it isn't that I don't wanna have fun.

It's that it really counts. Yeah. It really matters. So the hard part to that is, as a race director, you don't often have an hour to stand around and really engage in your runner. So that's the reason why dirt circuit sauce is popular for our race records is 'cause they can come and they can just spend that two or three hours engaging people and letting people understand who they are and talking about their races.

So it's a really good needy point of us being like, offsite, ultra signup is offsite creating, experience and it's free for everybody. It's free for your race factors, it's free for your run stores, free for your sponsors, free for your runners. Like it's all there to continue to bring people into the the ecosystem of trail running that doesn't rely on someone just opening a race.

So we're constantly adding people into the sport. I think right now [00:08:00] the rate is somewhere around 40%.

Chris Detzel: Okay.

Rob Goyen: People that don't even have an entry on ultrasonic, which means they've never even run a trail race and they're coming to experience it. So it's huge. Huge. The opportunity is big. It's big right now.

Chris Detzel: So something I didn't ask you what shirt is that? What are you wearing? What's the

Rob Goyen: Oh, this is a rock fit shirt. Okay.

Chris Detzel: I don't know if many

Rob Goyen: people know who Rock Fit is. Rock Fit is like a tattoo inspired streetwear, athletic shirt. My style.

Chris Detzel: All right. Yeah, no, it is. I just didn't know. So speaking of, so yeah, something that you and I have talked about for a while without, we didn't get to get a chance to do a podcast until now, is that you're making a big announcement later today and would love to hear about this big announcement, what you're trying to do.

Rob Goyen: Sure. I have I'm coming back to race directing the new company is called Rise Racing. Rise Racing for me is yeah, it's just like. First and foremost, like I'm a, I'm the kind of guy who's the rise and grind style of guy, and I like the wording and the phrasing.

Whenever the tattoo or logo comes out, it's obviously like [00:09:00] Texas tattoo themed because that's who I am, that's what I like. But yeah, it's, it, listen, I think, like for me, the last couple of years I've put on two 10 K national championship races for ultra signup. It's two of the biggest prize persons ever in the sport for short course racing.

And I just, it, it's a weird feeling to miss something and still be doing it, but at the end of the day, for the last year and a half, I've just really missed the opportunity to race direct. And it's hard for me to explain to people that have never race directed before. It's been really hard for me to explain that to my bosses, David and Jay on.

Yes, I love the work that I'm doing, but I also, like I said this to someone the other day who is a race director, he told me, I, it's not necessarily true, but it's the way I felt. But I felt a little fraudulent. And it's not that I don't feel like I'm fraudulent because I don't have a history of race directing for 11 years 'cause I do.

But race directing changes, race directing moves, the sport is moving. And I want to te, I wanna [00:10:00] teach a little bit more from the knowledge that I have of right now. And I little, I felt a little held back of having these ideas that I want to implement or having ideas that I did to get to implement. And then just sitting on them and watching the world slowly go by.

And it just became this fire that like and this is how I normally know, like I started having race director nightmares or race director dreams. I started saying it out loud around my family and my family, my, you wake up side of my wife race directing. Nah, it's always that I haven't marked the course in time.

It's always the same dream, but it's if it's in your subconscious, right? Like I can't I just can't get it out of myself. I can't, I couldn't get it off my brain. Staying up at nights, thinking of courses, staying up at nights, thinking of ideas. I just and I just it like, just was tormenting me for, it's been tormenting me for 18 months.

And your wife said fucking go. You know what? It is it also is, we make family decisions, right? Sure. So my son's in college. I got a 6-year-old, [00:11:00] my wife we have to decide if, dad's gonna go back on the road for, some weekends out of the year and how that works within our schedule.

So it was a long, it was a long road of me. Probably not staying silent enough, which always gets me in trouble. But it was just a long walk of life, dude, just

Chris Detzel: quickly, I don't disagree. I saw something on your Facebook, I dunno if it's February or whatever, and it was like descriptive kind of message of Oh yeah.

And I'm like, all right, so it's coming. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh look, I'm not gonna do this, and I'm like, oh, come on.

Rob Goyen: A actually, what happened was actually what happened was, is. Every time I said anything on my Facebook. Yeah, it didn't, or my Instagram, which is why I don't post that often, but you don't post anymore.

Every time I said anything, it would cause a problem. So it would just, for the people that don't wanna see me come after to race or acting other people, the people that, the haters that are in general or people that don't like it. If I said anything, yeah. If I said if I was at a beach and I said, the water looks great, somebody would post, oh, he's talking about a [00:12:00] race, he's gonna put on a race.

So it just became, I instead of running away from it, I just, at sometimes, like if it was on Instagram, I just leaned into it. I just said, can't wait to see you soon. Because it just became this laughable thing where it doesn't really matter what I said, someone took it as the context of I'm gonna put on a race.

So at it, and at some point it was just like I'm not gonna put on, I'm not gonna put on events until I'm not working at Ultra signup as an employee. And I had never. I had never been able to figure out how that would end up being. And so there's a, I have a lot of respect for, for the people that run Ultra signup and I would never do them dirty and do something behind their back.

And it just took a long time for us to mutually, find a way for that to like part, for me to part ways as being an employee. And so quickly, what does that becoming look a contractor

Chris Detzel: like? So you're a contractor now with them and then you're gonna do race directing. So explain that a little bit so everybody can understand.

Yeah,

Rob Goyen: Essentially what we don't, what we didn't want, which would, what has been brought up is, from the [00:13:00] outside looking in.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: You might think because I worked at Ultra Sign, I have access to information or I have access to all this stuff. I don't, I never have. But from the outside looking in, I think, like I could agree that people think that way and obviously ultra signup can think that way as well.

