Episode 148 - Nick Pearson

Welcome

00:00:19Melissa Erbacher: It's a Queensland podcast this week. Scotty has travelled up from Victoria to join us in this fine state. You may or may not hear Scotty in the background. Scotty, are you enjoying the temperature at the moment?

00:00:36Scott Trickett: Love it, Mel. Absolutely love it. I'm sitting under an air conditioner. Oh, here it comes. Okay, so I get it. I'll have to move. But yeah, my God, it's late at night. It's Wednesday night and it's still hot.

00:00:55Melissa Erbacher: It's light at night, did you say? You're breaking up a little bit.

00:00:59Scott Trickett: Okay. That must be the internet's melting. It's... It's like late at night and it's still hot.

00:01:09Melissa Erbacher: Yes.

00:01:09Scott Trickett: And I'm just loving it. Yeah, it's great.

00:01:12Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. That's what we like to hear. You are on the golden of the two coasts. I'm on the sunshiny. So still a little bit separated. However, we do have an interview later that was less separated, which is pretty cool. The first time we've been able to do that, certainly in Queensland. Yeah.

00:01:34Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah, so together again. It's great, isn't it?

00:01:38Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, absolutely. But did I mention what episode number we're up to? Or season four episode? Oh, see, now you've been keeping track of these things. Are we up to episode five of season four yet?

00:01:51Scott Trickett: Yeah, it is. This is our fifth episode back this year.

00:01:56Melissa Erbacher: Formerly known as episode 148.

00:02:00Scott Trickett: And I think I might start referring them to the countdown. So whereas we're counting up as episodes for the year, but really it should be a countdown for how many more episodes we've got you as a co-host.

00:02:13Melissa Erbacher: Well, wait a minute. Just slow down. Okay. Hold your horses. Calm your whatever needs calming. Okay. We don't know what my countdown is, and I'm still not entirely sure I'm on board with this whole scenario. So give me – if we're speculating here, what do you think the countdown would be?

00:02:39Scott Trickett: I think we have got five more weeks of Mel Erbacher.

00:02:46Melissa Erbacher: Five?

00:02:47Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:02:49Melissa Erbacher: That seems ridiculous.

00:02:51Scott Trickett: Isn't that how babies work?

00:02:54Melissa Erbacher: I'm hoping that's not how this baby works I've still got like 12 more weeks of cooking oh really yeah so how how long are you expecting me to be off for exactly I don't know let's take this conversation off that might be a good idea because I think everybody else is more interested in the parkrun adventures than the uh The adventures of what Mel is gestating in her uterus. Did you have a good week at parkrun last weekend, Scotty?

00:03:25Scott Trickett: Look, I did. And can I go first again in sharing our adventures?

00:03:29Melissa Erbacher: I think you really should this week.

00:03:30Scott Trickett: Because there was a really momentous thing that happened at Westerfolds parkrun. I was back at home. And, you know, every week there's a celebration within parkrun. You know, as we grow, more and more people start participating and those that started many years ago have achieved great things. So, for example, some people celebrate milestones, whether they be 10, 50, 250, but only the very few can call themselves parkrunners of the Month. And on the weekend, my lovely wife was awarded parkrunner of the Month at Westerfolds parkrun.

00:04:10Melissa Erbacher: Congratulations, Bonnie. That is very exciting. I will confess that I did know this and I was going to ask you, was there thunder on the weekend, Scotty?

00:04:21Scott Trickett: Thunder? No.

00:04:23Melissa Erbacher: There wasn't any thunder? There wasn't any storms or anything like that? You didn't have your thunder stolen by a certain amazing wife who's just doing wonderful things for the parkrun world?

00:04:37Scott Trickett: Not at all. No, no. I went to parkrun for the 250th time. But again, the focus should be on my beautiful wife because here's the thing. She gets lumped with a lot, not only being my beautiful wife and being stuck with me for an extended period of time. Throughout our parkrun journey, I wouldn't say she's been in the shadow, but I've been in the limelight and I'm always the one getting the attention. I'm always the one giving the event briefing. I've been the Event Director at a few events and everybody likes to thank me for whatever I've done to parkrun.

00:05:18Melissa Erbacher: Whatever you've done to parkrun. Not for parkrun, to parkrun, because what you've done has been to parkrun.

00:05:27Scott Trickett: Yeah. I'm not good with my words, but very few people have showed gratitude and thanks to Yvonne and her role in our parkrun achievements has been immense. Long overdue, long overdue that it took this long for her to be acknowledged in this way. And I know that's fully – because how could they give it to my wife, the partner of me?

00:05:54Melissa Erbacher: What do you mean, how could they? Well, I don't.

00:05:57Scott Trickett: Well, I mean, for a long time I was the Event Director, so I'm not really going to – Oh, okay.

00:06:02Melissa Erbacher: It doesn't look good.

00:06:03Scott Trickett: Probably doesn't. So we had an awesome morning and I got to run with Yvonne around Westerfolds, which we don't do enough. We're either, one of us is running, the other's walking, running with Kasia. Or we're separated, one of us running somewhere else and the other's at a different parkrun. But also my mum and my sister came back. They've moved to the other side of the city now after being on the same side of the city as us for many years, where we did start parkrunning together regularly. So that was nice.

00:06:32Melissa Erbacher: So it was a good big family event.

00:06:34Scott Trickett: It was. It was with my other family, with my parkrun family at Westerfolds. It's good to be home. That's the theme this week.

00:06:41Melissa Erbacher: That's the theme. My congratulations to Bonnie are 100% genuine because, yes, I agree with you and I've said it many times before, I believe, that I think the partners of the people who are the Event Directors and on the core team and things like that are often the unsung heroes and they do a lot of work behind the scenes that people don't see and it doesn't get credited or recognised. And they don't always do it without complaint, but they still always do it anyway. And yeah, it's lovely that she could get that recognition. And nice that it happened on a weekend, I think, that you were celebrating your milestone because I imagine your actual blood relations came along to help you celebrate that. And it was just a beautiful coincidence that, you know, she got parkrunner of the Month on the same weekend. So they got to experience that with all of you.

00:07:40Scott Trickett: Yep. Very much so.

00:07:43Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Well done, Team Trickett.

00:07:46Scott Trickett: Thanks. And Team Erbacher, what did they get up to?

00:07:50Melissa Erbacher: Team Erbacher were up to their regular hijinks. We were back at home. As you said, that's the theme for this week's podcast. So I was chasing down one of my goals for 2019, which is to run direct, I think, at least 15 more times this year to get me up to one of my own random milestones. And That all was good. That all went very well. We've recently added a first-timers brief as another role to our standard volunteer roster, not because necessarily the Run Director can't do it, but because we just want to include more people in doing some of the different things that you can do at parkrun. And we always have heaps of volunteers and finding different things for them to do. is always nice. So we had a new person do that for the first time and I was super impressed with the job that she did without any kind of cue card or anything like that. She did a great job. So big shout out to her for that. But the rest of the morning was just fairly standard. No real blips in the radar. Didn't lose any tokens that I got, was aware of or at least not that I thought we'd lost. And then we get home and I sit down and I've done the results and that's all away. I've uploaded the photos. Everything's good. We were just about to head out because I had family visiting from the UK and we needed to go catch up with them. And before he jumps in the shower, Adam pulls a token out of his pocket.

00:09:40Scott Trickett: Oh, no.

00:09:40Melissa Erbacher: A finish token. Oh. Number 71, and I'm like, did you forget to scan in? And he just looked at me, and he looked at the token, and he's like, not today. And so this token had been in his shorts for God knows how long, had gone through the wash at least once, and it took him five minutes to figure out from which event he had pilfered this token from. As it turns out, and because I've been tripping about a little bit and he has too, so, you know, we would have thought that he would have noticed his results missing from any of the events that he might have visited. And it was the weekend that we were at Sirame together, you and I, and he ran with Wes at home at Kawana and just obviously got chatting to our local parkrun friends there, completely forgot to scan in, didn't notice he never got a results email and he had the audacity to ask me if I'd add him in. I said, no, I'm not adding you in.

