Episode 59 - Nicola Forwood

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00:00:07Scott Trickett: It's time for the parkrun Adventurers episode 59. Woohoo! Mel, welcome. Welcome for starters. Thanks for joining me.

00:00:19Melissa Erbacher: Thank you, Scotty. You're very welcome.

00:00:21Scott Trickett: You know the good thing about parkrun? There's no off-season.

00:00:25Melissa Erbacher: That is a pretty good thing about parkrun.

00:00:27Scott Trickett: That this every week thing works. We've got something to talk about every week. It's great.

00:00:37Melissa Erbacher: Some weeks we've got more than one thing to talk about.

00:00:39Scott Trickett: I'll tell you what. I'll tell you one thing that came out of last week's episode was our friend, or your friend from the West, idea of a new club.

The Pirate Club (new adventurer club)

00:00:52Melissa Erbacher: Yes. The Pirate Club. Which got a lot of feedback. It did.

00:00:55Scott Trickett: It got people excited. And we're going to refine it this week.

00:01:00Melissa Erbacher: We are, and we have consulted with the gentleman himself, whose brainchild this is, just to make sure that it pasts muster. And do you want to explain what it is, Scotty?

00:01:14Scott Trickett: There was a suggestion that you needed to sail the seven seas, so you needed to get seven sea events, which I think everyone's happy with. We're locking that in?

00:01:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, yes, because basically the point was made that 26 seas were six months' worth of adventuring to only parkruns beginning with sea, and that might be a tad unattainable. And while we do want to set a challenge with these random unofficial clubs that just get started, When people have funny ideas, they should be, you know, obtainable. Obtainable is a good way for a club to be.

00:01:58Scott Trickett: Yes. And we're adding one caveat. So there's seven C's and... Come on, I know you want to say it. One R. That wasn't a very good one.

00:02:10Melissa Erbacher: No, that was a terrible one. You have to have done the seven C's and an R. R. And in case you're confused about what an R is, it's the letter that comes immediately after Q in the alphabet. So that is what you have to do to become a parkrun pirate. And join the pirate club.

00:02:31Scott Trickett: Which seems simple enough as well, but there's actually not many R's in Australia.

00:02:36Melissa Erbacher: There are not. And there are a lot of states that don't have that many C's either. So it still requires a bit of adventure.

00:02:43Scott Trickett: So there you go. I was at a sea on Saturday. I visited Coburg. I've been there before, so it doesn't really add to my list. But one thing, you know, we ask a lot of people, I mean, in fact, we ask everybody on the podcast to give us their top three. You and I have never done it, but I think I'm going to go on official record. And I'm going to add Coburg to my top three. I'm still leaving the door open for the other two spots, but Bloody hell, it's a great course. Every time I go there, I enjoy it. I went there on Saturday to celebrate my mate's 50th. Now, this guy, I wouldn't have done parkrun and started parkrun and started as many events without this guy, so I made sure I ran the 50th with him. But I tell you what, Milt, you've got to get to Coburg. It's a cracker.

00:03:34Melissa Erbacher: Well, this is really exciting for me because I'm coming to Melbourne in April and this is the event that I think that we're going to do when we're there, myself and my husband.

00:03:45Scott Trickett: We are going to Coburg.

00:03:47Melissa Erbacher: Yep. Yep. And I'll get myself a C toward the Pirate Club and I'll get myself a Coburg toward doing one of Scotty's top three.

00:03:56Scott Trickett: Love it. Ran with Kasia again, which was fantastic. Got more information out of my daughter.

00:04:02Melissa Erbacher: It's great. Little does she know that you're using this as a method of extracting information that she otherwise doesn't give you.

00:04:11Scott Trickett: So I had a great Saturday. I presume you had exactly the same experience.

00:04:15Melissa Erbacher: Exactly! I wouldn't say exactly. My Saturday started off really badly. It... Are you one of those people who sets like five alarms so you don't oversleep on parkrun day?

00:04:31Scott Trickett: No, not on parkrun day. I'm always up and about on parkrun day.

00:04:35Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. See, I have a lot of – it's not the kit. We generally keep the parkrun tent at my house. So I'm always conscious that I need to be there early enough to set the tent up. so that people know where roughly to congregate with all the other things. Even if I'm not run directing that day, I need to be there on time. And pretty much, it's not super early start, but I kind of have to set my alarm for 5 a.m. for that to happen. And this week, I was in the middle of a really graphically violent nightmare when my alarm went off and I woke up with a foot like calf cramp. So my alarm is screaming on the side of the bed. I couldn't find it because I was too busy, arced up in pain because I had this damn calf cramp and my whole foot was like contorted and so Adam's like what's going on and he had to lean over and try to find the alarm and then he knocked it off and it was like a minute of this screeching noise while I'm going ow ow ow ow and it just wasn't the best way to start parkrun day but it got better because After the pain went away in my leg and the noise got turned off from the alarm, we got to get up and go to parkrun. And I got to have a wog, which was nice.

00:06:07Scott Trickett: So this didn't happen like 2 a.m. in the morning?

00:06:10Melissa Erbacher: No, it didn't happen at 2.

00:06:10Scott Trickett: This was closer to 6.

00:06:12Melissa Erbacher: It was all at 5 a.m. when the alarm went off. But what are the odds of the leg cramp and the violent nightmare happening when my alarm goes off? What are the odds of those three things all coinciding?

00:06:24Scott Trickett: Couldn't tell you. I know Ian Hay could, but I couldn't. But it got better. Your day got better.

00:06:30Melissa Erbacher: It did, yes. I had a nice wog at court.

00:06:32Scott Trickett: Because you had a wog.

00:06:43Melissa Erbacher: We are super enthusiastic to be chatting to our next guest on the show. She harks from the United Kingdom, has done a little bit of podcasting before. If you ever listened to the original The parkrun show, you'll recognize the voice. Welcome to The parkrun Adventurers, Nicola Ford. Thank you.

00:07:06Nicola Forwood: It's great to be here. I can kind of pretend I'm back in Australia hearing your two lovely voices.

