Episode 38 - Tom Do Canto

Episode details · 208 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:11Scott Trickett: Hello everyone, you are now listening to the parkrun Adventurers podcast. My name is Scott. My friends call me Scotty. Hi Mel.

00:00:20Melissa Erbacher: Hey Scotty, how are you doing?

00:00:22Scott Trickett: A bit sore, a bit tender. It's self-inflicted pain, so I've got no one to blame but myself.

00:00:30Melissa Erbacher: Time to suck it up princess.

00:00:32Scott Trickett: Let's have some news.

parkrun Adventurers News

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: 143,260 athletes participated at 793 parkruns held across 14 countries this parkrun day. 26 events were cancelled worldwide, 5 of those in Australia. There were 20,206 first-timers.

00:00:59Scott Trickett: Southbank event director and previous guest of the podcast, Gareth Saunders, celebrated his five-year directiversary at Southbank parkrun's 200th event on Saturday. Gareth is parkrun Australia's longest-serving event director.

00:01:14Melissa Erbacher: New South Wales parkrun regular Eloise Wellings brought home gold at the recent Australian Road Running Championships, held as part of the Sunday Mail City Bay Fun Run in Adelaide, South Australia.

00:01:26Scott Trickett: Multiple event teams experienced technical issues with uploading the run data from their stopwatches and barcode scanners this week. Fortunately for all parkrunners concerned, support was on hand to advise that they should turn their computers off and on again, and all issues were resolved.

00:01:43Melissa Erbacher: parkrunners were spotted having adventures at the Twilight Bay Run in Queensland, Trails Plus Surf Coast Hell Run and Run Maroondah Fun Run in Victoria, the Yurrebilla 56k trail run in South Australia and the Beach to Brother Marathon on the mid-north coast of New South Wales.

00:02:01Scott Trickett: Two of parkrun Australia's Territory Directors, Silpa Palmer from New South Wales and John Storey from WA, participated in the 43rd BMW Berlin Marathon on the 25th of September. Neither Silpa nor John were available for comment. However, it is widely thought they were lured to Berlin by the $1 million prize purse to be split equally between the top male and female marathoners. That, or they both secretly harboured the desire to join the 8,000-odd inline skaters who compete over the marathon course the Saturday before the running event.

00:02:39Melissa Erbacher: And love was in the air at Toowoomba parkrun in South East Queensland. where third anniversary celebrations and the flower festival became the backdrop for a marriage proposal. parkrunner James Hogan proposed on bended knee to girlfriend Liz Worrell in front of more than 300 parkrunners during the pre-run brief, offering a freshly picked tulip that had been fashioned with wire into an engagement ring. Liz said yes. Music

00:03:04[music]

00:03:08Scott Trickett: Love was in the air around parkrun this weekend. You've got a bit more on that story from Toowoomba.

00:03:14Melissa Erbacher: Yes, indeed. So a lot of people might be a bit confused about why the engagement ring was a tulip that was wired up. But apparently James had organized a bit more of a shinier edition that wasn't quite ready at the jeweler in time for parkrun Day this weekend. So Liz is actually a florist and the Botanic Gardens in Toowoomba at the moment are having the Festival of Flowers. So I believe James got to parkrun a little bit early and snuck in and snaffled himself a tulip to turn into the engagement ring, which I think is very sweet and very romantic. Also, because it was the anniversary, there were heaps of people around. with their cameras and their phones and so video footage was taken of the proposal which is very cute and some pictures one of which has actually got a couple in the background that are watching on happily as James does the proposal and that couple is Amanda and Tony Worsley. Now these guys were originally from Gatton parkrun and they actually also both met at parkrun and got married earlier this year. And they've got a parkrun baby on the way, which is very cute. So there's parkrun babies and weddings and love going on all over the place at parkrun at the moment.

00:04:43Scott Trickett: So tell me, Mel, Amanda and Tony are Gatton parkrunners, but they were adventuring to Toowoomba for the proposal.

00:04:52Melissa Erbacher: Yes, they were. Well, I'm not sure it was for the proposal. I would say they may have been adventuring there for cake. Tony's actually a run director at Gatton, but the pair of them are quite the adventurers. They spend a lot of time running together and running at different parkruns together. Well, Tony proposed in March this year, just before he went down to Canberra for the half marathon. And then, of course, they did Junandera parkrun while they were there They got married at Palm Cove in August and popped in a little visit to Cairns parkrun while they were there for their wedding. And it was actually at that point that they announced that Amanda is 13 weeks pregnant. And they've put out the fact that, well, other people were beginning to notice that her times were slowing down and things like that. But they... have joked about adding an extra line to the volunteer sheet for anybody who wants to push the parkrun baby in the pram. And so they're very appreciative of their wonderful extended family at Gatton parkrun.

00:05:59Scott Trickett: It'll be a celebrity baby.

00:06:01Melissa Erbacher: A celebrity parkrun baby.

00:06:02Scott Trickett: Yeah. Lots of love happening at parkrun. I tell you what, my weekend, I'm falling out of love with the trails. I had a race. Oh, no. Yeah, I had a night race on Friday night. Really excited about it. Thought it was a cool idea to get dressed up in a bit of neon, put on my head torch.

00:06:24Melissa Erbacher: As you do.

00:06:24Scott Trickett: Yeah, go running at night. 15 kilometers, managed to fall over three times. Drew blood. And just starting to think that this trail running business is not for me.

00:06:37Melissa Erbacher: What did you fall over this time?

00:06:39Scott Trickett: Some rocks. Who knows? I fell over three times, so there's a few things. There's a root at one stage.

