Episode 39 - Simon Kilma

Episode details · 213 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:12Melissa Erbacher: 39 of the parkrun adventurers we have had a big weekend in the parkrun world so we're going to have another big episode i'm mel i'm joined today by my co-host scotty scotty say hi hi and maybe we should just go straight to the news Saturday 1st of October 2016 was International parkrun Day. Celebrating 12 years of parkrun, the combined achievements of parkrunners worldwide since the first step was run at Bushy Park Time Trial on the 2nd of October 2004 are nothing short of phenomenal. 120,005 events have been held worldwide by 214,866 volunteers. 1,803,794 parkrunners have spent 1,021 years, 360 days, 18 hours, 1 minute and 11 seconds, completing 90,172,633 kilometres.

parkrun news bulletin

00:01:25Scott Trickett: It was a weekend for world records. Nine-year-old Wynnum parkrunner Noah Carter ran a world record-breaking time at the Brisbane Roadrunners 15k Club Championship event on Sunday. Noah's 1 hour 6.23 is 7 minutes and 2 seconds faster than the current world record of 1 hour 13.27 set by Cameron Plate of the USA.

00:01:48Melissa Erbacher: In the Northern Hemisphere, Kenya's Shadrach Kibbet Korea and Viola Jepchamba set new men and women's course records at the Cardiff Half Marathon in Wales. However, it was Cardiff parkrun's own Michael Kallenberg who stole the show. Dressed as Robin, best known for being Batman's crime-fighting sidekick, Michael completed the 21.1k in a nifty 1.03.34, setting a world record for the fastest half marathon run in a superhero costume.

00:02:18Scott Trickett: Event organisers at the 2016 Coast to Kosciuszko 240km race have released the first round of offers to the participants for the prestigious invitational event. Several parkrunners have received confirmation of their inclusion in the starting lineup for the race, which will be held on the 5th of December this year.

00:02:37Melissa Erbacher: And reports have been received that the number of kilted parkrunners participating at Port Macquarie parkrun has doubled in the last two weeks. We are unable to confirm whether wearing a kilt has performance-enhancing qualities when running.

00:02:53Scott Trickett: Lots of records being broken over the weekend and lots of celebrations happening for International parkrun Day. Twelve years ago, did you have a record-breaking International parkrun Day, Milt?

00:03:08Melissa Erbacher: I would say yes, I did. I got to see a record-breaking number of whales breaching from the lighthouse when I was running around the top at Kiwana parkrun. I may have increased my time by about five minutes while I stopped to watch them because they were breaching this week. It wasn't just the spout of water going up from the blowholes. They were actually breaching and playing and Got to love a bit of whale frolicking during parkrun. So there was no PBs. What did you get up to? Oh, no PBs in that respect. Not time PBs, no.

00:03:42Scott Trickett: Me, I was back at Studley. I was a run director at Studley. So it was nice that we were both at our home parkruns for International parkrun Day. I had a very chilled out day. We had a bring a friend and bring a plate day and sort of tried to encourage the community aspect of parkrun and it was lovely. For still a relatively new event, trying to get to know each other. Great morning, but it was terrible weather down here in Melbourne. We're going to touch on that later in the pod today, how we all coped with the weather over the weekend. But I'm guessing you're going to tell me it was fantastic up on the Sunshine Coast.

00:04:15Melissa Erbacher: Beautiful one day, perfect the next. What can I say? You can always come for a holiday. You know that.

00:04:22Scott Trickett: Listen, someone who is on holiday but still working for the parkrun Adventurers was our mate PK. From our Channel 4 news crew. There's only one member of the Channel 4 news crew.

00:04:33Melissa Erbacher: Apart from us, we're on the news crew.

00:04:35Scott Trickett: And he did some fantastic reporting from the home of parkrun at Bushy on Saturday. Got a bunch of interviews and finished up with the man himself, PSH.

Channel 4 News Crew

00:04:47Paul Kitching: G'day there, Scott and Mel. It's PK underscore PK. Your Channel 4 reporter checking in from the home of parkrun, Bushy Park. Yep, made it over here to the UK. It's a glorious sunny day here in whatever suburb it is. We've just been on the train here. We actually caught a train with some other random parkrunners and then shared a cab. cab here because uh some bloke came up and he said you're going to parkrun i'm like you bet we are anyway we're here enough rambling i'm going to go and see if i can meet a few people um it's actually parkrun's 12th birthday um as many of you know the international parkrun day is today and what a great place to celebrate it so here we are and i'll go and chat with a few people cheers Well, that was pretty incredible. I'm not sure if I made any sense with the intro because I was a little bit dazed and confused and a little bit, you know, fluttery being at the birthday. Here, I can't even talk. The birthday parkrun. Anyway, yep, this is PK. Just done the 5Ks. Bit of a typical English day. It's been beautiful. I've got Sally with me here and it's a nice day for parkrun.

00:05:50Sally: Absolutely gorgeous. The sun is shining brightly and we're all in our shorts and T-shirts. It's fantastic.

00:05:57Paul Kitching: We're definitely wearing shorts and T-shirts. Sally, where's your home parkrun?

00:06:01Sally: Oh, well, I just run across the other side of the river, the River Thames at Kingston, which is a lovely route. It's right along the towpath and round into some parkland behind. But I started my running at Bushy Park, and as it's their birthday today, I thought I would join in.

