Episode 32 - Lorraine Lawson

Episode details · 233 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:12Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to episode 32 of parkrun Adventurers. It's the episode that is old enough to know better and young enough still not to care. I'm joined by my partner in crime, Scotty. Scotty, welcome to the podcast.

00:00:28Scott Trickett: Hola. Obrigado, Mel. [Spanish: "Hello."] [Portuguese: "Thank you, Mel."]

00:00:30Melissa Erbacher: I want to answer you in Italian, but that would be incorrect.

00:00:35Scott Trickett: Por favor. I think I'm combining my Spanish and my Portuguese. They're pretty much the same anyway. [Spanish/Portuguese (identical in both): "Please."]

00:00:43Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure they're not, but okay. And have you learned this Portuguese by watching a certain two-week long sporting event?

00:00:53Scott Trickett: I would like to say yes, but no. It comes from working 10 years in a multicultural broadcaster and working on the Portuguese program. I know a little bit of every language in the world, I'm going to say.

00:01:09Melissa Erbacher: We might have to put that to the test at some point.

00:01:12Scott Trickett: I'll bring it. I'm ready for it. I'm a man of many talents. I know about three or four words in every language. Have you got the fever, Mel?

00:01:21Melissa Erbacher: Have I got what?

00:01:22Scott Trickett: Have you got the fever?

00:01:23Melissa Erbacher: Well, I had the fever by the end of last week's episode. So, yeah.

00:01:28Scott Trickett: Good. I gave you some homework to discover and get excited about an event that you probably normally wouldn't. Did you complete your homework? Okay.

00:01:37Melissa Erbacher: Well, I can report that I did complete my homework. Did you know that, I think, and I'll probably get this wrong, canoe slalom was an event in the Olympics? Yes. is an event in the olympics yes this is the event you knew that i do because this is one of the events where they have to build these build these purpose built sites just for this one event yeah and and they're like these seriously involved wave pools with little dangly things that they have to canoe through front ways and back ways and do it really fast and Where do you even begin to train for that? You know, you can't just nip down the corner to your local pool. You have to find some kind of creek with rapids. But even then, you just... I am baffled that somebody thought this up and decided it should be a sporting event at a major international games. Apparently, we do really well in it, though. We got a medal, a bronze medal. So, yay, Australia!

00:02:45Scott Trickett: It's one of those events that actually looks really hard.

00:02:49Melissa Erbacher: Oh, look, those girls, they're all like... core muscles and arms that can row i don't i would i would have a lot more luck on an athletics track than doing any of that sort of stuff and uh yeah it's a look there's definitely skill involved and i'm sure it takes a lot of training and is a very expensive sport as i'm sure most of them are very expensive sports but yes homework done i hope you will agree

00:03:18Scott Trickett: One thing I've learned from watching this two-week international sporting event is, and particularly on the weekend, we got to watch the women's marathon. And we were looking at splits. And now that we know our parkrun time and we sort of know our 1K time, it really puts everything in perspective. Like... These girls are running 2 minute 30 splits for 42k. Mind-blowing stuff. I can't even do one kilometre at that pace. So it puts in perspective how bloody good you have to be at any sport to go to the two-week international sporting event.

00:04:04Melissa Erbacher: Okay, but is it just me? Or when you watch these things televised and they've got the guys on the the bikes with the cameras and stuff, and you're seeing them from the front, it just looks like somebody's going for a nice gentle amble. It's not unless you see them in profile that you think, wow, I think they're pretty well moving fairly fast. But I did see online somewhere, you know how you see these memes everywhere, somebody had actually tweeted that they think it would be a good idea, just for a frame of reference, To put a normal person, an average person as a competitor in every single event so that the rest of us at home can go, oh, okay. So that's the difference between those people and me. And so, you know, you'd be getting lapped in the pool or you'd fall off the horse at the first jump because it's taller than you. Or, for example, in the marathon, you know. you would just get left for dust basically by these men and women who are doing ridiculous times. Because when you think about the maths, yeah, it sounds really fast because you think, oh, well, I'll just try to go around 400 meters once and see how long it takes me. But when you watch them do it and it's so effortless and it looks so natural and Well, granted, toward the end of a marathon, it looks like it hurts for a lot of them. But, you know, the people that win, it doesn't look like it hurts so much for them. And it's hard to comprehend just the actual difference in speed and how different these people are, these superhuman people, in comparison to the rest of us.

00:05:54Scott Trickett: It really is. And it would be amazing. Well, actually, you'd lose interest pretty quickly because you would see how quickly that swimmer would fall behind or that 400-meter runner would disappear from the TV screen because they'd drop behind so quickly.

00:06:13Melissa Erbacher: Do you think it might make people a little bit less judgmental? When we're watching these athletes and they're giving it their all and then they lose by two hundredths of a second and why couldn't they just push that a little bit more? We're all judging them basically on our couches, in our living rooms. Do you think that it might actually make us shut up in our own homes or we'd still be the same way we are?

00:06:43Scott Trickett: So could you imagine training for four years for a parkrun PB? You've only got one shot at it and you miss it by 0.4 of a second and you're deemed a failure.

00:06:55Melissa Erbacher: You know what? There's only one more year until I'm four years away from my last parkrun PB. So I'll tell you next May.

00:07:04Scott Trickett: I'm not far behind. I think I'm a year out. Every year I get to go to Maribyrnong for their anniversary and that's usually my PB and that's coming up in a couple of weeks.

00:07:14Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's exciting.

00:07:16Scott Trickett: Yeah, so for me it's once every 12 months I get a crack at it.

00:07:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, you could probably have a crack on any given week, Scotty. You just have to choose.

00:07:25Scott Trickett: No, no, no. I'm comparing myself to an a**hole. I'm sorry. I only get an opportunity to do it once every 12 months.

00:07:34Melissa Erbacher: Well, the Olympians only get an opportunity every four years.

00:07:37Scott Trickett: Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Athletes who compete every four years at an international sporting event.

00:07:46Melissa Erbacher: Nice save.

00:07:47Scott Trickett: Thank you.

00:07:48Melissa Erbacher: And where did you get up to your parkrun shenanigans this week, Scotty?

00:07:52Scott Trickett: I returned to the lovely Jells parkrun. Really good event now. Really like it. And I don't know about Queensland, but the weather was particularly nice. down in Melbourne. I saw the numbers were good around Australia. I think it's all leading to a bumper massive spring summer season.

