Episode 40 - Shoes for Planet Earth

Episode details · 153 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:14Scott Trickett: another edition of the parkrun adventurers podcast episode 40 40 is the new 30 but this is episode 40 not episode 30 welcome to the podcast mel thank you for having me scotty let's crack on with the news not too much general banter this week no we're gonna have lots so let's let's do the news now It was an epic weekend for parkrun with another record-breaking parkrun day. 161,356 parkrunners run suited up for the occasion with 14,057 generous individuals donning the distinguished and highly revered fluoro.

00:01:08Melissa Erbacher: This coming weekend parkrun USA will launch the country's seventh event. The much-anticipated College Park parkrun will be launching in Maryland on the 15th of October.

00:01:19Scott Trickett: Still in the US, the 39th Chicago Marathon took place on Sunday the 9th of October, with Kenyans once again taking out the men's and women's running events. Australia and parkrun were well represented once more by wheelchair marathon stalwart Kurt Fearnley. After breaking away from the main pack with a kilometre or so to go, it was a butt-clenching finish, with Fearnley taking silver behind Marcel Hug of Switzerland, who grabbed the gold by a matter of inches.

00:01:49Melissa Erbacher: For those states who celebrate daylight savings, the little hand on the clock was spun forward by 60 minutes on Sunday, October 2nd at 2am. Some may comment that this is hardly news as it happened over a week ago, however the ramifications of splitting time zones in Aussie states has disturbed the space-time continuum to such an extent that jet-lagged Queenslanders, Northern Territorians and Western Australians are still struggling to catch up. Indeed, it is expected that residents of these states and territory won't quite catch up fully until Sunday 2nd April 2017 at 3am.

00:02:27Scott Trickett: The third annual Sandgate Sunset Run took place on the 8th of October. The all-male team known as Too Fast Too Furious took out the overall prize for the greatest distance run in the two-hour open relay event, running 165 laps for a total distance of 41.25 kilometres. The Guinness World Record for the fastest relay marathon currently stands at a time of 2 hours and 4 minutes and 32 seconds. With the Too Fast Too Furious team this year, adding an extra kilometre to the distance they achieved in 2015, they are on track to take down the Guinness World Record in 2017. In true Aussie fashion, they did it all wearing blue singlets and mullet wigs. And Mel, you got to experience those blue singlets and mullet wigs flying past you on the weekend.

00:03:21Melissa Erbacher: I did. You mentioned in a previous podcast how the hair lifts up off the back of your neck and there were mullets blazing in glory all around the course on the weekend. It was a sight to behold, that is for sure.

00:03:37Scott Trickett: And your team, Lazy Bones, was also a sight to behold. And I wasn't the only one who agreed.

00:03:43Melissa Erbacher: You aren't the only one. Yeah, so for anyone who hasn't... logged into the Sandgate Sunsets runs photos and taken a look.

00:03:55Scott Trickett: Who would that be?

00:03:56Melissa Erbacher: Come on. Oh, that would be everyone, surely. We got dressed up as skeletons, glow-in-the-dark skeletons. We wore full-body morph suits, black morph suits with glow-in-the-dark skeletons on the front. And... Needless to say, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Very warm running in a morph suit, even when you don't start until 6pm. But the kids and the crowd, everyone loved it. They were just, it was all about the skeletons. And we must have given out hundreds, literally, of high fives on the run around because it We had so many cheers for Go Skeletons and Go Skellies. People were giving us nicknames by the end because we were that close. Such a good vibe and so much fun. We were pretty sweaty and gross by the end. grossing out quite a few kids actually who so sweet they came up afterwards and they wanted photos and then they wanted to give us hugs and then they realized oh your whole body is wet and not because i've been playing with the hose it's yeah so um no but it was great and we actually took out the prize which we were very pleased with for the best dress team How exciting is that?

00:05:22Scott Trickett: That's exciting. I mean, too fast and too furious. Yeah, overall winners. Did anybody care that much? People were waiting to see who won the best dressed. Am I right?

00:05:33Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure I'd go that far. But it was a fantastic outcome for those guys. Like literally, if they hadn't had to stop the clock at two hours, they would have reached that Guinness World Record breaking kilometre, that last kilometre they could have done. in less than four minutes at the pace they were going. It was just absolutely cracking. Obviously, they're working on their technique and everything as they go. And we were really pleased with our results as well. I think we came 64th out of 100 events, out of 100 teams, I should say, and 27th in our category. And we did 101 laps, which is 25 and a quarter kilometers. How good is that?

00:06:20Scott Trickett: So how was the vibe? I was there last year and it was awesome.

