Episode 43 - Satoshi Ashida

Episode details · 166 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:12Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to episode 43 of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. Had we had more foresight, we would have not had that week off and gone to Hamilton Island just so we could time episode 43 with a certain someone's 43rd birthday. It was two weeks ago, but I was remiss as a co-host to make a big deal out of it. So Scotty, happy birthday for a fortnight ago.

00:00:41Scott Trickett: I'm confused, Mel. I thought I was 34.

00:00:45Melissa Erbacher: Ah. That's probably why I didn't wish you a happy birthday last week. Yep. That sounds legit. Well, we had this 34 discussion back when it was episode 34, I think.

00:00:58Scott Trickett: Exactly.

00:00:59Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:01:00Scott Trickett: When I was 34.

00:01:01Melissa Erbacher: You're spot on. Look, we'll just have to edit this part out because obviously I am... Out of line. Yeah. So I retract my happy birthday salutations. I do not hope you had a good day on what wasn't your birthday. Shall we listen to some news?

News

00:01:16[music]

00:01:16Scott Trickett: Let's. It was another global attendance record at parkrun on the weekend with 164,273 parkrunners showing up for their weekly 5k. Or 2K runs. Or walks.

00:01:41Melissa Erbacher: For something a little different, parkrunners from all over the country converged on the Noosa Triathlon Multisport Festival in Queensland, the world's largest standard distance triathlon. Before starting the 10K run, participants were subjected to consuming untold litres of salt water whilst traversing through 1.5K of choppy ocean, before cycling the knee-skinning gauntlet of dodging equally uncoordinated cyclists and battling headwinds on wheels for 40km. Who doesn't want to warm up for a 10k run like that?

00:02:12Scott Trickett: parkrun Global this week announced delight at introducing local parkrun clubs on Strava. at more than 800 parkruns globally, stating almost every parkrunner now has a free digital home to share news, grow its community and keep the whole gang motivated to get their next PB.

00:02:33Melissa Erbacher: The Perth 2016 World Masters Athletics Championships continue, with Shiny Bling going to various parkrunners across the week. Among medal winners thus far are Andrew Shugg, Adrian Royce and Roberto Buzzi.

00:02:47Scott Trickett: Canada parkrun has launched its third event with Richmond Olympic parkrun, kicking off in Vancouver on Saturday. Nine volunteers ran the show, while 36 parkrunners ran the course.

00:03:00Melissa Erbacher: And Sikhs in the City club member Fauja Singh volunteered as the tail runner at Rutland Water parkrun on Saturday, completing the course in 56 minutes and 55 seconds. This was Fauja's third parkrun and his first since entering the veteran male 105 to 109 age category. No age grade percentage was allocated for his efforts as the parkrun system doesn't currently go that high. Fauja is the age grade record holder at Valentines parkrun where he achieved a grading of 179.04% in 2012. That's crazy.

00:03:43Scott Trickett: What, Fauja. We hope we got his name right. Singh did. What's he doing still running at 105 years old?

00:03:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, he's doing a good job. I personally just love the fact that his club is called Sikhs in the City. Like, what a cool name for a club. We need to get those guys on the show.

00:04:00Scott Trickett: Do you think he came up with it?

00:04:03Melissa Erbacher: No idea.

00:04:03Scott Trickett: Yeah. But you alluded to my birthday. So it did happen. And now I have gone up. an age grade. So I think my percentage is going to get better.

00:04:15Melissa Erbacher: Do you? There's not a lot of fast guys that were a year older than you?

00:04:19Scott Trickett: I don't think so. But this is the question. Do you pay any attention to the age grading in your results?

00:04:27Melissa Erbacher: I have never. I couldn't tell you a single one that I've ever got.

00:04:31Scott Trickett: Me neither. Have you had a lot of conversations about your age grading with other parkrunners?

00:04:38Melissa Erbacher: I've had inquiries from parkrunners about why there weren't accurate age grading. I mean, we did have, there was a complaint made about a parkrunner at one event who hadn't completed the course and because of their age, you know, they'd only done three kilometres or something and they turned around and come back but somebody had still given them a finish token and because of their age, they got a massive age grading and it actually bumped somebody else off the record-holding position for that particular event and I didn't know that this person hadn't completed the entire course until, you know, sometime later when the complaint was made. And we had to investigate it. And this is how involved things get for event directors sometimes because those numbers mean a lot to a lot of people. Don't mean anything to me except that I need to investigate things like people only doing three kilometers and getting unrealistic age ratings.

