Episode 88

Episode details · 305 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:13Melissa Erbacher: It's episode 88 of the parkrun Adventurers. Crazy 88, or if you follow bingo, Two Fat Ladies. Now, why, Scotty? Why is it Two Fat Ladies and not Two Fat Men?

00:00:24Scott Trickett: I think it's the boobs, Mel.

00:00:28Melissa Erbacher: It's not the boobs. It's got to do with torso and bottom. It's like it should be two snowmen.

00:00:36Scott Trickett: Well, it's a good point. I've always looked at it as the boobs. The top half is the boobs. But I guess if you're a fat man, you've got boobs too.

00:00:43Melissa Erbacher: Somebody needs to take this up with the bingo society.

00:00:45Scott Trickett: Is that the answer you wanted? Somehow I don't think it was. But you went there.

00:00:52Melissa Erbacher: I did. It's true. Have you had a good week, Scotty?

00:00:56Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah, I've had a great week so far. And I count the weekend as the start of my week. Because I had.

00:01:05Melissa Erbacher: Well, isn't that where we reset the clock?

00:01:07Scott Trickett: Yeah, it is. Well, it's interesting. It's interesting. Do you start your running week on a Sunday or a Monday?

00:01:15Melissa Erbacher: Monday.

00:01:15Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:01:16Melissa Erbacher: A running week, because Sundays traditionally were a long run day, which was at the end of the program.

00:01:24Scott Trickett: But then when does your week finish? Does it finish on a Friday or a Sunday? Sunday.

00:01:29Melissa Erbacher: My week finishes on a Sunday. So in recent months, I've actually become really accustomed to, I mean, I always had busy weekends, even when I was working a day job. But now that I am working the mum job, I cannot wait for Mondays because they are my peace after a crazy weekend where we're always running around trying to catch up with everybody and And Wes gets feral and all that sort of thing. So I just really look forward to Mondays now. Whereas previously, on a Sunday, I would have that whole dire, oh, it's workday tomorrow. I don't want to do it. But now it's the opposite. Bizarre. When do you finish your week?

00:02:11Scott Trickett: I don't know. I don't think my week's ever finished. I don't have that Sunday night dread anymore because I love my job. So I look forward to going to work.

00:02:22Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's a good thing.

00:02:23Scott Trickett: on Monday morning. But let's go back, because I had an awesome weekend. I had a, I reckon, lifetime top five weekend for me.

00:02:35Melissa Erbacher: Wow. Yeah, it was really good. That is awesome.

00:02:39Scott Trickett: And it started with, of course, the anniversary at Westerfolds, which everyone got in the spirit, lots of green, everyone was in a really good mood. Lots of happy faces. Everybody stuck around after the run. Lots of good stuff happened on Saturday morning for me. It was really good for me to sit back. I was very reflective on Saturday morning. I was like the wise old man in the corner looking around and seeing genuine friendships happening. Just people happy to be together on a Saturday morning and having fun, genuine fun, because they're comfortable with the people they're with and they're comfortable in the environment they are. That's what I took away from it. And I had a great time. I've got so many friends at Westerfold, so every conversation, I'm looking forward to it. Because, you know, sometimes in a social situation, You can get awkward or there's just some anxiety and apprehension about social situations. We all have it. A bit of parkrun.

00:03:45Melissa Erbacher: You go to that party and you just pick those four or six people that you just talk to all night kind of thing. Pretty much.

00:03:51Scott Trickett: Pretty much. And I'm sure parkrun is that for a few people. There's still some social anxiety around it. But for me, not at the moment, not at Westerfolds, I love it. So I had a really good morning.

00:04:05Melissa Erbacher: Well, that makes me smile.

00:04:06Scott Trickett: How does yours compare? Can you match that?

00:04:10Melissa Erbacher: I wouldn't call it a top five of a life kind of situation, but I had a great morning. It was good fun. We had our anniversary as well, and there were costumes, 80s sports-themed costumes, which was all a bit of a laugh. Everybody seemed to be having a good time. So, yeah, I had a great morning too.

00:04:30Scott Trickett: You brought your A game with a costume. And for those out there who thought it was a competition, just to be clear, I never – ever, categorically will ever go into a competition with you around costumes. That's just not even happening. So I wasn't trying to beat you. I knew your Jamaican bobsled team was going to win hands down and full credit to you. You nailed it.

00:04:55Melissa Erbacher: No, like you say, it wasn't a competition. We were just both of us sharing on Instagram the fun that we were having with costumes on the weekend. So no, we never made this a competition.

00:05:05Scott Trickett: Well, you did get more likes than me. Your photo got more likes. I mean, I was watching.

00:05:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, I posted mine earlier. If I recall, I may have had to send you a little nudge telling you that I was really looking forward to seeing your Instagram of your costumes. I hadn't forgotten. So I think you might have forgotten.

00:05:21Scott Trickett: No, I was just having so much fun. I didn't have time to social media it.

00:05:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. See, now if you'd posted it earlier, you probably would have got more likes.

00:05:32Scott Trickett: Possibly or possibly yours was just more awesome than mine. And you're the people's favourite.

00:05:39Melissa Erbacher: As in I'm the favourite adventurer?

00:05:41Scott Trickett: I think so, yeah.

00:05:43Melissa Erbacher: Is that a question in the Perlustration? Did we pop that in there? Maybe we should have. Who's better, Scotty or Mel? No, there is a question. Next year.

00:05:51Scott Trickett: There is a question who's going to get to 50 first. And despite me being well ahead of you, people still think you're going to get there before me.

00:05:59Melissa Erbacher: Oh, do they? That's great. I love their faith in me.

00:06:03Scott Trickett: There's still time for that to be turned around.

00:06:05Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but there might be people out there who are working behind the scenes to foil your attempts. I'm not saying I've made any arrangements with people to do that. I don't trust you. I'm not owning up to that. I'm just saying.

00:06:20Scott Trickett: I don't trust you. But let me continue back on my top five lifetime weekend. Because on the Sunday, do you know what a PAX is, Mel? Do you know what PAX is?

00:06:32Melissa Erbacher: I do not know what a PAX is.

00:06:34Scott Trickett: No. A PAX is the complete opposite to parkrun. PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo, which is basically a collection of video game nerds getting together and being a community of video game nerds. And I took Kasia along on Sunday. So this was my two worlds meeting. This was the black and the white of Scott Trickett coming together because I can guarantee you I didn't see too many parkrunners at PAX. And I think this is going to be – Maybe they just didn't know about it. Well, this is it. So this is my goal for the next 12 months. PAX only comes around once a year. It's a three-day expo, and I want to get parkrun involved next year. I want to do a pop-up parkrun at PAX because Kasia and I had the best time on Sunday. I know a lot of you would be horrified, but I like playing games with my daughter. It's an interactive experience. Our imaginations go crazy for a day, and we had a really good time playing together. a lot of stuff and we met a lot of people who do that and they do that a lot I think they spend a lot of their time playing games which I try to do it in moderation

00:08:03Melissa Erbacher: It can be an endurance sport for a lot of people.

00:08:05Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:08:07Melissa Erbacher: There are a lot of people out there that do ultras in video games. It's a legitimate life choice.

00:08:13Scott Trickett: Like ultras in running, that takes a toll on your body. Ultras in video gaming will take a toll on your body. And I want to flip this. So I want to introduce parkrun and physical activity into that community because what I did see similarities are... The similarities in community, the similar interests and being comfortable in your environment, that all is on show at PAX. But I think they could do with a bit of a kick along with some physical activity every now and then. So I want to take Parker under PAX next year. What do you reckon?

