Episode 73

Episode details · 198 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:09Scott Trickett: Some thought we might never come back. But here we are, we're back. Episode... What are you up to, Mel?

00:00:17Melissa Erbacher: 70... What is it? 73? 73 or 74, I'm not sure. You lose count when you have a bit of a break.

00:00:23Scott Trickett: Yeah. But anyway, we're back. The parkrun Adventures are back.

00:00:27Melissa Erbacher: After a short break of a couple of weeks.

00:00:31Scott Trickett: But...

00:00:32Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure it was really long for some people.

00:00:34Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah.

00:00:38[other]

00:00:38Melissa Erbacher: See, the boys agree.

00:00:40Scott Trickett: The boys go, where have you been?

00:00:43Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:00:46Scott Trickett: Come, boys. So we're going to soldier on, despite the interruptions of my dogs, who were very excited that we're back, or very excited that the tradesmen are out working on my roof. I'm not sure. I think it's because they're excited because we're back.

00:01:03Melissa Erbacher: I would say so.

00:01:04Scott Trickett: Yeah. And it's good that they're awake because they're usually asleep during podcast time. How's your sleep going, Mel?

00:01:12Melissa Erbacher: That's a very interesting question. By sleep, do you mean how's my awakeness going? Yeah. Because that's going awesome. I'm spending a lot of time doing that. It's not too bad. It's making parkrun day a little bit more challenging. But to be honest, like last week, for example, I had about four hours of broken sleep on Friday night and I've been to parkrun on less sleep than that in the past. Usually the day of anniversaries where I've been making cakes and things like that the night before. So yeah, it's not too bad. This is easier.

00:01:53Scott Trickett: We should just clear up front that our break is actually nothing to do with you and motherhood. It's all me. So if anyone's been curious as to why we took a break, it's not because you wanted to. It's because I needed a break.

00:02:07Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, that's all right. Everybody needs a little bit of a hiatus from time to time.

00:02:12Scott Trickett: So you have continued to be super mum, like you said you're going to be.

00:02:16Melissa Erbacher: I wouldn't say that. I'm living in a bit of the twilight zone and most days I don't make it out of my pyjamas. But, hey, that's the dream, isn't it? I always wanted to just stay in my pyjamas all the time. And here I am. So, yes, today I am sporting my flannelette pyjamas that have raccoons and acorns on them.

00:02:37Scott Trickett: Very cool.

00:02:37Melissa Erbacher: parkrun like it is it's very outdoorsy but i'm impressed you're still getting along to parkrun uh we have been yes we haven't missed one yet technically since wes was born so yeah we're not doing too badly and he's even had a few adventures and a volunteer along the way which has been good so how's it been what how's it work have you actually run them have you

00:03:04Scott Trickett: Or walked them?

00:03:05Melissa Erbacher: Well, we walked our first one a few weeks ago at Sandgate parkrun. So I got an adventure down that way, which, as you know, Sandgate's been on my list for a very long time. The time had come. It went well for about the first five minutes. Wes was in a pram. My niece, Lani, was determined to push him the whole way, but he cracked it because he was hungry at about five past seven. So that turned into me walking and breastfeeding for about two kilometers. And I can tell you, my arms were like jelly at the end of that. But he was happy that the milk bar was open en route, so... Then he was able to go back in the pram for the rest of the event.

00:03:48Scott Trickett: That sounds like a good workout.

00:03:50Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it is. I've never had my arms worked out at parkrun before, so hopefully he doesn't make a habit of it. But you just can't time these things. He's not in any particular routine at the moment. When he's hungry, that's it. You've got to feed him. There's no slowing down or stopping. But then we had a week... where we were volunteering down at Noosa, and he did that in the baby carrier and was very well behaved. Taught me how to do the stopwatch with my left hand because he needed my right hand to pat him. And then last week we did Nambour parkrun. We took on Nambour parkrun. And he was in the baby carrier for that. Bless her, Melissa, the event director, was a little bit concerned that I wanted to attempt... her course with a six-week-old baby in the carrier. But she had prepped the marshal at the creek to push me out on the other side and the tail walker to keep a very stern eye on me and to walk in front of me when we were going down the twins and things like that to break my fall. So just in case, we decided to join the stack club. And Renee Gimbert actually walked the course with me at Nambour as well. So she was... very protective and in the front and holding hands out and just in case you know we needed the help so it was good i forgot how hilly the course is and my glutes were not thanking me nor were my legs um i guess possibly even after childbirth six weeks is not quite enough time for somebody to tackle nambour parkrun um comfortably afterwards unless you are one of those super amazing athletes of which i am not one so but we did it it took about an hour and 20 minutes but we did it and uh wes wes gave it the sleep seal of approval because he slept through about four kilometers of that course good on you wes yeah so that's how park riding is with a baby wes what about time wise what are we talking about Um, to be honest, I don't, I don't even look at my results and I haven't been walking with, I mean, yeah, Nambour took about an hour 20 and I only knew that because Renee, uh, had her GPS watch, but I haven't worn a GPS watch for a few months now since my last one broke. So yeah, I, I, and I don't look at the, um, results emails except to know that I got one so that my scanning had happened. So if it shows up in my email inbox, I'm happy. And then sometimes I might check to see how many events I've done or how many volunteers. But I don't even look at the time.

00:06:48Scott Trickett: You brought up how many events you've done.

00:06:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. How many? Well, see, you threw down the challenge back to me recently that you've been tripping around and stuff. And I was like, oh, wow.

00:07:05Scott Trickett: I wish I had.

00:07:06Melissa Erbacher: It's time for me to knock over my NENDY. And that's what Nambour was for me.

00:07:09Scott Trickett: Oh, so Nambour, you hadn't done Nambour. Because I didn't expect you to jump ahead of me. I knew you were going to Sandgate.

00:07:16Melissa Erbacher: Yes, to draw even with you again.

00:07:19Scott Trickett: But so Nambour was the one that got you ahead.

00:07:22Melissa Erbacher: It was, yes.

