Episode 119 - Highlight Reel

Episode details · 275 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:16Scott Trickett: Another week, another adventure awaits. Another podcast is here. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers, the weekly podcast about parkrun. Welcome Mel Erbacher.

00:00:27Melissa Erbacher: Thank you, Scotty. What episode are we up to this week?

00:00:30Scott Trickett: 119. Our 118th episode, but it's episode 119.

00:00:36Melissa Erbacher: We will get to 113 eventually.

00:00:40Scott Trickett: Probably. And as all good podcast listeners know, episode 119 is the traditional episode where we have a highlights package. It's where we reminisce about all the episodes that came before it. So that's what we're doing.

Highlight reel (episode 119 retrospective)

00:00:55Melissa Erbacher: Is that a traditional thing with just any podcast?

00:01:00Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think so. I think it's parkrun folklore that episode 119, you always go back and revisit all your old episodes, pick out the bits you liked and just replay them.

00:01:11Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Did they do that on the parkrun show? I don't recall that episode specifically being about highlights.

00:01:17Scott Trickett: And what happened to the parkrun show?

00:01:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, what do you mean?

00:01:21Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:01:22Scott Trickett: So if you don't follow the rules of podcasting, that's what happens.

00:01:25Melissa Erbacher: Oh, got you. Okay. I'm not entirely sure that that's the reason why it came to an end, but okay.

00:01:34Scott Trickett: It could have had something to do with the fact that I'm getting ready to jump on a plane and I'm trying to cram a whole week's worth of work into essentially two days. And part of that is doing the podcast. But also, I thought, you know, Mel, 118 episodes, that's like, I'd say, almost 118 hours of podcasting.

00:01:54Melissa Erbacher: It would probably be more than that. I know we had some shorter episodes, but we've also had some longer episodes. Yeah.

00:02:00Scott Trickett: So between all those hours, we should be able to pick out a couple of gems to revisit. So, but let's start. Let's start and go right back to the very beginning. And let's hear how we started this whole gig. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers podcast, a podcast about parkrun, hosted by two people who love parkrun adventuring. My name is Scott. I'm joined by Mel.

00:02:34Melissa Erbacher: Howdy, parkrunners.

00:02:35Scott Trickett: Mel, what is a parkrun adventure?

00:02:38Melissa Erbacher: parkrun Adventure is pretty much any experience that you have at a parkrun that's a little bit outside of the norm. It's just a great way of having extra fun at parkrun.

00:02:49Scott Trickett: How did you get involved in parkrun?

00:02:51Melissa Erbacher: I started out with parkrun at my home parkrun, Kiwana. I unfortunately missed the very first event that they held in October 2012, but I was there for number two and I haven't looked back. I'm now the event director there. I was also an event director for another local event, Brightwater parkrun, for a year, which was magic. And I'm also a territory director now here on the Sunshine Coast. So I get to help a lot of other events, mentoring them and helping them launch and find new locations and love it. How about you, Scott?

00:03:28Scott Trickett: Yep, so you've got the Sunny Coast covered. I'm based down here in Melbourne. I discovered parkrun about three years ago. I actually knew about it when it launched here in Albert Park, but because I lived quite a fair way away, I actually never went there. So it took me about a year to figure, instead of driving an hour, why don't I just start my own parkrun? So I started the Westerfolds parkrun in the Melbourne suburb of Templestowe. Since then I've gone on to help Coburg get started. I'm now the event director at Jells and about to be the event director at Studley parkrun, which is going to launch in the suburb of Melbourne called Kew. And you can refer to me as the Studley ED.

00:04:08Melissa Erbacher: The studly ED, that didn't stick around for too long. Something else I also noticed, Scotty. What are you talking about now? I was back in the early days. Well, who calls you the studly ED anymore? Nobody.

00:04:25Scott Trickett: No, you're right. No, it hasn't come up.

00:04:28Melissa Erbacher: Not to your face anyway.

00:04:30Scott Trickett: But go on, I interrupted. You were saying?

00:04:32Melissa Erbacher: You did interrupt me. But that was back in the early days before we were like super good friends and before I started calling you Scotty. I called you Scott. It was very formal. You didn't pick up on that?

00:04:43Scott Trickett: No, I missed that because I was focusing on – firstly, it was weird. So if we go back there, I was recording that in a professional radio studio with a proper mic and big console, everything. And I sounded terrible. And I was not. And you were not, and so it was back in the days when you were still on Skype, so we were recording. I was combining the audio until we figured out there was a better way to do it. But now I record into a cheap headset on my laptop, and I don't know, I think it sounds better. I think it sounds clearer.

00:05:13Melissa Erbacher: I'll let you in on a little secret. I've ordered a new... a new microphone. It's going to be here sometime soon. So it's not here yet, but I'll be interested to see what difference that makes. Apart from the technological aspect, do you think we just sound like babies? Like we're really young. Our voices are really young.

00:05:31Scott Trickett: Yeah, it was only a couple of years ago, but yeah, we do. We sound different, that's for sure. We're grizzled vets now too.

00:05:39Melissa Erbacher: Grizzled vet, that's something to put on the business card.

00:05:42Scott Trickett: And so from episode... How many episodes do you reckon it took for us to find our groove?

00:05:49Melissa Erbacher: You don't think we were groovy in episode one?

00:05:51Scott Trickett: Yeah, no, it was, well, no, no.

00:05:55[laughter]

00:05:55Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

00:05:58Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Look, I don't really remember, to be honest. I think it took several months for us to start being comfortable having the conversations, I guess. I do remember the night, like the whole Monday night would be consumed by podcast. And even if we only recorded something that was 45 minutes long, it would still take us five hours to do that, which is... is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. And our partners are both very patient, wonderful people for putting up with that for a long time. Well, what do you think, Scotty? How long do you think it took us to get our groove?

00:06:39Scott Trickett: You know, you're right. Yeah, we did. So those first few months, probably the first six months, maybe even the first year, you and I were getting to know each other. And so a lot of that was happening, as you said, on a Monday night and the four to five hours surrounding the 30 to 60 minutes that we used to record. But it was a good time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now we just get on, bang it out, and go on about our day. But they were good times. They were good times. And we had some good guests on early.

00:07:09Melissa Erbacher: We did. It didn't take us long to start getting the big guns out, that's for sure.

00:07:13Scott Trickett: And in the early days, what we tried to do is we tried to get a picture of parkrun from around the world. So we went and visited some of these countries. In Episode 4, we caught up with parkrun Ireland's Country Manager, Matt Shields. We also visited Poland, which was...

00:07:30Melissa Erbacher: Episode 9 with Jakub.

00:07:31Scott Trickett: Episode 9 with Jakub, where we learned all about the parkruns in Poland and we heard about the parkruns in two countries for the first time.

00:07:40Melissa Erbacher: Episode 16, we actually got to speak to Pat Farmer. That was pretty cool. He had a lot of adventures to share about his spirit of India adventure specifically. It's what we talk to him most of the time, but I do recall asking him about polar bears. That man has got a lot of stories to tell.

00:07:59Scott Trickett: But we also visited France, where we caught up with Anita, the country manager there. So we tried to get all the way around the world. And by the time we got to episode 29, we tried another experiment. We set you all our first challenge, where we asked you all to do the reverse freedom runs and record it. But we also caught up with Jess Trengove, who had a pretty good weekend up on the Goldie. Let's have a listen.

00:08:30Jess Trengove: I loved everything about the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. I guess I'd had some injury travels leading into that race as well, similar to what I've had recently. I went into the race with a lot of unknowns. I didn't know if my body was ready for what it had coming. My coach and I had a plan. I really trusted what Adam had said to me and we stuck to that plan and it all just sort of fell into place. I was quite happy where I got myself to in fourth place and when I saw the girl in third slowing with about... I don't know, four kilometers to go. I just suddenly had a bronze medal flash into my head and I didn't feel as much pain anymore, to be honest. I just was so excited. And those finishing moments coming down the final straight were moments that I'll cherish forever. So I was really happy with that race, but I think it was more rewarding and satisfying because of the challenges I'd had in the lead up and, you know, having my parents there and my brother and other friends, um, out there supporting me on course two made it extra special.

