Episode 61
2017-03-30
HostsMelissa Erbacher Scott Trickett
GuestsAnthony Smith Belinda Smith Katie Cooke
Show notes
The parkrun adventurers lament about not running. Co-Event Directors Belinda and Anthony Smith join us for a recap on the first year of Lismore parkrun, and we scoot over to Ireland for a chat to Cabinteely parkrunner Katie Cooke about her running journey with chronic epilepsy.
Enhanced transcript
Checked transcript — speakers named, sound described, segments marked.
Read the transcriptGuests
Katie Cooke
The 19-year-old Irish runner's story: her BBC feature (26,000+ likes, 10,983 shares, 2.5m views), living with three types of chronic epilepsy and averaging 16 seizures a day, seizure auras and what happens when one strikes mid-run, giving up competitive water skiing at 13 as the epilepsy worsened, doctors who consider her running dangerous, her neurologist and race partner Colin who runs races alongside her so she doesn't get pulled from them by paramedics, her two marathons, and her ten-odd parkruns at Cabinteely — including the one filmed by the BBC, her first with a recorded time because until then she hadn't realised parkrun timed you.
Belinda Smith
Lismore parkrun's first year, ahead of its first-anniversary event: the fluoro fun run fancy-dress theme, their teenage daughters volunteering as run directors and timekeepers, a nine-strong RD team with the roster filled six weeks ahead and tail walker filled until June, how the family came to parkrun via her sister and brother-in-law (EDs at "Towers Seaside") and Anthony's brother (an ED), their first parkrun at Brightwater in 2014, the Brightwater community rallying around her mother Flo during her cancer fight as the emotional reason they started an event of their own, and anniversary plans including photographer Richard Johnson, glow sticks in the pre-dawn dark and a slideshow thanking 790 volunteers.
Anthony Smith
Same Lismore parkrun first-anniversary interview as his co-ED wife Belinda. His own contributions: doing his best times on an hour and a half's sleep after night shift, his brother being an event director elsewhere, the highlights being the visible changes in confidence and health of regulars and people simply saying "thank you for bringing parkrun to Lismore", and his parkrun tourism to Blackbutt at Newcastle ("a hilly course... if you like hills, it's certainly one to do").
In this episode
Launches and anniversaries ("Where is the cake?")
Zero new launches for what the hosts reckon is the fourth week running ("Talk about March madness. It's March dryness"), so the segment is all anniversaries: first anniversaries for Lismore parkrun (tied back to the interview earlier in the episode) and Kedron; Main Beach in Queensland turning six, which the hosts note means six years of parkrun in Australia; and Traralgon celebrating its second. Mel signs it off with "happy anniversary, all those anniversararians." The block then runs on into general news: the birth of parkrun Australia CEO Tim Oberg's third child, a boy named Archie ("team Oberg numbers five", joining Jack and Evie, wife Nicky), and a plug for Lyndell Murray's pop-up parkrun in New Plymouth, New Zealand, this Saturday, with details to follow on the show's Facebook page.
Strava Club update
Mel raises the question posted in the show's Strava group that week — where would you most like to see a parkrun that doesn't have one yet — prompted by Lyndell having to improvise a pop-up in New Plymouth. Scott picks the high country: a snowfields/mountain-top parkrun, naming Dinner Plain, Jindabyne and Thredbo. Mel picks the opposite, the Red Centre — a Northern Territory / Alice Springs parkrun "so that we're sharing the love a bit" beyond Kalgoorlie-Boulder, giving people crossing the middle of the country somewhere to get their parkrun fix. Scott adds northern Western Australia as a gap on the map. Listeners are pointed to the Strava club to answer, and to the recent activity and club leaderboard — with a running gag that Scott hasn't been on the leaderboard because he hasn't run in five days.