Episode 64

Episode details · 170 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:07Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to parkrun Adventurers, episode number 64, the podcast that was chocolate-fuelled long before the Easter Bunny made it popular. Lots of people were having chocolate-fuelled parkruns on the weekend or, you know, with the promise of future chocolate on the horizon, having a bit of a guilt run. Did you get out and have a run this weekend, Scotty?

00:00:31Scott Trickett: I did. And welcome Mel, thanks for joining me this week. How do I sound?

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: How do you sound? Yes. You sound very baritone this week.

00:00:45Scott Trickett: Good, because I want to apologise.

00:00:46Melissa Erbacher: Is that your news voice?

00:00:47Scott Trickett: No, I want to apologise. So, the last couple of weeks I've sounded terrible. So I went out and bought a new microphone. And hopefully I'll sound better.

00:00:56Melissa Erbacher: Ah! Okay.

00:00:58Scott Trickett: But anyway, that's not...

00:01:00Melissa Erbacher: So you're going to blame it on the equipment?

00:01:01Scott Trickett: I am. I'm going to blame it on the equipment because it was the equipment's fault. I was using a crappy little headset.

00:01:08Melissa Erbacher: But now I've got a proper microphone. Was that little headset only ever used the last two weeks? It wasn't used previously?

00:01:18Scott Trickett: I might have a couple of times pulled it out. But I'm back on track now. I'm very professional.

00:01:25David Moss: And hopefully sounding very professional.

00:01:30Melissa Erbacher: Well, you're sounding very something.

00:01:32Scott Trickett: But in answer to your earlier question, yes, I did have a run on Saturday. I had a family run with the two girls. We got in the Easter spirit. It wasn't a big Easter theme where I was, but there was a basket of eggs at the end, and I sampled a couple.

00:01:51Melissa Erbacher: One or two?

00:01:52Scott Trickett: Two.

00:01:53Melissa Erbacher: We didn't have any eggs this year. I just kind of decided that... I wasn't going to go shopping to provide almost 300 people with chocolate on parkrun Day this year. I've donated a lot of chocolate over my time. I'm just not going to this year. And nobody else bought eggs. But nobody asked me about it. Nobody missed it.

00:02:16Scott Trickett: There you go.

00:02:17Melissa Erbacher: I'd say they all had enough in their own homes already.

00:02:20Scott Trickett: Yeah, look, no shortage. But you mentioned you had 300 runners on the weekend. So you're a holiday destination, which leads to some stats.

00:02:32Melissa Erbacher: We didn't quite have 300, but we were pushing it. And that's quite close to our course attendance record. And we did have 80 first-timers. And they were not first-time parkrunners, the majority of them. They were adventurers. And yes, we are a holiday destination.

00:02:51Scott Trickett: Well, there you go. So I don't want to step on Ian's toes here, but we had a great weekend. We broke our national record, national attendance record. Do you want to know the final number?

00:03:03Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I would, actually.

00:03:04Scott Trickett: I don't know what that is. 33,192 parkrunners ran or walked on sand.

00:03:10Melissa Erbacher: Wowzers. Yeah, it's a good number, isn't it?

00:03:13Scott Trickett: Worldwide, we went over 200,000. So there was 210,000. people attended parkrun over the weekend.

00:03:25Melissa Erbacher: That's a lot of runners. Isn't it? Or walkers. Yeah. I don't suppose you know what our previous national record was off the top of your head. bot now. Ian, see, this is where you're not stepping on toes. Ian would know.

00:03:40Scott Trickett: Yeah, exactly.

00:03:41Melissa Erbacher: Ian would have known that.

00:03:42Scott Trickett: So there's the difference. There's the difference between the two of us. But have a listen to this list of events that broke their attendance record this week. Hobart, Central Lakes, Victor Harbor, Taree, Geographe Bay, Bunbury, Rhodes, Golden Beach, Hervey Bay, Tamworth, Kingscliff, Bendigo, Keira, Curl Curl, Lake Joondalup, Ballarat, Noosa, Main Beach, Sandgate, Merimbula, Yamba, Fingal Bay and Airlie Beach. People have gone on Easter holidays and gone bug running.