00:05:38Scott Trickett: Look, don't get me wrong. I think it's great that it's there because I know people do take it seriously. I know some people do. or travel from parkrun to parkrun trying to get... Get the records. Yeah. So that's kind of good, kind of, that even no matter what age you are, that there's still something to strive for.

00:05:59Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. I mean, it's not a race, obviously, but there are still people out there with that competitive streak. And yeah, they're the kind of people that travel around and try to grab the records everywhere they can. And look, you know, if I was even remotely fast or... I thought I had a chance of getting a record at something, doesn't matter what it is, I would have a crack. It's more the fact that I know that, you know, I've got no chance that I think, what's the point of investing, you know, my heart's desires on those sorts of things. So more power to them, those that are able to achieve those records.

00:06:37Scott Trickett: If there was a record for dressing up, you would give it a shake because you dressed up again on Saturday, didn't you?

00:06:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but that was because I always dress up on that particular Saturday every year. And it is where I break my rule. I actually always wear the same costume as well.

00:06:54Scott Trickett: Oh, really?

00:06:56Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:06:57Scott Trickett: We're talking Halloween. What's the costume that's good enough to be worn twice, thrice, four times?

00:07:04Melissa Erbacher: If you had a costume that required you to get up an extra hour early for parkrun just to put on the body paint, wouldn't you want to wear that repeatedly? No. can confidently say no never you know what i really love though it's the finding the green body paint in little crevices in and behind my ears over you know the ensuing weeks and um that i have this ritual with my husband that once a year he has to paint the back of my neck and the back of my ears with green body paint before parkrun you know it's the little things I get to go as the Wicked Witch of the West and I have a fabulous broomstick and these ridiculous heels that just sunk into the sand. But who doesn't want to do an awesome witch's cackle and run around chasing volunteers and basically challenging them to say no to the Wicked Witch of the West?

00:08:02Scott Trickett: Is that a good time to go around with a volunteer clipboard?

00:08:04Melissa Erbacher: Yes, that's exactly what I did. Yeah, absolutely. You get a bit of green because you've got to go all out. All my hands on both sides, palms included, get painted as well with the green paint. So you just get green on everything. It's a good day not to run when you're wearing body paint. I recommend volunteering if you have that much.

00:08:28Scott Trickett: That's a rule I live by too.

00:08:33Melissa Erbacher: It's kind of obvious. I needn't really have said it. Yeah, but I had some other fun on the weekend. I got to meet some adventurers that were visiting from the UK. We had Ian and Karen Goulding visiting from Riverside Park in Durham. And they actually bought a special adventurer along with them. They have this little monkey, this stuffed toy monkey named Melvin. And apparently Melvin is a super adventurer. So his home parkrun is Riverside parkrun where they run. But any time any of the Riverside parkrunners are going on a holiday, especially if they're going overseas, Melvin gets to go with them and he gets to do whatever parkruns they're doing. So Ian actually ran with this stuffed toy monkey. And I believe he's been running with him across Australia at all the different parkrun events they've been doing so far. taking photos, sending them home to everybody else. So I love this. He's a very well-travelled monkey. I don't know how many different parkruns he's done, but I'm sure somebody would be able to tell us.

00:09:40Scott Trickett: That's pretty cool. How big is Melvin?

00:09:43Melissa Erbacher: Oh, he's a regular size monkey toy size. I don't know. Let's say from top to toe tips, maybe a foot long.

00:09:54Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:09:54Melissa Erbacher: 30 centimetres.

00:09:55Scott Trickett: That's good because you don't want one of those big, massive carnival prize monkeys.

00:10:00Melissa Erbacher: He's easily held in one hand or tucked under the arm, I think.

00:10:03Scott Trickett: I hope I get a visit from Melvin. I love a bit of teddy action. Kasia and I, we're fond of our teddies, so I hope I get to meet Melvin soon. Do you know if he's coming down to Melbourne?

00:10:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, they're just travelling around Australia at the moment. I'm not sure how long they're here for. It might only be four weeks altogether.

00:10:22Scott Trickett: Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. As we alluded to in the news, the World Masters Games are on in Perth at the moment. So we thought we'd go to our man on the ground, who also happens to be the event director at Canning River. So welcome to the podcast, Gary Wilmot.

00:10:47Gary Wilmot: Hi guys, thank you.