00:08:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe you need to do a Pokemon parkrun at PAX because that's the kind of thing that meshes the two worlds together and gets the video gamers out and moving.

00:09:00Scott Trickett: Exactly. We've got to think about something, but that's why we've got 12 months to do it.

00:09:04Melissa Erbacher: Cool. So it sounds like you had a fun world. I'm loving learning about the black and the white of Scotty Trickett. Very intriguing. By the time this podcast comes out, as we seem to be a little bit lax with getting them out early in the week these days, it's going to be November. And you know what November means. Time to get naked. And nobody gets naked quite like our next guest. Robbo, welcome back to the parkrun Adventurers.

00:09:12[music]

00:09:44Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: Thank you very much, Mel. G'day, Scotty, and g'day, parkrun Adventurers out there in podcast land.

00:09:51Melissa Erbacher: So tell us, Robbo, what is on for Naked November this year?

00:09:56Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: Yeah, well, as you say, it's an exciting time of year. I will just put something out there straight away. If no one's ever heard of Naked November, one thing I would advise not to do, well, you can do it, but just be prepared for the consequences. If you type Naked November into Google, we used to rank pretty well with the Naked Runners on Google results, but it's a fair bit of dodgy stuff there. You may not be expecting, or you may be expecting, but yeah, you may not want. So Just be careful of that. But I mean, I've just jumped onto Facebook and searched Naked November and the right things have turned up. So yeah, it's been going since 2012, would you believe? So I think it's our fifth anniversary. That's the math stacking up there. And getting naked, if you're not across it, yeah, keep your clothes on. That's the first step. But then peel off all the other bits and pieces that you sometimes wear when you go running. In particular, some of the gadgets that you may have become overly reliant on and run free of that technology or without even having to look at it all the time and enjoy the experience for what it is, getting out there and having a run with a few mates in a beautiful location and soaking it up. And it's good for the soul, I think. So every now and then, I think, Mel and Scotty, it's nice to just ditch the distractions a little bit And just remember to plug back into your own running experience a little bit. And that's what we encourage and have been doing for a few years through a little movement called the Naked Runners, which I was part of setting up. And yeah, it seems to be welcomed by a lot of people. They maybe don't realize just how much the technology dominates their running experience until they start to think of it as a way of stripping back a little bit. And then they go, oh, that's right. I do enjoy it after all. I don't need a heart rate monitor to tell me that my heart rate's through the roof as I climb a hill. So, yeah, very excited as the calendar ticks over to November and it's going to be a great month for getting naked.

00:12:02Scott Trickett: Robbo, how do you actually go going naked? Because I'm going to struggle to ditch it. Is it okay if I wear my watch but don't look at it? Because it's got to count. Everything's got to count.

00:12:15Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: I reckon, mate. I reckon... I reckon it's fine. Look, that's one of the things with the naked runners. It's funny. Some of the followers of the naked runners get a bit more caught up in wanting to legislate how naked is naked and when you're running naked or not. But look, mate, I think do whatever you've got to do. If you need to log your kilometres to prove that they happened or for whatever reason you're wanting to keep a record of all your runs, you're doing a run down under or you're You're wanting to keep a log of your training. Do whatever you need to do. But what I would suggest, Scotty, and you can do this, and I might even try this myself because I have, I must admit, I'll declare it on the show, I have been wearing a running watch a bit more this year. Logging runs up onto Strava. So what I would suggest, if that's something that you want to still do, get yourself a – well, ideally a naked runner's branded sweatband, headband or wristband, and just whack it over your watch. And you can still hit start and hit stop at the end, but whack it over so you're not having to rely on it and tempted to look at it every 20 seconds to see what your splits are or see what your pace is. And that's a nice little way of just gently going naked. So if you're not into ditching everything flat out, then that's not a bad way to go, whether you just gaffer tape over the watch or do it. Do something that just means that you're not relying on getting that feedback the whole way through. And still, I think you'll achieve the same thing of being able to plug back into your own running experience. And I think it's a fun thing to do too, to challenge people. That's what we've done with the Naked parkrun Challenge over the years is get people to predict what they're going to run at a particular parkrun and then go out and run unencumbered by people you know, the technology and the feedback during the run and then see how close they get. People enjoy that experience and yeah, it gives them a little bit of freedom. And some people have proven to be very, very accurate and others have been a little bit off. And sometimes I would say anecdotally, and we're still running the tests on this, on the data, but for those that predict their time, run naked, more often than not, they'll run quicker than what they had predicted. That's generally the finding. So There are performance-enhancing benefits to running naked, and I would urge your listeners to try it out this Naked November.

00:14:42Scott Trickett: I can vouch for that. My current parkrun PB was achieved naked early this year at Varsity Lakes. And I'll tell you another tip that I've done is I've been putting my watch in my running belt. Uh, so it still counts. It's still tracking me around the run, but I can't see it. So I've done that a couple of times at parkrun. And for me, it definitely works. I definitely run better because you just completely run on feel. And, uh, if I feel good, I run a bit harder, but if my watch tells me that I'm on track, I just, uh, switch into cruise mode.

00:15:17Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: So there you go. Yeah. And that's what I, that's what I reckon Scott is sometimes it can, it can be a limiter as much as anything. And, uh, To use an anecdote from an elite level, Michael Shelley, when winning the gold medal for Australia, famously at the last Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, ran without a watch, just ran on feel, ran the race, raced the race, and got over a couple of Kenyans and won the gold medal. So I reckon if you haven't tried it, give it a bash. And it sounds funny. At the very least, tell all your friends you ran naked at parkrun one particular day. Yeah. It's good to hear you're trying it in different ways, Scotty. And the other thing I just remembered as well, sometimes people, they find their naked running experience accidentally, what I call the accidental naked run. So they haven't charged the garment or the running watch and they've turned up and it's gone flat and they go into a panic, frantically looking for someone to be able to charge it with. But they run naked and then they sometimes stumble across the performance enhancing benefits that way too. So there's many ways you can do it.

00:16:21Melissa Erbacher: I do like your recommendation to cover the watch up with the sweatbands because, you know, we need fashion to come back. And 80s style with sweatbands, you know, I reckon that would even be useful in terms of using the sweatbands as actual sweatbands, especially in this weather at the moment.

00:16:40Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: Yes, definitely. There's performance enhancing benefits just in using those as well. And I feel very humbled coming on the show seeing the way you two have been exposing your fashions lately in the dress-ups at parkruns. So I've got to certainly lift my game. So, yeah, if I can get some sort of headband outfit happening, that might work well. Maybe just wearing headbands for a parkrun. As long as you can do that and keep your modesty, it could work well.

00:17:07Melissa Erbacher: We've got to remember it's a family event. It is. I am also happy that, you know, people can go semi-naked. That's what I'm going to call it. When they wear their watch but don't look at it, they're semi-naked.

00:17:18Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: Semi-Naked November. Yep. Do whatever you've got to do. Yep.

00:17:22Melissa Erbacher: Now, Robbo, if people want to get involved, so the actual International Day of Running Naked, as decided by you, is the 18th of November, how do people get involved with setting up, you know, predicting their times and things like that?