00:07:24Scott Trickett: Tricky, tricky. Because I've actually been on quite a few adventures since we last spoke as well.

00:07:31Melissa Erbacher: You have, but I don't know anything about them. Tell me.

00:07:33Scott Trickett: Well, I've been going back to parkruns that I've actually already done. So they're sort of adventure parkruns. I've been to Mount Gambier. We had our boys' road trip to Mount Gambier. We had a great time, cleaned up. And Mount Gambier, fantastic. Fantastic town, fantastic event. Lots of fun there.

00:07:51Melissa Erbacher: Gorgeous Blue Lake.

00:07:52Scott Trickett: Yeah, but I'd already run it, so that didn't count. Then I was working up at Airlie Beach, so I had an Airlie Beach parkrun, but I'd already done that one, so that didn't count. I snuck in a visit out to Laylaw when they celebrated NAIDOC week. And again, I'd already done that one, so yeah, you jumped ahead a bit, which is fine.

00:08:16Melissa Erbacher: Well, there is a little column on the Most Events list which says, has the worldwide number of events and you are ahead of me in that column. That's the column I've been focusing on. I currently have the Aussie column and you have the worldwide column.

00:08:31Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:08:32Melissa Erbacher: So we can call it even for now, although you've got two more than me in the other column.

00:08:38Scott Trickett: Because my worldwide count doubled to two a month ago when I ran a tring.

00:08:45Melissa Erbacher: And what was the second event? Tring.

00:08:48Scott Trickett: Yeah. which I wrote a bit about in the parkrun newsletter. And, you know, Tring is the one where, I'm sure plenty of you have seen that video with Uncle Recitas, yeah. And everything in that video is true. Like, I lived it. The cow marshals exist. I saw the PB Bell and... You didn't get to ring it? I don't think, like the rules around the PB bell, when it's your first time, technically it's your PB, but I don't think you should be ringing it first time.

00:09:25Melissa Erbacher: No, but also you didn't do an overall parkrun PB. Surely you can ring it if it's an overall parkrun PB.

00:09:33Scott Trickett: I look at it as a PB on that course.

00:09:35Melissa Erbacher: I always do whenever I run a course for the first time as well. And I always look at 59.59s as equal first finisher for everyone. Yeah. I'm yet to run an event where I've enjoyed a 59-59, so I've never been a first finisher.

00:09:53Scott Trickett: But one day I hope to. That's your aim. It's good to have dreams and goals, hope for a timing malfunction.

00:09:59Melissa Erbacher: And I encourage volunteers to mess up the timekeeping so that happens. Or for the batteries to fall off the back, which is more often the case. It's not usually the volunteers' fault.

00:10:12Scott Trickett: It happens every now and then. I've never experienced a 59-59. Neither of you combined, we must have done almost 300 runs. That's a pretty good track record.

00:10:22Melissa Erbacher: It is, yeah. We should get Ian to check out the next time we have facts in the haystack to look at the percentage of how many 59.59s have happened in the history of Australian parkrun compared to how many haven't happened.

00:10:37Scott Trickett: Yeah. Okay, can you write that down so we remember to mention that to Ian when he comes on in a couple of weeks' time? Ian? Ian? You're on notice. But that's it. That's what's been happening. I've actually been feeling really good these past couple of months. I've changed some things with my diet. I'm looking forward to catching up with Adrian, who's been at a winery later on in the episode because I've started drinking again. Ah, okay.

00:11:04Melissa Erbacher: So that New Year's resolution didn't last.

00:11:06Scott Trickett: No, no. I haven't become a drunk. I've just started enjoying a glass of wine every now and then, and there's no denying it. Wine tastes nice.

00:11:18Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. Well, you know who's getting a parkrun a little bit later this year?

00:11:25Scott Trickett: Yes, I do. I'm very excited.

00:11:28Melissa Erbacher: The Barossa Valley, for those who don't know, is getting a parkrun called Barossa Bush Gardens. I'm a bit keen for that one. I haven't been to the Barossa in a couple of years, so I might have to make a trip down.

00:11:41Scott Trickett: Me neither. Should we go?

00:11:42Melissa Erbacher: I think we should. Should we make an adventure out of it? Well, obviously. Yeah. I know you don't tend to do launches, but shall we go down for the launch?

00:11:52Scott Trickett: What a great idea. When is the launch?

00:11:56Melissa Erbacher: It's the 16th of September, I believe.

00:11:59Scott Trickett: Let's put it in our diaries. I'm excited.

00:12:03Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I'm excited too. And I think we should stay an extra couple of days just to take in all the vineyards. Done.

00:12:10Scott Trickett: Done. I like having the podcast back. We're making holiday plans.

00:12:14Melissa Erbacher: It's good. We are. These are important plans to make. Plans for more adventures.

Around the world

00:12:28Scott Trickett: We haven't been around the world for a while in the podcast and it's time to visit America. I think the next big country to explode parkrun wise and joining us is their country manager, Darrell Stanaford. Welcome to the podcast, Darrell. Thank you, Scott. Great to join you guys. You're in the heart of parkrun USA these days. You're in Baltimore, Washington. How's that going? How is the growth of parkrun in that part of the world?

00:12:56Darrell Stanaford: We've been quite lucky. Um, We have a really great team that's come together here, quite coincidentally. It's an international team. It's both an American team and an international team. And it came together simply coincidentally in the middle of 2015. And since then, it's really been growing well. Not at the same pace that things have been in Australia or the UK, obviously, once they got going. but nonetheless at a good pace for us.

00:13:30Melissa Erbacher: And Daryl, how did you get involved with parkrun?