00:06:47[laughter]

00:06:47Melissa Erbacher: I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh.

00:06:50Scott Trickett: But you clearly are.

00:06:51Melissa Erbacher: Oh dear. So what did you break your fall with?

00:06:56Scott Trickett: First time my shoulder. Amazingly, that's it. No scuffs on my knees, which is a good effort.

00:07:02Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Yeah, because last time you twisted your hip around or something and you couldn't keep continuing, so you did your DNF, but you managed to finish this one.

00:07:11Scott Trickett: I did. My time dropped way off because I was absolutely scared of falling over a fourth time.

00:07:20Melissa Erbacher: Because it hurts so much the first three times? Or just because it doesn't become embarrassing until it's four times?

00:07:28Scott Trickett: Embarrassment started to creep into my mind. But here's a pro tip. If you are going to do a night trail race, make sure your head torch has got fresh batteries in it. Because I think that was part of the problem. Didn't actually have much light to see where I was going. Hence tripping and falling over three times.

00:07:47Melissa Erbacher: Yep. You know, picking your feet up works well with that too.

00:07:52Scott Trickett: Yeah. I do have a running style that where I'm sort of permanently planted to the ground as well. It's been commented that I shuffle and don't run. So this may have contributed to it as well. But you live and learn.

00:08:04Melissa Erbacher: But falling out of love with the trails, maybe you just need to spend more time there on the daytime.

00:08:10Scott Trickett: Maybe. It's heating up, so we head to the track over the next couple of months. I'll fall in love with it again next year.

00:08:18Melissa Erbacher: Are you really going to buy spikes?

00:08:20Scott Trickett: Thinking about it, yeah.

00:08:22Melissa Erbacher: How do spikes work on a track? Because isn't the track hard? Do the spikes dig into it? Is it like one of those mats that you have for craft and you cut it with a knife and it just seals itself up again?

00:08:35Scott Trickett: You're asking someone who should know, and I don't.

00:08:38Melissa Erbacher: Well, if you're going to buy some shoes, I would expect you to know how to work them. Can you wear them golfing?

00:08:46Scott Trickett: Well, I've already got golf spikes.

00:08:48Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe you should just wear those to the track.

00:08:50Scott Trickett: No. No. No? I just wear them out to social occasions now.

00:08:58Melissa Erbacher: When you're not playing golf.

00:09:00Scott Trickett: Yeah. Because they're nice looking shoes. But we had a fancy do a couple of months ago. And I realized as I was getting dressed, I didn't actually own fancy shoes. So we polished up my golf spikes.

00:09:13Melissa Erbacher: Can you take the spikes out of them or did you have to click clack around?

00:09:17Scott Trickett: Well, that's it. No, you can't take the spikes out of these ones. And when we walked into the venue, it was a polished concrete floor. I walked. People knew I was coming.

00:09:28Melissa Erbacher: Did you not think people were going to notice that you had spikes? I sat down a lot that night. Like even on a carpeted floor.

00:09:37Scott Trickett: Yeah. What would you do? It was like a formal occasion. I couldn't rock up in my runners. Normally I would.

00:09:46Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I don't know. I think... I'm not sure that spikes is less embarrassing than runners in a formal do. I would probably call in a favor and try to borrow some shoes from somebody if I didn't want to buy some more. It depends on what time the discovery is made.

00:10:03Scott Trickett: Probably about 15 minutes before we were due there. That was part of the problem as well.

00:10:13Melissa Erbacher: Oh dear.

00:10:14Scott Trickett: I reckon our next guest owns a pair of spikes. Should we have a chat to him?

00:10:19Melissa Erbacher: Let's do that.

00:10:21Scott Trickett: Let's have a chat to one of Sydney's fastest parkrunners and new dad. Joining us on the podcast this week is Thomas Do Canto. Welcome, Tom.

00:10:31Tom Do Canto: Hi. Thanks. Thanks, Scott.

00:10:33Scott Trickett: And congratulations on becoming a new father.

00:10:36Tom Do Canto: Thank you. Yeah, it's all happening. Very busy at the moment, but yeah, loving it.

00:10:43Scott Trickett: Does it interrupt your training?

00:10:45Tom Do Canto: I've been pretty lucky so far. He's So far, he's sleeping pretty good. I help out a little bit. Lana, I do one of the feeds. Lana will express some milk. I'll do the first feed normally about midnight, and then I'm back to bed for the rest of the night. So I get up early, get some running done before work in the morning.

00:11:06Scott Trickett: So far, so good.

00:11:08Tom Do Canto: It hasn't really interrupted me too much with the running. Lana's been really good. She's obviously taking most responsibility with taking care of the little guy.

00:11:16Scott Trickett: Would you say you're in good form at the moment? A couple of weeks ago you came second at the half marathon at the Sydney Running Festival, a second at City to Surf. Are you having a good year running?

00:11:27Tom Do Canto: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I've been able to string together a good solid few months of training prior to City to Surf and a little bit more before the Blackmores half. And things are still ticking over well, so... probably in the best shape I've been for a long time if not ever so yeah things are going well.

00:11:48Melissa Erbacher: So you're a bit fast out on the normal courses how fast do you run at parkrun Tom?

00:11:55Tom Do Canto: Well it varies like I'll use it as like a good sort of hit out on a Saturday morning sometimes it's just part of training and just trying to like a bit of a tempo sort of effort 5k which is a good place to do it, and I guess I run anywhere between, on average, like 15 to 16 minutes. I'd like to, when I get quite fit again, I'd love to try and run, get another PB at parkrun, so under sort of 14.30 sort of pace.