So there's just because it does, it isn't real, doesn't mean people don't perceive it to be real. Which is totally fine, which I understood. They understand. So essentially, with me being a contractor, I don't have access to anything. I don't have a company email. I'm not in company teams. I'm not part of the company on a day-to-day basis like I was before.

I have an outside contractor, I use my personal email address, and I'm essentially removed completely from anything that has to do some ultra signup. I can't access anything, so I don't have any of that regard. As far as my job goes. My job still remains the same in the, in, in the general sense of helping with activations, helping with race directors.

And now I'm probably gonna test a lot more stuff to, to help 'em out on the RD side since I'm gonna be digging into it all the time. But like my goal and job essentially [00:14:00] still remain the same. My job is to help every race director that uses the platform. And that's that's what I'll continue to do.

But we just had to get past the point of rob can't say he's an employee and have access to everything and then go back and say he's gonna put on some races, even if it was gonna be two races or one race. Yeah that's the agreement that we came to together and that's why essentially I made the announcement like, Hey, which is why I'm talking to you today.

It was like, Hey, September 1st, and I'm not, I'm no longer an employee. And now like I have some freedom to do some things that. That I just couldn't do as an employee.

Chris Detzel: So this is great. I know I'm pretty pumped about this. And so let's dive into details because, I think everybody wants to know.

One is, what is Rob Coy and race like now? What are you thinking? Oh, when's the first one? What does that look like? Are you gonna have a Facebook page or, I don't know. Yeah. How are we gonna communicate? I know you sent out some stuff to, 'cause I wanna know, I wanna be a part of it right now, how do I get there?

Rob Goyen: Yeah. So here's the craziest part about all this. I don't only gotta make myself stay up till for 24 hours that essentially [00:15:00] until 12 o'clock last night I couldn't do anything. Got it. I. Just outta respect. So yes, I have I have everything and it all ultimately be an outside, but Rise Racing Co.

So Rise racing co.com is open right now. You can jump on it, you can put your information in to jump on the newsletter. I have Twitter, I have Facebook, I have Instagram, I have TikTok. All those things are secure. We have all those things. That's not a problem. And then in the, in this next week, I'll start to post on those items.

Obviously the chat tonight is at seven.

Chris Detzel: Yeah,

Rob Goyen: I'm gonna relay a lot of the information. We'll talk probably, we may talk about this here, there, but. A lot more race stuff, but but yeah, essentially the reason that it's rise racing and I have rise trails and I have it all, but the reason it's rise racing before anything else is, I'm, I wanna put on tr trail racing races.

That's where my passion is at life. I've also been asked over the past couple of years to help put on some other style events, which I may end up helping to do. But yeah, I think that, I don't know if the difference in events are what people would [00:16:00] expect, but at the end of the, at the end of the day, I feel like my style of putting on events is big.

It's bold, it's fun. That's the way the medals are gonna be. The buckle that we already have for the first race is crazy, which we could talk about the ideas we have for it. But yeah, I think that's my focus. I think the, a change in focus would probably be, I'm probably a lot more focused.

On short, shorter race stays than super long race stays. I'm not gonna come out of the gate and chase a bunch of big hundred mile distances or two hundreds or something like that. Only just because I know how much time and effort they take to put in. And I don't necessarily, I don't expect this to be easy, but I also don't want to come out of the gate and put on these super long races with a ton of aid stations and really, feel like I'm behind the ball and volunteering.

So right out of the gate I'll tell you the first race it is the Tex Miss Trail race. It is December 13th this year. It will open this Friday. It's at [00:17:00] Bucher State Park, which is connected to Bastrop State Park. So right there in Smithville, we have everything from 104 K to a 53 K 22 mile. That's a pretty long races.

Nah, a hundred. It's a. A hundred K is, to me, is a single it's a single day race, which means, yeah, you started at six, you're out of the park within 24 hours, everything's picked up and it doesn't take, like a 30 or 36 hour cutoff where it's just like intensive plus that's a short loop.

Course butcher is a 7.2 mile course, so it has two aid stations, but yeah, I'm planning on putting on the absolute biggest Christmas trail party ever. Santa Claus will be there. We have a reindeer kids run. We've got a seven miler. I've got a relay, I've got the R patch done. The buckle is insanity. But yeah, that's, that is the style that I think people should expect outta me.

And, and I want to do content around it. I wanna live stream it. We'll have starlink out there. There'll be [00:18:00] chip time, immediate timing. I want it all to be very, fast paced, fun and exciting. That's the pace I like.

Chris Detzel: Seven Miles, is it easy to run? Is it an easy course or is it, technical?

What's the

Rob Goyen: Yeah, it's got a little bit of a mix. It's there in the Lost Pines for, so it has a little bit of mix of technical technical terrain. I think over the whole loop. It'll be like 400 feet of climbing up and down. It's just not anything that's like brutal. And it's actually the original habanero loop from 2015.

Okay. So the loop's been run like back in the day. But yeah, it's a beautiful place. And it's a park that not a lot of people use and I was really happy to go back and yeah, get to go back somewhere that I like.

Chris Detzel: That's pretty awesome. So what is that buckle? What's so special about this buckle?

What's the,

Rob Goyen: I just think that the. I think it's big, it's bold. It's Christmas themed. I love Christmas. I obviously I love the time of the year, but yeah, I think I was back in the day like known for trying to, I'll try to put big buckles on people and give you a healthy cutoff.