00:17:38Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: Yeah, well, so I'm going to go back to my earlier advice. Go with the search for Naked November on Facebook and Maybe not on Google. And we'll have an event set up there which will outline everything you need to know about how to get involved with Naked November, but especially, yeah, an invite to get involved with International Day of Running Naked, which, as you said, will be parkrun Day, the 18th of November, the 3rd. Generally, that's when it's been, the 3rd Saturday or parkrun Day of November. And it'll be a matter of just getting on. There'll be a link there that you can fill out, and we've had Our good friend, the professor, Alan Burrell, has been helping out once again. He's our Naked November advisor, and he's our stats man. So he's set up the entry page once again, and you just go on there, answer a few questions. We just need your name, your barcode, number, where you'll be planning to run naked on that day, and then you put your predicted naked time down. And this competition will be open to everyone, parkrunners all over Australia, all around the world. And then we'll see, once we plug in the results, we'll see who gets the closest. And I reckon we've had a few occasions where people have predicted it, sometimes one or two seconds out. And, yeah, you'll be able to see how close you go when it comes to your parkrun Day naked performance. And there'll be a few prizes up for grabs, including some limited edition retro naked runners' headband, the very first ones that were ever created. We've still got some of them, and there's a few singlets and shirts and stuff as well. So something in it for everyone, but it's a bit of fun, and it's been interesting to see parkrun events really engage with the concept of running naked. And a lot of events I know still run a monthly naked event where they get their predictions locally. So if local events want to do it that way too, then they can set their own little competitions up. But yeah, look, we're just giving people permission to run naked or semi-naked and just experience that and have a bit of fun and spice up your parkrun a bit this November.

00:19:50Scott Trickett: Great stuff, Robbo. Love it. Now, when we get you on, we always like to get an update on the region of runners. What's happening there? We haven't had many new events pop up lately, have we?

00:20:02Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: No, we haven't. No, it's been a little remiss of us down here in the region. We do boast a healthy number of events, up to 12, and that's been the way now for well over a year. One of the things I've been noticing, Scotty, I did some adventuring within the region only a couple of weeks back, got up to the most recent event in the region of runners, the Hunter Newcastle area, which was the one called the Terrace parkrun, that Raymond Terrace. And it was interesting to bump into a few out-of-towners when I was up there. And I was one fellow from Shoal Harbour parkrun and a few Queenslanders had come down as well. And I was just asking what the attraction was, what they were in town for. And they're trying to reach that region air status. They want to bag all 12. And I've got nothing but respect for people that travel from outside the area and especially interstate to try and notch up that badge to get that region air status. And so a few of these runners, there's only a handful to go and they're going their way about ticking them around. And I asked the prof just through some email communication, I wonder how many people have outside of the region who call, you know, somewhere other than those 12, their home parkrun, how many have done it? He got back to me and he said, there's, what have we got here? There's 255 total regionaires, but 21 are foreigners and, But it's a little bit hard to know exactly, you know, because I looked at some of those names and there's some people that I know are from the region, but they list their home parkrun as being outside the region. But, yeah, so the best part of 20 outsiders who have become regionaires and plenty more on the way, including Alan Burrell himself. So there's a little challenge for you parkrun adventurers if you want to go getting yourself a regionaire badge outside your region. you can come and stay for a few months and and you can get get it get it happening down here around Newcastle and probably best to get in while there's still only 12 events well that's right there has been talk for a while so we've left it at 12 just to allow people to just chase those 12 events and um we might we might get another 12 in the next little while once we start to get too many people achieving it but yeah still talk I haven't heard much of it lately but still talk of maybe an event out towards Cessnock, which is right in the heart of the wine region. I just reckon it's a no-brainer to even a wine vineyard itself to stage a regular park, and I just think it would be fantastic. So I know it's done in other parts of Australia, and we're waiting for a bit of action to happen there, so maybe this conversation might stimulate something. But, yeah, there'll be plenty more to come, I'm sure, and that'll just give people more of an excuse to keep coming back to this beautiful part of the world.

00:22:57Melissa Erbacher: Well, New South Wales is definitely growing, even if not 100% in the region at the moment. Robbo, thank you very much for joining us. It's awesome to hear Naked November is back for its fifth year. I know I will be participating. I have a Naked Runners headband that I will be getting out there for the whole of the month just to raise awareness and spread the message of getting naked. So thanks for joining us.

00:23:24Dave 'Robbo' Robertson: Thank you so much, Mel. I look forward to seeing your costumes. Continuing to come through, and yeah, happy naked running, everyone.

00:23:27[music]

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:23:45Scott Trickett: Continuing our long-standing tradition of having roving reports, we've got three more ready for you this week. We've got Greta. who went out to Kangaroo Island for their launch. And we can uncover some of the mysteries of Kangaroo Island, hopefully. Lyndell, also from the Channel 5 News crew, went to Majora Bar's anniversary, so she was in party mode as well. And this young fella named TOC, he went down to the 250th event at Railton. Which one do you want to hear first, Mel?

Channel 5 News Crew

00:24:23Melissa Erbacher: Let's do it in that order you just introduced them. Scotty, that sounds good to me.

00:24:27Scott Trickett: Take it away, Greta.

00:24:30Greta: Hi, Scott and Mel, it's Greta here and I'm on a very special parkrun adventure this weekend. I'm going over to Kangaroo Island to help them celebrate the launch of the Kangaroo Island parkrun. So this adventure actually starts on Friday because we've driven down to Cape Jervis, which is about an hour and a half, out of Adelaide and we've hopped on a ferry, put our car on the ferry and now we're heading over to Kangaroo Island. So pretty exciting launch for South Australia, pretty unique parkrun to have in South Australia on Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island is fairly famous sort of nature-based tourism destinations. It's about 155 kilometres in length and some sort of awesome nature national parks and wildlife and also becoming more and more famous for boutique local cuisine and beverages. So we're looking forward to having a great weekend. Okay, so we've just run the Kangaroo Island parkrun launch and I'm here with Craig. How are you going, Craig?

00:25:35Craig: Better now that I've had a while to recover.

00:25:37Greta: How did you find the run this morning?

00:25:40Craig: Not too bad, not too bad. It's a great little track. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit like ups and downs more than I expected, but great view running along the bay.

00:25:49Greta: It is beautiful, isn't it? And it's such a beautiful morning this morning.

00:25:53Craig: We got lucky.

00:25:53Greta: Yeah.

00:25:54Craig: We got lucky the weather's not normally this good here on KI.

00:25:56Greta: I was going to say, isn't it always like this?

00:25:58Craig: Yeah, no, even better.

00:25:59Greta: Even better, yeah, yeah. So is this your first parkrun today? Yeah.

00:26:03Craig: It is my very first, yes. I thought this was the first run that they'd done on KI, but apparently they've been doing it a couple of times beforehand, practices and stuff. But yeah, my very first. Yeah, great idea.

00:26:16Greta: Do you think you'll be back?

00:26:17Craig: I will be back, yeah, yeah, yep, I will be, definitely. If I can, yep, no reason why I shouldn't be.

00:26:23Greta: Yep, excellent, excellent. And bring your friends.

00:26:26Craig: Got none. None that run anyway.

00:26:30Greta: Oh, well, you can convince them. I doubt it. Well, look, thank you for coming to KI parkrun and hopefully we'll see you again at another parkrun.

00:26:41Craig: It's a pleasure. Cheers.

00:26:44Greta: So I'm now here with Brad. How are you going, Brad?

00:26:46Brad: Good, thank you. How are you?

00:26:47Greta: Yeah, good. And so you were the scanner today?

00:26:50Brad: I was, yeah.

00:26:51Shelley: How did you go?

00:26:52Brad: Yeah, well, it's pretty straightforward. Yeah? Yeah, scan the person, scan their code and it's fine.

00:26:57Greta: There you go. And have you run a parkrun yet?

00:27:00Brad: I haven't actually, so this is my first time being involved.

00:27:03Greta: First time and you're volunteering, well done.

00:27:05Brad: Yeah, I got roped into it, that's alright. Yeah, no, but it's really good. My cousins have done them for years back in Canberra.

00:27:13Greta: So you know what they're all about?

