Episode 79

Episode details · 171 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:07Scott Trickett: Just when you were getting used to it. That's the last time you're going to hear that intro music because we're at episode 79 of the parkrun Adventurers.

00:00:08[music]

00:00:17Melissa Erbacher: We've made it through the 70s.

00:00:19Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:00:20Melissa Erbacher: It's been a long time, hasn't it? You know, we had a little bit of a...

00:00:26Scott Trickett: hiatus in the middle there a baby was born you know it's been a huge decade looking forward to the 80s I've always I consider myself a kid of the 80s oh me too I'm that old big time so I look forward to next week so this week No, this week, great episode this week. We had a really good chat to our guest, long chat to Brady from Tell Me Your Tales podcast. So look forward to that a bit later. But before we get to that, Mel, tell me your tales. What's been happening in your world this week?

00:01:06Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I've had a busy one. Last weekend, I headed up north to Harvey Bay parkrun's third anniversary. They had a yellow theme, which... which would normally not pose too much of a problem for me, because I have a bumblebee outfit. However, I wore the bumblebee outfit last year for, I can't remember, I think it was just a fancy dress, just plain, whatever you wanted to wear, and I managed to choose the only yellow costume that I had last year. So, of course, I couldn't wear it two years in a row, and I had to make something new, and Wes was going along with me, so... I did happen to have some furry yellow fabric and we now own matching monster beanies. So we went as little furry monsters. So that was good fun. I did leave it a little bit last minute and had to finish off the costume in the hotel room in Hervey Bay, which meant that the floor was covered in furry yellow fluff by the time I left. So I gave the cleaner something to do.

00:02:10Scott Trickett: Housekeeping would have loved you.

00:02:13Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I know, right? But the actual event itself was awesome, as always. The guys up there do a great job. Sophie, who was the event director, handed over the reins. And we've got some newbies heading up who are going. We've heard them on the podcast before, actually. It's Stuart Marshall and his wife, Julie Morrison. So that's very cool. Yeah. Welcome to the world of event directorship, guys.

00:02:42Scott Trickett: So how does that go when an event director stands down? Was there emotion? Was there excitement? Or was there just a passing of the torch and carry on business as usual?

00:02:55Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, they've got a fantastic team up there. And Sophie is staying on as a run director. So she's basically just stepping back a little bit in terms of the responsibility. But she's still going to be there. She's not completely leaving. So it wasn't as... you know, emotional as somebody who's just, I guess, going to go away and never be seen again kind of thing. So it's, yeah, it's just a little bit of a change in the guard. But yeah, exciting. It's going to be great. They're going to do a good job. I always enjoy the ED handovers because it's more fun for more people to experience the role.

00:03:31Scott Trickett: Did the showman show up? Was he in costume as well?

00:03:36Melissa Erbacher: No, the showman unfortunately had to work last Saturday, so it was just me and Wes in Hervey Bay this time.

00:03:42Scott Trickett: He's grinding at the moment, isn't he? It's just work, work, work.

00:03:45Melissa Erbacher: He is. Well, you know, if you've got a wife that doesn't go to work and a new baby son, I guess you kind of have to keep paying the bills, don't you? So, yes, he's keeping very busy. And what did you get up to last parkrun day, Scotty?

00:04:01Scott Trickett: It was a little bit weird. My girls went and visited Newport Lakes for their launch, but I didn't go.

00:04:09Melissa Erbacher: Oh, there you go. So you guys were the same as us.

00:04:13Scott Trickett: Yeah, Team Trickett was split across Melbourne. I went to just Westerfolds, had a lovely run there with all the regulars and then did a training session afterwards, which was absolutely brutal. There's lots of hills at Westerfolds. We managed to find a few more.

00:04:33Melissa Erbacher: Or turn some flat areas into hills?

00:04:37Scott Trickett: My coach had this idea just to do hill reps at the end of the session and like not little hills, like short, sharp, and you've got to run them fast and you really, really hurt. But these are the things you do. But my girls, Team Trickett, was over at the Newport Lakes launch and everything coming out of that event is positive. That looks like a cracker. Looks a bit weird on the map. If you look at the map, it looks like it's a small park. So to get 5K, you're going up and back and around and whatever. And it's in a sort of a highly populated area, a little bit industrial back in the day. It's being gentrified now. But then there's this quarry in the middle of this suburb that a lot of people, locals, don't know is there. And they've converted it to parklands. And they're very pretty. Bit of a challenge.

00:05:33Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. And so, Vonnie and Kasia have added a new event to their most events list, and you still maintain the same number as last week.

00:05:44Scott Trickett: Yes, so nothing's changed.

00:05:45Melissa Erbacher: Sounds like somebody else is getting in on the race.

00:05:51Scott Trickett: They've been to parkrun a couple of times without me, so they've been to events that I haven't done.

00:05:58Melissa Erbacher: oh, there you go. Well, no, Adam's done the same thing. He's travelled down to Melbourne and he's done events that I haven't done in other places as well. How dare they? Yeah, well, as long as they're willing to do them again when we want to go back, that's fine. I don't have a problem with it. He's certainly not threatening my position on the most events list at this stage. However, I have had the calendar out and I've been looking at the future roster for Kawana and looking at the weeks where I'll be at anniversaries for events in my territory and other things toward the end of the year because I've got a lot of making up to do I started the year strong but I wanted to get 15 that was my new year's resolution 15 new events and I'm going to be pushing it so there's going to have to be a lot of adventures squeezed into the end of this year in order for me to reach that new year's goal

00:06:53Scott Trickett: Yeah, so just remind us of that goal. What was it? 15 a year. So it was over one a month.