This one will give you 20 hours to finish it, so you're gonna get plenty of time to get it [00:19:00] done. And I think that also may be a little bit of a change for me is that I'm gonna try to extend out the times a little bit from where I can at parks to get people, more time to more time to get some races done.

And yeah, just the fun. That's awesome. The fun stuff for sure.

Chris Detzel: So the buckle's only for the longer run, right? Is that Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then people get some something I'm sure after.

Rob Goyen: Yeah. We'll do, yeah. What metals. Metals and things. We'll do medals for every other distance. Yeah. We'll do a costume contest, top three, obviously Christmas theme, we'll do a costume contest for your best relay team, which will all give them a race, a free race.

But yeah, I just look at it like I really wanted to put one on this year. Yeah. Christmas has always been like super fun. Obviously it's a tight window to put it in December. And I wanted to give people like in that, obviously Houston, but also like right there in between, Austin wanted to give them another option to run, inside of a b before the holiday start

Chris Detzel: I was looking at your website and then just, I'm your first follower by the way.

Rob Goyen: Nice. I love it on Instagram, we're the only one that knows, you, [00:20:00] you're the only person other than myself that knows that it's live right now. So that's it. Yeah. I, it's the weirdest feeling ever to have all these things to do and then I can't do any of them and I, out of disrespect, I've just been, yeah.

Just waiting to, to put anything out, which is a not normally the style, but I haven't really had a choice, so

Chris Detzel: Gotta do what you gotta do, man. That's just, yeah. We all learn and so this is one of your kind of learning patience thing.

Rob Goyen: Yeah, for sure. Yeah that's no lie.

Chris Detzel: As you look at expansion, so you've got one race how do you, what does that look like for you and what are you thinking about for the next year?

Rob Goyen: Yeah, I think, and I say full schedule, just full schedule is modified, right? I think unfortunately enough, if I say full schedule, that people start to think of what I was doing years ago, which is 17 or 18 races as a full that took time to do all that, yeah. It wasn't just one year, it took years. Yeah. I feel like for some reason that's what people expect, but at the end of the day, listen, we'll have six to eight races next year, and most of those races are already planned out, to be frank with you. And I'm going to announce pretty [00:21:00] much a new race every two to three weeks after this one gets announced.

I have permits in place and I've already said that, without saying too much that I can't wait to go back to the beach. Which people know that we put a race in Surfside, and I've also told people that it can't wait to go back to San Antonio. And of course I put on races in San Antonio and I can't wait to go back.

But I'm also, to be really frank with you, I'm doing those things with care.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: I feel like when I came into the sport, you, you planned around other people's races and you try not to squash other people and you did those things and you watched out for people and how they used parts and I'm trying to do those things with care.

Yeah. Which is very important to me because my friends race direct in this state. Those that I do call my friends that are race directors, yeah, that does mean something to me. So I've just taken my time over the last month and checked venues and checked dates and made sure with friends of mine that had races within a month or two away, that it was cool and that we were on the same page.

And that's helped me build out a schedule. But my schedule should end up [00:22:00] being every other month a race. In a couple of those months we'll have some races, but slowly but surely, realistically over the next month, all of those, most of those plans are gonna, I'm gonna show everybody and yeah, I mean I'm not hiding any of it.

It's just more of let me get the first ratio open this Friday. Of course. On the best platform in the world. Ultra sign up. Exactly. And then once. Once that one gets up and going a couple weeks later, we'll announce the next race and we just we'll slowly roll 'em out and get everybody, get everybody ready for the fun.

That's for sure.

Chris Detzel: Just to be clear, just so people, it's the DFW, most people here in Dallas, what we that listen to the podcast, not everyone, but, so right now you're looking at Houston, San Antonio, you said the beach, I assume you know somewhere. Galveston is shuttle Surfside. Surfside, yeah.

Okay, got it.

Rob Goyen: Course, course,

Chris Detzel: yeah. But nothing as of now, DFW is not, gonna be touched for you yet, or kinda what's your thoughts around that? I'm just asking for us. I would

Rob Goyen: love to put on a race at DFW. Obviously I have a lot of people there that have [00:23:00] always enjoyed our races. Yeah. And I think we've done a really good job of being up there and obviously Trailhead is, what I consider one of the best stores in the country when it comes to the market.

It's just, it's awesome. If people knew Austin Trail Running Company, which my great friend Pam Kirby ran, in the Austin area,

Chris Detzel: yeah.

Rob Goyen: We had one store and then Pam store, now we have Trailhead. Like I just, I would just a he a heed for everyone. Please support your local running stores, especially the ones that support trail running.

'cause there's not that many in the world and they do a ton for the community. I'll just say that, but I would love to do it. It's a, it's not on my radar as of this minute and BB to be super frank with everybody. There's some checks and balances for me that have to go in before that happens. And I'm not saying everyone would do this, and I'm not saying you have to do this, but this, that would be a big call to Chris and Ann.

Yeah. And to look around the schedule and make sure I'm not stepping on anybody's toes. And there's just a, there's a lot of stuff going on up there that's really great. So the last thing that I want to do is to come up there and step on [00:24:00] anybody's toes and make someone choose, one race or the other.

It is just a, it's not my style, but b at the end of the day but I'm sure I will be there, but I also wanna pick somewhere that no one else has used. I do have a couple of spots, so I would want to come up there and be in a unique location that no one's ever used that, that works in a time of year that no one else wants to put on a race, or it could just slot in and it would be good.

This is also a different change. Chris, this is new Rob. I'm more than happy to do a collaboration race because I do have a couple of races for some people that are race directors that are in different states that I'm talking to about us forming together and putting on races together.