00:27:15Brad: yeah yeah no they're really great yeah and you're looking forward to running next week yeah well hopefully yeah i'm here next week and yeah hopefully i'll be able to run i think i'm about to do the do the course now after everyone's finished so nice yeah excellent all right well thank you very much for volunteering today and making ki parkrun launch a success no problem thank you thank you

00:27:38Greta: Okay, I'm now here with Shelley, and Shelley, you were volunteering today.

00:27:41Shelley: Yes, I was volunteering today. I was doing the timekeeping. How did you go? Yeah, really good, actually. It went really, really smoothly. Yes, easier than you thought? Yeah, it was. I was a bit daunted at first. I thought, oh, there's too many buttons to push.

00:27:54Lyndell Murray: Make sure I push the right one.

00:27:56Shelley: Yeah, make sure I'm pushing the right button, and I had to get my glasses out. But no, no, everything went really smoothly. It was great. Excellent.

00:28:04Greta: And you're now, I think you were telling me before, you're now off and you're actually going to walk the course.

00:28:08Shelley: So everyone's finished? Yep. And your job's done? Yep. So now we just go and do our walk now.

00:28:14Greta: Good on you. Yeah. Awesome. That's awesome. And you and your mate are going? What's your mate's name?

00:28:19Shelley: Helen.

00:28:19Greta: Helen.

00:28:20Shelley: Yep. She goes with me and we've been doing it sort of like we do it probably two or three times a week. Yep. Do you do the same course here? Yep. Yep.

00:28:28Greta: Tell us a little bit about the course here for those who probably haven't been here before.

00:28:32Shelley: So we started at the tidal pool. Yeah, the tidal pool and you walk through, you walk along basically the coast. You see the beach, the yacht club, you go past the yacht club and it's actually quite um yeah it's quite pretty it's a really nice walk before you know it you're back yeah here because you're just looking at everything birds wildlife and everything so yeah there's lovely scrub as well yeah there is it's like a hike sort of you know yeah yeah no it's beautiful and a lovely park the council have done a really good job with the park they have yep they've done fantastic and i think they're extending it i heard along the great one that they're extending it up the other way so that'll be even better so you can you know

00:29:11Greta: pick and choose which way you want to go yeah and in summer it'll be fantastic because you start and finish at the tidal pool here you could have a swim yeah it's a little bit cold a little bit cold for me today yeah there is someone in there yeah i know yeah i did see someone you know yeah having a bit of a swim there yeah but no it's too cold for me today too yeah

00:29:30Shelley: Well, thank you so much for volunteering today. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you. And enjoy your walk. Yep, you too. Oh, not you too. I hope you enjoyed your walk too. I loved it. Yep, I loved it. We had a great time.

00:29:40Greta: Thank you. Thank you. Okay so I'm now here with Tess who is the event director at Kangaroo Island parkrun and we finished the parkrun this morning. How did the run go this morning Tess?

00:29:51Tess: The run went very well. It was a lovely morning. We had 21 people. There was some of the Mount Barker crew. I don't know exactly how many but they showed up and it went really well. Everything worked. Excellent. And no one got injured so it was really good.

00:30:08Greta: So a stress-free launch, which is always nice. It was, yep. All the volunteers showed up. Yeah, it went really well. Fantastic. And so is this, because you've not actually run a parkrun before, have you?

00:30:19Tess: No. No, I got the idea of parkrun in my head. I joined, when I started running, I joined Running Mums Australia. And it was on there that I learnt about parkrun. And straight away went, Kangaroo Island needs one of those. It needs some regular organised event. physical activity event that's free. And so then I contacted, I don't remember who it was first, it might have been John, and mentioned that I was keen for Kangaroo Island and then he put me in touch with Gret, Greta, sorry, and it all went from there.

00:30:48Greta: Fantastic. And you've been, the council's been really supportive about getting the parkrun up and running? Yes.

00:30:54Tess: Luckily, we had funding provided from the Office of Rec and Sports. We didn't have to ask for funding. But, yeah, they were really happy to let us use the course. They're happy to work with us with signage. And they also thought it was a great idea. Fantastic. And so tell us a little bit about the course. It's a down and back course, it runs along the foreshore of Kingscote and it's a little bit hilly as people will tell you today. Undulating I think was the consensus. Not hilly, there's a few little bumps in there. It's all on a bitumised path, yeah it's lovely, very scenic, usually in the morning it's nice and calm down along there so it's really nice.

00:31:34Greta: It was a beautiful calm morning this morning, it was just lovely. So tell us a little bit about Kangaroo Island because there might be some people who are listening who don't know a lot about KI.

00:31:43Tess: So Kangaroo Island's a little island down the bottom of South Australia. It's the third largest island in Australia. There's a population of about four and a half thousand. There's three main towns, a lot of rural, so farming property. It's kind of known as the nature's paradise. We've got lots of wildlife over here, lots of kangaroos obviously. But yeah, it's one of those places you go if you want to see wildlife and do kind of outdoorsy stuff. There's not so much in the way of movie cinemas or shopping malls. But yeah, it's where you go to get the great outdoors, the fresh air and the wildlife.

00:32:19Greta: And having been here for about 24 hours, what I can say is that there's some stunning coastline. Absolutely beautiful.

00:32:25Tess: Yeah, we're very lucky. We're surrounded by coastline, obviously being an island, but we do have some really nice beaches all the way around. And lots of them are really good for kids. You get lots of really nice protected beaches. Yeah, it's lovely.

00:32:39Greta: So you might have a few visitors come to Kangaroo Island parkrun who are on holiday in KI. Everyone is welcome.

00:32:45Tess: Yeah, we're here, same place, same time every week. Obviously everyone knows how it works. But yeah, it'd be great to see some people from outside South Australia come down. And even those within South Australia that have maybe never been here before. Come on over. Yeah.

00:33:00Greta: Well, congratulations on a very successful launch for KI parkrun and all the best for future parkruns. Thank you. We look forward to it.

00:33:08Lyndell Murray: Thank you. Thank you. Good morning parkrun adventurers, g'day Scott, g'day Mel. It's Lyndell here and I am roving reporting for the Channel 5 News crew this morning from Mudgerabah parkrun who are celebrating their fourth birthday. I was lured here by cake, I was lured here by costumes and I've been lured here by a free sausage sizzle and also another new parkrun for me. Now, costumes. Today's theme is sporting stars, past and present. So I've donned my cricket whites and got my lucky red hanky and channeled Steve Waugh today. So I'm going to see who else I can see who's in costume. I'm also going to try and have a chat. There's a fellow here that has run over 14,000 kilometres this year for the run down under. He's finishing it off today here at Madura Bar. So it's all happening. I'll do the run and I'll talk to you afterwards. Okay, so post-run, I've tracked down Steve and Libby. They are the event directors here at Mudra Bar. Great day for your anniversary. How's it gone for you guys?

00:34:13Libby: It's gone awesome. I'm hoping that we will break our attendance records. Currently sits at 170, but there's so many people here today, so fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. How about you, Steve?

00:34:22Steve: Yeah, it's been a really nice morning and we've got plenty on. We've got Steve Gamble finishing his run around Australia, obviously our fourth birthday. We've got a young guy over there who's getting married next week, so he's having his bucks run here today. Some people have dressed up like I have. I'm just glad you can't see this.

00:34:40Lyndell Murray: So Steve, let me just describe your, for the viewers, theater of the mind, I need to just, because this is why I came and had a chat to you. So you're clearly a tennis player. Such commitment, you carried your racket and ball for the whole 5Ks this morning at parkrun. You've got your lovely white tennis shoes. Red tennis shorts, a beautiful white polo shirt, a lovely 70s inspired afro wig. Oh, it's real. Real hair. Excellent. And a beautiful terry-toweling sweatband. So is there anyone in particular that you're channeling today or are you just a 70s tennis player in general?

