Episode 83 - Kelly Hodges

Episode details · 158 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:15Scott Trickett: Welcome back to episode 83 of the parkrun Adventurers, where 50% of the show is being done on location. Welcome, Mel.

00:00:28Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Scotty. And 100% of the show is being done in Queensland this week.

00:00:33Scott Trickett: Well, you might have jumped the gun there. I'm actually not sure where I am. I'm the one on location. So I'm sitting outside. It's warm. So I know I'm not in Melbourne. I'm not wearing a shirt. So that's another clue that I'm not in Melbourne. But we're right on the border. So we're near Tweed Heads and we're inland a bit. So I think I'm in Queensland, but I could be wrong. But anyway, can you hear the birds in the background? And I've got some cows across the road from me.

00:01:03Melissa Erbacher: I can hear the nature. There's all sorts of nature going on.

00:01:06Scott Trickett: So we're out in nature this week and it's good. I don't recognise this thing in the sky.

00:01:13Melissa Erbacher: Is it the thing that's controlling the temperature? Oh my God. Making the temperature awesome?

00:01:19Scott Trickett: I tell you what, we're up here to get a taste of what life would be like if we moved up here and we're definitely getting a taste of what it would be like in summer.

00:01:28Lyndell Murray: It's hot.

00:01:29Scott Trickett: We're in a heat wave up here.

00:01:32Melissa Erbacher: You're getting a taste of what it would be like in spring. Summer is a whole other level.

00:01:35Scott Trickett: Okay, because it's really hot. And it was really hot on Saturday when we went to parkrun. I parked run at Sandgate, which I know you have just park runned at recently.

00:01:48Melissa Erbacher: I have. And so Sandgate was the winner of your, you weren't sure where you were going to head last week in last week's episode. So you got to Sandgate. What did you think of the course?

00:01:59Scott Trickett: Wowee. I mean, they're showing off a bit, really.

00:02:05Melissa Erbacher: Overachieving much?

00:02:06Scott Trickett: I think so. I mean, the course is gorgeous, and the fact that the turnaround point is on a pier is really up there in parkrun highlights for me. It was flat. The weather was beautiful. Dean and Vanessa just put on a top-class event. You can see why. You know, they get 400 people coming back every week. Because that is just a great parkrun event and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I thoroughly enjoyed because the ribs are a bit sore still, Mel.

00:02:38Melissa Erbacher: Are you still clinging to this injury, I say with inverted commas?

00:02:45Scott Trickett: I'm struggling. I still am struggling and it's really disappointing. But I looked forward to the flat, easy run at Sandgate that I had on Saturday. And I ran with little Kasia. We didn't get a PB because it was too bloody hot. But otherwise, it was a great morning.

00:03:04Melissa Erbacher: I thought you were going to say it was too beautiful and you had to keep looking around and it was slowing you down. No.

00:03:09Scott Trickett: I mean, it was. It was that. But it was just hot and that slowed us down.

00:03:14Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Well, there's more where that came from.

00:03:18Scott Trickett: Well, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. And one thing, so I'm up here and I'm looking out for some freedom runs. We're still on the streak. So we're going to do some freedom streaks this whole week while we're up here. But one thing I have noticed is that I've got my perspective. I've got my geographic perspective. perspective in relation to parkruns so we're driving around the suburbs of Brisbane and we drive near Petrie and now I've got an understanding of where Petrie is and of course we we went up to Redcliffe and then when we drove down the coast we went through Coomera and Logan City so I knew Logan River was by and I saw a sign to Cleveland so all my references are parkrun related in real life

00:04:02Melissa Erbacher: It's a nice way to map out South East Queensland, isn't it?

00:04:05Scott Trickett: Yeah. And they're everywhere. This parkruns everywhere up here.

00:04:07Melissa Erbacher: It's great. Spoilt for choice, that's for sure. Have you got any idea where you might freedom run then?

00:04:14Scott Trickett: Not yet. Not yet. There's still a whole few more days to sort that out. But what we did do is we stayed near a place called Zillmere, which is a suburb of Brisbane. It is. And I'm not sure, I know there might be some whispers of a parkrun in Zilmere, but I've never heard of a suburb starting with Z in a big city town.

00:04:37Melissa Erbacher: So this could happen.

00:04:39Scott Trickett: This Z parkrun could happen.

00:04:42Melissa Erbacher: It would be a big drawcard for the adventurers who are on the alphabet adventure.

00:04:49Scott Trickett: So that's me. What about you? How was parkrun world for you this week?

00:04:55Melissa Erbacher: parkrun World was solo and unassisted for me on the weekend. No, I shouldn't say unassisted because I did have volunteers helping me out. So it was assisted. But I left the hubby and the small person at home in bed asleep after a bit of a rough night. and ventured out on my own and had a really amazing morning. It was just one of those days where you are so grateful and happy in the moment for parkrun. Everything was just fantastic. Everyone was happy. The event went smoothly. I was run directing. I didn't have any glitches. I've got a full set of tokens again, so nobody had to be written down because we had a dodgy finish position token for them. It was just magic.

00:05:41Scott Trickett: Did everybody present their barcodes this week? Did you have any trouble with that?

00:05:46Melissa Erbacher: Oh no, we still had a whole bunch of unknowns. But, you know, that's fine as long as they don't expect us to write them down, which they didn't, which is wonderful. So we didn't have to explain to anyone that we couldn't write them down. Did you remember to bring your barcodes?

00:06:00Scott Trickett: We did. Always on tour. So my barcode lives on me. I've got the wristband that never comes off. And we had a scare a couple of weeks ago where Kasia couldn't find hers.

