Episode 67

Episode details · 305 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:08Scott Trickett: Episode 67 of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. We're back for another week. Welcome back, Mel.

00:00:15Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Scotty. Always happy to be here.

00:00:18Scott Trickett: Yeah, well... I was waiting for the invite because at the end of last week's episode, you said you were going to invite me and you never did. So I'm just...

00:00:31Melissa Erbacher: Invite you to next week's episode.

00:00:33Scott Trickett: Join you. Join you on this week's episode. So I've just started it. So I've invited myself.

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: Well, you know, sometimes in life, you just got to do these things. Invite yourself along.

00:00:45Scott Trickett: It was a last minute decision. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it, but...

00:00:50Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm glad you showed up.

00:00:52Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:00:52Melissa Erbacher: And I apologize for the baby brain that prevented me from actually inviting you.

00:00:57Scott Trickett: Speaking of last-minute decisions, I had a last-minute decision during the week to enter the Wings for Life run. Now, we spoke to Brendan Davies. We did. He planted the seed. I'd seen all my friends running in at the previous years. Always thought in my back of the mind, that sounds like a stupid idea. But there was obviously something there that I thought sounds like a really cool idea because it is like running at night with a whole bunch of people. It's different than the usual fun run experience, right?

00:01:32Melissa Erbacher: Headlamps, fluoro vests and whatnot.

00:01:35Scott Trickett: Yeah. So then I did a little bit of research and it was a fairly cheap run to enter and For $71, you got a headlamp, and my headlamp at the moment is crap, so I thought, worst case, I'll get a new headlamp. They also give you a free top, and it's fluoro green slash yellow, close enough to the colors of the Westerfoldian green. So I was thinking, I've got nothing to lose here. So I did it. I entered, rocked up on Sunday night. At 9 o'clock when I think... Did you have any...

00:02:09Melissa Erbacher: Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you. But did you have any goals for distance that you wanted to achieve?

00:02:16Scott Trickett: I did a quick calculation on the nerd box and put it in and said I was going to run about 25km. Because my training runs sit at about 5 minute k's and they go up to 20-24km.

00:02:32Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:02:32Scott Trickett: And we do them pretty easily. We chat. It's fine. So I was figuring it was just going to be a version of that. So I thought... At night time. At night time, I thought I was going to be in the vicinity of the 24, 25k run.

00:02:47Melissa Erbacher: Did you smash it or did you completely underwhelm yourself?

00:02:51Scott Trickett: I'll jump to the end first. I hit 21.1k, the half marathon distance, and said, that's it. I'm jack of this. I'm walking. So I stopped. I stopped. And it was funny. The guy I was running with, we basically, we got like 50 meters. No, we must have got about 100 meters past the 21K marker. And we both just stopped. And we just turned to each other and said, are you done? And I go, yep. Done. Over it. Slacker. I've got to tell you, I know the experience for some was great. It was lots of fun. For me, I've never had a more miserable night in my life.

00:03:31Melissa Erbacher: Did you go out too fast?

00:03:34Scott Trickett: No, not at all. Not at all. I did suffer. We've alluded to it before. I have this vertigo situation going on. And the combination of red lights in front of me bouncing up and down, cars flashing by with their lights on either side. So we still had cars on the freeway going next to us. And then we still had heaps of cars on the other side of the freeway. And so like about a kilometer in, I was ready to throw up. And I, sorry to share too much details, listeners, but by 6K, I did. I just had a little bit of a dry retch by the side, not much. And it just didn't get much better from there. I had another one at about 11K. And you know when you have a spew, you feel better.

00:04:17Melissa Erbacher: Usually, yes.

00:04:18Scott Trickett: Usually. So I did have that euphoric after spew moment. And so for a couple of Ks there, I felt good.

00:04:25Melissa Erbacher: I wouldn't say it's euphoric, but okay.

00:04:28Scott Trickett: Trust me, by this stage, I was looking for anything. So I had a couple of days there where I felt really good and thought, this is okay. And then it started to rain, heavy rain, like drenching sideways rain to the point where your top is really heavy. Like it's so wet, the top becomes heavy.

00:04:50Melissa Erbacher: Yep. And was it cold? Because I saw live on Facebook people waiting at Melbourne to start and everybody was jumping up and down. I thought, okay, either they're super excited and they just can't wait to go or they're freaking freezing and they just need to keep moving so that everything doesn't ice over.

00:05:10Scott Trickett: Have a guess. It was Melbourne in May.

00:05:14Melissa Erbacher: At 9 o'clock at night. In running apparel. It was freezing. Yeah, I'm going to go with cold. So cold and wet and vomiting. This is the trifecta that makes for a happy run.

00:05:28Scott Trickett: Plus a little bit of cramping too, but that wasn't too bad. That was... I just, my legs are a bit sore in the week leading up to it. And so it doesn't end there. The fun doesn't stop there. So you, the car.

00:05:39Melissa Erbacher: No, because the chaser car hasn't got you yet.

00:05:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, so, because I was walking. So the car caught me pretty quickly by that stage. So I got to, I don't know, 22k, just beyond 22k. And then you don't know what to do. Like the car passes you. You're out, you're 20k down a freeway in suburban Melbourne. Well, you just keep walking. You just keep walking until the buses come and pick you up.

00:06:03Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:06:04Scott Trickett: Luckily, they gave me a space blanket. And luckily, I packed it. So I wrapped that around me. And I'm amazed. This thin bit of silver. Is it aluminium? Aluminium? Aluminium, if you're Americans. I don't know what it is.

00:06:18Melissa Erbacher: I think so. I think it's some hybrid of that.

00:06:21Scott Trickett: Yeah. It works. It really works. It kept me warm. So you wrap yourself in one of those. You get to the 24A, 24 kilometre. drink station, and then the bus comes and picks you up.

00:06:34John Laurie: And you sit on the bus, wet, and to drive back.

00:06:39Scott Trickett: It was a bizarre experience.

00:06:41Melissa Erbacher: Would you do it again? No.

00:06:42Scott Trickett: Look, if it was done in maybe February, maybe.

00:06:47Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:06:47Scott Trickett: But never again in May.

00:06:49Melissa Erbacher: They change the actual start time, though, each year, don't they? Because they start it somewhere different. Because you're running at the same time as everyone all over the world. Yeah. Or is it always going to be at 9 o'clock in Melbourne? Wasn't it different last year?

00:07:03Scott Trickett: No, I think it's 9 o'clock the same time. Every year.

00:07:07Melissa Erbacher: So that concept... Maybe you just need to do it in Italy or Barcelona or something.

00:07:11Scott Trickett: That's my next option, yeah. If I'm in Milan this time next year, I'll sign up, no worries. So the idea of that concept is it's really exciting to watch on Facebook or YouTube, however you're watching it, because they're panning around the world watching all these people run. But when you're in the moment, you're just some miserable bloke running in the middle of a freeway by yourself. The cameras aren't there. No one's giving you updates.

00:07:34Melissa Erbacher: Pajamas, watching people on Facebook. That's probably my kind of style as well for this particular event. Also, well, no, actually that's not true because I would be knocked out within like the first 5 or 10K. So it wouldn't be as long and miserable for me.

00:07:51Scott Trickett: Okay, so that's the other attractive part. So if I was to do it again, I would just cruise. I would do it in about... I'd go to 10km max because up to 15km, they had buses.

00:08:01Sonja Pohlman: Take Kasia with you.