00:06:59Melissa Erbacher: 15 this year, yeah. So it was supposed to be more than one every month. And of course, there were a couple of months where I didn't do any new events. So I had adventures because I was going to other events, but they were events that I'd already been to, so... And then I do things like volunteer at Varsity Lakes instead of running it the first time, which doesn't help my case. But maybe I can include that in my overall total. I might have to be a little bit lenient with my own goals this year.

00:07:34Scott Trickett: Did you run on Saturday or you just volunteered?

00:07:38Melissa Erbacher: I volunteered. Yeah, I was the timekeeper again. So it's my role of choice, I think, when I go to other events. I always enjoy the good old stopwatch, avoiding the 59-59 where possible.

00:07:54Scott Trickett: I didn't mind a stopwatch malfunction at Westerfolds on Saturday.

00:08:00Melissa Erbacher: A malfunction?

00:08:02Scott Trickett: Oh, not a malfunction.

00:08:04[crosstalk]

00:08:04Melissa Erbacher: Just a bit of... Creative volunteering?

00:08:05Scott Trickett: Yeah, a bit of creative volunteering, I think.

00:08:07Melissa Erbacher: And there was a little bit of panic. I can't honestly say that I was perfect in my role. I did manage to hold the button down twice and I missed somebody later on. But I knew where it happened, so we were able to fix it.

00:08:22Scott Trickett: Okay, so no angry emails during the week?

00:08:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, I don't get those emails.

00:08:29Scott Trickett: It's not my event. True, so it was a hit and run.

00:08:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, pretty much.

00:08:33Scott Trickett: There you go. Don't know what I did. Pressed a few wrong buttons. See ya.

00:08:37Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, good luck with that. No, no angry emails that I'm aware of.

00:08:53Scott Trickett: For this week's guest on the podcast, we thought it was time to talk a bit of shop, a bit of shop talk, podcast talk. Brady Threlfall is joining us this week, and Brady's got a podcast, a great little podcast.

00:09:06Brady Threlfall: Thanks, Scott, and thanks, Mel. It's a bit weird being on this side of the microphone this week. As you said, I've kind of got my own podcast. I'm usually the one firing the questions away, but looking forward to have a discussion, all things running and podcasting today.

00:09:19Scott Trickett: Well, let's see how you go because we're going to be asking you questions, so you have to answer them this week. So you've got your podcast, Tell Me Your Tales. Do you want to start off explaining what the podcast is and what it's about and how it came about?

00:09:35Brady Threlfall: Yeah, good question. Tell Me Your Tales is, it's probably three parts to my Tell Me Your Tales podcast. The first part is I like to sit down with people into running or health or yeah, just kind of wise people around the sport of fitness industry and have lengthy conversations with them about their life and their routines and their journey in running. And We kind of, I don't really prepare massive interview questions. It's probably more of a conversation and we let the conversation go all over the place and just, yeah, dig deep into their life. We talk about some of their races that they've had in the past and different training sessions and training methods they use. Probably more particular marathon runners. So, you know, I've had a range of guests on, you know, the likes of Virginia Moloney who just ran 2:29 up at the Gold Coast race. earlier this year. Josh Harris, Brad Milosevic, who both went over, and Jack Colreavy, actually, all three Australian representatives at the World Championships over at London in the marathon just a couple of weeks ago. And yeah, I guess it's kind of just a raw conversation where we talk all things running. Everything from heart rate data to gels and nutrition and all those kind of different training philosophies that different people use in their lead up to marathons and training. So that's kind of one part of Tell Me Your Tales. The second part is the Road to Berlin podcast series. So that's a part of Tell Me Your Tales where myself... uh Julian Spence and Bradley Croker Julian's down in Ballarat and Brad's up in Canberra we're all running the Berlin Marathon in just over three weeks time so we've documented all our training from about 14 weeks out and we kind of hit different topics in our conversation each week and that's been a big surprise I originally started with the conversations just on the podcast and then That led to the idea to get the boys on because they were both past guests as well and talk about our training and journey. And it was one of those things that we put it out there and we weren't really sure if we'd continue it. And then the response was just massive. We've had people emailing questions and following us on Strava. And we've got a kind of a worldwide following now. We've got a big listenership over in Norway and Ireland and people in Berlin actually emailing us saying, you know, when you get here, we can... take you out for dinner and lunch and get you sorted or anything like that so um that's been a huge kind of learning curve just the power of podcasting and just how much people want to i guess understand the nitty-gritty of running not so much the the stuff you're going to read in a one page or two page page spread on a magazine, but actually dig deep into some really elite runners and some runners with some interesting stories, um, profiles and to get really deep into the details. And then the third part of tell me your tales is I profile people in my local community. So, um, you know, I've had a counselor on the CEO of our local council. I've had a guy who owns a gym. I've had, um, a local musician on, just kind of people that I find interesting in my own community and really just wanted to get to know them and get to know their stories. And there's probably not a media where we can get that locally. There's a few kind of newspaper articles on them, but there's nowhere where you can get an hour or a 90 minute conversation. Yeah, podcast kind of on those guys. So I guess I kind of created the podcast a bit selfishly. It was a podcast that I wanted to listen to. And Yeah, it just didn't, no one else was making it. So I thought I might as well have a go and kind of looked into it and created it myself. And I'm really probably appreciative and humbled that a lot of other people are finding value in it.

00:13:19Melissa Erbacher: Do you think the fact that so many people are engaging specifically with your Road to Berlin series is because there are so many wannabe marathoners out there who are keen, as you say, to get into that extra nitty gritty?

