Episode 116 - Hannah Oldroyd

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00:00:00[intro theme playing]

00:00:15Melissa Erbacher: It's time for episode 116 of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. Welcome to my co-host, Scotty. We are possibly the two only co-hosts of a parkrun-themed podcast in Australia that don't go to parkrun every Saturday.

00:00:32Scott Trickett: Have you had a good week, Scotty? I like the clarifying point of in Australia there, Mel. But it's factually correct this week because how about that? No parkrun for either of us on Saturday.

00:00:43Melissa Erbacher: No, completely unscripted, undisorganized, as you would like. I don't know. I can't use my words this week. It wasn't planned, basically, for either of us.

00:00:56Scott Trickett: No, because we were just going along our everyday lives, involving parkrun on a Saturday morning, but things happened.

00:01:06Melissa Erbacher: Or didn't happen.

00:01:06Scott Trickett: Or didn't happen. And we both missed it. So we won't go into the finer details of why we missed it. But how did you go? Because I know you missed it a few weeks ago. So it's almost becoming a habit for you now.

00:01:18Melissa Erbacher: Was it a few weeks ago? Was it? I feel like it was longer than that.

00:01:22Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:01:23Melissa Erbacher: I wouldn't call it becoming a habit. But you know what? Once again, I survived. I know. It's amazing, isn't it? Me too. This week in particular, I expected – to be honest, I was a bit of a cranky pants all day on Saturday because it was not in my plan to miss parkrun that day. However – I had the benefit of attending a trial run for a different event on Sunday morning. So at least I got a bit of a parkrun fix on the weekend. And of course you had junior parkrun as well. But it's just one of those things that I was expecting the rest of my week to be out of whack because that's, Being, you know, still a little bit on maternity leave, only working part-time, I kind of still set my week by parkrun day and then if I don't go to parkrun, it's like, well, what day of the week is it? Because I, you know, I haven't been there. However, that hasn't happened this week. This week still has just moseyed on in the normal way and... parkrun's still going to happen next week. Hopefully I'll make it this time. How about you, Scotty? How did you fare?

00:02:26Scott Trickett: Well, yeah, I still got my parkrun fix. So it's an interesting conversation around balance and life balance. So I got Junior parkrun fix on Sunday morning, but then we also had the longest run here on Sunday. So I got sort of my overdose of parkrun on Sunday morning. Did you do all seven events? No, I didn't. No, because, of course, Junior parkrun, the longest run started at seven, I think, here in Melbourne. We actually had three events going on in Melbourne. This year, which is a far cry from, remember two years ago when we had our first one here in Melbourne and it was all new and it was exciting. We'd never done it before. Two years on. And now you've got choices. Yeah, we've got three different longest runs happening. We've got one of the, well, the largest running group in Melbourne now organize a bus to go along, like a big bus, a proper bus, not just a mini bus, like a proper bus bus. So that was awesome. Yeah. And then we all meet at the final event at Albert Park, which was great. But I had the dilemma on Saturday morning. So I was, I was standing somewhere. I was nine minutes away from a parkrun and I had 15 minutes to spare. It was quarter to eight. And I had the dilemma. Do I leave what I'm doing there? And then do I go and visit this parkrun? And I chose to stay where I was. And it wasn't really a hard decision. So I think I'm getting the balance right, Mel. I think parkrun is not dominating my life as much as some people think it might, and maybe sometimes I do at times.

00:04:08Melissa Erbacher: Well, balance is very important.

00:04:10Scott Trickett: Yeah, and as you said, the world... Went on. My life didn't really change that much by missing a parkrun on Saturday morning. That's not to say I'm going to make a habit of it. I'm already looking forward to parkrun day this week.

00:04:27Melissa Erbacher: But we've been there. We've survived. We can move on with our lives.

00:04:33Scott Trickett: But can I touch on the longest run?

00:04:36Melissa Erbacher: Please do. Elaborate a bit.

00:04:37Scott Trickett: So this year I did five. I walked the first one. with my mate Rowan who was organizing them all. And I get back to Westerfolds after juniors and I see Rowan there and he's wearing his pants and his jacket and I go, what's going on mate? That's not your running gear. And this guy, this is one of our great volunteers who gave up his whole day to make sure that everybody else knew where they were going. He briefed everybody on the courses. There was commitment above and beyond, so I said, right, we're going to walk. So we walked around Westerfolds together, had a catch-up, and then I ran the next four. And I think that was good. I was done. Like, four's enough. Seven's enough.

00:05:23Melissa Erbacher: Some might argue that four is too many.

00:05:25Scott Trickett: Yeah, but it's an amazing concept that people that wouldn't normally run 35 kilometres in a day somehow... managed to do it on the longest run by breaking it up and turning the day into almost a 12-hour day.

00:05:40Melissa Erbacher: In parkrun bite sizes.

00:05:42Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah.

00:05:43Melissa Erbacher: But then when you add it up... Well, parkrun-sized bites, that makes more sense.

00:05:48Scott Trickett: And so we put it in context for Kasia the next day, saying, Kasia, this is what 20 kilometres looks like when we're driving somewhere. So I set the odometer and then we drive another 20 kilometres. And it's a long way, Mel.

00:06:03Melissa Erbacher: Is that – so why 20 kilometres?

00:06:06Scott Trickett: So she could get a concept of what 20 kilometres looks like because Kasia did – Kasia walked – I don't know if this is bad parenting and maybe Yvonne is going to kill us, but we're really proud that Kasia did join in the longest parkrun or the longest run on Sunday. And she broke her record from a couple of years ago and she managed to walk 20km.

00:06:30Melissa Erbacher: Wow, that's incredible.

00:06:32Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:06:32Melissa Erbacher: Practically a half marathon.

00:06:36Scott Trickett: Well, she actually walked a half marathon. So all she wanted to do was break her record from a couple of years ago. But then one of our Westerfoldian mates got in her ear at Studley and said, you know, if you just walk a bit further here, you're nearly at a half marathon. And she's stubborn. She's got her mother's stubbornness.

00:06:57Hannah Oldroyd: Oh, it's her mother's.

