Episode 51

Episode details · 234 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:08Scott Trickett: Welcome back to the 2017 edition of... Well, we're going to take it in a new direction. We're going to take the pod in a new direction. The intro music is a hint. You know, our GM told us we were niche. parkrun was a bit niche. So we're going to go this year. We've done parkrun. Now we're going to talk about fiddling and specifically Sunshine Coast fiddling, just to be a bit more niche. So welcome to the fiddle adventurers. No, I'll workshop the name a bit, but welcome Mel.

00:00:17[music]

00:00:48Melissa Erbacher: Thanks Scotty. It's good to, well, I won't say be back because this sounds like a brand new podcast to me, but I'm excited. I'm all about the fiddling lately.

00:00:58Scott Trickett: Well, tell us about it, because we'll get on to parkrun. Have we talked about that? We'll get on to parkrun, but fiddling. You've been at fiddle camp, and I love that they call it fiddle camp.

00:01:11Melissa Erbacher: Yes, sunshine fiddle camp. Not any kind of camp, fiddle camp. It's the sunshine fiddle camp. Yeah, five days of crazy... Crazy madness. Playing, well, I specifically play cello or attempt to play cello, but the fiddle camp is open to all string instruments and apparently accordions. There was a man there with an accordion. So they take all kinds, somewhat like parkrun. As long as you're happy and you've got energy and you're willing to try and play an instrument, then you're welcome at fiddle camp. So, yeah, it was great fun. Completely different than how I'm used to learning. And I was absolutely in over my head. And yeah, I don't know. I get super excited about it. And even when Adam and my parents-in-law came to the concert on the last night, they all got excited about it too. And they're like, oh, so this is what you've been doing all week. And yeah, there are a lot of talented tutors and things like that. So I was very lucky to be able to attend. And it's going to be my new annual thing. First week of January every year, you can find me at Sunshine Fiddle Camp. You should come next year. You've totally got time to learn an instrument. In fact, everybody does. There's plenty of space at Fiddle Camp for everyone.

00:02:35Scott Trickett: I can imagine. Did any of your parkrun experience translate to Fiddle Camp? That's the only question I've got because I don't know much about fiddling.

00:02:46Melissa Erbacher: Did any... I'm trying to find some sort of transferable skills, but I don't know. You've caught me off guard.

00:02:59Scott Trickett: Okay, we'll move on. That's it. That's the Fiddle Adventurers podcast done. Welcome back to the parkrun Adventurers for a new year. We're still in a little bit of holiday mode. I'm still in a little bit of holiday mode. I've discovered Zooper Doopers. So it's a Zoopa Doopa kind of night.

00:03:20Melissa Erbacher: By holiday mode, Scotty means we haven't done any prep for this episode. So we're just going to prepare you all now for one of those fly by the seat of your pants kind of.

00:03:32Scott Trickett: episodes we're gonna ease into it hold on hold on people it could go anywhere lots of general banter today and we'll start tell us about your Christmas and New Year's Day parkruns what did you get up to well no no you tell us because I've already been talking okay a lot about fiddle camp so you start with Christmas where did you go for Christmas I was back at Westerfolds I was in my Santa suit

00:04:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, what was the temperature like?

00:04:02Scott Trickett: It was particularly warm. I've done it a couple of times now. And this was my hottest. My time wasn't as good as it was in previous years.

00:04:13Melissa Erbacher: Oh, so you ran. You ran dress the Santa. You didn't just volunteer in the suit.

00:04:19Scott Trickett: No, no, no. And I commit. And I commit to the suit. So ran in the full beard, in the full wig, cap, the whole lot.

00:04:27Melissa Erbacher: Wow, I bet that was a really gross suit by the end.

00:04:31Scott Trickett: It was. And I've got to tell you a cute story. One of our little juniors, he's only about four. He was staying next to his mum. I was in my full Santa suit. He walked away from his mum, came up to me and just said, thank you for the presents this morning. And then quickly ran back to his mum. And his mum didn't even know he did it. Very cute moment. But unfortunately, I think I might have spoiled it at the end of the run when... You took the suit off. Well, no, the suit remained on, but I just couldn't maintain the beard and the wig for the full hour.

00:05:10Melissa Erbacher: You've ruined Christmas for that little boy.

00:05:13Scott Trickett: Well, I hope he doesn't have a great understanding of, you know, people. I don't know.

00:05:19Unidentified speaker: Maybe he just thought I was somebody else.

00:05:22Scott Trickett: But yeah, that was really cute.

00:05:24Melissa Erbacher: moment on christmas day and it's so sweet that he was grateful and he was you know brave enough to show his gratitude as well yeah it was and full credit to me i obviously looked apart did you go for the jolly belly and everything like that as well i might have that already we'll get on to that when we talk about resolutions we'll get on to that

00:05:51Scott Trickett: But yeah, that was my Christmas day parkrun and I still stand by it. I reckon it's the best day. It's the best parkrun. I agree with PSH from our last episode we did. Just a good feel. Everybody wants to be there and I think it's just a great way to start Christmas.

00:06:09Melissa Erbacher: Well, I would certainly agree with that. Where were you? I was in Brisbane. My family live in one of the suburbs there. The closest parkrun is Wynnum parkrun but we actually ran at Cleveland. They were running at 8am because you're allowed to push your start back on those days which was really quite useful when we've got a six and an eight year old who want to open some presents. Although the ruling in my brother's house is that each child can open one present and then they have to wait to open all the rest of them until after parkrun. And The kids, I'm sure it's this start them early thing that you swear by. The kids, completely fine with that. They had no qualms. They didn't whinge or moan about any of the other things. They didn't question the fact that they were going to parkrun. They were like, yep, okay, this is what we do. And we came, we went out to Cleveland. It was quite overcast and very cool, which was nice because it had been very warm in the lead up. But... Yeah, it was a nice temperature and then it actually poured for about the last... five, ten minutes of the run. I was with my sister-in-law, who's still nursing an injury, and my niece, Lani, who's six. And so we were pretty much just walking. And, yeah, so we got absolutely drenched. My brother met us with an umbrella for the last 500 metres, which I wouldn't have been worried about except, I don't know if you do it, but as a Territory Director, I carry my phone around. on my person even when I'm doing parkrun in case there's an emergency at one of the other events and they need to call me I never leave it back in the car or anything like that and it was a new phone and it wasn't in a waterproof case and I had nothing on me that was any kind of waterproof so it was sort of shoved up my shirt and I was holding out my shirt in front of me looking like a bit of a weirdo and so I was grateful for the umbrella when it arrived and The phone survived, which is good. I didn't get any calls that day with emergencies, which is even better. And it was a really wonderful run. And you know what else was really special? Apart from the fact that all the volunteers were amazing and they're out there in the pouring rain with their umbrellas and their volunteer vests and still, you know, as happy as Larry and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, my nephew Rowan ran the whole way for the first time. And the whole five kilometers, I mean, they've done quite a few parkruns now, but it's the first time he ran the whole thing without stopping. And I was so proud of him. And then later on in the afternoon after lunch, he was just sort of sitting there and he's like, you know, I think I went a bit too hard at parkrun today. I just thought. Yeah, he's either feeling it in his muscles or he's just a bit tired. But I just thought, wow, he sounds like such an adult sitting around the table. It's just like, yeah, I went out too hard or something like that. He's eight years old. I just thought, good on him. That was a highlight for me that he was able to run the whole distance for the first time with his dad.