00:10:49Scott Trickett: Now, you're entered in the marathon next weekend. How's your preparations going for that?

00:10:56Gary Wilmot: Yeah, it's going very well. I mean, one week to go and it's time for Maranoia to start setting in. So I'm starting to detect all the little niggles in the knees, joints and all that kind of stuff. But really excited about it. I can't wait for six o'clock Sunday morning to get here, to be honest.

00:11:14Melissa Erbacher: It's a two week situation, the athletics going on in Perth at the moment, Gary. We had some parkrunners participate.

00:11:21Gary Wilmot: just on the weekend gone in a few different races can you tell us a little bit about that yeah i mean in in particular i mean it was actually posted on facebook people were saying that they were going to go and run the the parkrun event that's at world masters which is quite amusing you start seeing people refer to 5k as parkrun um but uh yeah we sort of went down there um down to the Ern Clark Athletic Centre Saturday afternoon. There was a few different heats, a few different events on the different age groups. And, uh, yeah, I got to see like some of my, some of the friends from the local running community were taking part. So you got to, got to cheer them on. There was a actually a world famous, uh, Brendan Peel was over from Melbourne. He ran Shelly parkrun launch in the morning and then, uh, then ran the five K in the afternoon. And there was a lot of support from the sidelines. In fact, at one stage, I think we were making so much noise cheering on the parkrunners that the actual ground announcer said, oh, yeah, Andrew Shuggs said, oh, yeah, this guy coming around, he runs local parkrun and he's got a lot of support from the sidelines. So we actually got a plug for parkrun at the athletics stadium. It's pretty cool.

00:12:34Scott Trickett: we've established you're running a marathon on Sunday. Last year, you ran a bit further than a marathon. You were famous for running from Perth to Brisbane for Hearts Across Australia. Firstly, have you recovered from that?

00:12:48Gary Wilmot: Just a little bit further. I have just about really... In terms of running, I think I've just about started recovering a few months ago. I mean, it was about 12 months ago that I'd finished, and it's literally... It's taken me probably about nine months to get back into actually running. In the end, I mean, you're doing so much distance day in, day out, you effectively become more of a long-distance walker than a runner. But, yes, I've kind of recovered from that physically. Will I ever recover mentally? I don't know. I think I'm still processing some of the aspects of achieving something like that and still processing, you know, some of the experiences that we gained along the way and, yeah, Yeah, it's something that will just basically live with me forever, I think.

00:13:34Scott Trickett: How did it come about, Gary? What was the motivation?

00:13:38Gary Wilmot: Well, absolute craziness, really. And people ask why I did it. I said because I could, because I wanted to prove that it was possible. But what triggered it really was, you know, sort of five years ago now, I sort of reached the age, I was 42 at the time, and I sort of got to this point of about 146 kilos plus. I was a pack-a-day smoker. I didn't drink every day, but when I did drink at weekends, I put away eight, nine, ten pints of beer. That was kind of the background I'd had. My definition of sport was to go down to a soccer stadium, get a few beers on board and hurl abuse at the referee. I just kind of got this overall sense that this wasn't going to be a long-term plan it wasn't going to be a solution it was going to take me beyond maybe my mid-40s and I just got to the point I decided to do something about it so I set my goals on a marathon ran a marathon after about 18 months of getting to that point and became so kind of I guess inspired and passionate about running and just got so much out of it I thought well what can I do to demonstrate that anybody can do anything they put their mind to? And that's really, it was just through some in-jokes and some messing around with some runners in the local community that, yeah, I came up with this crazy idea. And as soon as I put it out there, everybody was kind of going, yeah, that's amazing. And we'd love to see you do it and support you and come and run bits with you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, it was just an idea. It was put out on Facebook. And it became reality last year.

00:15:24Melissa Erbacher: You got a lot of support from parkrunners across the country, Gary. I know you stopped in and did a few parkruns along the way whenever Saturdays were conveniently timed with locations. How many kilometres did you complete over the whole expedition, the whole adventure?