00:07:14Melissa Erbacher: Yes, well, you must have gone home with quite a bit of an accent. You were here for a few weeks.

00:07:21Nicola Forwood: Maybe. One or two people have said, that's a bit Australian. But I wasn't there for as long as I need to, I think. Maybe a return trip is on the cards.

00:07:31Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. Well, you might get to meet Scotty in person the next time. I was lucky enough to meet you in person this time. when you're around on your adventures. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you got up to when you were here?

00:07:45Nicola Forwood: I will. So, well, we started in New Zealand. So we did two parkruns, one on North Island, one on South Island. And then we did, must have been four parkruns in Australia. So, I mean, the whole trip was kind of loosely based on parkrun. You reach a point in your parkrun journey where holidays become a bit painful if there's no parkrun there. So I'd planned it. Agreed. You should have seen the travel agent's face though when you say, so every Saturday I have to be at a parkrun. Because Poppy was with me, going to be with me with no buggy, so she was going to need to run. They needed to be, I couldn't do lapped courses. So it got, you know, it wasn't just we have to be at a parkrun every Saturday. It was like, I need to be close to a parkrun that's either an out and back or a one lapper because Poppy can't cross, you know, run past the finish line and then do another lap. That's hard for her. Anyway, so we managed to plan it. So we were at, we did St. Peter's parkrun in Sydney, and then we did Chelsea Bicentennial parkrun in Melbourne, Cairns parkrun, Noosa parkrun, and then the travel agent had said, the plane touches down in Singapore on the way home. And just a quick touch down and I was like, hang on a minute. There's a parkrun there. We have to get off. We have to get off. So we ended up with four days in Singapore to do an East Coast parkrun there. So yeah, we've done a bit of adventuring.

00:09:21Scott Trickett: And what provoked the trip out to Australia?

00:09:25Nicola Forwood: So when Danny and I used to do the podcast, it's kind of always been a bit of a dream because... Robbo and the Naked Runners and they were really engaged with the show at the time and watching parkrun grow in Australia has been amazing because if you look at it start in all the countries it has some countries or I mean if you look at the America at the moment that you can look at a country and think it's going to really take off but actually it grows and because of the organic growth model it kind of grows slowly that didn't happen in Australia you guys kind of just went parkrun this is amazing and it sprung up really fast and watching all the enthusiasm and you're a nation of like high fivers so there's so much parkrun passion it's just brilliant so I've always really wanted to do it um and then it's a bit of a sad story really about why the trip came about because um I don't if listeners listen to the parkrun show they'd know that Ben was my husband was pretty poorly so he passed away about three months after we'd stopped recording the parkrun show and then um you might need to get a little violin out, it all gets a bit sad. And then, so I'd had a cycle of IVF, and I was having, gonna try and have a sibling for Poppy, and then I thought, who, this is my only chance now, I'm pregnant, this is my only chance to go to Australia and do a parkrun, unless I wait 20 years until the kids are older, because who in their right mind would take two small children on their own to parkrun on the other side of the world. So I booked a trip and then sadly I lost the baby six days before we were going to fly. So that was that and that was cancelled. And then I thought I just need two weeks in the Maldives or I need to get away from life. And I looked at booking something and it's so expensive to book holidays that I thought it started to make my massive expensive parkrun trip look like really good value and something I still wanted to do. So I kind of, you know, I just gritted my teeth and rebooked it and then it gave me something to look forward to. So we went anyway and in the second time of planning the trip, extended it, added a few more parkruns in and it was really wonderful, really good for me. parkrun is such a great way to travel. to know that you have those pockets of kind of like family to dip into every Saturday and that you're going to be with friends, even though you've never met, was really, really kind of what I needed, you know, and I met some really, really wonderful people. So it's a bit of a sad story about how the trip came about, but I'm really pleased to have done it and Really sad to be back in the UK.

00:12:31Scott Trickett: Well, how did you find the Australian parkrun experience compared to what you're used to in the UK? Did you get plenty of high fives, for starters?

00:12:44Nicola Forwood: We got some high fives. We would have got more if I wasn't holding the hand of a four-year-old. That complicated, you know? Poppy got lots of high fives. She stole the show. Yeah, but hot. It's a bit hot, guys. It is a bit hot. I knew we were coming in summer, but when we got there and then I thought, wow, I'm trying to get my four-year-old to run in this heat. i'm slightly crazy um but it was brilliant it was so so so magical because It's infectious. The energy's infectious. And Poppy really, really loved it because it can take quite a lot of energy to kind of try to spur a four-year-old on. I mean, the first kilometre or two is easy, but after that they want to pick up sticks or go and look at that tree or if you run past a playground. But in Australia, there were some of the first parkruns where Poppy was engaged the whole way round and... Once you have kids, that's kind of, it doubles the magic for you, you know, seeing Poppy really, really enjoy her whole parkrun experience. It was really wonderful. And the courses are so different and the environments are so different and your weather can really be, Australia's so big that your weather can be so different. So Cairns was, you know, interesting, trying to run. Those people are hard as nails, you know. It's like, I don't know, 99% humidity and so hot and there's mosquitoes and the signs, you know, warning crocodile signs and there you are every Saturday parkrunning. Just brilliant.

00:14:28Melissa Erbacher: And Poppy, she's been only four years old, of course, hasn't been registered for very long. How many parkruns had she done before she came to Australia?