00:09:28Scott Trickett: He obviously likes running in the rain. I love running in the rain.

00:09:32Melissa Erbacher: Love it.

00:09:33Scott Trickett: Yeah? Yeah. You love it or he loves it?

00:09:35Melissa Erbacher: I love it. He loved it. Well, he was quite cold and shivery by the time we finished and was ready to get in the car. But, yeah, no, they go faster, I think. Everyone goes faster in the rain. It's very liberating.

00:09:48Scott Trickett: Now, New Year's Day.

00:09:50Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Did you get a double in?

00:09:53Scott Trickett: I volunteered for the first run and then got a run at the second one. So I did the double.

00:09:59Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you did a double.

00:10:00Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:10:01Melissa Erbacher: You went to two parkruns. That's what the double is.

00:10:03Scott Trickett: Yep. But you know what I did? I didn't run direct. So these days, the only time I volunteer, it seems to be I'm the run director. And as I think I've said before, as a run director, you don't do a lot. You stand around and have lots of conversations and make sure everything's happening. But you actually don't do anything. But on New Year's Day, we broke our record at Westerfolds. And I was on the finish tokens. And I swear, it is the toughest, the most stressful volunteer position by far.

00:10:36Melissa Erbacher: You have trouble counting up numbers, making people stand in a row? What's stressful about it?

00:10:42Scott Trickett: The stressful of just handing out the tokens and people running past and not getting tokens and keeping track of them. And when like a whole group comes across at the one time, you've got to hand out all these tokens and stay in sync with the timekeeper. Just far too stressful for me. I'm much more of a stand around, just watch and chat to people kind of volunteer these days.

00:11:06Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, now that you've scared everyone off finish tokens, which is not a stressful job at all if you actually pay attention, you were probably standing around trying to have a chat and not actually watching the people across the finish line. I don't think so. As you're supposed to be doing.

00:11:26Scott Trickett: It might have just been my experience, but, well. I did enjoy it.

00:11:32Melissa Erbacher: So you had a course attendance record. What kind of numbers are we talking?

00:11:35Scott Trickett: We got into the 200s, which is good. 220 something for Westerfolds, which is good. We sit at about 150 every week. So it was a nice bump.

00:11:46Melissa Erbacher: So at 150, you've only got one person on finished tokens? You don't have either two people on tokens or one on token support?

00:11:54Scott Trickett: No, just one.

00:11:56Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:11:57Scott Trickett: Maybe that's why it's so stressful.

00:11:59Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, if you had to, when you got those bigger numbers, it wouldn't have been as stressful because the whole idea is that person who is supporting chases down the people who run through and don't take the tokens. So you can keep your eyes on the people that are still finishing and actually taking their tokens.

00:12:15Scott Trickett: I get that and, you know...

00:12:18Melissa Erbacher: It is a whole other volunteer position. Yeah.

00:12:20Scott Trickett: I understand there are... We could have a funnel, but we just weren't expecting, you know, to go, to get big.

00:12:27Melissa Erbacher: Gangbusters.

00:12:28Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah. But then after that, I got to run at Mullum Mullum, which I'd already run on Christmas Eve. But I got to, well, I walked, ran with my daughter then, so I got to have a proper run on New Year's Day. And I've got to tell you, we talked to Scotty Hawkins a few episodes back. He's a great run director. You know, as far as run director briefings go, he's leading the field. And the course at Mullum Mullum is really good. The best thing about it is that it seems to be over a lot quicker than all the other parkruns. So that's great.

00:13:04Melissa Erbacher: Is that just because you ran really fast? Maybe. Or is it over quicker? I don't know. It just seems to go quicker.

00:13:12Scott Trickett: It's got lots of shade. You know, it's one of these contrasts. It's all trail, bush, and then the second half is all underpass and concrete. So it's a real contrast. And, yeah, Strava might have said it's a bit short, but there's lots of trees and there's lots of branches and there's lots of bridges to go under.

00:13:34Melissa Erbacher: Yep. It's not that accurate by the satellites.

00:13:38Scott Trickett: Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's what it is. But it's a fantastic parkrun. Really, really enjoyable run. A little bit challenging, but I highly recommend it. And they've had really good numbers. And I think it's a really good effort to put on a New Year's Day run when it was only like their third event.

00:13:58Melissa Erbacher: Well done, Mullum Mullum.

00:14:00Scott Trickett: You? Did you? It was a new event for me, so I climbed up the most events table by one, but I'm guessing you're going to tell me you added a few more.

00:14:10Melissa Erbacher: So how many events are you on the most events table now?

00:14:13Scott Trickett: I can't remember. A couple behind you.

00:14:18Melissa Erbacher: 36?

00:14:19Scott Trickett: Maybe. Who's counting?

