Episode 142 - Roving Reports

Welcome

00:00:16Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to episode 142 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. It's not two for one, although you get that every week with us. You get me, Mel Erbacher, and you get Scotty Trickett, my co-host. Scotty, welcome to the episode. Thanks, Mel.

00:00:32Scott Trickett: Great to be here, as always. But I'm a little bit apprehensive today.

00:00:37Melissa Erbacher: Are you?

00:00:38Scott Trickett: Yeah. Because remember when I came and visited you up at Kawana and you were on show, you were under review from me?

00:00:49Melissa Erbacher: Yes. The jury was out. You were going to judge the events that I called home.

00:00:54Scott Trickett: Yep. And so I feel a bit the same this week because even though I know you've visited Westerfolds for a Freedom Run, you haven't seen it in all its glory, which is parkrun Day. And you did that on Saturday and you haven't told me anything. You've been very coy, which makes me even more nervous.

00:01:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, yeah, okay. I don't think you need to be nervous, Scotty. Does it mean a lot to you that I like the outcome of my thoughts of your home parkrun?

00:01:28Scott Trickett: No, you're the parkrun adventurer. You've been to more events than me. Like you are the authority on visiting events. So I do care what you think of my home event. Yes, I do. Oh, okay.

00:01:42Melissa Erbacher: Well, this might be rough then. Rough, awkward, nerves not unfounded.

00:01:51Scott Trickett: So, where did you go on the weekend, Mel?

00:01:53Melissa Erbacher: I went to Westerfolds parkrun on Saturday morning. Not easy to get to by public transport. However, I did have the services available, of a certain chauffeur, Trickett, who came to pick me up, not quite door to door from my hotel, wouldn't park on the street in front of the accommodation, unfortunately, but, you know, gave me some bollocks excuse about the fact that cars weren't allowed on that road or something.

00:02:21Scott Trickett: Yeah, so the main road going through the second biggest city in Australia, that being Swanston Street, where cars aren't allowed. So I'm driving up and down the intersection blowing my horn. Yeah. Attracting all this attention from everybody except for the Erbachers.

00:02:37Melissa Erbacher: We were waiting patiently in front on the footpath where we were told to wait.

00:02:43Scott Trickett: So also being a major city through the major road in the second biggest city, there's not really lots of ample parking opportunities. So on my third attempt, I illegally parked. And ran out to get you. But we got you.

00:02:57Melissa Erbacher: What normal people may have done is answer their phone when they were called to see if there was some kind of a delay. However, Scotty left his phone at home. So he couldn't even do that.

00:03:10Scott Trickett: I don't need the pressure of the phone.

00:03:12Melissa Erbacher: Technology while you're driving.

00:03:15Scott Trickett: I'll tell you what though, Mel. So... I'm driving to pick you up, and like about 10 minutes in, I realise, oh, I've left my phone at home. When I went to put in a podcast, and my car wasn't picking up the Bluetooth of my phone. And I was running too late, as I always am, to turn back around and then come and get you. But the idea that we're not attached to our phone anymore is at this one time ridiculous that I'm so panicked about it, and at another time liberating that no one can contact me for this beautiful sweet spot of 30 minutes I'm all alone and it's just how it used to be like 10 years ago when I was growing up we didn't have phones if you went for a drive or if you were driving somewhere I think you mean 20 years ago Scotty because I got my first phone when I was 18 and that was 20 years ago okay 20 years ago 20 years ago do you know what I mean yeah I do how our thinking's evolved But carry on. We did find each other.

00:04:14Melissa Erbacher: You did. There was a car seat organised by yourself and kindly lent to you by a gentleman named Chris. Thank you very much, Chris. It's very important to us that we can restrain Wes as often as possible, especially in vehicles. So that was great. And you did a good job of getting us to the park on time. We actually arrived there before a lot of your volunteers. This is something that I thought was interesting. Westerfolds Park, your volunteers just rock up, you know, whatever time they please. At other events, they're asked to get there a little bit early.

00:04:51Scott Trickett: Hmm. Hmm. Which is interesting. I find it interesting. But you explained it well. So tell the listeners what you mean.

00:05:01Melissa Erbacher: Well, so for example, at Kawana, we ask volunteers to arrive 30 minutes before the event starts so they can be briefed by the Run Director. And also, a lot of it is so the Run Director knows they're there because it's not safe to start an event unless you've got, you know, your Marshals in place and whatever. all that sort of thing. So if people don't rock up until five minutes beforehand, that makes it really difficult and stressful for the Run Director on the day to know that they should proceed with the event. But also we do first timers briefings and then the normal pre-run briefing a little bit earlier because we have to walk to our start line, which, of course, you don't have to do at Westerfolds parkrun. It's just like a 50-metre throwaway for you guys, whereas it's 500 metres for us at Kawana. So that's where one of the little differences lies. But, yeah, look, whatever works for… Whatever works.

00:06:00Scott Trickett: Yeah, interesting. So we don't do that. And I'm really surprised that if you ask a volunteer to be there half an hour earlier, I think that's a, I don't know, would I feel excited to get there half an hour earlier before the event starts? I think that's a real commitment from your volunteers. But the fact that you do have to walk, the fact that you've got marshals, I get all that.

00:06:19Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but half an hour earlier, that's just half an hour more of parkrun goodness. You know, you're there, you're making the connections, you're meeting the other volunteers, you're having a chat, everything's nice and relaxed.

00:06:32Scott Trickett: Yeah, you also made the point that you have a lot of first-time volunteers, so you're cycling through a lot of your parkrunners in the volunteer roles. I feel at Westerfolds, there's a lot of repeat volunteers, so a lot of people doing it over and over again. Of course, we get the newbies every now and then, and they get briefed, Mel. They get briefed on how to do everything, and we're all clear there. But it's just a difference.

00:06:56Melissa Erbacher: When you say cycling through, that makes it sound like we're chewing them up and spitting them out. I would just like to clarify, I would say it's probably 50-50. So 50% would be like those people that you know have volunteered more than 10 times and And then the other 50% are those who have just volunteered a couple of times, possibly in different roles, so you need to still brief them in the new role, or it's just been a little while since they did it. And also, you know, we've only introduced the app about six months ago, so there's a lot of people who have volunteered in the past on previous Barcode Scanners or using the old stopwatch, and we need to brief them on the app. And all the lovely little... the tips that help make that a smooth experience for them and the parkrunners.

00:07:46Scott Trickett: So we haven't fully embraced the app at Westerfolds. Yvonne and Kasia embraced it on scanning on Saturday, but the whole team as a whole haven't quite 100% transitioned over, so... There's another difference between the events. But let's move on. I want to know, outside of that, the logistics and the operational side of it, did you enjoy it? Did you have a good time?

00:08:06Melissa Erbacher: I did. You left me – no, I shouldn't say you left me high and dry. I gave you permission to run with Adam. I gave you my permission. Yes, you go run with him. Because originally last week you told me that you were going to be volunteering in the end, but then you changed your mind or, you know, arrangements shifted with Team Trickett. So you ended up having to run, which was great. I had Wes in the pram, not the running pram, just what we use whenever we travel, which is one of those nice, portable, collapsible little prams that you can take in your overhead carry-on on the plane. But it's a good, sturdy little pram. It's probably about five kilos lighter than the running pram anyway. So I can't really use that as an excuse for struggling. And I struggled. I did struggle. There were lots of hills, Scotty. You guys say, oh, there's just one hill at Westerfolds. It's a lie, people. There is not just one hill. There are multiple hills. And I'm pretty sure there's two or three more there this time that weren't there last time because I don't remember them. I've got every single step of them this time.

00:09:19Scott Trickett: But, Mel, you're a Westerfoldian. You should be used to this.

00:09:23Melissa Erbacher: I don't run on the Westerfoldian course as often as the majority of Westerfoldians do. So I'm a little bit out of, um, fitness for that.

00:09:35Scott Trickett: It's interesting, isn't it? It's interesting what you get used to because, yeah, I think, um, We all feel that there's really only one hill maybe at Westerfolds now.

