Episode 45

Episode details · 153 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:11Melissa Erbacher: Episode 45 is coming at ya, parkrun Adventurers. We are having tacos. Welcome to the podcast this week, Scotty.

00:00:20Scott Trickett: We are having tacos. I had enchiladas.

00:00:27Melissa Erbacher: It's Mexican funness all round.

00:00:30Scott Trickett: parkrun hasn't reached Mexico, has it?

00:00:32Melissa Erbacher: It has in Homes of Adventurers.

00:00:35Scott Trickett: I thought we were going to pre-empt the news. We're launching parkrun Mexico.

00:00:41Melissa Erbacher: Well, somebody should get on it.

00:00:43Scott Trickett: Let's find out.

parkrun Adventurers news

00:00:44[music]

00:00:44Melissa Erbacher: Here's the news. 972 events took place across 14 countries last parkrun Day. If printed paper versions of all the athlete barcodes taken to parkrun last weekend were laid end-to-end, they would measure a distance of 9.84 kilometres. Had 10,768 parkrunners not forgotten their barcodes, the total distance would have spanned more than two parkruns in length.

00:01:17Scott Trickett: The past week saw the Pan Pacific Masters take place on the Gold Coast in Queensland. parkrunners took part in a multitude of events and brought home much shiny bling. Congrats to Deanna Elliott, Mark Munchenberg, Simon Mackley, Ryan Stoddard and all the other parkrunners who participated.

00:01:37Melissa Erbacher: In New Zealand, the inaugural Tarawera Trail Marathon and 50k geyser to volcano event was held last weekend. Over 1,000 participants took on the challenging terrain between Taupua and Lake Tarawera's hot water beach. Many parkrun adventurers, Kiwi and Aussie alike, enjoyed the challenge. including Majell Backhausen, who took out the 50km epic, and various members of event teams from both Queensland and New South Wales.

00:02:08Scott Trickett: Planning for festive fun is well underway with parkrun Australia releasing the annual Christmas compendium of events. Many parkruns are yet to declare their intentions for hosting an additional Christmas and New Year's Day runs, and adventurers the world over await in anticipation. The one day of the year where we can run two parkruns in one day. New Year's Day. A fun time of year. Do you know some people are running two parkruns in one day already?

00:02:44Melissa Erbacher: Illegally.

00:02:46Scott Trickett: Yes. How do you feel about this, Mel?

00:02:52Melissa Erbacher: It's a bit of a mixed bag, really. I mean, there's the argument that they are legitimately running two parkruns and therefore they've run the 5k distance twice. So they're not actually cheating in that respect. But then there's also the argument that it's not fair on people who don't live in geographic locations or who don't run fast enough to be able to run in one event and then travel to a second event and run there. So personally, it's not something I have ever done or will ever do. illegally, but that's just because I'm a little bit of a follows the rules girl. How do you feel about it?

00:03:32Scott Trickett: Well, let's give a little bit of a brief background. In Sydney, there are events that start at 7 o'clock and there are events that start at 8 o'clock. So it is quite easy now for someone to run a 7 o'clock run, get in their car, drive a short distance and do an 8 o'clock run. I don't have a problem with that. Except if you're scanning in at both events. parkrun asks you not to scan in at your second event. Some people don't respect that advice.

00:04:06Melissa Erbacher: They can get to milestone clubs in half the amount of time.

00:04:09Scott Trickett: Yeah. Just think it goes against the parkrun ethos a little bit. But on to happier stuff.

00:04:16Melissa Erbacher: New Year's Day. Have you got plans of where you'll be going for your legal doubles?

00:04:21Scott Trickett: I'll be at home.

00:04:23Melissa Erbacher: think i might be volunteering haven't 100 decided yet see now this is the part where i'm going to edge you out in the most events list if you don't go someplace because i'm going to do two new events i've never done well good on you where's your competitive spirit scotty it's no fun if you're not actually going to compete with me yeah well i've changed my ethos as well

00:04:47Scott Trickett: So I'm not going to be adventuring as much as I... No, I shouldn't say that because I'm a parkrun adventurer.

00:04:54Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Stretch that. That's not going to go down well.

00:04:56Scott Trickett: But that's the truth.

00:04:58Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's the truth for six months and then you'll get bored and you'll want to keep going. The truth is fluid.

00:05:05Scott Trickett: Look, don't discount me, Mel. Just because I probably won't do two new events on New Year's Day doesn't mean I might not do two new events prior to New Year's Day. Can't speak.

00:05:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm quivering in my boots.

00:05:23Scott Trickett: We've still got a few new events launching down here.