00:14:22Melissa Erbacher: Who's counting? Oh, well, nobody counts when you're coming second, do they? I got two new ones. So Cleveland on Christmas Day was a new one for me. And then, yes, I did two brand new events on New Year's Day as well. I got to experience Chermside and Kedron parkruns for the first time. which were also amazing events, wonderful events. And we did it with a big bunch. So it's really nice to be able to travel. Both those events in Northside Brisbane and my family kind of live east and sort of south, different branches of them. And we convinced family for the Sunshine Coast to come as well, as well as a whole bunch of Sunshine Coast parkrunners. So it was quite the big posse by the end, the morning when we got down there and that was really good it was nice to have you know familiar faces I mean all the parkruns are always welcoming and the volunteers were fantastic but it was great to be able to you know be on tour or take the adventure with your family and friends all sort of meeting somewhere in the middle so we did Chermside first which was a gorgeous course highly recommend it and Then that was followed by Kedron, which was very toasty by the time we started Kedron. That was at 8.30 in the morning. Not a huge amount of shade on the course, but the atmosphere of all the runners, you know, it really made up for it. And once again, my niece and nephew were there with us, and so I did that course. I actually sort of ran... Ran, walked both courses with Gareth Saunders. He was kind enough to slow down for me because I haven't been doing a lot of running lately and he's still coming back. He's trying to rest from an injury that he sustained last year and he's not supposed to be running but he couldn't. what's the word, resist. He couldn't resist doing a New Year's Day double. So he thought, oh, I'll just come along. And I think it was a good excuse for him that I was only walking so we could have a good chat. But at the second event, so my niece and nephew only did the second event because 10 kilometres is a lot for kids that age. And the atmosphere with the other runners, you know, it was a little bit difficult with the heat to get Rowan and Lani sort of moving on Kedron's course. And at one stage, we said, look, count high fives. Get high fives from the other runners because it's an out-and-back course that are coming. And they must have got hundreds. And Lani literally did yell out, I got a hundred when, you know, we were about halfway around. And just the fact that those other runners in their sweaty, disheveled state, and they were dealing with the heat as well, but they were still willing to give the kids high fives and help, you know, spur them on. It's just completely the parkrun spirit and exactly what it's all about. So we had a great morning. Also helped by the super soakers that were filled with ice cold water at the finish line and everyone got squirted down with.

00:17:37Scott Trickett: Sounds like fun. How are you coping with the heat? Has it been a hot summer so far?

00:17:41Melissa Erbacher: Mine hasn't been too bad.

00:17:45Scott Trickett: Bloody hot down here. I'm struggling. I really do like the idea of summer until summer comes around.

00:17:54Melissa Erbacher: It's a great time for volunteering.

00:17:56Scott Trickett: Good point, and I've done a lot of it lately. But if my hobby was like open water swimming, I'd love summer. But unfortunately it's not, it's running. And it's, you know, it's really hard. I don't know how you guys do it, like particularly when the humidity gets really high.

00:18:11Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I guess it's just what you get used to.

00:18:14Scott Trickett: How long does it take to acclimatise?

00:18:16Melissa Erbacher: I couldn't tell you. I'm sure it wouldn't take more than one summer, surely. You do just get eased into it, you know. If you start up here in the wintertime, by the time it gets to summer, it just happens gradually.

00:18:29Scott Trickett: Yeah, that's not a Melbourne summer. A Melbourne summer goes from 15 degrees to the next day, 38. We just get no in-between.

00:18:38Melissa Erbacher: We get plenty of in-between, which is gorgeous.

00:18:41Scott Trickett: Now, we may still be in holiday mode, but we've still had time to do some news. So let's hear the news. Music 15,830 volunteers made parkruns happen at 1,013 different locations last weekend. 183,866 participants took part, including 30,139 first-timers. As at the time of podcast recording, 36,850 people have registered for their own barcode in the past seven days. 10,002 of those registrations took place on Saturday alone. And parkrun Australia passed another milestone with their 400,000th registered parkrunner.

parkrun news bulletin

00:18:49[music]

00:19:29Melissa Erbacher: 22 events were cancelled around the globe with adverse weather conditions and course safety being cited as the major causes. Flooding was experienced in parts of Australia and South Africa, and the UK, Poland, France, Canada and Russia had courses falling victim to winter, with incidences of ice, sleet and extreme cold. The mercury in Moscow rose to negative 31 degrees on Saturday morning.

00:19:53Scott Trickett: And Aussie parkrun legend and former parkrun Adventurers podcast guest, Gareth Saunders, and his wife Mel welcomed a future parkrunner into the world on Monday the 9th of January, a little brother for Jade. Music

00:20:03[music]

00:20:05Monique Brennan: Numbers are up.

00:20:06Scott Trickett: Registrations in particular are up. Everyone's really jumping on the parkrun bandwagon.

00:20:11Melissa Erbacher: Not just registrations, but course attendances.

00:20:14Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:20:14Melissa Erbacher: You know, it's that beautiful start of the new year, everyone wants a new me situation, I think.

00:20:22Scott Trickett: Yep. So we've seen it before, the New Year's resolution effect. Have you made any New Year's resolutions this year?

00:20:33Melissa Erbacher: I have – I think actually that one of my New Year's resolutions is the same as last year's. I know – so I want to do 15 new parkrun events this year. So it's a little over one – yeah, it's a little over one a month on average. But I figure, you know, with January you can knock off – a couple just on New Year's Day. So bam, that's two done already. Go into a launch next week, bam, there goes three. So that's good for January. And then I just need to average like one a month for the rest of the year pretty much. So that's doable. I think last year I also wanted to do 15. How about you?

00:21:18Scott Trickett: I did make resolutions and they were running related. I made a couple of others. A week and a bit in, I'm still on track. Good, good. But I want to go sub 20. I want to go sub 20 at parkrun. I'm not sure if I can do it. I know I could do it in the past, but that's one. And one way I'm going to do that is I've been told that to improve as a runner, you have to run more.

00:21:47Melissa Erbacher: Oh. Is that how they do it?

00:21:48Scott Trickett: That is the secret. That's one of the secrets. So I'm trying to run more this year, which would be nice.

00:21:56Melissa Erbacher: Yep. You ran quite a bit last year. Do you know how many kilometers you ran? Like has Strava given you that magic number that everybody else seemed to be posting on Facebook?

00:22:07Scott Trickett: I did. And that was, well, that's what led me to realize that I actually don't run enough. I think I just got over 1,500 kilometers. And basically, yeah, like all my mates were 2,000, 3,000, 3,500 kilometers.