00:12:29Scott Trickett: Have you ever had a thought about having a crack at the national record? You're so close, Tom. Did you know that?

00:12:34Tom Do Canto: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think it's 14.20, Scotty. Yeah, I would like to do it. I was just thinking the other day what course here in Sydney I'd try and have a crack at it. I think either maybe Parramatta or Rhodes parkruns. I've been doing the Rhodes one a bit more recently and I really like that one. It's nice and flat, not very windy, sort of well covered. Yeah, so maybe even I'll have a crack at trying to get close to that at Rhodes in the next few months.

00:13:09Scott Trickett: You discovered parkrun at St. Peter's. You also discovered something else there. You met your future wife through parkrun. So you have a parkrun baby.

00:13:17Tom Do Canto: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, parkrun baby. He did his first parkrun. Lana took him in a stroller a few weeks ago, actually, at Parramatta parkrun. He cried half the way, so I don't think he liked it too much. But, yeah, he's been out there. Yeah, I met Lana at St. Peter's parkrun. Yeah, five years ago now. I did parkrun in the UK a couple of years prior. So I knew about it. And then I saw St. Peter's opened up a parkrun. I was like, yeah, great. I'll go do that. And I think it was only like my third one. Lana was doing scanning. And we had a little chat at the end. And thanks to Facebook, we sort of connected on Facebook and started chatting and then started dating. And then the rest is history. Got married not long after that.

00:14:12Melissa Erbacher: So the story here is if you volunteer, you'll find love.

00:14:15Tom Do Canto: Exactly. So I knew she was a very caring sort of girl. She wanted to sort of, you know, out there. It was raining. It was pouring rain. She was out there doing this. It helped that she was a pretty good-looking girl.

00:14:31Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's very cute. So you said you had done a parkrun overseas earlier before you happened across St. Peter's in Australia. You've done quite a bit of adventuring around in a couple of different countries and states in Australia. Can you tell us about some of your adventures overseas?

00:14:51Tom Do Canto: Well, I was living in London for about 10 months and I was living in Southfield, so Southfield, right next to Southfield is Wimbledon. So my home parkrun was Wimbledon Common parkrun. And it was awesome running around there. Sort of really, really bushy and trail-y. Sort of, I could jog to the start of that in five minutes. Since then, I found out that there was literally probably about four parkruns within running distance from where I was living. Lana's parents live in Richmond, so... So every time we go, we've been back there a couple of times and every time we go back there, we try and do some parkruns. So Richmond parkrun. Last time I was there, I think I was off the Richmond record by about a second. Yeah, so I'll have to go back there and try and get that one next time we're there.

00:15:49Scott Trickett: And I guess the last trip last year, we did a U.S. trip through the southern states, a road trip.

00:15:54Tom Do Canto: And I think the only, there's not many parkruns in the U.S., but we saw there was one in San Fran. So when we were there, we were able to fit that in. That was pretty cool.

00:16:03Scott Trickett: You've also run at Bushy Park, the home of parkrun, and you got a first finish there. What was that like?

00:16:09Tom Do Canto: Yeah, that's right. So that was one of the trips as well. So one weekend, Richmond, the next one, Bushy. Yeah, it was awesome. I really wanted to do it because obviously that was the original. and just ridiculous, just so many people. It's huge. It's good that the start is just this huge, open, wide field because of so many people. So, no, it was great. Dead flat. So it was definitely a very quick course and good atmosphere just because of the amount of people. And, I mean, at the end, you know, at these parkruns here, you've got maybe sometimes a couple of scanners. There's, like, funnels like multiple funnels with with multiple scanners and it's a big it's a big setup they need a lot of volunteers um for that one what about your top three we always like to ask our guests if they've got a favorite top three yeah um definitely definitely St Peter's it's my first one here first one here in australia doing that i really really enjoy St Peter's it's got this um this hill uh in it that everyone talks about um and it's it's a real killer it's very steep not long but it's just a killer steep hill in the middle of the course so that's my number one I enjoy Parramatta Parramatta I'd probably say Parramatta and Rhodes two and three just because I met like I made lots of friends and it's a nice community feel and sort of they're the other regular ones we go to now and every time we go you know we catch up with people and they're nice courses they're flat they're scenic and So yeah, that'd be my three, St Peter's, Parra and Rhodes.

00:17:50Melissa Erbacher: And so what's on the agenda for the future? You've just done a couple of fast runs. What's the next big event you've got planned?

00:17:58Tom Do Canto: I've just entered the Melbourne Marathon on the 16th of October. So first road marathon. I'm a little bit nervous, but training's been going well. And I thought, you know, while training's been going well, I'm not injured, I may as well try and have a bit of a crack at a marathon, see what I can run. So, yeah, that's the next one.

00:18:22Melissa Erbacher: First road marathon, you say. So you've done trail marathons or ultras before?

00:18:28Tom Do Canto: I did. Earlier in the year, I did a six-foot track marathon. So that's 45K in the Blue Mountains.

00:18:35Scott Trickett: And won it.

00:18:38Tom Do Canto: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that race. That's such a cool run. I heard about it in the running circles, being a really good one to run, challenging. I've done training runs up there years prior. So I thought, yeah, this year, just see how it went. I was so stoked to win. Yeah, it was great.

00:19:07Scott Trickett: Well, Melbourne's very exciting. We get to see the debut of your first road marathon. Have you got a goal time?