00:10:48Scott Trickett: He didn't. That was going to be my question.

00:10:51Melissa Erbacher: This token home two weeks ago, we've created a replacement token, you know, in the kit. And I was like, give that back to me. So I was able to put it back at least with the rest of the kit and it's returned to its family to be used again another time probably. But oh my gosh, this isn't the first time this has happened either. Yeah.

00:11:15Scott Trickett: This is a good result for me because one of my sub-goals is to catch Adam in the most – not most events. What is it? Just in the – The running states, yeah. Yeah. And he's got a bit of a lead on me.

00:11:30Melissa Erbacher: He does.

00:11:31Scott Trickett: Because obviously he doesn't volunteer enough.

00:11:33Melissa Erbacher: No. And I keep encouraging him to officially volunteer and not just do all that behind-the-scenes stuff, but –

00:11:40Scott Trickett: Is he still listening? Can we put pressure on him? Is he in the room with you?

00:11:44Melissa Erbacher: Oh, he's not in the room with me, no. And I don't remember the last time he listened to a podcast of ours.

00:11:51Scott Trickett: Okay. Well, all those Kawana parkrunners, go up and ask him just on Saturday.

00:11:57Melissa Erbacher: Have you scanned in? Ask him to volunteer. And the funny thing is, this is a joke, that I make any time I'm at Kawana and there are tokens missing is you see that man standing over there having a chat go make sure he has scanned in because probably it's in his pocket and he hasn't got around to it yet and yeah like I said this is not the first time it's happened he's taken them home from other events before as well um just because he's I'm gonna have to start calling him mr have a chat

Interview Nick Pearson — parkrun Global CEO

00:12:41Scott Trickett: I always say parkrun is massive. parkrun is global. And the man that sits at the top of that is Mr Nick Pearson. Aussie Nick. Welcome to the parkrun adventurers, Nick.

00:12:52Nick Pearson: Oh, thanks. Appreciate that, yeah. Personal invite. Well, I've got 12,000 miles to come and do the podcast.

00:13:00Scott Trickett: And this is our first fireside chat. We've never actually interviewed anyone in person. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mel.

00:13:06Melissa Erbacher: You're wrong. We had the parkrun adventurers listeners meet up last year.

00:13:10Scott Trickett: That was different. That was different. Yeah. So you're here in Australia, you've emigrated.

00:13:15Nick Pearson: Yeah.

00:13:15Scott Trickett: How's it going so far?

00:13:16Nick Pearson: Yeah, I'm three or four days in and I'm emigrating back in a couple of days. You're hoping to get out? No, I think I'll stay. I think I'll stay for a couple of stops on the way back, but I think I'll stay.

00:13:29Melissa Erbacher: What won you over? Was it the lamingtons or the snakes?

00:13:32Nick Pearson: Well, I mean, snakes are another myth we know, so I've not seen a snake. All elements of it. I like the sharks. I like the tigers. Yeah, all your wildlife.

00:13:48Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you know tigers, we don't have those here.

00:13:50Nick Pearson: I don't know, that's quite what you said you did. I've seen as many tigers as I've seen snakes, so.

00:13:54Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:13:56Scott Trickett: But you are a global CEO.

00:13:58Nick Pearson: That's correct.

00:13:59Scott Trickett: Fancy title for an important job. You've got the pressure of keeping this ship afloat.

00:14:05Nick Pearson: Yeah.

00:14:06Scott Trickett: Do you feel that every day?

00:14:08Nick Pearson: Yeah, can you tell? Yeah, I can. Yeah, you're right. It's a fancy title and it's actually not one that I'm massively comfortable with. I don't think parkrun reflects fancy titles and kind of big corporate hierarchies. But at the same time, it is really important for us to be able to walk into rooms with government ministers and be able to present ourselves as um equal in those conversations and so uh it's almost an unfortunate necessity but yeah it's a uh it's a fancy title it's a huge job it's a incredible privilege to be able to do it and um yeah I love it

00:15:00Melissa Erbacher: And what do you have to do to become such a honcho of hugeness as that? I always tell people my job at parkrun was the longest interview ever. It was five and a half years of volunteering and all that sort of thing without any expectation of it turning into a day job. But what goes into the CV of the CEO?

00:15:24Nick Pearson: Yeah, I mean, it's... So I guess 25 years of work, of learning lots of different things and kind of moving up from position to position in organisations and ending up doing relatively senior jobs and then having relatively senior jobs means that when other senior jobs come up people potentially come and talk to you about them so that was it it wasn't you know it was I'd known Paul for a long time and so it was you know in that sense it was a 10-year interview process.

00:16:14Melissa Erbacher: You had a barcode first, I'm assuming.

00:16:16Nick Pearson: Yeah, yeah. I'm 18,497. I'm quite 2008.

00:16:26Melissa Erbacher: Everyone's checking their wrist here to see what their numbers are. I'm 384,150.

00:16:31Nick Pearson: I think I'm probably going to beat you because I'm kind of pre-Australia, right?

00:16:37Melissa Erbacher: Also, you know, you've got your barcode tattooed on people now.

00:16:40Nick Pearson: Yeah, yeah.

00:16:42Scott Trickett: So let's take it back to the moment where essentially PSH handed over to you. He handed the reins over to you.

00:16:49Nick Pearson: How did that all go down? Did it challenge you? so I mean challenging in the sense that it was I don't think it was a very very easy thing for Paul to do and he was really really really committed to it he understood that he'd he'd travelled as far as he felt he could travel and that it had got so big and significant and responsible that he felt it needed skills that he didn't have but at the same time you were taking it like your kids leaving home or something. For six months, we worked together in a handover capacity. And there were times where we found it really, really difficult. And there were times where we had some pretty tough and challenging conversations because... only one person can do it you you you can't have two people in charge and um it needed to be one of us um so so no it was but but it's to his incredible credit I think that he's been able to do that and and actually what he has done is support every single decision I've made in four years um whether he agrees with it or not and You can see that there are occasions where he doesn't be supported every single one of those decisions, and he absolutely doesn't interfere in any capacity.

00:18:27Scott Trickett: I want to look at the global aspect of it. Yeah. So we've officially announced we're in Japan this week. Yeah. We know that... Do you know the start date? I do, yeah. Soon. Yeah. No, it's... We know that parkrun is massive in the UK. Yeah. That's where most of our parkrunners are. But your role is global, so how's your view on the global expansion or the global growth of parkrun? Or is your focus still primarily UK and we'll all learn from what the UK do?

00:19:05Nick Pearson: No, not necessarily. But I do think that our priority is... the sustainability of the 1800 events that exist today. And so what has been achieved and maintaining and supporting what's been achieved is much more important than creating empires and building bigger and bigger kingdoms. So every expansion strand will be considered based upon its merits and the challenges it puts on the existing infrastructure of the organisation. So Japan is fascinating because, and we ended up in quite a good position to be able to dictate the terms of us starting in Japan because we don't need to start in Japan. It's not part of a formal plan. We're not set against objectives and KPIs that say, be in this place or be in this place or be in this place. So when we started conversations with interested parties and stakeholders in Japan, we were able to say, look, We think it would work, but these are the conditions by which we would commit to working in Japan. We definitely need some help with permissions, which is often the biggest initial challenge. We've been able to start there with sponsors in place, which is the first time that's ever happened. government bodies and agencies are supporting the program. And so we've never had that before, but that comes from us being able to say, well, we're not in a rush. We'll do it, but only if we can do it without risking everything else.

00:21:00Melissa Erbacher: I like that that's the position, I guess, parkrun finds itself in. It's a strong position to be in, to not feel the need to move anywhere before the timing is right and everything's in place.