00:06:23Melissa Erbacher: The vibe was great. We were in a pit not far from a bunch of other parkrunners. The Termside parkrunners team were there, which was very cool. Mark and Siren and their buddies. And Gareth Saunders from South Bank, he was also there, not too far away from us. It's great because Gareth and I both got nominated to run the very first lap, which was a little bit unfair because... the first lap you have to go around twice and our pit was on the other side. So you had to do one full lap before you were allowed to go into your pit. And obviously I didn't experience this last year because I was not the first runner. But yes, we were both dobbed in by the rest of our teammates because it was our idea that we do the event at all. And I ran up to him wearing my full body. And when I say full body, I mean there is a skull cap. Like it goes over your whole head. All you can see is a big, happy skeleton face smiling at you. And I ran over and said, hey, Gareth. And he's like... is that Mel? So I was pretty impressed that he recognized me anyway, even though I was wearing a full body morph suit. So, and he didn't know necessarily that I was even running. But yeah, no, the vibe was great. Everyone was cheering. There's so many people that had just come along to watch or whose kids had run in earlier races or who had done the social relay. So apparently there's a rule if you run in the social relay, which only goes for 40 minutes, you can't also participate in the open relay, which goes for two hours. So yeah, um there were other parkrunners who had done the earlier event who stuck around to cheer on everybody else for this event and um yeah really really good and i was super impressed that none of us stacked it because the visibility when you're wearing a black full face mask is um not great how many laps did the full face mask stay on for For me personally, it was that first one and three-quarter lap. Adam and my brother Nicholas both kept theirs on for every lap that they ran. So they took it off during the breaks between running, but every time it was their turn to run again, they put it on. So they did a good job of doing that. But, you know, everyone who wanted the high fives, they didn't care if we were wearing heads or not wearing heads. They were just happy. to get high fives from the skeletons and we were happy to give them that that actually really added a lot to the atmosphere for me this year was giving out so many high fives to so many people the support was just really awesome and of course the event was super well organized Vanessa and Dean and all the team there did an amazing job as did the volunteers next year we're going to have a parkrun adventurers team Yeah, good idea. But hey, so I had some adventures on the weekend. What did you get up to?

00:09:32Scott Trickett: I did have an adventure. I finally got out to another parkrun that I hadn't visited. Well, actually, I had a little bit to do setting them up, up in Castle Main, which is a regional parkrun in the middle of Victoria. I had a little bit of a boys' road trip over the weekend. And no road trip is complete without a visit to Not only Castlemaine on Saturday morning, but we also freedom-runned Bendigo in the afternoon. Both very flat courses. Lovely. We had a bit of a Westerfoldians domination at the front of the field in Castle Main, which was nice to see. I wasn't part of it.

00:10:12Melissa Erbacher: Okay, but you saw it from behind.

00:10:13Scott Trickett: Yeah, I just saw all these black shirts in the distance and it made me feel proud. But I don't know if we've mentioned this. I mean, we've mentioned plenty of my mishaps on the show, but I've managed to pull my hamstring in an attempt to impress my eight-year-old daughter with my sprinting ability, which surprised no one. She couldn't care less. It's resulted in me pulling my hamstring a couple of weeks ago. So I'm limping around a bit at the moment. But on Sunday, we had another running event to attend. There's a sweat versus steam event up at Echuca.

00:10:55Melissa Erbacher: Steam being of the choo-choo train variety?

00:10:58Scott Trickett: No, no, of the steamboat variety.

00:11:01Melissa Erbacher: Ah.

00:11:02Scott Trickett: So similar to Puffing Billy event down here where we race the train, up in Echuca, you race the steamboat. And it sounded like a really great idea, running along the Murray, seeing the steamboat, which can't really go that fast, can it?

00:11:19Melissa Erbacher: Surely not.

00:11:20Scott Trickett: With the current, surely not.

00:11:21Melissa Erbacher: Surely not faster than people.

00:11:22Scott Trickett: Yeah. But the problem was, there's been lots of rain. And so the Murray is flooded. So the course was altered a few times. So we never really actually got to run alongside anybody. The steamboat.

00:11:36Melissa Erbacher: I thought you were going to tell me that because the Murray was flooded, it effectively turned into rapids and the steamboat was like a speedboat.

00:11:42Scott Trickett: No.

00:11:43Melissa Erbacher: I thought this was going to be an excuse story.

00:11:45Scott Trickett: No, no, no. We saw the steamboat take off and then it probably headed down the river for six kilometres and turned around and came back. Unfortunately, we were doing five loops around the park where we started, but I had my first run spew.

00:12:01Melissa Erbacher: Oh, thank you for the share. Yeah.

00:12:07Scott Trickett: I've never done it before. So because I'm injured, I was just backing off the pace a little bit, just running around seeing if I could actually get through the event. But then like 500 meters before the finish, I thought, I just want this over with. So I picked up the pace a little bit and that coincided with my hamstring completely tearing. And I don't know if you've ever done it, but this searing pain just rips right through the back of your leg. The pain went into my core and I just started vomiting.

00:12:39Melissa Erbacher: So it wasn't through exhaustion or anything, it was just... Like while you were running or did you stop and pull over?

00:12:45Scott Trickett: Well, no, I stopped and pulled over because I knew... Because I was so close to the finish, the last thing I wanted to do was be running across the finish line, vomiting over everyone, which I've seen happen. I just pulled over to the side, had a little bit of a spew. Next to one of the marshals... Who commented, thanks, mate. You've convinced me to never take up running. Mission accomplished. I left my mark in Echuca. Oh, dear.

00:13:18Melissa Erbacher: You've scarred him. You've scarred that, Marshall.

00:13:20Scott Trickett: Yeah. So that was my weekend. Great weekend. Great weekend with the boys. We had a good time. Just wish I didn't throw up.

00:13:29Melissa Erbacher: Well, what boys weekend would be complete without a bit of a spew?

00:13:44Scott Trickett: You may have been at a parkrun recently and you've seen people donating shoes, shoes for planet Earth, and wondered what that's all about. Well, Mel and I had, so we thought we'd go straight to the source and get Viv Katsounas on the podcast and give us a bit of a background behind Shoes for Planet Earth. Welcome to the podcast, Viv.

00:14:06Viv Katsounas: Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Mel. It's lovely to be here.

00:14:09Scott Trickett: Tell us a little bit about Shoes for Planet Earth. How does it work?

00:14:13Viv Katsounas: What we do is we collect pre-loved sports shoes which we pass to people in need all around Australia with our aim being that we want to get people up and off their feet because we know that sport can change lives in so many ways. So just going out for a run or a walk gets the endorphins going, makes you feel happy. It also often gets you interacting with other people which is on the social side. So it lifts your spirits, you make friends and just doing the sport with new friends can change your life. So it's basically about collecting new sport shoes, which we give to people in need to change their lives for the better.