00:06:09Melissa Erbacher: I like how you call it a scare. People have health scares. In the parkrun world, we have barcode scares.

00:06:18Scott Trickett: Well, it is a scare for us. It is a scare for us because Gush is on 98 parkruns. So this weekend, she's going to crack 99. And then next week, it's going to be a big celebration. So we're very aware that Kasia needs to have her barcode with her at all times. Because I think she has missed a few. So she's actually done more than 100 parkruns. But there have been some times where she hasn't brought her barcode.

00:06:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, and you don't want to be the worst parents in the world, especially not when you're out having adventures at events which will be difficult for you to get back to in the future.

00:06:52Scott Trickett: So we all climbed up on the most events table. Have you checked in on that lately? I know I checked in on it on Saturday night.

00:07:00Melissa Erbacher: No, I haven't looked at it this weekend. What would I see if I managed to pop in and have a look at it?

00:07:07Scott Trickett: A beautiful sight. As I'm one clear.

00:07:13Melissa Erbacher: You're not that far ahead of me yet, young man.

00:07:16Scott Trickett: No, no, but I'll go two clear this week and then you'll just be chasing me for the rest of the year, which is how it should be.

00:07:26Melissa Erbacher: For the rest of the year, you think. You've got enough adventures to stay at least two ahead of me, do you?

00:07:32Scott Trickett: I think so. I've got a couple more planned.

00:07:36Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Challenge accepted. I don't do chasing very well. I much prefer to be in front, so you won't be there for long.

Meet the ED

00:08:00Scott Trickett: Time to take a visit to Tamworth. Now, I must admit, all I know about Tamworth is country music, and they've got a parkrun there. So we've got Jeff Bartlett joining us on the parkrun Adventurers today to tell us all about the parkrun. Welcome, Geoff.

00:08:14Jeff Bartlett: Welcome, Scott. Welcome, Mel.

00:08:17Scott Trickett: Can you tell us about country music as well?

00:08:19Jeff Bartlett: I can do that too.

00:08:21Scott Trickett: Is it a prerequisite for everybody who lives in Tamworth to like country music?

00:08:25Jeff Bartlett: you'd be surprised how many people leave town during the Country Music Festival in January. It is a big event, it's a major event for Tamworth in regards to attracting tourists to the town during January and we like to call ourselves the Country Music Capital of Australia which has been fairly well recognised so Yeah, it's one of the icons of Tamworth is the country music.

00:08:56Melissa Erbacher: Geoff, I came out to visit you guys last year when it was a little bit cool. It wasn't country music festival time. I'm not one of those sorts of people. But I was on a road trip headed south to Victoria and I got to swing by Tamworth on the way. For those who haven't been to visit your course, can you give us a brief description?

00:09:16Jeff Bartlett: Yeah, certainly, Mel. It's a very simple out-and-back course. We start sort of at the eastern end of the CBD of Tamworth alongside the river, the Peel River, which is the river that runs through town. It splits the town in half and splits the town in half when it floods, well and truly. It's 2.5km running along a cement path alongside the Pearl River Quite picturesque. A lot of people, a lot of parkrun tourists that have come to visit us in Tamworth say it's a good course and it's a fast course and they enjoy it. It's got the scenery of the river running down through the parks of Tamworth and it's quite a, not an easy, it's got a couple of little inclines in it that make it a little bit onerous, but they like the course. They think it's quite a good course.

00:10:08Scott Trickett: How long has Tamworth been up and running for?

00:10:11Jeff Bartlett: It was our third anniversary in the weekend. So we've been here for three years. And as we've been telling our parkrunners recently, we have not missed a weekend so far, touch wood, touching one's head. We haven't had any problems with not having enough volunteers. And our other major problem is when the river floods. We do have that as part of our course safety requirements. that if the river is forecasted to be either in flood or there's a forecast of a possible flood, we do have to cancel during that circumstance. But at this stage, we haven't had to do that. So we've had three years of continuous going each Saturday.

00:10:58Melissa Erbacher: Knock on wood, as you say. We don't want to put the mockers on it.

00:11:02Jeff Bartlett: Yes. And we don't have an alternate course, really. And we're trying to work out how we're going to get around having a flood because most of our courses would probably actually go on to the other side of the river, and that's the big problem. But anyway, we'll get there.

00:11:17Melissa Erbacher: How did you get involved with parkrun, Geoff? You're not the founding event director there.

00:11:22Jeff Bartlett: No. We started our parkrun on the 1st of November back in 2014, and that was only, what, probably maybe six weeks six to eight weeks after it actually started in Tamworth, my wife had heard from a few people that had heard about it and said, oh, this is a good thing to get down to. And we were both sort of keen to sort of pick up our fitness regime. And, of course, the wonders of the parkrun, being a free event, timed event, the only cost to you to become a parkrunner is the money it costs to print off your athlete's registration, your barcode. And so we thought we'd come down and give it a try. And my wife keeps telling everybody when we're talking about parkrun that, and I don't recall saying this, but I was supposed to have said, oh, I thought it was just a once only a thing. What, every Saturday? That's what she says. I said, I don't know. I can't remember. But yes.

00:12:30Scott Trickett: Now, one thing you also love doing, Jeff, is you love traveling and being an adventurer. And you had an epic adventure over to the US early in the year. You visited every parkrun that that country has to offer. Tell us about that adventure.

00:12:47Jeff Bartlett: Yes, in our stages of our working careers, we both decided it was time to have a bit of long service leave, something that the Americans are absolutely fascinated about.

00:12:58Kelly Hodges: How can you come over here and have all this leave?

