Episode 58

Episode details · 194 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:12Melissa Erbacher: Episode 58 of the parkrun Adventurers. My name's not Scotty, it's Mel. His name is Scotty. Say hi, Scotty.

00:00:21Scott Trickett: Yes, it is. Hi, Scotty. And hi, Mel.

00:00:26Melissa Erbacher: And I'm excited to be here this week, as always. Did you have any adventures on the weekend?

00:00:32Scott Trickett: I can tell your excitement level's up this week. That makes me excited. It is.

00:00:38Melissa Erbacher: Lots of cool stuff to talk about.

00:00:40Scott Trickett: Yeah. I did have an adventure. I went on an adventure. Went down to Phillip Island on the weekend.

00:00:48Melissa Erbacher: Ah, that's on my must-do list. I'm hoping to get there, you know.

00:00:52Scott Trickett: It's nudging my top three. It's a really, really pretty, gentle, not tough, Really good parkrun. Small, and it's on, there's Phillip Island and then there's Churchill Island, which is right next to Phillip Island. The parkrun is on Churchill Island.

00:01:10Melissa Erbacher: Okay. I think we may have talked about this before.

00:01:13Scott Trickett: Yeah, because I have been there before. This is my second visit there. And so Churchill Island is, they've got a little farm there. They've got a nice cafe. It's like set up for the perfect parkrun, except it's not on Phillip Island. It's on Churchill Island. Which is on Phillip Island, apparently.

00:01:31Melissa Erbacher: Not confusing at all.

00:01:33Scott Trickett: No.

00:01:34Melissa Erbacher: But being on islands, you know, they're right near the sea and the ocean and stuff, presumably, yes?

00:01:40Scott Trickett: Yes. Yep. So you run all the way around the island. So you're next to the water the whole way, which you'd be used to. So you'd be at home there.

00:01:49Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Did you see any pirates?

00:01:52Scott Trickett: No. I wasn't looking out for them, so I'd have to say no. Pretty confident no on that.

00:02:00Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

parkrun Pirates (new adventurer club)

00:02:01Scott Trickett: Should I have?

00:02:01Melissa Erbacher: Because I think pirates are going to be a thing now. And let me tell you why.

00:02:07Scott Trickett: Please do.

00:02:07Melissa Erbacher: So I was having a conversation with a West Australian very recently who has come up with a new club, a new club for adventurers. And he was actually, I don't know if he came up with the club when he was at an airport or that was just when he was remembering to tell me about it. At any rate, there may have been alcohol involved when he thought of the club, but it's a pretty cool club. It's called the parkrun Pirates. And guess what you have to do to get into this club?

00:02:49Scott Trickett: you have to steal something from one parkrun and take it to the other?

00:02:54Melissa Erbacher: No. Though that could mean all sorts of trouble for tokens moving around the country. Mind you, adventurers, you know, they kind of like having their adventures recorded, I imagine. So perhaps that wouldn't happen. No, it wouldn't. Do you want to have another guess or did you just want me to tell you?

00:03:13Scott Trickett: No, no, no. You have to go dressed in an oversized hat and eyepatch.

00:03:19Melissa Erbacher: No, though that would be welcome also. Think more about adventurers and how you have to get into all the other clubs. You know, you need to go on adventures to be a pirate.

00:03:34Scott Trickett: Okay. For the sake of the listeners' boredom, just tell me the answer.

00:03:42Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so it is a club for everyone who has run all the seas. So all the parkruns beginning with C. What's the connection?

00:03:55Scott Trickett: What's the C connection to pirates?

00:04:00Melissa Erbacher: You missed the connection.

00:04:04Scott Trickett: I had to say it to get it.

00:04:09Melissa Erbacher: To be honest, I missed the connection to begin with as well. I said, all the Cs, don't you mean all the Rs? At that point, he said, okay, yes, both. You actually have to have run all the parkruns begin with C and all the parkruns begin with R. You can choose to be an international pirate, though I think that could be quite a long list to get around, but I'm pretty sure it's a little bit more manageable if you just become an Australian pirate. So how cool is that?

00:04:42Scott Trickett: Have we done a quick calculation on how many events that is at the moment? In Australia only. We're just talking Australia.

00:04:48Melissa Erbacher: We have not, however.

00:04:50Scott Trickett: Because he was in a drunken state. Is that part of the reason why?

00:04:55Melissa Erbacher: Well, I think because he is in Western Australia and they have a lot of Cs, parkrun speaking with C over there, that may have been where it originated in his brain. But we do have Mr Ian Hay from Facts in Haystack on the show next week and that is one of the questions that I've put to him. How many do you have to be in? How many events do you have to have done? And are there any pirates that we don't know about in Australia yet? So we'll find out the answers to those questions next week.

00:05:28Scott Trickett: Can't wait already.

00:05:30Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. See, I'm not on top of this alphabet touring thing, but ask me to be a pirate and damn it, I'm going to join that club. I'm going to track down all those Cs if it means spending six months in Western Australia. It's going to happen.

00:05:46Scott Trickett: Hey, I saw some exciting news during the week. After chatting to Bronwyn last week and doing a bit of research, as I do thoroughly throughout the week, I noticed that parkrun is coming to Norway. Did you hear that?