00:14:51Scott Trickett: I've got a question around how old do the shoes have to be? Is there a limit?

00:14:58Viv Katsounas: Yes, that's a very, very good question. So generally the men, they like to keep their shoes for gardening and then they like to give them to us. That's a bit of a problem because by the time we get them, They are very worn out. So what we say is the soles need to be in good condition with no holes. We also like to give shoes to people with pride. They like to wear them with pride. They don't like to receive shoes with any holes. So whether it be on the top or on the bottom, no holes. We also ask people to just give them a quick scrub so that they look decent, so that you feel like you're getting a reasonably new pair of shoes and not something that somebody just doesn't want and is just throwing away. So those are the main criteria. So we say no holes, good soles, cleaned and then always tied together. Because sometimes you might get a batch of 600 pairs of shoes and if they're not tied together, it takes a lot of time trying to find the partner of the shoe, especially when there are a lot of athletes who wear the same brand name and the shoes look very similar. And every now and again, you do get two different sizes being paired. But it's really very simple and it's easy for people to donate. Now, that was the men. The women, on the other hand, who are very fashion conscious, they love to change their shoes when a new color comes out. We get a lot of very good women's shoes, very good condition, because they change them so often. But we love getting shoes from everybody, and we take children's shoes. We take soccer boots. It's really just about all sports shoes for all ages, something that people can wear, feel proud to wear. And know that they're going to get a bit of wear out of them because if we're going to be delivering shoes and mailing shoes to people like in the Northern Territories, it costs us quite a bit of money. We don't want to send them shoes that have got holes or that are only going to last two weeks or a month. We want to send them the best shoes we can so that they get as much wear out of them as possible.

00:16:53Melissa Erbacher: Viv, do you find you get a lot of variety in terms of the sizes that get donated? I've got particularly little feet, but my husband's got very big feet. So, you know, it's difficult for us even to get shoes in our sizes in normal stores. So do you find many people donate them in, you know, not the generic sort of most popular sizes?

00:17:16Viv Katsounas: We do get a lot about women's size 8s. up through to the men's size 12. We do have a problem because quite a few of our homeless people who we give shoes to have very large, broad feet. And one of the guys, one of the homeless guys who I know in Sydney quite well, he takes a size 16. And every six months or so, we get a request for him for a size 16, which is really, really tricky. So to answer your question, we get a lot of the shoes in the general range. If I do get shoes On the bigger end, I often put a request on Facebook for somebody who might have big shoes or I just ask around my running friends. Most times we can find a pair of shoes that are the size up to size 16. The smaller sizes, those are fine because generally we get kids shoes. So the kids shoes go into the smaller adult shoes. So that is fine. And we get down to baby shoes. So one-year-olds, we get these tiny little sports shoes.

00:18:18Scott Trickett: On that, my daughter grows out of her shoes really quickly. Yes. You are interested in getting kids' shoes as well to distribute?

00:18:26Viv Katsounas: Absolutely. As long as they're sports shoes, we are very happy with them. And they, as you say, are often in very good condition.

00:18:32Scott Trickett: And where do the shoes get distributed to? You mentioned the homeless. Do they go overseas as well? I've seen some stuff being sent overseas.

00:18:40Viv Katsounas: What we try and do is we try and look after the Australians first. Okay. If we have a shoe collector in Brisbane, for example, we try and facilitate that the shoes go back to the people in Brisbane. And we have a large database of both shoe collectors and the shoe receivers. So as soon as somebody contacts us with shoes, we try and find someone in their local area that they can give the shoes to. This is just efficient. It's quick. It's the cheapest way to do it. And we look after all the areas around Australia. Obviously, there's some gaps, but we do our best to do it that way around all the states. Northern Territories, we don't have any shoe collectors up there. It's just a little bit more difficult to find somebody who wants to give shoes. So to some of the indigenous communities, we send shoes up there. It's quite costly, but whenever we have some funds available, we send the shoes up to them. And there, it's mainly the kids' shoes because there are programs up there that we link with, and they distribute the kids' shoes, and they get them to run, and the kids absolutely love it. This changes their lives and we're hoping that they will influence their parents maybe and their parents might want to go for a walk or get involved and see how positive it is for them. We do get international shoe requests, especially from Africa, just about every single week. It is very expensive to send shoes to Africa and it is also a little bit tricky because the shoes often don't find their way to the right person that we've sent them to. They seem to get lost along the way. We always do a lot of research into the background of the communities that are asking us for shoes. We do the website, the Facebook and all that to see if they are legit. And often it's churches and orphanages and things. So whenever we can, we send as many shoes as we can to those people. And we get lovely reviews back. We also send to a few individuals. We've got a runner in South Africa who we send shoes to every year. And we've also got a runner in Kenya. And he relies on us sending him a few pairs of shoes. And as you know, If somebody asks for a US 10, you can't just send them one US 10. You have to send like five pairs of shoes if they're a serious runner because they may be neutral, pronates, wide foot, narrow foot, might be 10 and a half. You know, they're all different sizes. So if we send one box to the South African guy, there are about six shoes in them. He then takes the shoes he needs and he then gives them to his friends. So it works very well. And as soon as we have funds, we send shoes abroad.

00:21:11Melissa Erbacher: And you've been going, you started, the organisation started in 2009, is that correct?

00:21:16Viv Katsounas: Yes.

00:21:17Melissa Erbacher: And since you began, how many shoes have you supplied to people who needed them?