00:08:16Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure you'll be correct because the numbers were up across the Sunshine Coast on the weekend as well and I'm already starting to plan for such an increase.

00:08:31Scott Trickett: You excited or are you scared or nervous?

00:08:36Melissa Erbacher: The warmer months and the extra parkrunners that come with them brings its own little set of challenges, let's say, for event directors who... need to try and convey to the masses that sharing a path is a good idea and that when you knock people over, you need to stop and apologize and make sure they're okay. Pick them up, dust them off, all that sort of thing. So it's mixed bag of feelings for me. On the one hand, love the warm summer months, a lot more sweaty runners and things like that. But it's great because for some unknown reason, more people want to run when it's really hot. And that just means more parkrunners and more people experiencing it for the first time and getting hooked is the word everybody always uses. So, yeah, looking forward to it. How do you feel about the new season coming upon us?

00:09:35Scott Trickett: Well there's been so many events launched down here that our numbers can be spread really well down here. So I don't think there's going to be any events bursting at the seams. So I'm excited by that prospect that lots of Melburnians are discovering parkrun and eventually we're going to take over the Queenslanders. It's only a matter of time but I'm looking forward to that. Now I thought, as we're coming to the end of winter, I thought it was a good time to go tropical and head up to Cairns and catch up with our Cairns ED, Lorraine Lawson. Welcome to the podcast, Lorraine.

Meet the ED (Cairns — Lorraine Lawson)

00:10:24Lorraine Lawson: Thanks, Scott.

00:10:25Scott Trickett: Tropical Cairns. Tell us about Cairns parkrun.

00:10:29Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, we do have plenty of visitors that turn up. And it's a little bit hot for most people. So the second there's a bit of rain, we go, oh, we're going to get some PBs today. So, yeah, so this weekend was a good example of that, a little bit drizzly. And, yeah, it makes it a bit easier for the visitors, that's for sure.

00:10:54Scott Trickett: What's a cool Saturday for you guys in Cairns? What does that look like?

00:10:59Lorraine Lawson: Well, we don't really have cool. We just have... Hot and hotter is how they describe it, but probably with a bit of rain and overcast is nice, but we always have good high humidity. So temperature's pretty much about 26 degrees any time you come and visit us. So people can feel the heat, but it's more the humidity than it is the temperature.

00:11:27Melissa Erbacher: I haven't had the pleasure of visiting your course yet, Lorraine. What is the actual course like?

00:11:32Lorraine Lawson: People say they like it. So we get lots of comments because we run along the Esplanade in Cairns. And so it's easy for visitors to get there and it's nice and flat. It's not a particularly fast course because you've got to go around a couple of corners. And anyone that reads the description on Facebook or on the internet just goes, oh, that sounds so complicated. I think I need to improve it. But basically, it's two loops with an out and back section in the middle. But yeah, somehow I managed to make that sound very complicated for people trying to run just the freedom runs.

00:12:13Scott Trickett: I don't think you're alone there. I think a lot of course descriptions are a mess.

00:12:18Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, but at least we got a nice map done up for us. So that looks very professional. I should actually take a photo of that because that just describes it really nicely. We've put in a picture of a crocodile because we have warning signs along our course that says watch out for the crocodiles and they will eat you. And in our briefing for our visitors and our new parkrunners, we just say, yeah, we do have to introduce him to Gary. There isn't really a Gary, but it's always a good joke for the new people to go, yeah, watch out for Gary when you run along the Esplanade.

00:12:53Scott Trickett: And Gary is?

00:12:56Lorraine Lawson: That's the crocodile. It's named him.

00:13:00Scott Trickett: It's just the one then?

00:13:01Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, there's only just one. We haven't seen him ever yet, but I'm sure we will one day.

00:13:05Melissa Erbacher: He's obviously a gentleman if you call him Gary. If he was Gazza, you'd see him all the time.

00:13:14Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, he was named after one of the parkrunners, and I don't know the story behind it. But the guy that's always doing our race, our new runners briefing, yeah, he definitely gets in and makes sure everyone knows that the crocodile's called Gary. Do you actually get crocodiles in Cairns? Yes. Oh, yes. And on the Esplanade, we will get them. It's a bit of a mud flat, so it's not that difficult to spot any. So, yeah, we often get reports of them up on the beaches and And also they'll come up in the creeks. And, yeah, I mean, you listen to the radio in the morning. You go, oh, the traffic's being held up on the main road because someone's caught a crocodile. Put it in a wheelie bin and waiting for the people to come and get it. Yeah, it's just pretty normal. They've put it in a wheelie bin.

00:14:07Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:14:09Scott Trickett: That's what I heard.

00:14:10Melissa Erbacher: Because that's where you keep crocodiles. Put it until the wildlife people came to come and pick it up. That was where they kept it. Oh, goodness. Oh, my gosh. Okay, note to self, crocodiles in Cairns. I was looking for them when I was running at Darwin, but I didn't realize that was going to be a hazard on course in Cairns as well. No, it's in our risk assessment. Oh, well, if it's in the risk assessment, it won't happen. No, that's right.

00:14:41Scott Trickett: Now, Lorraine, I've detected a South African accent. How does a South African end up in Cairns?

00:14:48Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, not a very long story, obviously, but we left South Africa 20 years ago. And like every other South African in Australia, I think, we started off in Perth. It's the closest, so you just, like, ship your stuff over to Perth, and there you are. And my husband, Larry, has been a runner all his life, and he just couldn't handle the weather in Perth, saying, what? It's winter. It's cold. It's wet. It's dark. I can't go for a run. Let's move. And so we drove around Australia, and Cairns was it. We thought, yeah, no, this looks good. And so we packed up and moved here 16 years ago, and we've been here ever since and never looked back. So, yeah, we really enjoy everything about it. hands and the lifestyle and the animals. So yeah, it's been pretty good. Nice laid-back lifestyle. I sort of started running to lose a bit of weight and just kept on going from there. So now I call myself an ultra runner. That took a little while for me to realize that that's what I am. But I'm pretty slow, but I go all day. So yeah, I enjoy that.

00:15:53Scott Trickett: Well, you went all day on the weekend as well. You ran a 64K... event, didn't you?

00:15:59Lorraine Lawson: Yes, we did. We had a seriously busy weekend in Cairns for running. So there was the Pyramid Race that happens every year. That's 12 kilometers, so it's too short for me. And that was on Saturday. And then on Sunday, we had Kuranda to Port Douglas. It's a 64-kilometer race. So I'm one of the race directors. And this was the sixth year I did the event. So unfortunately, I don't do it very fast. So it took me 10 hours to finish off the 64. But I always go, oh, it's good value for money the longer you're out there. And we did see a snake. So that's always a positive. And to see a bit of the wildlife. And yeah, so taking a bit easy recovering today.