00:09:42Melissa Erbacher: I actually watched you run that event live we had awesome live coverage here in Australia at the time and you had the most magic smile on your face like you just made it look effortless and I thought wow she is really really enjoying herself and that was wonderful to witness I have to say.

00:10:04Jess Trengove: Yeah, on the final straight when you know that you're going to get to the finish line, it's really exciting. And I'd seen a teammate, Eloise Wellings, probably just before I turned the corner onto that final straight, and to see her face and watch her sort of fist pumping really fired me up. So I think that was what caused the big smile down the home straight.

00:10:28Scott Trickett: Now, how does a Commonwealth Games bronze medal compare to a first finish at Mount Gambier parkrun?

00:10:35Jess Trengove: Well, that was special, that parkrun in Mount Gambier. I'd actually gone down there for a talk the night before, and I hadn't planned on doing the parkrun. I just don't even think I was aware of it. And one of the... the men in the audience said that he was doing it the next morning and I thought that could work in really well with my session. So I called my coach and he said, yeah, go for it. So I got up that morning and just a short warm-up to the Blue Lake and I loved it. It was a tough course but a fantastic sort of community and atmosphere out there.

00:11:18Ross Pentland: This is Ross Pentland for the parkrun Adventurers podcast at Jells parkrun in inner east Melbourne. Just running the course in reverse, which will be interesting. It's currently 10 past 7 and about 5 degrees, which in the middle of winter is what you'd expect. It is interesting that it's currently foggy, so that adds a challenge to the visibility. I'm just going to do one... Lap easy. So I'm just setting off on an easy pace, mostly downhill at this point. I've just had to pause for a minute just to double check which way I'm supposed to be going. I guess that's the main challenge with doing your course reverse is that it's the same sort of area but everything looks different and it's trying to work out where you're supposed to go. I think I'll turn right here.

00:12:16Melissa Erbacher: It has been too long since we have set our adventurers a challenge that actually gets them out and gets them running and gets them reporting back into us, Scotty. I think the time is nigh. I loved our reverse freedom run little challenge there. Do you have fond memories? Because you actually went out and did a couple, one with the boss.

00:12:35Scott Trickett: Yeah, I did. I did. One thing – and one thing – This reminds me of is throughout the whole history of the podcast is we've really tried to get our listeners to interact and contribute to the podcast. And they have done that. I mean, we've created the entire Channel 5 news crew because I think that's the magic. We always want to hear from all these different events around Australia and get a taste of what all these different courses are like. And that was our first sort of foray into it. And I give it a tick, Mel. I thought that was successful. So I agree. Let's do it again. I mean, there's no reason why we can't just rehash old ideas and get a new round of Reverse Freedom Run.

00:13:17Melissa Erbacher: We could have another Strava competition going on as well. I mean, there's a lot more events now that you could Reverse Freedom Run than there were back in the day when it was Episode 29. Yeah.

00:13:29Scott Trickett: And there's a lot more events. So can we do it? Can we issue another challenge to our listeners to send in their reverse freedom runs, their experience of running their courses in reverse?

00:13:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, I think if we start challenging everybody with all of our highlights this episode, we're probably going to come away with a lot of homework for our listeners. Maybe we need to just space them out a bit. We are in July now. It's only two months away from streaky September, which I am very keen to bring back. So I think we need to keep that in mind too. We don't want to tap people out, but maybe let's pick one challenge by the end of the episode. That can be up for discussion, certainly, Reverse Freedom Runs, but there might be some other things that we stumble across along our way, revisiting some of our highlights. So let's just choose one at the end. What do you say?

00:14:22Scott Trickett: Okay. Deal. Episode 50, Mel, was one of your highlights. It was the culmination of the first year of doing the pod. We had PSH on, which at the time we were very excited about, and if PSH was to come back on the podcast next week, we'd also be equally excited about it. But you had a different highlight from episode 50 that you wanted to touch on.

00:14:45Melissa Erbacher: I did. It was, well, obviously because it was the end of our very first year, it was that festive period. And PSH spoke about Christmas and parkrun being a highlight for him. Like he thinks that's the best event of the entire year is parkrun on Christmas Day. And we both agreed with him at the time. And I still agree because it does something to battle the loneliness and things like that. However, what eclipsed that for me, as much as it was an awesome interview, and it's possibly only because of the hindsight that we get to see these things now when we go back and look at old episodes, but we actually asked Tim and Renee what they would wish if they could have one Christmas wish for parkrunners, what their Christmas wish would be. and renee's chris well should we listen to what their wishes would be let's do that all righty we are days away from christmas so what one thing would each of you wish if you could have one christmas wish for parkrun for christmas

00:15:58Renee Gimbert: Well, is this a wish that's going to come true or just a wish?

00:16:03Melissa Erbacher: Wishes can come true, but they might not.

00:16:06Renee Gimbert: So for parkrun, my wish would be that every event in Australia, which is currently 200, gets a defib from Santa. If it can come true, amazing.

00:16:18Tim Oberg: And I think my wish is sort of in that same category, Renee, in that I wish every event has a healthy event festive period meaning that there are no uh no incidents at any of our events that would require the defib or any other significant uh first aid so yeah i'll be hoping that we get through the christmas and new year period with everyone in our parkrun family uh safe and sound

00:16:43Melissa Erbacher: It's not too much of a stretch to see why that's a bit of a highlight. Given the history parkrun has had in Australia with our incidents and just literally a year later we had him on the show, Brett Orpwood suffered from a cardiac arrest on the 23rd of December and that was, you know, the last parkrun for him before Christmas and he missed, you know, Christmas Day because he was sort of in a bit of a haze, you hospital however you know Renee's wish came true she and the whole team at Parker in Australia have made it be that you know defibs are out there and a defib saved his life so Tim's wish came true the following year as well Christmas episodes are always good should we have a listen to some of the PSH interview because I went back and had a listen to some of that and that's still that's got some pearls of wisdom in it too so let's catch up with PSH from episode 50

00:17:44Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Thank you, Scott. It's fabulous to be here. I feel very, very linked and tied to Australian parkruns and parkrunners, so it's fantastic to be able to come and talk to you.

00:17:56Scott Trickett: When you first started, did you ever think there'd be parkrun in Australia?

00:18:00Paul Sinton-Hewitt: No, mate. When I first started, I only thought there'd ever be one parkrun, and that would be Bushy Park. Most of your folks will know this, but it's worth repeating. I started parkrun because I was... I was lonely and I wanted to make sure I saw my mates. So the idea was have a little run, but then go for a coffee afterwards. And if I did that, I was pretty certain that I would see most of my mates every week or maybe every other week because they would all come to this free, easy 5K run. So I had selfish motives. And it turns out that one of the best things we do is the coffee morning routine. after parkrun one of the things that parkrun is most successful at is not focusing on the running but focusing on what happens around the running the social scene the building relationships the supporting of each other the volunteering is just such an amazing thing which i have to say i didn't think about on day one but as we decided to grow parkrun we knew that it had to be a volunteer-led organization so These things have just come together over time and we've made a lot of right decisions and I just feel very blessed to be part of something that stands for so many good values. It's fantastic.

00:19:30Scott Trickett: What about the impact on volunteering that parkrun has done as well? So yeah, we've got these runners who have got something, but you've also given something to people to be involved in the community. Did you ever think of that when you started volunteering?

