Episode 97

Episode details · 303 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:15Scott Trickett: Episode 97 of the parkrun Adventurers, or Episode 2 for 2018. Welcome, Mel.

00:00:25Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Scotty. It could also be known as Episode 3 to 100.

00:00:29Scott Trickett: It could. It could. Let's stick with 97. That's what we've been using for the first couple of years, so let's stick with it. But I just wanted to remind people that this is just our second episode for the year, so we might be a bit rusty and we might not have much to talk about, but bear with us.

00:00:48Melissa Erbacher: We didn't warn people last week, did we? We should have.

00:00:50Scott Trickett: We've forgotten how to podcast a little bit.

00:00:55Melissa Erbacher: We have. It's quite embarrassing, actually.

00:00:58Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:00:59Melissa Erbacher: That's okay. We've just kind of gone, we've regressed a couple of years, haven't we? And it's just like, what are we even going to talk about? I don't know. What did you do? I don't know.

00:01:10Unidentified speaker: I can't remember.

00:01:14Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so this is going to be a quality episode, guys. Get ready for it.

00:01:17Scott Trickett: So let's not talk about what we did. Let's talk about what we're going to do.

00:01:22Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:01:24Scott Trickett: I'll start us off.

00:01:26Melissa Erbacher: Good idea.

00:01:28Scott Trickett: I'll start a little bit with what I did. So I'm one week in. It's my official on paper. It's in a grid everything training program to redeem myself and redeem myself Well, revisit my past marathon failures.

00:01:48Melissa Erbacher: No, you don't want to revisit failures.

00:01:50Scott Trickett: I do because I want to stare them down and crush them.

00:01:54Melissa Erbacher: Oh, so you mean actual like the same stomping grounds? You're going back?

00:01:59Scott Trickett: Well, actually, no, that's not true. No, because this year, ignore all that. Skip over this bit. Just get to the main point. This year, I said I'd never – the last marathon I did was Canberra Marathon a couple of years ago It went okay. It wasn't great. And I said, that's it. I'm done. I can't do them anymore. Later that year, I signed up to do Melbourne Marathon again. And then, again, didn't do the training properly. But this time, I was fortunate enough to get really sick and couldn't complete the marathon on the day. And at that moment, I said, never again. I'm never doing a marathon. It's stupid. The training's too hard. I've done it. I've failed. I'm done.

00:02:45Melissa Erbacher: Jeez, you're a glass half full kind of guy about marathons, aren't you?

00:02:51Scott Trickett: Well, I am now because I'm going to do another marathon. This year, I'm going to have a crack at Sydney Marathon. And I want all our listeners and everyone to come up to me at parkrun every week and remind me and ask me the question, am I on track? How am I going? Because, Mel, I've got a tendency with my marathon programs to skip a few sessions. I'm not going to lie.

00:03:10Melissa Erbacher: Like on a weekly basis?

00:03:12Scott Trickett: Yes, for the whole program.

00:03:15Melissa Erbacher: Do you think that might have something to do with your previous performances?

00:03:21Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:03:21Melissa Erbacher: Just throwing it out there.

00:03:22Scott Trickett: No, it does. Absolutely does. I might have convinced myself that 30k a week is enough.

00:03:28Melissa Erbacher: And that the other sessions are optional. Yes. You know, they're just recommendations. Yes. You know, like that speed limit, the speed sign that's on yellow. It's just a recommended speed. You don't necessarily have to follow that information.

00:03:45Scott Trickett: But that was the old Scott. This is the new Scott. One week into his training program, nailed it.

00:03:52Melissa Erbacher: Nailed it. 100% completion.

00:03:53Scott Trickett: Yep. Did all the sessions.

00:03:55Melissa Erbacher: Did you do your rest days? Yes.

00:03:56Scott Trickett: I flipped them around, but I still had one rest day.

00:03:59Melissa Erbacher: So I've got one rest day a week. Can you believe it? Am I believing it as in you think that's a lot or that's not much? It's a lot, isn't it? I think it's a lot. No. No? No. Don't you remember the advice that the rest days are like the most important and people should not skip them?

00:04:16Scott Trickett: Well, I want to add to them. I'd like to have a few more rest days. Like I think running six days a week is a lot.

00:04:23Melissa Erbacher: It is a lot, especially if you're going from not running six days a week, and especially if you're starting in January.

00:04:29Scott Trickett: Well, I'm going to nail it, Mel. That's what I'm saying. So when are you going to do yours?

00:04:33Melissa Erbacher: My marathon?

00:04:34Scott Trickett: Yeah, because I know you've been talking about it a lot.

00:04:37Melissa Erbacher: As in going back to my doc, you mean? Yeah. It's not going to happen this year, but you know what? I've got a little bit of a sort of personal goal that I haven't... really done much work on in the last 12 months I have you know how we've got a peel club right and it's one parkrun in every state and territory in Australia I've got my own idea that I want to do a half marathon in every state or territory in Australia and I've actually had a good crack and I'm about 50% there so so far I have done a half marathon in Queensland and WA, ACT, and South Australia. But I haven't. So that still leaves Northern Territory, Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales. So I'm thinking... I'm thinking Melbourne in October might be a good time to return to the half marathon running. And it should give me plenty of time to not train for it and come down and finish on the big, you know, the MCG. Is that where it finishes? That's it. You get to run where all the normal, really big, awesome athletes run on the track. I've never run on track before, so that could be a bit cool.

00:06:06Scott Trickett: Well, no, it's not quite a track. They just put down some plastic matting over the grass.

00:06:12Melissa Erbacher: Oh. Oh. Well, in that case, why would I bother?

00:06:16Scott Trickett: Well, it is still, there's the thrill, I've done it once, of running into the stadium. Actually, I've done it twice. It's kind of cool. But there is a little downside that the stadiums aren't full.

00:06:28Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, and that's the thing. I'm pretty sure the stadiums would be much fuller At the kinds of times that you finish than the kind of time I would finish.

00:06:36Scott Trickett: No, not at all. I think people stick around. It's a long day. And don't let that put it off you, Mel. I think let's put it in the diary. It's a great day. I think it's becoming the number one marathon in the country. Forget this Gold Coast nonsense. Melbourne's where it's at. That's where you're going to be this year.

00:06:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, I'm not making any promises. I'm just thinking about it.

00:06:57Scott Trickett: I thought you promised. I heard you say, this is what I need to do.

00:07:02Melissa Erbacher: Well, I think you need to rewind and listen again because I'm pretty confident that I made no promises. It's just an idea that it might be a nice... return to the half marathon running and knock off another state while i'm going we'll see if if i can find an appropriate um sound recording of like a stadium full of 50 000 people cheering that i could play when i ran into the stadium so that it's in my ears and i feel like i'm being cheered by a full stadium then maybe you mean like this one Do you just have these things on the switchboard now?

00:07:39[other]

00:07:46Scott Trickett: Of course. Yes, I'm well prepared. I knew we were going to talk about this.

00:07:52Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Well, that's very organised of you. Since you've got the great ESP, what should we talk about next?

00:07:59Scott Trickett: You know where I went on Saturday? I went back to Mullum Mullum and I caught up with our next guest. Now while everyone had a great Christmas and had a great break, our next guest had what could be easily described as a pretty crap Christmas. We're going to chat to Brett Orpwood from Mullum Mullum parkrun, who was loving parkrun up until December 23rd last year. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers Podcast.

00:08:33Brett Orpwood: Hi Scott, how are you doing?