00:13:34Darrell Stanaford: So I spent 20 years in Moscow, Russia, living and working there. Worked for a company, CBRE, in real estate. And Moscow has big parks, but it also has about six months of winter. And so I'd gotten into the habit of spending time on the treadmill, but not a lot of time. And I got bored starting to run farther on the treadmill and decided to try to run outside some. This was in the spring of 2014 and so I went online and said 5k in Moscow and the first thing that popped up was the new parkrun in Gorky Park and so I attended I believe the second parkrun in Gorky Park that May and got fairly hooked on it and we were starting our transition then. Our son was entering his senior year boarding school in Surrey in Cobham in England and so soon after starting parkrun to participate in parkrun in Moscow I ended up spending time quite quite a bit of time over a nine month period in Surrey and ended up attending both Bushy Park and Guildford in the UK and my wife who's Russian who's not a runner and who had just turned 50 she ran the first 5k ever in her life and at the 10th anniversary run in Bushy Park. And to be honest, it was both a great experience and for a person who's not used to being hot and sweaty and wet, it wasn't an ideal experience. Because although Bushy Park is amazing with the 25 volunteers and the funnel management and everything, when we had 1,900 people for the 10th anniversary run, it took a while to get the token. And then it took a while to get out of the car park. And but indeed it shows the power of parkrun that in spite of her spending an hour being hot and sweaty that she wasn't used to being, she in the end demanded to go back again and also got into the parkrun habit.

00:15:40Melissa Erbacher: So you do it as a family. Does your son parkrun as well?

00:15:44Darrell Stanaford: Our son is not an enthusiastic runner. He's 20. He likes to play soccer. He likes real sports that involve skill and movement in varying directions rather than just straight ahead all the time. So he does not find running five kilometers terribly exciting, but he has come out and volunteered at each of our inaugurals and so supports us in our parkrun spirit.

00:16:10Scott Trickett: That's a good start. He's in that age bracket that has struggled to embrace parkrun. And the American population, are they starting to embrace parkrun? Are they starting to get it? We say the numbers are growing.

00:16:23Darrell Stanaford: They are starting to get it. We have an interesting situation in the United States. So the D.C. area, it really is catching on here, but not for lack of alternatives. So the larger metropolitan areas in the United States, particularly those that are thriving right now, the fitness craze is going full on. And Of course, the fitness industry is a huge industry in the United States. And so besides having lots of paid for 5Ks available any given weekend, you also have all sorts of other cross-training available. So there is a lot of competition for parkrun here. But at the same time, people are tired of paying for 5Ks. And so we found that people really enjoy it coming out. There is a little bit... in the United States of this desire to have something exciting, something special, some hook. What is the attraction? Are people going to throw colored paint on me? Are they going to give away lots of neat prizes? What's going to be the thing that makes it special? And it's a little bit different for people to find that the thing that makes it special is the other people, the camaraderie, the cheering each other on, and the social aspect. and actually talking with the other people that participate in the run and meeting new people. So it's really kind of counterculture for us in the United States right now. And it's been welcomed, I think, for that.

00:18:01Melissa Erbacher: Do you think it's one of those things, I mean, obviously all of these other events that have the hook, the color runs of the world and the neon runs and all those sorts of things, they're, they're a bit of a flash in the pan. You know, you do them once and it's, oh yeah, that was pretty fun. But then you kind of get over it. Do you think parkrun is going to have that lasting effect on people? They're going to get there and they are going to go, oh, you know what? I could do this every week. I'm not going to get bored of this like those other events.

00:18:33Darrell Stanaford: I think it does. We see that already. And again, it's because the people, um, it's not boring to come back and see people that you enjoy spending time with or coming back and saying, I wonder who I'll meet this week at parkrun. So I think that's an ongoing attraction for people. And particularly in an environment where more and more of the interaction is virtual through social media to get out and actually talk with a real person that you can see and interact with is a fun experience. So we were talking about parkrun and starting to grow here in the Northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland area, and it was really a confluence of events and people coming together. So when I eventually did get back here after Moscow and there were no parkruns anywhere nearby, I contacted parkrun, and within a week of doing that, I met a guy here named Peter Blank, who he said, gee, you're the second person this week to ask me about parkrun. And a week before, a local American, Henry Wigglesworth, had asked Peter if anybody else was interested in starting a parkrun in the area and also had contacted parkrun. And shortly before that, Dee Coughlin, an Irishman who's a cancer research fellow here in D.C., and Andreas Falconer, a Brazilian with a UK passport who works at the World Bank, within the same period in the middle of 2015, he'd also contacted parkrun. So Paul Sinton-Hewitt connected the four of us, and we met at a coffee place at the beginning of September 2015. And by January 2016, we had the first parkrun going at Fletcher's Cove here. And we were fortunate that both Paul and Nick Pearson came through DC on the way back from trips and met all of us. And, of course, we absorbed their enthusiasm, but I think they also felt our enthusiasm. And so it went on from there. A couple up in College Park who have been in the U.S. 20 years, one Englishman and an American, Andrea Zukowski and Colin Phillips, they attended the inaugural at Fletcher's Cove and decided they were going to start a parkrun in college park. But at that time it was still a situation where to start a parkrun here, you had to set up your own nonprofit. You had to figure out your own insurance and set up your own bank account to collect the funds because there was no parkrun us. So while they were doing all that, they did 33 practice runs, which I don't know if that's a record for parkrun or not, but that's quite a few. They did six months of a trial runs, much like perhaps Paul did at the beginning. In the meantime, parkrun decided, okay, we'll set up a nonprofit for the US. And in the summer that happened, James Kemp, who's been our parkrun ambassador, who taught us and trained us, he worked with the lawyers here that were helping pro bono, got the legal entity set up. And at that point I said, okay, I'll get the insurance organized in a bank account. And so we got national insurance and the national bank account set up. And fortunately for me, I didn't find a full-time job transitioning back. And Everything eventually came together where I volunteered and the guys agreed that I would lead parkrun in the US. And things have kept going from there. And our team just keeps growing and growing. And so we really now have about eight people in our core team in the area that are just terrific.

00:22:19Melissa Erbacher: We're all about the adventures, and so obviously our listeners are keen to hear about the different courses and things. Can you give us a little bit of an overview of the different types of events that you've got in the U.S. so far?