00:21:24Viv Katsounas: We just did a tally a few days ago, so we've given over 36,000 pairs of shoes to people, so that's really, really exciting. We try and keep a tally of all the shoes, but this is really difficult because often when we facilitate a tally, a team of a shoe collector and a shoe distributor, we sometimes then get left out of the loop and they just set something up and they do it without us. Now, we're very happy for that to happen because we know the shoes are going to the right people. We would love to know how many pairs of shoes so that we can add them to the list. So we think there's probably another few thousand that are added on to the 36,000. But it's not about the numbers. I like the numbers because it makes me feel like We are doing something really worthwhile because when you have a charity, you just keep giving and giving and giving. So to get feedback, positive feedback more so, you really feel like you're making a difference.

00:22:20Scott Trickett: I'm curious, Viv, how did you come up with the idea?

00:22:23Viv Katsounas: Okay, first of all, I'm a runner. I'm a pretty serious and competitive runner and I know how much running means to me and how much it has helped me through tough times. When certain things happen in your life, you just put on your shoes, you go for a run, run through the trees and it just clears your mind and you just feel so much better. I obviously come from South Africa and I know that there are so many people in South Africa that just love to run and they don't have any shoes. So my partner and I went to South Africa to do the Comrades Marathon, you know, just before we started the charity. And we just saw all the people there. who had no shoes, this was along the course, as well as many of the runners who were running in not running shoes. And we just thought, man, we can make a difference. So I came back and I said, we have to do something about it. And I just asked, I've, for many years, I just had my own little running groups wherever I lived. And I just said to my friends, has anyone got any old running shoes? And that's how it started. So I just collected the running shoes, scrubbed them in the bathtub and then packed them off to South Africa, um, to, try and change a few people's lives after this first box we realized that it's very very expensive to keep sending shoes abroad something that we could not afford so that's when we decided let's look local and see who needs the shoes and the biggest market here is the homeless and people like the street soccer program organized by the big issue.

00:23:50Melissa Erbacher: Viv we know that there are parkrunners out there who are involved in being collectors for shoes for planet earth how if We have listeners who want to get involved themselves. How can they do that?

00:24:02Viv Katsounas: Okay, the best way to do it would be to email me. Have a look at the website or our Facebook page. So we're Shoes for Planet Earth. There are two ways you can organize to donate your shoes. You can either do it as a group, so you could do the whole parkrun, or you could just do individuals. If you go onto our website, you can see we have something called Shoe Collectors. If you click on to shoe collectors, you then go into your states and you can see if there is a shoe collector closest to you. And we have about 80 collectors around the country. So you would probably be able to find one close to you. So as an individual, you just drop off a few pairs of shoes. If you were to arrive at like a podiatrist who is a collector with 100 pairs of shoes, they're not going to be too happy. So if as a group you do a shoe collection or as a parkrun, then it's best to deal with me. because then we can organize the whole thing properly. I can email you posters. You can do it properly. And then you take ownership of the shoe collection. Then we will facilitate that you drop the shoes off to a homeless center in your area. You can be involved. You see where the shoes go to. And it's actually way more rewarding when you feel involved, see the people. You can even see them putting on shoes. Maybe you see them doing a walk or playing street soccer. And that involvement is really what is very rewarding to the people who donate shoes.

00:25:21Melissa Erbacher: Viv, you have inspired me to go get into my shoe collection and weed out the ones that are still perfectly good but I know I don't wear them anymore and get them along to a collection person or send them in to you personally. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You're doing a wonderful thing with Shoes for Planet Earth and we've really loved having you on the show.

00:25:44Viv Katsounas: Thank you very much for having me. It's been a pleasure. And I love to spread the word about shoes and running. And well done to parkrun, who I know a lot about because you do a wonderful job for so many people around Australia and the world. And I do often recommend to the homeless guys that they go along for a 5K walk or run and get involved. So thanks, guys.

Meet the ED

00:26:24Melissa Erbacher: Our next two guests hark from Victoria from an event that has just earned its green 250 shirt. They are from Albert Melbourne parkrun. Scott and Joanne Watkins, welcome to the podcast.

00:26:39Scott Watkins: Hello, Mel.

00:26:40Joanne Watkins: Thanks for having us.

00:26:41Scott Watkins: And hello, Scott.

00:26:42Joanne Watkins: Hi, Scott. Hi, Mel.

00:26:45Scott Trickett: Thanks, guys. Yeah, so for the purpose of the rest of the interview, I'm Scotty. And I'm Scott.

00:26:51Joanne Watkins: And I'm Joanne, in case anyone wanted to know.

00:26:56Melissa Erbacher: You guys can just keep calling me Mel. So that works for me as well.

00:27:00Scott Trickett: We have the added pleasure today, the privilege of being all in the same city. We're all face-to-face for the first in-studio interview, except for you, Mel, because you're on the Sunshine Coast.

00:27:10Melissa Erbacher: So this is a real treat. So what part of that we're all face-to-face, except for Mel? How does that work? The Victorians are all face-to-face.

00:27:21Scott Watkins: Well, like Albert Melbourne parkruns in the centre of the city, we decided that we were so close that it was better for us to all be in the one spot at this end.

00:27:29Scott Trickett: So, you mentioned it there, Albert Park's in the middle of the city. It's probably our most famous parkrun down here. Everyone comes to Melbourne, they want to go to Albert.

00:27:37Scott Watkins: Yeah, I mean, we get a lot of visitors, and I think the Grand Prix track is probably a big factor too. There's always a significant proportion of our visitors who get excited by running around the Grand Prix track.