00:15:42Gary Wilmot: Well, the official distance for the route was 5,400km. It was more or less that area, apart from maybe a few extra km for detours and diversions that I took accidentally. I think I did probably about an extra 25km on top of that in terms of parkruns. I was really disappointed that we didn't line up with a few more, but it was just a case of If we were in an area and it worked out and we were going to have a rest day, then I did parkrun. I've got to say, the parkrun community was absolutely amazing. I mean, I had support before we left. I mean, we actually left from Canning River parkrun. And I think we, along the way, did Kalgoorlie, did Torrens in Adelaide, did Albert in Melbourne, did popped into Gungahlin in Canberra. We didn't actually walk or run through Canberra, but did a side trip into there. St. Peter's in Sydney, and then finished... Gareth Saunders was there when we arrived into Brisbane. We actually finished, when we got into Brisbane, finished at the start line of the South Bank parkrun, and then on the Saturday did the official final 5Ks of the entire journey. So it was... For me, it was fantastic to have the parkrun community involved because that was just – since I discovered running, parkrun has just become a big part of my running. In fact, Saturday mornings is my nightclub.

00:17:08Melissa Erbacher: Now, tell me truthfully, Gary, you were only 100 kilometres away from the Sunshine Coast when you finished in Brisbane. How much do you regret not running that extra 100 kilometres?

00:17:21Gary Wilmot: Zero. Oh!

00:17:25Melissa Erbacher: We will strike that answer from the record.

00:17:29Gary Wilmot: I don't regret, okay, so I don't regret not going any further because that was what was planned and that's what I set out to achieve. I possibly do regret that I didn't take a trip up to the sunny coast. I possibly regret that I didn't do a lot of things. There were some other parkruns we could have done. There was people, I've been contacted on Facebook all the way across, oh, can you come here? Can you come there? We were on a very tight schedule. But that said, I mean, I've basically, I mean, that was almost like a recce. You know, I've sort of gone across and I know what the different states look like now and I know what different parkruns around. I've met a whole lot of people. So, you know, over the years, you know, I can see myself doing a little bit more tourism and, you know, no doubt at some stage I might make my way up a little bit north of Brisbane.

00:18:16Scott Trickett: So you finished that adventure and you came back to Perth and you became the event director at Canning River. Yeah.

00:18:23Gary Wilmot: Yeah, it was pretty much a year ago. It was a bit unexpected. I mean, AK was Adrian Kenny, the event director at Canning. Yeah, it was almost like part of the furniture. You go down there and there's AK. But he obviously, he wanted to focus on helping to get some other parkruns up and running in WA and just... change direction a little bit. I was looking for somebody to basically take over the ED role at Canning River. And to be honest, it's a no-brainer because it's my home run. It's a fantastic community. It's one of the largest attendances regularly each Saturday. And the community we've got there is absolutely fantastic. Our volley roster is generally full two or three weeks, four weeks ahead. We occasionally struggle to get a photographer because people are a little bit intimidated at the idea of taking, being responsible for taking and recording those memories for the day. But it's almost a parkrun that runs itself. And it's an absolute honour and a privilege to be the Canning River ED. And I just love going down on a Saturday morning and being part of that community.

00:19:36Scott Trickett: A healthy volunteer roster is always a good sign of a successful event. Tell us about the course. I don't know a lot about Canning River. Where is it situated?

00:19:46Gary Wilmot: Well, it's in the Canning River Regional Park. It may surprise you to know it's a free 5K timed event that's held every Saturday at 8am.

00:19:54Scott Trickett: Well, that I do know.

00:19:57Gary Wilmot: It's a beautiful course. We're actually set in the Canning River Regional Park. which the city of Canning described as the jewel in their crown. So it's a beautiful sort of regional park area. Parts of it are shaded, parts of it go out just on the edge of residential, but it's a single 5K loop, which, you know, it just adds a bit of variety. There's not too many, you know, where you can just get that full 5K lap. And we start and finish pretty much within, very easy walking distance of the cafe that's there as well so that helps foster that community atmosphere and for people to stick around and yeah I mean you've just got to get over and run it and then you'll know exactly why so many of us go there every Saturday morning.

00:20:46Melissa Erbacher: Gary you you mentioned that you've traveled around a bit and you've had some adventures can you give us a top three parkrun events that you've done that are not your home parkrun?