00:07:01Scott Trickett: I thought it was, but then we asked her in the car and she said it was my stubbornness.

00:07:04Roger: I don't know where that's coming from.

00:07:08Scott Trickett: But anyway, that's another issue. But just 20 kilometers is just a long way. And people did that over the space of a day. And some people did more. The human body and the human mind... It's very impressive at times. It is.

00:07:25Melissa Erbacher: And Longest Run is great fun for a lot of adventurers. And we've still got more coming up because they're not all on the same week this year. So there are some still happening. I think in Queensland we've got three events as well, but we have spaced them out over three consecutive weeks. And New South Wales had theirs on the weekend too. which I believe was fun for all. A lot of adventurers that we met at the listeners' meetup were along to that one, so that was pretty cool.

00:07:52Scott Trickett: Yeah, and I think we took advantage of the long weekend. So as usual, Queensland's out of step with the rest of the country. So we all had a long weekend, so that's why we did it this weekend. But you're spacing it out over three. So are you looking forward to the Sunshine Coast one? Are you going to do it?

00:08:11Melissa Erbacher: I don't actually have any plans to head along this year. yeah it's it's it hasn't really come up on my radar I've been very busy with a lot of other things and trying to find time to squeeze running in has not been a priority it's back to that whole balance thing at the moment and it's just not factoring into my balance that's not to say I won't go along for one or two and and have a little mosey or potentially um Just watch and cheer on the other runners. We'll see. We'll see what happens.

00:08:44Scott Trickett: So when is it, Mel? When is the Sunshine Coast longest run? Not this weekend?

00:08:48[crosstalk]

00:08:49Melissa Erbacher: It is this weekend coming. It's the one that is actually closest to the winter solstice, which is where the original dates came from.

00:08:58Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:08:59Melissa Erbacher: Possibly the only event in the country, longest run-wise, that's going to happen this weekend. But to be honest, I'm not keeping tabs on the other states, so that could be completely inaccurate. It wouldn't be unheard of for us not to have the correct information. It's been a while since we've blatantly made a statement that was wrong. I think. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong and if we made a mistake last week. But we've been treading carefully not to be, like, wildly inaccurate all the time, haven't we? We try. We try. We try. We have got what I would term a super adventurer on the show just about to join us. I met her in person when I was in Malaysia. She was at the launch of Taman Pudu Ulu. However, she originally comes from the UK, yet she's living currently in New Zealand. Hannah Oldroyd, welcome to the parkrun Adventurers.

00:09:25[background music]

00:10:02Hannah Oldroyd: Thank you for having me.

00:10:03Melissa Erbacher: Now, I hope I pronounced your surname correctly because I do have a habit of getting those sorts of things wrong. That was perfect. Excellent. One tick for Mel. All right, let's jump in. So you were at the launch of Taman Pudu Ulu. That was actually your 150th event, different event. You've done a lot more runs than that. How did you find the weather in Malaysia?

00:10:27Hannah Oldroyd: Oh. warm. Although I live in New Zealand, it had been kind of warm and getting colder, but yeah, the heat in Malaysia and the humidity was unreal. That's the warmest I've ever run a park in, I think.

00:10:39Scott Trickett: How did you end up at Taman Pudu Ulu, Hannah? Living in New Zealand, being from UK, was it a stopover or how did you end up there?

00:10:49Hannah Oldroyd: It was slightly randomly. It was meant to be a stopover on the way to London Marathon. It was supposed to be in Singapore, so I booked my, being from up north, I booked a cheap flight that ended up going via the Gold Coast and then Singapore, and then realized that part of my three-day stopover in Singapore, the Malaysia parkrun was starting, so I jumped off the flight in Singapore, booked myself a return flight to Malaysia, did a day in Singapore, and then carried on to the U.K., So slightly randomly.

00:11:19Scott Trickett: And you were heading over for the London Marathon. I know you're quite the accomplished runner. How did you go in London?

00:11:26Hannah Oldroyd: Not too bad. I ran what was a PB for me at the time, so I can't complain. But I think, I guess I had the advantage of training in the heat. So everybody who struggled in the heat, I wasn't too bad. So I was over the moon with the run. And it's great for the beer drinking afterwards. So it was fun.

00:11:45Melissa Erbacher: You say the beer drink afterwards, but my understanding is that you also tend to have a beer drink beforehand, at least the night beforehand. You're not a conventional, or I should say you don't have a conventional diet of somebody who is as super fast as you are. What does consist of your diet, Hannah?

00:12:07Hannah Oldroyd: Oh, beer, biscuits, crisps, chocolate, an egg. It's probably most of it. My diet is atrocious. So the route to the UK was basically finding a different sort of Guinness to drink, Gold Coast, Singapore, Malaysia, and then on the way there. So, yeah, nothing special.

00:12:31Melissa Erbacher: Nothing special. There would be a lot of people that are very jealous that you can run as fast as you do with that kind of diet. Would you attribute some of your performance to your diet or is it all training and natural talent?

00:12:47Hannah Oldroyd: There's not the best training. I don't think there's any natural talent because I don't have any running genes whatsoever, so it must be the beer. But all the old guys in the 80s relied on beer to run, so I guess that's it.

00:13:00Scott Trickett: Okay, Hannah, let's take it back. Mel's mentioned you've done 300 parkruns. How did you get involved in parkrun? Because were you a runner 300 parkruns ago?

00:13:11Hannah Oldroyd: No, not at all. I actually saw a poster in my local swimming pool gym for Bradford parkrun, which at the time I think was about 12 events old. My friend had asked me to go do, I think it was Paris Half Marathon with her. So I thought I'd better get my backside in gear and do some training. So I was running on the treadmill. And yeah, I saw her. Saw a sign for it and then signed up and went along. I did sort of two in the first year, then spent my life getting injured and didn't really do a great deal. So it took me about three or four years to get to 50 parkruns. But yeah, I was never a runner, never intended to be.

00:13:52Scott Trickett: But you've obviously evolved to be quite a runner now. I was looking at your parkrun times and you're getting quicker and quicker every year. So is parkrun contributing to you becoming a faster runner? Would you consider yourself a runner now?