00:06:01Melissa Erbacher: How exciting is that? Are they going to be there in time for her trip?

00:06:05Scott Trickett: Well, I don't think a date has been set just yet.

00:06:08Melissa Erbacher: Okay. But it's coming. But that is still very exciting. You've got to love it when a new country comes on board with a It's just, you know, more expensive flights that have to be factored into the budget somewhere in the future.

00:06:21Scott Trickett: That would be another Scandinavian adventure we could go on. You could spend a couple of months just touring around the really cold part of the world.

00:06:31Melissa Erbacher: We should get an adventure tour bus to do Scandinavia.

00:06:34Scott Trickett: Well, that was on our list, wasn't it?

00:06:36Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, we've already got South Africa's most likely going to be our first one. We should do a Scandinavian one afterwards.

00:06:45Scott Trickett: Let's just scale it back a bit, Mel. I think maybe country Victoria might be our first one.

00:06:55Melissa Erbacher: You've got to think big, Scotty. You've got to think big.

00:06:57Scott Trickett: Straight to South Africa. Or Scandinavia. We'll see where it goes.

00:07:02Melissa Erbacher: Why not? And speaking of international adventures... I got the inside word from a birdie overseas that there was a word that we used in the podcast recently with a recent guest, which is fairly colloquial Aussie, and we wouldn't classify it as particularly rude, but they were a little bit shocked that we didn't bleep it out.

00:07:26Scott Trickett: Oh, really?

00:07:27Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:07:28Scott Trickett: Well, iTunes didn't come after us with our clean rating, so I think we're still safe.

00:07:33Melissa Erbacher: It mustn't be naughty in America, only in England.

00:07:37Scott Trickett: Oh, we've offended the English, have we?

00:07:40Melissa Erbacher: We have. We're just going to have to be careful not to say ****** in the future.

00:07:43Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:07:46Melissa Erbacher: Because it's very offensive. Did we really? No, but we weren't.

00:07:51Scott Trickett: And I left it in, because it is a little bit rude.

00:07:56Melissa Erbacher: We never offend people intentionally, so we'll just have to remember to bleep it out if it comes up again in future.

00:08:02Scott Trickett: Okay. Or just don't call anyone from the UK a complete...

00:08:07Melissa Erbacher: I don't think they mind who is being called it. I think it's more the fact that somebody is being called it. I really hope you're going to do a lot of bleeping this week, Scotty.

00:08:20Scott Trickett: I might. Get to choose the word I'm going to bleep out. Vote at the end of this episode.

00:08:28Melissa Erbacher: Well, if they're voting at the end of the episode, isn't it too late to bleep out the word? It is too late.

00:08:32Scott Trickett: I'm just going to have to go back and bleep out all those ****. I'll tell you who's not a ****, our next guest. Shall we get to them? Yes. For the third week in a row, we're venturing over to WA and catching up with Cassie Hughes, who's been busy launching a new event in WA. Welcome to the podcast, Cassie.

Meet the ED

00:08:55Cassie Hughes: Thank you so much, Scott. Hello, Mel. Thanks for having me on.

00:08:58Scott Trickett: Now, we know that you launched a new event at Calleya on the weekend. Not everybody does. We'll get to that. But how did the launch actually go?

00:09:08Cassie Hughes: It actually went so well and so smoothly. It was probably one of the best launches in WA we've had for a while. Not that they're all not fantastic, of course. But it was just beautiful. 121 people. Everyone had a ball. It was just fantastic. It went so smoothly. It was lovely.

00:09:27Scott Trickett: Now... I'm going to be a bit controversial here. One of the reasons it went so smoothly is because it was not advertised. Many people did not know about the launch in Kalia on the weekend.

00:09:39Cassie Hughes: Well, we did only have 121 people, which was a nice number to work with. So maybe that did have something to do with it. But you'd be surprised. We might not advertise them, but word of mouth in Perth is a pretty big thing. And it always seems to get around. We have the parkrun post. Everything gets around. People knew.

00:10:01Melissa Erbacher: 121, that's a pretty tidy number. That's more than a lot of events get just on a weekly basis. What do you think the proportion of parkrun adventurers to local runners will be or was on the day?

00:10:15Cassie Hughes: I would probably say about 50%, to be honest. I think Kalia is going to have a fabulous group of around 60 to 70 normal everyday runners. because we will eventually make it their home parkrun. We were, I think our numbers were boosted a little because we have Champion Lakes parkrun and they were actually unfortunately closed down for the weekend because the city of Armadale were running a duathlon or a triathlon there, which they do sometimes, which means we have to shut that one down. So we had a lot of visitors from Champion Lakes.

00:10:51Scott Trickett: And Kalia is one of the events in a Stockland estate. Am I correct?

00:10:56Cassie Hughes: You certainly are. Stockland are doing a whole new estate out there, all new buildings. It looks beautiful and it's going to be fabulous once it's finished. And they actually approached us.

00:11:07Melissa Erbacher: I remember this one. I actually had a look at where they were going to put the course and When I was over there for the Bunbury Three Waters last year and they took us in a ute and drove us around all the piles of dirt and said, this is where we're going to put this and this is where we're going to put that. And they actually, it was really nice, asked for parkrun's input before they did all that. Not a lot of people that are involved in building residential developments actually go to that effort. We're very lucky with Stockland, aren't we?