00:08:34Scott Trickett: I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. And by the sounds of things, so are you now. But do you want to take us back to late last year and share with our listeners what happened to you on the 23rd of December?

00:08:47Brett Orpwood: Yes. Well, I was trying to squeeze in one last parkrun before Christmas, and I was planning on doing it with my eight-year-old son, Charlie. We rocked down to our Mullum Mullum parkrun, our local parkrun, and And we took some neighbours down in the car as well too, so we had a full carload. And then I can't really remember a whole lot after I arrived at the parkrun. So I remember a couple of things. Bumping into parents of one of Charlie's school friends, Josh, and his parents, Jodie and Mark. The boys were keen to run together, so I offered to run with the boys as Jodie and Mark have got two younger kids. And I remember the start and fiddling with my new Bluetooth headphones, which I was pairing with my watch. And that's my last memory. After that, we were about just over a kilometer into the run. I was running with Charlie and Josh. And I had a sudden cardiac arrest. So pretty serious. I hit the ground. And obviously I don't remember any of this, so the rest of it's hearsay and what I've learned afterwards. But my heart stopped and, you know, I fell to the ground and that was it. I had a seizure there. Fortunately, running very close to me was Scott Hawkins, the run director at Mullum Mullum parkrun, who was also running with his son. And then help quickly arrived. I was very fortunate that within a minute or so, I had a team of six first responders who started CPR on me. And I had a team of three on compressions and on breathing as well too. And they kept me going. Scott called an ambulance, an ambulance that took about 15 minutes to arrive. And at a similar time, a call was made up to our start line. And we had fortunately, very fortunately, a defibrillator back at the start line, which had only two months earlier been granted by one of the community grants through our local council, Maroondah Council. So that was run down by the day run director and arrived about eight minutes later. That was used on me and it got my heart starting again. And I guess the only reason that I'm still here is because of the unbelievable work of my first responders and the fact that we had that defibrillator there and that started my heart again. Soon after that, the ambulance arrived. They switched over onto their defibrillator. That was used again. So my heart had problems keeping going. And I was obviously in a pretty serious way there. they rushed me off to, um, to Box Hill hospital. Um, and I spent six hours in the cath lab in the cardiac, um, area of Box Hill hospital, uh, where they, um, where they ran tests all day. So it was a pretty scary time. Um, my wife had been called and she arrived at the scene, uh, with my younger boy, um, and, uh, and went in the ambulance as well too. And, um, And she was supported by friends, school parent friends, and our next door neighbour, Anne, who was a massive support through all of that day. And they spent the whole day in Box Hill Hospital. As we mentioned earlier, that was the 23rd of December. So I spent the next 24 hours in an induced coma. And that was a pretty scary time for everyone. And then I slowly came out of that on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. So my memories of Christmas Eve and Christmas are pretty jaded. I can't really remember a whole lot of Christmas Day, just some family around and a few events through the day. But, yeah, it was a sombre time for all of my family and pretty scary. My wife had mentioned that. I think on Christmas Day I asked the same bunch of questions, which is, you know, what happened, where am I, and filling in on events a good 50 times. So it was pretty scary. She'd been warned by all of the doctors that I could, seeing as I'd been down for 15 minutes, I could have brain damage or there could be other complications as well too. So it's a pretty scary time for everyone.

00:13:41Melissa Erbacher: I know the outcome, Brett, because obviously we're sitting here talking to you now. And I can tell you, though, my heart rate has sort of went up while you were telling the story. Obviously, six responders is absolutely brilliant. I know the question that's going to be on everyone's mind is, did somebody pause your Garmin?

00:14:02Brett Orpwood: Yeah. And this is the thing. So I was using an Apple Watch, which was a present, and it was one of the first things, you know, once I'd come to and come around to, I wanted to see the data on it. I'd started Strava on it. It hadn't synced back to my iPhone, and so all of the data was lost. It ended up just being a blur of movement around, so I didn't record anything. I wanted to see what my heart rate actually did.

00:14:33Melissa Erbacher: Ah, damn it. Technology failing again.

00:14:37Brett Orpwood: Big fail.

00:14:38Melissa Erbacher: Now, I understand you actually, you went home from the hospital with your own heart rate monitor, as it were, installed. How does that work?

00:14:49Brett Orpwood: Yes, I've got a defibrillator installed. So I was in hospital for 12 days. After I'd finished all the testing and MRI, then they put a defibrillator in. So that's it. I am just below my left shoulder, so under the skin there. The wires run down an artery and into my heart, and the wires are attached to my heart. So if this ever happens again, then it will shock me back to life and get my heart started again. So if it does happen, it will probably appear as if I fainted or something like that. I could lose consciousness, but it will shock me back and I should come to pretty quickly.

00:15:29Scott Trickett: On the morning that this happened, Brett, did you actually die for a period of time while CPR was being performed and they were running the defib down to you?

00:15:39Brett Orpwood: Yeah, I'm not a doctor, but I understand that, yeah, I was clinically dead, and it's correct to say that. um so yeah i'm not sure how long um as i say i think it was about eight minutes or so until the defib came down so my understanding is that my heart didn't start until the defib was connected i could be wrong on that on that point but um but that's what defibs do they they get your heart started and they're an important component of bringing people back to life in sudden cardiac arrest cpr keeps your blood pumping and keeps um keeps your brain oxygenated and your heart oxygenated and your organs and defibrillators start your heart again and get you going again.

00:16:22Scott Trickett: So thank God the defib was there, but does it freak you out a little bit that you were dead for a period of time there or possibly dead? I know you're not a doctor, but for the theatrics of the podcast, let's say you were.

00:16:35Brett Orpwood: Absolutely. Yeah, it does freak me out a little bit. Yeah, I spent a fair bit of time in hospital philosophically thinking about that and how very fortunate I was in all of these events that I'm still here. I normally run by myself at night time and I did twice that week as well too, on the Monday and the Wednesday before the Sunday parkrun. So if this had happened at any other time, then I wouldn't be here. So yeah, It does freak me out a lot how very fortunate I was to have those people around me, the defibrillator there, that it happened where it did and that help was sent at hand. If all of those things didn't occur exactly at the same time, I wouldn't be here.

00:17:21Melissa Erbacher: You mentioned that your wife had a lot of support on the day, you know, from friends and family and things like that, going to the hospital and all those sorts of things. What happened – I mean, you drove your neighbours to parkrun, so what happened to your other son and your neighbours? Did somebody take them home or they get stranded?

00:17:43Brett Orpwood: Absolutely. They all – so everyone sort of pitched in, so – My two boys, so my youngest was left back at the start line, so he didn't witness any of it. But obviously my eight-year-old and his friend did. So they were quickly cared for by friends. And so we've got so many friends to thank there. So school parent friends who took them away from the scene. He didn't want to leave the scene, so he took them away from the scene and then and then, yeah, Josh's parents, Jodie and Mark Dackey, looked after both of our boys all through that day whilst we were in hospital. You know, all of my family arrived at hospital, so my wife had plenty of support there as well, as I said, my neighbour, and we're very good friends with our neighbours. They're the best neighbours in the world. So Anne was with my wife all day and was a great support as well too. And the community since then has just rallied around us. So we've had so much support. It's just been unbelievable. Another one of our school parent friends and Mullum parkrunners, Sharon Wilson, has organised a food train. And I think people are just looking for a way to help. And that food train, which delivers a meal around to us once a week just to help us out, is now booked out until into June. So there's so many families that have just wanted to offer support and are helping us, and it's been amazing.