00:19:43Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Well, to be honest, right at the beginning, I felt that that could be the whole downfall of the model. If we didn't get that right, it could mean that you would have to start charging people to run so that you could pay people to manage events. But it's turned out that we made a lot of the decisions were brilliant decisions, keeping it at 5K, making sure it was always short, an hour's worth of work. giving the teams accountability and responsibility, helping them grow their skills, all those sorts of things. As it turns out, there are many organizations who would like to copy what we do. And I've been and spoken to many of them because clearly we would love it if more organizations were able to be as effective as we are with volunteering. But there's just something that works. We are unique in that it really, really works for us. It doesn't always work for the swimming association or the golf or the tennis or so on. So it's probably one of the most important things that we do for society. People are finding their way into a very, very soft startup volunteering role And then deciding, actually, this is something that's really valuable. It's not something that I need to be rewarded for because it has its own reward. And it's helping me develop myself as a person.

00:21:14Scott Trickett: What about your plans for Christmas and New Year? Will you be running on Christmas Day?

00:21:20Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Absolutely. It's the best parkrun of the year, by the way. And traditionally, I... Well, it's a tradition that I started, obviously. I... I always wanted every single parkrun to run on every single Saturday that was possible. It just so happened in 2004 that the Sunday, sorry, the Saturday was Christmas Day. And I didn't know whether people would come down or not, but I decided that if it was a Saturday, we would definitely run parkrun. And I put the parkrun on that day and it was brilliant. And they continue to be the most exciting day of the year to run. There's something really, really special about Christmas Day because I suppose everybody's in a specific kind of mood. They're all about presents and sharing and I think that just carries on straight into the parkrun world and of course you get it over and done with very quickly. People don't stick around and have coffee on Christmas morning. They head home and they start the cooking and so on and so forth. But it is by far the most exciting day to run a parkrun. And it's one of those days that you just remember for a very long time.

00:22:42Melissa Erbacher: We've actually had PSH on the show a few times, not directly in an interview with us, I should say. The very first time was early on in episode two where he had a little... piece of Oh, what would you call it? Not an announcement. It was a message. He sent some well wishes. Yeah, it was a message. He sent some well wishes to Norm who became the oldest parkrunner in the world to reach 100 parkruns. And we had him on that week and so we had the message. But another time he was on the show was when PK, underscore PK, our Channel 5 news crew member, went over. He did his pilgrimage to Bushy Park and he managed to catch up with the man himself there.

00:23:29Paul Kitching: G'day there, Scott and Mel. It's PK, underscore PK, checking in from the home of parkrun, Bushy Park. Yep, made it over here to the UK. It's a glorious sunny day here in whatever suburb it is. We've just been on the train here. We actually caught a train with some other random parkrunners and then... shared a cab here because some bloke came up and he said, are you going to parkrun? I'm like, you bet we are. Anyway, we're here. Enough rambling. I'm going to go and see if I can meet a few people. It's actually parkrun's... 12th birthday. As many of you know, the International parkrun Day is today, and what a great place to celebrate it. So here we are, and I'll go and chat with a few people. Cheers. Okay, would you believe it? I'm standing under the parkrun tree with not only the amazing man who started parkrun, but the man who started parkrun 12 years ago. That's right. Paul Sinton Hewitt. That's correct. Hi, nice to be with you. How are you, Paul? Mel and Scott will no doubt be sending all their very best happy birthday wishes to you. And thank you.

00:24:32Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Well, actually, thank you to the whole of Australia. I'm so looking forward to spending about six months travelling through Australia, coming to each and every parkrun event. Really? Yeah, in the next year or so.

00:24:43Paul Kitching: Wow, that is brilliant. Well, you have to make sure you come over to Adelaide or South Australia and come to the Mount Barker parkrun, if you can, or one of the parkruns in Adelaide anyway.

00:24:51Paul Sinton-Hewitt: I'll be making an attempt to go to every single parkrun.

00:24:54Paul Kitching: Wow, that is brilliant. Good on you. Well, thank you so much, and a good day today. How many people do you reckon you had here?

00:24:59Paul Sinton-Hewitt: It's about 1,200, I think, at this event.

00:25:02Paul Kitching: Fantastic, and a great way to celebrate. I just spoke to someone who did their 300th. She was pretty stoked as someone. But the whole thing about it, I just felt very emotional, and I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of all the parkrun adventurers for creating this amazing thing that is a very simple and easy thing, but you've certainly changed so many people's lives. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Actually, you know,

00:25:23Paul Sinton-Hewitt: My heart goes out to each and every Australian. I have an Australian passport so I have a great affiliation for Australia and especially to Tim Oberg and the team who get Australia running and it's just brilliant. So thank you and thank you to every parkrunner out in Australia.

00:25:40Paul Kitching: Thanks so much. Well, that's it. Not a bad way to finish my day here at Bushy parkrun. Saying g'day and thank you to the guy who started parkrun many years ago, 12 years ago now. All right, let's go and have a coffee.

00:25:56Scott Trickett: So that wasn't our first introduction to PK, but I think that's when we started to fall in love with the man. And you could tell his excitement in his voice. And we just loved it. There was this guy who, at that point, Mel, you and I had not met, but he'd travelled to London and he was just excited to go to Bushy parkrun. And then he happened to meet the great man. And happy days. Happy days back in the early days. But there was another man who is quite linked to Bushy parkrun as well, and we had him on. What episode was that?

00:26:29Melissa Erbacher: That was episode 37, Mr. Danny Norman.

00:26:33Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think to this day he's probably still our most downloaded episode.

00:26:37Melissa Erbacher: You know what I really remember, and it possibly didn't come through in my voice, I was trying to contain myself, but I was having such a fangirl moment when we had Danny on the show. I think you may have also been having a fangirl moment, Scotty.

00:26:51Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, it was back in the day when the reason for starting the podcast was because we missed the parkrun show. And, you know, I joked at the top of this program that that was a reason why it didn't stick around. And it was a very sad day when it ended. And to catch up with Danny and have a chat about all things parkrun and podcasting, dare I say it again, Mel, it was a real highlight.

00:27:15Danny Norman: Ever since my very first parkrun, so when I finished the parkrun, I got my little Nokia phone out and I called my mum and I said, this is an amazing idea. I love it. It's fantastic. It's brilliant. It was my first official 5K with a result, if that makes sense. I had never raced a 5K. It wasn't a race at the time and it still wasn't a race, but meaning I hadn't done the 5K distance and officially got a result from it. And I really enjoyed it. But aside from that, it was the fact that it felt so... something special about it. It really dawned on me. Anyway, but because of that, I became very interested in how it worked. So I basically got to know the systems and how it worked. I was interested about how the results played out. But then I asked and got to know about PSH. And so I was always very much nosy and wanting to know certain things with parkrun. And the reason how it then expanded out to do the podcast, to cut a very long story short, that I was involved on the Bushy parkrun Committee that I would do various roles. But one of the chief roles that I would do, I'd do the Bushy Run Report. And I would do the Bushy Run Reports. And I remember at the time, the Run Reports that used to be produced were, I guess you guys, but you still see that in the events, that the results that come out, they are the copy and paste, one, two, three, one, two, three, age grading, one, two, three. These are the stats and they were plunked out there. And they were very boring and nobody looked at them. And PSH tasked me with writing the run reports, and I'm not really holding back. And so I used the opportunity to try and put a creative spin in it, but also make it that people read it who weren't at the event, who weren't really part-time, and just make it an enjoyable read. And when I was doing this, it panned out that the person who was reading these run reports... up in Leeds was your interview guest, which would be a couple of weeks ago, was Tom Williams, the COO now of parkrun. And he would read the run reports and he would enjoy them. So as it panned out, Tom had an idea to do a parkrun podcast. I was always in his mind to do that. In terms of employment side of things, I wasn't employed at the time when I first started. The podcast did start in, I think, a couple of weeks after I left one of my previous jobs. And then I became employed by parkrun a little while later, but it was never really an employment factor. I was never really solely employed to do the podcast.

00:29:46Scott Trickett: And so you did it for a number of years. You started out with Tom and Martin, and then you added a few co-hosts throughout the time.

00:29:54Danny Norman: Yeah.