00:16:43Melissa Erbacher: Only one snake. Yeah, no, only one snake.

00:16:46Lorraine Lawson: And I was running with a girlfriend. And fortunately, she's the one that nearly stepped on the snakes. But yeah, her name's Sharon. And we've done quite a few runs together. And we also train together. And yeah, we've seen cassowaries out in the bush. And we've just got so many stories with running around the bush in the Cairns region. Because yeah, that cassowary was a bit of a rogue one. And it chased us, which was very scary at the time. But quite funny now when you think about it in hindsight. But yeah, it's just so much fun living here. Cassowaries are big birds. Those are scary sizable creatures. Are they dangerous? They really don't. They can kill you. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being killed by a cassowary. But they do warn you that they could. And we've got wild pigs as well. So I don't know who I'm more scared of, the pigs or the cassowaries. But it's just, yeah, I mean, it's so good because they're so endangered now that it's such a privilege to see them out in the wild and you just hide, you know, just hide behind a tree so that they don't get you.

00:17:55Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you don't hear about people being killed by them because their families are too embarrassed to admit it.

00:18:01Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, I always go, if ever I kill a cassowary in my car because they'll walk across roads and things. So, if you drive from, say, Cairns up to Kuranda, they'll just walk across the highway and you just go, oh, I just, I cannot bear the thought of being a person that ever kills a cassowary. I would have to pack up and leave the region. That would be bad.

00:18:27Melissa Erbacher: Now, I'm sure that would never happen, Lorraine, because don't you own quite a distinctive looking car? Yeah.

00:18:33Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, it looked like a zebra.

00:18:40Melissa Erbacher: So I'm pretty sure that's probably cassowary proof, having a zebra car.

00:18:46Lorraine Lawson: I think they'll go running when they see me because, yeah, you can't miss me. I left my car. We did another race the other day. It's called the three marathons in three days and it starts in Kuranda. And I left my car and someone was supposed to drive it to the finish for day one. And they couldn't find anyone. So there's my car in Kuranda, not locked. All the doors are open. And someone came and I said, oh, my car, I hope it's all right. And someone said, I hope nobody stole your car. And I said, no, that's not going to happen. But they could take all this stuff inside. So they hadn't seen my car when they said that, otherwise they wouldn't have made a comment like that.

00:19:29Melissa Erbacher: Now, I actually heard today that you can learn a lot about somebody by asking them what they've got in the boot of their car right now. So Lorraine, what have you got in the boot of your car at the moment? Oh, no, that's a terrible question.

00:19:48Lorraine Lawson: Okay, I've got all the gear from the weekend in my car. So I think the fruit is rotting over there because it was quite hot. And so we left the fruit. I've got the marquee. I've actually got the parkrun gear in there because we use some of our tables and stuff from parkrun. We've got some flags from Dynamic Running, which is our running club. Oh, goodness, it's just endless. I've definitely got... AeroGuard because we've got a lot of mosquitoes and what we call midgies. So you have to pretty much spray every time you go out at dusk or dawn a lot because you get eaten to pieces. So at parkrun, yep, that's one of the first things that come out is the AeroGuard so people can spray because they complain that they get eaten and we go, yeah, you've got to spray before you get eaten. So that's definitely one of the things that's permanently in the back of my car.

00:20:44Scott Trickett: Okay, so what does that tell us about Lorraine?

00:20:48Melissa Erbacher: Oh, look, I didn't say I could interpret, just that you could learn a lot about people. Okay, now I'll have a crack. I would say that judging by those contents, you're a big adventurer and you adventure to the point of exhaustion so you don't want to do the small things like taking fruit out of the boot before it rots after a weekend.

00:21:16Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, too tired. Those menial tasks, you just have to wait until I have done everything else. I'm always busy doing something, but invariably it's trying to get other people into running most of the time. So we had two people do their first ultra this weekend, which was such a treat to see people just come across the line and they're so elated that they've trained for so long and that they've achieved such a big goal. And just for parkrun, you see that every weekend. And we had a lady finish this, just this, like on Saturday. And she came up to me and just the biggest smile on her face going, this is the first time in my life I have run five kilometers nonstop. And, yeah, just absolutely elated. And so you get so motivated by just, yeah, people just getting out there and just doing something. So, yeah, I really enjoy seeing that.

00:22:13Scott Trickett: How did you come about bringing parkrun to Cairns? Where did you hear about parkrun from?

00:22:19Lorraine Lawson: Well, I heard about parkrun from Tim Oberg the first time. So I hadn't come across it before. And I had to look up the dates because I couldn't, I'm terrible, I have a terrible memory. So I looked up the dates. It was when I ran my first Melbourne Marathon, so that was back in 2012. And so I went to a It was some Athletics Australia thing, and Tim was there doing a talk about parkrun. So I thought, oh, that sounds good. At the time, I was the president of the Cairns Roadrunners, so I went straight to them like the next day and said, listen, we've got to have parkrun in Cairns. This is like, you know, the big thing. And they said, oh, no, we can't use our volunteers for parkrun. So I thought, oh, okay. And so I sort of thought, okay, I left it. But I took in the back of my mind, I go, no, but this is a good thing. We have to do this. And the next year we had Bruce Fordyce from South Africa, the Comrades Ultra Runner. He came to Australia and I invited him to come to Cairns. So he did like a motivational speech for us. We organised a dinner and stuff. And so I obviously met him and spoke to him. And he's the parkrun boss in South Africa. So he's going, why is there no parkrun in Cairns? And I went, well, there will be soon enough. And so I just thought, you know what? Anyone can start parkrun. You don't need a lot of stuff behind you. And so I just phoned up Tim and said, mate, parkrun's starting in Cairns. What do I need to do? And so basically just started from there. I was doing the dynamic running, which is now a club because I pulled out of the Cairns Road Runners and then I just started my own club. And so Dynamic Running was a coaching group at the time. And so for the first, oh, I don't know, first six months or so, pretty much the volunteer base came from that group. So I could always phone up anybody and say, can you help tomorrow? And they turned up. We're pretty good now. We just have volunteers from everywhere, obviously, come and help us out. But, yeah, so that's sort of where we started. Just after I met Tim, I got, oh, yeah, this looks good. And then when I saw Bruce, I was embarrassed going, no, this is not on. Apart from the fact, of course, that Townsville had started before us. So there's always this little rivalry between Townsville and Cairns. I thought, listen, we can't delay too much longer because Townsville is going and we've got to keep going. So on not Saturday, the one after, so in a couple of weeks, we've got our third anniversary. So we'll be going for three years, which is really nice. We really need to consider starting up another parkrun in Cairns. Because, yeah, I just think we constantly get comments about how friendly everyone is at our parkrun. Everyone feels really well. I'm sure that's the comment that every parkrun gets, by the way. But everyone says how friendly we all are and how welcome they all felt when they came to us because it's like a small town feel. And everyone walks around and says hello to people and welcome them in. And, you know, they're interested in where people are from and what they're doing. So I think that field might get a bit lost if we have 300 people that turn up every week. But I think there is an option for another parkrun in Cairns eventually. We've got the beaches. So people will drive in from as far as Palm Cove. So that's about a 30, 40-minute drive. They'll come in from as far down as Gordonvale. So that's another 30-minute drive. So, you know, we've only got the – it's a central location. It's very convenient if you're a visitor because it's right on the beachfront where all the hotels are. But, you know, if we had one in the beaches, I think there would be a huge demand for that. For people that don't want to get up, we start at 7 a.m. And in wintertime, 6 o'clock, it's still pitch black dark outside. So people don't like getting up and having to drive 30 minutes. That's just not on in Cairns. You've got to go more than 10 minutes anywhere. It's too fast.