00:05:26Melissa Erbacher: You do. You guys are popping them out like crazy. I don't know what at the moment. That's all right. Queensland's going to come into their own in the early part of 2017, and we're going to start launching a whole bunch of new events as well. Very exciting. A lot of regional areas are going to be getting events that didn't have them before, so that's going to be amazing. I love it. It's nice when you can launch new events sort of close-ish to other ones to help relieve the pressure of, like, big numbers and things like that but there's just nothing like launching an event whose closest event is you know three hours away or more because that's that's the whole new excitement starting all over again for whole new communities love it in the past couple of weeks we've been talking about and you've heard it in the parkrun adventurers news the World Masters going on over in Perth. We're lucky enough to be about to talk to a lady who was there in person and participated in a few events. Welcome to the podcast, Lavinia Petrie.

00:06:43Lavinia Petrie: Thank you very much, Mel.

00:06:44Melissa Erbacher: So tell us about your adventures over to Perth, Lavinia.

00:06:48Lavinia Petrie: I participated in five events in the World Masters Championships. I did the cross country, which was an 8K cross country, and I won a gold medal. I did the 5K on the track, run 22 minutes and win a gold medal. I ran 10K on the track and ran 46 minutes and won a gold medal.

00:07:12Melissa Erbacher: Oh, my goodness.

00:07:14Lavinia Petrie: Then I had a couple of days rest and I did 1,500 metres at the main stadium and I ran 6.05, which is the fastest 1,500 I've run for three years, and I won another gold medal. And the next day I fronted up for the half marathon along the banks of the Swan. And I ran one 40.59 officially and won another gold medal. So I had five gold medals in all.

00:07:45Scott Trickett: When was the last time you actually got beaten, Lavinia? Do you remember?

00:07:50Lavinia Petrie: In my age group? Yeah. When I was in the 65 age group, I'd get beaten regularly. Yes, yes. But I haven't been beaten in the 70 age group yet. So I've had three years in the 70 age group. I think it's attrition, you know. As people get older, they get slower and they stop competing. But for some reason, my body doesn't want to stop competing and I'm actually getting relatively better now than what I was, say, 20 years ago.

00:08:23Scott Trickett: And what do you put that down to?

00:08:25Lavinia Petrie: Just good genes. Good genes.

00:08:28Melissa Erbacher: No, no. We don't want to hear good genes. We want to hear that it's something that all of us can get to.

00:08:36Lavinia Petrie: All right. Okay. Well, it's moderation in everything. Smart training. If you get injured, you investigate to see what's caused the injury. then you get some treatment and you follow instructions from your practitioner. If they say don't run, you don't run. Even if you're tempted to, well, I'll just give it a try tomorrow because I want to race next week. Well, it doesn't work that way because you'll only make your injury worse. That's the... The trap that people fall into, they think, oh, I'm over it. I'm pretty good now. I'll just give it a test before I actually race. And that's the thing that tips you right over the edge again and you get re-injured. So it's really being smart about what you do.

00:09:36Scott Trickett: That does sound like very sensible advice. What's your weekly kilometres? What's your mileage per week?

00:09:47Lavinia Petrie: Generally about 50 kilometres a week. Leading up to Perth, I was in what I call serious training, and I was up to about 65 a week. But I found that as I crept up, little niggles started to come, so I had to back off again. I run six days a week. Friday is my rest day, generally. And I do two what I call speed sessions. This is when I'm in serious training. Two what I call speed sessions a week. And they alternate with three different sessions. One is a speed session, which... It's not very much in terms of what people think of as a speed session. I do five 200s with a 200 jog recovery with a warm-up and a cool-down, of course. And I do another one of my sessions is... Four 800s with a warm-up and a cool-down with a 400-metre jog recovery. And my other session is a hill repeat session. I've got a nice incline. It's only an incline. It's not a steep hill. It's an incline. And I do five repetitions up there. which take me about anything from a minute 15 to a minute 25. And I do those as repeats and do five of those. And that's my three sessions that I've been doing now for the last two or three years but other than that i just do a little jog half an hour in the mornings and that's me done for the day and my long run is usually i would i accidentally did an 18k run one saturday morning during during my training period thinking that i was doing 15 but we sort of detoured a little bit and I accidentally added another 3K to it, but I pulled up okay. I'm not a proponent of really long training runs because I think they tire you out too much.

00:12:11Scott Trickett: That makes perfect sense.

00:12:12Lavinia Petrie: Well, it does. But if I say that to people, they say, oh, no, I have to have my long run. I have to have my long run. And I say, well, you really don't. But then everybody's different. I mean, not what I do for my training doesn't necessarily suit somebody else for their training, you know. The key to improving is to do some speed work. If you train and you run slowly, well, then your body's used to running slow, and that's the way you'll race. So you have to incorporate some speed work, but you also have to be very mindful that your body's not used to the speed work, so you could tax your muscles more than... more than normal sort of thing, and that's how you get injured. It's just a fine line between keeping it right.

00:13:03Scott Trickett: Well, Lavinia, you've obviously got it right. But do you ever have people express to you, because you are older, that you're just doing too much?

