Episode 101

Episode details · 179 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:17Scott Trickett: Welcome back to what is going to be a thrilling and entertaining episode 101 of the parkrun Adventurers. Mel Erbacher, you are going to bring the thrilling component.

00:00:31Melissa Erbacher: Oh, the thrilling. That's a lot of pressure. Okay.

00:00:34Scott Trickett: Actually, and the entertaining as well.

00:00:37Melissa Erbacher: And what will you be contributing this week, Scott? You're going to carry this episode.

00:00:39Scott Trickett: No, you're going to carry us this week. Is that okay?

00:00:42Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I will try. I will try. Don't, don't, yeah, okay.

00:00:48Scott Trickett: Well, I know I didn't go on a four-day parkrun adventure this week. Did you?

00:00:56Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I did. I did have a little bit of an adventure this week. That's a relief. In fact, a bit of a big adventure this week for me.

00:01:04Scott Trickett: Firstly, let's take it back. This was a birthday adventure. It's not your birthday.

00:01:09Melissa Erbacher: It isn't my birthday. My birthday was in January. However, in January, I was given a little card inside my birthday card that had a picture of Margaret Thatcher on it and a river that had four knights in shining armour riding around in it. And I was told that unless I could figure out what the card meant... that I was not going to get the gift. And after about 20 minutes of trying to figure out if these, uh, knights were ice skating on their horses on this Creek, uh, I actually thought Margaret Thatcher was the queen, but I wasn't sure why she wasn't wearing a crown. Um, she's waving a little British flag. So I knew it was one of the ladies from over that way. Um, In the end, I had to phone a friend and go 50-50 to get the clues out so I could figure out what it was. And it meant four nights in Margaret River, which was my gift from my husband. He knew I wanted a compass point for my birthday and he finally relented and let me go back to WA where I had been previously. But he had never been, so it was exciting for him as well, even though he may not have admitted it at the time.

00:02:28Scott Trickett: Pretty cool that your birthday presents are linked to parkrun, and very creative by your husband, I think. He's a keeper.

00:02:35Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, he goes all right. I'll hang on to him for a bit longer, I reckon. Definitely. It was a good weekend. It was a great weekend, and we actually sort of decided that this weekend, instead of things for parkrun, birthdays in the future because previously we've done a lot of things that we're just going to make them all experiences from now on because that's much more enjoyable and often you know I mean we've done it in the past where I've taken him away um or vice versa and we've always enjoyed it more because it's something that we can share with each other and this time with Wes as well so it's um It's just much more important to me now than things, is experiences, I find.

00:03:22Scott Trickett: It's a sign of age, Mel. We've been doing that in our house for a while too, or trying to, but I got an Apple Watch for Christmas last year that I was pretty chuffed with.

00:03:30Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's an experience as much as anything else. You're interacting with it all the time. It's not just something that you sit on a shelf and look at and gather dust. Yeah.

00:03:40Scott Trickett: But back to you, a weekend away in Margaret River, they've got a parkrun there, but it's a long way from the Sunshine Coast.

00:03:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it doesn't seem so long on the way over. Maybe that's because it's the shiny end of the holiday and, you know, you're travelling to the destination and also the time zone is two hours different over there. So we actually had a 26-hour day last Thursday and yesterday, which was Monday, we had a 22-hour day. and seemed to fit 14 hours of travel into that 22-hour day. So, yeah, it seemed a lot longer on the way home. But it was all part of the adventure, you know, planes, trains and automobiles and almost nine-month-old baby and all the wriggles and fun that comes with that and air travel. So that was part of the adventure, not the funnest part.

00:04:35Scott Trickett: Let's save those gory details for the end. Just tell us about Margaret River parkrun.

00:04:40Melissa Erbacher: Margaret River parkrun was gorgeous. It was a spectacular morning. Cannot rate the weather more highly. We actually were very lucky the whole weekend. Fantastic volunteer crew, Maddy Trent and Cassie Hughes, who are also big volunteers in the parkrun world. were kind enough to make some time out and travel down from their home events as well to catch up with us, which was really awesome, very special. And the actual course at Margaret River is just stunning. It's trail, you're out in the wilderness, and this is the first time I tried Wes in the baby carrier on my back. So he piggybacked it this week and it's definitely the way forward. My back thanked me so much more than, you know, traveling with the 10 kilos all up front and trying to compensate for that, you know, shift in your balance. And there was a big section of the course where it was just him and me and the wilderness and it was just magic. You know, you find those courses or those places you do running events and And you just feel like you're at home. There's just this, I don't know, it's just like a peace. And that's exactly what I felt at Margaret River. It was just beautiful. I think everybody should go there. It's definitely, it went straight into my top three.

00:06:09Scott Trickett: Whoa. Yeah. Big statement.

00:06:11Melissa Erbacher: And I don't, it's a huge statement. I never say what's in my top three and Margaret River is definitely there. So if you ever have the opportunity to go, not just because it's a compass point, you know, it might get knocked off the compass in the future and that's fine. Go back anyway. It's just fantastic.

00:06:30Scott Trickett: Well, it was always getting a head start. You know, Margaret River is a great tourist spot to visit. I had my honeymoon, did our honeymoon in Margaret River and thoroughly enjoyed it. So, Yvonne, if you're listening, if you're listening, darling, I'd like to go back.

00:06:46Melissa Erbacher: That's an opportunity for an anniversary trip right there. Yeah, yeah.

00:06:53Scott Trickett: But we just had our anniversary, so maybe for birthday or something like that, let's make up an excuse to get back to Margaret River because you've got me excited. Sounds great.

00:07:03Melissa Erbacher: It's beautiful. And it's not one of those challenging trails either, Scotty. I reckon you'll be able to stay on your feet without too much trouble. Hopefully, I'm not putting the mockers on you there. I will tell you that you need to look out for... There's a very famous natural structure out on the course, which Matty brought my attention to. He was running with Adam and coming in the opposite direction and stopped and actually made sure that I was aware that just a little bit down the track, there's a tree formation called the Undies. and that I had to look out for the undies. They were very famous on the Margaret River course. And Cassie wasn't far behind the boys, and she actually stopped and said, did Matty tell you about the undies? And I said, yes, he told me about the undies. I'm going to keep my eye out for the undies. And I found the undies.