00:08:02Scott Trickett: Yeah, maybe. At every kilometre mark up to about 15km, we had buses waiting. So I figure if you just got there, you just walked to there and the next kilometre mark and they took you back. And you're still dry. Once you got past 15km, you were out of luck and, yeah, you got punished for running further. So it seemed. I did see a few parkrunners, which was good. Robbo flew by me at one stage. He was the MC at the start line. He was screaming at me to get me excited.

00:08:33Melissa Erbacher: He was the MC and he ran. He did both things.

00:08:36Scott Trickett: I think he must have let everyone go off.

00:08:38Melissa Erbacher: What a talented man.

00:08:40Scott Trickett: He passed me doing about 250 minute Ks. I think he was inspired by Breaking 2. Because I hear his voice. He's on the phone. He runs past me on the phone. And, yeah, I couldn't keep up. Didn't want to keep up.

00:08:56Melissa Erbacher: He was probably live streaming it at the time as well.

00:08:59Scott Trickett: He could have been. He's a very talented man. But speaking of Breaking 2, did you watch that?

00:09:06Melissa Erbacher: I did. Wasn't that an interesting little marketing exercise?

00:09:12Scott Trickett: Well, that's been – I don't know if it's a criticism. That's been the commentary, that it was just one two-hour advert.

00:09:16Melissa Erbacher: It's an observation.

00:09:18Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:09:18Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:09:20Scott Trickett: I watched it. I was fascinated by it.

00:09:23Melissa Erbacher: As an experiment and for the amount of work that went in from the athletes, like all credit to them. It's, you know, it's very clever on behalf of the people who put it on. But yeah, no, there's no question about the... the credibility of the athletes who were actually giving it a serious crack, you know, that it was very tense, especially coming in. I got really frustrated, I don't know about you, at the end when they took away the clock and you couldn't see the clock. And I'm like, but where is he with the time? I want to know the time. I want to know if he's going to cross. And, yeah, they didn't bring it back to right when he crossed. I was like, oh, no, he's missed it.

00:10:05Scott Trickett: What was the point of that?

00:10:06Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. I don't know, because you didn't know about it until 20 seconds later.

00:10:10Scott Trickett: Yeah, I thought that was very disappointing. I guess they were trying to build the suspension, is he, isn't he, or they knew he wasn't going to do it, so they didn't want to disappoint us all. But I don't think anyone was really disappointed, because you could kind of... No, he was going to turn the TV off. Exactly, you could kind of see that he wasn't going to do it, because they were updating us on his splits, and the car had sort of...

00:10:33Melissa Erbacher: Moved ahead.

00:10:33Scott Trickett: Yeah, so you knew he wasn't on track. But the point, but not having the clock up there was a little bit anticlimactic, I thought.

00:10:42Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. But it was still very cool. The paces did an amazing job. I was very impressed with the paces.

00:10:50Scott Trickett: Have you had a think about 2 minutes 50? What that feels like?

00:10:55Melissa Erbacher: um when you're running yeah it two minutes 50 used to be like when i first started it was longer than i could run full stop so the concept of of doing one kilometer in that period of time and then doing that 42.2 times yeah that's that's a bit mind-blowing Have you ever come close to a 250?

00:11:26Scott Trickett: Well, I know it's all relative, but we went down to the track on Friday night and did a little bit of a track session, me and my mate Barney, and we tried to have a go and see how long we could actually hold 250 pace. I don't think I ever got there.

00:11:47Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure I've ever got there on a bike going downhill.

00:11:50Scott Trickett: No. I think I might have nudged three minutes, and my mate Barney, I think he held it for about three or four seconds, maybe a bit longer.

00:12:00Melissa Erbacher: What did that feel like? Tell the rest of us who've got no idea because we're never close.

00:12:06Scott Trickett: It was my top speed. It was my top speed. I couldn't go any faster.

00:12:09Melissa Erbacher: Did you feel like your legs were running away with you, that the rest of your body was being left behind? Or did you feel like you were going to fall forward? I don't even know what your posture does at that speed.

00:12:22Scott Trickett: Well, it's as fast as you can possibly go. So for Eliud Kipchoge, he's just in cruise mode effectively. But for me, I am...

00:12:31Melissa Erbacher: trying as hard as i possibly can so i can't really relate it like i can't really relate to what that would feel like to hold it for even you know one lap of an athletics track let alone 42 kilometers and so what are the facial expressions like have you got the tongue out and the eyes bulging because whenever i concentrate really hard my tongue is out i can't help it it doesn't matter what i'm doing even if i'm running i know it's dangerous when you're running to have your tongue out but it just it just goes there

00:13:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, and I'm not sure about what my face is doing, but I know my body's in a fair bit of hurt. So full credit to those guys. And I saw a little bit of commentary that people were surprised that they sort of fell off so soon, like the first guy in particular. Cut him some slack, man. He was trying something, and it didn't work. He wasn't feeling it on the day, but... I think he's still finished. It looked like he was literally jogging across the finish line, but he still did a 2 hour 14 marathon.

00:13:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah and look that's so much of it as well like you can do everything right in the prep and this goes for anyone who's ever done any race or marathon and if the stars don't align on the day or you just ate something five minutes out of a time frame you should have eaten it it's all it takes for that just one little thing to get you off kilter and then oh heaven forbid it's a two hour 14 marathon.

00:14:01Scott Trickett: Yes. Speaking of fantastic milestones achieved, you achieved a milestone of your own on the weekend.

00:14:10Melissa Erbacher: Oh, yeah, but mine was only little comparatively. We're talking about breaking the two-hour marathon. And then, oh, but what did Mel do? Oh, you know, she volunteered at a parkrun on the weekend.

00:14:25Scott Trickett: Nike didn't contact you to produce a two-hour television special?

00:14:29Melissa Erbacher: No, I didn't get any sponsorship requests at all. Come at us now. And it all actually – I don't know what – maybe I had my phone on silent. I don't know. I should be more careful with that on Saturdays.

00:14:46Scott Trickett: But what did you do? What did you do?

00:14:49Melissa Erbacher: I volunteered for the 100th time at Kiwana parkrun. So that was my own quiet little milestone. I didn't actually mention it to anyone. A couple of people knew that it was coming up and so they congratulated me on the morning. But yeah, it was just a nice little quiet thing for me. So yeah, that was my little personal parkrun adventure on Saturday.

00:15:13Scott Trickett: Well done, Mel. Thank you. Thank you on behalf of parkrun. The Kawana parkrunners. We've got lots of parkrunners who do some remarkable things. And the parkrunner who's about to join us was the first Australian female at the recent, I'm going to have a go at this, Marathon de Stables? There's no T. There you go. The Sahara Desert Marathon. That sounds better. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers, Amelia Griffith.

00:15:16[music]

00:15:51Amelia Griffith: Hi, thank you.

00:15:54Scott Trickett: Now, tell us about this marathon, Amelia. It's more than a marathon. It's like nine marathons in a row or something like that, isn't it?

00:16:04Amelia Griffith: Not that extreme. It's classed as a multi-stage ultra event. So the race across a part of the Sahara Desert is held over six days, of which five days are running. And the distances vary each day. it was 240 kilometres all up.

00:16:26Scott Trickett: So five out of the six days running, what do you do on the sixth day?