00:13:12Lavinia Petrie: No. Nobody's ever said that. I think because I've been so successful, I still think that I can improve. I haven't run to my optimum yet. People say to me, oh, I was sick after I'd finished. I pushed myself so hard I was vomiting. And I said, well, I've never pushed myself to that. And quite a few people say, oh, well, that means you haven't tried hard enough. And I said, well, maybe it does, but I can still go the next day and do another run sort of thing. And most times when I finish, particularly even in Perth, I finished the 5K and there was a young guy there with a microphone and he said, oh, you look like you could do it all again. I said, well, actually, I think I could.

00:14:11Scott Trickett: I don't know. I regularly push myself to throwing up, so I think everyone's different. Well, recently I have, yeah.

00:14:18Lavinia Petrie: Yeah. No, I've never. I started running at school when I was 16, and I've never reached that state.

00:14:26Melissa Erbacher: Have you had a break, or you've just run consistently since then?

00:14:30Lavinia Petrie: Pretty much gone run consistently since then, yes. Wow. I've got three children. So, obviously, I wasn't like the modern-day mums, you know, I didn't run up until the day before I gave birth and the day after I'd given birth sort of thing. I was a bit wussy. I stopped running when I was about six months pregnant, I think, and started running again when about three months after they were born sort of thing, so...

00:15:03Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure there are millions of mothers out there who would not consider that wussy at all.

00:15:09Lavinia Petrie: Yes. But, you know... I can't and I don't know how women can run when they're so pregnant. You know, you do see lots of ladies who are obviously very pregnant running around parkrun even. And I think, you know, how on earth can you do that? It's just not in my nature to do that. And I never, ever came back straight away sort of thing.

00:15:42Melissa Erbacher: Well, imagine all the bits and pieces are still a little bit tender for a while.

00:15:47Lavinia Petrie: Yeah, I mean, it never even entered my head to start running again. It was just one of those gradual things, you know, oh, I might go for a run today and probably have a little jog for about 2 or 3K. That would have been how I started. I just honestly can't remember.

00:16:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, I don't think a 6- to 12-month break is classified as a particularly big break when you consider you've been running since you were 16. Have you had to take any breaks due to injury during that time?

00:16:16Lavinia Petrie: Not major injuries, no. I've had little breaks, maybe two or three weeks while I've got over an injury and then done the recovery phase. But other than that, no, I haven't had any. Just had the odd calf tear, you know, a little calf tear and stuff like that, but nothing serious. Imagine no broken bones, no pulled tendons, no knees out of alignment, no hip replacements or anything like that. No, I've just been very, very lucky with the body that I've been given.

00:16:54Scott Trickett: You've never got sick of running? You've never lost the motivation?

00:16:57Lavinia Petrie: No, no, never, never. I've done variations. I've run 50Ks and I've run 100Ks. but not, and I've done a few trail runs, done some mountain running. I don't know if you've heard of the Bright Alpine Climb over Melbourne Cup weekend. You run up four mountains in four days. Well, I did that 25 years in a row. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah, 25 years I did that particular event, and it's a brilliant event. It was run by a guy and his wife. They conducted it for over 30 years, and then the lady died, and somebody else took it over. Now it's a commercial proposition, so it's never ever going to be the family-run event that it was originally. And that was just such a fun weekend. We used to take friends to Bright. There used to be about 25 of us all sharing accommodation you know and going up on the Friday come home on the Wednesday after Melbourne Cup and we'd just have a hoot and run the mountains you know shorts and singlet No big packs on our backs, no belt buckles with water bottles in and stuff like that, you know. I wonder how we do it, how we did it now. You wouldn't get away with running like that these days.

00:18:34Scott Trickett: You regularly use parkrun. You've done quite a few now. Yes. What do you enjoy about the parkrun experience?

00:18:44Lavinia Petrie: I love going to the parkrun. I'm a Lillydale parkrunner. And I have heard, it's to be debated, I have heard that it's one of the better parkruns because we do two laps. And everybody thinks that it's flat, but it's not. But we get lots of families at Lilydale. In my particular case, there's myself and my son, my two daughters, my daughter-in-law and three grandchildren that have been doing parkrun at Lilydale. And two of my grandchildren are at 10 and under, so they have to have somebody running with them. So... Friday, they ring around to see who's going to do parkrun with them on Saturdays. It's generally me.

00:19:36Melissa Erbacher: Do you find you have to slow down when you run with the grandkids, Lavinia? Because I know a lot of kids that are pretty sprightly.

00:19:43Lavinia Petrie: Yes, well, the 10-year-old is after my PB. Okay. she she's run just over 24 at the moment and my little grandson well he's just happy to be running around there he does want to get pbs from time to time but sometimes he's just too tired so we walk and jog do you love that your whole family can participate with you oh yes yes it's it's great um it's it's an excuse to come

00:20:14Melissa Erbacher: everybody leads busy lives these days we usually catch up at parkrun oh it's a nice place to do it do you you've you've traveled around a little bit and you've been to quite a few different events have your family come along with you to those

00:20:28Lavinia Petrie: No, I've been away on holidays virtually, visiting other people that do parkruns. I did a couple in Albury with some friends that live in Waganya, and I've got friends at Berwick Springs. I've done a couple at Berwick Springs. I had a tryout at Frog Hollow because I liked the name. Yeah. I've done Westerfolds and Jells because they're hilly. I did westerfolds the first time because I thought I needed a bit of a challenge, and then I went back and ran faster the next time, so I was happy with that.

