[Dave McGillivray] There are people who feel like they want to feel good about themselves too, but they know that maybe they're not fast enough, say, in the running industry to win an award. So maybe if they cut corners, they get acknowledged as the winner, and then everyone acknowledges them, and they feel good about themselves. I see. That's still not a reason to do it, but that's the only reason I can think of why someone would. And so but there are other things that they can do and not necessarily have to come to a race and cheat sheet the race. Right. But it's it's very important to us that we, are honest and fair to everyone in the race and that we are monitoring things so that, like you say, the credibility and the integrity of the race is intact. [Kamal Datta] Welcome, everyone. I'm here with running legend Dave McGillivray, an entrepreneur, philanthropist, motivational speaker, author, and athlete. As an entrepreneur, Dave is the founder of DMSI Sports, which have produced more than 1400 events since 1981. Dave is the founder of Dave McGillivray Finish Strong Foundation, which seeks to inspire and empower youth across New England and beyond, to running, reading, and performing acts of kindness. Dave has authored 4 books, all sharing unique personal insights and experiences that have defined his life. As a motivational speaker, he has done 1600 plus appearances from TED Talks to private corporate events to local schools. As an athlete, Dave is best known for his athletic fits, including his 80 day track across the United States running 2,452 miles from Medford, Oregon to Medford, Mass in the summer of 1978 to benefit the Jimmy Fund. DME has run 167 full marathons, including 51 consecutive Boston marathons. Over the span of his life, he has run more than 160,000 miles. And, by the way, he's also been the race director of iconic Boston marathon since 1988. I hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks for listening. Welcome, Dave, to the pod. I'm really excited to have you here. You are a true legend, so really excited. Thank you so much for your time. [Dave McGillivray] Thank you for having me on. It means a lot. I appreciate it very much. No. Thank you. I know I'm going through your, press release document. Your you know, obviously, you are on part have done so much, especially for running and running community. [Kamal Datta] I think I want to start with, Dave, a question. What runs Dave? [Dave McGillivray] I think, you know, it goes way back into my early childhood, when I was growing up here in Boston. Obviously, it's a very sports orientated community with the professional sports teams, Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, Bruins. And, you know, for me, I just looked up to those athletes and said, one day, I wanna I wanna be one of them. I wanna be a professional athlete. But for me, unfortunately, I was and still am, short in stature. So, always the last one cut when I went out for the teams or the last one picked when my friends would pick sides. And, you know, it became really, very difficult time in my life where I just learned the concept of rejection. I felt like I was being rejected. I felt like I had the talent that everyone else around me had, but, unfortunately, for me, I wasn't as big or tall as them. So I started to run because, you know, no one can cut you from running, I guess. You just go run. And ever since, I've run about, oh, a 160,000 miles. And when I first began to run, you know, I ran for just to stay fit for the other sports, and then I became very competitive in running. And now it's changed a little bit even though I still have that competitive fire in my belly. You know, I'm almost 70 years old now. So, you know, it can only take me so far. Yeah. So now, really, what it's all about is just setting goals for myself and not limits. And just like I do with everyone else who participates in the races I direct, it's all about raising the level of self confidence and self esteem of people, and that's what I try to do for myself. I'm just trying to feel clear about me. So it puts me in a really good position to help other people. Oh, that's amazing. No. [Kamal Datta] Thank you for thank you for sharing, and that's truly inspiring. You are the race director for Boston Marathon since 1988. I'm sure you have seen a lot over this 37 years and I think, and counting. I'll just start with that. How is the feeling of running this iconic or leading this iconic race for so long? And you still continue to do so? [Dave McGillivray] I've had various titles initially, technical coordinator, then technical director, then race director, now race course director. And who knows what a little more offense k. Down the road. But for me, there was a little bit of an incident at the start of the 1987 Boston Marathon where there was a wheelchair accident and a tripping incident at the start. And the BAA decided after that year's race that maybe we need to get another set of eyes on this and take a take a stronger look at it operationally and logistically. So, I applied for the job and, you know, lucky for me, I got the position as technical coordinator and went in and helped, you know, fix up the start a