That really interests me going forward this time around, is to do some collaborative race experiences with other race companies that wanna do I look at it like two worlds collide. Yeah. I would, there, there's a lot of people I would love to put on a race with just, I don't know, just 'cause I think it would be fun to who Combine forces.

I would love to put on a race with Chris and Annie. They're awesome. The Barnesville I would love it. Just because we're, we've been friends for so [00:25:00] long. Yeah. Bri's the same way Briston has these crazy ideas for all these races. So I'm always like, maybe we can think of like the craziest, craziest idea in the world and rip one off.

You know what I mean? But yeah, I, as I've said in my Facebook post, I'm just happy to be back. So for me Yeah. To to get a chance to do a collab, which a lot of people don't do it, and I get why they don't do it. But I guess like I also look at it like, I, like I don't have anything to prove in that regard.

So it would be fun to do something together. Yeah. With somebody that wanted to to

Chris Detzel: do something. I love that. How, speaking of kind of these, how has the trail community, the local for you and maybe all of Texas how has some of those folks taken it, what's the views and things like that?

Because anytime you start a new business, there's gonna be opportunity that people think, oh my God, he's gonna, he's. Take away our thing or I, I don't know. I'm just curious and if anything is taking place there.

Rob Goyen: Yeah. Listen from the runner's side, it's been nothing but love.

Yeah. It's been three years of love for me. My inboxes, my email boxes are filled with people that are, have [00:26:00] asked me to come back or, like people, like where have you guys been? And I tell people like, we're raising a 6-year-old. I've been enjoying, and I've said this before, but I don't regret, leaving.

I left when I needed to leave. And it's hard to have 17 races and then just, what was I gonna say? I'm done. And just let it all go down, right? Like I tried to do the best I could before I left, and I left when I needed to leave as a person. And then also I didn't want to miss Ruby, our 6-year-old.

I didn't wanna miss her growing up. And I had this window in front of me where I was like, man, I have the next three years to see her grow up from three years old to first grade, and I don't wanna be on the road, phoning it in. And I didn't. And I'm happy that I took the opportunity to step away and I'm happy that the fire remained.

But yeah, on the runner's side, the hundreds of people, maybe a thousand people have contacted me the last three years. Asking me when I'm coming back. They obviously know that I love it. I've also stayed close, super close to the sport. I think there's a huge opportunity in Houston. There's not many trail races in Houston.

Yeah, [00:27:00] there's rocky, there's brass. But the truth is like there's not many at all. I think there's a little, a lot of opportunity in San Antonio and along that corridor there's only a couple of races that get put on in San Antonio every year. So I think there's opportunity to put 'em on. I feel like I've gotten a lot of people that are close to me that are happy that I'm coming back and I'm sure I have people that, would rather not see me come back.

But I say it like I meet it is I'm gonna do what I wanna do regardless of what people say. And the other part is I paid my dues in this sport. I've been race directed since 2014. Yeah. I've race, directed a race every year, I I think I have a unique way that I look at races in the general sense that my main number one concern out of the gate is to build a community.

Yeah. The races and the events are cool, and I know that gets the public's eye at time, but I actually don't really care that much. As much as, I want to reinvigorate a community to come back together. I feel like a lot of people that were, I race directed for, I see them everywhere, but I don't see them together a lot.

For me, that's a little [00:28:00] bit of a, that's a tough thing to see because I feel like it's family for me. The people that run our races are family, and that's how I've met everybody. So the, my, my number one goal is how do we get the community back together? And we also have some free events that are gonna be planned and scheduled that are community building events, just to like, to do, and I haven't said this, but I'm also happy to announce that Amanda is back.

Oh. Oh. So Amanda of course, is my work wife, my by my side person. But Amanda, when she worked for us before. She was a part of Trot before was she didn't live in Houston. She lived in Austin. Okay. So I'm super stoked because she lives in Houston now. So Amanda will again be, right hand person and she is doing group fitness right now and she's running trails in the Cypress area, which is where she lives.

So we're gonna do a lot with the running communities in our area. And I think that, and we talk about this off camera, but there is, there's a swell of people that are coming into this sport, that are coming into it at a lifestyle level. They're coming into this [00:29:00] as a run a mile or two on a Thursday with a group, or the run groups all over the country are insanity.

Yeah. And that's because trail running and running has now reached the lifestyle. It's a lifestyle thing to do. You can go to a bar or you can go to a restaurant and get a two miler in with your friends. Yeah. And trail running has gotten cooler, the gear has gotten cooler, the shoes are cooler, and it is now this it's transcended over into this lifestyle.

And for me, that's who, that's essentially see it. So I'm going to, we're going to heavily try to encourage those people to be part of the trail community and encourage that with, distance wise and also with making sure that everyone feels welcome. That's part of a, the culture for me of having community is, I think that what I see a lot of, I saw it at Broken Arrow, was, you see a lot of groups over the past few years that had very small, let's say small amounts of influence, or they had very small amounts of people [00:30:00] that they gained, power with each other, right?

They gained force with each other. Now they're here. And I think that, I think that we want, I wanna make sure that all those doors are open. I, we took a lot of pride before in having. 50%, men and women are racist. We took a lot of pride in, I did in making sure that our culture felt correct, that women felt safe in our races.

Yeah. That people didn't feel like, that, political stuff didn't get in the way. The racism, like we have, I have to do a really good job of that and times have changed, so I want to make sure that we're doing a really big job on making sure that, that, all groups and all aspects of the running community are well represented and that they all feel like they have a place to go to.