00:14:08Hannah Oldroyd: More of a drinker than a runner, but I guess I'm more of a runner than I used to be. But, yeah, parkrun's a massive part of it. I'm doing a free 5K time trial every week. I don't call it a race, even though it kind of is. But, yeah, definitely. That's the only bit of speed work I do every week, so... Yeah, definitely a huge part of it.

00:14:30Melissa Erbacher: And you always treat parkrun as speed work specifically, or do you ever just have a casual jog?

00:14:38Hannah Oldroyd: I guess it depends. There's quite a few recent ones where I've ended up trying to kind of Really back in a bit, they did before a marathon, I'll try and do a steady parkrun or I did the Highgate night of the 10,000, which might not mean anything to you, a few Saturdays ago. So I ran fairly steadily in the morning and tried to save myself from the race. But yeah, usually it'll be a case of run as fast as I can, race whoever's there.

00:15:04Melissa Erbacher: And how early on in your parkrun experience did you get the taste for adventure and start travelling around to different events?

00:15:12Hannah Oldroyd: It was probably after we had a group of us went to Dublin and did Malahide parkrun, which was the first parkrun in Ireland. And after that, it was like, there's more than just the UK out here. So it was probably then, which was January 2013. So at the time, yeah, it was a group of us. And then myself and Steve Darby basically travelled for about four and a half years. We've been all over the world and done parkruns.

00:15:42Scott Trickett: Hannah, before Mel's going off on the parkrun tangent, you touched on night of the 10,000 PBs. Now, listeners of the Marathon Talk podcast should be familiar with that. But can you explain to our listeners who aren't familiar what that is? Because I reckon it sounds like a cracker.

00:15:57Hannah Oldroyd: It's absolutely awesome, which also involves me missing my parkrun in Finland to book a flight early to get back for. But anyway, that's another story. It's basically a night of 10,000-metre track races at Parliament Hill in London. It's 10,000-metre races, but then you've got what we call the Lane 3 Beer and Cheer, which is the entire crowd stands in Lane 3 and basically drinks till they're absolutely hammered and cheer all the runners on. So by the end of the night, there was probably 2,000 or 3,000 people there watching. The atmosphere was absolutely incredible.

00:16:35Scott Trickett: So... I'm picturing it. You're running around on a track. And so every time you go down the home straight, you're running past a couple hundred people who are essentially drunk by the end of the night.

00:16:46Hannah Oldroyd: By the end of the night, yeah. I don't think too many people were drunk when I ran because I ran in one of the very early heats because I'm far too slow for that sort of stuff. And yes, they have a tent on each side. One side selling beer, the other ones just run with people. And then for the later race, there was actually a bridge over where the finish line is as well. So there was people still on the bridge cheering. It's just, if you've ever experienced it, it's free to go watch. Just go. It's amazing. It's the end of May every year.

00:17:14Melissa Erbacher: After you did your heat, Hannah, did you join the people in lane three and get yourself a Guinness?

00:17:20Hannah Oldroyd: I didn't get Guinness. I was handed a Whitstable Bay Pale Ale as I finished, pretty much. So I drank that. I was given that by a guy I met at Copenhagen Marathon who was there watching his training group. And then the London Pride was three quid a can, so we had quite a few of those. Yeah, no Guinness. Ben Pochee needs to Up his game for next year and get some Guinness on hand.

00:17:48Melissa Erbacher: So I want to go back to you skipped doing parkrun in a different country to get back in time for that. So that sort of tells us how important the event was, I guess. But explain to me how that all happens.

00:18:03Hannah Oldroyd: So I was heading to the UK for about six weeks. And I've kind of decided there was a few other countries I really wanted to do parkrun and hadn't had a chance before, or that started up after I moved out to New Zealand. Finland was one of them. So I landed in Tampere on the Thursday, spent a couple of days there thinking, I entered this night at the 10,000 months ago and there's people who'd seen my name on the start list saying, are you doing it? And I'm like, no, I can't get back in time. And then by Friday... morning. I'd been for a run and I thought, sod this, I'm booking a flight home. So I booked a flight home Friday afternoon so I could get back in time to race it and ended up doing a parkrun at Houghton Hall in Luton instead.

00:18:52Melissa Erbacher: Have you been back to knock off a parkrun in Finland?

00:18:56Hannah Oldroyd: No, because I was flying home the following week. So I did a parkrun in Belfast. So yeah, next time I'm in Europe, I'll have to do the one in Finland. But ironically, I met a night at the 10,000. One of the first people I bumped into was Paul Sinton-Hewitt. So it was his fault I was in Finland and then had to book a flight home to do the race I'd entered about three months ago.

00:19:20Scott Trickett: So I'm hearing some familiar names here, Hannah. So have you ever been on the parkrun Show UK podcast back in the day?

00:19:27Hannah Oldroyd: I think I've been mentioned on the parkrun Show, and we did attempt to get something – which would have ended up on the parkrun Show. So we went to Poland and did the Gdansk-Gdynia double when that was a thing a few years ago, but now that's been canned. There was a group of probably about 20 of us who did a snippet for Danny. James Lampert was left in charge of getting a bit of audio which all involved us getting extremely drunk and then attempting to do some sort of, oh dear, I can't even remember what it involved, apart from Helen Williams' Wonky Donkey came into it somewhere. But yeah, Danny was too embarrassed to use it, so it got completely canned and never ended up going anywhere.

00:20:18Melissa Erbacher: I wonder if he's still got it somewhere, hidden away, to bring out in like a highlights reel.

00:20:25Hannah Oldroyd: Yeah, more like the outtakes. Yeah, I don't think it ever got anywhere near. I think Danny just said, yeah, not using that.

00:20:32Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure that would be some quality stuff. So you've been to a few countries, Hannah. Have you got – normally we ask people what their top three parkruns are. Can I ask what your top three countries are?