00:21:15Nick Pearson: Or not move anywhere at all. So I think, you know, we talk a lot, Tom, the Chief Operating Officer, talks a lot about if we never started another event, parkrun would be a phenomenal success story, reaching and touching and helping millions and millions of people. And so, of course, making sure that they're still able to do that is our number one focus and priority.

00:21:39Melissa Erbacher: And are you finding that even after all these years, there are new challenges with maintaining that sustainability at the existing events?

00:21:48Nick Pearson: Yeah. So I think, and we were chatting about this earlier, I think there are two challenges. overarching fundamental challenges of an organisation the size scale and functionality of parkrun one is its financial sustainability so so the challenges really come from the fact that the genie's out of the bottle, and demand, more people will register every day, forever. So we're in an incredibly unusual position where consumer demand isn't our primary objective as an organisation. So that will happen. And so supporting an infrastructure that accommodates all of those new people that are registering every single day is a really significant and important part of what this job is. And, of course, that infrastructure and support requires investment, whether it be technical investment, whether it be human resources, all of those things. And so that's one of the challenges. And that challenge, to some degree, started... almost from day one, and it will always exist. And then the second challenge is the relationship that we have with the volunteers. So ensuring that that continues to be as tight and trusting and reciprocal as we can possibly make it and that challenge gets harder every day and that challenge gets harder every day because we get bigger and bigger and bigger and there's more and more people and so the natural consequence of that is that that group feel further and further and further distanced from us as an organisation Day one, you've got three or four volunteers. You know all of their names. You've got their numbers in your phone. Now we've had 400,000 people volunteer. We're 1,800 events. You will never be able to be as tight. And we are always moving further and further away in terms of that size and scale. So we need to make sure that our volunteers feel that we're representing them, that we're not imposing upon them, that we're listening to them, that we're part of the team. As with all of the parkrun employees, our parkrun volunteers, they're doing all of those different jobs. You know, it's a relatively unusual organisation like that. You know, you don't normally get all of your senior directors and staff, you know, working on the shop floor and just as a staple of what they do. But actually, we all do. And we all do. Largely for the same reasons that everybody volunteers and that's because we really enjoy it and it's a fantastic thing to do. But maintaining that is going to be an ever increasing challenge. And I think, you know, we have to find ways of helping people, volunteers to see and understand that we're here representing them, that we're not just a group of kind of detached corporate suits with fancy job titles, kind of making decisions that never consider where they sit in that decision-making process.

00:25:28Scott Trickett: So what's your parkrun day experience like? Get back to your local every week? Are you always on tour? Are you volunteering?

00:25:37Nick Pearson: I'll now tell you I don't volunteer as much as I'd like. So I don't volunteer on a Saturday. So I do a lot of volunteering outside of parkrun within sports clubs and sports organisations because of my children, basically. So in the same way that so many people do. So what does my parkrun weekend look like? My parkrun weekend looks like I'll normally run on a Saturday. And I do a combination of both. It depends... As in touring or going to my local. So I'm incredibly lucky. I'm 20 minutes from Bushy Park, event number one, but equally I'm 20 minutes from another five or six different events. So I can kind of choose how I feel, what kind of run, um, how I want to get all of the different things that come with some of the UK weather and courses. And then depending upon whether I'm going for the experience of running or I'm going with some of my friends or I'm meeting people or depending on where I go, then it will either be... an hour parkrun experience or a three hour parkrun experience. So, um, I do really, really, really like the Turner and then just spend the rest of the morning having brunch and coffee and all of, uh, all of those types of things. So that'd be a Saturday. Um, and then, uh, Sunday, if I'm not with my son training, coaching, um, team managing, all of the things I do there, then I'll volunteer at Junior parkrun on Sunday. But there is a lot I'm doing with Josh, unfortunately.

00:27:29Melissa Erbacher: Or fortunately for Josh and those organisations that you're supporting.

00:27:33Nick Pearson: Well, listen, fortunately for Josh. I'm not sure Josh would say that. But, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:40Melissa Erbacher: And so since you have become CEO, has your parkrun experience changed on the day? Like do you get people recognise you and want to come up and they've just got this issue about this or they want to talk to you about the fact that their milestone shirt link has expired? Do you get those sort of operational type questions or do people just leave you alone?

00:28:02Nick Pearson: Well, I'm low-key, so my normal format would be Go quietly and then introduce myself.

00:28:16Melissa Erbacher: There's no trumpets a-blazing. Nick Pearson's here today.

00:28:19Nick Pearson: Definitely, definitely, definitely not. All of that makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. So if appropriate, I'll go speak to the Run Director afterwards, but it would be afterwards, not before, and just say thank you. So nobody's ever moaned to me at a parkrun event ever about any of the operational issues.

00:28:42Melissa Erbacher: Equally, they can come and just want to thank you.

00:28:44Nick Pearson: More of that, yeah. So on the places where I'm known, then team members will speak to me. But, yeah, if there is any feedback anywhere in the world, it's always positive.

00:29:04Scott Trickett: So you'll be park rounding here in Australia on Saturday, so we won't tell people where you are. No. Why are you here? Why are you down under?

00:29:13Nick Pearson: I like the biscuits, all of the biscuits, not just the Tim Tams are good. No, we've come to work with the Australian team for a few days and support some of the commercial challenges that exist definitely in our bigger territories where costs and resources are required and you're really trying to come and support those challenges with some of the learnings that we've seen in some of the other markets. So I think our sense is that Australia's growing in a size and a scale that's very, very similar to maybe where we were in the UK three or four years ago. And some of the structures and mechanisms that we've put in place to support commercial partners and fundraising would be something that we could support the team with here.

00:30:24Melissa Erbacher: So while you're in Australia, you mentioned not being a corporate suit. I don't know what you wear to the office when you're in the UK, but what kind of apparel is appropriate to wear to the office in Australia?

00:30:38[laughter]

00:30:38Nick Pearson: Are we laughing at Scott's shirt? Is that the motivation for that question? I mean, the context for Scott's shirt is obviously I wore a lairy shirt last night at dinner and Scott's decided to try and outdo me.

00:30:54Scott Trickett: I'm inspired by my leaders.

00:30:56Nick Pearson: Yeah, exactly. And then I'll wear a worse one tonight. You'll be entirely put in the shade. But no, we are an informal team and everywhere that parkrun exists, it's an informal team. I think you... You can see it here with the team in Australia. It's very, very similar to the way that the global teams work out the offices in the UK. It's a group environment. It's CEO sitting next to admin staff or junior staff and everything being shared around the group. There's definitely no... Corporate protocols or uncomfortable hierarchies, everything is done together.

00:31:49Scott Trickett: Your admission, we were chatting earlier, and your admission that this podcast is your favourite out of the other parkrun podcasts that currently exist. But you do listen to With Me Now and you do listen to Free Weekly Timed. How do you reckon they're going?

00:32:05Nick Pearson: How do I think they're going? I... I think it's all phenomenal, positive parkrun content. And the more of it that's out there, the better it is for parkrun. So I think... Anything that... One, I think, is a reflection of the significance, the relevance, the popularity of parkrun. And I think it's positive for parkrun. It tells the message, it puts some context, it supports the messages and the messaging that we're trying to share. And so, no, I mean, I... I have listened to all parkrun podcasts, including this one. And I think there's a role for all of them. I think there's a role for all of them. And I think that in four, five, six years' time, there'll be three or four times as many as well.

00:33:16Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's a prediction there for podcast growth. What are we going to do, Scotty?

00:33:21Scott Trickett: Bring on the competition.

00:33:24Melissa Erbacher: More territories, I think. I think South Africa needs to get themselves a podcast.

00:33:28Scott Trickett: Well, they did have one for a couple of weeks. They did, yeah. Was that when I lived there?

00:33:35Melissa Erbacher: Brings me to another question I wanted to ask you, Nick. How many countries have you lived in exactly?