little bit. And, you know, I've had the job ever since. Wow. But what was interesting that those days, my 1st year on the job, there was only 9,000 people in the race. Oh, wow. Okay. 30,000 people. And so the 100 running in 1996, there was close to 40,000 people. So we went from 9,000 in 1995 to almost 40000 in 1996. So that, in and of itself, changed things for the event in terms of by virtue of the significant increase in field size, we had to change our mindset as to how we operationally and logistically do things. And then that's when the whole advent of chip technology entered into our race. Yeah. Talking about operation aspect of it, and I think I listened to a couple of your various talks that you have given. And I think your involvement is primarily from the operations aspect of the Boston Marathon. You know, there is other aspects of promotion, which the marketing side probably, I don't know if you get involved that much. But operationally, from 9,000 to almost 40000 and then 30,000 plus constantly, How it scaled? I think this is a massive scale difference, 3 x, 4 x, almost. Yeah. It's about visualization. It's about, you know, visualizing something before it actually happens. And that's, I think, one of my skill sets. You know, I can you can bring me into a venue, and I can look at the venue. And then you can say to me, somehow, we need to get 30,000 people in here. To figure it out. And, you know, I have a a way, especially surrounding myself with good experienced people, of trying to figure that all out. And with the Boston Marathon in 96, what was interesting is we were planning a 25 because it was the 100th anniversary. So we increased the field size, but then it just grew beyond that with about 4 months ago. So we had to change everything in the last minute practically to accommodate 40,000 versus 25,000. Mhmm. And what was interesting is for me, prior to that, I always had this sense that there's gotta be a better way to time and score this thing. Because we can't just have runners just crossing the finish line, getting into shoots, and pulling, you know, bar codes or writing down BIV numbers because it's just there's not enough space and there's not enough time to do that. Yeah. So I was looking for some sort of chip technology, although I didn't think that it actually existed at the time. And interestingly, I went to the New York City Marathon the year before I the 96 Boston Marathon. And, there was a company they called Championship out of the Netherlands. And they were just displaying their product. I went, oh my goodness. This is exactly what I've been looking for for the last 4 or 5 years. And I said, are you timing tomorrow's New York City marathon with this? They said, no. We're just exhibiting here. I said, well, when the race is over tomorrow, can you pack that stuff up, put it in your van, and drive to Boston? Uh-huh. And I wanna show what you have to our team because this is exactly what we're looking for. Well, they did. And they showed us exactly how it worked. And I said, this we need to morph into this new age of chip timing. And so the 100 came, and we we, you know, we we thought we're gonna get the 25,000, but the organization was a little bit nervous about introducing something brand new, like chip technology, when there were all eyes around the world on us to get this thing right. Yeah. And so they didn't wanna use the chip technology for the 1996 Boston. But then when it grew to 40,000, I said, well, folks, you know, we can't manually handle this. We can't do this. There's just not enough space and time. I said, let's go with the chip and see what happens and keep our fingers crossed. So we did. And it worked. It worked. And then so we will we were one of the well, we were the first major road race in the United States to use the championship system at that time. And then from that point on, everything changed in our mindset and the whole concept of how many athletes, how many runners we can accept in our race, because now we we can time them all and not have to worry about how much space there is and all that. So it just changed the industry for the long haul. Oh, wow. That that's a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing. I didn't realize that a championship was the first one. Boston was the first one to adopt, championship technology there. Great. Since you are on this topic of the race management and then the technology integration side, I know just the focus of our conversation today would be. From, say, 1996, we were almost, you know, couple of decades from 1996. Have you seen that the technology has evolved to help you organize or coordinate better operationally? Especially the Without a doubt. I mean Yeah. What the chip basically done does in its very simplistic form, at least in the world I live in. I'm not a technology expert. But Mhmm. It collects data. Right? It collects data, and it's accurate. So then once you have the data, then it's a matter of what do we do with the data. So all kinds of things opened up in terms of how many we can time and score, getting results to people instantaneously, putting systems out along the course so loved ones can track. Right. They are, you