00:29:55Scott Trickett: Did you have fun?

00:29:56Danny Norman: I did have fun. And so the reason why Martin and Tom were involved in the early days was it was their second venture. So Marathon Talk, they'd done and they'd established for a little while and they wanted to do the parkrun podcast but they wanted to make sure it was put out in the waters appropriately and because they had a bit more experience and I was very very nervous at the time they guided me out into those podcast waters and then bit by bit Martin sort of dropped off a little bit and then Tom dropped off a little bit and it was quite hard to do three people at the same time we felt but also with parkrun being what it is, and that's very inclusive, having three guys at the time who were primarily 16, 17, 18, 19 minute 5Kers, it didn't really encompass the broad range of parkrunners. And I was very aware of that, and all male. And so we had Nicola Forwood, who would engage with our podcast on social media in very creative ways. She impressed me a lot. It I just felt it was right to bring a lady in and, sorry, a female in, I should say, because some people get offended by ladies, sorry. Bring a female on board. Sorry.

00:31:15Melissa Erbacher: Who gets offended by lady? What's offensive about lady?

00:31:19Danny Norman: There isn't, but this is another thing which got brought up. I think it was Tom Williams. Again, I keep mentioning Tom Williams. I wasn't going to, but Tom, yeah, he mentioned the word lady. I think it was in a newsletter once and people flipped out about it in a parkrun newsletter. I don't know, derogatory, I think it's being chivalrous myself, but anyway. So, yeah, and so I brought Nicola in, and also Nicola wasn't very fast. Admittedly, she was very much a back of the packer, and so we had this broader spectrum, we had this bookend of the range of abilities, and she brought a lot to it. And it really gave a, women would have said at the time, they said that having Nicola on board gave them something more to relate to. So Martin, Tom originally, and then Nicola. And then we expanded out to have a few more people. We had people who were engaged with the show a lot. We had people who were ambassadors. We had Dennis Brandrick who offered his services when I was going to take my first break. He did the editing for us. And again, started to branch out and just give a bit more of a reflection of parkrun as a whole by having these varieties of people from around the UK as well.

00:32:32Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it was so good to hear Danny's voice back on any kind of podcast. So we were very excited and happy to have him. And, you know, it just goes to show it's like a moment in time in history. He was up to 179 different events that he had visited at that stage. And now he has just very recently done his 250th different parkrun.

00:32:55Scott Trickett: But Danny was only 50% of the story.

00:32:58Melissa Erbacher: Danny was only 50% of the story and we were very lucky to have his co-host, Nicola Forwood, join us on episode 59, which is definitely down on a list of highlights for me. Probably for you too. What do you think, Scotty?

00:33:13Scott Trickett: Yeah, it is. But set it up for us as well, Mel, because you had an opportunity to actually meet with Nicola prior to doing the interview on the podcast because she was out touring in Australia and you spent an afternoon together. Yeah.

00:33:28Melissa Erbacher: We didn't speak to her until she had returned to the UK, but she had come out for six-odd weeks between New Zealand and Australia to do some tripping around and some adventuring with her daughter Poppy. And, I mean, let's have a listen to it now. It was a little bit different in that she was very – well, I mean, not that Danny wasn't real, but Nicola was very real and she had been through some tough things. since the podcast had ended. And, you know, she didn't hold back and she was very honest and open. And I think that just, oh, I can't even find the words. I still feel a bit emotional about it. But maybe we'll just listen.

00:34:11Nicola Forwood: Watching parkrun grow in Australia has been amazing because if you look at its start in all the countries it has, Some countries, or I mean, if you look at the America at the moment, you can look at a country and think it's going to really take off, but actually it grows. And because of the organic growth model, it kind of grows slowly. That didn't happen in Australia. You guys kind of just went, parkrun, this is amazing. And it sprung up really fast and watching all the enthusiasm. And you're a nation of like high fivers. So there's so much parkrun passion there. it's just brilliant. So I've always really wanted to do it. Um, and then it's a bit of a sad story really about why the trip came about because, um, I don't, if listeners listened to the parkrun show, they'd know that Ben was, my husband was pretty poorly. So he passed away about three months after we'd stopped recording the parkrun show. And then, um, you might need to get a little violin out, it all gets a bit sad. So I'd had a cycle of IVF and I was going to try and have a sibling for Poppy and then I thought, who? This is my only chance now, I'm pregnant, this is my only chance to go to Australia and do a parkrun, unless I wait 20 years until the kids are older because who in their right mind would take two small children on their own to parkrun on the other side of the world. So I booked a trip and then sadly I lost the baby six days before we were going to fly. So that was that and that was cancelled. And then I thought I just need two weeks in the Maldives or I need to get away from life. And I looked at booking something and it's so expensive to book holidays that I thought it started to make my massive expensive parkrun trip look like really good value and something I still wanted to do. So I kind of, you know, I just gritted my teeth and rebooked it and then it gave me something to look forward to. So we went anyway and in the second time of planning the trip, extended it, added a few more parkruns in and it was really wonderful, really good for me. parkrun is such a great way to travel. To know that you have those pockets of kind of like family to dip into every Saturday and that you're going to be with friends, even though you've never met, was really, really kind of what I needed, you know? And I met some really, really wonderful people.

00:36:55Scott Trickett: And let's keep up the British theme one final time because they do have posh accents. And we caught up with a UK parkrunner. And what I love about this, it was back in Episode 75, you came to me with a story about a run director at Cannons Park parkrun going by the name of Sean Sutherland Kirby. And at the time, I didn't know anything about it. And I'll be honest, I was like, oh, okay. All right, let's go with this. And he came on the podcast and he was just so candid and he was a great storyteller. He was really easy to listen to. And I really enjoyed him going back and listening back through a couple of episodes to find highlights. I stayed listening to Sean's episode probably longer than all the others because, like I said, I just enjoyed listening to him. So should we both enjoy listening to him?

00:37:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, absolutely.

00:37:46Sean Sutherland Kirby: Well, I first heard about parkrun through my husband. My husband's a teacher at a school, and he came home one day and said, oh, by the way, I'm going to be running this weekend with Chris, who's one of the assistant heads at his school. And I was like, oh, okay, fine. You know, that was just kind of it. And then, you know, a few weeks later, it was, oh, I'm running again. It was, okay, fine. Um, you know, that went on for a few weeks and, uh, and then it turns out Chris, who's a fellow Aussie, by the way, um, was setting up cannons park parkrun and, um, was doing the kind of initial set up run and, uh, needed volunteers. And, uh, Andrew said, Oh, I've been running this thing called parkrun and we need volunteers and you're doing it. Um, that's. great okay um what is this thing and just showed me the website and I went on and had a look and I was great I have to be at a park in October at 7 30 in the morning to go and have a look around this course and you know he knew how to get me down there he promised me breakfast at the cafe afterwards um so you know I went down there had a look around and uh I just volunteered that first time and and I just enjoyed being down there and meeting new people. And, you know, at the time I was, we were living in a flat, um, that didn't have really good access. I'm, I'm, uh, in a wheelchair. Um, so, uh, I was pretty much housebound at the time. So Andrew was working full time. Um, I was stuck at home. I'm working as a, uh, an artist from home. Um, so I was just sat at the computer. It was me and the cat and, uh, And that was really my life. So parkrun came up and it was a chance for me to kind of get out and meet new people. And it's been great just kind of getting out and each Saturday and seeing new people and kind of having this group of people to go to each Saturday. And yeah, it's been a new challenge and adventure each week. It's been brilliant.

00:40:14Scott Trickett: You allude to parkrun through breakfast. Yes. Exposed to the active lifestyle, but you volunteered for quite a few months until the weekend recently where you took part in your first parkrun in a wheelchair. How did that go?