00:11:44Cassie Hughes: We are. They've been fantastic. I have to admit, I came in after, like midway with this one. Jeremy Savage was the TD originally for this particular course. And so he had much more to do with this than I did. And I sort of come in on the end of it. But Stocklands, they've delivered exactly what they said they were going to deliver. And it's a fabulous parkrun. And once they're Give it a couple of years when all the foliage and all of the trees and greenery that they've put in really grows up. It's just going to be beautiful.

00:12:16Melissa Erbacher: Cassie, can you tell us how you got into parkrun in the first place?

00:12:21Cassie Hughes: Sure. I have been running in – I first found parkrun in 2013. My son at the time was going through a bit of trouble, you know, normal teenage things, I think, and he was diagnosed with chronic depression. and having a bit of a rough trot. But, you know, we went to seek help and he was seeing somebody who suggested that he should, that she found that after talking with him, that exercise was a great thing to get him in the right mood and get his serotonin going and give him the good feels that he needed. So she suggested that he take up running. So being the fabulous mother that I am, of course, I found exercise. parkrun and thought we'd give it a go get him out there running and I just went along as a bit of a support really and um so yeah that was about August 2013 and we have not looked back since we have probably only missed about six parkruns in total since then uh Connor's now done 150 odd runs I'm on about nearly 140 and uh it has absolutely changed everything we It helped Connor. It's helped his confidence. It's helped with everything. It's helped... It's amazing. I honestly credit parkrun with helping almost save his life. It's fabulous, and I highly recommend anyone to get involved. I've never met such a more supportive and fabulous bunch of people.

00:13:51Scott Trickett: Was it the physical exercise or was it the social connections that helped your son, Connor?

00:13:57Cassie Hughes: It started as the physical exercise, but then I think it's grown into more than that. And now... to the point where he's even going to start run directing soon, which I think is fabulous. I never thought I would see that. But not just that, it's built up the friendships that have been made out of parkrun and just everything about it. It is honestly the best thing that's ever happened and I'm almost sad that we didn't find it sooner, but I'm so glad that we did.

00:14:29Scott Trickett: And what's your current home event?

00:14:32Cassie Hughes: Now, there's a question. I don't know. I've done a little bit of research.

00:14:39Scott Trickett: Have you come up with the name park-tarting?

00:14:45Cassie Hughes: Maybe. I'm not sure if I have coined the phrase, but I'd like to think that I might have had something to do with that. Yes, I've decided I like to park-tart, and I like to do a different parkrun most weeks. Yeah, I kind of like the name park-tart, actually.

00:15:03Scott Trickett: We can go with it. I haven't heard it before, so I like it. You can be a park tart. But where did you get started?

00:15:11Cassie Hughes: I started... The first one we found was Claisebrook Cove. Because I believe when we first started in 2013, there was only a couple of parkruns in WA. The way it's grown since 2013 is incredible. And now we've just opened... Kalia was our 22nd event. And so... Yeah, we started at Claisebrook and we ran there exclusively for probably about 18 months until we decided to start park-tarting.

00:15:39Melissa Erbacher: So you take your whole family with you when you park-tart?

00:15:43Cassie Hughes: I have tried to convince the whole family. My husband is not much of a runner, so he's quite happy to just leave me be and do my thing. I think it's the dressing up that scares him. My youngest son... He's more into basketball, so he doesn't run. So it seems to be a thing that's just between myself and my older son, Connor. And so the two of us, we just travel. Last weekend, we actually got up at 3.30 in the morning and drove three and a half hours to Manjimup parkrun just to do parkrun, and then we had lunch and drove home.

00:16:17Melissa Erbacher: Nice. So a park tart on an adventure. Does Connor consider himself to be a park tart too, or is there a more masculine term for it for him?

00:16:29Cassie Hughes: We have put that into consideration, but we haven't come up with anything yet. So at the moment, he is simply a park tart, yes. So if anyone can think of a name, please let us know.

00:16:41Melissa Erbacher: Now, you let slip the C word before, costumes. Does Connor get involved with the costumes as well?

00:16:50Cassie Hughes: Not as much as I do, but surprisingly, he has done. He's done some fabulous Halloween costumes. And he has done a lot of the Superman, you know, and heroes, cops and robbers, that kind of stuff. He's done that. But he does usually leave most of that to me.

00:17:08Melissa Erbacher: And I understand that you are a West Coast dirty cheetah. I didn't even know there were any over there.

00:17:15Cassie Hughes: I honestly, I think I'm the only one. Wow, that's impressive. I'm known now for wearing my cheetah ears. I think that's how people recognise me. If I don't have them on, they don't know it's me. So I am a Zoolander as well, so I sort of wear both hats. But I love the cheetahs and I love Dorota and Mary and Paul over there. So I like to think that every time I run, I have a little bit of the dirty cheetahs over there with me.

00:17:47Melissa Erbacher: Well, Zoolanders are all about the fashion, so we're okay with people trying on different costumes and getting out there.

00:17:56Cassie Hughes: The ears go really well with the Z as well.