00:26:39Scott Trickett: Before we let you go, it sounds like parkrun is going to be growing in Cairns soon. Do you get an opportunity to get out and do some adventuring of your own? Have you visited some other parkruns?

00:26:52Lorraine Lawson: Yeah, I travel a little bit. So I went over to South Africa. So I met up with Bruce Fordyce again when I went there. And I ran Comrades twice. The first time I ran it, now Comrades is run on a Sunday. And on the Saturday, I actually volunteered at parkrun. I was too scared to run 5K before my big race. Comrades is 89 kilometers long. And so that was actually my first introduction to parkrun. I turned up at the expo in Durban. I met Bruce. I said, oh, how are you going? You just saw, you know, whatever. And he said, oh, yeah, sign up to parkrun. And I stood there on the computer in South Africa and signed up. And, you know, obviously Cairns didn't exist at the time yet, the Cairns parkrun. And, yeah, and so I volunteered the next day. At the North Beach one. But the year later, by that time, we were way well up and running. And the next year, I ran the North Beach parkrun in South Africa. That's on the Durban Esplanade. So that was good. I've done Stellenbosch. That's also in South Africa. And a parkrun called Ibotsi. That's sort of in the Gauteng area in the northern middle of South Africa. Where else have I been? I couldn't run in Cape Town. We went there in April. And to my disgust, they have the Two Oceans Marathon, which is a 56-kilometer race. They have that on a Saturday. And I just went, you know what? That's not on.

00:28:29Steve Rayner: You can't put a race on a Saturday.

00:28:31Lorraine Lawson: But, I mean, I miss parkrunning in Cairns every year because we run the three marathons in three days. And I run the race. I'm the organizer, but I also run the race. So I'm racing on Saturday. running a marathon Friday, Saturday, Sunday so I do I haven't got a choice in missing that one. I've done a couple around Australia as well so whenever I go somewhere like any true parkrunner you know you've got to organise your flights so you either make sure you finish, you run Cairns parkrun or you travel so that you arrive in time to do the parkrun in the local.

00:29:09Melissa Erbacher: Well you sound like a true adventurer and It also sounds to me like you go to South Africa quite a bit. So I have a challenge for you next time you visit. I believe there is a parkrun there called Piggy Wiggy parkrun. I don't know whereabouts it is, but your challenge is to seek it out and run Piggy Wiggy parkrun.

00:29:32Lorraine Lawson: That sounds like a good idea. I love that. That sounds really nice. Yeah.

00:29:37Melissa Erbacher: All right, Lorraine, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. We've loved listening to all your adventures and finding out about Cairns parkrun.

Listener audio report — Krakow parkrun, Poland (Monique Brennan)

00:29:53Scott Trickett: One of our listeners, Monique Brennan from Wishart, found herself in Poland overseas on an adventure. Lucky for her, parkrun has made its way to Poland. And she visited Krakow parkrun with her friend Alana from Chermside parkrun, which is in Brisbane. And the best thing Monique did was she had a chat to some of the Polish parkrunners for us and sent us that audio. So let's have a listen.

00:30:21Monique Brennan: Hey, so I'm here with the run director this morning. What's your name?

00:30:24Scott Trickett: Piotr.

00:30:25Monique Brennan: Piotr. And how many parkruns have you done?

00:30:28Piotr: One hundred.

00:30:31Monique Brennan: One hundred. And how many times have you volunteered?

00:30:33Piotr: Oh, five? I don't know. Don't know?

00:30:40Monique Brennan: Too many? Many, many. Many? What's your favorite thing about parkrun?

00:30:46Piotr: People, yes.

00:30:47Monique Brennan: Yes. And what's your best time?

00:30:49Piotr: Best time? 17?

00:30:52Monique Brennan: Fantastic, thank you. What's your name?

00:30:54Marcin Ortman: My name is Marcin Ortman.

00:30:56Monique Brennan: And how many parkruns have you done?

00:30:57Marcin Ortman: I've just started. It's my fifth or sixth parkrun. Oh, really? Yeah, so I'm a beginner.

00:31:03Monique Brennan: And why did you join parkrun?

00:31:05Marcin Ortman: Because I think it's a nice time, nice idea, and I think it gives the opportunity, like right now, to meet the people all around the world.

00:31:16Monique Brennan: Fantastic. And have you been to Australia before?

00:31:18Marcin Ortman: Yeah, once.

00:31:19Monique Brennan: And would you like to come back to Australia?

00:31:21Marcin Ortman: Yeah, of course.

00:31:21Monique Brennan: Okay, so what is your name? Jan. Jan, and how many parkruns have you done?

00:31:28Jan: Just now, today, 142.

00:31:32Monique Brennan: That's fantastic. And how old are you?

00:31:35Jan: 87.

00:31:36Monique Brennan: Are you the oldest person who does parkrun here in Krakow?

00:31:38Jan: Here in this group, yes. But yeah, and during Krakow's marathon in May, I was the oldest. I have six hours because there was, according to plan, there was, you know, celebrated the oldest man will be on the mat. So what for I will be speaking? What for? I need to finish only and feel very well.

