Episode 48

Episode details · 149 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:12Scott Trickett: Welcome back to another edition of the parkrun Adventures podcast. Are you ready for fun? Mel?

00:00:19Melissa Erbacher: Who isn't ready for fun, Scotty?

00:00:21Scott Trickett: This is going to be a fun episode.

00:00:23Melissa Erbacher: That's why people are here.

00:00:24Scott Trickett: Yes, we're all about fun. Getting close to Christmas, lots of fun is happening. We're up to episode 48. We've been doing the news for a few weeks. When do you reckon we started doing the news? Ten weeks ago?

00:00:38Melissa Erbacher: It was not long after we received all the terrible feedback in the... That's right.

00:00:44Scott Trickett: And we had to change the way the podcast was constructed and got rid of stuff and added stuff. And it's made a massive difference to our downloads, which is great. It's time for the news.

parkrun news bulletin

00:00:57[music]

00:01:04Melissa Erbacher: It's the most wonderful time of the year. Opportunities for extra parkruns coming our way and Christmas compendiums are available for six out of 14 of the Earth's parkrunning countries. Thus far, in Australia, 39 events have declared to run on Christmas Day, 66 for New Year's Day. Ireland has one event on Christmas Day you need to run at Clonakilty at 9.30am, five events on New Year's Day. New Zealand has seven events declared yes for Christmas, seven also on New Year's Day. South Africa have six on Christmas Day and 12 on New Year's Day. The United Kingdom have 151 events running on Christmas Day and 196 on New Year's Day so far. And in the USA, Fletcher's Cove are the only event to declare their intentions either way for festive runs this season and it's a no. The six other events in the country are yet to say yay or nay. Russia have also got additional events on New Year's Day, but no official compendium page.

00:02:13Scott Trickett: In France, parkrun de Fontainebleau welcomed refugees to their event on Saturday. With migrants being moved from Calais and Paris recently, a refugee centre has recently been established in Fontainebleau. The event team reached out to the local Red Cross to invite the refugees to parkrun. and the first group attended over the weekend, with more expected to follow.

00:02:35Melissa Erbacher: The parkrun Australia Board met for the organisation's annual general meeting on Saturday 3 December. Some changes were made to the make-up of the seven-person board. Gareth Candy stood down as President and Scott Watkins was named as the new Chair. Craig Curtis and Renee Gimbert will continue on as Treasurer and Secretary respectively, with Stephen Jackson also remaining as a Representative. And joining the board for the first time are Silpa Palmer, Dale Murray and Matt Fullerton.

00:03:05Scott Trickett: Bunyaville parkrun achieved their hoped-for course attendance record with 270 parkrunners showing up on their third anniversary to smash the previous record of 231. This was undoubtedly spurred on by the appearance of the event directors on last week's episode of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. Another record was also smashed at the event, with in excess of 2,200 photos being taken by volunteer photographers on the move. That was good news from Bunyaville.

00:03:39Melissa Erbacher: Yes, always love to take credit for other people's work.

00:03:45Simon Mackley: Hopefully we added, you know, a couple just to get them over the line.

00:03:48Melissa Erbacher: Surely, surely one or two.

00:03:52Scott Trickett: And the Christmas news. Are you getting in the Christmas spirit? Because I certainly know Christmas has taken over the Trickett household. We spent the weekend putting up our tree. The Christmas lights are on the house. It looks fantastic this year. I've done it. Well, we have done it. My family have done a sterling job.

00:04:10Melissa Erbacher: If you do say so yourself.

00:04:12Scott Trickett: Yeah. Is that something that happens up in the Erbacher house?

00:04:17Melissa Erbacher: It is. Actually, here's a little known fact about me. I won a Christmas light competition about seven years ago for decorating my house. So, I'm big on Christmas.

00:04:31Scott Trickett: What was the prize?

00:04:32Melissa Erbacher: This year, what was the prize?

00:04:35Scott Trickett: More lights?

00:04:38Melissa Erbacher: No, I don't think I got – oh, no, there were lights as part of the prize. It was a bit random. My category was for the environmental category because I had used a lot of recycled materials in creating the roof scene that was on top of my roof, six weeks' worth of paper mache in my living room. etc etc and i had also this was at the introduction of led lights so they weren't very common they were still extremely expensive and i um had a few sets of those on my roof so that as well as some solar lights in the front garden as well as all the recycled materials on the roof that were bolted down so that it was cyclone-proof. That won me the prize. The local weatherman and some other people came around. I can't remember who else were the judges. But my prize was, in keeping with the environmental theme, I won half a dozen miniature fruit trees. And I can't – I won a worm farm. Cool.

