Episode 155 - Oodles of Roving Reports

Welcome

00:00:17Scott Trickett: Super refreshed and almost revamped edition of the parkrun adventurers podcast. Welcome back, Mel Erbacher.

00:00:25Melissa Erbacher: Thanks, Scotty. Almost revamped. I don't know anything about this, so I'm a little bit concerned.

00:00:32Scott Trickett: Hey, but we'll deal with that later.

00:00:36Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:00:37Scott Trickett: Did you enjoy your week off?

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I did. Well, you know, it went really quickly, let's say. Didn't have any progeny, if that's what people were wondering. Otherwise, obviously, I wouldn't be here. That would be Lyndell by now. But yeah, no, it was good. I had a wedding anniversary, which I got to squeeze in for a change. How was your week, Scotty?

00:01:02Scott Trickett: Well, last week did get away from us, didn't it? It was a busy old week. You finished up work officially. So finally, I no longer have to pay you to come on the podcast. And you're just doing this out of love of parkrunning and podcasting.

00:01:16Melissa Erbacher: I was getting paid before. What was I getting paid in?

00:01:20Scott Trickett: You haven't been receiving my checks.

00:01:22Melissa Erbacher: No, I haven't. I have to take this up with Australia Post, do I?

00:01:28Scott Trickett: Maybe, maybe.

00:01:29Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:01:31Scott Trickett: But God, I don't know. Last week, too long ago. All I know is that it went quickly. We didn't podcast and the week's back around and we're podcasting again, which is great. But let's go back. We talk about parkrun on the parkrun adventurers. We like to recap. We like to recap where we go each week to sort of enlighten our viewers on our live, our weekend lives.

00:01:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, some of us do, especially if they might be making headway on the most events list.

00:01:59Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. So no new events for me. In the last couple of weeks. But I did improve my PB at Bright parkrun. I revisited that event. I've been there three times now. First time was a 59.59. Second time was a Run Director. And third time as part of my annual boys road trip that we missed last year. So we tried to make up for it this year. So I went back to Bright. It was minus one mil.

00:02:26Melissa Erbacher: I was going to say, altitude at this time of year, Scotty, that must have been pretty brisk.

00:02:32Scott Trickett: It was so cold. It hurt. Like, my fingers hurt.

00:02:37Melissa Erbacher: And your lungs when you were breathing that air? That's what gets me. It's just, yeah. Yeah.

00:02:43Scott Trickett: Yeah, so I'm an asthma sufferer, so I really do struggle in those conditions. And asthma is a crap thing, and you try to explain it to people. If you can only breathe a little bit at a time, it makes it really hard to run. So what fuels your running is oxygen. Yeah, that's why we always try and improve our VO2 max. I don't want to get too technical, but it's increasing the ability of oxygen to supply blood to your muscles and all that sort of stuff. When you're not getting that oxygen in, it really makes it hard to run. Yes. I wasn't too worried about that because I was just cruising. But my hands, my God.

00:03:20Melissa Erbacher: You didn't wear gloves? Scotty, rookie error.

00:03:25Scott Trickett: I wasn't expecting it to be minus one in April, but it was. I went up to the high country in Victoria. Didn't take a jacket. So I had to buy a jacket while I was there. As you know, I don't own pants. So this is true, people. I actually physically don't own long pants. I own a suit. So that's technically, I guess. No, those are trousers.

00:03:47Melissa Erbacher: They can't be classified as pants if it's a suit.

00:03:50Scott Trickett: Yeah. You can't just wear them with a T-shirt around the streets. So I don't own long pants. I was a bit underprepared. Yeah. We had an awesome weekend in Bright. Lots of running. We ran a freedom run on the way up there. We stopped in at Euroa.

00:04:09Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:04:10Scott Trickett: How was that? Freedom runs are really hard too, Mel, because even though Euroa have a map, they have a map at the start. So they've got a shelter, they've got a map, but they do this thing, and it's really easy. It's along a track. You get to a big tree. You can't miss the tree. You turn around it. They're actually paving it the day we were there. And you still got lost? Well, you have to go under a bridge. And we didn't get lost so much, but we got back to the finish and we'd only run four and a half K. So we'd obviously missed a chunk.

00:04:39Melissa Erbacher: You found the wrong big tree.

00:04:41Scott Trickett: No, no, no. We got the right big tree to turn around, but we didn't do an extra bit going under the bridge. But if you read the map uninformed, it looks easy. Oh, you just cross over the bridge. But then when you come back and you go, oh, we missed that big loop there. So we did a bit extra. I added a few extra bridge crossings to make up the 5K because it can't be a freedom run if it's four and a half.

00:05:08Melissa Erbacher: No, it can't. Technically, I'm not sure it can be a freedom run if you don't do the actual. Oh, shh.

00:05:18Scott Trickett: I haven't listed it in my profile yet.

00:05:20Melissa Erbacher: Okay. We'll see if that one pops up. Maybe subconsciously.

00:05:23Scott Trickett: Yeah, subconsciously I feel the same way.

00:05:27Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I'm glad you had a good weekend at Bright, non-preparedness notwithstanding.

00:05:32Scott Trickett: Yep, yep. And then this weekend gone, we were back at home, again reminded how much I love being at home despite never going there. Because we did our alternate course, which is, if you've ever been to Westerfolds, and if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't, shame on you, because it's an awesome event. But we have this big hill that you might have heard about. And at the top of the hill, there's an old manor. And from time to time, I think it's happened about four times now, we get to start and finish at the manor, which also means we start and finish at the top of the hill. So the first kilometre is super fast, all downhill.

00:06:06Melissa Erbacher: And that last one is a...

00:06:08Scott Trickett: Yeah, that last 300 metres or so is really tough. But mentally, it's a good challenge because you know you've got this hill to get through and it's the last 300 metres. So in theory, you should be really tired. But mentally, you go, well, I've only got 300 metres to go. I'll just smash it. And you've got lots of people cheering. You've got cowbells going off. It's a really nice setting. To this day, I don't know why we didn't start and finish there.

00:06:32Melissa Erbacher: Well.

00:06:33Scott Trickett: Every week.

00:06:33Melissa Erbacher: The hill, like it might actually turn people off if it's every week. Like as a novelty, when you've got other things going on on your original course, it might be okay. But yeah, you might be straining the friendship otherwise.

00:06:49Scott Trickett: The other good thing that happened on Saturday is that I got to be car park marshal. So I got to add a new volunteer role to my list. But let me tell you, Mel, it's stressful being car park marshal. Yeah. I've got no car parks left. I've got all these cars coming at me. People don't stop.

00:07:06Melissa Erbacher: What do you do when there are no car parks left? Just tell them, turn around, go park somewhere else.

00:07:11Scott Trickett: Yeah. But then they just, they start parking on the side of the road. They just make up car parks. Then I'm like, I can't control you. You're in cars. And there's lots of you.

00:07:19Melissa Erbacher: So do you deserve your credit then as a car park marshal if you're not controlling the traffic?

00:07:25Scott Trickett: Well, I think so.

00:07:26Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:07:27Scott Trickett: There were no accidents. The intention was there.

00:07:30Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:07:31Scott Trickett: Yeah, and I think I helped a few people saying, you can't park, there's no room, so go away.

00:07:36Melissa Erbacher: Okay, well, that's interesting. I always kind of assumed Car Park Marshals would direct people to actual parks rather than just be standing around saying, no, sorry, there's nothing here, which I'm pretty sure people can realise after they've done a little loop themselves.

00:07:52Scott Trickett: Yeah, no, no, I did that as well. Well, because I was trying to help people out. It's like, there's no point coming up here, people. There's no parks. Turn around and go back and find another one. Because they didn't. They just parked in the park. So, I get it. I get it.

00:08:06Melissa Erbacher: We just won't let Parks Victoria know about that.

00:08:09Scott Trickett: Shh, they don't listen to this podcast. So, that was my parkrun fortnight.

00:08:13Melissa Erbacher: Wow. I'm impressed that you managed to get a new volunteer role in. I haven't done a new volunteer role in a little while.

00:08:20Scott Trickett: And I made sure Yvonne and Kasia signed up with me as well. So, we all got it.

00:08:24Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Excellent.

00:08:25Scott Trickett: We seized the opportunity. No, that actually really worked. So, Yvonne was down the bottom of the hill.

00:08:28Melissa Erbacher: Yep.

00:08:29Scott Trickett: And Kasia was up with me.

00:08:31Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Well, I'll have to try to find a course where I can get one of those in.

00:08:36Scott Trickett: So, what did you do? You must have tales to tell.