00:22:32Darrell Stanaford: Certainly. Just within what we call a DMV, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia area, we now have four events fairly close together. We have quite a good variety, both in terms of flat events, or not flat, shaded, not shaded, adventurous, not adventurous. Both Roosevelt Island and Leakin Park in Baltimore have some hills. They're largely shaded, and they go through the woods. Roosevelt Island is in the middle of the Potomac River, two miles, less than two miles from the White House. So it's quite a Quite an interesting one, and it has good public transportation access, so we're fortunate to get the most visitors. We've also been getting the most registrations, which is interesting. Fletcher's Cove and College Park are both fast courses, both pretty courses. We now have a new parkrun down in Richmond, Virginia, two hours south of Washington, D.C. It has the biggest hills of any of our parkruns. It's called Deep Run parkrun. And it has the biggest hills of any of the U.S. parkruns. On the other coast, we have Crissy Field, which I imagine many people have heard of already, with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Nice flat course. Clermont in Florida is actually the most popular with international tourists because it's located next to Disney World. Livonia, Michigan is the original parkrun, a suburb of Detroit. It's just celebrated five years. And then we have three new parkruns that... in the long term will actually be more representative of the United States than the aforementioned parkruns. We have Eagan, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul, Minneapolis. We have Ottawa, Illinois, which is two hours outside of Chicago. And we have Mansfield, Ohio, which is pretty much in the middle of Northern Ohio, halfway between Columbus and Cleveland, population 53,000. And it's the county seat of a very agricultural community. And the other legacy parkrun we have is, meaning one of our old original parkruns, is in Durham, North Carolina. So those are our total 12. But as I talked about our big cities having so many things going on, I didn't mention that our smaller cities and towns, like Mansfield, Ohio, Ottawa, Illinois, and hopefully soon Moberly, Missouri, we have literally thousands of communities that don't have the critical mass of affluent, just large numbers of people ready to pay for fitness. Hundreds of thousands or millions of people ready to pay for fitness. The fitness industries haven't developed around them, and these towns have a real lack of activities. They'll have a couple of charity runs during the year, but most weekends you're hard pressed to find something to do. And these are the communities where we have the biggest problems with obesity and sedentary lifestyles. These are the places that are really welcoming parkrun and where we believe parkrun will make the biggest difference.

00:25:52Scott Trickett: So is that going to be your focus moving forward? Maybe not focusing on big cities like New York and Chicago, but maybe looking at these smaller rural towns to help grow parkrun and its numbers?

00:26:06Darrell Stanaford: Well, as we all know, you can't go into a town and say, let's start a parkrun and just you can't put pins on the map and say, we're going to start parkruns in all of these cities. Um, you have to go where the volunteers are asking for parkruns. And we are finding that I'd say it's about two thirds in the smaller communities and one third in the larger communities, but in the big cities, it's harder and people get more frustrated more quickly. Uh, In several of the big cities in the United States, we cannot get permits for weekly events. In some cases, not at any price. In other cases, only at thousands of dollars a month because the parks are very crowded and very busy. And at this point, and understandably so, the parks management are not interested in increasing the number of events. So in the larger cities, the people are focusing farther out into the suburbs in the parks that are less crowded. so our strategy is to follow our volunteers to support any event director and local team that is ready to start a parkrun and i think it's going to be about two-thirds in the smaller communities and one-third in the big cities sounds like a good plan daryl now

00:27:31Melissa Erbacher: Do you think one of the challenges, looking at the map of America and you've got Crissy Field in San Francisco is this one isolated event over on the West Coast and then you've got most of your events at the moment over on the East Coast. Do you think one of the challenges of finding those volunteers to say, hey, we want a parkrun in our community is that nobody knows about it?

00:27:54Darrell Stanaford: That is indeed the case and we've been getting a lot of local publicity from But before this past week in the article in the Wall Street Journal, we had not had a lot of national publicity. So during this past week, we have received 45 new inquiries from all around the country from people interested in starting a parkrun. And only about 20% of those are people that have had some exposure to parkrun previously, either because they're expats that have moved here, or they're Americans who were expats at some point in their lives and experienced parkrun. So 80% of those people have no exposure to parkrun previously.

00:28:37Melissa Erbacher: That was a great article in the Wall Street Journal. Was it something that you approached them about, or one of their writers, journalists, was actually a parkrunner?

00:28:49Darrell Stanaford: It is a great example of a team effort. Rachel Bachman said, The journalist had tweeted something that caught Paul Sinton Hewitt's attention. He tweeted her back. She said, hmm, that's interesting. And she said, maybe I'll do an article. And Colin Phillips, who's co-event director at College Park, who's a linguistics professor and who is our biggest data geek here in the US, he sent her some interesting information. But she was still lukewarm until... Henry Wigglesworth, who has been on our board and co-founded Fletcher's Cove with us, was one of the gang of four that I mentioned. His daughter had been in a school activity with Gerald Smith, the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal. And Henry sent another email to him saying, hey, parkrun is popping up again. Rachel's thinking about doing an article. Please encourage her. So just at the right time, Rachel got hit effectively from three sides. one of those sides being her editor-in-chief. So that probably helped tip the scales in our favor to get it going. But it's just another example of the great diversity of contacts and people that we have that seem to be making things happen in the U.S. And you said one of the things to come out of that article was you had 45 new inquiries this week? We have indeed. It's been a very interesting week. We've had 45 new inquiries to start parkruns. Nationally, we had 400 new registrations, which our previous record for a week was 298. And we did set a new record in attendance, but we think that the attendance is actually going to flow through more gradually over time. And we've had some interesting inquiries. We've had an inquiry from a physician in Kansas who owns a 70-acre park. where he and his wife maintain trails and allow local groups to do their cross-country races there. He'd like to host a parkrun. We've been contacted by a couple of the groups that I've been in contact with already that have their own systems of free runs. We're talking more with them about how we could potentially partner with them. And we've had more attention from parks managers than we have previously, asking about how a parkrun could fit into their communities.