00:32:08Monique Brennan: So how many marathons have you done?

00:32:10Jan: Oh... Marathons? 33. 33. First time I had in New York. Imagine yourself. In two years, I celebrated 70 years old. And from my boss, when I work in New York, near Madison Square, Central Park, John, you should celebrate here. You will...

00:32:38Monique Brennan: So you were 17 when you did it?

00:32:40Jan: You come along with me in the marathon. Because I will try. I never... Yes, I was a skier, I was a parachute jumper, and many sports, but so long, long with... I hadn't, I hadn't never, I never had. So I decided I have five minutes for, you know, this marathon, marathon. And so I almost was died. And after two months, I returned to Krakow and Krakow started the first marathon.

00:33:21Marcin Ortman: Oh, I finished there. Why I can't hear?

00:33:27Jan: also used and so that's why he was and this is why my beginning so the way in Krakow I finished this year 15th marathon every year but during the year I used to have two marathons there we go how good was that

00:33:44Scott Trickett: I love the Poles. Great to hear the Polish accent on the podcast. So thanks Monique. And also thanks to Piotr, Marcin and Jan at the end there. Good old Jan. I think he likes to run. We're going to continue the international theme. And now it's time to catch up with someone from the parkrun Australia family. Steve Rayner. Steve's a run director at Southbank in Brisbane and But he's also been overseas and he's going to tell us all about his parkrun adventures. Welcome to the podcast, Steve. Thanks, Scott. Hi, Mel.

International parkrun adventures — guest interviews (Steve Rayner, Des Rountree)

00:34:22Melissa Erbacher: Hey, Steve.

00:34:23Scott Trickett: Now, Steve, you went on a European adventure.

00:34:26Steve Rayner: Oh, yes. My wife and I, we had the trip of a lifetime for us, which we've been planning for a while. We went to basically France, Spain, Italy, parts of Greece, even managed to get into Turkey before all of the current problems started up and had a great time. And as you do when you're hooked on parkrun the way we both are, you plan the whole trip around where can you be on a Saturday to run a parkrun. And we managed to get in three whilst we were away.

00:34:55Scott Trickett: Just on that, did you actually specifically plot your trip so they would coincide with parkruns?

00:35:03Steve Rayner: Yes, to an extent. Definitely for the parkrun we went to in Sicily, we had no other reason for going to Sicily, so we flew there from Florence, spent the weekend in Palermo, ran parkrun and Went back to Rome afterwards. That's the only reason we went down there.

00:35:18Melissa Erbacher: It's Sicily. I'm pretty sure that's a good reason to go to Sicily.

00:35:21Steve Rayner: Oh, yes. It was interesting. That's for sure. Everywhere was interesting.

00:35:28Melissa Erbacher: And what is parkrun like in the south of Italy then?

00:35:33Steve Rayner: Very, very small. I'd have to say they seem to be struggling a little. I think they had nine runners the other day. We were there. We were two of them. It's... They seem to have difficulty in getting runners. They have even more difficulty getting volunteers. And the parkrun in Sicily, which is in a little suburb of Palermo called Uditore, the park it's in is actually, the park was given to the community by the government, but on the total basis, the government's responsibility ended there. It's then up to the community to look after it. So they have to get volunteers to help look after the park as well as volunteers to run parkrun, and they have a lot of trouble with that.

00:36:11Melissa Erbacher: So that's part of the parkrun event team's responsibility is to get people to help maintain the park?

00:36:17Steve Rayner: As well as other users of the park, not just the parkrun people, but they have to do their bit as well. And I have to say the park suffers a little because of that because it wasn't in fabulous shape, particularly compared to the French parkruns we went to, but the climate's different. The day we arrived in Palermo, it was 47 degrees with bushfires all around. It was very unpleasant.

00:36:40Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it is the middle of the year, which is quite warm in Italy.

00:36:44Steve Rayner: Yeah. But as always, the people there are fantastic. The event director there is actually the country manager for Italy, so he was able to tell me what's happening with other parkruns, either started or about to start in Italy, which was interesting. There's a new one that's been going for a little while at a place called Rimini, which is on the Italian Riviera. And... I believe in the next two to three weeks, one will start up in Milan in the northern part of Italy as well.

00:37:14Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I wonder where they must be going to run it in the Giardini Pubblici in Milan. Yeah, it's very, very industrial city-like, but the public gardens are beautiful.

00:37:24Steve Rayner: Okay, okay. That was a bit like Paris.

00:37:28Melissa Erbacher: Now, so of the runners that were at Uditore, were they males, basically? Was it all guys?

00:37:36Steve Rayner: There was one woman who was a UK expat who lives there with her Italian husband. The rest were males. A couple of the guys had got their mothers to volunteer, to help volunteer. They were there.

00:37:50Melissa Erbacher: Oh, bless.

00:37:51Steve Rayner: Yes, that's how they do it. They're just starting out in Italy. That's right. It'll build up.

00:37:59Melissa Erbacher: I think you'll find Scotty's mum volunteers at parkrun too. So it's not a country-specific thing.

00:38:05Steve Rayner: No, no. You take your volunteers where you can get them though, don't you?

00:38:08Melissa Erbacher: They're gold, wherever you can find them.

00:38:10Steve Rayner: That's right. That's right. The other runs we did were, we did Mandevit parkrun, which is just outside Bordeaux, about 20km outside Bordeaux. And that was absolutely beautiful through almost manicured forest and fields with wildflowers growing there. finishing outside a chateau that's now a music school. Totally out in the countryside. No solid pass. It was all trail type pass, but very flat and absolutely beautiful course. But again, they struggle. They don't have huge numbers. That one's only been going for a little while. I think they had 12 the other day we were there. And I think six of those were visitors.

00:38:50Melissa Erbacher: But would you call that struggling? That just sounds like a small event to me.

00:38:55Steve Rayner: Yes, I suppose so. But they are dependent on visitors. And as I say, it's a bit out of Bordeaux. If anyone is thinking of going there, you'll need to arrange a car and sat-nav to get out there because there's no public transport out there at that time on a Saturday morning. It's a little bit out there. But go there because Bordeaux and Mandevitt Park were fantastic, great places, lots of wine.

00:39:18Melissa Erbacher: Sounds very picturesque.

00:39:20Steve Rayner: Yes. No, we loved that one.

00:39:23Scott Trickett: Top ten finishes too.