00:40:29Sean Sutherland Kirby: Yes. It went really well. The day that I did it was actually the day after the anniversary of my accident, so I actually did it as a way to kind of um take my mind off of the the fact that you know i was constantly thinking about that um and i posted online you know hey guys any advice for doing this because uh you know do i need to wear a helmet and you know any other guys doing in wheelchairs or you know any advice for me um i mean i got like 500 likes and loads of comments hey well done and and I really wasn't expecting it. And the online community has been great with it. I mean, I go to the gym and I work out a bit when I can. And all of the other guys that are down doing the parkrun always look like they're having so much fun. And I love doing the volunteering side of it, don't get me wrong. I've always wanted to just kind of get in and get stuck in. And as soon as I got my new wheelchair a few months ago, um, which is much lighter than my old one, um, I've wanted to actually tackle the course. Um, and it just seemed that the perfect time to go ahead and do it. So I set that date as a kind of, I'm going to go ahead and do this. Um, so we got down there and we set off and the first, seven or eight minutes was very British, you know, excuse me, excuse me, I'm coming through, coming through, trying to weave through people. And the Cannons Park course is brilliant. It's a three-lap course, and it's kind of split into two halves. So the first half is what I would call typical English park, where it's lovely pavement fields either side there's a playground and you know some dog walkers and everything it's really great you know I was whipping through overtaking people and then the second half is what's called the spinny it's a wooded area and it's a little bit bumpy a slight incline but the track on that area is kind of compacted sand and gravel and dirt so as soon as my front casters hit that it was like hitting treacle it was like running through honey so I just almost stopped dead and it was a real workout but I really enjoyed it and people were saying to me oh once you do one you'll catch the bug and you'll want to do it again and I think I did the course in I mean, I wasn't smashing any records by any means, but I got to the finish line and people were cheering and it was that real parkrun family vibe. you know, warmth and I got my token and did my scanning and everything. And I just wanted to do it again.

00:43:46Scott Trickett: So Sean reminded us of the inclusiveness of parkrun and how everyone is accepted and it's everyone's happy place. And it puts me in my happy place every Saturday morning, Mel. But something that may be the highlight of the podcast so far. We talked about it for so long. We teased about it on numerous episodes. But we finally got around to launching our quiz.

00:44:12Melissa Erbacher: Which didn't happen until August.

00:44:15Scott Trickett: So it was initially going to be March Madness. And that's true to form. We got around to it by the time we got to August.

00:44:22Melissa Erbacher: We started behind the eight ball with that because, you know, it was March when you said, hey, we should do a March Madness. But it was like the last week of March and we'd already recorded everything else. And I was like, well, all right, well, let's try for April. And then, yeah, that didn't happen. And anyone who's listened to most of us would know that this is our MO. This is how we work. Things take some time in the melting pot before they happen.

00:44:47Scott Trickett: But worth the wait and something that I think it's probably due to come back. So maybe we can have a poll. Maybe we're working on the fly in this episode, so I'm suggesting we're going to have reverse Freedom Run challenges or should we bring August Madness back, which would now be July Madness? July Madness. Or should we wait for a whole year to have an anniversary of Madness?

00:45:10Melissa Erbacher: It probably makes sense to have it back in August Madness again. And so maybe we should only have it in August and at parkrun Adventurals and the meetups. When we can do a live madness, which is always fun.

00:45:23Scott Trickett: Well, you're jumping ahead, Mel. You're jumping ahead. Let's go back and listen to the first edition of August Madness. We've been teasing for a long time. I've been teasing for a long time for August Madness. It was originally going to be March Madness, May Madness, April Madness, but we finally got to it. August Madness. Now, Mel... Are you curious to what I'm actually talking about?

August Madness

00:45:52Melissa Erbacher: I'm excited, but I have no real concept of how it's going to work. So please explain.

00:45:57Scott Trickett: Yep. It's a quiz. We're going to pit a parkrun adventurer from the greater state, Victoria, against a parkrun adventurer from your neck of the woods, Queensland, I think it is.

00:46:12Melissa Erbacher: Known as the smart state.

00:46:13Scott Trickett: Four questions, parkrun related. The winner is the carryover champion and the reigning champion of August Madness to hopefully return, if this segment is a success, for October Madness, November Madness, whenever we get around to doing round two. And joining us from the greater state is Melissa. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers. Melissa, not Mel, Melissa.

00:46:37Melissa Ellis: Thank you, Scott. Hi, Mel.

00:46:38Melissa Erbacher: Thanks for joining us on the show, Melissa. Are you excited to be the first of two participants in August Madness?

00:46:45Melissa Ellis: Very excited.

00:46:47Melissa Erbacher: Excellent.

00:46:47Scott Trickett: And joining us from Queensland is Steve. Welcome, Steve.

00:46:52Steve: Hi, Scott. Hi, Mel. Good to be here.

00:46:55Scott Trickett: Okay. Now, I can sense the nerves, Mel. Can you?

00:46:59Melissa Erbacher: I can. We forgot to tell these guys that they're allowed to have alcohol before they come on the quiz.

00:47:04Melissa Ellis: Oh, seriously?

00:47:06Unidentified speaker: I just want them to run.

00:47:09Melissa Erbacher: We really should put that in our initial contact when we ask people to join us on the podcast.

00:47:14Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:47:16Melissa Erbacher: Sorry, guys. That's my bad.

00:47:18Steve: Not a problem.

00:47:18Scott Trickett: Okay, so here we go. The rules are you are going to buzz in with your buzzers. The buzzers are going to be Melissa. Your buzzer is going to be your home parkrun, which is?

00:47:28Steve: Berwick.

00:47:29Scott Trickett: Berwick. Berwick Springs. Steve, your home parkrun is?

00:47:33Steve: Cairns.

00:47:34Scott Trickett: Okay, so that's your buzzer. Buzz in whenever you want. Are we ready? Yes. Well, I forgot to mention, I forgot to mention, you may have already noticed, we've got the live studio audience joining us for August Madness.

00:47:50Melissa Erbacher: This is the first for the parkrun adventurers, so... We don't usually record in front of a live studio audience, so we're also a little bit nervous ourselves.

00:47:59Scott Trickett: Adding to the pressure. First question. Name three countries in the Northern Hemisphere that have a parkrun.

00:48:09Steve: Cairns.

00:48:10Scott Trickett: Go, Steve.

00:48:13Steve: England, Poland, France.

00:48:18Melissa Erbacher: That is correct.

00:48:19Scott Trickett: Well done. Queensland's on the board.

00:48:21Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Question number two.

00:48:23Scott Trickett: Lots of Queenslanders in the audience too. That's great.

00:48:28Melissa Erbacher: Don't you love that support you're getting, Steve?

00:48:30Steve: Oh, I think it's fantastic. Fantastic.

00:48:34Melissa Erbacher: All right. Question number two. Membership of the Pirate Club can only be attained by running seven C's and an R. Name three parkruns whose name begins with C. Berwick.

00:48:49Scott Trickett: Cairns. Go Mel. Melissa.

00:48:51Melissa Ellis: Okay. Castlemaine. Chelsea Bicentennial. And Cairns.

00:49:03Melissa Erbacher: Using your own parkrun against you, Steve. But she scores all three 100% correct. Well done, Melissa.

00:49:12Scott Trickett: Now, while we were listening to that, Mel, we both realized that we actually also had November Madness a couple of months later. We did.

00:49:20Melissa Erbacher: This is what happens when you've had so many episodes that you've forgotten what you've done. There's too many to remember now.

00:49:27Scott Trickett: I still think we should stick to our plan of having a return of August Madness next month. But it was good to reminisce. Now, the other time we had Madness was very recently. And this is probably our most recent highlight that we're going to go back to. And we went on a real adventure with some other adventurers.

00:49:45Melissa Erbacher: And we had a live outdoor studio audience.

00:49:48Scott Trickett: Yeah. Makes me want to do it again when I went back and had a listen.