00:20:47Hannah Oldroyd: New Zealand has to be because Pegasus, my new local, isn't actually that local. that's probably the best parkrun in the world Northern Ireland which I guess is kind of UK but is just a world of its own in terms of friendliness and people we've met through parkrun and everything Northern Ireland is just amazing and I guess Malaysia because it was just awesome to be part of that first event and just randomly finding out about it the week before and booking the flight was just because I could, and it was cheap. So yeah, they have to be the top three.

00:21:28Melissa Erbacher: Malaysia's pretty special. We haven't heard about Pegasus parkrun before though, so can you give us a bit of a breakdown about what makes it possibly the best parkrun in the world?

00:21:39Hannah Oldroyd: It's definitely the best parkrun in the world. So I live about 800 metres from the start of Hagley parkrun, which is kind of, it's a big park in the middle of Christchurch in New Zealand where I live, but it's kind of got past the small sort of proper parkrun stage. Pegasus has been going for, it'll be two years old this coming week, 16th, 17th of June. And it's still at this sort of 40 to 60 people. So it's nice, it's small, it's friendly. It's got the proper small parkrun ethos. Everybody pretty much stares back at the cafe afterwards. You pretty much know everybody who's there. And it's called Pegasus. It's got a cool name. And it's taken us 5,000 and something parkruns to realize that when you look at the course and turn it on its side, it looks like a rabbit. So it's cool. I've got to mention the ED Jeff McMillan who brought parkrun to Pegasus because he's just probably the best parkrun ED in the world and he'll never mention.

00:22:46Scott Trickett: A lot of bests in there. But I'm a big fan of parkruns with cool names. Obviously, you don't rate too many Australian parkruns because they didn't make your top three countries. But you've obviously run a couple over here.

00:22:59Hannah Oldroyd: I've run a few, yeah. I'm actually in New Zealand on an Australian visa and it was like, do I put Malaysia in there or Australia? Because I love Australia. But yeah, I tend to pick the fast flat ones in Australia because there's so many of them.

00:23:15Scott Trickett: Can you give us a couple of names of events that you have run at?

00:23:18Hannah Oldroyd: Dawesville was a good one. We sat at breakfast and somebody said, have you seen the dolphins playing in the sea? So that was quite cool to run on a beautiful seafront and then watch the dolphins having breakfast. I've run quite a few in Adelaide. So Victor Harbor, that was a pretty one out on the seafront. I've done ones in every state apart from Northern Territory. We did... Ginninderra before Canberra Marathon a few years back. But I need to do the ones with the cool names. But I haven't really got around to those yet. There's just so many to go out in Australia. I wouldn't even know where to start.

00:23:58Scott Trickett: Studley's got the coolest name in parkrun event world. So you've got to come and visit me at Studley one week at least. Promise me that.

00:24:05Hannah Oldroyd: Okay, I will do. Definitely. You're on.

00:24:07Melissa Erbacher: You've got to head to the Northern Territory so you can do Nightcliff parkrun because it's got a cool name. And then you can join the Peel Club. which is definitely an adventurous club.

00:24:17Hannah Oldroyd: That is a cool name. I'm lying to you. I haven't done a parkrun in Tasmania, so I've got another state to go.

00:24:22Melissa Erbacher: Tassie's also beautiful. It's a little bit cold at the moment, so you might want to leave that one till summer.

00:24:29Hannah Oldroyd: It was three here this morning. It's still shorts weather, so, yeah, manner.

00:24:36Scott Trickett: Are you a shorts all year round kind of person, Hannah?

00:24:40Hannah Oldroyd: No. I'd love to say I am, but. Nearly. For parkrun, I do try, but there is the odd week where it's just a case of, sod this, it's far too fucking cold.

00:24:54Scott Trickett: Oh, well, I'm trying to start a campaign where we outlaw pants pretty much worldwide so everybody wears shorts, because they just make sense. You can go for a run whenever you want to if you're in shorts. You can't do that if you're in pants. I'll work on you. You can...

00:25:10Hannah Oldroyd: I've got a member of that club for you. Rory Murphy, who lives, is from Ireland. I know him through Park Road in the UK, but he now lives in, I think, Baltimore, wears shorts all year round, even if it's minus 20 or whatever ridiculous temperature it gets to down there. Shorts all year round.

00:25:27Scott Trickett: He's a very sensible man.

00:25:30Hannah Oldroyd: Crazy.

00:25:31Melissa Erbacher: There you go, Scotty. You've got recruits out there, people who would join your cause. Yeah. Hannah, I'm thinking that over time and countries and travel and parkruns, you've got some fairly random stories of different experiences you've had. Do any come to mind that are particularly weird or wonderful?

00:25:54Hannah Oldroyd: Oh, the day we were attempting to go do Derry parkrun in Harrogate because we were rocked up to Liverpool Airport and I'd managed to leave the passports and boarding passes at home. So that was a quick drive back. Which parkrun could we get to having booked another flight to Belfast in the evening? So I ended up at Harrogate, which incidentally, Danny Norman, Tom Williams, Helen Williams, and the crew were all there. We didn't have a clue. We just rocked up and they were there. There must be more. I had actually been really organised and written some down and left a piece of paper at work.

00:26:29Melissa Erbacher: Not unlike the passports and the boarding passes.

00:26:33Hannah Oldroyd: Yeah, that's about my level. Yeah, forget everything that's not attached. well this weekend i was supposed to drive the um seven hours to queenstown after work on friday night but the about 80 of the route was just ice grit and snow warning so i couldn't be bothered so came home thought well sod it i'll spend the weekend at home i may as well go to pegasus and then it was a really beautiful sunrise so i was jogging down the boardwalk which is notoriously slippy and managed to completely go arse over tit and end up on my face on the floor smashed money up, and then ran my fastest parkrun ever. So I worked that one out.

00:27:12Scott Trickett: That was my next question, Hannah. You broke 17 minutes, and after all these years, you've got a parkrun PV on the weekend. So is that the secret, falling ass over tit before you run?

00:27:24Hannah Oldroyd: I think it must be, yeah, a bit of blood and cursing and swearing at myself, and then not much of a warm-up because I was busy clearing blood up. Yeah, pretty much, as I said. Yeah, I don't really do any speed work, although I've done a little bit more in the last two months than I would have done previously.

