Episode 133 - IpD recap

Episode details · 451 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:15Scott Trickett: A Friday release for episode 133 of the parkrun Adventurers. Mel Erbacher, thanks for joining me for the 131st time on the podcast.

00:00:29Melissa Erbacher: 137, oh, yes, okay.

00:00:31Scott Trickett: There was that time, remember?

00:00:33Melissa Erbacher: There was that one time I wasn't here. Yeah.

00:00:37Scott Trickett: I had another co-host, and you know what, Mel? I've been making plans during the week to replace myself. One week only, so all the Scotty Trickett fans, just calm down, breathe a sigh of relief. But I'm going to give you another co-host soon.

00:00:54Melissa Erbacher: Do I get any choice in the matter?

00:00:56Scott Trickett: No, no.

00:00:57Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I guess we all know who the boss is then, don't we?

00:01:01Scott Trickett: Yeah. It's a surprise for the listeners, and it's a surprise for you. So let's just hope we can work that out. But it's Friday. We're going to be releasing on a Friday again, recording late. parkrun seems like such a long time ago. But the good thing is, the next one's really close. But I want to go back to the last one, because that's what we do. I want to know, how was your International parkrun Day 2018?

00:01:27Melissa Erbacher: It was pretty good, Scotty. Thank you for asking. Low key in terms of celebrating that momentous day that it is, we just, you know, pretty much went to a parkrun that wasn't making a big fuss about it in particular, just another run slash walk in the park. That's the way I like it, to be honest.

00:01:48Scott Trickett: But it's never just a run slash walk in the park, Mel. You've visited a new event going by the name of St Lucia. Pretty cool name, I reckon. A little bit fancy.

00:01:59Melissa Erbacher: It is, and we have heard about St Lucia on the parkrun Adventurers before. Lyndell Murray was there about 12 episodes ago and had a chat with some of the locals and the event director, also gave a rundown of the course, so I won't go through all those things again. It was a great interview and a great piece of roving reporting from Lyndell, so if you haven't heard it, I do suggest you go back and have a listen. But what I will say is I had a lovely morning, good company. Good weather. Everything was great. Okay.

00:02:30Scott Trickett: That's good. Can I match that?

00:02:32Melissa Erbacher: Well, please try. I did notice that you went someplace so that I didn't get a whole other event ahead of you on the most events list, but please tell me all about it.

00:02:44Scott Trickett: Yes, that was not in my mind whatsoever. I just wanted to go to one of the parkruns that I've been watching the last couple of years. And it's true, like this came on my radar a few years ago when this place called The Ponds kept popping up. They had some great photos, but they also had some really big numbers. And the numbers were getting bigger and bigger each week. And as we always say, numbers is not an indicator of a successful parkrun. But something was happening out of this event called the ponds. Because I can understand big numbers at South Bank because that's in the middle of the city. And I can understand big numbers at maybe Centennial Park if we ever get a parkrun up there. But this place called the ponds kept growing and growing. So I headed there on the weekend. We went there with the boss. And we were treated, dare I say, a bit like royalty, Mel. The event team were very happy to see us, which is nice. It's nice to be welcomed and wanted in a place. On Friday night, we got together with the event team and had dinner. And then Saturday morning, there was a bit of a ceremony about it because they've got a new path down at the pond. So they applied for some funding. They worked with the council and they basically got a new path. to accommodate the large numbers.

00:04:06Melissa Erbacher: That's awesome. Yeah. I love it when councils get on board and work with the parkrun events.

00:04:11Scott Trickett: Yeah, so we had a bit of pomp and ceremony. Tim got up and did a bit of a spiel, but then he handed over to the councillor and the local member, and they were both, you know how sometimes when the politicians and the fancy people, the dignitaries get up a parkrun, they've never been, and they're just there to promote, push their message and say how wonderful it is and how wonderful the council is, blah, blah, blah, blah. But these two guys were spot on. You could tell that they'd actually been to parkrun. They said the right things. I saw the counsellor out. He was part of the run. He was walking his dog. But even the local member, he just said, the Ponds is awesome. parkrun's a great initiative. Really glad to help you get a new path. Enjoy your run. So it was off to a good start. And the other thing, you know how... Sometimes, Mel, I don't know if this happens at some events you've been to, that people talk during the pre-event brief. They do. Have you ever had that? Yeah.

00:05:06Melissa Erbacher: They're just having a chat and they don't sort of give the respect and attention to the run director that they probably should.

00:05:14Scott Trickett: Yeah. Well, at the ponds, everyone was fully focused on the event briefing. And that was another sign that this community really gets it. They pay respect. They're interested to know what's going on. So it was a really good start. And then the run was lovely, lots of high fives, lots of smiling faces, nice and flat. A negative split the whole way, Mel.

00:05:37Melissa Erbacher: Oh, God, does it get any better, Scotty?

00:05:39Scott Trickett: It was a good sign that maybe I'm starting to get a bit better.

00:05:43Melissa Erbacher: Were there donuts at the end? I think that's the only way you could possibly top this experience. There was donuts. How did you know?

00:05:52Scott Trickett: Are you serious? There was donuts in the cafe afterwards. I was trying to be good about it and sensible and I declined, but then they were just sitting there, so I had to take it. So I took them. It was an awesome international parkrun day for me. I really enjoyed my time out at the ponds.

00:06:10Melissa Erbacher: You had a good time. It sounds like an event that everybody needs to get to.

00:06:14Scott Trickett: One thing I want to touch on, Mel, is there was a great diversity of cultures out at the ponds, which is awesome. I love to see it. As you know, I worked at SBS for a long period of time. And I really like mixing with people from different cultures. I think I click really well with them. And as you know, the listeners may not know, I'm half Thai. You'd never know it. But I look like I'm Greek or Arabic or something. I definitely don't look half Asian. But... There's something about people's makeup and I click with a lot of Asian cultures. I love the Koreans, the Japanese, the Thais. When I was working at SBS, I was great mates with all the Cantonese and Mandarin crews. And I think that's just instinctive. And I really, really enjoyed my time mixing with the different cultures and the different people that visit the Bonds parkrun.

00:07:06Melissa Erbacher: Variety is the spice of life.

00:07:08Scott Trickett: It is. It is. And it was a perfect morning. I loved it. So this week, we're going crazy with roving reports and we're going to start. We've got a couple of our Channel 5 News crew overseas at the moment. Very exciting. We do.

Channel 5 News Crew

00:07:24Christy Gatehouse: We do.

00:07:24Scott Trickett: We've got to look at the wage structure because obviously we're paying them too much if they can afford all these overseas holidays. But we've got Lyndell. Well done, Lyndell. Lyndell travelled over to the US. She smashed out the Chicago Marathon in less than ideal conditions.

00:07:42Melissa Erbacher: Mere weeks after completing her 100th parkrun, by the way. Well done for that too.

00:07:48Scott Trickett: So she's in Chicago. She went to the local parkrun Heritage Harbour. So we're going to hear from her first. And then we're going to hear from your mate, Dave Moss, who's over in Ireland. And he gave us a double. So he went to Derry City parkrun and then he backed up the next day for juniors. So let's hear from the crew and then we'll come back and ramble a bit more.

00:08:11Melissa Erbacher: our foreign correspondents.

00:08:13Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun Adventurers. Happy International parkrun Day. It's Lyndell here and I'm reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew from the US of A on International parkrun Day. How cool is that? I am at the Heritage Harbour Ottawa parkrun which is in the state of Illinois just down the road from Chicago and it's the day before the Chicago marathon now I have it on good authority that there are other marathon runners here from all over the world from the UK and Russia apparently so I'm going to try and track them down after the run have a chat see how they got here and see what their story is with parkrun and I'm also really keen to have a chat to the run director here as well and just see you know, why it is that there's a parkrun in what seemingly is a small town in Illinois. So I'll check out the track and check back in after the run. Alrighty, we're not far off start time, but I've tracked down a couple of fellow Aussies. Introduce yourself, where are you from?

00:09:15David Cornetti: It's Simon Nash from Rhodes parkrun in Sydney. And David Cornetti, also from Rhodes parkrun in Sydney.

00:09:22Lyndell Murray: So what brings you to Heritage Harbour parkrun on International parkrun Day?

00:09:27Simon Nash: Well, we're coming here to do the marathon tomorrow. So how can you miss parkrun Day and not do parkrun? So we've done the one and a half hour drive from our digs in Chicago and come out to do a nice run.

00:09:43Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And Simon, you were saying this is not your first time at this parkrun?

00:09:46Simon Nash: Correct. I was here about 12 months ago, a couple of weeks after the marathon last year. But I was out here. There was a lot less people out here. And I managed to get my only ever and might only ever be my first finisher. So it's got a very special place in my parkrun history.

00:10:05Lyndell Murray: Absolutely. I don't think I'll ever achieve that. That's awesome. And how about you, Dave?

00:10:10David Cornetti: Yeah, well, it just transpired that over the past couple of weeks, Simon's now staying with us in Chicago and I hadn't even considered doing parkrun until that transpired. And Simon told me that was in his plans. I plan to do a run the day before the marathon and what a great way to do it.

00:10:30Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And so are you living in Chicago? Is that...

00:10:34David Cornetti: No, I'm also here from Sydney, just temporarily here for a week to do the marathon and what a great opportunity, only being here for a week and getting to do a parkrun as well.

00:10:46Lyndell Murray: Yeah, perfect. And what's your parkrun story? How did you get involved in parkrun and what's your involvement?

00:10:54David Cornetti: I've been running parkruns for a few years now. It was sort of very sporadically to start with, probably 2012-13 I started, then became somewhat of a regular and got to know Simon doing roads quite regularly. And I've done a few tourist parkruns, but this is my first international one, so looking forward to it.

00:11:17Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And how about you, Simon?

00:11:18Simon Nash: Okay, I've been running, doing parkrun for over five years now. I think I've only missed 20 weekends in those five years. So I've either been volunteering as one of the run directors at Rhodes or running. And this is, well, I've done parkruns in seven different countries now. Awesome. And I have also, I think, probably done about... 60 different runs all up, so a lot of touristing around Australia. Yeah, I love it.

