Episode 234 - Mothers Day

— open the full-size cover

HostsMelissa Ellis Oliver Spake

Roving reporterAlison Fraser (King)

Show notes

The parkrun Adventurers recap Mother’s Day parkruns, full of cake, doggy drink bottles and, well, mostly-shared parkrun experiences! Alison reports in from a Barry Curtis (opens in a new tab) parkrun with adventurers aplenty, we clear the dishes at Dazza’s café and the agency casual clocks in for another report.

From the podcast feed. No Facebook post text is recorded for this episode.

Roving reports

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  Ollie Spake hosting with Melissa Ellis after Mother's Day. Ollie stayed in Shellharbour for a packed weekend of birthdays, Mother's Day and his and Kathy's 12th anniversary, running most of parkrun with his mum on her birthday (she brought her own cake) and eating five cakes in the week. Mel ran with her son Jake and her daughter's pup Dustin in Melbourne's south-east and is hunting Kmarts for a dog water bottle; Eynesbury juniors was paused so the RD team could volunteer in pink tutus at the Mother's Day Classic, and the show turns to Alison's report from Barry Curtis parkrun via the trans-Tasman travel bubble.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 12:34

  Roving report from Barry Curtis parkrun, Auckland, New Zealand, filed by Alison King, who explicitly files it "for the Channel 5 News crew". She returns to her first-ever parkrun (January 2016) for a fifth run to build her P index, notes the course sits under the Auckland airport flight path, and then interviews three parkrunners at the finish: Grant Lincoln (age-record chaser, 25-26 NZ events, recent 17:57 at East End/New Plymouth), Julie Collard (Western Springs Run Director who opened Auckland's newest parkrun about six months earlier, with her Sydney brother walking his first parkrun that day), and Anna Willis (Barry Curtis local, 100th parkrun the following week, fresh from a family road trip taking in Blenheim, Invercargill and Rotorua).

• Dazza's starts at 20:22

  Dazza's Cafe: the hosts work through the week's listener comments and photos over coffee. Contributors read out include Bruce Purdy (planes, trains and automobiles to Mossman, in cheetah ears), Danella Taylor (ran 6.8km from home then a lift back in the classic car 'Dolly'), Tracy Wood (nearly trampled while photographing at Bunyaville), Ingrid Botha (Dolls Point, with Paris the dog), Alison King (Barry Curtis then morning tea at Ōwairaka), Rebecca Bailey (puddle-jumping at Shellharbour), Caro Vos (Pioneer Dairy and the cows), Mark (back run directing at Wagga Bridge), Val and Stephen Warwick (volunteering at Kate Reed, Tasmania), Birgit Rainbird (South Bank), Sam Schroder (Picton, Luke's 50th), Bernadette Bennett (Newy), Cameron Drake (flat battery, GPS chaos), Janet Reid (a tall tale about parachuting into the car park at Lochiel Park), Mandy Oliver (Paradise Point/Surfers), Dawn Branton (flew to Kirra) and Vicky Thompson (accommodation distance to the start line). Includes a substantial digression in which Ollie explains the Killalea park development protest and what it could mean for the future of Shellharbour parkrun.

• the Informant starts at 50:33

  The Informant is absent again, the hosts joke about HR, a pay dispute and "extended leave", so the stand-in character 'the Agency Casual' delivers the weekly stats: Australia 42,811 runners across 394 events (up 2,725, average 109); New Zealand 3,735 across 32 events (down 296, average 117). Largest events New Farm 446, South Bank 429, The Ponds 391; in NZ Hagley 330, Cornwall Park 264, Lower Hutt 264. Three 250 milestones in Australia (Brie Broussard at Westerfolds, Glenn Claydon at Lilydale Lake, Diane Colerady at Petrie), plus 117 100s and 197 50s. Fastest females: Alexandra Blake 16:44 PB at Kedron, Victoria Mitchell 17:12 course record at Wangaratta, Lauren Reid 17:39 at Orange; NZ Hannah Oldroyd 17:11 at Hagley, Nancy Xieng 19:00 at Queenstown, Pip Mio 19:10 at Western Springs. Fastest males: Gordon McClemon 14:52 PB at Kirra, Dale Zabioa 15:35 PB at Rockingham, Brandon Martin 15:38 course record at Bathurst; NZ Palmerston North 14:58, Fabian Downs 15:38 at Millwater, Samuel Kenoch Walden 16:03 PB at Cornwall Park. Signs off pinching the Informant's beer from the fridge.

• Sign-off starts at 54:33

  Ollie said it had been another good catch-up with another parkrun day quickly approaching and asked Mel's plans: she was hunting hills to prepare for the Panorama Punish and thought she would seek out one of her local events, probably Sunbury parkrun, while Ollie would be back behind the megaphone run directing at his home event, with a chance Hannah might pop up and his mum saying she was coming up for a parkrun. Chat about replacing her running jacket and the Contra range, an appeal for gear suggestions and feedback to their gmail address, Peter Pohlman's tip-off that Callaghan parkrun had yet to return, and Mel's Mother's Day gimbal followed, before Mel said they had potentially exceeded their limit for the day and looked forward to chatting to Ollie again next week, and he thanked her.