00:08:38Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Well, I have had two weeks of volunteering at home. Yeah. I'm pretty firmly set into the volunteering now. I did a little walk into town on the weekend. We have this annual festival in Palmwoods called the Time Warp Festival because we've got this fantastic old 50s-style diner in town, which is just pumping every day of the week that it's open in general. It doesn't matter. It's a big drawcard for the town. And once a year, we have this Time Warp Festival where the whole town shuts down the centre and it all turns 50s. So we did a little walk into town this weekend. And what usually only takes me five minutes to get there. It took a little bit longer than that. There's a couple of hills. There was walking around in the festival and then there was walking home. And then I suffered for the entire of the next day. I could barely move. So five kilometres is not within my reach at the moment. So you should be taking advantage of this, Scotty Trickett, while I cannot be doing 5K because, yeah, I'll be volunteering until – the foreseeable future but I was at Kawana and um I was welcoming back our good friend Kelly Hodges who comes on every now and again and does the nutrition segments we should have her back on now she hasn't been on in a while

00:10:04Scott Trickett: Is she back up and firing? Is her whole system functioning?

00:10:08Melissa Erbacher: Yes, absolutely. And that's what I was co-run directing. The first time I've ever co-run directed, actually, like properly co-run directed, she had her little boy Charles with her in this carrier. And just to make sure that, you know, all bases were covered, we had the two of us run directing in case she needed to nip off and then, you know, the event could still be supervised and all that sort of thing. So that was really great, welcoming her back to the run directing fold after her maternity leave. And then last week I put myself down as a photographer. And you know what I like to do when I'm a photographer? I like to find a different spot on the course that doesn't get utilised very often. Like people like to stand in general at the finish line and get people crossing the line, which is great. Also very helpful when you've got some creative volunteering happening with the tokens and the timings. But I like to be out on the course somewhere. And specifically, I've got a little spot that I like to stand because it's at the top of a little hill and it forces people to run up the hill and it forces them to smile while they're doing it, Scotty. And it's brilliant because I got so many great photos of people smiling while they're pushing themselves up the hill. And I'm sure I was responsible personally for them all knocking five or ten seconds off their time this week. That's what I did.

00:11:37Scott Trickett: Now, Mel, you have to stop perpetuating this myth of a hill at Kawana parkrun as well. I love it that you're trying to find different spots to take photos from because I'm with you. Finish line shots, okay. But this hill at Kewana that you talk of, was it on holiday the week we were there?

00:11:54Melissa Erbacher: It's not the hill you're thinking of.

00:11:57Scott Trickett: Did I do a different course?

00:12:00Melissa Erbacher: Look, it's no Westerfolds Hill, okay, but everything's relative. If it goes up, it's a hill.

00:12:06Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:12:07Melissa Erbacher: If it goes up for more than five metres, I think it's a hill. And this one goes up for a good 20, 30 metres at least.

00:12:14Scott Trickett: It doesn't.

00:12:16Melissa Erbacher: It does.

00:12:17Scott Trickett: I don't recall it.

00:12:18Melissa Erbacher: It was dead flat.

00:12:19Scott Trickett: I remember there was a little bit of a rise when we went around the lighthouse.

00:12:24Melissa Erbacher: I believe you'll be back soon. And so when you come back, I will take you and I will show you the hill that I refer to.

00:12:30Scott Trickett: I am. We're coming back in a month, so I want to do lots of Freedom Runs.

00:12:34Melissa Erbacher: Excellent.

00:12:36Scott Trickett: So hopefully you'll join me. If not, Kelly can come and join me for a Freedom Run, and Charlie, whoever else is in town.

00:12:42Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure there'll be a lot of people keen for that action, Scotty.

00:12:46Scott Trickett: Yeah. And in terms of the new events, I don't think that's going to happen. I think you're pretty safe, Mel. I'm going to be sticking around close to home and visiting a couple of events I've already ran. Oh. So until we're on the Sunshine Coast, I think I'm stuck where I am.

00:13:02Melissa Erbacher: You're not a contender. So you're just going to sit on even par with me until such time. Okay.

00:13:09Scott Trickett: That's fair, isn't it? I don't want to take advantage of a pregnant woman.

00:13:12Melissa Erbacher: Oh. We wouldn't be the first time, I'm sure.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:13:17Scott Trickett: Now, on this week's episode, so we've been busy, and so have our Channel 5 News crew, which is great. So we've got a bunch of roving reports, which we know you all love, and we're all around the country. So, Mel, who do you want to kick it off with? We're in Victoria, we're in South Australia, we're in Queensland.

00:13:35Melissa Erbacher: Oh, we were all over the shop, weren't we? Should we go with them?

00:13:39Scott Trickett: Well, go on. Sorry, I'll let you choose, so choose.

00:13:41Melissa Erbacher: Well, I think we should start with our newest recruit, Mark, who was at Albert Melbourne. But I was just going to actually give a shout out to surrogate mum Bev on With Me Now, who's done their first roving report. And she did it from Japan. And she did a really great job. So if you don't listen to With Me Now podcast, where the hell have you been? You should be tuning in. And yeah, great job.

Podcast deep dive

00:14:06Scott Trickett: Actually, we'll do a quick podcast deep dive because I'm with you. I'm back on with me now. Not that I ever really left, but I'm really enjoying their pod at the moment. And I've got to admit, free weekly time. So they've ditched the 29-minute prerequisite for their episodes, and I'm really enjoying free weekly time lately at the moment. Oh, I guess.

00:14:25Melissa Erbacher: Do they go longer now?

00:14:27Scott Trickett: They do. They do. And they had a really good interview with Tom Fordyce, who we don't know out here, but he's well-known in the UK as a – I'm guessing. I mean, I didn't know him. But it was a great interview that Bassos did. So big love to the parkrun podcast world. So we were all missing last week.

00:14:46Melissa Erbacher: And look, it makes it a little bit easier for you and I to just be relaxed every now and again and go, you know what? It's okay if we have a week off because there are people in the world who've got it covered. Not quite the same way as us. And we always love coming back and we always love podcasting. But yeah, for For me personally, I feel like there's less pressure to deliver a podcast every week.

00:15:11Scott Trickett: Yep. And you can only get this accent on the parkrun adventurers podcast.

00:15:15Melissa Erbacher: This is true. Other people may try and they may make us laugh really loud when they do, but you can only get these accents right here.

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Albert Park parkrun

00:15:34Mark: Hello parkrun adventurers, Mark calling in from Albert Park, parkrun. I'm here with Event Director Scott. Morning Scott, how are you? Hi, good Mark, welcome. So event number 388 today? Yeah, yeah, seven years now. Yeah, so I believe this was the first parkrun outside of Queensland and the third for Australia.

00:15:55Scott: Yeah, we did. Yeah, it was very small when we started. Carol Cunningham, who's now the head of volunteer management in the parkrun, Carol was the one who started all this, and Joanne and I were just participants in the early days. There was just like 30 people who came here every week, and now there's like 500.

00:16:08Mark: So last week you hit 500, and today it was 502. Yeah, a little bit more, so the numbers are staying big, even getting into people. Yeah, well, it's certainly a bit of a cold morning today. Just a bit of a shock for a few people.

00:16:23Scott: Yeah, but there wasn't much wind, although it's picked up a little bit now. The back straight wind is our friend or foe here at Albert Park, and that kilometre number three, it's the very rare time you get it behind you, and then everyone's doing PBs and very happy.

00:16:38Mark: So there's a couple of interesting stats about your parkrun. So there's been some massive growth over the years, but 2017, 2018, it was a really low growth. Any ideas what happened there? No, we don't really know.

00:16:51Scott: We've sort of been looking at this recently, and I think like a lot of parkruns, the growth in the early days is high, the rate of growth is high, but the rate of growth had slowed down, and we thought we were sort of peaking, but then this summer, since the start of the year, it's just been enormous. We've had Year-on-year growth this year has been like 30%, which is huge. Maybe it's our finish funnel. Maybe people love the finish funnel. I don't know. We've made a few changes to deal with bigger numbers, but it's definitely been really positive. It's not about trying to be the biggest parkrun or anything, but we're impacting more people and giving more people an opportunity to participate, and that's great. So for our listeners, can you describe the course? So it's a single lap of the lake. We tell people there's no shortcuts. You just start at one end. We have a little overlap because the path is 4.7 kilometres around the lake. the the lake here if people have seen the formula one grand prix we follow the course um it's just inside the road uh so it's it's a mix of gravel um and a beautiful bit of enrichment path the whole way around palm trees down the back with an awesome view of the city as you come around the bend at the sort of three kilometre mark and yet you see all the buildings in the background that usually catches the eye of people who are visiting yeah and um No shortcuts, just don't fall in the lake, which we've had a couple of times. I think I mentioned to you we've had three people in years fall in the lake and we try not to increase that number.