00:05:51Scott Trickett: When I think of Christmas, I think of worm farms. That makes sense.

00:05:55Melissa Erbacher: And I also won a lighting voucher at a local store that I was able to use for additional lighting for my roof. So that was very cool. You know, like the Christmas kind of lighting. But it was a proper store. So I had to buy it by the meter, which was great because my whole roof is completely measured out for the exact lengths. And I have a system where things go up. And it was possible for me to tell them exactly how many meters that I wanted to fit my roof. And they cut it and they wired it up and they gave me the transformer and everything. It was great. So that was my prize.

00:06:36Scott Trickett: That's taking it to another level. I just got some cheap lights from Kmart and wrapped them around my pole. I have created the parkrun tree.

00:06:45Melissa Erbacher: Oh, nice. You'll have to take a photo of it and post it on the page.

00:06:51Scott Trickett: I haven't really, but I should. I just thought I'd throw that in because it's a parkrun podcast. And then you asked me to take a photo, so...

00:07:03Melissa Erbacher: Busted. You should totally do that and then we can take a photo and then we can share it with everyone. In fact, we should have a parkrun tree LED light competition.

00:07:13Scott Trickett: Well, that's where I was going.

00:07:15Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, good plan.

00:07:18Scott Trickett: Yeah, lots of planning. So your adventure this week, send us your photo. Christmas lights, parkrun style. I might actually do it now after I've said it. It's a pretty good idea.

parkrun adventure challenge (listener challenge)

00:07:31Melissa Erbacher: I'm totally going to do that. You know, I actually have green lights as well, so I'll do it in the green lights. I'm really excited.

00:07:38Scott Trickett: Hey, how was your weekend in Sydney? You were down there for some cello dudes.

00:07:45Melissa Erbacher: I was down there for some cello dudes.

00:07:47Scott Trickett: You weren't there for parkrunning, were you? Or were you combining your two loves?

00:07:52Melissa Erbacher: I was combining my two loves. The concert wasn't actually on until Sunday night, but parkrun adventures deemed that one must travel on a Friday so one can do a new parkrun one has never done before on the Saturday. And so that's exactly what I did. I had so much choice because I've only ever done a couple of parkruns in New South Wales. And so I It was a big deal. I'd never done any of the sort of close to the city ones. And it was not necessarily easy to decide where to go. But I was very drawn to St. Peter's because it's so iconic. And it was the first one. So I thought I should pay my dues. And also it's the home of Zoolanders in Australia or where they started anyway, the birthplace of Zoolanders. So I had to make my trip to St. Peter's. And I volunteered. I helped with the pre-event set up. They need a lot of volunteers at St. Peter's.

00:08:55Scott Trickett: Yeah, what's going on there? Massive event, been around for a while, but struggling for volunteers from time to time.

00:09:02Melissa Erbacher: Well, I think it's just the same as any successful event that gets a lot of parkrun adventurers, you know. It's a victim of its own success. It's huge and everybody comes in and wants to run, but yeah. Not all the time, struggling with volunteers, but I was happy to be able to help. And I also had the benefit of being able to run the event, which was great, because it's a beautiful course. I know it's on to incarnation number 16 or something around that number, but it's just gorgeous. The whole park is really beautiful. It was very dry. so the grass wasn't, you know, green and fresh as daisy kind of thing. But the actual – there's water and there's just beauty everywhere you look. In every direction, it's just beauty. And I did a bit of a wog. I didn't run the whole thing because I was feeling a bit pooped from the traveling. But I made sure I ran the hill because I thought, okay – Everybody talks about St. Peter's Hill, so I have to make sure I run it. And I was just about to ask a marshal because I was coming around a corner and I thought, oh, I think that might be it. I wonder if that's it. I've got to make sure that's it because I don't want to accidentally start running up something that's not the hill. completely pooped myself out before the hill but their marshals who I mean the marshals were great as well but they actually also mark out the whole course with chalk markings on the ground every week which were brilliant you could not get lost and somebody had actually written on the ground this is the hill and so I knew exactly that that was the hill and so I started running and I ran the whole way up Almost died, but I did get all the way to the top and then I ran down the other side because that's so much easier.

00:11:01Scott Trickett: Well done, you. How does it compare to my hill?

00:11:06Melissa Erbacher: I would venture to say that it's longer.

00:11:09Scott Trickett: Really?