00:19:14Tom Do Canto: Yeah. I'm not putting too much pressure on myself with times, but I would... I mean, considering the PB in the half and hope for that, I convert well. I mean, I think I am more suited to the longer stuff. So, I don't know. I think... I'd be happy – if I could get under 220, I'd be happy. If I could run a bit faster, say, closer to sort of 218, I'd be happier. So, yeah, like I think realistically I should be able to run under 218 if I have a good day.

00:19:52Melissa Erbacher: How do you train for something like that? Like just – you just tell your legs to go faster and they do because mine disagree. Yeah.

00:20:01Tom Do Canto: It's just the training. It's just like the variety and then you move to specificity when you get closer. So I still do intervals and short hill sprints and stuff like that. So shorter stuff working on like pure speed and then you try and convert that speed into the longer stuff. So doing like tempos, like longer runs but at a really high effort. And then just the long, long runs. And then, like, now I'm doing long runs and then inserting towards the end of the long run, like a fast tempo. So trying to run fast off, like, fatigued legs. So it's really hard training for marathons. But, yeah.

00:20:41Melissa Erbacher: So what kind of pace do you do your long runs at then?

00:20:45Tom Do Canto: I, like, say a couple of weekends ago, it was, like, 345-minute pace. And... So, for example, the other long run I did, it was like 4-minute pace and then I did 8K at 310 pace.

00:21:00Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So, that's on the fatigued legs going fast.

00:21:03Tom Do Canto: Yeah.

00:21:04Melissa Erbacher: Wow.

00:21:06Tom Do Canto: So, a 218 marathon would be 3 minutes 16 pace.

00:21:12Melissa Erbacher: Okay. That's good to put it in that kind of frame of reference because, yeah, working out the maths. Yeah. Not always easy when it's those lower kind of numbers.

00:21:25Scott Trickett: Melbourne's the national championship.

00:21:27Tom Do Canto: Yeah, it's the national champs. There's apparently no pacemakers, but there's going to be some good Aussie runners coming to have a bit of a crack. Yeah, so it should be a really good race, actually. I think Dua Yoa, one of the good Victorians down there, he ran like a 1.03 half in Gold Coast. He seems like he's in hot form, so he'll be It'll be hard to beat any of us guys. But, yeah, it'll be good, hopefully. A good pack will form, hopefully. A good pace.

00:21:57Melissa Erbacher: Can I ask how... I know that lots of people talk about having paces at events where they're going this fast. And I don't know. The paces must only do small sections of it to maintain that pace. But how is that of benefit to you guys? Like, don't you have watches? Can't you just do your own pacing?

00:22:16Tom Do Canto: I think it's a mental thing. I mean, you don't have to... You don't have to think. I mean, when you're trying to pace yourself and look at a watch constantly and sort of readjust your pace, it's a little bit tiring to sort of do that physically maybe, but I think mostly mentally. So if you've just got someone there in front that's doing a good job at pacing, you don't have to think. All you have to do is sit and sit on them. And so you're sort of just sitting behind them or running behind them. You may even get a slight windbreak sometimes. If you're running that fast, even if you're sort of close behind them or other runners, if it's windy, you do get a little bit of a windbreak, a bit like cycling to a much lesser degree where you're just not exerting as much energy.

00:23:00Melissa Erbacher: And is that the same mentality with like joining a pack?

00:23:04Tom Do Canto: Yeah, yeah, that's right. If you're in a pack, it just seems like you're exerting much less energy than if you're out by yourself. Hopefully in Melbourne, there's going to be at least six or more in a pack. I think that will definitely make it easier for all of us to run faster.

00:23:25Scott Trickett: We can take it in turns.

00:23:25Tom Do Canto: People can want to go to the lead, so you can tuck in behind someone else. If you're feeling good, you might want to push the pace a bit. You can go in front, and then other people can just sit off you behind you. I might even try and contact some of those guys before and just see what paces they're going to go at. we can try and work together to try and get a faster time potentially. So a lot of the guys will be probably trying to get, um, world champ qualifiers for next year, London, um, uh, London athletics, world champs athletics. So.

00:24:00Melissa Erbacher: Very cool. It's interesting to learn about all this, this head of the pack stuff, because obviously I've never been there.

00:24:08Tom Do Canto: Are you getting your own pack though? Surely you get, you know,

00:24:15Melissa Erbacher: Not really. I'm kind of a pack of my own right at the back. Maybe people just need to join me. You wouldn't be getting any drafting off me, though. Awesome. Yeah, well, thank you for clearing that up because I did always wonder about the paces and things like that.

00:24:37Tom Do Canto: Yeah, apparently they haven't invited any international athletes, which... Probably I think it's a good thing. I think I think although we might be pushed or faster time You know, it means all that prize money and the racing is sort of up to us It'd be nice for a local guide to win it. That'll be good as well Must be weird feeling racing for prize money Yeah, it's not there's not much money in running so no when you get yeah when when you get races like this So they do put a little bit of money. It's nice if we've got a shot of at winning some, so it'd be awesome.

00:25:13Scott Trickett: All the internationals, keep the money in Australia.

00:25:16Tom Do Canto: Yeah, that's it.

00:25:19Scott Trickett: Good-o. Tom, thanks for coming on, sharing your story. Lucky and love at parkrun, and good luck at Melbourne in a couple of weeks' time.

00:25:27Tom Do Canto: Thanks for having me on.

Meet the ED

00:25:36Melissa Erbacher: We're heading to the ACT now to have a chat to the event director of the newest parkrun in that territory. Her name is Sally Coyle. She's the ED at Burley Griffin parkrun. Sally, welcome to the podcast.