00:19:15Melissa Erbacher: That's incredible. Kids are pretty resilient, but I can imagine that experiencing watching your dad or at least being around and knowing that something is happening to your dad and it's very serious must have been challenging. an absolute freak out for your boys. How have they handled it? I mean, obviously, you got to come home afterwards and they can see that you're all right, but that still must have, you know, made a really big impact.

00:19:42Brett Orpwood: Yeah, absolutely. It's a massive event. My youngest, Mac, he knew that I was in hospital and had a heart issue and some broken ribs, but not a whole lot else and didn't get to witness it. Charlie's been through a lot and we've got the fortunate outcome that I was able to walk away from this and we've been able to explain it that this is what doctors and nurses do, they help save lives and it was a really scary morning and some pretty traumatic events happened but that's where my help was. I had a doctor and three nurses and a policeman all doing CPR on me and they saved my life so that's what they do and You know, that's something he can think about, I guess, as he grows up as to whether that's the type of job that he might want to do when he gets older. We've had lots of support around us and parkrun Australia have been absolutely fantastic as well to offering support and counselling to not only Charlie and my wife and I, but also everyone at parkrun that day. There were plenty of people that saw the traumatic events down there. So, you know, as I say, parkrun Australia, and we've had lots of other support around us as well too. So we'll keep a close eye on Charlie. As soon as I came out of hospital, he's really bounced back and just, you know, loves having me around and has been pretty close to me since then. So, you know, we'll keep a close eye on him and hopefully he'll be fine.

00:21:20Scott Trickett: Now the good news to come out of this, Brett, is that you have made a good recovery. You're doing well. I've met you. You're a fit looking guy. That's the other thing we should mention, that you were fit coming into this. No signs that you were going to have a heart attack. But you're on the mend now. How is your recovery going?

00:21:40Brett Orpwood: Yeah, I'm very fortunate. And a lot of my recovery comes down to the quality of the CPR, as I sort of mentioned before. The doctors were really surprised I was able to get up and get out of hospital seeing as I was down for 15 minutes, and that's a long time to be down for. They just measure that as the time until the ambulance arrived. But the good thing for me is that I had exceptional quality CPR, all through that period of time, you know, from within a minute of going down until the ambulance arrived. So, yeah, everything's come back pretty clear. I don't – you know, my brain scan came back clear. The MRI looks really good. The common causes for sudden cardiac arrest are either a congenital abnormality in the heart or – or a heart defect. And the good news for me is that I don't have either of those. So I should make a full recovery. There's no damage to my heart. This was an electrical malfunction. And the rest of my function is great. I got a full checkup when I was in there and all my arteries and everything look great. So that's very pleasing. And so whilst it'll be a few months so it could be two to six months before I'm able to run again I should make a full recovery and my heart's in pretty good condition and now I've got a defibrillator into to kickstart me again in case it happens again so at the moment I tire very quickly I can If I walk up a couple of flights of stairs, then I start feeling dizzy and my body's telling me that I just need to slow down. And similar at the moment, I can sort of walk for a kilometre, but very quickly, if I pick up pace, then again, my body just tells me, no, you've got to slow down, otherwise I start feeling faint and dizzy.

00:23:43Melissa Erbacher: Listening to your body is probably the best thing you can do. I'm sure the doctors have told you that. You haven't sworn off parkrun then? You've got your own defib on hand or in body to kick in and, you know, you think in the future you'll definitely be back out there pounding the pavements and running the trails?

00:24:02Brett Orpwood: Absolutely. Yeah, we're lucky to have two defibs down at parkrun now. It's just that one's attached to me. So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to the time when I'll be able to get back down to parkrun and to run again. In the meantime, you know, got plenty of volunteering opportunities as well too and, yeah, And I also got down at Mullum Mullum on the weekend and I was volunteering down there too. So it's good to give back a little bit.

00:24:29Melissa Erbacher: Speaking of giving back, I love that you're already volunteering and the roster's always going to be happy for volunteers. However, you and your family have kicked off a bit of a crowdfunding campaign to get more defibs to other parkruns. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

00:24:48Brett Orpwood: Obviously, 12 days in hospital, I had a lot of time to think about things and especially through that new year period as well too. So, you know, one of the first things that, you know, I realised was how fortunate I was in my situation. If it wasn't for the people that we had around us and all the support that I was getting in hospital and everything, I wouldn't be here and I was so thankful for everything that everyone did. Scott Hawkins, the run director, was in a hospital and visiting me and keeping everyone updated. And so I had messages flooding in through Facebook and text messages and everything. And I really wanted to do something to say thank you and to give back. I knew that we'd recently got our defibrillator, and as part of that comms, I was aware that there was a campaign that parkrun were running to try and increase the numbers of defibrillators at parkruns. But still, there were plenty of parkruns that didn't have defibrillators, and so I had a bit of a chat to Scott and You know, originally what I wanted to do was for Bec and I to donate a defibrillator to another parkrun so that we could sort of say thank you to our parkrun community and also to the wider, you know, parkrun Australia that had supported us so much. And when I started discussing this idea, I was getting so much support and people were like, oh, yeah, we'll contribute as well too. And so... the idea sort of popped up that, yeah, you know, maybe this, maybe it's a good idea that I sort of leverage off so much good will that was there to do some good for other parkruns and to see if we could raise some money for other parkruns. So I started a GoFundMe after discussing that with Renee at parkrun Australia as well too, just to see where the opportunity, you know, that opportunity was still there and what it presented. So it was, you know, at one point, When I started this, I think it was around about Jan 20, there were still about 45 parkruns in Australia of the 270 that are there that don't have defibrillators. Most of those are in rural areas or at the smaller parkruns up and down the coast and around Australia. So I saw it as that opportunity to do something for them. Um, I, I launched the GoFundMe and, and I, I did that, um, at our, at Mullum Mullum parkrun. Um, and it was a pretty special day. So this is, um, you know, less, uh, less than two weeks ago now. So just 10 days ago where I was able to go down to, um, to our parkrun. I met all of our first responders, my first responders for the first time. So it was a pretty emotional day meeting all the people who saved my life. Um, and was able to, um, to launch the GoFundMe and get a bit of support for it. From that, it went absolutely gangbusters. So it's been a massive response within the last nine or 10 days where we've raised over $31,000 now. So that's $15,000, $2,000 defibrillators. There was one very special $20,000 donation in there as well too, which was just absolutely remarkable, but a massive help for getting defibrillators to some rural parkruns. So it feels great. It's been a wonderful thing for me to help heal as well too, and it definitely gave me something to look forward to to get out of hospital and to focus my attention on rather than rather than just being stuck around the house and not being able to get outside all that much. So it's been a massive help for my recovery as well too.

00:28:43Scott Trickett: It's been enormous, Brett. I think you should never undersell. the contribution that you've made. And the great Scott Hawkins said to me, he said, you know, people can raise money for machines. That's one thing. But when we're raising money for people's lives and it's a real person, I think people think differently about it. And I think that's very evident in you telling your story here. So we're going to share the GoFundMe link on our Facebook page with our listeners. But thank you again for coming on and telling your tale. and throwing some light on this scary topic that confronts many parkrunners and many volunteers that are involved in parkrun. So thanks again. Brett Orpwood.

Facts in a Haystack

00:29:40Melissa Erbacher: Scotty and I have been salivating over all the records that have been broken lately. And who better to break it all down than Mr. Ian Hay of Facts in a Haystack. So Ian's back on the show. And I wasn't going to say so, but it happened. So there you have it. Ian, welcome back to the parkrun Adventurers.