00:13:02Jeff Bartlett: You tell them about long service leave. Wow. Because they're lucky if they get two or three weeks of leave. Anyway, yes, so we decided we were going over to America for 11 weeks. And of course, both being keen parkrunners at that stage, We said, well, we're going to have to try and plan our trip around things that we want to do, obviously, and visiting all the parkrun events in the US. And at that stage, there were nine. And so the good wife tourist planner worked out our route that we would visit every parkrun in America. Obviously, we couldn't work out to be at every parkrun for a Saturday, so some of those visits had to be a freedom run. But as anybody can do anywhere around the world, if you run the parkrun course and you log a time and you actually do the run on the course, you log it as a freedom run. So that's what we did in incorporating in our trip.

00:14:00Scott Trickett: And have you got a couple of highlights in amongst the nine events that they've got?

00:14:04Jeff Bartlett: I'll just quickly go through. We started at Fletchers Cove, which is in D.C., Washington, D.C., and we also went to Roosevelt Island, Washington, College Park, Maryland, Durham in North Carolina, Clermont Waterfront, Florida, Livonia, which is the first park-run event that was set up over there, and a bit more about that later on, Mansfield, Ohio, Heritage Harbour in Ottawa, Illinois. That was an interesting course. And, of course, one that a lot of people, a lot of Australians know, Crissy Fields in San Francisco. Fletcher's Cove in Washington, D.C. We went with four friends that we were staying with over there, one of which had been a parkrunner and was here home parkrun. That was an interesting course. That actually runs alongside the Chesapeake-Ohio Canal Co-Path. Now, these canal systems they set up in the US years and years ago were one of the major way of transporting goods around the country way back in the early, early days. And obviously, to use a canal inland, they had to have something to either motor or move the barges along. And they had a towpath built along the side. And that is where the parkrun course runs along the side on the towpath that runs along the side of the canal. And that canal actually goes from Washington very nearly right up to the Great Lakes, up north near Canada, which is quite a major piece of real estate there. Roosevelt Island, Washington, that is a fascinating place, absolutely fascinating. It's an island in the middle of Washington, in the river, and it's quite a large thing. It's a national park. Obviously, it was founded by Teddy Roosevelt, one of their presidents, as a place that... that he liked to go to to just escape the working styles of Washington and being the president of the United States. And it's a fascinating place. You could get into the island. You look around saying, I could be anywhere in the world. Not in Washington, D.C. Funny, though, the course, obviously, or the island, has lots of trails. It's a national park. The course is signposted at the beginning. It shows you roughly where the course goes, and it's the same on their course page. But I think I ended up doing about an 8.5k parkrun at Roosevelt Island because you'd come to one trail and say, man, do I go left or right here? I'll try left, and then you work out, no, maybe I should have gone right. That was funny. But it was a good experience at Roosevelt Island in Washington. College Park, that was a fairly, in Maryland, that was a fairly basic course. It was just along Ashfield and Parks through some of the woodlands. That was quite an enjoyable experience at College Park. Durham, North Carolina, we were there in Mother's Day in America, in the US. It usually was an out and back course, but The local council were doing some works on some of their paths. Their alternate course was a three-loop course. And the Durham Park people hate when they do the three-loop course because part of that is quite a steep little hill that you have to do three times. But that was a good challenging course. Claremont Waters down in Florida, that was alongside Lake Minneola on the Nashville path. They actually just, we actually ran on the original course for the last time because they had worked out a better course that they could use without having problems with having to close down with our events. And we actually ran on that course on the last running of it. Now, the very funny, one of the highlights of the parkrun that we were there was at Livonia, which is near Detroit, Michigan. We were very fortunate. That is the first parkrun event that started in the USA, and we visited there on their fifth birthday. It was parkrun USA's fifth birthday, and we were at Livonia. Of course, during this whole trip, we were in contact with the various parkrun Facebook sites and letting them know that we were on their way and things like that. So we had the number of people there that knew that we were coming, and they were very excited that they had visitors from Australia. It was a very big, Livonia's a fairly big sporting complex and the parkrun course basically runs around the outside of it on some paths and on some grass and things like that. And they were all very excited being the fifth birthday and we're not our way. But as you're going along, they've got the choice of actually going off the trails and onto a woodland type of trail if the parkrunner wants to do it. Apparently it's a weekly choice and you can either go this way or that way. When I got up to the first one of these choices, I'm sort of going, which way do I go? Which way do I go? All of a sudden behind me, there was an Australian voices, go right, go right. So it's okay. So I turned right and continued on the way. And up alongside me come a lovely lady called Tanya Carson. She lives over there. She's been living there for quite some years. She's married and now living in the States. And she was from Queensland, and we were just chatting away, and she said, when you go on the alternate courses, they are really woodland trails, and you're going over trees and things like that, and it's far easier, she said, to take the right-hand side and go around in the course. That was a fascinating run. I ran with Tanya the whole way, we chatted about what was happening in Livonia and Parkland in the US, and also what was happening in Australia. And that's just one of the people that we met, just out of the blue, that came up and introduced themselves. So that was good at Livonia and in Michigan. Mansfield, Ohio was a Freedom Run. That was one of the runs we had to, well, we actually were going to run that on the Saturday, but they had a charity run on that Saturday in their town, which was going to use part of their course. And the people organising the charity event approached the parkrun event team and said, look, we know you're here every Saturday. Would you mind if you cancelled your event as we don't want it to clash? And of course, the Mansfield people were quite happy to do that as most of the parkrunners would probably be doing the charity run anyway. So Jan, my wife, had planned our parkruns in the US that So when she got back to Australia, she was going to do the 99th at Crissyfield, and when she got back home to Tamworth the week after, it was going to be her 100th. That did throw a spanner in the works because we lost one of our Saturday parkruns. However, that wasn't a problem. The great thing that happened there is that we were contacted by the event director, Karen Crane, who said, give us an idea of what time you're going to be there and we'll come down and run the course with you. And we organised the time of what time we were going to be there and Karen and her husband Stephen turned up. Karen had just recently broken her collarbone so she wasn't into running but she did a walk with Jan and Steve ran the course with me. Now here's another Australian connection. Steve's been over there for 43 years. He's from Brisbane. And we had a marvellous chat about what was happening in America. We had a parkrun event there. And as you're saying, oh, look out, watch out. And then suddenly a deer just trotted across the path in front of us and things like that, pointing out poison ivies. Oh, careful, these things, you know, they're all over the place. And at the end of the parkrun, they said, oh, what are you doing now? And I said, We said, oh, we're probably just going to tea. He said, well, come on, let's go and have a drink and we'll have dinner. And these two lovely people took us to one of their fine eateries in Mansfield and we had tea and we had a lovely few hours there just talking with those people. We only met that afternoon. Such is the marvellous things about the parkrun family. You can go anywhere in the world and you're welcomed like you're a relative. The next stop we had was at Heritage Harbour in Ottawa, Illinois. Now you think, hmm, a harbour. Well, that's what I thought when we had a look at this course. They've actually made a harbour or a very large boating marina off one of the rivers there in Ottawa, Illinois, and they call it a harbour. The parkrun course actually ran around a loop course around this marina for three times. And it only started the week after we did our freedom run there. So it was a brand new course. The formation of the course at there was basically predominantly gravel and cement past. But some of the gravel was actually, hadn't been settled yet. It was quite loose and that was a little bit challenging. But we did the freedom course, and it was just fascinating running around this inland harbour, the American Coastal Harbour, and it had lots of fairly big boats on it, parked in the middle a long way away from the ocean. Of course, then, our last parkrun stop was the famous Crissy Fields in San Francisco. Again, we'd been in contact with those people, and they welcomed us with open arms, as they do. They do not have a parkrun in Crissyfield without having some international visitors every week. We were lucky, though, when we got to San Francisco, as we were told, because you actually could see the bridge that day and the harbour and Alcatraz Island and all those things. I don't know if a lot of people that may have been to San Francisco, it's a city that's very, very susceptible to having weather events at any time of the day very quickly. They get a lot of fogs. Misty weather that can come in just in a matter of 10 minutes. But our visit to Crissy Field was unlike that. It wasn't that case. We had a beautiful sunny day there and we could see all the views of the harbour. And they said, this is exceptional for San Francisco to have such a beautiful day. Crissy Field, of course, is down right near the Golden Gate Bridge. and it's on the old US Army airfield, which is part of the Presidio Army base. And I believe that was Amelia Earhart used that airfield as one of the points of call taking off. So it's a fairly famous little spot in San Francisco. But that concluded our nine visits, the nine known parkrun sites when we started. They had obviously got new parkrun events set up there at Egan Park, Deep Run in Richmond, Lincoln Park in Baltimore, Mobley in Missouri and Renton Park up near Seattle. So the great thing about travelling in the US was the friends we made, the interaction between ourselves as being part of event teams and event directors and the other teams over there and they were They were like sponges with water. They couldn't get enough information out of you about how you ran this, what was your idea on that, what are the good things. It was really a very enjoyable time. And as Scott said, we held briefly the record for being the people that had visited every or been to every parkrun in America. parkrun tourism hasn't really taken off well it has now I believe in America a lot of people are starting to think about you know planning their trips around their parkrun fix and so parkrun tourism is starting to take off but I believe probably some people have visited more parkrun events now and that's only three or four months but it's really really starting to take off over there and And once Americans get grasped the wonders of the parkrun, and it's a free event, every Saturday you can do it all over the place. If there's a parkrun event, it will just take off like nobody's business. That's basically about our US trip, Scott and Mel.