00:20:59Gary Wilmot: I don't know about top three. It's unfair to rate parkruns just in terms of parkruns because I think they're all fantastic. But for me, I really love the fact that I got to do Mile End in London. I mean, obviously, I didn't do Bushy, but I did Mile End, which is local to the friend I was staying with the year that I ran London Marathon. So I'm glad I've just been able to do that one. South Bank will always have some amazing memories for me because of just the significance that it had in my journey. And it's so hard. I loved Albert in Melbourne, but I've got to give a massive shout out to Gungahlin because Gungahlin was an amazing situation. They arranged, I think they arranged my hotel accommodation for myself and my crew. uh some food there was food cooked up there was i mean it was um the team there were just amazing and we i've actually got there and i said well look i'm really don't know how to tell you this i said but i'm just i'm running out of time i said i'm just kind of had a look at the route and everything and we've just made the decision that we're actually going to bypass canberra i said you know we're just we're not going to walk down and walk back out again and i said so yes i'm just so embarrassed, all this that you're doing for us. I said, we're not even going to walk down. And they just looked at me and said, well, why would you? We're just glad that you're here and sharing part of your journey with us and having this celebration. So the team there were absolutely amazing. The events team were amazing. The community were amazing. So I'd be very remiss of me if I didn't give them the biggest share. But to be honest, every single parkrun that I've run, has been absolutely astounding, and I've enjoyed every kilometre of every single one.

00:23:00Scott Trickett: Yeah, these parkruns, we think they're pretty good too. Now, before we let you go, on the weekend, WA introduced another event. Very quietly, Shelley parkrun launched, and it's just down the road from you. How do you think that's going to go with Canning River? It is.

00:23:17Gary Wilmot: Well, so this weekend, I think our attendance dropped down to about 115. I think we've been averaging somewhere like 235. So that's basically a launch. So I wouldn't say that would be the effect that we see every week. I don't know. I actually think that it's kind of nice for us because we're just getting to the point where we don't really want to grow too much more because there's a lot of work going on on a Saturday morning. You know, car parking is starting to become a nightmare. So having another parkrun, literally, you know, it's just down the road, 4Ks, 4Ks or so just down the road. We're actually looking at setting up our times on New Year's Day so it's possible to run Canning, then run to Shelley and then run Shelley. So I don't know. I think there is potential, actually, that it's going to have an impact on both in a positive way because, you know, once somebody sees Shelley, And then they sort of find out their friends doing Shelley parkrun. And then they'll say, oh, I'm interested in this. And then they discover they actually live closer to Canning River. You know, we could actually see more people. So it's hard to say which way it's going to go. But it's fantastic that we've got that option. A lot of the event team at Canning River are actually going to be probably floating between the two. So helping out and volunteering down at But Shelley, it's almost like a sister parkrun. It's that close.

00:24:45Melissa Erbacher: We are all part of one big family at parkrun. It's great to hear that you guys are welcoming your closest relatives so warmly. Thank you for joining us on the podcast this week, Gary. We love having guests who go on amazing adventures and inspire others.

00:25:02Gary Wilmot: Well, thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure to be part of it. And I guess I need to start listening to the podcast now.

00:25:23Melissa Erbacher: Our next guest on the podcast harks from the Gold Coast where he is a massage therapist. His name is Satoshi. Satoshi, welcome to the podcast.

00:25:33Satoshi Ashida: Hello, thanks for having me.

00:25:35Scott Trickett: I'm going to call you Sato because we're friends now. Yes.

00:25:38Satoshi Ashida: Yes, yes.

00:25:39Scott Trickett: Your friends call me Sato.

00:25:40Satoshi Ashida: Most people call me Sato.

00:25:42Scott Trickett: Aussie Sato. Now, Sato, I love a massage. Do you? I think most people love a massage.

00:25:47Satoshi Ashida: That's good. Yeah, most of the people love a massage.

00:25:51Scott Trickett: What are the benefits of the massage for the runners?

00:25:54Satoshi Ashida: Yeah, there are heaps of benefits massage can offer, but I think recovery is one of the most important and beneficial aspects of massage for runners.

00:26:04Scott Trickett: So after we've done a big run, just working through the knots? Yeah, anything.

00:26:08Satoshi Ashida: Like after a big run, after the big race, or after even like an easy run, we need to recover and massage is recovery.

00:26:18Melissa Erbacher: Is there a point at which it's not... sort of beneficial anymore? Like should people be going to have a massage, say they have a long run on a Sunday, should they be trying to book in some place that's randomly available on a Sunday afternoon or is a Monday a good thing?

00:26:33Satoshi Ashida: It's just about personal preference. I normally recommend people to have a massage like after, like two days after the big race.

00:26:44Melissa Erbacher: Why is that? Why that timing?