00:33:40Nick Pearson: On this trip? On this trip, this is the third country I've lived in on this trip. Yeah, lots. Yeah, lots. I mean, never for more than three or four days, but... Yeah, I've had 15 months.

00:33:53Melissa Erbacher: Do you find a sense of adventure and a love for travel has been really useful in your role?

00:34:01Nick Pearson: I love travelling. These trips can be really challenging. So obviously I came over for Australian Conference in September. and we had a great time. It was a very, very short trip.

00:34:12Melissa Erbacher: But you had to stay in a tent.

00:34:14Nick Pearson: Yeah, and, you know, that's my favourite type of accommodation. But... parkrun work trips can be really difficult. So, you know, long-haul flights for two or three days and then turning around and going back is exhausting. So, you know, we have designed this trip to try and make it a little bit longer so it can be slightly less onerous than they traditionally are. But, yeah, I have got used to flying. Put it that way. I mean, we kind of, so, I mean, Europeans struggle with anything over three or four hours because European flights are three or four hours. And I had not been to Australia until I came conferencing in September. And that was all because I just was petrified of the flight. I just couldn't face it.

00:35:18Melissa Erbacher: And that's not even travelling with small children. That's just travelling on your own.

00:35:23Nick Pearson: Yep, you're right, and I understood travelling with small children even less. So, you know, that was... I remember taking Josh on his first trip, two and a half hours to Portugal, and it was traumatic, just even thinking about it. So, like, you know, hats off to everybody that manages that with small children. But, yeah, that's... We're just not used to it. And actually, you know, we would look at... We had a trip out to... San francisco and Tim came to San francisco and we um uh I just thought for him it was just such a casual thing I thought it was three or four hours or something I didn't for us it was this massive 12 hour trauma and then Tim it was absolutely uh and then but it was the same flight it's and so like you once you get used to it you get used to it we just had not got used to it and so um

00:36:21Melissa Erbacher: Now, I know you guys aren't fond of attending inaugurals and things like that in the UK for fear that they're going to be massive and you don't want to place the pressure on the event teams. We haven't really followed too much of that suit here in Australia yet. Will you be travelling over for a Japanese parkrun at any time in the future?

00:36:40Nick Pearson: I'll be at that launch, yeah. When Scott tells me the launch date, I'll be at that launch. I mean, it's a, we will be, and we will be, so Paul's coming, Tom's coming from the global team, and then there's obviously a group of the Australian team travelling out to the launch. And, you know, there is, a lot of that is about courtesy and respect and appreciating the Japanese culture and the support that we've had from stakeholders and organisations in getting that up and going. And so we wouldn't normally, but it feels appropriate this time.

00:37:27Scott Trickett: Okay, Nick, leave us with a tease. We haven't touched on Contra at all, but everyone's keen to hear about Apricot. Is Apricot coming back? When is it coming back? Can you share any plans with what we're doing there?

00:37:41Nick Pearson: Is everybody keen to hear about Apricot? Is it big here? That's a good question.

00:37:50Melissa Erbacher: Is it going to be in singlets? That's the big question here.

00:37:54Nick Pearson: Yeah, we bought singlets. So it, I understand, is back again in April, next month, in stock. So it's a long story, but basically we... broke with the partner, we had to find a new partner, we had to do lots of sourcing and all of the stuff that sits around getting product back out there. So we've got a new product, colour is apricot, but it's a really nice new fabric.

00:38:35Melissa Erbacher: Banana shade of apricot.

00:38:36Nick Pearson: Yeah, bad lighting. That's our head of comms unable to take a decent picture. So it's back. The first launch will just be short sleeve T-shirts. But there will be an extended range coming once that's launched, yeah.

00:38:54Melissa Erbacher: Well, thank you very much for joining us in. It's not a virtual office today. There are actually chairs and I can see faces and it's nice to be able to take like body language cues during an interview.

00:39:06Nick Pearson: How was my body language?

00:39:07Melissa Erbacher: Well, you know, cross-legged, cross-armed. I think you want to wrap up. So this is where I'm heading with thanking you for joining us on the podcast.

00:39:16Nick Pearson: My pleasure. My pleasure. Anytime. I'll pop over.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Queanbeyan parkrun

00:39:25Mark Scarborough: Hello parkrun adventurers, this is Mark and today I've crossed from Canberra into the New South Wales border into Queanbeyan parkrun and a beautiful day here in Queanbeyan actually. Today is the number 96 event for Queanbeyan parkrun and this parkrun has an average time of 36 minutes which is actually quite a hilly course here. It's certainly a challenging one and recommended for your city to surf training if that's what you're hitting up later on this year. And I'm here with Run Director Vanessa. Good morning, Vanessa.

00:39:59Vanessa: Morning, Mark. How are you?

00:40:00Mark Scarborough: I'm excellent, thank you. So what can you tell us about Queanbeyan parkrun?

00:40:05Vanessa: Well, we're now nearly up to our 100th parkrun and we started just over two years ago. No, coming up to two years, sorry. And it took a few years to get going. We had to, as most parkruns, you know, find funding, find the right location to get it going and the support from all the stakeholders. But it's grown steadily and now we seem to be going really well. We're hitting over 100, each week which has been fantastic so might go down again in winter I suppose with the cooler weather but Queanbeyan parkrun Special because we're one of the hilliest courses in this region I think we are the hilliest course and I think we were ranked recently as the about the 10th or 11th hilliest course for parkruns around Australia so we're well known for our hills.

00:40:58Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, definitely the hilliest course in Canberra and the hilliest that I've done so far of all the parkruns. And I saw that blog article where you guys ranked, which is good. I think it's a good attraction for people to come to. And if you are a parkrun adventurer like myself, you also can pick up the queue here at Queanbeyan, which is a rare letter as well. So, Vanessa, is there any memorable occasions in the near two years for you here at Queanbeyan?

00:41:21Vanessa: I think... They're sort of each day's memorable here but what I'm really finding very memorable is that the connections that are being formed in the community where families are meeting each week, they're encouraging each other, they're forming extra running groups on Sundays and going out and joining each other or they're helping each other with pram pushing or meeting up later in the week as parents with their kids. So for me that's been the most memorable thing is the community connections that have been made here that I haven't seen before around a sporting event in Queanbeyan. And I think for Queanbeyan this is the only sporting event we've had that's free and running focused as well for a very, very long time.

00:42:13Mark Scarborough: There were certainly lots of high fives out on the course today, which was really good from all the little kids. Certainly helped inspire our two little kids as well. For our listeners, can you describe the course for us other than the hilly factor? How would you describe the course?

00:42:28Vanessa: So the course starts, it's along the Queanbeyan River, so it's quite picturesque. And we run out and we go up and down a little bit and up again, a little bit of a flat and up and then we come back and come down those little ups and and then we do it again so it's a two out and back twice course um and it's yeah it's a very picturesque so it is what I can say and um highlights the lovely Queanbeyan red of our

00:42:57Mark Scarborough: Yeah, it's great to run along the river and see the old railway bridge at the top as well. Yeah, it's a very picturesque course. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having us today and good luck for your second birthday coming up soon.

00:43:09Vanessa: Yep, thank you very much for that. And, yes, hopefully we'll have lots of people at our second birthday and we'll have cake, of course.

00:43:15Mark Scarborough: Very soon we'll get a Queanbeyan parkrun. Yeah, like I said, if you are chasing the alphabet for the parkrun challenges, you can come get a queue here at Queanbeyan and we'll talk to you next time on parkrun adventurers.

Roving report David Moss — Greenbank parkrun

00:43:28David Moss: Okay, we're at the, where are we, Greenbank parkrun. We've just completed and I'm with the two Event Directors who are... Chrissie. Stuart. Okay, and tell me, how long has Greenbank been going for?

00:43:41Chrissie: Since August 2017.

00:43:44Stuart: Second season now, celebrating with all the locals today. Okay, and you've had a few changes here.