00:09:46Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:09:47Scott Trickett: The others are just little lumps.

00:09:48Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but it's just, it's not lumps even. There's no down after them. There's just like constant incline where it's building up. So maybe that's where you get this one hill situation from. It's just, it's a four kilometre long one hill.

00:10:02Scott Trickett: Maybe. That's all. But the last kilometre's great, isn't it? It's all downhill.

00:10:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, this is one of the downfalls of the little city get-around pram. It hasn't got brakes on it. So that actually caused a whole different level of resistance training coming down the hills. But, yes, I can imagine if you are unencumbered by a pram that it would be very fun to just run down those hills. And, in fact, several of the Westerfoldians were wearing their club shirts wearing And on the back, of course, there's written happiness to me is running in the hills with my friends. And I just kept thinking, no, no, happiness to me is running downhill with my friends. Not running in the hills, just running downhill specifically. So I might have to modify my shirt at some point. Yeah. But you know what? There was heaps of wildlife. There was more bird life than I remember. And Wes just loses his stuff over birds. Just completely, yeah, not freaks out, but just super excited. The levels of energy, you know. Most birds he makes a duck sound, the quack, quack, quack, when he sees them. But he points and he squeals and it's, yeah. It's utter joy coming from him. So he had a great time getting around the course because there were so many birds everywhere. Colourful. Yeah, lots of rainbow lorikeets and things, which was cute. And we don't commonly see them on the ground here. They're usually in the trees eating all the stuff, but I guess they have a slightly different diet down south perhaps. And we saw kangaroos as well, which I was excited by, although they're a bit too far away for Wes to make them out from the grasses and the bushes and stuff that they were resting in. No wombats this time on the course, which was a little bit sad, but not unexpected because of the time of day.

00:11:58Scott Trickett: We did have the misfortune of seeing a wombat.

00:12:01Melissa Erbacher: Well, I wasn't going to mention that. Not the one we wanted to. But now that you bring it up, yes, there was one wombat, sadly, on the side of the road.

00:12:12Scott Trickett: Yep. Wasn't doing too well. No. But it's interesting you say about... the bird life because last week during the week I went for a run at Westerfolds midweek by myself and I ran through the middle and came across a kookaburra. So there's lots of kookaburras at Westerfolds and there's lots at the moment. I don't know if it's whatever season kookaburras are out and about. But this guy was sitting down really low, like at chest level on a tree. And he stopped and he didn't fly away when I went up and said hello to him. Was it a really hot day? No, it was warmish. It was warm.

00:12:51Melissa Erbacher: Because we had, we actually had a kookaburra at our house last week and he came, flew down, sat on top of our five foot high fence and he was really hot and he sort of sat down low and he kind of put his wings out a little bit, which I know from having birds a lot throughout my life that means that they're just trying to cool themselves down. And he sat there while Adam sprayed him with the hose to cool him down and then stayed there for another hour. And then Adam came back after doing some more gardening, sprayed him again. He loved it. He just found himself a nice shady spot where he felt safe and comfortable and was able to get cool and Enjoy the extra bonus of getting sprayed down with the hose as well. That's why I asked if it was a hot day.

00:13:37Scott Trickett: Welcome to the bird watching podcast this week because I've got another little thing. I've installed a bird bath outside my office window and I've been filling it up lately and the magpies. Yeah. You guys have loads of baby magpies at Westerfolds too.

00:13:52Gary Murphy: Yeah.

00:13:53Scott Trickett: So I thought this birdbath was sort of ornamental. It was just for show. They wouldn't actually use it. But I've been filling it up with fresh water every day. And roughly about the same time every morning, they all come and have a little bath because we've got a family of three magpies living in our front yard.

00:14:09Melissa Erbacher: Wow.

00:14:09Scott Trickett: It's very cute.

00:14:10Melissa Erbacher: I'm glad they're utilising it. Yeah.

00:14:17[other]

00:14:17Scott Trickett: It's time for a quick little intermission here before we get on with the rest of the pod. You may have noticed in the background my wonderful sidekick, Buster, decided to have a conversation with the rest of the neighbourhood in the background. So I just ducked off to ask him politely if he could be quiet for the rest of the recording. which he agreed to. And so now it's time to return to the rest of the intro and the rest of the podcast. So give us a rating out of 10.

00:14:51Melissa Erbacher: I'm not going to do that because you will not be happy unless I give you a 10 out of 10. In fact, even then you may not be happy. So you've had a rough year as you can keep pointing out to me, Scotty, and I'm not sure if your ego can take it. So I'm not going to give you a rating out of 10.

00:15:09Scott Trickett: Did it crack your top three?

00:15:13Melissa Erbacher: No, it did not crack my top three. Oh, really? Well, Kawana's not in your top three. And this isn't one of those. No, it's not that kind of situation. It's not, well, you didn't give me a good score, so I'm not going to give you a good score. It's, yeah, it was a lovely event. Everybody was really friendly. It was great to catch up with some people who we had met previously on previous visits and also to meet some new people who are listeners of the podcast. So that was very cool. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was a quiet parkrun for me in terms of like Wes and I got around the course and we were kind of in between two groups of walkers but not really part of either of them because they were obviously like an established group of friends and stuff like that. So, you know, just – and it was nice to just have a quiet parkrun but sometimes it's also nice to have a bit of a chat. And I said good morning and hello to everybody else that I met on coming and I think I've recruited four new participants for the event as well because I stopped and explained. They asked me if it was some kind of a charity walk or something. I said, no, no, it's parkrun and I explained it. So hopefully those people show up in future weeks and that can be their parkrun story. Oh, we saw this lady one time and we saw all these runners and asked what it was. I know that's a lot of people's parkrun stories but it's a good way to get into it.

00:16:39Scott Trickett: Good, good. I'm glad you're recruiting. And that's one of the, I guess, downsides of being a single looped course is that sometimes if you are out on your own, you are out on your own for the whole walk because you don't see anybody coming back the other way or overtaking you if they're doing multiple laps. But it also provides a nice bit of solitude and you're out in the wilderness.

00:17:02Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you can really enjoy the atmosphere.

00:17:05Scott Trickett: Okay, that's a great recap, Mel. We've heard enough about Westerfolds in 141 episodes, so it was good to do another recap on that wonderful event. But I think we should, this week, Mel, no guests, no guests this week. We've been inundated with Westerfolds. Which we love. So we do. We always love hearing from all the different events around Australia. So... That's all we've got in this week's pod. And we're going to start off with one of our faves.

00:17:36Melissa Erbacher: I'm ready. Always ready for the Roving Report, Scotty.

00:17:39Scott Trickett: Okay. We're going to start with Lyndell. And she's visiting Yarrabilba. She'll explain more. Take it away, Lyndell.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Yarrabilba

00:17:48Lyndell Murray: Good morning, parkrun adventurers. Scotty Mel. It's Lyndell here. I'm reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew. Now today, I've adventured down to Yarrabilba, southwest of Brisbane. And look, I know there's other launches on today, but you know, launch, launch, launch. I've come looking for a very special kind of parkrunner today I understand I have it on very good authority that there's a group of parkrunners or runners down in this neck of the woods that have a very interesting club name so let's just see um as I said it's good authority I'm just gonna see if I can find some of those club members and and see what we can find out I'll um don't think we're far off starting so I'll um get into the run and uh sniff around afterwards Well, that didn't take long. I've already hit the jackpot. What's your name? What's on your shirt?

00:18:40Andrew: It's the Leo Wanker Academy of Fitness.

00:18:42Lyndell Murray: And your name is?

00:18:43Andrew: I'm Andrew.

00:18:44Lyndell Murray: And are you the chief wanker?

00:18:48Andrew: I started it with another guy, and it's grown to about maybe 50 or 60 members now, all throughout Australia.

00:18:54Lyndell Murray: Throughout Australia? Is the home here, though, in Yarrabilba?

