Episode 35 - Tom Williams

Episode details · 170 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:11Scott Trickett: Greetings listeners. Welcome to another wonderful episode of the parkrun Adventurers Podcast. It's going to be wonderful because I'm joined by my co-host Mel Erbacher. How are you going Mel?

00:00:23Melissa Erbacher: I'm good thanks Scotty. How are you this week?

00:00:26Scott Trickett: Fantastic. Did you have a personal better Saturday on the weekend?

00:00:30Melissa Erbacher: I think everybody who went to parkrun on Saturday had a personal better day.

00:00:35Scott Trickett: Did that equate to a PB day as well?

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: No, not for me personally. I didn't get a time PB. How about you? Did you get a PB?

00:00:46Scott Trickett: No.

00:00:46Melissa Erbacher: Did you do your warm-up? I did. Did it improve your time?

00:00:52Scott Trickett: That's a hard one to answer. It was a tough old day running on Saturday for me. The wind was up and, yeah, but I did do my warm-up. I think it helped. You know how we said I was supposed to do 2K? 2K is too far.

00:01:06Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:01:06Unidentified speaker: Nah.

00:01:09Scott Trickett: I'm not ready for that warm-up just yet.

00:01:11Melissa Erbacher: So you didn't actually do that warm-up?

00:01:14Scott Trickett: No.

00:01:14Melissa Erbacher: You did a shorter version?

00:01:16Scott Trickett: I did about the 500 metre warm-up.

00:01:18Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe the problem is 2K is the perfect distance and you should have done 2K.

00:01:24Scott Trickett: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

00:01:25Melissa Erbacher: Did it take you one and a half to get warm when you were running after you'd done your 500 warm-up?

00:01:31Scott Trickett: It's hard to say. I felt good from the start. It was just, I went out to Jells. which is quickly becoming, I think, my equal second favorite event. But the thing is with Jells, it's a two-lap course. Now, I was never a fan of the lap courses. I was never a big fan of the out and back either. I like to go, you know, just do the one lap. Do you have a preference for either?

00:02:00Melissa Erbacher: Well, they all have their attributes. I like an out and back because it's very social and I like cheering on the runners and I get to see pretty much all the runners on out and backs. Whereas laps, people tend to overtake me and I'm only ever seeing the backs of them. But that being said, there's always that mindset of it's more a mental game on a lap course. Is that what you find?

00:02:27Scott Trickett: That's what I'm finding. Matt Ratchke visited Jells a few months ago, and he was banging on about how he loves lapped courses, how it's all mental, you know, he knows what's coming. And I'm starting to fall into his way of thinking that you, particularly if you just do a two-lapped course, you can plan your run so much better. You always know what's coming. I think you can judge yourself against previous runs a bit better because you're so more familiar with the actual track and And I'm learning to love the two lap courses.

00:03:05Melissa Erbacher: Do you think you're twice as familiar because you do the lap twice? Versus any other parkrun, which you might do an out and back, but even if you've done it before, you're not as familiar with it because you only do each thing once.

00:03:19Scott Trickett: Exactly. So I've only run Jells about six or eight times, but I've run parts of the same track 18 times or whatever the math is on that. Two times six is...

00:03:31Melissa Erbacher: That's an interesting perspective. I think lap courses, irrespective of the amount of laps they have, they have this unspoken challenge to do a negative split on the second or the third lap.

00:03:43Scott Trickett: Exactly.

00:03:44Melissa Erbacher: It doesn't matter how fast you are the first time around, you have to go faster the next time.

00:03:49Scott Trickett: Yeah, so the cool thing is at Jells is so you go past the first lap, they call out the time. So I know exactly what I've got to aim for that second lap. I know I could do that just by looking at my watch.

00:04:02Melissa Erbacher: That's extra work for their timekeeper.

00:04:05Scott Trickett: What, shouting out in time? Gives them something to do. Did you do a lap course on Saturday?

00:04:11Melissa Erbacher: No, I ran at Kawana, which is an out and back. And see, this is part of the deals that I make with myself to keep myself running. On an out and back, I always start off with, I just have to run until I see the first runner. And then usually by the time the first runner comes through, I've convinced myself, no, no, I'll keep running until I see Adam, my husband. And then after Adam's come through, I'm so close to the halfway mark. It's like, I'll just keep running to the lighthouse. And then there's a whole bunch of downhills. And so you make these deals with yourself. Adam wasn't actually running this week. He was volunteering. So I kind of had to make different deals with myself this week to keep going. And I have you to blame for running all the way this weekend because I I know you want to see my runs on Strava and I am really working hard to try and make that happen. But then the thought entered my head that if I just let myself walk, you know, the last two or three kilometers, it'll look like I went out hard and solid and then I just died in the ass. And I thought, ah. I can't let Scotty see that I didn't run, you know, at least fairly consistently for the whole 5K. So you kept me running on Saturday. Oh, great. Yeah, it was the pressure. I'm not sure how great I felt about it on Saturday, but I was pleased afterwards that I hadn't stopped and walked.

00:05:41Scott Trickett: Okay, so my pressure of checking out your Strava feed has worked. There's only one problem with that.

00:05:47Melissa Erbacher: I'm still not on Strava. So you never had to know.

00:05:51Scott Trickett: No.

00:05:52Melissa Erbacher: But that is just the kind of girl I am. I'm very honest.

00:05:58Scott Trickett: Well, I'm glad that if I could have seen your Strava feed that you ran the whole way. That would have made me happy. Also would have made me happy just to see your Strava feed and see that you walked the last couple of hundred meters as well.

00:06:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, I didn't walk the last couple of hundred meters. I actually caught up to a young parkrunner. He's an early teen. His name is Jack. And he was running with the family Greyhounds, Nellie, this week. And Nellie... she's all sprint for the first 500 meters and then she does die in the ass for the rest of the parkrun and I have actually literally seen her stop five meters from the finish line and bluntly refused to go any further no matter how much coercion was happening so I caught up to them at about three kilometers as well and Jack did a good job of being very encouraging um they weren't running at that point so they started running again when they saw me and they kept pace with me but for the last kilometer he's like okay now this is where we sprint this is where we sprint to the finish and i told him he was mad and that i was no way going to start sprinting that far away from the finish line but i did stretch out and probably for about the last 200 meters i ran faster so that was very cool as well so how far off a pb are you Um, about three minutes.