00:11:10Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it just keeps going on and on. That could be representative of my level of fitness between when I visited Westerfolds and when I was at St. Peter's on the weekend. I would say I've lost a lot of condition since then because I was still training. When I visited you in March, that was still in the lead up to half marathon training.

00:11:31Scott Trickett: So that was when you actually were running.

00:11:35Melissa Erbacher: I am still running. I just don't Strava much.

00:11:39Scott Trickett: I check Strava all the time and I can't find you. Well, guess what?

00:11:45Melissa Erbacher: My phone self-destructed last week and I had to get a new one. Now that I've got a new one, possibly I might be able to sort out the technology situation and get it to auto-sync to Strava and make the magic happen. So you will see the proof that I do indeed run from time to time.

00:12:05Unidentified speaker: Perhaps. Perhaps.

00:12:22Scott Trickett: We uncovered a study at the University of Aberdeen that said it's better to exercise with friends. We wanted to go straight to the source, so we're going to have a chat to Dr. Pamela Rackow from the University of Aberdeen about that study. Welcome to the podcast, Pamela.

00:12:39Pamela Rackow: Yeah, thanks for having me.

00:12:41Scott Trickett: Can you explain a bit about your research and what you found out?

00:12:46Pamela Rackow: So the idea of the study was... if the effect of exercising together with a new sports companion would enhance exercising in a two-month period. So that's the idea. And I got the idea because... so when I conducted the study when you for example look in the internet or in other sources you see that okay exercising with a friend or finding a sports companion is effective when you want to exercise more and then I got the idea okay I really like want to test that and so yeah I came up with the idea of that study that we were looking for people who wanted to enhance their exercising and And then those, our participants were allocated to an intervention and a control group. And the intervention group people, they got a task to find a new sports companion. So this is a person that they have never been exercised with before. And to exercise with that person for the period of eight weeks. And what we found was that after two months, the people in the intervention group exercised more. So with the new sports companion, those people exercised more than the control group people. And what we also found was that different groups qualities we call it qualities of social support so the sports companion your new sports companion supports you in a certain kind or with a certain quality and we have two kinds of social support that is emotional social support and instrumental social support and the emotional social support this is like encouraging your sports body and And the instrumental social support is rather the aspect of really exercising together our tangible support. And what we found very, or we were very surprised that the emotional social support, so this encouragement thing, that this is the, when we, let's call it active ingredient, because the instrumental social support, we've also found that that helps you to have like more self-esteem, we call it self-efficacy, and that, again, is translated also in more exercising in the end. So we found that, first of all, the new sports companion is very, very effective in a certain way.

00:15:43Melissa Erbacher: This makes sense to me because I have a go-to buddy whenever I know that I need to exercise. And if she and I make a date to exercise together, even if it's pouring rain and it's dark and we're tired and nobody wants to get up, Neither one of us wants to be the person who cancels. So we both of us still get up and we still meet and we still exercise. So I know if I make a plan with her that I can't break it. So sometimes I avoid making the plans. But it's nice to hear science backing it up.

00:16:19Pamela Rackow: And what you explain is also very nice because – The other thing we are very interested in is the interplay between like the social environment. So we have what we call, for example, social support or the new sports companion and what we call self-regulation. So making the plan, what you described to me is like planning together. We say that we call that self-regulation. And this is also very interesting that the social environment is like interplaying with your personality or with the thing you as an individual do. So this is very, very, what you explained is very effective barrier management. So you know your barrier. This is like bad weather. And when I, yeah, when it's bad weather, I don't want to go. And then, okay, I have my strategy asking the spots companion.

00:17:09Melissa Erbacher: Now, Pamela, how many participants did you have in your study?

00:17:13Pamela Rackow: Yeah, I had 72 in the control group and 86 in the intervention group. in the beginning and then um after the two months it's a bit um because of attrition so a bit less than that but we began with 72 in the control group and 86 sorry 83 in the intervention group and then we we ended up in 96 in the intervention group and 79 in the control group. Sometimes those things are complicated.

00:17:53Melissa Erbacher: And when you choose participants to take part, how do you screen them? Did you have a mixture of males and females and different ages and different, what do you call, fitness levels?