00:25:51Sally Coyle: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

00:25:52Melissa Erbacher: How are you enjoying being the new kid on the block in the ACT?

00:25:57Sally Coyle: Oh, look, it's actually been really fabulous. I've really enjoyed it. And, of course, I mean, we speak to lots of EDs over the last couple of podcasts and everyone seems to have the same sort of answer it's it's really quite life-changing and I never really slept in on a set day anyway and I was probably at a parkrun anyway so not much has really changed I love it and where did parkrun start for you then um well it was interesting actually because I work at the heart foundation and must have been late last year I got a call from our office in Perth saying that we had a chap that had signed up to fundraise for the Heart Foundation who just happened to be running from Perth to Brisbane. And, of course, we all know that is Gary Wilmot from Canning River. And Heart Foundation Perth said, do you mind going out to your Gungahlin parkrun, which is one of our local parkruns here in Canberra, and meeting and supporting him and, you know, giving him a bit of a pat on the back? And I thought, oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, no problems. I'll go out there and do that. And of course, I'd heard about parkrun because my CEO at work had participated a few times and he'd been raving about it. And I am a runner, but I thought, I might go out there. So I went out to Gungahlin and met Gary, who has size 15 feet. That was pretty amazing. And yeah, participated in Gungahlin parkrun. And it was just, it was so fabulous. I really enjoyed the inclusion and fact that everyone clapped at the beginning and we got to find out where people from tourists or the rest of it and I really quite enjoyed it so I thought oh I might have to go and see what my local ones all about and so I've got a parkrun near me Tuggerong so the next weekend I went down to Tuggers as we call it I was just I was blown away how fabulous it was I really really enjoyed it and I love what it stood for and I I think week two, I ended up sending an email off to parkrun support office at Tuggers. And I said, look, I just really like what this is about. And can I get involved? And at that stage, one of my good running friends, who's now one of the run directors at Burley Griffin, we said to each other, wouldn't it be great to try and get a parkrun set up more centrally? And so I met with Gary and Gareth and I suggested to them how fabulous it would be to get a parkrun around Lake Burleigh Griffin, which is our main central lake here in Canberra. And I think the guys were a bit hesitant because they'd had a few other people approach them about trying to get a parkrun set up around Lake Burleigh Griffin. And Canberra's a little bit unique because Canberra's owned, part of the area around Canberra is federal government land and other parts of our land is local government land. And a lot of the paths and everything around Lake Burley Griffin are actually owned by the feds. And so I think a few people in the past had approached Gareth and Gary trying to get a parkrun set up around that side of Burley Griffin. And I think we just knew that it's near impossible to try and get permission to run around that part of the lake. And it's already a very busy part of the lake. And, of course, that's not what parkrun's about. we want to try and get people into a newer part and more inclusive. So my girlfriend and I, Jen, decided that we were going to go and scout another location. And we came across another part of Burley Griffin that it actually, it's almost perfect out and back, 5K, and it's a quieter end of the Burley Griffin Park. And I put that to Gareth and Gary. And so Gary and his wife, Denise, decided to do a recce the next week just to see if I was actually telling the truth. And they came back saying this is fantastic. It's got great parking and it's got beautiful views of Black Mountain Tower and it's very much worthy. But, of course, the issue now is that we have to try and get funding. And unlike other locations, Canberra doesn't have local councils. We just have one local government that looks after 350,000 people. So to try and get funding was our next drama that we had. So Gary and myself pretty much did the pitch to the local government and they heard about parkrun and they loved it, but sadly there was no money. So eventually we ended up getting a local sponsor and, yeah, pretty much now it's all history and we're running parkrun at Burley Griffin. On a personal level as well, actually I've been running for about, I don't know, seven years. I used to be a... a dreadmill runner at the gym and my husband's in the army. And so we got posted to America. Whilst we were over there, I had a local military person approach me to see if I wanted to join one of the Marines in an obstacle course run. And I'd never actually run outside and I kind of didn't think I was worthy to be a runner. So we joined in this 10K mud run and it was so much fun that that got me into running outside. And from then I sort of learned to, well, taught myself to run 21 Ks and did a half marathon in St. Louis. And then we did another Army 10-miler run in Washington, D.C. And because we were living on an Army base, the soldiers used to do a lot of running and cadence running around the base. And, of course, when you see the movies, like all the Army movies where you hear the drill sergeants singing songs you know, doing all the cadence drills. I don't know if I'm being taught and all that sort of thing. And they really do it. And so we were allowed to join in on these runs and, you know, participate. And it was really quite interesting trying to run in time because it's all left, right, left, right whilst singing. And, yeah, I developed this love of running. And, yeah, that's pretty much how I, A, got into running and, B, got into parkrun in a nutshell. Yeah.

00:32:04Scott Trickett: Sally, can I just take it back to Lake Burley Griffin, the location? I was in Canberra last year, and we stayed in the city, if that's what you call the city. And one thing that stood out to me, that there was nobody around on the weekend. Like, do people actually live around there for you to draw on the parkrunners?

00:32:25Sally Coyle: Good question. Canberra is renowned for its suburbs, so per se... there's not really many people living in the centre of Canberra. There's obviously a few apartment blocks and all that sort of thing, but most of Canberra, it's kind of been, the infrastructure's been built around the city and it's probably about, I don't know, 10, 15 minute drive for most people to get to the city where the suburbs are. So having said that, anywhere in Canberra is only 20 minutes away. So we tend to get, we probably get quite a few people from suburbs that were previously travelling maybe 20 minutes to get to Tuggers parkrun or 20 minutes to our Jim and Dara parkrun, but there was nothing in between. So now people only have to travel 10 minutes to get to the Burley Griffin parkrun. And probably the good thing about Canberra as well, because everything's only 20 minutes away, we can be tourists at lots of other locations, but we really only have to go 20 minutes, if that makes sense.