00:11:46Lyndell Murray: Yep. Also, you are a real parkrun adventurer. Absolutely.

00:11:50Simon Nash: Awesome.

00:11:51Lyndell Murray: Well, thanks for having a chat with me today. All the best for today and, you know, I guess maybe for tomorrow as well. I don't know.

00:11:57Simon Nash: Well, thanks, Lyndell. It was good to catch up and good luck for you tomorrow as well.

00:12:01Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Thanks, guys.

00:12:02Simon Nash: Thank you very much.

00:12:04Lyndell Murray: Alrighty, post parkrun, I'm here with some of the Heritage Harbour regular parkrunners. What's your name and how'd you go today?

00:12:13Barbara: My name's Barbara and I live here in Ottawa and I've just, this is my 36th parkrun and I just am passionate about doing something that's free and promotes fitness.

00:12:23Tiffany: Awesome, and your name? My name is Tiffany and I'm from Earlville, Illinois which is just 20 miles north of Ottawa. Today is my first ever 5k, first time doing parkruns so it's amazing and I'm just doing it to support my mom who's on a great weight loss journey.

00:12:38Tina: Awesome! I'm Tina and I live close. I just come out every Saturday that I'm available from 9 to 10. Today was not my personal best. It was very humid, but I enjoy it. My goal is to not be last and to not stop. So I made my goal today.

00:12:57Lyndell Murray: That's excellent. The great thing about parkrun is no one's ever last, except if you're the tail walker. That's why we have a tail walker, right? Absolutely.

00:13:06Barbara: Yeah. If somebody does, you know, their volunteer position is to be the tail walker. So then they can't feel bad about it because they're here for a purpose.

00:13:13Lyndell Murray: So nobody comes last.

00:13:16Barbara: And how long has parkrun been here in Ottawa? Since June 9th of 2018. So just a little over a year.

00:13:22Lyndell Murray: Yeah, wow.

00:13:24Barbara: And how many people do you normally get on a regular day? One day when it was super duper cold and icy, we had one guy. But it ranges from five to ten. And then, of course, a day like today where there's a lot of Chicago Marathon runners, there's obviously a lot more. But it's usually a smaller number, but we're hoping to grow and get the word out there for Ottawa folks.

00:13:45Lyndell Murray: excellent now your first run first 5k well done will you come back to parkrun i am i'm going to try to come either the 27th of october or the 4th of november to beat my goal excellent that's great that's really good and um how about you you're you're local so yes i whenever i'm available i'm if i'm not working or babysitting i'm here so yeah And do you volunteer from time to time? Well, actually, last week I was the volunteer. I was last.

00:14:12Tina: Excellent. I think I was designated to be the volunteer last week.

00:14:17Barbara: That's all good when there's only five. That's all good when there's five people you can, yeah. And that was great.

00:14:23Tina: And they make you feel good. Absolutely.

00:14:24Lyndell Murray: And at my last, they said, no, you're the first person to pass with a white hat on. Excellent. Well, that's great. For me in Australia, parkrun's massive in Australia, so it's really nice to be here at an American parkrun. Thank you for making me feel so welcome, and happy parkrunning.

00:14:40Barbara: Thank you. It's great to have you here. Thank you. Good luck tomorrow. Good luck.

00:14:45Lyndell Murray: Alrighty, Scotty and Mel, as promised, I've found a Russian. What's your name? How are you today?

00:14:52Unidentified speaker: I'm Serena. I'm here for Chicago Marathon. And today I'm visiting parkrun, Harbour Heritage. It is 112 parkrun for me today.

00:15:08Lyndell Murray: Excellent, 112. And where have you done your others? Are they all in Russia?

00:15:13Unidentified speaker: Yes, most of them are in Russia, but one of them in Paris, one in South Africa before Comrades this year, and the third one is here.

00:15:25Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Hey, it's my third international parkrun as well. Great. High five.

00:15:31Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:15:32Lyndell Murray: Now, so what is your home parkrun in Russia and how did you get into parkrun in the first place?

00:15:40Unidentified speaker: My home parkrun and is the first parkrun in Moscow, Timiryazevsky name, Timiryazevsky parkrun.

00:15:49Lyndell Murray: And how did you find out about parkrun and how are you involved? Do you volunteer?

00:15:57Unidentified speaker: Most of them I am running, but of course I have around 20 volunteers. Excellent.

00:16:03Lyndell Murray: That's great. Well, thank you for talking to me. All the best for you and your friends for tomorrow. I hope you have a wonderful marathon tomorrow. And keep on parkrunning. Thank you so much. I'm so glad to meet you today. Okay, and what's your name and where are you from?

00:16:20Anna: My name is Anna, I'm from Moscow. I'm a part of parkrun Vernadsky team and I like parkrun tourism. How many different parkruns have you done? Nineteen.

00:16:35Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And how many internationally?

00:16:38Anna: This is the second.

00:16:40Lyndell Murray: Second. Excellent.

00:16:41Anna: And when I heard that there are parkrun near Chicago, I tried to find people who go there and I'm very happy that I found them.

00:16:56Lyndell Murray: So you posted on the Facebook page and somebody offered to pick you up. So you posted on the Facebook page and somebody drove you here? Yes, my friends. The drivers here? The driver is eating pork from breakfast at the moment. I saw that post. You put the shout out and said, I'm in Chicago. I want to go to the parkrun. Can anybody help? So thank you for talking to me today. Are you running the marathon tomorrow as well?

00:17:29Anna: Yes, tomorrow I will run marathon. And next week I hope that I will run parkrun in Washington.

00:17:39Lyndell Murray: Excellent. So you're doing another tourist run. And how long are you here for?

00:17:42Anna: I'm here. I'm in USA for two weeks. And I try to run as much parkrun as possible.

00:17:54Lyndell Murray: So two parkruns, two weeks. Perfect. Well done. Excellent. Well, thank you for talking to me, Anna. All the best for your marathon tomorrow.

00:18:03Anna: Thank you a lot. Thank you.

00:18:07Lyndell Murray: Alrighty guys, I'm slowly working my way through the United Nations. I've found some Brits. What's your name and what are you doing here?

00:18:15Tracy Grigolite: My name's Tracy Grigolite. I'm here to do the Chicago Marathon tomorrow with my husband Peter.

00:18:22Pete Grigolite: Hi, I'm Pete Grigolite, Tracy's husband. I'm also here for the marathon.

00:18:26Casey Lloyd: Hi, I'm Casey Lloyd. I'm from the UK, from London and here to do the marathon as well.

00:18:32Douglas: and i'm douglas i'm also from london and here to do the marathon tomorrow really looking forward to it all these marathon runners we're all a bit boring aren't we really it's just a dime a dozen so um how did you get into parkrun what's your home parkrun and what's your story uh so what i mean i got into parkrun i was actually searching for a 5k race to do where i was at university up in aberdeen in in scotland um and found parkrun on the web but then took like a four year break and now run regularly at Southwark parkrun in London where I'm also a run director so you're a run director and I think we've got your co-run director here as well yeah I'm also at Southwark parkrun in London it's really great and

00:19:19Casey Lloyd: All our friends are there as well. We all get on so well and it's really good fun. Yeah, I really enjoy it. But we've parked run all over. This is just one of our tourism trips, but it's good to go all over the world and it's always going to be the same. Everyone's going to be really friendly and it's going to be super fun. We've had a great time today.

00:19:38Pete Grigolite: Excellent. Peter? Hello, yeah, I've been running since the early 80s, a long, long time. I've done many, many events at all different distances. Never had anything like where it's been non-competitive, really, really friendly as well, all abilities. And when parkrun came around, when I first did it back in 2008, fantastic. You can socialise with people who are at the back and also people at the front. Everybody loves each other because it's such a friendly event and the volunteers are superb. so I've been doing it since then and I think today is my 260th so we do parkrun whenever we do a marathon which I've done many we always find a parkrun somewhere to do as well excellent

00:20:14Tracy Grigolite: Hiya, I started parkrun in 2009, it's what got me into running, so I'm really thankful that someone called Ewan Bowman, who's now, I think he's set up parkrun in Canada now, he set up Basingstoke parkrun, and I took part in 2009, and I got hooked on running, joined two running clubs, and since have done about 270 parkruns and 118 marathons now, so... This is it. I'm here this weekend. Had a lovely time at Heritage Harbour parkrun and looking forward to the Chicago Marathon tomorrow. Excellent. And how did you find the course today? Really lovely. Yeah, yeah. Fine. Not too many hills. That's always good. And so friendly and welcoming. You were great.

00:20:55Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And what has been, so a few adventurers here. Does anyone want to nominate their favourite international parkrun, given that it is International parkrun Day today?

00:21:08Douglas: I don't know if we can talk. favorites but I think that the craziest trip that we've done is we were going to do a race in Berlin before Germany had parkrun, luckily they do now, but back then the closest parkrun was in a city called Stettin in Poland which is Poland's seventh biggest city. Doesn't have a great deal of tourist attractions but we as a group of nine of us flew into Stettin, did the parkrun and then caught the train to Berlin to do a race which is a bit crazy.

00:21:37Lyndell Murray: Oh, that sounds like a terrific adventure. We always find a way, don't we, to get a parkrun into a trip, yeah? Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today, guys. All the best with your marathons tomorrow. It's going to be an awesome day, yeah? So have a great time. Thanks a lot.

00:21:52Pete Grigolite: Thank you. Good luck. Thank you.

00:21:54Lyndell Murray: Good luck.

00:21:55Pete Grigolite: Thank you.

00:21:57Lyndell Murray: All righty. I have tracked down the Irish contingent. What's your name? Where are you from? I'm Rosie, and I'm from Belfast.

00:22:05Phil: I'm Phil and I'm also from Belfast.

00:22:07Lyndell Murray: You travel in pairs, you Irish people, yeah?

00:22:09Rosie: Yes, definitely. And that's how we get into trouble more easily.

00:22:16Lyndell Murray: I'm just thinking about the lead-in to this segment. You know, an Aussie, an Irishman, a Brit, a South African walked into a bar.