00:07:23Scott Trickett: Do you think we can get there by run number 100?

00:07:27Melissa Erbacher: I have six runs to go to run 100.

00:07:31Scott Trickett: 30 seconds per run.

00:07:34Melissa Erbacher: I don't think that's possible.

00:07:35Scott Trickett: I do. I have faith.

00:07:37Melissa Erbacher: Well, it's possible. I don't think it's likely. Let's look at it that way.

00:07:41Scott Trickett: Hmm. Let's think about it. We've got a goal. Six weeks out. Now, we have a podcast that's based around parkrun. So our next guest, we thought we'd go and chat to the Chief Operating Officer of parkrun Global. We've had you on the pod before. Welcome, Tom Williams.

Guest interview — Tom Williams (parkrun Global Chief Operating Officer)

00:08:10Tom Williams: Thanks, Scott. Great to be back.

00:08:12Scott Trickett: Now, Tom, we're going to talk to you today about Tom the parkrunner, not Tom the big boss of parkrun. Can you separate the two?

00:08:21Tom Williams: Yeah, I can separate the two, actually. I try really hard to. It's... So I'm sure we'll go back into my own history of parkrun, but for me, and I think for a lot of people who end up getting more involved in parkrun, one of the dangers is you lose the purity of your parkrun experience. So it's really hard for me when I go to a parkrun event on a Saturday, if I'm seeing, I don't know, dogs running off leads or under-11s running on their own or whatever it is, it's really hard for me to kind of park that and not kind of get involved. And then we all like the kind of really chilled out, go to parkrun, have a coffee afterwards, relax for the day and you can kind of lose that sometimes when it becomes your job so I work really really hard to to be on a particularly on a weekend on a Saturday and a Sunday parkrunner A6013 and try and forget everybody else not everybody else forget everything else.

00:09:21Melissa Erbacher: Tom I know exactly what you mean by when you see you know a dog running off leash or a child that's under 11 or something like that and it doesn't appear to be with a parent. But do you also have the problem that sometimes you want to put on some dark glasses and wear a hoodie and just, you know, go somewhere that your face isn't going to get recognised?

00:09:42Tom Williams: Yeah.

00:09:43Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:09:44Tom Williams: I do, and I've always found it a real dilemma. So when I'm going to an event I've not been to before, which I often do just as a tourist, I'll be at my mum's or something down south and we'll just want to go and run an event we've not run before because we're parkrunners like anybody else. I always feel like if I write to the team and tell them I'm coming, I feel that's a bit pretentious. Like, hello everyone, I'm coming. So I feel really uncomfortable doing that. But then I feel really uncomfortable if I just turn up. and don't tell them, almost like I'm kind of inspecting them and it's been some surprise audit. And so I get really stuck and I typically, and of course sometimes you change your mind, don't you, on a Friday, where are you gonna go? So typically on a Friday I'll just post on social media for the event I might be going to for the new event and just say, if I don't know them, and just say, oh, I'm popping down tomorrow, I'll come say hi. But yeah, it's really awkward. My local runs at Fountains Abbey and Harrogate and Leeds, what Woodhouse Moor is called now, my three nearest runs to me, and I just kind of blend in there. And because I've been there so many times, I definitely don't, and I would be silly if I announced myself going there, it's great because I really I just blend into the background and I think even at Woodhouse Moor I think people which is the one I I kind of was part of the founding team of in 2007 I think most people there don't even know who I am and that I started it and And that's cool, and I enjoy that. And then, you know, when I go to other places, sometimes it would be nice to blend in, but at the same time, you know, it's really important to meet the people who my decisions impact on, on a weekly or even daily basis. So, you know, when I say something like, right, you can only run with one dog, not two dogs anymore, which is a big decision we made many years ago. You need to meet the people on the ground and really get to know them and understand them. And as importantly, they need to know you so that when you make those kind of decisions, A, you maximize the chance of being in the right decision. And B, sometimes when they don't agree with you, people will still accept that decision because they understand you as a person and know you have made it for the right reasons.

00:11:55Scott Trickett: Well, let's go back to 2007.

00:11:58Tom Williams: Yeah, amazing.

00:11:59Scott Trickett: Yeah. Did you discover parkrun before that?