00:49:52Melissa Erbacher: It was a great day, wasn't it? You know, this is – it was awesome. It was so much fun. And this is something I was thinking about during the week as well to bring up with you. I wasn't going to do it on the podcast, but, you know, we're having the conversation. So let us have this discussion now. Do you think it's time to set a date and put the word out there for people to vote on a location for another listeners' meetup? Not for 18, for 19.

00:50:16Scott Trickett: Well, we could ask them to vote, but we've already decided, Mel. Where are we going?

00:50:22Melissa Erbacher: Have we, though? We have.

00:50:24Scott Trickett: I have.

00:50:28Melissa Erbacher: You have. All right. Did we announce where that was going to be? No, we didn't. On a previous episode?

00:50:34Scott Trickett: No. Maybe if you went to the very first listener meetup, you might already know. But to the other 1,500 listeners who didn't go to the listener meetup, they might be interested to know where we're going next year.

00:50:47Melissa Erbacher: So maybe the conversation just needs to be about the date then.

00:50:52Scott Trickett: Should we vote on the date?

00:50:53Melissa Erbacher: Because it's going to happen, isn't it?

00:50:55Scott Trickett: Yes, it is. It's going to happen. I've got a better idea, Mel. On the weekend at Junior's, I caught up with the great, the one and only Gary Murphy. And I think he did such a good job the first time around. Let's just task him with doing an equally good job the second time around.

00:51:11Melissa Erbacher: I like your thinking, Scotty.

00:51:13Scott Trickett: Done. Decisions made. But let's go back and revisit. So remind everybody how awesome the listener meetup was so they can get excited about the next one. And Gary, you too can get excited about organising the next one in 2019. Episode 105 of the parkrun Adventure is Mel. Not our usual episode. I could see you for starters.

00:51:35Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm feeling weirded out by this. So I'm going to look. Let's hold up a book.

00:51:40Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm not going to look. For now, anyway. Yeah, that works for me. I'm not in my study or my bedroom. There's a bit of wind about, but we're going to work through that. But I've got a great view, and it's not just because of the people in front of me, but that's partially the reason why. We're at Shellharbour. We're at the parkrun Adventurers Listener Meetup. We have parkrun Adventurers with us. Woo! So our first fears were allayed when there were people here.

00:52:05[applause]

00:52:14Melissa Erbacher: And thank you to those two people who just made that crowd sound like there was a lot more of you.

00:52:21Scott Trickett: And so we're also recording on a Saturday morning, which is awesome, which means I've got a whole... That's a first for us. Yeah, I've got heaps of time to edit this. And the reason why is because we're at Shell Harbour parkrun, we've done... Shell Harbour parkrun this morning and we're going to start the program with our guests, our hosts for today. So I'm going to welcome up Brendan and Ollie. And we're going to learn more about Shell Harbour parkrun and these two gentlemen who run the show. So I'll give Ollie the mic. Introduce yourselves. Hello everyone. I'm Ollie.

00:53:05Brendan: And I'm Brendan.

00:53:07Scott Trickett: Now, this is your home event. So technically, Brendan is our event director. Yep, that's correct.

00:53:14Brendan: But Ollie is our right-hand man here. Without Ollie on our core event team, Shell Harbour parkrun would not be able to take place every week.

00:53:22Scott Trickett: I've never publicly said top three. But, and I'm not going to publicly say top three, but my goodness, my goodness, you're showing off. Like this is, I mean, you guys know it, don't you? This is like one of the best parkruns going around.

00:53:41Unidentified speaker: We certainly love it. We were stoked to have you here. Shame there's a bit of wind, but yeah, beautiful day to get to share it with you all.

00:53:51Melissa Erbacher: Wind is good, perfect running conditions.

00:53:53Unidentified speaker: And it's nice to make the unofficial top three. It's in contention, it's not unofficial.

00:54:03Brendan: And we're definitely blessed to be here within the Reflections Killalea State Park. We've been here nearly four years now. The park management have been on board since day one and have improved the park and the parkrun in that time, making the course friendly. We had one pram pusher today, they made it around. We've really only ever had three or four make it around the course because the course is A variety of terrains, you know, you've got gravel, grass, sand and a couple of hills as well. But we are blessed. We've been to different parkruns and we think, yeah, we're lucky we don't have any cars. We aren't allowed to have dogs here and it is one loop course. So, yeah, we are different to a lot of parkruns and we think we are unique as most parkruns are. But we are blessed to have Killalea here.

00:55:02Melissa Erbacher: Well, we felt blessed to be here, Brendan, especially because who knew there's a beach, a Mel Erbacher beach. And there's also a Scott Trickett Bridge. Apparently. Among this, Gary Murphy, he kind of is obviously the king of the place because he got two hills. You know what listener meetup reminds me of, Scotty? The good old way back when, in episode 44, when we spoke to Bruce Fordyce and he got us super excited about South Africa and wanting to do our first... parkrun adventurers Contiki style tour over to South Africa. That's another thing we need to get organised. I wonder if we could ask somebody to put their hand up to do that. We'll just delegate all these adventures to our adventurers out there.

00:55:54Scott Trickett: Yeah, because I still reckon that can work, Mel. And it would be a lot of fun.

00:56:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it would be huge fun. Huge, huge amounts of fun.

00:56:05Scott Trickett: I've never been to South Africa. Have you?

00:56:07Melissa Erbacher: No, I've never been to South Africa. But you know what? Another reason that I was probably twigged off to thinking about this was that apparently last week we pronounced one of the event names that was having a launch wrong. And heaven forbid, you know. We've never done that before, have we? But it did make me think of the South African accent because apparently Merriwa, which is what we said, is pronounced as Merri-war. And Meri-war sounds to me like the South African pronunciation of it. You know, like how a grudge is a place to pork your core.

00:56:45Scott Trickett: Let's not say that again. You didn't say African or wrong, Mel.

00:56:50Melissa Erbacher: You sound like a Kiwi.

00:56:52Scott Trickett: Hey, I'm South African.

00:56:54Melissa Erbacher: You're being South African, are you?

00:56:55Scott Trickett: Yep. Okay. But Mary War, really? We got that wrong?

00:57:00Melissa Erbacher: Well, yeah. I mean, it's not spelt the same way as Wauchope, but, you know, I guess there's a lot of ways to spell war.

00:57:08Scott Trickett: I'm still not convinced about War Hope, by the way. There's no way that that town is called War Hope.

00:57:13Melissa Erbacher: Good old Wachoppy.

00:57:14Scott Trickett: Wachoppy. But getting back to Bruce, everyone loves Bruce. Everyone is really excited to meet him. I mean, he's a legend in South Africa, but I think lots of runners know the story of Bruce Fordyce. And hit the Man Can Talk as well, as we discovered in episode 44.

00:57:35Bruce Fordyce: Our favorite one. By the way, I can tell you this story. It's a divine story. I'm going to forget the actual name of the English parkrun, so they mustn't sue me. But it was something like Huddersfield. And it was the middle of December. And we were starting our Nkomazi parkrun, which is just outside Kruger Park in this township called Nkomazi, as I said, bordering on the Mozambique border. And we were just picking up the various tweets and messages coming through. And so we got this message from Huddersfield that arrived. It said, come on, everybody. It's a beautiful winter's morning. It's only minus five, and there's no black ice. There's no black ice, so it's safe the whole way around, and somebody thinks they saw a badger. So we replied. So we instantly had to reply. Come on, everybody. It's the opening of Inkumazi parkrun. It's plus 35 degrees. And we're going to have to delay the start because several of us are held up by three lions lying in the road. And we got a rude message back from Huddersfield. This is a family program because I can't tell you what they said to us.

00:58:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but badgers are gorgeous.