00:22:25Melissa Erbacher: Three and a half thousand. Who is that crazy person?

00:22:27Scott Trickett: Yeah, I know. There's a few of them out there. But they are also really good runners. So that's the secret. And I've got to drop some weight too. as someone mentioned well an extra thousand kilometers will probably do that for you i hope so i might have to i've discovered coconut water so i'm going to replace some of my fizzies and coffees with coconut water that might help running a bit more that might help but come back at me like in february and see how i'm going because they are new year's resolutions after all

00:23:02Melissa Erbacher: And whether or not you keep them up.

00:23:04Scott Trickett: Yeah, like all those people with good intentions of registering for parkrun and coming for the next couple of weeks, I want to see you guys in May and June. I really hope I do see you, but I know I won't see most of you.

00:23:18Melissa Erbacher: But for those of you who stick it out... Good job. And for those of you who don't, we hope to see you back again this time next year.

Meet the ED

00:23:27Scott Trickett: She's known around the traps as a bit of a parkrun overachiever.

00:23:30Melissa Erbacher: She certainly... a very diligent, dedicated parkrunner. And we've spoken to her before. We've never done this, but we needed to have an event director back who opened up episode one of the parkrun Adventurers with us. Liv Coop, welcome to the podcast.

00:24:00Liv Coop: Hi, guys. Thank you for having me.

00:24:02Melissa Erbacher: Thanks for coming. So now, Liv, I'm not over-exaggerating when I say you're a bit of an overachiever.

00:24:08Liv Coop: I know, that's a bit of a spill. Yeah, I almost cracked up.

00:24:10[laughter]

00:24:14Melissa Erbacher: The last year, you have been the event director of two events because, you know, one isn't enough. How has that worked out for you?

00:24:23Liv Coop: It's been a whirlwind, I must admit. Like, it's been really hard, harder than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, but I've really enjoyed it every single minute of it. I mean, when someone says to you, oh, we can do a parkrun at a winery, I mean, you're crazy to say no. So I couldn't really pass that up. But, yeah, it's been a real eye-opener. And I think because this Cireme is such a different parkrun to Cleveland because Cleveland is on path. And Sirromet is a trail run, so you're running through, you know, paddocks and whatnot. So I've learnt another side of running that I never really knew existed and I've met people who are trail runners and they're a different breed of people again as well. So it's been really interesting actually. I've learnt a lot about trail running and I'm actually starting to get now into trail running myself and I love it. So, yeah, and I love hills. I used to hate hills. Like everyone complains about hills, but hills are fantastic, so. Yeah, I've learnt to love the hills as well. So it's been a real eye-opener as far as different types of running and how runners are. Runners who run on road tend to be more focused, I guess, on their pace, if that's accurate. You know, it's all about speed, whereas trail runners, I find, are more interested in elevation and distance and, like, you know, the places that they go. So I guess they're just different people. Yeah, it's really good. Love it. It's going to be sad to leave.

00:25:49Scott Trickett: Another characteristic of trail runners is they like to fall over a lot. Have you had many stacks?

00:25:55Liv Coop: You know what? We haven't had an injury yet. So we haven't had any major incidents. So it's been great. I mean, people know, I think, you know, it's not too bad. It's not like a trail run where you're running through a bush and there's, you know, tree stumps and large rocks you've got to climb over and all of that. It's more just running, you know, it's gravel, it's grass, it's, So it's not too extreme trail. I think anyone can do Sirromet. It's quite open for anyone to try, at least to give it a go.

00:26:34Melissa Erbacher: We'll have to send Scotty up there and he'll stack it on your course. No worries.

00:26:38Liv Coop: No. There's no bridges though, Scott.

00:26:41Scott Trickett: That's okay. I don't have to run on a bridge.

00:26:44Liv Coop: Okay.

00:26:45Melissa Erbacher: He can trip anywhere.

00:26:51Scott Trickett: What about the winery aspect? What about the post-run celebrations? Have people been indulging in that?

00:26:57Liv Coop: Well, I don't think that we'll – Sirromet open – it's called the cellar door. They open up early for us, so they normally don't open until 9 o'clock. So they've been opening at 7.30 for us, but that's mostly just for coffee and sort of light snacky type breakfast. The actual cellar door, I don't think they're allowed to sell alcohol until 9 o'clock. But in saying that, I often see parkrunners walk off with a wine bag. So I have seen it happen, but yeah, I think we're mostly done by nine o'clock. So you don't see it too often.

00:27:31Melissa Erbacher: You have the benefit of running the event on private property, which means that you don't have a lot of... I won't use the word obstacles, but challenges that many of the other events face with sharing paths and things like that and large numbers of runners. You are using this opportunity to try and go for a bit of a crack at the Aussie record this weekend. What kind of plans have you got in place to make that happen? How many volunteers does it take?

00:28:03Liv Coop: Well, we've got about, I think there's 21 volunteers, 22 volunteers in total so far. So I think we've got that sorted. We're using the launch because we had 620 for our launch. So we're sort of using that as a guide. We learnt heaps from that. And then, I mean, the team that we've got are awesome. And we've got, we're lucky because in the Redlands our other teams are quite close as far as the parkruns. They're only five minutes down the road. So we've actually got like some of my team from Cleveland are coming over to volunteer and But we really need people to run, not volunteer. So we want to break the record. So, you know, we've got our team set up. I think we're pretty good. The main concern for us was parking because obviously with the amount of people, we're hoping people will carpool. That would be ideal. But we have oodles of parking. We've got about six car park marshals set throughout. So we've got people to direct as the cars come in the gates. All the parking is actually on the property. We've had to alter our course just a fraction. to allow for us to be able to park on the grassed area. But Sirromet have like a day on the green quite often there. So, and we can utilise all the paddocks. So we've got heaps and heaps of parking that shouldn't be an issue. So we've got all that sorted. But yeah, that was our main issue was where are we going to park everyone? But we've got that all sorted now and the course is all worked out. So I think we should be all good to go. But it's so open. Like even when we had 600, you know, you talk to people afterwards and, Everyone said it didn't feel like that because it is so wide and, you know, you've got so much room to run. So it's not like when South Bank did there, and that's the record we're trying to beat, they did 944. And I was actually there for that. And it took me like five minutes to even get to the start line, which was pretty insane. But then you couldn't pass or anything. Like it was really crowded and you got bikes whizzing past you and you know, other people running and path users. And it was just full on. Like it was really stressful. I found it very stressful running in that. But with Sirromet, there's no bikes. There's no one else on the property. It's literally just us. So, you know, we're just going to have fun and go with it. We even have the day on the green. The stage is our turnaround. So you get to run around the day on the green stage. It's a massive stage. So that's our turnaround, which is pretty cool.