00:18:00Melissa Erbacher: In the photos?

00:18:01Cassie Hughes: Fabulous. And I'm a redhead. They mix with my hair beautifully. You can't tell where the ears start and the hair ends.

00:18:07Scott Trickett: I think I'm the only member of the Melbourne chapter of the Dirty Cheetahs as well. I don't get in around in the ears much.

00:18:15Cassie Hughes: We will have to change that, Scott. I can send you some ears.

00:18:18Scott Trickett: Oh, don't worry, I've got some. My daughter's got some that I can wear. I just don't think it looks as good on me as perhaps it does on you. Maybe it's the red hair.

00:18:30Cassie Hughes: I think I'll have to see that to make my own opinion. I think next photo you should make sure you're wearing the ears.

00:18:35Scott Trickett: That can be done. Of all the parkruns that you've travelled to around WA, have you got an infamous top three to share with us?

00:18:44Cassie Hughes: Oh, do you know, I had this conversation with someone earlier and his response was, you can't have a favourite because then you have to have a worse. But I disagree with that because I don't dislike any of them. I love them all. But I do have a top three.

00:18:59Scott Trickett: I'm happy to start with your bottom three if you want to start there.

00:19:04Cassie Hughes: I don't have a bottom three, no. No, I do have a couple of favourites and my absolute top favourites and Maddie will love me for this, is Geograph Bay parkrun. I love going down to Busselton. I think the beach there is beautiful and I just love, Geograph Bay is just such a lovely spot. Out and back along the beach, what more could you want? And the goose does a great coffee afterwards. So it's a fantastic spot. My number two would probably have to be Kalgoorlie Boulder, mainly because it is such a gorgeous course and you're running through the bush And you run up this little bit of a hill. And when you're at the top of the hill, you can see all the other runners. You can't see the path. You can just see runners peering out from bushes as they run a little bit of the course. And it's just fantastic. And they run it so well up there. Alison and Grant do such a great job. And again, great coffee at the end. Always a bonus.

00:20:03Melissa Erbacher: And I think my third would have to probably be...

00:20:10Cassie Hughes: Mount Clarence down in Albany. Not sure if I would recommend the hills to anyone or as Bill likes to call them, gentle inclines, but the view is spectacular. You can stop at the top if you want to and whales will just appear out of nowhere when you're in the water. It's beautiful and the downhill at the end gives the best view. fastest last kilometre ever.

00:20:35Melissa Erbacher: Cassie, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast this week. It's always lovely to speak to a fellow costumer and it's been delightful learning about park tarts. I might have to start referring to myself as that when I go on adventures.

00:20:51Cassie Hughes: It is the best. I'm actually off to Singapore next week to park tart to both Singapore parkruns. Cannot wait. I'm going to take my ears, take my Zoolander, show them how it's done.

00:21:10Melissa Erbacher: If you've ever classified yourself as being a bit of a couch potato or you've had one of those weekends where you're regretting too much takeaway and need to get moving then you might be interested to hear from our next guest. Jorge has turned his life around from being one of those people to being a multi-marathon runner. Welcome to the podcast George.

00:21:34Jorge Bronze: Hi, thanks for having me. It's good to be here.

00:21:36Melissa Erbacher: Can you tell us a little bit about how it all started for you when you decided basically to be a runner?

00:21:43Jorge Bronze: Yeah, so my story starts as being very active in my school years. I was on the football team, on the rugby team, on the tennis team. And when I got into my mid-20s... My activity level dropped dramatically. I was doing no exercise whatsoever. And my eating habits were dreadful. I was not looking after myself. I was eating whatever and whenever I felt like. And I ballooned up to 18 and a half stone. That's about 110 kilos for metric users. And one day it was just waking up and sort of catching a glimpse in the mirror and thinking, oh, how did that happen? Oh, no. But that's pretty, I'm not looking my best anymore. So I guess I just started counting calories, dieting a little bit and running was never a passion. In fact, it was just, oh man, I can't eat very much while I'm dieting. If I go for a jog though, I might be able to have a little bit more. So that's where running started for me was just, I'm sick of eating broccoli. If I go for a jog, I can have a little bit of chocolate if I'm good. So it was about six months of dieting and losing weight and slogging out the miles and not really doing much, basically running loops around the gardens and the fields near home in case, well, in case I ran out of breath and needed to walk back home and have a sit down. But eventually my dad, who's been a parkrunner for a few years, said, look, go stop just slogging them out by yourself. Stop putting your music in as loud as possible and trying to block everything out. Go and run with other people. And it was at that point that he suggested I go to my nearest parkrun, of which there's about five within walking distance of home. And that was it. I was hooked at that point. I was chatting to other people. After six months or so of going to parkrun, I joined a local running club. And then I've never looked back since. And I'm running almost every day. parkrun every week and really enjoy my running, really. And I think that's the key for me, that the change in lifestyles came from finding a hobby that I really enjoy and I'm really passionate about. So I guess, yeah, I think that's the synopsis of my background.

00:24:11Scott Trickett: George, can I take you back to the very first run when you decided to start running? Do you still remember that and what it felt like?