00:31:16Scott Trickett: It sounds exciting. I mean, there's so much diversity in America. You're a massive country, a massive population base, but also the different types of environments and the shades across the country is quite different. So that's got to be exciting for you guys looking towards the future.

00:31:34Darrell Stanaford: It is. We're working with the National Park Service that hosts some of our parkruns here. There are hundreds of national parks across around the country. I don't think we could do a parkrun in the center of Yosemite or somewhere like that, but there are a lot of smaller national parks with very interesting histories that are located adjacent to or inside communities that would be very good for parkruns. And of course, we have every possible environment from coastline to deserts to mountains. Having done parkrun in Russia and seeing, having experienced it in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, I remember a December 10th, 2014 on Yelagin Island in St. Petersburg running on three fresh inches of snow and at 10.15 in the morning, things still being pitch black. So we know that parkrun works in the winter in Minnesota. Livonia has shown us for five years that it works in the north there. Claremont is the opposite. They run at 7.30 in the morning and often with over 90% humidity.

00:32:41Melissa Erbacher: It sounds like you've had quite a few adventures yourself, Daryl. Have you got a top three? And importantly, have you done all 12 events in the USA?

00:32:51Darrell Stanaford: I have not. I have not made it to Crissy field or Livonia yet. I, and I have not made it to Egan yet, uh, for the inaugural at Egan, Colin Phillips went out for us, but, uh, I hope to eventually.

00:33:12Melissa Erbacher: You've done three quarters of the country. That's pretty impressive.

00:33:15Darrell Stanaford: Yeah, I'm afraid that if things continue the way they're going, I will simply fall farther and farther behind. The objective hopefully will become unattainable.

00:33:26Melissa Erbacher: It's a good problem to have. Well, thank you very much for joining us this week, Daryl. It's been wonderful hearing all about what's going on in America and I know a lot of our adventurers have snuck over there for various events. My husband keeps nagging me to go for a trip. He keeps telling me about the flights and how cheap they are and why can't we go. So hopefully it's not too long until I can come over and visit you as well.

00:33:51Darrell Stanaford: We hope you can come and join our many Australian visitors. Hope to make it over there someday. Thanks so much for reaching out, and thanks.

00:34:07Melissa Erbacher: We're now joined by a big-time parkrun adventurer. He hails from Queensland, where he's the event director at Wishart parkrun. But he's just been on some marathon adventures this weekend. Adrian Royce, welcome to the parkrun Adventurers.

00:34:24Adrian Royce: Oh, thank you, Mel. And hi, Scott. It's great to be here. I listen to the podcast all the time. It's just terrific. Love it. Well, that's lovely to hear.

00:34:33Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, Adrian, let's start with your most recent adventures. This weekend, you ran at Hunter Valley Winery Running Festival. Can you tell us a little bit about the festival and how you went?

00:34:45Adrian Royce: Yeah, I think the festival's been running for quite a while, the running festival, and it was at a new venue this year. I've never done it before, but I really wanted a follow-up marathon to Gold Coast and booked in for it quite a while ago, and I happened to win it. So I jagged a win, so it was terrific.

00:35:10Melissa Erbacher: How fast do you have to run to jag a win down there?

00:35:14Adrian Royce: Well... Uh, it was about a four minutes, five second per kilometer pace. And, uh, which, which I don't know, to some people that'll sound very fast and others may not sound that fast, but, uh, it's a very, very hilly marathon. It's 650 meters of elevation, according to Strava. It was just hill after hill after hill.

00:35:41Scott Trickett: Now, Adrian, that sounds pretty tough after Gold Coast only a couple of weeks ago. Is that normal for you to back up a marathon with a marathon?

00:35:51Adrian Royce: No, not really. But unfortunately, Gold Coast, the second half of it, I was very, very sick. And I had to slow down considerably. And it really just felt like a half marathon for me. And so I recovered really quickly from it. So I was pretty well primed for another marathon.

00:36:13Scott Trickett: And you picked a great location to do it. I like the idea of this winery marathon. Tell us more about how the event works and what's the attraction.

00:36:23Adrian Royce: Yeah, it's run at the Vintage Winery and it has a golf course there as well. You kind of run around the golf course a couple of times and then go out and do some very long dog legs. The attraction was just, I had a friend here from Malaysia and they wanted to do a run. And so I just searched on Google and found the winery marathon and thought, oh, that's a good idea. Why don't we go down and do that? Seemed like a good idea at the time.

00:37:01Scott Trickett: What about post-race celebrations?

00:37:03Adrian Royce: Yes, there was plenty of beer and wine at the post-race yesterday.

00:37:08Scott Trickett: It's the place to do it, isn't it?

00:37:10Adrian Royce: Freely flowing. There's vineyards everywhere here.

00:37:16Melissa Erbacher: I've been to previous, not this particular marathon that's in a winery, but I've been to other ones where prize money has also been accompanied by wine for the first place getters or the podium finishers. Did you enjoy that kind of prize too, Adrian?

00:37:34Adrian Royce: Yeah, they gave us plenty of wine, which was good, but now we've got to carry it all back to Queensland somehow.

00:37:43Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you can always get it posted back. They're pretty good at doing that.

00:37:47Adrian Royce: Oh, yes, they are too, yeah. Yeah, no, it's a really well-run event and they also had Olympian Scott Westcott there and he paced the leading pack for about 10 kilometres and then a bit random, he said goodbye to us and then went and paced the half marathons.

00:38:09Melissa Erbacher: He must have had tired legs.

00:38:10[laughter]

00:38:10Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

00:38:12Melissa Erbacher: Didn't want to do the full marathon.

00:38:14Adrian Royce: We might have been a bit slow for him, I was thinking.

00:38:17Scott Trickett: Now, you also, you like finding interesting marathons because you did the Borneo Marathon recently as well. Tell us about that adventure.