00:18:58Andrew: It is, yeah, the home of the wanker here. So there's maybe about 30 members here.

00:19:03Lyndell Murray: All right, now what's your inspiration for this club?

00:19:09Andrew: Well, Leo Wanker, ideally, was a Paul Hogan character probably about 30 years ago. And he was a stuntman that did everything wrong. And when we started training, we did everything wrong as well. So we thought it was a pretty good name.

00:19:23Lyndell Murray: I love it. That's awesome. Okay, so what's your name?

00:19:26Aaron: Aaron.

00:19:26Lyndell Murray: And you're a fellow wanker?

00:19:28Aaron: Yes, yes, I am.

00:19:29Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Have you improved your game or are you still doing everything wrong?

00:19:33Aaron: Alright, improved and still doing things wrong.

00:19:35Lyndell Murray: Well, you know, you don't want to lose the spirit of Leo Wanker, do you?

00:19:38Aaron: Yeah, that's true, that's true, very true.

00:19:41Lyndell Murray: Alright, and your name?

00:19:42Paul: Paul. Paul, yep.

00:19:44Lyndell Murray: Fellow Wanker?

00:19:45Paul: Abso-friggin-lutely, mate. Excellent. Yes, and I've been running with these Wankers for a little while. We just did a 10k run there, we had a good tight grip, which was good, very fun indeed.

00:19:55Andrew: A bunch of Wankers.

00:19:56Paul: A bunch of Wankers.

00:19:57Lyndell Murray: That's probably, you need that, don't you? And your name?

00:20:00Jason: I'm Jason. And so last weekend, we even did some triathlons. So the Wankers moved into triathlon last year. And last weekend, nine of us went down to Kingscliff and did the Kingscliff Olympic distance. So it's a great team atmosphere and we really support each other.

00:20:15Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And so what do you guys like about parkrun?

00:20:18Andrew: The community. We all met through parkrun. No one sort of knew each other. And yeah, we're all good mates now.

00:20:23Lyndell Murray: That's excellent. And for you, parkrun?

00:20:26Paul: The loss of well over 20 kilos and the mateship in the community, it just can't get any better.

00:20:32Lyndell Murray: Sounds terrific. And you, parkrun, are you moving over to the dark side with triathlons now or is parkrun still your spiritual home?

00:20:39Jason: No, I started triathlons before parkrun, but seeing people, I guess, transform their lives from starting with parkrun. So you see people turn up, get PBs sort of month after month and just improve their whole overall life and health.

00:20:50Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, that sounds wonderful, guys. Thank you for talking to me today and here's to the wankers.

00:20:55Mark Scarborough: Yeah, absolutely.

00:20:56Unidentified speaker: Thank you.

00:20:58Lyndell Murray: Okay, so of course I'm adventuring here at Yarrabilba, but I have managed to find a very special adventurer here today. What's your name and where have you come from? My name's Jess and I've come from London. And what has brought you to Yarrabilba parkrun today?

00:21:14Jess: To surprise my grandma who introduced me to parkrun four years ago.

00:21:19Lyndell Murray: Right, and so what's your name, Grandmama? My name is Vivian. And are you a local here at Yarrabilba? Yes, I've been coming here for several years now. I'm close to getting my 250 parkrun. Are you going to come home for the 250th as well?

00:21:36Jess: Yeah, sure am. I'm heading back up to Cairns and then coming back down for the New Year's ones and for her 250th.

00:21:40Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And so you're from the UK. Whereabouts are you from?

00:21:44Jess: Well, I'm actually from Brisbane. I grew up in Cairns and then I moved to London. I've been there for about three, four years now. So, but Nanny's originally from the UK.

00:21:52Lyndell Murray: So we've done a full circle. And do you park one in the UK?

00:21:58Jess: Yes, like most weekends. So while Nanny's resting in the afternoon after her parkrun, I'm getting up for mine in the morning.

00:22:07Lyndell Murray: And have you done any parkruns with your granddaughter in the UK? Yes, just one. She took us to Bushy Park. That's so true. So what was that like at Bushy then? Oh, it was good. I can't believe how many people there are.

00:22:18Tony: There was about 1,200 when we were there, wasn't there? 1,200 people or so.

00:22:24Lyndell Murray: And Tony, you were in on the surprise, I think, were you?

00:22:27Tony: Yes, unfortunately. I had to keep on lying.

00:22:32Lyndell Murray: Now I can put two and two together, why you were in the car so early and why you actually came to parkrun. I do parkrun occasionally myself but because I've had my knees replaced I don't want to sort of overdo it I've done 15 parkruns That's a start, all right. But today was a special circumstance, so you're all here together as a family. Well, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for talking to me. Enjoy your time in Australia and enjoy your time with your granddaughter. I will, yes. Thank you.

00:23:14Melissa Erbacher: Thanks very much, guys. Thanks.

00:23:19Lyndell Murray: Alrighty, now I've tracked down Spencer. Spencer, you're the Run Director here today. How are you going? How did today go for you?

00:23:25Spencer: Yeah, it was a lot cooler than we anticipated. It's been stinking hot last few weeks and we're expecting to put on our sprinkler, but we didn't have to this week. We had the Zooper Doopers at the ready as well, just in case, but didn't need those either.

00:23:41Lyndell Murray: Are you telling me that you've got Zooper Doopers here somewhere and that you're holding out on me?

00:23:47Spencer: uh there is an esky over there there may be Zooper Doopers in there but we didn't we decided it wasn't needed so we'll save it for a really hot day I think that's a wise idea it's not that hot today we had our a 50 50 volunteer milestone today it's not an official one but uh Rick Rosenblatt was uh did his 50th volunteer today and it's all about the volunteers this week because of the international volunteer day last week so Yeah, can't thank our volunteers enough for their work.

00:24:20Lyndell Murray: Well, including yourself and your Event Director. Now, you were telling me that your Event Director is here and she's out plogging.

00:24:28Spencer: Yes, we do a plogging event every parkrun. We try to keep Darlington Park clean. So plogging is doing the rubbish pickup while you run. And sometimes it needs to be done. And Pete Burns, our Event Director, is doing it today. Normally it's my job, but of course we hand the baton over whenever I'm Run Director.

00:24:57Lyndell Murray: Excellent. So you've got a nice little tight group of volunteers here at Yarrabilba.

00:25:01Spencer: Oh, yeah, we do. We have our regulars, but we certainly encourage and enjoy when we get our first-time volunteers come on. It isn't that hard. We've got trained professionals to help them get along, but, no, we encourage our first-time volunteers as well.

00:25:22Lyndell Murray: Now, Yarrabilba, how long have you been set up here?

00:25:25Spencer: Okay, today was... 239. I did mention that. I did mention that in my run brief. You did.

00:25:35Lyndell Murray: That's why I asked you. I thought you'll know how long because you said it earlier.

00:25:40Spencer: What's that? Just over probably three years. Yeah. It's been going well. The course has changed dramatically. this year we've only just changed the course this year so we're all running in one direction and uh and but uh people are still coming to terms with running up our hill three times it is it's a heartbreaker that third time let me tell you oh yes but the but when you've done your uh finishing your Five Ks, it always helps.

00:26:15Lyndell Murray: That's it.

00:26:15Spencer: Yeah.

00:26:16Lyndell Murray: And it's a nice little, so there's three and a half loops here. It's easier than it looks on Google Maps. I didn't get lost. That's always a bonus.

00:26:25Spencer: Yes, yeah, well, like I said, we have the regulars and they're always happy to help first-timers who come through here. And hopefully the run brief gives them a good indication of where to go.

00:26:40Lyndell Murray: The run brief is perfect, and you've got the little signs on the little path as well, so that will help too. Yes. All righty. Well, thank you, Spencer, for your time talking to me today. Thank you for the contribution that you've made here at Yarrabilba, and thanks for your time.

00:26:55Spencer: No, wonderful. Yeah, for all the parkrunners that listen to this podcast, yeah, get out, enjoy it. It's a wonderful weekend starter.