00:18:18Mark: Got to keep your feet dry people. It is a fast course being very flat. Now there is an interesting story about the male fastest record.

00:18:28Scott: yeah unfortunately uh the gentleman in question didn't didn't have his barcode on Christmas Day last year the record has stood for quite a long time for probably four years I think um Marty dent previously who holds a lot of records around Australia had held the course record here yeah we had a uh visiting um olympian from the UK and um but unfortunately he didn't have his barcode and we we have so many visitors and so many people without barcodes every week that you know parkrun has one simple rule about barcodes and I think for big events like us it's really important that we you know stick with that because it would literally add hours to the processing time before manually adding everyone in

00:19:07Mark: Yeah, look, it's one of those things, you've got to be strict on the rule, even if you're breaking a course record. And the female record holder is Sinead Diver, who is over in London this weekend, getting ready for the London Marathon, so that's pretty exciting. Are you going to tune in and watch that? Yeah, for sure, yeah.

00:19:20Scott: Look, Sinead, I mean, she doesn't run parkrun super regularly, but she's done a lot here over the years, particularly in the early days. She was quite an early supporter of parkrun here, and yeah, when she comes along... It's always great to see her. She set the course record here. When we had our big one a couple of years ago, she set the female course record that day, which was amazing to see. Any memorable occasions for you here at Albert? So many. I mean, it's the little things that are, you know, finding people who are doing their parkrun for the first time, finding people who are doing it for the hundredth time, meeting people. I mean, it's totally changed our lives. You know, Joanne and I, we moved house to live near our parkrun. Oh, wow. All our life in our community is here. So our life and parkrun are completely intertwined. So it's... But yeah, look, the day when we had the really big event, we did it in conjunction with the Nitro Cleanings a few years ago, and that was, it was a very different experience. It wasn't normal, because it took so much organising to 10,000 people. But it was a great thing to do, but I don't advocate for trying to do that again. I think organic growth is definitely the way to go.

00:20:32Mark: Yeah. Well, look, and we were just talking before about, you know, the atmosphere here, and it is...

00:20:45Scott: of people who are just here to bang out a really fast time but we want to really want to emphasise that it is for everybody and I think one of the things I'm most proud of is that we've we've grown to include more walkers and people with prams and dogs and kids and stuff over the years we're still very underrepresented in terms of kids compared with a lot of events we have a very You know, the demographics of this area, there's a lot of young people and a lot of retirees. But there are families who live around here and I think that's something that we want to do a bit more of and reach out a bit more to them. But yeah, I think parkrun's for everyone and hopefully people feel that way when they come to the hotel. Alright, thanks very much for your time. Thank you, thanks for all your reports. I admire your work. Thanks for coming to visit. No worries, see you next time we're here.

00:21:36Mark: We're now here with a couple of international parkrunners. Where are you from?

00:21:42Mary Murphy: I'm from Ireland, County Mayo in Ireland.

00:21:45Mark: What's your name?

00:21:46Mary Murphy: My name is Mary Murphy.

00:21:47Mark: And do you do parkrunning in Ireland?

00:21:49Mary Murphy: Yes, I do it in Kilmaris, County Mayo.

00:21:51Mark: Very good. And how have you found Albert Park today?

00:21:54Mary Murphy: It's been a beautiful one, lovely, round the lake, nice and cool, just like Ireland, it is nice and cool today isn't it um and um why are you visiting Australia I'm here to visit my sister Caroline O'Brien and her husband Mike and we're here for the wedding of their son which happened last weekend oh wow how exciting is that and um have you done any other international partners just the one in Melbourne just the one in Melbourne last week we did yeah

00:22:24Mark: Okay, so he did Westerfold, so our host for the parkrun adventurers, he's a Westerfoldian, so he'd be pleased to hear that you went out there. What did you think of that course? Well, that's our home, Ron. We live here, that's our home. Oh, okay.

00:22:36Mark: That's nice, apart from that little hill. Yeah, yeah.

00:22:39Mark: Look at the kangaroos. Okay, so do you know Scotty Trickett then?

00:22:42Mark: No, I wouldn't.

00:22:43Mark: I look at the back of the parkrun. It's also the park walk. Very good. That's alright. That's what parkruns are about, isn't it? It's for those who want to walk, run or jog it. And how have you found out about the park? We've done it a few times. I love it. It's getting really busy though. It's gotten so big now. It's awesome. It's great. Yeah, so the growth over the last couple of years has been quite big, and there's probably another 500 here today. I think there was 500 last week. And we've got somebody else here from Boston. How do you find Albert Park? Oh, it's great. Beautiful day. Great for a walk. So we heard that you're not much of a parkrunner. There's not much parkrun happening in the States at the moment. No. But has this convinced you? Do you think you could get into it? Park walks. That's what... That's alright, well you can start with the park walk and see where it goes from there. Not a natural run I feel like. I was keen to talk to you because you are from Boston and the Boston Marathon was just on and I thought oh this guy might be a Boston Marathoner but not at the moment. There was somebody who was a Boston Marathoner today. Oh there was a Boston Marathoner.

00:23:44Unidentified speaker: He had a tattoo on his leg in 2015, he was wearing a 2015 mountain jacket and he had a tattoo on his leg.

00:23:50Brendan: Yeah okay.

00:23:52Mark: Did you get out and watch the Boston Marathon there?

00:23:54Brendan: I do, yeah. I enjoy watching that every year.

00:23:56Unidentified speaker: From a pub.

00:23:58Mark: From the pub.

00:23:59Unidentified speaker: Very good, um and what about you sir how did you find Our Park today I thought it was lovely run nice and flat yeah when you go around the lake you can see everybody you can see all the people that are way out in front of you and behind you I know nobody behind you yeah no it was it was really good like it's good to be able to start you turn around you can you see the people screaming behind you and a big river of people in front so yeah good course

00:24:22Mary Murphy: A fantastic number of volunteers, we're very lucky to have some of the volunteers there.

00:24:27Mark: They do have very strong volunteers. We're now here with Vin and it's quite hard to find an Albert Park home runner. It's full of tourists usually at Albert Park.

00:24:33Mary Murphy: How many times have you been to Albert Park? I've been here about 260 times now.

00:24:37[15 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:24:52Vin: Yeah, wow. Yeah, I'm up to about my 290th parkrun overall. Wow, that is huge. So you must have been one of the first parkrunners here. Yes, I was in the very first event way back in 19th November 2011.

00:25:09Mark: So that was the third parkrun event to start up in Australia and the first outside Queensland, so that's pretty big. Correct, that's correct.

00:25:22Vin: The first Run Director here, Carol, ran around and asked all her mates to come down and I think we all felt sorry for her but we didn't think there was any chance of another run starting in Melbourne. We all came down. It rained the first day, it rained the second, and then we put out a promotional line that it never rains at Albert Park, and they kept coming. Wow, and so what other parkruns have you done? I've done one in Ireland at Limerick, I think it was really good. I'm a Richmond Football Club supporter, so I did the one in Richmond in Surrey, and I really enjoyed that as well. And I've been to Whangarei in New Zealand, and a smattering of runs here and there, and up in Perth and Brisbane where I have relatives.

00:26:09Mark: That's fantastic. So to get international parkruns in as well, that's quite an achievement. What's some memorable moments for you here at Albert?

00:26:21Vin: Probably the most memorable moments have been some of the milestone celebrations here we've done for people. Where they've all gone and taken out a cafe or done great big group photos which we revive every now and then. I'll give you an example. Corey Simmons turns 21 today and I think he was probably the first young runner to ever get to 250. And when he got to 250 parkruns, we had a huge celebration down here and we had an assembly for his 18th birthday.

00:27:02Mark: Yeah, well, it's a bit of a family affair then really, isn't it?

00:27:07Vin: Oh, absolutely. There's been great networks of friends from here, there and everywhere, all backgrounds and walks of life and that's one of the terrific things about parkrun is that you can just cut through all the normal barriers there are to many people.

00:27:28Mark: Yeah, that's right. Well, thank you very much for your time and well done on a huge amount of runs. That's fantastic to see.

00:27:35Vin: Thank you very much.