00:12:03Tom Williams: No, so I, in fact, I was looking yesterday at when I registered, because a friend of mine who I went on to work with a bit, he now works for England Athletics, a guy called Andy Anstey. We didn't know each other at the time. I was based up north, he was based down south. He wasn't working for England Athletics and I wasn't working for parkrun. We both registered on the same day, it turns out, the 4th of August 2007. His barcode is 6008 and mine 6013. We then ran our first ever parkrun at Bushy parkrun on the same day, not knowing each other. And it was probably another six or seven years, six years before work brought us together. And we kind of had that whole question, are you parkrunning or are you parkrunning? When was your first one? Same as mine. And we realised we were kind of... I don't know what serendipity is, but it was where we'd kind of done that same thing on the same day. I saw it in Runners World, so I was an Ironman triathlete based in Leeds in Yorkshire, working at the University of Leeds as a lecturer in sport and exercise science. And I'd seen, I think a month or two before, I'd seen a monthly event that Serpentine Running and Triathlon Club put on, which was, I think it was a 5K once a month and it was a pound or something. And I looked at it and I thought, oh, that's a really good idea. But it didn't quite catch my attention. And then a month or so later, I saw an advertisement or some results maybe from... in Runner's World of what was then called Bushy Park Time Trial and the collection was called UK Time Trials. I just saw, as many of us do, I just saw three weekly timed 5K run and I thought, that's amazing. That's just amazing. What a wonderful concept. I wonder how I could bring it to Leeds. Could I do the same thing? Could I copy it in Leeds? and we didn't really know how to do it and I was away a lot of weekends with Helen because we were both doing triathlon to a reasonable level and We were really busy, or so we thought we were before. The level of busy you are before you have kids when you think you're busy, but actually you're not. And so we were mulling that over in our heads, and I couldn't work out how to do it, and there was no obvious desire for what was called UK Time Trials then to expand. And I got invited to a meeting at the University of Leeds, and we were looking for a way to engage the students with the community around volunteering and sport. And then light bulb came on in my head, and I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll write the delivery of what was then going to be called Hyde Park Time Trial, because there's a Hyde Park in Leeds, not the Hyde Park in London. I'll write the delivery of Hyde Park Time Trial into the Sport and Exercise Science course at university. So instantly, at the stroke of a pen, we had 140 volunteers on our volunteer register before it even started. So, yeah, so that was cool. So I remember, you know, that was probably the July stroke, August 2007. I registered for parkrun, went down to Bushy Park. The London Triathlon was on, I think, and so I nipped over in the morning of the London Triathlon and did Bushy, loved it. Then we brought it back to Leeds and we started Hyde Park time trial on Part 1's third birthday, I think. It was the first weekend of October in 2007. By then it was the fourth time trial and it was the first one outside London. And that was it. And we thought that would kind of be it, really. Like, I didn't... I guess like many of us, you know, you see it initially, you think, wait, free weekly time run, that'd be fantastic, let's get involved, and you think you'll do it just like anything else, and you don't realise how life-changing it'll become. You know, and we set it up, and the idea really was to set it up for the students of the university to engage with the community and kind of forget it, and, you know, run every now and again, and here we are. however many years later Helen's done 210 I've done 196 it's taken us around the world it's changed our lives our kids I think Rosie's well Rosie's five next month and I think she's probably missed three or four part run weekends um in her life but she refuses to do it um So yeah, so there we go.

00:16:31Melissa Erbacher: She's registered though, yes?

00:16:33Tom Williams: No, she refuses. So she, it's quite a funny story. So Helen set up, my wife Helen set up Harrogate Junior parkrun a year, almost a year ago now. And in the build up to that, she was, her and some of her core team were going to shadow the team at Roundhay Juniors. And Rosie was three. And on the way there, Rosie said, Daddy, can I do it? And I said, no, you can't because you're not four years old and you've got to be four years old. And she's a bright little thing. She knew full well how old she was. Anyway, so we go to Roundhay Juniors and Helen's offshadowing the team and some friends of ours say, oh, we'll take Rosie, they're kids the same age, and we'll wander around the park. So they wander around the park and they come back without her. And of course, your friends come back without your three-year-old daughter. You're like, where's Rosie? Oh, she's doing it. And I look up and she's running with the tail runner. And so she gets to the finish line and I'm really embarrassed because one of the core team from Roundhay particularly had let their kids run a company years ago and I'd told them off about it. And so the boot was on the other foot. There was my three-year-old daughter running on her own at juniors. And Rosie had lied to the tail runner and said she was four. So the tail runner said, how old are you? And she had said four. having had the conversation on the way there that you can't do it because you're only three she knew it um she turned four yeah really smart and she turned four a little bit you know later and has refused to do it ever since so she's never run one um i think she will when her brother does and her brother's just turned two so she's got a couple of years i think of and then i think aston will do it because he's keener on those sort of things and then she'll she'll come along, but you know, this is a great example of what parkrun has brought to me as a parkrunner. as a person and to my family in that we've always been active, Helen and I will always be active. Whether parkrun came along or not, we would have always been active. It's given us loads of friends that we otherwise wouldn't have had, I'm sure, but we've always had good friends and stuff like that. We volunteered, which we hadn't really volunteered for stuff before, so that's been a real difference for us. But really importantly, it's given us things to do as a family So every Sunday we go to Juniors. Helen will volunteer. She's the event director of Harrogate Juniors. And me and the kids will just mess around in the park. We'll feed the ducks. We'll collect sticks. We'll do whatever. Sit and have a tea cake. I'll have a coffee. They'll play. But our only compulsory thing in the house is that we all go to the park on a Saturday and Sunday morning for Junior parkrun. But the kids are under no pressure to do it as long as we're outside. So on this Saturday we went to Fountains Abbey and Helen ran and me and the kids played hide-and-seek and went climbing in the Abbey, which is a World Heritage site. Abbey is absolutely amazing. And then on the Sunday we did the same with juniors and they just ran around the park and fed the ducks and all that kind of stuff. So it's got our family out in a social, active, outdoor environment now twice a week. as part of our routine, doing stuff together for free, which is great. And otherwise, you know, we'd probably be at home and Rosie would say, can I watch the telly? And it just wouldn't, you know, it's really, really, really changed the life of our family, which is wonderful.

00:19:57Melissa Erbacher: You mentioned earlier, Tom, that parkrun has taken you all over the world and we're all about the adventures. What are some of the most interesting parkruns you've done? What stick out in your memory?