know, their runner along the in real time along the course. It has ways of helping medically in terms of, you know, trying to find out where somebody might be at any point in the race. Mhmm. It supports security because we wanna know who's in our race, who's running down the road. So we basically have that information now. Again, instantaneously and at multiple locations along the course, it helps with, just the credibility of the performance. In other words, there are some people who gotta beat the system and I guess you they cheat. And so if they're missing at 1 or 2 or 3 systems along the course Mhmm. Consecutively, then that raises a red flag, and then we can look into it. And all of a sudden find out that maybe they didn't run the race entirely and then maybe remove them from the results. So it keeps the integrity and the credibility Mhmm. Of, of the race intact. So yeah. I mean, it has had so many different ramifications other than just, you know, timing and scoring. [Kamal Datta] Oh, wow. No. That that's good to know. Because I was talking to actually Frankie Reyes of Miami Marathon, and I think one of the topics that was very close to his heart was the integrity of the races. How do we keep integrity intact with the use of technology? And he's that was top of his mind that he's exploring now on different aspects of integrity, like some of the, areas that you, alluded upon as well. So I'm glad that you're also thinking in that direction and how we can leverage that. Another aspect of of of race of this size or magnitude is the safety and the security, and how do you leverage the technology for the participant, for the spectators, and who were involved, the staff. It can be emergency response technologies or the communication tools, the tracking tool that you mentioned. How you think about technology to help you in this operationally, you know, as smooth arrays, you know, make sure that, you know, it's a great experience for all the parties involved. [Dave McGillivray] Well, I can give you a a for instance. You know, again Yeah. My world is operations and logistics. Right. Not as much technology, but I surround myself with brilliant people in the technology world Yeah. Who can provide to us what it is I might be needing to help me manage an event. Yeah. For example, a lot of times, it's about density. Right? There's 2 things that are involved in what I do. Like I said, I've said it already. Time and space. When you put on a race, you only have so much space to line people up, so much space to run down the course, so much space at the finish line. And then when you shut down roads, the communities within which you run your race, they're like, okay. You can shut it down for a period of time, but not all day. We gotta get back to normal traffic flow and whatnot. So Yeah. We're dealing with those two things working against us all the time. And so we have to be very vigilant in terms of how we conduct the event to minimize the impact on the communities within which we conduct the event. Mhmm. So a lot of times when when we line people up at the start, it's a matter of well, down course is does the course narrow to the point where it's almost like a pinch point? Whereas if you send people out in a specific density and then they get a mile down the road and then it gets really narrow and they can't fit through, well, that's not good for the place. Right. So what I've been doing is I can adjust my starting with based on data that the technology people are giving me as to how many runners, for example, are crossing the starting line Mhmm. Every minute. And if I think that the most I want crossing the starting line is, like, 700 run as a minute versus a 1,000, then I'll we'll fire the gun. We'll see what goes through. And all of a sudden, if it's way too many, I'll narrow the starting line while the race is going on so that it's like a reverse funnel, whereas there's less people going across the line then can we can accommodate, you know, as they run down the street, they can run into a wider, area and not necessarily backed up. Mhmm. So these are some of the things that we do internally today. Nobody else on the planet knows Right. What is happening. But I could never do that without the technology. The other thing that I try to be careful about though is, you know, the basics. So the basics I'm putting on a road race is, you know, getting everyone to the starting line, lining everyone up, the gunfire is running down the course, water stations, hydration stations, medical stations, taking care of people along the way. Yeah. Across the finish line, you take care of them once they cross, you have medical whatever, You give them their medal and they're on the way. That's the basics. Everything else that we do is an enhancement. Mhmm. It's a nice to have, not need to have necessarily. However, you know, it's become a competitive world. So we're all competing for the same run as the run-in our race if there's multiple races on a weekend. So we have to do things that the participant looks at as being something beneficial to them or an enhancement to them to choose our race over someone else's race. So there's other reasons why we might engage in more or