00:27:19Melissa Erbacher: Jeff, it sounds like you had an incredible time. It's so nice to hear that the parkrun hospitality is alive and well all over the world.

00:27:27Jeff Bartlett: Mel, look, that is probably one of the standout things, having been over in Australia and visiting a number of parkland events here when we've been travelling around and always making sure that we're near a parkland if we're away for a Saturday, is that that parkland family really is all over the world. They're so friendly over there with the parkrunners. They, you know, we probably could have visited a number of places. You know, people would invite you to come and have a dinner or something like that. And that is what is one of the main things I think about parkrun is that it's just one big worldwide family with a common goal and a common pursuit. Saturday, it's parkrun Day. And it was just mind-blowing, Mel, and Scott, it really was.

00:28:16Melissa Erbacher: Couldn't agree with you more about the hospitality. Thank you for joining us this week, Jeff, and regaling us with your adventures overseas. You've definitely got us a bit excited about heading over to America sometime and knocking off some US events.

00:28:32Jeff Bartlett: Yeah, look, if I can recommend to anybody that's travelling overseas, obviously there's a reason, I suppose there might be some really parkrun tourists that are just going to go over for a parkrun, but if you're going overseas... and you're going to various towns, and just check to see if there's a parkrun there, and don't forget your athlete's barcode, because you just meet amazing people, and you're welcomed like a long-lost relative that's come home. It really is a great thing, Mel, and it's fun.