00:20:11Tom Williams: Well, it's amazing, really. We never really... So we did dream it would be like this, but we... I don't know if we know what that... We knew what that meant. So, you know, when I spoke to Paul in 2007, he said, wouldn't it be great if there was a parkrun in every town in the world? But... I think with all real game-changers in the world, there's an element of delusion there, and you have to be deluded to think you can achieve something that any sensible expert would think was impossible. And every now and again, you're actually right. You weren't deluded, and you were right. And we're kind of getting there, which is amazing. So here we are in 2016, and I'm certainly not what I would call the touristy of tourists. I've done 72 different events. Out of my 196. And, you know, what have I done abroad? I've done Crissy Field in San Francisco. I've done a few in South Africa. I've done, where was I recently? In Canada. I've run the courses as Freedom Runs in Sweden. I think, you know, it's really interesting. So probably one of the most I just like saying, decide between your kids, isn't it? So I love all of our parkruns the same, and I really do. And, you know, I learned that early on, really early on, when I started Hyde Park Time Trial, when I would have a small parkrun, when it was, I think it was the first multi-lapper. So it was three laps of a, like a city centre park, whereas previously there'd kind of been one lap of royal parks, like Bushy and so on. And everybody was sort of saying, three laps of a tarmac path in a park in the middle of a city centre would be a bit dull. And they get 400 runners a week and it's amazing and it's been going for years and years and years and it's a huge success. And it really taught me that actually a parkrun being amazing or interesting or beautiful is so much deeper than the kind of... what it looks like and some of the more expected things. I think probably for me the most eye-opening, if that's the right word, was when I was in South Africa last year for my dad's 70th birthday. My dad's South African. He was living there at the time, and it was his 70th, and he wasn't going to be doing a great deal of stuff. So I said, look, why don't I come over? And it's a bit extravagant. Why don't I come over for the weekend and spend a few days with you? But you're 70. You're not 70 very often. So I went over to South Africa, and we went to a game reserve for the weekend. So we went to a game reserve just north of Johannesburg called the Pilanesberg, I think it was called. And so there we are on safari in Africa and on the Saturday morning we nipped out to the local town and did a parkrun. which was such an odd experience. I mean, I grew up a lot of my time in Africa and so I'm kind of used to being in the bush and on safari and all those kind of things. But to do that and nip out to a parkrun and was just surreal almost really. And it was wonderful. And then to finish the parkrun, have a cup of coffee and then nip back to safari and carry on seeing leopards and cheetahs and lions and stuff was amazing.

00:23:32Scott Trickett: Is the average British parkrunner aware that parkrun is blowing up all around the world? Like, do they know that South Africa is taking off and it's going to be massive in Australia, Canada?

00:23:46Tom Williams: It's a really good question. Yeah, it's a really good question. Look, I think regardless of the country, I think there's a real mixture of some people who get that they're part of this huge, great thing. So this weekend we had a record attendance globally of 158,000 runners. across juniors and Saturdays around the world. And some people are really aware of that, and I guess they follow parkrun on social media and they see all those posts. But there's a huge number of people, and I think this is wonderful, there's a huge number of people who really think parkrun is just their event and that's it. And it was highlighted the other day by one of the directors on the board of parkrun Global was chatting to me and he said... he'd met somebody, just some random person at a meeting somewhere or wherever it was and said, oh yeah, I'm a part runner. And without asking which event or anything, the person he spoke to just said, oh, well, I haven't seen you there. And they just think that, you know, it's just that I don't even know which one it was, you know, Bromley or whatever it was. But yeah, they just thought, well, what do you mean? So I think you're right. I think a lot of people think it's just their local event and a lot of people get it. But, you know, that's part of... In some ways, I feel like we're doing our job right if people think parkrun is just their little local event. And in some ways, we're doing our job wrong, of course. I get that. But there's something nice, isn't there, about... having a brand that is so global and so big, we're up to 960 live events at the moment. And yet at the same time, it's so true to a local initiative that people who go regularly think it's just that's all there is to the part run well.

00:25:47Scott Trickett: Look, we make no secret about it. The name of our podcast is The Adventurers and we want to see people get out and adventure to as many parkruns as they want. But we also come across plenty who are just very happy going week in, week out, back to their same event.

00:26:04Tom Williams: Yeah.

00:26:05Scott Trickett: It's part of the magic. Yeah.

00:26:08Tom Williams: Yeah, and I would always urge people to travel and explore different parkruns because you just see the world in a way you never thought you would. But at the same time, you've got people in 250 Club in places that have only ever run at their event. And that's cool too. I mean, you know, it's part runs, whatever you want it to be. I mean, you know, but I do, I do remember years ago, me and two friends, um, Steve Darby, who's a well-known part run tourist and, uh, another friend of ours called Guy who runs at Woodhouse Moor Park and doesn't travel so much. We decided, the three of us, on the shortest Saturday of the year, probably must have been four or five years ago now, to run all the Yorkshire parkrun courses in a day. And there was only 10 at the time. So it wasn't masses of running, 50 kilometres through the day, but it was the shortest Saturday of the year and there was a lot of driving. So we had to start really early in the cold and dark and we finished quite late in the cold and dark. But anyway, there were 10 events in Yorkshire, and we ran all 10 of them in a day. I think Hull parkrun was the live one, and we'd done a couple before then, and then carried on for the rest of the day. Remember, they start at the unbelievably late time of 9 o'clock in the morning, compared to you guys in Australia. And it really blew Guy's mind that suddenly someone, I think he'd probably only run Woodhouse and War parkrun at the time, And he saw these 10 parkrun events in Yorkshire. They're all different and all beautiful. And actually, you really do just see the most wonderful things if you travel. And the communities are always so nice. You can go to... I'm going to... For International parkrun Day this year, I'm going to Russia. So I'm running... I don't know which event I'll be doing yet. But I'm going to be in Russia for that Saturday. A couple of weeks later, I'm going to Poland for Poland's 5th anniversary. And I'll be running in Poland... And I get that it's slightly different because of my job title, but actually any parkrunner could go to any parkrun in the world and get welcomed with open arms as a member of the family. And, you know, every day we hear stories of people being picked up from airports and put up with accommodation. I've already had an accommodation offer on this before we recorded today. Mel, you should come and crash with us in Noosa, you know. you're welcome anytime Sunshine Coast and that's that's part run isn't it like you know just because you're a big part of part run Australia and I'm a big part of part run kind of in the UK actually those same conversations happen between regular part runners who've never met each other before when somebody just posts you know I don't know an American part runner posts on a Russian part run Facebook page I'm coming over for a holiday and suddenly they're best mates you know it's wonderful

00:28:49Melissa Erbacher: Tom, I'm a little bit excited that I think you just revealed the original origins of Longest Run. You're talking about doing the 10 events in the one day on the shortest day. And you may be aware that this has been adopted in Australia as well. And we tried it the first year on the long, well, your shortest day, which was very long and in the middle of our summer and did not work very well at all for the runners. So we've switched it to the shortest day in Australia. So we do it in the winter, at the winter solstice, or the Sunday closest to that. But we traditionally only do seven events. And I would certainly agree with you that It is a fantastic opportunity to take parkrunners who do love their communities and they love participating in the same place with their same friends every week, but getting them out there to see what else is available within their local surrounds. And so many of them have never experienced these courses. And so many of them also say at the end, wow, I think I might go back there on a parkrun day.