00:30:03Ian Hay: Thanks, Mel. Hi, Scott.

00:30:05Melissa Erbacher: Now, oh, and I've just said the other naughty word as well. Ian, do you have any naughty words that you try not to? Like after you listened to the first couple of podcasts that you were in, I know for a very long time you just wouldn't listen to those episodes at all because it had your voice in. But once you sort of broke through that barrier and started listening to the episodes you were in, were there any words that you found that you said that it just, you know, blatantly stood out to you that, oh my goodness, I just said fantastic like five times within three sentences? Any spring to mind?

00:30:42Ian Hay: No, I hate it when I go back and I hear myself say um over and over and over again. But I think I go through phases where I have different words that I like and I keep repeating over and over again, like over and over again. Yeah. And no, I still haven't got used to hearing my voice. I still cringe.

00:31:01Melissa Erbacher: I think we go through those phases too because in the early days, we used to say fantastic too much. So that went on the list. We weren't allowed to say fantastic. Barely ever say it anymore. But we have some new words of late that we've We've made a deal, a pact between the two of us that we're not supposed to say. And I think we've both broken that pact about four times already this episode. Haven't we, Scotty?

00:31:23Scott Trickett: Yeah, we have. We have. Well, so Ian's going to give us the stats on how many times I've said now and how many times Mel has said so this episode. Give us the first set of numbers, Ian.

00:31:35Ian Hay: And fantastic. We'll cover off fantastic as well. Excited. I can't say excited. I'll start keeping a running tally.

00:31:44Melissa Erbacher: Especially because ironically when Scotty says he's excited, he doesn't sound excited. But that is actually his excited voice.

00:31:53Ian Hay: Very excited.

00:31:55Scott Trickett: Good to hear, good to hear. So what other figures?

00:32:01Ian Hay: Yes, let's find something we do get excited about. I tell you what, these records this month that we've had, now that's something to get excited about, so. It's been record after record after record, so it's been fantastic. Actually, I'm using the word so, so I'm going to keep saying so. That's my fault. That's your fault. I've been thinking about it too much.

00:32:23Scott Trickett: I'll tell you what. I'm going to keep count of your so's, and I'll give you a report at the end of the segment. Cool.

00:32:30Ian Hay: Okay. So, yeah, this month, every week, excluding – the New Year's Day, which while it was a big day, it's still not the big numbers like we've had every week simply because we didn't have every event running. But we've had every week in January we've broken, we've beaten last year's record in total. So last year's record was, I'm trying to read my stats now, was 33,000. There you go, mind blank there for a second. Around 33,000 was our record for last year, and every week this month we've broken it. I think our smallest was 37,000, so what a month. It's been huge.

00:33:18Scott Trickett: Now, we did have a drop-off this week, though, didn't we? This was the first week. We didn't break it.

00:33:24Ian Hay: We didn't break it this week, but we still smashed last year's overall record, so we still hit 37,000 this week. It's really sad when we call that not breaking a record or smaller because it's still bigger than 33,000, which was our biggest last year. So still incredible numbers.

00:33:45Melissa Erbacher: Bringing my exceptional mathing skills in, and we have had four weeks in January, that means we've cracked like over 100,000 runs, especially, I guess, you know, if you incorporate the New Year's Day runs into that. How many do you know? How many we've done this month already, Ian?

00:34:03Ian Hay: I sure do. I've got those stats in front of me as well. So for 2018, we've done approximately 174,000 runners in January. Okay. So that's averaging around $35,000 per week.

00:34:19Melissa Erbacher: Yowzers.

00:34:21Ian Hay: So if you compare that back to January 2017, we were averaging $26,000 a week. So we've gone from $26,000 to $35,000.

00:34:31Scott Trickett: Now, we've also got more events this year.

00:34:34Ian Hay: Yeah, so, yeah. So that's going to help our numbers. 205 events. Yeah, 205 events last January, up to 272 this year. So that's considerable, John.

00:34:42Scott Trickett: So does our average... Per event?

00:34:45Ian Hay: Yes, I have averaged it out. So yeah, I haven't averaged it out per event. So per event, it still sits around roughly the same. So it has been our increase in events. But you are seeing an increase.

00:34:59Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): The other one that I quickly grabbed out to was just the number of volunteers. I thought it would be interesting to see number of volunteers.

00:35:05Ian Hay: In January 2017, we had 8,600 volunteers. which I think averaged around eight per event. And we're now up to 11,400 volunteers over January. That's a huge amount of volunteers.

00:35:20Scott Trickett: I tell people we are the biggest provider of volunteer opportunities in Australia. I'd like someone else, I'd like another organisation to come at us with figures that can top that. What did you say? What was the total again? 11,000? 11,400. It's incredible. Yeah.

00:35:36Ian Hay: And look at how smoothly everything is, look at how smoothly, I'm not jinxing anything here, but how smoothly all the events run and how well it all comes together. It's just, it's incredible.

00:35:45Scott Trickett: Have you got any other stats for us?

00:35:48Ian Hay: The only other ones I pulled up quickly was just total numbers, which I thought were quite interesting. So I just went back to 2015. So 2015, we had 764,000 runners for the year. 2016, we went up to 1.15 million runners. 2017, up to $1.49 million. So where's 2018 going to take us? There's been quite incredible jumps each year.

00:36:13Melissa Erbacher: That's for the full calendar year?

00:36:16Ian Hay: For the full calendar year, yep. So we've gone from an average of 14,000 per week to 21,000 per week to 27,000 per week. And we'll see what 2018 brings us.

00:36:28Scott Trickett: So let's put this in time capsule then, Ian. So let's get to the end of 2018. What's the average going to be?

00:36:37Ian Hay: What have we got? 21. I'm going to take a guess at it. I'm going to take a stand.

00:36:40Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, predictions. We want predictions.

00:36:43Ian Hay: I'm going to go 34,000 a week. Every week? Hmm.

00:36:50Melissa Erbacher: Okay, but what does that equal by the end? Because you were just talking about the totals now, so I want to hear what you think the total will be for 2018. And remind us again what 17 was so that I can make up some arbitrary number.

00:37:06Ian Hay: 17 was 27,000.

00:37:07Melissa Erbacher: No, no, 17 was more than 27,000. It was 1 point something million.

00:37:14Ian Hay: 27,000 per week, so 1.49 million.

00:37:16Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:37:19Ian Hay: I might be regretting the 34,000 now that I think about it. It just seems a lot. 1.7 million. No, it's about 1.7 million.

00:37:26Scott Trickett: You're probably right. Yeah, you're probably right. It just seems a lot. I'm going to go bigger.

00:37:30Ian Hay: I'm staying with 34,000. Yeah, okay.

00:37:32Scott Trickett: I'm going to go bigger and I'll go 30, 35. 35? Mel, there is a prize for the winner at the end of the year.

00:37:44Melissa Erbacher: All right, but you're 35. Yeah, but what is that in the millions?

00:37:49Ian Hay: It's a lot. It's a lot. It's about 1.8. I'm basing on 52 weeks in the year. I'm not being overly specific with the number of events, but roughly.

00:38:01Melissa Erbacher: And then you've got to think that by the middle of the year, it's actually going to drop because it'll be winter in Australia. But you do have growth. All right. But in that case, I'm going to go – I'm going to go, oh, it's so tempting to go 2 million because I do like a really big round number. I'm going to go 1.875. 1.875. Yep.

00:38:34Ian Hay: Just under Scotty.