00:38:27Adrian Royce: Yeah, so I met up at the World Champs last year. I met some Malaysians and they convinced me to come over and do their Borneo Marathon. And so I thought, well, why not? It turned out that it starts 3 o'clock in the morning, and at 3 o'clock in the morning it's already 29 degrees. And afterwards they said, oh, this has been the hottest marathon we've had in years. I said, oh, thanks very much. But I was able to get second in the Masters division. The Masters was over 40. Now, I know I don't look over 40, okay, but – and – And so I got a podium finish there as well. So that was great. That was a very, very hard marathon. It was hilly as well and very hot. And I ended up having to walk about one and a half kilometres during it.

00:39:26Melissa Erbacher: So you start at three o'clock in the morning. Is it still dark at that time?

00:39:32Adrian Royce: Oh, it's very dark. But the sun rose at about six o'clock. So the challenge was to beat the sunrise before it got really hot.

00:39:45Melissa Erbacher: And do you run with, like, a headlamp or something, or have they lit the course in some way?

00:39:51Adrian Royce: Yes, it was a very well-organised course. It followed the streets and roads around Kota Kinabalu, which is probably the capital of... northwest borneo and um i had lots of volunteers along the way um uh yeah it's about 1800 participants in the marathon so it was no dinky marathon at all very well organized let's turn our attention back to something shorter the ed added wishart parkrun they've been going around for about three years now have you enjoyed those three years Oh, it's just a tremendous thing we've got going at Wishart. Very high community spirit. We never have any problems getting volunteers. We're very close-knit and made so many friends out at Wish Arts. We have a great parkrun going there.

00:40:58Melissa Erbacher: One of the... clips on the 100 parkrun video obviously is from Wishart and it's this beautiful little section where you've got all these jacaranda trees and it's been one of our favorite ones mine and my husband's to go visit we haven't made it there yet but can you tell us a little bit about your course Adrian for those who haven't visited Wishart well it is such a beautiful course with gardens right around it first of all from the start line

00:41:31Adrian Royce: We head north. We follow the Bulimba Creek, which a couple of parkruns now follow that, Manipi and Mansfield. We head north about 650 metres and then follow our feet back again past the start line. And as I say at the first-timers briefing, at this stage, everyone still looks good. During winter we have a tarpaulin put out, which we call a drop zone. So people after 1.3 kilometres can shed off their outer garments, as it were, and keep running the course. And it heads south, crosses a bridge, so that's good for Scotty there. We've got a nice bridge there. Then it goes into a different park where there's lovely gardens and a bubbler there, especially good for summer, and lots of pine trees. And then we turn around and head back to the finish line. So we basically go through three different parks at Wishart parkrun, and each one has its different flora and fauna. You know, on a good day you might see a wallaby out there, or if you look up at the gum trees, a koala, and it's absolutely stunning, yeah. People are so surprised after they've done, say, Stone's Corner or South Bank, and they come to our little parkrun, and it's nestled in South Brisbane, Southeast Brisbane, and it's just absolutely lovely.

00:43:18Scott Trickett: That sounds awesome. I've got a question about we've established you're a fast runner. So what does that mean for your parkrun day experience? Do you treat every parkrun like a good hard session? Do you go hard or do you mix it up or do you love the volunteering aspect? What's your parkrun morning like?

00:43:37Adrian Royce: Yes. Well, I love having a hard run every parkrun and, uh, I thought you were going to say that. I can't help myself. Um, And I think a lot of people get inspired by that. They like seeing the ED going out hard. And I can always wait at the finish line and cheer everyone else in. And it's just great. I mean, there's a bunch of fast runners at Wish Arts. And, you know, we have our own little race within a race and that sort of thing. But it's all friendly stuff, yeah.

00:44:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, you're 150 events in at Wishart and you've got quite the crowd showing up there these days. You did mention Mansfield before, which just launched on the weekend. Can you tell us a little bit about that parkrun?

00:44:27Adrian Royce: Yes, Mansfield's at a nearby suburb to Wishart and it's been held in a park called Tillock Park. It was actually my first idea three and a half years ago to put a parkrun in that park. but I couldn't find a really good five kilometre course there. Since then, as I've travelled around Australia and a lot of different parkruns, I've realised, well, a lot of courses do get manufactured. And I found a nice course and then I still had the vision of having a parkrun there. And especially now that Wishart's getting a lot of numbers, to take some of the pressure off of wish hearts and uh a lot of people do come from the mansfield area and they can have their own little parkrun there leave us alone we can uh we can just uh carry on and hopefully lower numbers at wish hearts and uh yeah so we after um getting a state government grant, we were able to launch on Saturday. There was a delay. We were meant to launch about a month ago, but some sewage works suddenly started happening. We had to delay it to last Saturday.

00:45:49Melissa Erbacher: You have to wait for sewage works. That's important. Yes.

00:45:55Scott Trickett: Hey, how does it rate in your top three? We know you've been to quite a few parkruns. Can you give us your top three? Does Mansfield crack it?

00:46:07Adrian Royce: Well, I might be a bit biased there with Mansfield, and it is a very beautiful course too. It's got a nice hill in it. It follows the Bulimba Creek as well, just as I said, like Manipi and Wishart does. And it was very lovely on Saturday. It was lots of ducks and birds around and a few waterfalls. And it's got a bridge as well, Scotty. So it really does tick all the boxes. But my favourite parkruns are always those ones like Goondiwindi, Dalby and Warwick. They're just really typical Aussie parkruns out there. They typify... as though they have a billabong out there, as though the swagman could be there, you know, with his tucker bag. I love those ones. I'm not really a beach sort of parkrun person, and I love going out there to West Queensland and out to those sorts of parkruns.

00:47:08Melissa Erbacher: What a great top three. We haven't had too many bush parkruns mentioned in the top threes in the past, so... I'm keen to get out to those ones myself. I haven't made it there yet, but they're on the list.

00:47:20Adrian Royce: Yeah, I want to go to King of Roy, not King of Roy, Wondi. My best friend comes from Wondi, so I want to go out there and do that one as well. But yeah, they're lovely parkruns out there.