00:04:16Melissa Erbacher: But see, that's 10% of the events in Australia have broken their course attendance records. And that has to be, especially when you consider the fact that it's also a national attendance record. That's not just robbing from, you know, the, I don't want to use the word boring, but perhaps the non-holiday type destinations where people actually live. And so it's not just taking those parkrunners away. More parkrunners are also coming.

00:04:50Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. There were. I mean, the numbers, I was at Westerfolds. The numbers were a little bit down, but not much. And we're a big city town. We're a big city event. So, yep, you can't argue with facts. And those facts are parkrun's hot right now. We talk about it being hot in January and February, but to still be going strong now is good signs.

00:05:17Melissa Erbacher: Easter is always a big weekend, I think, historically speaking, even in previous years. It's cooling down. People are on holidays. People are happy. People want to run off some chocolate. I think these are the factors that contribute. But there's also other fun stuff that happens over this weekend. For the last several years, we have had a gentleman named Phil Rourke, a.k.a. the Eggman, do some fun things with Guinness World Records and egg and spoon racing. You would have heard about this a couple of years ago. There was actually a national call out for people to try and break the five-kilometre egg and spoon Guinness World Records, Scotty. Were you involved? Did you guys do a record attempt at your event at that time?

00:06:08Scott Trickett: Look, I was involved in it a few years ago, but we didn't partake in it at my event. I can't remember anyway. It wasn't last year. It was the year before, I think.

00:06:19Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it was a few years ago now.

00:06:21Scott Trickett: But this year, Phil's had a crack at doing two.

00:06:25Melissa Erbacher: A crack. Pun intended. And one of our parkrun adventurers and roving reporters, Dave Moss, was actually there where he did it at Sandgate parkrun. And he had a chance to speak to Phil afterwards. And this is what he had to say.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:06:46David Moss: Okay, hi, I'm with Phil Rourke at Sandgate parkrun. And Phil, you've just done a 5K jog with two eggs.

00:06:54Phil Rourke: How'd it go? I started with two eggs. I was going for the world record for two eggs, five kilometres, egg and spoon race. And it's never been done before, as far as I know. It was going to be a brand new record with Guinness. But unfortunately, I broke one egg. I dropped the right-hand egg after roughly two kilometres. And I carried on as usual, as I would normally, because I'm an egg and spoon runner. I've done the Gold Coast Marathon a couple of times before and I suddenly realized I have not managed to do the single egg world record yet so I could just convert it to a five kilometer single egg egg and spoon world record and I did it in 24 minutes 30 brilliant thanks on that one and I think we've in the past we've had world records going through why are you why do you do it Partly personal achievement and to improve my running and just as an athlete. Obviously I enjoy the running aspect, but also to raise awareness for Autism Queensland. I work in a special school and I see a lot of kids who could do with a bit more help in life. So I think it's just nice to give a little bit back to some of the less fortunate. Hence the hat and the shirt today.

00:07:59David Moss: No, the shirt stands out. For the listeners, he's wearing his Eggman t-shirt, not off the Beatles, but I noticed a few supporters wearing similar sorts of things.

00:08:09Phil Rourke: Yes, I had a few henchmen running around me, because it's pretty busy at Sandgate, and we had a few close shaves, but the runners were very considerate, and thanks for that. It's a beautiful morning down here as well. uh very very quickly um do you have any uh magic training techniques or anything not really i've done this three or four times successfully in training i was even here wednesday night in the dark and i did the same route with two eggs i pushed it out to seven and a half k's so i was reasonably confident but it's just it's partly training partly on the day but hey

00:08:39David Moss: no trouble and have you got any tips for anyone else who is an aspiring egg and spoon racer just try to keep your just try to keep your egg arm nice and free and bouncy so you can go with the flow basically be the egg that's what we say and out of interest uh your competition if this is a world record do you know whereabouts other people tend to do a lot of

00:08:58Phil Rourke: There's quite a following in America. A man called Ashrita does egg and spoons. There's a German bloke who took the moral egg and spoon off me. So there are a few pockets of egg spooning around the world. Thank you very much for your time, Phil, and good to see you. Thanks very much.