00:14:38Nicola Forwood: So she'd done three parkruns before we left. At one point, I thought, oh, she's going to do her 10 at 10 different locations because she'd done Woodhouse Mall, which is our home parkrun in Leeds. She did that on her fourth birthday because her birthday fell on a Saturday. And she's been strapped into a buggy every Saturday since she's been born. So she could not wait to parkrun. So she ran on her birthday. And then after that, she thought, yeah, it's a bit far, isn't it, this 5K for my four-year-old legs? don't think I'll go back in my buggy so she stayed buggy run uh you know in her buggy and then we went to visit a friend um at Pontefract parkrun and that's like a one lapper so she did that and that was good she had good fun and then I thought I'm not gonna push it because the worst thing would be to get away to New Zealand and her say I'm not parkrunning and I just can't imagine, you know, what would I do? I have to parkrun, so I need her to like it. So I thought, I'm not going to, I'm just giving her the choice every week. Would you like to buggy or would you like to run? And she picked buggy every week and that was fine. And then on Christmas Day, she'd picked some tights and a dress and was all dressed up for Christmas, for like a party. And then as we were going out of the door to parkrun, she said, I need my fast shoes on. And I was like, Poppy, why do you need your fast shoes on? Because I'd already asked and she was in the buggy. And she said, I'm running. And this was literally as we were leaving the house. So she ran in a party dress and trainers. But it meant she'd done two then. I know it's good. She totally works it. So she'd done two then at our home parkrun. So she'd done three before we left. And then she did the two in New Zealand. four in Australia, which meant that she ran her tenth in Singapore. So I'm so jealous of her stats. When you look, you're like, that's so cool. But yeah, pretty cool for a four-year-old, hey?

00:16:44Melissa Erbacher: The temperature in Singapore must have been fairly comparable to Cairns, I imagine.

00:16:50Nicola Forwood: Not quite, nearly, but Cairns was... I, I struggled to say horrendous, but the, you know, because it was a, the parkrun was fantastic and stunningly, stunningly beautiful because you run along the Esplanade and the people, the team were fantastic, but I just don't know how they run in that heat. It is so, it was, well, the humidity, it was fierce. A real struggle.

00:17:17Melissa Erbacher: It was more humid than East Coast Park parkrun.

00:17:21Nicola Forwood: It felt like it, yeah. Or comparable humidity, but I thought Cairns was slightly hotter.

00:17:27Melissa Erbacher: Oh, wow.

00:17:28Nicola Forwood: There you go. But the East Coast one in Singapore was 7.30. So I don't know, you know, it's hard to compare them all because especially you guys in Australia, the time jumping around, I was having nightmares that I was going to miss a parkrun because if I set my alarm for parkrun, it's, you know, always four and nine o'clock parkrun. So I'd wake up in the middle of the night and think, is it parkrun? What time is the park? It's not, you know, it's not Friday. Okay, go back to sleep. Yeah. It's crazy. But we made it. We made all of the start lines. Some of them only just, but we found them all and we ran. So that was great.

00:18:05Scott Trickett: Well done to Poppy. Now, something that hasn't made it to Australia is Junior parkrun just yet. But Poppy had her first taste recently of Junior parkrun. How did that go?

00:18:17Nicola Forwood: Well, it wasn't actually her first taste. She's done one lap of kind of a two-lap Junior parkrun before when she was three. But we were all built up thinking... Right. She doesn't want to... Since we've been back, she's picked Buggy, obviously, because she's just done loads of parkrunning in really hot countries and now thinks parkrun's really tough. So I thought to get her back into it, we'll go to junior parkrun. And, yeah, it didn't go great. So we set off. And four-year-olds, they've just got too much enthusiasm. So for the first kind of... Poppy has some concept of distance now, but for the first, I don't know, 200 metres, she thinks she's Usain Bolt. So she's like, you know, giddy, arms and legs flailing, just absolutely loving it. But unfortunately, this has got really rather quite a steep downhill after the start. So she kind of had a good first 40 metres and then bounced down the hill. And we had like five minutes of screaming and then the playground. So bless her heart, she was okay. But yeah, Junior parkrun, we're yet to conquer Junior parkrun. But I'm surprised you guys don't have it. Surely that's, you know, must be on the cards.

00:19:50Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's definitely on the way. For those who aren't really very familiar with the format, it's a two kilometre run on a Sunday, so completely separate to the 5k parkrun. But how does it work in terms of, you know, parental supervision? Did you, were you able to run along and you were there when Poppy had her stack or did you just see it from the start line?

00:20:15Nicola Forwood: Oh, no, that would have been awful, wouldn't it, watching her? You can run with them or not run with them. I was, you know, right next to Poppy at four. I think, for me, she's still a bit too young to be running on her own. But the rule is you just, no parents can cross the finish line just not to mess up the results. But you can run with them all the way. I mean, I've seen, because I've volunteered before at Junior parkruns before Poppy getting involved. Then you see these four-year-olds, you know, and the parents step to the side and the child follows them. And you're like, no, no, you go across the line. Mummy and daddy just going this way, you know. But yeah, so you can stay with them. So it was okay. I was there and cuddling her very, very, very quickly. And she still wanted to go to the playground, you know. So it was okay. It was okay.

00:21:07Unidentified speaker: Shh.

00:21:08Scott Trickett: Nicola, I'll use the word famous for your time on the parkrun Show UK edition. Can we go back to how you got involved in the podcast, how you initially became part of the team with Danny?

00:21:26[laughter]