00:13:34Brady Threlfall: yeah for sure mel like i i think it's almost um i think we probably got into it and weren't really sure how quickly quickly it was going to develop but i almost compare it to kind of like the reality tv kind of thing like it's um it's reality radio like we're producing a show each week and we're not really sure what's going to happen each week um you know for example brad six weeks ago was the form runner of the three of us and he was smashing everything in training and you know we're kind of thinking he might run 217 218 at berlin and you know two weeks after that he was injured and he's missed three weeks of training and you know looking like it's going to be a real battle for him just to get to the start line now in berlin so i think that concept of the listeners are really on the journey with us it's not like we've got stuff prepared that we're going to release in two or three weeks time it's um you're in the same position as us. We're not sure what's going to happen come race day. And it's, yeah, the journey is a shared one. And I think people probably get a bit, this misconception about elite and probably sub-elite athletes in which we are that we're somewhat different, whereas we're not. Like we talk about the battles of trying to fit in running after work or getting up at 5am to get stuff done or You know Julian often says things like coming home and having a couple of beers just like I'm sure a lot of listeners would as well and I think giving the audience a authentic and a genuine kind of view of elite and sub-elite runners that were very similar to the everyday battler who's

00:15:07Melissa Erbacher: going to parkrun on the weekend or training for Melbourne Marathon to break four or five hours or whatever it is the struggle is probably real and exactly the same so just to try and inspire people at the same time that we're out there doing it and hopefully they can as well it has certainly been an insight for me because I'm obviously not running anywhere near those sorts of splits that you boys do but it's it's definitely been interesting will you be planning on recording when you're in Berlin post-race

00:15:36Brady Threlfall: yeah that's the plan it's um that's probably back to that kind of statement of we're not really sure what's going to happen like we've got a bit of we've probably had to get a bit smarter like uh you know 15 weeks ago it was probably just oh not 15 probably about 12 weeks ago it was three blokes just getting on skype and having a having a conversation and hoping somebody's listened but we've kind of had to sit down behind the scenes and look at you know, the business model behind it and what's the succession plan. And, you know, especially when for me, for Tell Me Your Tales, that's probably my most downloaded show each week. So it's kind of like, well, how am I going to continue to keep the downloads going forward? And we're structuring topics for each week and the listener questions, kind of filtering those into into different shows which fit um fit the topic of each week shows and yeah it's become more of a not so much a business because i don't want to use that word but more more structured i guess than how it was in the past and we've now got to think about so yeah what's it we all want to race and we don't want to be thinking about what you're going to say in the recording um the day after but yeah it's kind of sit down and say well we need to meet at this cafe or this hotel room the day after to debrief because there's people kind of relying on that content now and people that get their kicks out of hearing how we go and how we've gone afterwards so have you put some expectations on the three of you to perform at berlin now do you feel that yeah i do it's um even sometimes in my training runs just around Echuca because we kind of report on each day's kind of training throughout the week you're you might be having a good or a bad session and the thought comes through your head halfway through the session of, oh, how am I going to report this to the podcast next week? Or what's Julian going to think about this? Or what's Brad going to think about this session? And it's often you're thinking about, you know, even this morning, I just went out for an easy jog because I've got a big session this afternoon and, you know, Julian's voice is ringing through in my head saying, you know, no one cares about what pace you run, the easy runs out. It's kind of what you can hit your sessions in. So here I was backing off just to, um almost pay pay Julian a bit of justice so yeah it's I do feel that pressure now but at the same time I think it's a good added pressure to have it's almost like you want to do people proud and you want them to as I said they're on the journey with us and you want them to I think the listeners they want to see us all succeed come race day but it actually yeah it has added a an extra layer of pressure and um you know even brad who i spoke about before who's injured now like we kind of said to him if he doesn't want to come on and talk about his injury and stuff there's no pressure to do so but he was really happy to come in because he feels part of this community now and i know personally i'm not sure if i'd if i was injured if i'd like talking to two other boys who aren't injured about a race we're meant to be doing in a month's time so yeah definitely some added pressure there and um but i think it's good i think that added pressure is only going to help us perform come race day

00:18:34Scott Trickett: I think one of the reasons why you've connected with your audience, and as Mel said, I can't relate to the times you boys are talking about, but I can certainly relate to the training that you're going through. And what I'm picking up from listening to the episodes is that there's new techniques and there's different ways to train, but it's also very similar to what I'm going through. So even though we can't go for a run together at Berlin... I'm relating to what you guys are talking about. Are you aware of that, that even though you boys are fast, you're talking to quite a wide range of runners?

00:19:12Brady Threlfall: Yeah, and I think it's, that's probably where the listener questions have come in the last couple of weeks as well. People have kind of emailed in to clarify, or they might be training for marathons or trying to break a time for five or 10K. And we can kind of put things into their perspective. And you know, you'll know when you listen that we use the terms like marathon pace a lot. So we might do a session or, you know, Julian did a session on the weekend, which was four by 6K at marathon pace. So anyone can pick that session up and do it because everyone's marathon pace is specific to them. So we try to use as many of those terms as possible and to kind of fit anyone out there who listens that they can get something out of it. I guess the mileage is probably something that people can't relate to like we're regularly running anywhere between 160 and 200 kilometers a week and that's just not achievable for some of the listeners which I understand but hopefully they can see that you know roughly 80% of our week we're working hard and the rest of it we're kind of jogging along and recovering so that's something that people can definitely put into their training weeks.

