Episode 2 - Norm Phillips

Episode details · 122 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:05Norm Phillips: My name is Norman Phillips and you're listening to the parkrun Adventurers.

00:00:12Scott Trickett: Welcome back to the second edition of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. I'm Scott. I'm joined again by Mel.

00:00:19Melissa Erbacher: Hey guys.

00:00:20Scott Trickett: Big week for the Adventurers this week. We had some good feedback from the first episode. Lots of you subscribed and listened, which made us both very happy. Also a big week for parkrun Australia. It looks like those New Year's resolutions are kicking in.

00:00:36Melissa Erbacher: And also I think it's probably fair to say that us having a big week, First Podcast, and parkrun Australia having a big week are related, don't you think, Scott?

00:00:46Scott Trickett: Well... It seems so. I can only go on facts, and the facts are that we launched last week. Last week, the attendance record for parkrun Australia was 18,489. This week, how many people attended? 22,624 parkrunners. Not too shabby.

00:01:04Melissa Erbacher: No, a new attendance record for Australia. Which included 4,912 first-timers. Well done, newbies.

00:01:20Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:01:21Melissa Erbacher: They all did a really great job because they didn't forget their barcodes. So well done to them for that as well.

00:01:27Scott Trickett: Do you have a figure on how many people would have forgotten their barcodes?

00:01:32Melissa Erbacher: I don't have an exact figure on how many forgot their barcodes. I do have a figure on how many runners came up as unknown. So whether or not that's 100% forgot their barcodes or some of those were just unregistered runners who happened upon this amazing thing on a Saturday morning and decided to join in the fun. But that number is 2,345. I would say there's probably a large proportion of those who forgot their barcodes. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

00:02:03Scott Trickett: Next week we're in for a treat. If you just love those stats, if you just go crazy for numbers, next week we're going to have a treat.

00:02:12Melissa Erbacher: What's the treat, Scott?

Fun Facts with Ian

00:02:13Scott Trickett: Well, Ian Hay, our friend from Queensland, he's going to join us for Fun Facts with Ian. He's going to come up with some facts behind a parkrun, dazzle us, amaze us, amuse us with some funny facts, hopefully. sounds awesome did you have an adventure last parkrun day i added a new parkrun to my list holidaying with a family up in the high country in victoria we jetted off to wangaratta parkrun on saturday morning again beautiful course Bridge crossing. Those who know me know I love a bridge crossing. So Wangaratta ticks the box there. But the best thing about the bridge crossing, as soon as you cross it, you get greeted by the fairy garden, which is probably the only fairy garden on course in parkrun Australia, I'm guessing.

00:03:13Melissa Erbacher: An actual real fairy garden.

00:03:15Scott Trickett: Yep, yep. One K in, there they are.

00:03:19Melissa Erbacher: Did you see any fairies?

00:03:20Scott Trickett: I think it's real fairies. I was running too fast.

00:03:23Melissa Erbacher: Ah.

00:03:24Scott Trickett: But if you slow down.

00:03:25Melissa Erbacher: They were probably flying too fast as well.

00:03:27Allan Connolly: Yeah.

00:03:28Scott Trickett: If you slow down and take your time, you might see fairies. But if fairies don't float your boat, plenty of frogs, very noisy parkrun because the frogs were out and about on Saturday morning. But lovely course, lovely team. I got my photo with the ED and RD on the day.

00:03:50Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. That sounds like a podcast challenge accepted and completed. So make sure you get your pictures taken, guys, and make sure you hashtag parkrunadventurers when you post them to Instagram or Twitter or Facebook so we can check them out and share them with everyone else.

Podcast adventure challenge / #parkrunadventurers

00:04:09Scott Trickett: So that was my Saturday morning. Yours was a bit different. You were involved in the bigger story around parkrun this week up at Brightwater. Do you want to share with us your experience?