00:30:00Tom Williams: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I... The longest parkrun really started, I think, from when some members of the core bushy team did that. They did seven, I think it was seven. It was either six or seven parkruns in West London where bushy parkrun is. And they cycled between them. And that was quite early on. If I was going to guess, I'd say it was 2008, 2009. And then... it grew a little bit, as these things do. So I think we probably kind of promoted it a little bit and it grew. And then I think they did it again the following year around Bushy in West London. And then I think the following year there was a few. So there's one in kind of the Midlands and one up north, I think, and one in London. And then we realised that it wasn't something that we could support formally because actually the extension was going to be you'd have this day of a year where there were 50,000 people getting in their cars and driving around parks and actually because we're not normally in the parks at that time and they're very different places and people do challenging things and might crash their car because they're tired or whatever it was the risks of being associated with a massive great national and global event that we couldn't control just wasn't something we could really support formally and I really learnt that when I did the Yorkshire one so what I did was I thought it would be really great to do all the Yorkshire ones in a day let's get other people to join us so I put something on Facebook and said who wants to come with us and literally like 100 people wanted to do it And somebody pointed out to me at the time, Chris Wright, who was working for us back then, Crispy, he said, look, you're mad because it's the shortest day of the year, it's freezing cold, it's dark, it's icy, the weather's going to be terrible. Do you really want a convoy of 20 cars with 100 people following you around? What happens when someone skids on the ice and crashes or whatever it is? It'd just be a nightmare. So I said, you're absolutely right. So I cancelled it, except for with my two mates, Steve and Guy. And then we did it just as the three of us in a car. And what it taught us was that actually those sort of things are really fine to do as a small friendship group on your own, but they're much, much more challenging to do it as a big organised thing. So, yes.

00:32:30Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely agree. We don't call it Longest parkrun in Australia, and it's organized by parkrunners who want to go along to those events. But, yeah, we call it Longest Run and completely not affiliated with parkrun, and we're very clear about that as well.

00:32:46Tom Williams: That's me struggling to split my chief operating officer and my three heads. Well, actually, what are you going to do if somebody crashes their car? Who's going to be responsible for that? It's what goes on in my head.

00:32:59Melissa Erbacher: Well, and of course our insurance is only for Saturday events. And we do it on a Sunday. So it's completely not parkrun. We just use parkrun courses. Absolutely.

00:33:09Tom Williams: And it's wonderful, isn't it? And I support it. I do that sort of thing every year with a group of friends from Scotland. This year we went around about 20 Yorkshire ones before we've done Northern Ireland, Wales. Scotland and it's really really really good fun it's a wonderful thing to do and of course with the weakness on our model of parkrun being every single week means if you want to do visit lots of courses you kind of have to do them in your own time don't you absolutely Scotty and I have aspirations to just take a small group of people on a parkrun adventure you know away for a week or 10 days and just try and do as many parkruns as we can in a given area oh cool cool

00:33:48Scott Trickett: You also host, dare I say, the most popular running podcast in the world?

00:33:56Tom Williams: It's probably not most popular in the world. It's the number one in the UK. It does all right. We have about 12,000 listeners a week to Marathon Talk. I think some of the American ones... get more listeners, probably. America's a big place, and they're possibly a bit more tech-savvy, maybe, and used to podcasts. But yeah, Martin Yelling and I are really proud of it, and it's been going for six and a half years. We've interviewed some pretty cool people. We've interviewed some pretty cool Australians, actually. Kurt Fearnley is probably... one of our all-time top interviews. I think if we do a poll of our listeners, like name your top 10 guests, Aussie Paralympian Kurt Fearnley would, I thought he'd be in the top three. He was an amazing interview, amazing character. But we've also had people, who else have we had? I think we've had Marty Dent, Steve Moneghetti, Rob de Castella. We've had a load of pretty cool Aussies. It's fun.

00:34:53Melissa Erbacher: Naming a lot of parkrunners there too.

00:34:56Tom Williams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:59Scott Trickett: Yeah, they all are. So how did the link – well, what came first, the podcast or parkrun? And is there a link between the two?

00:35:09Tom Williams: that's a really really interesting question actually so parkrun started obviously in 2004 and I came along in 2007 so I'd kind of been involved in parkrun since then and then Martin Yelling and I so Martin's a kind of ex-elite athlete he's married to Liz Yelling who's a double Olympian in the marathon she had her PB 228 for the marathon and And Martin and I did our first Ironman on the same day. So in Ironman Austria in 2006, we were both staying in the same hotel and we'd met each other through a mutual friend. And so from 2006, Martin and I had known each other and we'd always thought we'd do something together. We couldn't quite work out what it was. And then in 2009, so quite a long time after I got involved in parkrun, in 2009, Martin rang me up one day and said, you know, do you want to do a podcast? We weren't quite sure what we'd do it on. And then I was a listener to, a really dedicated listener to Iron Man Talk, which it was called at the time, now called I Am Talk, which is a really brilliant podcast New Zealand-based triathlon podcast, predominantly about Ironman. And Bevan James Eyles and John Newsom are the two hosts there. And we contacted Bev and John for some kind of advice. And Bev was, they were both amazing. We spent a lot of time chatting to Bev. And Marathon Talk was born. And so that was, I think we started in January 2010. And there have definitely been real links between the two. It's really quite often that I meet people and say, how did you get involved in parkrun? And they'll say, well, I heard about it on Marathon Talk. Particularly also some of the travelling stuff. When I was in Canada two weeks ago at the launch of Okanagan parkrun, in a town called Kelowna in Canada and we went out for runs there and there were marathon talk listeners there and in fact we were hanging out with Ellie Greenwood who lots of your listeners will know I'm sure Ellie has won Comrades Marathon before she's won Western States I think she's got the course record for Western States one of the greatest endurance runners of all time And she's been on the show. She listens to Marathon Talk. And through that relationship, we met up in Canada. And I'm sure she's going to get involved in parkrun Canada the same way some of the Aussie legends that we mentioned earlier have got involved with parkrun in Australia. And that's kind of come through the show. I think when we started parkrun South Africa, I'd interviewed Bruce Fordyce, who's the greatest ever Comrade to run, although he wouldn't say that. But I'm pretty sure he is, either him or, I guess, Wally Hayward. But we interviewed Bruce. before Bruce knew about parkrun. Then Bruce was coming to the London Marathon to run it. Paul Sinton-Hewitt, our founder, did kind of know Bruce from back in the day. I think he'd seconded Bruce at Comrades years ago. but had sort of lost touch with Bruce. And so I said to Bruce, you're coming over, let's meet up at a parkrun. I reintroduced him to Paul. We all went to Bushy parkrun. I remember we all went to Bushy parkrun. And then Paul said to Bruce, why don't you bring parkrun South Africa? And Bruce and Jill then have taken it from there. So even South Africa starting with Bruce Fordyce, probably there was quite a strong marathon tooling there.