00:06:20Paul Kitching: Fantastic. Well, certainly an awesome day to come, being the International parkrun Day. Just a few people here. I'm not sure how many they've got, but we'll have to ask one of the officials later. They're still going through the funnel. From my first experience of the funnel, what a great concept.

00:06:34Sally: I think you've got about 1,300 today. 1,300. Wow. Now, this gentleman is from South Australia. South Australia. And he's interviewing me. Indeed. So come on, Ingrid, you can say a few words.

00:06:43Paul Kitching: Hi Ingrid, I've got Ingrid here as well. I'm just having a look at her back and yep, that's 250 parkruns. I've got 300 today. He's your 300th today. Congratulations, how about that? Well done Ingrid.

00:06:53Sally: Long old slug.

00:06:55Paul Kitching: Where's your home parkrun?

00:06:56Sally: Kingston upon Thames. Nice, there you go.

00:06:59Paul Kitching: Some home parkrunners here. Wow, what a great place to come, far out.

00:07:01Sally: It's a long way to come and do an anniversary, isn't it?

00:07:03Paul Kitching: Well yeah, that's it. We came over Thursday, so... And when I knew I was coming, I thought, oh, I'll just go and do the parkrun near where we're staying in Kensington. But then I thought, nah, mate said, you've got to do bushy.

00:07:13Sally: This is a famous tree. Oh, right. When you see the logo of parkrun. Oh, are you serious? This is the tree. This is the tree.

00:07:20Paul Kitching: Wow, we're standing right next to the tree.

00:07:21Sally: They changed the route of it. We used to go clockwise. Right. And it finished under the tree. Fantastic. And then they had to change it, but they insisted on finishing at the tree still.

00:07:31Paul Kitching: I love it. Yeah, well, that tree is pretty important. Anyway, signing off now. Thank you so much to Sally and Ingrid. And thank you for a very special day here for International parkrun Day.

00:07:41Sally: Bye, everybody. Bye.

00:07:43Paul Kitching: Cheers. Over. Okay, now I'm actually with Dan, the guy that I mentioned before that we met on the train, on the tube. Dan, how was your International parkrun Day?

00:07:55Dan: This was a great run. The location is beautiful. And there's a lot of energy coming from all the people here.

00:08:00Paul Kitching: Yeah, absolutely. I felt that as well. I was almost crying as I took off. It was very emotional, wasn't it?

00:08:07Dan: Yeah, and the rain really added something. At first when it started raining, I was concerned this was going to slow me down. But when it's hitting your face at the end, it feels very nice. Yeah, it's very refreshing, isn't it?

00:08:18Paul Kitching: Okay, would you believe it? I'm standing under the parkrun tree with not only the amazing man who started parkrun, but the man who started parkrun 12 years ago. That's right. Paul... Sinton-Hewitt. That's correct. Hi, nice to be with you. How are you, Paul? Mel and Scott will no doubt be sending all their very best happy birthday wishes to you.

00:08:38Paul Sinton-Hewitt: And thank you. Well, actually, thank you to the whole of Australia. I'm so looking forward to spending about six months travelling through Australia, coming to each and every...

00:08:47Paul Kitching: parkrun event really yeah in the next year or so wow that is brilliant or you have to make sure you come um come over to adelaide or south australia and come to the mount barker parkrun if you can or one of the parkruns in adelaide anyway i'll be making an attempt to go to every single parkrun wow that is brilliant good on you well thank you so much and a good day today how many people do you reckon you had here

00:09:06Paul Sinton-Hewitt: It's about 1,200, I think, at this event.

00:09:09Paul Kitching: Fantastic, and a great way to celebrate. I just spoke to someone who did their 300th. She was pretty stoked as someone. But the whole thing about it, I just felt very emotional, and I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of all the parkrun adventurers for creating this amazing thing that is a very simple and easy thing, but you've certainly changed so many people's lives. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Actually, you know...

00:09:30Paul Sinton-Hewitt: My heart goes out to each and every Australian. I have an Australian passport, so I have a great affiliation for Australia, and especially to Tim Oberg and the team who get Australia running, and it's just brilliant. So thank you, and thank you to every parkrunner out in Australia. Thanks so much.

00:09:49Paul Kitching: Well, that's it. Not a bad way to finish my day here at Bushy parkrun, saying g'day and thank you to the guy who started parkrun many years ago, 12 years ago now. All right, let's go and have a coffee. Thanks, Mel and Scott. PK from the parkrun Adventurers Channel 4 News Team signing out.

00:10:08Melissa Erbacher: Fantastic work there, PK. We love the effort you put in. And despite having a bit of a fangirl moment there with PSH, which... let's put it frankly, we probably all would, breaking some exciting news about him coming over to Australia for six months. I think there are going to be a lot of parkrunners out there keen to shake the hand of the man who made this all happen for us.

00:10:35Scott Trickett: I reckon he does a lot of handshaking and hugging. There was a lot of hugging over the weekend with the football grand finals. But I wonder what PSH's hug quota is.

00:10:45Melissa Erbacher: There was hugging with the what?

00:10:47Scott Trickett: With the football. Did you know there was a couple of games of football on the weekend?

00:10:51Melissa Erbacher: No, the only thing I noticed about the weekend was that Facebook feeds filled up with a lot of people saying, yay dogs, yay sharks. And it's just like, what's going on? Everybody's keen for animals this weekend.

