Episode 85

Episode details · 277 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:13Scott Trickett: Welcome back to episode 85 of the parkrun Adventurers. I found my microphone.

00:00:21Melissa Erbacher: You found your microphone? Where was it, Scotty?

00:00:25Scott Trickett: It was wrapped up in my dirty shorts.

00:00:27Melissa Erbacher: It was actually wrapped up in dirty shorts?

00:00:30Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. So I went on an adventure last week, which we spoke about, and I took my microphone because I recorded on location. As I'm doing today, I'm outside again. Top's on today, though. It's not as warm as last time. So excuse the bird noises. Magpie. It's magpie season in Melbourne. Can you hear it?

00:00:53Melissa Erbacher: It's magpie season everywhere. Much to the dismay of a lot of runners.

00:00:59Scott Trickett: But I've made friends. I've told you this before, that I've made friends with the magpie family in our front yard. And the other day, he literally came up to me. He has no fear of me at all. I got out of the car and I was eating, and he decided he wanted some. So he literally came up to me and said, can I have some? And I said, no.

00:01:19Melissa Erbacher: Did you share? No. Oh, no. You haven't got them offside now, have you?

00:01:25Scott Trickett: No, because I went inside and got bird seed and fed the whole family.

00:01:29Unidentified speaker: Oh, okay.

00:01:31Scott Trickett: Good work. And they come up to the front door. It's great.

00:01:33Steve Haake: So I don't think the magpies in our front yard are going to swoop in.

00:01:39Scott Trickett: But yeah, I found my microphone. So last week I recorded without a microphone, which I think we got away with.

00:01:46Melissa Erbacher: We did.

00:01:48Scott Trickett: But it was wrapped up in my dirty laundry, which gives you an insight into my world that it took me a few days to...

00:01:56Melissa Erbacher: unpack well i'm just impressed that it survived and i'm not going to ask how it got into the dirty laundry because that's the kind of thing i always check pockets and stuff like that before i pop washing in the washing but adam not that that microphone would have gone through the wash if he was doing the washing so you're lucky i've got a big microphone to match my ego i went for the biggest so i would have i would have noticed it if it went into the wash

00:02:27Scott Trickett: well I'm glad you've got it back you sound fabulous thanks Mel so do you you must have had quite an adventure on Saturday I saw you snuck off

00:02:40Melissa Erbacher: to Ashgrove parkrun I know nothing about Ashgrove well that's the thing see we're parkrun adventurers and I thought it was about time that I got to an event that I hadn't been to and that we hadn't chatted about before so Ashgrove it was it's one of my nendies I've gone through the whole little map and I've worked out my 10 closest parkruns that I haven't been to yet and Ashgrove was on the list until last weekend

00:03:09Scott Trickett: Ashgrove is a Brisbane parkrun?

00:03:12Melissa Erbacher: It is. It's north side Brisbane. And it's beautiful, I can tell you that much. And you know what else? Not only are the volunteers super friendly and welcoming, but just the runners. The runners are so friendly and encouraging out on the course. And I know that happens a lot in different places, but... I don't think I've been to a parkrun where so many of the runners, and there weren't like a huge amount of runners there altogether, but just practically every second person was encouraging me on my way. I always yell out to everyone and tell them they're doing a great job and stuff, but I got a lot of encouragement from runners who weren't just volunteers and things like that, and that's kind of their role as such. So it was a really, really lovely morning. Had a great time.

00:04:04Scott Trickett: You know, I wonder where it comes from. I'm guessing the event team there are very friendly and encouraging because usually there has to be a leader. People will follow a leader. And if the event team is very encouraging and happy and friendly, naturally everybody wants to do the same. So if someone else is doing it, it's easy for everybody else to do it. So that's my guess. Did you meet the event team while you were there?

00:04:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, I went and I didn't introduce myself to anyone, but I did thank the run director on the morning. And I know the event director, Pat, he was actually walking, walk slash running the course with his wife and their two little girls. And they were out on the course. So I knew who they were, but I didn't. I didn't try to make a big fuss about who I was or anything like that. But they were also very encouraging out on the course. And I think you're probably right about it just takes one person to start that chain of encouragement. And I'm sure they've got that in droves amongst their volunteers there. But what did you get up to on the weekend, Scotty? I know you had a special milestone coming up. Did that come to fruition? Because previous special milestones have been delayed by weeks and weeks for various reasons. So did it all come off without a hitch?

00:05:23Scott Trickett: It did. This one was well planned. This was my daughter Kasia's 100th parkrun. which Yvonne and I were very excited about months out. Kasia, not so much. But as the weeks got closer and closer and the reality of getting to her 100th was real, she was really excited and we were so proud. So Kasia's a shy little girl. She's sweet. She just doesn't want the attention. And she's one of those kids that when you cheer her, when you encourage her across the finishing line, she actually doesn't like it.

00:06:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, really?

00:06:00Scott Trickett: Yeah. And I understand that. So we were a bit worried about her accepting some accolades. And when you go up at Westerfolds, they ask if there's any milestones. So they invite you up, as most parkruns do. And you pose with a T-shirt or a sign. And she did that willingly. She put her hand up. And that was a very proud moment for us as parents to see her embrace her their achievement and be happy about it and stand up in front of all these people at Westerfolds. I think a large majority know who she is, and it was just a great start. And then we all ran together, ran and walked. My sister joined us. So it was a real family affair. My mum came down to watch, and then all my Westerfoldian buddies were there to cheer her on. So it was a great morning.

00:06:49Melissa Erbacher: That's awesome. And obviously I've met Kasia a few times, and she is quite a shy little petal. So that actually really says a lot for – what Westerfolds must mean to her, that she felt comfortable, even with all those people, to get those accolades and get up there and be in front of everyone. So that's really lovely. Yeah. What a nice testament to what Westerfolds can do, even for someone who's shy.

00:07:20Scott Trickett: And for her 50th, she achieved her 50th milestone when we were starting up Studley. So I kind of made her... go to Studley for her 50th, which she still reminds me she wasn't really happy about. So we gave her the choice for her 100th. And just the messing with my mind has already started. I mentioned she's nine. But as soon as we finished on Saturday, Kasia mentioned that she misses Studley and she'd like to go back. After for the past year telling me how much... She didn't like being made to do her 50th at Studley. She then turned the tables on me. So we're heading back to Studley soon, which is great because it's one of my favourites.

00:08:09Melissa Erbacher: She is a young lady, Scotty, and it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind at will.

00:08:16Scott Trickett: We celebrated with cake, which was good. Kasia chose the cake. And she's got a good – you know, I'm not a big cake person. Remember, as we know, I like a donut. You know. Cake can be too cakey. Yeah, a bit too doughy or whatever. But my daughter's got good choice in cake. I enjoyed cake for breakfast on Saturday.

00:08:39Melissa Erbacher: I'm glad you're embracing the celebration.

00:08:43Scott Trickett: And it was also International parkrun Day, and I'm happy how that – went across the board around Australia. I saw lots of apricot around. There's a celebration. Everyone's happy that it's parkrun's birthday, but each individual event, it's not their birthday. They use their anniversary to celebrate. But I just like the idea that everybody is proud to be in their apricot and going to parkrun. The attendance figures were really good on Saturday. So things are looking up for this whole parkrun campaign.

00:09:17Melissa Erbacher: It's good to see people recognising that it's a special day for parkrun as an organisation. Joining us now from sunny Queensland, we have an event director from Petrie parkrun. Her name is Kelly Bright and they've got a lot going on at Petrie lately. So Kelly, welcome to the parkrun Adventurers podcast. Thank you. I'm so excited. We're excited too. Let's start with what's happening this coming weekend because it's kind of a big deal. Can you tell us about it?

Meet the ED

00:09:57Kelly Bright: It is a big deal. So I was sitting at home one day and I got one of the parkrun emails and I saw that in the UK they did a Cops and Robbers Day. So they had police running in uniform at their local parkrun. So I've been in the police for 25 years and I thought, what a great idea to bring parkrun and policing together. So I was trying to convince someone else to get this up and running, to organise, to have the police come and run a parkrun, but no one wanted to do it for me. So I thought just in our little territory in Brisbane North, I could organise a Cops and Robbers Day, get some of my local police friends to come and run at the parkruns. And now it's sort of snowballed into something a little bit bigger, but we've got... Myself going to event direct this weekend in my full uniform with my full kit and lots of other police coming along to either run, dress up with part uniform and maybe a tutu and join in the fun of parkrun.