00:07:57Scott Trickett: Okay. I found the undies. Don't spoil it for our listeners. Something to look out for if we visit Margaret River.

00:08:04Melissa Erbacher: Yes, it is.

00:08:06Scott Trickett: I joked over the weekend. I did a bit of trail running. I went back to Studley for their second anniversary, which was naturally lots of fun. But then on Sunday, I did a long run and took a detour, another one of my famous detours, and ended up doing a bit of trail running again. And it's not as bad as I thought. It's growing on me again. I will never race it again. That's set in stone. But I'm definitely up for running trails. So I can add Margaret River to my list.

00:08:42Melissa Erbacher: You can. But let's go back to Studley, even if just quickly. Last week you mentioned that you and Kasia were a little bit lamenting the fact that you hadn't got dressed up for Darebin's anniversary. What did you go as for Studley's?

00:08:58Scott Trickett: Studley's, it was just me solo again this week. Well, again, I don't know why I say that, but it was just me all by myself this week.

00:09:05Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, and I hope that doesn't mean you skimped on the costume.

00:09:08Scott Trickett: No, no, I went as a rocker, as in... Just a general rocker with 80s rocker, big hair, bandana. But what I did add, there was a nice touch of eyeliner, black eyeliner to complete the look, which it was my first time wearing makeup. I've got to this stage of my life and I've never put makeup on.

00:09:32Melissa Erbacher: Did Vonnie put it on for you or you did it? No, no, no.

00:09:34Scott Trickett: I had help. Yvonne helped me.

00:09:36Melissa Erbacher: Okay, yeah.

00:09:37Scott Trickett: And I wouldn't – it's not something I'd want to do every day. Like – It's not hurts, but it's uncomfortable, like drawing on your eyeball, really, is what you're doing with a bit of skin in between. But I didn't mind the outcome, I've got to admit.

00:09:52Melissa Erbacher: It looked distinctive, didn't it?

00:09:53Scott Trickett: Yeah, it looked different.

00:09:54Melissa Erbacher: I'll have to go have a look for those photos. When you ran and sweated, did it run into your eyes and sting?

00:10:02Scott Trickett: No, but the sweat did, because wearing a wig, heat does not escape. No, it gets itchy.

00:10:08Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:10:10Scott Trickett: just jogging and very, very hot. So the wig came off pretty soon after I'd finished. The other thing is not a great turnout of dress-ups at Studley. Studley's Facebook presence is a little bit low, and I guess if you don't mention it beforehand, not many people know that that was the theme. So there might have been maybe five or six of us dressed up.

00:10:38Melissa Erbacher: Did you get a group photo?

00:10:39Scott Trickett: Yes, we did. Yes, we did, and it was the run directors. Mainly the run directors who were involved.

00:10:46Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I'm sure you at least provided some amusement for all the other runners who popped along for the morning.

00:10:53Scott Trickett: Absolutely. Absolutely. Did the high five. Did a big high five with Adam, one of the run directors, who is a keen listener of the podcast. So, hi, Adam. And nearly broke my arm in the process. It was the high five that was heard around and felt around Studley.

00:11:07Melissa Erbacher: Ooh.

00:11:09Scott Trickett: But we gave it some gusto. Yeah, great morning. A great morning. Even though I didn't have my girls with me, I still put Studley down as just a top morning. Love it. Love it there. For our next guest, we're heading back to the UK. parkrun is big in the UK. So we're going to chat to Rowan Ardill, who is parkrun UK's engagement officer, and we're going to find out all about that and his other adventures. Welcome to the pod, Rowan.

00:11:44Rowan Ardill: Thank you so much for having me, guys.

00:11:46Scott Trickett: Let's get on to your role with parkrun UK a bit later. There's one other thing you're doing this month, and you've just come in from your run tonight. You came up with this idea called Run the Date. I'll let you explain exactly what it is for starters.

00:12:03Rowan Ardill: Okay, yeah. So it's an idea I came up with. I tried it a couple of years ago actually in 2016 and failed with the idea. So I've tried it again this year. So the concept really is that Throughout February, I've been doing exactly that. So running the date. So on the first of February, I ran one kilometre. Second of February, I ran two kilometres and so on. And I'm right up to 26 kilometres I've just come in from doing this evening. So I'm two days away from finishing it. And it's been a brilliant way just to get out and run with loads of different people and have a bit of a conversation, a chat. loads of people while i've been doing it so uh it's been a bit of a personal challenge i've set myself as i say i tried it in 2016 um i got as far as the 17th of november that year hadn't really told anybody anybody about it that year so um wasn't too bothered when i failed um put myself under a little bit more pressure with it this year by going quite public with it and doing live videos on facebook to introduce every day and explain who I'm running with and kind of been blogging about it as well so it's picked up a bit more awareness this time around so I feel under a bit more pressure to get it done really.

00:13:15Melissa Erbacher: And that's obviously working for you because you've got to day 26 that's Now, can I just clarify, you're running kilometers or miles?

00:13:24Rowan Ardill: I'm running it in kilometers, yeah.

00:13:26Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Because that's, yeah, that's how my brain gets around things. So, that's good. That makes sense to me. Was it strategic picking February as the month so you didn't have to push yourself to one of those 31-day months and just make it a little bit harder? Yeah.

00:13:40Rowan Ardill: Definitely, yeah. And funnily enough, when I, as I say, I tried it in 2016 and only realized halfway through the month that that was actually a leap year. So it was another reason why I kind of bailed on it halfway through. So yeah, 28 days is far more manageable than a 31-day month, certainly.

00:13:59Scott Trickett: But hang on, Rowan. I know, I see you UK runners on Strava. You all talk in miles. So how come you've converted to kilometers for this challenge?