00:09:16Scott Trickett: Thanks, Dave Moss, for getting that report. Great to hear from Phil. And a new world record, which is great. An unintended new world record.

00:09:30Melissa Erbacher: Hopefully it gets recognised since that's not what he was actually planning to do.

00:09:34Scott Trickett: Do you think Guinness will pull him up and say, well, technically?

00:09:40Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. They're fairly stringent. I do recall when we had to – well, because we did try it at my local event a few years ago. And the egg came off after about two kilometers, unfortunately. But there's so many rules that you have to, like – jump through all these hoops like, for example, your course has to have been measured by an accredited like athletics coach or somebody who's allowed to have done that kind of thing. And then you have to have three impartial judges who are from various backgrounds that are recognized by sporting organizations or, you know, Like when you want to go get a JP to sign something, you have to tick all these boxes about, yeah, these guys verify it. And then you have to video it. And it's a whole big deal to actually set it up. So Guinness know what they're doing in terms of making sure everything's legitimate. And I'm sure they've had heaps of practice with this at Sandgate. But whether or not, I can't remember if you have to sort of specify at the outset that this is record you're going for and they can alter it afterwards i guess if you've got those judges there and the video footage um proving it and everything like that you should have a fairly strong case hopefully he does because yeah that that's a bit cool having a guinness world record set at a parkrun in australia

Meet the ED

00:11:27Scott Trickett: We're going to venture over to South Australia again. We're going to catch up with one of the, should I say, smaller parkruns in Australia. Welcome to the podcast, Nat Clothier from Clare Valley parkrun.

00:11:39Natalie Clothier: Hi, everybody.

00:11:41Scott Trickett: Now, Clare Valley, if you know, if you've been listening to the podcast, Mel and I do not know where anything is in Australia, but we know where this one is because you're in the wine country.

00:11:52Natalie Clothier: We are. We're in one of the premier wine spots in South Australia.

00:11:57Scott Trickett: And you actually start on the Riesling Trail?

00:12:01Natalie Clothier: We do. We run along the Riesling Trail past vines and bushland and all sorts of things.

00:12:08Scott Trickett: Are you actually... Is it in a vineyard or is it just alongside? How is the parkrun set up?

00:12:15Natalie Clothier: Well, our Riesling Trail runs from just north of Clare right through to Auburn. And we've got a section just on the outskirts of town near the showgrounds. So we run... from there down to Seven Hill, right to where Seven Hill Cellars and Seven Hill Historic Cemetery are, and then we turn around and come back. So we run through a few different things. Being an old rail trail, It's got cuttings and bridges and it runs beside a group of vineyards about halfway along.

00:12:47Melissa Erbacher: That was going to be my next question. I understand what a rail trail is, but a Riesling trail, it sounds delicious. I just was wondering. So it runs in between vineyards, literally. You can just see vines and grapes as you're running. Yes, absolutely. And you get to run past and turn around Seven Hills. Do you ever get tempted to have a little bit of a wine station there for your runners?

00:13:18Natalie Clothier: Possibly, although it is also at the cemetery. So people are pretty keen when they reach that to turn around and come back. They don't really want to stop at that end.

00:13:27Melissa Erbacher: Is it quite an old cemetery?

00:13:28Natalie Clothier: It is. It's a historical cemetery from the original monks.

00:13:34Melissa Erbacher: Oh, what's the word?

00:13:35Natalie Clothier: Dev. They started the Seven Hill Cellars down there.

00:13:39Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, then it should be a happy cemetery if they're monks who started making wine. There's none of those terrible, violent, historic deaths or anything like that.

00:13:49Natalie Clothier: No, I don't think there's any of those in there.

00:13:51Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. And so you're the founding event director at Clare Valley. What drew you to parkrun? Because obviously that's... a little bit of a distance away from your closest event. How did you first hear about it? What's your running story?