00:39:25Steve Rayner: Oh, yes, yes. My wife, she got a podium finish in the ladies. She got second lady or something. That's third lady at Mandevit and second lady at Uditore.

00:39:34Melissa Erbacher: Wow, she does well in Europe.

00:39:36Steve Rayner: Yes, she does. It's also part of the reason for the trip. When we left, Anne was on 97 parkruns, so she ended up doing a hundredth parkrun in Paris, which was her aim, which was something very special for her.

00:39:49Melissa Erbacher: That is special. And how was Paris?

00:39:52Steve Rayner: Paris was interesting. More runners. There was 20-something runners there on the day. But we all know that when you go to a parkrun in Australia, the run director will say, do we have any visitors today? And half a dozen visitors will put their hands up and everybody gives them a round of applause for welcoming them. Well, at Paris, they do the opposite. They say, are there any locals here today? Two or three people will put their hand up and they get a round of applause for the locals coming along because everybody else is a visitor. A lot of English people come over for the weekend, particularly as the UEFA football was on whilst we were there. There was a lot of English people in town. The event director there is actually English as well. But yeah, I hear there's another one about to start in Paris, but I don't know where. They're not saying just yet. But this one's within sight of the Eiffel Tower. You can get the metro basically to about 300 metres of the start line and it's all fine. It's great. Again, A beautiful park, been there for hundreds of years, manicured, lovely cafe in the middle of it. You can sit there and have coffee and look at the Eiffel Tower. It was beautiful.

00:40:59Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I cannot wait to get to Europe and try some of these out.

00:41:03Steve Rayner: Yes, yes. It was quite exciting for us to see how parkrun, as we know it, has translated into those countries. And it was quite funny in Paris, their timekeeper for the day, Didn't turn up. Don't know where he ended up. And the run director, who'd only run it once before, said, I'll have to be timekeeper. So I said, look, I'll timekeep. You run. So I ended up being timekeeper. But again, it's the same. Equipment's all the same. Everything runs the same. And you can step up and do those things. So I did some volunteerism that day.

00:41:37Scott Trickett: Nice work, Steve. Yeah, it's good fun. Yeah, it certainly sounds like it. Thanks for coming on.

00:41:43Steve Rayner: That's all right. I encourage everybody to go over to Europe and try some of these runs. They're just beautiful.

00:41:49Melissa Erbacher: We're now joined by a gentleman who is a parkrunner here on the Sunshine Coast with me, but he's been on some international adventures recently. His name is Des Rountree. Des, welcome to the podcast.

00:42:02Des Rountree: Thank you very much, Mel.

00:42:04Melissa Erbacher: So tell us, where have you been?

00:42:05Des Rountree: I've been to the UK for 10 weeks and I managed to do a three or four parkruns at Andover in Hampshire, and also got one in in my hometown of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

00:42:22Melissa Erbacher: And what was parkrun like in England?

00:42:25Des Rountree: The parkrun at Andover was pretty good. I did it three years ago, but I didn't bring my disc with me, so I broke the golden rule of not entering. So I made sure I brought my disc this time and there. They didn't tell me that they run that. It's on a grass track. Well, let's say 60% is on fairly long grass on sports fields, and the other 40% is a bit of tarmac. A pretty level course. Runs around a bit of a duck pond and what have you. Quite hard going, I would say, compared to a Kiwana parkrun. But very nice, and... They had record numbers. A couple of weeks I was there, there were over 300 runners. I got to meet a few of the parkrunners there. It was very, very nice. They said they run in all types of weather. Even if it snows, they run. I said, well, I don't think I'd be running in the snow coming from where I come from. We are more used to sunshine and the odd chilly day, but at least it's dry weather. Yeah, but overall it was very pleasant and I really enjoyed running with the people there. Met a couple of nice people also.

00:43:51Scott Trickett: So Des, parkrun started in the UK, so I imagine they know what they're doing. You also said you went down to Belfast, so parkrun's pretty new in Ireland. How did you find that experience?

00:44:05Des Rountree: Yeah, Scott, Well, being my hometown, I really wanted to do a parkrun there. I don't know when I'll get back again, so I thought, let me do a parkrun in my birth town of Belfast. And I just picked one on the internet, and it was the Ormo Park parkrun. But afterwards, I found out there were actually seven parkruns in Belfast, or in and around Belfast. But the one I picked was... quite a nice flat one and a beautiful large park, really wooded park and also they had somewhere around 250 to 300 runners. They did their tokens differently whereby the runners come in and they give them a token and they have to stand in two lines. And then they had two people doing the barcode scanning, which I thought was quite different. And I went and asked the young parkrun director lady why they're doing this. Because, I mean, I feel that especially in a climate like Northern Ireland, especially in wintertime, you would be freezing to death by the time you got handing in your token. And they said, no, that's the way we do it here. So I explained that I came from Australia and they come on a parkrun and we did it a different way. And they said, yeah, she knows that people do it different ways. But I thought it was quite strange for their climate. But all in all, I really enjoyed that parkrun as well. It was lovely to be back home and run a parkrun in my hometown.

00:46:00Scott Trickett: So when I think of Ireland, Dears, I think of... lots of green. How was the scenery and the course in Belfast?

00:46:09Des Rountree: The scenery was terrific, but as I say, it's a very large park. When I was a teenager, I used to play football in that park from time to time. It brought back a lot of memories. It's a massive park. Lots of walkways, lots of people walking dogs, cycling, keep fit machines and all that sort of thing. Very similar to what we see here in Australia, which surprised me. But yeah, very, very woody, very green, very lush and beautiful. Unfortunately, the day I ran the parkrun there wasn't raining.

00:46:58Melissa Erbacher: Well, thanks very much for joining us, Des. It's been lovely to hear about your adventures overseas.

Social Adventurers (social media round-up)

00:47:13Scott Trickett: It's time to take a trip around the social scene, social media scene. Let's start on Facebook.

00:47:24Melissa Erbacher: Mixing it up this week.

00:47:27Scott Trickett: We had Wendy Glynn. Today's adventure for her was her 100th run at home and she posted a lovely photo of lots of people at this great parkrun called Westerfolds and the photo captured by far her favourite parkrun moment of the day where all the diehards gathered for a photo. All the other people there for parkrun thought it was a thing so they all came and joined in And were welcomed in the photo. It felt for a moment like the whole world was a Westerfoldian.

00:47:59Melissa Erbacher: Felt like the whole world was Westerfoldian. Yeah.