00:27:04Lyndell Murray: It sure is. Thank you. Thanks. Alrighty, Rick, how are you today? What's special about today for you?

00:27:13Rick Rosenblatt: Just achieved 50 parkrun volunteers.

00:27:16Lyndell Murray: That is an amazing effort.

00:27:17Rick Rosenblatt: You've got your purple shirt on with a sneaky little 50 over the top. Have I got to click you, Pete? Sorry, I'm just doing some timekeeping.

00:27:29Lyndell Murray: I don't want to distract you. It's very important that you stay on the job here. Hold on. So we've got a few more parkrunners, including the Tail Walker, our other super volunteer for the day.

00:27:38Rick Rosenblatt: On you, Patricia.

00:27:45Lyndell Murray: So, Rick, what's your favourite volunteer role?

00:27:48Rick Rosenblatt: Timekeeper. Hang on.

00:27:52Lyndell Murray: Hold on, I'll find it. Hold on, we better just sneak over here. What's your name? I'm Amalia. And you're volunteering today as well?

00:28:02Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm volunteering today.

00:28:03Lyndell Murray: And there's a bit of controversy about your volunteering today, I hear.

00:28:06Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, just a bit. Well, someone volunteered earlier in the week, but my dad's RD, so he wrote me in last minute.

00:28:12Lyndell Murray: Even though there was somebody else? Although someone else was already there, he just didn't know how to check it. Oh, well, look, where else would you be on a Saturday morning except parkrun? Exactly. What about you, Rick? What's how you start your weekend?

00:28:26Rick Rosenblatt: It's the only way to start your weekend, parkrun. Doesn't matter where. Yeah, it's fabulous. Look, Rob and I have been doing it for nearly five years, and it's just an awesome community. It's an awesome event. Meet a lot of people, get to know a lot of people. It's just a fun thing. And do you run or just volunteer? No, no, no. We've done... I think I've done 150 plus runs. Robin's 10 in front of me because I volunteered a few more times. But we do a little bit of touristing. As I say, we've just made so many friends that people you don't see maybe for months. But you go to a parkrun and they're there and you go, oh, good to see you. And it's just like yesterday. And that's what's fabulous about parkrun. Terrific. Apart from getting fit. And getting fit.

00:29:13Lyndell Murray: And getting fit. And you make your fabulous little parkrun family. Yeah, we do.

00:29:18Rick Rosenblatt: You sometimes think it's a little bit clicky, but not really you sort of travel as a group we do some things outside of parkrun as well and it's just absolutely parkrun has brought all of us together and newcomers are welcome and we we love just meeting people and having fun at parkrun and Yarrabilba is a bit of a new settlement new sort of development down in this neck of the woods Yeah, it's growing at an exponential rate. It's just absolutely humongous. Like we, parkrun, we had our fourth birthday in May and four years ago we were lucky to get 20 or 30 people. The settlement here, I don't know. Look, it's just, it's huge. There'd be 20 or 30,000 people perhaps living here now, whereas four years ago, most of it was bush. Yeah.

00:30:12Lyndell Murray: So parkrun's another way to just bring that community together, right?

00:30:15Rick Rosenblatt: Yep. Yep. Look, I can't say enough nice things about parkrun because... We started, we loved it, we've made friends, and I think people come along and they see the friendly atmosphere, and it doesn't matter whether it's Yarrabilba, Logan River, Berrumbah, Meadowbrook, Gungahlin in the ACT. It's, you know, all over the world. It's just fabulous.

00:30:39Lyndell Murray: All right, well, thank you very much for talking to me today. Thanks, Elizabeth. Thank you so much for the contribution, and let's get out of the rain here. Yes, please.

00:30:48Rick Rosenblatt: We need it, we need it.

00:30:51Lyndell Murray: All righty, parkrun adventurers. Scotty Mel, that's a wrap from me from Yarrabilba parkrun. What a successful morning it's been. I've met a super volunteer. I've met some people from a very specific running club and got my Y for Yarrabilba. So I'm hunting down that alphabet. Success all round. So this is Lyndell signing off today from Yarrabilba for the Channel 5 News crew on the parkrun adventurers.

Roving report Tony O'Connell — Urunga

00:31:18Tony O'Connell: howdy parkrunners it's TOC reporting in for channel 5 news crew I'm up in yarunga today being an honorary New South Wales reporter as we seem to have a little bit of a shortage from up this way we're at the start of the yarunga parkrun and this place is absolutely gorgeous I'm sitting here looking over a river with a boardwalk that runs out to the sea the boardwalk goes for about a kilometre uh there's mangroves everywhere this place is gorgeous if you haven't been to yarunga I'd say get on down here and we better go we've got a briefing about to start cheers howdy parkrunners it's TOC reporting in for the channel 5 news crew I'm down at the gorgeous Urunga parkrun we're just uh walking in the last little bit I'm with Nathan who's the Event Director down here Nathan how are you today yeah great thanks that's a lovely course you've got here can you give us a bit of a description of the course uh we've got a three lap course and we run on mainly a concrete path

00:32:14Nathan: We've got views of the Kalang and Bellinger River and you can also get a glimpse of the ocean.

00:32:20Tony O'Connell: It's a gorgeous little course following the river the whole way out and back. And you've got quite a decent little boardwalk there as well. We went for a walk yesterday. It goes for about a kilometre out.

00:32:30Nathan: Yeah, it takes you to the beach.

00:32:32Tony O'Connell: And Urunga is just over a year old now, about 14 months old.

00:32:37Nathan: Yeah, that's right.

00:32:38Tony O'Connell: So your number's typically up around the 50, 40, 50, somewhere around there?

00:32:42Nathan: Yeah, most weeks are 45, 50. Our biggest was over 90 when we launched.

00:32:48Tony O'Connell: And it was really encouraging when I got here to see the number of people that were here and just sitting around chatting. It sort of shows a bit of a good community around it when there's a group that are quite happy to get in and have a chat each week.

00:32:58Nathan: Yeah, the locals love it and we get lots of tourists, probably half our runners are tourists.

00:33:04Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I think it's one of the two U's available. So for the Alphabeteers, that's a big part of the road trip to get down here.

00:33:12Nathan: Yeah, that's right.

00:33:14Tony O'Connell: Oh, well done. It's a great little parkrun and it's been really great to come down here. Thank you. Yeah, welcome.

00:33:18Melissa Erbacher: Thanks for coming today. Cheers. And thanks to TOC, we introduced Lyndell, but we didn't tell you. We just sprung it on you that we were going to have TOC, who was at Urunga for a flying visit. And congrats on being an Aussie Alphabeteer, TOC. That is a very impressive achievement.

00:33:34Scott Trickett: And Jacqui. Don't forget Jacqui. She's wonderful.

00:33:36Melissa Erbacher: Yes, of course, Jacqui. Jacqui doesn't do the roving reports. We love Jacqui. But actually, TOC, one week. Get Jacqui to do a roving report. It would be lovely to have her voice on the podcast.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:33:46Scott Trickett: That's not all. We've got two more roving reports coming up. But let's look at the calendar. We're going crazy this week. We're doing calendars in the middle of the pod. No guests.

00:33:57Melissa Erbacher: No, I guess, God, you know, last week we launched on a – released on a Tuesday. What's happening? Nobody knows what we're doing anymore, the least of all us. But we don't have any launches this week. Actually, we don't have any more launches for the rest of the year, Scotty. So that's giving everybody a little bit of a chance to have a breather, perhaps catch up on some other events that may have got out there without you being able to get along to. And also, yeah, silly season, you know. We all know that that's going to consume everybody's life for the rest of the month.

00:34:31Scott Trickett: But we do have anniversaries, and we have one in the greater state. Mullum Mullum is celebrating their, must be their second.

00:34:39Melissa Erbacher: Must be their second. That's gone fast, hasn't it?

00:34:42Scott Trickett: Yep. I remember when we had Scotty Hawkins, the Event Director, on in year one.