00:11:05Scott Trickett: Yeah. But back to parkrun. PSH is coming out here. He's going to try and do every parkrun in six months. So obviously lots of freedom runs.

00:11:14Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Are there enough? There would be enough days physically to do like a parkrun a day in six months.

00:11:21Scott Trickett: He's going to be busy.

00:11:21Melissa Erbacher: No, there isn't. He's going to have to do more because 365 days a year, by the time he gets here, we'll have over 200 events. He's going to have to do two parkruns some days. That is a very ambitious goal. What an adventure. We'll have to get him on the show to have a chat to us about it.

00:11:38Scott Trickett: Yep. We can guarantee that. No, we can't.

00:11:43Melissa Erbacher: Should we guarantee it?

00:11:48Scott Trickett: Yeah. PSH, he'll come on. We've had some wild weather down my neck of the woods and over in South Australia over the weekend. So we thought we might check in on the South Australians and see how they're coping. So it's time to pay a visit to Victor Harbor parkrun and joining us are the two event directors, Shane and Simon. Welcome, lads. Welcome to the podcast.

00:11:49[music]

Meet the ED

00:12:16Simon Porteous: Thanks for having us. Thank you. How are you?

00:12:18Scott Trickett: We're good. How are you? Did you guys survive after the big storm that knocked out half or all of your state last week?

00:12:26Shane: Yep, our path is still there. We actually surveyed it Saturday morning. I set out and plan on going for a longer run. Got to the turnaround point which was a fair section of about 50, 60 metres that was covered in mud. So rang Simon and one of our other event directors for the day and came down. We spent 40, 50 minutes cleaning the end up. On that, the course was pretty unscathed. So

00:12:57Simon Porteous: Yeah we saw some of the photos and saw some of the news.

00:13:14Scott Trickett: And you guys are on the beach, correct? You guys are a coastal run along the water. So it must have been at least windy.

00:13:22Shane: Our actual day, apart from morning, it was a beautiful morning. There was no breeze at all and quite warm. So we got quite lucky with the actual morning. But the week prior it was, and even now it's quite windy and rain and all the rivers are flowing now.

00:13:43Melissa Erbacher: How did you get into parkrun?

00:13:46Simon Porteous: I can't exactly remember. I remember just coming across it on the web, just researching running at some stage, and then I found out there was one at Torrens. So it took me six months to eventually get to Torrens parkrun, and once I did, I was just... was like, wow, this is amazing, this concept. I love it. And came home, told Shane about it, saying how we should get this happening in Victor Harbor, thinking that it wouldn't go any further. But of course, Shane had to go and tell everybody else that we're bringing parkrun to Victor Harbor. Once he told everybody that's what we were doing, we had to follow through. And so what was that, three years ago? And still... Come on. It's been great.

00:14:36Melissa Erbacher: Nothing like telling a whole bunch of people you're going to do something to make you accountable and actually follow through, is there?

00:14:42Simon Porteous: Yeah, that's right. I haven't learned my lesson yet.

00:14:47Melissa Erbacher: So how have you found it then, building this community in Victor Harbour of parkrunners?

00:14:53Shane: Fantastic. We've got various... strangers that have come to parkrun prior to doing parkrunner do a lot of triathlete triathlons so found out a few other people were getting into it triathlons and they were using parkrun as their run so we would go out do a bike ride before parkrun then from there that group has now grown and we have formed, uh, Victor Harbor Triathlon Club. Um, just, just a lot of those people are parkrun athletes and wanted to do something extra. So that's just one example of, of our parkrun athletes coming and, and wanting to do more together than just a Saturday morning. Um, And just watching people improve over the last two years has been fantastic.

00:15:59Scott Trickett: It is good to see people come from walking to, what are they, have you got any Ironmen in that triathlon club yet?

00:16:07Shane: Yeah, there's actually two people that I know of that have completed an Ironman. One of our Victor Harbor Triathlon Club members has finished a couple. Wade Kruger, he finished Cairns this year and did quite well. And then we go even further with the running. Simon's a pretty well-noted ultra marathon and somehow has convinced me to do my first ultra marathon this year. And a lot of that is just incorporating parkrunners as one of your weekly runs. Not bad for a guy who hates running. Yeah. Crazy's in the water down here.

00:16:49Melissa Erbacher: That's going to be one of my next questions because triathlon requires you in the water and you don't usually get pools big enough to do the swim legs of triathlons. I'm pretty sure that South Australia has a lot of sharks. In fact, I saw there was a little dorsal fin on a map that was seen in a harbour. I don't know if it was your harbour, but it was down in South Australia. Do you ever see sharks from your course?

00:17:18Shane: Well, the shark, the photo of a shark that you're referring to is actually where I do a lot of my training swims because we don't have a swimming pool in Victor Harbour. yet but i do a lot of my swimmers in that lake and it's also where um sid james holds two major triathlon events during the year in there so it'll be interesting to see what happens in november and march but as far as seeing things at our course Yeah, often we'll see lots and lots of dolphins swimming alongside the course as well as seals out there as well. But as far as sharks, not yet.

00:18:00Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that's the problem. You don't see them until they eat you.

00:18:05Scott Trickett: So boys, tell us about the course itself.