00:38:27Scott Trickett: And you're still doing it now? Yeah, straight after this actually. Yeah, so how much of your time does it take up?

00:38:35Tom Williams: Less than it used to. So, you know, as you guys, I mean, Scott, I know you edit your show and I used to edit Marathon Talk and those sort of things take a whole lot of time. When we got some sponsors on board, we were able to pay for the editing to be done. So Ian Corless, who does a podcast called Talk Ultra, Ian edits the show for us. now which is great because that's probably about four hours work to edit a 90 minute show two hour show um so we don't do that anymore so and we all martin and i alternate the show notes which is the notes we use to to present the show and we alternate roughly the interview so i'd say i worked out the other day was it take it takes about two hours to record the show about two hours which we do every week both of us obviously two hours to write the notes which we alternate and probably about two hours to do an interview, including the prep for it, unless it's somebody who's really legendary and we need to do a whole load of research. And I have previously with some people, I've read a couple of whole books and spent a few weeks researching someone to do an interview. But yeah, general. So yeah, I don't know, what do I spend on it? Five, six hours a week maybe. But it's fun. It's a break from worrying about risk assessments.

00:39:55Scott Trickett: And so when people come up and have a chat to you at parkrun, do they want to talk about parkrun or Marathon Talk?

00:40:03Tom Williams: Both, actually. I think probably there'll be a lot more, obviously a lot more parkrunners there than Marathon Talk listeners. But, you know, Marathon Talk listeners, I think, really feel that they know me. I mean, you know, and Martin. I mean, when we started in 2010, you know, I didn't have kids. I think Ruby, his daughter, was really young. We didn't have the twins yet. We've moved houses, we've changed jobs, we've had children, all these kind of things, and we share them on the show. So as I'm sure your listeners feel with you, people feel that they really know you, and that's a wonderful thing. Martin and I took the conscious decision to share within reason to share personal stuff, to have that relationship with people. So then I think that makes Marathon Talk listeners feel more comfortable coming up and saying hi and chatting about stuff. Because normally they can say, oh, how's Rosie? Because if she's been ill, because they'll know or whatever it is. So yeah, it's nice. It's nice. I think before parkrun and Marathon Talk and lots of other things, here in the UK, things like there's a great initiative here called Good Gym. A whole load of stuff. You know, running had got a bit serious and a bit kind of segregated. And, you know, clubs didn't really speak to each other or meet each other. And faster runners didn't really meet with slower runners. And, you know, how did you hear about, you know, Rob de Castella's history or Steve Moneghetti or in the UK, Steve Jones or Paula Radcliffe? There aren't really in-depth conversations. interviews of those and the connections and that they've been all been fragmented I felt as a whole and now I feel like we're in a much you know better position where running is much less fragmented and much more together and you know you had Ron Clark on I think he was on he was a member or president of parkrun Australia wasn't he when um when he was still alive in the early days and and we I interviewed Ron on on Marathon Talk through that connection through that parkrun connection Tim introduced me to Ron Ron and That link where you have those legends of the sport who really get the purity of participation at grassroots level is wonderful. And I think parkrun has given that link for people like that to connect with the real world.

00:42:24Melissa Erbacher: Tom, we are both big fans of Marathon Talk and bigger fans of your work with parkrun. We have so many more questions. We think this is going to have to be a two-part series or possibly more. So we're going to have to have you back on the show.

00:42:40Tom Williams: I could talk all day about running and parkrun.

00:42:45Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us this week.

00:42:49Tom Williams: No, thank you. Honestly, it's an absolute honour. It really is an honour to be on it. And I feel really blessed to be involved in something that everybody loves so much. And it's entirely a team effort. It's you know, I work whatever I work on part run 40 or 50 hours a week or something, but we have 150,000 volunteers. I'm not counting them recently, but you know, there's hundreds of thousands of people doing stuff every week to make what happens happen. And just to be a small part of that is so humbling. And I really do mean that. And I'll always be, I may not always work part run, but I'll always be part runner A6013. And my wife will always be A6014. And that's really cool. So thank you for inviting me.

Strava Art Competition (listener challenge)

00:43:48Scott Trickett: We are now three weeks into our Strava Art Competition. The entries are flowing in, flooding in. There's still plenty of time to enter. Let's just remind you all of the assortment of prizes on offer. Option P, Mystery Prize of Undisclosed Value. Option A, We've already gone through the first two. One-of-a-kind costume accessory, personally crafted by Mel, plus a one-of-a-kind certificate, personally designed and created by me. The reveal for the third prize from option A, I'm going to leave to my co-host, Melissa Erbacher.

00:44:25Melissa Erbacher: All right, guys. We know this is what you've been waiting all podcast for. The third prize for option A is... is two DVDs, one of each from our top 10 fave movies signed by us. How's that for random?

00:44:44Scott Trickett: Completely.