00:34:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:34:48Scott Trickett: What was it? It was a special launch. It was the 200th event or something like that.

00:34:55Melissa Erbacher: I don't remember. Do you remember? I don't remember what number it was. I mean, they're all special launches, but... They are. Yeah. You went along to this one, and I remember you telling me that Scott Hawkins gave an excellent pre-run brief. One of the best you'd ever heard, I think, at the time.

00:35:13Scott Trickett: I think it might have been somebody else, because I missed the launch.

00:35:15Melissa Erbacher: Did you?

00:35:17Scott Trickett: I did, yeah. But I think we did have roving reports back in the day.

00:35:20Melissa Erbacher: Ah, okay.

00:35:22Scott Trickett: But I tell you what, Mel, I'm going there this week...

00:35:25Melissa Erbacher: Are you?

00:35:25Scott Trickett: I'll critique the event brief again.

00:35:31Melissa Erbacher: Are you working on your P-Index?

00:35:33Scott Trickett: Yes, this is going a long way towards my P-Index. Mullum Mullum is, I think, about my fourth most visited event.

00:35:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. I am not going to be working on my P-Index this week, but I am visiting an event that I had been to previously. So you won't be falling too far behind me in the most events list. Certainly not because of this week.

00:35:56Unidentified speaker: Good.

00:35:56Scott Trickett: And there's one other anniversary. We cannot forget Reynella East in South Australia. Happy anniversary, guys.

00:36:04Melissa Erbacher: We did mention before that it is the silly season and the Christmas compendium is almost locked down for Australia. So all events who haven't declared by the 13th of December, in fact, by the time you hear this podcast, it should be locked down and everybody will have declared one way or the other. And you can start working if you haven't already. We know a lot of you have been in there, but you can start working on what you going to be doing for your New Year's Day double or where are you going to be parkrunning at Christmas which is always exciting have you taken a sneaky peek yet Scotty to start making your plans of course yeah I alluded to it a couple of weeks ago when I shared my goals for the year so New Year's Day, remember, I'm doing Westerfolds, then I'm running to Darebin ah that's right we do something silly like 12 kilometre run between the two events yep I've forgotten about that what about Christmas Day did you mention what you're doing on Christmas Day

00:36:59Scott Trickett: I'll be at home. I'll be at Westerfolds. That's a tradition.

00:37:02Melissa Erbacher: Still getting another one in. Well, I'm going to be slaughtering you on the most events list if that's the case. Really? Yeah, I'm getting a new event in on Christmas Day and there will definitely be two brand new events on my double on New Year's Day as well.

00:37:16Scott Trickett: How come Kawana don't do Christmas Day? Do you need special council permission?

00:37:21Melissa Erbacher: Well, every event needs permission from their landholders. But, yeah, no, it's for the same reason that Kawana switches to a beach course over the Christmas period, the Christmas holiday period. It's a very busy tourist destination at that time of year. And, yeah, it wouldn't be safe necessarily to have an event on those extra days.

00:37:45Scott Trickett: Fair enough, fair enough. So where are you going on Christmas Day? Can you share or?

00:37:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm thinking of heading to Rocks Riverside. Oh. Yeah.

00:37:54Scott Trickett: I hear it's fast.

00:37:55Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, I'll be able to. Finish the year with a PB. I'll be able to refute that, I'm sure. Actually, I should figure out what my fastest run has been for this year and try to get a year PB because maybe that could happen. You never know.

00:38:11Scott Trickett: Surprise us all, Mel.

00:38:12Melissa Erbacher: I will. And New Year's Day is yet to be confirmed, but I've got a few options, which is always nice. Got to love South East Queensland for a lot of options.

00:38:21Scott Trickett: Are they going to be new events too?

00:38:23Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah, both of them, definitely. Oh, no.

00:38:26Scott Trickett: This is a disaster. I'm happy for you, but I'm not really.

00:38:33Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'll be tipping over the 70. I'll be in the early 70s on the most events list by the end of the 1st of January.

00:38:41Scott Trickett: This is – I don't know what to say.

00:38:44Melissa Erbacher: Got to up your game, Scotty. Call yourself an adventurer.

00:38:48Scott Trickett: Well, January. January is going to be massive for adventuring for me. I think every week I'm going somewhere new.

00:38:53Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you're going to have a perfect month in January.

00:38:56Scott Trickett: Yeah, that's the aim.

00:38:58Melissa Erbacher: Cool.

00:38:59Scott Trickett: Except for New Year's Day.

00:39:01Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, well, there you go. It's not going to be a perfect month.

00:39:03Scott Trickett: Okay, I'm changing my plans. Barney, the run's off. That's okay. February can be a perfect month as well. And then I'll be blowing you out of the water. Two solid months of new events. There'll be no looking back.

00:39:20Melissa Erbacher: You'll be exhausted. You're choosing the hottest time of year to get a new event in every week. I'm going to be volunteering a lot in those months. I can tell you that right now.

00:39:31Scott Trickett: Okay, so let's go. There's more roving reports. There are. We put a call out for our New South Wales adventurers to step up. They continue to ignore us. We got really close. So Mark from the ACT ventured to Braidwood Showgrounds.

00:39:47Melissa Erbacher: Is that in the ACT or is that in New South Wales? Well, Mark's definitely from the ACT. It could be right on the border, Scotty. I think it might be. So we might have to go check out the maps.

00:40:01Scott Trickett: So it kind of counts, kind of counts. And then we've got a special report from Highlands. So let's crack on with those.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Braidwood Showground

00:40:08Mark Scarborough: Hello, parkrun adventurers. This is Mark from Canberra, where my normal home run is Gungahlin. And today I'm taking off a couple of challenges. My NENDY. which is my nearest event not done yet. So here I am at Braidwood, the Braidwood Showground parkrun, and I'm also ticking off the Staying Alive Challenge with my last B for this challenge, and I'm here with Run Director Kelly. Good morning.

00:40:32Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: Good morning. How are you, Mark?

00:40:34Mark Scarborough: I'm good, thank you. Thank you for hosting me here today.

00:40:36Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: Thank you so much for joining us. It's great.

00:40:39Mark Scarborough: So Braidwood Showground parkrun is relatively new. So this is, I think, the number 12 parkrun?

00:40:47Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: 11th. Number 11.

00:40:48Mark Scarborough: Okay. And how did you go about starting up Braidwood parkrun?

00:40:54Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: I did my first parkrun in Dubbo early last year, just pure coincidence. We were visiting family and my brother-in-law said to me, I'm just going to duck out tomorrow morning and do a 5K run. And I said, oh, come on, we'll go and join you, having no idea what it was. And, yeah, we went to my first parkrun and I loved it. I loved the atmosphere. I loved the feeling. I loved the support and everything. And I said to my husband, I'm going to do this in Braidwood. And it took a little while because... life happens but um yeah that kind of inspired me and then I started doing them myself and I went no I've got to get this done I want to do this for Braidwood so yeah.

00:41:29Mark Scarborough: And what was the process to get it up in Braidwood? Braidwood is a small country town in New South Wales so what was the process to get it up and running?

00:41:36Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: So I just contacted head office and let them know that I was interested in setting one up. And then they put me in contact with Gary and Denise Clark, who at the time were my event ambassadors. And I met with them and we just sort of started looking at options for a course, what was viable and what wasn't. And yeah, just started the process that way and head office helped out as much as they could.

00:41:57Mark Scarborough: And how have the locals received it?

00:42:00Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: It's been amazing. I've actually been really overwhelmed by the support. Being such a small town, I sort of thought if we get 10 runners each week, I'd be really thrilled. But we're getting upwards of 40, 50, 60 runners every week, and it's fantastic. And all age groups, parents pushing prams, it's been absolutely fantastic. I'm blown away. I'm wrapped with it, yeah.

00:42:23Mark Scarborough: That's really good. It's good to give the locals another option for something healthy and fitness-wise in the area.