00:16:30Amelia Griffith: You actually have a build-up. So you have three sort of shorter marathon distance days and then the fourth day is what they call the long stage, which for us was 88 kilometres. And then the day after that is classed as a rest day, only because a lot of people are still coming in during that day. Um, and then you've got another marathon and then a 10K to finish off the event. So the rest day is as much as, um, whatever time you have there once you finish the long stage.

00:17:06Melissa Erbacher: Oh, so for some people that rest day on day four, day five, it's not actually a rest day. It's a, we'll catch up because we're slower than you guys. And, um, And we won't get a proper rest because we still have to do the rest.

00:17:20Amelia Griffith: Yeah, that's exactly right, exactly right. So the cut-off for the long stage is 35 hours. So that's why they kind of have to allocate the rest day on the second day.

00:17:33Melissa Erbacher: 35 hours for 88 kilometres.

00:17:36Amelia Griffith: Yeah, it's the cut-off.

00:17:38Melissa Erbacher: In the Sahara Desert. Yes. After you've already done ridiculous amounts of running for the last three days before that. That's a bit hardcore.

00:17:49Amelia Griffith: Well, it is classed as one of the toughest ultras on the earth. So, yeah, it's pretty tough.

00:17:57Melissa Erbacher: So tell me, is it just because of, you know, the reputation it has with the toughest being in there? Like what attracts you to do something as crazy as this?

00:18:10Amelia Griffith: I wanted to know if I could do it. It's been on my bucket list. for a while. I've got quite a few, I guess, challenging ultras on my bucket list and that was the second one and I purely just wanted to see if it was as tough as what it has a reputation for and if I could do it.

00:18:31Scott Trickett: So what's the verdict? Is it the toughest foot race in the world?

00:18:35Amelia Griffith: It was challenging and I don't doubt that it's definitely probably in the top 20. I don't think it was the toughest.

00:18:47Scott Trickett: Wow. Because?

00:18:48Amelia Griffith: What do you think will be the toughest? Well, that's what I'm now going to find out. So apparently there's quite a lot of multi-stage events and other really long-distance ultras out there that I've now added to my bucket list.

00:19:06Scott Trickett: So what are some of the challenges of running through the Sahara Desert? I'm thinking heat, obviously. What else did you encounter?

00:19:14Amelia Griffith: Yeah, heat is one of them. The Marathon des Sables is quite a unique event where you have to be self-sufficient for the whole time, meaning that you have to carry absolutely everything that you'll need for the whole six days in your backpack every day. So, you know, your pack at the start of the day will weigh, you know, anything from sort of 10 to 12 kilos because you're carrying your food, your sleeping gear, your clothing for the whole event. So to prepare for that and running through sand is quite challenging and through the heat, but it's not only the sand itself. The landscape, I guess, actually quite got me because parts of it were fairly rocky. There were some where we were running through like dried up riverbeds. So it was really salty and glary. But I think also one of the challenging points to note is the lack of sleep and just the inadequate rest time that you get in between each day to then be able to pick yourself up and make it through the next day.

00:20:24Melissa Erbacher: So 10 to 12 kilos of just clothing and things like that, I imagine about three kilos of that is band-aids for all your blisters. Where does the water factor in? Do they provide drink stations or you actually have to carry your own water and can you top that up every day? Because I imagine if you're starting a six-day trek, with enough water to last for six days, that's going to weigh some heavy kilos as well.

00:20:51Amelia Griffith: Yeah, that's right. So the only thing that is provided for you each day is medical support, a basic tent or shelter and water. So each stage will have a different number of checkpoints along the way and different amounts of water. So you know in advance how many litres of water that you're getting and when you'll be getting them, and you have to manage yourself with that amount of fluid and hydration. You carry your water every day.

00:21:23Scott Trickett: I imagine one of the things if you're doing a six-day event is you get to spend a lot of time with the other competitors. Did you meet some characters, or is everyone very focused on their own race?

00:21:37Amelia Griffith: Look, you get all sorts of people. Obviously, with over 1,000 people there, you got all types of characters. The Japanese were really, really funny and really engaging, as were the Italians, Argentinians. You could have a bit of a laugh, even though English was a bit of a barrier. I found that the French were very, very focused and sort of, you know, didn't really engage as much. The Brits were a lot of fun. I guess it's sort of being at, like, a school camp or, you know, a Contiki tour for ultra runners. I met a lot of really, really great people.

00:22:15Melissa Erbacher: And apart from the bragging rights, obviously, of being able to say, oh, yeah, you know, first Aussie female, 37th overall in this pretty hardcore race, please tell me you got a medal or some sort of shiny bling for finishing.

00:22:31Amelia Griffith: Absolutely. We got the standard medal and finishes T-shirt at the end. But more so for me, it was about finishing one of my bucket list races. And at the end of the event too, the race director, Patrick Bauer, he actually stood on the finish line and congratulated every single runner that finished. And that to me was... you know, just the core part of the event and, you know, made finishing even more special.

00:23:06Melissa Erbacher: And so what kind of preparation do you do for something like this? You know, it's the Sahara Desert, it's X amount of days and a lot of kilometres. How do you train for something of that distance?

00:23:20Amelia Griffith: Training, you definitely need a varied schedule. So during the summer, I was out running during lunchtime in Melbourne when it was hot, obviously with a pack on down along St Kilda Beach in the sand. I did a lot of bike riding. I did Bikram yoga. And then I also had on top of that my usual running training for marathons and ultras anyway. So it was keeping up that base level fitness, but adding in a lot of heat work where I could.

00:23:53Melissa Erbacher: I bet you got a lot of weird looks at St Kilda when you're running on the beach with a pack in the middle of the day.

00:23:59Amelia Griffith: Yes, or dressed up in my desert gear, absolutely.

00:24:04Scott Trickett: Amelia, you've been running for a long time. You're also a good parkrunner. But one thing I'm curious about is that how have you seen the entry of parkrun and what that's done to the running scene in the last few years?

00:24:19Amelia Griffith: It's absolutely exploded, the number of parkrun participants. And I love it. It's a core part of my week, or my weekend, I should say. And I love getting all of my friends involved who haven't heard of parkrun to come down. And I know that 90% of people, once they start doing parkrun three or four times, it becomes a part of their life as well. And it's great to see too when you get, you know, your adults bringing their kids along and then their kids really start to enjoy parkrun. It's just exploded in Australia and it's so good to see.

00:25:02Scott Trickett: Have you noticed more and more people are now running or you have more friends in running since parkrun?

00:25:08Amelia Griffith: I've definitely noticed the increase in runners. And as an example, I have a race director who's a really good friend of mine who and the entries for his 5 and 10K events are usually sold out, which wasn't happening three or four years ago. And I would attribute part of that to parkrun as well. So definitely I think it has increased running in the community.

00:25:34Scott Trickett: And some of those friends... So you're also involved with the Achilles group, so you're one of our VI guides. How have you found that experience?

00:25:42Amelia Griffith: I find... Running as a VI guide is one of the most rewarding things I've done. And I'm not sure if you saw the interview with one of our guides who did the Puffing Billy race yesterday. And he basically said being a VI guide turns an individual sport such as running into a team event. And that's something that really hit home and Being able to share my love and my passion of running with someone else who wouldn't normally get that opportunity, it's just an indescribable warm feeling. I love it.

00:26:22Melissa Erbacher: You're a bit of a handy... parkrunner in terms of your speed, Amelia, of the events that you've adventured to, at least four of them, you've had your best gender position as first. When you're a VI guide, what kind of speeds are you paired with somebody?