00:58:54Bruce Fordyce: No, of course they are. And by the way, the lions, I don't want you to suddenly think the risk assessment must be interesting at Nkomazi. The lions were in the Kruger Park, but because people had come down to lots of South Africans, we have a huge number of tourists that I can chat about. The tourists travel around doing as many different parkruns as they can. And so when Nkomazi was starting, a lot of them booked into the various lodges and camps in the Kruger Park so that they could drive through, do the parkrun, and then go back into the park. And they couldn't get out of the Kruger Park because the There was a pride of lions lying across the road and they were messaging us desperately, please hold up the start, please. You also can't jump out your car and tell the lions to move.

00:59:34Melissa Erbacher: I have to ask, is it somebody's job to go check the course for hippopotami and other such animals that have come out of the park or does somebody drive around to do that or is somebody out there on foot?

00:59:48Bruce Fordyce: Now, you know, I'm really exaggerating, so I don't want you to think that that's a common occurrence. That would be something that would happen once in a blue moon, you know. Yeah. All our parkruns have been chosen to be safe.

01:00:02Melissa Erbacher: Okay. I have a thing about large animals that can eat me. And I'm not a fast runner.

01:00:10Bruce Fordyce: No, there's nothing that's going to eat you. I won't mention the Mozambican spitting cobra.

01:00:19Melissa Erbacher: Snakes I can deal with.

01:00:21Bruce Fordyce: I've seen photographs of snakes at some of your parkruns. In fact, when we did Main Beach... My wife, Jill, came around the corner and there was a very large, very long brown snake lying there.

01:00:32Melissa Erbacher: Yes, we've had eastern browns on my home parkrun. And we've actually also had a snake attack a dog that was parkrunning as well. So these things happen.

01:00:44Bruce Fordyce: And they've got badgers. No, no. In fact, they've got deer. When I ran Richmond parkrun, which is another one I love. Have you ever seen Fenton the dog? Go and Google Fenton the dog. It's about a dog who, it's a real, really, really happened, who tried to herd all the deer in Richmond Park.

01:01:05Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I have seen that, that YouTube video. And his owner is calling out to him and he just never came back.

01:01:13Bruce Fordyce: Yeah, yeah, it's a YouTuber, not Google. Yeah, so Fenton. So now you know what I'm talking about. And the poor owner is going hysterical because Fenton is hysterical herding all the deer and pushing them onto the main motorway. He's desperately trying to get Fenton. Fenton's a sheepdog, so Fenton's doing what he's been bred to do. He's looking at the deer's heels and getting them all to be in a neat little group, all 150 of them, and then herd them across the highway. I was running Richmond Parker and doing it seriously. Once you get into the older age categories, the competition can be quite intense. The moment I see another balding, gray-headed guy, there's no way I'm going to let him go past me. We've got a group of about five or six of us hurtling along as fast as we can in our age category. Suddenly, right through the middle of us, five deer just went bounding right through the middle of us. If they'd hit one of us, it would have knocked us out. And anyway, everyone said, watch out, look out, look out. And then we carried on racing. And suddenly it came back into my mind. How am I going to get rid of these guys who I'm racing with? So I just shouted out, Fenton! Fenton! And they all started laughing so much that I got away from them because they couldn't breathe. They were laughing so much.

01:02:26Scott Trickett: Well played.

01:02:27Bruce Fordyce: Yeah, great. I'm cunning.

01:02:29Scott Trickett: Now, you see, Mel, this is why I'm even more convinced that we need to get this Contiki tour going because I think South Africa, they're a bit different. They just do things a little bit differently.

01:02:39Melissa Erbacher: They are.

01:02:40Scott Trickett: And that's good in a way.

01:02:42Melissa Erbacher: It is. Every country has their own stamp on parkrun, I think.

01:02:47Scott Trickett: Now, we've probably got time for one more. Because I'm a gentleman, I'm going to leave it back to you. And hopefully, fingers crossed, fingers crossed, this highlight may be linked to next week's episode. I'm not going to say any more. Take it away.

01:03:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, in that case, Scotty has agreed to sing again in German because my highlight was episode 99.

01:03:11Scott Trickett: No, no, that's not what you're supposed to say. I specifically said no to Episode 99.

01:03:19Melissa Erbacher: All right. I will skip over Episode 99 then. But I do want it noted for the record that that is still my highlight of all time. and brings me much joy every time I think about it. So thank you, Scotty. However, we're travelling back to Australia again and onwards after that to Germany because you know what I really love? As much as we talk to some of the big wigs and some big-name people from time to time, Scotty, I love talking to the real people as well, the real parkrunners. who just have special stories or share special moments at parkrun on any given week. And the next two people that I think we should have a listen to and the final two to head out our highlights for the episode are Martin and Svenja Beck, who, well, they're now the Becks, but they weren't when we first spoke to them in episode 68.

01:04:14Martin Beck: Hey, Scotty. Hey, Mel. Thanks for having us. We're excited to bring some German accent to the podcast today.

01:04:21Scott Trickett: Oh, we love it. I don't think we've had any Germans on the podcast yet, so this is a first. Yeah, and a last, hopefully not. Hopefully not. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. But let's get to Saturday, because Saturday was a big weekend for you guys. You both hit your 50 milestones, which is good enough, but it's not good enough to get on the parkrun Adventurers podcast. You did something else. Do you want to tell us what you guys got up to?

01:04:45Martin Beck: That's right, yeah. I proposed to Svenja on the weekend. us as part of our milestone celebrations. So that was obviously a surprise to her. I wanted to propose to her at a special place that meant something to both of us. And yeah, then it was an obvious choice to do it at the Charles parkrun, which is our home parkrun and a fantastic parkrun anyway. And we have a lot of friends there. Even though we just made our 50 milestone, I guess we know a lot of people there. We are volunteering. I'm one directing. So we have a lot of friends there. So I thought it's the obvious choice to do it with a lot of friends and, yeah, pretty much the parkrun family as well.

01:05:30Melissa Erbacher: And now, so Svenja, did you say yes? Yes, I did.

01:05:34Jess Trengove: Actually, I didn't say yes, but my choice was clear. Okay.

01:05:41Melissa Erbacher: I love the enthusiasm and just the joy and excitement that these two exude, especially when they talk about parkrun and how, you know, I recall Svenja saying that within two minutes, everything always goes to parkrun. Any conversation, it's their small talk topic of choice. which is awesome because it's also our small talk and our big talk topic of choice, obviously. We talk about it every week. And excitingly, you know, they went off on their adventure and they went to Germany and they're very well heavily involved in parkrun in Germany now. So hopefully that might – Don't say too much. Don't say too much.

01:06:24Scott Trickett: Don't say too much, Mel, because we sometimes overpromise. And underdeliver. Sometimes we overdeliver and underpromise, which is a better thing to do. So let's continue to do that for the next few episodes. But that was great. A nice chance to reminisce.

01:06:42Melissa Erbacher: I have had so much fun listening to previous episodes and, you know, bits and pieces that I remember fondly and then other bits that I'd forgotten that we had spoken about. If anyone ever has some downtime and they want to go back and listen to some old episodes, I highly recommend it. That's not really egotistical, is it, Scotty?

01:07:02Scott Trickett: No, it's fine. It's self-promotion, which is the definition. Well, I wouldn't know. Someone will correct us.

01:07:13Melissa Erbacher: Someone will correct us.

Channel 5 News Crew

01:07:24Melissa Ellis: Good morning parkrun adventurers. It's Melissa here reporting from Warragul parkrun. There's no birthday here today. There's no launch. It's just a regular old day at parkrun and I'm actually walking with the tail walker David. Good morning David.

01:07:40David: Good morning folks.

01:07:42Melissa Ellis: And thank you for volunteering today. David, what brings you to Warragul parkrun?

01:07:48David: Well, I had a friend of mine that was in parkrun at the very beginning when Warragul started, and he kept urging me to come along. And by about the end of October 2015, after I'd been going for about six months, I thought, can't stand him pestering me all the time. I'll just go along once just to humour him. And I came along and I came again and started getting the parkrun bug. So 100 parkruns later, I'm still here.

01:08:17Melissa Ellis: That's a fantastic story. Have you done any different parkruns?

