Episode 446 - Show us your weed

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HostsMelissa Ellis Tony O'Connell

Roving reportersAli Sheppard Calum Burrell Lyndell Murray Ruth Perkins

GuestTim Oberg

Show notes

From the Facebook post

Did we get your attention? Good! We’ve also got the Big Cheese and a swathe of roving reports from the UK (Queen’s parkrun, Glasgow and Flint Castle (opens in a new tab) in Wales) to Poland (parkrun Zalew Łęg (opens in a new tab), Jaworzno) and back home, with Gayndah River Walk (opens in a new tab) (in Queensland).

There’s all the usuals too with Reginald and a rhyming Dazzas to enjoy.

Who is the Big Cheese you say? Why it’s Tim Oberg of course! Bringing us a RAD review of his latest pursuit.

From the podcast feed

Did we get your attention? Good! We’ve also got the Big Cheese and a swathe of roving reports from the UK (Queens parkrun in Glasgow and Flint Castle (opens in a new tab) in Wales) to Poland (Zalew Łęg (opens in a new tab)) and back home, with Gayndah River Walk (opens in a new tab) ( in Queensland). There’s all the usuals too with Reginald and a rhyming Dazzas to enjoy. Who is the Big Cheese you say? Why it’s Tim Oberg of course! Bringing us a RAD review of his latest pursuit.

Guest

Roving reports

1·2Queen’s, Glasgow and Flint Castle3Gayndah River Walk4Zalew Łęg

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  Melissa Ellis on Wurundjeri Country, back in the boss's seat after long service leave, with TOC on Boon Wurrung Country. Since January Mel has done Queens Domain, Victory Road Reserve, Cruickshank Park, Rokeby Crossover Rail Trail and Alice Springs Telegraph Station, the last on a 10-day Red Centre trip that cost her a first PALM: the Todd River was flowing, Belinda timekept while Mel tail walked, and they bumped into Lockie and Nicola Miners on their way to PALM. TOC did Victory Road Reserve and a drizzly Rokeby with Jack; Mel walked Rokeby with her daughter Madeline and Dave on market week and visited the Noojee trestle bridge, and TOC recaps the Clare Valley PALM dress-up night before saying the next location won't be announced for three or four months.

• parkrun news bulletin starts at 13:49

  News block: the six Austrian events collectively declining to hold their national special day on 1 May (Tony reads an anonymised Austrian ED's social-media explanation about course capacity and permit limits); Lithuania's special day on 11 March with 12 adventurers across three events; parkrun New Zealand attendance figures for 21 March (66 events, 12,656 parkrunners, 1,131 volunteers, Cambridge attendance record 181 up to 210); Australian smallest/largest events and three new Australian attendance records (Bluegum Hills NSW, Maylands Peninsula WA, Mildura Weir VIC).

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 31:09

  Four back-to-back roving reports, thrown to and recapped by Tony as "reports from four different places, four different countries": Calum Burrell at Queens, Glasgow (Scotland) with ED/RD Laura; Ruth Perkins at Flint Castle (Wales) with ED Lucy Douglas and ambassador Jill Jones; Lyndell Murray at Gayndah Riverwalk (Queensland) for its fifth birthday with ED Dale; Ali Sheppard at Zalew Leg (Poland) with parkrunner Kuba.

• Dazza's starts at 55:58

  Listener submissions segment, this week themed on World Poetry Day - every entry a poem. Read out: Sherry Eccles (Bill Rose Sports Complex NSW, 250th event), Mandy Oliver (Surfers Paradise Parkfront QLD, 500th), Michael Lyttle (Copper Trail SA), Sonja Pohlman (the Beaches NSW - the seaweed photo that gives the episode its title), Ellie Shepherd (Durham UK), Gareth Arnold (WA, assumed), Val Warwick (Ilarah Riparian Parklands NSW), and a long one from Matthew Billington (Rokeby) referred to rather than read.