00:24:19Jorge Bronze: Oh, totally. It was torture. I, um, so outside of my front door, there's a, there's a school field, um, and there's a path that's about an 800 meter loop. I did that three times. And I remember the third loop just bent over, like completely out of breath, like that in the wrong shoes, in a pair of badminton shoes. And it was just torturous. And I thought, God, how do people think about doing that for fun? But. On reflection, I ran that as hard as I possibly could off no training, just for the simple fact that I knew that it would burn calories up. And I think that's something that I've learned. And it's something I try to convey to people now is that running doesn't have to be hard all the time. Just relax, chill out, enjoy it. And it was certainly a month's worth of doing that type of running. It's not something I'll ever do again. Really killing yourself at every run just for the sake of eating a couple of bars of chocolate.

00:25:20Scott Trickett: And then, can I take you back to your very first parkrun? Do you remember rocking out for the first time? Were you scared? Were you worried?

00:25:28Jorge Bronze: So I messaged the people on Facebook beforehand because I wasn't sure about what to do. So I made sure that I got every little bit of detail that I could. So I was told to show up at 8.45 and wait for the briefing. I drove. It's a mile away. I drove there because I was too scared that I wouldn't be able to get home afterwards. So I rocked up at 8.45. It was August the 24th, 2014. And I just hung around in the quiet, just not really chatting to anybody, waited for the running briefing. Now, fortunately, my local parkrun, the director has quite a loud voice. I made sure that everybody was listening and I got all the information I needed at the briefing. But then I turned my headphones on, put my music on loud. I didn't talk to anybody. I just ran around and suffered my way to get around the 5K. But at the end... People were shaking their hands. People were having a chat. People were suggesting they go for coffee. I was like, oh, no, the meter's running out in the car. People are like, you drove here? Oh, yes, I shouldn't have drove here. I realise that now. But it was just the acceptance at the end of it that I really remember. And that's what made me, you know, to start with, it was maybe every couple of weeks that I started going back. But now it's every single week that I'm there. And it's not because... I want to rack up the hundred. I want to rack up towards my 250 parkrun. It's not because I want to get the next volunteer t-shirt. It's because it's that community afterwards. And that's what I really take away from my first parkrun. And that's what I'll shout from the rooftops all about is that that's the main thing. It's not about, it's not for runners. It's for the people in the community.

00:27:16Melissa Erbacher: So, George, you say after your first one, obviously, you know, you'd driven there. Did you change between that one and the next one that you went to in that you walked to it or did you still keep driving for a little while?

00:27:29Jorge Bronze: It took a little while until I was confident that I could get – I could run the 2K home. Okay. I mean, we've got a car park and we've got plenty of parking, but it did feel ridiculous that it was a mile and a bit away and not to jog down. But we're lucky. So I live in Sheffield in the UK and we're lucky that we've got six parkruns within sort of five miles of where I live. So we're very parkrun dense and we're it means that we can, as a parkrunning community, be quite emissions conscious. There's never really a reason to drive to a parkrun if you want to go to your nearest one. There might be reasons that you want to go to one further afield and that's fine, but as a community, we're quite good at not having a huge environmental impact, which, you know, as we get more, as parkrun becomes bigger and it becomes more a part of public day-to-day life, I think that's something important to bear in mind and Yes, now I make sure that whatever I do, I walk, jog or cycle to the start line, often with the dog on a harness. The dog likes to do a parkrun. But now, because we know the community, we'll go for a coffee afterwards, have plenty of time to warm down and then maybe just have a walk home.

00:28:49Melissa Erbacher: You're living the dream, having so many events so close to where you live. I can only imagine what that must be like. My closest is 15-minute drive away. um which is i think roughly about 10 kilometers as well so technically i could run there but the road access might be a little bit tricky not to mention how early i'd have to get up oh well yeah there's also that no i think i think in the uk being i mean it was paul said and he was set it up here and

00:29:21Jorge Bronze: it's probably had more time to grow. But because as a country, we do have quite high population density. I mean, Sheffield's a small city, but we've got maybe 300,000, 400,000 residents. So it's quite population dense. So it makes sense that parkruns can pop up within local vicinity. I mean, whenever I visit my in-laws, I'm just flabbergasted. There's the parkruns in London. there's almost one on every other street. It's crazy that you sort of think, right, where do we fancy today when we're down? It's quite a nice problem to have.

00:29:57Scott Trickett: What about your running now, George? We've learned about how you started parkrunning, but now you're a really fast runner and you run lots of marathons. That's quite a transformation in such a short time. How did you do that? How did you go from just becoming a running runner to becoming a really fast runner?