00:20:16Melissa Erbacher: I like how you mention the pressure and a lot of people tend to put things on Facebook saying, oh, I'm going to do this run or I'm going to enter this event. And it's to keep themselves honest and they're putting it out there so that they kind of have confidence. that accountability I know when I do big events I try to half the time not tell anyone because I don't want that pressure and then it's like oh I just did a sneaky half marathon in Canberra you know and nobody knew I was going to do that and and it's because I can't cope with the pressure but I like that you're you're keeping yourselves honest and um and putting yourselves out there for everyone is it I mean you already said that you think the pressure is going to help you on race day but Is it something that you think you'll do again in future, like as an experiment as such?

00:21:08Brady Threlfall: Yeah, I guess the pressure thing is interesting because this will be my third marathon coming up and I ran my first one in Melbourne in 2015 and put it out there that I was going to debut for the marathon and kind of drummed up and wrote a bit of a blog leading up to it and kind of got as many people involved as i could and in the um in the end had a pretty negative experience that that wall that everyone told me about come on at 35k and i ran 226 which i was you know reasonably happy with but i went out a bit fast in that pace and it just wasn't positive at all and i felt like i probably talked it up a bit too much and probably underestimated the the marathon so then when i went into berlin marathon last year when i ran that i kept it similar to you mel i um i told a few people few people knew i was doing it but it wasn't you know i think i might have done my first facebook post about a week out when i was going to europe and just telling people that it was coming up and um i think that was good like going on under the radar and paying respect to the marathon is uh a good thing but this time around i think it's Yeah, the pressure's good and I was just listening to Matt Fitzgerald. He's got a book called Brain Training for Runners talking about how you can use the crowd and how you can use the pressure and a lot of that kind of mindfulness and mental training that you can if there's more people involved than just yourself, when it's time to dig really deep, it's easy to access that and easier to kind of push on. So I know for me, even living in a small community and having friends that come out and pace me on the bike, if I'm starting to kind of find it hard, three quarters or 2K to go into a longer kind of tempo run, I'll often think about that, this person's given up their time to ride their bike next to me on a saturday morning when they could be at home and with their family and that kind of extra pressure kind of brings out the best in myself so um yeah it's it's definitely something that i wish i had the answer to in you know four weeks time to see if it actually works for us because we are letting a lot of people into our personal lives and it's um yeah you know there's people people get a lot of details from an hour and 10 minutes a week about what happens in your life. It's one thing that I'm happy with at the moment, but going forward, I'd like to do it again. I'd like to maybe pick another one, like a Boston or a New York or a London, a big city marathon. introduce maybe two or three other guests and kind of make it a journey to boston or something like that if there's demand there and yeah kind of strategically pick people who i think the listeners will relate well to going forward but probably uh not going to make a call yes or no at this stage because i'll probably wait and see how berlin unfolds let's turn our attention to the podcast itself you're just a you're a teacher by trade yep where did you get the

00:24:01Scott Trickett: by the technology, about setting it up, about organizing guests and all that sort of business? Did that scare you or excite you?

00:24:11Brady Threlfall: um yeah fantastic question scott it i do a lot of running by myself in a Echuca Moama so i was really a big consumer of podcast i'd listen to you know probably three or four regular podcasts that i'd listen to each week and they'd kind of keep me company when i'd be on my longer runs or morning runs or whatever it would be and i think i said it a bit earlier like i I almost wanted someone to create the perfect podcast for me and I kind of got this bit of an itch and a bit of an idea that maybe I could do the same thing. I was a bit disappointed probably in the coverage of kind of elite and sub-elite runners in Australia. I didn't think we did. The Naked Runners guys had a bit of a go at it a couple of years ago, which was good, and Run With Soul, Reedy and Dino up in Sydney, they had a bit of a go at it for a while and And good content, I just thought, I definitely thought there was a space in the market for me to provide those longer conversations. And I just had the content, sorry, the guests that I could, the contacts I could, yeah, just get really easily. So that kind of getting the guests didn't daunt me too much, but at probably trying to find the gender balance, I had a lot of male runners that I could easily send a message to and say, let's talk for an hour on Skype this Sunday night and record it and go from there. Trying to find female runners was quite difficult because for me that was a bit of a step outside my comfort zone because I'd had to kind of approach them and form the relationship originally and then go from there. So that was a bit of a challenge starting up. The technology, I was blown away how easy it was really. i teach ict to the grade six students at school so i'm pretty familiar with garage band not that it takes a lot to get familiar with it but they're yeah pretty easy i bought a usb mic and um you kind of send it off to itunes to to get approved and that come back saying yeah no worries and then it kind of just gone gone from there i've just just grown and grown and had a few little hiccups along the way with different recording um equipment so I originally I used to record and have to do all these dodgy kind of bootleg things and set up different ringing kind of machines to kind of record the guests but now i've just got a program where i just hit record and it just records a whole conversation so that's uh saved me a lot of time and worry it used to be a bit of a worry trying to set up in time used to be about a 20 minute process before i'd record with the guests but yeah the the uploading's probably and editing i don't do a lot of it's kind of because it's such a raw conversation we don't mind if there's pauses or we don't mind if we're dropping in and out and, you know, Brad and I might talk while we're waiting for Julian to come back onto Skype and things like that because it's that authentic and genuine conversation that I want to pass on to people, I guess. I want to provide, I want to have the conversation with people and then let people listen to that. I'm not really interviewing someone for the listeners, if that makes sense.