00:22:25Rosie: ended up parkrunning at the end you fill in the middle so um so how did you get into parkrun well a friend of mine from new zealand he lives in northern ireland and he said to me on new year's eve uh come do this thing tomorrow we have a special run in the morning and because at 3 a.m irish people are always crazy in agree anything so i agreed to go and meet him and do the run and from that day onwards i uh i haven't stopped parkrunning so we're around our 150th i think or beyond 150th parkrun now excellent and have you done lots of different parkruns oh yeah yes phil's done one in australia

00:23:04Phil: I have. I've done one in Brisbane. Yes, I think that's... Which one? The one from Brisbane? I think it's... I can't remember what it's called. It's by the... There's probably the major one. I can't remember it.

00:23:13Douglas: South Bank?

00:23:14Phil: Yes, South Bank. That's it. That's it. That's it. But you guys get up super early in the morning. Yes. I think I had to travel for an hour and then it's a super early parkrun. Oh, jeez.

00:23:25Rosie: We have a nice leisurely parkrun at 9.30 in the morning because clearly we've been out on Friday night, so we need to go a bit later in the day. We're Waterworks parkrun Belfast, so we're the first Irish parkrun. Awesome, so you guys started it all. Oh, we started it for the island of Ireland. There's 28 in Northern Ireland, including one prison parkrun, and Phil and I have both done the prison parkrun. I've heard about the Prison Park Farm.

00:23:51Lyndell Murray: What an amazing thing.

00:23:52Rosie: It's fantastic. It's great for people to come and join in with the prisoners. They do all the volunteer roles. The governor and other guards, they run the parkrun as well. And the guys run, walk, and jog just like any parkrun. They have cake after. Like every special parkrun should. Yes, that's awesome. And you guys are running the marathon tomorrow? Yes, we're running the marathon. I'm running for the American Cancer Society. We did Berlin Marathon, met some lovely Australians, and so I've kept in touch with them. And tomorrow we're doing Chicago for the American Cancer Society and then New York in November. for Project Purple, which is a pancreatic cancer charity, and I have pancreatic cancer. So I run whilst undergoing chemotherapy and really to send a message to people, you can do whatever you set your mind to.

00:24:42Lyndell Murray: That's such an amazing story. Well done you. Fundraising as well. That's so terrific. And parkrun got you into all of that.

00:24:50Rosie: Yeah. parkrun started me. I started parkrunning, went to a running club, and we just kept going. 10Ks, half marathons, everything. It's just, there's no end. Ultras are next.

00:25:01Lyndell Murray: Get yourself into one of those. How about you, Phil?

00:25:04Phil: Yes, I just got Chicago Marathon, and that's me for the year. I think I'm resting up, but yes, I'm looking forward to it. I did work for... We had a cancer UK, so we raised money for that too. I got a lottery place in Chicago, so I was lucky that way. Excellent.

00:25:24Lyndell Murray: Me too. I certainly didn't qualify.

00:25:28Phil: Yes, not fast enough yet. All right.

00:25:32Lyndell Murray: Well, thank you so much for talking to me. Wonderful. All the best for your run tomorrow, and happy parkrunning. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you, bye. Oh, that's so cool. All righty. I think we're at our last country, but certainly not the least, South Africa. What's your name? What are you doing here?

00:25:55Paula: My name's Paula. We came to run Chicago Marathon, and as a precursor to that, we've come to the parkrun.

00:26:01Sean: My name is Sean. We've come to do the Chicago Marathon, and we decided to take a trip out to Heritage Harbour to run the parkrun.

00:26:09Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And how long have you been involved in parkrun and what's your parkrun story, I guess?

00:26:14Paula: So we started it about five years ago in South Africa. I've done 205 different parkruns, about 78 different ones. We like to travel from place to place. We like in South Africa, everything is close by, so you don't have to travel that far. So we're not mad tourists, but we're definitely tourists. Excellent and how many international parkruns have you done would you say? Probably this is our third one and next week we're going to do another one in Canada so that'll be our fourth one.

00:26:47Lyndell Murray: Excellent now you are doing a bit of touring around you're doing a Chicago marathon tomorrow and what other events have you got planned?

00:26:54Sean: So last week we did the wine glass marathon in Corning. We're doing Chicago tomorrow. And next week we're going to Canada and we're going to do the parkrun on the Saturday and the Niagara Falls marathon on the Sunday.

00:27:08Lyndell Murray: And then do you go home for a bit of a rest? Absolutely.

00:27:11Paula: Because we'll need some downtime, some recovery. And of course, we always need a few beers along the way. A cup of coffee and a bagel works as well. But we'll be here about another two weeks, and then we're back to South Africa. Excellent. And look, there's beer at the end of the Chicago Marathon. The Pope, yes. And it better be alcoholic, because if it's non-alcoholic, there's going to be trouble. I'm pretty sure it is.

00:27:37Lyndell Murray: I'm pretty sure. All right. Now, happy adventuring. Thank you so much. Thank you for talking to me today and enjoy the rest of your trip internationally on International parkrun Day. Good luck for tomorrow. Thank you. Okay, cheers.

00:27:51Sean: Thank you.

00:27:53Lyndell Murray: Okay, now I've found some domestic parkrun tourists. I've spoken to so many people from all over the world, but you guys are from another part of the US, yeah?

00:28:03Unidentified speaker: We're from Clermont, Florida, which is right outside of Orlando. We get a lot of visitors coming down to see Disney. Everybody makes the visit up to see us in Claremont. So we're up here in Chicago area during the summers. So we've been with the Ottawa parkrun here for the last year. We were at the first one and have been helping out ever since and running in it. And also we're heading back today to Claremont and we'll be there all during the winter and to our usual parkrun things. Frances and I have traveled around the United States and have done 15 different ones in the States. We just finished two in Seattle a couple of weeks ago and all the ones in the Midwest. So it's a great community and it's a lot of fun and we really enjoy it.

00:28:49Lyndell Murray: So 15, that must be close to a record in the U.S., yeah?

00:28:54Frances: Right now, we're at the top on the U.S. tourist list, and it will be hard to keep us there because there's always people wanting to get there to the top of the list, but yes.

00:29:03Unidentified speaker: We just got a new one in Florida. Gainesville just had one, so that's pretty close to us, so we're going to do that. So you'll be able to knock that one off? Yes, the next one.

00:29:12Lyndell Murray: We have all kinds of challenges in Australia with Alphabeteerism and, you know, the most events list. So you guys are leading the way for the U.S., it sounds like.

00:29:23Frances: We're trying. We're trying. It's a great Saturday morning addiction. It's a healthy lifestyle. And if you're going to travel, pick a Saturday parkrun and travel on from there. This country has some beautiful places to see, which we wouldn't have done if it wasn't for parkruns.

00:29:37Lyndell Murray: Wow, and how did you get into parkrun in the first place?

00:29:40Frances: parkrun started in our local community five and a half years ago, and we were at the inaugural run. We met some great people, and the community that it involved us in and the friends we've made through parkrun have just changed our lives completely. Yeah, we had...

00:29:55Unidentified speaker: Tim and Karen Bowler from Wales brought the concept over to Claremont and it's a great community there. A lot of folks involved anyways physically running in triathlons and that type of thing. So it really took off. We have a really good volunteer base and a great community spirit down there.

00:30:16Lyndell Murray: That's great to hear. parkrun doesn't run without volunteers and you guys obviously probably pull out the flag and volunteer from time to time.

00:30:25Unidentified speaker: For sure. Yeah, I do run director there in Claremont. I think Frances is closing in up and around.

00:30:31Frances: I've got 88 volunteers and I've got 91 parkruns. So I try to keep it even with parkruns to volunteering.

00:30:39Lyndell Murray: Nice work, guys. What a fabulous story. Thank you so much for talking to me on the podcast. You served. have just been such a pleasure all morning, very welcoming and happy and just really seem so happy to have us all here. And it's not even your home parkrun.

00:30:56Unidentified speaker: No, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. We really, really, it was a great day here today for Ottawa and appreciate everybody coming out and joining us.

00:31:03Lyndell Murray: It's been wonderful. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you. And thank you for the contribution that you guys make in your parkrun communities as well because it means so much to everybody. Happy birthday parkrun 14 today. Okay, I have found Pierre and as appropriate in my field of so many nations today, Pierre is from South Africa. How are you going? How did you end up at parkrun Heritage Harbour?

00:31:32Pierre: Well, I became the events director about a year ago, and my challenge was to find an event that was community-focused, active, as well as that would bring tourists to the resort out here. And the first thing that came to mind was parkrun. I experienced parkrun in South Africa at Nahoon Point. and that's where i did it a couple of times then it was a great atmosphere and i just said we needed one down here so this was and is the first and only parkrun in illinois excellent and how did you come to be in illinois yourself um either a wife or a job and it's definitely my wife that brought me here so um that's what brought me to illinois and it's been great experience excellent and are you are you a runner yourself I'm not. As soon as we get to the numbers where I desire our goal to be, then I'll definitely get on the course and become a part of it. But right now I feel my responsibility is getting the parkrun going on a regular basis and I just want to encourage it in any way possible.

00:32:42Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Now talking about that, the day-to-day here at Heritage Harbour, it's probably a bit bigger in the summer than the winter. How do you go with numbers on a week-to-week basis?

00:32:52Pierre: so we have had the least amount of cancellations i believe in the parkruns us we go from one runner in the winter with two feet of snow on the ground to up to 40 runners in summer and we've been going just on 15 months so we're still a fledgling parkrun um so it's been great and we're gonna see it grow i just you know a lot of locals are paying more interest, we're seeing who are the dedicated ones coming on a weekly basis, stepping up to volunteer, and I think it's just in the phase of growth of parkrun itself.

00:33:27Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And in the U.S. in general, parkrun is growing at the moment as well?

00:33:32Pierre: I would say so. When we started, our news release said one of 11, and now I think we're one of 23 parkruns in the U.S., so definitely great strides in the past year for parkrun.