00:30:23Scott Trickett: You said it there. Remind us, what's the record you're going for?

00:30:25Liv Coop: 944 that was south bank i think it was their first birthday um in 2013 so it's been standing for three three years so we're gonna have crack have you got a feeling you think you're gonna do it oh i don't want to say i don't want to jinx it but i do my gut says yes yes we can do it have you got enough cake for a thousand people yeah well that's Well, the cellar doors sell cakes, so we'll just have to buy theirs if we run out. Just make you run faster. See, you have to run fast if you want cakes.

00:31:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that doesn't seem fair.

00:31:05Liv Coop: But, yeah, we're going to have lots of prizes too. We've got local businesses donating prizes, so we're going to have spot prizes. We're going to have random prizes as people finish. And, yeah, we've got a little certificate for the 945th finisher. So, yeah, we've got a few things up our sleeves, so it'll be good fun.

00:31:21Melissa Erbacher: So you've got the parking under control and you've got heaps of volunteers. You had 620 at your launch, but what was it like at the finish line? Did you set up a funnel? Do you have a funnel there normally? Because I know some events have funnels, but most of them, well, that's a bit of a guess, I would say. Most don't. Have you sort of negotiated something different because... Tipping the point, you know, at 1,000 runners, that's a lot of runners crossing one little finish line. It is.

00:31:52Liv Coop: We actually were going to do the same thing that we did for the launch as well. So when we did the launch, I spoke to Gareth and also Neil from Rocks Riverside and got some advice from them. So we've set up and we will have set up. So the finish funnel, as you come through, there's going to be a team of volunteers, obviously, on the finish funnel. everyone will pass one at a time. So it's single file and then we have a Finnish funnel manager. We have a Finnish tokens volunteer who will be handing out the tokens and then we have someone else who will be handing them the tokens. So we've got someone to keep everyone in the same order and coordinate between the stopwatch, the Finnish line and the Finnish tokens. And we're going to have bunching set up so you can't really – yeah, go wrong. And we'll just yell at everyone and say, it'll be fine. It'll be fine.

00:32:45Monique Brennan: I'm actually really relaxed about it, to be honest.

00:32:47Liv Coop: So yeah, it'll be fine. We'll sort it out. But yeah, you won't be able to cross, you know, how you get these, some parkruns. See, normally Sirromet parkrun, we only get sort of 40 or 50 parkrunners each week. So it's actually quite a small event normally. So for us to do this, it's, it's massive, but yeah, we've, We've got it pretty sorted. So people will only be able to cross one of the line. And when South Bank did theirs, that's exactly how they did it as well. So you literally have to cross one at a time and you just get everyone to stay in that same order as they go to the finished tokens. So, yeah, and then you go directly up to get your barcode scanned and give back the token, of course.

00:33:26Scott Trickett: Good luck with it, Liv. We'll be looking at the results and see how you go on Saturday. Okay. Now, Mel and I love parkrun. You clearly love parkrun. And you've taken it to another level. You've gone and got yourself a parkrun tattoo. How did that come about?

00:33:43Liv Coop: I did. It's funny because I've always wanted a tattoo, but I was always too scared. I thought it was going to hurt too much. But in the middle of the year, in June this year, I got a tattoo with an infinity symbol and my kids' initials. Because to me, a tattoo needs to mean something. Like it can't just be a picture of a dolphin or a butterfly or whatever. like to me it needs to mean something so I got my kids with the infinity because that was a little thing that we had you know we love you infinity plus one blah blah blah but um yeah so I got that and I thought oh that's not that bad it didn't actually hurt that bad and I said I'm gonna get a parkrun tree for my 100th parkrun I said I'm gonna do that because it's taken me nearly four years to get to 100 so it's taken a while and um yeah so I thought I'm just gonna do it and I did it. I got to my 100, and that was actually before Christmas, but with just the crazy before Christmas. Yeah, I didn't get to do it until this week. So that was a bit of fun, and it turned out really well, actually. I was quite pleased. So I actually printed out the tree to scale and made sure the tattooist did it exactly to the specs. So I got it right, I think. Did I, Scott? Yeah.

00:34:53Scott Trickett: I was just checking it against the brand guidelines, and I think you did. Yeah. The 100 was maybe a bit close, but I'll let you get away with it.

00:34:59Liv Coop: Yeah, the 100 too. I do have an exclusion zone.

00:35:04Scott Trickett: Does this mean you're going to make room for the 250? And what about the 25 volunteers?

00:35:10Liv Coop: You know, I thought about that too, but I'm up to like 80-something volunteers. So 25 volunteers was ages ago. So the 100 runs for me, because it's been such a mission to get there, was huge. like quite significant like I found that was very significant now I'm sort of going towards my 100 volunteers so yeah I've been asked that and like it's taken me nearly four years to get to 100 so how many years is going to take me to get to 250 I'll worry about that when it comes.

00:35:42Melissa Erbacher: We've worked this out before. It takes 10 years at the rate you're going to get to 250. Yeah, well, four years for 100, add another four years for another 200, and then half of that's two years. You've got your 10. See, I'm nothing good in 2017. Go, Mel.

00:36:00Liv Coop: Well, I've got another ankle too. I'll just do it on the other side. Maybe I should do that.

00:36:07Melissa Erbacher: So you're not going to put a line through the 100 and write 250 underneath it?

00:36:13Liv Coop: Oh, that's not a bad idea actually. I could possibly do that. The tattooist though, the guy that did it, he said like just underneath it because I did actually want it a bit lower but he said because you've got that dent, you know, behind your ankle that it might look a bit distorted, the hundreds, so that's why I went for it to be a little bit higher. Yeah, we'll see. I'll deal with that in 10 years' time. That's ages away.