00:27:49Joanne Watkins: The weeks leading up to the Grand Prix, the week before when they're closed and you actually run on part of the track. I know, for example, our godsons when they were down here from Newcastle could tell me which turn it was. Now, Scott and I know nothing about car racing. It's not a great passion of ours. So we're always quite bemused by the questions people give us about the link to the event.

00:28:11Scott Trickett: So do you get people that actually come close to the Grand Prix that are just petrolheads, just discovering parkrun because they get to run on the course?

00:28:19Scott Watkins: Yeah, we had a woman a few years ago from the UK who's quite a big parkrunner over there, and she actually works for the Grand Prix as one of their timers. And she came along the week early, came out so that she could do parkrun for it. But yeah, there's definitely people who are big Grand Prix enthusiasts.

00:28:38Joanne Watkins: And there's certainly, as I said, you know, there are people who come so they can run on the course, but it's only that one week of the year when you actually get to be on the road and they can tell you the corners and the turns and we smile at them and say, we're here every week, come back and continue.

00:28:54Melissa Erbacher: So you guys actually run on road. That's what makes up your course.

00:28:59Scott Watkins: Only for a few weeks in the lead up to the Grand Prix. So normally the, I mean, we can go into the course description, but it's very simple. We do a lap of the lake. We say to people that there's no shortcuts, just come back here. And the lake path is actually 4.7 kilometres. So we start a little bit before our finish line and... do a single lap of the lake. But in the lead up to the Grand Prix each year, they do put a few barriers up on the path and shut off the roads to cars. So we get diverted onto the roads for maybe about three or four weeks in the lead up to the actual race. And we're very flat. So when Joanne and I have tourists at other parkruns, Scotty's beloved Studley that I did last weekend for my first time is quite a challenge because it has hills, whereas there's a minor hill at Albert Park where you have to step over a little raised bit of the path. That's the highest point. I think it's five centimetres?

00:30:03Melissa Erbacher: You go so far as to call it a hill, a minor hill.

00:30:05Joanne Watkins: Oh, absolutely. It's our elevation. I went to Lakeview for my cousins 100th a few weeks ago I had this false notion it would be like Albert because it was a lake and a view and I thought we just – and the hills. And my six-year-old godson told me to suck it up and just go faster.

00:30:24Melissa Erbacher: Do you guys find you get a lot of headwinds or breezes off your lake?

00:30:30Scott Watkins: Yeah, there's a big headwind down the back straight. And so the weeks, so sort of between sort of kilometres three and four is usually you're running into the wind. And the weeks when the wind is sort of swung around and it's behind you, everyone's so happy and we get many PBs. But the majority of the time, yeah, the championship kilometre is the three to four kilometre mark when you're running along the back between the palm trees and it can be tough.

00:30:59Joanne Watkins: That's the make or break. When the first runners come through, that's the first thing they'll comment on. And in Melbourne, we love to talk about our weather, but the track we talk about, the headwind on the back straight.

00:31:11Scott Trickett: The Melbourne Marathon's in town this week.

00:31:14Joanne Watkins: Exciting.

00:31:15Scott Trickett: The course also features heavily in the Melbourne Marathon. So are you expecting a lot of people who are tapering or resting this Saturday? No.

00:31:24Scott Watkins: Yeah, I noticed the other day we've actually got a few people, visitors, who are doing some volunTOURing this week, which is nice to see. And I suspect they're in town for the marathon. But yeah, we usually get a fair proportion of people who come along to either... Do a very gentle run or a bit of a walk and stuff because most of the course is part of the marathon. They're running on the road as opposed to on our actual path, but running very close to it. So, yeah, it is a good chance to experience part of the run. There'll undoubtedly be a healthy contingent of visitors on Saturday.

00:32:00Joanne Watkins: And that's where some of our more regular...

00:32:04Scott Watkins: albert melbourneers who go visiting and wandering um come home for the weekend as well so everybody's in town it's a big week for us and the run itself on the sun on the sunday is a big town for celebrating and supporting our runners yeah we've got some of our event team live further down on the course at elwood and they always paint some signs you know only what you've probably got three parkruns to go from their house or something like that outside their house on beach road and um Joanne's also become quite renowned for wielding the parkrun flag and headset on St Kilda Road and encouraging people on, and I'm going to be with her this year, so...

00:32:42Joanne Watkins: It's the first time in a long time Scott has not been a participant, so he'll get to see what it's like to experience me at full steam ahead cheering, which most people quite freak out at for some reason. So for any parkrunners who are coming down, look out for me just on the corner of the Arts Centre, so I will be there to cheer you if you're doing the half or if you're doing the full. I'll be in the vest, the parkrun with my headset on. The vest is... is wonderful. I discovered a few years ago, if you wear a fluorescent vest, people let you go anywhere. And I've become a pseudo-marshal because people are always asking you questions about how you get to here and there on the course, and even officials ask me what's happening. So the guys on that corner have been setting up with me for years, so they know I'm coming. So I'll be there to give you a cheer.

00:33:30Melissa Erbacher: Sounds like a big party weekend.

00:33:32Joanne Watkins: Yeah, it will be.

00:33:34Melissa Erbacher: Now, Team Watkins... Scotty is your Territory Director, is that correct? He is. Or was at one stage? Still is. Okay. Still is. A lot of people don't realise that as part of a Territory Director's role, we often need to replace faulty equipment and things like that for our events. I understand at one point he sent you a stopwatch. Joanne? The stopwatch story. Can you tell us a bit about, yeah, please share for our listeners.