00:33:45Lyndell Murray: Yep. Excellent. And now, you're not a runner. I was going to ask you to describe the course. Could you describe the course here at Heritage Harbour for me?

00:33:54Pierre: So the course is a bit of a challenge. It's predominantly flat around the harbor. So you always got water on your left or your right with great scenes of the harbor and the river itself. In winter, February months, you'll see a lot of bald eagles around on the harbor. This past February, we had 14 bald eagles sitting on the ice, which is great. In summer, it's a vibrant, active marina. So you see a lot of people out boating. SUP boarding, kayaking. It's a great atmosphere. So the course itself, great scenery. It goes from concrete to fine gravel to some really challenging bigger stones. But that will get sorted out with time.

00:34:41Lyndell Murray: Absolutely. And you get good support here from the marina.

00:34:45Pierre: Definitely, we get great support from the resort itself and the marina and the restaurant. So it's great that everybody's on board and believes in the parkrun.

00:34:55Lyndell Murray: Bagels and coffee for breakfast.

00:34:58Pierre: In winter, we go to bagels and coffee. In summer, we have a summer breakfast menu. So a lot of people stop over. A lot of the local vacationers like their Bloody Marys and their cocktails after parkrun, which is unique coming from South Africa where it's tea and scones. So it's a bit of a difference, but it's great.

00:35:21Lyndell Murray: Well, it starts a bit later. By the time you finish, it could easily be 10 o'clock, which is, you know, Bloody Mary hour, really.

00:35:27Pierre: Yes, the Tiki Bar opens at 10 o'clock, so it's definitely a Bloody Mary hour. So it's a great atmosphere, environment, and it's great seeing everybody from all over just coming and connecting. We've often had guests or international park-run tourists coming here regularly, almost on a weekly basis, and so just meeting people from all over is encouraging. And it's great that people make the journey, especially from Chicago. It's about an hour and 30 minute drive, but it's very easy. You know, just coming and enjoying it with us. So it's great.

00:36:02Lyndell Murray: Definitely. Well, when I was coming to Chicago, my husband said, are you going to do a parkrun? I didn't think there would be one close enough and I was so happy that there was. I'm really happy to have come today, Pierre. You do such a great job. Thank you so much for the contribution that you've made to this community, to the Chicago running community and to parkrun.

00:36:20Pierre: I appreciate it. Thank you for coming out and thank you for your time. Great. You're very welcome.

00:36:28Lyndell Murray: Alrighty, Mel and Scotty, I think that's a wrap from me from the Heritage Harbour Ottawa parkrun. International parkrun Day, International parkrun, tick, done and dusted. Over and out for the Channel 5 News crew.

00:36:44David Moss: Hello, we're in Londonderry Island and we've just run the Derry City parkrun and I'm with...

00:36:51Andy McEnroy: My name is Andy McEnroy and I'm a regular here at the Derry parkrun. I've done about 68 of these now, started a couple of years ago. So I try and get down every fortnight or so just to get a run in, get a bit of training in for my 5k and 10k racing.

00:37:05David Moss: And it's a beautiful run that you've got here today. How often is the weather like this? Blue sky, clear, bit nippy?

00:37:11Andy McEnroy: Well, we get everything here, of course. You know, in the summertime, we can get some very warm days, but in general, we often get kind of cloudy skies and a bit of drizzle. But today, it's really breaking the mould because it's the glorious sunshine. The autumn leaves are in colour. There's very little winds and there's a good turnout today at the Derry parkrun so everyone's having a great time and just enjoying the sunshine for a rare change. And could you describe the course for us? Well it's an out and back course, it's a fairly flat course with a couple of inclines just to kind of keep the pressure on about the halfway mark. So we go down the Derry Quay side along the water and then we go over the new Peace Bridge which connects the water side with the old Derry City. and then we go into St Columb's Park where we turn at the bench and come down back through the park and over the bridge so it's an out and back course so you've got one final kilometre flat when you come in into the finish line ah yes it's a bit of a sprint finish there and tell me what actually got you into parkrun? well um I decided to get back into the running again. I was a runner in my youth and when my kids came along the running really took a back seat and I really did very little and when the kids got to an age that I felt I could continue it again I thought the parkrun would be an ideal way just to get to ease myself into a kind of non-competitive but yet still kind of social side of running so that got me started again.

00:38:26David Moss: Ah, the non-competitive parkrunner. Yes, we've heard of them. Andy, thank you very much and enjoy your walking later on today.

00:38:34Andy McEnroy: Yes, and enjoy the rest of your trip. I hope you have a good time. Thank you.

00:38:36David Moss: Okay, and I'm with... George Rowe from Derry City parkrun. And George, you were doing the timing today, wasn't it? Yeah. On there. And how did you get involved in parkrun?

00:38:48George Rowe: Well... Coming up to my 60th birthday, I decided that my 60th birthday present to myself was going to be to run the local marathon. Well, it was about a year before my 60th birthday I made that decision. And soon after I started training for the marathon, I discovered the local parkrun group. and it's been my that was three years ago and it's been my sociable running uh since then you know the rest of the time for me running is a it's a solitary thing it's my alone time i get out with one good thing about this town is we've lots of cycle paths along the river uh so uh i can do a 20 mile run and only have about one or two miles anywhere near traffic uh here so uh i do most of that on my own uh saturday mornings uh parkrun that's my so the social side of my running yeah to me that's one of the best things about parkrun is the social side and as we've been told it's really a social event with uh i guess running is running and walking as being a

00:39:59David Moss: A condiment on the top.

00:40:01Phil: Yes, a bonus to it.

00:40:02David Moss: Yes. I think I mentioned to you when I first came here, one of the nicest things I thought about this was walking down to the river before the parkrun and seeing an otter. Yes, yes. Do you get much wildlife here?

00:40:15George Rowe: There's a surprising amount. I mean, the cycle paths go out of town for five or ten miles on either side along the river. And yeah, I mean, yeah, we see the seals and the very occasional dolphin. We once had a whale came into the river, but... That was 20 years ago and is now mythological more than physical. He never came back. He was known as Dopey Dick because he came up the river and couldn't get out. But what I'm running on the cycle tracks, I come across foxes and squirrels and rabbits. I'm amazed that anybody on the edge of town can grow anything in their gardens from the number of rabbits we have on the edge of town. And if I'm running, because I tend to run either early in the morning or in the evenings. So at twilight I'll often see owls flying over. And yeah, so encounters with wildlife is one of the aspects of my running on my own.

00:41:23David Moss: Question, how many people do you normally get running the Derry City parkrun?

00:41:28George Rowe: Well, this morning we had 92. That's become sort of roundabout our typical number. It's been building up over the years. It used to be we'd expect it to be in the 70s, but this year it's been at that level. The most we ever had was 200. On our 200th parkrun, we tried to get 200 people, and we ended up with 210, I think it was, that morning. Excellent. It's a bit, because of the narrow path here at the start, the first, you know, especially that sort of first turn around the car park, that's our limiting factor, I think, you know, because once they get spread out, we could easily accommodate hundreds, but that first 400 meters or so is, I think, our limiting factor.

00:42:18David Moss: no it's a beautiful course and i thank you very much for volunteering today all right well you're welcome thanks very much for coming and being our our i think our our barefoot record holder uh for dairy so what can i say okay thank you well done okay we're at the what do you call it dairy jerry city junior parkrun uh it's been going now we're on our 36th event today it started there in the new year

00:42:41Ciaran Coyle: It's going well. My name's Ciaran Coyle. I am the event director. I'm also the run director today. A lot of our core team are away doing a 5K, so it was kind of last minute. We had a couple of volunteers that just jumped in. If anybody knows Junior parkrun or the Adult parkrun, it's always a struggle trying to get volunteers. I don't know how we do it, but every Sunday we seem to do all right, so the panic's over now.

00:43:05David Moss: And how do the kids enjoy it?

00:43:07Ciaran Coyle: Well, it's kids are loving it. It's more so the adults are finding it difficult getting up in the morning. And if the adults could just kind of get up a wee bit early, bring the kids. I think we had 50 plus kids here today. So we're gradually growing. And I think the kids just love the response as well.

00:43:26David Moss: And what got you into starting the kids, the Junior parkrun?

00:43:29Ciaran Coyle: Oh, I ran an event in Limavady. And then I got a job here in Derry in Foyle Arena. And we ran, I ran a 2K superhero event there in March where we had all kids dressed up as superheroes. We had 280 kids attend it. And I just thought to myself, let's start a Junior parkrun. So yeah, that's how it came about. I approached the council and then I found out that the council had already paid for Junior parkrun and that they'd been sitting on the shelf for seven years. And I was like, right, let's just get this going.

00:44:04David Moss: So I've got to admit that would be the envy of quite a few other places.

00:44:09Ciaran Coyle: It was paid for and they just, and so it was like, okay, let's just get it done. So I got in contact with Junior parkrun. They double checked to make sure that it was paid. Yeah, they said. Then the equipment got sent out and because I had previous experience in another event I had a step down from that from being event director at the adult one to the kids one and I have to say I enjoy the kids one a lot better. The adults get really caught up in their times and they can kind of they forget their barcodes, new kids forget their barcodes, the kids are very obedient to the rules and they don't really get caught up in the times and the personal best it's more the adults and as I said it's the wristbands and their certificates and they're bringing their friends and it's now become like none of the core volunteers knew each other and we pretty much were all strangers but it's become a little nice little family and

00:45:02David Moss: I'll also say with the actual run, it seemed to me as though only seeing the start and the finish of the kids ones, they've got a harder run. It starts off downhill and they've got an uphill finish.

00:45:12Ciaran Coyle: One of the difficulties living, if anybody knows, Derry or Donegal, we're kind of surrounded by hills. We're trying to find somewhere that's flat. We have the location here in the park is ideal for it because we have Foil Arena, which is a big sports centre. It's got toilets, there's a cafe inside. We have St. Colm's Park, which is quite hilly. So that was probably the hardest bit, setting up the junior parkrun was finding a route. And we also wanted something that was manageable. We also had, I think, long-term of the weather conditions, you know, ice, trees. And then I thought to myself, you know, this is nice. There's a bit where they actually run through the forest, which is quite nice for the kids. It is hilly. I know that. But all the other routes that we looked at were just boring. There was one route that was just, you were going to go out a railway line and then back and it was just flat, completely flat, but no toilets, no facilities, nothing happened to it. This one ticked all the boxes. The adults or the kids, they're not really put off by the hills.