00:33:26Scott Trickett: It does, and I'm guessing this led to your massive launch of 435 people. That's pretty daunting for a first event. How did you handle that?

00:33:39Sally Coyle: Well, Gary Clark, Mr Canberra parkrun, was sensational and provided so much support, and we kind of knew we were expecting big numbers because our Facebook, we'd launched on Facebook that we were going to be starting it, And I think within a week we had 1,000 likes. And then we decided whether or not to actually put out an event request or an event invitation, that's right, on Facebook, just to get a bit of an idea what numbers would be like. And I think we were getting something like 350 people RSVPing. And then, of course, that's not including people that aren't on Facebook and people were talking about it. So we were expecting and I was secretly hoping that we'd smash the Canberra record. which we did. Of course, it's not a competition, but it secretly is a competition. And yeah, we got 435. And can I just say, it was a freezing Canberra winter's morning. We'd had rain two days and in the lead up, the morning of it was drizzling and we still got 435 people. We actually had car park volunteer martial attendants on the day just to organise parking and I think we had 30 volunteers on the day, so we were extremely well organised.

00:34:57Melissa Erbacher: That sounds to me like you guys have been starved for too long for a new parkrun.

00:35:03Sally Coyle: I think you're right. I was going to say it was interesting because Tuggeranong normally sits at about three to 350 people. Even in the middle of winter, they get big numbers down there. And for the first time ever, I think Tuggers came in that day at 80 people. and we had 435. So we had obviously a lot of Canberra parkrun tourists coming over and joining us. But, yeah, it was certainly rather epic.

00:35:32Melissa Erbacher: What kind of numbers has your event sort of settled into now? You've been going for about six months, is that correct?

00:35:39Sally Coyle: Yeah, what are we up to, June, July, August, September? Actually, we've only been going for about three and a half months. We started mid to late June and we kind of, the idea was that we thought, It would be nice just to learn how to do everything in the middle of winter because, of course, numbers are going to be really quiet in Canberra over winter. And for the first couple of weeks we were sitting, I think, about 180, 170, and then we've dropped off to about 80 when we had rain. We've had quite a few rain weekends. And I think we're averaging now about 140. But having said that, the weather is starting to warm up a bit and each week we're seeing about 10 to 15 more people each week. We tend to get quite a few actual tourists, interstate and overseas tourists as well, which I love. I love doing the event brief and finding out where everyone's from. It's almost one of the highlights of my role. I just love it.

00:36:35Scott Trickett: Well, that's because you're a bit of an adventurer yourself, Sally. You've done a few events. Have you got any highlights out of those, a top three perhaps?

00:36:47Sally Coyle: Well, my in-laws live in Brisbane. And so at Christmas I'll be going up to Samford where they are. So Mel will have to find out what's the closest one to Samford. We actually went to Noosa last year for the school holidays. In fact, it would have been this time last year. And it was so funny. We turned up to Noosa and we'd left Canberra. I think we flew up from Canberra a day earlier and I think we left in minus three. And, of course, we got up to Canberra. Brisbane and it was 18 or 19 degrees and then we went up to Noosa the next day and did parkrun and I think people were wearing gloves I can't remember and it was I think it was 19 degrees and it was at 7am and we were wearing shorts and t-shirt and I don't know if you guys know you've probably done Noosa but it's pretty hilly and we were struggling because it was so hot compared to what we've been used to so Noosa was beautiful. That was a really nice place to visit. And then my parents live in Geelong. So we've done parkrun at, I think it's pronounced Balyang, down in Geelong. And that's lovely. That's probably a little bit similar to Burley Griffin in the fact that you follow the, well, they've got a river, I think, that you follow the river around and you do an out and back. And that was pretty flat as well. So that was a bit of a highlight. And we went to New Zealand for Easter and we had very good intentions of doing a parkrun either in Wellington, I think they've got two in Wellington and one in Dunedin, but we just couldn't quite make our flights work. And it was going to cost us $600 more so that I could do a parkrun in Wellington. And we thought that was just being a bit cheeky. So we didn't end up doing one there, sadly. So yeah, I would probably say Tuggeranong. That was probably my original favourite here in Canberra. That's got a terrific community feel. So of course your own parkrun comes in automatically at number one, but maybe two, three and four is, Noosa, Balyang and then Tuggers.

00:38:46Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so this brings me to another question. You've only got four events in the ACT but you've only done three of them. Why haven't you been to Ginny yet?

00:38:56Sally Coyle: I know, I know, I know. Do you know what? By the time I sort of got involved in parkrun and wanted to experience everything, I had to shadow the run directors down at Tuggers to learn how to do everything and I kind of ran out of time. I am going to go and do Ginninderra, I promise. Gregor and Sally are over there. I've met them. He met them on Facebook. But I know I've never been over there. And, in fact, they had a flooding. I know a lot of other parkruns have had flooding in the last couple of weeks, but Lake Ginninderra actually closed a couple of weeks ago because of the rain they had. So not to say that's why I haven't been over there, but I will get there, I promise. It's just terrible that I haven't done this, I know. Thanks for pointing that out, Mel.