00:14:09Rowan Ardill: Yeah, well... It's kind of the part run thing, I think. I kind of deal in kilometers now. A lot of the people I'm running with, a few of the guys I was running with tonight were talking in miles and trying to work out how they do a metric marathon. So they're trying to do 26.2 kilometers and what that equates to in miles. And I'm just dealing in kilometers now. Far easier for me.

00:14:33Scott Trickett: I agree. The idea, you wanted it to be a social experiment, yeah? Or you wanted to bring the social side of running to this challenge. Has that worked?

00:14:44Rowan Ardill: Yeah, so I've been really lucky that I've had company for pretty much the whole way through the challenge. So even on these really long days like this evening and for the next couple of days, I've got people lined up to run alongside me and it's definitely a key part of what I've been doing. So yeah, I'd say probably all but about 20 minutes of the challenge, I've had at least one person run alongside me. So it's been a great way to, as I say, get into some good conversations, find out lots of different things about different people. And yeah, it's been a great way to get to know people a lot better. So a social experiment is a really good description of it, actually, yeah.

00:15:27Melissa Erbacher: Apart from being a social experiment, can I just ask why?

00:15:33Rowan Ardill: um why not it's uh I like I like a challenge um I'm quite a lazy person kind of inherently so I need something like this to make sure I actually get out and do a run um I've done Ironman triathlon a few times and and that's great that I love the training involved with that and and kind of the preparation you have to put in to be able to complete it I've got London Marathon lined up for later on this year and I thought this I've I had a bit of unfinished business, really, with this challenge. As I say, failed it a couple of years ago. So, yeah, I thought, why not? I'll do it this year. And it's fingers crossed if the next two days go to plan, I will have managed it this time around.

00:16:15Melissa Erbacher: Have you inspired anybody else to do the exact same challenge?

00:16:21Rowan Ardill: So a few people started the challenge and intended to get the whole way through it. So, yeah. A friend of mine called Neil started, I think he managed up to day 20, didn't quite manage day 21 due to other time pressures. And then there's a couple of people who kind of did far more than they'd ever done before, did like the first 10 days straight, which was amazing. I'd like to think I've inspired a few people to get out and run a little bit further than perhaps they would have done ordinarily. My brother was running alongside me this evening actually and said it's the first time he's ever done a three-hour run on a Monday night for no apparent reason because he's not training for anything in particular. It's been great to hopefully inspire a few other people to get out and have a run. It's particularly cold here as well at the moment so February's a short month, but it's also a really cold month. So, yeah, hopefully some people have got out running when perhaps they wouldn't have done otherwise.

00:17:26Scott Trickett: I can guarantee, I think you've already inspired some of our listeners, Mel. I think we've got some adventurers who will love this idea and pick it up. How are you going? You're getting to the end now where it's the hard part. So your weekly Ks must be over 150, 60, I'm guessing, at the moment?

00:17:46Rowan Ardill: Yeah. Last seven days was, well, Monday to Sunday just gone was 154 kilometres. So the last seven days I've just done is over 100 miles, going back to miles again. I think the final seven days of the challenge is something like 176 kilometers, which is by far my biggest week I've ever done. So I think the previous most of my kilometers I've done in a week was 95 or something like that. So it's definitely made me run far more than I ever have done before. But I've loved every minute of it. I've tried to kind of consciously not complain about being tired or achy or anything like that because it's not kind of in the spirit of what I'm doing it for. So I've tried to kind of savour every moment and it's certainly had some really memorable moments along the way.

00:18:34Melissa Erbacher: Do you just get to a day like day 25 and think, oh my God.

00:18:38Rowan Ardill: god it's 25k today i've got 26 tomorrow 27 the next day 28 that's like a more than 100k in four days do you just think what was i thinking uh i try not to uh think too much about it to be honest yeah i've just kind of compartmentalized a little bit and taking one day at a time uh as i say what's been brilliantly brilliant in terms of dragging me is having people to run alongside me and Yesterday, there was a race that we did for the first 10 kilometers was a race. And then we ran home from that race, the kind of 10 miles or so back. So that kind of broke things up a little bit into two parts, albeit my watch was still running the whole way. Kind of an added little bit I've included onto the challenge as well is I'm trying to complete every single road in Ramsbottom where I live. so i've come across a really cool website that kind of pulls across your strava data and shows it on a map of where you've run um and this evening's run that we've just done was kind of you know coloring in a few more of those roads that i've not done yet so that's why 26 kilometers took me over three hours this evening so um it's an added little little challenge within the challenge really

00:19:58Scott Trickett: Now, you've blogged all this, so if our listeners want to follow you, they can look you up on Tumblr.

00:20:04Rowan Ardill: That's right.

00:20:05Scott Trickett: You've put up some video footage before every run, and I like it you're a cap backwards runner, Rowan. I am, yeah. A lot in common.

00:20:15Rowan Ardill: Right, cool, yeah. It's become a bit of a trademark, so I rarely run without a cap nowadays.

00:20:20Scott Trickett: Do you think it makes you faster? probably not I'd like to think so but probably not I'm working on a theory that it is going to make me faster something to do with aerodynamics is it I think so yeah so good luck good luck for the next couple of days thank you yeah yeah we'll be watching intently to make sure you make it to the end yeah I hope I do now I've come this far Let's move on to your role with parkrun UK. You're on staff there and your job title is Engagement Officer. Why does parkrun need Engagement Officers?

00:21:00Rowan Ardill: Yeah, it's a good question. So it's probably one of the first times that Part Run has kind of gone into this kind of area of work. So previously, Part Run has, in the UK anyway, has been quite kind of reactive to demand. So it's always kind of, you know, people will have approached Part Run and said, I'd love to have an event in my community. And And that's got us to a certain point where we've got lots of events in certain parts of the country. And my role is specifically to develop junior part run and to try and engage people in our events who perhaps wouldn't ordinarily engage. think to come along or wouldn't naturally have an event crop up in their local area so part of my job is to to kind of stimulate demand for new events in in more challenging parts of the uk which had it been left to natural evolution perhaps wouldn't have necessarily had an event as quickly as they've got one and the second part of my role is to reach out to communities and do some kind of targeted promotion of our events to make sure that people are hearing about it in different circles and getting away from the kind of the word of mouth growth that we've kind of got to the point where we're at now. So I'm kind of, my role is to reach out and speak to those who wouldn't normally come along.