00:21:26Nicola Forwood: Wow, that goes back a bit, and I wouldn't use the term famous, that made me laugh a bit. So, the parkrun show started, for those that don't know, so with the marathon talk team, so Tom Williams, Martin Yelling, and then Danny, and... I just loved the podcast. I really loved it. It was the first podcast I'd ever started listening to. I was really parkrun passionate and just couldn't believe that a podcast had started about the thing that I loved doing. So I became a bit of a parkrun show geek. So they'd ask questions every week. Or I suppose like your dad jokes have been. Asking listeners to get engaged. And so every week I would wait and see what's this week, what's this week. And there was one week that the question was... What's a good film title name for your parkrun? So I can't think of any off the top of my head. Well, I've got a total blank. Anyway, I sat and I wrote a film title for every parkrun in the UK. Because I thought this was really hilarious. So I was like, spent about two hours, you know. Although there weren't that many back then. And so this is only talking to Danny afterwards. Danny was like, that's so funny, that's genius. You know, she sat and done one for all of them. So we... We met at a parkrun and I remember being really, really, really giggly because he was like, you know, let me record something for the show. Just say like, hi, I love parkrun. And I was like, oh no, I don't want to be recorded. That's a bit embarrassing. So after much giggling, I kind of said, hi, I'm Nicola Forwood and I love parkrun and then collapsed into fits of giggles. But one of the weeks afterwards, Tom or Martin couldn't get to a parkrun and they really worked really hard to review a new parkrun every week. And so they said, would you go to a parkrun, review it, and then chat to us about it? So I was like, oh my goodness, I can't do that. That's an almost impossible task. You know, oh, how would I? Okay, okay, I'll try and do it. I'll try and do it. And so I went to Conkers parkrun in Sheffield and then gave them a report. And it went from there. Danny kind of said, right, that's it, you're on the show now. And I was like, yes, this is amazing. I love the parkrun show. And then did it every week for how many years did we do it? I don't know, two, three, three years. And that was great. I loved it. Really, really loved it. And you meet some, I'm sure you guys know, you meet some really, really wonderful people through doing it. and it spurs you on to travel to new parkruns and just it really enhances your parkrun experience in a really really really positive way so yeah I'm really thankful that I got involved and became a bit of an obsessive fan at the start that's how you get in you you get a bit obsessive and a little bit stalkery and yep then you get to join the crew

00:24:37Melissa Erbacher: Nicola, you are a little bit famous, whether or not you want to admit it. So there will be a lot of listeners out there, ours and from the parkrun show, who are keen to know what you've been up to since the podcast finished. What kind of adventures have you been on?

00:24:53Nicola Forwood: Oh, well, so I don't know, Mel. That's a really hard question. really really hard adventures like you know hard life adventures so obviously like I said Ben died just after the podcast finished and I went through a bit of a dark period with my parkrunning so parkrun is so so wonderful and it's it's like my religion um In that you have that community of like-minded people who will be there for you no matter what, you know. And I couldn't stop going to parkrun. And in fact, we used parkrun to celebrate Ben's life. But I really struggled with parkrun for a little while because you have all these people and they're saying, oh, how are you doing? How are you? And that was a really difficult question to answer. So every, you know, week on week to have... And you couldn't have deep and meaningfuls, you know, at the start when there's 300 people congregating waiting for a run to start. So that just became a bit of a difficult time. And I'd become a... I couldn't... I could never stop parkrunning because... But it just became really hard to go. And then luckily there was, they held the parkrun ambassador conference. Do you guys have those over there? We don't yet. So over here we have the ambassadors who help all the events to run and do different things. It might be course measuring, it might be helping event activation, whatever. So they all try and get together once a year. And that was at Woodhouse Moor parkrun. So it turned up as I had done every week. And all of these wonderful faces and people were there who I'd met through doing the parkrun show. And most of them I'd only met online. So all of a sudden there were all these people who I, you know, I did know them, but we'd never met. And that really got me, you know, I thought this is, parkrun's a really beautiful thing. These are all really wonderful people and I wouldn't have met them otherwise. if it wasn't for parkrun. So I kind of got engaged again and then really enjoyed it. And after my trip now to Australia, I've got touring in my head again. And after listening to you guys, I've sat down and, you know, written out my alphabet and looked at my alphabet touring. So I'm a bit worried now because I, on one hand, I really like... The kind of green aspect of parkruns, I really try to, you know, just walk there, you know, not to drive. And at the same time now I'm like, ooh. And I'd still done a bit of touring and when new parkruns popped up, that would be great. And I've now got my eye on the Cowell Club. Because I've done, I think it's 86 different parkruns now. So that's not too far off. Well, 14 different events is still quite a lot to try and do. But that's definitely my next parkrun target. But so that didn't really answer your question. So kind of fell out of love with parkrun, but for really, you know, difficult personal reasons. And then rediscovered parkrun, which has been really, really, really nice. Really nice. Nice.

00:28:27Scott Trickett: Well, you returned home on Saturday to Woodhouse Moor, and I had a massive day with a really nice touch. Do you want to tell us about what happened at Woodhouse Moor on the weekend?

00:28:39Nicola Forwood: Yeah, well, it was my second week back. So I'd done parkrun at Woodhouse Mall the week before, and it was kind of like, oh, grey UK parkrun. It's still parkrun, so it's still great, but this isn't Australia or New Zealand or Singapore. And then, yes, I needed this. So this weekend, it was Woodhouse Mall parkrun's 500th event. And I can hear Danny right now from the parkrun show saying, it's an arbitrary number. It's not a birthday. Why 500? Absolutely, totally arbitrary number. But it was amazing. They smashed their attendance record. I think there were 718 people. And previously, it hovered around kind of four or five hundred people I think the record was five fifty something and just so so so many people there it was so wonderful and Tom Williams was there I ran with Helen Williams who is a much much much faster runner than me and offered to push the buggy so and she beasted me around so that was great so I had a really good run and actually it's been great to go from that first parkrun back in the UK to which was grey, to have this massive party parkrun, and it's all in the press here, you know, hundreds of runners turn out to celebrate with Asmode's 500th parkrun and to see all the happiness.

00:30:08Melissa Erbacher: Did everybody wear a blue shirt?

00:30:10Nicola Forwood: They didn't, they didn't. They asked people to wear their club shirts.

00:30:15Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's cool too.

00:30:17Nicola Forwood: Just to have as many official parkrun tops. as they could. But so it was a really wonderful celebration just to celebrate everything that is parkrun. And of course, Woodhouse Moor was, it's the first parkrun outside of London. So it's kind of one of those really early ones and that's important in the journey of parkrun because Tom Williams brought it outside of the M25, you know, and started the journey of parkrun. So yeah, what a wonderful celebration and a great way to come back to the UK parkrunning.

00:30:50Melissa Erbacher: Well, you're almost in the Cowell Club, so you've done a lot of different events. Can you narrow it down to a top three for us, Nicola?