00:04:22Melissa Erbacher: Would love to, Scott. I was lucky enough to be one of the 170 runners who ran alongside Norm Phillips in his history making 100th parkrun. So even though I'm sure you would have seen all the media hoopla about it, he's been on the local news. It's made international headlines. I'll just let you know for the benefit of the doubt of those who haven't. Norm, at 92 years young, has become the oldest parkrunner to join the 100 Club in the world. Okay, so there is another person who's in the 100 Club who I believe he's 86. He was previously the eldest member. But Norm, number one, nonagenarian, not too bad.

00:05:09Scott Trickett: Yep, that's pretty impressive. When you actually put it in perspective, 92 and still kicking around, I think it's awesome.

00:05:17Melissa Erbacher: And it just goes to show, you know, we've got decades and decades of running ahead of us. So it doesn't matter that it's been two years since I had a PB, I've got plenty of time.

00:05:29Scott Trickett: Did you meet Norm when he first started?

00:05:31Melissa Erbacher: I did. I actually remember the very first day he came to parkrun. It was pouring rain. It was Kawana. So Norm actually started out at Kiwana parkrun. As he sort of progressed through, I think he made it to 55 events before he decided that his hip would prefer a bit less elevation than what we have at Kawana. So he moved over to brightwater and he did since then come back to parkrun for an anniversary which was lovely but the very first day that he came along he came with his son and as i said it was pouring rain it was winter and i was actually walking that day i'm not entirely sure why i may have been saving myself for a longer run the next day because i was in training at the time But I offered him my umbrella. We were coming down the boardwalk from the lighthouse and he was absolutely saturated and I had an umbrella. And I said, oh, hey, would you like to share my umbrella? He said, no, no, I'm all good. And he just kept on his merry way. He beat me by several minutes still. And, yeah, that was the first day we got to meet Norm. It was very special. And he has become a very special member of our parkrun community, both on the coast and across the world now. Wow. Lucky to have him.

00:06:52Scott Trickett: Yep. So you caught up with him and his son on Saturday and we've got a little bit of audio to share with our listeners.

00:06:59Melissa Erbacher: Dave, can you tell me what has parkrun done for your dad?

00:07:02Dave Phillips (Norm Phillips's son): Well, it's amazing because, as you know, he's 92 and he just keeps running and it gives him something to look forward to every week. He works towards every week. He trains. And at that age, I think you need as many reasons as you can to keep going. It would be so easy to sit in the chair. I know how easy it is to sit in the chair as a 50-year-old. I think parkrun and the community and the love and the recognition it receives from this wonderful community is just awesome. It's just a great example of how you can live your life amongst positive people and keep fit as well. It's just fantastic.

00:07:34Melissa Erbacher: And we've actually been joined by Norm, the man of the hour. Norm, tell me, how do you feel? You've just done your 100th parkrun.

00:07:43Norm Phillips: Well, to be quite honest, I'm overwhelmed. I really am. I never thought it would come to this when I started running.

00:07:50Melissa Erbacher: You had quite the great reception coming down the gauntlet of runners clapping. How did that make you feel?

00:07:56Norm Phillips: Oh, I was nearly in tears.

00:08:01Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. So what would you tell someone, Norm, if they were considering to start parkrun? What would you say to them?

00:08:08Norm Phillips: Get up out of that chair and do it.

00:08:13Scott Trickett: Now, we're also a bit chuffed. We also heard from the parkrun founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt. He sent us a message. Norman's achievement is massive. Massive in almost every respect you can think of. From the perspective of general health, his achievements prove that being active helps you live a longer, more fulfilled and happier life. Norman isn't lonely. Indeed, quite the opposite. Through his endeavours to remain active, he has hundreds of friends all looking out for him. Just look at that guard that Brightwater created for his finish last week. As an athletic achievement, Norman has shown just what is possible. I've watched the video of him running, and indeed he could pass for a 60-something year old. He seems so sprightly and youthful. It seems even his son finds it difficult to keep up with him on runs. well norman probably has some exceptional athletic gene that allows him such marvelous achievements but we can all learn from norman the participation whether it's as a volunteer or a runner is what will keep you young healthy sociable and loved it's been wonderful to watch and share the parkrun world celebration of norman's achievements i think he has become a role model for many people across the globe i'm sure he never anticipated or even looked for this kind of glory However, I am sure many parkrunners will want to meet Norman and will be making plans to visit Brightwater now. My hope and wish is that Norman will continue to participate in parkrun for many years to come. Sharing his role as a runner with that of a volunteer is exactly the spirit and responsibility that we hope every parkrunner across the world understands and appreciates. Onwards and upwards, Norman. Thanks, PSH. We go right to the top here at parkrun Adventurers and get the word from the founder, the man who brought us parkrun. And that's nice of him to send that message. It wasn't all happening at Brightwater. We also launched Sierra May last weekend. That was very successful. We'll also take credit for their massive numbers.