00:10:53Scott Trickett: Kelly, how does the robber fit into the whole cops and robbers theme? Who's the robber?

00:10:59Kelly Bright: The robbers will be the parkrunners. So I just stole that idea from the UK because I guess that's kind of a really identifiable kind of good bad guy so kind of like a Hamburglar so we don't want real robbers but yeah the Hamburglar kind of thing so it's a bit of fun try and see if you can run a bit faster than the coppers probably you can if they're wearing their kits which are five to seven kilos so that's a bit of the fun side of it.

00:11:22Scott Trickett: And you're actually a copper yourself which you alluded to so should the park owners be worried if they do anything wrong that you're actually going to book them?

00:11:30Kelly Bright: I hope no one forgets their barcodes.

00:11:33Melissa Erbacher: How about speeding? Is that an offence if people are going too fast on the course?

00:11:39Kelly Bright: Look, I tell you what, I'm not sure if it was Bundaberg or Mansfield, but they're trying to hook some of the traffic boys in to bring their LIDARs along to get the speed of the parkrunners. I'm not sure how successful that will be. That sounds awesome.

00:11:53Scott Trickett: Yeah, I like the idea of that too.

00:11:56Kelly Bright: I'm just not certain if you're not a vehicle if it's going to work, but let's see if we can get someone to break some land speed records.

00:12:02Scott Trickett: And you're not the only event doing it this week. A whole bunch of other Brisbane events have joined in.

00:12:08Kelly Bright: Yeah, I thought I just would start with the North Brisbane Territory. So that's us, which is Petrie, Bunyaville, which is a really awesome trail course, North Lakes, Warner Lakes, Sandgate, which is super popular there by the water, and Mitchelton. But then since everyone's heard of this, Bundaberg have come on board, Mansfield.

00:12:31Melissa Erbacher: Cleveland and Broadbeach Waters that's fantastic really really great support now kelly it's got a bit of a obviously it's going to be a fun day for parkrunners but it's got a bit more of a serious aspect to it as well hasn't it yeah so i really the idea is to highlight police health and wellness so um i guess as police we're expected to be really good at everything you know you've got to be able to shoot

00:12:58Kelly Bright: stop bleeding, pull cars over, you know, help people when they're down, help people when they really need your help. So I really want to highlight that, you know, police, we're still human. And so often the only time you ever get to meet a police officer is when you're in dire straits. So you might have had your car stolen, your house broken into, a family member's died or you're getting a ticket. So what a good way to meet police in a fun way that's not in the worst time of your life.

00:13:25Melissa Erbacher: And obviously with the focus as well on police's mental health, we all know that the benefits of parkrun are many fold and that mental health benefits are one of those things. Do you feel like perhaps the police will, I mean, for some of them it would be their first parkrun, I'm assuming. Do you feel like perhaps some of them will come back and join in and see the benefits in that respect? Yeah.

00:13:50Kelly Bright: Well, I really hope so because I bang on about parkrun a fair bit. So you can see sometimes when you start talking about it, people kind of glaze over because they're not sure what you're talking about because they'll go, yeah, I run in the park. So I'm kind of hoping that it will, you know, make police officers and other people, you know, come to their first parkrun and then once they're hooked, they'll never look back and look how much better their life will be for it.

00:14:13Scott Trickett: Kelly, as a police officer, you meet a lot of people, a lot of members of our community. And a lot of those members of our community also go parkrun. Do your circles ever mix? Like, do you meet people on the job that then come to parkrun? Or do you encourage people you meet to come to parkrun? And how does that go?

00:14:32Kelly Bright: Yeah, that's interesting that you say that. I live in a little country town called Dayboro, which isn't far from Petrie. And I actually work At Petrie as well, normally my job is in domestic violence prevention. So I've encouraged lots of women that are in domestic violence situations to come along to parkrun, mainly for the support, but also for the exercise as well. So often women will be socially isolated in domestic violence situations, but if they can come along to a parkrun, you know, have a bit of a run and a chat and then maybe a coffee afterwards. It's a really good way to build the self-esteem, the mental health, and to also get into a different circle of people.

00:15:10Scott Trickett: You had a different circle of people visit you on the weekend. You had the Petrie family. We've had Lavinia Petrie on the podcast before. She's kind of amazing. But the whole family visited you on Saturday.

00:15:23Kelly Bright: It was absolutely awesome. I was run directing on Saturday and I was a bit off my game and I didn't say, do we have any tourists today? So I missed it completely. And I saw these people lining up at the start line with these cool shirts that said Petrie parkrun. I went, where did they get them from? I don't have one. So afterwards, of course, I snuggled them. So they decided to travel up to Petrie parkrun so they could use their Petrie name. They also made a running group called Petrie parkrunners. And so they wanted to run their namesake. they thought they might have gotten cake but they missed our birthday by a week but that's okay but they had three generations there and I spoke to Lavinia and she's got something like 102% age grade score for the I think her age group 70 to 74 so it was like being around parkrun royalty I was a bit I was a bit honored actually she's a lovely one very down-to-earth Lavinia

00:16:25Melissa Erbacher: Did she bash out any massive course records for her age group at Petrie on the weekend or did she just take it easy and enjoy time with her family?

00:16:35Kelly Bright: Oh, you put me on the spot now. Can I say I don't know because I was quite focused on her daughter because we've got a fellow who's always quite fast around the 17-minute mark and he said at the 1K to go he could hear footsteps behind him. He turned around and it was Lavinia's daughter, his name I can't remember. So he had to put it on to try and get over the line before her. So I was quite focused on her because this is the first time in a long time that someone's chased him down.

00:17:01Melissa Erbacher: Oh, the running genes must run in the family.

00:17:05Kelly Bright: It's strong in that family.

00:17:08Melissa Erbacher: Now, Kelly, we haven't actually been to Petrie parkrun, so we don't know anything about the course. Can you give us a course description?

00:17:14Kelly Bright: Oh, first off, I'm shocked. So Petrie runs beside the North Pine River. So it's quite a beautiful little river. We start off at Sweeney Reserve, which is a park down behind the police station. Heaps of parking, beautiful and leafy and shady. It's an out-and-back course, so you run out with the river on your left, go down past where the bush turkeys like to make you a beautiful nest to run past or through sometimes. All the way down you go past the thing called Twin Lakes or Mangara Lakes, so they're quite... scenic you turn around at the chester street stairs and you come back with the dams and the river on your right it's fairly well tree lined the whole way concrete paths and pretty well shady for the majority of the course and we're all pretty friendly and you get a high five just about every k

00:18:12Scott Trickett: And you've been going for two years. You celebrated your anniversary a couple of weeks ago. I'm assuming you've enjoyed the two years at Petrie parkrun. Have you got a couple of highlights for us?

00:18:22Kelly Bright: Oh, look, it was so overwhelming to get it started. But once we started and the people that you meet and how you can change lives. We've got people that are in their 40s and 50s that had never run before. And now they're going off and they're running and they might be signing up for, you know, marathons and half marathons. And just a change in these people that had never run before. And we just meet some amazing people. So along the way, I think, you know, we think we're changing people's lives, but I think somehow they're changing ours as well.

00:18:53Scott Trickett: And you awarded your parkrunner of the Month this week as well. Everything's happening at Petrie. And you awarded it to the Disney parkrunner, who's popped up on my radar recently. What's her story? She's got a bit of a following now.

00:19:08Kelly Bright: Well, I didn't know Zoe had such a following until I had a look when I was linking her in on our parkrun page as parkrunner of the Month. So Zoe's quite amazing. I actually met her mum and her auntie before I met her and then they managed to drag her along. And we had a dress up somewhere along the line and she came as a Disney character with the ears and then that's just stuck since. So she always wears the Disney Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse ears. So she went over to the US and did, I'm pretty sure, one of the Disneyland 5Ks and 10Ks. And now she's vying to become a Disney princess at one of those theme parks. So she's on a weight loss journey to become a Disney princess. And she's pretty inspiring and a pretty awesome chick as well.

00:19:56Melissa Erbacher: It does sound like you've got all the fun happening at Petrie, Kelly. I might have to pop along for a visit sometime.