00:22:27Melissa Erbacher: What are some of the strategies that you use to do that sort of engagement, Rowan? Is it cold calling? Is it showing up in communities? How do you get those people involved?

00:22:41Rowan Ardill: So I've kind of been developing a bit of a network of volunteers to help me do that. So What's really important is that we understand the local context wherever we're working. So I've tried to recruit what we call outreach ambassadors who know their local area far better than I do. So my role is actually, I have a national remit and it's quite a hard task to spread yourself really, really thinly across lots of different areas. So I've tried to develop a network of volunteers who know their local area they understand you know some of the historical geographical and and sometimes territorial issues that go on in different places and they can make local connections they can go into primary schools and deliver school assemblies they can link up with community centers faith centers lots of different organizations that have kind of traction already in their local communities and work together with those people to to kind of identify who are the best role models to share our message and and who are going to people going to listen to and and trust that are going to hopefully say that junior parkrun is a really great thing to get involved in and um yeah it's a really interesting role to have um we're constantly learning the different best ways to engage people um And, yeah, I absolutely love doing what I do because I've been a passionate parkrunner for many years now and it's kind of a bit of a dream job for me, really.

00:24:17Scott Trickett: We've got Junior parkrun coming to Australia. It is coming.

00:24:20Rowan Ardill: Yeah.

00:24:21Scott Trickett: So I'm surprised to hear you say there's some challenges around getting Junior parkruns up because I think we're thinking it's going to be embraced and loved over here. Have you met some challenges in getting some Junior parkruns up and running and being successful?

00:24:36Rowan Ardill: um it's i guess it's the biggest challenge we face is is getting the the people to to take it on and to drive it forward so where we haven't had you know a historical presence with 5k events uh part of the challenge is just getting people used to understanding what part is all about and and understanding that it's a great thing to have in their local communities so we we don't always I'd say the biggest barrier is finding those individuals. It's not necessarily the pushing back from the council, the local councils or landowners or anything like that in terms of wanting the event to happen. It's just finding those key people to drive it forwards and to take it on and make it a key part of their local community. It's kind of a job I love in the sense that I could talk about, as I'm sure you guys can, talk about parkrun all day And it's kind of a really nice thing to, I don't really want to say a sales job, but if it were a sales job, it would be something that I think I'd be pretty good at doing because it's, you know, only got good things to say about it. And as I say, I could talk about it all day long.

00:25:49Melissa Erbacher: They do say if you're going to go into sales, you have to believe in your product.

00:25:52Rowan Ardill: Definitely something I believe in. And as I'm sure you guys all do too.

00:25:58Melissa Erbacher: You mentioned that the focus, obviously, for you is on junior parkrun events, but that you have trouble where in areas they haven't been exposed through normal 5K events. Why was it determined that the focus should be on the junior parkruns and not both events as a whole?

00:26:19Rowan Ardill: Yeah, so my job is part of a corporate social responsibility partnership. that parkrun has. So we, it was just determined that Junior parkrun will be the focus of that partnership. There may well be kind of, the learnings may be taken into our 5k series as well in future, but at the moment, yeah, my job is just got to focus on Junior parkrun.

00:26:51Melissa Erbacher: I think we're all going to have a soft spot for Junior parkrun when it finally hits our shores. Nothing like watching a whole bunch of young people getting out there and around the course. Can you give us some of the highlights that you have experienced in your role, you know, with engaging these communities and things like that?

00:27:10Rowan Ardill: Yeah, definitely. I mean, for me, my favourite moment is when you're every bit of a junior part run is amazing. Um, it's kind of a really heartening thing to see happening. Kids kind of enjoying themselves being active. Um, the warm up, so the difference, slight difference with juniors to 5Ks is we facilitate a warm up at junior part run. So, you know, we, we get the kids moving, get them, get the heart rates elevated and kind of get them ready and riled up, ready to, to do their run, um, jog or walk. And, um, For me, my favourite bit is always the 3-2-1 go on the start line and seeing them, every single kid will sprint for at least 20 metres until they realise it's kind of unsustainable for two kilometres. But seeing them sprinting off and kind of, you know, with a smile on their face is just an amazing sight really. I've kind of visited quite a few junior part runs up and down the UK. Every one is fantastic and slightly different and But, you know, they all follow the same formula in the sense that you get a similar experience wherever you go. So, yeah, it's a fantastic thing. And I'm sure you guys will absolutely love it in Australia too.

00:28:31Scott Trickett: You're a passionate parkrunner, Rowan. Did you start up an event before you started working for parkrun, or did you just apply for a job with parkrun? How did your relationship with parkrun evolve?

00:28:43Rowan Ardill: Okay, yeah. So I set up an event in February 2011, so just over seven years ago, and that's Bolton parkrun, which is in Greater Manchester. So I was working for a local public health team at the time, part of the NHS, and And I went along to an event fairly close by. I'd seen an article in a running magazine. Went along as a runner and kind of instantly fell in love with parkrun. Thought I'd love to take this back to the local area where I was working at the time. Persuaded my boss to fund the event. And then very quickly kind of took it over as a volunteer. And I've been involved at Bolton parkrun ever since. Probably within two or three years, Tom Williams, who I know you guys have interviewed for the podcast before, I got to know Tom fairly well through the setup of Bolton Part Run. He rang me up and asked if I'd be happy to support some other events kind of locally in their activation. So I kind of became one of the original ambassadors for Part Run, supporting the setup of new events and and supporting them when they're live as well with any issues that come up. And then I was kind of doing that ambassador role in my spare time for a good few years. And then I've been working for the organisation for about two and a half years now. I think it was back end of 2015 when I started. So yeah, I've been involved for quite a few years. I volunteered, I think, Over 250 times. I've only just done 100 runs actually, so I volunteer more than I run. And I'm just about to launch a junior parkrun as a volunteer in my hometown. So that'll be starting a week on Sunday on the 11th of March in Ramsbottom.