00:39:40Scott Trickett: Sally, it's been a long time for us to have a chat to someone from the ACT. So thanks for coming on and sharing your stories from Lake Burley Griffin.

00:39:50Sally Coyle: Terrific. Thank you for having me. Come down and visit us in cold old Canberra, although we're warming up now.

Social Adventurers

00:40:06Melissa Erbacher: Let's skip over to Twitter and social media now. It was a big week last week on Twitter, particularly in the UK, following on from our interview with Danny Norman. Hi to all our listeners in the UK. We hope you come back again this week.

00:40:20Scott Trickett: We had more listeners in the UK than we did in Australia this week.

00:40:25Melissa Erbacher: We're going to call that the Danny effect.

00:40:27Scott Trickett: Once again, we had our parkrun adventurers out on Instagram on the weekend. Runjo Run, Hey TJ, Mama of Hope, Heather's Happy Snaps, and Akoos. All the females love Instagram this week.

00:40:44Melissa Erbacher: Over to Facebook and we had a lovely comment from Nicole about our new segment that comes at the top of the show. She is loving parkrun Adventurers News. Thanks, Nicole. That puts a little bit more pressure on that we have to try and make it good every week. So cheers for that.

00:41:01Scott Trickett: Tok's having a great adventure over in the west. He was running alongside Geographe Bay, listening to the pod and watching a pod of dolphins. Life was pretty sweet for Tok.

00:41:14Melissa Erbacher: Did you see the picture with the dolphin fin, the dorsal fin of the dolphin sticking out of the water?

00:41:20Scott Trickett: I did, yeah.

00:41:21Melissa Erbacher: That's pretty cool. We see whales a lot where I live. And I keep hearing people saying, oh, we were surfing with the dolphins today or we saw dolphins. And I never see dolphins. Obviously, I'm at the beach at the wrong time.

00:41:35Scott Trickett: My daughter saw it and she said, I want to go there for our next holiday.

00:41:40Melissa Erbacher: Wow.

00:41:40Scott Trickett: I think we're going to WA.

00:41:42Melissa Erbacher: Sounds good. And we need to give a shout out to Devonport and Shepparton parkruns because they shared our post during the week. Thanks, guys. Loving the love.

00:41:52Scott Trickett: Catherine Jones has set a school holiday challenge in the parkrun Tourism Group. She wants everyone to tell everyone about your holiday freedom runs.

00:42:03Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I believe Catherine did a partial freedom run of the Burley Griffin course, coincidentally. So she's in ACT with her family at the moment. And Melissa Ellis was parkrunning at Victor Harbour parkrun in South Australia this weekend. It was parkrun number 99 for her and number 49 for Paul. They'll be running at their home parkrun next week for their milestones at Berwick Springs.

00:42:32Scott Trickett: And tell me about Vincent Liu. He's a Zoolander who's doing the double.

00:42:36Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, after we recorded the news, I found out that there is a parkrunner out there or at least a Zoolander, pretty sure he's a parkrunner, who did the double at Berlin Marathon. He did the inline skating marathon on Saturday and he backed it up on Sunday with running the marathon as well. How impressive is that? Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Berlin, but I'm pretty sure the last time I was there, I noticed cobblestones. How does that even work with inline skating?

00:43:12Scott Trickett: Maybe they avoid the cobblestones.

00:43:14Melissa Erbacher: Really? Like 42.195 kilometres around a city of that age and they can skip all the cobblestones?

00:43:24Scott Trickett: Who knows?

00:43:25Melissa Erbacher: I find that hard to believe.

00:43:26Scott Trickett: We need to get Vincent on the pod and he can tell us all about it. There's a challenge for you, Mel.

00:43:32Melissa Erbacher: There's a challenge for me?

00:43:34Scott Trickett: Yes, hunt down Vincent and find out the story behind the double, the Berlin double.

00:43:40Melissa Erbacher: Challenge accepted.

Launches and anniversaries ("Where is the cake?")

00:43:43Scott Trickett: We have no launches in parkrun Australia this week, unfortunately, but we do have anniversaries. So where are we going for some cake, Mel?

00:43:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, if you scoot on over for your holiday before the next parkrun day, you could go to Champion Lakes in WA and have cake for their first anniversary.

00:44:05Scott Trickett: Great name, Champion Lakes. My dog's called Champion.

00:44:11Melissa Erbacher: And you could also head north to Hamilton Island in Queensland who are celebrating their first anniversary as are Petrie. I can't believe these events are both a year old already. I remember their launches like it was yesterday. Not that I was at their launches, but you know. You tend to remember the ones that are launching close-ish by you or at least in the same state.

00:44:36Scott Trickett: Time flies when you're having fun. But one thing those three events are doing, they're celebrating their anniversaries on International parkrun Day.

00:44:45Melissa Erbacher: Which is the birthday slash anniversary of parkrun in the world. That's a bit special.

Channel 4 News Crew

00:44:51Scott Trickett: Yep. And we're a bit excited because we're going to have our Channel 4 news team at Bushy next week. For the anniversary celebrations. Sending coverage.

00:45:02Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Very exciting.

00:45:05Scott Trickett: Stay tuned for that.

00:45:06Melissa Erbacher: In other exciting news, it's time to go to our Strava Art Competition. There's been a lot of contention. A lot of, how do I put this nicely?

00:45:22Scott Trickett: Debate. Rigorous debate.

00:45:25Melissa Erbacher: Discussion. Let's use those D words. Yeah, it may have got heated at some points about who actually is the winner of this competition.

00:45:40Scott Trickett: Did we guarantee that we would announce the winner this week?