00:43:50Chrissie: Yeah we have thanks to Laurie Smith and the Logan City Council we've actually gone from a complete grass course to a fully paved course which is accurately engineered measured to the hundredth mil or something they've told us and it's absolutely fantastic we can't thank them enough it's really made the community space more usable.

00:44:07Stuart: So we're interested in challenges guys.

00:44:10David Moss: I cannot get mine to record anything but bang on 5k So it is a purpose-built parkrun course built to within 100 millimeters of five kilometres and I should say to the listeners That I came out here for the inaugural run which was as you say last year and it was freezing it was over I won't say cow paddock but over grass there were ruts in the ground all sorts of things this path is absolutely amazing and

00:44:35Chrissie: It is. We've actually almost quadrupled in numbers since we've got the path of our regulars each week which is absolutely fabulous. When Stuart and I started all we ever wanted to do was build a community and that's exactly what we're doing.

00:44:47David Moss: And it looks as though the council has paid for and put in two and a half k's of path just for parkrun. It squiggles all over the place. You've got kangaroos, one of which is aiming at us right now. He just says hello. That's Bob. So how many people do you normally get on the runs?

00:45:05Stuart: We had 141 last week. So as Chrissie said, we are increasing. Every week we seem to be increasing. Last week was 141. I think today being our first pacer week has definitely brought out a lot of people and PBs. I'm not sure where we're at, but I'd say we're going to beat 141. Ultimately, Chrissie and I developed this parkrun with the hope we could achieve 50 people a week. And I think we're going to be sitting on well above that.

00:45:26David Moss: Well and truly exceeded that. So are most of the people locals or do you get a lot of visitors from nearby areas?

00:45:30Stuart: There's quite a lot of visitors coming in. I think word's out. The course is fast. I think it's quite easy to achieve a PB here given it's a very flat course, couple of out and backs. A very slight incline is the hill, so it's a ruling track. As word gets out, you know, we're looking forward to some people coming in. Currently the course record's 15.45. which is roughly two minutes further than anybody else that's ever been anywhere close to it. It's quite a good record to target.

00:45:58David Moss: It's very good. So what got both of you to into parkrun?

00:46:02Stuart: I think we both attended our own parkruns anyway, so we were always out touristing. But I've got three young kids, Chrissie's got young kids as well, and it is a healthy lifestyle to live. If you can get your community involved in something and taking the kids out, not only participating in the fitness for the event, but also understanding what volunteering is and being part of a large, a small community we're here, but it's part of a larger community, isn't it? Very much so. And Chrissie, what got you into it?

00:46:27Chrissie: It's the same reasons. I had small kids. My eldest child loves cross-country, and we originally started at Augustine Heights because it forms part of their cross-country course for school. And then winter hit, and it was like nobody wanted to get out of bed, so we needed something closer. So I put a call out on a community page to see if anybody was interested. Stuart put his hand up to help, and now we're here.

00:46:48David Moss: And it's worked perfectly.

00:46:49Chrissie: It's brilliant.

00:46:49David Moss: And also on behalf of everyone else here, thank you very much.

00:46:52Chrissie: Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for touristing, guys.

00:46:54David Moss: Come and challenge us. Okay, and I'm now with... With Dan, the motivator. Dan. So, Dan, you were doing the 20-minute pacing today. I was, yes. Well done. How often do you do pacing at parkruns?

00:47:07Dan: Oh, pretty much every week. Where there's a spot still required, I'm capable of pacing anything from 20 to 40. So, yeah, basically every week. I'm volunteer rich, let's say. This is my 78th volunteer today.

00:47:20David Moss: Oh, beautiful. I've seen you at a few other parkruns, so you must get around a bit.

00:47:24Dan: I do, mostly around Logan's parkruns though. That's where I earned the name Dan the Motivator at Logan River parkrun's first birthday. It was celebrated by the Event Director then, Sarah Logan. So yeah, it was a great thing.

00:47:38David Moss: Okay, and I seem to recall you seem to have a reasonable sort of voice.

00:47:42Dan: Well, yeah, I can be loud. That's, again, where I've got the name, I suppose. Very much so if I'm calling out the time or if there's a briefing that's being had, I'll definitely announce the briefing and keep everyone quiet during it. Because, yeah, no, loud is my thing. Okay, and what got you into parkrun? Actually a girlfriend of mine at the time was on a weight loss journey and had found parkrun as an assistant to her weight loss journey and I opted to try to motivate and assist her so I said register me and she did that but basically from my very first parkrun she wasn't keen on my motivation which is why it ended up becoming everyone else's motivation instead so I have to be grateful and so should everyone else be grateful to her for that.

00:48:29David Moss: Oh, excellent. And do you do other runs besides the 5Ks on parkrun?

00:48:33Dan: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. On January the 5th of this year, I finished running 4,262.2 kilometres in 72 days. I'd started on October 26th last year. I ran that. There was a virtual run from here to Perth. raising money for motor neurone disease. I raised over $5,000. Congratulations. Thanks mate, thank you. And tomorrow I'm actually running in the International Women's Day Fun Run at Southbank and I'll be wearing my backpack pressure sprayer to cool everyone down. That weighs about 21, 22 kilos full.

00:49:05David Moss: And I should say at the end of today's run, Dan put his water pack on and he's been spraying people as they come over the line. It's a good way of cooling down. Today is unusual. We've actually had rain in Brisbane. But I've seen you wearing that in other places and it's much appreciated. Thanks mate.

00:49:22Dan: There's a little bit of weight in it but that's alright. I'd like to see you running in it. Yeah, tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll run the whole 10k event wearing it. I have 20 kilos on my back while I run. One of the ladies that I coach is going to be doing her 10k event PB. She just actually did a practice run the other day and she's done a 10k distance PB already. But that was outside of event. But yeah, tomorrow will be her new event 10k PB of sub 75kg. What can I say?

00:49:48David Moss: Dan, look, thank you very much, and I look forward to seeing you at a few other runs. No worries. Thanks for talking. See you, lads. See you. Okay, and I'm with?

00:49:55Amelia: My name is Amelia. Nice to meet you.

00:49:56David Moss: Amelia, where do you come from?

00:49:58Amelia: I live at Park Ridge, run at Springfield, though.

00:50:01David Moss: Springfield's your home run?

00:50:02Amelia: Yeah, Springfield Runners Group.

00:50:03David Moss: So what brought you over here?

00:50:05Amelia: To be honest, I heard that it was a really nice flat course. The weather's been really nice lately and I thought we'll give a new course a go in a new location.

00:50:14David Moss: Excellent. So this is the first time you've been here?

00:50:15Amelia: This is the first time I've been here today. What did you think? I loved it. I'm so coming back. I love my home course, shout out to Augustine Heights parkrun but yeah these guys do pretty well out here nice paved path course and yeah not not too many people so it was easy to run around on it was a top atmosphere as well yeah no it's really good I met some new people today and it's really nice to see some kids out here giving me a run for my money so did you bring a few kids along yourself no I didn't bring any don't have any kids myself but there's a few students that I teach I'm a school teacher yes yeah okay so I saw that was what you had to run I had to run with them at the end just to motivate them a little bit more but it was really good and you enjoyed the wildlife out on the course as well ah yeah the kangaroos kept you going um I think the kangaroos stole the segment on Strava from me but it's okay beautiful yeah and um what got you into parkrun in the first place To be honest, I used to run up north and I got into it because it was free and it was just something really good for the community and it's so good to see, like I said, a lot of young kids and stuff out here. It's where I sort of started doing the fun runs and things so good to see them coming up like I did as well.

00:51:32David Moss: Okay, beautiful. And you said you've run up in Rockhampton?

00:51:34Amelia: Yeah, I used to live in Rocky. I'm back in Brisbane now. But this course is a little bit flatter than up there. I used to be in the botanical gardens. But yeah, this course today was really good. And definitely we'll be back.