00:10:22Melissa Erbacher: And the tutus. There were tutus involved. So, well, we shouldn't take all the credit for their numbers because the volunteers wore tutus. So that's usually a pretty big draw card.

00:10:34Scott Trickett: It certainly looked like a fun morning. And Liv completed the adventure that we set.

00:10:41Melissa Erbacher: She did. She took a selfie with herself because she was the event director of the day. Love your style, Liv.

00:10:47Jez Savage: Yeah, good on you.

Roving reporter report — Shepparton anniversary (Matt with ED Allan Connolly)

00:10:49Scott Trickett: We also had our roving adventurer, Matt, visit Shepparton for their anniversary. He caught up with the event director, Allan, for a quick interview. Let's have a listen. How was the morning, Allan? It was great. We had a record crowd today.

00:11:04Allan Connolly: We had our theme of big hats and big hair, and everyone got into the festivities of it all. It was really enjoyable. We got 182 today. Our previous record was 154, so we've hit it. Smashed it out of the ballpark. Well attended.

00:11:22Matt (roving adventurer): So for anybody that hasn't had the pleasure of running or walking the course at Shepparton, can you describe the course for us?

00:11:29Allan Connolly: We run at Victoria Park Lake, which is in the centre of town. It's a picturesque location. It's been described by many of our tourists as a fast, flat course. We utilise all of Victoria Park Lake by going up the north end of the park, and coming back to the start-finish line and doing two laps of Victoria Park Lake.

00:11:50Matt (roving adventurer): I noticed today that we had some volunteering going on with Brendan from Albert. He was up. You filled one of the positions today.

00:12:00Allan Connolly: Yes, Brendan was the actual person that talked me into parkrun initially and he's always come up on my celebrations and I've been to his celebrations. He done some volunteering today and covered the run director role so that I could run my 100th parkrun.

00:12:22Matt (roving adventurer): Fantastic. Well, look, thanks for the chip parkrun and thanks for the work that you've put in over the last two years. You've got a great event and, yeah, we appreciate it.

00:12:31Allan Connolly: I appreciate it. I enjoy what I do. So every week talking to people, meeting new people, that's the main thing.

00:12:38Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Really love hearing about other courses that I haven't got an opportunity to visit yet. And even better to hear about volunteering taking off as a concept and as something that people love to do as an adventure. And speaking of adventurers who volunteer, we also have an interview by our junior adventurer, Takesha, with Brendan Peel.

Junior Adventurer interview (Takesha with Brendan Peel)

00:13:02Takesha (junior adventurer): What is your name?

00:13:03Brendan Peel: My name is Brendan Peel. I'm run directing for Shepparton's second anniversary.

00:13:08Takesha (junior adventurer): Where is your home parkrun?

00:13:10Brendan Peel: My home run is Albert parkrun in Melbourne, although I do tour a little bit as well.

00:13:15Takesha (junior adventurer): How many tourist parkruns have you done?

00:13:18Brendan Peel: 70 tourist parkruns so far.

00:13:19Takesha (junior adventurer): Okay, that sounds a bit long, so just say three of the parkruns.

00:13:24Brendan Peel: Where are they? I'll give you three I love. Shellharbour, Sandon Point and Churchill Island in Victoria would be my three favourite.