00:42:29Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: Well, absolutely. And there's not much in Braidwood. We have different things like tennis and there's yoga, but there's no gym. There's nothing like that. So this is kind of really the only outdoor activity, I guess, we have in Braidwood. So it's been really well received and, yeah, it's brilliant. We get new runners each week, which I love.

00:42:49Mark Scarborough: Yeah, good to see, you know, locals adopting it. Today there were a couple of tourists like myself from Canberra. There was another runner, one of the fast runners from Queanbeyan today. Yes.

00:42:57Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: Yeah, Bernardo, he's just an insane runner. Yeah, a couple, a few from Gungahlin. There's a few extra locals that turned up today. A guy from Sydney ran. Yeah, no, so it's fantastic.

00:43:08Mark Scarborough: So as I said, today I've ticked off my Staying Alive Challenge. It's part of the running challenges with parkrun. So that's my three Bs and three Gs. Congratulations. And I worked out the other day that you can actually tick this off pretty easily if you're a Canberran. There's plenty of Bs and Gs within easy driving distance. And if you're a Canberran, you're heading down to Batemans Bay and you normally stop at the pie shop halfway through. I'd encourage you to come down early Saturday morning, tick off parkrun, here at Braidwood Showgrounds and then keep going on to the bay. So we're going to have a chat to some of the other people here at Braidwood. Thanks for talking to me today.

00:43:44Kelly - Event Director, Braidwood Showgrounds parkrun: Thanks so much, Mark, and thanks for joining us. It's been a great morning.

00:43:47Mark Scarborough: No worries at all. So here I am with Scarlett, who is actually volunteering today. How are you, Scarlett?

00:43:51Scarlett: Good, thank you.

00:43:53Mark Scarborough: And you're handing out the barcodes today. Is this one of your favourite volunteer roles?

00:43:57Scarlett: I like photographing too.

00:43:59Mark Scarborough: Me too, that's my favourite job. I've done lots of photography work and won Marshall, that's certainly my favourite too. And you recently have ticked over your 10 milestones as well?

00:44:09Scarlett: Yeah.

00:44:10Mark Scarborough: And have they all been here at Braidwood?

00:44:12Scarlett: Yes.

00:44:14Mark Scarborough: And how have you found parkrun as a junior runner?

00:44:17Scarlett: Yeah, I found it really fun. I've gotten back into running because I never used to do it, but I've gotten back to running and it's fun.

00:44:23Mark Scarborough: And how many times have you volunteered?

00:44:26Scarlett: Maybe around five times, four or five. Yeah.

00:44:29Mark Scarborough: That's excellent. Well done. Well, congratulations. And you better get back to handing out some barcodes as more runners coming through.

00:44:35Scarlett: Thank you.

00:44:38Mark Scarborough: Now I'm with Bernardo and Joel. And Bernardo is actually from Canberra as well. Well, Queanbeyan. Not quite Canberra, is it? You know, trying to be part of Canberra. And a bit of a fast runner, Bernardo. What time did you do today?

00:44:51Bernardo: I think it was 17.30. I ran there, yeah.

00:44:55Mark Scarborough: But that's pretty quick, a little bit faster than me, well done. And why did you come out to Braidwood today?

00:45:00Bernardo: Well, Joe has invited me forever since they opened, so it was about time, before the end of the year.

00:45:06Mark Scarborough: And have you done many parkruns around the area?

00:45:09Bernardo: Not that many, actually. I think I've done Quimby and Tuggeranong and Ainslie, and that's about it. And then now this one.

00:45:17Mark Scarborough: So this one's a little bit flatter in comparison to Queanbeyan?

00:45:20Bernardo: It is definitely much flatter than Queanbeyan. I love Queanbeyan though. You have to do it. You have to go and have a go at it. Different, completely different course, yeah.

00:45:29Mark Scarborough: Yeah, I think it's a good one for City to Surf training, isn't it?

00:45:32Bernardo: It is, yeah, definitely a good one. Before you go to City to Surf, go and do Queanbeyan a few times, yeah.

00:45:38Mark Scarborough: And Joel, you're an RD here at Braidwood?

00:45:41Joel: Absolutely, yep. We've done our 11th parkrun today, and I think we're averaging around 50 people per event, so we're really happy with that. And it's been really good for the community. We're getting lots of first-timers coming out and exercising on a Saturday morning, so it's been a real success for us here. I hope it gets bigger and better next year.

00:46:01Mark Scarborough: And was this your first introduction to parkrun at Braidwood?

00:46:03Joel: No, no. When Kelly was interested in bringing it to Braidwood, she encouraged me to go to Queanbeyan. So I went there and I sort of got hooked running at Queanbeyan. So I was running there for 15, 20 events or something until this one started. And then I've moved out here and I just do this one every week pretty much. Except the odd one when I'm on holidays. I think I've done Tamworth and that's about it. I've only done the three of them, three different courses. Yeah, it's lovely to come out to a country course. Bit of a different feel. Yeah, it's really good.

00:46:39Mark Scarborough: Yeah, it really is a different feel. I haven't done a course like this one before myself. So yeah, it's great to come out to the country and see a different course and different scenery. So thanks for having us here today and hopefully we'll see you around the different courses.

00:46:52Joel: Cheers, thank you very much. Thanks.

Roving report Gary Murphy — Highlands

00:46:55Gary Murphy: Okay, so we are at Highlands parkrun and same as last week, I haven't gone adventuring, but I've got the best adventurer here who has completed today her, what are we going to call it Zoe? We're going to call it state's personship, statesmanship, state's kidship or state's womanship.

00:47:12Zoe Ellis: I think it should be State's Kid's Ship.

00:47:14Gary Murphy: State's Kid's Ship. I like it. Because Zoe is a junior parkrunner as well. And I reckon probably the only junior parkrunner to complete your State's Kid's Ship so far. So how did that go today?

00:47:26Zoe Ellis: Very well. I liked it. It was very fun. We got three laps.

00:47:32Gary Murphy: Three laps. So what do you think about the three laps?

00:47:35Zoe Ellis: They're good. I like them. They're little.

00:47:37Gary Murphy: they are little laps and you know why I like three laps is because I got to high five you three times yeah how good's that awesome and you had a really big contingent so that's a group of people sorry I shouldn't use that big word huh um we had a big group of people all dressed in blue because blue is your favourite colour is that right and they looked amazing we called them the blue crew and they made the lake look really good so what what's your favourite thing about parkrunning

00:48:05Zoe Ellis: Uh, I like, my favourite thing about parkrunning would probably be seeing all my friends.

00:48:10Gary Murphy: Yeah? So you get to parkrun with your friends most weeks?

00:48:13Zoe Ellis: Yeah.

00:48:14Gary Murphy: And you make a lot of new friends, I reckon, going on all the different parkruns you've been to?

00:48:17Zoe Ellis: Mm-hmm.

00:48:18Gary Murphy: And can you think of, um, I don't want to ask you your favourite one, but what about a memorable parkrun where something funny or something different happened? Can you think of anything like that?

00:48:29Zoe Ellis: Uh, at Rosebud I found a big, a big, big feather. It looks like, I don't know what bird it was from.

00:48:38Gary Murphy: Yeah?

00:48:39Zoe Ellis: It was brown.

00:48:39Gary Murphy: Oh, I was just going to say, please tell me it was a blue feather. Nah, maybe another time. And if you had the opportunity for me to ask you a question, what question would you like me to ask you about parkrun?

00:48:54Zoe Ellis: How I feel.

00:48:57Gary Murphy: How do you feel? How do you feel about parkrun?

00:48:59Zoe Ellis: I feel really proud that I've accomplished Statesman and I think parkrun's awesome.

00:49:06Gary Murphy: Zoe, you just made my heart flicker. That's really cool. That's so good that you're proud. It's a really good thing that you've done. Really good achievement. Congratulations. Well done. Thanks. Can I get a high five? We'll get an audio high five. Oh yeah, that's going to work. Well done. Congratulations on your Stateskid ship and all the best with your future parkrunning adventures. And I look forward to parkrunning with you again another day.