00:14:05Natalie Clothier: Well, I heard about it through a friend who was living up in Queensland at the time and had started going to parkrun. And when I asked her about this thing that seemed to make her extremely happy and she encouraged me to start running, she told me that there was a parkrun at Torrens in Adelaide. So on my honeymoon, no less, I turned up on the second day of my honeymoon with my poor husband in tow who was very hungover and went for my first kind of run with all these parkrunners and I must have looked really lost because I made about 20 friends in five minutes when I turned up and they all told me how it would work and what I needed to do and where I would go and when I finished they were all really friendly and asking me how I liked it and I thought this is fantastic this is what running should be about

00:14:55Scott Trickett: Were you still in your wedding kit, Nat? Maybe that's why you were so... No. No?

00:14:59Natalie Clothier: No. It was a little while after the wedding.

00:15:01Scott Trickett: Okay. Maybe they felt sorry for the girl who rocked up with the hungover husband.

00:15:07Natalie Clothier: They did wonder who he was for a while.

00:15:09Scott Trickett: Well, you've started your marriage off on the right foot, that's for sure. You can't complain a few years down the track that this is not what I married. You got into it straight away.

00:15:17Natalie Clothier: Mm-hmm.

00:15:18Scott Trickett: And have you continued running, both you and your husband?

00:15:21Natalie Clothier: My husband's not much of a runner. But he does support us quite a lot. He's always out at parkrun doing all sorts of jobs and tail walking and whatever needs to be done at the time. But, yeah, he's the first to admit he's not much of a runner, but I do run. And he continues to support me, which is awesome.

00:15:41Scott Trickett: Now, I mentioned in my intro that you are one of the smaller events going around. How does that go with getting support? Because that's one of the challenges the smaller events face, asking for volunteers every week.

00:15:54Natalie Clothier: That is the one thing that even being small, we really have not had a lot of trouble with. In our early days when we were very small or it was pouring with rain or minus two degrees or something, there were a few days I dragged the kids and the hubby out and said, you're all doing jobs. But we generally have our volunteer roster full a couple of weeks in advance at least. And that we very rarely have to put out a call for volunteers. People are happy to do it.

00:16:20Melissa Erbacher: That's awesome support. And do you get a lot of adventurers coming out to visit and taking in, you know, the local vineyards as well for the rest of the weekend?

00:16:31Natalie Clothier: We do. We get quite a lot of visitors. We've had them from all over South Australia, all states of Australia now, I think. And we've had some from a lot from the UK. When they travel Australia, they pop up and taste the wine and have a parkrun. And we've had the one of

00:16:49Melissa Erbacher: the world masters steeplechase organizers here from italy as well ah steeplechase see it's coming up again i i think i've got to take this as a sign that i really do need to get into steeplechase you know after i have the baby it's probably not a good idea right now they're really big mel like the steeples are really big it's not like it can just pop over them i got i've got long legs what are you saying they're challenging I challenge you to a steeplechase, Scotty.

00:17:22Scott Trickett: Well, there's no steeplechases on the Clare Valley course, but you guys celebrated your 50th event this week, and I wish I'd checked out your Facebook page beforehand because you celebrated with donuts. Was it donuts for every runner?

00:17:34Natalie Clothier: It was. It was 50 donuts for 50 events. So being that we were a bit down on numbers this week, everybody got multiple donuts, which was very well received. that's fantastic so a local bakery just thought these people need some donuts i went and got them uh we've got a bakery just up the road from the showgrounds and that's where we go is our parkrun cafe for coffee afterwards and they provided us with 50 lovely fresh donuts at 7am on saturday morning can we arrange that every week i would like to yeah we need to make sure the bakery listens to the podcast

00:18:11Melissa Erbacher: Nothing undoes five kilometres of running quite like a donut every time you do it.

00:18:18Natalie Clothier: But it's a big incentive. My daughter spends the whole time going, I'm not allowed to complain. I'll get a donut if I don't complain.

00:18:29Melissa Erbacher: That is good motivation. Nat, you've got celebrations happening two weeks in a row because your anniversary is coming up. Will you be repeating the donuts or doing something different this coming weekend? Oh, we're doing something a little bit different.

00:18:44Natalie Clothier: We're having a proper first birthday like any little kid's first birthday. We're going to have cake and we'll probably have some decorations and just a lot of fun to be had. So we've got a local lady making us a very special parkrun birthday cake. Yum.

00:19:01Melissa Erbacher: And are you expecting sort of bigger numbers?