00:20:02Kelly Bright: You'll have to come. We just have so much fun and sometimes when the neighbours don't complain, we have music at the finish funnel just for it so the volunteers can have a little boogie on.

00:20:11Melissa Erbacher: Sounds great. I look forward to spending some time with you guys. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast this week and telling us all about Cops and Robbers and Petrie parkrun.

00:20:23Kelly Bright: Thank you so much. I had a great time. Thank you. Thank you.

00:20:33Scott Trickett: The parkrun Research Board. Who knew? Who knew there was such a thing and it existed? Well, we did, and we wanted to speak to the man who's the chair of the parkrun Research Board. Welcome to the podcast, Professor Steve Haake.

00:20:47Steve Haake: Hello there. Good morning or afternoon.

00:20:50Scott Trickett: It's morning for you, afternoon for us as we're recording this. That's the weird thing about parkrun being global. It can be anywhere in the world, and you're in the UK. Yep. heading up the research board. Tell us about the parkrun Research Board. Why do we have it and what does it do?

00:21:06Steve Haake: Okay, so yeah, I'm here in Sheffield, right in the middle of England. We have five parkruns. And in terms of the parkrun Research Board, why do we have it? You know, it's a global phenomenon. It's very popular in the UK, very popular in Australia. And People just love it so much. They want to find out more about it. And they realize there's some real opportunities to find out about people, about motivations, about what it is that makes parkrun so good. So actually, a few years ago, before I came along as the chair of the parkrun Research Board, some academics got together, and Tom Williams has told me this story, that very, very early on, someone wrote to him and said, I'm pregnant. Can I do parkrun? And he went, oh, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. So he went and found a scientist, found an academic, That ended up being the largest study of running and pregnancy and proved that there was no hazard, no risk to running in various stages of pregnancy. So they realised, that academic realised, you know what, there's a real possibility that we can use parkrun for good here to understand what's going on with ourselves, you know, with pregnant women, with people of all sorts of disabilities, but just motivations, people who are inactive, how they might end up running, why they run and so on. they started to actually receive lots of requests to do parkrun research and realize, whoa, okay, let's put a procedure in process so that we know what we're doing, how we're coordinating these projects, and we can at least assess these projects. And there's a lot of very popular parkruns that were starting to get hassled, like Bushy and so on. So in the first instance, it was just a way of controlling the research that people are asking to do anyway. And a lot of this was undergraduate students at universities who thought, hey, I'm a parkrunner. I'll do my final year project on parkrun. So parkrun was very amenable to doing that. So fast forward a few years, and actually that parkrun board really got a little bit overloaded with the admin. And it was all people doing it voluntarily. It was academics. And really, they were starting to support research projects of students without really controlling what was going on. It was whatever projects came in. And if it was good enough, we said yes. After a bit of a hiatus, I'd known Tom for a while and Tom said, Steve, you have a research organisation there. So I'm director of a thing called the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre. And that research centre has as its mantra innovations that help people move. And, you know, I've been running parkrun for years and years and years. And for me, it's just part of my life. And for me, it's one of those innovations across the world that has helped people move. So that seemed like an obvious tie up. So Tom asked me if my team would become arbiters of parkrun research. That's what we are now. So we're working with parkrun to get access to the database in a. nice, controlled, anonymous way. So parkrun's always in control of all the data it collects. So we're looking at how can we use that data to understand what's going on a little bit more. And I now have a board behind me, mostly based in the UK, in fact, all based in the UK, because I need to keep it tight. I need to be able to contact people quite rapidly. We'll get it going in the UK, but actually already I'm speaking to people at University of Sydney to set up a research board in Australia because you have questions which are slightly different to ours. So the idea is that we now, rather than just react to research that's posted, that we're asked to do, we actually... focus on the things that we're interested in. You know, people who are inactive becoming active, people from disadvantaged communities, people doing volunteering, people from different impairment groups. You know, how do you encourage people with diabetes or cancer or, you know, hard of hearing, et cetera? What do you have to do to help those engage with parkrun? So that's the short version. I could go on for hours.

00:25:57Melissa Erbacher: Steve, So the focus areas that we're interested in, do you commission research projects as well as opposed to the ones that are just coming to us? Do you do them in-house or do you commission people externally to do them through other institutions?

00:26:17Steve Haake: Yeah, well, that's a very good question because that's exactly what we want to do. We want to work out what are the key questions we want answers to so that if questions come in, if research projects come in, we go, well, it's not one of the things we're interested in, so actually, no, we're not interested. But if you look at this list, these are the things we're interested in. So that's one way we do it. The other way is we want to do some research in the first instance on... the parkrun data so we can figure out what the questions are. And then, as you say, start commissioning people and start going, who are the experts in the world? Who are the experts in the world who are also parkrunners? And let's engage with them and get those imaginative minds to look at these research questions.

00:27:02Scott Trickett: And so this may be a simple question, but what happens to the research after you've asked for people to be involved in the research? What happens to that information?

00:27:13Steve Haake: Well, yeah, again, that's another one of the things that's on the strategy of the board. Prior to the new board, really what would happen is someone would do a piece of research. They might publish a paper, if you were lucky, so that would go into the public domain. And there are three research papers out there on parkrun, which you can download in the public domain. But also what we what was happening was you'd have, you know, student research projects that publish their dissertation, their thesis, whatever. And then they'd graduate and we would never hear of them again. So what we're doing now is we are contacting everyone who's ever done any part from research as part of the previous board. Anyone who's asked to do research since I've been in charge. But we're saying to them, we want your outputs. We have to have your outputs. And we are going to put them all on the parkrun website. So there'll be a parkrun research website. And we'll put abstracts of all those bits of research on that website. And in doing that, we can point, signpost people to, look, these are things we've found out. If you want to do some research, don't reinvent the wheel. Don't, you know, look at what we've done before and move on from that. Don't just come up with the same questions. Because sometimes we get the same questions coming in. So it's not there yet, but probably towards the end of this year, we'll start to put up some of those abstracts. And actually, one of the things I really want to do is I want to have a conference. I want to have a parkrun conference, research conference, get anyone and everyone together who's interested in parkrun research, get some of those who've done the research already to come along. present their findings and really start those dialogues with, you know, with all their academic colleagues. So we can really push forward. And the key thing is, you know, in four or five years time, there will be 10 million registered users of parkrun worldwide. That's likely there'll be a million runners across the world. And, you know, we're expanding into countries all the time. So if we can get ourselves organized now, then in five years time, we'll have research boards all across the world all coordinating their own country's research, which we can then coordinate and just make sure that we're asking the right questions, coordinating it and finding some answers to some of those, you know, really interesting questions we've got.

00:29:27Melissa Erbacher: Steve, you mentioned before that obviously parkrun has control of the data that they collect and things like keeping it anonymous is important in terms of, you know, people's privacy and things like that. You're already analysing the data that we collect already. What kind of, obviously that's like the age gradings, male and female, things like that. What kind of information can you extract from that so far without it, you know, getting personal?