00:26:46Satoshi Ashida: Just a little bit like, you know, chill out, muscle needs to chill out a little bit. I can still massage after the race but I need to be like more like what should I say like lighter if you prefer to have a massage just after the race but I can go a little bit deeper if you have a massage like two or three days later because muscle needs a time to a little bit heal by themselves

00:27:13Scott Trickett: Now this might seem like a simple question too, but what actual muscles do we use the most when we're running? What are the muscles that you tend to work on?

00:27:21Satoshi Ashida: I think the glutes muscles are the most important muscle groups for runners. Seriously? Yeah, glutes, no legs, glutes.

00:27:34Melissa Erbacher: Butt massages, that's what I've been missing out on all this time. Oh, you're going to make a lot of people very happy with that advice.

00:27:43Satoshi Ashida: Yeah, of course I do massage legs. But more importantly, like glutes, more specifically glutes medius, which is on top of the glutes, people generally get tight there because it's a hip stabilizer. And if the glutes muscle are tight or weak, your legs have to work harder. So it's really important.

00:28:08Melissa Erbacher: to strengthen and to maintain your gluteus medius specifically runners need strong glutes are there particular exercises like does running itself not lend itself to making your glutes stronger like should we be cross training are there other exercises that can target those areas that will help our running yeah cross training is really good especially like as I said like a glute specific strengthening like

00:28:38Satoshi Ashida: Single leg bridge or clamshells, that type of exercise.

00:28:43Melissa Erbacher: Okay, I don't know what these are.

00:28:44Satoshi Ashida: Crumbshells, just laying on the side and then just open up the knees. And single leg bridge, just laying down on the back and use your leg, one leg, and then just bridging. You don't need to use a heavy weight. Just use a body weight and stuff because we don't need to be bulky. We still need to stay lean.

00:29:04Melissa Erbacher: Well, most fast runners are quite light, aren't they?

00:29:07Satoshi Ashida: Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that fast runner, even that sort of fast runner has got, like, really good muscles, lean muscles.

00:29:16Scott Trickett: And what about these foam rollers?

00:29:19Satoshi Ashida: Are you a fan of them? Are you a fan?

00:29:22Scott Trickett: No, I hate them.

00:29:26Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure I know anyone who loves them.

00:29:29Satoshi Ashida: I don't like foam rollers, to be honest.

00:29:31Scott Trickett: Good. So I'm curious, are they just a fad? Is it just because everyone loves a foam roller at the moment?

00:29:36Satoshi Ashida: Oh, probably, yeah. Massage is always better.

00:29:40Scott Trickett: But what if you don't have a massage therapist handy?

00:29:44Satoshi Ashida: Yeah, I know, yeah. Yeah, if you can afford it. But realistically, most people are not getting massage like every day or twice weekly. So foam rolling is great alternation of massage.

00:29:56Scott Trickett: Tell me why, Sato, because I hate it.

00:29:58Satoshi Ashida: Muscles need to be released like... regularly otherwise you're leading up to the injury so muscles need to be released regularly especially after a hard training session or races on the weekend Is there a way to do it gracefully though?

00:30:16Scott Trickett: Because I always look like a bit of an idiot trying to get my balance trying to make sure I look like I know what I'm doing Who were you foam rolling in front of Scotty?

00:30:26Melissa Erbacher: Do you have an audience?

00:30:28Scott Trickett: No but I still like to I feel like a competent human being, not like someone who's struggling just to move. And every time I do, there's this immense pain.

00:30:38Melissa Erbacher: I'm told the pain is a good thing.

00:30:40Scott Trickett: Okay, so just put up with it.

00:30:42Satoshi Ashida: Yeah.

00:30:42Melissa Erbacher: Now, Sato, you're a fellow parkrunner just like us. You've been to parkruns all over the country. You currently parkrun at the Gold Coast. Where's your home parkrun at the moment?

00:30:54Satoshi Ashida: I would say Varsity Lakes is my nearest parkrun.

00:30:58Melissa Erbacher: And do you have amongst your adventures, have you got a top three that are your favorite events? And can you tell us why?

00:31:04Satoshi Ashida: Oh, yes. Yes. I've been parkrunning for about last like five years. And I used to live in Sydney five years ago and then move up to Sunny Coast. And I now moved down to Gold Coast. So I think I should pick one each.

00:31:24Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that's a good plan.

00:31:26Satoshi Ashida: All right, so I'll start with Sydney. I picked St. Peter's because I don't know if you know it or not, I am the first finisher of Sydney parkrun.