Nutrition Q&A with Kelly Hodges

00:29:14Melissa Erbacher: We thought it was time to get a new semi-regular guest on the show, somebody that you haven't met before, but somebody who will be well-equipped to help answer some questions our listeners have. She is the proprietor and managing director and all sorts of creative wonderfulness at Kelly Hodges Health. She does nutrition courses for Vast Fitness Academy, works with Caveman Kitchen and is also a locum dietitian at Sunshine Coast University Hospital. She is a run director for Kiwana parkrun and her name is Kelly Hodges. Kelly, welcome to the parkrun Adventurers Podcast. Oh, lovely. Thanks so much for having me, Mel. Now, we're very excited about having somebody who knows a lot about health and nutrition on the show. We've had a celebrity chef guest appearance in the past, but it'll be great to have you regularly here and around to answer some questions our listeners have, Kelly. Can you just start by giving us a little bit of a background of your parkrun story, how you got involved with parkrun?

00:30:24Kelly Hodges: Yeah, absolutely. So, For parkrun, parkrun started for me in 2012 in my final year of nutrition and dietetics, so final year of university. And it kind of started when a friend mentioned to me that she was looking at starting a parkrun in Sunshine Coast, but then she actually got work away. And so she said to me, oh, you know, why don't you start it? So I thought, oh, why not? Like I'm based on the Sunshine Coast and I love running and I love volunteering and just helping out and just being part of the community. So I was very quick to sign up for Kawana parkrun and work with Tim Oberg to get that all up and running. And I've just kind of been in parkrun ever since. And yeah, I was there as a event director for maybe the first year or so. And then because I was living in Brisbane, I decided to step down. and the wonderful Mel Erbacher took over. And yeah, but I've always just been part of parkrun. If I'm not helping out with volunteering, then I'm trying to run it and trying to get my whole family on board and all my friends on board. So yeah, parkrun for me has been a big part of my life for about, I don't know, five years now.

00:31:46Scott Trickett: Your commitment to parkrun in the early days, Kelly, was pretty intense because you were living in Brisbane but still commuting up to Kewana to put the event on every week. Is that true?

00:31:56Kelly Hodges: Yeah, yeah, I was actually because when I started parkrun, I was living in Sunshine Coast and then it was only the following year that I moved to Brisbane and so I love parkrun and I didn't want to stop running it and so therefore I very happily just drove to and from Brisbane each Saturday to make sure that everything was going smoothly but yeah it was a bit of a commitment but I loved it so it was alright.

00:32:23Melissa Erbacher: You've had the opportunity to travel around a bit, especially now that, well, you're back on the Sunshine Coast, lucky for me personally and the Sunshine Coast parkrun community, but you've also had some time in Brisbane and overseas and were able to get to some parkruns over there. Can you tell us about some of the places that you've been? different parkrun events that you've done?

00:32:43Kelly Hodges: Yeah, absolutely. So with parkrun, definitely when I was living in Brisbane, once I had stopped coming to Kewan as frequently, Rocks Riverside became more of my home parkrun for a while. But then I got to go traveling and I traveled all through the UK and I got to do all sorts of parkruns there. And in Ireland, I did parkruns and I guess just running in the UK and in those places where it's always raining, it's so beautiful and green. And so with parkrun, wherever you run, it's just so absolutely incredible. And I'm really trying to rack my brain right now to remember my favourite parkrun, but it had such a funny name. It's like Longadridge parkrun. Oh, I'll have to get back in touch and tell you my favourite one. But, yeah, no, running in the UK was absolutely amazing, just so, so beautiful.

00:33:41Scott Trickett: Now Kelly, we're going to get you on to give us some advice around food, diet, and all that sort of stuff. Mel and I have tried to give it over the past year or so, and I don't think we're the best experts in the area. So let's start with the basics. I've got a question. I try to fuel myself with sweets, with donuts. I've got a bit of a sweet tooth. Am I doing the right thing?

00:34:09Kelly Hodges: With sweets, with donuts, that's a very interesting question. So I guess what the research has shown us, I guess, further back is that the whole carb loading thing for running. So when you're running, you're burning carbohydrates. And so all your sweets and your donuts, they are all a form of carbohydrates broken down into sugars and go straight into your bloodstream, which your body can use immediately for something like running. And so carb loading definitely for things like longer distance running has always been known to be very, very beneficial. I guess what people sometimes do and what they sometimes don't need to do is when it's running something like parkrun, a five kilometre event where your body's not put under an endurance sort of setting. So your body already will have enough energy glucose in your bloodstream to run without you needing to carb load before a shorter event so something like a donut for a run such as parkrun it wouldn't be needed but I guess as you're getting into your longer run so something like a half marathon or a marathon where you are using all of your fuels and you're needing to replace them then by all means a donut can absolutely help with that.

00:35:33Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think I'm doing it the wrong way around as well because I'm eating the donut after the run.

00:35:42Kelly Hodges: I would say so. I'd say that's the wrong way around.

00:35:46Scott Trickett: Okay, so that's one good tip. What about all these people that have gone no carb, low carb? There's lots of them in parkrun. I've met a few in the past 12 months and they're going completely the opposite direction. Are they doing the right thing?