00:47:35Melissa Erbacher: Well, many adventures still to be had. Thank you for joining us on the podcast this week, Adrian, to share some of yours with us.

00:47:42Adrian Royce: My pleasure. Have a great day.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:47:54Melissa Erbacher: A few weeks ago during our break we received some roving adventures from Yeppoon parkrun's launch and here they are.

00:48:02Craig: Okay it's Craig here doing the first parkrun adventure interview. We've just finished the Yipoon parkrun launch and we've just finished our breakfast at Lua Living. I'm here with Natalie who is the ED for the event. How did you find the event went off?

00:48:22Natalie: Good morning. The event went really well. Got over 100 people there, which was fantastic. It was also really good. Obviously, we saw a lot of local Yippoon people, but we had a lot from Rocky and we've also got people down from various areas from Brisbane, which was great to see.

00:48:40Craig: How did you find the challenge of organising the event?

00:48:44Natalie: It was just... Spending a lot of time with Council, which was our local sponsor, to organise things there and get their support. To get a parkrun up and running, it takes time, but we have really good people to help us through, especially Craig, Territory Director, who was of a lot of assistance. It was also great to go to other parkruns to see how they operated but I found with parkrun that they have a lot of good resources which we really took advantage of. So it did take about six to eight months somewhere around that ballpark to get it up and running.

00:49:31Craig: So what would you say to anyone that was talking to you about the possibility of running it, organising an event in their town, what would your suggestion and recommendation be to them?

00:49:43Natalie: I'd say go nuts. It's fantastic. It's a really, really good thing to have in your local community. By any means, you can get in touch even with parkrun HQ just to get some direction from them. But yeah, it's very, very beneficial and I think if it's something that you want to bring to your local community, I think that you should definitely do it.

00:50:07Craig: Now today's event, by all accounts we have broken the Queensland Statesman arrangement. We didn't have any statesmen turn up for the event so we now have at least one week where we don't have a Queensland Statesman. So that means potentially more tourists coming in for Yipoon. What would your recommendation be to people turning up? They should hang around for a while, make a holiday out of it, in and out in the day.

00:50:40Natalie: I definitely think that Yipoon is a beautiful little piece on the little town on the coastline definitely recommend if everyone has the time to make a weekend of it you can always come down the night before we've got beautiful beaches here we all come to Lua afterwards for a coffee so yeah I think that if there's opportunity for people to stay in town for a little bit I think it's a good thing

00:51:07Craig: Now, all your volunteers, you had a good number of volunteers kicking around today. How did you find that they all went, or even yourself, did you find any challenges with the actual event for the day, or it all went smoothly?

00:51:24Natalie: It all went smoothly this morning, purely because we did two trial runs where we did have some issues that we tackled and worked through and resolved. So trial runs are fantastic for that because it gives you the opportunity to make sure that things on launch day where you have your big numbers, that things do run smoothly. And we have got at the moment a good number of volunteers at Yeppoon parkrun, but however, It's encouraged that we do get a good amount of volunteers available to us so people can have a break or even some of the volunteers here are able to do a run. It's fantastic to get volunteers on board so if anyone would like to do that please don't hesitate to contact us.

00:52:11Craig: Okay, last question. You've had almost a little bit of royalty turn up for your launch with the CEO turning up for the event. Gate crashing podcast, the podcast interview.

00:52:23Natalie: Good timing, we're just talking about you.

00:52:25Craig: We were going to organize a separate interview for Tim. But here he is. Looking very serious in the corner of the cafe. So how did you find the challenge of having royalty turn up?

00:52:34Natalie: it was lovely it was very good you're talking about the professor professor Burrell he paid me out for not knowing some people but anyway we've moved on we've since become friends um no it was it was great to have Tim here um with us and yeah great for everyone at attending parkrun to actually um see him participating so yeah it was fantastic hi I'm Adrian from Wishart parkrun

00:52:59Unidentified speaker: How did you find the launch today?

00:53:01Adrian Royce: The launch was just fantastic and I was really excited that there's quite a lot of people there and quite a lot of locals and the parkrun place there is well positioned next to a main road so you'll get plenty of drivers going past thinking, what is that? What's going on there? Every Saturday morning and that's a really good way to grow.

00:53:26Unidentified speaker: How did you find the course?

00:53:28Adrian Royce: The course, yeah, it was just brilliant. I mean, it's a slight gradient going up to the first turnaround, which was a bit of a surprise, but coming back from the turnaround, you can pick up a whole lot of speed and make up for that, so that was great.

00:53:44Unidentified speaker: Well, thank you very much, Adrian. Okay.

00:53:48Tony Jennings: G'day, I'm Tony Jennings, and... I'm a parkrun tourist and this is my 78th different tourist parkrun in Australia and I'm glad to be here in Yipoon.

00:54:02Unidentified speaker: So how did you find the launch today?

00:54:05Tony Jennings: It was great. I really enjoyed the event. This parkrun has got a character of its own with a gentle, steady incline all the way to the halfway mark and then a run back down so it's a bit of a challenge on the way out but a bit of relief on the way back. It's in a nice scenic setting so yeah I quite enjoyed it.

00:54:30Dylan: Hi, my name is Dylan. I'm at Lua Living with Tim. We have just finished the Yipoon parkrun launch. And how are you going?

00:54:39Tim Oberg: Great. Dylan, great to be here. I've made the five and a half hour drive yesterday from Airlie Beach with the family. So I've got my wife, three kids and two dogs in tow. And in North Queensland terms, five and a half hours is just around the corner. So it's great to be here and I'm very thrilled to be at another parkrun launch with you guys hanging out in the cafe.

00:55:01Unidentified speaker: How did you find the launch today?