00:35:17Steve: Well I was once a tennis player from a place called Stoke-on-Trent in England and I was ranked number 746 in England and I once got to the preliminary rounds of Wimbledon but knocked out by a dog. So unfortunately the dog got knocked out the following round and I then decided to retire but it's always been my ambition to make a comeback and I think today has inspired me to make a comeback.

00:35:40Lyndell Murray: Well, you shattered the course out there, so I think you can say that, you know, Steve, the 70s tennis player, was the winner today.

00:35:47Steve: Oh, without a shadow of a doubt, you know. I mean, I've challenged a few people today and no one's been taking it up yet. The morning's young and I think, you know, there's a few cricket players there I might take on.

00:35:59Lyndell Murray: Yeah, actual cricket players, not dodgy ones like me. All right, so Mudry Bar's been going for four years now, four-year anniversary, and have you guys been involved since the start?

00:36:11Libby: No, we came on board just over a year ago, probably 18 months ago. I was a previous event director at Main Beach, so the Australia's founding parkrun. I was there for five years and then stepped down there and came over here when their event director was stepping down and they needed somebody, so... Only, yeah, 18 months I think we've been here now. Yeah, May last year he was.

00:36:32Steve: May last year we jumped on board. Because we both live here, so it was nice to give back to the community as well. And plus we didn't have to get up as early and go as far.

00:36:41Lyndell Murray: Perfect time for a sleep in, a lovely community feel. I said in my intro that Mudgeroo Bar feels a little bit more like a village than the crowded, you know, concrete tourist strip of the Gold Coast. Is that a fair assessment?

00:36:54Libby: Oh, totally. Usually this is such a tiny little family sort of friendly parkrun and today it's just like it's massive and I think all the locals' eyes are just like... out of their heads going, what is going on? And it's great. It's so good to see so many people here. And we had so many parkrun first-timers here today, which is awesome.

00:37:11Lyndell Murray: It is. It's always great to see. All right, well, thank you for your time this morning. Lovely to talk to both of you. Thank you. Thank you on behalf of everybody in Madruba and the parkrun community for the work that you do. Steve, what else do you need to say?

00:37:24Steve: Because Trent, our main man, is doing free sausage sizzle. He's bought it, so you must have a sausage before you leave.

00:37:29Lyndell Murray: So this is why I came. There's cake, costumes, sausage sizzle. What's not to like about the fourth anniversary at Mudrew Bar, right? All right, thanks, guys. Have a great morning. Thank you. So now I'm in the barcode scanning line with Flynn. Flynn, how are you going today?

00:37:46Flynn: Yeah, good, thanks.

00:37:47Lyndell Murray: And you're telling me it's your first parkrun ever today?

00:37:50Flynn: Yeah, yeah, it was.

00:37:52Lyndell Murray: And how was it? Did you have a good time?

00:37:54Flynn: Yeah, I enjoyed it.

00:37:56Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And how did you find out about parkrun?

00:37:58Flynn: Well, because we do cross-country at school, so I was just like to my mum, I want to get fitter for the next cross-country. So she took it on board, then she came out and found out about parkrun, then we just came down one weekend and started running, yeah.

00:38:11Lyndell Murray: Awesome. And so you're a local here in Madruba, is this your home, parkrun?

00:38:16Flynn: Yeah, it is.

00:38:17Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And so first time you'll be back, right?

00:38:20Flynn: Oh, yeah, definitely.

00:38:22Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Now, all the best with your cross-country running and thanks for talking to me on the podcast.

00:38:25Flynn: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:38:28Lyndell Murray: So, Ray, you are delightfully dressed today in a lovely rainbow tutu and a feather headdress. I don't know whether that's because of today's theme at the fourth anniversary or because it's your Bucks night this afternoon.

00:38:42Ray: Well, actually, it's a little bit of both. I'm getting married next week and today's my Bucks party, so nothing better than get your friends all together and come for a prok run before you get a bid. There you go, mate. a bit worse later, and also the four years of Madjrabah parkrun, which also always nice to come. It's a good environment, lots of people, lots of good people in here, good runners as well, and it's always good fun to come to Madji.

00:39:11Lyndell Murray: Yeah, and so you're a regular parkrunner here at Madjrabah?

00:39:14Ray: Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say every single Saturday, but at least two Saturdays every month I'll come to Mudgee because I like to go in different parkruns as well. Excellent.

00:39:24Lyndell Murray: Yep, me too. And so that's why, obviously, Bucks Day, big celebration, parkrun had to be a part of it. Is that the deal?

00:39:32Ray: Exactly. Let's burn a little bit of our energy before we put a lot of energy in.

00:39:38Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Well, all the best for your upcoming marriage and wedding next weekend. And thanks for talking to me on the podcast.

00:39:45Ray: Thank you very much. Enjoy your day. Cheers.

00:39:48Lyndell Murray: Okay, so now I'm joined by Wendy. Wendy, tell us what you're wearing today for your costume for our anniversary dress-up today.

00:39:57Wendy: Yes, I've got a Madriban netball kit on, looking like I'm ready to go and play netball on the fields next door, but actually I wanted to dress up as one of the Australian netballers, Laura Geitz, so that was me today.

00:40:17Lyndell Murray: Laura Geitz, certainly a shining star in Australian netball. And are you a regular here at Madrubal parkrun?

00:40:25Wendy: I sure am. I've been here since day one with my husband and Carl, who are the event founders of Madrubal parkrun. So I just love it and, yeah, I've loved being in the community and watching, you know, lots of people from Madrubal come down and run. It's been fantastic. Excellent. And how did you get started in parkrun to start with? I went along to the one of the first main beach runs five six years ago or however long ago and I just loved it and I got a couple of friends involved and one of my friends lived in Kingscliff and she would come up to main beach and she said oh I'm fed up with traveling so much i'm going to start my own one up in kingscliff so um so then i started traveling down to kingscliff and was helping her do that um for a year and in that time that's when my husband said i need to start something in madrubar um let's do it so a year on then we started madrubar parkrun here so yeah i just loved the concept from the beginning it was fantastic free and i found it really family oriented and it was wonderful to have so many families be able to participate in do the same thing together and you see that all around at all of the different park ones don't you this sense of family and togetherness and it's just a and on days like today it's a party atmosphere as well so what a what a great thing yep it is a great thing and it's all done before eight o'clock nine o'clock in the morning you can go home and carry on your saturday feeling like you've accomplished something and You've done something as a family. It's just the knock-on effect with health and I just think it's wonderful. It's just such a great, great event. I'm a school teacher and I often tell the kids who are doing their service that they should come and volunteer. So we get lots of kids from school, they don't know about it and then families come along and volunteer. So, you know, it's out there that people can come and volunteer, do their service, do their gold and bronze. And, yeah, it can just involve everybody. And my overseas relatives, they've come over and, you know, they're elderly, but they've come over and they've helped out and they've really enjoyed the sense of community and being involved and really loved it too. So it's for all ages. It's wonderful.

00:42:52Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, thank you for your time this morning talking to me and thank you for the contribution that you've obviously made over a number of years to parkrun in the Gold Coast region. Thanks, Wendy. Thank you. Now, Trent, arguably the most important job here today at the fourth birthday anniversary of Madjrabah Pakpung, you are behind the barbecue at the Sausage Sizzle.

00:43:14Trent: Exactly right. Well, this is just something I came up with with some of the event directors and I thought, I've always wanted to do one and we wanted to have something special and I thought, well, let's pop on a barbecue for everybody. It's all free, all funded by myself and Craig. We decided that let's get into it and donate and We've had an amazing turnout this morning. It's been huge.