00:29:58Steve Haake: Yeah. I mean, just going back to that, you know, just mentioning the data thing, you know, as a parkrunner, I know what I expect parkrun to do and not do, and I don't expect parkrun to be kind of giving away the data to all and sundry. So as a parkrunner, I know that I expect them to have integrity and to look at the data. So that's, for me, that's absolutely important. So we have Mike Graney at parkrun HQ, who is the arbiter of all data. And unfortunately, he's the one that gets all the questions. I go, can we look at this? And so what he has to do is he has to anonymize all the data and send me kind of numbers in tables. And then I start working on that. So we never see anything. We just get, you know, the kind of summative data. So the kind of things we're doing is we're looking at data Where do people come from? So we have their postcodes, their zip codes. And those zip codes, they tell you something about the communities they live in. Every country has a different way of doing it, but in the UK, we can use a postcode to look at something called the Index of Multiple Deprivation. And that tells us something about how rich, how poor, what the environment is like in that particular community, all rolled up into one number called the index of multiple deprivation. So we can see where parkrunners are coming from. And we can even see where the parkruns are being set up. Now what's quite nice is parkruns are being set up uniformly in the UK. across all sorts of parks in all sorts of areas. So there's no bias towards, you know, advantaged or disadvantages. And one of the things, I suppose, as a parkrunner, one of the things I want to get around is I hear some critics go, ah, yeah, parkrun, it's just for the usual suspects. It's for those who are running already, isn't it? And that really grates on me because if you do parkrun, you see that that's not true. That is evidently not true. And the people that are saying that are people who obviously never go to parkrun. So one of the next pieces of work, which we're just writing up at the moment, actually, is looking at what's the ages of those people and what's the previous activity levels of those people. Now, if you see on your Australian parkrun registration site, you will have seen a new question appear quite recently on activity. So that question says, In the last four weeks, how many times have you done 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise enough to raise your heart rate? And it's how many times per week? And the answer that you can give is less than one a week, about one a week, about two a week, about three a week, four or more. and really if you're a one or a less than one then you're deemed as someone who was previously inactive if you're at the threes or fours you're you're active you know if you're doing three things a week you know you're pretty active you're pretty committed and the twos are somewhere in between they're the ones that this transition between being inactive to being active and of course one of the questions we've got is how many people of the inactive variety, does it attract? To counteract that question, that comment that keeps coming towards me, it's just for the usual suspects, the runners, people that are going to run anyway. So we're starting to do that, and it's a really exciting finding to find that from a parkrun point of view, certainly in the UK, we haven't analysed anywhere else yet, that over 40% of of those who turn up weekly at a parkrun were those who were previously inactive. And more than that, some of those people who turn up who were previously inactive have been coming for the last five years, because that's how long we've got the data for. So we've got inactive data for the last five years. That's really exciting. And more to the point, those who were previously inactive actually do more parkruns per year than the most actives. Now, the reason for that is probably that those who are least active, they really love their parkrun. It's probably one of the only things they do, you know, that they're really loyal to it. Whereas, you know, the threes and the fours, the most active, you know, they're kind of the running tarts. They'll turn up to anything if it's free and whatever. So they don't do quite so many parkruns per year. So it's really, really exciting to start finding out all this kind of information, and particularly the fact that we've got people who were previously active who are now still running parkrun five years later. And some of these people are doing 54 parkruns per year in the UK. because we have, I don't know in Australia if you do this, but we have a couple around Christmas where if you're really quick, you can get from one to the other. So you can do more than your 52 in the year. So it's really, really exciting. And we're getting to the end of analysing that first tranche of data which, you know, as an academic, the last thing you say in the paper is, right, further research. These are the questions we want to ask next. And that's what will go on the website. We'll put these things up and go, right, we know this. Right, guys, who wants to answer these questions? And then we'll corral all forces to start answering those.

00:35:06Scott Trickett: I guess it's really nice to have the data and the facts to back that up because I think I could tell you from my experience in parkrun, that is my experience, that the inactives join parkrun and love it. But I guess it's really nice to have the numbers that tell us that. Numbers never lie, as they say.

00:35:24Steve Haake: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, although there is also the quote, which is lies, damned lies and statistics. So there you go. They'll be careful.

00:35:34Scott Trickett: Now, you obviously have requests to do research around a lot of health benefits to do with parkrun. What are some of the stranger requests that you've had come in for people wanting to conduct research?

00:35:46Steve Haake: Oh, blimey, that's a good question. Some of the stranger requests. Gosh, I'm trying to think now. We have requests, you know, the ones we like are the things that go, you know, why do people volunteer? What are the motivations behind volunteering? Why do people turn up to parkrun? What's the motivations for people who are inactive? Then you get some things which are just very, very clearly an academic kind of research project. So how do compression socks improve performance in five kilometre runners? And so we'll have someone turn up and they'll hand out compression socks one week and we'll try some kind of controlled trial. And I haven't seen the results for that one, but I'd be surprised if you really get any data out of it because you've got to have a really controlled study on that kind of thing. We get people wanting to look at asthma, people with lung conditions, you know, some right out there on the periphery of parkrun. And we have to go, do we want to get involved in this? Particularly if people are saying, oh, you know, we want to compile, you know, advice for a particular condition or something. we get a little bit nervous because, you know, to get bits of advice for people with particular conditions requires a lot of research. And what I don't want is I don't want anything going out going, oh, parkrun says, you know, do this when it's not absolutely proven.

00:37:23Scott Trickett: Now, Steve, let's turn our attention to your parkrun travels. I know recently you've been over to Canada where they're going strong with parkrun. Yeah. But did you get a parkrun in while you were there?

00:37:35Steve Haake: You know, I did. And I'd planned to do three. So we planned our trip. So we landed in Vancouver and I looked on the parkrun website and I thought, ah, Whistler, fantastic. So we planned to went to Whistler, especially to do the parkrun. And then the next one was to go to Calgary. And then we're coming back towards Vancouver and Kelowna. So I thought, okay, let's do these three. And so I turned up in Whistler and looked up the parkrun website. Oh, it doesn't start for another two weeks. So I was two weeks early. So then I thought, okay, we'll go for a run anyway. Actually, maybe they're trialing the course, you know, we trial out the parkruns before they go live. So I contacted the organizer and then realized that there's a lot of kerfuffle going on around the hotel. And there was actually a whole series of races that weekend. There was an ultra, a marathon, a half marathon, a 10K, a 5K, you know, whatever. And so I thought, okay, right, I'll do a half marathon, fully booked out, whatever. And they said, oh, okay, I'll do the 5K. The 5K was actually the parkrun route, which I'd already done that morning anyway. I went and did it myself. But it was $60. $60 for a t-shirt and a medal and a 5K run. And I just said, no, no, no, no, no, no. So that was a bit of a failure. You know, why spend $60 when you can just, you know, just go and run it anyway? So... So that didn't work. So eventually I ended up being...

00:39:05Scott Trickett: There's a research paper there, the parkrun effect on entry fees into events, because you just can't bring yourself to pay for a 5K event anymore, can you?

00:39:14Steve Haake: Well, you know, yeah, that is true. But it is interesting that a lot of clubs here, and I'm part of a running club, were really nervous about parkrun, the popularity of parkrun, saying, oh, they're going to steal all our runners. But actually, and I don't know if this works in Australia, but what seems to be happening here is, Our running club now is overwhelmed with members because parkrun is acting as a gateway. So parkrun is attracting new runners, new people to running. And then people are going, you know what? I really like this. I'm going to join my local running club and see the t-shirts of the people, of the clubs running at parkrun and go, how do I join your club? So now we are overwhelmed and equally on the races. So 10K races in particular are, Registrations are through the roof. You have to turn up really, really early if you're going to register on the day. And in fact, a lot of 10K races now just say, no, you can only pre-register because they get full very, very quickly. So what I see happening is I'm seeing parkrun acting as a gateway for people wanting to do other races. So those races are actually benefiting from parkrun. And then the other thing is, at the other end, we've got people going from inactivity to activity who are doing, there's a thing here, an app here called Couch to 5K. Couch to 5K, how do you go from doing nothing to doing something? And people say, you know, I really want to do that parkrun, but I'm not going to do it until I know I can run all the way around. So there's this fantastic thing, which is parkrun is this thing in the middle and it's drawing people in from inactivity to activity and then passing them on to all these other races. So if you do run a race, do not despair because I think parkrun is helping you out.

00:40:54Scott Trickett: I agree. We are the gateway drug to more fun runs. But I interrupted. Continue your tales from Canada and Whistler.

00:41:03Steve Haake: So I ended up in Calgary. I was doing a bit of work. So I ended up in Calgary and I timed that one perfectly. I went to the park in a fantastic place called Nose Hill. Just a great name for a run. So I went to Nose Hill, did this parkrun. It's a little bit hilly. And, you know, I kind of ran really well, I thought. I ran really hard. I came in, you know, a decent number, shall we say. Exactly where I thought I might come in terms of number. So, you know, not too far from the front. But my time was terrible. My time was atrocious. You know, and I'm lying there on the ground panting away. I was really hard. And the guy said, you do realize that you're running over a thousand meters here. Oh, really? Because if Calgary, it's like on the prairie, it's a plane. It just goes on forever. But actually, it's an elevated plane. So that was a tough one, but really, really nice. And loads of parkrun tourists. And then the next thing was to drive down to Kelowna. And this is a bit like driving in Australia, you know. It's a couple of millimetres on the map, but it takes all day to get there. And we didn't quite make it. We couldn't time it. There was floods. The roads were closed. We had to stick around some places. So we just didn't make it. So out of the three I'd intended, I managed to get one in. And I'm happy with that.