00:30:46Melissa Erbacher: So you've been a little bit involved with parkrun over the years?

00:30:49Rowan Ardill: A little bit, yeah, yeah.

00:30:51Melissa Erbacher: And how did your actual running story start? I'm assuming you were already a runner before you got involved with parkrun, or is that a completely false assumption?

00:31:01Rowan Ardill: Yeah, no, I think parkrun was my introduction to running, to be honest. I think I was kind of probably dabbling with running a little bit. I was trying to get myself fit. Yeah, but I think parkrun was probably my main introduction to running. Since 2010, when I did my first parkrun, I've I've since become a bit of a triathlete. I've done Ironman triathlon three times. I've done a few marathons as well. But, yeah, it's all thanks to part run, really.

00:31:35Melissa Erbacher: From a dabbler into a serious runner.

00:31:37Rowan Ardill: Yeah, serious volunteer anyway.

00:31:41Melissa Erbacher: Can you give us some of your highlights from your actual running story?

00:31:46Rowan Ardill: So one of my other kind of passions is... It coincides with when I started working for parkrun, was setting up my own running club. So I launched Ramsbottom Running Club in 2016. So I'm chairman of the club at the moment. And we've been going for probably just over 18 months. We've got about 170 members of the club. We have about 100 people turn out each week to run with us on a Tuesday evening. lots of those people are either existing part runners or are now regular part runners um yeah i've done i've done the london marathon the berlin marathon um the manchester marathon i'm doing the london marathon again this year and i've kind of set myself the goal of doing the big six marathon majors but before i turned 40 so i turned 30 last year So my next big running goal is to do the big six marathons.

00:32:51Scott Trickett: How did you go at Berlin last year, Rowan? How did that finish up for you?

00:32:57Rowan Ardill: That's an interesting question that we haven't already spoken about. Yeah, so I went into Berlin Marathon in September last year with a goal to break three hours and 30 minutes. I was doing it in aid of Alzheimer's Research UK which is kind of partner in UK's charity partner and I was featured in the national partner newsletter about it and I'd been quite public with my goal to be honest I'd told a lot of people what I was trying to do and I put myself under a fair bit of pressure to to achieve my goal it was also partly because my brother's marathon time marathon pb is one minute faster than mine um so i went into the marathon kind of in fairly good shape i'd done ironman triathlon a few months before um i got to about 35k going really well i was hitting all my splits and everything and then um tried pushing the pace a little bit too too fast heart rate went through the roof and kind of had a little sit down on the side of the road and um Yeah, I keep getting kind of mocked for my sit down in the middle of the Berlin Marathon now from various work colleagues. I got put in an ambulance at 35k with a kind of a dangerously high heart rate, managed to persuade the ambulance crew not to take me off to hospital and then decided it was a good idea to carry on. So I did actually finish the marathon, but A little slower than I was intending to. I did a four hours and 18 minute marathon but with a 45 minute lie down in the middle of it.

00:34:37Scott Trickett: So that split for your 35k must have blown out a fair bit but good to see you finished.

00:34:43Rowan Ardill: I think it was a 45 minute 36 kilometer which is a new record I think.

00:34:48Scott Trickett: There you go but you're determined to finish?

00:34:52Rowan Ardill: Yeah yeah I mean I kind of stepped out the ambulance and was told not to carry on not to do any more that day but As I say, I'd raised quite a bit of money for charity and made my goal so public that I couldn't go back to the UK having not completed it. So I just pinned my number back on and kind of strolled into the finish. Annoyingly, it was kind of had I just slowed down a little bit rather than trying to push the pace when I was already quite tired, I probably would have still got quite close to my goal. But yeah, your brain goes to mush a little bit when you're already tired and trying to do the maths in your head. Yeah, a bit of another epic fail, but never mind.

00:35:31Melissa Erbacher: Knowing runners, as I do, and understanding that we're a bit of a crazy bunch, I can comprehend that there would be a lot of people who've ended up in an ambulance or on the side of a road and find themselves in the situation where they have to talk their way into being allowed to finish a race or a run. You had to do it in Germany. Did you have a language barrier and how did you convince them that you were gonna be okay and they should let you finish?

00:36:04Rowan Ardill: Well, I kind of got my wife to thank for that really. So when I first sat down, I was kind of insistent that they didn't call my wife because she'd only worry about me. And then when they were about to take me off to the hospital, I kind of insisted that they did call her. And she was amazing. She got across Berlin in about 10 minutes flat. She's never been to the city before. She managed to find me in an ambulance on some random Berlin street. And then between us, we kind of convinced them to not take me. I think she was in trouble with my parents for a little while, but they've forgiven her now.

00:36:37Scott Trickett: Can we take it back to Ramsbottom Running Club, Rowan? Because there's an Aussie connection. You've got a twin running club down here near Shellharbour.

00:36:48Rowan Ardill: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I've tried to kind of be quite innovative really with the running club. So I've thought about it from absolutely every angle and how can we make it the most appealing running club possible. We've kind of chosen quite a, you know, a stylish kit design and I thought about kind of the branding side of the club quite heavily. And then one of the other ideas I had quite early on was whether we could think about having a twin club. So You know, it's kind of, for me, it's quite an integral part of what we do. It gives us a bit of a shared identity within the club. So it came about through a link up with a colleague, Glenn Turner, who works for parkrun. I think you featured him as well on the podcast. And he helped me out with his parents' running club in Wollongong, which is Kembla Joggers. And I think quite a lot of that club are involved at Shellharbour parkrun. One of our members recently joined Went to visit. We'd only been twinned for a couple of weeks and she happened to be over in Australia. So she went out of her way and went to visit the club, presented one of our singlets to them. And it's been amazing so far. It's kind of achieved more than we expected. We've got a really nice connection with the club and lots of our members are organising visits out to see them and hopefully they'll do the same back to us as well.