00:27:36Mark: Good to chat. Well, there you have it, parkrun adventurers. Our adventure at Albert parkrun is finished. We're back on the tram now, heading back into the city to our accommodation. It's one of the good things about Albert parkrun is good public transport to get you there from anywhere in the city. So next time you're in Melbourne, make sure you check out Albert Park, Melbourne. Mark out for now. Catch you next time on the parkrun adventurers.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Jells parkrun

00:28:06Lyndell Murray: Good morning Scotty, Mel and parkrun adventurers. It's Lyndell reporting in from Gels parkrun in what Scotty would say is the greatest state. I don't know, I reckon it's the coldest state. It's pretty cold here this morning. And today I'm finishing off my alphabet. So I'm an alphabeteer and in 30 or 40 minutes time I'll be an alphabeteer. A few fun facts on becoming an alphabeteer. If you live in Brisbane, you can do all but seven of the letters in the Brisbane city and surrounding council areas. And there are three letters that you probably need to do a bit of forward planning for a flight or a very long drive. So here we are in Jells. There's only three Js in all of Australia. I've picked Jells over Jindabyne or Jubilee Way in South Australia to finish off my alphabet. All right, I better keep going to keep myself a bit warm. I'll go for a run and catch up with some people afterwards. Now I was chasing these two blokes right around the course today. I noticed that they're wearing their footy club jerseys or their running singlets. So I thought that might have an interesting story. What's your name?

00:29:20Sam: Sam and Mark.

00:29:22Lyndell Murray: And what's the story with the Waverley Warriors?

00:29:26Mark: Waverley Warriors is a Masters football club based in Melbourne. We play out of Oakley. So we've got over 35s and over 50s. And Sam and I are both in the over 50s.

00:29:38Lyndell Murray: No, that can't be true.

00:29:40Mark: Yeah. Unfortunately for us, well and truly. So one of our younger teammates, who's only 50, is a bit of a runner, started doing parkrun and invited us down. So we thought it would be a bit of a lark. So we started and now it's an addiction.

00:29:57Lyndell Murray: All right. And you run mainly at Jells here?

00:30:00Sam: No, no, we've run Jells. We've run Karkarook, Frog Hollow.

00:30:07Mark: We're going to do Chelsea next week. Just mix them up a bit. Jells is very hilly.

00:30:12Lyndell Murray: Well, it's all hills. Yeah, it's a bit hilly. And which is your favourite out of the ones that you've done?

00:30:20Sam: Yeah, I think Froggy Hollow.

00:30:23Mark: Yeah, I like Frog Hollow. It's fairly flat because it's around a lake, not too many lakes on angles. And it's picturesque. Yeah, it's a nice track.

00:30:33Sam: On a warm summer day, you can go for a dip in the lake.

00:30:36Lyndell Murray: Oh, there you go. Well, there was a lake here, but it was full of ducks. It might not be safe for swimming.

00:30:40Sam: Yeah, I think there's a few leeches in there, too. And maybe eels.

00:30:44Lyndell Murray: All right, we'll steer clear of that one. Now, footy season. Has footy season started for you blokes yet?

00:30:50Sam: It has, yeah. We played our first game two weeks ago. We play every second week. We won quite convincingly, and we have a bye this week. But we play every two weeks. So, yeah, that's what Masters is about.

00:31:02Lyndell Murray: So Masters play every two weeks for the ailing bones.

00:31:06Mark: Yeah, exactly. So as I said, we've got 35s, 35s reserves. We've got a 50s team. There are 45s teams and 55s teams now. So you can play right through. And we have a ladies team. So our women's team is over 35s. And they're playing today. They play on Saturdays. So normally there'd be a dozen of us from the Warriors running at parkrun. But because this is a game week.

00:31:30Sam: Yep.

00:31:30Mark: Most people are playing, so they don't run because they're playing. But we're not playing this week. The 50s have a bye, but the others are playing.

00:31:39Lyndell Murray: Yeah. Terrific. All right, well, any last words for the parkrun adventurers, fellas?

00:31:44Sam: Yeah, just, you mean the ones who are not running today? Oh, look, it's great fitness and it's great social. We meet a lot of people. We've made a lot of friends from it. Yeah, and it just keeps your fitness going and you can bring groups here, you can walk, you don't have to run, you can walk, bring your dogs, bring your kids, bring your family, so it's so socialising and it's great, it's family orientated.

00:32:05Lyndell Murray: Excellent.

00:32:06Mark: The main thing I've got to say is I like the challenge of not challenging other people, but challenging myself. I try and beat my PB by like 10 or 15 seconds, so that way I'm always getting PBs. You get to ring the bell.

00:32:20Lyndell Murray: Exactly.

00:32:20Mark: It's all about beating myself, you know what I mean? I've got a lot of improvement to do, so I've got a lot of... Can I interrupt?

00:32:27Sam: Mark's had a double bypass. Oh, is that right? So this is why he's challenging himself to improve his, so yeah.

00:32:34Lyndell Murray: So keeping fit, it's not just about the fun for you?

00:32:37Mark: Yeah, no, I'm still recovering from my bypass. Looking after your body. Yeah, you've got to keep fit and keep up the cardio, so why not? Anyway, to everyone else out there who's doing parkrun or contemplating parkrun, get out there and do it. It's 8 o'clock. You've still got the rest of the day, so get on to it.

00:32:53Lyndell Murray: Awesome. Well, thanks, guys, and all the best to the Waverley Warriors. Thanks.

00:32:56Mark: Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Art.

00:32:58Sam: Thanks, Utah.

00:32:58Lyndell Murray: All righty, post-parkrun. I took a bit of time to get around Jells today, so there's not many two people left for me to interview. But I have managed to find Mark, the Run Director for today. How are you?

00:33:09Mark: I'm very well, thank you. And yourself, how did you enjoy Jells?

00:33:12Lyndell Murray: I loved Jells. Terrific.

00:33:14Mark: It's a nice little one-hill course.

00:33:16Lyndell Murray: It is. There's just one hill, but it goes for most of the course.

00:33:20Mark: The whole course. The whole course, in fact. And you do it twice, which is terrific.

00:33:24Lyndell Murray: Yeah. Yeah, look, lap courses are a bit... I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with lap courses because quite often I get lapped.

00:33:30Mark: Right. Yes, yes. I'm like you. I'm sort of, if I can get to there before they start lapping me, I'm feeling good, which doesn't always happen.

00:33:37Lyndell Murray: No, it didn't happen to me. I did unfit. Anyway, so, Jells parkrun, 200th parkrun today.

00:33:44Mark: 200th parkrun, yes, which is pretty exciting. And June is our two-year, no, three-year, no, four-year, it must be. It must be four years. That's right, if I can do my maths right. It must be, yes. Yes. So, yeah, four-year anniversary in June, which is pretty exciting. And I think we had just over 200 parkrunners today, which is terrific. It's the Anzac Day long weekend, really, so it's probably a little bit down to normal, but another great turnout and nice, cool morning. But, yeah, no, very pleasant, very pleasant.

00:34:14Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And how did you get into parkrun yourself, Mark?

00:34:18Mark: I think like a lot of people, it was word of mouth. One of the mums actually from school who I did a bit of running with, she said, hey, come along with this parkrun thing. And that's now 2016, I think that was. And then pretty quickly after that, as I tend to do, I stuck my hand up and said, sure, I'll help with a bit of RDing. And then was Event Director for a little while as well. So that's been a great journey for me when it comes to parkrun.

00:34:47Lyndell Murray: And always at Jells?

00:34:48Mark: Yes, yeah, nearly always at Jells. I have done a couple of others around. I've actually just started since, as happens, of course, new parkruns open up and there's actually one a little bit closer to me now, Gardiners Creek, and I've started helping out there as well from an RDing perspective. But I still, yeah, Jells is still home, still loyal to the home parkrun.

00:35:07Lyndell Murray: Yeah. It is a lovely course. We talked about how it's lapped and it's all hills, but the trees and the forest here is really pretty.

00:35:17Mark: Yeah, look, it is really nice. It's actually a Parks Victoria park, as opposed to sort of a council-owned one. And it is quite a large park area here at Jells, which is terrific. And we've got the lake that you would have seen twice, which is nice as well. And yeah, like I say, a lot of natural trees or a lot of trees around as a nature park, which is terrific.

00:35:41[other]

00:35:41Lyndell Murray: And lots of birds chirping in the background. Exactly. All right, well, thank you, Mark, for talking to me. No worries. Thank you for the contribution that you've clearly made to Jells. Thank you. And also Willett Gardiners Creek, no doubt.

00:35:51Mark: Yes, looking forward to it. And welcome to sunny Melbourne.