Because at the end of the day, like that's why trail running is great, is because we're, we're an open door for everybody. I need to make sure that I build that community correctly from the ground up before we ever start, like worrying about races.

Chris Detzel: Absolutely. Building that community is what you had in the past, right?

Like this whole Yeah. Community of people. And [00:31:00] that's something I think that you've done a really good job of. And look, you've been building all these new relationships over the last three years. So you've gotta be smarter. I'm sure you've got, you've mentioned some really good ideas.

So I know that I'm excited and I'm sure that others are gonna be super excited to start running your races again and being part of that community. Because I know, it's funny because when I was part of, when I did a lot more trail running, Leah and I did a lot of your races, and part of that was due to Dallas Dirt Runners back in the day, whenever it was a close knit group.

They gone off and been, they're close in some ways, but they're just doing some of their own things. But but that's really from that community, for us is why we started, right? Because we were close knit. We put down a tent, a big kind of thing. I said, DDRI know other folks in Houston did, we competed against some of them and some of the points and shit that you did, and that was fun. I assume that you're gonna be doing some of that kind of stuff again and. Bigger and better and what does that look like?

Rob Goyen: Yeah, I have a lot of, I look at it [00:32:00] like I have a lot of ideas that were, three years ago that are still relevant.

Yeah, of course. And mean. I also have things that I think are, like necessarily need to be changed but are like updated in the times. Yeah. But yeah, absolutely. Like ambassador team for sure. A hundred percent. At some point in the equation, we'll go back to having an elite team because I still think that elites are not represented well in the sport, even though there's a lot of opportunities there.

Sometimes it takes, building a bigger team to help do that. Having a points championship that involves volunteers and runners and clubs. A hundred percent is on the deck to come back as well at some point. I think all of those things yeah, are absolutely and I think that maybe the difference in some of that, the difference in some of that idea is that I think what you're gonna find, which we didn't have before, is there, there's a lot groups out there than just the.

Like trail running groups. That's right. Before you'd have three or four like trail running groups.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: Now there's a lot of people that run trails that don't associate themselves with a trail running group. Yeah. Which for me is gonna be very interesting to [00:33:00] see like how those come to be.

'cause a lot of it now is, a hundred people in a running club. Yeah. And they do go run trail, but they also meet to go run. But I look at it like, if you love, if you run trail, you like to run and you want to come to a party, like how do we get those a hundred people to come experience trail and party?

Because I know the truth is that if we can get people to experience trail and there's a good community there, that they're gonna fall in love with it just like we all do. Yeah. And maybe they don't only run trail and that's okay if they do other stuff, but I know that we'll win them into the community.

And for me, I think of. Adding really great people into the community is adding assets and how many of these like really great people and really great groups, can we get to keep coming into this sport? Because for those of. People that don't look at the sport as a whole. And I get that a lot of people don't necessarily focus on the numbers of the sport or what's happening.

The sport is growing again. Yeah, it's growing like 2000 and like 15, 16 growth. But and that [00:34:00] was like the first wave of like big growth. And that's when like trail running became cool. Like you went from like trail running, being like, you go follow like the brown towel to the left chalk mark on the ground and you get a cotton shirt that was like.

Not to say there's anything wrong with that, but that was like pre 2014, around the 2013 or 14. You started to see people that wanted, like they wanted events, right? They wanted more. Yeah. And a lot of that's from like West coast, right? The West coast is first with a lot of the ways that they do it.

We're now into this post COVID. Everyone's back to having fun. And now our sport has moved into lifestyle. And I've been screaming from the rooftops for five years that our sport was about to find lifestyle because I owned a resale company. And I could see all these collaborations happening behind the scenes with Hoka and Solomon and how our.

Slabs that we were on. The trail became cool to people that were wanted to wear 'em at Paris Fashion Week. Yeah. So it was only a matter of [00:35:00] time before these worlds collide. And when they collided and they are colliding, the people that are liking the Solomon Trail shoes are wondering like, oh, these are for trails.

And then they go to a run club or they get on a trail race and they love it. So we have this whole different like groups of people that are coming in. And for me, I look at it like, wow, what an opportunity to make sure that they felt heard, they feel heard, bring them into this community.

And then obviously my, my racers will follow because I wanna have big, bold, fun.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: Races, like that's, we're there to have fun. The sport is about having fun.

Chris Detzel: A couple things I wanna talk about, because you p my interest one, I just wanted to say something you mentioned is about these communities that you know, whether they're.

These running groups that you mentioned? And just in Dallas, I just talked to this guy, and you and I talked about this pre-show, I guess we could call it is around this group called Run It Up. And this group only a little over a year old, [00:36:00] and they, and I talked to the leader of that group, his named Theo Medaugh.

And he literally, they have over, they have thousands of people, like 80,000 people that are on their Instagram and, just a lot of following. And so when you watch what they're doing on Instagram and other kinds of things you're seeing them dancing, music and having fun, right?

And so what they're doing is what you said is. And there's literally thousands of people, like few hundred people show up on Monday and Tuesdays and then, but what they're doing is these two mile runs on Monday and Tuesday, bringing in people that might not usually be part of a running community, but getting them a little bit more healthy, thinking about running and things like that. But then they have a group that meets on early on Saturday mornings that are more like marathon runners or half marathon runners that are doing more miles, but then that's at five 30 and at eight 30 they bring the entire group together and they meet these different places.

And the Dallas Fort Worth area and, the groups the running community has taken off in these groups. Literally in Dallas, Fort [00:37:00] Worth. I can name, use 60. If you go to df tob running group.com, I have 50 of them and I can't keep up with all of them. I, the number one search thing on in Dallas for Worth, because I look at that is running.