00:27:17Melissa Erbacher: I'm glad you mentioned the gender aspect split as it were of guests and things like that because it's something I'm very conscious of as well we often say that if we've had several weeks in a row with boys that you know it's a total sausage fest and that we're keen to get more females on do you ever find difficulties with getting women to come on the show because they're reluctant to actually talk

00:27:47Brady Threlfall: no every every person or every female i've approached has been um all good to come on and i've got a couple coming up in the next couple of weeks which i'm i'm happy to kind of get because my gender yeah i've massively something that i've got to address and something i've realized but every female i've approached has been more than happy to come on which i'm grateful for because If they weren't, I'd probably be struggling to get any of them on, I think. Yeah, it's quite a balancing act. And as I said before, it's probably just me having to step out of my comfort zone and more and approach people that I don't already know or don't already have a relationship with. And for me, that's probably one of the most nerve-wracking kind of parts of it.

00:28:26Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's a little bit nerve-wracking for us too sometimes. Have you had many people say no?

00:28:32Brady Threlfall: um no one has directly said no which has been good i've had a couple of people who have been like responded with yep i'll be keen and we'll start talking a date and then just no emails come back so i might reply and say oh how does next thursday look and I'll just hear nothing for, oh, just crickets now, like it just won't be a response from there. So, but I've got to, you know, I don't, I'll give people one opportunity to kind of have the conversation. If they don't want to come on the show, I'm more than happy to. I don't want to be the guy that keeps emailing them, nagging them and, and things like that. And some of my listeners have been great in initiating interviews. So they'll, you know, start a group Facebook message or whatever saying Brady meet whoever it is. And, You know, you'd make a great guest on Brady's podcast. Would you be more than happy to come on? And from there, it's kind of grown and I'm more than happy to take requests from my audience members about who they want to hear because at the end of the day, they're consuming them. And I think I've got a pretty good judgment of who I like to have conversations with and who will get value out of those conversations. But it's always good, especially if people have an in or a hookup already to be able to set me up with someone who makes a good story.

00:29:40Scott Trickett: It's amazing. Most people say yes to us, Mel. We've only ever had one real rejection, but most people are keen to come on and have a chat to the podcast, which is great.

00:29:49Brady Threlfall: Well, I just think it's a bit of a no-brainer. Especially if they're super elite athletes or whatever, they've got opportunities to plug their sponsors in there. They've got opportunities to prove how good of a role model they are. They've got opportunities to get people, especially with elite running, a lot of... I find this better with the parkrun scene and the elite running kind of scene. A lot of the parkrunners I know in my local community would have absolutely no idea who won the... the marathon at the world championships, which was three weeks ago. Whereas I could go to my local soccer field and every single one of those soccer players and kids, and it doesn't matter if they're five-year-old soccer players or 25-year-old soccer players, they're all going to know the best soccer players in the world. So I think elite athletes probably have a bit of a responsibility to share their stories and to use the media they can because At the end of the day, they're not on the back page of The Age or The Herald Sun, so they need to use media like podcast to make that connection with the general kind of fun run crowd out there, I guess.

00:30:50Scott Trickett: Couldn't agree more. You're helping boost the profile of running.

00:30:53Brady Threlfall: yeah, why I wanted to start as well, like just to give some insight, because there's some amazing people who, especially that sub-elite category, like even a guy like Julian, for example, who is actively involved in his community with a running store down in Ballarat, but, you know, doesn't get kind of mainstream media, but has an amazing story and an amazing amount of knowledge around running that people can benefit from.

00:31:13Scott Trickett: Now, I'm curious, you said you're a podcast enthusiast. Which podcasts have you been listening to?

00:31:20Brady Threlfall: yeah so i um Marathon Talk's probably the first running podcast that I listened to a couple guys over in the uk tom williams he's got a bit of martin yelling hit there but i've got a bit to do with the parkrun scene over there um that was probably the first one that hooked me in and i'm an avid listener i would have listened to every one of their shows for the last yeah three or four years it's generally my long-run companion um also listen a bit to the rich roll podcast i always find that rich his interview style is really authentic um Wil Anderson does a, well, not so regular anymore, but Wilosophy where he just sits down with people and just talks for a couple of hours so they're probably my three three regular ones and then i've probably got another 15 or 20 that i just take snippets of here there and everywhere kind of thing

00:32:08Scott Trickett: And what about parkrun? You're involved with Echuca Moama there on the Murray. Have you enjoyed that experience so far?

00:32:15Brady Threlfall: Yeah, I've enjoyed it. It's been fantastic. My first experience was probably about two years ago at Shepparton parkrun. So Echuca Moama has been started since May this year, but we'd been going over to Shepparton, which is about 50 minutes an hour drive away to do their parkrun regularly and we'd often carpool over and yeah there was one Saturday we just drove back and there was three or four of us in the car and we just said to ourselves that we need to get started and we need to do our own one here and if Shepparton can do it we can do it and Bendigo was doing it an hour the opposite direction so we thought we've just had to bite the bullet and we had to start and get the get the ball rolling a bit so it's it's probably back to the conversation before that parkrun at Echuca Moama isn't set up for you know guys like me to go down there and run 15 minutes it's set up for people who just want to come down and walk a bit or run a bit and just try and beat their time each week or come down and see their friends or whatever it is kind of we're trying to tap into the pre-season like footy and netball market in the Yeah, I've been really enjoying being involved in something that's running, but completely different from the world of running I've been involved in probably the last four or five years with the kind of elite running scene.

00:33:39Melissa Erbacher: So do you use parkrun as a speed session in your training or is it more just a giving back to the community, you volunteer kind of situation?

