Episode 246 - Faster, Higher, Stronger, within reason

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HostsMelissa Ellis Oliver Spake

Roving reportersAlison Fraser (King) Mark Scarborough

Show notes

From the Facebook post

This week the adventurers share their notparkrun adventures of Olympic

themes and Zombie runs. Proving you CAN make lockdown fun!

Meanwhile Marvellous Mark reports in from the far west at Marina (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Alison becomes a South Island regionnaire at Dunedin (opens in a new tab) parkrun. And we wonder, just how well calibrated is our parkrun crystal ball in planning our adventures for next week?

Plus all the stats from The Informant, and the latest recipes from Dazza's!

From the podcast feed

This week the adventurers share their notparkrun adventures of Olympic themes and Zombie runs. Proving you CAN make lockdown fun! Meanwhile Marvellous Mark reports in from the far west at Marina (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Alison becomes a South Island regionnaire at Dunedin (opens in a new tab) parkrun. And we wonder, just how well calibrated is our parkrun crystal ball?

Roving reports

1Marina2Dunedin

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  Ollie Spake with Melissa Ellis, both in lockdown. Mel's Olympic-themed Ellis Palaceparkrun drew four tourists under Victoria's new outdoor-groups-of-ten rule, with brunch booked at the Jolly Miller and Geelong event ambassador Jeff claiming the Bushy–Ellis Palace "worldwide double"; Ollie in Shellharbour managed only about two kilometres of Bass Point before trying his first Zombies Run mission near Mystics beach, and reported on his family's home Olympics (gold in Nerf shooting, motto "faster, higher, stronger, within reason"). Olympic chat covered Jess Hull and Linden Hall reaching the 1500m semis, listener Adrian Hillyer's stat that Olympic hockey player Kieran Govers ran all four of his parkruns at Shellharbour, and Maribyrnong regular Lisa Weightman's fourth Games, before mail from Eman about barcode scanning at Ecco Ripley event two.

• Emails starts at 14:23

  Ollie announces "You've got mail" and reads an email from listener Eman, who ticked off a volunteering event at one of Australia's newest parkruns, Ecco Ripley (event number 2), and clarifies that the "Green Streets" mentioned last episode are a parkrun couple, Ian and Kathy, not a running group. This rolls straight into a discussion of parkrun club affiliations and a listener callout asking whether people would join an "Adventurers" parkrun club.

• Streaky September starts at 16:48

  Not run as a segment this week but actively being built: the hosts review listener feedback on the Streaky September Bingoe card, thanking Tracy ("Tracy in a tutu") and Pippa for suggestions, note that nobody has yet volunteered to help make the card, and decide to hold the ideas back and invite more. Ollie: "we look forward to streaky September, it's just around the corner." Revisited.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 18:21

  Two self-contained roving reports, both explicitly badged "reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew". First Mark Scarborough from Marina parkrun, Geraldton, Australia's westernmost parkrun, event 67, interviewing Perth tourist Jeanette and Event Director Tracy, and noting the Scarboroughs have now done the western-, northern- and southernmost parkruns with only the easternmost to go (James of the "Channel 2 News crew" got a PB). Then Alison from Dunedin parkrun on New Zealand's South Island, interviewing regulars John, Jo and Jeanette and delivering her verdict on the "Stairs of Despair", hands down the hardest parkrun of her 64 events.

• Dazza's starts at 33:51

  Round-up of listener cafe posts on an Olympic theme, framed as a contest between Ellis Palace not parkrun and Bass Point not parkrun. Contributions read from Tanya Bailey and Brett Bailey (Pegasus midwinter Christmas), Val Warwick (Devonport), Tracy Wood (New Farm), Ingrid Botha, Melanie McGregor (Trentham Memorial Park), Sonja Pohlman (The Beaches rainbow unicorn cake), Chris Fraser (twice, including a 4.9-star pie the hosts declare a "DR, a Dazza's record"), Mandy Oliver, Alison, Mark Scarborough, Janet Reid (100th volunteer), Erica Leota, Sam Schroder, Claire Stutchbury, Jack Corkill, Irene, Helen Davis, Pippa White and Tamsin ("Fat Girl to Iron Man").

• the Informant starts at 46:07

  Weekly stats delivered in character after the jingle, opening with a riff on the Olympics ("So many boring sports... what's with the cycling? They remind me of a bunch of seagulls"). 1,099 runs across 14 countries, 25,407 runners down under out of 151,764 worldwide (up more than 21,000), 3,186 PBs, 841 first-timers, milestone counts, 14 bingo callers (Tim Shannon quickest at 133 events), 16 new regionnaires, three launches (Manzola in Italy; Garbag Forest and Stories Field in the UK), plus an admission that the Windex numbers may be wrong this week. Signs off pointing to The Informant on Facebook and theinformant.me.

• Sign-off starts at 55:31

  Ollie asked whether they were looking forward to next week's parkrun orparkrun day: he was looking forward to a Bass Pointparkrun, while Mel said she might plan an adventure and was looking at her options to travel to states whose borders were open, not holding out hope that Victoria would be back although things were looking positive. They ran through where parkrun was still going - Tasmania, South Australia after its brief lockdown, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, parts of Queensland and New South Wales, and the ACT - and Mel said it had been another wonderful week catching up and thanked Ollie for joining her again to discuss all things parkrun. She gave the Facebook and email contact details and said that was it for another week, with the pair signing off that they would see everyone next week for more adventures.