00:38:36Scott Trickett: You're not following along, Mel. Ian, can you give me the average of that per week?

00:38:42Melissa Erbacher: That's 36,000.

00:38:47Ian Hay: 36,000. 34, 35 and 36.

00:38:49Melissa Erbacher: I do things my own way, Scotty, okay?

00:38:52Ian Hay: Okay.

00:38:53Melissa Erbacher: You should be used to this by now.

00:38:55Scott Trickett: Yep. Something to look forward to in 11 months' time. We'll probably be here in no time, so... Ian, not the prof, Ian, I guarantee we'll have you back on before December this year.

00:39:12Ian Hay: That would be awesome.

00:39:14Scott Trickett: Thanks for joining us on only the second program this year. It's great to have you back.

00:39:19Ian Hay: Yep, good to be back. Thanks, guys.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:39:30Unidentified speaker: I'm here at Bagara parkrun launch with Fi Edmonds.

00:39:34Unidentified speaker: Fi, how did you like the course today? It's a beautiful course, a bit hot today and there's a lot of people out here but it's absolutely wonderful. You follow the path and go out into the bushland and come back and run along the beach for a while and come back along the grass and meet up with all your friends back here at the start area. How did you find out about the Bagara launch? Well, I read the parkrun newsletter every week and at the bottom of that there's a calendar and so you catch that and see what's ready to put on your calendar and there's also parkrun tourism Facebook page so there's everybody talking about things there too. Okay, thank you for your time.

00:40:10Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Okay, I'm here with Sasha from Bundy. Yeah. You haven't changed over to Bagara course or anything like that yet?

00:40:17Sasha - Bundaberg parkrunner: Nah, not yet. But I'll do a run here at least once a month just to support the crew.

00:40:21Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Okay, so Sasha, how did you find the course other than it being hot?

00:40:24Sasha - Bundaberg parkrunner: Yeah, it was very hot today. It's so nice and scenic. Nice headwind, which wasn't great for the pace, but was definitely nice to cool you down. Definitely attractive for the scenic rim, isn't it? Along the coastline the whole way.

00:40:38Greg - Bargara roving reporter: So... What tips would you have for any new players out there that are turning up to their first event at Vergara?

00:40:46Sasha - Bundaberg parkrunner: Yeah, absolutely. Just have a go. parkrun is very supportive. Lots of local running clubs. My very first ever 5k run was Bundy parkrun. So I started training about three months out when that was coming to town and I struggled through my first one. Got a time of about 38 minutes and my goal for launch in a couple of weeks time is to get a 28 minute actually. Just have a go. Surround yourself with like-minded people and just get out.

00:41:13Greg - Bargara roving reporter: So other than Bundy and Bugara now, what other events have you done a tourist to?

00:41:18Sasha - Bundaberg parkrunner: Yeah, I've been to Hervey Bay and North Lakes.

00:41:22Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Okay, so you're slowly getting out there.

00:41:23Sasha - Bundaberg parkrunner: I am getting out there, definitely.

00:41:26Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Okay. Well, we'll see you around the trips.

00:41:29Unidentified speaker: Lovely. Hey, Kenz, how did you like the run today? Kenz, Kenzie, Kenzie, how'd you like to run? Hey, how'd you like to run? No? Okay, then bye.

00:41:43Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Okay, last interview for the day, and we're here with the co-EDs for the Bagara parkrun. So, Phil and Maria, how did your event go? Really good.

00:42:02Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: We had a huge group of participants and everybody was really happy with the course. So yeah, happy days.

00:42:09Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Happy days. Stress-free now. All the work and pre-planning, it seemed to go together all well today. There's nothing really missed, I don't think. 318 people, just amazing. I think we're only expecting, I was expecting about 200, but 318, that's just crazy. Really great.

00:42:28Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: And I only lost one token. So far. So, pretty happy.

00:42:33Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Well, it's not bad at all. So, for those that don't know and don't follow the Begara Facebook page, you probably wouldn't realise that Phil is a bit of a selfie king.

00:42:44Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: So, how did the selfies go this morning? I managed to get in probably a dozen or so. I'm sure they'll be up on Facebook later on.

00:42:55Greg - Bargara roving reporter: So probably the question is how many selfies got done when you should have been doing his RD stuff?

00:43:00Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Ah no, in between, in between. It's all good. I only get to sneak in a couple at the end. During the middle when there's not many people around and a few at the start, just before the gun goes off. So it's all good.

00:43:12Greg - Bargara roving reporter: So out of the whole lot of the setup and the organising, Was there one part that you enjoyed the most? Was there one part that you found the most annoying as such? Or what's your comments for that side of things?

00:43:36Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: As in from start to finish of today or just the whole process?

00:43:40Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Well, both. The whole process is one and just running a day.

00:43:45Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Yeah, probably the lead up. You get a bit frustrating because there's a lot of blockages. You've got to send this here and other things out to get approval. You think you've got everything down and all of a sudden things change and say, oh no, you can't do that. So you've got to go back and start again. But overall, we managed to get Bagara up and running since late October, I think. And it's 27th of January now, so that's a fairly quick turnaround. We did have some pre-planning done beforehand that we tried to launch before, but... Everyone we dealt with has been really good.

00:44:20Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: And I think too, out of everything, the positive feedback that we've received from everyone, it's just been amazing. Even in the lead-up, before we even started. With our trials and before we started the trials, everybody's just been really positive. And even today on the track, everyone's yelling out positive feedback. Great course, guys. Well done. So yeah, that makes it really...

00:44:44Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: think having two launches i mean um trials was really great we worked out a few little issues we had probably could have done another one and really honed out all the little issues most of our volunteers that were at our trials came to the launch day which was good so with your trial i think you had 60 and 65 to your trial days so most of those would have been locals and such so out of the 300 odd

00:45:13Greg - Bargara roving reporter: What's your take on how many were Bagara locals?

00:45:18Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: I think looking at our numbers we've got 169 registered today.

00:45:26Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: And I reckon we would have had at least 150 that were Bagara local people.

00:45:34Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Some may not revisit all the time but I think we'll get a lot of people come back every week. A lot of people from Bundaberg came through today just for the launch, which was good. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of visitors.

00:45:47Greg - Bargara roving reporter: There was a lot of visitors, a lot from the Brisbane area. What is it, about four hours from Brisbane? Four hours from Brisbane, yeah. On a good day. Not too bad a drive. On a good day. So yeah, one of those that I think you'll, nice area, nice course, so tend to get a fair few visitors coming through, I think.

00:46:08Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Yeah, I think we will. Especially the holiday makers for the holiday season, school holidays and all that.

00:46:14Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: And what time, the perfect time to launch on a long weekend. On a long weekend.

00:46:17Greg - Bargara roving reporter: All right, it's a thing with what it is. Yeah, you've... potentially have that guaranteed long weekend for every event.

00:46:29Phil - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: It could have worked against us too, Australia Day weekend, people go away a lot, so still to get the numbers we got was just fantastic I think.

00:46:38Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Yeah, very happy with the numbers. But in saying that, it's not all about numbers for us. It's just with people participating. So to have those numbers, yeah, just blew us away.

00:46:49Greg - Bargara roving reporter: It was good. We'll leave it there and we'll let you get away and enjoy the rest of your weekend. Try to. And get some photos uploaded and finish it off.

00:46:59Maria - co-Event Director, Bargara parkrun: Thanks, Greg.