00:18:06Pamela Rackow: Yeah, we had that. So the only inclusion criteria was really that the person wanted to exercise more. So we went to all different kind of places to find those participants. So we went to doctors' practices, some Swiss health insurance companies helped us. some physiotherapists helped us and we even went to fitness centers or gyms because we thought okay even if a person goes to to the gym once a week there are perhaps people that might to consider want to go a second time a week or something like that and then we had a very broad range of participants and then by applying that experimental design where people were randomly allocated to both groups, it happened that both groups are quite comparable. So control group and intervention group is quite comparable in terms of age, gender, education and of course also in terms of exercising. So the exercising variable so to say we have is minutes of exercising in the last seven days so people in the beginning people didn't differ in that variable you touched on earlier

00:19:44Scott Trickett: that they benefited more if they had emotional support, they were supportive. Were the people that were teamed up, were they exercising with their existing friends or were they paired up with strangers who became their friends?

00:19:59Pamela Rackow: No, it were people they already know. So the only criteria was that they should not have been exercised together. So it turned out that, for example, quite a lot of people ask their working colleagues if they want to exercise with them for two months or another friend. And, yeah, we did that because – so in the beginning, I thought when you ask – someone with whom you already exercise, then they are like a very good team and we wanted to have the sports companions or the buddies as comparable to each other as possible. And with that saying, okay, it should be somebody you've never been exercised with before, we tried to ensure that with this idea. Your idea with strangers, I was thinking about that. I was thinking about that like running a sports buddy app or something like that. But at that time, I mean, it was my PhD study. And at that time, I didn't have any funding. You know what I mean? So and then having like a sports buddy app where you put together strangers and that's very, from an ethical point of view, yeah, it's very, very hard. And it needs a lot of working force and a lot of things you have to do. And this is why, because I thought in the first step, I do it that way so that the participant asks somebody he or she already knows.

00:21:56Scott Trickett: Okay, it makes sense, but we need to introduce you to parkrun, Pamela, because lots of people start out as strangers at parkrun and they become friends simply by exercising together.

00:22:08Pamela Rackow: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good idea.

00:22:12Scott Trickett: So thanks for coming on the podcast and explaining a bit behind your study.

00:22:16Pamela Rackow: Yeah, it was my pleasure and it was very nice.

Meet the ED

00:22:29Melissa Erbacher: We have officially my favorite guest, E.D., on the show ever. This gentleman actually answered yes when Scotty and I asked him whether or not he had ever listened to the podcast before we started recording. His name is Simon Mackley and he harks from Mossman parkrun. Simon, welcome to the podcast.

00:22:50Simon Mackley: Thanks for having me.

00:22:52Melissa Erbacher: So very, very exciting. Mossman keeps coming up. It has come up throughout the year. You know, we're up to episode 48.

00:22:59Simon Mackley: now and everybody raves about Mossman can you tell us a bit about your parkrun yeah I mean we're a we're a small parkrun average about 46 runners a week which seems weird when we're getting 60 to 80 we're a three lap course and from the start finish we can see pretty much the whole course apart from our dreaded hill which you have to do three times when you do the three laps and Yeah, I mean, we're just a really small community parkrun in between some big ones like Curl Curl and St Peter's is probably the other big close one to us.

00:23:34Scott Trickett: Simon, isn't Mossman in a fancy part of town?

00:23:36Simon Mackley: Yeah, it kind of is.

00:23:38Scott Trickett: So the views in that must be spectacular and...

00:23:42Simon Mackley: Well, we run next to the water. The views from where we are are sort of looking down into Middle Harbour, which is where there are some nice houses as well. But we don't look really out into Sydney Harbour itself. But, yeah, we run next to the water probably more than – well, probably three-quarters of our course you can see water.

00:24:04Scott Trickett: Let's take it right back to the start. You've been around for three years, but you had a little bit of a rocky start, didn't you? You started and then you had to stop.

00:24:13Simon Mackley: We started at Balmoral, which is a really, really popular beach in Sydney's Inner Harbour. We got all the approvals that we needed. Tim even came and had a look at it before we started. And we ran our first event. We had 102 people turn up, quite a lot of tourists or parkrun adventurers. And on the Tuesday after we ran our first event, the council approached us and said that we hadn't got all the right approvals. and that we were effectively a menace to the community and they wanted to help us find another place to run. So at the same time, they were having a few disagreements with personal trainers using public space for their own profit. And we sort of got a bit caught up in that until they realised what was actually going on and that we were helping them I think it was five out of their six goals we actually fit into perfectly. So five months later and two council meetings and about an hour and a half of questions in council chambers, we started down at Spit West, which is ideal for us because it's a very unknown part of Mossman. Commuters go past it every day. Thousands, tens of thousands of commuters go past it every day, but they probably have never

00:25:42Scott Trickett: But it's all happy days now. The council's on board.