00:48:03Scott Trickett: parkrun where everyone is welcome to join in. Well done, Wendy. Melissa Ellis was touring at Rhodes parkrun and she got to meet Mr. parkrun himself. Guess who? It wasn't me. I didn't go to Rhodes.

00:48:18Melissa Erbacher: That's ironic because Melissa must have been with Run Joe Run, who said on Instagram that her 43rd Australian course was run. And she also met Carolyn from Queensland during her 50th and was joined by Mr parkrun Tim Oberg. So everyone's calling Tim Oberg Mr parkrun. I think that might be something we've called him on the podcast. I think we should take credit for this.

00:48:44Scott Trickett: Do you know, there are actually quite a few Mr parkruns around Australia, I've discovered.

00:48:50Melissa Erbacher: Are there? Who else is Mr parkrun?

00:48:52Scott Trickett: I'm not going to name names, but I think there are a few people who are going around as Mr and maybe Mrs parkrun.

00:48:59Melissa Erbacher: Mrs. parkrun. Okay.

00:49:02Scott Trickett: So lots of people were up in Sydney on the weekend for the City to Surf.

00:49:07Melissa Erbacher: They were. There were lots of photos of it. City to Surf is a beautiful, big, giant fun run full of fun. Have you ever run it, Scotty?

00:49:17Scott Trickett: No, I haven't. But looking at all the photos and Facebook posts this week, I think a road trip is in order next week. No, next year.

00:49:26Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Do it next year. If you go next week, the Smurfs won't be there.

00:49:30Scott Trickett: Less crowds, though. Get a good clear run.

00:49:34Melissa Erbacher: You kind of go there for the crowds. I'm pretty sure if the people aren't there, then there are vehicles on the roads, and I would rather take my chances with the people.

00:49:44Scott Trickett: Okay, so next year, road trip. MacGirl19 was at Rhodes parkrun as well. She mentioned it was a gorgeous morning for a run. Our old mate will be 1981. He was up in Sydney, but he wasn't at Rhodes. He was at St Peter's parkrun.

00:50:02Melissa Erbacher: And David D'Alessio also traded in the Dunlop KT26s for more high-vis attire for the city to surf.

00:50:11Scott Trickett: Are you familiar with the Dunlop KT26s?

00:50:14Melissa Erbacher: I am not specifically familiar with those, but there are another Dunlop... model that I've seen. No, not volleys. It's something else. I don't remember what it is though. So that doesn't help.

00:50:32Scott Trickett: I just haven't heard anybody running in Dunlops. I'm going to Google KT26s.

00:50:39Melissa Erbacher: My uncle Gary, he runs in Dunlops. He thinks all running shoes are a waste of money.

00:50:45Scott Trickett: How old's Gary?

00:50:49Melissa Erbacher: In his early 60s. But even when he was running like his marathon distances and things like that 20 odd years ago, I'm pretty sure he still always has only ever run in Dunlops.

00:51:03Scott Trickett: You just don't see or hear enough Dunlops.

00:51:07Melissa Erbacher: Well, when you think about it, they make all the really good rubber tyres for the race cars. Maybe Dunlops are what the fast runners are actually missing out on.

00:51:20Scott Trickett: So next we'll have Bridgestone branching out into running shoes. Working on that theory. Let's get back to Instagram.

00:51:28Melissa Erbacher: I wouldn't mind seeing some tread on the bottom of shoes that look like tyre tracks. That would be cool.

00:51:35Scott Trickett: I think they're around. But we digress. Let's get back to Instagram. We're Mama of Hope. They had a selfie day out at Diamond Creek. Pretty cool idea. I'd like to see a few more parkruns try this out. It's where you don't have a photographer for the week, but you just ask everyone to take selfies out on the course. And then that becomes your photo album for the week.

00:52:01Melissa Erbacher: How does that work with uploading to Facebook?

00:52:04Scott Trickett: Well, that's a commitment from the event team to collate everyone's photos.

00:52:11Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that sounds like a nightmare. I hope all those selfie photographers appreciated their event team this week because I know how long it takes to just upload a normal album from one single memory card or one camera on a weekend. So compiling photos from dozens if not hundreds of different runners, that's insane. commitment it is but the result is well worth it as evidenced out at diamond creek on the weekend and a bunch of photos from mama of hope she had a fun morning she was in a lot of photos stark advertisements did a cool comic book strip of their parkrun adventures on the weekend as well i like how how people get creative with these things underscore pk said great morning for parkrunning at mount barker parkrun Even better for parkrun volunteering. Orange is the new slack. I'm not sure if he meant it's the new black. Especially for us parkrun adventurers resting up before Tomoz.

00:53:16Scott Trickett: I think underscore PK has our love of slack.

00:53:20Melissa Erbacher: The whole three of us. Well, that makes sense because he's in the Channel 4 news team.

00:53:26Scott Trickett: Thanks to Recreating Mel, who sent a photo poster by Dee Andrews, 1976, with a very cool medal. I understand you got medals.

00:53:35Melissa Erbacher: If you went to Lalor on the weekend. Might have been part of a themed run, perhaps, to celebrate a big international sporting competition.

00:53:45Scott Trickett: One of the biggest in the world. Happens every four years. And finally, wrapping up in Instagram, there's a really lovely photo taken at Jells, where I was. And also some really nice comments from Hey TJ. And I will summarise, but she wanted to thank you, Mel, for being her inspiration and someone she can relate to in the running world. Because you always ask the elite runners the questions that she's thinking about. such as, aren't you worried about the bears? And you've inspired her to enter the half marathon this year. Even though she's dead last in the slow training group, she's going to stick with it and she's going to finish that race. Pretty sure it's one with a medal too. So you're inspiring others, Mel.

00:54:35Melissa Erbacher: Alrighty. Well, first up, the important questions have to be asked and I take it upon myself to ask those questions. Secondly, I understand Hey TJ actually ran a PB at Jells on the weekend, so you might consider yourself to be the slowest of the slow pack, honey, but you still run just as far as everybody else does, and you got to ring a bell on the weekends, so... fantastic job well done that's I can't wait till the next time I get a PB I'm really looking forward to it haven't been training for it but maybe I should do that and I could get one one day too so thank you you're you're inspiring me to try a little bit harder and oh my goodness everybody needs somebody to blame for signing up for crazy silly things like half marathons so if you need someone to blame then I am beyond proud to be that person I'm sure you're going to have an amazing time and the medal will be very well earned. And Grant, I'm going to get this wrong, Grant Bench in Watford, UK said, And closer to home.