00:36:02Kelly Hodges: Well, that's a very, very interesting and can be a very heated sort of topic because it is kind of really new to the whole dietitian world. And so with low carb, so it's generally low carb, high fat, and what they're generally doing there is when you remove the carbohydrates, you're removing that glucose supply from your body. And therefore, instead of burning sugars for you to do your run, you then have to burn fats. And so fats are broken into ketones, but then you're pretty much running on ketones. So what the research is actually starting to come out and show us is that your body, it can run on much lower carbohydrate intake than what we currently have. And so following a low-carb, high-fat diet, to my knowledge, having a look at the research and actually what I do personally, it has no ill effects. I guess where the ill effects come in is when people go no carbohydrates and so they eliminate absolutely all carbohydrates. They give their body no sugar whatsoever and then they're running purely on fat and protein. And so I guess it's just when people take it to the extreme and get rid of certain food groups out of their diet where it then becomes an issue. But if they simply just decreasing their intake of standard carbohydrates but they've still got a little bit in their diet and they've got the high fat because fats have been previously linked to things like heart disease and high cholesterol and that sort of stuff but that has all been proven wrong now. So if they are following a high fat diet, that's fine. If they're following a low carb diet, that's fine. The issue is when they eliminate food groups and they go no carbohydrates whatsoever. Does that make sense?

00:38:00Melissa Erbacher: It makes sense to me. I think so what you're saying is like eating only cabbage, that's possibly not good?

00:38:12Kelly Hodges: I guess it's just when you eliminate certain food groups. Let's say, for example, that they eliminate all of your starchy vegetables. You're eliminating all your potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, all those starchy veggies. What that does is you're also increasing your risk of missing out on certain nutrients. What we, I don't mind by all means seeing people decrease carbohydrate intake, but when they've got no carbs, then they do put themselves at risk of just not reaching nutritional recommendations. So a cabbage-only diet would be awful, taste awful and not enough nutrients.

00:38:56Melissa Erbacher: Also probably make you very gassy. That's a guess. I've never actually been on a cabbage-only diet.

00:39:01Kelly Hodges: That could help with running, though. If you're a little bit gassy, it could help propel you forward.

00:39:08Melissa Erbacher: Is that a thing? Is that a thing? Does flatulence, you know, propel someone forward?

00:39:13Kelly Hodges: Yeah, yeah, well, exactly. So, I mean, it can have pros and cons. It's a place for research, maybe.

00:39:21Melissa Erbacher: Now, we dove in and, like... Got the serious, hard-hitting questions. Scotty started out with the donuts and then, you know, we're already talking about carbs, no carbs. It's pretty intense. I think it's a good opportunity for future. We would love if our listeners have any particular questions to be able to ask you, Kelly, if they could just drop us a line to parkrunadventurers at gmail.com or send us a Facebook message on our Facebook page and give us your questions for Kelly because we will have her back. And then hopefully you'll be able to answer some of the burning questions that our listeners have got for you.

00:40:01Kelly Hodges: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I think that'd be really good just to, yeah, just to be able to help some more people and get the questions so that I can kind of get some answers ready to go for them and just try and help as many as possible.

00:40:16Scott Trickett: Kelly, thanks very much for joining us and thanks very much for agreeing to come back. We sort of asked you before you actually did the interview, so... I like your trust. I know you know Mel, but first time meeting me. But hopefully I'll get to meet you on the weekend. Are you coming down to Kiwana on Saturday?

00:40:34Kelly Hodges: Yes, I will be. Will you be at Kiwana?

00:40:37Scott Trickett: I'm going to visit Kiwana this week so we can all get together and you can critique my breakfast, my post around parkrun breakfast.

00:40:44Kelly Hodges: You'll have to bring a couple of donuts to share then.

00:40:48Scott Trickett: Absolutely. But seriously, Kelly, thanks very much for joining us on the parkrun Adventures and we'll talk to you in a few weeks' time.

00:40:54Kelly Hodges: Lovely. Thanks so much for having me guys.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:41:13Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, another parkrun day and this parkrun day I am up at Toowoomba on the day that Scotty's in Brisbane. I'm sorry mate, but I came in search of cake up to the garden city of Toowoomba. Now for those of you who are not familiar with South East Queensland, Toowoomba is an hour and a half's drive west of Brisbane. It's one of Queensland's largest regional cities and this weekend is not only parkrun's anniversary but it's also the Carnival of Flowers which is a massive celebration in Toowoomba. The town is known for beautiful floral arrangements and what's wonderful about the parkrun here in Toowoomba is we get to run around Queen's Park through a lot of beautiful gardens. So I've done that. and I'm on the hunt for some cake and some interviews with some event directors. So I've tracked down Margaret, one of the event directors up here at Toowoomba. How are you going today, Margaret? Well, very good, thanks, Lyndell.

00:42:13Margaret: Nice to have you at our fourth birthday today. And how's it gone today? It's been great. We're always down on our numbers in school holidays, but we're gathering new people every week, so it's just wonderful. parkrun is very well recognised in Toowoomba.

00:42:29Lyndell Murray: And there's quite a strong running community here anyway and there has been for a number of years, I understand.

00:42:35Margaret: Yes, there has, yeah. There's a lot and a lot of good runners in Toowoomba and a lot of people also that love running in Toowoomba. So it's a great sport.

00:42:44Lyndell Murray: And how did you get involved in running and then in parkrun?

00:42:49Margaret: My dad was a little bit of a jogger so I followed on through that and then when I met Tressa Lindenberg we got together and tried to get parkrun into Toowoomba and we were very successful after a period of time meeting with the mayor and selling our case and as you can see it was well worth it.

00:43:06Lyndell Murray: It certainly was. It's a fantastic community. Everyone seems to be really... I was speaking to a lady who's handing out the cake and really she just comes now to volunteer because she just loves the community. So you've obviously done a great job of building that aspect of parkrun up here, Margaret.

00:43:19Margaret: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, you can always have more volunteers. But we do fairly well with our volleys, yeah. But as you know, there's always the same people turning up every week. But I'm trying to branch out and get new people.