Groups in my area. Yeah. That's number one. And that's number one. The main look at thing on Google in Dallas Foot worth from a running standpoint. It's not shoes. Yeah. It's nothing else. Yeah. Besides running groups in my area. Yeah. And I'm starting to capture all of that. And the point is it's growing like crazy 'cause nobody knows where to go run with because there's so many of 'em. Who's good for me. And yeah, that's one.

Rob Goyen: Go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say, you're right. Obviously the data speaks for itself and you could see a building though, right?

Yeah. Two years ago, if you were a teary in December, you could see Blackwood Run, right? Yeah. Blackman Run started to make this presence. Jay Tinsley is a guy outta a Phoenix who's close, who's a guy I've chatted with a bunch of times, but we've seen their speech, right? So we've seen them get to speak.

We've seen this, the growth of it. If you're a broken arrow this [00:38:00] year that a non-binary run club that came and ran I would say, and I could be wrong, so forgive me, but 50 to 70 people were there. And it was just like, I say that because those groups that have just been building together, right?

Yeah. And I think that, oh, another one that's been big is the, there's a group that's for moms, like the moms that run the trail, that all of those groups have gotten bigger, bounded together, their forces. But they're also, at the end of the day, they're giving everyone an opportunity to come be part of a tribe.

Yeah. And feel welcome and feel useful and to give them purpose. And it doesn't matter if it's two miles, it doesn't matter if it's five. We used to do the, which I'm bringing this back so I'll most people know, but we used to do, even, I got a cease and assist one time for doing a torchy's walk. We called it the Torchy's walk.

Torchy sent me a cease and assist. So we called it the Roar cheese Walk. We just changed the [00:39:00] T to an R. Listen y'all, we used to start at a Torchy's and we would eat at a Torchy's and we would go to five Torchy's in a row. Wow. And we would go and we would eat a taco along the way and it would, we would make a 50 K loop.

We would do it in one day. It was ridiculous. We had people that would come out there to get their first ultra ever on a taco walk. That's awesome. You made fun. I know. But that's my point. My point is that all these people have been looking for the smallest, place that they can get into entry level to go and have fun and feel Yeah.

Accepted and to feel part of the group. And running clubs have done a really exceptional job over the past two or three years post COVID. Yep. And giving people reasons to get out and giving people a chance to be part of communities. And now we're seeing all of those people's hard work explode everywhere and it's super great

Chris Detzel: for sure.

Yeah. And I think that, something that, and I'll get off of it here shortly, but something that, that he was talking about yesterday on the [00:40:00] podcast, which he, it hasn't come out yet, the guy from Run Up, Theo, was that they get these groups. It's kinda like DR did or other, running.

And they'll go to Detroit or to run the half marathon or marathon, or they'll go to local 5K and they'll bring 50 people or 80 people to this local 5K and just own it. They'll have this little, they'll have their music out there, they'll have everything. They love it. And so tapping into that shit, which I know you will is the key at the end of the day is to get these local running groups excited about what you're doing and other things.

And so I think, that's how Tro running

Rob Goyen: grew though. That's Yeah, that's

Chris Detzel: right. That tro

Rob Goyen: running grew the same way mean 2014. Yeah. There, there was no DR there was no hater, there were no La Familia run. Like those groups weren't real. What happened was, is we banded together when I started the Houston Air Chair runners in 2012 or whatever, with.

Three other people.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: We essentially, we put a group run every Saturday and Sunday for six months before one person showed up and then one person showed up and we're like, Hey, you're in. We need [00:41:00] you. Yeah. And then it became this force and then, DDR became a force.

Like now I'm seeing like the Wolf pack in Cypress has their group, San Antonio. Awesome. Like it, it all starts from. Those people banded together. So trail running at one point was the same way. Yeah. Just, running is now in that same manner. And maybe it's been different in the past, but the run group is a force of force right now.

Chris Detzel: It's, it is interesting too, like Dallas running club is D, it's called DRC is been around for since the seventies and really big in dos, but they're just now, I just saw something the other day that hey, let's have a 1 0 1 trail kinda how to, we're gonna start running on some of the trails locally and that kinda stuff.

And I was like, oh wow. Maybe so even trail running is getting to the mainstream of just regular running, on the road, and yeah. But I think at the end of the day, every trail runner has to run on the road anyways, especially in Dallas. It's not like there's a trail close by in every single person, yeah. So for the most part, if you're training for a half marathon, 50 K, a hundred mile, whatever [00:42:00] you're gonna get on the road in Dallas and Houston, yeah. It's just the reality. So they're all converts from Yeah. On the road to Terrell. Anyways. This is exciting. One thing that I didn't bring up that I, that you caught my ear, was around elites.

Like I I'm a little highly interested in this kind of elite kind of thing you were talking about. What's the, not that I'm elite, but just what does that mean you're gonna bring the elites to? I think like back in the day

Rob Goyen: we had a team, it's always fun for me to see like people that were on the team, be superstars in everyone's eyes.

Because they see them now Meg just, Meg Eck or just six day but it's like a band, when you knew that band and no one else knew 'em and you knew they were great. Yeah. And they become this huge band and then you're oh man, everyone found out about the band.

Like me Mega's one of many of the band, right? Yeah. Mega's super fabulous. For me, I always thought about it this way. Our sport isn't. Our sport has gotten better, but our sport isn't at the end of the day about elites. Yeah. Elites make up about 1% of the sport. Yep. [00:43:00] 99.9% of our sport is about regular every day bombs pad.