00:46:59Greg - Bargara roving reporter: Thank you.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:47:01Lyndell Murray: G'day, parkrun Adventurers. It's Lyndell here reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew, and I have made the trek from Brisbane out to Mount Tamborine. Now, Mount Tambourine is celebrating their third birthday today, so there's cake. um there is also some kind of surprise something to do with the song happy i'm not going to sing it for you i'm wondering whether that's what the surprise is we all have to sing i don't know um they posted something on their facebook page during the week saying that they hoped that we were all practicing and when i contacted them and said hey i'm thinking of coming down what do i need to practice and they said oh it's a little surprise So I've got that ahead of me, I've got a run ahead of me and I'm hoping that I can find my way because I've headed up the mountain and there's fog up here in the middle of summer. It is so strange. AD, one of the event crew here, have told me that it is quite unexpected, that they weren't expecting fog. So, look, hopefully I don't get lost and I will be able to have a chat to some people after the parkrun and... let you know a little bit more about how the day unfolded okay parkrun adventurers i'm back post run i didn't get lost i was a bit worried that i might not only because of the course but also the fog and i'm back now i can reveal that the surprise that had to do with the song happy was a dance routine and ably led by sarah and abby who i'm about to have a chat with But the whole parkrun crew joined in and they did this little song and dance with the song Happy and I've got a video of it so I'll pop that up on one of the pages on Facebook so you can have a look at it. But I'll just have a quick chat with Sarah and Abby. How are you guys going today?

00:48:46Abby - Tamborine Mountain flash-mob dancer and volunteer (a child; surname not given): Good, thanks.

00:48:48Lyndell Murray: Good. And are you guys regular parkrunners or was this a special occasion for you?

00:48:54Sarah - Tamborine Mountain flash-mob dancer (a child; surname not given, NOT roster Sarah Jefferson): A special occasion. This is my first time doing parkrun.

00:48:59Lyndell Murray: And you were saying earlier, Abby, that you sometimes volunteer here? Yes, I do sometimes volunteer. Mainly on tokens. Tokens is a great job because you get to say hello to everybody. Yeah. Now, so the dance that you did, just tell us a little bit about that. How did you get involved and how did that happen?

00:49:18Abby - Tamborine Mountain flash-mob dancer and volunteer (a child; surname not given): Well... My mum usually comes to parkrun every day, every time it's on. And my friend Sarah was over, and the start of the dance, we decided to make up a dance.

00:49:32Sarah - Tamborine Mountain flash-mob dancer (a child; surname not given, NOT roster Sarah Jefferson): Because no one was dancing at the beginning, and there was lots of space, so then we had the idea of putting in our own choreography, and we had to send a video to see if it would work, and they said yes. So you even had to audition for the role, huh? Yeah, a bit, yeah.

00:49:51Lyndell Murray: Well, that's awesome. I can see why you got it because you did a great job and you've even choreographed your outfits. You've got your black tops and your colourful tutus and you did a really great intro and made us all feel happy at the start. So thanks very much and keep coming to parkrun.

00:50:05Sarah - Tamborine Mountain flash-mob dancer (a child; surname not given, NOT roster Sarah Jefferson): Thank you very much.

00:50:07Unidentified speaker: Bye.

00:50:08Lyndell Murray: Okay, so post parkrun, I've tracked down Nerida, who I think is the furthest tourist here today. How are you going, Nerida, and where are you from?

00:50:17Nerida - parkrun tourist from Nepean River parkrun: I'm good, and I'm from Nepean River parkrun down in Penrith.

00:50:21Lyndell Murray: All right, so what brings you to Mount Tambourine? Did you come all this way just for cake?

00:50:26Nerida - parkrun tourist from Nepean River parkrun: No, I came to visit my friend Chris, who's just moved up here to Mount Tambourine.

00:50:30Lyndell Murray: Excellent. So... So, Chris, you're a Mount Tambourine local. Is this your local parkrun now?

00:50:36Chris - Tamborine Mountain local: It is. So this is the first time I've done this parkrun. I came from Fingal Bay parkrun down in Newcastle Way. Yeah, down south.

00:50:45Lyndell Murray: Excellent. So a couple of tourists here. It's funny that you're the local and your friend the tourist has dragged you along to your local parkrun. Do you think you'll come back?

00:50:53Chris - Tamborine Mountain local: I will probably because I'll bring one of my kids who's a bit of a runner. So, yeah.

00:50:58Lyndell Murray: Excellent, so are you sticking around for some cake? Sure, sounds good. Alright, thanks guys. Okay, now I've tracked down a contingent here from Main Beach Park and they've made the trek up the mountain to Mount Tambourine and it turns out one of them has a birthday, actually two of them have a birthday and they're pretty happy that Mount Tambourine have put on cake and a dance and a song just for them. So who are you, what are your names and is it your birthday? Faye, and it's not my birthday.

00:51:30Unidentified speaker: I'm Meredith Tucker, and yes, it's my birthday.

00:51:33Lyndell Murray: I'm Sharon, and no, it's not my birthday.

00:51:35Gary Rogers - Main Beach parkrunner: Gary Rogers, and it's not my birthday.

00:51:37Lyndell Murray: So you're all here for Meredith. Good on you.

00:51:40Unidentified speaker: Absolutely.

00:51:41Lyndell Murray: All right, so how did you find the course today? A little bit different to Main Beach, I think.

00:51:45Unidentified speaker: Fabulous. It was very invigorating, challenging, but worth coming up the mountain for. Absolutely loved it.

00:51:51Unidentified speaker: Yeah, yeah, that wasn't a happy birthday run. It was quite hard. She says that, but she ran ahead of me, so...

00:52:00Lyndell Murray: So it can't have been that hard. No, no.

00:52:02Unidentified speaker: She always goes around at a slow pace and I never see her.

00:52:05Lyndell Murray: I've got friends like that too. How about you, Gary?

00:52:08Gary Rogers - Main Beach parkrunner: I enjoyed it. It was challenging and it took me out of my comfort zone a little bit today. But, yeah, I enjoyed it. It was really good. Yeah, I liked it. It was all cross-country, so it was something very different.

00:52:18Lyndell Murray: Different to Main Beach, but do you do a bit of trail running, Gary, in other times?

00:52:23Gary Rogers - Main Beach parkrunner: Yeah, I do a bit of trail running, road and trail, but yeah, the atmosphere at Main Beach is different to up here as well. Of course, there's a lot more people at Main Beach and it's close to the beach, but this is more country and it's a lot cooler.

00:52:35Greg - Bargara roving reporter: And friendly.

00:52:36Gary Rogers - Main Beach parkrunner: And always friendly. Every parkrun that I've done, which isn't that many, are very friendly.

00:52:41Lyndell Murray: It is. It is. It's an awesome thing. Okay, now, perfect timing. Happy has just started up. Some of the ladies are out having another crack at the dance. It was a wonderful touch to the parkrun birthday this morning. And with me I have Dries and I have... Nigel Wastel. Nigel. How are you going today? I'm very good, thank you.

00:52:46[music]

00:53:02Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): I'm going very well. Very pleasing to see such a good turnout.

00:53:05Lyndell Murray: Now, Deweese, you did your 50th parkrun today, and there was another chap that did their 100. He's run away. He's obviously a much faster runner than any of us. So how did your 50 go? Yes, it was good. It was a bit slow today because of the heat, but, yep, happy that I finished it. Excellent. And have you done most of your runs here, or have you touristed around a little bit? No, most of them are here. I've done a few in Ipswich, but mostly temporary. So you're a tough runner because this is a tough course. It is a tough course. But I loved it. It was wonderful. Now, Nigel, I didn't recognise you now because you didn't have your fluffy hat and your tutu and your timekeeping vest on. You timekept today?