• Poem Zone starts at 56:20

  Not run this episode - referenced retrospectively while introducing the poetry-themed Dazza's. Tony: "it's almost like the old days of Scotty and Mel and their... Poet's Corner." Melissa: "The Poem Zone." Tony: "That was what it was called." Recorded here because it is direct in-episode evidence that this named bit is long retired and is associated by the current hosts with the Scott Trickett / Melissa Erbacher era.

• the Obi Award — Sonja Pohlman starts at 1:02:32

  Awarded to Sonja Pohlman for her Dazza's entry from the Beaches, NSW - specifically the photograph accompanying it. Tony: "our Obi this week goes to Sonja Pohlman. That was a great photo of Michael from the Beaches" (Michael Sharp, the volunteer pictured), with Melissa adding "Yeah, show us your weed" - the seaweed-covered beach shot that supplies the episode title. Opened with the running "Obilope" gag ("time for an Obilope. Do we still even do that?").

• Emails starts at 1:03:13

  Listener email bag, opened with a "You've got mail" sound effect. Two emails: Ian Shaw (day-one listener, guest on episode 182) on his "Tutu/Two-Two Day" numerology - 22:12 at Gungahlin on 22/2/2025 and 22:22 at Wagga Bridge on the June solstice, his birthday; and Alistair (tourism streak 28) with two coffee reports, one from an unnamed "restricted" event the hosts deduce is Puckapunyal, and one from Rhodes NSW event 516.

• Club Corner starts at 1:10:07

  Delivered in character by Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III. A survey of parkrun-related smartphone apps: parkrun's purchase of the 5K app (now simply "parkrun", published by parkrun Global Ltd, v4.0 rolled out March 2026), the parkrun Virtual Volunteer app (originally by Nuism of Newcastle NSW, part-owned by Penny Redhead), then pros and cons of parkrun Planner (James Kent), Running Achievements (Ford Hollett), Park Race (Alexander Cahill) and parkrunner-5K Results (Apps for London Ltd / Gary Grace). Closes with a reminder that all non-milestone clubs are unofficial. Followed by studio discussion with Melissa and Tony.

• Consolidated Club Report starts at 1:15:55

  Weekly club stats for Saturday 21 March 2026: of 890 members, 614 took part in 13 countries across 341 locations; international and state-by-state breakdown; Malaysia absent (their single event took the week off). Includes the largest international fronds (Maritzburg Golf Club, South Africa, 14 March - including roster member Johan Duvenhage; Inn Promenade, Austria, 21 March), "the pilgrimage" sub-item (nobody on 14 or 21 March; Dale and Rachel Morgan on 7 March, Imogen Swales on 28 February), and the largest Australian fronds (Auburn Botanic Gardens, 14; The Ponds, 9). Melissa claims the largest actual frond of the Palm recording weekend - 11, accidentally, at Cruickshank Park.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 1:20:56"Where is the cake?"

  Launch recap covering several weeks, with Tony explaining the eight-week paperwork lead time and the Christmas staff break as the reason for the thin run: Walton Promenade UK (28 Feb, 268 finishers/20 volunteers); Hofgarten Germany (7 March, 116/18); Victoria Embankment Nottingham UK (14 March, 895/36 - with discussion of eight or nine parkruns inside a 5km radius); and four on 21 March - West Stow Country Park UK (199/23), a Beach Reserve parkrun at the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island (167/16), Kulturpark Nuremberg Germany (57/11) and Mandeville NZ (172/20, bringing the South Island to 25 events).

• Sign-off starts at 1:26:46

  Mel wound up the watching-the-numbers talk and asked TOC where he was travelling this coming Saturday: possibly Inverloch for a walk, or Phillip Island if he wanted to run, since he is still not allowed to run on asphalt or concrete, Dano was down timekeeping at Inverloch for the Inverloch Running Festival and it could be a big turnout. Mel was heading northwest to South Australia to meet her parkrun besties Martine and Andrew at the event she called Packer Picanty, where she had done a Freedo years ago, and TOC warned the course had changed since. Sarah and Simon were flagged for next fortnight.