00:18:07Simon Porteous: It's a very flat out and back. It's got a couple of little rises that, especially in that last kilometre, that like to give you a bit of a bite in the legs when you don't really want it. It's got the, probably just looking outside right now, quite fairly known as the windiest parkrun in South Australia.

00:18:27Shane: But it's always a tailwind. Yeah, which is great for an out-and-back course. Yeah.

00:18:33Simon Porteous: No, that's not true. It's always a headwind, both ways.

00:18:36Scott Trickett: That's usually my experience.

00:18:38Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure tailwinds exist.

00:18:40Simon Porteous: Yeah, that's our experience, yeah. It's always a headwind. At the turnaround mark, we are a bit protected by a few hedges and bushes. There's a bit of a nice little reprieve at the halfway mark, but it only lasts about 50 metres and then you're back into it.

00:19:02Scott Trickett: I was looking at some of the photos. It does look very pretty. I'm not sure whether it's the... What do you guys call it? The most beautiful parkrun in the world?

00:19:09Simon Porteous: I don't know if we call it that. It has been called that. LAUGHTER There's a few of those going around.

00:19:12[laughter]

00:19:15Scott Trickett: It does look pretty. But one thing I also saw, someone's growing a beard. Is that you, Shane?

00:19:21Shane: That's the ultra trail marathon beard. I hate it. My wife hates it. But apparently it makes you a faster trail runner. So, yeah, anything to train less and I can sit there and stroke the beard and I can log that as training.

00:19:39Scott Trickett: So a scientific test, because I want to do it as well. I had a beard for a while and was told to get rid of it. But has it made you run faster? That's all I want to know.

00:19:49Shane: On the trails, yeah. I think it only applies to trails, though. So until we move the beach... 20 meters to the left and put it back on the beach. I don't know how it will go at parkrun, but another 19 days or so before it all comes off and I can stop all this crazy long distance stuff.

00:20:16Melissa Erbacher: Now, gentlemen, you've also got a parkrunner who is going to be undertaking quite an adventure early next year. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?

00:20:24Simon Porteous: Yeah, we've got Andrew Bizach. He's raising money for DEBRA Australia. They're an organisation that does research and support for people with disabilities. I'm going to get the name wrong. It's basically the butterfly children. They're just people with very, very thin, delicate skin. As Andrew has explained it to me, it's the worst disease you've never heard of. It's a very rare condition. And it's, yeah, just really, really horrible condition. And Deborah does a wonderful job. It's wonderful work supporting them. So Andrew has concocted this plan to run from Adelaide to Brisbane, which is where Debra, the organisation, is based. And along the way, he wants to raise $1 million for Debra. So Andrew's a regular parkrunner in Victor Harbour, regular supporter of us, and we're doing everything we can to support him as well, including we're going to start off, we're going to use a half marathon starting in Victor Harbor next year. Funnily enough, you know, you start a parkrun and then you start thinking about what else can I do? Because obviously I don't like having sleeping or life outside of running.

00:21:57Melissa Erbacher: You've got too much time on your hands if you've got time to sleep.

00:22:00Simon Porteous: That's right.

00:22:01Scott Trickett: Great. Thanks for that. Well done on supporting it. And thanks for coming on the podcast this week and sharing the stories from Victor Harbour.

00:22:09[music]

00:22:09Simon Porteous: Thank you.

00:22:22Scott Trickett: Coming up very shortly, we are going to announce the winner of our Strava art contest. But we thought it would be cool to have a chat to someone from Strava itself. So joining us today is Simon Klima, Strava's Director of Local Marketing. Welcome to the pod, Simon.

00:22:38Simon Klima: Thanks, Scotty. Thanks for having me.

00:22:40Scott Trickett: Strava, we are massive fans of Strava. But for those that don't know, if we do have any listeners, what exactly is Strava?

00:22:47Simon Klima: So Strava is a social network for athletes. place for you to record your activities, your runs, your rides, your swims and share them with your friends through your Strava feed and have that sort of camaraderie and motivation you get from sharing your activities and you can also give kudos to people. They can give you kudos back which is Strava's equivalent of a like on Facebook. So yeah, it's essentially a social network for athletes.

00:23:20Melissa Erbacher: And how many members does Strava currently have, Simon?

00:23:24Simon Klima: It's a good question. We don't actually give away the exact number. We have tens of millions of members globally. And we add a million new members every 45 to 50 days. But it's not an exact number that we give out, really, just because we're growing so quickly that any number we do give out is almost instantly out of date. But yeah, we're growing quite nicely. We have tens of millions of members globally, and we have around 8 million activities uploaded to Strava every single week.

00:23:57Scott Trickett: That's massive. Massive numbers. I didn't realize it was so high. Do you have figures on whether you have more runners or cyclists or skiers, in fact, because you've got so many categories?

00:24:08Simon Klima: Yeah, so there are parts of the year when we have more run uploads than ride. What we tend to find is running is less seasonal than cycling. So actually, I know I'm talking from a Northern Hemisphere point of view, but as we As we go into the fall season, we start to see more running than riding on the platform. Run is a super healthy category for us. In fact, I've got a stat for you here. In 2016, so far, there have been 470 million miles run. by Strava members, which is almost 2,000 trips to the moon. So yeah, running is a big part of Strava.