00:53:45Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): I timekept today. Yes, I normally timekeep. I've run, I think, 32 times. I ran last week for the first time in two years. But now I'm back to timekeeping.

00:53:55Lyndell Murray: And is that why you're back to timekeeping? Because it was your first run in two years? I don't need to run anymore.

00:54:00Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): I'm too old. I do walking. I do Kokoda tracks, Kokoda challenges. And I'm very happy to come in timekeeping.

00:54:07Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Now, I understand that you're also the local councillor here in the Scenic Rim Council.

00:54:12Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): I am. I'm here on my second term, finishing 2020.

00:54:17Lyndell Murray: Can I say, it was wonderful to see you join in. So I go to a lot of parkrun launches and a lot of parkrun anniversaries and quite often the councillor or the local member or someone comes along in their suit and they cut a ribbon and off they go. But no, you were really part of the parkrun community here.

00:54:32Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): The first picture I had taken as a councillor, they wanted me to have a picture taken of planting a tree at the state school. I said, I'm not coming in a suit, I'll come and plant some trees for you, then you can take a picture of me feeling dirty. LAUGHTER

00:54:43[laughter]

00:54:44Lyndell Murray: And how did that go?

00:54:46Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): Oh yes, look, I always go and do things, and they take pictures afterwards. That is my stance.

00:54:51Lyndell Murray: That sounds excellent, and obviously there are lots of pictures of you dancing today as well, so that will be another memorable moment in your life as a counsellor.

00:54:58Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): It will. I have my crib sheet of how I was supposed to have moved. Didn't quite follow suit, but it was good.

00:55:05Lyndell Murray: I'll let you in on a secret. You weren't the only one that didn't quite follow the script, and it was absolutely fine.

00:55:12Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): That is normal. Casual.

00:55:14Lyndell Murray: Well, thank you guys for a wonderful day. Congratulations on your 50th. Congratulations, Nigel, for being just such a part of a wonderful community up here. And hopefully I'll be back up at Mount Tambourine sometime.

00:55:26Nigel Wastel - Tamborine Mountain timekeeper and Scenic Rim councillor (spelling likely Waistell): Thank you for coming up.

00:55:27Lyndell Murray: Thank you very much, Linda. All right, so now I've tracked down the event director, Bruce. How are you today, Bruce, and how did the birthday go?

00:55:34Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: I'm not as tired as some of my volunteers because they did all the work and they've been planning it for four weeks and you visually saw how they started the parkrun today. And we're pretty pleased with how it all went. I think there was 74 runners slash walkers across the line today, which would be our third biggest parkrun up here because we're only a small parkrun.

00:56:04Lyndell Murray: Excellent. So third biggest, that's not bad. Lots of visitors. What do you normally get on a normal Saturday, normal parkrun day?

00:56:12Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: We normally get 20 to 25. It'll peak maybe at 40, 45 on holidays with the parkrun tourists and the people that come up. The smallest we had was back in October on a wet Saturday. We had eight volunteers and four runners. Oh!

00:56:32Lyndell Murray: That's a story. Not hard to get a podium that day.

00:56:36Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: No, it wasn't hard to get a podium, but the finish line had about 100mm of water and there's some great photos on our Facebook page of the runners splashing through 100ml of water to get their token.

00:56:52Lyndell Murray: Wow, what an adventure. So now you said this morning that you weren't the original run director here or event director. What's your journey and how did you get involved in parkrun?

00:57:04Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: I did my first parkrun I think back in 2013 because I just happened to be best friends with the South African parkrun coordinator Bruce Fordyce and Bruce Fordyce in South Africa is a running legend and who holds a position in the Running Society in South Africa, somewhere way above what Moneghetti and De Castella hold in Australia. He's much more well-known. And he was out here on a tour and he hauled me out of bed one day in Brisbane and said, let's go parkrunning. And we went and did the South Bank one in Brisbane and that was my introduction. And then when I moved to Tambourine Mountain two years ago because the other things I do was running in Australia, When Vince decided it was time to hand over, he thought he only had one choice and I accepted it. People make it easy for me up here. The volunteers up here are just amazing. What I take all the praise for, I do about 1% of that work. The volunteers up here are just amazing. I also travel a lot, so I'm probably away one out of three weekends. And this event just runs without me with the people doing it.

00:58:20Lyndell Murray: They seemed like a pretty well-oiled machine when I turned up this morning, so you've really just confirmed that for me. And the course up here is a bit different to a lot of courses. What sort of feedback do you get from all your visitors about the course?

00:58:34Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: We think it's probably one of the toughest parkruns, maybe in the top five toughest parkruns in Australia, if not the world, mainly because Tambourine Mountain, we haven't got a long concrete flat walking track anywhere. We can't find 400 metres of flat bitumen to train on. So we're in a compound here, a sporting complex, which is probably 500 metres by 500 metres. We've hacked out a 2.5K course where the 2.5K turn is right at the start and finish and makes it easy to keep track of people.

00:59:09Lyndell Murray: It also makes it easy to pull out. Do you get much of that happening?

00:59:12Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: Yeah, but we bring the whips out and we whip them normally. Poke them with a cattle prod or something. We've got the cattle prod to keep them going back around there. But the course basically is, you'd call it a traditional cross-country course. That's all right.

00:59:29Lyndell Murray: It's just a balloon. It's all right. Just a party balloon.

00:59:33Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: It's more cross-country and with the exception of the last month when it hasn't rained, normally beside the trip hazards of a trail slash cross-country, it's normally slippery underfoot. The water jump over in the back side of the course is normally two to three metres wide and about 300mm deep. Sometimes you can get wet and then on another part of the course there's about a four metre section where when it is wet the risk of losing your shoe is high and stuff.

01:00:02Lyndell Murray: It sounds like an adventure. My home parkrun is a trail parkrun. Sounds like I'll have to come back when it's a bit more challenging.

01:00:08Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: You've got to be here when it's wet. It's more fun.

01:00:11Lyndell Murray: Especially when there's only four people. I can come fourth.

01:00:14Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: And the best part about Tambourine is we are surrounded by parkruns up the 20km away. Six or eight of them, like this morning, they would have been running in 27, 28 degree heat. hundred percent humidity we're at 550 meters above sea level we're in 21 degrees and about 50 percent humidity so it's much easier to run up here yeah it look i noticed when this morning it was foggy as i was driving up it was getting really foggy and i thought oh should i bought should i bought a little long sleeve shirt or something but no the weather was beautiful lovely temperature here so visibility was about 100 meters at six o'clock through the and that wasn't fog that was cloud we're so high up we're we're closer to god here that was cloud

01:00:54Lyndell Murray: That's cloud, rightio. Well, it did clear just in time. I did sort of say in my... Yes, I can tell. And I said in my intro, I hope I didn't get lost. I didn't get lost. I'm very happy about that.

01:01:05Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: And we've got a barbed wire fence on the outside of the course. You've got to stay within the compound.

01:01:12Lyndell Murray: So you can't get too far. All right then. Well, thank you for talking to me on the podcast and thank you to you and all of your volunteers. It's very gracious of you to say that you get all the praise but your volunteers do all your work. But that's the truth. And look, it is the truth. I mean, the volunteers run parkrun and I think that's what makes us all so grateful to be a part of parkrun. It just is really something special. So thank you and thanks for having me and I'll come back on a rainy day.

01:01:39Bruce - Tamborine Mountain parkrun Event Director: Yeah, come back on a rainy day. It's more fun.