00:43:36Lyndell Murray: It's a great event, and I tell you what, Sausage Sizzle was one of the reasons why I came today. I did want to dress up as Steve Waugh, but yes, very much also the sausage. It's a lovely touch. Thank you very much. And so are you a regular here? You run here regularly?

00:43:52Trent: Yeah, I'm a local. I generally run with my 11-year-old daughter most weeks. I have two younger boys as well, which are slowly getting into it. So we're quite busy. I've been involved for about three years now. So, yeah, I enjoy taking photos, volunteering as well, and I've done about 125 parkruns now for myself. Awesome.

00:44:12Lyndell Murray: Well, what a great contribution you make, Trent. Thank you very much, and thanks for talking to me this morning. Great, thank you.

00:44:19Trent: I'm glad you had a great morning.

00:44:21Lyndell Murray: Okay, so along with the parkrun anniversary today at Mudgeribar, there was another special occasion. Steve has just finished his virtual run around Australia in the Run Down Under. How are you going and how do you feel about your achievement, Steve?

00:44:37Steve Gamble: It's a pretty epic journey I've been on for the last three years, 10 months. So yeah, I feel really, really proud of what I've achieved and I'm looking forward to the next journey. So it's not an end here. I'm going to start another journey around Australia. So yeah, feeling really proud.

00:44:51Lyndell Murray: go in the opposite direction or something?

00:44:52Steve Gamble: Yeah, I don't know which direction I'm going in, but it looks like I'm heading out to Uluru first, so yeah.

00:44:57Lyndell Murray: Well, that's good. I've never been to Uluru. I'm sure it's lovely. So three years.

00:45:04Steve Gamble: Ten months.

00:45:04Lyndell Murray: Ten months. Give us some stats. Are you running every day, every week? What's your sort of kilometers?

00:45:10Steve Gamble: Uh, pretty much been running six days a week and yeah still doing my normal events so I've been running ultras and marathons as well in that time and I've actually run in a lot of the towns and cities that we've run through the virtual run so I've run in Canberra, I've run in Melbourne, Sydney, even run in Tassie so the only place I probably haven't run is in Perth so out of all of the places on the virtual journey so it's pretty good yeah.

00:45:32Lyndell Murray: So it's inspired a bit of actual adventuring as well.

00:45:36Steve Gamble: Oh yeah, definitely. As I was just saying, run down under 14,000-odd Ks is actually 2,816 parkruns.

00:45:45Lyndell Murray: Wow, I wonder what colour t-shirt that would be.

00:45:48Steve Gamble: If it's run down under, it's a bit of orange and a bit of red.

00:45:53Lyndell Murray: Alright, now I've also got Travis. Travis, you're the founder of Run Down Under?

00:45:57Travis: That's correct. Founded, started in January the 1st, 2014. It was a hobby, it was a personal decision and it's taken off since then.

00:46:07Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Now, Steve is one of how many that have completed the journey around Australia?

00:46:11Travis: Steve is number 12. We've had our first finisher took just under two years, which was absolutely amazing. And then, yeah, so Steve's number 12. Number 13 is next week, and there's a bit of a gap after that. So in four years, 12 finishes. It's a pretty amazing achievement.

00:46:28Lyndell Murray: Wow, so it's a pretty elite group, right?

00:46:31Travis: Very elite, they're very elite. And the stats back that up. Not many people can run, on average, 75 kilometers a week for three and a half or three years and 10 months. It's an amazing achievement.

00:46:42Lyndell Murray: It sure is. I'm just doing the numbers in my head and you know you have some big weeks when you're training for events but to keep that up consistently for all that time is a really amazing achievement. And what a great place to do it at a parkrun and particularly at a parkrun anniversary. Are you guys regular parkrunners?

00:47:01Travis: Yes, and interestingly enough, out of the 12 finishers, this is our seventh at parkrun. So I give the option for the finishers to choose how they want to finish. I try and get there. I'm based in Queensland, so I can't always get there. So Josie, who finished three weeks ago, was in Albany, Western Australia, unfortunately couldn't make it. But if I can make it, I get there. And like I said, this is our seventh finisher out of parkrun. So it's a great way to finish. The crowd, the people, the community. is very similar to my community. People embrace achievements like this.

00:47:33Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And how about you, Steve? Are you a regular parkrunner?

00:47:35Steve Gamble: I am. I think I've done 25 parkruns, so yeah. And Mudgerabah is one of my closest to home, and the event directors are good friends of mine, so yeah, it's a pretty special place to finish.

00:47:45Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, certainly it added something, I think, to the anniversary. I mean, the sausage sizzle's pretty hard to beat. However, I think you guys are right up there. So thanks for adding something to the parkrun today and well done on your achievement and keep up the great work.

00:48:00Travis: Thank you very much and well done, Steve. Thank you.

00:48:03Lyndell Murray: Rightio then, Scotty and Mel, that is it. That's a wrap from me at Mudgerabar parkrun. I feel a bit tired. I need to go home and have a bit of a Bex and a lie down after all that excitement with costumes, cakes, sausage sizzles, virtual runs, trips around Australia and a really amazing community down here at Mudgerabar. I'm glad I came. If you're ever on the Goldie and looking for a great place to come for a run, Mudgerabar should be on your list. That's it from me. I'll talk to you next time.

00:48:31Tony O'Connell: Hi parkrunners, it's Toc. I'm here at Railton for the launch of Australia's 250th parkrun. Really great crowd building, the sun's broken through the clouds and looking around we've got parkrunners from all over Australia attending as well as a massive support from the local Kentish Council. Really great support from them. So we'll go out for a run and we'll talk to you later. Cheers. I'm here with Val Warwick. Val's got a bit of a unique story in that she's probably come the furthest to go camping before a launch. Val, how far have you come to go camping at Relton today?

00:49:07Val Warwick: A whole 24 kilometres from Devonport.

00:49:10Tony O'Connell: What a massive effort. Well done. Val's one of my favourite type of people in parkrun. Val's got more volunteers than she has actual runs. So, Val, you're on 34 volunteers and 28 runs, which is a great statistic. Tell me, how did you get into parkrun?

00:49:28Val Warwick: Well, first of all, I saw Wendy Adams, who's one of the RDs at Devonport, put a whole lot of... comments about parkrun. We were in Western Australia with our son and I thought, what's this parkrun? I got home and I saw her send a message to another friend and said, missed you at parkrun this morning. And I went, oh, I can get a Google and find out what this parkrun is because my husband's a runner. I'm not. And I went... Looked it up, registered him, and the rest is history. Well, actually, no, I didn't go that first week. He went, and he came back, and he said, oh, so-and-so was there, and so-and-so was there, and so-and-so was there. And I said, I take it you're going back again. He said, oh, absolutely. I said, well, maybe I'll come down and take photos of you. And that started it. I took photos right the whole way through last year. And this year I've started to do the walk jog. I am not a runner.

00:50:21Tony O'Connell: It doesn't matter. We welcome everyone at parkrun. It's great to see walkers along as well. And I noticed this year, a couple of your stats and your volunteers, you've changed from being all photographer to getting a couple of tail walkers in as well. So well done with that.

00:50:33Val Warwick: Thank you. Yes, we were at Cobram. We had eight weeks at Cobram. Fantastic group there. You can go there.

00:50:38Tony O'Connell: Up with the lovely Tricia.

00:50:39Val Warwick: Yeah, it's just fantastic. I love Cobram. So, yeah. Yep.

00:50:42Tony O'Connell: No worries. I noticed most of your parkruns have been at Devonport, but you did have eight of them up at Cobram. So you're obviously up there for a little while.