00:13:35Takesha (junior adventurer): Any highlights?

00:13:37Brendan Peel: They're all highlights. The highlight is meeting nice people every week, seeing beautiful places, just being around happy people. They're all highlights.

00:13:44Takesha (junior adventurer): What's your favourite thing about parkruns?

00:13:46Brendan Peel: The sense of community, the sense of getting out there and everyone having a go. And yeah, once again, all the nice people you meet along the way.

00:13:54Takesha (junior adventurer): Thank you for your time.

00:13:55Scott Trickett: Thanks, Takesha. That's great. Brendan is our Victorian statesman. We talked about statesmen last week. We got a few things wrong. We were corrected. So thanks for the feedback. We're not perfect.

Statesmen update

00:14:09Melissa Erbacher: Yes, Scott. So while we did mention that Alan and Rasheen Burrell are quite close, and they are, as we thought, to being statesmen in Queensland, we do actually have Queensland's statesman currently, and that's Michael Schultz on 55 Events. And I believe he was at Sierra May launch last week to maintain that statesmanship. Excitingly, we've also got a new New South Wales statesman. That would be Cathy Rae. who has been to all 36 events in new south wales and she's actually also only one off being a statesman in the ACT she'll undoubtedly be at the terraces launch on the 30th of january to maintain her statesmanship in new south wales but we did just hear from brendan and um mentioned him as well being a victorian statesman but little known fact he's actually also a statesman in tasmania south australia and the northern territories so I believe Brendan is our only multi-statesman.

00:15:10Scott Trickett: Yes, well done, Brendan. Okay, now we're venturing over to WA and we're going to have a chat to one of the great names in parkrun, Jez Savage. Welcome, Jez.

00:15:27Jez Savage: Hello. Hi, guys.

00:15:28Scott Trickett: Any relation to Randy Macho Man Savage?

00:15:31Unidentified speaker: No.

00:15:32Jez Savage: No, I think that was his stage name. He wasn't a real savage.

00:15:37Scott Trickett: Jeremy, you just celebrated two years at Pioneer parkrun on Saturday. How did festivities go?

00:15:44Jez Savage: We had a great anniversary. We had a record attendance of 173 people. We're not a big parkrunner. Our average is only about 60 people every week. Yeah, we had a great day. We invited members of the two major running clubs, as in West Australian Marathon Club and Masters Athletics Association down for the day. They had a great time. They've seen what our parkrun's about. They've got some great support and some new members out of it. Yeah, so hopefully we can increase the only 8% of parkrunners being club members. It was a lot of fun.

00:16:20Scott Trickett: In relation to Perth itself, whereabouts is Pioneer located?

00:16:24Jez Savage: So Pioneer is in the southeast corridor of Perth in the City Council of Gosnells. The City of Gosnells is one of the older and larger councils in Perth and they approached us about two and a half years ago to set up a parkrun and we set up Pioneer.

00:16:45Melissa Erbacher: That's awesome. Your council approached you instead of the other way around.

00:16:49Jez Savage: Yeah, absolutely. One of the council events coordinators was out running around one Saturday morning, saw a group of people running and somebody recognised and said, what's going on? And they said, it's parkrun. So he went home and googled parkrun and then on the Monday he contacted Mr Tim Oberg and said, we want a parkrun in our council.

00:17:14Scott Trickett: I think it's happening a lot more. I think a lot more councils are afraid to miss out on being part of the cool kids and they want to get involved.

00:17:23Melissa Erbacher: Because let's face it, we are the cool kids.

00:17:26Scott Trickett: Goes without saying.

00:17:28Jez Savage: Once the word gets around the benefits of the community for parkrun, it's going to be more and more popular, I thought.

00:17:36Melissa Erbacher: So, Jez, I'm curious. You invited two of the major running clubs in Western Australia to your event at Pioneer on the weekend, but I noticed Zoolander's was not one of them.

00:17:51Jez Savage: The Zoolander club has up to 20% attendance. But if you go to our regular statistics anyway, Zoolander's are the number one running club at Pioneer parkrun. So you didn't need to invite a number of runners?