00:26:40Amelia Griffith: So all the VI guides are always matched up with appropriate paces with your vision impaired persons. So you are running at a speed together. And obviously you have to go at their speed and what they're comfortable with. But I like to push them a little bit as well out of their comfort zone where possible. So it just depends who you're running with and what they're out to achieve as well.

00:27:10Melissa Erbacher: Have you ever got one of them over the finish line first? Not yet. Sounds like a bucket list item for me.

00:27:18Scott Trickett: Yeah, it sounds like a challenge. I don't think you're going to be too far off.

00:27:22Melissa Erbacher: Now of all the events that you've done, have you got a top three for us? Not your home parkrun.

00:27:29Amelia Griffith: I really enjoyed the parkrun in Durban along North Beach, which they sort of had a bit of a special event because it was the day before the Comrades Ultra. So there was about 2,500 people down there from all nationalities and that was a lot of fun. So that's probably my number one. My number two is probably St Peter's in Sydney. I know they've been having quite a few issues there, but just the support they constantly get from the community to keep the St Peter's parkrun going, that's a favourite parkrun of mine. And I'd also have to say number three is Lilydale.

00:28:14Scott Trickett: They're all great nominations. What's next on the calendar for you, Amelia?

00:28:18Amelia Griffith: So I've got the Trails Plus massive and 50K event at the start of June. And then I'm aiming for a pretty good run at Sydney Marathon in September. And then my favourite, one of my favourite events is the Ned Kelly Chase, which is all different events, but I do the 100K, which is at Wangaratta in October.

00:28:45Scott Trickett: Just the 100K. Good luck with that. Yeah, just the 100K.

00:28:49Melissa Erbacher: I just have to ask one cheeky question. On your bucket list of these crazy ultra marathons, has the Barkley Marathons made your list? It's floating in the background. Okay. It's a maybe one for the future to sneak on there.

00:29:10Amelia Griffith: The thing with Barkley is that you have to be invited to go there and Being in Australia makes it a little difficult as well because usually the entrants aren't told about the event until sort of 24 or 48 hours beforehand.

00:29:24Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:29:25Scott Trickett: Don't worry about that. You've been on the parkrun Adventures podcast now, so your profile has just gone up immeasurably. So I'd be expecting the invite for next year if I was you.

00:29:36Amelia Griffith: No.

00:29:38Scott Trickett: Maybe, maybe.

00:29:40Amelia Griffith: Yeah.

00:29:41Scott Trickett: Anyway, thanks for coming on and sharing your story from the Marathon des Sables. Is that better? The Sables. The Sables. Okay. Yeah. The Sables. Thanks, Amelia.

00:29:53Amelia Griffith: Thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed it.

00:29:54[music]

State of the Nation

00:30:11Scott Trickett: Mel, it's time to check the pulse of the nation, the state of the nation. I thought it would be a great idea to go around this big country of ours and get an update of what's happening in every state or territory.

00:30:22Melissa Erbacher: And I agreed that was a great idea because I'm nosy and I don't know what's going on everywhere.

00:30:28Scott Trickett: Yes. So all in one bang. But because there's a lot of states, we're putting all our TDs on a time limit. They've got three minutes to bang out as much information and update us as they can. And we're starting with the ACT purely for alphabetical reasons. Welcome to the pod, Denise and Gary from Canberra. Thank you very much.

00:30:50Melissa Erbacher: Thank you.

00:30:51Scott Trickett: Are you guys ready?

00:30:52guest: We are.

00:30:53Scott Trickett: Okay. Ready?

00:30:54guest: Have you got the stopwatch, Scotty?

00:30:55Scott Trickett: I'm going to start. Your time starts now. Go.

00:30:59guest: Okay. New events in Queanbeyan. It's event number five for the Canberra region. Our new event director is Vanessa Palmer. She launched the Queanbeyan event on the 29th of April with 226 parkrunners in attendance. We were extremely excited to see lots of first-timers from the local area and mixed with plenty of tourists coming to collect their queue or to be part of another launch. There's a lot more undulation than other Canberra region courses, which will actually provide a different challenge for our parkrunners in Canberra. So our second week was Saturday just gone, and they had 92 parkrunners attend, and most of them were Queanbeyan locals. So that was extremely exciting.

00:31:45guest: Great. Of course, Queanbeyan is just the next one in a line of launches that we've got lined up or in the planning. The strategic plan for parkrun across the Canberra region involves new parkruns for Molonglo, Woden, Mount Majura, Fadden, Dunlop. And we had an inquiry from Braidwood, which is 50km out of Canberra. So we get to expand the region a little bit if Braidwood gets up and running. We've had some good talks around sponsorships. And our next event we're hoping to launch before the end of the year will be Molonglo, which we hope will actually be a trail run. So that will tap into a new market for the Canberra region.

00:32:24guest: Okay, special events coming up in Canberra. We just have Burley Griffin parkrun. They have their first birthday coming up on the 17th of June and their theme will be wearing their favourite beanie, which will come in handy with the winter weather of Canberra.

00:32:39guest: So an exciting time. in Canberra and across the region. We're actually now averaging for 2017, 998 parkrunners across the five parkruns for 2017. And that compares to a number in the second half of last year of around 614. So it's quite a significant increase over the last six months or so. We've got over 15,000 registrations and 4,000 of those have been in the last 12 months. So certainly a lot happening. We'll have to wait and see what happens over winter. Canberrans tend to stay inside at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning, but we are trying to change that. So hopefully with Burley's birthday, encouraging people to come out with their beanies on, that might encourage people to come out during winter. Not quite sure what we would change about parkrun, if anything. I think we're pretty happy.

00:33:33guest: What do you change with parkrun when you're happy with it?

00:33:35guest: It's pretty perfect, isn't it? Yep. Weekly.

00:33:38guest: Yep.

00:33:38guest: Timed.

00:33:39guest: Yep.

00:33:39guest: Free. Free.

00:33:40guest: Done.

00:33:40guest: Fantastic.

00:33:41guest: Easy.

00:33:42guest: And that's the update from the nation's capital. You guys are good. That was two minutes 50.

00:33:48Scott Trickett: Bang on.

00:33:53Melissa Erbacher: Came in under time. You've got like 10 whole seconds of real estate there.

00:34:00guest: We could have pushed a bit more about the good thing that you're starting off with the nation's capital.

00:34:10Scott Trickett: You've got lots of growth and lots of funny names in Canberra.

00:34:13guest: We do.

00:34:14Scott Trickett: We do, yes, yes. Very strange names, some of them. What is it? It's the Aboriginal name. Is it the local name of the area? What's the explanation? We're going to veer off parkrun here and get a bit of a history of the Canberra region.

00:34:29guest: I think some of the names are based around the historical Aboriginal name. But there's a whole range of reasons for different suburbs as well. Like some whole suburbs are just named after... Explorers. Yeah, or there's another whole suburb that's named after streets in Tasmania or suburbs in Tasmania.

00:34:47guest: Politicians.

00:34:48guest: Yeah, politicians.

00:34:49guest: Prime ministers have passed, I think.

00:34:51guest: So some really interesting naming conventions around different areas. And some of those areas that we're looking to expand into are... a sort of an area within Canberra rather than an actual suburb. Canberra is split up into almost regions and then within the regions there's different suburbs. So like Woden, for instance, is an area within Canberra, fairly south-central sort of area, but then there's different suburbs within Woden. Okay.