00:46:12David Moss: I've got to admit, I enjoyed watching you doing the warm-up with the kids this morning. You see they're all bouncing around, doing the star jumps. Well, it wasn't squats, but jogging on the spot.

00:46:22Ciaran Coyle: It's kind of making it up. I always forget something at the runner's brief. I always forget something. I used to get really caught up on it, but as long as I get the... Oh, the parents were joining in at the back as well, which looked really good. Aye.

00:46:34David Moss: Oh, that's about it. Thank you very much, Ciaran. No bother. And enjoy. I will also say for the listeners there, it is Ireland. Yesterday was an absolutely brilliant day. Today isn't. And the kids were the ones who got stuck with that. It's actually cool. It's overcast. It's not raining. But the weather changes from day to day. Yeah.

00:46:52Ciaran Coyle: We've had to cancel this event a few times. Because of icy conditions and stuff. Because of the last winter we had, it was quite fierce. But generally, the kids love it.

00:47:03David Moss: The kids are as enthusiastic as anything.

00:47:05Ciaran Coyle: The kids will range, snow, whatever, they'll take part in it. As I said, it's the parents that they just bring their kids. The kids will do it. They have no problem doing it. All right, thank you.

00:47:14David Moss: Okay, thank you. Back to you, Scott and Mel.

00:47:18Melissa Erbacher: I love going international on International parkrun Day. We should try to have foreign correspondents overseas on International parkrun Day every year, Scotty. What do you think?

00:47:27Scott Trickett: Yep. Yep. And as I said, we'll look at the budget, see if we can afford it. But yep, we've got 12 months to plan for it.

00:47:36Melissa Erbacher: Exactly. And, hey, you know what it reminds me of? Well, it sort of, what's the word, spurred me to think on about it is my parkrun birthday. So obviously International parkrun Day is the birthday or the anniversary of the birth of parkrun in the world. But every individual goes to parkrun for the first time on one particular date. And that's their parkrun birthday. Do you know when your parkrun birthday is, Scotty?

00:48:07Scott Trickett: I do, because I'm looking at my Chrome extension page as we speak. Okay, so when's your birthday? Mine is Saturday the 2nd of March 2013. And I'm kicking myself. Kicking myself, because I knew about it well before then.

00:48:24Melissa Erbacher: Ah, see, I'm older than you in parkrun years.

00:48:27Scott Trickett: So when's yours?

00:48:28Melissa Erbacher: I'm Saturday the 3rd of November 2012.

00:48:32Scott Trickett: So yours is coming up.

00:48:34Melissa Erbacher: It is and I've actually organized myself a birthday party trip. So I'm going to be in Tasmania. Tasmania. becoming a navigator on my parkrun birthday. I couldn't think of a more fitting time to do it.

Chrome extension stats head-to-head

00:48:51Scott Trickett: So, well, that prompts me. Let's do a deep dive on the old Chrome extension, Mel. So, you've got me on parkrun birthday, but let's go through a couple of those other stats on the additional athlete stats bit.

00:49:06Melissa Erbacher: Oh, no. Is this where we level up the competition? It's not a most events list anymore. You want to see how we compare across everything.

00:49:15Scott Trickett: I'm just looking for other avenues to get ahead. To get the edge.

00:49:19Melissa Erbacher: All right.

00:49:20Scott Trickett: So number of parkruns, total number of parkruns. Hang on. Let me just get my counter.

00:49:26Melissa Erbacher: So that's total number of events run or walked.

00:49:29Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:49:29Melissa Erbacher: Because that doesn't count the volunteers. Yeah, okay. So you're going to score us, are you?

00:49:34Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm writing. Who's going to win in each category? Yep.

00:49:39Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I'm on 145.

00:49:41Scott Trickett: Smash it. 226. So I'm getting close to my next shirt, which is good because you know what, Mel? I don't fit in any of my other ones.

00:49:51Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you're too buff these days. Those muscles are bolting out of your previous shirt.

00:49:56Scott Trickett: I wish, if buffed.

00:49:58Melissa Erbacher: That's not quite the truth.

00:49:59Scott Trickett: No, I'm buffed in the lower section.

00:50:02Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Disproportionately buffed.

00:50:09Scott Trickett: Yeah, my tummy's poking out. But anyway, that's great because I need a new 250 shirt, so I'll get you there.

00:50:17Melissa Erbacher: I'm ages away from that.

00:50:19Scott Trickett: Should we just pick another couple? What about the old famous?

00:50:21Melissa Erbacher: You don't want to run down the entire list?

00:50:23Unidentified speaker: No.

00:50:24Scott Trickett: It could get a bit boring, so let's just pick and choose.

00:50:27Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:50:27Scott Trickett: I'm just going to pick and choose the ones that I'm pretty confident I'm going to win. You think you're going to win. All right. Let's visit the old Wilson Index. Getting lots of traction on the With Me Now podcast. So just to drive them mad, let's bring it up again.

00:50:41Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:50:44Scott Trickett: Mine's sitting at six, which is pretty low.

00:50:48Melissa Erbacher: I'm on three. But I did go through and figure out what all my little numbers were that I'm missing. I am missing both four and five. But after that, I would jump up to ten.

00:51:00Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:51:01Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. And then after ten, I think I'd jump up to something like 19 or, yeah.

00:51:07Scott Trickett: But this is something that can sort of happen by accident because then I've got to go looking for event number seven somewhere and that just doesn't pop out at you.

00:51:18Melissa Erbacher: Well, the young ones do. It's pretty easy to, what's the word, premeditate plan going to, you know when something's just about to launch or it has just launched. And it's very easy to wait until event number seven to pop along and visit. It's the ones when they're up in, you know, the 28s, the 36s, where you've got to really do some digging to make sure you haven't been to that event earlier. Oh, no, it doesn't... You know what? It doesn't even matter if you've been to the event earlier because as long as you... never been to an event that is on that number, you can get it. And see, this is where you have the advantage on me and I'm surprised that your index is still so low because so how many parkruns, how many total number of parkruns have you done? Because you said you beat me but you didn't say by how many.

00:52:06Scott Trickett: 226.

00:52:07Melissa Erbacher: 226. So you've got like approximately 80. You've got 79 more events than me to have been in consecutive events you know, runs, and you're still that low. I almost think that's a win for me.

00:52:22Scott Trickett: Yeah, but almost is not the same.

00:52:25Melissa Erbacher: It's a higher index, so on a technicality, I guess that's a win for you.

00:52:30Unidentified speaker: Yep.

00:52:30Scott Trickett: Let's go to, you might get me here, so I'm throwing you a bone. What's your tourist quotient?

00:52:36Melissa Erbacher: Oh, my tourist quotient is 44.83%. So you smashed me there. It's almost 50% of my total runs.

00:52:44Scott Trickett: I'm sitting at 28%.

00:52:47Melissa Erbacher: Okay. That's interesting.

00:52:50Scott Trickett: Still not bad.

00:52:52Melissa Erbacher: Mind you, none of these things do factor in volunteers, like your tourist volunteers or, yeah. But, I mean, I guess those are separate stats really, aren't they?

00:53:02Scott Trickett: There is another stat down the very bottom that says total volunteer roles. Now, I know you're going to beat me there.

00:53:09Melissa Erbacher: Well, we don't need to go into that one then.

00:53:12Scott Trickett: No, but I'm curious. No, well, I'm curious. I'm curious.

00:53:13Melissa Erbacher: Isn't that the randomest thing? Average park ride latitude, longitude, location. Like of all the events you've done, where would we place you in the world? I wonder if you put that into some kind of thing on the line, whether or not it would just find you in like the Bahamas or someplace weird. If you've done a few in the north and I don't know, I reckon I'd probably end up in North Queensland or Southeast Asia or something.

00:53:41Scott Trickett: Well, you can do it. I've just done it.

00:53:43Melissa Erbacher: Where did you put it?

00:53:44Scott Trickett: You just Google that. So Google that number. Okay. And it pops me. I'm in northern Victoria near Lake Terrell in the middle of nowhere. My closest town is Chin... Chincapook.

00:54:01Melissa Erbacher: Okay. I am near P Road, P-E-I, Pay Road. Um... which is just, I believe, outside of a place called Jackson South near the Yoolaba State Forest in Queensland. So I'm just scrolling out a bit more. Oh, that's, wow, okay. It's because I've done so many down south now too. I've done so many New South Wales and Tassie and Victorian events, I guess. That's actually pretty on par, I suppose, all my sunny coast events too. It's almost directly in line with the Sunshine Coast, but it's inland. It's not far from Roma.

00:54:49Scott Trickett: There you go.

00:54:50Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, there you go. How does yours compare to Westerfold's?

00:54:55Scott Trickett: North, south? Oh, north. So I'm north. So I'm up near the border of New South Wales and Victoria, getting close to Mildura where we don't have a parkrun.

00:55:05Melissa Erbacher: That'll be all those international events that are pulling you further north.

00:55:09Scott Trickett: Probably, probably. So let's finish it up. So I think we're even. Okay, so for the decider, let's go for total distance travelled.

00:55:22Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you're going to smash me on this one. What is it? Tell me how far you've gone.

00:55:27Scott Trickett: So mine is 119,000 kilometers.

00:55:31Melissa Erbacher: Okay. You get me by about 20,000 or something. I'm on 93,980. There we go.

00:55:38Scott Trickett: The Chrome extension. Deep dive. Scotty's the winner. Let's go to the rest of our roving reports because we've already had a batch from International. Let's bring it back home to the rest of our crew. Gary Murphy visited Geeveston last week. We missed it. We missed it in the emails, came a bit late. So Gary was there two weeks ago. And then we're going to visit Castlemaine and we're going to round it out with a new event in South Australia, Charleston. Mel, you can dance along to that roving reports. But let's take it away, Gary.