00:31:38Scott Trickett: The very first one?

00:31:39Satoshi Ashida: Yeah, very first finisher.

00:31:42Melissa Erbacher: Wow, no, we didn't know that. We should totally have done some research.

00:31:49Satoshi Ashida: I think it's five years ago, so it's always memorable. And on the sunny coast... I pick Town of Seaside. I like it.

00:31:59Melissa Erbacher: It's a nice, fast, flat course, that one, isn't it?

00:32:02Satoshi Ashida: Yeah, flat course. And the area is really, you know, relaxing area. The north of Maruchi River. It's less populated. And now I'm on the Gold Coast. I think I pick Main Beach is the best parkrun in Australia.

00:32:18Melissa Erbacher: In the whole of the country?

00:32:20Satoshi Ashida: I think so. I obviously haven't done everything, but I think Main Beach is the best one because of the course. It's really good. Half road, half trail, just near the beach and many people. So for that reason, I pick Main Beach.

00:32:36Scott Trickett: Thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing us some insight into some massage.

00:32:41Satoshi Ashida: No worries. Thanks for having me.

00:32:43Scott Trickett: And enjoy running really fast on the Gold Coast.

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

00:33:00Melissa Erbacher: We have two launches to look forward to this week, Willoughby in New South Wales and Karkarook in Victoria. Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, I think so.

00:33:10Scott Trickett: It's funny, I've never heard of this park. It's in a heavily populated part of Melbourne, but yeah, Karkarook, I'm going.

00:33:19Melissa Erbacher: Cool, that'll be something to look forward to.

00:33:21Scott Trickett: Yeah, haven't been to many launches, so I'm taking one of my good mates along and we'll have fun.

00:33:29Melissa Erbacher: As will anyone who goes to parkrun this weekend, I'm sure.

00:33:32Scott Trickett: Now, do you reckon there are any secret WA launches this week?

00:33:37Melissa Erbacher: If there are, we're not at liberty to tell people because we certainly don't want 1,000 people showing up. And that's realistically what would happen if we put it on the podcast.

00:33:46Scott Trickett: So there's going to be 1,000 people at Willoughby and Karkarook?

00:33:50Melissa Erbacher: No, no. This would only happen in WA.

00:33:52Scott Trickett: Oh, because our listenership is so loud over there. So loud.

00:33:55Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:33:57Scott Trickett: So huge.

00:33:59Melissa Erbacher: So huge in WA. Like, they love us.

00:34:02Scott Trickett: They do. So last week we may have mentioned that there was an anniversary at Port Macquarie. We may also not have done our research and realised that they cancelled their event last week. So they're doing it all again this week.

00:34:16Melissa Erbacher: Or for the first time even.

00:34:18Scott Trickett: Yeah. So congratulations, Port Macquarie. We were so excited for your first anniversary within a week early. Maitland are also celebrating their third anniversary, and South Bank are doing it for the fourth time.

00:34:33Melissa Erbacher: Happy birthday, parkruns.

00:34:35Scott Trickett: Now, have you heard about this British TV show, Paranoid?

00:34:40Melissa Erbacher: I have, and I'm intrigued. It's a crime show. It could be what we can legitimately use to have this podcast broadcast. categorised in the crime category.

00:34:55Scott Trickett: Well, is this going to be our crime segment? We're going to have to start watching Paranoid and reviewing it every week to finish the show. Is that what you're thinking?

00:35:05Melissa Erbacher: I think, well, we're going to have to wait until it comes out on Netflix in Australia. But yes... So, for the listeners who haven't heard about Paranoid, for the last two weeks, a character in the show has invited another character to come to parkrun with her. How cool is that?

00:35:27Scott Trickett: It's cool. We've got a plant on the writing staff of Paranoid.

00:35:31Melissa Erbacher: We are part of now pop cultural references in the world.

00:35:36Scott Trickett: Yep. It was only a matter of time, really. So there's our homework. Find a copy of Paranoid in Australia. Legally. So for this week, we're not going to finish with our crime report. We've got a new segment. It's time to try a new segment. You've heard Mel and I talk about our running clubs enough. We thought let's hear about a few more running clubs. For our first one, we're going to go to one of my locals and talk to one of the founding members of the Diamond Creek Runners. Welcome to Club Corner, Nikki Waterfall.