00:42:32Melissa Erbacher: When you run at that kind of elevation, Is it, like, what does it mean in terms of how many minutes does it add to somebody's average parkrun? Do you know?

00:42:44Steve Haake: Oh, gosh, gosh. Now, there's a research question we should put in. You know, I don't know. I have looked. I've looked in the past. Of course, Britain, you know, we have weather in Britain, not like you Australians. You don't really have weather, do you? So we have weather. I don't know. I've looked in the past just anecdotally at the effect of weather on parkrun times. And you do see parkrun times going down, particularly when it's windy. And it's difficult because you have this broad spread of times, anything from the wily old guys at the front to the wily young guys at the front with your 15 minutes and then the people at the back with 45. So you've got to do some quite special stats to bring it out. So whether we've looked at an altitude we've not looked at, and that's interesting because what you'll find, depends how many tourists they'll have. Because if you are a local and you live in a thousand meters, you'll acclimatize. So there's less oxygen in the air. So your body will make more red blood cells to accommodate and your body will go back to equilibrium. If you then go down and go and race a parkrun down in Vancouver at sea level or something like that, hey, you've got an advantage there because you've got more red blood cells. So that would be interesting to see how many tourists go from Calgary to a low level parkrun and how well they do there but for the tourists like me going to somewhere like Calgary you know even a thousand meters it's not a huge effect maybe that's my excuse but there will be an effect of you know a few percent I would have thought.

00:44:27Melissa Erbacher: So you're obviously as part of the research board you're doing research on the people will you be doing research on the courses?

00:44:37Steve Haake: Yes, yes. I mean, I think for me, what would be really interesting is in terms of the location of the courses and from a parkrun point of view, which courses perform better than others? Which courses attract more people than others? And why is that? So Obviously, there's location. So you might have communities that engage more with parkrun than others. It might be the environment. It might be the green environment. And there's a whole swathe of research starting to pop up now about green running, running in green spaces. So, you know, getting out the gym, getting outside and the benefits that that gives, you know, the health and well-being benefits. So that's something we're interested in. So elevation, it would be interesting, you know, I mean, I'm a stats nerd, so I just love looking at data. So I would love to look at, you know, the effect of elevation on some of those parks. I'd love to look properly at the effect of weather conditions on those parks. You know, there's anecdotal evidence that, you know, maybe when the weather is bad, more women tend to stay at home than men and that men go, I'm going to do it anyway. that's that's you know comments i've heard i'd like to find out if that's true or not um you know how does it affect you know youngsters turning up so yeah i'd love to do all that research on the past then of course that's just you know the uk so how does parkrun Australia differ to parkrun you know in in the UK what are the environmental conditions because of course you know you've got nice conditions out there i mean possibly too hot sometimes So how does the weather affect your kind of parkrunners turning up?

00:46:21Scott Trickett: It's all fascinating. And as a self-confessed stats nerd that you are, Steve, you're in good company with parkrun. Who would have thought that a 5K run has so many layers to it? And thanks for coming on the podcast and uncovering some of those layers for us today.

00:46:38Steve Haake: Great. Thanks for inviting me. I'll come back in the future when we've found out a little bit more.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:46:53Melissa Erbacher: We've got roving reports coming from all over the country, or at least I should say Queensland and Victoria this week. We have Zara Curtis, who is at the Port Arlington launch, Lyndell Murray, who comes to us from Bunyaville, and Greta Wilkinson, who was at Ararat.

00:47:10Zara Curtis: Take it away, ladies. Hi, Mel and Scott. This is Zara Curtis reporting from Port Arlington parkrun launch. I'm here with the event director, Fiona. Hi. Hi. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions? Certainly. Go ahead. Okay. How do you feel the launch went and what's your thoughts about the launch after now it's done?

00:47:31Fiona: I think the launch was successful. It's very nice to see so many people running and enjoying themselves and there's lots of happy faces at the end and things like that. What's your favourite part about the course when you're designing it? My favourite part of the course is probably the view. I know unfortunately you can't see it because we're on a podcast here. But we overlook the Corio Bay and we've got lots of boats in the area. The only problems that we're ever going to have if we ever have to cancel would be if there's a king tide. So we're right on the water we are. We're not actually on the beach, but we're on a path along the beach. We've got beautiful views of the You Yangs, which is also where there's another parkrun. And we're just really lucky. And I just think the whole... My favourite part of the course would be the whole two and a half k's out and the two and a half k's back. How many parkruns have you done? Actually, not that very many, actually. I think I've only done about 28. And that was all at Balyang Sanctuary. The reason why I started this was because at the – so Ballyang Sanctuary has been going now for five years now, and at the time I had two young boys and a pram. And it was just too hard to get to Ballyang Sanctuary in time. So I said to my husband, we should have something closer. And so hence we have something closer.

00:49:06Zara Curtis: What is your favourite part about parkrun?

00:49:11Fiona: Oh, jeez, I don't know what my favourite part is about it. I just love it. I just, like, I've always just loved the whole concept of parkrun. I don't think there's any one thing that I, you know, I love the fact that it's free. I love the fact that it's timed. I love that, you know, every week I love the fact that people come down and they see people who they don't normally see during the week and it becomes their, you know, that's their... parkrun friends. I just love the fact that anyone can do it and you don't have to run, you can walk it. I love the fact that I've got my young son helping out, I've got my parents who are 80s helping out and yeah, I just love it. How has it changed your life? I don't know. It's just certainly made things a lot more busier at the moment. I sort of feel a lot more connected to the community, which is a really nice thing. How has it changed my life? It's all for the good. Is there anyone you want to thank in particular? I want to thank Glenn, who's been... He's my event ambassador for helping out. I'd also like to thank... Tracy and Lynn who have helped me out as well and also Jo McCarthy has also helped them as well.

00:50:34Zara Curtis: Thank you so much for putting up this amazing park around Lodge with the amazing view and yeah, hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Okay, thank you very much.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:50:45Lyndell Murray: Good morning parkrun Adventurers! G'day Scotty, g'day Mel. It's Lyndell here, back again reporting for the Channel 5 News crew and just for something completely different, I'm at home! I'm at home at Bunyaville parkrun on International parkrun Day. I thought I'd put in an appearance with all the adventuring that I've been doing lately. I felt like I'd been abandoning my home crew here at Bunyaville. It's lovely to be back out in the bush. The trees are beautiful. The birds are chirping and the runners are just started. I'm volunteering today. I'm marshalling out on course. But what I'm going to do is just try and catch up with some of my other fellow volunteers and see how they're feeling about volunteering about parkrun and International parkrun Day. So today our photographer at Bunyaville is Fionn. G'day Fionn, how are you going?

00:51:38Fionn: Yeah, good thanks Lyndal, yourself?

00:51:40Lyndell Murray: Oh, I'm terrific. What could be wrong? I'm at parkrun, at home parkrun, on parkrun, International parkrun Day. So today you're a photographer, and have you done that role before?

00:51:50Fionn: No, it's a new role for me today, so yeah, looking forward to it.

00:51:54Lyndell Murray: Give it a crack?

00:51:55Fionn: Yeah.

00:51:56Lyndell Murray: As I say, you know, I do a bad job volunteering, I can give people their money back, right?

00:52:01Fionn: Exactly, yeah, full refunds available.

00:52:03Lyndell Murray: And what do you like about volunteering at parkrun?

00:52:06Fionn: I just like, you know, get to meet people and do something different. I like running the parkrun, so I feel like it's good to give back and help out as well, just to keep it all running.

00:52:17Lyndell Murray: Yeah, well it doesn't run without volunteers, so it doesn't hurt to just give it a go and volunteer once in a while, yeah?

00:52:25Fionn: Yeah, that's right.

00:52:26Lyndell Murray: Awesome, and how did you get involved in parkrun?

00:52:28Fionn: So I just saw it in my local community. I used to live down near Mitchelton parkrun. So a few mornings I was going for a run and I just saw a lot of people congregating and running and clapping and just looked into it and then just started doing it.

00:52:47Lyndell Murray: Looked too good to resist.

00:52:48Fionn: Exactly.

00:52:50Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Well, thanks for your time and thanks for volunteering and we'll see you out there.

00:52:54Fionn: Okay, thanks.

00:52:55Lyndell Murray: Two of our volunteers here today, Wayne and Bob. Good morning. Welcome to the podcast.

00:53:00Bob: Morning. Morning.