00:34:04Joanne Watkins: Yes, this is a highlight of my professional career that the stopwatch was sent to my work and I work in high school. It arrived on the day when the VCE results are published and so schools are on really high alert those days for potential threats. Students are very anxious, parents are. And so this is the end of last year and we're waiting for this. I had forgotten about the stopwatch coming and I was in a meeting yesterday with another senior leader and the two of us were the most senior people on staff. And admin rang up and said, we've had a suspicious package that's beeping and we're really worried about it. And we were both very relaxed about it. And Julie and I said, it'll probably be for PA. It'll be like, it'll be some sort of sporting equipment. And they said, no, they always leave us a list of when things are coming and it's in this box and it's beeping. And we said, it's fine. Like, you'll be all right. And they rang back and said, actually, no, we've called the police and they're sending the bomb squad. I was like, great. So we, meanwhile, we're being very relaxed upstairs going through all the VCE results, doing the downloading, dealing with students coming in who are excited or disappointed about their results. And we look out the window and the bomb squad arrive with their sirens and their police and they're going through it all and we get a phone call. It's a stopwatch. And I thought, great, that's what we said. And then they said, Joanne, you need to come downstairs. Yes. So I come downstairs and there's a man who's in bomb disposal equipment waiting for me to lecture me because the parcel was delivered to me. And it was the parkrun stopwatch. So our whole school had been evacuated. The bomb squad had been called out. And then I got this very stern lecture from a man who was not happy about responsibility and being more diligent about identifying packages. But because of the way our mail comes at school, you get a lot of mail. It had got attached to something on the bottom, so they didn't know it was to me. There was things on top. And I tried to suggest it wasn't my fault because I hadn't called the bomb squad. Fortunately, I had previously cleared it with my boss that I was allowed to receive personal packages at work for parkrun. So I was not charged the fee for a false alarm. Otherwise, I think parkrun might have been getting a large bill in the mail.

00:36:17Scott Watkins: That would have been a pretty big reimbursement claim to our territory director, wouldn't it?

00:36:20Scott Trickett: It would have been coming back to me, that's for sure. Tell us about your adventuring. Because now that Albert Park has grown, you've got a great event team with you. It does allow you to get away from time to time. I know you both love Albert Park. But give us some highlights of your adventures.

00:36:39Scott Watkins: Yeah, we were thinking about this in advance of this, and I think one of the highlights for me was our very first adventure. When parkrun first started, this was before we were the event directors, and there were no other parkruns around, and we went up to Sydney, and we were so excited about going to St Peter's. We were really excited. And we did a video in the lead-up to it, which you can still find on YouTube somewhere, and we also took our iPads and left one behind with friends at Albert Park. And we did a live video cross between St. Peter's parkrun and Albert Melbourne parkrun. This was how significant it was at our first parkrun adventure. And we were like waving to each other and everything. And I do remind Paul Wilcock, who I now know, that he was... pretty unimpressed and not really that bothered that we had done this at St Peter's. But everyone at Albert Park was pretty excited that we were beaming back live video footage from another parkrun. It was sort of like reaching another planet almost in those early days. So St Peter's is the one that we've done the most because our family's originally in Sydney. But you did your 50th overseas tour.

00:37:50Joanne Watkins: Oh, I did at Malahide in Ireland. But that's not one of mine.

00:37:56Scott Watkins: But on that, you were the first person to do a 50th run in Ireland.

00:38:01Joanne Watkins: I was. And I was the first visitor they'd had. So it was a little bit like being royalty because they were so excited to have a visitor. Ireland had just started and they couldn't fathom someone doing a 50. I was a bit disappointed, though, because it's called Castle. And there's a castle on the map. but you don't actually run anywhere near the castle or see it. You run through the woodlands around it. So actually you don't see many people, and it was Ireland, so it was really cold. It was really freezing. Everyone was super excited. For me, the other extreme is Darwin. Lots of people in parkrun talk about how parkrunners help them get fitter and healthier and they lose weight and they become runners and go on to be marathoners. My story is actually kind of the opposite. We started parkrun and then it's nearly two and a half years ago now I had quite a serious injury to my back which meant I wasn't able to walk or stand up or do anything and it put an end to my running career permanently and nearly put an end to lots of things but fortunately I'm able to walk and be around and go back to my job but... It was a very long recovery process. And after six months of being unable to do parkrun, Darwin was where I finally walked for the first time. And it was a very emotional day for me because it was the beginning of a new part of parkrun. And it was an out and back course and a loop. You did it twice. And so Darwin, I don't think the people there would know how special it was for me that they were very warm and accepting of the fact that I was walking. And they don't have very many walkers, so everyone else finished around the sort of 30 minutes and it took me my 45 minutes of walking. So my personal worst time was actually a real personal achievement for me and they were very generous in their support. And they would have absolutely no idea. So Mark Connolly, sitting out there as the event director of Darwin, thank you so much for that because it was, yeah, it was a real, for those of you who are listening who do run, you will know what it means to suddenly know that actually you're never going to do that again.

00:40:06Scott Watkins: Yeah, and we've had a lot of really positive experiences. I think every parkrun we visit is obviously different to ours. And the demographics of Albert Park are that we have a lot of people who sort of live in the inner city and come from... wide areas, so we don't all live and shop and send kids to the same schools or anything like that. So when we visit parkruns that are more focused around a particular community or something, it's always really nice to sort of see that and see how people know each other outside of parkrun and things like that. We both visited the ponds a couple of weeks ago and I was astonished at how quickly that had grown and how... Everybody seemed to walk from their house to parkrun because they all live nearby. And, you know, it's a very different feel to an event when everybody is really, really local. So, you know, really, really enjoyed that one.