00:56:12Gary Murphy: hi everyone it's gary murphy reporting in for the channel 5 news crew this week i was lucky enough to go to jeepston parkrun in tasmania the southernmost parkrun in australia and part of the Compass Club, also part of the Stayin' Alive club as a G for the Bee Gees and i had a ripper morning with some great people out there and here's a few of the people i was lucky enough to speak to Alright, now I've got Brooke and Lucy here at Jeeveson parkrun, and we've just finished. Lucy was 29th, so we've got, you were 28, and Brooke was 29, so we've got the run the date barcode token here, so that's all good for me, I'm happy with that, thanks for that girls. How long have you both been parkrunning for?

00:56:53Unidentified speaker: Um, since it started.

00:56:55Gary Murphy: Since it started. So I think, what, today's 11? So you've done all 11?

00:56:58Unidentified speaker: I started last week.

00:56:59Gary Murphy: Did you?

00:57:00Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:57:00Gary Murphy: Awesome. And did your mum and dad start you out, or did you hear about it?

00:57:04Unidentified speaker: Yeah, they started us. Yeah. It was their idea to do it.

00:57:07Gary Murphy: Yeah. And what's your favourite thing about coming to parkrun?

00:57:10Unidentified speaker: Um, running with your friends.

00:57:11Gary Murphy: Ah.

00:57:12Unidentified speaker: Yeah, same.

00:57:13Gary Murphy: Yeah?

00:57:13Unidentified speaker: Yeah, running with my friends.

00:57:15Gary Murphy: And what do you think about the course? I reckon it's really great for high fives. Yeah. We were having a few challenges getting them all right, but they all count, that's right, yeah? Yeah. And so have you encouraged some other friends from school to come to Park Road?

00:57:27Unidentified speaker: Well, our friend who, she's not here today because she's in Victoria, but she... We were talking about it at school and she started doing it. Yeah. Yeah, Brooke and Ella encouraged me to do it as well. And then I told my mum when we came.

00:57:43Gary Murphy: We did it. Terrific. Well, thanks for that today. Well done. And that was so much fun. I'd love to come back and try and get those high fives right next time. Thanks girls. I'm at the Jeeveston parkrun hut and we've finished parkrun and I'm with Jamie who did the barcode scanning today. Thanks for volunteering Jamie. Not a problem, happy to.

00:58:01Jamie: How long have you been parkrunning for? About two years now I've been parkrunning. I started off in Darwin. One of my friends who lives in Canberra put me on to parkrun so I did my first one in Darwin. Then I started in Hobart, Bellerive, Queen's Domain and down here and I've also done one in Ireland when I was over there for work. Wow, that's great. And how many times have you volunteered? This is my sixth time volunteering. So fourth time here at Jeeveston. Really good. And what do you do in your normal life? My normal life, I'm a helicopter pilot. So I do fly in, fly out work and fly people out to oil rigs.

00:58:35Gary Murphy: Yeah, and how did you hear about, oh you said you heard through a friend about parkrun? Yes.

00:58:42Jamie: And so how did you hear about Geeveston parkrun when it started up? Emma and Nina basically put us something on Facebook that they were thinking of starting a parkrun and through mutual friends I said yes, I'm interested in helping out with that because I saw what parkrun was and I liked it so I thought it'd be great to have down here in the Huon Valley so that's how I found out about it when in its infancy yeah so yeah and so with your job does that give you offer you the opportunity to go and visit different parkruns while you're working or it does unfortunately there's no parkruns where I work at the moment there's none in Broome but I have done as I said in Darwin and um I was going to do one I did one in Ireland and I was going to do one in Norway but my timings didn't work out in Norway disappointing yeah

00:59:20Gary Murphy: We'll have to find parkruns with helipads nearby so that you can drop in and get your parkrun done and you can go back to work. Yeah, that'd be great. So what was the island parkrun like?

00:59:31Jamie: It was fantastic. I was there for work in Ireland. I knew I had Saturday off so I had a look on the parkrun global website and then went to the island website and saw that ones were going to be close by. I thought, I don't just want to do one through a park. I want to do something that's a bit different. So there's one called Malahide parkrun in Ireland. It's around an old castle. So it was absolutely fantastic. And we found out the last person that was a baroness of the castle actually retired to Tasmania. So there's a little bit of serendipity there. So it was good. But there was 360 parkrunners and two Australians running parkruns in Ireland. Well, thanks, Jamie, for talking to me. Thanks, Gary. Thanks for your contribution to parkrun. No, thank you. And all the best for the future. Thanks, mate.

01:00:09Gary Murphy: we're at the cafe now and i've got nina coops and kirsty gatehouse christy oh my god see i chopped that bit out christy christy i'll say it three times christy christy christy and you watch i'll still stuff it up um and Nina — Nina and Emma started parkrun, so they're co-EDs so how did how did it come about to start nina

01:00:36Nina Coops: We were looking on the Running Mums Australia Facebook page and saw that there was parkruns happening and found out a little bit more about it and decided that we should have one here in the Huon Valley.

01:00:47Gary Murphy: And was it hard to get the parkrun started or did you have a bit of help?

01:00:50Nina Coops: No, we had a lot of help. Christine Timms was amazing with getting everything set up and it all snowballed from there and we had a lot of support for the local community, so it was great.

01:00:59Gary Murphy: And it's a, I suppose you'd call it an out-and-back course. It's like a triangle, like it's like a flux capacitor actually. Yeah, yeah. But it's... What?

01:01:12Christy Gatehouse: I called it a J.

01:01:14Gary Murphy: So it's back to the future reference. Yeah, that's a bit vague, isn't it? But I can tell you, it's really good for high fives and we come back to where the volunteer crew are based at the start. So that's really good to get a lot of, absolutely, there was a lot of cheer today. Was it hard to find a course?

01:01:31Nina Coops: It was hard to find a course, yeah. It took a little bit of hunting around, but we found one eventually that suited all the requirements and yeah, it's beautiful here in Geeveston, so yeah.

01:01:41Gary Murphy: And I noticed that the course, there's a sign that says platypus walk.

01:01:45Nina Coops: Yep.

01:01:46Gary Murphy: Do you see many platypus?

01:01:47Nina Coops: There is one. Yeah, there is one that inhabits the river, the Kermandie River there. So we do have one that pops up from time to time. But on our trial runs, Jamie saw it, our first trial run. Yeah, that's true.

01:01:57Christy Gatehouse: Yeah.

01:01:58Gary Murphy: And Christy, run director for the first time today.

01:02:01Christy Gatehouse: Yes, it was amazing. I did such a great job. You did? I had an excellent support crew.

01:02:08Gary Murphy: And how did you get involved in parkrun?

01:02:10Christy Gatehouse: So Emma is our personal trainer and Nina comes to class with us and I got volunteered. So I'm not a big runner but I do like to help out so I'm here for the volunteering, occasional walking, it's great, it's good fun.

01:02:28Gary Murphy: Well, you did a ripper job today for your first time.

01:02:30Christy Gatehouse: Thank you so much. Great job.

01:02:32Gary Murphy: So, well done on that. Nina, have you done much touristing? Have you been around to different parkruns?

01:02:37Nina Coops: No, no. The only one I've been to is Belle Reve. Yeah. So, I'm looking forward to checking out some more. Now, we've got some more here in Tassie.

01:02:43Gary Murphy: Yeah.

01:02:43Nina Coops: Yeah.

01:02:44Gary Murphy: And we have to say thanks to Em for getting Geeveston parkrun going. Yeah. A big thank you to Emma. But for also bringing another parkrunner into the world in the last week.

01:02:50Nina Coops: Oh, yes. Yeah. A new parkrunner born yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. Little Caitlin. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Congratulations. Congratulations to Emma. The only reason she's not here today.

01:03:00Christy Gatehouse: She'd be so devo. Yeah. Yeah.

01:03:02Gary Murphy: Well, it went fantastic today and we had a great parkrun. So thanks, Emma, for getting it going. And thanks to the crew here today for a lovely day at parkrun. And into the Southern, what's it called? Compass Club.

01:03:15Nina Coops: Compass Club. Yeah. And the Bee Gees. Stay in the light. Bye.

01:03:20Gary Murphy: well thanks crew and thanks for talking to the parkrun Adventurers thank you for coming down

01:03:27Melissa Ellis: Good morning parkrun adventurers. It's Melissa here coming to you from Castlemaine parkrun in Victoria. I've got with me Ange. Hi Ange. Hi, how are you going? I'm good. Now we're tail walking. I'm tail walking today. Firstly, Ange, can you describe the beautiful Castlemaine course for us?

01:03:46Ange: Oh, it's amazing. It's a very flat course. We do three laps of the beautiful Castlemaine Botanic Gardens. So there's lots of ducks with their little ducklings at the moment in the lake.

01:04:02Melissa Ellis: Yeah, it's very pretty. We've got a gravelly trail to walk on and the blossoms are out, the sun's out. It's a bit of shade when it's hot here too. There's no nice shady trees.

01:04:15Ange: Tell me about your parkrun, how you started in parkrun. Well, I was going to the gym and I started doing some running on the treadmill. Then I started, I got an app that was about couch to 5K and And around that time, parkrun was just starting off in Castlemaine and I saw the postcards advertising it and I was a bit scared of coming along. And I started off just walking. I built up to a bit of walking and running and then eventually I could run a whole lap. That was an exciting day, the day I ran a whole lap. And even more exciting was the day that I first ran three laps, the whole 5Ks. So I built up to being able to run 5Ks

01:05:04Melissa Ellis: That was pretty exciting. It is. It's a big thing when you haven't been a runner and you start off having to walk sections and you finally get that magical, I did the whole thing, I ran the whole thing. Has it encouraged you to do any other running, any fun runs? I know you've got one here in Castlemaine tomorrow.