Yeah. People going to run it. Trail running isn't, I've said this before, people take a fist, I'll say that turn running inside a real sport. I only say that because a 50 mile trail race anywhere in the country, it an is not a 50 mile trail race at Buscher State Park. Yeah. They're not the same.

They're not so yeah. So to have records on some of this stuff is very nominal, but the truth is that there's very few people run for a living that are elite.

Chris Detzel: That's right. And

Rob Goyen: what I tried to do before was for the people that are what I consider like state elite or local elite or whatever that might be.

I always found if we could get. If I could get enough of them together that wanted to be on the team, and then essentially I leveraged the fact that I put on races, then I could get both people to win. Yes. I can't, I don't think I can say what my old contract used to be, but I'll tell you some terms.

Back when we used to have Ultra, which was ages ago, let's say it's [00:44:00] seven or eight years ago, the agreement that I had with Ultra was the team that would be an elite team or your trail team got allotted X amount of pairs and then Rob got a allotted X amount of pairs. Now, I used to give my pairs away to volunteers and we gave 'em away in contests and we gave 'em away to runners.

And obviously Ultra was trying to get shoes on feet. But I say that because when you kind of group together having an ambassador team and having. Like a team that races and you also have like events. You can essentially use that leverage to try to get, a bigger deal that helps everyone out. So I still see a lot of people.

Yeah. I don't see it as much, but it's just because I'm not like deep into it. But I would love to find another group of, eight to 10 people that were, that are in trail running for racing. Yeah. Specific, like they're trying to win races. Yeah. And try to see if I can't help them level up the same way that like if we can find 20 or 30 people that wanna represent, rise and be [00:45:00] ambassadors and tell everyone about trail racing, which is super important to me, then I wanna do that as well.

Because to me the reach is important. Yeah. The reach of your runners, your run clubs, your how do we we have to bring, for me, if I'm gonna build something, I want to be able to have people coming in to the sport from different places. And that also includes sponsors like, yeah. I'm not a dollar sponsor guy.

I never have been. I don't want checks from sponsors. I want opportunities. So if I can get Red Bull to come back into the loop and I can get the Red Bull DJ Company, that was my favorite part. At the end. You was Red Bull. Hey, I'm telling you, trust me, I'm making the call tomorrow. So if I can. I look at it like, if I can get those sponsorship deals to me, then I can get it to my runners.

Yeah. So I can get, that stuff out on the course. One time we had a DJ truck or, what people don't know is that first year that we had Franklin Mountains was a Sky Race. Like they, like Red Bull put a lot of money into advertising to push people to come to that event. So I, I love the [00:46:00] business of it, but my goal is how do we get a, how do we get a spotlight bright enough on the events, the runners that are running it?

And that also is going to be on a personal level because I do have a different ways I told you off air to bring people to the sport. And I think that we're in the day and age where exposure is needed. Yeah. I had a, I've had a long chat about why the Nick Bear event that was here in Texas was so big.

I tried, I've tried to explain to people that when you have a spotlight as bright as his, you can make the ordinary look extraordinary. And I think that he's done a really good job of building a brand and putting a light on it. And to me that. That's my job. My job is to put a light on it. But I know that the real world loves stories.

Yeah. And I just don't hear enough stories. And this is my own personal view, but I don't see enough stories from the people that I think people want to hear from. And I want to do a really good job of telling those stories through content. And I think that those stories will resonate with [00:47:00] people just like why most of us got into this sport.

And we will see an increase in people wanting to come to run trail that see someone that they associate with, see a story they is associated with. And I think that's a big goal for me is to make sure that I do a really good job of doing that.

Chris Detzel: So something that's big and you probably know this 'cause you're hitting around or at least thinking about it, feels like you are as influencers in the space.

So when you think of business in general. You have influencers promoting the different parts of a business or like the companies are paying these influencers a lot of money to post on their Instagrams and LinkedIns and all these face, probably not Facebook as much, probably TikTok and things like that, yeah. I think that. Feeding those kind of people. I don't know. Maybe it's not something that you're thinking about, but certainly as an opportunity, as you kinda look at that, it's, I've seen that as a big push in the last few years for big brands. Yeah. Yeah.

B2B Companies, B2C companies, things like that.

Rob Goyen: You know what's funny is, we were at, I spoke at Trail Conference, that's [00:48:00] the trail conference. That Trail Con is between Western States and Broken Arrow. For those of you guys that, dunno, I spoke, I was there a opening panel and part of the news article that.

My CEO David put up was actually like an article from l from like 1981 and the article was funny because it's basically everything that everyone's saying now about the sport. Yeah. He wrote the same thing at 81. When I came into the sport of racetrack in 2014. People used to tell me that the way for me to get more people to sign up for my race was to pay to have Anton Kka or how Corner come to my rates and show up.

So it, it used to be a theory number one is I think influencers for the bigger brands works. Yeah. And I think it will work. I'm not focused on that, but one of the reasons why I don't think that I'm focused on that is because I think that there's enough people with enough great stories to tell themselves within the community that I don't necessarily need.

I guess if I wasn't going to tell their stories, then I think there would be a genuine [00:49:00] want to have someone come and create content around your event. Yeah. That helped your stories. But my plan internally is to already do that. But listen, the stories that people have in show running Yeah.

Are incredible. Yeah. The people that run the races are incredible. And if we want more people to continue to come into the sport, and it's the same reason why the run clips have gotten big we have to find a way to tell the stories. And that's, I think that's gonna be important part of the growth as it always has.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. Something that I'm. It's more of a business side of things. I'm always, and I told you this before, I'm always interested in that, before you owned different parts of, and I don't remember, you didn't just own a trail running, race. You had owned it. I don't know if it was, like shirts and things like that.