00:53:02Lyndell Murray: And what are your roles today volunteering?

00:53:05Bob: I'm a token sorting.

00:53:12Lyndell Murray: So you're going to be the two blokes at the end of the line where we all finish?

00:53:16Bob: Yes. I'm on finished tokens.

00:53:20Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And what do you like about volunteering at parkrun?

00:53:24Bob: Just meeting all the people here and it's a friendly place to be.

00:53:29Wayne: I think I agree totally with what Bob said. And, you know, you've got to give back if you take out.

00:53:36Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Good point. And how did you guys get involved in parkrun?

00:53:40Bob: A friend of mine brought me here about 78 runs ago.

00:53:45Lyndell Murray: 78? That's a good number.

00:53:46Bob: I haven't come here since.

00:53:49Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And you, Wayne?

00:53:51Wayne: My wife's a fitness junkie, so I was roped.

00:53:55Lyndell Murray: Didn't have much choice, hey?

00:53:56Wayne: That's right.

00:53:57Lyndell Murray: Well, it's good to have you here. Thanks for volunteering, and I'll see you out there. Okay, so Marie, you are not only today's tail walker, but I believe you're also the communications person for Bunyaville parkrun. Is that correct?

00:54:14Marie: Yes, that's correct. I love towel walking because I actually get the benefit of getting a race in. And the communications, also love that too. It's easy for me. I'm sort of at an office job, so I can easily check emails, post stuff. sort the volunteer rosters, things like that. So all good fun.

00:54:35Lyndell Murray: And what do you like most about volunteering at parkrun?

00:54:38Marie: I actually like the community feel, especially here at Bunyaville parkrun. Everyone's so friendly. It's just like its own little community. So I love volunteering, just getting to meet all the other people.

00:54:52Lyndell Murray: Excellent. It seems to be a bit of a common theme. And so how did you get involved in parkrun in the first place?

00:55:00Marie: I was actually driving past Mitchelton parkrun one day, this is a couple of years ago, and I saw all the marquees up at their start and I'm thinking, what the hell is this going on? And I saw the parkrun website on the marquee, so went and googled and thought, what is this all about? Asking at work, saying who the hell knows what parkrun is, there's all these people at Mitchelton, what's going on? And a couple of people had done it before and told me, yep, it's a good way to start because I wanted to try and get it back into my exercise. So I went along to the next one at Mitchelton as scared as anything because I thought everyone would be really fast. But no, it caters for everyone, all abilities, fast, slow, walking, doesn't matter. And from there I was hooked and try and get here every Saturday since.

00:55:50Lyndell Murray: Excellent and you are a regular here and everyone knows you and you make a really great contribution to our Home parkrun here at Bunyaville so thanks very much Marie.

00:55:58Marie: No worries, thank you.

00:56:01Lyndell Murray: Alright, I am here with one of our Run Directors, Tess. Now Tess today is our Volunteer Coordinator so she's getting us all in line. How are you going today Tess? I'm really great, thank you. Welcome to Bunyaville parkrun. And how do you like volunteering and what do you like about volunteering at parkrun?

00:56:21Tess: Well we need volunteers to get parkrun going but at the same time you get to know people in a different way because when you're running you don't talk to people much but when you're volunteering you're able to interact and get to know why they're in parkrun and also Bunyaville is really really lovely.

00:56:39Lyndell Murray: It is lovely out here in the trees, isn't it? Yes.

00:56:42Tess: And how did you first get into parkrun? Well, a friend of mine saw me while I was at the markets in New Farm and I didn't intend to go at all. And she asked me, she told me, why don't you come in? And I had my runners on and I thought, oh, I haven't even walked a kilometre at that stage. And so we went and I was at the really far end of the line. Yes, down there.

00:57:10Lyndell Murray: I know. You're welcome. We've just had a runner ask us whether we've got an elevator for the hill. If those of you haven't been to Bunyaville, it is a pretty hilly course here. Sorry Tessa, you're telling us about getting into parkrun.

00:57:26Tess: Yeah, so I was right at the end and I thought they wouldn't be waiting for me at the end and then Claire comes back for me and we get to the line and there were still people waiting. I think I was the last one to arrive at that day. And then people were so friendly. I think it wasn't the running that pulled me into parkrun. It was more that people were so open and so inclusive. And that started me coming back to run. And now I love running, walking as well.

00:58:01Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Now talking about being inclusive, I've got a little story for you. I don't know whether you remember this, but I remember you from New Farm back in the day. And this is how I got into parkrun. I was running in New Farm Park and I'd never heard of parkrun and I saw all of these people and I saw you in your volunteer vest marshalling on course. And I stopped and said, what is this? What's going on here? Is there a fun run on? And you said, no, this is parkrun. You can join in if you like. Just you can go. You'll catch them. Anyway, you didn't know at the time I was a very slow runner and there's no way I would have caught them. So I said, no, no, I won't join in today, but I will come back. And I did. And I remembered you when I came to Bunyaville. I saw you and I remembered you. And I thought, that's a nice lady that was at New Farm.

00:58:49Tess: And that's how I started parkrun. So how's that? Oh my God, that's so amazing. And see, well, for me, it's really amazing that we can impact other people just by the things that we do and just by being friendly, I suppose. Yeah, so, yeah, parkrun is all of that. I always say that parkrun is where strangers come, become friends, and it becomes a family. And it really is. So, I think we're doing a great thing for the community and for individuals as well.

00:59:25Lyndell Murray: I couldn't agree more. And you, as a super volunteer and a run director here at Bunyaville, are certainly doing your bit, Tess. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Lyndell. And here comes another runner. Go, Jerry! Okay, so now I've finally tracked down today's run director, Grace, and now, how are you going today? Good, no, very good, yeah. And so, Grace, you were, you are still very young, you're still year 12 at the moment?

00:59:59Grace: Yep, on the countdown, 21 days of classroom days to go, and I'm all done, yes.

01:00:04Lyndell Murray: So when you started run directing, I understand that you were one of the youngest run directors going around in Australia. Is that right? And how did that come about?

01:00:13Grace: So I was 14 when I started run directing and it was Claire and Phil here at Bunya. They spotted me out. I started running here as a 13-year-old and then a year later I became the run director and supposedly the youngest one in Australia.

01:00:29Lyndell Murray: And how has that experience been? I guess Phil and Claire obviously supported you a lot. Oh, yes. And how has that been for you personally, being so young and volunteering? What does that mean to you?

01:00:40Grace: It was great. It taught me a lot and especially how to give back to the community and how to, especially with my role as a run director, how to run and organise an event. And it's been really great. It's been an awesome experience and I've loved it.

01:00:58Lyndell Murray: And I bet it's good for your resume too, like if you're finishing school, you'd be applying for uni or jobs or something, so it's good for your resume as well.

01:01:05Grace: Oh yeah, it's been, yeah, it's a great thing to say that I've done, especially from such a young age and for such a long time I've done it, so.

01:01:14Lyndell Murray: Well, you are always so great to have here as a run director. You and Tess are like the power duo here. The other thing that I often notice here is that when Grace is in charge, the whole Fowler family are here supporting you. Yes.

01:01:32Grace: um how is that and for me your family are always so fun and again they must have been supportive of you and they add something too yeah they've been very supportive of me um in like doing my run directing job it's um without them i wouldn't have been able to get here every week and they've yeah they've just been so supportive of um everything i've wanted to do and especially with parkrun

01:01:55Lyndell Murray: Yeah, and they're just such a part of the community, as are you. So thank you very much, Grace. No worries. Well done, and we'll see you again at Bunyaville parkrun. Yes, thank you very much. Okay, that's it from me signing off for the Channel 5 News crew on International parkrun Day 2017. Something a bit different. Instead of adventuring, I've spent the day at home at my Bunyaville parkrun with the wonderful... community of volunteers and run directors that we have there and I guess what we know what I really want to say is that Bunyaville in in many ways is like all of the other parkruns that I go to the community of volunteers is so strong and vibrant and people volunteer willingly for a lot of the same reasons they want to give back to their community and to their parkrun They want to learn new things. They want to meet new people and just become connected and feel really a part of their home parkrun. So anyone listening that has thought of volunteering but you're not sure whether you can do it or what it will be like, take our word for it, you can do it. And we guarantee you a great time. So that's it from me. Happy volunteering and happy International parkrun Day.