00:27:42Scott Trickett: Okay, well, I'm good at that, so I might give that a try, Mel. All these years of training hard and stretching and doing warm-ups, all I needed to do was fall over.

00:27:52Melissa Erbacher: Injure yourself. It might help if you knock out a super-fast marathon the week before, perhaps.

00:28:02Hannah Oldroyd: Oh, that marathon was hard. I'd run a couple of decent ones in London and Copenhagen, but Christchurch was hard. But it was my home marathon, so I couldn't not do it.

00:28:13Melissa Erbacher: It's your home marathon, and you're the defending champion this year, weren't you? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. You're very modest about these things and you keep saying that you're not fast, etc., etc., but you were the first finisher or the first female finisher at Christchurch Marathon last week, which is pretty handy. I'm assuming since you alluded earlier that the time you ran at London was a PB for you then. Did you get a PB last week?

00:28:44Hannah Oldroyd: No, I didn't. I actually ran my PB at Copenhagen three weeks after London. And then a couple of minutes slower than that at Christchurch, it was just, it was so cold, so wet and so windy. It was just grim. But yeah, I was pleased with the time anyway, because it's faster than I've run until London. So yeah.

00:29:10Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so London, then Copenhagen, then Christchurch. This is all since I saw you at Taman Pudu Ulu in April, and we're only just into the second week of June. On average, how many marathons would you run a year?

00:29:24Hannah Oldroyd: Oh, well, I think I've done 11 in a year. My most, I'd usually run, I don't know, maybe six or seven. I'm trying to trying to take somebody's advice and be sensible this year but it's really hard i think i'm on four so far and i've got a few more entered um any in australia no well yes actually i'm lying yes i've got kangaroo island entered again in september but at the minute i've got no leave left at work so the answer is no you can't go um so i'm working on that one

00:30:05Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, Scotty's working up to doing a marathon this year as well. He's been training for quite some time and we're supposed to ask him how his training's going all the time. But instead of asking him this week, I think we need to ask you what tips you would give him to help him with his marathon times and training.

00:30:23Hannah Oldroyd: Drink more Guinness is probably the only one I can give. I know absolutely nothing about sensible training or marathon training or nutrition or anything. So just run lots of miles and drink lots of Guinness.

00:30:35Scott Trickett: Okay, that's different advice. That's advice I haven't had up to this point. And I've got to admit, Hannah, I don't really like Guinness. So don't judge me too harshly, but maybe I'll give it a try. Maybe I'll give it a try.

00:30:48Hannah Oldroyd: Yeah, but it's better than crappy Aussie beer.

00:30:51Scott Trickett: Well, this is true. I don't like that either. So good. In the pursuit of a marathon PB, I might have to sacrifice my taste buds for that.

00:31:01Hannah Oldroyd: Don't tell me you're a wine drinker.

00:31:05Scott Trickett: No, my body is my temple, Hannah.

00:31:08Hannah Oldroyd: Oh, dear.

00:31:12Scott Trickett: Anyway, it's been great hearing about your pursuits in parkrun world and winning marathon world. Thanks for joining us on the parkrun Adventurers and sharing all your tales with us.

00:31:20[background music]

00:31:24Hannah Oldroyd: Thank you very much for having me.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:31:34Scott Trickett: David Moss from our Channel 5 News crew was visiting Sydney and possibly there for the longest run. I'm not sure, but he was definitely there for Lawson parkrun on Saturday and sent us a couple of reports and he caught up with Kai. Kai's Kai, so take it away.

00:31:52David Moss: Kai, thank you for today's run. It was cool, but everything's worked out well. It has. Would you like to describe to the listeners just what the course is like?

00:32:02Kai Porrett: So we're a bit special up here because we're all on trail. We have a creek crossing, which varies in its depth, but there are stepping stones for the creek. We have our lovely hill of awesomeness, which goes on a little bit.

00:32:14David Moss: It goes on quite a way, yes.

00:32:15Kai Porrett: Yes, it does. And then, so, yeah, up the hill, and then we have a couple of little turnaround spots up there as well. But, yeah, it's a pretty good course, quite different from some other parkruns.

00:32:25David Moss: How deep does the creek get?

00:32:28Kai Porrett: Yeah. After lots of rain, it probably gets to about, what's that, about 25 centimetres.

00:32:35[crosstalk]

00:32:36David Moss: Yep, okay.

00:32:36Kai Porrett: That's probably the deepest it goes. So splash, so it's a good gumboot course. Good splash, yes.

00:32:39David Moss: Okay, beautiful. And your entire family is involved in this, I gather?

00:32:44Kai Porrett: My entire family, except my eldest son, who's never done a parkrun, but all my other family. My husband's timekeeper today. My youngest son is up on the top of the hill doing marshalling up there. And my middle son is normally the tail today on a normal day. So, yeah, so the whole family and my auntie is quite often here marshalling as well. So it's very much a family affair for us.

00:33:01[crosstalk]

00:33:03David Moss: So it's the Porrett family, isn't it? It is the Porrett family, yes. Very nice. And what got you into parkrun?

00:33:09Kai Porrett: So I started parkrun a number of years ago when I was visiting my parents in the UK just for a holiday and I heard about this run up the road from them at Medina on the Isle of Wight in the UK and popped along and just found this phenomenal amazing thing happening just literally five minutes up the road from my mum and dad and got involved there and then when parkrun came over to Australia a few years ago I started off I did Penrith was the first one in our area and came involved there, did a few runs down in Penrith and then heard about it coming up to the Blue Mountains so I turned up for the first event and yeah that was three years ago.

00:33:42[crosstalk]

00:33:42David Moss: Oh beautiful, so you've done a few different ones over in the UK as well as here?

00:33:45Kai Porrett: No I've only done that one, just that one on the Isle of Wight.

00:33:48David Moss: And that was enough to get you going?

00:33:49Kai Porrett: Absolutely yes and then Richmond down the hill from here started a few months ago as well so we've done Richmond, Rooty Hill, so we've got a few in our area but Lawson's the special one.