a higher level of technology than just timing and scoring or, you know, like I said, tracking can be one that they want their kids to be able to follow them along the course or whatever it might be. Right. Technology has played that role. But you have to be careful because when you introduce that and you say this is what you're going to do, you have to deliver. Yes. And if somehow, some way, the technology doesn't work, even though you didn't have to give that to somebody. Mhmm. You did it as a as a benefit, but it didn't work. Now you are the villain. You didn't provide what you said you were gonna provide. So you have to be absolutely sure that you've got the right people, the right equipment you've made. You haven't overextended yourself and said we'll give you a lot more than what you're able to deliver because you don't want it to backfire on you. No. That's a very good point. Do you have some examples where you have seen that it falls short? Because you have seen probably quite a few advancement over the years, 30 plus years, where it was promised but for sure or otherwise. [Kamal Datta] Someone maybe delivered over delivered what they promised. Well, obviously, it's better to over deliver. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. [Dave McGillivray] The thing is that you if whatever it is you're going to over deliver with, you wanna use that to sort of encourage people to register for your race. So you you you're not over delivering it. You've committed to it before the gunfire is. Yeah. But, you know, again, that one instance is is the tracking is a perfect example because a lot of the time, traces commit to, like, you know, log on here, and you'll be able to put your runner number in. You'll be able to track them along the course, and it's not working. Right. And then people get really frustrated because they thought they would be able to, you know, figure out, you know, or or know when their runner is coming. Because they may be out on the course and they have an app and they log on to the app. Mhmm. And they're trying to find out when their runner is going to hit the 20 mile mark of a marathon where they are standing. Mhmm. Because they don't wanna miss them. And all of a sudden, you know, the system goes down, the runner goes by, they missed the runner, And they've been out there for 2 hours in the pouring rain, and they didn't get to see their runner because the technology didn't work. You know, those kinds of things happen. I wouldn't say all the time, but it's not like it's perfect. It's perfect every single time, you know, a race tries to do all this technology stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Another area I thought we I'll be curious to get your perspective, Dave, would be on the sustainability and the environment. Because I know, you mentioned about water boats. It's kinda very critical. And it doesn't matter if we have technology involved, but have you seen it evolve how to make an efficient, more effective for the runners, like, time span versus, you know, how it can, you know, reduce kind of the the flow of the traffic or more effective way over the years, or you're thinking that there are some areas it can do better in future? Yeah. Well, I mean, technology is just again, the website and all the information you can put up there. Yeah. Yeah. Knowledge can also benefit, the communities where you're holding the race because it gets information out to all of them as to, you know, the road closures. And the whole idea is you wanna eliminate, you know, the whole element of surprise to people. You don't want them to get upset that they didn't know. Technology supports that effort. Technology supports the whole concept of, you know, just public safety and Right. How law enforcement, you know, can can sort of watch the race Right. In terms of, you know, whatever we may put in place that or they put in place. I mean, obviously, what happened after the Boston marathon in 2013, that changed everything too. And technology played a huge part in the overall public safety effort of the next year's marathon to keep it even safer than ever before. Right. So it isn't just the runners that benefit from this. It's spectators. It's public safety. It's medical. It's everybody involved. I just get a little concerned that some races, they're so enthralled with the technology and the fun things you can do with it Yeah. That they're picking their eye off the ball in terms of, like yeah. Make sure you have enough cups at the water station. Make sure you have the people at the right intersections to make sure runners are going in the right direction. That's the worst thing is they they go off course. And so for me, it's boots on the ground. The number one thing is make sure you create a well managed event and that make sure the people can run the course and and get across the finish line safely, and then everything else is a bonus on top of that. Yeah. No. That's a very good point. Not too long ago, 2020, we had the COVID situation. How did that change the dynamics in how you orchestrate the race, Dave? [Kamal Datta] Is there any change post COVID? Or thing is, about 2020 is I had myself because I put on a lot of