00:31:00Nicola Forwood: Well, so of course I knew you were going to ask this question, and it's a really hard one, a really hard one. But I had a quick look through all of the events. And so Dolby Forest, Dolby Forest in the North York Moors National Park up here, where you run through beautiful woodland is amazing. And you see, it's just a great one for kids as well. So you see, do you have Julia Donaldson over there? Surely she's global. So Stickman and the Gruffalo.

00:31:33Melissa Erbacher: The Gruffalo we have.

00:31:34Nicola Forwood: Yeah. Okay. So there's characters from the books through the woods? Yes. So it's just brilliant. So we'd run that one and then Poppy said, she was in the buggy and then she said, can we walk it? I didn't get to play, you know, to touch the Gruffalo and went to find. So we did, I did the 5k and then we had to do a 5k walk to go round so Poppy could enjoy it. And just the forest. It was just a beautiful, beautiful parkrun, beautiful place to be. So that's definitely got to be up there. And then it feels a bit cliched to say Fountains Abbey because we banged on about it on the parkrun show. So that's up here. That's North Yorkshire as well. But it is stunningly beautiful. So there's just no getting away from it. And it's in the ruins of the Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden are just breathtaking. But it's a National Trust property. So over here, unless you're a member of the National Trust, you'd have to pay to get entry to these places. And so I suppose I'm going to say Fountains Abbey, but I'm using that to be representative of all the parkruns that are National Trust, that National Trust parkrun partnership, because I just love that relationship that you have the access to have a run around Fountains. These places of historic importance that you'd otherwise have to pay for. And it just really exposes some really, really beautiful parts of the UK. So, yeah, Fountains Abbey's up there. These aren't in order, though. I'm not doing top, you know, one, two, three. And then my third one has got to be one of my ones from my travels. So... I think it's going to have to be, and I probably can't even choose between them. So they have to be like level pegging, I think. And it has to be St. Peter's Park one in Sydney. Just because Poppy was really, really, it's the first parkrun that she's done where she's been into it all the way around. They had a really wonderful man whose name I can't remember because I'm really terrible with names, but who spent hours chalking out arrows on the courses, on the course. So he puts arrows to follow and then crosses for any other path That's the direction that you don't go. So across there and arrows to follow. And Poppy just thought that that was magical. It was like a treasure hunt, a treasure hunt for arrows. So to see the excitement, you know, for like a full hour while she's running, she just loved it. And they had a really, really lovely tail runner. So just the experience. Was just wonderful, really wonderful people, really wonderful parkrun. And motivational messages on the floor as you ran up the hill, that was pretty special. And Noosa parkrun, because the people and the parkrun as well, but the scribbly gums. Oh my goodness, I'm in love with your scribbly gums. Will all Australians know what they are or... Yeah. They're just my favourite tree. They are amazing. So for anyone that doesn't know, are they a eucalyptus tree? But they look like somebody's drawn on them with a pen. They are.

00:34:54Melissa Erbacher: Have you read Snugglepot and Cuddlepie to Poppy? No, I've never even heard of it. Okay, I'll send you a copy.

00:35:01Nicola Forwood: Oh my goodness, what is it? Do you know, I have just got, it's just arrived, The Diary of a Wombat. Apparently that's a really big kids book in Australia. So we've just got that. So that's Poppy's new favourite book. But yeah, your squibbly gums, they're amazing. And also there was a brilliant tail runner at Noosa, Belinda, and she lent Poppy her dog Denzel. So that was pretty special. So Poppy was like, because I was like, what are you doing, Belinda? You know, what do they say? Never work with children and animals. You've just given a child an animal on a parkrun. and she was like I'll be fine and it was and it gave Poppy a focus and like a responsibility she really loved having the responsibility of having this dog Denzel and then of course for you know two weeks afterwards you'd be mummy Denzel and I'll be baby Denzel and we played Denzels for a couple of weeks afterwards so it stays in your head so those two parkruns St Peter's and Noosa were really special, mainly because of the experience I had with Poppy, but they were just wonderful, wonderful parkruns and, you know, scribbly gums. And then I just have to, and I know it's not top three, but I just have to say that anybody who hasn't done a parkrun pilgrimage, which may include you two, have you been to Bushy parkrun? Not yet, no.

00:36:25Melissa Erbacher: It is the very top of the bucket list.

00:36:28Nicola Forwood: Yeah, it has to be up there, doesn't it, for all parkrunners, just to go to the birth of parkrun. Or the birthplace, I should say. So being at Bushy on their 10th birthday... I think it was my second parkrun pilgrimage to Bushy, but being there on International parkrun Day and just the sheer scale and the numbers, it really is magic. So, yeah, guys, you've got to get to Bushy. I know it's a trek. It is a trek. I'm not going to lie. The flights are horrendous, aren't they? But you've got to do it.

00:37:03Melissa Erbacher: We'll have to aim for an International parkrun Day pilgrimage as well, I think. It's a good plan.

00:37:09Scott Trickett: You've got to do it. We'll get there one day.

00:37:11Nicola Forwood: I know, you see, and you will, you will, because Australia was on my list for so long. You will get there.

00:37:16Scott Trickett: Now, I know you don't want to be called famous, but it's been a real thrill talking to you. I think I told Danny the same thing without the two of you. I don't think this podcast would exist.

00:37:27Nicola Forwood: Get out of here. Thank you for having me on. It's been really wonderful to relive my parkrun adventure to the Southern Hemisphere. Really loved it, and now I've got my eye. I've already started Googling my next trips, so dangerous game, hey?

00:37:43Scott Trickett: And you know Mel's pregnant, so I might be looking for a replacement co-host.

00:37:50Nicola Forwood: Oh, Mel, don't let me get away with that. Yeah, it's wonderful news, Mel. I'll keep my eye on the spot, Scotty. But no, Mel, yeah, like I said to you, don't start your contractions when you're due to be recording and then baby on boob and you can record. That's the plan.

00:38:13Scott Trickett: Anyway, I've got a backup, so I'm happy. And thanks again for joining us on parkrun Adventures.

00:38:19Nicola Forwood: Thanks, guys.