00:30:18Jorge Bronze: Well, I don't know if I'd class myself as really fast. I appreciate it. I'll take it as a compliment. I think it started finding that I wanted to improve my parkrun time. Initially, it was, certainly before I joined a running club, it was, how do I get faster? Well, getting better at running isn't complicated. If you want to run faster, generally, you need to run a bit more. So, I just, month on month, sort of started to up my mileage. As the weight dropped off, that became easier. And I focused on just enjoying it. So hitting up the woods, hitting up the trails at any time I could. For the most part, taking it easy, just building up that sort of mileage under my belt so that when I wanted to maybe look at training for something more specific and I needed to do sessions or intervals or whatever I had that sort of base of fitness so it started off with just upping my mileage over time and then finding that I like pushing myself and I like entering races and it's something that I want to try and be the best that I can be and that was running and it sort of gave me focus and drive so I spent 2015 training for a half marathon, the Great North Run, which is possibly the most famous half in the UK. I entered that on a whim, got a place, trained for it, ran, I think, 126. That was my first half. Yes, as a first half, it was pretty quick, but I had quite a lot of training leading up to that. Now I'm part of a running club, so we have group runs almost every day of the week. I tend to spend quite a lot of time with other like-minded runners in the area, and that certainly gives me motivation to keep going. The marathon training can be arduous. It's certainly something that's a big task to take on when you're maybe running Lots of miles every week, week after week for a long time trying to get ready for the 26 miles. But I think running with other people where possible certainly makes it easier, makes it more enjoyable, makes it more fun. And yeah, so that's kind of where I am now. So generally a week for me will look... I'm possibly an exception rather than a rule. I run every day and I know that that works for me. So it's not something I'd maybe suggest for everybody. But for me, I tend to run easies on Mondays. I'll do something like a track session on a Tuesday. I'll do something easy but a bit longer today. So I've had my breakfast and I'll head out later. Thursdays, again, will be something easy. Fridays will be something either hardish or easy, depending on what I'm going to do at parkrun. parkrun will be something easy or easy. Or I'll take it hard and then Sunday will be a long run. So that's roughly what my week looks like. But I guess it's about finding what works for you. If running every day works for you, great. If you need more rest than that, take it. But having a focus point, I think, helps. And that's what the marathon does for me.

00:33:41Melissa Erbacher: You talked about running with other people, you know, that helps motivate you. And you're quite the good volunteer, which is awesome to see. You contribute to your local parkruns. One volunteer role you've taken on relatively recently is as a VI guide. How did you get into that?

00:34:00Jorge Bronze: Yeah, so at my local parkrun, Hillsborough parkrun in Sheffield, Anthony is a keen runner and he is visually impaired. So it's one of our regular volunteering roles. It's been good. He's been coming for slightly longer than I have. So he must be on for about three years or so. Um, so just like any post we, uh, our run director will request somebody runs with Anthony and he's quite quick. He has, he runs between 20 and 24 depending on the day. Um, But I think people are put off by volunteering for that role because it seems a bit daunting being in charge of a blind person and trying not to kill them running around parkrun, especially that it's three laps. So on the third lap, you're having to maybe do some overtaking of some of the slower runners. So when you've got a blind guy on your arm, you need to be careful you're not bashing him into people. But... he, he's, he's great. He's, he's a really good runner, a really keen runner as well. He really wants to improve. And it's something that, um, for a lot of us as a core of us now that do tend to take Anthony every week. Um, we're used to it. It, it, it, I suggest give it a go. If you've got the opportunity generally, um, any, any visually impaired runners used to running with a guide and no matter how bad the guide, they'd rather have that than not be running. Um, So we just link arms. We literally link arms. We run side by side. I try and tell him we're going to turn right now. We'll watch any tree branches. I say watch any tree branches. Obviously, he can't see a thing, but he gets my gist. So yeah, we run a three-lap course, and he probably knows it better than anybody else now. He could tell you where to go without needing to see anything. But yeah, I definitely suggest if you've got the opportunity to do it, Any visually impaired runner would rather be running than not. So take a punt, have a go at doing it because you'll find it's super easy. It's super easy.

00:36:04Scott Trickett: And what about your adventuring? Have you been around and tried a few different courses? Have you done any parkruns overseas?

00:36:12Jorge Bronze: So I think I'm up to maybe 20 different parkruns at this point. So my wife and I live in Sheffield, which is in the middle of the U.K., My family's from the northeast of England, and her family is from London. So quite often, if we're visiting, we tend to do some tourism wherever we might be. So we've done a few in the northeast of England. We've done quite a lot in the London area. We haven't done Bushey yet. That's on my list. So the original parkrun, I haven't got to yet. but my most exotic one would be, um, the one in Sicily in Palermo called Uditore. So it's in Uditore park, um, in Sicily, which is just off the coast of Italy. Um, for our honeymoon, we went to, uh, Naples in Italy and we sort of traveled down, down the coastline of Italy, stopping off along the way. And we finished in Sicily and managed to make it to the parkrun. Um, There. Now, if you've ever been to Sicily or you know what it's like, in August, it's hot. So by 9 a.m. at the start time, it's this dusty park and it's like 30, 31 degrees Celsius at that point. So it's a hard parkrun. And there was maybe 15 runners, 10 of which were all British tourists. But it was fab. It was a fab experience being out in the Italian mountains. At the time, I think it was the only Italian parkrun. I think they've now got three or four. But that was our most exotic one. I'd like to go and do Copenhagen. There's three or four in Copenhagen in Denmark that are on my list before thinking further afield of Copenhagen. maybe getting to Australia it seems like a long way for 5k but I'm sure we could figure out doing a holiday or something at that part but it's got to that point now you know I guess you guys are the same right where are we going to go on holiday well it has to have a parkrun so that kind of limits our choices we don't want to go to Japan just yet there's no parkruns up there I've had this conversation with my husband recently yeah I think you had it last week I think that's it um yeah, Hong Kong, it does sound like a fabulous holiday, but what are we going to do at 9am on Saturday? Oh, well, better go somewhere with the parkrun instead.