00:33:48Brady Threlfall: Yeah, well, when we were going over to Shepparton, I'd always, a week out from a major race, I'd always do a kind of hard 5k kind of, kind of a bit of a, you know, you want to hurt yourself and go hard at 5k pace. So then if you're running a half marathon the week after the pace feels really easy so in the first kind of experiences with parkrun it would be go over and run as hard as you can for 5k but um i've really that was yeah I've only run Echuca maybe three or four times i've tried to give it a crack a couple of times and i just can't switch on mentally to be able to really dig deep i know it probably sounds a bit strange but we have an out and back course so i've um yeah i'll get to the out and back bit and then on my way back i'd see all these community members who i know and kind of you'd want to smile you'd want to give them a wave and when it comes to dipping into that super serious gut-wrenching kind of running i just haven't been able to access that because i've been having too much fun out there so the best time I've run in Echuca, I think, is 15 24 which is um which is the course record i'm i probably won't have another crack at it until somebody beats the course record but um i've definitely volunteered yeah i would have probably been volunteered 10 15 kind of times as as a marshal or run director whereas i've only ran it probably three or four times i did pace one week we had a group of guys who wanted to break 20 minutes so um just put the garment on and took them through in yeah got one guy down to 1930 and a few guys um just fell wheels fell off a bit with 500 meters to go but yeah i definitely enjoy the volunteering and the standing on the table at the start and reading out the course description all those kind of things and just letting the elite side of my running ability um take a back step to help out the community which helps me so often in in other pursuits

00:35:41Melissa Erbacher: We're all about the adventures, Brady, and getting people to travel around and do different parkruns. Have you noticed many adventurers and tourists coming to Echuca Moama? I mean, it's an E, which is, I'm not sure if you're aware, there's an alphabet club out there, so people are trying to get their events. Yeah, yeah, which is pretty, you know, far apart. Yeah.

00:36:05Brady Threlfall: Yeah, definitely, Mel. That's been something that's blown us away. And Echuca Mo'ama is pretty kind of a touristy town as well. We have a lot of kind of food and wine festivals and winter blues festivals and a few music festivals. And it's often coupled with people also ticking off the E on the alphabet. It was probably evident at our launch day. Like we had 230 at our launch, which was something that really blew us away. But there was probably five or 10 people there just to get the E there. um which which i find uh very motivating and funny and kind of like it's amazing that people will do that just to um they're so bought into the parkrun culture which is amazing that they're willing to travel um you know for quite a long time to to run a 5k which is fantastic so tourists have been there every week and what we've also been blown away by is our numbers dropped a bit over winter so we're kind of being around 60 70 during the colder months but every week there'll be five or ten new people there each week so we're just hoping once the weather finds up that we can just get all those people on the same weekend and yeah really kind of get it back up to 150 200 most weeks during spring and summer

00:37:18Scott Trickett: I visited Echuca last year. I came up for the sweat versus steam run. What's the running scene like in Echuca? I mean, you're going to see it evolve as parkrun grows. What's it like now? Are there lots of running trails and running groups?

00:37:32Brady Threlfall: We have one running group. We don't have a running club, so there's one running group that meets on a Saturday morning. And initially, when we put the idea of parkrun to this running group, we weren't sure how they were going to respond because we didn't really want to take away... the members from their running group but at the same time we wanted to provide parkrun to people that weren't involved in that running group because that running group kind of goes and does fartlek and does you know 1k reps and those kind of things on a saturday morning whereas we wanted people who were just going to go out for a walk or go out for a jog and kind of provide something for them so we initially have the the one running group as i said no running club but very healthy triathlon community so um a lot of the running guys there will will join me for for runs and we've also got tali bird i'm not sure if you're familiar with tali tali's a pretty elite um distance runner as well she's won, you know, Run for the Kids and City2Sea and those kind of things as well so she's also hooking around the trails along the river out here so yeah some amazing places to live to run sorry and an amazing place to live but our biggest disadvantage is there's no hills so um you know we got to drive 45 minutes in one direction to kind of try and try and find a hill to run on so yeah we probably lack a bit of strength in the legs just because we can't train on the hills up here

00:38:56Melissa Erbacher: Well, no doubt with the impact that you'll be making at Echuca Moama and your podcast, the running scene will definitely be on the up and up.

00:39:04Brady Threlfall: Definitely. Hopefully, I probably hadn't thought of it like that, but there's a lot of stuff that we're doing in the town to encourage running. So yeah, hopefully it all continues to grow.

00:39:13Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us this week, Brady. We really appreciate it. And Good luck in the last few weeks of your training heading towards Berlin. We will be listening in intently to find out how you go and looking forward to that post debrief that happens the day after when you're all feeling a little bit sore.

00:39:32Brady Threlfall: No worries, guys. Thanks again for the opportunity to come on your show and yeah, keep up the great work. Thank you.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:39:47David Moss: Hello, I'm at Port Lincoln, the inaugural parkrun with Pauline and Pauline's the event director here. Hi everyone. Could you just tell us a little bit about the parkrun?

00:40:01Pauline: Okay, so the Port Lincoln parkrun, we run it along our foreshore so you get a gorgeous view of the ocean as the sun's coming up and over it.

00:40:09David Moss: It's actually turned out to be an absolutely fantastic morning. Last week around the state it's been bucketing down with rain, drizzling. You've scored a very good start.

00:40:19Pauline: We've been lucky that the rain has stopped when it comes to our weekends. We get all the rain during the week at the moment. And then parkrun Day, the sun's out.

00:40:28David Moss: Okay, and what caused you to start the parkrun here?

00:40:31Pauline: Just my passion for running when I was training for the Barossa Half Marathon and wanting to get my kids out and active. They want to run just like Mum, so I thought, why not?

00:40:42David Moss: And how does Mum run?

00:40:44Pauline: Yeah, okay. I make it to the finish line and that's what matters.

00:40:49David Moss: Okay, look, thank you. We might try and catch a few other people and just have a quick chat to them.