00:34:00David Moss: Lawson is. I imagine here it goes from being very hot to very cold.

00:34:03Kai Porrett: Yes so it's a bit chilly this morning as you probably noticed and we've got rain just pending at the moment but it does get very warm here.

00:34:10David Moss: Any wildlife?

00:34:12Kai Porrett: Apart from my dog who's whining in the background. Not usually up here. There are wallabies in this area, but usually they've been scared off before us lot come thundering through the bush.

00:34:21[crosstalk]

00:34:21David Moss: Yeah, I saw a lyrebird yesterday. Oh, did you? I didn't know if they ever come out.

00:34:24Kai Porrett: Okay, so you're probably a little bit further up the mountains, yeah. So not usually at Lawson, but certainly in the mountains there's some good wildlife that happens.

00:34:33David Moss: And most of the people who run here, locals to Lawson or elsewhere on the Blue Mountains as well?

00:34:37Kai Porrett: Actually, we have people come from Mount Victoria is probably... They prefer to come to our one rather than going down to Lisko. That works for them. And people quite often come up from Penrith because Penrith is very flat. It's like a very flat course down there. So people like to come up just because we are on trail and with some hills on it. So mainly locals. But today we've got tourists from, we've got some people from Brisbane, Sunshine Coast. Yeah, we have a lot of tourists here. So it's lovely. We quite often get people from overseas as well who come to the mountains for a holiday and come and do parkrun while they're here. Oh, I can't blame them.

00:35:07[crosstalk]

00:35:08David Moss: Okay, thank you very much, Kai. No worries. Okay, and I'm with Roger. Roger's just done the Lawson parkrun. How'd you go?

00:35:16Roger: Well, I think I did okay. Probably around about 27 or 18. Oh, that's okay.

00:35:22David Moss: It's not the easiest course. No, no, it's really hard.

00:35:25Roger: It's a good mountain course.

00:35:27David Moss: You've done this one a few times?

00:35:28Roger: Yeah, this is probably about the 75th. Oh, congratulations. And what got you into it? Well, my son and daughter-in-law from Townsville were coming down in 2015 for Christmas, and they were staying up in the mountains. So they said, we'll meet you at the parkrun at Lawson. I said, what's that? they said oh well we do it up in Townsville so they told us where it was and so I just turned up because I live here up up this way I didn't know it didn't even know it existed excellent and you've been doing it ever since yeah yeah so you've been up to Townsville to do yeah we didn't get to do one at Townsville but done one at Broken Hill one at Tamworth and one at Wodonga okay a bit of variation yeah yeah yeah I got relatives around the place and how does Lawson 1 compare This would be probably the hardest because it's hilly and it's a bit of a mountain. Well, it's not really a mountain, it's a hill, but it's... It's a steep hill.

00:35:30[crosstalk]

00:35:59[crosstalk]

00:36:27[crosstalk]

00:36:27David Moss: It's a hill, yes. No, look, thank you very much. You seem to do okay.

00:36:31Roger: No, it's really good. You look completely recovered as well. Yeah, well, I think so. Excellent. Okay, look, thank you. You're on your day. Thanks, mate.

00:36:37[crosstalk]

00:36:40Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Dave, for checking in. It's been a while since we've had a roving report from you. Lovely to see you travelling around the country and getting some adventures in different states for a change. Look forward to hearing some more in the future.

00:36:53Scott Trickett: Lawson is one of those events, Mel. Dare I say it on my list? Don't hear a lot about it, but trail parkrun. We're getting into trail season, and I know I've sworn off trail running, but that's fading away, that memory. And we have a trail event. So I've got to cancel Junior parkrun this week at Westerfolds because the trail running series that's local to Melbourne is starting at Westerfolds. I mean, why wouldn't you? It's the best park in Melbourne. And, you know, I'm thinking about entering. I don't think I will, but I'm at least thinking about it.

00:37:30Melissa Erbacher: Would you not like to have a sleep-in on a Sunday morning? Like, because that's not really going to happen a lot for you from now on with Junior parkrun.

00:37:38Scott Trickett: What am I going to do with a sleep-in?

00:37:41Melissa Erbacher: I don't know.

00:37:42Scott Trickett: Get some rest.

00:37:43Melissa Erbacher: Look 10 years younger.

00:37:46Scott Trickett: Sleep-in is overrated. And I had a sleep-in on Monday this week.

00:37:51Melissa Erbacher: Oh, yeah, you're going to keep throwing that one in my face.

00:37:55Scott Trickett: It was a public holiday.

00:37:56Melissa Erbacher: It was great. Yeah, so you mentioned. Yeah. Okay, well, there's your last leap in for the year. That's fine.

00:38:05Scott Trickett: Do we have any launches this week on trail parkruns? Do you know?

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

00:38:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, I can't clarify whether or not they're trail, but we do have a launch at Port Sorell in Tasmania.

00:38:18Scott Trickett: Hmm, Port Sorell. I'm guessing it's not a trail. Just by the name, Port. Not many trails or forests are at ports.

00:38:30Melissa Erbacher: It could be. You never know.

00:38:31Scott Trickett: Hmm, we don't have any of their Channel 5 news crew down in Tassie. There's an opening. We have an opening for a Tasmanian rip.

00:38:43Melissa Erbacher: Maybe somebody will come to the party.

00:38:46Scott Trickett: We have listeners in Tasmania.

00:38:49Melissa Erbacher: We do. It's true. In the meantime, talking about coming to the party, we've got anniversaries happening at a whole bunch of places this weekend. I'll kick off with Carine Glades in WA, even though they won't be the first because of the timeline. Mm-hmm.

00:39:06Scott Trickett: Well, I'll follow up with Dolls Point in New South Wales. Also won't be the first because of the time zones.

00:39:12Melissa Erbacher: We've got Mernda in Victoria.

00:39:15Scott Trickett: North Shore in Queensland.

00:39:18Melissa Erbacher: Our favourite of everybody, Shellharbour in New South Wales.

00:39:23Scott Trickett: The Tossers in Queensland. That's the town of Seaside, parkrun. I'm not offending anybody.