00:24:56Melissa Erbacher: That's an impressive stat. Nice, nice. Now, Strava, a lot of people may not be aware, has actually been in partnership with parkrun for almost two years. And there's functionality enabled for parkrunners to link their parkrun and Strava profiles. So for those who haven't already done it, what are the benefits to parkrunners in doing this, in linking their profiles to Strava?

00:25:23Simon Klima: Yeah, that's right. It's been a partnership for a couple of years now, which we've been really proud to have. We think Strava and parkrun share a lot of the same values around people being active and the whole community spirit and social value behind all of that. And yeah, the integration... So far, it's been fairly light touch to be honest. The value of linking your profiles is pretty much just around people being able to discover you on Strava. So once you've linked your profiles, you may have noticed that when the results pages appear on On the parkrun platform, there's a little Strava icon next to your name if you have linked your profile. And that just enables people to discover you on Strava and to follow you. So it's been more about a sort of social side of things. We are always working on ways that we can actually improve and add further benefits to parkrunners. And over the next few weeks, there'll be some exciting developments on that front. Can't go into too much detail right now, but it will become apparent soon. But yeah, it's very much something that we're looking into and just wanting to make sure that we provide the best experience possible to parkrunners.

00:26:45Scott Trickett: Can you give us a little preview of anything that might be coming up in the next couple of weeks? Just a little hint.

00:26:50Simon Klima: Sure, yeah. So the gist of it is we're going to be creating communities on Strava for all the park rooms. I believe there's over 800 park rooms now globally. We're going to be creating communities for them using our club function. And the Strava Club function has actually been subject to quite a lot of improvements and changes recently. Now available on the mobile, which is a great step forward. Previously only on Strava.com, but now the clubs are on mobile and there's greater social functionality as well in regards of discussion forums and app mentions and that sort of thing. So we are going to be providing... homes for every single parkrun on the Strava platform using the new club functionality.

00:27:41Melissa Erbacher: Sounds awesome. Are there any plans that Strava has for creating parkrun related challenges? So I know that at the beginning of a month people can sign up for a 10k challenge or a half marathon challenge for a particular month. Will there be parkrun related challenges that people can earn badges for?

00:28:03Simon Klima: We currently don't have a facility to run challenges in that way, but there's nothing to say that we won't do in the future. I think self-serve challenges is a great idea, and I think it's something that we talk about a lot. A real thing at Strava around the noise of opportunity. There's so many different things that we could do, and we do our best to listen to our members to try and make sure we do the right things in the right order. And yeah, this is something that we've heard a lot, and not just from parkrun, but from lots of other... different sort of organisations and bodies who want to, you know, who want to do their own challenges. So I think it's something that we'll look to do in the future. There's nothing sort of slated at the moment, but yeah, it's an interesting one for us and hopefully something that we can do going forward.

00:29:00Melissa Erbacher: Okay, Simon, so I have to confess to not, I mean, I am on Strava and my profile is linked, but I still struggle sometimes to get the run from my watch onto Strava just because I'm technologically backward. So I actually asked some friends what some of their common issues are or, you know, what might be nice to have. And one of them mentioned that, yes, she often pauses her Garmin. and or sometimes the signal drops out when she's out on a run and she would like the ability to be able to edit her runs on Strava so she can either cut out those sections or she can join them. Is there any plan to create that kind of functionality in the future?

00:29:48Simon Klima: So you can already crop your activity on Strava.com. I guess it's an interesting one. GPS is never sort of 100% accurate. I guess we have to just accept that from the start. So it's likely that there may be some sort of dropout and sort of inconsistencies with GPS data and that kind of happens. I think as well with the devices, it's hard for us to sort of have a very strong position because so many people use lots of different devices and it's hard for us to influence exactly sort of how they work, we're very much sort of the software side, if you like. What I would recommend is that maybe people put auto-pause on rather than manually pausing it. Maybe that would help. And try using the Strava app as well. We find the app is incredibly reliable. So if people are struggling with their devices, maybe they can give that a go and they maybe get better results that way.

00:30:53Scott Trickett: I'm a big fan of the auto pause. You don't need to pause your watches. Strava takes care of all that, which is fantastic. But one thing I'd like to see is the ability to remove some kudos. I've been called out a couple of times giving some people some kudos for going for a bike ride. Are we going to be able to do that in the future? Take back our kudos?

00:31:18Simon Klima: I don't think that's on our agenda at the moment. It's interesting that that's become an issue for you, Scotty. What made you want to withdraw that kudos?

00:31:29Scott Trickett: Well, sometimes I'm giving so much kudos and then I just get carried away and someone's gone for a bike ride and I think, oh, if only I could take that back.

00:31:38Simon Klima: I think that's only a positive thing. You gave someone kudos, you made them happy, they take it away. is true what about the flybys that's the other feature that i love of strava are we going to see any advancements with the flybys i think you know with everything we once we launch it we we don't just leave it there we try and iterate and improve on things all the time so flybys um is actually still a beta project um so it's it's still it's still very much being worked on um and still just on Strava.com at the moment. But yeah, we'll see what the engagement and the usage is like from our members. And again, as I've sort of alluded to before, if our members show us positive signs that they really like this feature, then it's something that we will invest in. But yeah, we think it's great and it's particularly fun looking at flybys for parkruns. I think the The visualizations that they provide are really interesting just to see how the field performs.