00:25:45Simon Mackley: Council's on board. We've had the mayor come down. We've had, you know, quite a few of our councillors actually run with us. Yeah, we very rarely hear from council now, but, you know, they're big supporters of us, as is most of the community.

00:26:01Scott Trickett: And you're extra lucky because now that's pushed your anniversary back to the coolest weekend in parkrun Australia. We share anniversaries with Westerfolds and Kawana now.

00:26:12Simon Mackley: Well, yeah, we sort of have a bit of a weird thing. For the last three years, we've actually had to push our anniversary back a week because it was one of our ED's birthdays. And the last two, that was the first year. And the next two years, two out of the three of us have actually been on holidays, coincidentally, at the same time. So, yes, we always have to push it back a week, unfortunately.

00:26:38Melissa Erbacher: Well, if you're going to push it back a week, you may as well push it back to the best week on the calendar year.

00:26:44Simon Mackley: That's exactly right. That's why we do it.

00:26:46Melissa Erbacher: Are you guys getting on board with the festive runs and doing additional runs this year?

00:26:51Simon Mackley: We're not. Christmas Day, we haven't actually done one. We have done one on New Year's Day the first year, but we always go to another two parkruns every It's normally Curl Curl and St Peter's, but this year we've decided we're going to go to our nearest events not yet done for most of us, and that's Rhodes and Parramatta.

00:27:16Melissa Erbacher: When you say we, do you mean collectively all your parkrunners? Do you organise a bus and go on an adventure together?

00:27:23Simon Mackley: Last night it went from two of us to about four car loads in about ten minutes. So, yeah, there's probably going to be at least ten of us. Well, at least any of us doing both of them, I'd say that once the word gets around, we'll probably be a bigger contingent.

00:27:43Scott Trickett: So there's obviously a close sense of community, a tight-knit community of Mossman parkrunners.

00:27:48Simon Mackley: Definitely is. We have one volunteer who does our – she's at the top of our hill, probably 45 out of of the 52 weeks. She's run with us three times. And every time we say, just run with us, Robin, she's like, no, no, no, no, no. I'll just go to the hill. It's fine. And then we have, we've got some people that have been there since the start. One of our runners has been injured for about, I think it's been eight months now. And he's taken out our points table the last two years. And then he's been injured since for the third year. But he's volunteered pretty much every week in the last eight months. And prior to that, in the previous anniversary year, he had been to 50, I think it was, 50 parkruns in 52 weeks and 48 of those were ours.

00:28:42Melissa Erbacher: That's some dedication right there.

00:28:43Simon Mackley: Exactly. Exactly. But, I mean, we go from him, he was one of our faster runners and being there often to one of our slower runners, took out the female points table the last three years running. But because she's consistent, she has taken out that points table.

00:28:59Melissa Erbacher: The soon-to-be defunct points tables that aren't going to be available anymore.

00:29:04Simon Mackley: Exactly right.

00:29:05Melissa Erbacher: Now, Simon, Mossman is also a little bit famous for attracting some of the big names. In addition to people like Tim Oberg and Dave Robbo, I understand, well, we all know that Bruce Fordyce paid you a visit and he rates you quite highly. What do you do to get these people to come to your parkrun?

00:29:28Simon Mackley: Oh, I think it's the view. I think it's, yeah, I mean, I think we're pretty well known for how, you know, how picturesque the course is for the great community. you know, when you get the accolades from Tim and Robbo as well. But, yeah, I mean, it was fantastic to meet Bruce. And on the same weekend, Pat Farmer came as well, and there was a bit of a love in between the two of them. They were both, you know, in awe of each other. So, yeah, we've had some great people come, you know, as well as our normal community, yeah.

00:29:58Melissa Erbacher: And how does that – I've never really been at a parkrun that's had, you know, a big name person attend. So I'm not sure if I would have a fangirl moment or if I would just be like, oh, yeah, you know, get in line, don't forget your barcode like the rest of them. Do you feel different? Is there a different vibe amongst your parkrunners when they're there? Yeah.

00:30:20Simon Mackley: It's funny, when Bruce came, the word got out in the South African community and, you know, we had an influx of runners. Yeah, I mean, I definitely had a fanboy moment with Bruce there. I mean, it's always nice to see, you know, Pat Farmer lives in Sydney, but when he comes, I, you know, I definitely, you know, am in awe of his running. We had Marty Dent who holds our record as well. Yeah, we had Hannah Oldroyd who's, you know, quite a well-known UK parkrunner. And her partner, Steve. And, yeah, when it's people that I have seen on Facebook or I've heard on the parkrun Show UK and all that sort of thing, yeah, I mean, I have a total fanboy moment and I start telling people, oh, my gosh, that's so-and-so. And, yeah, they're like, who?