00:43:33Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, thank you for having me here today. Well done on a fantastic event. And, yeah, special thanks to Laps Up Margaret Street Hill.

00:43:42Margaret: Thank you, Linda. You're welcome to come back any time.

00:43:45Lyndell Murray: Now, I'm here with Paula. Now, Paula, you were one of the people who were recognised with an Anniversary Day Celebratory Award this morning.

00:43:54Paula: I was, Lyndell. Very unexpected. Yes, apparently. I have done the most parkruns at Toowoomba parkrun for the year, so that was, yeah, unexpected. But now that I think about it, well, there was only one week when we went to Melbourne and I... Didn't parkrun that week, so, yeah. Well, that's real consistency. Well done, you. Thank you. I have a great group of friends who, a few of them were already doing it, and I started doing it because when I was doing organised runs or races, I'd get really nervous, and I was thinking, well, maybe I should start doing something like this that... maybe, will help me just to be a bit more comfortable with starting a race. And it's turned into a lot more than that with great friends every week. Sometimes trying for a PB, sometimes not feeling like it and just enjoying walking around or running around or yeah it's fantastic that's excellent and that's what keeps you coming back i guess is the friendship and the fun and running and yes um yeah we um there's about six or seven of us who will well lots of us head over for coffee but um A few of us have been away and we haven't all been together for a few weeks so we'll send messages on the Friday night and make sure everyone's up for coffee after our run and sometimes when you're tired and after a big week the coffee and the friends after it is what actually makes you come. You end up enjoying parkrun at the same time but the camaraderie and the support, not just from our group of people, from the whole Toowoomba parkrun, just the positivity and encouragement and fun. We're always up for a dress up and celebrating all the amazing milestones and it's great to see families every week and just people going for their PB and the pace runners are really good when we have them.

00:45:52Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And so have you entered any other serious events again and has it helped you calm your nerves?

00:45:58Paula: I think the only thing I've actually done since, yeah, the only organised race was Peak to Park this year. I didn't do Gold Coast this year, just a bit of injury and a few other things that I didn't end up doing it. But, yeah, no, I did have a good sleep before Peak to Park and I wasn't up all night worried about running, so maybe it has helped. I'm sure it's helped. That's great. That's a great story. Thanks very much for sharing that with us. And I'll go and have a selfie with my friends with my certificate. Have a big laugh over that. No, it's great. There's a lot of great people who give up so much time to make this happen every week. So, yeah, it's fantastic that we have the support of a lot of great people in this little city.

00:46:47Lyndell Murray: absolutely awesome well thanks very much thanks i found another award winner from this morning it's jess g'day jess hello how are you today good thank you now tell me about your award what did you get your award for it says being awesome but is there a particular type of awesome that you are um well it was um for over the past three four years i have um

00:47:11Jess: gotten out and my dad helped a lot and I helped him set up the truck and chalk every morning.

00:47:20Lyndell Murray: So lots of early Saturday mornings when all your friends are sleeping in and watching cartoons.

00:47:26Jess: Yeah, I used to wake up at about 5.30.

00:47:30Lyndell Murray: Wow, that's early. Yeah. Well, well done you. Now, so you've been coming to parkrun for four years. What do you like about parkrun?

00:47:40Jess: I like that it's fun and you get to be active and you get to meet lots of new friends.

00:47:47Lyndell Murray: You certainly do. Well, thank you for talking to me today, Jess, and all the best and well done on your award today.

00:47:52Jess: Thank you.

00:47:55Lyndell Murray: Okay, Scotty and Mel, well, that is looking like a wrap for me from parkrun at Toowoomba, an anniversary. I have caked, I have interviewed, I have run, and I've had a wonderful time here at Toowoomba in the City of Flowers. Until next time, guys, over and out.

00:48:14Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Lyndell, for another awesome wrap-up of what's going on out and around the world. Roving Report from Toowoomba, love your work.

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

00:48:23Scott Trickett: Anniversaries sound like lots of fun. And we've got two more this week. We've got anniversaries at Moree in New South Wales and at Petrie in Queensland.

00:48:35Melissa Erbacher: Happy anniversary, Moree and Petrie. We've also got a couple of launches coming on. We've got Oakey in Queensland. Not too many parkruns beginning with O, I don't think.

00:48:47Scott Trickett: No, there's not. But there's plenty of parkruns beginning with C. And we're adding another one with Carrisbrook in South Australia.

00:48:55Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure the South Australian pirates will be keen on that one.

00:48:59Scott Trickett: Oakey's a funny name. Have you ever been to Oakey? Is it? I think so.

00:49:04Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure they get okie-dokie a lot. That's the first time I've heard that, so... Oh, really? Obviously, I don't live there, so yes, it's... Maybe they do get okie-dokie a lot.

00:49:21Scott Trickett: Okie-dokie. What are we doing with streaking this week? I'm still not running, Mel, as I mentioned in the intro.

Streaky September

00:49:27Melissa Erbacher: Still not running. Well, I'm hanging in there. I'm hanging in there. Even on the weekend... I was still only able to get out after dark at the end of the day, which you think I would be more organized, but I just can't manage it. I don't know how I can change up my day to, you know what? I think I need to take on this level up challenge and get one in before sunrise one day, because that's the only way I'm possibly going to get a jump on streaky September for that particular day.

00:50:00Scott Trickett: Have you done your gym jams challenge?

00:50:02Melissa Erbacher: No, I haven't done that one yet either. In fact, I think, oh, the days are numbered. They are. I'm going to have to write a whole list and get them happening. How about you? Have you done the gym jams? Well, you've done the freedom runs, but you mustn't have much left to do in the bingo card.

