Episode 448 - Surrounded by clowns

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HostsLyndell Murray Tony O'Connell

Roving reportersAli Sheppard Lyndell Murray

Show notes

Grab your big red shoes, baggy pants and colourful top hat. TOC is packing his bag of tricks and Lyndell is juggling a life outside of parkrun. Reginald takes a giant magnifying glass to the Running Achievements app, and the roving reporters have bundled into the clown car, headed for Parklakes Wetlands (opens in a new tab) and East Holmes Field (opens in a new tab) parkruns. We celebrate listener achievements and milestones at Dazzas, and pull an endless string of launches out of our sleeves.

The podcast feed and the Facebook post carry the same notes.

Roving reports

1Parklakes Wetlands2East Holmes Field

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:29

  Lyndell Murray in Meeanjin on Turrbal and Yuggera lands with Tony O'Connell in Inverloch on Bunurong Country. Lyndell has been on the bench for four of the six parkrun days since Palm with triathlon officiating around southeast Queensland, volunteered Easter Saturday at Kelvin Grove and picked up new event Parklakes Wetlands on the Sunshine Coast (roving report to come). TOC has stayed close to home for fuel-cost reasons, RD'ing Inverloch for Shirley Dell's 500th, though he and Jack road-tripped to Canberra for Woden Town to regain capitalist status, caught up with Rex Gream over breakfast and inducted him into the dark side of City Strides.

• Listener Feedback starts at 4:14

  Follow-ups from recent episodes: the Andre whom roving reporter Ruth interviewed at Vingis turns out to be Andre Falconer, newly confirmed to the parkrun Global board ("what a scoop for Ruth"); Paul Lauer sends photos from Cannibals Cave in South Africa; and listener Sal's challenge prompts TOC's hand-counted deep dive into 500-parkrun finishers, 3,849 worldwide, 549 Australian, first was Brian Peters at Main Beach in September 2021, most recent Shirley Dell at Inverloch.

• parkrun news bulletin starts at 9:11

  Anzac Day: many events cancelled for proximity to cemeteries and dawn services, others going ahead under parkrun Australia's Team Veteran partnership with Invictus, check the cancellations page. parkrun Ireland teases a national campaign, Care for the Places We parkrun. Rolls into the stats round-up: New Zealand figures for 11 and 18 April supplied by Alison (attendance records at East End, Invercargill and Lower Hutt; Hagley over 1,000), Australian figures for 18 April (89,460 participants, 6,794 volunteers, 530 events), and a Polish country attendance record.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 18:06

  Two field reports. Lyndell Murray at Parklakes Wetlands parkrun, Bli Bli, six weeks old, talking to founder Michael about the fourteen-month slog to launch, a rejected first course, $7,500 to raise, a mid-summer boot camp that brought in $2,500, and local backers Cameron Hackenberg and Mark Cowie. Then Ali Sheppard at East Holmes Field parkrun, Ilkley, with Amanda Murray-Hynde and the silent, apricot-costumed parkrun Weather Fairy: Amanda is one of twelve chosen from 12,000 applicants to run the London Marathon for parkrun Global and is fundraising via QR codes carried round parkruns in the UK and Germany.

• Dazza's starts at 36:01

  Two weeks of the cafe. 11 April was Cheese Fondue Day: Yvette Turner's 300th at Burley Griffin, David Bravos and Chloe completing their alphabets at Frog Hollow, Gareth Arnold reaching Bibra Lake by public transport, and Jan Yates finding a cheese-wheel token bin at Amsterdamse Bos. 18 April was World Circus Day (the source of the episode title): Sarah Jefferson's first barefoot parkrun at The Beaches, Leanne Evans at Kate Reed in Tasmania, Roberta Winters "surrounded by these clowns" for her 250th at Wagi Bridge, Ali Sheppard denying that event 69 at Cockermouth Greenway was for the Rude Challenge, Gemma Kajewski's rhyming report from Gatton for a 500th/100th volunteer/200th venue treble, and RD Katie Clues' sunrise at Burrum Heads Beach.

• the Obi Award — Roberta Winters starts at 44:57

  TOC draws the Obi the old-fashioned way, from a paper envelope with a self-supplied drumroll, noting the other hosts have gone "new school with their electronic Obis". It goes to Roberta Winters for her Dazza's post on completing her 250th parkrun at Wagi Bridge in Canberra, where the crowd she brought along also broke the event's non-special-day attendance record, and whose four clown emojis supplied the episode title.