Facts in a Haystack

00:38:29Scott Trickett: It's now time to wish one of our regulars a happy new year because we haven't spoken to him yet this year. So welcome back to the podcast for 2017. Ian, hi. Hello.

00:38:41Ian Hay: It's good to be back. I still can't believe it's been that long. It feels like we're halfway through the year already. It's going that quickly.

00:38:46Scott Trickett: Not quite. Do they have a statistical year? We have a financial year and a regular year. Do they have a different calendar that the statisticians work to?

00:38:55Ian Hay: I'm sure there is somewhere along the lines. It would probably be based around the 20th of February or something, wouldn't it? Sort of leap years and all that sort of stuff.

00:39:03Melissa Erbacher: The 20th of February is not a leap year.

00:39:05Ian Hay: 28th. That's probably why you don't know. Off to a great start there, yeah.

00:39:15Melissa Erbacher: Are you perhaps thinking about the 29th?

00:39:17Ian Hay: It's been a long day. It's been a long year already, hasn't it?

00:39:26Scott Trickett: Has parkrun got off to a great start this year? Hit us with some figures on our growth and can you compare it to our growth last year?

00:39:37Ian Hay: Can we start with that? Yeah, it's been a cracker of a year. So we've started off with January. We're around 130,000 for the month of January. We're at 205 events now, so it's really getting up there. If you compare that to January last year, we're 119,000. So we've had 11,000 jumps since last year. So very, very impressive. So we had a slight drop off in Feb. So we've gone from 130,000 down to 123,000. So we lost 7,000 over the new year resolution, as I would probably call them.

00:40:13Scott Trickett: How does that happen? Just the numbers drop off or less events?

00:40:17Ian Hay: No, no, no. So that's just going from January to February. We actually had more events. We've gone from 205 to 210. So we've put on an extra five events, but we've lost 7,000. So it is the new year's resolution. So if you look at it last year, so 2016, We actually lost 25,000 in numbers between January and February. So it's a massive drop. Or is it 7,000 this year?

00:40:38Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's not too bad.

00:40:39Ian Hay: So this year, yeah, it's considerable for this year. It's stayed up. And so if you look at – I looked at the January to March period. I know we're not all the way through March yet. But January to March in 2016, we lost 29,000 people on average from – so news resolutions from January to March. And if I project forward with the numbers we've been getting at the moment, we're probably only looking at about 10,000 drop this year. So we're really sustaining the numbers a lot better this year.

00:41:07Scott Trickett: Okay, that is good. They are fickle.

00:41:09Ian Hay: Which is cool, yeah. So yeah, very cool numbers. So yeah, we're up around 31,000, 32,000 every week now, which is massive.

00:41:18Melissa Erbacher: I'm going to throw a spanner in the works and I'm going to ask you, how many more events do we have this year than we did the same time last year? Have you looked at that?

00:41:27Ian Hay: I do. I have those numbers right in front of me. I expected that question. So 205 we had in January, at the end of January, and we had 151 at the end of January last year. So, yeah, we're up to about 210, 211 now, and that's in comparison 158 last year. So it's not a huge jump in numbers going from 158 to 211, so it's not like we're incrementally increasing the numbers. It's not like doubling or anything like that, but it's sizable.

00:42:02Melissa Erbacher: It's a solid one per week average.

Statesmen update

00:42:05Ian Hay: Yeah, it is, yeah.

00:42:06Melissa Erbacher: So I wanted to know what the current state of play is with statesmen, if you would, Mr Hay.

00:42:13Ian Hay: Yes. So I don't think there's any surprise. So I looked at – I've got a list of all the statesmen across Australia, and I don't think there's any surprise who's sitting at the most number of states at the moment.

00:42:25Melissa Erbacher: Okay. But without mentioning – names in particular can you just tell us how many statesmen or women are in each state currently?

00:42:34Ian Hay: Okay so I'll start with the the ones that sort of nudge the numbers in the wrong direction a little bit so we've got ACT and Northern Territory in Tasmania so obviously they've got less events so ACT there's 241 sitting as statesmen, Northern Territory 217 and Tasmania 82 so obviously they're higher because there's only a couple of events to be able to reach that reach that level yeah but i think that's still impressive when you consider you know that's a whole state in tassie they aren't all like on top of each other or anything like that yep so there's yeah that's right yeah so it's still impressive and and i actually had a look too so we've in northern territory northern northern territory in tasmania we've got uh the youngest um bunch of statesmen there so across those two states we've got seven under 10s seven junior 10s Which is cool. That's our youngest across Australia, which is very exciting. New South Wales, we have three of them. South Australia, we have eight. Victoria, five. WA, eight. And we know that state that everyone would struggle to keep up because the numbers that are pushing, the number of new events coming out is hard to keep up with, and that's Queensland. So we've got one in Queensland at the moment.

00:43:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but, you know, it's not even just the amount of launches we're having. It's how far away they are. I think Weipa has broken many a statesman.

00:43:57Ian Hay: It's a hard travel, that one.

00:44:00Melissa Erbacher: It is.

00:44:01Ian Hay: Yep.

00:44:01Melissa Erbacher: So how many is that altogether then? I guess the three small states jump it up to the hundreds.

00:44:07Ian Hay: Yeah, they bump it up into the – you're making me cuck on my head. It's almost 500 if you include those.

00:44:14Melissa Erbacher: That's not too shabby though for a nation of 205 events.

00:44:19Ian Hay: Yeah, which is very cool.

00:44:21Melissa Erbacher: We've got more than 205. Far out. We've got more than 210. I think, what are we up to now? 212, 213? Yep, 212. I'm not the statistician, but I know that there are a lot.

00:44:34Ian Hay: You're spot on. I also had a quick look. I was very curious to see all these parkrunners that are out doing statesmen events and going all around the place and just seeing if they do a bit of volunteering. And once again, I excluded Tasmania, ACT and Northern Territory because that really does bump the numbers out with volunteers. Excluding those, we've only got one person who's done no volunteer stints. Everyone else has done a really solid number of volunteer stints and not just one. It's been quite a few increase, which is really cool to see. So it's good to see the statesmen getting out and volunteering as well.