00:38:39Scott Trickett: Have you got a couple of favourites in amongst your British parkruns?

00:38:43Jorge Bronze: Oh, um, so in Sheffield, it's the city built on seven hills and five valleys. I think that's what it's called. So every parkrun here is hilly. So any parkrun that is flat is my favourite. Um, There's a great one that we've done in London a couple of times. What's it called? I can't remember what it's called, but essentially it follows the canal towpath and it's just an out and back, but it's a really nice sort of hackney marshes. That's what it's called. And it's a really simple course, really friendly, not too busy and quite a quick one. So it's a good one if you want to go and have a, have a go at your time. Another favorite might be, um Druridge Bay which is in Northumberland in the UK it's the only one in northumberland um and it runs two laps around um a reservoir and it's just pleasant it's very nice it's very scenic and they have a cafe almost like on site which is quite unusual sometimes it's a bit of a wander to the cafe so that's a nice one i think they're two of my favorite ones apart from obviously my local which is the greatest parkrun in the world of course yeah most local parkruns are we're picking up on that theme from your case yes

00:40:07Scott Trickett: Before we let you go, is there anything about your old life that you miss?

00:40:17Jorge Bronze: No, not at all. I am furious at myself for living in a beautiful city like Sheffield and having not explored all the local trails and all the local sort of areas of natural beauty and because I would sit on the sofa eating crap, watching the telly instead. Now, don't get me wrong. I will still have lazy days, but looking back at what I missed out on, I don't regret making that change. I think that for me, it was running. I would never say that running is for everybody, but I certainly think there's something out there for everybody to be able to make that change and become healthier and ultimately happier. That's the main thing that I've found is that I'm a much, much happier person being healthy and having a hobby that I enjoy and keeps me fit than being that guy stuck indoors, way overweight, out of breath anytime I did anything. Yeah, so no, not at all.

00:41:34Scott Trickett: Being happy is good. We like being happy. George, thanks for joining us on the podcast. It's been great having a chat to one of our UK.

00:41:44Jorge Bronze: Great. Thank you, guys. Good to talk to you. And I'm sure I'll see you out there in Australia at some point. I'm sure I'll make it to a park and over there one day.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:42:11Lyndell Murray: Hi everybody, my name's Lyndell. I'm a parkrunner from Bunyaville, which is a trail parkrun on the northwestern suburbs of Brisbane. Brisbane's become a bit of a home for trail parkruns, so Bunyaville was the first one to launch a few years ago. Since then Sirromet has also launched. So Bunyaville is on the north western suburbs of Brisbane. Suramay is on the south eastern suburbs of Brisbane. And today you might think I'm out at White Rock which is another trail parkrun launching today in the western suburbs of Brisbane. But I'm not. There's another trail run around Brisbane and it's about an hour, an hour and a half north of Brisbane in Nambour on the Sunshine Coast hinterland. And since it launched, it's kind of taken Bunyaville's mantle as being the toughest parkrun going. So today I'm up here testing that theory. Is Nambour tougher or is Bunyaville? Okay, so what's your name?

00:43:04Ralph: Ralph.

00:43:05Lyndell Murray: And Ralph, you've done Bunyaville parkrun?

00:43:07Ralph: Twice, yeah.

00:43:09Lyndell Murray: And so which one do you think's harder, Nambour or Bunyaville?

00:43:12Ralph: I think the general consensus is this one's much harder.

00:43:15Lyndell Murray: And why do you think that is?

00:43:17Ralph: Well, your run, you know what you're getting in the second half, of course it's out and back, whereas this one's a loop. You've got no idea, if you're doing it for your first time, you've got no idea what's in front of you.

00:43:29Lyndell Murray: Okay, so I'm here with event director Mel. Mel, what do your runners say about how Nambour compares with Bunyaville?

00:43:35Mel: Well, we've had a few Bunyavilles up here and they've come out and they've hit the first hill and said, oh, no, this is easy. But by the end of the run, they're like, oh, yeah, this is Bunyaville on steroids. Oh.

00:43:47Lyndell Murray: It's a great description. Love it. So what's my verdict? Is Nambour harder than Bunyaville? Well, I'd say they're probably about the same. There's only about 100 metres elevation difference between Nambour and Bunyaville. But what I would say is that there's more... bigger hills here at nambour bunyaville we've got a lot of sort of slight uphills and slight downhills whereas here when you hit a hill you know you've hit a hill so look the jury's out i'm not going to make a call as to which one's harder but i tell you what scott and mel i've probably found my favorite non-home parkrun our roving reports are back so thanks heaps to lindell murray

00:44:26Scott Trickett: Bunyaville, comparing Bunyaville and Nambour. Mel, I think you need to get to Bunyaville to give us a first-hand parkrun adventurer's verdict on which is harder.

00:44:36Melissa Erbacher: It's definitely on the list. I'm actually going to save it, though, until my centre of gravity returns to what it used to be when I barrelled down the hills at Nambour. So I don't want to be another member of the Bunyaville Stack Club when I head over. I'll get there. It's on my list.