00:18:03[crosstalk]

00:18:05Melissa Erbacher: No.

00:18:06Jez Savage: absolutely without saying and would you say that joining a club is just an extra level of involvement and another way that people can enjoy their parkruns most definitely i mean parkrun's really gotten a lot of people involved in in other events i mean the perth marathon a few years ago when one of my great friends clinton completed the perth marathon When he completed it, there was absolutely no atmosphere. There was no one standing on the side of the park. Fast forward a few years to last year when there was the parkrun family. It was just so noisy coming into the finish of the Perth Marathon with cowbells and lots of parkrun flags and parkrun cheering on. It was just a completely transformed event and the West Australia Marathon Club can obviously see the benefit in

00:19:05Scott Trickett: been in the good books of the parkrun family now jez you're also a td for parkrun which means you're involved in the next launch over in wa woodbridge parkrun what can you tell us about that one so woodbridge riverside parkrun is hopefully going to launch on the 6th of february and

00:19:26Jez Savage: That will be a two and a half K basic out and back along the banks of the Swan River. It's an area that is really underutilized by the community. There's a great big kiddie playground with beautiful cafe that's open there as well. It's a fairly quiet part of the park and it's a perfect place for a parkrun. It'll be a great event. It'll fill a little hole in the map that needs to be filled and there's a very enthusiastic, very experienced team of people who are getting behind that event and it will be a huge success.

00:20:09Scott Trickett: Along Swan River. So it's a flat course?

00:20:12Jez Savage: It's basically pancake flat. It's a little bit winding with great views of the Swan River and across to Caversham House, which is a very popular wedding ceremony venue. So there may even be, you know, sites of weddings and going on in the background that we can all photobomb. Yeah, so it's very flat. It's quite open with a fair bit of shade as well, so it shouldn't be too hot. It's a great little venue.

00:20:45Melissa Erbacher: Jez, I have a quick little question. A lot of people will have noticed in newsletter every week that under cancellations, Heirisson Island has been coming up and it just has a note until further notice. Are you able to give us a little bit of insight as to what's going on at Heirisson Island?

00:21:04Jez Savage: Basically, there's a group of locals that are protesting the Western Australian state government and the federal government's policy of closing down remote Aboriginal communities. So they've taken to protesting by setting up a tent embassy on the island and as a result of that it's not really appropriate for us to turn up at 8 o'clock every Saturday morning and run on the island basically through the middle of the tent embassy. So the decision was made for the safety of the parkrunners and also for the safety of the now residents on the island that we wouldn't risk running the event through the middle of the tents.

00:21:49Melissa Erbacher: Well that sounds like the obvious decision to take.

00:21:53Jez Savage: Yeah, definitely. It's just not worth the risk, not worth confronting and upsetting the people in the embassy because they're obviously very passionate about their cause and they would potentially consider the parkrun to be quite rude.

00:22:10Melissa Erbacher: Disrespectful, I imagine.

00:22:13Jez Savage: Yeah, absolutely.

00:22:15Melissa Erbacher: And that goes against everything that parkrun is as well. So good call, parkrun Australia.

00:22:21Jez Savage: But it was definitely the only practical and possible scenario, which is a shame because it's a beautiful event.

00:22:32Scott Trickett: I'm sure it is. I've seen photos. I followed it early when it launched because they have a lot of kangaroos over on the island.

00:22:38Jez Savage: That's correct. The island's separated into two halves, and one half is the kangaroo enclosure with a beautiful natural lake. That's not the half that we used for the parkrun course. We used the non-kangaroo enclosure side of it. But yeah, so you've got views of both sides of the river and the Burswood Casino Resort.

00:23:02Scott Trickett: A great tourist run, sounds like it. So hopefully that can get all sorted out and Heirisson Island can get back on the map.

00:23:08Jez Savage: Yes, that'd be great.