00:36:39Scott Trickett: Liv, congratulations on the tattoo. Good luck for Saturday. Thanks for being our first return ED guest. One more before you go. You're going to hand over Sirromet now.

00:36:51Liv Coop: Yes, I am.

00:36:51Scott Trickett: A little bit bittersweet. I've gone through this. How are you feeling about it?

00:36:58Liv Coop: I know you guys know I had a bit of a meltdown, but I just felt really sad the other day when it just sort of hit me that thought, oh my goodness, I'm actually going to be giving up my baby. I think as eds all eds know you put your heart and soul into these parkruns and it's it's not even about the parkrun it's about the people and who you meet and like you build these teams the event teams and my run directors are just amazing like you know they just do such a great job and put so much effort into everything and i just love it you know and it's just i have a little bit of ocd so i like to control things so letting go of stuff that i've created is not easy But, yeah, Ellie, who is taking over, she's got a wealth of experience, so she'll be fantastic. And, yeah, the team is fantastic. They'll be fine without me, but, yeah, it's like, oh, I feel a little bit sad, actually. So I think it's going to be emotional on Saturday, actually, because I'm a bit of a sook when it comes to stuff like that. I get a bit sentimental.

00:37:56Scott Trickett: It's perfectly fine. Nothing wrong with crying at parkrun. You'll be in an exclusive club, but you and me. I think Mel's been there too.

00:38:05Melissa Erbacher: I've been there.

00:38:07Liv Coop: yeah yeah you do invest you invest yourself don't you into the parkrun so yeah i just love it love it

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:38:23Melissa Erbacher: And some other people were out there having adventures over the festive season. We've got Paul Kitching having some New Year's Day doubles and Monique and Jeff who had some adventures in the UK. Let's have a listen to what they've got to say.

Channel 4 News Crew

00:38:39Paul Kitching: G'day Mel and Scott, this is underscore PK or PK, your Channel 4 reporter, hopefully not the only one this year. Checking in for the first time in 2017, saying Happy New Year to all parkrun Adventurers. Coming to you direct, live and direct that is, from the double New Year's Day run, parkrun, here in the Adelaide Hills. A bit exhausted, just done the Mount Barker 7am one. Beautiful morning out here, a little bit drizzly, and just having a bit of a break now, and then we're off to Strathalbyn, which is about 20 minutes away, and we're doing the 9am run in Strath, which should be fun. Anyway, before then, going to go and say g'day to a few different crew. Got all kinds of people here, some first-timers, some regulars, even one of the heads of parkrun Australia's here, and also going to have a chat to... Well, actually, I don't know if I'm going to actually have a chat to him now, but there's a crazy guy who actually just did Mount Barker who's running to Strath, and then is going to run Strath. Crazy man that he is. Anyway, going to go and have a chat to some crew now. Happy New Year, everyone. Okay, then, I thought I'd start with a first-timer, and what a great place to start. We love first-timers at parkrun. It means that... You know, they've obviously come out for a reason, and I've got Jed Richards here, a good mate of mine, who's come out. Fantastic to see you, Jed. Good morning. G'day, PK. How are you today? Fantastic, mate.

00:40:08Unidentified speaker: So what brought you out to parkrun? Well, I've been hearing you talk about it for the last couple of years now, so that's the first thing. Good to hear. But I've been watching the emails and watching what they're doing, and it's growing at such a rapid rate throughout the world. And I thought, well, 5km is a little less than what I'd usually run, but I'll give it a crack and try and get my pace up a bit.

00:40:27Paul Kitching: Good man. And how do you feel? How do you go today?

00:40:29Unidentified speaker: Good. My first one, four minute 25. So I was pretty happy with that.

00:40:33Paul Kitching: Fantastic. Right. Well done, mate.

00:40:35Unidentified speaker: Now I've got myself a go. I want to try and do a four minute one.

00:40:38Paul Kitching: Mate, well done. Yes. Well, there's quite a few good paces here at Mount Barker. So what up, mate? Well, congratulations. We hope to see you at a lot more parkruns. Yeah, it's a good way to start the day and the year. Good on you, Jed. Thanks so much. Let's go and find some other excellent crew. Okay, I'm now with the Mount Barker regular, Scott Veers. G'day, Scotty.

00:40:58Scott Veers: G'day, mate. How you going?

00:40:59Paul Kitching: Awesome. Congratulations on getting out of bed and making it out here this morning.

00:41:04Scott Veers: It was probably one of the hardest mornings to get out of the year, but apart from that, it worked quite well.

00:41:09Paul Kitching: So, mate, how's your parkrun journey been? What are you up to now?

00:41:13Scott Veers: This is number 102. So I did my 50th at the start for New Year's Day last year, so smashed out quite a few this year and owe a few volunteering spots now.

00:41:23Paul Kitching: Awesome. Well done, mate. Yes, we did celebrate you 100 the other day. Well done, mate. And so you're going to come to Strath, crack the double?

00:41:30Scott Veers: I think, yeah, I haven't run Strath as a proper run yet, so today's number one for Strath. Awesome, mate, awesome. Yeah, we were going to run down, but I thought I'd leave that to the professionals.

00:41:39Paul Kitching: Yeah, that's right. We're going to hopefully have a chat with Kent if he survives it a bit later. As I said, one of our crazy runners here, Kent Baraglia. Baraglia, have I got his name right?

00:41:47Scott Veers: Baraglia.

00:41:48Paul Kitching: Baraglia? Yeah. Is doing the mad run in between the two. Anyway, no, it's good to see you guys out. The family are out here often, aren't they? Great to see a parkrun family.

00:41:58Scott Veers: We've got the whole family out now. I think mum's the only one that doesn't come out, so dad did his first one yesterday.

00:42:04Paul Kitching: That's very impressive. Well done, mate. Awesome.

00:42:07Scott Veers: Yeah, no, all good. So hopefully we'll get a few more this year.

00:42:10Paul Kitching: All righty-o. Well, we've done the Strath parkrun, and that was pretty intense. Well, for some of us. Not so much for young Kent. Is it Brailia or Braglia? Brailia. Brailia.

00:42:20Scott Watkins: Got it right.

00:42:21Paul Kitching: Brailia. Kent's the one that I spoke of earlier who did the Mount Barker parkrun, and then actually I'll get him to tell the story. Tell us about your morning, mate. Just the lazy 5Ks at Mount Barker and then what?