00:19:05Natalie Clothier: I'm hoping so, but I haven't actually heard from anyone whether they'll be coming up. or not, but we'll see how it goes. We sort of, we get surprised. Sometimes we think it's a big weekend. Like we thought Easter might be big. Lots of people travel to the Clare Valley, but we were fairly quiet. It might explode next weekend and we might have heaps.

00:19:25Melissa Erbacher: Now you're also a member of the South Australian Roadrunners Club. So did you join them before or after parkrun? When did your running journey itself actually start?

00:19:38Natalie Clothier: Well, I was a cross-country runner in primary school and then I did that awful thing that a lot of people do and I gave up during my teenage years and into my 20s and now I'm trying to undo all the years I didn't run. But, yes, I joined SARC after I'd gone to parkrun a couple of times. I did a couple of half marathons before I really knew what I was doing, so I went to the Great Ocean Road for my first one and was a little bit stunned and, yeah, now. Then I spent a bit of time getting parkrun off the ground and now I'm here.

00:20:12Melissa Erbacher: So your first half marathon was the Great Ocean Road half. Yes.

00:20:18Natalie Clothier: That was before I knew what the heck I was doing and how hard it actually was.

00:20:24Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's kind of jumping in the deep end, isn't it? Because you've got some serious hills on the Great Ocean Road and a lot of wind, I understand, as well. Yes. It was pretty hard work. And have you found the support of the club to really help you? Does SARC actually do organised club events as well? Yes.

00:20:47Natalie Clothier: I think they do in the city. I'm a regional member, so I have access to all their online training plans for different distances and a bit of a discount on entry to SARC events. Being not in the city, being so far from the city, we don't get as much benefit out of it, but I know they do run regular running groups and events.

00:21:09Scott Trickett: Now, Nat, we usually ask for a top three now because you've only visited a few parkruns around South Australia. Have you got a top South Australian parkrun that you've run it this year?

00:21:20Natalie Clothier: Oh, that one's really hard. I love my own because I've been on a bit of a PB streak here, but... Outside of Torrens, my favourite place to go is probably Victor Harbor. They are the most welcoming and friendly people, and I'm always on holiday when I go there, so it's even better.

00:21:40Scott Trickett: Well, holidays help, but we do hear very good things coming out of Victor Harbor. It's a popular nomination.

00:21:47Natalie Clothier: It is.

00:21:48Scott Trickett: Have you got some more adventures planned?

00:21:50Natalie Clothier: There will be some adventures planned. Mostly this year I'm going to try and get around and maybe, hopefully, get my statesmanship in SA. I've got to go back to Renmark because I went there and was run director for them but haven't actually run it. But I'll go tripping about the countryside a bit and try all the different parkruns that have popped up since we did. But I hear that there's a few more coming, so I might have to work a bit harder at that than I thought.

00:22:16Scott Trickett: We've got this awesome competition going at the moment with Medibank where you can pick your dream parkrun location. Have you had a thought about that? Have you had a thought about which event you really want to get to?

00:22:27Natalie Clothier: I think I would have to say the beaches. I love the beach and I would just adore running down the beach coupled with the fantastic spirit of parkrun. It would just be amazing.

00:22:40Scott Trickett: We're kindred spirits. If you win, will you take me? Because that's on my top list as well, my number one.

00:22:48Natalie Clothier: Maybe. You'd have to fight my family, I think.

00:22:51Scott Trickett: It's worth a try.

00:22:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, Nat, thank you very much for joining us on the podcast this week. I think that's going to have to be our new question, is asking everybody what their must-get-to event would be, even after the Medibank comp finishes. I am very keen to get to Clare Valley parkrun. It has been on my list just quietly ever since you guys launched. So I can't wait to get back to South Australia. I haven't been there in about two years. The last time was to do a half marathon in McLaren Vale, organised by the South Australian Roadrunners Club. So that was a really good one. Absolutely destroyed me, but there was wine at the end. So Clare is on the list. Excellent.

00:23:36Natalie Clothier: Well, we look forward to welcoming you.