00:35:56Lyndell Murray: Yes, sunny. Well, it was sunny yesterday. Actually, no, it was rainy yesterday, sunny the day before.

00:36:01Mark: Yes.

00:36:01Lyndell Murray: Let's see what tomorrow brings.

00:36:03Mark: Well, wait 15 minutes to see what 15 minutes brings.

00:36:06Lyndell Murray: Welcome to Melbourne. Awesome. Well, thanks very much, Mark.

Roving report David Moss — Christies Beach parkrun

00:36:09Mark: No worries.

00:36:10David Moss: Hello, we're at the Christie's Beach parkrun. We finished it about 30 minutes ago, and I'm with... Tim, hello, nice to meet you. And Tim, whereabouts are you from? I'm from Israel. Ah, which part?

00:36:24Tim: Yeah, I live next to the beach between the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv in the countryside.

00:36:29David Moss: And how did you come across parkrun here at Christie's Beach?

00:36:34Tim: Well, I came to Australia almost four months ago. And the couple I bought the car from, the woman had a runner equipment shop. And she told me about parkrun. And I've been running a couple. This is my fourth one. And now I've been living in McLaren Vale. Not far away. And I just like seen it on the side and came. Beautiful. And what do you think of parkrun? It's amazing. I love it so much how people come together every Saturday morning, first few in the morning running and just saying and socialising. And this is amazing. I want to bring this to Israel.

00:37:15David Moss: Beautiful. And you have a lot of people I think could be supporting that.

00:37:18Tim: Oh, yeah. Heaps.

00:37:20David Moss: And what do you think is actually the best part of parkrun?

00:37:25Tim: I think that it's free and anyone can do it you don't have to run you can walk you can like if you're disabled you can go on a bike you can like you can do whatever you want and you still enjoy it excellent and you said you're hoping to get around to a few others of course I want to do 50 before I leave Australia beautiful that lines you up for at least another 12 months here oh yeah

00:37:50Miriam Williams: thank you very much no worries thank you all the best in starting one over in israel yeah thank you very much okay and now we're in a coffee shop christie's beach and I'm with Miriam Williams and Miriam you're one of the Event Directors I am indeed together with Richard price um yeah my um he's a wonderful Event Director I don't think we could be be doing christie's beach parkrun without the man and he's busy this weekend so normally he is here every single weekend so if Yeah, great guy.

00:38:21David Moss: And how did you get involved?

00:38:23Miriam Williams: Well, I have a partner that loves running and Frank Finn and he found a good course down south and thought wouldn't it be lovely to get parkrun happening down south and that's what we did and we've worked together and ended up starting quite a few down here.

00:38:39David Moss: Yes, I gather that. There's a new one starting next week, you were saying, at the beginning of the course day.

00:38:45Miriam Williams: Yeah, that's exactly right. So Shiraz Trail will be launching on the 4th of May, and the Event Director, Alicia Maida, has got a wonderful core group helping her. And, yeah, we do a second trial tomorrow. Our first trial at Shiraz was wonderful. There was 70 people that turned up just to see how it went. And, yeah, we'll do another trial tomorrow, of course, and then the launch on the 4th.

00:39:09David Moss: Beautiful. And Christie's Beach. So today you had, what, 120 odd?

00:39:14Miriam Williams: Yeah, something like that.

00:39:16David Moss: I didn't even quite check.

00:39:19Miriam Williams: No, we had a good turnout today. We had beautiful weather today. It was glorious. Sun was shining. No wind.

00:39:27David Moss: It's a great advertisement for Adelaide.

00:39:29Miriam Williams: Yes, absolutely. It is one of the... I am biased, of course, but one of the prettiest courses along the coast in Adelaide. And we are spoilt for choice. We've got... Just in the south, we've got Christie's, Moana and Aldinga Beach. And further down, of course, Victor Harbour. But yeah, this is a lovely place to do parkrun. Beautiful views. You can see right down to the end of the Fleurieu Peninsula on a good day. So this was a lovely day today.

00:39:56David Moss: Okay and most of the people who run here, are they just locals or do people swap backwards and forwards?

00:40:01Miriam Williams: No there's a lot of locals. We've got a really strong group of regular parkrunners, a lovely family feel. It's a very welcoming environment. We do have some that will go over to Reynella East in the winter because if it gets very windy, which it can do along the coast, Reynella East is then hosting a few more parkrunners that may sort of do Christie's normally, but they'll just go and stay out of the wind for that one.

00:40:32David Moss: It's great having an alternative to go to when you really want one.

00:40:35Miriam Williams: Absolutely and we are spoilt for choice. The distance between most of our parkruns here in the south and that's also thanks to the City of Onkaparinga who've been behind us all the way wanting to establish parkruns quite close together and now we will have, let me see, one, two, three, four, five of them. Christie's, yeah Christie's, Moana, Aldinga, Reynella. Shiraz.

00:41:05David Moss: Okay and how often do you actually get to run?

00:41:10Miriam Williams: I do because I travel a little bit as well so I'm actually quite fortunate to have like I said Rich as my co-ed and who is just yeah he just belongs here and he's like a fixture and he's a wonderful wonderful person and he's always here and But, yes, I get to travel a little bit. I have family in Queensland, family in WA, so I've been quite fortunate to do different parkruns all over the place. And it's a wonderful learning tool as well to be able to visit other parkruns and see how everybody else does it and go from there. Okay.

00:41:48David Moss: Thank you very much. We enjoyed the day. You're very welcome.

00:41:50Miriam Williams: Yeah, well, it was lovely to see you. And the rest of us were very good. And good to see that the blue-footed variant wasn't.

00:41:54Tony O'Connell: Thank you.

Roving report Tony O'Connell — Grand Ridge Rail Trail parkrun

00:41:56Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, TOC reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew. Today we've ventured up to Mirboo North for the launch of the Grand Ridge Rail Trail parkrun. Mirboo North is a lovely little village that sits up on top of the Strzelecki Ranges to the southeast of Melbourne in the greatest state. We've got numbers slowly building. The weather's a little bit overcast, but I know this rail trail and it's a gorgeous run no matter what the weather conditions. So we'll catch up with a couple of people and we'll have a chat later. Cheers guys. Howdy parkrunners, I'm with Kate Luton. Kate's the event ambassador for Grand Ridge. Kate, sensational day, how's it all going?

00:42:37Kate Luton: It's going really well. It's exceeded expectations. It came out a little bit cloudy and a bit drizzly this morning, but it's turned out beautiful and it was so nice on the track. Everybody get ready to enjoy that climb on the way back. It's a ripper.

00:42:50Tony O'Connell: Well done, Kate. It's a great event. You've got a great team here. Well done.

00:42:53Sam: Thank you.

00:42:55Tony O'Connell: I'm with Jodie. We're at the launch of the Grand Ridge Rail Trail parkrun. Jodie, the horn's just gone. Everyone's just left. It's a great crowd. Welcome to parkrun.

00:43:08Jodie: Yeah, well it's pretty exciting to be here and we're a bit overwhelmed. So many people coming out on this wet day and lots of dogs as you can hear there in the background.

00:43:17[other]

00:43:17Tony O'Connell: Jodie, one of the things that I can't get over is once you guys decided to chase up a parkrun, how quick it actually happened. That was just amazing. You've got incredible community support.

00:43:28Jodie: Yeah, well, we were after the PB for the quickest parkrun set up. And I think from the day that the idea was hatched, it's been three months. So we're pretty stoked with that effort.

00:43:38Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, you've done really well. And the day, there's a little bit of blue sky out there, but it'd be fair to say there's a little bit of cloud as well. It's a little bit chilly, but you've had a great turnout today.

00:43:50Jodie: Yeah, we've all been taking guesses at numbers. Mine's 244. So I'm not sure what the prize will be if we win. What do you think, Tony? What's out there?

00:43:58Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I reckon you're probably on the money. I originally had a guess with Kate. I said 242. So you and I are about the same number. So I'm hoping that somewhere 243 may be split the difference.

00:44:07Jodie: Yeah, we'll split the prize.

00:44:09Tony O'Connell: All right, well, I'm going to go out and have my run. And yeah, it's great to see such great numbers. And welcome to the parkrun family.

00:44:15Jodie: Thanks a lot, Tony. Appreciate the support.

00:44:17Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, it's Toc again. I'm here with Stacey. Stacey's the other Co-ED at Grand Ridge Rail Trail. I thought, Stacey, if you can give us a bit of an idea of what the course is like up here at Grand Ridge.