00:50:48Val Warwick: Yes, yes. My husband is a retired minister and he was helping out the churches up there. So we drove from Finlay to Cobram every Saturday morning to go and do it.

00:50:58Tony O'Connell: Excellent. And how long are you in Roulton for before you head back up the road to Devonport for a big road trip?

00:51:02Val Warwick: Well, we're going back this afternoon. We've been here for the last two nights and we've been here at this wonderful limestone cafe every day, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So we've supported the town financially too.

00:51:15Tony O'Connell: Excellent. And what did you think of the actual course out there?

00:51:18Val Warwick: Oh, I love it. It's fantastic. My lungs don't particularly love the incline. I would call it a hill. Everybody else calls it an incline, but it was fantastic. I loved it. You have to watch where you put your feet, but... Yep, lovely little trail course, isn't it? Oh, fantastic, yes.

00:51:36Tony O'Connell: All right, Val, thank you very much for your time and safe trip back up the hallway. Thank you. Cheers.

00:51:41Val Warwick: Thanks.

00:51:42Tony O'Connell: I'm here with John. John's from Lismore. He's made the big trip down. John, what brings you down to Railton?

00:51:47John: Railton, well, first of all, I needed an R for my alphabet. I didn't have one of those, so now I have, which is fantastic. And I'm also touring Tassie. I've done two other parkruns, and I've got a few more to go, yeah.

00:52:02Tony O'Connell: And it also gives you an R for your pirate club. Oh, fantastic.

00:52:06John: I hadn't heard about the pirate club until I got down here, so... Look out for more R's.

00:52:10Tony O'Connell: Yep, now you've got to work on a few more C's. What do you think of the course out there, John?

00:52:16John: Tony, the course is an absolute delight. It's a course where you finish and you want to say, I want to do that again, or I've got to come back and you know what, I think I'll be back in January, but this time I think I'll volunteer.

00:52:31Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, I agree with you. It's probably one of the courses I've finished and thought, I just want to go back out there again. That was sensational. A little bit of sweet single trail out there and, yeah, really beautiful scenery.

00:52:42John: Yeah, Tony, it was my first trail run and I think I'll keep my eye out for more trail runs. I absolutely loved it. It was beautiful. The scenery is sensational and just running through the forest is just, it's a buzz.

00:52:55Tony O'Connell: Yeah, yeah. And, John, you're a bit... unique in that you run your 50 at two spots on the same day. I've seen some pictures of you running at Devonport for your 50 and there's some pictures of you running at Lismore on the same day. How'd you manage that Pete?

00:53:09John: My daughter is a run director at Lismore. I introduced her, we went together for the launch quite a while ago and she's got really involved in it and she's missing me a little bit so They arranged for me to run two parkruns with a cardboard cut out at Lismore and apparently I got so many high fives I actually broke my arm. But I got fixed up with some sticky tape after the run.

00:53:34Tony O'Connell: Well done. You might have had a run at two parkruns a week after as well.

00:53:38John: Apparently I'm a little bit notorious to back home. I've been involved in the community up there and we have a great set of runners. The parkrun has formed a little group called the Northern Rivers Running Chicks and Running Roosters which I've joined and with parkrun they're just enjoying a social event as well as the parkrun. It's just wherever you go you find a group that's always together, they band together, they volunteer, work hard and just make it so enjoyable for the rest of us. It's fantastic.

00:54:13Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, the coffee after the parkrun is probably more important than the run itself. And I understand that you're travelling, you're out and around. How long before you're back up at Lismore?

00:54:22John: Oh, Tony, we've got a pretty open-ended itinerary. We hope to leave Tasey in the middle of February and head across through Victoria over to South Australia and up to the Top End and come back through WA. I've got to do that. So I apparently got to have a run in every state and territory. So then I've got to go north, south, east and west. And then, oh, there's so many things to do. parkrun.

00:54:48Tony O'Connell: It's a bit funny. I'm standing in Tasmania talking to John from Lismore while Brendan Peel, who's named the Peel Club, is running in Lismore today.

00:54:57John: I hope you enjoyed our course because there's a few hills in that one as well.

00:55:02Tony O'Connell: No worries.

00:55:02John: Thanks a lot, John. Thanks, Tony. Pleasure.

00:55:05Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, it's Toc. I'm down at the Relton launch and I'm here with Tyler. Tyler's a young fella that's a local to Relton and by the looks of his knees Tyler's joined the Stack Club. How are you Tyler? Good thanks. Good. Did you have a bit of a fall out on the course?

00:55:21Val Warwick: Yes.

00:55:21Tony O'Connell: Any big damage or just a few little nicks?

00:55:24Val Warwick: A few little nicks.

00:55:26Tony O'Connell: What did you think of the course? Do you like the bit up in the bush where you do the loops? It's a fantastic course, isn't it? Yep. So how far from Relton do you live? 20km. 20km? No, a couple of km. A couple of km. So you're nice and local. Are you going to come back again? Yeah. Try not to go over next time?

00:55:42John: Yep.

00:55:43Tony O'Connell: And now that you've had a fall, you should be able to get a personal best next time. You should be able to run a bit quicker. Okay, well done. And what number did you finish today? Number 37. Well done. That's a great finish. All right, welcome to parkrun. Howdy parkrunners, we're at coffee after the Relton launch and I'm here with Don who's the Mayor of the Kentish Council. Don, how did you find the parkrun today?

00:56:07Don: Beautiful, a lovely event and just well at my walking pace I really enjoyed it and so I had a chance to see all the runners who were coming back the other way. I saw lots of smiling faces, lots of high fives and It was just a great event and I think everybody had a lot of fun.

00:56:25Tony O'Connell: Yeah, from all reports the council have been right behind it and it's a really good thing to see. The course itself is lovely.

00:56:33Don: Did the council have much to do with the maintenance out along the track? Yeah, we do do some maintenance in there. For the uninitiated, this course goes through a patch of Tasmanian native forest and it suffers from a lot of trees falling over at the moment and there's quite a bit of dead wood on the ground but it's up to the council to get it off the walking tracks. And I think we do that quite well. Maybe we could have it a little tidier, and I'd like to see that happen actually over the next couple of months. Because it is a beautiful bit of bush country. It's great to be able to walk or run along underneath all the trees. Yeah, I've got to say congratulations.

00:57:17Tony O'Connell: The course looks fantastic out there. And the park that we have the brief is really done beautifully. It's the town of topiary at Railton. And there's been a lot of work obviously done in the plants around the place.

00:57:31Don: Yeah, we try and keep our... Our park's looking good here but it's actually a topiary group that look after the topiary and I think we help them at some points but it's a great thing and we're very proud of the topiary that's here.

00:57:52Tony O'Connell: Congratulations Don, the town looks fantastic and the parkrun was brilliant. Well done, thanks a lot.

00:57:57Don: It was a great event, well done.

00:57:59Tony O'Connell: Cheers, thanks. I'm with Catherine who's the ED of Railton and she's just finished processing. Catherine, how many people finished the course today? I knew you were going to ask that. I think we had 113 finishers. That's a fantastic turnout for the town.

00:58:15Catherine: It certainly is, it's more than we expected so we're really happy with that.

00:58:19Tony O'Connell: Catherine, I've got to say, I've done quite a few events and this is probably one of my favourite courses. I absolutely love the course and I will be back. How did you find the course?

00:58:28Catherine: How did I find it?

00:58:29Tony O'Connell: How did you locate the course?