00:40:53Sue: No worries. Thank you. All the best. See you later. Thank you. Hi, I'm Sue. Just done the first Port Lincoln parkrun. It was amazing. Great crowd, beautiful weather, no wind. Really enjoyed it. Great fun time. Thanks.

00:41:07Roz: I'm Roz and I'm from Mount Barker parkrun and we just drove seven hours to do the Port Lincoln launch. Beautiful morning and a great course.

00:41:15Melissa Erbacher: Thanks once again to Dave, our Channel 5 News crew member who is down in South Australia at the moment and was at the Port Lincoln launch on the weekend speaking to Pauline and some other ladies who had adventured to the event. Sounds like another one to add to the list, Scotty.

00:41:32Scott Trickett: It certainly does. And Dave is still without a nickname.

00:41:35Melissa Erbacher: We're still working on that. We need to have some creative time, I think, to think up creative things.

00:41:45Scott Trickett: Yeah. And he found Port Lincoln. I wonder if he was using the directions that we gave him last week.

00:41:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Well, you know, they were pretty good. And I also had reports that... Nearby as well to Port Lincoln, they have loads of wildlife and things like that. So that's pretty exciting. Emus walking around and dolphins visible. So I'm keen to get down there and check out some of that stuff too. I love the wildlife. Love wildlife on courses. It's always good.

00:42:20Scott Trickett: It is exciting.

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

00:42:23Melissa Erbacher: Speaking of launches, there's a couple coming up this weekend.

00:42:28Scott Trickett: There are. There are. Let's have a look. Inverell.

00:42:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, both in New South Wales too. Inverell. Yep. That one looks stunning. Have you seen the photos?

00:42:39Scott Trickett: I have seen the photos. I've actually been to Inverell, drove through it once. I think we stayed there very briefly. Went to the supermarket or something.

00:42:48Melissa Erbacher: Oh, yeah. Well, it's probably not where the parkrun's going to be.

00:42:52Scott Trickett: At the supermarket? Maybe not.

00:42:54Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, maybe not.

00:42:55Scott Trickett: But I remember driving through that part of the world and it was really green and pretty and lots of water, which I wasn't expecting.

00:43:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's what it looks like from the photos. It's very dry. How green is it in Victoria at the moment? Because up here everything is very brown. Oh, really? Yeah, we've had a really dry winter.

00:43:17Scott Trickett: Oh, no, we're green down here. We're very green.

00:43:19Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:43:20Scott Trickett: Still cold, but lots of green.

00:43:23Melissa Erbacher: So you've had the water as well.

00:43:25Scott Trickett: Yeah. And the other one, Wagga, Wagga Wagga, but it's going to be called Wagga parkrun. I used to holiday as a child in Wagga.

00:43:37Melissa Erbacher: Do you know why it's only going to be called Wagga as opposed to Wagga Wagga?

00:43:42Scott Trickett: I don't. When it came through, I was curious. I should have asked. But I think the locals just call it Wagga. Like, where are you from? I'm from Wagga. They don't go, I'm from Wagga Wagga.

00:43:52Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, that's fair enough.

00:43:54Scott Trickett: So we're taking some local advice.

00:43:57Melissa Erbacher: That's probably the right thing to do. We've got some anniversaries this week as well, also in New South Wales, but then a whole bunch in Queensland and one in South Australia. So let's start back in New South Wales. We've got Blue Gum Hills. There will be cake at Blue Gum Hills.

00:44:14Scott Trickett: There will also be cake maybe at Broadbeach Waters in Queensland. Capalaba in Queensland. Lochiel Park, South Australia.

00:44:23Melissa Erbacher: Warner Lakes in Queensland.

00:44:26Scott Trickett: And Warwick. Also in Queensland. Lots of Queensland parties this weekend.

00:44:32Melissa Erbacher: It's a good time of year for it toward the end of winter. Everything's getting warm. In fact, it'll be spring. It'll be spring. Oh, and you know what that means, Scotty.

Streaky September

00:44:40Scott Trickett: It's September.

00:44:41Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. I was going to say, do you know what that means? Yeah. You had to stop and think about it there for a second. And what are we doing in September?

00:44:48Scott Trickett: Well, I'm excited.

00:44:50Melissa Erbacher: You're excited. I'm excited. I think there's a lot of adventurers out there excited.

00:44:54Scott Trickett: Streaky September.

00:44:56Melissa Erbacher: Streaky September. Hashtag streaky September. All one word, all lowercase.

00:45:00Scott Trickett: It's happening. So this podcast is going out on Thursday, which means it's happening tomorrow.

00:45:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, yes. If you're listening to it on the day that the podcast comes out, it's happening tomorrow. If you're not listening to it on the day it's out, what the hell is wrong with you?

00:45:16Scott Trickett: But if you're listening to it on Saturday or Sunday, you've missed it and you've missed Streaky September because if you don't go for a run on Friday, you're out. Like you can't do Streaky September and start on the 2nd. You've got to go for a run on Friday. That's the whole idea.

00:45:33Melissa Erbacher: Well, yes. You're supposed to go for a run every single day of the month or a walk.

00:45:40Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:45:41Melissa Erbacher: And so shall we make up some rules? Yeah, let's do it.

00:45:44Scott Trickett: Let's make up some rules. So what constitutes a run slash walk?

00:45:50Melissa Erbacher: Well, I guess that depends.

00:45:51Scott Trickett: I'm saying 2K.

00:45:52Melissa Erbacher: 2K minimum?

00:45:55Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:45:56Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so... We're comfortable with that? Well, I guess, you know, you don't... Yeah, you don't want it to be just somebody going out and running up and down their street to make sure they haven't broken their streak. I think the actual formal thing is a minimum of a mile, and that's roughly 2km, isn't it?