00:31:09Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure that it's still called a fangirl moment even if you're a boy.

00:31:12Simon Mackley: I don't know.

00:31:16Melissa Erbacher: That's what I call it anyway.

00:31:17Simon Mackley: Maybe it's a fan person moment.

00:31:21Melissa Erbacher: Oh, no, that's boring, fan people.

00:31:25Scott Trickett: Hey, Simon. Thanks for coming on the podcast. You are officially our favourite ED for the year so far. It's got nothing to do with it. You listen to us. We just loved having a chat to you.

00:31:35Simon Mackley: Thank you, and please come and visit.

00:31:37Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think we're both going to add Mossman to our list. No, I'm keen to get there.

00:31:42Simon Mackley: I hope so, and you'll see all the Dirty Cheetahs there.

00:31:45Scott Trickett: Well, exactly. I'll bring my ears, and I've got the T-shirt now, so no excuse.

00:31:50Simon Mackley: That'll make you incognito. Incognito? Not with our dirty cheaters.

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

00:32:06Scott Trickett: Mel, we are nothing if we are not consistent. We are consistent with our mispronunciation of parkrun's locations around Australia.

00:32:16Melissa Erbacher: And seemingly simple, straightforward ones too. I know. How good are we?

00:32:22Scott Trickett: Kahuna last week, which, great name, say it how it's spelt. No, wrong.

00:32:29Melissa Erbacher: Are you serious? We didn't nail Kahuna?

00:32:31Scott Trickett: No, we didn't nail Kahuna. Foster? No.

00:32:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, Foster. I thought you were talking about Foster. No. How did we get Kahuna wrong? Please tell me how you pronounce Kahuna.

00:32:43Scott Trickett: Hang on. Let me look it up. I've been corrected by a couple of people. I haven't got time. I think it's Kuana. I don't know.

00:32:52Melissa Erbacher: No, that doesn't make any sense.

00:32:55Scott Trickett: No, it doesn't make any sense.

00:32:58Melissa Erbacher: Okay. It's really not one of those phonetic spellings.

00:33:01Scott Trickett: This week I think we got it right because we've got one launch this week. Now we've got one launch and the 10-year-old boy in me giggles. We're going to Rooty Hill this week to launch a parkrun.

00:33:17Melissa Erbacher: Only the 10-year-old boy in you giggles, not all the other boys.

00:33:22Scott Trickett: I'm sure they're used to it.

00:33:23Melissa Erbacher: And you reckon we can nail these anniversaries? Yes.

00:33:27Scott Trickett: Yeah, the rest are easy. I'll start with Central Lakes. They're celebrating their first.

00:33:32Melissa Erbacher: We've got Menai in New South Wales who are celebrating their second.

00:33:36Scott Trickett: Stanthorpe, also celebrating their second.

00:33:40Melissa Erbacher: And Stockton in New South Wales, number two as well. Three two-year-olds and a one-year-old. All these toddlers in the parkrun family.

Club Corner

00:33:53Scott Trickett: no launches and anniversaries in western australia this week so we're going to go there for club corner the secret rocky runners are the featured club on club corner this week we've got the man in charge rob to join us rob tell us about the club and how it got started when i moved here for the uk about um three and a half years ago

00:34:23Rob: I've come from a running scene in the UK where, you know, you can have within a 50K radius, there might be seven or eight running clubs that would all have 100 plus people. When I was looking at running clubs over here, you know, we've got a couple of really big ones in the West Australian Marathon Club who are great because they organise lots of races. You've got the Masters again that organise a sort of social run every Sunday. But I was really struggling to find... just like a local running club I mean you had to go as far down as well Bunbury have a running club excuse me there's a northern suburbs running group but there isn't really you know you've got a lot of PT people going oh I'll train you to you know for some of the big fun runs the HBF and the City to Surf you know I'm wanting you to pay you know whatever $300 or something and you know I don't need to pay somebody $300 to run you know I just need some company sometimes to go and do intervals and So, you know, I couldn't find one. So you build your own. And I created a group with some people I'd met through Rockingham parkrun. Just initially, the group just came about. I think I had about 20 people in the group and it was just wanted, you know, just sharing ideas, thoughts, that kind of thing. And then from there, it's kind of just grown and it started off with an interval session. with myself and two other ladies turned up for it and that's continued to grow now where pretty much every Wednesday now we run an interval session anywhere between sort of 15 and 30 people might turn up and yeah the club's just grown from that and officially we registered Secret Rocky Runners a couple of years ago in fact we just had our second birthday and you know it's still there's still a lot of stuff going on in the background to make things work it's life gets in the way sometimes work and other commitments But slowly but surely, we're building the website, we're trying to build, get more grants so that we can look at hopefully getting some coaching done in the future, rather than just some ad hoc bit of coaching from some guy from the north of England that just wanted some friends to run with.