01:05:24Ange: Yeah, I'm back to walking at the moment just because I've got a few body concerns that I'm trying to work with and do other exercise to to resolve those issues but I'm still turning up and doing what I can and being part of the community here yeah yeah and it did get me into doing, um, Run the Maine event so I've done that a couple of times over the years that supports the local hospital I believe yep and it's their 10th year do they say at the race briefing yeah 10th anniversary this week yep

01:06:01Melissa Ellis: That's good. Okay, well, thanks very much for talking to me, Ange. Thanks, Mel. Okay. Okay, now I've got with me Jane, who's one of the run directors at Castlemaine parkrun. Hi, Jane. How are you this morning? Oh, well, thanks, Melissa. And you were the timekeeper today? Oh, yes. One of the timekeepers. You're one of the run directors? I am. I am. Not today, though.

01:06:19Jane: I have to remember to behave. Not tell everyone what to do.

01:06:23Melissa Ellis: And how did you come to be a run director at Castlemaine?

01:06:26Jane: Well, I moved to Castlemaine about two and a half years ago. And it's the first town I've lived in that had parkrun. I came from a small town in western New South Wales. And so I saw it was on. I was doing a bit of running for fitness. And I had other friends who were doing parkruns in other parts of the world. And I thought, oh, well, I'll come along and see what it's all about. And that was about... It was about two and a half years ago, I suppose, I did my very first parkrun, which was also my first parkrun here at Castlemaine. Oh, excellent.

01:06:56Melissa Ellis: So what are you up to now?

01:06:57Jane: Oh, I've done, I think I've done about 52 parkruns myself. I seem to have breaks when I don't do it. And I've done quite a lot of volunteering. I think I'm up to about my 14th or 15th volunteering stint. So I try to be involved when I can't run. Oh, well done. I try to be involved with that as well. I like the community, you know.

01:07:16Melissa Ellis: Yeah. I was the tail walker, so you've got big numbers here today for 98. That would be big for...

01:07:21Jane: Yeah, we have had over 100, but it's not common. It's quite a small event.

01:07:26Melissa Ellis: Yeah. Okay. It's a nice day here today.

01:07:30Jane: A beautiful day.

01:07:31Melissa Ellis: So have you made friends through parkrun?

01:07:34Jane: It's really good. It's not close friends because I'm not really all that involved in other athletic pursuits around the town. Although having said that, one of my good friends today was walking with you, Angie.

01:07:48Melissa Ellis: Ah, yes.

01:07:49Jane: Angie and I know each other from playing music together.

01:07:52Melissa Ellis: Ah, okay.

01:07:52Jane: So, yeah, so you sort of, you know people, you get to know people a bit better. You get to know faces. The run directors come a bit closer together and, you know, gradually you start to build a bit of community and, yeah, it's been good, yeah. It's nice to see the same faces every single day. It is. You look forward to it. It's a bit of a ritual, you know.

01:08:11Melissa Ellis: It's a social.

01:08:12Jane: Weekly habits. Yes.

01:08:14Melissa Ellis: I believe you're a little bit of a tourist. I am.

01:08:16Jane: I am. I am. Yes. And where have you ran? I've done... I was just trying to remember. I was talking to one of the other volunteers today. He's only ever run here at Castlemaine. He was asking about the course, you know. And I was trying to remember. I've run at Launceston. Yes. And I've run at Wangaratta. Uh, Wagga Wagga ah oh i can almost do we need seven w's to go with the seven uh yes um and i've done i've done another one in australia i just can't think where at the moment but i've done two overseas i was in europe earlier this year i did um The parkrun at Frimley in Surrey, southwest of London. And I also did one in Denmark, in Copenhagen. Wow. Which I'm not even going to try to pronounce the name of. No. The first part was Amager, which I think is the name of the locality. And the second part starts with an F, and I think it means common. Okay, yeah, yeah. So it was the closest one to downtown.

01:09:21Melissa Ellis: And what did it feel like to be overseas at a parkrun and yet it's so familiar and yet it's... Well, I mean, you know the ropes.

01:09:28Jane: Yeah. And you know the procedures. You know how it's all run. And, of course, I do run directing. I know the background as well. Yeah. But then you go somewhere like Frimley and coming from Castlemaine where we very rarely get to 100 and you go there and they just routinely have 500 or 600 people and there's this huge crowd of people going around and... Oh, yes. A great experience. Yes, yes, that was fabulous. And my cousin took me to that parkrun. She'd never done parkrun before. She's a great tennis player. So she came and ran around with me and I thought, well, this is good fun. Is she still parkrunning? I don't know. There was a degree of enthusiasm, but it's like, oh, I'd have to not do tennis on Saturday morning if I was to do this figure. Oh, dear.

01:10:11Melissa Ellis: And do you have any more, do you have any...

01:10:14Jane: trips planned are you are you now planning around parkrun oh well no i'm not but if i i try to look at where i'm going and see if i'm going to be somewhere on a saturday where there might be a parkrun or like that our most recent trip i saw there was a couple of parkruns in copenhagen and knowing we were going to be there originally we weren't going to get there till the saturday i see you're hooked but i i've shuffled our itinerary so we got there on the friday oh

01:10:38Melissa Ellis: Yes, that's what we do. We have to arrive on Fridays and we leave on Sundays.

01:10:43Jane: Yeah, but I was a bit surprised. You know, I was in Amsterdam over the weekend. I couldn't find a parkrun in Holland. Oh, dear. Which was a bit of a surprise. But also, we were in... In Norway too as well on a Saturday and I couldn't find any in Norway. So maybe we need to just G up the locals to get them happening. I don't know.

01:11:04Melissa Ellis: All right. Well, thank you for talking to me. It was nice to meet you today.

01:11:07Jane: Yeah, thank you.

01:11:08Melissa Ellis: And I might see you on my travels in the future.

01:11:10Jane: Oh, that'd be good fun. Yeah, next time you're back collecting another C. Doing your third round of pirate.

01:11:16Greta: Yeah.

01:11:18Melissa Ellis: Thanks, Jane. Yeah, no worries.

01:11:20Greta: Bye. Good morning parkrun adventurers, it's Greta here and I'm at the launch of the Charleston parkrun which is a new parkrun in South Australia. And we are now at the cafe, Cafe Provador in Woodside, having our post-run coffee. And I'm here with Kylie, who's the event director. Well done today, Kylie.

01:11:41Kylie: Congratulations on another successful launch. Thank you very much. It was very exciting. It's been a long time coming and, yeah, I've enjoyed it.

01:11:49Greta: It went really, really well today. So tell us a little bit about the Charleston course.

01:11:53Kylie: So Charleston course runs along the Amy Gillett bike trail, which was created in South Australia, I think about 10 years ago they started building it. And it's a well used track in the hills and our parkrun runs through in between two cow paddocks. it's very rural very rural not many trees but lots of greenery and cows so it's very pretty yeah yeah it's beautiful and the bike track uses i believe the old rail it's part of the old railway line yeah it is it's part of the old railway line that used to go all the way to the barossa as far as i know and take freight through so yeah it um It's a trail that I've spent a lot of time on over the last four years.

01:12:35Greta: It's a well-used trail, lots of walkers and runners and riders and horses sometimes. And so it's almost like a double out and back, isn't it?

01:12:46Kylie: Yeah, so there's two laps to the course, a longer 1.5 out, about 800 back and then back to the finish line. at 1.5 Ks after you've gone back to the end, which is confusing when you say it.

01:13:00Greta: But when you're running or walking, it's not confusing. No, it's easy to see when you're out there, yeah. And so what inspired you to start the parkrun here at Charleston?

01:13:08Kylie: So I was inspired to start the parkrun at Charleston because I... I was a Mount Barker parkrunner from about the fourth Mount Barker parkrun in South Australia and I loved parkrun, I've always loved parkrun. It's given me some amazing friends and I was inspired to start a run out here because I do a lot of my training. My kids went to school here and I did a lot of my training for my running out along that trail and I just really thought it was a beautiful place I wanted to share with other people and also because I love the community aspect of parkrun, so yeah.

01:13:39Greta: So you're building your own community out here?

01:13:42Kylie: Yeah, definitely. With friends who live out this way as well.

01:13:48Greta: And this wasn't the original course that you were looking at? No.

01:13:53Kylie: tell us about your journey to get to this one so originally that was the place that I wanted to have the parkrun but we could never find out who the landowners were it was almost impossible we tried everything emailing speaking to government departments got nowhere so let it rest for a while and then we went back and thought we'd try a different park in Lobethal which turned out to be a conservation park which is

01:14:16Greta: Not one I'd recommend ever trying to run parkrun in. There was the heritage listing issues.

01:14:22Kylie: Yeah, there were lots of heritage listing issues. They would only let us have 20 people and you had to scrub your boots before you started and when you finished. I didn't think that would really work for parkrun. We gave that up and just as we gave up all hope, I think you got the email to say we found out who the landowners are and you can have permission to use it. So it was all full steam ahead from there. It was about a year though in the process.

01:14:44Greta: It was, yeah, and then it all sort of snowballed.

01:14:46Kylie: Yeah, it went quickly after that and look, I'm really pleased. It's been really easy since then and I've felt... It was just meant to happen.

01:14:57Greta: And you're one of the first events also in Australia to be an app-only event. So that means that you used the app this morning for the timing and the scanning. And you actually also used your mobile device for results processing.

01:15:13Kylie: So how did that go? It was so easy. It was much easier than the computer. It's just all there. People just messaged me the results. We saved the files and uploaded them and it was done. And we were at the cafe before 9.30. Wonderful. So that was really easy and no stress for me at all. No problems with the results. No problems at all. Easy to fix.

01:15:35Greta: Great. Well, congratulations on a really successful launch and for your tenacity to get this event up and running. It was a beautiful day and I'm sure you'll continue to build a beautiful community here at Charleston.

01:15:50Kylie: Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed the opportunity to be part of this parkrun experience. It's been awesome and keeping a smile on my face every day, so that's good.

01:15:59Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Kylie. Thank you. Speaking of the Charleston, Scotty, I noticed last week that our theme music was just the normal theme music. I wanted Charleston and you didn't do it.

01:16:11Scott Trickett: Well, I could say I forgot, but a better story is I was afraid of the corporate heavies coming down on us again because...