00:58:32Catherine: It took a while to get the right course. A lot of measuring and walking around. There's a lot of rules to comply with when you set up a parkrun course. The original course that we thought we had right and took to National HQ, we still had to change. But that next course was the one that we ran on today. So one of the things that's really special about the course and everyone gave us really good feedback today is that it is a bush trail and it's a natural bush trail. It's not just a fire track like a fire trail for vehicles. It's actually a natural bush track with lots of lovely birds singing in the trees and it has a good feel about it.

00:59:17Tony O'Connell: I'd say for all the adventurers out there, you want to get on board Railton. It has a sensational bit of single track in the middle of it that's second to none out of the courses I've done. It's beautiful. So you want to come down and have a look and get your eye for your pirate club. Yeah, no, look, great turnout. Really good support from locals from different parkruns around, and you had visitors from about three or four states that I could count out.

00:59:40Catherine: At least, yeah.

00:59:41Tony O'Connell: A really great launch, and congratulations. Well done. Thank you very much. Cheers. Cheers.

00:59:47Melissa Erbacher: Awesome roving reports once again. And I would just like to say on a personal note, congratulations to Tok who made it his 50th different event when he was at Railton on the weekend. Good job, Tok. That is true adventurous style. You beat both me and Scotty to the mark.

01:00:06Scott Trickett: Yes, well done. Quite an achievement to reach 50 different events. There's this talk of, I don't know, what's his Channel 5 news crew? We're running out of uniforms, Mel.

01:00:21Melissa Erbacher: How can you ever run out of suits? I'm pretty sure Tok has got his own safari suit.

01:00:25Scott Trickett: Well, if he brings his own safari suit, are we adding him?

01:00:29Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. Let's see whether or not he can cover another launch next week. And if he can, I reckon we can add him to the crew.

01:00:38Scott Trickett: On notice, given the incentive. Okay, I like it. I like the way you think. And it gives us time to order in more stock.

01:00:49Melissa Erbacher: Another microphone.

01:00:50Scott Trickett: Yes.

01:00:50Melissa Erbacher: Another shiny, sparkly, sequined microphone.

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

01:00:54Scott Trickett: So if Tok was to step up next week, where would he go? Are there more launches this week?

01:01:02Melissa Erbacher: There are. We've got one in Victoria, which might be his neck of the woods, at Coonwarra.

01:01:07Scott Trickett: Oh, not Coonawarra. Coonawarra.

01:01:09Melissa Erbacher: No, it's Coonawarra.

01:01:10Scott Trickett: Yes, I know. Who knew? I wouldn't know there was a place called Coonawarra. It's in my neck of the woods. I know of Coonawarra.

01:01:19Melissa Erbacher: Which is in South Australia.

01:01:20Scott Trickett: Yeah. But I've got a little tip on Coonawarra. Apparently they've got a few bridges. And it was on my calendar to get there this weekend, but not going to happen.

01:01:33Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that must be really disappointing. Yeah. I know I'm disappointed.

01:01:37Scott Trickett: Well, I know the people of Coonwara are disappointed with you, Mel. But, yeah. So, Tok's going to be there.

01:01:46Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So, Tok will be – well, if he wants to take the challenge, he should get there. But over in WA, we've got another one going on. It's quite north. It's quite remote. And it's called Port Hedland. Yes. That's going to be one for very hardcore adventurers, I think, Scotty. Yeah.

01:02:09Scott Trickett: The word quite is an understatement, Mel. I think that's got to be now our most remote parkrun. Surely it's got to be the furthest from the next parkrun.

01:02:21Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure. I believe there's been some discussion about that in the tourism group of late, but Cloncurry did launch last weekend, and they're pretty far away from places.

01:02:30Scott Trickett: I wonder what their NENDY is at Cloncurry.

01:02:34Melissa Erbacher: It might be Weipa. It might be Darwin. Hard to know. But yes, if you're a hardcore adventurer, head to Port Hedland. That one's going to make it tricky for statesmen to keep being statesmen in WA.

01:02:48Scott Trickett: And we've also got East Richmond launching in New South Wales, which is good because originally this was going to be called Richmond. parkrun but now it's been renamed east richmond which introduces the e for all those new south welshmen looking for an e i think that's very important to a lot of people i think a lot of people are very focused on the alphabet yeah I like the renaming too. I like this East Richmond parkrun name. I always feel a bit uneasy about introducing the state into the name of the parkrun. It looks messy. I'm sure the people whose parkrun it is don't feel that way, but it looks messy. I like this.

01:03:34Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

01:03:34Scott Trickett: I like this direction.

01:03:36Melissa Erbacher: So was there previously, is there a Richmond in the UK, for example, or somewhere else?

01:03:41Scott Trickett: Yes. Yes.

01:03:42Melissa Erbacher: Ah, okay. I assumed it was because Richmond in New South Wales is so big that they were hoping eventually for there to be a second event in Richmond, and therefore you don't want to name the first one Richmond, because if you do, that makes it confusing for the second event.

01:03:58Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, that's another way to go about it, which I think the powers that be are going about it like that. But I don't think that was the case in this instance.

01:04:07Melissa Erbacher: Fair enough. But... Launches aside, there are plenty of opportunities for people to get out there and celebrate this weekend as well, two of which are also in New South Wales. We've got Maitland and Willoughby having anniversaries this weekend, which is pretty cool.

01:04:24Scott Trickett: And in Brisbane, South Bank is celebrating an anniversary. That's a big event, so that's going to be a big party celebration, I imagine.

01:04:34Melissa Erbacher: It will. I think they're up to anniversary number five this year from memory. They're a couple of weeks younger than Kawana. So that's pretty cool as well.

01:04:44Scott Trickett: Very exciting. Very exciting. And that's another podcast done, Mel. Have we got anything else to wrap up with?

The Perlustration (annual listener survey)

01:04:50Melissa Erbacher: I think we need to remind people that they've only got one more week to get their perlustration responses in and to... Enter the TomTom giveaway comp we've got going on in cognition. That's not the word. What's the word? It begins with a C. It's not collaboration. It's help this sleep-deprived woman with words, Scotty.

01:05:18Scott Trickett: I don't know where you're going. If I did...

01:05:21Melissa Erbacher: It's a word beginning with C that means togetherness.

01:05:27Scott Trickett: Collaboration?

01:05:29Melissa Erbacher: No, I said it's not collaboration. I wasn't listening. Oh, well, that's great. There's another man in my life who doesn't listen to me when I talk.

01:05:37Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, the parkrun adventurer's word of the day is cooperation. No?

01:05:48Melissa Erbacher: No, that's not it. There's going to be a whole bunch of people out there frustrated, running, listening to a podcast on a train and they'll know the word and they'll be yelling it out and all the people are going to look at them thinking they're weird.

01:06:05Scott Trickett: Maybe we can have that. It'll come to me next week. Let's put that in the quiz because November Madness is back next week.

01:06:14Melissa Erbacher: It is. That's going to be exciting. And we've got a contestant weighing in from New South Wales this time to take on the mighty Melissa Ellis from Victoria.

01:06:27Scott Trickett: On that, Melissa Ellis was on her A-game costume-wise on Saturday.

01:06:32Melissa Erbacher: She was. I saw that.

01:06:34Scott Trickett: Yes.

01:06:35Melissa Erbacher: Pretty impressive. She was at Westerfolds for your green theme. Can you share what she was for those who didn't see her?

01:06:40Scott Trickett: She was the Wicked Witch of the West to folds, I guess. And she roped in her daughter, which is always great.

01:06:50Melissa Erbacher: It is. I think it is definitely a level up when you can get a family member or friend to wear a costume that is along the same theme or compliments your own.

01:07:05Scott Trickett: So we will talk to her about that all next week for November Madness.

01:07:10Melissa Erbacher: It's going to be a good one. Don't miss it.