00:21:08Scott Trickett: I want to go back to you said Lilydale Lake is not flat. I've run Lilydale Lake, Lavinia. I think it's flat.

00:21:16Lavinia Petrie: You think it's, well, it's flat compared to Westerfolds or Jells Park. But if you're running hard, it's not flat.

00:21:26Scott Trickett: That's what I've been doing wrong.

00:21:30Lavinia Petrie: Sorry.

00:21:33Scott Trickett: parkrun's a social thing for me.

00:21:38Lavinia Petrie: it's a social thing for me but even if I'm running you know if I decide well I'm going to do it because what I usually do at Lilydale I go early and I run a couple of laps of the lake then I do the parkrun with my grandchildren then I do another couple of laps of the lake So, at the end of the day, you've done 15 kilometers, but it doesn't feel like 15 because you virtually run slow and fast and slow and fast, and you get a bit of a session in without even realizing.

00:22:08Scott Trickett: When you are chatting with people after parkrun, the people you mix with, are they aware of your feats? Are they aware they're chatting to the fastest in the world?

00:22:20Lavinia Petrie: Some are, some aren't. They're pretty proud of me at Lilydale. I actually, on Saturday, got my 50th parkrun certificate. And so they had a little blurb prepared, apparently, because they said that I was the best in the world.

00:22:46Melissa Erbacher: Do you not just like walk around with all your medals on your neck all the time?

00:22:51Unidentified speaker: No, no.

00:22:52Melissa Erbacher: Because I would not, I mean, it's one of my rules when I do any event, I pretty much only ever do events that have medals, I will wear that medal for the rest of that day. It doesn't matter if I'm getting on a plane or if I'm going out to dinner or a restaurant, the medal stays on until I go to sleep. But, well, I mean, I take it off to have a shower and then wear it for the rest of the day. But if it was a gold medal for, you know, a world fastest time, I'm pretty sure I would like sew that to my skin.

00:23:24Lavinia Petrie: No, I usually receive my medals and then I put them away somewhere.

00:23:31Melissa Erbacher: You don't have a giant trophy cabinet?

00:23:34Lavinia Petrie: No. No. no no i don't have many photos either i'm not i'm not a photo person um in 2014 um i was actually named as the world masters athlete of the year and um there was a sort of a lot of publicity at the time and um people were asking me for photos and i didn't have any photos to show them So I had to take photos and since then, you know, everybody wants to take my pictures sort of thing. But I hate photos. I hate having photos taken. I'm getting a little bit more used to it now though.

00:24:18Scott Trickett: What's next for you, Lavinia? What's the next thing to conquer?

00:24:25Lavinia Petrie: Well, I'm very seriously considering going to do the World Championships indoors.

00:24:33Scott Trickett: Indoor running is different.

00:24:35Lavinia Petrie: Yes, indoor running is completely different. I've never done it before.

00:24:40Melissa Erbacher: Is that like on a treadmill indoors, or is there an indoor track?

00:24:44Lavinia Petrie: It's on a circular indoor track. It's a 200-meter track, and it's what they call boards. It's like a wooden track, and it's slightly banked, just like a cycling track.

00:24:59Melissa Erbacher: Yep, so you can corner faster.

00:25:01Lavinia Petrie: Yes, yes. It's 200 metres around and they have sprints. They have a 60 metres and a 200 metres and then they have an 800 metres, a 1500 metres and a 3K on the boards.

00:25:20Melissa Erbacher: I was going to say, you wouldn't want to go too far, would you? Because you'd get dizzy at your pace.

00:25:27Lavinia Petrie: But we've had Masters Indoor Championships now for... They're every two years, and I think there's been about maybe five of them. And I've always had, in the back of my head, I've always thought, oh, that would be fun to do. And then after I defended my titles in Perth that I won in Lyon last year, I thought, I've got to do something different. So I'm seriously considering going to Daegu in South Korea in March. to have an attempt on the boards.

00:26:05Scott Trickett: Thanks for joining us on the podcast.

00:26:07Lavinia Petrie: Thank you very much for asking me to speak with you.

Meet the ED

00:26:21Scott Trickett: It's time to visit Sydney and an event that I've always been interested in because they launched the same weekend as Studley. Welcome to the podcast, Rachel from Studley. Panania parkrun.

00:26:34Rachel Allworth: Thank you for having me.

00:26:35Scott Trickett: Peel back the curtain here. We've already established the correct pronunciation of Panania before we started the interview. It's a pretty cool name. Is it the name of the suburb?