00:40:59Joanne Watkins: So then I guess the other semi-local one for us is Penrith. So Penrith Lakes is at the bottom of the Blue Mountains, which is actually where Scott and I grew up. We met at high school. He had some of those stories you tell kids, particularly teenage girls, and they go, oh, that's so cute, you met at high school. but it's very close to where we live and I ran my 100th at Penrith Lake deliberately. It was my 100th parkrun as a participant. It was also coincided with my 100th volunteering at an event. I think it was actually sort of like 130 officially because you sometimes do multiple on the same day but each event. But it was my brother's first time as being a run director and so it was, He's now gone on to sponsor that event. And my cousin and our nieces and nephews and our godchildren ran with it. And none of them knew about parkrun except for us. And for all of them, it's become an important part of their life. Also, Penrith, like Albert Melbourne, he's flat and around the lake. So it works for me.

00:41:59Scott Watkins: Yeah, I'm a big fan of flat and around the lake.

00:42:04Joanne Watkins: So we really enjoyed that one.

00:42:06Scott Trickett: There's no doubt the contribution you two have made to parkrun. It's our biggest event here in Melbourne. And you just touched on it there, Joanne, the amount of times you guys have volunteered. I think, is it safe to say you enjoy the volunteering side more than the running, walking side?

00:42:22Joanne Watkins: I do now, absolutely. And I think for me... I see it as a gift every week that I get to meet people and I get so much back from it. The relationships you form, the stories of people who parkrun touches from helping them overcome health issues or being a real lifeline in terms of relationships. You meet whole families. got one wonderful family who come with four children every week you know and they're teenagers and I just think that's amazing that you can have something that a whole family does with adolescents you know or a father and daughter and the daughter's sort of in her 30s and this was their father-daughter bonding moment and she's now moved overseas for the first time and running over in the UK so I think it's a real privilege to be part of people's lives and I just love how excited people get about it and I think Scott and I are really privileged that we have some of the skills needed to do this and we have the time and we can support each other in doing it. It changed our life. I mean, we moved. We now live. I'd almost say we're some of the closest to the start line of any event. We live 450 metres from our start line now and we did that deliberately. So I certainly get so much out of volunteering.

00:43:40Scott Watkins: And we've also got to connect with a huge number of people. I mean, Mel and Scotty, you're an example of this, where we've connected with people all across the country and the other event directors. And I was thinking about this earlier today. So like Mel, you and I, we've only met very briefly once in person, but interacted a lot online through the various platforms that parkrun uses. And in the early days of us taking over as event directors, because parkrun was still very new then, we had a lot of... Got a lot of advice from other event directors around the country, the vast majority of which, you know, we've never met in person. And that continues now. And, you know, I do, you know, for people who are participants at parkrun, there is a forum where event directors and terror directors and stuff share different things. I do try and support other events and try and provide advice. And occasionally there's things that do get discussed and people have different views on things. And I'm sure there's times when I've espoused views that people have sort of disagreed with and stuff like that. And it's hard always to get a sense of the person when it's just typing things. But in the main, I've benefited more than I've contributed from the advice and the perspectives from other parkrun event directors around the country. And I think that's another aspect of things that's really great. And a lot of the things that we went through in our early days, other parkrun events are going through now or in similar sort of things. And so if we can help them do that, then that's another really important part of parkrun.

00:45:16Joanne Watkins: I mean, the other thing for me is I work in high schools in a variety of different roles, but I love the fact that I get to be with people who want to be there every week. That does make a difference. We both enjoy public speaking and that part of the role, which for some people does prevent them, one of the reasons they don't want to be a run director, for example, is they don't like the public speaking part. We both like that. And I remember someone saying to me once, oh, you're so good at that. And I said, look, I work with 1,000 adolescents on any given day This is 400 capacity, mostly adults, and they want to be here. So it's a great audience who are willing to work with you.

00:45:56Scott Trickett: Thanks very much for coming in, sharing your story, and I hope you guys stick around parkrun for a few more years.

00:46:02Scott Watkins: Likewise. Thanks for all that both of you do. And, you know, I should say, Mel, you brought it up earlier about Scott being our territory director, and he has made an enormous contribution to parkrun in Melbourne. He's not putting me up to say that, but I think it's important to put that on the record because he, you know, whilst we've been steady at one event, he's helped create half a dozen other events. And so thank you, Scotty, for all that you've done for parkrun in Victoria in particular. Thank you.

00:46:29Joanne Watkins: And I just want to encourage everyone out there to acknowledge the territory directors because it is, we were talking about this before, Scott and I, and it's a role that doesn't have the high profile that event directors or run directors do, but their work is so essential. So I'd encourage everyone this Saturday, if your territory director's at your event, say thank you. Don't just ask them to replace their tokens or replace your broken gear or help you solve the problem or complaints. So any runners who are out there listening without them and that massive time commitment they get um we wouldn't be where we are so it's important to be to say thank you so thank you to our scotty and to you too mel and to mel you guys are very sweet we'll have you back again look sweet is not an adjective often said so i might come back

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

00:47:25Melissa Erbacher: There are no launches to look forward to in Australia this weekend. However, anniversaries are abounding. Where can we go to for some cake this weekend, Scotty?

00:47:35Scott Trickett: Brightwater in Queensland. Ever heard of that one?

00:47:38Melissa Erbacher: I have, actually. They're celebrating their second anniversary. I will be attending and there will be cake, I am assured, so I shall also be eating it.

00:47:47Scott Trickett: Grafton in New South Wales are turning one. Gungahlin in the ACT are turning three.

00:47:55Melissa Erbacher: Kingscliff in New South Wales are having their fourth anniversary, as are North Lakes in Queensland.