00:44:29Stacey: Yeah, sure. We're really lucky here in Mirboo North to have access to a beautiful rail trail. So the surface is a nice running surface. It's a loose gravel and it's shaded by the canopy of the beautiful Strzelecki Ranges. So we're really lucky to have such a nice asset here in town.

00:44:44Tony O'Connell: And... I love your start line. There's not many start lines where you look across the top of the parkrun flags and all you can see is the sign for a brewery.

00:44:53Stacey: Yeah it's a bit different and there's a balcony up there so we can go up and enjoy a post parkrun beer. I don't know about beer at eight o'clock in the morning but.

00:45:00Tony O'Connell: Yeah it could be a whisker early on that day like today. But uh no look welcome into the parkrun family. It looks like a great event. You've had a huge turnout for a coolish day. It is a bit fresh this morning. And, yeah, I'd better get running and catch up with the tail runner.

00:45:14Melissa Ellis: No worries. Thanks, Tony. Cheers.

Roving report Melissa Ellis — Grand Ridge Rail Trail parkrun

00:45:16Melissa Ellis: Good morning, parkrun adventurers. It's Melissa here coming to you from the Channel 5 News crew, and I'm at the launch of Mirboo parkrun, which is actually called the Great Rail Trail parkrun. Now, I've got with me somebody who's ran their 100th different event today, Michelle Taylor. Hi, Michelle. How are you going? How did you find Mirboo? And congratulations.

00:45:36Michelle Taylor: Thank you. I found Mirboo very much like a great whale trail, like Timboon, but without the leaf litter, no slipping. Quite enjoyable, nice, very slight downhill, nice walk, heaps of people, so it was great, now it's your hundredth difference so you've joined the Cowell Club today I have and notice you've got your buff I have that's a good feat seeing as um it's an english club how did you manage to get that um well I joined the UK tourist club I was added by one of the wiglets um and I found the secret link which enabled me to purchase the buff and a beanie whereas brendan's got the beanie so

00:46:17Melissa Ellis: And for those at home, the wigglets, she's referring to the parkrun wiggles. The little bourbon boys. So you've done 100 different events, and how many total parkruns have you done? 108. So that's pretty good. Yeah. So we've been everywhere around, so now I'm going to concentrate on Victorian events. So you're chasing down the Victorian statesman status? I've still got 23 to go, I think.

00:46:39Michelle Taylor: Forever 23, I think.

00:46:41Melissa Ellis: Excellent. What events stand out that you've really enjoyed?

00:46:44Michelle Taylor: For the humidity, I'll say Nightcliff, when I was there for their birthday. Never wear polyester in wet heat, wet season, never.

00:46:52Melissa Ellis: Oh, just you wore a Hawaiian shirt, didn't you?

00:46:55Michelle Taylor: I did for the tropical theme, yes. Shellharbour was another standout for me. That was just really pretty. We went there for palm18. Everywhere we've gone, there's just been a whole bunch of really, really nice people, very welcoming, yeah.

00:47:07Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so we've met through the parkrun community and now we're quite good friends. We are. Forever grateful. Travel around. Yep. So, yeah. And what's the next goal? Oh, parkrun. But, yeah, what have you got planned?

00:47:24Michelle Taylor: Just going to pick them off wherever I am. Whatever looks good, whatever's flat, I guess. I've got a couple of hilly ones to do in Victoria, so... I'm just hoping. Great. All right. Well, thanks for talking to me today.

00:47:37Melissa Ellis: Thanks, Mel. Okay. See you soon. Bye. Okay, so I'm travelling home from parkrun now. And I've got a way to go. I've got to go from one side of Victoria to the other. And as I often do when I'm travelling home, I'm listening back to my recordings from the mornings parkrun, and realised in my interview with Michelle I've made a furphy. I've incorrectly referred to the parkrun as the Great Rail Trail parkrun. And it isn't. It's actually Grand Ridge Rail Trail. So I thought I'd explain to you why I made that silly mistake. And what I think has happened is in the weeks leading up and in the excitement of this launch, it's been referred to by its acronym of GRRT. And what has been a fun thing for some people to do is add the number 8 into that acronym so it reads as the word GREAT. And although the launch was great, that's not its name. So I apologise to the event team of Grand Ridge Rail Trail. It was a really fun launch this morning. The vibe was really exciting. There was people from everywhere, lots of people I knew. It was very enjoyable and yeah, congratulations on a really successful launch.

Roving report Grette Wilkinson — Shiraz Trail parkrun

00:48:59Grette Wilkinson: Hello parkrun adventurers, it's Greta here and may the 4th be with you. I'm here at the Shiraz Trail parkrun and we're launching today and it's been a really interesting couple of days in South Australia. Actually it's been really dry but we've just had a couple of days of rain but it's now cleared so the ground is wet which is lovely but there's no rain falling from the sky so it should be a really nice day for a launch. So I'm now here with Christina. How are you going, Christina?

00:49:27Christina: Yeah, good, thanks. How are you?

00:49:28Grette Wilkinson: I'm good, thank you. Did you enjoy the run this morning?

00:49:31Christina: Oh, I loved it. It was such a beautiful scenery.

00:49:33Grette Wilkinson: It was lovely, wasn't it? And you've got a special little friend with you today.

00:49:36Christina: Who's this? This is little baby Margot. She's 11 weeks old and she has never missed a parkrun. Wow.

00:49:42Grette Wilkinson: So she's done a parkrun for every week of her life so far.

00:49:46Christina: Yeah, the first few weeks I volunteered. So even when she was four days old, she was out. And then, yeah, I've been just walking with her or running with the double pram since. Well, look, she looks very satisfied.

00:49:57Grette Wilkinson: Doesn't she? Yeah, gorgeous, gorgeous. And so obviously this is the launch today, so this is the first time that you've done Shiraz Trail parkrun.

00:50:05Christina: Where do you normally parkrun? Normally I parkrun at Seacliff, Christie's or Reynella East because I live in between all three. But lately I've been doing a lot of touristing just to check out the other parkruns and great excuse to go check out new cafes as well. Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. So which ones have you done now? In the last few weeks, I did Aldinga, Moana, Mount Barker, Murray Bridge, and I did Clare last weekend, and we're doing Largs next week.

00:50:30Grette Wilkinson: Wow. And all that with an 11-week-old.

00:50:32Christina: And a three-year-old as well.

00:50:33Grette Wilkinson: And a three-year-old.

00:50:34Christina: And the husband who's the adult child.

00:50:37Grette Wilkinson: I take my hat off to you. Well done. Well done. And you're also celebrating a bit of a milestone today.

00:50:42Christina: Yeah, today was my 50th parkrun. So congratulations. Super excited. And I've got my 25th volunteer coming up in a few weeks as well. Oh, well done. Congratulations. And you were saying earlier that I think it's been 25 volunteers in about a year. Yeah, in 12 months. So I had an injury, but I also just wanted to get there, out in the community and get the love of parkrun again so I thought by volunteering I'd get that and I did and then I got pregnant and was super sick with pregnancy so I just came out and just loved volunteering because at least I was part of the community still.

00:51:10Grette Wilkinson: Yeah well good on you for being part of the community you know whether you're injured or pregnant or a little baby Good on you for coming out and doing parkrun. And I hope to see you at a parkrun soon. Oh, definitely. Thank you. Thank you. Cheers. So I'm here with Michelle. Hello. Hi. And Louise. Hi. How are you going? And you guys did your first parkrun today.

00:51:29Michelle: Yeah, first ever parkrun. Yeah? Yeah.

00:51:31Grette Wilkinson: How did you find it?

00:51:32Michelle: really good yeah tough halfway through and I thought oh I don't know if I can do another one but yeah um we've done it so yeah yeah yeah good and you've got a couple of dogs with you today who have we got here with us um this is Boston and Rosie lovely and did they love it yeah yeah they didn't moan at all did they At first, it was a little bit scary because my one, Rosie, was starting to bark when we all gathered together. We were like, no. Well, we love dogs at parkrun, so they're always very welcome.

00:52:05Grette Wilkinson: Thank you.

00:52:06Louise: Yeah, yeah.

00:52:07Grette Wilkinson: And so, do you guys live locally?

00:52:09Louise: Yes.

00:52:09Grette Wilkinson: Yeah, we do.

00:52:10Louise: We live in McLaren Flat, which is about 5km away. Yep. Yeah, so we take the dogs walking quite a lot. So they're used to walking with each other, but not with all the crowd. How did they go? Because it can be challenging sometimes. Yeah, I think they were okay. Once they settled down, they were okay. Yeah, they were pretty good.