00:42:35Kent Baraglia: Then 21Ks down to Strath and then another 5K down to Strath.

00:42:38Paul Kitching: Wow, so yep, you heard it right. He did parkrun at Mount Barker. Then instead of doing the normal thing and getting in a car and coming to Strath, he decided to run it and got lots of encouragement along the way. He did. Yeah, indeed. Well done, mate. No, Kent, good work, mate. You're a regular at Mount Barker and often one of the winners and one of the first finishers. So congrats. How do you feel today, though?

00:43:02Kent Baraglia: A little bit sore.

00:43:05Paul Kitching: So are you going to make this a regular for New Year's Day?

00:43:07Kent Baraglia: I reckon. Do it again next year.

00:43:09Paul Kitching: Good man, good man. Anyway, just wanted to wish Kent all the best before he collapses. And well done. It's great to see some people out there having fun and doing a great job. Well done, mate.

00:43:18Kent Baraglia: Cheers. Thank you.

00:43:19Paul Kitching: Good on you, Kent. Okay then, I've saved the best for last. I'm now with Scott Watkins. Scott is, of course, the head of parkrun Australia, the board of parkrun Australia. Is that right, Scott? The chair of the board. The chair of the board, sorry. Get this right, Paul. And also the co-director of Albert Melbourne. Scott, welcome to South Australia. Thank you. It's good to be here. I've had a great couple of days. Fantastic. I did notice on Strava that you'd done Torrens as well, how was that?

00:43:48Scott Watkins: Yeah, look, we've managed three parkruns in two days here in South Australia. So we did Torrens yesterday morning on Saturday, and then we did Mount Barker and Strathalby and Double here on New Year's Day, which all three have been lovely. Fantastic.

00:44:00Paul Kitching: Had you done any of those South Australian parkruns before?

00:44:03Scott Watkins: No, no. I've been to South Australia for work over the years, but this was actually my wife Joanne's first visit to Adelaide. Beautiful. Yeah, so we hadn't done any of them, so yeah, first time.

00:44:13Paul Kitching: Awesome. And in your role with parkrun, what kind of things does that entail? Does it keep you busy every day or is it something that's It's a passion of yours, no doubt.

00:44:24Scott Watkins: Well, the event director role is similar to events across the country. But the role with the board, it's only new. I only became the chair about six weeks ago. Congratulations.

00:44:34Unidentified speaker: Yeah, thanks.

00:44:35Scott Watkins: And look, it's just another way of helping out. Many people help out across the country. The role of the board is really to help support our staff. So Tim and Renee is our paid staff here in Australia. They manage the operations. But the board is there to provide sort of an extra level of assistance with regards to executing our strategy. And so, you know, our key goals, our key strategic goals in Australia are to have a parkrun in every community at once, and to be an organisation, a volunteer-led organisation, does the best by our volunteers and our participants as we can. And so really the things that we as the board need to focus on is ensuring that we can deliver on those goals. So that's things like training our volunteers and supporting our event directors and territory directors and also growing our sponsorship base. So our partners, we have three really great major partners across Australia now. We're on the lookout for more. If someone out there listening wants to have a chat, I'll come and visit. So that's part of our role, to try and identify new people new sectors of the economy, probably, that we can partner with and grow parkrun's sponsorship base so that we can bring on more staff to support the growth in Australia, which has been phenomenal.

00:45:45Paul Kitching: Yeah, absolutely. That is so good to hear, no doubt. Comforting for those people that are, I suppose, looking to create parkruns as well and knowing that there's a really good backbone there. Certainly, we know that there already is with the management of parkrun, but certainly to have a board behind it as well from a strategic level is so important.

00:46:03Scott Watkins: Definitely, and I've been lucky enough to get a bit of experience in another not-for-profit over the last couple of years, and so it's my turn to do this in parkrun.

00:46:12Paul Kitching: Well, good on you. On behalf of all parkrun adventurers, thank you. And thanks so much. I hope you've had a good time here. We certainly have. We're now at the post-parkrun coffee, the best part of the... Especially after doing two parkruns, we've actually earned... everything that we've just consumed, and we can now go off and have a cracking good start to the year.

00:46:29Scott Watkins: Yeah, thanks, Paul. And thanks to all of the teams who put on these events over the last couple of days. It's always a big effort to put them on on public holidays and 7 a.m. on a New Year's Day. That's a special sort of volunteer to do that. So I really appreciate that from everyone. And their hospitality has been amazing.

00:46:43Paul Kitching: Good on you, Scott. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. That's it. We're over and out now. We're going to go in and enjoy the rest of the year. This is PK signing off from parkrun in Mount Barker and Strathalbyn. And happy new year to you, Scott and Mel. Thanks to you guys. Looking forward to an awesome year as well. Cheers.

00:46:58Monique Brennan: So my name's Monique, I'm a Run Director at Wishart in Brisbane and it's the 1st of January 2017 and I'm at Tonbridge parkrun in Kent in the UK. I'm with the Run Director, so what's your name?

00:47:09Peter Horne: My name is Peter Horne.

00:47:11Monique Brennan: And how many parkruns have you done Peter?

00:47:12Peter Horne: So I'm on 99 parkruns.

00:47:15Monique Brennan: So where do you hope to do your 100th parkrun?

00:47:17Peter Horne: I'm going to do it here, I'm waiting, my son is on, he's doing his 98th today so I'm just waiting for him to do his 99th.

00:47:23Monique Brennan: Fantastic, and are you going to try and do the elusive PB on a milestone?

00:47:28Peter Horne: I don't know. Well, not if I'm running with him, because to be honest, so his PB is about 25 minutes and mine's under 20. So it would be a bit harsh for me to drop him when we're doing the hundreds together. Yeah, a little bit mean.

00:47:40Monique Brennan: So how many other parkrun events have you run at?

00:47:44Peter Horne: Probably about seven others.

00:47:45Monique Brennan: And do you have a favourite? You're not allowed to say it's on bridge.

00:47:48Peter Horne: Let's see, what would my favourite be? There's one in Edinburgh which is lovely, so on the coast where you run by the Forth and you get to see the Forth Rail Bridge and that's great. Sounds good. Other than that, I did do one in Krakow a few weeks back which was a great experience but it was really cold. The wind appeared to come in from Siberia to the rest of Poland. Was it?