00:32:43Scott Trickett: I agree. I encourage our listeners, if they haven't, to use the flyby specifically for parkrun. One thing it does highlight is how fast some of the people take off as their little dot flies away from you.

00:32:55Simon Klima: And how well they maintain that pace as well.

00:32:58Scott Trickett: Exactly. It's interesting. You can see where the hills are because the dot slows down.

00:33:03Melissa Erbacher: I know some people who use the flybys actually to track down other Strava users who either cut them off on their mountain bikes while they were riding or doing dangerous things. So it's also able to be used for passive stalking. I'm sure that wasn't its original intention.

00:33:21Simon Klima: No, not necessarily. I guess what I hear a lot of is people use it as a way of building up their community. And, you know, they find people who they've sort of ridden with on a trail and then they can identify who they are on Strava and they can start following each other, which just sort of adds to the social experience. That's how I hear that flybys is used a lot of the time.

00:33:43Melissa Erbacher: Do you know, you would be the best place to know, I think, because you're from marketing. Do you have any background on the history of the hashtag StravaProveIt? Because it's very prevalent amongst my running friends that, you know, if it's not on Strava, it didn't happen, basically. And was that something that came from you guys and your marketing department or, you know, did early adopters of Strava coin it themselves? Yeah.

00:34:13Simon Klima: Yes, that's a good question. It came from Strava. It was an internal thing. We're a company of runners and cyclists and the prove it line was a way for people to prove that you're training, prove your performance, your PRs, your improvements and that was just a line that encapsulated that which was right at the time. It's a few years old now and Strava's grown as a social network for athletes. I think we've become slightly more broad and diverse community. And you may have seen the latest campaign, which is Strive, which improves the celebration of performance over a whole variety of different levels. And within Strive, we featured real Strava members. So it's a real community film. There were no actors in there. It was just great Strava members. So yes, prove it was something that came out of Strava. And it's great that people still use it. And as I say, we've moved away from that a little bit and we have this different campaign now, Strive. It sort of reflects who we are now. But it's still great to hear that people are using it. And I also hear if it's not on Strava, it didn't happen, which is quite a fun way of putting it as well. And it's just great to hear that the community sort of see Strava as part of their day-to-day active lives.

00:35:43Melissa Erbacher: Definitely. The word Strava is actually, it means strive, doesn't it?

00:35:50Simon Klima: It means strive in Swedish. That's right. Yeah. So one of our co-founders, Michael Horvath, is Swedish. And yeah, so I believe that's where the name came from through him. So yeah, pure translation from strive to Strava in Swedish.

00:36:10Melissa Erbacher: Great word. Very empowering.

00:36:12Simon Klima: Yeah. Yeah.

00:36:12Scott Trickett: Now, before we let you go, Simon, what's your parkrun experience? Where's your home parkrun?

00:36:18Simon Klima: So mine is Ashton Court in Bristol. previously i've fairly recently moved here previously it was uh it was the crane parkrun in in twickenham uh when i lived there uh and i've also done a bushy parkrun a few times uh and a few of the other sort of west london ones as well so um yeah i've i've i've done a few and i'm looking forward to doing the the chrissy fields parkrun in in san francisco um in a couple of weeks time i'm I'm back out in San Francisco, which is where the Strava headquarters are. And there's a Crissy Field parkrun there, which I believe is going from strength to strength. So I'm looking forward to trying that one.

00:37:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, we always see lots of photos of our friends at Crissy Field. It's very popular. Looks like a great parkrun.

00:37:07Simon Klima: I think so, yeah. It's quite a stunning backdrop. Pretty amazing location. A little bit different to the Ashton Court one in Bristol that I'm used to. So that'll be a cool one to do.

00:37:21Scott Trickett: Thanks for coming on, Simon. We really, as we said earlier, massive fans of Strava. So to be able to talk to someone from HQ, it's been a real treat.

00:37:31[music]

00:37:31Simon Klima: No problem. Thank you for having me.

Strava art contest — Tina and Connie

00:37:44Scott Trickett: Joining us now on the pod are two ladies who participated in our Strava art contest, Connie and Tina. Tell us a little bit about the background to how you went about your Strava art adventure and did you actually run it together?

00:38:00Tina: Yes, we did. We ran it together and we had the kids helping us marking out where we were to run. So it was quite well planned and perfectly executed.

00:38:12Melissa Erbacher: So you had the kids marking out, so you made them stand places or they actually had cones?

00:38:19Tina: They had cones and we made them stand places, but then they did move some of the cones, but, you know, improvised.

00:38:25Scott Trickett: So it sounds like a real team effort. Was there much planning or what was the motivation behind having a go at it?

00:38:33Connie: Well, motivation was winning.

00:38:39Tina: Yes, we are a little bit competitive, so... So when I heard about the competition on the podcast, I was sort of like, oh yeah, that'd be interesting to have a go at. And then when I saw the logo come up and the first few attempts, I was like, surely we can do better than this. Come on, we can do this. So yeah, we put together a plan and carried it off.

00:39:01Melissa Erbacher: Did you just have the one attempt?

00:39:04Tina: No, I had a couple of attempts probably a few days earlier, actually the last day of the original deadline, I think. But it was a bit rushed and I was really a bit sore after Sydney Marathon. So that one didn't come out so well. So I had a few days to think about it. And then Connie came and gave me a hand the second time, which was always our original plan anyway, that she'd come and help me. So it works better as a team.