00:52:28Grette Wilkinson: And how did you hear about parkrun?

00:52:31Louise: Michelle, how did you meet?

00:52:35Michelle: It was on the McLaren Vale community and surrounds Facebook page. So I think it was Alicia who was promoting it. So yeah, I thought I'll give that a go. And do you think you'll be back? Yeah, definitely.

00:52:51Louise: Yeah, we're going to try and run it, I think, a bit more than we do. We did a little bit of running, but we might come without the dogs another time and see if we can improve our time.

00:53:00Grette Wilkinson: There you go, now you know what it's all about. Yeah, yeah. How do you reckon the dogs would go running? Oh, I think they'd be okay.

00:53:08Louise: I think they'd like it. Yeah, yeah, they like running on the beach.

00:53:12Grette Wilkinson: Well, thank you so much for coming along to the launch of the Shiraz Trail parkrun and bringing the dogs and having a good morning. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hope to see you at a parkrun soon.

00:53:21Louise: Sure. Thank you. Thank you.

00:53:23Grette Wilkinson: All right. So I'm now here with? Mariana. And? Natasha. And you guys are volunteering today. Yes. How awesome are you?

00:53:31Mariana: Yeah, pretty good. Just doing our thing. Pretty awesome. Just doing our thing.

00:53:34Grette Wilkinson: But I hear you weren't going to volunteer today.

00:53:38Mariana: No.

00:53:38Grette Wilkinson: You got the call. Yeah.

00:53:39Mariana: Yeah, I pulled up with the flu this morning but drove all the way from Para Vista to McLaren Vale, was going to do some grocery shopping, got a text message. There's a lot of people here. You might want to come down and help out. Oh, good on you. So well done. So you just jumped in and grabbed your phone and started scanning? Yeah, pretty much. Good on you.

00:53:57Grette Wilkinson: Thank you so much for volunteering. But you're also a bit of a keen parkrunner anyway, aren't you?

00:54:01Mariana: Yeah, I enjoy parkrunning. I love touristing as well, looking at booking holidays on your parkrun locations. Here in South Australia, Victoria, pretty much wherever we can go, look to see where there's a parkrun and trying to get the alphabet. Yeah, it's fun. How close are you to the alphabet? Not even close.

00:54:20Natasha: Zoom is a long way from home. It is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

00:54:24Mariana: But, yeah, no, just really enjoy the community atmosphere and just meeting new people and, yeah, just being part of something great.

00:54:31Grette Wilkinson: Yeah. And how about you, Natasha? You're a keen parkrunner.

00:54:35Natasha: Yeah, we like getting around a lot. Our friends were like, let's go to Port Lincoln over Easter. Yes, we're going to Port Lincoln over Easter. Yes, there's a parkrun check we can go for a holiday. Yeah, same with Perth. Yeah, we can go there as long as we're there on a Saturday morning. But no, I'm running tomorrow, so volunteer today. Now, where are you running tomorrow? The Great Southern Half, so half marathon. It'll be my first one six months after a baby.

00:54:57Grette Wilkinson: Oh, well done. Gee, you're doing well.

00:55:00Natasha: Oh, yeah.

00:55:02Grette Wilkinson: Not too bad. I'm pretty happy. And that's a bit of a trail half, isn't it, I think?

00:55:07Natasha: Bit of beach, bit of trail, bit of road. Bit of everything. But not much elevation, so it's good.

00:55:13Grette Wilkinson: Nice and flat. And you also volunteer a bit at parkrun, and I think you recently made your debut as Run Director a little bit.

00:55:23Natasha: Yes, at Reynella East. That was interesting. It went well. Yeah? Yeah. Stepped out of my comfort zone, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

00:55:30Grette Wilkinson: Well, it's a very supportive place to do that, so well done. Congratulations.

00:55:34Natasha: Thank you. Yes, I enjoyed it. Good, good.

00:55:37Grette Wilkinson: And thank you, ladies, for volunteering today at the launch of Shiraz Trail parkrun.

00:55:41Mariana: Thank you. Thanks, guys. Everyone should volunteer. Yay. They should. We love volunteers.

00:55:47Grette Wilkinson: All right, so I'm now here with Event Director Alicia. How are you going today?

00:55:50Alicia: I'm very excited. It went really well. It did.

00:55:53Grette Wilkinson: It went really, really well. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

00:55:57Alicia: It's such a relief to have the launch out of the way and couldn't be happier with the turnout.

00:56:02Grette Wilkinson: So tell me about your parkrun journey. What kind of inspired you to bring parkrun to this community?

00:56:08Alicia: Yeah, so I attended a couple of parkruns, Christie's Beach, Moana, Reynella. Down this area? Yeah, down south. And I live in McLaren Vale and I just really wanted one in McLaren Vale. I thought how awesome it would be to have one here for our local community. Our community is really close-knit. We have a really strong sense of community here, so I thought a parkrun would be fantastic. Yes. So, yeah, that's the main reason I really wanted to get it done. And I asked around, spoke to a couple of people and, yeah, here we are today.

00:56:38Grette Wilkinson: Yeah, yeah. And you were saying you live just down the road, so you're sort of really familiar with this part of the park. So tell us about the course.

00:56:45Alicia: Yeah, so the course is really like a Y-shaped course. It's quite straightforward. It's quite unusual, isn't it? It's an unusual course. We do two and a bit laps. So we start at the labyrinth for a briefing and then we head towards Kangarilla Road. We run down towards Field Street, turn around and then head towards the community oval and then back down towards Oxenberry again. And we do that twice. So it sounds more complicated when we're trying to explain it than what it does when you're actually running it.

00:57:12Grette Wilkinson: It's very straightforward when you're on the course. Absolutely, yeah. So once you do it. It's so social. The lovely thing about it is that you get to see lots of people multiple times.

00:57:22Alicia: Absolutely.

00:57:22Grette Wilkinson: And so lots of high five, lots of cheering. Yeah, it's great fun.

00:57:26Alicia: Yeah, it's a really good point. I think that's probably one of the things I enjoy most about parkrun is that community spirit and the people encouraging everyone. It doesn't discriminate. You've got, you know, three-year-olds and 93-year-olds doing it. So that's what I really wanted, to bring to McLaren Vale and I think after today we've achieved it.

00:57:41Grette Wilkinson: Yeah, yeah, you've done a fantastic job. Lots of people out today and lots of first-timers out today, so locals. Lots, yeah, yeah.

00:57:47Alicia: We had a huge interest in the Facebook page and on our website from people that were local that didn't even know what parkrun was. I'm really excited for the community to have something that they can go to that's local and not far away for them. And, yeah, such a great incentive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why not come out?

00:58:06Grette Wilkinson: And you had great support from the council. Oh, fantastic, yeah.

00:58:09Alicia: Onkaparinga Council and the Halo, um group couldn't have been more supportive we had some amazing support from them they've um stepped us through each step of the way and really guided us to make sure that this has been such a successful event and we couldn't have done it without them so yeah no they've been very supportive in this whole region really haven't they absolutely just fabulous yeah absolutely so I think we're now the fifth one in this council um which is fantastic so yeah yeah

00:58:33Grette Wilkinson: Well, congratulations. It was an absolutely wonderful day. You're off and running now.

00:58:37Alicia: We are, absolutely. Yeah, no pun intended. We are. We're all good to go. So very, very exciting. And thank you for coming out.

00:58:44Grette Wilkinson: Oh, thank you very much for having us. Congratulations.

00:58:46Alicia: Thanks, Greta.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Glasshouse Mountains Conservation parkrun

00:58:48Lyndell Murray: Good morning parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell and I'm reporting in this morning for the Channel 5 News Crew from Glasshouse Mountains Conservation parkrun. About probably an hour or so is north of the Brisbane city. Not too far if you live in the northern suburbs. Out in the bush the birds are chirping, the trees are glistening. And there's a nice bush track here. So I'm going to go and check it out and check in with you after the run. Alrighty, I've caught up with some avid parkrun tourists, well known to the podcast I think, Brendan and Janine. How are you today and how did you find Glasshouse Mountains Conservation parkrun? I think I got that one right.

00:59:36Janine: Hello, it was amazing. I just love being out in the bush and although it's a trail, it's not a really hard trail. It's a bit in for everybody I think. Yeah, well worth the trip. Excellent, and you Brendan?

00:59:49Brendan: Yeah, excellent. Yeah, really, really good. It's probably a little bit deceptive as far as the slight downhill going out and then you turn around and uphill all the way back out again. So as long as you keep a little bit in the tank on the way back, that last little stretch is probably the worst stretch.