00:23:40[music]

00:23:48Scott Trickett: It's time now to catch up with Andrew Biszczak, who's got a crazy idea of running a really long way in a short period of time, but he's doing it for a wonderful cause. So let's find out a bit more about that. Welcome to the podcast, Andrew.

00:24:01Andrew Biszczak: Hey, how you going, Scott? Good to be here.

00:24:03Scott Trickett: Now, you're doing a run from Adelaide to Brisbane in 80 days, 3,000 kilometres. And what's it all in aid of?

00:24:13Andrew Biszczak: So Scott, I'm running for some children in Australia. There's around 1,000 of them called the butterfly children. And the butterfly children, they suffer from a shocking, debilitating skin condition where they're missing the layers of protein that hold all their skin together. Essentially, they're missing the glue that holds everything intact. So they're born in a really shocking way. The birthing experience is a disaster. tragic experience for everyone concerned and then they live their whole lives covered head to toe in blisters. So it's a terrible disease. It currently has no cure and there's also, because it's such a short number, a small number of people who suffer from it in Australia, there's also no direct government funding either. So it's quite a tragic disease.

00:25:06Melissa Erbacher: Where, Andrew, did the idea to run a ridiculous amount of kilometers to, well, I guess, I mean, you're raising awareness as much as funds, but where did the idea come from to do that?

00:25:17Andrew Biszczak: Well, it was about two years ago, a girl that I met called Kate Turner, who I'd actually met five years ago, she passed away a couple years ago from this disease, and she was a an absolute inspiration. She suffered from a terrible case of this disease, yet she was so positively inspiring. She never complained about a thing and just got on with life. She passed away at 26 years old. It was at that point a couple of years ago that I just wanted to do a lot more. I've been doing a lot of fundraising for the cause, but it just didn't seem enough. Brisbane has a remarkable gentleman called Dean Clifford, who's brought up as a butterfly child and suffers severely from this condition. And he lives in Brisbane. And I thought it'd be a fitting tribute to start this run in Adelaide and finish in Brisbane, which clocked up around 3,000 kilometre mark. creating my slogan, 3,000 Ks in 80 days for a cure.

00:26:26Melissa Erbacher: Okay, and so you start this very soon?

00:26:30Andrew Biszczak: Yep, we start, I kick off from Victor Harbor, which is about one hour drive down the coast from Adelaide, which is Kate Turner's hometown. So I start off at Victor Harbor this Sunday, the 23rd of April, from the Victor Harbor Yacht Club. and there's going to be a commemorative launch, and myself, my wife, and my nine-year-old daughter will drive away, and I'll be running off into the distance for the first leg of my 3,000-kilometer run.

00:27:05Scott Trickett: You've also set the lofty goal of raising a million dollars. What's significant about a million dollars? Because it's a lot of money.

00:27:13Andrew Biszczak: It is a lot of money, and... Around the time of the funeral, one of the head researchers in South Australia and I were having a chat and he was talking about the first stage of funding for a new cure they were looking to research into. The first stage was a million dollars and part of a three-stage process. So I just thought it was a fitting figure to aim for and certainly it's become my passionate focus for the last good part of two years in research. in the time that I've been coordinating the Million Dollar Run.

00:27:48Scott Trickett: So all the money's going to go to help these children out. Can you elaborate a bit more on the butterfly children themselves? Because it's not a disease I'm familiar with, and it sounds pretty rough. What do these kids go through?

00:28:05Andrew Biszczak: Yeah, look, it is absolutely extremely painful for the children. They don't actually live a single day of their lives without feeling pain. In fact, the disease that affects their skin on the external layers, it also affects their internal linings as well. So their mouth, their gums, their esophagus, their bowel lining, eyelids, everything where there's an epidermal lining of the skin is affected. So they have to have these excruciating, very long baths to kill the infection. And because they've got such a high risk of infection, they're constantly wrapped in bandages, usually from the neck to their feet. And the baths that they take are usually around three hours long, and it's normally a daily process their entire lives. So it is a disease that doctors around the world describe as one of the cruelest diseases they know and the charity in Australia that is out there desperately trying to raise funds for these children is called DEBRA Australia and they have a tagline that is the worst disease that you've never heard of because so many people have not heard of this disease before, like yourselves, before obviously meeting me. My goal is to raise that awareness so that these children who suffer daily can certainly have some hope around reaching a cure by the people out there trying to find one.