01:16:20Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure the Charleston is in the public domain because it's so old. Yeah. Surely nobody can have the copyright on that.

01:16:28Scott Trickett: Okay.

01:16:29Melissa Erbacher: Maybe particular recordings of it, yes.

01:16:32Scott Trickett: Can I make it up to you? Can I put it at the end of this episode?

01:16:35Melissa Erbacher: You can, but don't forget.

01:16:37Scott Trickett: So you can dance into the weekend.

01:16:39Melissa Erbacher: Please.

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

01:16:41Scott Trickett: And into the weekend, we have one launch this weekend, Mel.

01:16:45Melissa Erbacher: We do, but it's a bit of a sneaky quiet one because we didn't want too many people to know about it. Although I think probably a lot of people already do.

01:16:54Scott Trickett: So we're launching at Centennial Park. Long time coming. Tim has often said he's been working on Centennial Park, parkrun, since day one, since he brought parkrun to Australia. And this weekend, we're going to see the reality of that. So if you're in Sydney and you love parkrun, go to week two. Stay away this weekend. Because the last thing we want is for them to be heaps of people. Everyone gets nervous and they shut it down. But it is happening this weekend, so we thought we'd mention it.

01:17:24Melissa Erbacher: Also, chances are by the time you listen to the pod, it'll be too late for you to change your plans.

01:17:29Scott Trickett: Yeah, that's why this episode's going out Friday night. So only the hardcore would have heard it by the time it launches.

01:17:38Melissa Erbacher: Meanwhile, we've got a whole bunch of anniversaries still. We've got Bannockburn Bush in Victoria.

01:17:44Scott Trickett: Berwick Springs in Victoria.

01:17:45Melissa Erbacher: Galston in New South Wales.

01:17:48Scott Trickett: Kalgoorlie Boulder in WA.

01:17:50Melissa Erbacher: Mossman in New South Wales.

01:17:52Scott Trickett: And Yurunga, also in New South Wales. Anniversaries. You know what I also wanted to mention, Mel? I didn't mention it at the start. When I was in Sydney, we went looking for a Freedom Run on Friday afternoon, and we ended up at Wildflower parkrun. Heard about this one?

01:18:12Melissa Erbacher: Well, yeah, only on the Great Vine, nothing too in-depth.

01:18:16Scott Trickett: Yeah. Really nice parkrun in a park, in a national park, state park, whatever.

01:18:22Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it's got a beautiful name.

01:18:23Scott Trickett: Beautiful name, paved path all the way through. So imagine you're in the bush, really pretty, really natural Aussie bush, but you've got a paved path, so we're not doing trail running nonsense. I've got to say, Mel, it was tough. I would almost go on record as saying it was the hardest parkrun I've ever run in terms of up and down. But gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous parkrun, just really, really tough. So I tipped my cap to the locals who were running those hills every week.

01:19:07Melissa Erbacher: Did you log it as a Freedom Run? I did. Excellent.

01:19:10Scott Trickett: I did. And I was there with the boss, and he pulled something, so he pulled out early. Because it's one of those funny ones where it's an out and back, but it's a bit short of 5K, so they do a couple of loops, I think. So I did a couple of loops to round it up to 5K.

01:19:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, you must be beating me in the Freedom Runs category too because it's been a long time between Freedom Runs for me. I have to get along somewhere and do one soon.

The Hotline (listener questions)

01:19:35Scott Trickett: Should we go to the hotline?

01:19:37Melissa Erbacher: We should because we still have a few more weeks left of the hotline, which is at least, you know, unless the questions keep coming. What have we got this week? From whom?

01:19:47Scott Trickett: Well, let's hear.

01:19:50[other]

01:19:50Unidentified speaker: Hotline.

01:19:57Bruce: Hi, guys. Bruce and Rory here. We just got a question for you for the hotline.

01:20:02Melissa Erbacher: What's your favourite music for running to? Fave music, hey, Scotty.

01:20:06Scott Trickett: Yeah. We have touched on this before, and I don't think either of us are big fans of running with music.

01:20:13Melissa Erbacher: It's been a while, actually, since I have had the ears in, but I am partial to it from time to time. Fave music, though. See, I don't have a particular artist that I listen to all the time. So there's a combination of, you know, Pink and The Fray and Foo Fighters and then a lot of random things like Walking on Sunshine and... the Rocky theme song, all mixed in. I love songs that either are about running or have run like a called run or have running in the lyrics. So there are a lot of those sorts of songs in my playlist too. Snow Patrol as well, just being my favourite band, they always put me in a good mood and they've got some more upbeat songs which are great to get a good tempo going too. What about you, Scotty?

01:21:10Scott Trickett: I'm probably a bit the same. Let's go with genres more. I like sort of, when I'm running, I like the electronic music anthem, the anthemic sort of stuff, like the bloody beach roots and justice, stuff like that. I'm just waiting for the drop. I'm waiting for the bangers while I'm out running. But to be fair, I haven't put music in my ears for a long time, I've got to say. If I do take my headphones out on a run, I'm putting a podcast on. So my favorite music to run to at the moment is the sound of your voice, Mel. Or the sound of Nicholas and Danny's or the sound of, you know, Bill Simmons or something like that. Yeah.

01:21:54Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So there's your answer. I don't get to listen to podcasts. I mean, when I was training for marathon and doing long runs and things like that, I was listening to some podcasts back then on my long runs. But, yeah, I don't tend to listen to them because – I think I probably slow down and I'm not the fastest runner in the first case. I need the music to keep the legs turning over at a decent rate. If I've got anything in my ears at all, podcasts for me are more a car situation.

01:22:29Scott Trickett: Thanks, Bruce and Rory. Keep the hotline questions coming because we're out. We have no more.

01:22:36Melissa Erbacher: No, we do have one more. We've got one more for next week.

01:22:39Scott Trickett: Keep them coming because we've got one more for next week.

01:22:44Melissa Erbacher: It doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

01:22:46Scott Trickett: No.

01:22:48Melissa Erbacher: So this weekend, Scotty, I know big plans are afoot at your home local. I'm assuming you'll be running at Westerfolds on Saturday.

01:22:56Scott Trickett: Oh, correction, Mel. Won't be running.

01:23:00Melissa Erbacher: Oh, are you volunteering?

01:23:01Scott Trickett: No. It's a walk-off.

01:23:06Melissa Erbacher: Yes, excellent. So you will be on the catwalk this weekend.

01:23:12Scott Trickett: Catwalk, yeah.

01:23:13Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's what the walk-off's about.

01:23:15Scott Trickett: We're doing a park walk-off. That was my understanding.

01:23:20Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

01:23:21Scott Trickett: I don't know. Actually, I don't know how it's going to work. But the Zoolanders are descending on Westerfolds this weekend in some sort of like Warriors-esque showdown. Two gangs come together. And you know what mistake our old mate Matty Trent has made? He's obviously overconfident in the Zoolanders' ability. Because he's coming to my turf. He's coming to my home ground.

01:23:47Melissa Erbacher: But I haven't noticed any particular posts in the Westerfoldian group saying, hey, everybody, it's code green tomorrow. There's a walk-off. We've got to represent. I haven't seen that post happen yet. Have you just been doing it very quietly in person at your group runs? Because that way I won't see it. Yep. And provide the intel to the other side.

01:24:07Scott Trickett: Yeah. I put a call to arms out on last night's run. Right.

01:24:11Melissa Erbacher: I think I'm possibly one of the only people, if not the only person, who is a member of both the Zoolanders and the Westerfoldians.

01:24:19Scott Trickett: I think you might be. I've never seen a Zoolander shirt at Westerfolds, apart from those people who visit. But the locals, no, we bleed green and a bit of black. So I'm looking forward to it. And in all seriousness and in all fun, please, if you are a Zoolander, come to Westerfolds this weekend.

01:24:40Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm gutted I'm going to miss it. It's going to be fun. I can't wait to see the photos.

01:24:46Scott Trickett: Yep. And breakfast, the post-run breakfast is going to be epic.

01:24:51Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Interesting. Now, see, what you don't realise is I'm actually – this is a strategic move on my behalf, not coming to Westerfolds. Although even – actually, no, that's not true because if I had come, it would be the first time I've done Westerfolds and therefore I would have – received a new event against my name. But I will be going somewhere else to get a new event this weekend anyway.

01:25:16Scott Trickett: There you go. Remember that time you said you were going to run the Melbourne Marathon?

01:25:20Melissa Erbacher: No, I never said I would.

01:25:22Scott Trickett: Didn't you do something on Facebook and people jumped to conclusions?

01:25:26Melissa Erbacher: I ticked interested on the event in the festival. I never said I was going to run the Melbourne Marathon, but people do have a tendency of jumping to conclusions, yes.

01:25:39Scott Trickett: Well, you will be missed this weekend, Mel.

01:25:42Melissa Erbacher: I doubt it. You guys will all be having way too much fun without me.

01:25:45Scott Trickett: Probably right there too. But have fun wherever you're going to go this weekend.

01:25:50Melissa Erbacher: I will.

01:25:50Scott Trickett: Might speak to you next week. Might not. Who knows?

01:25:54Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it depends on when you get this other co-host lined up. How's it going to work with the recording part? Because you do that bit. Are you sure you're still not going to be here doing the recording part anyway?

01:26:03Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, no, so I should clarify it. The co-host is lined up, ready to go. Getting you two technically competent to do it is what's delaying it.

01:26:12Melissa Erbacher: Major barrier.

01:26:14Scott Trickett: Yes. But I'm confident.

01:26:17Melissa Erbacher: You're technically competent.

01:26:19Scott Trickett: Yeah, I know, I know.

01:26:20Melissa Erbacher: I just don't have the programs necessarily or the skills because I've never been shown.

01:26:25Scott Trickett: So until then, maybe, maybe not, I'll speak to you next week. If not, have a good parkrun this weekend and next weekend.

01:26:32Melissa Erbacher: I will. Enjoy your walk off.

01:26:35[music]

01:27:06Unidentified speaker: Thank you.