00:38:17Melissa Erbacher: That sounds brilliant. Apart from the exchange of let's go to a place on the other side of the planet and run with the people over there, what's involved with the twinning? What do you get out of that exactly?

00:38:31Rowan Ardill: Yes, it's a good question. So it's kind of a new concept that I'm kind of working on with my brother and we're hoping actually to make it available to other clubs. So if anybody's interested, they can look up clubtwin.com. It's a little website we've set up. So the idea is kind of Partly the very act of becoming twinned with another club, we thought there was a bit of value involved in that. It doesn't necessarily have to be as extreme as the UK and Australia. It could be twinning with another club in the same country. So we thought part of the value was actually the very act of becoming twinned is a nice little PR opportunity to raise the profile of both clubs. One of the unexpected bits that's come out of our twinning with Kembla is a bit of exchange of expertise in the sense that Kembla Joggers have asked if we have any software developers for example in our in our membership um that might be able to help them with something they're working on uh part of it is we thought the value um comes in um you know if you've got members of both clubs doing a race it might be a big marathon or it might be if it's you know a closer twinning it might be a local race uh you can cheer on each other's members just something as simple as as that really So we're learning a lot as we go along with the development of it. But yeah, it seems to be quite a popular little thing that we've started, particularly with our club anyway.

00:39:58Melissa Erbacher: I like it. You're increasing the engagement with people overseas as well at the same time.

00:40:03Rowan Ardill: Yeah, that's it. We thought it would be a nice little antidote to Brexit as well. Hopefully we can link up some UK and European clubs together.

00:40:12Melissa Erbacher: I suppose with Shellharbour you're probably having a lot of weather envy at certain times of the year when, yeah.

00:40:20Rowan Ardill: Cold here at the moment, yeah. Seeing their beautiful drone footage videos of their purpose-made cross-country courses, yeah, makes us a little bit jealous.

00:40:30Melissa Erbacher: Scotty and I are looking forward to heading down that way or up that way, respectively, in a few weeks' time for our listeners meet-up. Rowan, thank you for joining us today. I loved hearing about your run the date challenge. I think I might modify it slightly and do my own sort of run the date challenge. But instead of a kilometer, I might run for a minute for each date. And then that could be more of an introductory thing for those of us who perhaps just need to build up the mileage a little bit slower.

00:41:02Rowan Ardill: Yeah, drop me a line and let me know how you're getting on with it.

00:41:05Melissa Erbacher: And you know what? I might even do it in one of those months that's got 31 days.

00:41:10Rowan Ardill: Oh, go for it, yeah.

00:41:14Melissa Erbacher: Good luck with it. Enjoy the next couple of days of lots and lots and lots of kilometres.

00:41:19Unidentified speaker: Thank you.

00:41:20Melissa Erbacher: And we look forward to hearing more about the engagement of Junior parkrun in the UK in the future.

00:41:26Rowan Ardill: Hopefully I'll get to have a trip over and advise the Aussie contingent on how we do Junior parkrun. That'd be a nice little gig.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:41:46[music]

00:41:46Unidentified speaker: Tales from the Top End.

00:41:55Mark Connolly: So it's Mark here. We're down at Nightcliff Lawrence just before the event. I'm here with Tina Sanderson, the event director. How are you feeling today, Tina? Are you excited?

00:42:03Tina Sanderson: I am so excited. It's been such a long time and the day has finally come. So we're just waiting for people to arrive. People are sort of arriving in hordes. We actually have got no clue how many people we're going to end up with, but it's looking like it's going to be a really popular event, and hopefully all the parkrun adventurers would like to get their north compass point and come and visit Nightcliff parkrun in the near future.

00:42:27Mark Connolly: Right, thank you, Tina. We'll check back after the run and see how we went. Okay, so we're at the finish line now. We've just finished up and packed up. Everyone's gone home, and we're here with Tina again. So, Tina, how did your run go today?

00:42:37Tina Sanderson: Well, it couldn't have gone any better. I mean, it just went so smoothly. We actually had a really nice, cool morning, which is quite unusual for this time of year. It's normally terribly hot and humid. We've had cloud cover, so we haven't had the sun out. Lots of people really enjoyed the run and thought it was quite nice and comfortable. So hopefully we'll see everyone next week. Great feedback on the course. If anyone wants to come and visit Darwin, the Nightcliff foreshore is a really lovely part of Darwin. It overlooks the Darwin Harbour and it's just a lovely sort of run through the park and over the Rapid Creek Bridge. And we're looking forward to continuing on next week.

00:43:21Mark Connolly: That's awesome. And you started this run here. How did the process go of starting a parkrun, a new parkrun?

00:43:27Tina Sanderson: Well, you know, really starting up a new parkrun is nowhere near as hard as I think anyone could possibly imagine. Darwin was getting a little bit big and we sort of thought, yeah, we could possibly do another sort of suburban parkrun out in the burbs. So, you know, we went through the process of getting funding through the Darwin City Council and we were pretty shocked actually to be successful in getting that funding because I wasn't quite ready to... to undergo the process of starting the parkrun straight away, busy doing work and triathlon things. But once those things got out of the way, the process to actually start a parkrun was so easy. parkrun Australia have amazing tools, they have a great website with lots of checklists and things like that, and there's lots of people that you can ask questions about. And parkrun is just such an amazing brand. Whenever you say to people, I want to start a parkrun or a parkrun's starting here, everyone says, oh, that's great. When is it going to start? You don't actually have to go through the whole process of explaining what it is, so it's just fantastic. And I recommend if anyone travels to a parkrun and says, oh, I wish I had a parkrun closer to me, just go for it.

00:44:38Mark Connolly: Excellent, excellent. Thank you, Tina. You've done a wonderful job. Everything went smoothly today. And I look forward to having a few more runs here in the future. And just for you guys to know that Knight Rider, the TV show and movies, were named after Nightcliff, not the other way around.

00:44:51Tina Sanderson: And David Hasselhoff didn't show up today, sorry.