00:35:29Scott Trickett: Thanks, guys. Thanks for the update. Thanks for kicking us off on our State of the Nation address. Good luck over the winter months in Canberra.

00:35:37Melissa Erbacher: Thank you.

00:35:37Scott Trickett: All right. Good luck.

00:35:38Melissa Erbacher: See you. The second territory we're going to head to tonight or today, whenever you happen to be listening to the podcast, is New South Wales. And joining us to give us the wrap-up of events in New South Wales is Territory Director Sonja Pohlman. Sonia, welcome.

00:35:55Sonja Pohlman: Thank you very much.

00:35:56Melissa Erbacher: Now, this is the first official time I think you've been on the podcast, isn't it?

00:36:00Sonja Pohlman: Yes, it is the first official time. I love the fact that there must have been unofficial times.

00:36:08Scott Trickett: The voice sounds familiar, though. I've heard that voice somewhere before.

00:36:12Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that would be all the videos around the traps of the pollmans doing their reviews. So these guys are famous in parkrun adventure world. And we're very lucky to have you here to give us a breakdown. Are you ready?

00:36:27Sonja Pohlman: I am ready. And I will put the caveat out, first of all, that this will be, it's very interesting for me because New South Wales is my recent adopted state. I've been, you know, I've only had the license plates on for, I think, since Christmas time or just after. So I've been here for a number of months. Yeah.

00:36:48Melissa Erbacher: That's right. You've got a fresh perspective. That's right.

00:36:52Sonja Pohlman: We'll take it as that.

00:36:54Melissa Erbacher: Now, Scotty, you've got the start watch?

00:36:56Scott Trickett: Yes, I have. Are you ready, Sonia? Here we go. Ready? I'm ready. Okay. Go. You're on.

00:37:01Sonja Pohlman: Go. All right. Okay. Well, in terms of New South Wales, we can say I got the wonderful Peter Pohlman to get his data fingers onto this. New South Wales has got 58 parkruns as of the 6th of May this year. So I can tell you that New South Wales actually has a quarter of the parkruns in Australia and a third of the Australian population when we compare that to Queensland, which has a third of the parkruns but only a fifth of the Australian population. So actually we're kind of, you know, Queensland's been punching above their weight in those terms. But since our first parkrun, which was St Peter's in January 2012, we have been steadily growing and we are continuing to grow. We put on 16 parkruns in 2016. And from looking at the trends of that, it's actually still going up. And last year actually was the first year that Queensland wasn't on the top of the list for adding new parkruns. But in terms of new events for us, We've got Ballina Coast launching on the 27th of the 5th, which is awesome, and Coffs Harbour also launching on the 10th of June. And if you're interested and able to get around, on the 28th of May, Coffs and I think it's Boorunga also have some trial parkruns. So if you're interested in going and checking something out and helping out with the trial event, then I'm sure Kevin would love to see you up there for that. We've got a bunch of... There's prospects popping up all over the place and things like we've had inquiries from Arimba, Condobolin, Cessnock is getting very close to getting off the ground, Broken Hill, Lake Albert. So they're just a few. And then in terms of things that are coming up, I've just done events for May. So we've got birthdays for Taree, The Ponds, Penrith Lakes, Mount Penang and Curl Curl. So if you're in the area, keep an eye out for those ones. I would love to see some more parkruns in the rural areas of New South Wales. I mean, having come from Warwick, which is a smaller rural parkrun, I've just seen how fantastic it was. I would love to see some more of those come up on the map. And, in fact, if there's anybody out there at Dungog in our near area who'd love to give me a call, I'm waiting and I'd love to hear from you. Or that Gloucester, because Gloucester has some awesome – not Gloucester, sorry, Stroud – has a brick-throwing contest in June, which I think is an awesome reason to go to a town. Okay. I think I was also asked about my parkrun wish list, and I've got four seconds, three now. Mandatory tail runner. Two words, mandatory tail runner at every event.

00:39:52Scott Trickett: How's that, Scott? That's it. Yeah, you did it. You hit three minutes dead on there. Well done, Sonia. Okay. Thanks for that, Sonia.

00:40:00Unidentified speaker: That's okay.

00:40:01Scott Trickett: You did well.

00:40:01Sonja Pohlman: Awesome.

00:40:02Scott Trickett: Great. Queensland are repping New South Wales. I think you got a pass.

00:40:06Sonja Pohlman: I was going to say, there we go. I managed to spend time talking about Queensland. You snuck a little bit in there. I was going to say, you know, were it not for parkrun, we wouldn't actually be in Newcastle. So there you go. Yay, New South Wales. Yay, parkrun. Yay, parkrun. Yeah, exactly.

00:40:26Scott Trickett: Now we're going to pop up to one of the territories and visit Mark Connolly up in Darwin. How are you going, Mark?

00:40:32Mark Connolly: Yeah, good. Thank you, Scott. Hey, Mel.

00:40:34Scott Trickett: Howdy. Welcome to the pod. Are you ready to give us an update on Northern Territory?

00:40:39Mark Connolly: I am. I'm excited.

00:40:40Scott Trickett: Okay. I'm going to start the clock, and your time starts now.

00:40:46Mark Connolly: So we have got two events going in Darwin now. Since last month I spoke to you, we've added the second one on, which is in Palmerston. It's a whole about 15 or 20 kilometres from Darwin's parkrun course, which has improved our numbers, of course, across both events. We're now still getting close to 150 to 200 in Darwin and close to 71 to 100 in Palmerston. Other than that, they're going along just swimmingly. Everything's fine up here in our lovely weather. We've had a couple of contacts, people get in contact every now and then from places like Katherine or Alice Springs, but never follow up for new events or new prospects. So if anyone in those sort of areas would like to get on board, they're a lovely place. I was just down in Alice Springs last week. running at 4 o'clock in the afternoon in beautiful 20-degree weather. We don't get 20-degree weather up here at 4 a.m. Other than that, yes, everything is going well. Well, we also would like another event up in Darwin. I think we've got enough room in the northern suburbs to go ahead. We just haven't got anyone to take that one on yet. But, yes, we're all ready to go for some more.

00:41:45Scott Trickett: Tell us, Mark, I'm going to jump in here. Tell us about Alice and Catherine. How come these events never follow up? So you get the initial interest, but then nothing happens.

00:41:54Mark Connolly: Yeah, and I can see where they're coming from. I did the same thing when I first looked at it for Darwin a few years ago. I contacted parkrun and then things got in the way and I didn't get back to it for probably close to a year, then got back on board. But so if you've had a talk about it before, come back on, just get in contact with parkrun Australia on the website and they'll get in contact with me and we can help you through every step of the way.

00:42:12Scott Trickett: You're a friendly guy.

00:42:14Mark Connolly: Yeah, I'll help out anyone.

00:42:15Melissa Erbacher: I have a quick question about places like Alice Springs. Do you think the reason perhaps that they haven't established an event yet is because of like a transient population? People don't stick around for very long?

00:42:29Mark Connolly: That's one of the issues we have in Darwin too. I'm not quite sure about Alice, but in Darwin we have a lot of defence and transient populations, which means we get a few run directors going and then they move on and then we get a couple more going and then they move on. So we have that same issue up here, which I think is why we haven't got another one up here at the moment. But, yes, down there, they've got a very big running group already and a very good running club. I think they're not quite sure about this parkruns capability yet in Alice Springs. So the running scene is pretty big. It's a nice area. They've got lots of mountains to run around on. Nice, cool weather. Yeah. So I'm not sure about Alice yet. So get in contact if anyone's down there listening.

