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TCS NEW YORK CITY MARATHONOctober 29, 2014Mary WittenbergCaroline WozniackiNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK CHRIS WEILLER: Thanks everybody for joining us today. Appreciate all the coverage, and we're excited to get things rolling here at the TCS New York City Marathon Health and Wellness Expo here at Javits Center, and particularly excited to start things off with our Team For Kids Press Conference with our special guest Caroline Wozniacki. This is truly an exciting day here for everyone at New York Road Runners and the TCS New York Marathon. Just to let you know who we'll be hearing from, Eric and Bill Rudin, longtime supporters of the New York City Marathon, and they're here to present the very special award. We'll get to that. Obviously, Caroline Wozniacki, star tennis player and budding marathoner. Mary Wittenberg, our CEO and president of New York Road Runners, and the race director of the TCS New York City Marathon. And Michael Rodgers, who really is the father of the Team For Kids effort and our vice president of development and philanthropy. So with that, I'd like to introduce Michael to get things rolling. MICHAEL RODGERS: Good morning and welcome, everyone. Thanks for coming today. We are really excited to have everyone here for this press conference. It's a very important part of what we do at New York Road Runners. In addition to putting on the TCS New York City Marathon, New York Road Runners, we also serve nearly 200,000 kids and seniors with our free and low cost running programs, and we're able to do that largely in part because of Team For Kids. Before I tell you a little bit more about Team For Kids, we're going to roll a short video here to give you a sense of what Team For Kids is. [Video played.]       MICHAEL RODGERS: So Team For Kids. Team For Kids is a group of committed adults who run endurance races, whether it be the TCS New York City Marathon, one of our other five borough series of races that we put on here in New York City, or other race as round the world. This year at the TCS New York City Marathon, we'll have 1,700 Team For Kids runners out on the course. These runners have, in addition to training for the marathon, they've also raised money. They've raised over $4.5 million. As I mentioned, this money goes to help support our youth programs here in New York City as well around the country. Team For Kids is the largest charity component, charity team that's on the race course this year. In total, we'll have nearly 300 different charities raising money. We have other runners who have entry in the race, and they're raising money on their own. But in total, we anticipate that our charity runners will raise between 25 and $30 million a year‑‑ excuse me. This year. So that's really exciting that so much money is being raised not just for our youth programs, but for other causes such as health care, environmental causes, and a wide range of different charities. Each year we have the privilege of honoring a special group of TFK runners, individuals who raise the most money for our charity. We honor these individuals with the Jack and Lewis Rudin award that recognizes and thanks them for their generous efforts. Here to present these awards to our top earners this year is Bill Rudin and Eric Rudin, cousins. They're lifelong champions of this event, and their family and they continue. They were founders of the first Five‑Borough NYC Marathon in 1976. So I'd like to invite Bill and Eric to the podium. BILL RUDIN: Thanks, Mike, and everything you do. It's an incredible statistic, over $4.5 million. On behalf of my cousin Eric and the rest of the Rudin family, we're thrilled to give the Jack and Lewis Rudin award for the male and female runners who raise the most for Team For Kids. And this seems to be a broken record, but the winner this year is the same gentleman on the male side who's done it for the last seven years. He's raised over $400,000 over the last seven years for Team For Kids, and this year about $75,000. He and Caroline have hopefully a little match going on. We're going to have Caroline up her game to raise a little more money. Drew, come on up and get the Jack and Lewis Rudin Award. Drew Swiss, seven years in a row. Congratulations. The winner from the female side is not here, but it's Dambisa Moyo. She's raised over $20,000. Congratulations to Dambisa Moyo. Good luck to all the runners. Caroline, in your first race, you'll have a great time. So maybe next year you can be the female winner of the Jack and Lewis Rudin Award. So good luck to everybody and thank you. CHRIS WEILLER: Thank you very much. That was great. Drew, congratulations again. I'd like to present our President and Chief Executive Officer of New York Road Runners and race director of the New York City Marathon, Mary Wittenberg. MARY WITTENBERG: Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Bill. Drew, thank you for your incredible dedication and hard work, not only training but raising all that money. Bill, here we are, Caroline is such a competitor, and we're saying no pressure, no pressure. Don't worry about running. Don't worry about fund‑raising. Already it's unbelievable, Caroline has raised‑‑ I'm stunned by this‑‑ over $50,000 for these youth programs. [ Applause.]       