00:45:45Melissa Erbacher: Well, I don't know if we used the word promise.

00:45:51Scott Trickett: I think we might have used guarantee.

00:45:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, if we did, that sounds like something you would have said, so I'm not going to be held responsible for that.

00:45:59Scott Trickett: So the wash-up is we're not going to announce the winner this week because we can't decide.

00:46:05Melissa Erbacher: Well, each of us can decide. However, we can't agree. Okay. Let's put it that way. And since there's only one prize for who comes first, we're going to have to throw over to an objective other.

00:46:25Scott Trickett: Which will be next week. Which we will guarantee next week we will announce the winner. We just need a bit more time to discuss it.

00:46:37Melissa Erbacher: Well, to submit the top three that we have to to the powers that be so that they can decide and and we might get those powers that be on the podcast so they can announce it as well and therefore get rid of all the blame or finger pointing at us if and or when the participants would like to um enter into what do they always say in competitions no correspondence will be entered into once the winner is announced maybe we should make that disclaimer now it has been amazing that we have had so many entries and they have just been fantastic and this is why we're having a problem And we thought it would just be easy, you know, that you could figure out. It would be obvious who the winner was. But we have had such fierce competition and people getting out there and trying attempt after attempt and refining what they're doing. Like they've become these experts at Strava Arts. So it's. It's definitely an indication of the high caliber of entries that we've received that we're having so many difficulties in figuring out who's going to win.

00:47:53Scott Trickett: It's fair to say we were surprised with the amount of entries and the quality of the entries. We just thought it'd be a bit of fun, a bit of an excuse to get out and try your hand at Strava up. But

Strava Art Competition

00:48:08Melissa Erbacher: And we've learned some things along the way too, haven't we, Scotty?

00:48:11Scott Trickett: About running competitions.

00:48:13Melissa Erbacher: Yes. And about creating rules at the start. And not even just that, but Strava art competitions, you know, I think there's a little bit of scope for us to have another one of these, but with different boundaries, let's say. A little bit more creative license allowed to participants in the future. Yeah. So we can get some really wild and wacky stuff. Would you agree?

00:48:42Scott Trickett: I would. I would. Yeah. We will do it again. Definitely.

00:48:45Melissa Erbacher: Good. We agree on something. Yes. That's nice. Let's finish the podcast there, shall we?

00:48:53Scott Trickett: Okay. You don't want to hear my word of the week?

Word of the week

00:48:56Melissa Erbacher: Oh, of course. Dazzle us.

00:48:59Scott Trickett: So one of the flow-on effects of having Danny on the podcast last week is we were introduced to all these UK listeners who love the UK podcast and were being introduced to the Aussie podcast, as it seems. Now, there are some differences between the UK people and me. Yes. My word of the week is equanimity. Do you know what that one is, Mel?

00:49:38Melissa Erbacher: I don't off the top of my head. I can have a guess. Go on, please explain your educational podcast word of the week.

00:49:45Scott Trickett: To describe someone or something as equanimity, you are suggesting that they are mentally or emotionally stable, especially under tension or strain, calmness.

00:49:59Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:50:01Scott Trickett: So what others may perceive as lazy and laid back, some may perceive as calm and emotionally stable. Do you know where I'm going now?

00:50:15Melissa Erbacher: I do know where you're going now. So are you trying to say that you're calm and emotionally stable?

00:50:24Scott Trickett: I like to think of myself in those terms as opposed to lazy and laid back.

00:50:31Melissa Erbacher: What's wrong with laid back?

00:50:33Scott Trickett: Or asleep.

00:50:35Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's so laid back you're horizontal. I don't – laid back is a term that we often use to describe ourselves in Queensland and it is – there's nothing to be ashamed of. No. I might actually get offended if somebody called me calm when I was trying to be laid back.

00:50:57Scott Trickett: Well, now they can describe you as – Equiminius?

00:51:04Melissa Erbacher: I think I'm pretty lucky in that I managed to avoid being described at all. So nice way to fly under the radar there, me. And that's not an invitation, guys. So let's just, yeah. So say the word for us again because I'm going to have to go look this up just so I know how to spell it.

00:51:28Scott Trickett: Equanimity.

00:51:30Melissa Erbacher: So equanimity, is that not the state of being that? Yes. And if you are that, you're equanimous?

00:51:37Scott Trickett: Well, that I'm not so sure about. I might have made that bit up, but yeah.

00:51:42Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, thank you for educating us, Scotty. It's always a pleasure to hear your podcast words of the week.

00:51:51Scott Trickett: So we've had three weeks of it. I think we might have, that might nip it in the butt. We might have to come up with another one.

00:51:57Melissa Erbacher: Already?

00:51:57Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:52:00Melissa Erbacher: Okay, we're going to have to go back to not being an educational podcast. What are the other categories we can aim for that we should aspire to? We could totally throw in some random new segments to qualify for other categories.

00:52:15Scott Trickett: You know the most popular podcasts, the crime podcasts, you know Serial, that was a really popular podcast.

00:52:22Melissa Erbacher: Ooh, how can, whoa, what can we do to qualify as a crime podcast?

00:52:29Scott Trickett: We might finish the podcast next week just reading out the crime report.

00:52:34Melissa Erbacher: Or we could just, no, we should start a whodunit. We should totally start a whodunit. You can add live a little bit if you want to. Live a little bit. That was almost me singing. You're going to have to cut that part out.

00:53:10[music]

00:53:12Scott Trickett: No, that's going in. That's going in the end. No, it's not.

00:53:17Melissa Erbacher: Dammit. Oh, no.