00:39:29Scott Trickett: And so was the motivation winning and winning the prizes. Did you have a preference for either option P or option A?

00:39:38Tina: How could you not want to win a costume piece designed by Mel? That was the crown and the jewel. Absolutely.

00:39:48Scott Trickett: Obviously not as impressed by my certificates, but I can understand.

00:39:53Tina: Well, I have high hopes for your certificates too, Scotty, so I'm really hoping that we do win this.

00:39:59Scott Trickett: Was there any interest in option P?

00:40:03Tina: No.

00:40:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's fairly decisive. You don't like the mystery boxes?

00:40:13Tina: It's just too much risk-taking.

00:40:16Scott Trickett: We're really happy that you chose option A because congratulations, Tina and Connie, you are our winners of our Stride for Life contest.

00:40:28Connie: That's awesome. Go Central Lakes. Yay.

00:40:34Scott Trickett: It was a great effort. You won for accuracy.

00:40:38Tina: Accuracy. Well, yeah, the first trial I had, The leaves were a bit too small, so we had to make the leaves bigger.

00:40:49Melissa Erbacher: Size matters.

00:40:51Tina: Size is important.

00:40:55Melissa Erbacher: Yes, you can have a perfect circle, but if your tree is all wonky, it's not going to win.

00:40:59Tina: That's it. That's right.

00:41:03Melissa Erbacher: You did a great job, ladies. We were very, very impressed. And as we said in the podcast last week, it was very difficult to decide which is why we deferred to people other than ourselves.

00:41:17Scott Trickett: Now, one thing we haven't factored in, we've got two winners, Mel.

00:41:20Melissa Erbacher: This is two of us. Yeah, we do have two winners. Well, I think we're just going to have to make them fight over the DVDs, who gets which. But I'm sure, I don't know, do you think you could design two certificates, Scotty? Two different ones?

00:41:37Scott Trickett: I think I probably could. If you're prepared to design two costume accessories.

00:41:43Melissa Erbacher: I can do that. Awesome. It might take a little while. What was the other prize? I can't remember what the other prize was. Polo shirt.

00:41:53Scott Trickett: Polo shirt. You'll have to share that. Of course. One week on, one week off.

00:41:58Tina: Yeah. Maybe give it to our next parkrunner of the month or something.

00:42:04Connie: That's really cool. Thank you.

00:42:07Melissa Erbacher: You're very welcome. Thanks for participating in the challenge.

00:42:12Tina: No problem. It's parkrun. We look forward to the next one.

00:42:14[music]

Listener survey results (annual perlustration)

00:42:30Scott Trickett: A couple of weeks ago, you may remember, we asked you to fill out a survey for us. And we thought it might be interesting to go through some of those results and share them with you. Would you be interested in hearing those results, Mel?

00:42:42Melissa Erbacher: I love surveys. I love questions and people answering them and the kind of random stuff that you don't expect to see happening. So yes, let's do that.

00:42:51Scott Trickett: No surprising that the majority of our listeners come from Victoria.

00:42:55Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:42:56Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, that's not exactly true. The majority of listeners who are willing to do surveys come from Victoria.

00:43:03Scott Trickett: So you're already spinning it. This is the other thing you can do is spin the results to whichever way you want them to.

00:43:10Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, it's not about spin. It's about understanding that it's only a portion of the people that listen. And, yeah.

00:43:20Scott Trickett: But that is interesting, Victoria. And Queensland was our second most listened state. Might have something to do with the fact that I'm from Victoria and you're from Queensland.

00:43:29Melissa Erbacher: You think?

00:43:30Scott Trickett: Maybe. I don't know.

00:43:32Melissa Erbacher: Because I'm pretty sure none of my friends listen.

00:43:36Scott Trickett: I'm not sure if I have any friends left. But it's also interesting we have more international listeners than we do in the Northern Territory. Which is not surprising because the world is a lot bigger than the Northern Territory. But still.

00:43:50Melissa Erbacher: Once again, people are listening to us in the Northern Territory, but it's possible that they do not have time to answer a survey that a link has been shared to on Facebook. So let's not diss the Northern Territorians just yet.

00:44:04Scott Trickett: So how do we want to address this moving forward?

00:44:07Melissa Erbacher: The fact that they don't answer surveys. Maybe we need to go up there and, I don't know, do a campaign?

00:44:13Scott Trickett: The other question we asked, one of the other questions we asked, was your favourite type of courses. I was interested in this, and as both of us being Territory Directors, when we're planning new parkruns, it's always good to get some feedback over what are the more popular type of courses. And coming out in front, very closely though, were the out-and-backs, which surprised me a little.

00:44:36Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, literally only by 1%, though, the out-and-backs over the single loops.

00:44:42Scott Trickett: Multiple loops, not a fan with our listeners. Who completed the survey?

00:44:46Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I don't know. It might just be because of the social aspect. Out-and-backs, I mean, but once again, like single loops, you don't have that social aspect. And they were pretty, it was neck and neck, so... Yeah, maybe we need to refine the questions next time.

00:45:01Scott Trickett: Well, I did say it was going to be an annual perlustration, so maybe next year's questions will be a bit different.

00:45:08Melissa Erbacher: One of the other questions that we had was asking whether or not our listeners had ever volunteered. And happily, majority of you said yes, with 53% saying yes, you had volunteered and 47% saying no. So, There's an adventure for a lot of you out there waiting to happen.