00:43:07Scott Trickett: We'll get there. And that's your three minutes, the three-minute wrap-up of Northern Territory. Timing. Do we cover everything?

00:43:12Mark Connolly: I think so. I think we've got about everything.

00:43:15Scott Trickett: Have you got anything on your wish list? Anything you want to change?

00:43:17Mark Connolly: What would I like to change? No, I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything to make parkrun better. Great.

00:43:24Scott Trickett: Thanks, Mark.

00:43:25Melissa Erbacher: And the next cab off the rank for State of the Nation is Queensland. And to give us the roundup of what's going on in Queensland, we've got Territory Director Steve Rayner joining us. Steve, welcome to the podcast.

00:43:39Steve Rayner: Good evening, everybody.

00:43:42Melissa Erbacher: So now, Steve, you know the brief. You've got three minutes. Are you ready to tell us all about the wonder that is happening in Queensland?

00:43:51Steve Rayner: Well, it's very difficult to do Queensland in three minutes, but I'll do my best.

00:43:56Scott Trickett: I'm ready to start the clock. Okay. Here we go.

00:43:58Steve Rayner: Okay. Go. Here goes. Okay. What are we doing in Queensland? New events. We have two new events starting in June at Mansfield in Redland Bay. Both of those events will have the effect of rendering all current statesmen having to do a couple more new events to catch up. But they're all approved, ready to go, we're just waiting for the start date. But on top of that, we've got a number of new events that are in the process of either obtaining funding or waiting on grants, but they're not too far away and we should see them start in coming months. Most of these are in regional areas, but there's a couple in the Brisbane area. So we've got Gympie coming. We've got Cloncurry coming, St George. Lota out on the bay again. And one new event, which every time I use the name, the event director wants me to use it, just gives everybody the wrong idea. He wants to call it Breakfast Creek parkrun, but in Brisbane, everybody thinks of Breakfast Creek as just the pub. So I'm trying to get him to call it Windsor or Wilson because it's actually nowhere near the pub. But that one's... going to be a good fast course when it gets going. Queensland continues to grow. We've been involved with parkrun since the early days but now there's no sign of the growth slowing. We've got over 20 events on the prospects list and we seem to be adding more every week and the people who put their hand up to run those events are going through the start-up phase of measuring courses, trying to obtain funding from councils and other places, putting together an event team and we should see many of those come to fruition in the second half of the year. At Southbank, a group of vision impaired runners are now coming to Southbank every week and they've formed a group. It's a Facebook group called Vision Impaired and Guides Connect. And whilst this isn't being run by parkrun, parkrun, as we all know, is a very inclusive organisation and we take runners of all ages and abilities and whatever. So we have four or five vision impaired runners coming to Southbank every week, some of them with their guide dogs, and volunteers from Southbank are providing guides to both the runners, walkers, even to the dogs. Some of the dogs need to learn the course, so some people get to be a guide for the dog. The other thing that's happened is that we've had to relocate the Kedron course. It was a relatively slow course running on a bit of grass. It's now running on a straight out-and-back course on the Kedron Brook bikeway, and I think I'd have to say that it's the fastest course in the Brisbane area at the moment. Sandgate may disagree with me, but that's been going... They had their first event last week. Comment on growth? Well, it's parkrun. It continues to grow. It's like a virus, isn't it? There's still plenty of growth left in Queensland, and I don't see any signs of that slowing down. A wish list item. What would I change? I'd love the technology to evolve where we're not dealing with manual stopwatches and tokens and all that sort of stuff. But I think we're a long way away from that because it's a big change for parkrun to make. But it'd be nice one day when we get there. That's good, Steve.

00:47:18Scott Trickett: I gave you a little bit of leeway because Queensland is our biggest state. So you went a fraction over the three minutes, but that's a good wrap up.

00:47:25Melissa Erbacher: Thanks very much, Steve.

00:47:26Steve Rayner: Okay. Talk to you all later.

00:47:28Scott Trickett: Okay. We're halfway through our wrap up. of the nation and we're going to South Australia where I know they're ready for some growth. So welcome back to the pod, John Laurie. Hey Scott, how are you going? We're fantastic.

00:47:42John Laurie: John, you're our Territory Director in South Australia.

00:47:47Scott Trickett: We've seen some good growth there lately and hopefully you're going to update us on what's happening around the rest of the state. Are you ready?

00:47:55John Laurie: I'm ready to go. Okay, and your time starts now. fantastic. Well, the growth has been, um, pretty good so far, uh, in the last 12 months, so much so that we've, I've had to expand the territory directors and actually put on two new ones. Uh, we were looking to put on one and I looked at how many events were, were likely to start. And I thought, no, we, we need to bite the bullet and put on two straight ups. So we've now got three territory directors to, um, to look after the state. And, uh, We're about to come into a really busy time of anniversaries, actually, because we had so much growth this time last year. So July especially, we've got an anniversary nearly every week. And in the couple that we don't, we're likely to start some new events this year as well. So that's going to fill up our July for anniversaries going forward. So we received a state government grant very recently, and that's going to allow us to start 10 new parkruns here in South Australia, which we're extremely excited about, especially with the growth of the ones that we started last year, which a lot of them are up in there, getting close to 200 participants a week. So we really need to get that growth happening. So some of the inquiries we've had, and some that are starting very, very soon, We've got the Barossa Valley, which will start very soon. We've got Gawler, which is likely to start in early July. And Clearland, which will start probably mid-July this year. Clearland's going to be a great run. It's going to be a trail run. So the first South Australian full trail run. Sure, it won't be the last. And we're also looking at places like Goolwa, Kangaroo Island, along the beach at Semaphore is what I'm thinking of. We also had a trial for Mawson Lakes, and that's going to start on the 27th of May. So lots and lots of growth happening here in South Australia at the moment.

00:50:03Scott Trickett: You've done well, all in two minutes 30. You've got 30 seconds left. Have you got a wish list? Have you got a wish list? Anything you want to change about parkrun in South Australia?

00:50:14John Laurie: No, there's nothing I want to change. I just need more events. I need more time to get those events happening. We've also got Edithburgh. Edithburg. Did you say 10 events? 10 events. We've got the money to start 10 events.

00:50:27Scott Trickett: That's massive. Have you got 10 events?

00:50:31John Laurie: By my last calculation, I think we've got eight that we know where they're either going to start or want to start. So I want to start another one in the city as well to take a bit of pressure off Torrens. So, yeah, we've got at least eight that... that are pretty much earmarked.

00:50:52Scott Trickett: Very exciting. Yeah, so we've got room for two more. Wish list. We do. Two more Dream parkruns. We're ready to go. Funding sorted.

00:51:00John Laurie: Funding sorted.

00:51:01Scott Trickett: That's great. That's great.

00:51:02John Laurie: With a defib as well. That's right, the Office of Sport and Rec.

00:51:07Scott Trickett: All good news. Thanks, John. That's a great update from South Australia. Absolutely. No worries. Thanks, Scott. See you.

00:51:14Melissa Erbacher: The next lovely lady to join us is from the far south. She's going to give us the wrap-up of Tasmania. It is Territory Director Chris Timms who's joined us on the podcast before. But welcome back, Chris.