• Emails starts at 45:36

  A thin fortnight, one email, to TOC's mock dismay. Listener Lee (A467161) writes that having spontaneously booked a late-March-to-mid-April trip to Japan, they may have booked themselves out of PALM 2027. Lyndell reassures them that no dates or locations are set yet.

• Club Corner starts at 46:47

  Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III, from Arrernte Country, reviews the Running Achievements app as a follow-up to his Park Race review in Club Corner 95: large graphical tick-box displays that help with the periodic table challenge, Australian state and territory region achievements with pie-chart badges, five-level volunteer achievements, and a statistics view covering PB, best finish position, highest altitude, tourism percentage and the various indexes. He notes the app credits Mel Erbacher as coiner of the Pirates Club challenge, which TOC picks up on afterwards. Signs off with the standing line that all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun.

• Consolidated Club Report starts at 49:41

  Saturday 18 April: the Adventurers Club sits on 899 members, one short of 900. 640 members ran across 11 countries and 330 locations, Victoria 54 events, Queensland 53, NSW 47, SA 28, WA 22, ACT 9, Tasmania 9, NT 2, North Island 7, South Island 2, plus 86 UK events, 8 in South Africa, 4 in the USA, 2 in Japan and one apiece in Austria, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia and Norway. Includes the Bushy pilgrimage roll (Angharad Callaghan on the 11th; Orna O'Bairn and Alison Giblin on the 18th) and a reminder that the Adventurers Club can be one of your five parkrun affiliations.

• the Frond starts at 50:55

  Largest gatherings of adventurers. International: a frond of four at Highcliffe Beach on 11 April, and four at Jamaica Pond, USA on the 18th, where attendance leapt from 188 to 569 on the Boston Marathon bump. Australian: a frond of eight at Toowoomba on the 11th, and on the 18th a frond of seventeen at Wagi Bridge, capped by Roberta Winters' 250th.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 53:14"Where is the cake?"

  Thirteen launches in a fortnight after a long lull, and a third straight week with none in Australia. 11 April: Okanagan Rail Trail (Canada), Lithuania's fourth event ("parkrun Big Carpenter"), a Welsh launch, Flomvollen in Norway ("Flooded parkrun"), and Wilton Lodge Park in Hawick. 18 April: Ōpaheke Park (New Zealand's 68th), Beaver Creek through South African macadamia plantations, Ophovener Weiher near Cologne, Matsqui Trail Regional in BC, Green Park at Reading, Lady Mary's Walk at Crieff, Tempelhofer Feld running along a disused Berlin runway, and Waverley Lakes near Sheffield.

• Looking ahead starts at 59:18

  TOC lays out a four-week European "smash and grab" with Jackie built around special-event days, seven parkruns in four weeks, starting at University of Galway on 2 May (Inis Meáin cancelled), then Poland, Pokkinen in Oulu for Ascension Day, Vingis in Lithuania, Zamek w Malborku, a Whit Monday event in the Netherlands and one in Singapore on the way home, meaning he skips recording for all of May. Lyndell heads to Jubilee, Tenterfield to extend a tourist streak of over 110, and is on the bench next parkrun day to meet a friend finishing an overnight trek at an Anzac Day dawn service. Interrupted by Lyndell's cat Barry annexing her desk on camera.

• Sign-off starts at 1:02:16

  TOC opened the looking-ahead segment with his and Jackie's European trip: seven parkruns in four weeks, starting at University of Galway parkrun in Ireland on 2 May after Inis Meáin cancelled for the day, then Poland, Finland for Pokkinen at Oulu on Ascension Day, Vingis in Lithuania, Zamek w Malborku in Poland, a Whit Monday event in the Netherlands still awaiting declaration, and one in Singapore on the way home, meaning he would skip the May recordings. Lyndell said she was headed to Jubilee parkrun at Tenterfield on the May long weekend to continue her tourist streak, now over 110. For next parkrun day Lyndell was supporting a friend trekking overnight from the Brisbane CBD out to The Gap to finish at an Anzac Day dawn service, so expected to be on the bench again, while TOC would head somewhere in Gippsland close to home, undecided, wanting gravel so he could run before the trip.