00:45:03Melissa Erbacher: Adventurers. It's an adventure of blood to give back to parkrun.

00:45:06Scott Trickett: Exactly. Now we've been talking about the new club that we've created or our friends have created, the Pirate Club. You've done a bit of research and digging. On the seas, what have you come up with?

00:45:23Ian Hay: I have done the seas. So what have we got? 26 events under the seas. Okay. I didn't plan to say it that way, but under the seas. Okay. I'm sorry. Pun intended. Exactly. So we've had 47,043 individual parkrunners do sea events under

00:45:44Scott Trickett: So that's a lot who have done one sea event. We're refining it. You're going to come back to us and tell us how many have done seven.

00:45:52Ian Hay: Seven seas, yes. Yes. For the Pirate Club. Seven seas and one R. Seven seas and one R. I can do the seven seas and one R, absolutely.

00:46:04Scott Trickett: So we're going to give you a week's notice.

00:46:06Ian Hay: I'll crunch those numbers, yes. That'll include this week. So if anyone made the seven seas and one R this week, then they'll get included next week. So, yep.

00:46:15Melissa Erbacher: They be pirates. Exactly.

00:46:17Scott Trickett: Great. Thanks for joining us again, Ian. We look forward to finding out who's in the Pirate Club next week. Awesome. Thanks, guys. We're so happy. We've got some raving reports. So let's throw to Tok who went to Bairnsdale this week.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:46:41Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, it's Toc. I'm here with Vee McShane from Bairnsdale parkrun. We've just celebrated Bairnsdale's anniversary, their first anniversary. It's been a lovely 16 degrees down beside the river. Vee, welcome along and tell me, is this the typical parkrun where you started?

00:46:58Vee McShane: Yes, it's the typical parkrun where I started. A Bairnsdale parkrun, it's our first year anniversary. And I got the inspiration, funny enough, from it when I went overseas back to my motherland, if you can tell by my accent, Scotland. And I attended my very first parkrun, Strathclyde Park, which, funny enough, I used to train at as a kid because I trained quite a high level for cross-country running, long distance running and triathlon with my father and the rest of my family. And that was a route around Strathclyde Park. I'd done the parkrun there. It was minus, I think, minus two or minus three in April. The guys were there in these tiny little shorts, and I thought, oh, my goodness, I can't do this. It's so cold. Done it. Fantastic. And I thought, well, they can do that here with this weather. We've got to bring this back into Australia and Bairnsdale where I live.

00:47:49Tony O'Connell: Thanks, Val. I would never have picked up that you had an accent at all there.

00:47:53Vee McShane: I don't think I've got an accent until someone asks me where I'm from, and I just say, from Bairnsdale. And they just look at me. I just don't see that accent anymore.

00:48:01Tony O'Connell: Cheers. You've had some pretty quick parkrunners, I think. The female course records held by Charlotte McShane, would that be any relation of yours?

00:48:11Vee McShane: Yes, that's my younger sibling, Charlotte, my younger sister. She's actually a pro triathlete. She was at third in the world last year, the World Triathlon Series, and Yeah, she's pretty fast. When I go out running with her, she's just like, as if she's walking, and I'm totally out of breath. She's amazing. I think her time here was 17 minutes.

00:48:32Tony O'Connell: 17.30. 17.30, yeah. That's a cracking time.

00:48:34Vee McShane: Yeah.

00:48:35Tony O'Connell: And I think the male times held by Brendan Sexton is that he's about 16.08, which is a pretty quick time as well.

00:48:43Vee McShane: Yeah, so Brendan is Charlotte's partner and also my brother-in-law. He's been to the Olympics as well for triathlon. and he's now doing coaching up in Wollongong for the Australian Junior Drafting Team, as far as I know. So, yeah, they've both got pretty good course records out there.

00:49:00Tony O'Connell: Pretty good times. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, no, it's a great event along the river. I really enjoy coming up to Bairnsdale.

00:49:06Vee McShane: Our community is, like, really taken on board. The best thing about it is the amount of young kids that are coming out of it. So there we've got the generations. We've got the granny, we've got the parents, we've got the grandkids all out running every week.

00:49:19Tony O'Connell: All right. Well, thanks a lot, V. That's great. And happy anniversary. Well done, Bairnsdale. Thank you. Cheers.

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

00:49:25Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's two weeks in a row that there are zero launches happening across the parkrun Australia landscape. I don't know what's going on.

00:49:36Scott Trickett: Are we on track to continually grow? If there are no launches, how are we going to get bigger? What's happening, Mel?

00:49:45Melissa Erbacher: I don't know, but it is, no, it's March. March is a good month to launch events. It's not too hot. You can still wear good costumes at the anniversaries. Maybe people just got a little bit lazy leading into Christmas and they didn't get their grant funding or course measuring done in time. I don't know.

00:50:06Tony O'Connell: Maybe.

00:50:07Melissa Erbacher: I would have thought March would be the prime time to launch an event.

00:50:10Scott Trickett: Well, it has been for all these events who are celebrating their anniversary. Yamba are celebrating their second. Rockhampton in Queensland is celebrating their first. I remember Rocky from last year. You went there.

00:50:27Melissa Erbacher: I did. It was a great launch.

00:50:29Scott Trickett: I remember lots of birds.

00:50:32Melissa Erbacher: Yes, there were lots of birds in the recording. It's beautiful and it has gone from strength to strength too, which is always good to hear.

00:50:40Scott Trickett: Maylands Peninsula, also celebrating their first. We didn't know anything about that this time last year.

00:50:47Melissa Erbacher: No, and we may have timed our interview with Bronwyn a little bit better, had we thought much about it. But we did time the interview with her becoming a Stateswoman again, so that makes up for it.

00:51:02Scott Trickett: Happy birthday, Bronwyn. Campbelltown. They're celebrating their third, as well as Mount Barker, our old mate PK.