races. You do. Yes. Of them here. [Dave McGillivray] And I had the best year set up for 2020. I had 35 contracts signed. I was putting on races all over the place. Everything was great. And then COVID came in March, and every single one of them got canceled. And so my clients didn't need me anymore because their races they canceled their races. Yeah. However, a lot of them decided that they wanted to go virtual Mhmm. And and do something, salvage something out of it. Right. But when they decided to go virtual, they didn't need me anymore because they could do that internally. Just set up their own computer and figure it out how to make this virtual world of running work for them in terms of setting up a website and and collecting data from the runners and downloading Strava and GPS and Garmins and all that stuff. And, and I thought, well, okay. The runners are still out there running, and the clients are still having an event even though it's virtual. And I'm sitting at home twiddling my thumbs. There's nothing for Dave and company to do because of the boots on the ground aspect of what I do Mhmm. Got taken away. Right. But slowly but surely, you know, as you know, it all came back again, and and it's come back in a big way. I mean, most of my events now are selling out in 2 or 3 or 4 days. I think there's a, we're you know, I don't know. The whole running industry is almost there's been certain surges in the industry back in the early seventies. It jumped. And then philanthropy into into the space and it jumped. And then women really started getting into it and it jumped. And then COVID hit. Boom. But now, you know, when COVID hit, people couldn't go to the gym. People couldn't exercise the way they used to exercise. What did they do? They went outside and walked and ran. Now we're getting the benefit of all of that. So even though COVID knocked us on our knees, the result of that, I think, actually helped us in the long run where more and more people are seemingly participating in our races. Oh, that that's great. You know, I I I have to ask you that. [Kamal Datta] I know you run you are the owner and president of Dempsey Sports. We go you'd actually organize some of the iconic races, like Falmouth Road Race, or I think you were in Beach 2 Beacon when we spoke to you last week or so. There's some icon races you organized, and you're also part of Boston Marathon. I'll be curious your take on, like, do you see a trend in the challenges that you face that the races that you your company runs and also being part of the Boston, that similarity of challenges that you face today, maybe technology can help, like, because a lot of my audience are technologists probably listening to you, that, hey. You should think about something maybe you can solve for us. [Dave McGillivray] Yeah. Well, there's it's a point of diminishing returns. In other words, the most frustrating part of what I do Mhmm. Is when we promote our events, we elevate the, you know, the the the experience. We market them all over, and then they sell out in, like, a week. And then you're turning away all these people who want to participate. Yeah. And that's hard to accept both from the perspective of disappointing them, but also, you know, with all due respect, from a business perspective, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. That is true. I don't know how technology, when it's all said and done, can help in that regard. But, you know, I wish we could I wish we could accommodate everybody who wants to participate. And it's like I said, there's not enough room to be able to do that. You have to reopen the roads. So unless you start doing multiple days of events or you have more time and you can spread it out over a longer period of time, thus accept more people to participate. So I I gotta figure that one out somehow because it's really frustrating to disappoint people who Right. [Kamal Datta] Really wanna get into one of your events. Did virtual running option helps in that regard or you're thinking because you are a a running legend yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think virtual worked when that's all there was. [Dave McGillivray] But then when races came back in person Yeah. Now the virtual concept has pretty much died out. I mean, I think a lot of races still have that component to it only to get people who don't get in an opportunity to participate virtually and get a medal and get a t shirt, but they're running around their neighborhood. Right. We don't get thousands and thousands of people to register, you know, virtually when a race has an in person event. Right? So, but, you know, they're not. If you already have the technology in place for a virtual, it isn't a lot of heavy lifting just to, you know, reengage it and and, you know, all you have to do administratively is mail stuff out. You know, once they register and they send their results, you can just mail them a shirt and a and a medal and, you know, deal's done. But, but I I really have but I haven't seen like, if we had a 10,000 person race, you might have 200 people running virtually. You're not gonna have 5,000 people running virtually. I don't I haven't seen it anyways. Oh, I see. I