01:03:13Greta Wilkinson: Hi Scott and Mel, it's Greta here and I am at Ararat parkrun this morning. So I'm touristing across the border from my usual haunt of South Australia over camping in the Grampians. So we thought we'd visit Ararat parkrun this morning. So Ararat is a beautiful parkrun. It's in a park with a lake in Ararat and it's a four lap course. I've never done a four lap course so that was really great because you get to see Lots of people, lots of time on the course. I'm going to see if I can find someone to chat to. Okay, so hello, I'm here with... Rhonda. And we've just done, well, I've just done the Ararat parkrun. And Rhonda, you were on tokens today. Do you often volunteer at Ararat parkrun?

01:03:58Rhonda: I've done a couple, so it helps with the run.

01:04:02Greta Wilkinson: Yep, and you've done the run as well?

01:04:05Rhonda: Yeah, I usually walk though. Yes, yep. And I try and do better my time every time, but not always.

01:04:11Greta Wilkinson: Awesome. And it's a beautiful course that you've got here.

01:04:15Rhonda: It is. It's good except for that hill.

01:04:18Greta Wilkinson: The hill that you have to do four times. Yeah, that's right.

01:04:20Rhonda: And that fourth time, it depends how hard you've been walking. Yeah, it's yuck. And are you local to Ararat? I certainly am. How long have you lived here? 40 years. 40 years. But only came from Moyston, which is only 10km out the road.

01:04:34Greta Wilkinson: Okay, so when were you considered a local? After 40 years? Probably, I don't know. No, a bit closer than that. A bit closer than that. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for volunteering today and allowing us to have a lovely parkrun. Pleasure. Okay, so I'm now here with Trish and Sharon. We're at the Ararat parkrun. How are you going, Trish?

01:04:54Unidentified speaker: You're the event director for Ararat parkrun.

01:04:56Greta Wilkinson: Yes, that's right. And Sharon, you're the co-event director or run director? I'm a bit of everything. She's a run director.

01:05:03Unidentified speaker: Yes, yes. You're a right-hand man. I ran and then took over as timekeeper today.

01:05:09Greta Wilkinson: Yes, well, thank you so much for timekeeping today.

01:05:11Unidentified speaker: It's all right.

01:05:14Greta Wilkinson: So this is a beautiful course you've got here. Tell us about the course.

01:05:17Unidentified speaker: It is a beautiful course and I think we're really lucky. Different people have said, oh, four laps, but four laps has actually worked out really, really well for our app because we have some people come along that can't actually manage 5Ks yet. So they start and they do like at the... We've been going since end of April and they would do two laps and then drop out. Of course, they don't get a time, but they were fine with that. They were walking with other people. And now they're doing three laps and their aim is to do the four laps eventually. So the four laps is actually working out really well and people get to see each other numerous times. So, you know, even the fast runners get to see the slow runners and A few times. Yeah, it's fantastic.

01:06:10Unidentified speaker: You sort of loop past people and you can smile, you can clap hands, you can just give that look like, oh, is it nearly done? You know, that's what I like about that.

01:06:22Greta Wilkinson: From my perspective, it was a fabulously social run. Yes. Yeah, it is. And that's what our ad is about.

01:06:27Unidentified speaker: It's a friendly social parkrun. Yeah, no, it's fantastic.

01:06:31Greta Wilkinson: And that's a great idea for those people who aren't quite up to the 5K to just work their way up to it.

01:06:36Unidentified speaker: Yeah, exactly. And you've got a great coffee shop. Yes, I think we might not be the closest. I think I saw a new launch the other day that had a park.

01:06:46Greta Wilkinson: cafe right next to the finish line but we're only about 20 metres I don't even think 20 metres finish line to the cafe how wonderful is that and it's an absolutely beautiful park and I love the wisteria

01:07:02Unidentified speaker: oh yeah it is a beautiful baby ducks and baby swans and you know we have pelicans here and swans and what else do we have lots of animals possums there's lots of yeah gardens yeah yeah well it's a beautiful parkrun congratulations on getting it up and running and then having got so this is your 25th event so you're relatively new yeah yeah we've survived winter

01:07:27Greta Wilkinson: Looking forward to all the footballers coming back?

01:07:29Unidentified speaker: Yeah, yeah, because Ararat's a big football netball town and people have to travel for that. So, you know, we got down to our lowest over winter was 11 runners. We still had our five volunteers. But, yeah.

01:07:46Greta Wilkinson: But a big successful parkrun doesn't necessarily mean a big parkrun, does it?

01:07:50Unidentified speaker: No. We always have enough volunteers. People put their hand up and it's really good. It's a good community.

01:07:57Unidentified speaker: I've met lots of different people that I didn't know. Oh, so you like to run too. Oh, that's good. It's really, it's great. And we just like to see people improve. People from walkers who suddenly they jog a little bit. And then they jog a little bit more and then suddenly they're jogging the whole thing. It's just fantastic. Yeah, it is. It's great.

01:08:15Greta Wilkinson: Well, well done on building a lovely parkrun community here at Ararat.

01:08:19Unidentified speaker: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you.

01:08:21Greta Wilkinson: Okay, so I'm now here with Mary-Anne and we're at the Ararat parkrun. And we're just sitting down and having our coffee. How are you going, Mary-Anne?

01:08:29Mary-Anne: I'm really well, thank you.

01:08:30Greta Wilkinson: And you did the tail walking today?

01:08:32Mary-Anne: I did, yep. That's my job most weeks. Is it?

01:08:34Greta Wilkinson: Yep. So you work every second week?

01:08:37Mary-Anne: Every second weekend, yeah. So when I'm off, I come to parkrun.

01:08:40Greta Wilkinson: Awesome. And you're always the tail walker?

01:08:42Mary-Anne: Yes, that's all. Yeah, either that or I think once or twice I've walked without being the tail runner, but normally that's my job. That's the job I like.

01:08:49Greta Wilkinson: Yeah.

01:08:50Mary-Anne: I like talking to everybody on the course and giving them some encouragement as they go past and stuff.

01:08:55Greta Wilkinson: It's a very social course, isn't it?

01:08:56Mary-Anne: Hugely social and very non-judgmental.

01:09:00Greta Wilkinson: Yes.

01:09:00Mary-Anne: Very non. It's lovely to be part of something where people don't judge you for what size you are or how quick you walk or run or it's just good fun. Yeah. Yeah.

01:09:08Greta Wilkinson: It's a lovely, supportive community.

01:09:10Mary-Anne: It is a great community. And even when people come from other parkruns, you know, they're tourists. They're so lovely. And it makes you want to go and run with their mob then because they're just so good.

01:09:19Greta Wilkinson: And go and visit them. Yes.

01:09:21Mary-Anne: That's the plan.

01:09:23Greta Wilkinson: And are you local to Ararat?

01:09:24Mary-Anne: Yes, I am. Yes. Lived here more 50-something years. Oh, really?

01:09:28Greta Wilkinson: Yes. It's a beautiful part of the world.

01:09:29Mary-Anne: It is a nice part. Yes, it is. It's very pretty. You've got the Grampians and all. It's lovely. Yes, yes.

01:09:33Greta Wilkinson: Well, that's what we're doing. We're camping the Grampians. Oh, are you? Oh, that'd be nice, yes. It's lovely. It is, yeah. Well, thank you very much for tail walking at parkrun today. No problem. And letting us participate in parkrun.

01:09:46Mary-Anne: You're always welcome. And I hear that you've got an interesting story to tell. Oh, well, yeah, I sort of, this is, I suppose, a fitness journey and parkrun's part of it for me. I've sort of, you know, had a weight problem most of my adult life. I had really bad knees. I had a knee replacement done last year. So I've sort of, you know, that sort of kicked me on and allowed me to do bits and pieces. And I've lost just on 60 kilos. Oh, well done. Yeah, it's pretty good. So walking parkrun and I walk during the week just by myself, a couple of laps around the track. And then I swim. most days and i do water aerobics so um and i've actually started doing the couch to five yeah so i'm trying to teach myself how to jog which is enormous for me because i'm not not built for running but you don't have to run quick and it's taken me a lot of years to realize that you don't have to be olympic standard to enjoy running it's for everybody so i'm loving it

01:10:43Greta Wilkinson: Oh, what an inspiring story.

01:10:44Mary-Anne: Oh, thank you, thank you.

01:10:46Greta Wilkinson: Yeah, well done.