00:48:02Scott Trickett: And to round it out, Paradise Point. Sounds like a lovely place. They're having their first anniversary too. Always lots happening on the social scene. But let's go back to last week's announcement of our Strava Art Contest winners. Quick update. Costumes are being made.

parkrun adventure challenge (listener challenge)

00:48:22Melissa Erbacher: We use the term loosely being made. I have requested preferred colours from the ladies. So that's the first step.

00:48:32Scott Trickett: Believe me. Some good news. Some good news on the certificate front. The ladies, Connie and Tina, have requested some certificates that will help the greater parkrun community. We're going to have some Club 50 and Club 100 certificates thanks to the Strava Art Contest.

00:48:51Melissa Erbacher: And we did emphasize to the girls that it could be any kind of certificate. And they said, yeah, we know, but we've wanted this for a while. So, you know, they thought they'd go for that and help the greater parkrun community.

00:49:04Scott Trickett: But one thing we wanted to do was just mention a couple of others that were so close and deserved a notable mention for their efforts in no particular order. Tim McKinley was our fastest effort. He may have been benefited by doing it on an athletics track.

00:49:26Melissa Erbacher: He was also very accurate with that fast effort, you know. There are some people who did fast ones and their trees weren't as accurate as his was. So, great job, Tim.

00:49:37Scott Trickett: Our longest distance went to Maxawa, 24 kilometres of a parkrun distance. Logo?

00:49:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, with 647 meters of elevation in there before he ran into a dead end. How's that for an effort? That was amazing. I was just blown away when we received that one. So awesome.

00:49:55Scott Trickett: We were blown away, but the accuracy waned a little, particularly when he was jumping over fences, I think. Or was it somebody else who was jumping over fences?

00:50:05Melissa Erbacher: That was Melissa Taylor, who won points and an honorable mention for badassery because This lady broke into a local showground and yes, during her Strava art, she was climbing over fences to achieve her beautiful tree attempt inside the circle.

00:50:22Scott Trickett: We both love dogs. So special mention to Alan Hoskins for his 8.2 kilometre attempt with his dogs.

00:50:29Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I love the fact that he got the pooches out there enjoying the Strava art too. Because that's what it's all about, you know, getting people out and active and doing different things that they wouldn't normally do. And he got to take the puppies along.

00:50:42Scott Trickett: And let's hear from another one of our contestants on the same theme.

00:50:46Ayela: Hello, parkrun adventurers. And thank you, Mel and Scott, for organising the Strava Art Competition. I'm Ayela, a parkrun regular at Albert Melbourne. And I've just got back from the very aptly named Native Grassland Circle in Royal Park. somewhere I'd not been before and a little part of that area of Melbourne that's always been a little bit of a mystery to me. So thank you for giving me the excuse to find that and a few other running or walking routes that I haven't been to before. It's been quite a fun competition. Thank you to you both for organising it and keep up the good work with the podcast.

00:51:34Melissa Erbacher: And thank you, Ayela. That was an awesome attempt. We loved how much you improved over the multiple attempts that you sent in to us. And you were so close to winning. You had just such a great final logo with your tree in the middle. So, yes, you did a great job and we're glad that you enjoyed the challenge.

00:51:54Scott Trickett: So close. We're going to do another one.

00:51:57Melissa Erbacher: We are, but we'll give you a bit of a break from Strava for a little while first.

00:52:02Scott Trickett: But there are more winners. Congratulations to Melissa Ellis. We ran a competition on Facebook last week. So your assortment of gifts will be coming your way soon.

00:52:13Unidentified speaker: We did.

00:52:15Melissa Erbacher: Melissa, get in touch with us and send us your address so that we can send you your goodies.

00:52:19Scott Trickett: Thanks, Mel. Have you got any shoes you don't need kicking around your cupboard? What about those five-finger ones? You're still loving them?

00:52:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's the thing. See, I wear them almost exclusively now. I couldn't wear them during the Sandgate Sunset Run because my morph suit also covers all my feet like socks. They don't have individual toe socks on the morph suit. So I had to wear some other running shoes. Got some blisters from those running shoes. I think they might go in the pile of the ones that I can donate. How about you, Scotty? You got some that you can pass on?

00:52:51Scott Trickett: Look, I have. Thanks to our previous sponsor of parkrun, I was introduced to their brand of shoes and now I can't wear anything else. So I might give away all the other shoes that aren't a previous sponsor of parkrun Australia.

00:53:08Scott Watkins: Worst commercial decision I've ever made. That don't meet your feature requirements.

00:53:12Scott Trickett: No, they don't. So I might send them along to Shoes for Planet Earth. Might go do that now. Have you got the crime report there?

Crime report

00:53:23Melissa Erbacher: The crime report?

00:53:25Scott Trickett: Remember we're going to finish with the crime report?

00:53:29Melissa Erbacher: Have you heard about the clowns? It's not parkrun crime.

00:53:34Scott Trickett: Yeah, but it's scary. Yeah. Let's workshop this. Let's workshop this. We've got another whole week to fine tune.

00:53:42Melissa Erbacher: To not do anything and then have the same conversation next week. Yeah, no, I'm not very great with thoughts this week.

00:53:52Scott Trickett: Saying goodbye?

00:53:53Melissa Erbacher: No, just any kind of actual brain function.

00:53:57Scott Trickett: You don't want to leave?

00:53:59Melissa Erbacher: Don't want to leave the podcast?

00:54:01Scott Trickett: Yeah. You wish it could go on forever?

00:54:03Melissa Erbacher: Doesn't everybody?

00:54:05Scott Trickett: No, because the survey results said 60 minutes, no more.

00:54:09Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, for the benefit of those people who said no more than 60 minutes, we should sign off. Thank you for joining me again this week, Scotty. I will see you around in episode 41.