00:51:27Chris Timms: Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

00:51:29Melissa Erbacher: Now – I said this offline before, but I'm going to say it online now. Nobody knows Tasmania like you know Tasmania. Are you ready for three minutes of sharing your brain with everybody else in parkrun world?

00:51:45Scott Trickett: Ready to go. Okay. Your time starts now.

00:51:48Chris Timms: Go. Okay. We've had a pretty exciting time recently in Tasmania. We've been getting some good state attendance records, particularly with the recent launch of George Town parkrun back on the 8th of April. That makes our event tally four in the state. Georgetown is a lovely little town just north of Launceston. And for all those people on the mainland who thought they had Tasmanian statesman status, guess what? You don't anymore. So you have to come back for another visit. Now, we've also got a few new events in the pipeline. If anybody would love to give us some funding, we've got Railton, Burnie, Windsor which is also in Launceston we have Queen's Domain in Hobart and we have Deloraine also in the north so quite a few prospects there but all being worked on all they most of them need is actually some funding and we've got grant applications in so fingers crossed that'll come off we have Devonport parkrun celebrating their second birthday on the 27th of May And just one little sneaky thing for the alphabet tourists out there. I have had some interest from the mainland in someone getting a Zian parkrun up and going. And there might be a little course down there, but I need to have some enthusiastic, interested parties to get that one going. So if anyone knows anyone in the far west of Tasmania, I'd love to hear from them.

00:53:17Scott Trickett: Talk to us about Western Tasmania. I don't know anything about Western Tasmania. And there's apparently a town starting with a Z. Zed, yes.

00:53:26Chris Timms: Zed is down on the far west, the wild west. It is mining country. Very definitely wild weather, cold, blustery. Gorgeous place to visit. But quite a long trip from anywhere in Tassie. Generally takes three and a half to four hours to get down there. Not a big population, but Yeah, well worth a look if you're in Tasmania. And if I can get more tourists down here by putting a Zeehan in place, I'd love to do it.

00:53:54Melissa Erbacher: Is it further south than Hobart?

00:53:57Chris Timms: No. No, it would be probably close to halfway Hobart to Launceston along the coast.

00:54:07Scott Trickett: And since Georgetown's launch, have you noticed the growth in Tasmania? Is it getting bigger and bigger?

00:54:15Chris Timms: We've had a couple of quieter weeks since the Georgetown launch with a couple of events going on and some of the winter sports starting, but we did hit an attendance record of 759 people the week after Georgetown launched, which was absolutely fantastic. The best thing about Georgetown is now that they've been going for a few weeks, we're to the point where we're seeing lots of first-timers from the Georgetown area and people less people from other parkruns actually attending and propping up their numbers. So it's been fantastic.

00:54:49Scott Trickett: And that's three minutes. Well done, Chris. Thank you. Thanks for the update on Tassie.

00:54:54Chris Timms: I hope there's at least 30 seconds worth of value there.

00:54:58Scott Trickett: There's 180 seconds.

00:55:00Chris Timms: Yeah. Fantastic.

00:55:02Scott Trickett: Okay, we're nearly at the end. I wanted to save the best till last, but unfortunately it's the penultimate state. We're visiting Victoria. Welcome to the podcast, Toc, a regular member of the podcast almost these days. How are you going, Toc? Yeah, really good, Scotty. G'day, Mel. How are you?

00:55:22Melissa Erbacher: Really great. Thanks for asking.

00:55:24Scott Trickett: Now, are you ready to give us your three-minute update? Yeah, mate. Not a problem at all. Okay. Your time starts now. Go.

00:55:31Tony O'Connell: Beautiful. Well, you probably did save the best until second last. You've got to give someone else a crack at that, but Yeah, I think Victoria, when you look at our growth across the last few years, and we're running at about 100% growth in Victoria for the last five years consistently. And numbers have gone from back in 2011, obviously the one event through to at this point, we've got 47 events in Victoria with another two launches before the end of May. So we're sort of starting to eye off now who's going to be event 50 in Victoria. We have a list at the moment running of places that have got fairly close and we've got a lot of interest from places and I'll run through a list fairly quickly and it's going to be interesting to see which of these gets to 50 and potentially by the end of this year we could be up to 60 already, which would be a great number and it's great to see the number of people that are embracing parkrun and getting out and participating. For example, across Gippsland, we have about 1,100 people a week, where two years ago we didn't have anyone doing parkrun in Gippsland. So it's really great. Across Victoria at the moment, as I said, we're spread from almost one end to the other. It would be really nice to see something up at Mildura being the top of our state. But apart from that, we've got parkruns pretty well across the whole state, and we've got interest from places at the moment. I'll run through a list. We've got Stawell. Rosebud down in the Mornington Peninsula, Lakes Entrance, Torquay is getting very close. That'll be a great location. Eastern Beach at Geelong, Brimbank Park, Newport Lakes, Portarlington, Ocean Grove, Lancefield, Sunbury, Mernda, Bright, Benalla and Nhill. And if you look at that, you know, the growth spread out across the state. So we're not just concentrating in an area and spreading. People are hearing the message of parkrun and they're they're jumping on it people love love it and as your listeners know parkrun's a great thing we look across the state and i'm starting to look at things you know being involved in the different clubs we're looking at alphabets now and we're starting to look at different places it'd be really cool to get parkruns up and running to try and complete victorian alphabets i think at the moment we've got 19 letters in victoria that we can cover uh so there's a few more that it'll um just complete some of those blanks, which would be fantastic. Just this year alone, we've seen five launches already. We've got another two launches this month. So we're going to have had three launches this month. It's a great growth. As I said, really interested to see who's going to be number 50 for Victoria and potentially, as I said, at the end of the year, I think we'll be up around 60 events and all of them will be really great, really fun events. That's probably about the end of Vico. That's it. That's it.

00:58:30Scott Trickett: Perfectly timed, three minutes. I expected nothing less.

00:58:36Tony O'Connell: I think it'd be fair to say I think our growth probably reflects, you know, what's happening in a lot of the other parts of Australia. You know, Queensland had the jump on everyone. I think, you know, we're probably slowly catching up in events. You know, they had the head start on us. Yeah, it's huge.

00:58:52Scott Trickett: Have you got anything you'd want to introduce or change about parkrun?

00:58:56Tony O'Connell: No, look, I think the model of parkrun is just a great community event. For me, it's not about the run. For me, it's much more about the coffee afterwards and the chance to sit down and just socialise and touch base with a group of mates that before parkrun I had no idea who these people were, but they've become really close friends. And so I think, you know, it's probably one of the keys to parkrun is, the social aspect of it and the number of running clubs that have formed out of parkrun, you know, just those links that it's not all about the run. It's about everything else that happens around parkrun. But no, I wouldn't change a thing. I think we've got a great, great thing that we're involved in.

00:59:39Scott Trickett: No argument from us. Thanks for coming on and giving us an update on the great estate.

00:59:44Tony O'Connell: Not a problem. Victoria, number one.

00:59:49Scott Trickett: Thanks, Toc. That's from Mel.

00:59:50Tony O'Connell: No, she was very quiet, wasn't she? She's finally accepted it.

00:59:55Melissa Erbacher: I know better. I finally accepted that Scotty's deluded and he's just going to continue believing what he believes, irrespective of what I say.

01:00:06Tony O'Connell: So you finally accepted Victoria as the number one state. I thought, yep, she's finally real.