00:48:10Monique Brennan: Did you do the main course or their backup course in Krakow?

00:48:13Peter Horne: Oh, wow. I like your expertise. Well, it was a run. I think it was the main course. I don't know what the backup course was. So around Blonia Park. Yeah, yeah.

00:48:20Monique Brennan: So I was in Krakow earlier in the year and I did the backup course. And there's a 400 metre elevation change on the backup course. Oh, dear. That was the hardest run I've ever done. So comparatively, Tunbridge is beautiful.

00:48:32Peter Horne: Tunbridge is very flat.

00:48:34Monique Brennan: Can you tell me how many runners you average here?

00:48:36Peter Horne: Average, so we had our peak last week which was 520, I think, or 500 or so. We're normally about 400 to 430.

00:48:45Monique Brennan: How many volunteers does it take each week?

00:48:49Peter Horne: It's probably about 25 or so. So we actually, I think the one thing we're coming up against at the moment is our numbers are going up and we're getting to the point where we're having to manage the finish funnel a bit more. So you need a few more people to help with that. But other than that, it's a fairly simple route.

00:49:05Monique Brennan: What's your favourite feature of this course here?

00:49:08Peter Horne: Favourite feature of the course? So it's an out-and-back course around a lake, and on a nice sunny day, which today isn't because it's a bit grim and overcast, but a nice sunny day, the sunrise over the lake or just the sun reflecting off the lake is a lovely thing to run around.

00:49:24Monique Brennan: Beautiful. And just to add for you, Scotty, there's quite a few bridges here that you cross over. So some tight turns and some bridges. And for you, Mel, last week was a dress-up event, and there was a reindeer on the course. So awesome. So thank you so much for your time this morning.

00:49:39Peter Horne: Well, we did... we did also have a few weeks ago so it was our third anniversary and we were doing dressing up for the third anniversary and somebody turned up a week beforehand having misunderstood in a 10 foot high t-rex outfit and they were the only person dressed up but they still ran around fantastic there you go Mel you have to add it to your bucket list awesome thank you so much for your time this morning and thank you for the run it was great so good to have the roving reporters back don't you think

00:50:08Melissa Erbacher: I do, and I strongly encourage more people to send us in your stuff.

00:50:13Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:50:15Melissa Erbacher: Have a chat to the parkrunners that you're experiencing a new event with, even if they've been there all the time or if there's someone who's come along for the adventure with you. We'd love to hear your stories.

00:50:26Scott Trickett: That's a New Year's resolution for all of you. Do some roving reports for us.

00:50:31Melissa Erbacher: We love it. We've made it for you. If you didn't have a resolution, there it is.

00:50:37Scott Trickett: We've turned PK into a celebrity, so you too could be a celebrity of sorts.

00:50:43Melissa Erbacher: In our own little niche fitting world.

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

00:50:48Scott Trickett: Yep. Now, not many launches or anniversaries over that Christmas, New Year period, but we had a couple last week.

00:50:57Melissa Erbacher: We did, and just because we're on holidays doesn't mean all the volunteers were. We had a launch at Tannum Sands in Queensland last weekend up near Gladstone. That was a bit exciting. And Quinns Rocks in WA, another sneaky one that went under the radar.

00:51:15Scott Trickett: As they like to do. But there's one launch this week that you're involved in. You're going out to Wondai.

00:51:24Melissa Erbacher: I am. It's going to be awesome. I'm very excited about this event. It's going to be great for another small rural community. And everybody needs to say rural as many times as possible.

00:51:38Scott Trickett: Will there be any jurors out there?

00:51:41Melissa Erbacher: A rural juror?

00:51:44Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'd like to make one.

00:51:48Melissa Erbacher: It's possible. I'm not sure if they've got a courthouse. They might not be that big. You might have to go to Kingaroy for the courts.

00:51:55Scott Trickett: Okay. Well, you report on that next week for us. Will do.

00:52:01Melissa Erbacher: In fact, I might even go one better and get their ED to come on the show.

00:52:05Scott Trickett: Ooh, very exciting. As far as cake and anniversaries, we had Lawson celebrating their second on the weekend just gone. Well done, Lawson. I always hear good things about Lawson, another trail parkrun up in Sydney, high on my list. And this week, where are we going for cake? We've already heard about Sirromet, but if you're not trying to be part of the record, where are you going?

00:52:29Melissa Erbacher: Well, dare I say it, Pioneer are having an anniversary and they've told the world about it, so that must mean Jess wants everyone to know. It'll be their third anniversary.

00:52:40Scott Trickett: So launches are exciting in WA, but anniversaries aren't?

00:52:45Melissa Erbacher: Not sure. Not sure. Maybe that one just slipped underneath their radar and they accidentally let it into the newsletter. But if you're in Victoria, you could head along to Shepparton for their third anniversary also.

00:53:00Scott Trickett: I've been up to Shepparton, nice and flat course. It's good they've made it to three years. I started my parkrun journey with Allan. the ED up there. So that's great to see three years of Shepton parkrun.

00:53:13Melissa Erbacher: And of course, we've had a chat to Liv on the podcast already, who is celebrating Sirromet's first anniversary in Queensland. And she has confirmed there will be a lot of cake for a lot of people. If you're fast. We've made it to 51. We weren't sure if we were going to come back, but we did. I guess we'll have to keep going.

00:53:38Scott Trickett: We will. My sole goal was to beat Robbo and Russ. We've done that.

00:53:46Melissa Erbacher: Not competitive at all, are you?

00:53:48Scott Trickett: No, I'm not.

00:53:50Melissa Erbacher: So technically we could retire after this episode.

00:53:52Scott Trickett: Yeah, we're not going to retire. We're going to do it for another whole year. So we better put our thinking caps on and start getting some guests on.

00:54:03Melissa Erbacher: If you guys have got any ideas.

00:54:05Scott Trickett: Because we've got none. No, we've got plenty.

00:54:08Melissa Erbacher: Let us know.

00:54:09Scott Trickett: We've got some good guests coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to it. Hope you are, Mel. Happy parkrunning this week. I'll chat to you next week.

00:54:19Melissa Erbacher: Cheers, buddy. Cheers. do do