00:50:23Scott Trickett: Well, no, I haven't done the ones we set last week, the getting up early. And I haven't done the gym jams, so I think I'm going to cheat and combine those two. And we've got to do it in the next couple of days.

00:50:35Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, you might. Okay. Yes. Yes. That could be interesting, doing your gym jams for the sunrise or before sunrise one. What about barefoot?

00:50:48Scott Trickett: Yes, I did that. I did that on the beach. I went along to Main Beach. And it wasn't a freedom run at Main Beach, but we went to the beach at Main Beach and did it. Without shoes on because we were in the water.

00:51:01Melissa Erbacher: Oh.

00:51:01Scott Trickett: So it was more a stroll. It wasn't even a run. It wasn't a walk. It was a stroll. But I'm counting it.

00:51:07Melissa Erbacher: You did the kilometers, didn't you?

00:51:09Scott Trickett: We certainly did. And it's on Strava.

00:51:12Melissa Erbacher: It totally counts. Well done.

00:51:16Scott Trickett: And well done to everyone else who has stuck with us. I think we mentioned last week that it's going to be an annual thing. And we've got 11 months to prepare for the next round.

00:51:30Melissa Erbacher: What do you think? What are your final thoughts on it, Scotty? Are you going to pursue streaking after September into October? Do you think you'll keep it going for as long as you can, or are you just going to give yourself a little break and take the pressure off?

00:51:43Scott Trickett: Team Trickett is very keen to keep it going as long as they can, so we'll see. The actual 2K walk component, I think we're going to try and keep streaking as long as we can, but it's going to be interesting come Sunday, October 1st. how keen we really are. Now we've got the pressure of maintaining the streak for the whole of September. But as soon as it says October, I think things change.

00:52:11Melissa Erbacher: But we'll find out. Yes, you might find your dedication wavering.

00:52:18Scott Trickett: And you?

00:52:20Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. I certainly have been appreciating the fact that it's getting me out there more regularly. Like literally... Every day, it's been amazing for that aspect. But the pressure of it some days has been a bit much. And I am glad that we did it in streaky September, not streaky December. Or, you know, one of those months that are in the summer months. Because the spring weather has been warming up the last week or so. And it's... I've been taking my dog some days and... The other day I practically had to drag the two of them home because they were so hot. They weren't coping with the heat. And this was seven o'clock at night. So it's not like they had the sun bearing down on them, but it was still quite warm. So it's, yeah, I think not having the pressure of going every day will be nice, but I would certainly like to recommit to at least, you know, three or four times heading out every week. I think I might use that as my loose commitment.

00:53:20Scott Trickett: Yeah. I like loose commitments too, so that's probably what I'm going to do as well. Now, we're going to be parkrunning together this week, which is very exciting for you and I.

00:53:31Melissa Erbacher: Well, we'll be parkrunning at the same event once more. You know, you go a lot faster than I do.

00:53:36Scott Trickett: Okay. It's another opportunity to run with the showman. Perhaps is he going to come down?

00:53:42Melissa Erbacher: He will be there for sure. I will be very interested to see what you think. Think of my home parkrun. I'm a little bit nervous now because I guess, you know, a year and a half of podcasting and you've heard a lot about it and probably it's been built up a lot more than Westerfolds was built up for me by the time I got there. So now I'm a bit nervous. What if you hate it?

00:54:04Scott Trickett: Wouldn't that be awkward?

00:54:06Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's like when somebody has a baby and you think, oh, isn't that ugly? But you can't tell them it's ugly.

00:54:13Scott Trickett: You know, if we were ever allowed to give our top three, do you think Kiwana would crack it for me? Because it's not my home event.

00:54:23Melissa Erbacher: Oh, no, I don't want to say. No, I won't make that assertion because you like different things in events and, you know, I don't want you to be disappointed.

00:54:37Scott Trickett: Yeah. You know, we ask...

00:54:38Melissa Erbacher: I'll be disappointed if you're disappointed.

00:54:40Scott Trickett: I won't be disappointed. I can guarantee that. But, you know, we ask people for their top threes. But I even got a sense visiting Sandgate on the weekend that I loved it. It would be a great... event to go to every week but i only experienced it for the first time as a visitor the true the true parkrun event character of an event comes out after a few months so it's a pointless exercise asking people for a top three just realized really i you you're just all the guests that we've had and you've always asked them what their top three are

00:55:17Melissa Erbacher: But different people have different reasons for what their top three are. You know, some people have cited something as a sentimental reason. Others have cited it as, well, that's where I always run when I'm with my family. So that makes it special for me. It's not necessarily the course or the event as such. But, you know, different people have different reasons for putting things in a top three. And some might rate things purely on a spectacular view level kind of thing. So... I think it's still a valid question.

00:55:49Scott Trickett: Actually, yeah, I take it all back. It's a very valid question because sometimes people have said events in their top three that I've run at and I've gone, oh, geez, that's surprising. And then I've heard other people say events that I really love. They just go, oh, I don't really see that. I mean, people hate Westerfolds, for example. I know people have actually told me that they don't enjoy coming to Westerfolds and it's purely for the hills, so... No, it's a great question. The top three, I'm going to continue asking it.

00:56:22Melissa Erbacher: Okay, good. I'm glad you've come to that conclusion.

00:56:28Scott Trickett: Okay, I think we're rambling. I'm rambling now, Mel. So it's time to wrap up episode 83.

00:56:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, and I look forward to seeing you on the weekend for parkrun Day, Scotty.