00:49:27Zoe Ellis: Thank you.

00:49:28Scott Trickett: A great debut from Mark visiting Braidwood showgrounds. And Gary Murphy was with Zoe, our junior states kid. Well done. Can I tell you a story about Zoe? So I know Zoe. Zoe's the daughter of Melissa Ellis from our Channel 5 news crew. A regular junior parkrunner. And two weeks ago when I went to Darebin, we pull up and there is Zoe with her father, Paul, just standing there. This was the weekend that Melissa visited Geeveston.

00:49:57Lyndell Murray: Yep.

00:49:58Scott Trickett: And it was a long way from where they live. I'm guessing over an hour in the car on a Saturday morning. And they were just happy. And they were happy to be at parkrun. And it was a great parenting father-daughter moment. So well done, Zoe, and the whole Ellis family. They love parkrun. And I think that's a great story.

00:50:16Melissa Erbacher: And for juniors to become statesmen, that is a huge team effort from the whole family.

00:50:22Scott Trickett: It is because I know from firsthand experience the struggles of getting your kid to love and embrace parkrun. I reckon you're going to discover it in the next couple of years.

00:50:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, something to look forward to.

00:50:38Scott Trickett: Because every time Wes is at parkrun, I see him. He's got his grumpy face on. Even on Saturday when there was a playground and he looked happy, but he still had his grumpy face on.

00:50:46Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's just his resting stink face. Yeah, that's just what he – he's not unhappy. That's just what his face looks like, Scotty. He needs to grow out of that. Oh, I think it's cute. But that's okay. Do you know which kids of mine never complain about going to parkrun, never complain about getting up early, get very sad if I walk out the door without them? My fur kids, Inu and Clover, they haven't been to a parkrun in a very long time because now, of course, that we have Wes in the pram, One person cannot also have a dog on a leash as well as a pram. And there's only myself and Adam, so we can't very well just take one dog to parkrun. Clover would destroy the house if we tried to leave with Inu and not take her with us. And poor Inu, why would he have to miss out? So it's kind of in solidarity the two of them don't come to parkrun together.

00:51:40Scott Trickett: Can you recruit? Can you line somebody up, particularly when you're at home? Can you say, hey, can you take Clover for this week?

00:51:47Melissa Erbacher: We possibly could. At the moment, of course, it's a bit too hot for both of them, even though they've had their shaggy coats clipped for the summertime. But we always retire them over the summer anyway. Might look at doing that when it starts to get a bit cooler next year, recruiting. Because we have had other friends take them out before, which has always been nice. And they're very well behaved on the things. But you know where they're not well behaved, Scotty? Yeah. In the backyard. Well, no, no. Not even in the backyard. In the living room. So, I have a little story to tell you about my troublemaker, Clover, who has got a long, long list of naughty things that she has consumed over the years in her life. I'll give you some of the highlights, shall I? She has eaten a kilo bag of desiccated coconut. She's eaten a kilo bag of… Yeah.

00:52:40Scott Trickett: Hang on, Clover would only be about 10 kilos herself.

00:52:44Melissa Erbacher: Well, she's 13 and a half kilos, we discovered yesterday at the vet. But I'll get to that. She's eaten, so the poos, if you can imagine, for the week after that all looked like little lamingtons with the coconut coming through. She has eaten and spread everywhere a whole bag of plain flour, which, you know, when you mix, I don't know if you've ever done paper mache with kids, but a nice non-toxic glue is pretty much just flour and water. And so, of course, with all the saliva and everything, as she ate that, And licked her legs and licked her paws and got it in her nose and her ears, which flopped down further than her face. She was just basically one big crusted paper mache glue dog after that situation. Managed to get the stuff everywhere. I can't imagine flour by itself is that tasty. Well, yeah, I know. And you know what? She learnt how to break into the pantry to get said delectable items out. You know, this isn't us necessarily being bad dog owners, so there's a level of that as well. We should know better. But, yeah, on those two occasions, she broke into the pantry to get them out. So, yeah. We have to dog proof our house. She's, of course, done the traditional solid Easter eggs still in their foil wrappers. So she had shiny poo for the week after that, all different rainbow colours. Hang on, I'm going to stop you again. So chocolate's toxic to dogs? Oh, big time. But Clover seems to have a cast iron stomach. I think I shared with you at one point that she had demolished a full block of tropical pineapple chocolate, which fortunately has a lower chocolate content than solid Easter eggs. because it's mostly the tropical pineapple sort of fondant going on in the middle. But yeah, she felt a bit sad after that. She's eaten half a kilo of sugar paste. So you know those beautiful craft flowers that people have on wedding cakes and things like that? She's managed to find a block of – it's like almost – It's more dense than clay. It's like a big block of clay. And she managed to grab one of those off the dining room table, probably enlisted the help of her big brother in that case. He's smarter, Inu. He doesn't eat these things, but he helps her get these things. He's helped her get bread off the benches and all sorts of things like that. When we were building, well, I shouldn't say building, when we were renovating the house before Wes came along, we were painting all the bedrooms and recarpeted so that, you know, the nursery was nice. And she ate like 20 sheets of sandpaper that Adam had left on the floor. Like, who does that? It's not even an edible food item. It can't have smelt good. Like, seriously. But she, that was...

00:55:40Scott Trickett: I thought flour was bland. I was taking it to another level.

00:55:44Melissa Erbacher: And I can't imagine it was very pleasant to eat going in or coming out. You know, that stuff was coarse. So these are the kinds of things. But yesterday she took it to a new level. While I was out visiting my nana in the nursing home with Wesley and Adam was down in the study working, Clover took it upon herself to rifle through our as yet unpacked luggage from the weekend and happened upon a half kilo bag of sultanas that we had bought as snacks for Wes. And of course, sultanas, you don't want to give kids too many of them because they're quite sugary. So he hadn't eaten very many at all. She polished off the entire bag. I mean, you mentioned chocolate is bad for dogs. Sultanas are pretty much the worst thing ever. They cause renal failure. Really? Yeah, they do it very quickly. Grapes, toxic. Sultanas, obviously dry grapes. So really, really bad. Fortunately, they were going through this whole period of barking at nothing. So Adam went out to shush them and discovered the spoils of, you know, wrapping in tiny little bite-sized pieces all over the place and called the vet and then took her to the vet. That made her vomit immediately, which incidentally, did you know that dog vomit, when it's consisting of sultanas, smells like Christmas pudding? This is what the vet tells us anyway. So, that was all very timely and festive. But, oh, my God, Scotty. She had to be – well, she's been clipped on both of her front paws so that she could have the needles and be on the drip because they were worried about her fluid intake. They didn't know how many – Pretty much the Sultanas hadn't been in there for too long when Adam discovered it. Maybe 30 minutes, 45 minutes. But they weren't sure whether or not the toxic stuff had started to leach out into her gut. And they had to make sure that she could still pee and all that sort of stuff. And, yeah, it was very stressful.

00:57:55Scott Trickett: I can only imagine. Jesus. And I was complaining about Buster. You may have heard it in the intro. He was barking at nothing. As they do. That was the biggest thing I had to worry about. I didn't know your dog was on life support. Are we on life support?

00:58:10Melissa Erbacher: She was on a drip and in a bad way yesterday. Wow. Yep. I wonder if she's learnt her lesson. We'll find out soon. Oh, I doubt it. I really doubt it.

00:58:19Scott Trickett: She just keeps going back for more.

00:58:21Melissa Erbacher: She's a little bit quieter today, I have to admit. But when she came home, she was fine. The vet called us at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon yesterday. Originally, he said, look, she's going to have to stay overnight. But I think she was too noisy and annoying because he called and said, yeah. If you don't come get her, she's probably going to scratch down the enclosure and break out, and she's been quite vocal. So I think the fact that we have a noisy dog saved us about $400 yesterday because we gave her an early mark to come home.

00:58:55Scott Trickett: Vet bills at Christmastime are lots of fun, aren't they? A bit like dentist bills. I took Kasia to the dentist last week. Merry Christmas. Yes.