00:44:53Mark Connolly: Yeah, and the Hoff wasn't here. Maybe next week.

00:44:58Scott Trickett: And Mark Connolly is back with us doing a roving report from the Nightcliff launch, which, Mel, we had a little competition going last week. Do you recall?

00:45:11Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I do recall. And it was 250-odd participants, which I'm fairly confident is much closer to what I said than yours.

00:45:19Scott Trickett: I need more detail. If you're going to claim victory, you actually have to give me...

00:45:24Melissa Erbacher: The number that I said?

00:45:25Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:45:27Melissa Erbacher: I haven't listened back to last week's episode, but I'm pretty sure I said 300. Okay. Closer to 300. Well, do you know? You were down at the 100 maybe.

00:45:36Scott Trickett: Do you at least know how many they had at Nightcliff for their launch?

00:45:41Melissa Erbacher: I don't know exactly, but I'm pretty confident it's about 250.

00:45:46Scott Trickett: 254.

00:45:49Melissa Erbacher: And so this competition that we had, what was the outcome of that?

00:45:54Scott Trickett: You were closer.

00:45:58Melissa Erbacher: Was that difficult for you, Scotty? It was a little bit difficult.

00:46:01Scott Trickett: It was a little bit difficult. But good on the Darwin people for getting out there and supporting Nightcliff parkrun with 254 and a fun morning. Sounds like it was.

00:46:12Melissa Erbacher: I reckon they have a bunch of adventurers that are just chomping at the bit for more events.

00:46:17Unidentified speaker: Hmm.

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

00:46:20Scott Trickett: Now, we have one new event launching this week. It's nowhere near Nightcliff. It's in South Australia. And, Mel, I've been looking at this one closely because it looks like a beauty. It's called Largs Bay.

00:46:35Melissa Erbacher: So whereabouts is Largs Bay, Scotty?

00:46:37Scott Trickett: It's in Adelaide. It's in the north of Adelaide, if we're calling Adelaide. Not an expert on the Adelaide greater region myself, but this is close to Port Adelaide. And it's by the beach, so I'm guessing it'll be flat. Just looks good. Looks like a good one for the Adelaide folk to get around.

00:46:56Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. They must be pushing like 20 events down in South Australia by now. More.

00:47:03Scott Trickett: More.

00:47:05Melissa Erbacher: Far out. Can't keep up.

00:47:07Scott Trickett: And we also have two anniversaries. One over in the west at Kalia parkrun and one in Queensland at White Rock parkrun. parkrun. Don't hear much about those two events. They've been around for, I think, a year. That must be their first anniversary.

00:47:24Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I hear a little bit about White Rock. Do you? Yeah, locals travelling and things trying to get there. It's another trail event. So I hear a bit about that. Sounds good. It's on my list. With all the launches that we're having lately, Queensland have got a whole bunch more launches lined up for March as well. It's just getting more and more tricky to stay not even on top of them but to get to like one or two a month it's not that you need to go to the launches but just the amount of events that we've got I really wish I'd started adventuring a little bit earlier in my parkrun career making up for lost time now though speaking of adventures Scotty have you ever traveled in business class

00:48:09Scott Trickett: Sadly, Mel, I don't think I have. I have skipped business class to do first class once, but never business class.

00:48:17Melissa Erbacher: Wow, that must have been very schmancy. So as part of my birthday present, on the leg home, Adam, we flew over with points and all that sort of thing, but Adam upgraded us to travel in business class on the way home. And, you know, I'm going to be honest here. I've felt really awkward.

00:48:42Mark Connolly: Awkward?

00:48:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. For him, it's great because super, super leg room. And he's a tall man and that makes a big deal to him traveling. But I just felt awkward. I don't want to say shabby, but probably that's the best word and also naive because I've never traveled business class before and so when we were lining up to go in, they have those big baskets where you can grab headphones and things like that if you want to watch the in-flight entertainment so I grabbed a set of headphones and I noticed Adam didn't pick up a pair and I thought oh maybe he doesn't want to watch any movies this time or thought he wouldn't get a chance with Wes or whatever and then you know we got in and we got shown to our seats and there's this pair of fancy headphones already like hanging up next to the seat and I'm like oh okay well now what do I do with this little economy size pair that I grabbed and nobody told me I didn't need to get those and so okay, had to hide those. Then Wes was – there's this thing on the panel, on the side panel which has your seat positions and it lights up and it's a touchpad for adjusting your seat and one of them was like a massage thing and oh my God, Wes thought it was the best thing ever. So his hands were all over it, lighting up all these things. Meanwhile, the seat's going forward, backwards. I'm getting pummeled in the back by this massage thing and he's turning the lights on and off and I couldn't get him to stop playing with it. And of course, we hadn't even taken off yet, so you know how you're Seat's supposed to be in the upright position. I kept trying to reset it and he kept pressing other buttons. And then, I mean, there was a blanket and a pillow, which they were just taking up all this space and I didn't know what to do with it. When the lady brought the food out, She's like, oh, you just have to – you know, can you just get your tray table out? I'm like, I don't know how to do that. I didn't know where it was or what the button was to press. And so she had to get my tray table out for me, which was embarrassing. And then she gave me all this cutlery and I didn't know what to do with all this cutlery. Like there were two forks and two knives. And I felt like it was that scene in Pretty Woman where she's looking at all the things and they – had to tell her, oh, you just start from the outside and work your way in or something. But they were all the same size. So I couldn't even tell which ones I was supposed to use first. And then I was looking at the meal that they gave me. I thought, oh, there's not really very much to that. So I ate it. And then I ate my dessert. And then she brings out another plate and she goes, here's your main meal. And I'm like, oh, God, I just ate my dessert because I thought I was finished. Like I've been known to eat my dessert first in restaurants or order just dessert instead of a main because that was my choice. But this time I just felt stupid because I didn't think that there was any more food coming. And so it was just one thing after another. And I just thought, no, business class, not for me. I just –

00:51:54Scott Trickett: But Mel, everything you're describing sounds pretty good to me. I don't know, the extra meals, the massaged back, the someone even pulling out your tray table. Usually I have to turn the knob myself and it falls down. In business class, you've got someone to do it for you.