01:00:12Melissa Erbacher: He'll probably manage over the years to get enough voiceovers from me that he can just piece that together himself and I won't ever have to actually say it. He'll just edit it together and then one day he'll spring it in an episode and I'll be like, hmm, I don't remember saying that.

01:00:29Scott Trickett: You don't remember saying what?

01:00:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that was a bit of an obvious attempt. And last but certainly not least, for those of you who have been paying attention, we've done every state or territory except for WA. And joining us from the Western state, we have got the fabulous Territory Director, Cassie Hughes. Cassie, welcome back to the podcast.

01:00:54Cassie Hughes: Hi, guys. Thanks for having me back on again.

01:00:57Melissa Erbacher: Are you ready for three minutes of expose?

01:01:03Cassie Hughes: I will try my best to fill three minutes for you.

01:01:06Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Well, Scotty's the one on the clock.

01:01:08Cassie Hughes: Okay, here we go. And go. Okay, so what's been happening in WA? Well, first of all, we're going to start with my event, which we launched on Saturday, which was Apple Cross parkrun, and that went fabulously. We had 268 people at our launch, and it was fabulous. We had an absolute blast. Screamer of a first finisher who came in at 15 minutes and 52 seconds blew everyone away. The launch went really well. Everyone gave great feedback. Photos were fantastic. Everyone was really happy. So that was great. We have an update on Kalia parkrun, which is the one we launched only 10 weeks ago. Kalia are averaging around 40 runners each week. And they are building up such a great little community there. They have got such a good camaraderie and their volunteers are fantastic and they're doing really, really well. And like I said, they have 40 at the moment. I'm sure that will grow as more and more people find out about it. Another thing that happened for us is Rockingham parkrun celebrated their fourth anniversary. It was a pyjama party and it was a great excuse for me to get my giraffe pyjamas out because and run a pyjama PB, which I haven't done before. So that was fabulous. Rockingham are a little further south from Perth and they've pretty much got everyone covered down there. They average about 270 plus runners a week and they do a fabulous job. Claudia, the ED for Rockingham, was dressed in the most amazing Victoria's Secret pyjama party ever. with wings and she looked fabulous. She really knows how to pull that off. One of our smaller events and newer events that we've got a little bit further north is Moora parkrun. They've had 13 events so far. They're little, they're small. We need to get out there and get them known a little bit. They're averaging around 22 runners a week. They are a smaller area, but Bronwyn and her crew up there are doing an absolutely fantastic job of getting it out there. But we'll push that one a little bit more so that we can get some more people out there. We've got two parkruns who are having to do alternate courses at the moment because of Bridgeworks and Playground Works, which is Canning River and Aveley. They've managed to move their courses around a little bit. to accommodate uh works going on there and we've had great feedback with the new courses there and again their numbers are fabulous shelly again is another parkrun that's just a fairly new one and their their numbers they're doing 100 150 every week and everyone's loving that too Geographe Bay was cancelled last week due to the Ironman but they're back in action this weekend If I could see anything else happen with parkrun, I'd want more. Geraldton, Esperance, Broome, Port Hedland, Exmouth, people, come at me. Tell me where you want parkruns and tell me you can help me and we'll see what we can do.

01:04:21Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Sounds like you must have been bang on the three minutes there, I think, Cassie.

01:04:27Scott Trickett: Yeah, pretty close. Just a little bit over.

01:04:30Melissa Erbacher: I have a little question. I may have some sneaky inside info from an undisclosed person. that the westernmost compass point of the Compass Club will be very soon coming under fire and could be shifting to a new event. I don't know if you know anything about that, Cassie. I don't know the actual location, but there's not a lot of opportunities for it in Western Australia. I guess there are technically if you go north, but I've got a, A sneaky suspicion it's going to go south and it may involve some wine. Can you tell us anything about that?

01:05:11Cassie Hughes: Oh, you're good with your intel, Mel. I can not confirm or deny. Yeah, I'll keep that one under my hat for a little while. We'll let someone else discuss that and just keep your eyes and ears open. Fair enough.

01:05:31Melissa Erbacher: Really appreciate you coming on the podcast to share all those things with us. Sounds like Western Australia is keeping you guys busy with your events, new and old.

01:05:41Cassie Hughes: It is. It is. We have, what, 23 now and hopefully more to come. So it's keeping us on our toes. Lots of things to do. Lots of fun to be had.

01:06:00Scott Trickett: All this week, Mel, it's been National Volunteer Week, which is great. It coincides really nicely with parkrun because we love volunteering. So we would encourage you every week to thank your volunteers, but if some weeks you don't, for whatever reason, I'm not going to judge you. Let it go. But this week, just say thanks.

01:06:23Melissa Erbacher: I would challenge everyone to thank every volunteer, not just one of them. or two of them that they actually talk to, but just go out of their way to go and thank every single volunteer.

01:06:33Scott Trickett: I'm a realist.

01:06:34Melissa Erbacher: At parkrun.

01:06:34Scott Trickett: I know that's not going to happen, so I'd just like everyone to just, at least once, at least one volunteer, plant a seed, plant a seed, and they might remember.

01:06:43Melissa Erbacher: You've got to shoot for the stars, Scotty. Yeah, true. So how good was this whole state of the nation thing? Everybody is fully up to date on what's going on across parkrun Australia.

01:06:56Scott Trickett: So we don't need to update you on launches this week because we've already heard.

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

01:07:01Melissa Erbacher: We have.

01:07:02Scott Trickett: But we'll remind you, Timboon is launching this week in Victoria, which is great. If you love ice cream and running, get to Tim Boone.

01:07:11Melissa Erbacher: Also because it's just got a funny name.

01:07:14Scott Trickett: It does a bit, doesn't it? Must admit, I'd never really, maybe I'd heard some reference of Tim Boone, but yeah. I thought he was a cricketer. But no, it's a town, and they've got parkrun.

01:07:29Melissa Erbacher: That's a different boon. And should we just give everyone a quick roundup of the anniversaries that are going to happen this week, just because they may have got lost in all the other stuff?

01:07:39Scott Trickett: Yes, we should.

01:07:40Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, we've got Altona Beach in Victoria turning number two.

01:07:45Scott Trickett: Curl Curl in New South Wales celebrating their fourth.

01:07:49Melissa Erbacher: The Entrance, also in New South Wales, number one.

01:07:53Scott Trickett: And Yarrabilba. And Queensland have made it to three.

01:07:59Melissa Erbacher: That's nice. They've got one, two, three, and four. And next year, Tim Boone will be number five, all on the same weekend. That's a lot of cake.

01:08:07Scott Trickett: We should have read them out in order.

01:08:10Melissa Erbacher: Well, next time maybe we could be more organized. Remember. Next year.

01:08:13Scott Trickett: Yeah.

01:08:13Melissa Erbacher: All right. Yep. I'll remember this specific weekend next year. Read them in order. Okay. Okay.

01:08:19Scott Trickett: Another big show today, so we're going to wrap it up quickly. Next week, Club Corner, we'll bring that back. So that's exciting.

01:08:27Melissa Erbacher: Who will we be interviewing? Maybe we know, maybe we don't.

01:08:32Scott Trickett: Just saying it here now so we make sure we organise it for next week.

01:08:35Melissa Erbacher: Good plan.

01:08:36Scott Trickett: Yep. Thanks for joining me again, Mel.

01:08:38Melissa Erbacher: You're very welcome, Scotty. And thank you to all the listeners for joining us.