00:36:28Scott Trickett: Is it a structured club? As in, are you registered? Do you have the support of the local athletics organisation?

00:36:37Rob: So we are registered, we've incorporated the club to be officially recognised within the governing body. You'd have to ask Claudia who that is. But we've taken the decision not to align with WA Athletics, purely from a cost point of view. We don't want the costs to be expensive. It is a running club. And I think it would have doubled the cost at least if we wanted to align with the local sort of WA athletics. But there is a structure internally in the sense of we've now got, you know, a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary. Although it started off as a group on Facebook, you know, this year we now have actually introduced, as I say, a membership group. From that now, we're going to continue to grow and we're looking at ways we can improve the club. We're currently in the process of actually building a website just to promote the club a bit more. Looking at this financial year coming forward, we'll be looking to maybe do a bit of a club championship, most improved runner, that kind of thing. Just ways to promote people to get out there and keep fit and healthy.

00:37:52Melissa Erbacher: Sounds all very professional, Rob. What do people have to do to join your club?

00:37:58Rob: Pretty much at the moment, it's join the Facebook group, Secret Rocky Runners Chat. We are predominantly Rockingham based in WA, but we do have people that are in the group from Melbourne, Tasmania. I think there's even somebody over in Queensland. And it's generally people that have lived here and kind of taken SRR away with them. We're kind of doing it as almost like a two-tier membership. Everybody's welcome to be a part of the group, provided you're not going to try and sell me Ray-Bans or something like that. But if you want to be actively involved, and then there'll be a membership there that's going to entitle you to slightly cheaper merchandise. We organise a, over the last two years, we've done what we call a birthday mile. Basically, we hired out, in fact, a couple of weeks ago, We hired out the WA Athletics track for a couple of hours and, you know, members would come down and just a time mile race, got a bit of bling at the end of it because we all love bling. We had, they brought their kids and we had kids racing 100 metres and 400 metres and it was just a bit of a family fun day out.

00:39:10Scott Trickett: And so what's the ethos of the club? What's the vibe of the club?

00:39:13Rob: I think, you know, the mission statement that we've created is Secret Rocky Runners is at heart a family of runners and fitness enthusiasts. We exist to make running and fitness fun, inclusive, passionate and purposeful. We strive to support, develop and encourage and achieve no matter what the ability. We are Secret Rocky Runners. And that's kind of the mission statement that we've needed for the incorporation and obviously when we're applying for grants. But it really is fundamentally, it is about friendship. It is about supporting each other. You know, we celebrate the guys that can run you know, a 17 minute 5k, but we celebrate somebody that completes 5k for the first time or, you know, does something that is outside their comfort zone. You know, it's, it purely is about just building that, you know, a family of support that, because it's hard, you know, you know, I'm not the smallest fellow in the world and, you know, I used to be a lot bigger and it's hard sort of walking up to a running club or a group of people and joining in and, you know, Hopefully, and what I believe, Secret Rocky Runners provides that bit of community, that friendship on a local level. We're quite fortunate. I don't know what it's like in the rest of the States. I would assume it's the same. The parkrun Forum guys are great. That's a big community. They're great. Lots of advice on there. But what I wanted was something more local that you can actually build some friendships where you can actually arrange to go for a run on a a Tuesday night because you've just finished work and, oh, yeah, somebody else is free and, you know, it's open to everybody.

00:40:49Scott Trickett: And the uniforms and the club colours, bright orange, so I'm guessing you stand out in a crowd. What was the decision behind the bright orange?

00:40:59Rob: Well, if you ask Claudia and I, I think I wanted yellow, Claudia wanted blue, and because we couldn't decide, we put it to a vote and orange became the colour of choice and it's just grown from there now. It does stand out. We ran at the Perth Marathon and Perth Marathon relay and we had about 60 runners running there in June this year and we took the Orange Gazebo up to the relay changeover point and even from the finish you could see a good sort of 5k away where Secret Rocket runners were because it was just a little blip of orange in the distance and we knew exactly where we were. Yeah, it's more about recognising that people have become quite passionate and proud about it. I know several members that actively now go and buy and collect orange stuff. I'm guilty of it myself now because it's, ooh, that's the secret Rocky Runner colour and people have really taken ownership of the group and the colour as well.