see. Oh, that's a good point. So I think your take is probably good. I have seen that because I talked to Bob from RunsignUp, Bob Bickel, and I see his quarterly report that he publishes, among, I think, the the races that have gone through that platform. The numbers are staggering post COVID. As you said, it's in the upward incline in double digits, so which is a great sign for from a business point of view. And also that it's actually more and more people are getting interested because, into the running and the sports of running, which is a great sign too. But, yeah, virtual numbers are not in the similar proportional. It's like in the other way, as you mentioned there. Great. Any other challenges that you see from Boston point of view or from the Denver sports point of view, Dave, that that you would like to share? Big one. It's always been this way, but it seems to be getting I I don't wanna use the word worse, but more challenging is wet the weather. You know, with global warming and everything, we're all meeting talking about this because, you know, with these 80, 85 degree days, wet bulb globe temperatures in the eighties, You know, it we're we we're gonna have to deal with this. And, you know, just starting earlier in the morning isn't always the solution. Mhmm. You know, we had to beach the beacon. TD beach the beacon last weekend, and, you know, we were gathered in the command center because the forecast for the next morning, the day of the race was thunderstorms and lightning. And we were all like, well, what do we do? We gotta communicate with 10,000 people, volunteers, all the runners. If we're gonna make a change, we only have a few hours to do this. And Right. We did make a change, delayed it for an hour, which turned out to be the perfect just the right absolute right decision because we dodged the bullet. Well, not even a bullet. We dodged a lightning bolt, and, we were able to get the race happened without anyone getting hurt or any risk or jeopardy. But, no, you're constantly chasing the weather forecast, and that that's not gonna go away, and it's gonna get more and more challenging. And, again, that's where technology comes in too with the meteorologist. And and it's hard too because you could call 1 TV station and their meteorologist, and then you can call another one and their meteorologist. And they're looking at different models, and they're giving you different information. And you're sitting there going, what do I do? Do I Right. Do I cancel this? If I don't fire the gun, no one gets hurt. But am I ultimately responsible for these 10,000 people and their safety if mother nature decides to do a 180 on us and wreaks havoc. I mean, that's hard. You know, that's a hard thing to sort of cope with as a event director or as an event management group making those hard decisions. Because if you you're making a decision about something that's gonna happen in the future, maybe in the next 2 hours, 5, 5 hours, 10 hours, 24 hours. That may not happen. So Right. If you make the wrong call, someone could get hurt. Or if you make the wrong call, runners are gonna be upset with you because you canceled an event when the weather turned and got better. And they're like they get up that morning and say, hey. You know, there's nothing wrong with the weather. Well, that's not what we were dealing with yesterday. Right. So that's, to me, that's our biggest challenge right now. Oh, wow. And this is also a challenge for you in Boston too because every year, Boston has you don't know where it'll go. Can go hot, can be cold, can be rainy. I ran Boston in 2018. It was rainy and cold and windy, and there are other years it's you don't know where to go. I'm really curious. How do you even plan for those kind of things, Dave? Can you even plan? You do you do what we call hypothetical Google Talk. That's I see. Do the what ifs. What if this, what if that. You just talked about Boston. Right? Boston is a point to point. So the start is 26 miles away from the finish. You can have very different weather. And when people say, well, tomorrow's temperatures are gonna be in the 80, well, where and when? Yeah. You know? Our first person crosses the starting line right around 9 AM. The last person crosses the starting line 2 and a half hours later. Very different weather. 2 and a half hours later than, you know, what it was before then. Right? So you have time, you know, and you have location, and you have to figure out, well, what's safe? Right. Right. In the 19 seventies of Boston Marathon, it was, like, 90 something degrees at the start. But the water were running into cooler temperatures as they're heading into Boston towards the ocean. And when they got to Boston, it was in the high seventies, not the nineties. Right. In 2012, the opposite happened. It well, not the opposite, but it was 89 degrees at the start, 89 degrees along the course, and 89 degrees at the finish. That's a very different experience. Mhmm. You know? So you have to pay attention to all of that and make and make critical decisions. Yeah. So so you have the tabletop exercises, and then you probably operationalize as you get closer to the race. Maybe, as you said, the night before