00:23:09Scott Trickett: It's great to catch up with Western Australia. Sometimes you may feel separated from the rest of the country, but just to let you know, you're not. We love parkrun adventurers over in Perth and the whole of Western Australia. So thanks for joining us. Good luck with Woodbridge. Congratulations on two years at Pioneer.

00:23:27Jez Savage: Thank you, Scott and Mel, for the opportunity to chat with you. It's always nice to chat with you guys. Good luck for the podcast and we hope to hear you going long and strong. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys.

Where is the cake? (weekly anniversary/launch calendar)

00:23:47Scott Trickett: Time to have a look at what's on the calendar for this Saturday. We have no launches to attend but where is the cake? This week we've got St Peter's in Sydney celebrating their fourth anniversary. They're having a fluoro theme. Down in my neck of the woods in Melbourne we have Point Cook celebrating their second anniversary with a Hawaiian theme.

00:24:11Melissa Erbacher: Oh, Hawaiian. That is going to be awesome. And fluoro too, for that matter. But I have to say our first anniversary at Kawana, we had a Hawaiian theme and it is still the best thing that we've ever had. I think we had massive cake. Everyone was in leis or grass skirts or just bright Hawaiian shirts. And the photos were amazing. And that's another reason the fluoro will go down well at St. Peter's because the photos of fluoro, you know, fluoro just makes people happy.

00:24:39Scott Trickett: It does.

00:24:40Melissa Erbacher: And I think even the costume that I wore on that day is still my favorite costume of my whole wardrobe. entirely so that's that's a special one for me i haven't had an opportunity to wear it again there aren't a lot of places you can go to dressed as a pineapple but um i'm waiting it'll happen

00:25:01Scott Trickett: That's high praise, Mel, one of your favourites because you love a bit of dress up, a little bit of fancy dress. We know you did a Christmas tree this year at Christmas, pineapple.

00:25:12Melissa Erbacher: I did. It'll be interesting. I have to say I didn't actually run when I was dressed as a pineapple. I was timekeeper that day and I don't think the dress is very aerodynamic so I certainly wouldn't have been getting any PBs.

00:25:29Scott Trickett: So what we'd love is for you to send us a tweet, email or comment on Facebook. Give us your favourite fancy dress. Just a way to get a bit of interaction through social media. You are our social adventurers. So let's do it. Let's start with your favourite fancy dress.

00:25:48Melissa Erbacher: Share pictures even, guys, if you want. We'd love to see those. Scott, what was your favourite fancy dress out of interest?

00:25:55Scott Trickett: I went as David Brent from the office, the UK office, not the US office. And I'd say maybe three or four people actually knew who I was. But I had fun. It was an easy dress up. I grew a goatee for two days, put on a couple of kilos.

00:26:15Melissa Erbacher: Did you get mistaken for Ricky Gervais?

00:26:17Scott Trickett: No, but that was okay. I had fun. That's what it's about. As long as I can have fun.

00:26:23Melissa Erbacher: That's an excellent costume, by the way.

00:26:25Allan Connolly: It was very easy.

00:26:27Scott Trickett: So remember to use the hashtag parkrunadventurers so we can find you, so we can find your tweet, so we can find your Instagram post. We didn't have a lot last week, to be honest. Might have just been you and me, Mel. So let's get that going this week.

00:26:45Melissa Erbacher: And if you need to know where to find us on Twitter, we are PR underscore Adventurers. On Instagram, look for parkrun Adventurers. And, of course, like our page, our Facebook page, parkrun Adventurers. Easy. Thanks so much, guys, for listening in. If you've made it all the way to the end, you are way hardcore and we love you.

00:27:06Scott Trickett: Yes, thanks. If you're enjoying the beats that we're playing in our podcast, they're courtesy of my good buddy Yo. Spell Y-E-O if you're looking for him. This single is called Icarus. It's available now on iTunes. His album's coming out in February. Thanks, Yeo. Thanks, Mel. Look forward to chatting to you all again next week.

00:28:29[music]

00:28:29Unidentified speaker: on this piece of paper I'll be waiting on a cardboard roof tonight I'm living by