00:51:47David Moss: Okay, beautiful. Thank you very much. No worries.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Victory Heights Trail parkrun

00:51:49David Moss: Thank you.

00:51:50Lyndell Murray: G'day, Scotty. G'day, Mel. And g'day to all the parkrun adventurers. It's Lyndell here. And I'm checking in this morning for the Channel 5 News crew, from Victory Heights Trail parkrun up near Gympie, just north of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Now, it's been a bit of a trek to get here. Mel, your story last week about the cyclone and perfect weather, I actually put off my trip to Victory Heights Trail parkrun last week because of the cyclone, and I've turned up today and there's a bit of rain around, so go figure. Anyway, we might get a bit wet, but that's what the fun is like on the trails. I'll check in, do the run, and have a chat later on, so parkrun adventurers I've caught up with mother and daughter duo Kathy and Carol and I'm a bit confused as to who the mother and who the daughter is but I'll just get them to tell you your parkrun story My parkrun story?

00:52:49guest: Oh, I don't really know. I decided I needed to get out and do something and there's no way I was going to walk on concrete footpaths. Yep. Came out here and this is just wonderful. We come out every day now. Every day? Even not on parkrun day? Absolutely. About 5.30 in the morning. Yep. Wander two or three kilometres and go home. Really good.

00:53:09Unidentified speaker: Excellent. And how about you? Yep, same. So I just wanted to get out and do something and always thought running was stupid. Didn't understand why anyone would want to do that. We've all been there. But discovered the parkrun course, followed the Facebook page while I was building it and went, yep, going to get a part of that and have come whenever I can. And, yeah, just about every day with mum for a walk or a run, do the two, the three or the five. And, yeah. Love it. Excellent. What's the best thing about parkrun? I just really like the community spirit and the fact that everyone eggs it on and there's no, you know, there's just this great atmosphere, I guess. It's for everyone, yeah.

00:53:54Lyndell Murray: And you can bring the kids. Excellent. Well, thanks for talking to me. Keep on parkrunning and walking and keep avoiding those concrete paths, I say. Absolutely. Okay, guys, now I've caught up with first-time Run Director, Gaylene. How are you going?

00:54:10Gaylene: Fantastic.

00:54:11Lyndell Murray: And look, 10 out of 10 for me. You did a great job today. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Cheers.

00:54:17Gaylene: How did you first get involved with parkrun? Well, I came out here and tried to get a little bit fitter and about 18 months before parkrun kicked off and started jogging myself and just fell in love with the trails out here and I love volunteering for the community, so why not?

00:54:32Lyndell Murray: And so you've volunteered a bit since parkrun started?

00:54:34Gaylene: I've actually volunteered more than I've run. So I usually come out here and try and run it before the parkrun kicks off and then put on the orange blazer with pride and volunteer before and then get into it. Excellent. And so how's your running going then? Fair to average. But it's not all about time for me. It's about getting out of bed and beating everyone that's still at home. So that's my goal.

00:54:58Lyndell Murray: That's it. And there's lots of them, Gaylene. Absolutely.

00:55:01Gaylene: And encourage people of all sizes and fitness levels that you don't have to actually run. You can come and walk. I get out here sometimes with some girlfriends and just have a good old yarn as we go around. And that's really, really good as well.

00:55:13Lyndell Murray: It sure is. Now, what about volunteering? Have you had a history of volunteering before?

00:55:17Gaylene: Yes, I've always volunteered, whether it be with show societies or with the elderly and doing music therapy. You name it, I don't mind getting out there. It's such a beautiful community, so it's good to see other people also trying to support it.

00:55:31Lyndell Murray: That's great. Well, thank you so much. As I said, 10 out of 10. You've done a great job today. Thank you. And here's to many more successful parkruns here at Victory Heights Trail. All right. Now, I've caught up with a couple of Victory Heights Trail parkrun junior parkrunners. Cheyenne's talking to me, and she's here with her brother, Mason. Now, Mason did his 10 this week, and I understand you did your 10 a couple of weeks ago, Cheyenne.

00:55:56Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:55:57Lyndell Murray: And how is that? How do you like parkrun?

00:56:00Unidentified speaker: Good.

00:56:01Lyndell Murray: And what do you like most about it?

00:56:03Unidentified speaker: Running.

00:56:04Lyndell Murray: You like running? Now, you got a bit shy at the finish line. Everyone was looking at you.

00:56:08Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:56:10Lyndell Murray: And how come you got shy?

00:56:12Unidentified speaker: I don't know.

00:56:13Lyndell Murray: All right, are you going to come back next week?

00:56:16Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:56:17Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Hopefully I'll see you again at a parkrun. High five. Okay, the hard work's over and I've caught up with our Event Director, Jodie. How are you today?

00:56:27Jodie: Yeah, good, thank you. How are you?

00:56:29Lyndell Murray: Yeah, terrific. I love your course here.

00:56:31Jodie: Awesome. Yeah, it's a really good course. We put a lot of work into it. It was nearly two years in the making from the first sort of shake of the hands. And, yeah, we're 18 events in now. And everyone that comes along, absolutely, well, most of them love it. Yeah, if there's anything they don't like, they're like, that's really hard, but it's not.

00:56:55Lyndell Murray: You can't please everybody all the time, Jodie.

00:56:57Jodie: No, that's right, no. But we try to. We've set it up to make it inclusive and well-marked and sort of fun at the finish line and do a good little spiel at the briefing and just get a few laughs going so it's not so serious and just get everyone sort of a bit upbeat before they head out on their way to whatever's in front of them.

00:57:20Lyndell Murray: To pain and glory.

00:57:21Jodie: Yeah, pain and glory. But it's funny, there's plenty of glory because the amount of PBs we have every week is just phenomenal. Like we see people there, like this month alone, like there were eight people that have run four times in February and got four PBs, each one of those people in February. So everyone just improves each week.

00:57:46Lyndell Murray: That's great. It must be the cheer squad.

00:57:49Jodie: possibly the cheer squad maybe the cooler conditions now or something I'm not too sure but I think it's a really good thing with parkrun that you know your results are sent to you and people get to see that and then they return the next week to you know try and better their time and A lot of people really do try and do that. And then when they get to the finish line, they're like, oh, hopefully I think I did.

00:58:15Lyndell Murray: I don't know.

00:58:16Jodie: I don't know. And then most of the time they do. So, yeah, it's really good.

00:58:20Lyndell Murray: That's great. Now, you've touched on this at the beginning. It was a two year labour of love to get this set up. Just tell us a little bit about that process.