01:01:45Lyndell Murray: Okay, guys, that's me signing off from... Now, I have a correction to make. I've been saying Mount Tambourine through this whole process. Tambourine Mountain. Tambourine Mountain parkrun is where we are at. So I'm signing off from Tambourine Mountain. Now, hopefully the music in the background hasn't been too distracting for you. It really has been a party atmosphere here today for their third anniversary and 150th parkrun. Now, the other thing I just need to correct myself upon, I was talking about singing and dancing. Now, I have it on good authority that what it actually was, was a flash mob. And Linda from the run directing crew have told me that she suspects that it might be the very first flash mob done at a parkrun anywhere in the world. So if that's the case, good on you, Tambourine Mountain parkrunners. Well done, and if anybody else has got a claim to the first ever flash mob, we'd love to see it. Post a video or it didn't happen. That's it from me, parkrun Adventurers. See you next time.

01:02:02[music]

01:02:59Scott Trickett: The Murrells are back, roving reporting from the Bagara launch and Lyndell Murray. She's at it again. We need to give her a raise, Mel.

01:03:08Melissa Erbacher: What is twice nothing, Scotty?

01:03:11Scott Trickett: We've talked about this. Don't focus on the detail. Just focus on the statements. Lyndell, we're doubling your pay because she's just on fire.

01:03:20Melissa Erbacher: And you are worth twice as much as we already give you.

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

01:03:23Scott Trickett: Let's take a look at launches and anniversaries for this week.

01:03:27Melissa Erbacher: So February the 3rd, we have got three launches in three different states. There is Greenway in New South Wales, Lakes Entrance in Victoria and Port Broughton in South Australia.

01:03:40Scott Trickett: And we have two anniversaries in two different states. Our old favourite, Toolern Creek in Victoria and Woodbridge Riverside in WA.

01:03:55Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Cake and donuts in Victoria and WA. Is there anything else good and fun happening this weekend, Scotty, that you know about?

01:04:01Scott Trickett: I know there's going to be a special celebration up at Tamworth for one of our keen listeners. Heather Hunter is cracking a milestone, so let's throw out a cheerio and a well done to Heather for reaching that milestone.

01:04:18Melissa Erbacher: Which one is she reaching?

01:04:19Scott Trickett: 100. She's doing 100 runs.

01:04:22Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's awesome. Heather is a big... a big parkrun adventurer. She's done, I think, something like 30 different events and of course she's an avid volunteer. Well done, Heather. I understand you're doing it in black and white a la barcodes. So look forward to seeing the costumes for that. I don't think, I think my favourite of your costumes so far was definitely the sumo wrestler. So I'm thinking that's probably not what you're going to be wearing. Although they do wear those little black, what would you call them? Nappies, Scotty?

01:04:59Scott Trickett: Look, I don't think they call them nappies.

01:05:02Melissa Erbacher: Okay. What do you think they call them? Or do you know? Have you got one?

01:05:06Scott Trickett: I know where this is heading.

01:05:08Melissa Erbacher: Do you?

Word of the week

01:05:09Scott Trickett: I think we need a jingle for this segment now. Mel's word of the day. And the word of the week this week is, what do you call the underpants that the sumo wrestlers wear?

01:05:21Melissa Erbacher: Do you reckon it would be like a thong? Like a wrestler's thong?

01:05:28Scott Trickett: I think it'll be something in Japanese too because I don't think it travels too far outside of Japan. I don't think anybody looks at the sumo wrestlers and goes, I need a pair. That's what I need to wear to my next party. So our Japanese listeners. parkrun is not big in Japan, but I know we have some Japanese parkrunners in Australia. Maybe they'll know. Text Mel during the week if you do.

01:05:54Lyndell Murray: Please.

01:05:55Scott Trickett: But you know what you've stirred up there? Remember when we used to do our social adventuring?

Social Adventurers

01:06:02Melissa Erbacher: Yes.

01:06:02Scott Trickett: We were massive on Instagram. I'm going to set you a challenge, Mel.

01:06:07Melissa Erbacher: Me a talent, all right.

01:06:08Scott Trickett: Yep. I want to see some Instagram posts from wherever you are this Saturday. I'll do the same. Let's try and compete.

01:06:17Melissa Erbacher: Instagram posts, plural?

01:06:19Scott Trickett: Yeah. So you do one, I'll do one.

01:06:21Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

01:06:23Scott Trickett: On the parkrun Adventurers account. So everyone will know where we're at this weekend. So don't tell them now. They get to guess on Saturday.

01:06:31Melissa Erbacher: All righty. So we won't tag the actual name of the event either then, huh?

01:06:36Scott Trickett: Sure. Sure. Because I'm off for an adventure.

01:06:41Melissa Erbacher: Well, okay. I think we should stop talking about this right now because otherwise we might get into too many specifics and give too many clues away.

01:06:49Scott Trickett: Okay.

01:06:50Melissa Erbacher: But, okay, so not only us, though. Let's get some stuff on Instagram and Twitter and everything from everybody else. I want to see pictures of where everyone else is.

01:06:59Scott Trickett: Yes. Good idea. Good idea. And we'll do a wrap-up next week. So if you want to be like Heather and get a shout-out on the podcast, Instagram at parkrun this week.

01:07:09Melissa Erbacher: That's the plan. We want to see pictures.

01:07:11Scott Trickett: Hashtag parkrun Adventurers. This is potentially the big weekend of the year, Mel. Yeah. I think this is the weekend last year where we broke our record. So let's see if everyone is out and about. parkrunning on Saturday. I know school's back. I know that hasn't affected you. Wes is not in school. He's not that advanced just yet.

01:07:34Melissa Erbacher: No. Well, I mean, I'm sure he could probably cope with it, but I'm not ready for him to be at school yet. He's only eight months old on Friday. Okay.

01:07:44Scott Trickett: It's funny, I've had Kasia with me all for the past six weeks and she went back to school and I've got to admit, I missed her. I loved having her around. It was, you know, today is now lonely and quiet and Buster is just not the conversationalist that my daughter is. So all those pictures of sad parents sending their kids off to school, Or happy parents. I don't know what it is. I can sympathise. I miss my daughter.

01:08:13Melissa Erbacher: I haven't seen a lot of pictures of the parents, to be honest. I've been seeing lots of pictures of little kids in school uniforms. That's been filling up my news feeds lately.

01:08:21Scott Trickett: Yes, it's that time of year. And what it means is that everyone's got this weekend off before school sports starts and after school activities starts and all that. So nobody's got an excuse to miss parkrun this Saturday.

01:08:36Melissa Erbacher: Wow.

01:08:36Scott Trickett: No excuses.

01:08:38Melissa Erbacher: So it sounds like you're predicting another cracker weekend.

01:08:40Scott Trickett: Yes, I am.

01:08:41Melissa Erbacher: Even though the numbers were down slightly last weekend and they didn't break any records.

01:08:46Scott Trickett: I think that's also traditional. Australia Day, long weekend. Weather was horrific around the country.

01:08:54Melissa Erbacher: Was it?

01:08:55Scott Trickett: It was down here. And Melbourne is the centre of Australia.

01:09:00Melissa Erbacher: The centre of Australia having the third most events of any state in the country or territory.

01:09:07Scott Trickett: Well, it's the most important state.

01:09:10Melissa Erbacher: To some people. Rightio then.

01:09:13Scott Trickett: Yep. On that note, let's wrap it up and we'll see you next week. I'll chat to you then, Scotty.