00:51:11Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, well, I hope we can hear from PK. I'll be looking out for whatever costume he manages to get together for that one.

00:51:20Scott Trickett: He loves a dress-up. I know that for a fact.

00:51:23Melissa Erbacher: And they've got a triplet with them in New South Wales as well. Albury Wodonga are also three. So three years ago, there were three events. Two years ago, there was one. One year ago, there were two. So 2017, you're letting the team down.

00:51:42Scott Trickett: We might have to ramp up our social media. Tell more people about this parkrun thing.

Social Adventurers

00:51:48Melissa Erbacher: Get more launches happening.

00:51:50Scott Trickett: Speaking of social media, we're not going to go over all of them this week. We're going to save that until next week. We're going to do a... quarterly yearly wrap of social adventuring but let's just pick one at random this week well i know how much you love twitter scotty so let's go to twitter shall we let's just bring that up on the old nerd box the nerd box and hit me what do we got what's happening on twitter

00:52:20Melissa Erbacher: Um, we've got, we've got a message. Oh, but now you've put me on the spot from Morris, um, at musician teacher who said at parkrun adventures at parkrun UK. Hi Mel and Scott listener from Scotland UK since episode one, pushing four year old on 112th parkrun UK in running buggy tomorrow. Um, That came through on Friday. So awesome. 112th parkrun, pushing a four-year-old in a buggy. That's very impressive. I wonder how quickly my hubby is going to rack up the pushing a baby in a buggy parkruns. I'm guessing pretty quickly because I'm doing the first nine months carrying and he can do the next nine months after that.

00:53:10Scott Trickett: Have you had that conversation already?

00:53:12Melissa Erbacher: We have had that conversation already.

00:53:15Scott Trickett: No surprises for you, Adam, listening to the podcast. Hey, that's good. Listener in Scotland. Do you reckon he can understand us?

00:53:22Melissa Erbacher: I know, since episode one.

00:53:23Scott Trickett: Well, he can understand us because he's lasted 58 episodes.

00:53:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe that's why he's lasted 58 episodes. Or maybe he just likes the funny sound of our voices.

00:53:35Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:53:36Melissa Erbacher: Either way, we'll take it. Yep. Love your support.

00:53:39Scott Trickett: Great. Back on the social adventuring.

00:53:42Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing the wrap-up next week.

00:53:45Scott Trickett: See, some ideas, like I said last week, we stop, but we bring them back. They're coming back. Club Corner, coming back. Maybe. The news.

00:53:57Melissa Erbacher: Maybe the news.

00:53:58Scott Trickett: Maybe.

00:53:59Melissa Erbacher: Well, you know, if something interesting happens, maybe the news. Club Corner, we're going to slow that one down a little bit though because we were doing that every week toward the end of last year. And what do you think about just doing it once a month, Scotty?

00:54:16Scott Trickett: I like that idea. Refining it. I like that a lot.

00:54:23Melissa Erbacher: Sounds like a plan.

00:54:24Scott Trickett: So we need to find some more clubs. If you want to get your club on.

00:54:28Melissa Erbacher: Share the club love with all the rest of the parkrun Adventurers.

00:54:32Scott Trickett: Get in touch with us on social media. That's how you do it. Not next week, because we've already got that lined up, but it doesn't hurt to get in early. But that does it for episode 59.

00:54:46Melissa Erbacher: Episode 59. I feel like we're really growing up. What's 60? You know how people celebrate 60th. What do you get for 60th?

00:54:58Scott Trickett: Anniversary. Well, you know, there's lots of different versions of that. It depends which website you go to.

00:55:03Melissa Erbacher: There's like the contemporary and there's the traditional and then there's the fruit. You know, somebody's decided which fruit is suitable for each anniversary.

00:55:13Scott Trickett: Yeah. Well, I'm just quickly Googling it and it doesn't help when you type in university because it doesn't tell you. It just tells you. This is about the friends of Tel Aviv University. But fingers are working overtime.

00:55:40Melissa Erbacher: I'm hearing, are you a one-finger typist, Scotty? Because I'm hearing a tick, tick. I'm not hearing the... No.

00:55:53Scott Trickett: Okay. Well, have a guess, Mel.

00:55:56Melissa Erbacher: For 60. It's a good one. What am I guessing? Am I guessing a fruit or a precious gem or a non-traditional?

00:56:05Scott Trickett: If you hit any of them, I'll give you a big tick.

00:56:08Melissa Erbacher: All right. I'm going to go for non-traditional and I'm going to say cashmere.

00:56:14Scott Trickett: I don't have cashmere listed.

00:56:17Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, go ahead.

00:56:20Scott Trickett: Okay. Well, it's diamond. It's diamond all the way for modern traditional... Just diamond.

00:56:28Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. So don't, don't, I'm thinking albums go platinum. Do they ever go diamond? Is that one of the things that they go?

00:56:36Scott Trickett: I've never heard it.

00:56:37Melissa Erbacher: The parkrun adventurers are going diamond next week. We're going to have to do something special and shiny for the show.

00:56:45Scott Trickett: Yes, I expect you to be dressed up in your diamonds.

00:56:50Melissa Erbacher: It's really still quite warm in Queensland. I'm not sure I can be dressed up.

00:56:53Scott Trickett: But the good thing about a podcast is you could have just said you were And I never would have known.

00:56:59Melissa Erbacher: Everyone would be able to tell it in my voice. My voice changes when I'm in costume.

00:57:06Scott Trickett: Well, I've got to go. I've got a week to go and find some diamond.

00:57:10Melissa Erbacher: Quality podcast material. Yeah, I think that might take more than a week. We probably should have thought this through. Oh, well.

00:57:19Scott Trickett: Why start now?

00:57:19Melissa Erbacher: Nothing like a challenge. Yeah. With the forward thinking or the planning, why start now? Exactly. Well, thank you for welcoming me to the podcast at the beginning of the podcast, Scotty, and thank you for staying here with me this whole time as well.

00:57:36Scott Trickett: It was a good one. Always a good one, but this was a really good one. See you next week for our 60th.