00:52:11Melissa Erbacher: It's just awkward. I'm a very independent person and I'm not used to... I don't want to say I'm not used to nice things, but maybe I'm not used to nice things. And, yeah... Oh, okay. Well, yeah. I said to Adam, he needn't worry about using the extra points next time to upgrade me. If he wants to go into business class, he can. I'm perfectly happy in economy with Wes and yeah. And then I don't have to worry about the baby crying and, you know, interrupting all the business class. passengers who've probably paid a lot of money to be there because people aren't traveling with small children and all that sort of thing i just felt really out of my comfort zone yeah well stick to what you you know and that you know that's the only reason why i don't travel business class and first class because it's got nothing to do with the exorbitant prices they charge

00:53:11Scott Trickett: For the value you get. So my experience, it was many, many moons ago, but it was first class. I got upgraded to first class on a flight back from Bangkok.

00:53:21Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:53:22Scott Trickett: And it must have been a long time ago because I don't have great memories of it being as even as good as you've described. The only thing I remember was I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and I could walk around. But I was younger at the time and they had a bar and I wasn't drinking. So I could just go up and I got an orange juice because I wasn't even drinking soft drink. Is that kind of what it's like in business class? Could you just order whatever you wanted? You didn't have to beg for a Coke if you wanted it?

00:53:55Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure you just sort of like waved your hand. I didn't do that though because glass – because everything was served in glass as well, not even plastic cups. But with Wes and the amount of wriggling he's doing at the moment, it's just not practical to have a glass full of a beverage sitting beside you. I'm still feeding him so I wasn't drinking any alcohol anyway. So not making the most of it in that respect either. And, yeah, so I think I'm, yeah, all awkward, all uncomfortable. But you know what? Where I didn't feel uncomfortable was at Simmo's in the Margaret River. I wanted to tell you about this earlier, but I didn't have a way to tell you. So I'm going to say it now. There's this amazing place that does, like, 75 different flavors of ice cream and Cassie recommended that we go there so we went there on the Saturday in the afternoon and you could get one scoop two scoop or three scoops and they'd have it in cones or cups and I said okay well I'll have three scoops on a cone on a cone and the man just kind of looked at me funny he's like on a cone he said You're probably better off doing it in a cup. And I said, well, no, but I want a cone. I said, you can manage it. I'm sure you can stack three scoops on an ice cream cone. He's like, well, yeah, but they're pretty big scoops. One of them might fall off. And I said, no, it'll be fine. I'll eat it fast enough. It's not going to be a problem. He's like, okay, well, if it falls off, don't come back in here asking me to give you another scoop because, you know.

00:55:28Scott Trickett: Just want to jump in here. This man's job, what does he do for a profession all day, every day?

00:55:34Melissa Erbacher: He sells me ice cream, or anyone ice cream.

00:55:37Scott Trickett: So he scoops ice cream all day, every day, and he's giving you advice that three scoops is not going to work. But carry on, carry on.

00:55:46Melissa Erbacher: Well, I said to him, look, and I literally said, look, if you only want to do two scoops, that's fine. He's like, no, no, it's more money for me. That's fine. I'll give you three scoops. And he did. But then the next thing was he judged me on my flavors. So I asked, what do you do when you're faced with 75 different flavors? You have to get three scoops just so you can taste as many as possible. And so I asked for tiramisu because that's how I rate flavors. everyone. Like tiramisu is sort of the standard flavor that I have that I can understand whether or not they're any good. Then I asked for mango macadamia because that's what one of the flavors is that they're very famous for. And then I got him to put bubble gum on. And he's like, really? Bubblegum with mango macadamia and tiramisu? And I said, yes. And he's like, that is the worst flavor combination I've had to do in a very long time.

00:56:41Scott Trickett: He's probably right, Mel. Again, I get back to it all day, every day. He's putting these combinations together. And I'm guessing no one's ever paired bubblegum with even tiramisu.

00:56:54Melissa Erbacher: You know what? He was wrong. It was a great flavor combination and I did not drop any of my ice cream. However, I obviously made a big enough impact on him because we went back the next day and he knew exactly who I was. And I did only get two scoops the next day because we had had a big day of holiday eating as you do when you're on holidays. And I had to try two different scoops. But I think he was just having a lend of me this time. I asked for, oh, what was it? It was almond nougat or honey nougat and strawberry. And he's like, really? Strawberry? And I was just like, oh, you cheeky bastard. But it was very good. If you're ever in Margaret River, I strongly suggest you go to Simmo's for ice cream.

00:57:45Unidentified speaker: Okay.

00:57:45Scott Trickett: We're getting Simmo's? Are they on the payroll? We're getting Simmo's money now?

00:57:51Melissa Erbacher: I would be willing to take ice cream as payment from Simmo's.

00:57:55Scott Trickett: Let's arrange that. Let's arrange that for next time at least I visit anyway so I can get a free ice cream.

00:58:03Melissa Erbacher: Exactly. I look forward to hearing what flavour combinations you go for and I highly recommend three scoops on a cone.

00:58:09Scott Trickett: Okay. I can't wait. Mel, thanks for sharing part of your trip. your four nights in Margaret River with us this week. Great catching up with Rowan Ardill and learning all about his challenge. Do you reckon – I liked your idea of 30 – what was your idea?

00:58:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, it was run the date, but instead of a kilometre per day or, you know, per date, you run a minute per date. So by the 31st, you'd be running 31 minutes.

00:58:39Scott Trickett: There we go. That's the challenge that I think a lot of our adventurers are going to step up to.

00:58:44Melissa Erbacher: Maybe for March.

00:58:45Scott Trickett: Yeah, no doubt some will try the kilometre challenge. I'm not going to do it.

00:58:49Melissa Erbacher: I wouldn't get very far with the kilometre challenge, I know that.

00:58:51Scott Trickett: No. But I look forward to following your minute challenge for March.