00:44:45Melissa Erbacher: But they're great movies, and who wouldn't want our autographs?

00:44:48Scott Trickett: Exactly, and there's a little bit of mystery involved because you won't know what movie you're getting until you open that package.

00:44:55Melissa Erbacher: Don't you love surprises?

00:44:56Scott Trickett: Yeah, if, of course, you go for option A as opposed to option P. So get Strava Art in, people. Must be a member of the parkrun Adventurers Strava Club. Easy to do. And remember, we're looking for something that's a little bit creative. Extra points for... Well, we shouldn't say, should we, Mel?

00:45:19Melissa Erbacher: What do you mean we shouldn't say?

00:45:20Scott Trickett: We shouldn't say the judging criteria. All we want is that you go a little bit outside in your thinking in creating the...

00:45:31Melissa Erbacher: Well, we've told everyone that it's the one that most closely resembles the actual original wins.

00:45:39Scott Trickett: Well, that's a given.

00:45:40Melissa Erbacher: So that's criteria right there. But we do have extra criteria.

00:45:44Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:45:44Scott Trickett: We've seen a few on ovals. Ovals may or might not win.

00:45:50Melissa Erbacher: Definitely a good way to practice.

00:45:53Scott Trickett: Practicing on ovals is good. Yeah.

00:45:56Melissa Erbacher: Shall we say we are increasingly impressed with the really, really, really big maps that have streets and all sorts of other stuff negotiated on them.

00:46:05Scott Trickett: Streets are good. I'm from the streets. I relate to the streets.

Social media round-up (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) — the "Social Adventurers" slot

00:46:14Melissa Erbacher: Let's head over to the rest of the social media scene, shall we? We'll start with Instagram because that's Scotty's favourite. This week we had underscore PK checking in to say, it was Medibank private personal better day at parkrun this morning. Orange, you glad you now know that? Great to have Medibank as a major sponsor of parkrun and to be able to encourage everyone to achieve their personal better today. So proud of our community and all who help make a difference. I'm loving your use of the dad joke in there, underscore PK. There's not enough dad jokes on our podcast today. And yes, that is an open invitation.

00:46:53Scott Trickett: There's a lot of dad jokes off the podcast. We'll let you know.

00:46:57Melissa Erbacher: Scotty never lets those make it to the final cut.

00:47:01Scott Trickett: You said, don't you dare put that on.

00:47:04Melissa Erbacher: What are you talking? I encourage them.

00:47:07Scott Trickett: Dirty cheetahs. The cheetah sisters were looking pretty scary on the weekend at Curl Curl parkrun as they invaded Curl Curl. I don't know if the scary was the right word. It's a good look for the cheaters.

00:47:21Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I think they were doing a good impersonation. Simon P. King said, I made it along to parkrun's only event in Asia for a hit out. Being in holiday mode for the last month and struggling to adapt to the humidity of Asia, I was pretty happy with my resulting 5K time. There was some suffering, however, getting there. Hats off to runners across Asia. It's just so intense working out in these conditions.

00:47:45Scott Trickett: I reckon we're going to have a few more events in Asia soon. Remember we had Dominic on a few episodes back, and he was hinting at a few events coming up. So let's hope.

00:47:54Melissa Erbacher: More opportunities for adventurers to branch out.

00:47:57Scott Trickett: Mama of Hope, I've now done all the volunteer jobs on offer. Next time my volunteer is number 25. Well done, Mama of Hope. She is going to be the proud owner of a aubergine shirt. Still don't see many of them around, do you, Mel?

00:48:13Melissa Erbacher: No, you don't. And I'm making a concerted effort, if I've got a choice, to wear my Milestone shirts, even to run in. I'll choose my 25 volunteers over my 50 club until I get that hard-earned, long-fought 400 club shirt. I can see it. It's within my reach.

00:48:36Scott Trickett: I ran in my 50 club on Saturday.

00:48:37Melissa Erbacher: And so well done. Did you?

00:48:39Scott Trickett: I did. It was neglected. It was in my drawer. Well done to – I thought, I'm going to bring out my 50. Anyway, irrelevant. Go.

00:48:45[crosstalk]

00:48:53Melissa Erbacher: Are you going to interrupt me again?

00:48:54Scott Trickett: No.

00:48:55Melissa Erbacher: If I start it again? No. Well done to members – See, the thing is I look good in red.

00:49:02Scott Trickett: I should do it more often, but I just – I've got 100 now and I've got a 25.

00:49:08Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure red makes you go faster. Well done to the members of the ERC who received their certificates today for completing the Ponds parkrun on Saturday. I love how these guys take it to the school and they reinforce the positive experience parkrun is during the week.

00:49:31Scott Trickett: Let's take it over to Facebook. Facebook's taking off for us, isn't it?

00:49:35Melissa Erbacher: It is. People love Facebook.

00:49:37Scott Trickett: Jen Pollard had a great girls slash running weekend away with some friends. On the weekend, she was clocking up some more Ks for Run India and doing some parkrun adventuring down at Balyang. And then they headed along to the Hoka One One series down in Anglesea, where I was. And she enjoyed the beautiful views and great company. She's not referring to me as the great company. I think she's referring to her girls weekend. But I was there.

00:50:05Melissa Erbacher: You never know. You might have had a stalker that you didn't realize.

00:50:08Scott Trickett: No, I can guarantee that. But I did do the Hoka down at Anglesea.

00:50:13Tom Williams: Great, great event again.

00:50:14Scott Trickett: Remember we talked about this? First time I've run down at Anglesea. And it was lots of fun.

00:50:19Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Caro Voss had some different kind of fun. She was volunteering at Dawesville parkrun this Saturday and has now helped out at every parkrun in WA. Congratulations, Caro, on becoming a WA volunteer statesman. Great job.

00:50:38Scott Trickett: Yeah, well done, Caro. And getting lots of love from her WA counterparts too, which was also nice to see. Bree tried our hiccup remedy on her sister-in-law and it worked. I'm surprised she doubted it. But to clear things up, yeah, she went with your technique, not mine.