00:46:17Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:46:18Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:46:18Scott Trickett: So let's go. Junior parkrun's coming. Junior parkrun's 2km. This is our lead-in.

00:46:24Melissa Erbacher: Okay, that seems fair. All right, so minimum 2km. You have to run or walk a minimum of 2km every day in September. to make it we encourage we encourage as many freedom runs as possible so that's the other thing i want to see happening i went for a freedom run this morning i went back to brimbank park well i think won't won't we just have like a challenge every week scotty so one week well we we want at least one freedom run but maybe we should let people choose which week they do it in yeah We should, yeah, so we should have bonus points for Streaky September and we can have a challenge each week for bonus points.

00:46:32[crosstalk]

00:47:04Scott Trickett: This is why we shouldn't make out rules as we go. Who's going to keep track of the bonus points?

00:47:09Melissa Erbacher: This is, well, no, we don't have to. It's an honest system. Everybody keeps track of their own bonus points, but all we do is put the challenge out there. I think what we need to do, you've created the Strava group for it. I think we need to create a Facebook event for it so that everybody can keep in touch with everybody else who's participating in Streaky September. And you guys can share your photos and you can share your stories and keep everybody motivated because it's every single day.

00:47:39Scott Trickett: Keep us all on track. I'll need the motivation. I think I'm going to struggle, to be honest. I'm going to try my hardest.

00:47:46Melissa Erbacher: You'll struggle with like just finding the time every single day, you think?

00:47:51Scott Trickett: I think I'd be kidding myself if I said time is the issue. I actually think motivation is the issue. Like there are just some days I don't want to go for a run. See, well. Like I'm happy sitting, watching TV or on the nerd box, just happy not going for a run.

00:48:09Melissa Erbacher: Okay. All right. So everybody keep that in mind. Scotty needs extra motivation. to get out the door. I think I'm going to need the motivation to get out of my pyjamas and my dressing gown. That could make for some interesting streaky September costumes if people are seeing me pushing a pram down the street in my dressing gown. I might get approached.

00:48:31Scott Trickett: We never made rules around that you had to get dressed. You can do 2K in your pyjamas. Easy. I've done more than 2K in my pyjamas.

00:48:39Melissa Erbacher: Maybe one of the weeks the challenge could be 2K in your pyjamas. It can be a pyjama streak in September. There's another rule. That one can be everybody's solidarity with me. And we can see how many people get reported to the police for running around in their pyjamas.

00:48:57Scott Trickett: You've got to initiate that one. So you lead the way and we'll follow.

00:49:03Melissa Erbacher: I will be the flagship Streaky September in jim-jams person and I will share my photos. I'll make sure Wes is also in his pyjamas in the pram when we do it. So this is – obviously, I'm not back to running properly yet. So I think I will – I'll start the month out walking my Streaky September and then hopefully – sort of progress to running little bits and then maybe by the end of the month I might be able to run the full 2k again so that that will be my goal for streaky September that's it we can follow your progress maybe see if you're getting faster walking or if you're going for longer walks

00:49:42Scott Trickett: Because, of course, you'll be uploading everything to Spotify.

00:49:45Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:49:45Melissa Erbacher: And maybe like Brady does, I will give everybody my splits over like 200 metres or something. First 200 metres, I was at 8 minute 50 kilometres. Yeah, that might not be as interesting as Brady's splits. His are a lot better than that.

00:50:04Scott Trickett: Whoops. We'll try it on next week. We'll analyse. We'll have a little section in next week's pod where we break down our run each week.

00:50:11Melissa Erbacher: For Streaky September, yeah.

00:50:13Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:50:14Melissa Erbacher: That sounds like a good plan. Instead of our road to Berlin, we've got our road to Streaky September. Cool. I am excited about this because it's been a long time since I did any sort of consistent exercise. I hope a lot of people get on board with us too.

00:50:29Scott Trickett: Wouldn't it be sad if, like, the 29th and the 30th of September, it's just you and me? Everyone else has given up.

00:50:36Melissa Erbacher: No, I think we've got some stayers out there. And I think together as a group, if we all motivate each other, I think we can see it through. So we've got to get this happening.

00:50:49Scott Trickett: We have a competition coming up later this month, so maybe there's some more motivation. I'm not going to tell you anything more than that. But maybe you have to still be streaky Septembering to be in the running for our competition.

00:51:01Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I don't even know about this competition. I haven't discussed this with you. Well, is this one of those things where we say we're going to do something and then we forget about it and it doesn't happen?

00:51:12Scott Trickett: Hey, look, did we deliver on the last one? Have you been out to Central Lakes lately? Shh.

00:51:21Melissa Erbacher: We don't talk about that yet, Scotty. But I am planning to get out there, hopefully during Streaky September.

00:51:32Scott Trickett: Good. No, but the next competition is on point. It's going to be a good one.

00:51:37Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. I'm looking forward to finding all about that.

00:51:43Scott Trickett: Okay, let's wrap it up. Mel, thanks for joining me. You're very welcome, Scotty. Loved it this week. Brady was great.

00:51:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it was good fun.

00:51:51Scott Trickett: And you were great.

00:51:52Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I'm great every week, let's be honest.

00:51:55Scott Trickett: Yeah, true. So do it again next week for me, please.

00:52:00Melissa Erbacher: We'll do my best. And I'm looking forward to keeping track of how your Streaky September's going every day too, Scotty. You started this. Good.

00:52:10Scott Trickett: I did. And I want to finish it.

00:52:13Melissa Erbacher: No more repeat of August, okay? We're going to get there. We're going to get to the end. It's going to happen.