00:55:53Scott Trickett: our friends the Run Beyond Project. Our wonderful girls of the Run Beyond Project have started the Evans Run Club. Training kicked off today with a 3K run around the school. The new recruits really pushed themselves and had a brilliant time in the process. It was red faces galore at the end. Now that is pretty cool that now they've started their own run club.

00:56:18Melissa Erbacher: And there's a new cohort of girls coming through which is awesome. Keep up the great work, Run Beyond Project. Rumour has it... Yes? We got a tweet. We had a couple of tweets this week, actually, which does happen from time to time. There are some that we can't mention because they are in... cahoots with a certain two-week long sporting event, which shall remain nameless. However, we've got one from Ross Pentland who said, it took a while but finally got this screen, 10 consecutive different events. And he's got 10 in a row, all in Victoria, I believe. And he's topped it off with Chelsea Bicentennial on the weekend. That's a pretty cool effort. I love it when people do different things with trying to manipulate how their run results look. I don't know if you saw it a few years ago, Scotty. Somebody in the UK ran a different event every week in reverse alphabetical order of the first letter of the event so that when you read it down, it said, I love parkrun.

00:57:37Scott Trickett: I did see that.

00:57:39Melissa Erbacher: I would love, I've tried to figure out how to do it in Australia, but we do not have an event starting with U, I don't think. Or, yeah, no, we've got Vs, but I'm pretty sure we're missing a U. We need a parkrun starting with U so that we can make this happen.

00:57:57Scott Trickett: I just had a quick look at my profile. I can't do it. I've got no vowels.

00:58:02Melissa Erbacher: At all?

00:58:02Scott Trickett: No. I'm a... I love parkrun sounds much better than do a crochet. It does. Puh.

00:58:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, yours might say I love parkrun in a foreign language. You don't know. That might be one of the languages you haven't learnt yet.

00:58:26Scott Trickett: We are in Mongolia. I don't speak Mongolian. That's not one of the languages I speak. But we have a...

00:58:33Melissa Erbacher: I think you need to get on to that. Now, I have a question since I am still a little bit technologically challenged. Have we got, what's the news from Strava? What's the fun going on? We're massive. We're massive? Well, this is good news. How many people have we got in our club these days? In fact, I want to know how many kilometres our club ran last month. Can you tell me that?

Strava club update

00:58:58Scott Trickett: I'm not Ian Hay, but we're sitting on 151 members. Ooh, the recruitment slowed down a little. So I think it's about time we had a competition. And I think we're going to have a competition on Strava. And I think we're going to tell you all about it next week. So you all have a week to get your Strava game sorted.

00:59:25Melissa Erbacher: And for those who haven't joined the club yet, look us up. We'll share another link on the Facebook page. But go seek out parkrun Adventurers on Strava and join the club because you're going to have to be in it for this particular competition. And it's going to be great. It's about time we had another adventure and this one's a goodie.

00:59:46Scott Trickett: This one's going to be fun. Hey, guess who was at the top of the leaderboard last week?

00:59:52Melissa Erbacher: Was it me?

00:59:54Scott Trickett: Not unless your name's Brendan Davies. For about the 10th or 20th week in a row.

01:00:00Melissa Erbacher: And what kind of kilometres do you need to do in a week to top Brendan Davies' efforts?

01:00:07Scott Trickett: It was pretty close this week. How's this? Brendan ran 130.3 kilometres. John Pearson... 130.1. So close, John.

01:00:19Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, there you go, JP. You're going to have to chase him down. John's in training for the World 24-Hour Championships at the moment, so he'll be clocking the Ks more and more, I believe, as time moves on.

01:00:37Scott Trickett: So that's all happening next week. Get on Strava. We don't have any launches this week. And is there any chance of getting some cake anywhere?

Where is the cake? (launches and anniversaries)

01:00:48Melissa Erbacher: There is, but you need to go to Tasmania to get it. They're having their second anniversary this weekend. And that's it. Yep. Come to the end again. This happens every week.

01:01:05Scott Trickett: Not only next week are we going to have a new competition, we're going to hear about... your adventures at the Sunshine Coast Marathon. You're entered, correct?

01:01:17Melissa Erbacher: I am. I am doing a very, very significant event running in the heat of the day. 11am, I believe, is my start time. I will be doing the two kilometers this year to maximize the rest of my cheering time. I'm in a bit of a quandary though, Scotty. I haven't decided on a costume yet. What? This year I have no affiliations with any particular club or theme. I can just go rogue. I'm a free agent. Give me your best costume ideas. Go.

01:01:56Scott Trickett: Hang on. So you entered the 2K event?

01:02:01Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Two kilometres. I have been on the taper for several months now, so I'm feeling sufficiently rested to be able to handle that kind of distance in a costume, not for the faint-hearted.

01:02:17Scott Trickett: I'm thinking go over the top. Ooh, what's the top? Well, just create a scene. What sort of people are you sharing a 2K event with?

01:02:34Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure who will be running it with me this year actually. It's generally a whole bunch of people that have run like the half marathon or the 5K and then they're doing the 2K event with their children who all leave them in the dust. However, there is one of the Star Wars battalions always show up or squadrons always show up. So there's always stormtroopers. Last year there was a Jawa. So they're always there. I get my photo taken with them every year. It's a tradition. This will be the sixth, no, this will be the fifth Sunshine Coast Marathon Festival. And I've participated every year, got my Stormtrooper photo every year. Last year I was dressed as a flamingo. The year before that I was dressed as R2-D2 and a 2-2. Okay, here's what I'm thinking.

01:03:31Scott Trickett: Your main competition for victory in the 2K is going to be the kids.

01:03:37Melissa Erbacher: For victory? You mean as in coming first?

01:03:40Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So dress up in something that will distract all the kids. Yes. What's big with the kids these days?

01:03:50Melissa Erbacher: Well, see, this is the thing. Do you want to distract the kids in so much as they will come flocking towards you or do you want to scare the bejesus out of them? So they scatter and lose focus for the finish line.

01:04:03Scott Trickett: These are real questions. I don't have the answers for them. Let me think on it.

01:04:07Melissa Erbacher: If anyone else has got any suggestions, feel free to hashtag parkrunadventurers on Facebook or Instagram or tweet us and tell us what you think I should get dressed up as.

01:04:20Scott Trickett: Thanks for the pod this week, Mel. Look forward to hearing all about your adventures next week.