Crime report

00:35:49[music]

Club Corner

00:36:19Nikki Waterfall: Hi.

00:36:21Scott Trickett: Tell us about the Diamond Creek Runners. How did it come about?

00:36:24Nikki Waterfall: So it took a while to get started and wasn't really planned. Ben and I, my husband and I started Diamond Creek parkrun. in November 2013. And we volunteered a lot at the start and it kind of grew, parkrun grew over those first few weeks. And we realized we wanted to run more often than just Saturday morning. So we started what we called midweek motivation on a Wednesday. So a whole bunch of us would turn up on a Wednesday night and do the parkrun course. And that started to grow as well. And we were advertising it through the parkrun Facebook page. And we realized that we couldn't keep doing that because even though it you know it happened from parkrun it wasn't really to do with parkrun so we started our own a facebook group um on the side so it kind of was really organic the way that it started and so what makes your club different from other people's clubs nikki i'm not sure mel i haven't um been involved in rec running clubs before um so it's hard to know i guess the beauty of parkrun was that we took a lot of the things that we loved about parkrun so even though we're a running club we kind of joke that people originally you know will come to run but then they come to socialize which is really similar to you know what we see happen at parkrun as well so even though it is a running club and and you know we do get serious about it um sometimes it's also really a community-based a community-based club as well so what sort of things do you offer during the week So we have three planned sessions a week. Every Tuesday night we have what we call a skills session, which is speed, intervals, fartleks, pyramids, something to work on that's a little bit different from just running on the track. And we do that on the local oval. And then Thursday nights is a group run and often people will do a tempo run and that's along the parkrun track. And then Sunday mornings we run all over the place around on different tracks and that's often what we call the long run so there's usually someone training for some events so that kind of ranges between 5k's and 15k's and then during marathon training time right up to 35.

00:38:38Scott Trickett: You said this was born out of parkrun is this something you think other parkrun events could emulate?

00:38:45Nikki Waterfall: Yeah absolutely and I think that what the events um directors well what we found ourselves in was in a really unique position to kind of be able to to drive this and there were four of us that got together And we all met at parkrun. And so because the people sort of looked to you as organisers of parkrun, it was a really natural progression to move that to the side a bit, I guess, and say, well, you know, now come and run with us a little bit more often here. And because it started really casually, so it went for about – It was about just over 12 months where it was just a casual thing in the Facebook group. People would post when they wanted to run and you could join them or not before we kind of realised that it was getting a little bit bigger than that and we incorporated and became a club. But absolutely something that could happen at other parkrun events.

00:39:41Melissa Erbacher: You've been running together now for a while, Nicky. Have you got some wonderful stories of the achievements of your parkrunners or I should say your clubrunners?

00:39:52Nikki Waterfall: yeah I think um one of the things that uh we started to do uh right from the start we incorporated in August and then it was in September or October of that year we ran our first start to run program we thought it'd be a great way to get people in into the club because we know through parkrun that often people hesitate to come because they think they'll be last or Even heard people say, I need to run 5Ks before I can come to parkrun, not realising that you don't have to at all. So we thought by having the Start to Run program, we'd be able to capture those people that probably wouldn't just turn up to run. And so we use a Couch to 5K app, a free app, but we have volunteers that turn up to those sessions regularly. So three times a week for half an hour, and that goes for nine weeks. And it's been amazing to watch people turn up and be really hesitant that first one and sort of stand back. And you can tell, you know, you imagine all the reasons why they're feeling a bit nervous. And then, and even talk to them about the doubts of them getting to 5Ks in that nine weeks. And then When we do get to the end of that nine weeks, it's amazing. We call it the graduation and have that at a parkrun. And so the current one, we've just finished or nearly finished our third start to run and their graduation is Saturday week at parkrun. And so some of the amazing things is watching these people come and Some of them never run before, some of them getting back into running, but certainly not regular runners, get through that program, run 5Ks, and then either regularly running 5Ks or we've just had some of the people that did the first and second start to run 10Ks and even half marathons at the Melbourne Marathon Running Festival, which is amazing.

00:41:45Scott Trickett: Thanks for coming on the podcast and being our first Club Corner guest.

00:41:50Nikki Waterfall: Great. Thanks for having me. Bye, Scott. Bye, Mel.

00:41:55Scott Trickett: That's it, Mel. That's how we finish each episode from now on. All we have to do is say goodbye.

00:42:00Melissa Erbacher: Goodbye.