00:42:02Melissa Erbacher: I do the exact same thing with parkrun Green. If I see it anywhere, it doesn't matter what it is. Stationery, it's mine. So, Rob, you've been going for two years. What kind of success stories have you got from club members in that time?

00:42:19Rob: Quite a wide variety. I mean, let's go back to the Perth Marathon, really, as I say. I don't know if you know the event, but the marathon club over here, they put on the Perth Marathon. And basically, I think we had that day probably 20 or so runners that were part of the group running the full marathon, but we actually put 11 teams into the relay. And in that, you know, we had people that, um, were, you know, I think the legs were something like five, 11, sorry, to five, 10, 11 and 16 K. And, you know, we had all walks of life competing at people that could barely do the five K we're getting involved with, you know, some guys that were running the 16 K in just over an hour. Um, and one of our teams, the mixed, um, The team came home third overall, the first mixed team, which was a nice bit of success there. But for me, the success wasn't just those guys. It was just the sheer, you know, getting people involved in the event that perhaps wouldn't have normally got involved because, again, they don't have that connection. And then to the other extreme, we've had, you know, the first time a couple of ladies, and I don't really want to, I will name them just to embarrass them, a little bit, but there's Katherine Reid who, she wasn't a runner. She started coming down to parkrun through some mutual friends, got involved in Secret Rocky Runners and I remember her the day that she was walking parkrun and I remember the first day she ran the 5k and for her in a great time, For some people, probably not. But the look on her face when she crossed the finish line and she'd run the whole 5K, that's worth, for me, a lot more than some bling that I might pick up for running a PB here and there. And to be fair, we're littered with stories like that. I don't know how long you were at the Bunbury Three Waters, but if you stuck around to the end for the half marathon, I believe, unfortunately I was working, but I believe that the running chute gantry, the archway, failed. Not for any choice. I think they ran out of petrol or diesel or whatever. And then some of the ladies, because we still had a runner, and I think there was a couple of other runners out there, decided to hold up, much to the bemusement of the organisers, actually held up the gantry just to make sure that the people who finished had a finish line to cross. And that just sums up, you know, what the club's about and people are proud to support each other.

00:45:09Melissa Erbacher: How excited are you, Scotty, that there are only two more podcasts between now and Christmas?

00:45:18Scott Trickett: I am excited. I am excited to reach our 50th. It's been a long year. Podcast every week. Almost every week. Yeah, I've loved it. But is this where we tell people we're going to take a break over Christmas?

00:45:32Melissa Erbacher: I think it's a good idea to start preparing them. You know, we've got fans, or at least one of them.

00:45:39Scott Trickett: Wasn't Simon great?

00:45:40Melissa Erbacher: It was lovely having Simon on the show.

00:45:43Scott Trickett: Great bloke. Go to Mossman. I don't know why their numbers are so low. I'm going to head there next time I'm in Sydney, if I ever go back to Sydney. But, yep, two more episodes to go, then we're going to have a break, because it's Christmas. New Year's. It's party time. It's time to relax.

00:46:04Melissa Erbacher: And we know that all you guys will not be listening to podcasts anyway because you'll be too busy being sucked into the silly season, eating too much food and then trying to run all that copious excess off, as will we all.

00:46:20Scott Trickett: Or you could just have a lot of extra free time on your hands and you really want more podcasts. So you can go back to episode one, work your way through the catalog.

00:46:32Melissa Erbacher: Oh, wouldn't that be scary? Episode one again.

00:46:34Scott Trickett: I think I'm going to, I'd like to do it. I'm going to do it again. Yeah.

00:46:40Melissa Erbacher: You know, every year on Christmas Eve, I listen to, I don't listen to, I watch It's a Wonderful Life. It's like a little tradition in my household. Maybe, yeah, maybe I should start listening to episode one of the podcast as well. And see how much... I don't think I could. I think I would cringe too much. I have recollections of cringing at the time that we recorded, so I'm sure that probably doesn't bode too well with how it may have stood up over time.

00:47:16Scott Trickett: We'll see.

00:47:17Melissa Erbacher: I will join you again next week on episode 49, yes?

00:47:20Scott Trickett: Yep. And for 50. And then we'll see. Until then. Until next week.

00:47:32Unidentified speaker: Thank you.