00:26:47Rachel Allworth: It is now. That's a bit of a tricky question. Where we... So what's recently happened is we've had to move only just two weeks ago to a different park. So that's another... We might go down a little bit later, but it's only just across the road from where the original track was, which is actually in another place called Milpera, with an interesting name. They're both Aboriginal names, and we just liked Panania because it fit well. It ran well off the tongue, basically, Panania parkrun. We liked it, and it was just... We thought it might be a name that people would remember. And then as it turned out, it must have been a sign of some sort because we had a fair few things go wrong, I guess you could say, over the past few months. And in the end, we did actually go across the road to the other park, to Panania.

00:27:44Scott Trickett: Well, tell us about that. What actually went wrong and why did you move?

00:27:49Rachel Allworth: So originally, I found that park... It's a beautiful spot along the Georges River. It's quite secluded. Not many people go there. It was like an old hidden treasure, an old picnic area that people just didn't visit. And we started running there, my friends and I, and we really, really liked it. And because it's beside the river and because it was run down, it had just been let go a lot by the council. So we worked really hard. with them together to get it all back up and nice and ready to run and safe and everything. And we launched and it was great. And we had a lot of feedback about how good the course was. It was really a flat course, pretty fast along the river, obviously beautiful views and even a hidden rainforest. So it was really, really nice track. But then in winter this year, we had a lot of rain and we got flooded out. So that was our first problem. After that happened, it took about a month for all of the water and everything to subside. And you can imagine the park was in a bit of a state. So again, we had to work with the council to get it all fixed up and scrape the path and make it safe again. And that was fine. We went along for a little while. Occasionally, because it's know quite bushy down there we'd have to move some branches and things off tracks but nothing too bad and then we hit our our next problem up the on one part of our course along the the front part we call it there was an old building which was an old motorboat club it had been sold off about 10 years ago but nothing had ever happened to that and the track ran Riverside along the front of that. We'd had approval to run through there. Council told us it was all fine and it was council land. Then one morning we got there at 7 o'clock preparing to get ready for 8 o'clock and there was a fence across our track. So we couldn't run.

00:30:01Sonya Stacey: Well, we couldn't run the way we usually would run.

00:30:04Rachel Allworth: So luckily enough, upgrown community, you know what they're like. I had someone down there on a bike who was helping me set up that day and she did a quick... scoot around on her bike and we remapped out a new course just in the interim. But more recently as it was becoming busier with cars and things going into that new building site because now 10 years down the track they've decided they're going to refurbish that club, it was just not becoming safe anymore and it was too busy. So I decided it was time to go. That's about it.

00:30:39Melissa Erbacher: Not very many courses get to –

00:30:41Rachel Allworth: completely shift you're lucky you had another one close by are there any plans once the construction is all completed to move back to the original course i would like to um i've talked about that with the territory director and we did say once um all that building work is done we might be able to do that because it was a really nice spot where we are now is nice and we've had really good feedback but it's just not as pretty we're not no longer beside that river, although it's across the road. But, yeah, it's just – it would be nice to go back, although we're enjoying the new course at the moment.

00:31:18Melissa Erbacher: Now, Rachel, in terms of parkrun age, you're not very old. You haven't been around for a long time. You've done six individual parkruns but infinitely more volunteer roles. How did you get involved with parkrun? Where did you first hear about it and where did you start? Yeah.

00:31:37Rachel Allworth: So I haven't been a runner for that long, actually. I only started running in 2012. I loved it pretty quickly. Loved it and hated it, of course, because it was hard, but that's what I loved about it. And throughout that year, I just had a lot of friends say to me, oh, how did you learn to run? I wish I could do that, which evolved into the following year I started up my own running group. just a community group with a bunch of friends, about 10 people called Rachel's Runners. And I took them through how I learnt to run the process. And then 10 turned into 20, turned into 30, turned into 50, kept going, going, going. And the process was we would do 12 weeks of intervals, running and walking, increasing up to a 5K distance was our finale weekend or our fun run. We'd make up our own fun run and go and run five kilometres. And then I... I think it was on Instagram. I think it was Instagram. I'd got right into the running world, of course, and I started seeing people talking and posting about parkrun, and I had never heard of it because it wasn't very popular in Sydney back then. I think by this stage it was the end of 2013, and I started to do a little bit of research, and I saw that I think they were mostly up in Queensland, and I just thought, oh, this is the perfect match for us, really, People, once they'd finished the Learn to Run, they kept coming back to the start every time we'd redo it. But really, they wanted to go off and do other things, but they liked the group and the community atmosphere that we'd established. So I did a little bit of research at the end of that year to find out about parkrun and I contacted them. I didn't have a track in mind at the time. I just wanted to find out a bit more about it and setting one up. Got the details and then didn't know if I wanted to get into at that point being the organizer of another community group so i let it go and then i think i let it go for quite a while and then in 2014 i met a friend another person called damon who ended up being a good friend of mine and he had recently set up the menai parkrun which is only about 10 minute drive from me and he then not long after that became the territory director of to Sydney South and he was in the process of setting up Cronulla and I said to him, oh, you know, I've looked into setting up a parkrun before but I wasn't sure of a track. In the meantime, I'd found one and I said, I think I've got a good spot. Would you come down and have a look? So between he and I, we went down. He loved it. He loved what I loved about it. It was quiet. It was just a nice spot. It didn't have a lot of other traffic or park users so it was pretty much our own. And he helped me get it off the ground and get it in motion. And that was it.