00:39:31Melissa Erbacher: Wangaratta in Victoria.

00:39:33Scott Trickett: And Yeppoon in Queensland. So I think Yeppoon will be the first because they've got to be the easternmost of those events, surely.

00:39:44Melissa Erbacher: Well, North Shore in Townsville. I don't know. I'm not that great with northern Queensland. Yeppoon is probably a little bit further east than North Shore. But technically, we're all in the same time zone. So just because somebody's further east doesn't mean that they're running earlier.

00:40:01Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:40:03Melissa Erbacher: But happy anniversary to all those events.

00:40:07Scott Trickett: There we go. Now, last week, Mel, we called out for entries to the Poem Zone, my new favourite segment.

The Poem Zone

00:40:16Melissa Erbacher: And it was very off the cuff and what we thought was an original idea, which didn't turn out to be an original idea because apparently there was a conversation about it some time ago in the parkrun tourism group about having poems about parkrun. But that's okay.

00:40:33Scott Trickett: But did they call it the poem zone?

00:40:35Melissa Erbacher: No, they didn't. That was all you, Scotty.

00:40:41Scott Trickett: Once you label something, then it becomes something. You can't just throw out ideas. You need to give them names. We've given it a name. We're bringing all these ideas together in the poem zone. And we had some entries. So let's get to it. Let's get to our first one.

00:40:56Melissa Erbacher: All right. Are you going to read this one, Scotty?

00:40:58Scott Trickett: Well, I don't really understand. Even though I've come up with a great name, I don't really understand poems.

00:41:04Melissa Erbacher: Well, specifically haikus is what we asked for. All right, so I'll give a little bit of background to haikus.

00:41:09Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:41:10Melissa Erbacher: They are originally Japanese, so it's a Japanese poetic form.

00:41:17Scott Trickett: I guessed that from the name.

00:41:19Melissa Erbacher: Did you? Does haiku sound Japanese to you?

00:41:21Scott Trickett: A little bit, yep.

00:41:22Melissa Erbacher: Well, you must have been eating a lot of sushi lately to make that connection. And, yeah, basically there's a word called on, which, so haikus traditionally consist of 17 on, which is like the Japanese word that loosely translates to syllables. I've probably got that wrong too, but, you know. And they happen in three phrases of five syllables, seven syllables and five syllables. So you've got a haiku poem has three lines. The first line has to have, words that equal five syllables, then seven, then five. Does that sound clear as mud, Scotty?

00:42:03Scott Trickett: It does. Yep.

00:42:05Melissa Erbacher: Does that make more sense with what we've had submitted so far?

00:42:09Scott Trickett: It does. Yeah, I think I've got a grasp on that. But let me have a go at reading it because that's where I'm a bit of a mystery because I'm sure there's a technique to reading these out.

00:42:18Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:42:19Scott Trickett: Let me butcher the first one. So we've got a good starting point for improvement for the rest of them. So apologies in advance. Chris Timewell, we inspired him to write him or her. Sorry, Chris.

00:42:33Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure Chris is a guy. I think Chris is a guy. Let's go with it.

00:42:37Scott Trickett: And we really are sorry if you are a girl. But we've inspired Chris to write their first poem for 20 years, 20 plus years. Three Laps with a Lake, Friends, Frost and Tunnel of Love, Castle Main parkrun.

00:43:00Melissa Erbacher: See, that's a perfect example of a haiku.

00:43:03Scott Trickett: Did I read it right?

00:43:05Melissa Erbacher: Well, you read the words in the right order, so yeah. It's one of those things, like haikus are a very visual thing that you need to see the sort of three phrases. And if you don't, then when you're reading it out, I guess, you just need to pause at the end of each sentence and then people will be able to understand it better. But you did a good job. Great.

00:43:27Scott Trickett: Thank you. And Castlemaine parkrun. Tunnel of love. Sounds interesting.

00:43:37Melissa Erbacher: Do you not know what a tunnel of love is, Scotty, at parkrun?

00:43:39Scott Trickett: I'm guessing it's a tunnel where it's very loving. You run through something and you feel lovely.

00:43:46Melissa Erbacher: Yes, it's made by parkrunners. The tunnel is like a gauntlet of parkrunners that give you love as you run through.

00:43:52[crosstalk]

00:43:54Scott Trickett: I think I know this. I've actually been to Castlemaine when they've done it. They have this great thing where they send their milestone people through the tunnel of love. I think that's what...

00:44:04Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that's probably exactly what you experienced and you didn't realize what it was called. See, these guys, they've got a name for the concept. Therefore, it's an actual thing.

00:44:13Scott Trickett: Great. So there we go. Poem Zone. We've got a few more entries, but let's tease them out over the next few weeks because we want more coming in.

00:44:23Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, we do want more coming in. So get writing, people. Obviously, it's the benefit of haikus. They don't rhyme. I mean, they could rhyme, I suppose, but they don't have to.

00:44:33Scott Trickett: So it's actually pretty easy. Yeah, well. Is there a haiku generator? They must be online. That's the cheat sheets way.

00:44:46Melissa Erbacher: I don't think they're quite long enough to require a generator. Do you? Like, it just.

00:44:56Scott Trickett: You know what? Someone, one of our listeners will tell us if there is. And they'll find it and they'll send it to me. Send it to us.

00:45:05Melissa Erbacher: All righty. Well, we'll leave that with you guys as the listeners.

00:45:11Scott Trickett: Now, I've got to make a bit of an announcement, Mel. I'm saving this to the end of the podcast. But are you ready? You ready for it?

00:45:19Melissa Erbacher: I'm sitting down. Should I be sitting down? Should I stand up?

00:45:23Scott Trickett: I think it's a big enough announcement to be sitting down.

00:45:26Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:45:28Scott Trickett: Over the past few months, I think it is, I've been asking people to keep me on track with my marathon training. And they have. They have. I probably get a reminder every week at least to give people an update on how my marathon training is going. But we can stop that now, people.

00:45:47Melissa Erbacher: Did you run a sneaky marathon? How did you go?