or something on the Yeah. So the whole idea is to talk through things at a high level. Yeah. You have to talk about chain of command, who's in charge, who's gonna make what call. I mean, there are times when you can assemble a group. Yeah. On a conference call or on a Zoom or in a room. And there are other times when something's happening right then and now, and that person on the ground is gonna make the decision. So who is that person? And are they knowledgeable? And do they understand the ramifications of the decision that they make? Are they making things worse? You know, sometimes when you I've seen where they predicted bad weather, the race cancels the race that morning. Uh-huh. Runners are already there. They showed up. They're not gonna get in their car and go home. Guess what they're gonna do? They're still gonna run. Now you canceled the race, but they're still running. There's no security out there. There's no medical out there. They're on their own. And even though you've said to them you're on your own, can you really lead them out there on their own? Right. You know, that kind of thing. So these are the types of things that so it isn't just it's easy to make a decision. Sometimes what makes sense as far as a decision may not make sense when you look at the big picture and how what the what the effect of that decision is gonna be. Maybe that's worse than what the decision was trying to avoid. I see. Oh, wow. [Kamal Datta] That's definitely fascinating. Yeah. It it has so many tentacles attached to it. It's not like a single threaded decision that you can make. That's right. And especially if you're empowering some people to make the decisions, you need to understand that they are, you know, equipped to make those decisions, understanding the repercussions of their decisions down the road. I'm just finding you even bringing this up because, I'm going to a meeting in about 20 minutes, and I'm meeting with fire, police, and other town officials here in Falmouth. And we're having a weather a weather meeting to talk about the weather that's coming up for our race that's coming up. We're just gonna talk about scenarios. What if what if look. The forecast is this, but what if it changes? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna do it? Who's gonna make the call? We're going through that in about 20 minutes. So it's yeah. We're even talking about it because my head is, like, that's where I'm at right now. No. That's what you said, that that's one of the top challenges on your mind that you want in today's world. I have to go back to another, area that you touched upon, which is the integrity of races, Dave. And not only Boston, but since you, DMSI Sports, organized so many races, how big of a challenge that is for you? How do you mean? By integrity, it means, you know, people, maybe folks cutting corners into the races or things that should not be doing maybe doing, like, in integrity of the race or integrity of the sport or, you know, how Okay. Yeah. The integrity of our races and stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I really don't think many one is come to one of that to beat the system. You know what I mean? Even though we have to set it up so that if they did, we can we can catch them. Right. So mainly not to punish them, but to give the rightful, you know, acknowledgment to the people who did perform. Yeah. You know, honestly. Yeah. So and that's why chip technology a lot of times helps us in that regard. Sure. I just think in the world, you know, there are people who feel like they want to feel good about themselves too. Mhmm. But they know that maybe they're not fast enough, say, in the running industry to win an award. So maybe if they cut corners, they get acknowledged as the winner, and then everyone acknowledges them. And they feel good about themselves. I see. That's still not a reason to do it, but that's the only reason I can think of why someone would. Right? And and so but there are other things that they can do and not necessarily have to come to a race and cheat the race. Right. But it's it's very important to us that we, are honest and fair to everyone in the race and that we are monitoring things so that, like you say, the credibility and the integrity of the race is intact. Right. Right. Okay. But it is not at the top as probably the weather challenge or how that could would it I don't spend as much time on that because I don't think it's prolific. I don't think there's a lot of it going on. Okay. That doesn't mean you ignore it, but you spend more time on things number 1 more than anything is safety. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. What whatever you need to do to keep the participants, the volunteers, and anyone involved in the race safe, that's number one priority. And then after that is integrity. [Kamal Datta] Absolutely. Okay. That's good to know. Well, thank you so much, Dave, for your time today. I know you have to had for another meeting. I really appreciate your time, and thank you so much for sharing your experience and knowledge about especially usage of technology within the Of course. Alright. [Dave McGillivray] It's been great. Good to see you. Thanks.