You did your own thing in that. You didn't rely on going to some trail store or whatever to get stuff, in a brand, you got your own stuff. What does that look like for you?

Rob Goyen: Same thing. I have I've owned a streetwear company, for now, six or seven years.

Obviously [00:50:00] it's phased. It's pretty much phased out at this point. Yeah. But yeah, actually I appreciate the question, but I, people have asked about no fine print. Yeah, which is a clothing company I've had before. I told 'em it's coming back. It is, and I will source everything and I will make everything that comes out of our doors.

Some of that's a little bit different, right? Like I, I'm very fortunate that years ago I made a lot of stuff here in the country. Obviously with tariffs changing, it's a huge deal. You have to be really careful on where you're getting through from and how you're doing it. But I have a deep want to do, and I didn't do this before, but I have a deep want to do graphic style shirts again, that I think people love and use the rise name, to do that.

And I have, there's, I probably have 10 different logos that I didn't use. Yeah. For our, or for our like main logo. But all of those are like alternate shirt logos or things like that. But yeah, I think, listen, if you are in business and you are, you have fixed. Costs, and you have one [00:51:00] race or you have 10 races you have to look at everything that you spend and you have to try to figure out where your strong suits lie, and you have to figure out how to cut those costs down.

Some people do it differently, right? You could take the biggest, some of the biggest race companies in our sport, like an a Vipa. And Ara Vipa has chosen to make their own medals. They went to okay, we're gonna hire someone because we have so many races to make medals all the time.

Which I think is super smart if that's what, like they, they think helps them control the process. And it's, I think it's the same thing for people that have done shirts. Someone like me, like I, I know what fabrics are. Like, I seek that stuff out. Like right behind me, you can't see it. I have a heat press and a hat press and, like I, I'm my guy that lives like 20 minutes from my house, does embroidery and does screen printing.

Like I'm still in that. 'Cause I make stuff for ultra signup. Yeah. I still am in that every day. So for me are you doing that

Chris Detzel: yourself? Like I don't, yeah. Yeah. It's just I understand you have your own business, but maybe it's like a, somebody's doing that for, it's no doing that. [00:52:00] Yeah.

Rob Goyen: It's not really the it's just a puzzle, right? Yeah. If you've done the puzzle a thousand times, it doesn't take a lot to do the puzzle. But I've made everything from, tents and inflatables to bang sticks to it doesn't really make a difference because once you've done it a size well, I, when I ran my race company before.

I can control, minus the variables, right? Yeah. I need to try to control A to Z. Yeah. That and it isn't, I'm not like, it's not a control problem. It's quality control. And I wanna say this, some people say when you want to be the best at something, some people take that as you're trying to be the best over them.

I look at the, if you say you wanna be the best, you're trying to be the best that you are capable of.

Chris Detzel: Yeah.

Rob Goyen: I'm trying to be the best. I wouldn't come back if I wasn't trying to be the best. The best to me is how do I get the most outta myself? How do I present the best product? How do I control that product?

And how do I give people a world-class experience? The only way that I know how to do that is to touch every piece [00:53:00] along the way. So I'm okay with doing all that stuff. If that means that at that end of race day you say, this was the best day of my life. I have won, and those are the experiences that helped me build RO before.

And those are the same experiences that I expect outta myself again. So it's just more of a, I want to have my finger on the pulse of it at all times, because if it goes sideways, I can stop it immediately. And it doesn't affect what on race day.

Chris Detzel: Look. Yeah, what you're doing is gonna be really awesome.

Can't wait till it all comes out. Is there anything that I missed that you were like, Chris, we should have talked about in this kind of thing or whatever? Anything? No, I'm, you can think of.

Rob Goyen: I'm just super grateful. I really am. I didn't, it just took a lot of years for me to be able to get the timing right.

Yeah. Like within my family, within that stuff. And like all the people that have always chin and said, can't wait for you to come back, like for me that's fuel, right? So all those little touch points when, I almost got it right and I didn't get it right. And at the end of the day, like I miss those people.

Like I [00:54:00] know as a person that I was fulfilled every weekend I put on events and I feel like it just made me want to, yeah, made me want to be back on the trails with people. It made me wanted to train harder. It made me wanna be a better person. So I'm just super, I'm super grateful that I get the chance and like I just can't wait to just put on a party and just start to just put on some crazy stuff.

Chris Detzel: So Rob, thank you so much for coming on. Yes. This has been amazing. I'm gonna get this out as soon as possible. Rob Goyen everyone go to rise racing co.com and you'll see his Instagram, Facebook. TikTok, I think Twitter whatever it's called now is on there mix. So all that stuff's there. So go follow it and come tonight to his, q and a and whatever else's gonna say, I'm gonna try to be there if all possible Rob man pump for you, pump for everybody else to be able to run a Rob Goy and TRS again, yeah. So the experience is always amazing and always gonna be [00:55:00] fun and it's gonna be like a party. So we love parties. Yeah. And thank you for all you do and we're really excited

Rob Goyen: For sure. I appreciate it, appreciate your time and looking forward to it as well.

Chris Detzel: Alright, everybody just make sure you go to DFW running talk.substep.com to, to subscribe to our newsletter.

I'm gonna get this one out as soon as possible, probably the next day or two from a newsletter standpoint. Until then, thanks everyone for tuning in. Thanks Rob.

Rob Goyen: Thank you.