00:59:04Melissa Erbacher: To the dentist.

00:59:05Scott Trickett: Five minutes work, yeah.

00:59:07Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you've just paid for all his kids' Christmas presents probably.

00:59:11Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:59:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. Yeah. So that was a bit of midweek fun for us. You know what? Kudos to her. She didn't do it on a Saturday night, which is usually when they do these things. On the weekends, we have to go to the emergency vet. That costs twice as much. So all credit to her. She picked a really good time to do it.

00:59:31Scott Trickett: Don't worry. Very familiar with that scenario too. Buster always chooses Sunday night or Saturday night.

00:59:37Melissa Erbacher: You're right. Or a public holiday, you know. Yeah. Impeccable timing. The joys of having fur kids.

00:59:44Scott Trickett: The only other similarity we've got there is that we can't take our dogs to parkrun anymore because Buster's got his crook back, which we have talked about in the past. But I have been tempted to just take them when we're volunteering or even just take them and hang around so they get that social aspect.

01:00:04Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's probably what they miss the most. It's not the exercise. The dogs miss the smells and the pats and all the attention they get.

01:00:11Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure they do. I'm sure they do. Because Buster has a lot of human interaction now, now that I work from home every day. He's there. And God, if I go out for five minutes, well, let alone if I go out for a couple of hours, do I get in trouble when I come home? Yeah. And it's like the neighbours are starting to notice. Oh, that's not good. When I come and go because it's just the carry-on involved from Buster. Whereas Champ couldn't care less. I could go for a month and I don't even get even notice. I'm sure that's not true. He just shows it in a different way. He rolls with the punches. Yeah. We're dog people.

01:00:50Melissa Erbacher: We are. We're not not cat people necessarily, but definitely dog people. Two dogs each in these households. Hey, but fortunately, Clover saved me $400, so I think I can still afford some Christmas gifts. Have you started your shopping yet, Scotty?

01:01:07Scott Trickett: Yes, I did. I've done all my shopping. Oh, my gosh. Yep. Seriously. I'm pretty good, aren't I? Yeah. You've still got two weeks. I know. I know. How organised am I? I embrace online shopping.

01:01:21Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So tell me truthfully, is everybody getting parkrun adventurers running singlets?

01:01:28Scott Trickett: No. Well, they are, but that's not their Christmas present. That's a life necessity.

01:01:32Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I won't ask what everyone else is getting apart from that because obviously you want to surprise people. I won't ask you what you got me. I like to be surprised. Okay.

01:01:44Scott Trickett: Okay. That's good. You've been for a real treat, a real surprise.

01:01:47Melissa Erbacher: A real surprise.

01:01:49Scott Trickett: On Christmas Day. Yep.

01:01:50Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

Top three Christmas gifts for parkrunners

01:01:51Scott Trickett: But how about we do a top three Christmas gifts for parkrunners this week?

01:01:56Melissa Erbacher: Ooh, I like it because there is still time for those of us, namely me, who haven't yet made or purchased or organised Christmas gifts for their loved ones.

01:02:06Unidentified speaker: Yep.

01:02:07Scott Trickett: Number one on the list, parkrun ID, key tag or wristband. So I wear my wristband 24-7. I have three, a green one, a black one, and actually I've got four. I've got two purple ones. I got one from the UK. Okay. Is their purple different than our purple? It is a little bit different. One of the major differences, it doesn't scan very well.

01:02:26Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

01:02:27Scott Trickett: Fair enough. I don't know what they're doing over in the UK. Maybe some of our listeners can tell us. But every time I wear the UK one, it takes forever. To scan. I'm not sure if it's because the sun's brighter here or it's always being scanned in sunlight. Maybe it's the time differences.

01:02:45Melissa Erbacher: The scanner might have to go back to Europe, like the United Kingdom, and then come back to Australia before it can scan it.

01:02:51Scott Trickett: Let's send the samples to Australia. They won't complain. I'm not sure. But you can also, we've just released new circular key tags as well.

01:02:59Melissa Erbacher: They're different colours and different styles than the old ones.

01:03:04Scott Trickett: New colours, new styles. fitting in with the new parkrun branding. Very cool. And they're nice and cheap, like six bucks. Get everyone in your family, friends, family. That's an easy present.

01:03:15Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. And look, it doesn't even matter if they've already got one. So many times people show up to parkrun and they're like, oh, my key tag's on the other shoes that I have. So, you know, people have multiple pairs of shoes, so you can always chuck one on different pairs, different laces and things.

01:03:31Scott Trickett: Number two, a couple of weeks ago we interviewed Tony Park, about his new book, The parkrun Book. The parkrun Book. As all the marketing and publicity lobes have been promoting it as.

01:03:41Melissa Erbacher: Also at Dogfly, it's about the dog squads, the anti-poaching dog squads in South Africa. Yes, but Scent of Fear. My copy's already arrived, so I hope you didn't buy me another copy, Scotty, because I only really need one. I didn't. Okay, good.

01:03:57Scott Trickett: I didn't.

01:03:57Melissa Erbacher: Not trying to be ungrateful or anything, but.

01:04:00Scott Trickett: No. So Scent of Fear, everyone, do yourself a favour. Get down to the bookshop and get that.

01:04:06Melissa Erbacher: Or if you like Scotty and you love online ordering, Booktopia. That's where I got mine.

01:04:12Scott Trickett: Number three. So this can be, we can go in two different ways here. Any parkrun adventurer needs to be in Newcastle in April next year. It just needs to happen.

01:04:22Melissa Erbacher: First weekend of April.

01:04:24Scott Trickett: Yep. So you can either buy your parkrun family and friends like a gift voucher to one of the airlines or travel companies, or just do one of those little, I give you permission to attend palm19. Yes, because there's no greater gift. Because we know there's families out there, Mel, you might be surprised with this, where one half of the family, the relationship, loves parkrun, wants to do everything parkrun, wants to come to the listener meetup, the other side tolerates parkrun.

01:04:58Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

01:04:58Scott Trickett: Doesn't mind going every now and then.

01:04:59Melissa Erbacher: Might just enjoy the sleep in while their other half is off at parkrun, which is perfectly a legitimate life choice also. I don't understand it, but, you know, if that's the way they choose to go, that's fine.

01:05:12Scott Trickett: We don't condone it, but it happens. So if you're one of those people and you're listening to this podcast, easy gift, just give your permission in a little. You know, get on board, powerpoint get on paint what are they they're a bit more fancier these days and like photoshop or whatnot little clip oh look they'd have apps for this these days wouldn't they I think they do I think they do yeah or just buy flights and accommodation to Newcastle April first weekend be the hero in your family it's going to be a fun weekend it is so there's some ideas um but you haven't have you finished your Christmas haven't started Christmas I haven't even started Scotty

01:05:53Melissa Erbacher: No, everything's open late on New Year's, Christmas Eve and all that sort of stuff. So I've been a busy girl, you know.

Sign-off

01:06:02Scott Trickett: Travelling all over Australia, all over Australia. It was great to have you in town. It was great to spend an evening with the showman as well.

01:06:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, I stayed at home with the little boy asleep.

01:06:15Scott Trickett: Yeah, and my nemesis.

01:06:17Melissa Erbacher: And your nemesis, my actual best friend in Victoria. Oh, Scotty, you don't call me your best friend in Queensland, do you? Yeah, see?

01:06:31Scott Trickett: I never make grand statements like that. Oh, okay, okay. I have equal best friends.

01:06:39Melissa Erbacher: You have equal best friends. You're very toeing the line there. Like you try and tell me you don't have a top three best friends.

01:06:47Scott Trickett: I do. And I'll share it on next week's pod. That's my tease for next week.

01:06:54Melissa Erbacher: Am I in Scott's top three? That'll get them coming back for more. Good job, Scotty.

01:07:02Scott Trickett: I can't wait. Speak to you then.

01:07:03Melissa Erbacher: Ciao. Ciao.