00:34:41Scott Trickett: How did you find that process, Rachel? A lot of people would really love to start up a parkrun. Did you find it an easy, enjoyable process?

00:34:51Rachel Allworth: Well, at first, when I first contacted parkrun, I was a bit overwhelmed with having to find some local business supporters and things like that. So that's initially where I went, oh, I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure if I can have people that will commit to helping me each week to run it. You know, I just, I wasn't sure. So it was a bit daunting at first, but then when I found Damon, it was good because he'd already been through the process twice of approaching councils and working out sponsors and things like that, all the supporters. so it made it a bit easier and in that few years of course too i'd also build up a big running community locally so i knew that i would have a constant bank of people to help volunteer um and then everyone of course was excited that parkrun was coming because in those couple of years it got a lot bigger in the community and there was more, Campbelltown got set up which is about 20-minute drive from here and St Peter's in the other direction, 20-minute drive. That was the original, I think. So the word was out there more and I knew I'd have more support then. We just had to let other people know wider than my Rachel's Runners community that we were bringing it to Panania.

00:36:08Scott Trickett: Sydney certainly is growing. What's the vibe like in Sydney with the parkrunners? Are more and more people aware of it or is it still a pretty niche running scene?

00:36:19Rachel Allworth: I feel like it's still pretty niche. It's still early days. A lot of the people that you get doing the touristy stuff come from in a state. A lot of people around here still don't know about it. We've done a lot with our local supporters to get it out in the community and bit by bit more and more people come and it's just about breaking down those those sort of perceived ideas that it's for runners because, well, my running group started people walking. So, you know, we've got all those beginner people and just bit by bit it's about spreading that word that we welcome everyone and people are surprised when they come at how welcoming everyone is and, you know, what a great community it is and they see that anyone can participate and then, They go and tell their friends and then they tell their friends and bit by bit, I think it's, yeah, it's growing.

00:37:18Melissa Erbacher: It never gets old watching the surprise of people who don't believe you no matter how much you tell them and then they come along and they're just amazed at how welcoming and inclusive it is.

00:37:29Rachel Allworth: Yeah, so true. I think they might think, oh, it's timed. It's like a fun run. I can't run. But, yeah, I say just come once. I promise. You'll love it.

00:37:39Melissa Erbacher: Well, thank you for joining us on the podcast this week, Rachel. We really appreciate it. We'll have to have you back to talk to us on Club Corner about Rachel's Runners.

00:37:47Rachel Allworth: Yeah, no problem. I'd love to. Thank you for having me.

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

00:38:05Melissa Erbacher: There's a launch in Victoria. Big surprise coming up this week. Scotty, are you going to be at Warrnambool parkrun?

00:38:11Scott Trickett: Definitely not. Long way from where I am. Even though Victoria is a very small state compared to some of the others, it's a long way.

00:38:20Melissa Erbacher: So what are we talking about? What's that in hours of driving?

00:38:24Scott Trickett: Well, this is very close to Portland, and remember we've talked about some round trips being going to become statesmen. So, what is it, 800 kilometres there and back? That's a long way, isn't it?

00:38:38Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that's substantial. Completely doable if you're an adventurer, but substantial nonetheless. It's certainly an early start if you wanted to drive to parkrun without sleeping over the night before.

00:38:52Scott Trickett: Look, normally I would, because you're right, I'm an adventurer, but it's my last week of being a Territory Director, so I will be at Albert Park, which is one of my events, for their fifth anniversary, and they're having a Flashback 5 theme.

00:39:06Melissa Erbacher: Ooh, that's an interesting one. Have you got a costume sorted, or are you going to Territory Director suit up for the last time?

00:39:15Scott Trickett: I think last time I was there, so the idea is you can just flash back to any previous parkrun you've attended. So I think last time I was wearing my TD polo, so this time I'll wear my TD polo. So I'm still on theme.

00:39:31Melissa Erbacher: Okay, that sounds valid.

00:39:33Scott Trickett: Nambour, you'll be at an anniversary. Nambour, they're going wild.

00:39:37Melissa Erbacher: They are going wild. They want people to dress up as their favorite jungle or Aussie animal. So I have half my costume. I'm still waiting for the second half to arrive. And I may need another trip to an op shop this week to make some modifications to the first half that I already have. But I'm looking forward to it. You know what? I have not officially run the hardest parkrun. in Australia, and this weekend I'm going to do it on a parkrun day. So that will be my event number 34. Now that you've just caught up to me, I'm just going to sneak ahead again.