00:58:29Jodie: Yep, so initially, quite a few years ago, the Cooloola Trail Care Alliance wanted to probably hold a trail parkrun here. They didn't want to run the event themselves, but they were happy to have one here. I was actually working away at the time, so I was unable to do it. And then as soon as I started working full time in town, I made contact with Andrew, that's the president of the CTCA. So we had a little bit of a chat about it, shook hands on that day and, um, it all started from there. So we obviously had to get our grant, which was just a council community grant for the $5,000 initially. And then we sort of mapped out a course, um, which we sort of went over and over and over many times. Um, Andrew actually works for natural resources and mine. So he's, he's right onto Google earth and all that. So he's really handy in that respect. Um, We actually built another kilometre of single trail to specifically form part of the 5K course and to keep everyone away from the main sort of mountain bike hub at the top. So that come at a cost of... you know say around about ten thousand dollars just to build that trail which was really good and then we set out and we fully marked every turn and crossroad with hardwood posts so I actually put in about 50 of those posts and dug all the holes for them wow And put them in. So it hasn't just been like an admin-y type of thing. Like I've actually been out here and digging and brush cut and mowed and stuff. So yeah, so we had all that. And then we sort of had the thing where we then had to get money for a defib, um parkrun set up a go fund me through sports foundation to try and raise the funds for that and also they set up our Facebook page early to try and help with getting those funds um so we got to about six hundred dollars and then um I put a post on a local information page just to try and get a bit of support and help with raising that money and um I'd just finished work for the night and another friend was suggesting some things for some fundraising. And I was like, yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. And she said, oh my God, go have a look at your Facebook posts. And I was like, what, what? She said, go have a look. And anyway, so I had a look and a local dentist, Jacaranda Family Dental, which is Adam and Sam Bradshaw, they donated the final $1,340 to go towards our defib. So that got us to the $2,000. So that really set us on our way. And that was, I think, about March, April. So we were sort of keen for about a June, July launch. But then things just sort of happened again. And then we were sort of ready to have our trial run. And we had a massive hailstorm come through and sort of obliterated everything. We had about... 80 or 90 incidents around the whole trail network where trees or branches were down and a whole heap of erosion from the rain so then we had to get the earthworks people in to fix all that so that put us two weeks behind um and then we finally sort of had our first trial run which was only about 15 people because it was just low-key and under the radar um our second trial we had um I can't remember maybe about 70 people I'm not too sure um and then we finally had our launch um and we had um 150 24 or something like that for our launch. It was really good. And we sort of had a few quiet weeks, but that was the Christmas formal yeah type of time of year and then once New Year come along it just sort of kicked off from there yep and um yeah two weeks ago we smashed our attendance record so a little trail run in a little country town had 199 walkers and runners come

01:02:58Lyndell Murray: So close to the 200, Jodie.

01:03:00Jodie: And so many people were like, oh, I was going to come, I was going to come, so you would have got over the 200.

01:03:06Lyndell Murray: Can you count my dog?

01:03:07Jodie: Yeah, that's right, yeah. Can I go again? I'll go again. Yeah. So... So yeah, sort of that two-year labour of love and hard work and that. I think every week you see everyone happy and excited and loving it and it just makes it all worthwhile. And when I get to this time on a Saturday, which is after the event, I sort of feel a bit of a... void because then I'm just waiting for waiting for the next week yeah so it's all sort of over in you know a couple of hours and then you're just looking forward to the next week and um seeing everyone you know turn up again so yep um but yeah usually I'm sort of the Run Director but I've put other people in the yeah position I've done the Timekeeper and today I did barcode scanning which was actually really good to say g'day to their name when you see their barcode so it's nice to sort of put a name to a face instead of just oh hey how you going how are you you know because they all know your name but actually you don't know their name so um but no I'm really happy with how it turned out here and um I think it's a really good event for Gympie and um I think after today I think we've actually hit over 10 000 kilometres walked and run so far yeah in 18 events yes and you've come of age it is the 18th event isn't it so you're an adult now yeah that's right 18 yeah we can we can legally go out and do other stuff

01:04:36Lyndell Murray: so yeah over 10 000 kilometres and like I say that's 10 000 kilometres that would never have been run or walked by the community or in Gympie yeah and look there's lots of other users of the park here there's other walkers and bikers here so clearly it's a really great asset for the community in general and parkrun just adds to that

01:04:56Jodie: Yeah, exactly. It was primarily a mountain bike trail and obviously with the launch of parkrun, we also put in a two kilometre circuit and we've got a three kilometre circuit as well. So that is really highly utilised. Monday to Sunday by just general users and because it is fully marked people can come out at any stage and do that and it's really funny because the amount of pedestrian traffic is far greater than mountain bikes now so um it also with parkrun really helps us with um know getting grants to build new trail and improve the facility and um I think especially for smaller sort of towns um to have something like this is just fantastic especially when you know like a lot of team sports and stuff like that can become out of reach and expensive for people to do sure and with parkrun being free and all they've got to do is bring a barcode and walk or run the 5k volunteer every now and then volunteer every now and again and um you know everyone's getting fitter and it doesn't cost them anything so and it's being on every week is every week all year is fantastic and touch wood we haven't had to cancel an event yet so even with cyclone oma last week yeah which was a non-event yeah it was totally a non-event it was

01:06:35Lyndell Murray: And look, just in talking to a couple of the parkrunners, they said that it's really bringing a community together here in Gympie as well. So what a great achievement for you, Jodie, and for parkrun in general. Thank you so much for having me here today and for all you've done for this community in setting up a parkrun. It's wonderful.

01:06:52Jodie: Awesome. Thank you so much, Lyndell. And yeah, I'm really stoked that I was able to do it. And it takes a little bit of commitment, but once everything's set in place, everything works itself out. And I was quite fortunate that we sort of started running here probably about a year and a half ago, every Saturday morning anyhow. So a lot of those people that would come running on a Saturday morning, they're sort of part of like a core team, group now so I don't really have to struggle to get volunteers each week someone will pitch in yeah someone will pitch in so um that was a really good idea as well yeah um but now I'm really proud of what we've achieved here and um yeah can't wait to be back next week

01:07:35Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Well, hopefully I'll be back here sometime again soon too.

01:07:39Jodie: Yeah, love to have you here.

01:07:40Lyndell Murray: Yeah, thanks, Jodie.

01:07:41Jodie: No worries. Thank you very much.

01:07:42Scott Trickett: A trifecta of roving reports this week. And it's obvious who they were. But in case you weren't paying attention, Mark was at Queanbeyan. Mossy. Now, I'm calling him Mossy, Mel. Do you think that's okay? I don't feel comfortable calling him David. I feel too formal.

01:07:59Melissa Erbacher: No, that's okay. You can call him Mossy if you want.

01:08:02Scott Trickett: He was at Greenbank. And Lyndell was at Victory Heights.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:08:05Melissa Erbacher: Now, we've got a few anniversaries this week, but we don't have any launches. So a couple in New South Wales. We've got Albury-Wodonga and Parramatta celebrating.

01:08:16Scott Trickett: We've got Bairnsdale in Victoria and Dawesville in WA. Albury-Wodonga, it's listed as New South Wales, but you know the Wodongas in Victoria.

01:08:26Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I know, but they start and finish in Albury.

01:08:28Scott Trickett: Yeah.

01:08:29Melissa Erbacher: So, you know, they've got enough time to jump into Victoria, say, how's your mother, turn around and go back again.

01:08:37Scott Trickett: I just wanted to point out that it's half Victoria.

01:08:40Melissa Erbacher: Hey, look, on the calendar it says New South Wales. And who publishes the calendar, Scotty?

01:08:47Scott Trickett: parkrun Australia.

01:08:48Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, maybe you need to write those guys a letter and say, next year, let's put NSW slash VIC against Albury-Wodonga.

01:08:59Scott Trickett: I tell you what, they need more feedback like that.

01:09:03Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I'm sure they would love it.

01:09:08Scott Trickett: Let's go back in time again, Mel. We're catching up. We've got a couple of weeks left to go.

01:09:12Melissa Erbacher: We did really have a very long time off, didn't we?

01:09:15Scott Trickett: We did, didn't we? It feels like a long time ago that we had a break. I'm almost ready for another. But let's go back to the 19th of January.

01:09:29Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm going to jump in here this time, Scotty, and I'm going to go first and then I'll ask you where you were. Because I just had a pretty quiet one. I was at home run directing once again, trying to work on my goal for the year. Because I need to do more than one a month, you know, to get 15 run directs in this year. And that could be quite... What's the word? Ambitious. When a new little person comes along and may or may not allow me to volunteer as much as I'd like in the early months. So we'll see how that goes. But yes, I just had a quiet one at Kawana on the 19th. And while it was still on the beach course, second last week of the beach course. So it was a good morning nonetheless. But where were you on the 19th of January, Scotty?

01:10:22Scott Trickett: Look, I was back at Gardiners Creek for their anniversary. And again, a little bit of a quiet one, despite it being anniversary. And one thing I did do on this particular day is I did my first-time first-timers briefing. This is a new role.

01:10:39guest: Is it a new role?