00:50:58Melissa Erbacher: Yes. But, you know, why try one that is not scientifically proven when there's another one that has been tried and tested?

00:51:06Scott Trickett: Because mine involved running. We're a running podcast.

00:51:11Melissa Erbacher: It's not always convenient to go for a run when you have the hiccups. If I get the hiccups, it's usually not when I'm wearing active wear or have a certain amount of time available to just go for a run.

00:51:25Scott Trickett: This doesn't compute with me. You can always go for a run. This is why I live my life in shorts because it allows you the freedom to go for a run whenever, wherever. You put pants on a man, you restrict the opportunities to run.

00:51:41Tom Williams: How is it for girls?

00:51:43Scott Trickett: Ladies?

00:51:44Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. I don't live my life in shorts because I freeze in the office where I work every day. So I end up wearing scarves and long pants because I can't cope with the air conditioning.

00:51:56Scott Trickett: Crazy. Sunshine Coast, and you own a scarf.

00:51:59Melissa Erbacher: I know. They overcompensate with the air con in my workplace, unfortunately. I have been known to have a heater under my desk, which I do use in summer at some times. Sue Devlin says, Checked in and said, this is the official sunrise link from Rhodes parkrun. Great advertising for parkrun. You saw this video, didn't you, Scotty?

00:52:21Scott Trickett: I did. I had a quick look. Michelle Bridges did a great job promoting parkrun.

00:52:25Melissa Erbacher: And if you look closely at the footage of the runners, you might see some well-known parkrunners in there.

00:52:32Scott Trickett: And how was Mark Caldercourt's effort when he became a Victorian statesman down in Portland? He drove the 800 odd K to do it. Fantastic work, Mark. Well done.

00:52:47Melissa Erbacher: And Kirsten Ellis also said on Facebook this week, as a single mum, it's necessary to have long run Monday instead of long run Sunday. At this moment in time, I'm number one on the parkrun adventurers Strava leaderboard for the week. Had to take a photo to go straight to the pool room. I know exactly how you feel, Kirsten. Not that I've ever been number one on the Strava leaderboard. However, at my anniversary every year, because I've volunteered more than everyone else, it always puts me straight on the top of the leaderboard in the points competition. So I generally take a screen grab of that because guaranteed the next week I won't be on the top anymore.

00:53:26Scott Trickett: This was my favorite post of the week too. I love that she seized an opportunity and knew that maybe that was her only opportunity to be at the top of the leaderboard.

00:53:37Melissa Erbacher: But also that she's proud to be there.

00:53:38Scott Trickett: Absolutely. It's a very cool leaderboard. Yeah, she's running a long way on a Monday too. Well done.

00:53:45Melissa Erbacher: Skipping over to Twitter, we had a very fabulous tweet from somebody we just heard from a little while ago. Tom Williams asked, I'm not going to say the past tense of tweeted because I've been told not to. Tom Williams said, just spoke to Mel and Scott for their brilliant parkrun adventurers podcast on all things parkrun. Now dreaming of doing my first Aussie parkrun.

00:54:13Scott Trickett: These updates happening in real time.

00:54:15Melissa Erbacher: They are.

00:54:16Scott Trickett: Thanks again, Tom.

00:54:16Melissa Erbacher: And we only paid him a little bit of money to say that.

00:54:20Scott Trickett: He's done a lot of parkruns. We didn't bring it up with him. It's surprising he hasn't done an Aussie parkrun yet. We must raise that with him next time. And Ross Pentland, who's mad for a bit of Twitter action, he tweeted, Hillier Harder parkrun courses make you stronger. I reckon he was at Wilson Botanic for that one.

00:54:39Melissa Erbacher: And I reckon he was responding to our conversation last week about the Hillier Harder parkruns when we were talking to Bill. procrastinations shared a fantastic vintage pic of the sun super run from 1984 and i'm assuming procrastinations that was his finish that was his finished photo and said the running shoe of choice in 1984, KT26 so people are loving the dunlops out there

00:55:13Scott Trickett: I've still got to hunt down a pair. I did say I was going to find some, but I just haven't been around many Kmarts lately. But I'm going to add the KT26 to my repertoire.

Where's the cake this week? (launches and anniversaries)

00:55:25Melissa Erbacher: So where's the cake this week, Scotty? Do we have any launches happening?

00:55:29Scott Trickett: No, we've had a few weeks without launches. What's going on?

00:55:33Melissa Erbacher: Somebody must have decided that we have enough anniversaries to keep us busy.

00:55:37Scott Trickett: And we do. We've got three this week. We're heading to Bega in New South Wales. They're having their first and they're celebrating sport as the theme.

00:55:47Melissa Erbacher: That's pretty cool. People can show up in their active wear and all their jerseys.

00:55:53Scott Trickett: Well, everyone who comes is participating.

00:55:55Melissa Erbacher: Well, this is true. Inverloch in Victoria are having their second anniversary with an under the sea theme, which I love because that just takes me straight back to the future.

00:56:08Scott Trickett: And our third anniversary is Wynnum in Queensland for their fourth anniversary. And anything goes there.

00:56:15Melissa Erbacher: And anything goes because four-year-olds, when they choose what they wear, come out with some pretty interesting stuff. So we'll love to see the photos after that event this weekend.

00:56:27Scott Trickett: And that takes us to an end of another parkrun Adventurers podcast.

00:56:31Tom Williams: Make sure you look out for, we're going to have a survey.

00:56:33Scott Trickett: We're going to throw a survey at you guys. So we want you to go on Facebook, look up the survey later in the week. We're going to pick your brains. We're going to find out, do you prefer laps? Do you prefer out and backs? Amongst other, an assortment of questions.

00:56:50Melissa Erbacher: So make sure you come monkey around with us.

00:56:52Scott Trickett: Yes, that'll be on Facebook later in the week. Or if you're listening to this three months after it happened, you missed out. You should have been listening three months ago. It was the best survey.

00:57:05Melissa Erbacher: No. Somebody might have only just discovered us. The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The second best time is now.