00:45:52Scott Trickett: No, I didn't. I didn't.

00:45:52Melissa Erbacher: I didn't see that on Strava.

00:45:54Scott Trickett: No, no, because it didn't happen. And some critics might say that this is just a, you know, I am a complete failure. And in part, they're probably right. But I've just reassessed. And remember, I wanted to do this properly. And I know I'm not going to do it properly. And I probably overestimated my ability. So I'm just, I've reassessed. I've changed my training focus. I'm probably not going to do the marathon that I had planned. And unlike a lot of people who have missed out on the Gold Coast Marathon, which was not the marathon I was planning to do, I wasn't silly enough to book flights and accommodation before the entry to the marathon. So that's good. But the marathon's off now. Probably won't happen in 2018.

00:46:46Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so I'm sure there's going to be a few people out there that are a little bit disappointed, but what's the new goal then, Scotty? I don't think so, really. No, I honestly do. We're all invested in your running journey now. We've been asking how your marathon training's going. We've been trying to keep you on task and accountable. We've been doing our part. Look, we're all involved in this, Scotty. Why were we not consulted?

00:47:12Scott Trickett: That's why I'm saying that I'm a failure and I need to publicly say it. But look, I was doing really well. I was on track, but then I did get the man flu and Dr. Google diagnosed glandular fever. But it's been about four or five weeks now and I'm feeling pretty good now. So I don't think it was glandular fever.

00:47:30Melissa Erbacher: You should know better than Dr. Google, seriously. But no, I mean, it's fine for you to want to re-evaluate your goals, et cetera, et cetera. I think personally, myself and the rest of the listeners should have been consulted during this process so that we could have had some input to the outcome. However... Point taken, yep. What is the outcome that you have decided on without our input?

00:47:55Scott Trickett: Well, I think I need a... So about this time last year, I was running PBs at parkrun. So 12 months is a long time. And I think I want to get back to running PBs at parkrun. So my goal now is more on 5K, which makes perfect sense. And maybe focus has gone away from 42.2K.

00:48:16Melissa Erbacher: 5K and fast. Yeah, my heart is with 5K.

00:48:20Scott Trickett: I don't know why I feel this need to go any further. right now that could change but right now so we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna work on my PB, Mel but i don't need anyone everyone checking in on me with um with that i'll i'll be fine thanks okay sounds like somebody couldn't handle the pressure of being accountable to all the listeners yep not sure how many times you want me to say i'm a failure

00:48:54Melissa Erbacher: None of us will think of you as a failure, Scotty. You're just changing, like it's all about balance and you're just changing your priorities, so that's fine. We'll just go cry in a corner because we weren't consulted.

00:49:06Scott Trickett: Yeah, but look, I mean, Hannah, our previous interview, she has inspired me that she's admitted she's got a terrible diet. She's just getting faster and faster. And we might have glossed over it in the interview, but she ran high 16-minute parkrun on the weekend. That's really fast. And coming from her first parkruns were mid-20s and stuff. There's hope.

00:49:33Melissa Erbacher: There's hope. Yeah, there is hope. But I think what you might find is that Hannah has found speed over the 5K distance as a result of smashing out a lot of marathons. So, you know, towards your goal of getting a PB at parkrun, perhaps you should be training for marathons. Just a theory. I know when I trained for my marathon and it was not the serious marathon and I was only training to finish. I wasn't training to get any kind of incredible time. It improved my times at parkrun. That's when I was getting PBs at parkrun was when I was training over the longer distances. So, you know, perhaps you need to take that into consideration with your training plans. But who am I to judge? You know, I'm still – I'm running my 5Ks at parkrun every now and again, but I'm not finding a lot of time during the week for additional runs lately. So, you know, you do what makes you happy. I think that's the important thing. And for Hannah, you know, fast 5Ks and marathons, that makes her happy. So that's the key, I reckon.

00:50:37Scott Trickett: Okay, this episode has made me happy, Mel, but it's coming to an end.

00:50:42Melissa Erbacher: I think it's probably reached the end, Scotty. It has.

00:50:44Scott Trickett: It has. So I'm going to cry myself.

00:50:49Melissa Erbacher: No, I'm not. No, you're not because you're happy, remember? I'm happy.

00:50:54Scott Trickett: I'm happy this week. Only a couple more days till we get to go back to parkrun, Mel.

00:51:01Melissa Erbacher: Or get to try again.

00:51:02Scott Trickett: Yep. What are your plans before we go? Where are we going this week?

00:51:10Melissa Erbacher: This week I would like to head back to Kawana Beach parkrun if I can.

00:51:14Scott Trickett: Good. That's all. This is just a personal question.

00:51:18Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, because you've got an adventure up your sleeve. You know what? This is something I haven't told you. Adam's realized that he's only about five or six events behind me on the most events list. And he's got a little bee in his bonnet now about being competitive and catching up and taking over, which I think is quite hilarious. And in fairness, he has actually done quite a few different parkruns that I haven't done. He's done at least two in Victoria that I haven't been to. which makes it difficult for when we travel back to Victoria together because he doesn't want to do those ones again, which means I'm going to have to make separate trips to Victoria at some point just to catch up on those ones. But it's funny because in a couple of weeks I'll be heading down to volunteer at Main Beach because I've already run there before, as has he. And he's already planning a sneaky little trip away with Wes to figure out where they can go and do an event that I haven't done.

00:52:09Scott Trickett: Love it. Love it.

00:52:13Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so I have unleashed a beast with a bit of a taunt about the fact that I'm still ahead of him on the most events list and now he's right. You're not that far ahead. I'm going to chase you down.

00:52:27Scott Trickett: Okay. But not this week because you're going to Kawana, which is good because I'm not going anywhere new this week.

00:52:34Melissa Erbacher: Oh, really? You're not going anywhere new or you're going to use this as an opportunity to sneak one in?

00:52:40[outro theme playing]

00:52:40Scott Trickett: No. No, I'm definitely not.

00:52:42Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, you have fun not going anywhere new, Scotty.

00:52:46Scott Trickett: I guarantee I will. And you too. Speak to you next week.