00:55:03Tim Oberg: Well, there was more people than I expected. I think there was 109 or 120. 110, yeah. 110, which is fantastic. And I noticed too that the local running club, Capricorn Runners, there was about 50 of them out on the course today as well doing their own runs. So it's good to see that running is certainly alive and well here in Yipoon. Um, lots of parkrun tourists. We've got people from as far away as Kingscliff, so across the border in New South Wales. Obviously lots of people from Rockhampton, which is only 30 minutes away. And then a good handful from, from Brisbane who are up here. People trying, like, uh, Alan Burrell and, and Rasheen Burrell and Adrian Royce who are trying to, uh, continue striving towards their statesmen and stateswomen status. um so yeah it was it was brilliant really good atmosphere lovely course um very fast on the inbound leg because it's kind of downhill a bit slower on the outbound leg but um no great to be here and it's been a great morning so what do you think the future of parkrun will be like what the plan for the future will be yeah well good good question and uh obviously We're seeing our 5K Saturday events are just continuing to grow around the country. I think last week we launched in Coffs Harbour, which was three years in the making. Some events get up and running really quickly, others take a really long time. I certainly take my hats off to the team in Coffs Harbour for last week for persisting in getting that one up and running. What's really exciting on the horizon for parkrun is Junior parkrun, which is going to be the event for children ages 4 to 14. It's going to be Sunday morning at 8am. We're almost on the verge of announcing a launch date, which is really exciting. And yeah, so that's going to be huge. We're working really hard behind the scenes at the moment to get everything ready to get Junior parkrun happening. So look, yeah, that's really exciting. Watch this space and we hope to have something to announce on that in the next couple of weeks.

00:57:00Unidentified speaker: Well, that's wonderful. I hope all the parkrun goes ahead for the juniors.

00:57:04Scott Trickett: Some familiar voices there. Literally, we heard Adrian for the second time. Tim was in there. Craig, our Territory Director, who organised it all with Dylan and Tara. Thanks to the team at Yipoon.

00:57:18Melissa Erbacher: Lots of launches happening lately, Scotty. It's awesome.

00:57:21Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:57:22Melissa Erbacher: Queensland and South Australia, they're going gangbusters down that way.

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

00:57:27Scott Trickett: This week we've just got one coming up in South Australia, which is Cleland, which is going to be their first trail parkrun.

00:57:36Adrian Royce: I think they're all a bit excited about that.

00:57:38Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think there's been a little bit of, ooh, what's going on here business. They're not used to it. But, you know, not all parkruns have to be the same.

00:57:49Melissa Erbacher: No, and it's always fun to offer something different as well, isn't it?

00:57:52Scott Trickett: Exactly, exactly. Like, you know, you can't take a pram on some, but that's fine. You can take a pram on others and you can't take a dog on some, but that's fine because you can take your dog elsewhere.

00:58:02Adrian Royce: But I would encourage everyone in South Australia to embrace the old trail parkrun.

00:58:10Scott Trickett: They can be lots of fun when you don't fall over.

00:58:13Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. Yeah. Speaking of places that don't allow dogs, we've got some anniversaries coming up this weekend and Armidale in New South Wales are celebrating.

00:58:24Scott Trickett: Don't they allow dogs there?

00:58:26Melissa Erbacher: They don't because they actually run on university grounds, which is effectively private property, I guess. And so they're not allowed to have dogs, which is really disappointing because we were hoping to do that one a few years ago when we were on a road trip with our hounds and we ended up diverting elsewhere. because, yeah, puppies weren't allowed.

00:58:48Scott Trickett: Good reminder to, if you're taking a dog, just check. Check the website and make sure it's all kosher.

00:58:55Melissa Erbacher: But there are also three anniversaries this weekend in Queensland, so a lot of cake going on up here.

00:59:01Scott Trickett: Coomera, Maryborough and Weipa.

00:59:04Melissa Erbacher: Wow, Weeper, that's gone fast.

00:59:07Scott Trickett: Hasn't it? Yeah, lots happening up in Queensland this Saturday.

00:59:15Melissa Erbacher: Have you got any adventures coming up, Scotty?

00:59:18Scott Trickett: Look, I don't. My calendar is pretty bare. I'm making some plans to do some stuff that will come out over time, but I can't actually lock into any parkrun dates for the next few weeks. So it's an open book.

00:59:33Melissa Erbacher: So you're not just saying that to lure me into a false sense of security?

00:59:36Scott Trickett: Definitely not. No. I literally have no plans.

00:59:41Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's all right. I'm following your lead and I'm heading back to a whole bunch of events that I've already actually participated at in the past. So we can take a little hiatus from our competition for a while with me happily ahead of you. Yeah.

00:59:56Scott Trickett: Hey, it's still fun to go back. You know, I had a great time. at Airlie and at Laylaw, just because you've done them before, it still means they're fun.

01:00:04Melissa Erbacher: Well, the benefit is you've also already met some of the people before and they're more likely to remember you, even if you don't remember their names necessarily. So they'll come and say hooray again. So I do love going back to events I've already been to before, even if they're not my home parkrun. But that's it for episode 70-something.

01:00:25Scott Trickett: 70-something, yep. So how are we going to work this going forward, Mel? Are we going to stick to a weekly release or are we going to play around with that format?

01:00:37Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. I think we could be a little bit flexible.

01:00:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, let's go with a flexible approach moving forward. We probably won't have a month off like we've just done.

01:00:47Melissa Erbacher: No, I missed us too much.

01:00:49Scott Trickett: Did you?

01:00:50Melissa Erbacher: I did.

01:00:51Scott Trickett: Hey, did anybody ask you where's the podcast?

01:00:54Melissa Erbacher: Repeatedly. Really? And on a weekly basis, yeah.

01:00:58Scott Trickett: That's kind of nice, isn't it? I had quite a few questions too.

01:01:00Melissa Erbacher: It is kind of nice. Yeah.

01:01:03Scott Trickett: So thanks for those few people that did miss us. We missed you all too. And I missed you, Mel. It's good to catch up again.

01:01:10Melissa Erbacher: It is good to catch up. It's been far too long.

01:01:12Scott Trickett: Yeah. So let's do it again soon.