01:08:22David: Yes, yes. When I got to 100, I had 90 parkruns. Warragul and Ten Away and different other places of course Bendigo, Coonwara, Pakenham, Jells Park, oh I did one in Newborough, a place in Melbourne which I can't remember how it's pronounced and I've done Bendigo about four times because we've got my wife's parents up there it's only about a five minute walk from where I stay to get to the parkrun so any time we're in Bendigo on a Saturday morning. I kind of like getting up there.

01:08:58Melissa Ellis: That's fantastic. It's nice to get to the local parkruns when you're on holidays. And have you done a few different volunteer roles?

01:09:07David: Yes, yes. This is probably about my 15th or 16th volunteer as well. So I'm pretty happy about that. I enjoy the volunteering, especially what I'm doing today because you can get to go in both, be a tail runner and an athlete. But I've done most of them and I really enjoy it.

01:09:32Melissa Ellis: And can you tell us about any interesting things that have happened to you while you've been volunteering?

01:09:37David: Oh yes, one day I was tail running and the people that were coming last was grandma pushing a pram, had a little girl with her which was a other granddaughter and we were going along nicely until the granddaughter saw the playground that we have halfway through the parkrun. And she said, oh, could I have a swing? And Grandma said, is that all right to me? And I said, oh, that's all right, have a little swing. That won't be a problem. She kept going and going. She was on the thing for about 20 minutes. And while she was on the thing, I... thought well what am I going to do so I got on the other swing and it was quite a sight to see a tail runner on a swing and what's going on here you know so she finally went back to walking again and We get to the finishing line because we've got to go twice around. We get to the finishing line first and then instead of turning around and going back and finishing the 5k, the little girl said, oh, I'm tired now, Grandma. I can't walk anymore. So they finished. And I was all on my lonesome and probably better. half an hour behind the rest of the field. Anyway, when I get to about half a kilometre away, they send out somebody looking for me. They thought the poor old tail runner had got lost. So I had to jog the rest of the way back and I still finished about 20 minutes past everybody else. So on the statistics that particular day, it didn't look very good that the tail runner was 20 minutes. I didn't know they were going to drop out.

01:11:21Melissa Ellis: No, that's just one of the joys of being the tail walker. We have to adjust.

01:11:26David: Yeah, and that was the playground.

01:11:27Melissa Ellis: That was the playground that we're currently walking past that people can't actually see. And you've had a bit of a journey yourself with your getting fit?

01:11:38David: Oh, yes, yes. When I first started, I never considered going walking again. Five Ks. Early days I'd do that around the golf course, but I've long since sort of not playing golf regularly. And staying on the weight, I got to about nearly 130 kilograms. I got down to about 125 when I, then I started parkrun. In about six months, I got down to about 107, and I've sort of maintained that weight, which I need to lose a bit more, but it was fantastic, that motivation to encourage me to exercise, not just on a Saturday, but throughout the week. Yep, get fit and healthy. Yeah, yeah. And so I attribute that to parkrun. Also, I... One of the things that I had since I was about 40 years of age, now about to turn 64, I had been a gout sufferer and I think my gout has improved too with the additional exercise. I don't get as many attacks anymore and the severity is not as high as it used to be or as great as it used to be when I didn't exercise.

01:12:55Melissa Ellis: Yeah, there's lots of benefits to getting out and getting moving.

01:13:00David: And the enjoyment of meeting everybody. We make a lot of good friends and every Saturday morning is one of the highlights of my week now.

01:13:08Melissa Ellis: Well, that's what I say. It's like Christmas morning comes around once a week.

01:13:11David: Yeah, that's right, yeah.

01:13:13Melissa Ellis: Okay. Well, thank you very much for talking to me today, David, and I look forward to bumping into you again.

01:13:18David: Thank you, Melissa. Thank you.

01:13:20Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Melissa, for reporting in from, well, I'm going to get this wrong. Is it Warragul or is it Warragul?

01:13:29Scott Trickett: It's neither.

01:13:30Melissa Erbacher: Who can tell? It looks like it should be war, but I don't know. She's certainly earning her keep these days. Thanks for the roving report, Melissa. Keep up the good work.

01:13:39Scott Trickett: So it's war. War. Warigal. Warigal. War.

01:13:44Melissa Erbacher: Warigal.

01:13:45Scott Trickett: Warigal.

01:13:46Melissa Erbacher: Waragal. Waragal.

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

01:13:49Scott Trickett: No chance of mispronouncing the launch this week in New South Wales in the town of Woy Woy. So nice they named it twice. apparently.

01:14:01Melissa Erbacher: We've got a few anniversaries as well. We've got Atherton in Queensland.

01:14:06Scott Trickett: Aveley in WA.

01:14:07Melissa Erbacher: Cobram in Victoria.

01:14:08Scott Trickett: And Strathalbyn in South Australia.

The Poem Zone

01:14:15[music]

01:14:15Melissa Erbacher: The Poem Zone. The entry for this week's Poem Zone comes to you from New South Wales where Simon Mackley has put fingers to keypad or pen to paper and he's written a little bit of an ode to Scotty. So I'll read this one out. Shall I, Scotty?

01:14:35Scott Trickett: Good on you, Simon. Go, Mel.

01:14:38Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Hopefully I do this justice for you, Simon. There once was a man from Westerfolds, a 2105 PB he holds. Although no marathon this year, the PB is threatened this year. How was that, Scotty?

01:14:57Scott Trickett: Well, the year and the year don't rhyme.

01:15:01Melissa Erbacher: Well, they do rhyme. It's the same word. It sounds the same.

01:15:05Scott Trickett: But also the last line is factually incorrect. The PB is not going to be threatened this year.

01:15:12Melissa Erbacher: So, Simon, you're going to have to go back to the writing desk and try again, I think is what Scotty's saying.

01:15:21Scott Trickett: No, no, I loved it. I loved it. It was my favorite poem so far. And because now we've got the new theme music and we don't want the segment to have a slow death, we're only going to have one poem a week in the poem zone. So keep them coming. We've done one for you now. We've done one for me. So now people can be really diverse. It's... Open slather, free reign. Poem about whatever you want a poem about. Mel, I've got a plane to catch. Literally, I've got a plane to catch. So I think we need to wrap up episode 119.

01:15:58Melissa Erbacher: Packing to do and...

01:16:00Scott Trickett: I was very organized. I was very organized. I packed on Sunday.

01:16:03Melissa Erbacher: What have you been wearing for the last two days?

01:16:06Scott Trickett: I've got more than a few pair of shorts. This was my dilemma. We're going over there in summer. Yes. I'm going over there. It's the summer. But it's an English summer.

01:16:16Melissa Erbacher: It is. So that only lasts for one week, and temperatures typically represent our winter in Australia.

01:16:25Scott Trickett: So anyway, so I've packed a few pair of shorts, but I've had to pack a pair of pants, which is going against everything that I believe in. But there's a dress code required, I think.

01:16:37Melissa Erbacher: If it was everything that you believed in, Scotty, you wouldn't own that pair of pants.

01:16:41Scott Trickett: So society pressures me into wearing these pants, and I don't like it. I'm going to rebel against it, and I'm going to start up the Shorts Appreciation Society, Mel, so it can become a real movement.

01:16:52Melissa Erbacher: The sass.

01:16:53Scott Trickett: Yes, I've turned my...

01:16:56Melissa Erbacher: For men with sass.

01:16:57Scott Trickett: For men with sass. It's the Shorts Appreciation Society. Look for it on Facebook because all good activism movements need a good Facebook page. I've converted my running club into a real thing. The Shorts Appreciation Society is going to be a real lobby group. Stay tuned. But on that note, Mel, you've got a crying baby. I've got a plane to catch. I'll speak to you in a different time zone next week for 120th or 113th episode of the parkrun Adventures podcast.

01:17:26Melissa Erbacher: I look forward to it, Scotty. Talk to you later.