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

00:44:57Scott Trickett: Now, there are no launches. There are no secret launches this week. I'll give you a bit of the inside tip. There are absolutely no launches around the country this week. But there are a couple of anniversaries.

00:45:08Melissa Erbacher: There are indeed. We've got Dawesville in WA celebrating their second anniversary this weekend.

00:45:15Scott Trickett: Parramatta in New South Wales, they're doing it for the fourth time.

00:45:19Melissa Erbacher: And I'm going to get this one wrong, but I'm going to have a crack anyway. Bairnsdale in Victoria.

00:45:25Scott Trickett: Nailed it.

00:45:26Melissa Erbacher: Turning the big number one. Actually, no, we had this conversation last year. I was always going to nail that.

00:45:32Scott Trickett: Bairnsdale?

00:45:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Did we? Yeah, because...

00:45:36Scott Trickett: It was 12 months ago. Nobody remembers.

00:45:40Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, I won't repeat the conversation we had then. Do you have a dad joke for us this week, Scott?

Dad joke

00:45:45Scott Trickett: No. No more dad jokes.

00:45:47Melissa Erbacher: The dad jokes are done?

00:45:49Scott Trickett: Yep. Because people are mean. Oh. I think they know who they are.

00:45:54Melissa Erbacher: Okay. I'm not going to mention any names.

00:45:56Scott Trickett: I'm a sensitive soul. No. No names. No names. But, geez, we've been hearing a lot from the Western Australians lately.

00:46:08Melissa Erbacher: Okay. We'll just leave it at that, shall we? Have you got a book review for me then? Last time we spoke, you were still working on Born to Run.

Book review

00:46:17Scott Trickett: Guess the thing this week.

00:46:18Melissa Erbacher: Guess that that's also a negative?

00:46:21Scott Trickett: No, no book review just yet. Still working on Born to Run. I was doing really well for the first week. Got through most of it and then haven't gone back to it.

00:46:28Melissa Erbacher: See, now I think that's also a little bit indicative of what you must have been feeling about it because I powered through that in like 24 hours. I consumed it. But I guess a lot of the time, especially with running books, you need to be in a certain frame of mind that you're looking for something to either inspire your running or to change something. It needs to feed a need.

00:46:59Scott Trickett: I think you're right because I've actually moved on to another book and we're going to have the author on in a couple of weeks.

00:47:06Melissa Erbacher: Ah, are you going to mention any names this time?

00:47:08Scott Trickett: If you want to have a look at the Landy era, I'm learning a little about the history of Australian running and one of our great runners.

00:47:15Melissa Erbacher: Okay, you want me to like Google that now?

00:47:18Scott Trickett: Yeah, go on. I'll wait.

00:47:20Melissa Erbacher: You'll wait?

00:47:21Scott Trickett: I'll entertain the listeners.

00:47:23Melissa Erbacher: The Landy era? Yeah. Is that the title of the book? Yeah. Or that's like an era in history?

00:47:29Scott Trickett: No, the name of the book is called The Landy Era, written by Len Johnson, one of Melbourne's great athletic writers. And we're going to have Len on in a couple of weeks. Found it?

00:47:41Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Yes, I have. I might have to pop down to my local library and get a copy out. Do some preparation.

00:47:51Scott Trickett: Yes. That's it for this week.

00:47:54Melissa Erbacher: All righty. Well, thank you very much for joining me, Scotty.

00:47:57Scott Trickett: Have you been inspired by Jorge's story?

00:48:00Melissa Erbacher: I've been inspired every week when we speak to people, new people, different courses. It's getting a little bit – I need more time. There needs to be two of me so that I can go to more places and visit more parkruns. I think it's a frustration I'm going to have to live with.

00:48:20Scott Trickett: Maybe we should steer clear of interviewing more international guests because they just talk about these parkruns that – We're never going to get to.

00:48:28Melissa Erbacher: Speak for yourself. I'm getting to them.

00:48:30Scott Trickett: Okay. I'm never going to get to.

00:48:34Melissa Erbacher: You should never say never as well. That's very negative.

00:48:38Scott Trickett: I'm going to end on a positive. Happy birthday. We missed Russia's birthday last week. So happy birthday to our Russian friends. I don't speak any Russian.

00:48:48Melissa Erbacher: No, I don't. Dubrovnik, that's Russian, right? That's a place in Russia? We've got a parkrun there.

00:48:56Scott Trickett: It's a shame because we'd love to speak to our friends in Russia, but we're working on it. We need a Russian to English translator to join the pod for one week. Send your resumes in.

00:49:08Melissa Erbacher: They could join the pod every week and they could translate our podcast into Russian every week. Then we could be multilingual.

00:49:17Scott Trickett: That's a good idea. Something to work on during the week.

00:49:21Melissa Erbacher: So if anyone wants to volunteer.

00:49:22Scott Trickett: Hopefully you speak Russian. Don't just make it up.

00:49:27Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, not that we'll know the difference.

00:49:30Scott Trickett: See you, Mel.

00:49:32Melissa Erbacher: Chat to you next week, Scotty. See you.