00:45:29Scott Trickett: I reckon that's a great result. And I reckon, I'd be curious if we asked that question at the start of the year, what the response would have been. iTunes was the winner. Most people listen to us on iTunes. So if you are, don't be afraid about giving us a review. Remember, we love those reviews. Haven't had one for a while.

00:45:48Melissa Erbacher: Only the good ones though. If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

00:45:52Scott Trickett: And I love that one person is listening to us on Stitcher. So fantastic. Thumbs up for Stitcher there. Just the one listener. Do you know what Stitcher is?

00:46:02Melissa Erbacher: I don't. And that's probably why there's only one person who listens to us on it. We're on Stitcher. I didn't even know we were on Stitcher. So go us.

00:46:12Scott Trickett: We're servicing our one listener.

00:46:17Melissa Erbacher: Here was a good one. What do people feel is the ideal length for the podcast? Now, we've had various comments of feedback over the last seven months or so. Nine months. Oh my goodness. We're in October now. We've had a podcast going for nine months. That's crazy. I digress. Yes, we've had many comments about different lengths. You know, some people saying, oh, I can't quite fit it onto my commute if it's this long or it needs to go longer for my long runs. Turns out the majority would like the podcast to be 60 minutes length with not too far behind the 45-minute timeframe being optimal. So as per most of these questions in the survey, Scotty and I are just going to continue doing whatever we want to anyway.

00:47:06Scott Trickett: No, we're not.

00:47:08Melissa Erbacher: It's good to know. You'll get what you're given.

00:47:10Scott Trickett: Yeah, but not a lot of love for the short or the overly long podcast. So I reckon that's the direction we're going to be taking it. Now to the curly question number seven that we asked. We asked you to rate our segments, which was mostly positive, which is great. Most of you are liking what we're doing. And most of you really liked the guest interviews. And it was good to see the ED interviews get a big tick of approval, which makes us happy too, because we like hearing about all the events around the country. And good to hear that you guys do too.

00:47:49Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, there's a couple of messes. And it kind of sucks, but you know, not sure how we can improve on those.

00:47:57Scott Trickett: Well, it's always hard not to focus on the negative. And yes, we did get a couple of bad reviews for some segments, but they were vastly outweighed by the positive. So there you go.

00:48:13Melissa Erbacher: Question eight was, since listening to the pod, are you more inclined to adventure to other parkruns? Pretty much most of you were already adventurers, which is awesome. But not far behind that were a whole bunch of people who said yes, which is great. We love the fact that we're encouraging more adventures.

00:48:33Scott Trickett: The next question I put in specifically for you, Mel, do you participate in Fancy Dress when you attend parkrun, anniversaries, special events, etc.? 90% of you do.

00:48:45Melissa Erbacher: Sometimes or always. But you know what? It doesn't matter about the 10% who never do because everyone is welcome to participate in parkrun in whichever way they deem the most fun. And if you don't want to get dressed up, that's absolutely okay too.

00:49:01Scott Trickett: Do you know what I miss sometimes? I don't actually always do fancy dress either. So there's no pressure at all to do it. And the final question we asked was probably the most important.

00:49:15Melissa Erbacher: I would say so, definitely.

00:49:17Scott Trickett: This was basically me asking, are you on Team Mel or are you on Team Scott?

00:49:23Melissa Erbacher: No, it's not about people. It's about people having taste in movies or what that taste is.

00:49:31Scott Trickett: And it turns out the majority of you don't have much of a taste, but you do find Princess Bride funny with a not so resounding 59% saying it was funny.

00:49:44Melissa Erbacher: Sounds like a little bit of sour grapes there, Scotty.

00:49:49Scott Trickett: I don't know how 59% of you thought that was funny. I'll still need to go back and watch it and maybe someone explain every time there's a joke and when I'm supposed to laugh.

00:49:59Melissa Erbacher: That's okay. Not everybody has to get everything. A sense of humour is different for everybody. Some people don't have them. That's just the way the world is.

00:50:10Scott Trickett: So that's a wrap. from our feedback, from our survey, from our perlustration for this year. We will do it again next year.

00:50:19Melissa Erbacher: Thank you to everyone who participated. We love getting all those responses and seeing what the segments were and how our listeners were broken up.

00:50:29Scott Trickett: So that's a wrap on the survey, perlustration for this year. Before we wrap up the podcast this week, we've got a couple of things to look at, mainly the launchers. We have one launch this week in Galston, New South Wales. I'm guessing you have no idea where Galston is, Mel?

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

00:50:48Melissa Erbacher: It's in New South Wales.

00:50:49Scott Trickett: Correct. Could be Galston, but I reckon it's Galston. So they're launching this week. Do we have any anniversaries and where's the cake going to be?

00:50:58Melissa Erbacher: We do. There should be, well, there's certainly going to be an anniversary. Whether or not there's cake, I cannot confirm. However, Berwick Springs in Victoria are celebrating their third anniversary. Hamilton in Victoria are celebrating their first. And Kalgoorlie Boulder in WA are celebrating their third.

00:51:18Scott Trickett: Mel, you have a wonderful week.

00:51:19Melissa Erbacher: You too, Scotty.

00:51:21Scott Trickett: We'll do it all again next week.