01:10:46Mary-Anne: Thank you. Yeah, no, it's good. And you've got all the community here, which is so supportive too. And every week when you see your time's getting better, as I say, you wait for that email to see if you've bettered last week's time, which is so sporty. We're not like me at all, but I do get right into it.

01:11:03Zara Curtis: Thank you. Yeah. Oh, wacko, wacko.

01:11:06Mary-Anne: fantastic so the girls do a great job here and Ron and it's lovely to be part of a really nice community it's a beautiful community it is a lovely community and I love even getting the emails from all over the world and not that I'll ever visit any of those places but it's lovely to see when you get the blogs and the emails and what everybody's doing and the stories and it's lovely there's some really inspiring people around and we sort of get Don't you bog down with all the bad news and the suffering in the world. It's lovely to see something positive and affirming.

01:11:33Greta Wilkinson: It's fantastic.

01:11:34Mary-Anne: It is. And thank you for being positive and affirming. No problem.

01:11:39Scott Trickett: Another stellar line-up of roving reports. Greta's stepping up, isn't she, Mel?

01:11:45Melissa Erbacher: She is. She wants in on the Channel 5 News crew. Let's do it. I think she's making a good case.

01:11:49Scott Trickett: Let's do it. We've got to get the gender balance right. And we've got Lyndell. She's our lone female representative. We've got PK. And we've got the barefoot runner.

01:12:04Melissa Erbacher: So let's add Greta to the mix. Add her in.

01:12:07Scott Trickett: She's in.

01:12:07Melissa Erbacher: Welcome, Greta. It's done.

01:12:11Scott Trickett: Yeah.

01:12:12Melissa Erbacher: No going back now, honey.

01:12:13Scott Trickett: And I like Greta's style. She makes everybody work. She lets them. Do her job. Nice work, Greta. Not unlike us. Yes. Now, I want to clear something up from the intro. When I said I wrapped my microphone up in my dirty shorts, they weren't my sweaty, filthy running shorts or anything like that. They were just my worn, everyday shorts.

01:12:42Melissa Erbacher: So I don't want people... That you hadn't overly sweated in or did gross and disgusting.

01:12:47Scott Trickett: No, I was just protecting the microphone with some extra padding. Because I know I might have creeped a few people out, including you.

01:12:57Melissa Erbacher: I'll let you in on a little secret. Adam's running shorts last weekend. After parkrun at breakfast, he actually got s*** on. There was a Poonami explosion out the back. of Wes's nappy and we were eating breakfast. It was Adam's turn to look after Wes. I had waited while he ate his breakfast and then handed over the child and I was eating my breakfast. He takes great joy in telling people that I handed him the smallest possible cocktail napkin in the world. When this catastrophe happened, he's conveniently forgotten that I gave him my nice big napkin that was sitting in my lap, protecting me from breakfast spillage. And yeah, he's like, you know, I need some help here. And I just apparently went back to eating my breakfast. But shit happens literally sometimes. And I was hemmed in. I couldn't get out of my seat because I was up against the roadway and he was blocking my exit. So what did he expect me to do exactly? I don't know. But my point is those shorts... not what you want to wrap up a microphone in. So I'm glad you clarified the extent of the soiled-ness of your laundry, Scotty. Much appreciated. Good.

01:14:23Scott Trickett: Good. Not sure where to go now after that story.

01:14:28Melissa Erbacher: How about we go... You weren't expecting that, were you?

01:14:34Scott Trickett: No, I definitely wasn't, Mel. You surprised me again. Thank you. Thank you, Adam, for always entertaining us with your stories. About you, this time.

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

01:14:49Melissa Erbacher: Yes, we've got some launches, though. Let's head to launches.

01:14:51Scott Trickett: That's a good place to go. Tell me about the launches. What have we got this month?

01:14:55Melissa Erbacher: We have got Bannockburn Bush in Victoria and Urunga in New South Wales. Another U. We've not got too many of those in Australia, I don't think.

01:15:05Scott Trickett: No, I don't think we do. Maybe just one other one. But anniversaries this week. They're happening in Victoria as well at Berwick Springs and Hamilton. But they're also in New South Wales at Galston and over in WA, Kalgoorlie Boulder. All celebrating their anniversary this weekend.

01:15:26Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. I hope they all have a wonderful weekend. Now, what are we going to be celebrating, Scotty?

The Perlustration (annual listener survey)

01:15:33Scott Trickett: This week, we're going to be celebrating the launch of the 2017 parkrun Adventurers Annual Perlustration.

01:15:43Melissa Erbacher: Hooray! It's obviously been far too long since the last one, being more than a whole year.

01:15:50Scott Trickett: Yep.

01:15:51Melissa Erbacher: I'm excited about the questions we've got in the line-up this year, Scotty. Completely different from last year.

01:15:57Scott Trickett: Well, not entirely, Mel. There are going to be a couple of double-ups. But we're curious, as we always are, to pick the brains of our listeners and find out what you think about various topics.

01:16:10Rhonda: Maybe some you're not expecting this year. Possibly.

01:16:14Scott Trickett: Mixed in with the usual parkrun and podcast questions that we want to know to help shape this podcast for next year, if we come back next year.

01:16:26Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you've started this again, have you?

01:16:29Scott Trickett: Yeah. Hey, you know what?

01:16:31Melissa Erbacher: I'm going to ignore it.

01:16:33Scott Trickett: You know what? Because we took a break earlier, we're not going to get to our 100th episode this year. I did a quick math the other day. You know how the end of last year it fitted really nicely? We finished on 50 episodes.

01:16:47Melissa Erbacher: It did, yes. Where are we going to finish this year?

01:16:50Scott Trickett: In the 90s. I think we're going to be a few short, assuming we don't take any more breaks.

01:16:56Melissa Erbacher: Too short? No, I think we're going to be a bit shorter than that.

01:16:59Scott Trickett: Two or three? Four or five?

01:17:01Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Four or five? It depends on if you want to finish on Christmas Day this year or the week before that. But that's okay. Okay. I think that just means we're going to have to enter 2018 and at least get to 100.

01:17:17Scott Trickett: Maybe that's one of the questions in the perlustration. Do you want to see the parkrun adventurers back for 2018?

01:17:22Melissa Erbacher: Oh, what do we do if people say no?

01:17:26Scott Trickett: We end it.

01:17:29Melissa Erbacher: That's a bit sad.

01:17:30Scott Trickett: Yeah. We want to hear what they've got to say, Mel.

01:17:33Melissa Erbacher: We want to let the people speak.

01:17:35Scott Trickett: Yeah. It would be strange that if you download this podcast every week and listen to us, but you do it against your free will. It's not something you enjoy. But you never know. People are weird. People do things for different reasons. And we want to find out all that information.

01:17:53Melissa Erbacher: And we will, of course, be giving all that feedback in an analysis of the results of the perlustration. When will we do that? In November after we've given them a few weeks to fill it in?

01:18:04Scott Trickett: Yeah. As we know, a lot of people are a few weeks behind. So the perlustration, I reckon let's run it for maybe even three or four. Okay.

01:18:14Melissa Erbacher: We'll leave it open for the rest of the month at the very least.

01:18:17Scott Trickett: Yep. And we're going to give you incentives to fill it out throughout the whole month.

01:18:21Fiona: Ooh, are we? Yeah, we are.

01:18:22Scott Trickett: We are. I'm not ready to announce them now, so just fill it out because you really want to now. But as we get to two, weeks two and three, we're going to start begging and bribing you.

01:18:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, and there's no need to wait until weeks two and three because whatever these incentives are, we'll probably let people who've already filled it in also be able to get those incentives.

01:18:46Scott Trickett: Of course.

01:18:47Melissa Erbacher: Okay, good. Not being privy to what these incentives are, I was just winging it there. So I'm glad you've come on board with that assertion.

01:18:56Scott Trickett: It's all a surprise in the coming weeks.

01:18:58Melissa Erbacher: And any more surprises, Scotty? You got some adventures planned?

01:19:01Scott Trickett: Yep. I've got a real fun adventure this week that I'm going to tell you all about next week. I don't want to spoil it. Awesome. But I am on an adventure this week to a new event. Not 100% sure if I'm going to get to run it, but that's okay. I'll get to visit it.

01:19:17Melissa Erbacher: Fantastic. I look forward to hearing all about it.