MARY WITTENBERG: Our mission at New York Road Runners is to help and inspire through running. What we try to do is amplify our message all the time. That really began with Fred Lebow all those years ago, who really knew how to get people excited about running, and what we feel so lucky about is Caroline running this event amplifies the message of the power of running. Caroline saying from the start, I'm really excited about kids sports and running and want to help and them talking about it all the way through the US Open and your incredible tear this year in all your matches is just, for us, a dream come true because you're out there as an ambassador talking about what we think really matters and trying to help kids and adults through running. Today we have a very special group with us. Right up front here from PS‑35 in Hollis, Queens, we have some young runners from our Mighty Milers program. So they are among the 600‑plus‑‑ kids from the 600‑plus New York City schools who have benefited from these programs thanks to all the fund‑raising efforts of people like Drew and Caroline and our 1,700 Team For Kids runners. So we're so excited for all of you to keep running and having fun, and we're thrilled you're going to get to meet Caroline, who I know you know this, but first she is just on fire right now, playing amazing tennis. She is one of the top tennis players in the entire world. Who wants to be the best at something someday? That's all we care about. All of you. Whatever your thing's going to be, you can be the best at it‑‑ from being a friend to choosing a career, as an athlete, as an engineer, as a teacher. We just want to help you all grow up to try to aspire to be your best, and Caroline is an example of someone who works really hard to be her best, and her best happens to be put her among the best in the world at what she does. We also have‑‑ and she has 22 titles to her name and all these other great achievements that she's had, but you see her working every‑‑ as hard as ever, right? Because it's‑‑ there's a lot more in front of her. We also want to welcome‑‑ I think this is a really fun story, and we all learned this story when our e‑mails, the Google alert came up. We all have New York City Marathon and New York Road Runners on our Google alerts, and several of us on our team saw this at the same time. We have an 18‑year‑old who's going to run his first marathon from Madison, New Jersey, and he's running for Team For Kids. We think that's really cool. So Quinn Heyrich, where are you? Give a big wave. Really appreciate you running for Team For Kids and think it's really neat. Again, no pressure, but I don't know if anyone ever told you about our streaker program. Most people have a disadvantage because they start running the marathon on average when they're 38, 40. So if they're going to run multi‑events multiple times and try to be a streaker, they only have so many years. You're starting at 18. So you have a lot of potential TCS New York City Marathons in it front of you, but you can focus on the first one first. We want to welcome Quinn, welcome Caroline, Drew, and as representatives of our 1,700 Team For Kids runners. Just want to say without you, we couldn't do what we do in helping kids run. So we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now, I think this might be the most fun presentation we've ever had because Achelyn and Mohammed are going to be the official presenters of Caroline's race day bib. Are you ready? All right. Let's do it. CHRIS WEILLER: So thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much, representing Hollis, Queens, excellent job. We appreciate that. We're going to take questions for Caroline from the crowd. Q. Caroline, Mary mentioned that all‑‑ everybody is nervous going into their first‑‑ his or her first marathon. I wondered how nervous you are. And it has humbled some celebrities in the past. It's humbled Mark Messier, we all remember well. Why pick the New York City Marathon, which is such a visible marathon? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: I'm a little nervous. This is the farthest I'm going to run so far. I think it's going to be an unbelievable experience. I love New York, and the New York City Marathon has always been on my bucket list, and it's a perfect time for my schedule as well. It's after my season is done. Just because I haven't been active enough during the year, I thought, why not start off my vacation with running a marathon? So it's going to be great, and I'm really excited about it. Obviously, I'm a little nervous, and I'm probably not going to get much sleep the night before. Q. While I think most people would love to be top 20 in the world, I mean, can you address how training for this has helped your tennis? I think‑‑ I might be wrong 34‑10 or 35‑10 since you started training for this. CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: It's definitely helped me a lot. I think, once you start running, you really get hooked, and you really want to just keep going. It's definitely helped my form. I know that, once I get out in three sets, I can just keep going. I feel like a machine out there. It's nice to know I can be out there for three‑plus hours and not get tired. That's a great feeling. It's also helped me mentally. Going out to run, it clears your head and just makes you feel good in general. So, yeah, I've been playing really well lately. People are starting to ask me if the marathon is going to be a yearly thing. I think I need to finish this one first, and then I need to figure out how I'm feeling afterwards. Q. So what is your routine with running, and how much‑‑ could you give us an idea of how much you've upped your mileage over like the last year and so forth. And when did you get in from Singapore? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: Honestly, I don't really have a routine because it's so hard whenever you practice and play matches. Depending on what time you're playing your match and everything and how you do. But I just got in yesterday, last night, at 10:00 p.m., so it's been a quick turnaround. Honestly, I've just‑‑ if I've been playing in the mornings, I've been going out for runs in the afternoons. And if I've been playing late nights, I've been going out for runs in the morning. So it's worked out well. In Singapore, I didn't run that much. I felt like I've been in great shape. I spent some time‑‑ after the US Open, I was in Asia, and I had an opportunity to do a little bit longer runs. But the totally long run that I was supposed to do, I didn't manage to do that. I thought I will save my energy and just get through with the crowd as well on Sunday. Q. I know you talked about during the US Open you got in less running than you might have expected because that went so long and that has continued this whole fall. How much less running did you maybe do because you kept winning? Also, did you come straight here from Singapore or make a stop in between? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: You never know. When you play tennis, you can lose in the first round, and you have a full week and can go out and run as much as you want, or you can make it to the finals, and all of a sudden it's back to back. I was in Asia, and I was playing really well, and I started to get a little tired. I was starting to panic. I had a few dreams that night where I didn't finish and had to be carried through with a wheelchair or something. So I could say that I was panicking a little bit. But then I had a few weeks off before Singapore, and I really stepped up the running, and I felt great, and I felt in great shape. I really felt confident, okay, I can actually finish this. From Singapore, I went to Copenhagen for a day. I just wanted to stretch my legs because there's no straight flights from there. So I was like, I might as well just stretch my legs and not get totally beaten up, and I feel good today. I'm just going to get a couple of short runs in these days just to get the sweat going and then save my energy. I think I'll need it on Sunday. Q. So I'm going to nail you on this. What is your longest run so far? Do you have a time in mind for Sunday? Or is it just get to the finish and worry about that later? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: I've done half. I know that normally you should be doing more, but I've been playing so many long matches, and I think most people don't work out or play tennis for three, four, or five hours a day. So I think that gives me a pretty good start. When I did half and I felt great, I thought, you know what, this is okay. I can finish this. I think I'm going to be okay. But I have a time in mind. I have a time that I want to finish within, but I'm not going to push myself too hard. I don't want to get injured. But honestly, I just want to finish. That's the main goal. I think, because I'm such a competitor, you always want to have some kind of goal in mind. Q. Two questions. One, have any of the top players donated to your fund? Secondly, I read that running has sort of changed your body. Can you talk about that a little bit? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: Yeah, there's quite a few of the players that have or are going to donate. Serena, you're still missing. No pressure. She asked me the other day where she could donate, and I gave her the website. So I think she's going to donate one of these days. Now I put her on the spot. So now she doesn't have a choice. Andy Murray asked me the other day as well. So he has donated, which is great. And quite a few of the others as well. WTA is going to donate as well. So it's great. It's nice to see the support of the other players and of the Tour. So it's definitely been hard work to feel like I'm ready for this, but it's been a fun journey. So it's exciting. What was the other question? Q. How have you changed physically since you started running? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: I think once you start doing longer runs, you can feel you're getting lean and getting fit. I think definitely, I feel like I'm in great shape, and I'm probably in the shape of my life. So it's fun, and it pays off. It's nice to look good at the same time. CHRIS WEILLER:  Just as an aside, for Serena and everybody else to donate, it's crowdrise.com. All you got to do is search Caroline's name, and the donation opportunity will come up. Caroline, if you can answer, how did you come up with Team For Kids as your charity? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: I've been a very‑‑ I've been very active as a little girl. Sports have been such a huge part of my life. It's given me so much. It's given me, you know, obviously, healthy. I've been healthy. I've gotten so many friends. I've set goals for myself. I've reached for them and pushed myself outside my boundaries and outside my comfort zone. It's given me so much. I wanted to help other kid as well, especially those that didn't have the same opportunity as I've had. So I think giving them a head start, it's great. And seeing the smile on the kids' faces is really amazing. Nowadays as well, we have all the computers. We have the Playstations, and we have all of that. I think kids don't have the same opportunity to go outside and run and play soccer, whatever they want to do. So I think that's one of the biggest incentives for me to get kids healthy and have fun with each other because the friendship that you get and the bonds you get from it, it's amazing, and they last a lifetime. Q. About how many miles was a typical run for you during this training period? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: I think there's not like really a typical run. It really depends. Some days I would go out for half an hour, 40 minutes. Some days I'd go out for an hour and a half. It really depended on my schedule and my matches and if I had time off. I think I was playing in Singapore. I had a match that was 3 hours and 15 minutes. During the match, I was like, you know what, you need to keep going. Even though you're starting to feel tired, you might hit the wall in the marathon. If you can't handle this, there's no way you can handle the marathon. I pulled through, and I felt great, and I felt like I could still have been out there for longer. So, yeah, I feel like I'm ready. Q. Have any of the other players, tennis players, told you they might try this if this works out? Or do they all just think you're crazy? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: None of the others have said that they want to try. I think you need to be a little crazy but in a good way, I hope. So for me, it's just been such a great ride. Q. Kimiko Date told me that she told you that it's a different run after 220 kilometers and take care of your knees. How do you think of her advice? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: Yeah, for sure. She's run marathons before, and she told me that she had a really tough time, but she had a great time as well. Obviously, you have to watch out for your body, but I think, as an athlete, you know your body so well. You know when you can push it. You know when you need to hold back. I think that's the main thing. For me, I'm going out there to enjoy it. I'm going to take in the whole experience. I think it's something that I'm going to take with me for years and years to come. Q. Were you ever a competitive runner at all when you were growing up? You were obviously very busy with tennis, but did you ever run? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: No, I was never a competitive runner. This is my first race. So I'm starting off pretty easy. Q. Were you able to get a run in this morning after your late night arrival? If not, are there places around the city that you would like to run in your short training runs before Sunday? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: I haven't had a run in yet today. I felt like sleep was more important and just to get rested. I think it's important to get in on the time zone, first of all. So I didn't really want to push myself too much. I have a gym in my building. So I think I might just do a few runs on the treadmill. The Central Park is amazing. I love running there. It's so beautiful, and I can just keep going over there. It's probably my favorite place to run. Q. Obviously, you haven't gone at this alone for your first marathon. Who have you looked to for advice, and who's helped you with your training? CAROLINE WOZNIACKI: There's so many people who have helped me and given me great advice. One of my fitness coaches have run plenty of marathons before. So he's helped me. Team For Kids has helped me with a few pointers as well. Kimiko, a couple of the players that have run as well, have helped me. So there's so many people who have really given me great advice. But most of all, I know that this is not a sprint. This is a marathon, and it's going to be a while out there. I'm not going to start off too fast. I think that's the main thing. CHRIS WEILLER: No more questions? Great. Caroline will still stick around for a little bit if you need to come up and talk to her a little bit more. This will end the formal Q&A. Once again, thanks everybody for cupping. Particularly thanks to our young Mighty Milers. You guys are fantastic. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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