00:29:55Melissa Erbacher: Part of your fundraising attempts, Andrew, involve the opportunity for people to join you on the run for a donation as well. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

00:30:06Andrew Biszczak: Yeah, absolutely. This is a really exciting part of the Million Dollar Run. It's an initiative we came up with a few weeks ago and it's called Run for 30. So what I'm doing is I'm encouraging any runner of any level from anywhere between Adelaide and Brisbane to join me. They can do any distance run they like at any point during the run that I leave from on the day. And I've got... a long, long list of towns that I'm going to be staying at and stopping in. So they can join me at any point of the route. If they want to have a little road trip and join me in a country town somewhere outside the capital city, they'll have the opportunity to do that. And for a $30 donation to the cause, they can run any distance they like along with me, which will give me some company as well and create a good experience for everyone involved.

00:30:59Melissa Erbacher: And if somebody wanted to take part in that, how do they go about donating the $30 or more?

00:31:06Andrew Biszczak: Yeah, yeah. Look, they can jump on my Facebook page, The Million Dollar Run, and we're just in the process of creating an event around that. So in the next few days, there will be an event page where they'll be able to log on and join me. In the meantime, I have a donation tab on my Facebook page as well as my website, themilliondollarrun.com.au. and you can jump on that website or the Facebook page and click through to the donation link, and you'll be able to register, run for $30 when you secure your donation.

00:31:41Scott Trickett: Okay, that sounds good. I think I'll be running with you on your journey, Andrew. With everything on the parkrun Adventurers, there's a parkrun connection, and you're a Victor Harbor parkrunner. Tell me about Victor Harbor.

00:31:52Andrew Biszczak: Yes, I am. Victor Harbour is beautiful. It's an absolutely gorgeous parkrun. along the Esplanade looking out to the coast and the cliffs. It's just a stunning, stunning two and a half kilometre one way with a return loop of two and a half kilometres and it's just a beautiful, beautiful parkrun.

00:32:16Melissa Erbacher: Do you have any plans to scan your barcode in over the next 80 days from the 23rd of April?

00:32:23Andrew Biszczak: Oh, Mel, that's a good one. I hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, I'm sure I could. I might have to stick that in my pocket and take it with me.

00:32:32Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. You should be able to find yourself near a lot of parkruns when you've got 3,000 k's to run from south to north.

00:32:41Andrew Biszczak: Absolutely. And I'd encourage all parkrunners who might be listening to this to definitely jump on and join me. Even if it's just 5k's, I'm get involved and do something a little bit different, have a bit of fun with it and help a great cause at the same time.

00:32:59Scott Trickett: Andrew, good luck heading off on Sunday and good luck for the next 80 days on your journey to Brisbane.

00:33:06Andrew Biszczak: Thank you, Scott. Really appreciate it. So 80 days of running over a four month period, that's an average of five marathons a week for the next four months. Running 80 days in that four month period and yeah, I'm Just can't wait to get out there and looking forward to meeting as many runners out there on the road as I possibly can.

00:33:26Melissa Erbacher: We'll be keeping an eye out for you.

00:33:28Andrew Biszczak: Awesome.

00:33:33[music]

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

00:33:43Scott Trickett: It's time now to have a look at the parkrun diary. Mel, would you care to join me in going through the list of launches and anniversaries for the week?

00:33:52Melissa Erbacher: Sure, but I'm not sure I can take you seriously with that voice.

00:33:55Scott Trickett: Just trying something different. Just trying something different. Well, let's go back to normal. We're launching Ararat this week in Victoria, in the Great State. Now, Ararat was famous a few years ago. It was on the Biggest Loser as the fattest town in Australia. So this is a step forward, hopefully. Now they've got a parkrun. I don't think they're the fattest anymore. I think when Biggest Losers come to town, Biggest Loser come to town, you lose weight. I think that's how it works.

00:34:24Melissa Erbacher: So you don't think they are anymore?

00:34:27Scott Trickett: I don't know. I hope not.