00:40:16Scott Trickett: Maybe I will go to Warrnambool's launch. I will park.

00:40:21Melissa Erbacher: Nambool is actually also my Nendi, and it is my closest parkrun geographically to where I live. So it's a bit embarrassing, actually, that I haven't run it on parkrun day yet.

00:40:33Scott Trickett: I am surprised to hear that. Two years ago, we launched our 100th event at Cannonvale. Two years on, we're getting very close to our 200th event in the next couple of weeks.

00:40:44Melissa Erbacher: Can you believe that was two years ago? How fast has that gone?

00:40:48Scott Trickett: It doesn't seem that long ago. What do they say? Time flies.

00:40:53Melissa Erbacher: It does. And they're having a sports theme, so that'll be cool too. But yes, close to 200 events. We know we are... Part of the lucky few who know what that 200th event is going to be. It's been locked in. Very exciting.

00:41:10Scott Trickett: It will be. I think there's a little bit of intrigue and prestige around being 200, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.

00:41:20Melissa Erbacher: I'm kind of keen and waiting for event number 250 when parkrun Australia gets their green shirt. I'm looking forward to that one. I will make sure I'm at that one no matter where it is in the country.

00:41:31Scott Trickett: I might join you, Mel, at that 250th event. Are you going to join me for Club Corner?

00:41:37Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. It's around the corner from me this week, I believe.

00:41:40Scott Trickett: It is. Let's find out all about it. This week on Club Corner, we're joined by Sonia Stacey from the South Bank Tri Club. Welcome Sonia and tell us all about your club.

00:41:41[music]

Club Corner

00:41:59Sonya Stacey: South Bank started in 2010 actually with a group of three mates who after an eventful first attempt at the Mooloolaba Triathlon decided it would be pretty cool to start their own club. And they did that and they put out some flyers around South Brisbane and West End area and expected to have about 20 people turn up and something like 80 people turned up at their first night. um to to join um and it's gone on sort of strength from strength since then it's a volunteer led non-profit community club um which thrives on volunteerism which is why we love parkrun so much because the the ethos is exactly what um what we find with south bank tri club as well as with our um our base which is south bank parkrun um and in fact the run director at south bank parkrun is is one of our members as well um of south bank tri club so we um We usually build parkrun into our training program for each Saturday or at least once every couple of weeks. We like to do parkrun tourist event. We have a little bit of a hashtag of SBTC on tour and people will take photos of themselves in their SBTC kit, particularly at parkrun, but all over the world really as they go travel and train while they're away. We usually put at least, usually put about once a month we have a big event at South Bank parkrun. itself where we try and get the whole club to come and a couple of times a year we take over all the volunteer places at South Bank parkrun and we usually have places another couple of times a year as well. Our members have, a lot of them have South Bank parkrun as their home parkrun so they do extra volunteering apart from that and we love it.

00:43:41Melissa Erbacher: You started off with three members, Sonia, how many did you say you've got now, did you say?

00:43:48Sonya Stacey: um they it was three mates who decided to start the club back in six years ago in 2010 um but it's now got just over 300 members so um we have had as much as 400 a couple of years ago i think but triathlon has just exploded in um in brisbane um well pretty much everywhere but certainly in southeast queensland it's great climate for it um so there's lots of triathlon clubs on offer now which is um which is fantastic. So there's lots of options for people close to home. But we've got about 300 – oh, it was 304 the other day. We've had a couple of join today. So we're probably up to about 310, I think.

00:44:28Melissa Erbacher: And how do you find – you said you obviously take part at South Bank parkrun quite a lot as part of your training. How do you find that works in with the overall training program for your members?

00:44:40Sonya Stacey: Well, it depends on what they're training for. So sometimes they'll go out and do sort of half an hour or an hour, even an hour and a half before parkrun and then just have parkrun at the end. Sometimes we have a parkrun sandwich. So we have training where we go for a run beforehand and then we do parkrun and then run afterwards. And it might be low heart rate before and after and a bit more of a tempo run during parkrun itself. For some people, they'll be aiming to be on their training program. They might be aiming to actually do a PB or it might be incorporating a low heart rate run. Sometimes people do break sessions. So they'll actually do a ride in the morning before parkrun. And then parkrun will be just the usual 5Ks. And then we also use the parkrun course, I suppose, as part of our training sometimes during the week because we base ourselves obviously at Southbank. Okay.

00:45:37Scott Trickett: Does anyone ever do a brick session with a swim? Because don't they have a beach at South Bank?

00:45:43Sonya Stacey: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Lots of people do that. It was so hot last Saturday that a lot of people were just quite unintentionally doing a brick session and swimming afterwards because it was so hot they just jumped straight into the lagoon. And I was thinking I definitely need to plan for that. Yeah, so I did that the other day. I did a swim first up, got there early. and did sort of a 40-minute swim or something, not very long, and then came and ran afterwards.