01:10:41Scott Trickett: It's not a very common role, but we'd like to see it used a bit more, wouldn't we? It's not a new role.

01:10:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's just another opportunity for people to volunteer and still get a run in as well. But also, you know, enjoy the benefits of giving something back to the parkrun community.

01:11:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, I like the idea of it because historically where my events have been, we have had a first-timers briefing and it's been conducted by the Run Director on the morning. So it's not something that hasn't happened, but I'm creating a specific role for it. So the idea that first-timers will see it on the roster and go, okay, they want me to come. There's safety there. Someone's going to tell me exactly what to do.

01:11:26Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I've never really thought of it from that angle before.

01:11:31Scott Trickett: Yeah, so you task somebody with it. And so the idea is I guess that they run with it and embrace it. And that's exactly what I did. I love the first-timers briefing because you can say the same thing that you've said a hundred times before and they laugh at the same jokes because they've never heard them before.

01:11:49Melissa Erbacher: Yes, yes. And I do use the same jokes.

01:11:52Scott Trickett: Yeah, absolutely. Unashamedly. And I feel you've got a real captive audience because they are actually interested in what you're saying. Like I said, they haven't heard it before.

01:12:03Melissa Erbacher: And look, I don't know how you do your first-timers brief, Scotty, but I make people move. Like we have a post that has a map of of the coast on it and all the footpaths and things like that. So I make people come over to the post to me and so I can show them the course on the map, which is nice because if you've got people like physically committing to moving within earshot, I think they are definitely much more engaged audience.

01:12:32Scott Trickett: So you go through the whole, this is the course. You take a turn here, you go up here, you look for the tree, you do a cartwheel, you do all that.

01:12:42Melissa Erbacher: Well, it's not as… involved is that no but I like to have a visual yeah I mean we've got an out and back course and you turn around a lighthouse it's not difficult people don't get lost but I do like to have a visual aid when I am conducting the talk it's like you feel like Adriana Xenides from the Wheel of Fortune and you can gesticulate with your hands which I'm doing now and of course nobody can see but me um yeah and dated yourself a little bit there Mel

01:13:15Scott Trickett: For one, I don't think Wheel of Fortune is even on TV anymore.

01:13:17Melissa Erbacher: Look, I've loved words for a long time, Scotty. There's no shame, no shame at all in loving words.

01:13:23Scott Trickett: Anyway, getting off topic. But, yeah, well, see, I don't do the describe the course spiel. Early days at Westerfolds, we did. Studley, early days, I think we did. But I've soon learned, and I did it at Gardiners Creek as well. I had the map. I held it up. I said, anyone here going to run sub 20? No one puts their hand up.

01:13:44Melissa Erbacher: And you do that joke, all right, just follow the person in front of you.

01:13:47Scott Trickett: Exactly. Yeah. Because 99% of parkrunners, that's what they'll do.

01:13:53Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Well, I'm glad that our jokes differ. So for the parkrun adventurers out there, they can go to different events and they're not going to get the same joke because I attend a lot of first-timers briefings and that joke does actually get used in a lot of those briefings. I always give them a bit of a giggle because, yes, it's funny. I'm never going to be the person out the front. That's what's funny. But, yeah, it's nice to use some different material.

01:14:21Scott Trickett: Yeah. Well, when I work on it, I'll start injecting it into first-timers briefs. But that's what I did on the 19th. Now, Mel, seven days ago, a week ago, we read out some iTunes reviews. We implored our listeners to jump on the bandwagon and do likewise. Just checking. No new reviews. And you have a theory on this.

01:14:51Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I do. Well, I don't have a theory. I don't have a theory on. Well, no, I kind of do. Okay. So you're talking to two of my personalities at the moment. As you might have noticed, I'm having an argument with myself. So the thing is, when I listen to podcasts, and this is just me, I am either listening most of the time, probably 90% of the time, I'm listening to them in my car while I'm driving. The rest of the time, I would be listening to them either out on a run or a walk. And if somebody asks me to do something, to interact or something like that, I'm away from my home where I would be more likely to to do that so I'm not like sitting at my computer listening to a podcast and somebody says hey could you do an iTunes review and then I just like pause the podcast and go yes I'm going to do that immediately so I kind of forget if people say things like that in podcasts so I think that might be why Scotty do you think that is a good theory?

01:16:07Scott Trickett: It is a good theory. Yeah, it's a theory. And we differ a little bit because I think I do a lot of my podcasts listening either at my desk while I work, sometimes on a walk, very rarely on a run, most of the time in the shower.

01:16:24Melissa Erbacher: In the shower?

01:16:26Scott Trickett: In the shower, yeah.

01:16:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, how are you ever going to write an iTunes review in the shower?

01:16:32Scott Trickett: Yeah, but no, at least out of the shower I can just get out and do whatever they ask me to do. But I do tend to agree with your theory. So let's do a little social experiment. So this week in our Facebook post, let's ask for iTunes reviews and see if we get at least one. And then that way your theory will be proved true.

01:16:55Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe we need to make it a proper test. We need to leave it for a week. Because now we've mentioned it in the pod again, and so there's not going to be any proof that it wasn't. People didn't hear it in the pod and then go looking for the Facebook post. I'm no scientist, but I know there has to be a control group.

01:17:14Unidentified speaker: Okay.

01:17:16Scott Trickett: Well, you know what a control group is, so I think you might be a scientist.

01:17:21Melissa Erbacher: So I just don't think that this can be the week because the results will get sullied. And you know what's going to happen. You and I are going to forget by next week. And we won't do the Facebook post because we're terrible like that.

01:17:37Scott Trickett: No, no, no. I'm at my desk now, so I'm going to type in to do it. If I was in the shower recording this podcast, it probably wouldn't happen. But the fact that I'm at my desk and I'm typing it in.

01:17:48Melissa Erbacher: You're going to pop it in your calendar as a reminder. Yeah. Good plan.

01:17:51Unidentified speaker: Yep.

01:17:52Melissa Erbacher: Do you listen to your reminders? Because I set them all the time and then I spend a large portion of my day snoozing the reminders because it's like, oh, I don't have time to do that right now. Snooze, snooze, snooze. I don't close them because then they go away and I never have done the thing and I forget. But I just like irritate myself by having these things pop up all day long.

01:18:21Scott Trickett: Short answer is no, I don't. But what I do do is I set alarms and I'm looking at the clock now. And I've got to set mine for a couple of hours time to go up for another, get up early and go for another run in the morning. I've been doing some freedom runs while I've been up here, Mel.

01:18:38Melissa Erbacher: Have you?

01:18:39Scott Trickett: Yeah, we took in Main Beach, which I've done before. It's a bloody good parkrun, that one. I really like it.

01:18:45Melissa Erbacher: It is a good one.

01:18:47Scott Trickett: And I went to Paradise Point this morning too. That's a bloody good parkrun as well.

01:18:53Melissa Erbacher: Are you logging all these Freedom Runs?

01:18:55Scott Trickett: I am. I am on Strava and I will get to log them on my profile. But this morning at Paradise Point, I had a lovely run with Mandy, who is a podcast listener. She came out and had a run with me. So hi, Mandy.

01:19:07Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Hello, Mandy.

01:19:09Scott Trickett: I really enjoyed Paradise Point. So I want to try and get back to the Goldie and run it officially. Okay.

01:19:14Melissa Erbacher: On a parkrun day. That sounds like a good plan. Well, I have mentioned that once I run out of Brisbane, Gold Coast is next on my list. I haven't run Paradise Point either. In fact, I think Main Beach and Kirra are the only two Gold Coast parkruns I've done.

Sign-off

01:19:29Scott Trickett: Well, I think I'm heading to Kirra tomorrow. So let's wrap up 1.48 so I can get to bed and perform my best tomorrow morning. Thank you again, Mel.

01:19:39Melissa Erbacher: Always a pleasure, Scotty. Always. Always.

01:19:42Unidentified speaker: Thank you.