00:34:28Melissa Erbacher: Might need to start doing some research before we do these podcasts and make false assumptions or accusations. I did do some research.

00:34:36Scott Trickett: I watched a couple of episodes of The Biggest Loser a couple of years ago and Arrow Rat were on. Arrow Rat.

00:34:41Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:34:41Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:34:43Melissa Erbacher: Fair enough. I'm sure they will all benefit whether or not they are still the fattest.

00:34:47Scott Trickett: And in terms of anniversaries, we've got two in Victoria, the Great State again. Layla are celebrating their first and Sale are doing their second anniversary.

00:34:59Melissa Erbacher: Wow, has it been a year since Layla launched?

00:35:02Scott Trickett: Yes, you remember when we launched Layla last year?

00:35:05Melissa Erbacher: I do, I remember talking to Mel about it and wow. That's amazing. Time goes so fast.

00:35:13Scott Trickett: It would be great to get a report from Laylaw's Anniversary. Hint, hint, anyone going along?

00:35:20Melissa Erbacher: Or sales for that matter.

00:35:23Scott Trickett: But there's heaps of anniversaries this week.

00:35:25Melissa Erbacher: There are. It's like a massive party weekend all over the country. We spoke earlier to Nat from Clare Valley who is celebrating their first anniversary and Ginninderra in the ACT are celebrating the big number five. So they're heading for their 250 shirt. If they haven't already got it, they may already have that by now. Rockingham in WA, turning number four.

00:35:53Scott Trickett: You know, I checked out Rockingham recently. That looks like a pretty course. Looks like a bit of fun, Rockingham. I think we might have to pay them a visit soon.

00:36:03Melissa Erbacher: Great place to get an R if you want to join the Pirate Club in WA.

00:36:07Scott Trickett: And Stones Corner, our old mate Ian Hay, he's celebrating his third. And also in Queensland, Augustine Heights. They've been around for a while, four years.

00:36:19Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. That's another quiet one. We should get on to their ED and have them on the show.

00:36:26Scott Trickett: Thanks for the Easter posts on Instagram. That was lovely. Thank you to everybody who did that. I'll give you an update on my book. I finished Born to Run.

Book Club

00:36:37Melissa Erbacher: Oh, did you? Yes.

00:36:40Scott Trickett: Got better.

00:36:41Melissa Erbacher: You got some downtime over the weekend.

00:36:44Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:36:45Melissa Erbacher: And it got better.

00:36:46Scott Trickett: It got better. Yep. I still won't put it in my top ten of books to recommend to runners, but...

00:36:55Melissa Erbacher: you wouldn't put it in your top 10 you're trying to tell me that there are 10 books for runners other than this book that you would recommend first well i'll tell you what that's my goal for the rest of the year to find nine other books better than born to run because i reckon there's got to be at least nine well see that just sounds like a really poor recommendation to me yeah okay i loved this book i loved it oh you're

00:37:23Scott Trickett: you know what i think it is i think because i've come to it too late so a lot of the stuff that was in it i think i'd already heard of and it's become how should i put it so you weren't learning anything new there was nothing revelationary for you not really no like there were parts of it that were interesting don't get me wrong i just did i didn't connect and um that's pretty hard to fall in love with a book when you don't get the connection It felt like a school assignment towards the end, but I got through it.

00:37:57Melissa Erbacher: Oh, poor Scotty. Well, you will have to recommend one for me to read, and I will have to get onto that at some point.

00:38:06Scott Trickett: We're doing The Landy Era, and I know some of our listeners have already read it before I've even really started, but I'm giving you more time to read it. The Landy Era. That's the one that we're going to discuss on Book Club.

00:38:18Melissa Erbacher: It's not easy to find. I've looked in my local library's. I've looked in my local bookstores. I'll have to track it down somewhere online.

00:38:27Scott Trickett: Yeah, because I'm not prepared to discuss Born to Run in our parkrun Adventurers book club. I think we both need something that we both love.

00:38:35Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, that's high expectations. You know, I might just not like this out of spite now.

00:38:41Scott Trickett: Okay. Fine. Be like that.

00:38:46Melissa Erbacher: Thank you for joining me this week, Scotty. Thank you.