00:46:10Scott Trickett: You also mentioned that the club organises a volunteer day at parkrun.

00:46:16Sonya Stacey: We just organise it ahead of time with Gareth and we book the date off for us to do all the volunteer spots and then we'll do pace setters as well. So if people actually still want to do a good run, then they can volunteer to be a pace setter.

00:46:28Scott Trickett: Do you all wear your kit when you're volunteering and do you use it as an opportunity to promote your club the week that you volunteer?

00:46:35Sonya Stacey: Yeah, it is actually and it's just last, not last week, the week before I think. But yeah, we always wear our singlets there and I had someone join the club through having a bit of a chat to me at the start line, which was really nice. And we had a really, the last volunteering event that we had a couple of weeks ago was It was lovely because one of the things we always try and do is really support people as they finish and as they're competing and that's a bit of a SBTC culture. So we lined the finishing line and Gareth's got a really, really great little video up actually of the finish line experience, which is very cute. But during normal triathlon events, we're always there to cheer on the last competitor and it's a bit of a thing for us. So we're always cheering on everyone, high-fiving everyone, We always have at least sort of a few people turn up to every event just for supporting roles, just to be supporters. And we're supporting not only our club members but everyone else on the course really. And so it was the same thing when we were volunteering a couple of weeks ago. Everyone who did finish was then lining the finishing shoot and we were just cheering everyone on as they finished, which was really lovely. And there was a lady who finished and she came up afterwards when she was getting her barcode scanned and said, Would you come back in a couple of weeks because I'm going to turn 70 and I'd love to have you there at the finish line to cheer me on because that was lovely, which is very sweet.

00:47:59Melissa Erbacher: So what kind of ages are the people in your club sort of demographically wise, Sonia?

00:48:05Sonya Stacey: Well, it's interesting actually. For our adult members, it's anywhere from 19 through to 75. So we've got, it's a really broad range. So we've got universities, university students, sometimes first, second, third or even fourth time around. And we've got retirees who are our runner of the year from last year. Rick is actually still doing marathon PBs at 75, which just blows my mind. And he's a very common podium winner. We have junior members, but we're not a junior focus club. Our junior members are just children of existing members, so they have to come and train with their parents. We don't have an actual junior training program like some clubs do. In terms of other demographics, it's a really broad range. I actually find that really refreshing. You turn up for training and it's not the usual small talk when you meet someone about where you work and where you live and how old your kids are. and where they go to school, it's about how's your training going, when's your next race. For those of us of a certain age, it ends up being how your injury recovery is going because it's a little bit of an ongoing issue for injury recovery. But it's really refreshing. It's a completely different mix of people. What we do find for South Bank Tri Club itself is one of the observations I've made is we do tend to have a very high proportion of people in service industries, which I take it to mean that they found their tribe is what I call it. But in South Bank Tri Club, where it's a volunteer giving club, so people who choose that as a career, and if they want to get into triathlon, South Bank Tri Club suits them. So like I'm a pharmacist, we've got lots of nurses, doctors, physiotherapists and teachers, ambulance officers and firefighters. and people who are into industries who actually want to give back to others, which is lovely. And then we have lots of data nerds who love to just crunch the numbers, so accountants and engineers. But sometimes they're really – well, sometimes, of course, lots of times they're really lovely as well. I'm married to one, I better say that. But they're also the sort of people that want to give back to others. We are open to beginners all the way through to podium winners. We've got members of the club who – have been participating in triathlon since it first started in the 1980s. They're absolute gurus. They're amazing to hear their stories of what triathlon started off to be. And then we've got absolute beginners as well who were just doing their very first enticer. And we've got the plotters who were just there to participate. And we've got the real competitors who were podium. We usually have at least one podium winner for each competition that we go along to, which is pretty exciting. But we love all ranges of people. If you want to do triathlon, it's a great club to be in. I think what I found on Reflection is that triathlon is a great individual sport because you're just really competing against yourself. You're trying to do the best that you can do. But being in a club such as ours means you can do that in a team where you're really supporting each other. But if you don't do well that day, you're not letting anyone else down. So that's what I love to but you've still got the support to do the best that you can do.

00:51:27Melissa Erbacher: Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast this week, Sonia. We appreciate you giving us an insight into your club.

00:51:34Sonya Stacey: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:51:38Scott Trickett: That's it. Another podcast done. Not a lot of general banter this week. So, Matt, you should be happy.

00:51:45Melissa Erbacher: Matt who?

00:51:47Scott Trickett: Exactly. Mel, thanks for joining us.

00:51:50Melissa Erbacher: You're very welcome, Scotty.

00:51:51Scott Trickett: You know what you've got to do?

00:51:53Melissa Erbacher: Is this a trick question? Oh, wait. You want me to say goodbye. Goodbye. Why don't you ever have to say goodbye? Maybe next week we should change it up.

00:51:59[music]