01:00:02Janine: And not too challenging a trail for anyone who's concerned? No, I think it's a trail for beginners, but it's also, I think, a trail for people who do a lot of trail runs because it is quite technical in parts, but loads of fun. Loads of fun. Opportunity for a fast trail run. I think it is because there's lots of nice long straights, lots of puddles to jump, which I love, but being out in the bush, you can't beat it.

01:00:24Lyndell Murray: All right, well, great. Thanks for your time today and happy parkrun adventuring. Thank you.

01:00:28Janine: See you guys. Bye.

01:00:30Lyndell Murray: I have found some fellow tourists here today.

01:00:33Chris: What's your name and what is your home parkrun? My name's Chris and normally Sandgate. I'm Cheryl and Sandgate as well.

01:00:41Lou: My name's Lou and Sandgate's my home parkrun. My name's Sophie and Sandgate's my home parkrun as well.

01:00:47Lyndell Murray: So you've come from the beach to the bush today.

01:00:50Chris: How did you find the track today? I loved the track. Nice and easy. Didn't fall over, which was a definite positive. So yeah, it was beautiful. Lovely. There's a story behind that comment I can just tell. Yeah, Bunyaville. I've got some of my blood, sweat and tears and skin there. But anyway, I survived and I'd go back again because it's beautiful. It's lovely. Bit tougher than, a lot tougher than this one. But still beautiful. So lovely.

01:01:18Lyndell Murray: So you've got your Bunyaville badge. Welcome. High five.

01:01:20Chris: Oh, high five. Thank you.

01:01:22Lyndell Murray: Oh, no. Oh, no.

01:01:26Chris: Oh, no. I've brought back the bruising. It's almost healed.

01:01:32Lyndell Murray: It'll be better before you know it. And how about you today?

01:01:36Chris: Yes, I really enjoyed it. It was lovely. It's the first trail I've run the whole way, I think. Oh, wow. Well done.

01:01:42Lyndell Murray: High five. Thank you. Good.

01:01:46Lou: And Lou? Not quite as hilly as Bunyaville, but just beautiful scenery. Loved the tracks. A few little muddy puddles to skip around. Yeah, it was lovely. We loved it.

01:01:57Melissa Ellis: Yeah, there was horse poo. Yeah, there was horse poo. And how about you today? Yeah, I really liked it. It's nice running along listening to all the birds and looking around all the ferns and everything. But yeah, a few muddy puddles to jump over and nice hill to finish on. But yeah, it was a good one.

01:02:12Lyndell Murray: And how much touristing do you guys do? Obviously, you've been to Bunyaville. Where else have you been? What's your best touristing story?

01:02:23Chris: Well, I don't... Oh, good. I'm not sure. We do a lot. Like, Cheryl and I almost finished our alphabet, so that's our goal, but ours are all interstate now, so we'll work on that. But, yeah, we've done a lot, and there's a lot that are... Well, actually, most of them are absolutely beautiful and all have their different, you know, things we love about. And there's some we'd go back and we've done a few again, and we will repeat till we can get over interstate or overseas or whatnot. But, yeah, we've done some beautiful ones, so... Excellent. Plotting along. Yep. Yep.

01:02:56Lyndell Murray: And Alphabeteer.

01:02:57Chris: Yep. On the horizon. It's there. And our Pirate Club. And our Pirate Club. We're fanatical. Yeah, BGs. We've done BGs. Oh, you're BGs. Woo. Pirates. Yeah, lose our power now.

01:03:11Lou: We're all pirates, so I'm the coordinator and we go off to our parkruns. I just finished my alphabet. I just did a road trip between Jindabyne and East Richmond to get my J and my E. High five. Thank you. So that was really exciting. Yeah, so my husband takes me on holidays, and they've got to be including a parkrun. It's what his life has become.

01:03:33Lyndell Murray: Mine too. We should hook them up. They'd have stories to tell.

01:03:36Lou: Around parkrun.

01:03:40Lyndell Murray: All right, ladies, well, thank you so much for talking to me today. Keep on adventuring and keep enjoying Sandgate as well. You've got a beautiful home run as well. Thanks, ladies.

01:03:49Chris: Thank you. Thank you, Lyndell. That was super exciting. Thank you.

01:03:56Lyndell Murray: All right, I have tracked down the plus-size parkrunner, Shannon, and event Run Director, Joe. I'm getting all tongue-tied because I'm with... You know, parkrun royalty here. How are you going, Shannon? What have you been up to lately?

01:04:12Shannon: parkrunning, parkrunning a lot, every weekend. Okay, well, end of interview. Right, good.

01:04:19Lyndell Murray: Are there any stories that you would like to share with the adventurers?

01:04:23Shannon: Just today's parkrun was bloody fantastic. A bit of a challenging 5K course, trail run course, a bit of all kind of terrain, a few puddles to splash through, and a bit of a hill from 2.5Ks right back to the finish line.

01:04:36Lyndell Murray: Yes, it's all downhill and all uphill.

01:04:38Janine: It is, it is.

01:04:39Shannon: That was a bit of a surprise, wasn't it? That wasn't in the run brief, so... But it was a beautiful course. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

01:04:46Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, thanks for talking to me. Joe, how are you today? How is your second event number two? Well, it's your first event number two, but event number two. How has that gone for you?

01:04:56Natasha: Yeah, good. Good numbers turned out today as well. So pretty close to last week, first one. Yeah.

01:05:02Lyndell Murray: Excellent. I think there are a few people here chasing their number two for their Wilson Index.

01:05:07Mary Murphy: Whoa. Whoa.

01:05:12Lyndell Murray: And we're joined here. The other thing I was about to get onto was that it is May the 4th, obviously, Star Wars Day, and we have a special guest here. Should I have it? Go and have a chat to our course musician here. Yeah, he has kept everyone going. He has kept everyone going. So what's your name?

01:05:21[music]

01:05:30Rhys: Rhys.

01:05:31Lyndell Murray: Rhys.

01:05:33Rhys: Rhys, otherwise known as Running Paparazzi.

01:05:35Lyndell Murray: The Running Paparazzi. Yes. And what have you come as today? A Jedi.

01:05:39Rhys: A Jedi. A good Jedi.

01:05:43Lyndell Murray: A good Jedi. Excellent. Well, thank you. My contribution to Star Wars Day, just quietly, was that I actually just sounded like Darth Vader breathing heavily the whole way through. Your contribution is much more impressive with your outfit and your music and your lightsaber.

01:05:59Rhys: Thank you very much.

01:06:00Lyndell Murray: And taking some footage today?

01:06:02Rhys: Yes, a video so that the parkrun can show off their course.

01:06:07Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Well, thank you. That's awesome. Thanks very much and have a great day. You too.

01:06:21Scott Trickett: Wowee. That was a lot of roving reports and it's going back over two weeks if you hadn't worked that out already. So recap for us, Mel, because we had a couple of launches in there.

01:06:31Melissa Erbacher: We did. There was, well, Toc was at the launch of Grand Ridge Rail Trail. Greta was at the launch of Shiraz Trail. And, well, no, it wasn't really a launch, but Lyndell was at a relatively new event when she went to visit Glasshouse Mountains. So that's pretty cool.

01:06:50Scott Trickett: And she got her J on at Jells and Mossy was at Christie's Beach. For those who have skipped through all the roving reports and just want to hear the Mel and Scott show. Well, it's back.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:07:00Scott Trickett: And speaking of launches, we don't have any this week.

01:07:05Melissa Erbacher: No, we don't have any this week.

01:07:08Scott Trickett: But they are starting to roll through, which is good. Some new events coming up. Interesting one next week that we might talk about.

01:07:15Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I haven't populated that. Interesting one next week.

01:07:19Scott Trickett: Yeah. Well, let's talk about it now. What do you know about Whitemark Wharf in Tassie?

01:07:25Melissa Erbacher: I know a little bit about it. It's on an island. You've got to catch a ferry to get there. Yes. It's pretty special because you've either got to get up really early to catch said ferry or you could go the night before. But then if you want to come home, you can't come home till Sunday. So it kind of forces you to have a break, which I think is brilliant.

01:07:46Scott Trickett: Yeah, so I think this is going to be one of those events that our adventurers and tourists will earmark as a bit of a challenge. So it's on Flinders Island, just above Tassie.

01:07:55Melissa Erbacher: It is.

01:07:56Scott Trickett: And it's launching next week.

01:07:58Melissa Erbacher: And you know what's going to break a lot of people's hearts, Scotty?

01:08:00Scott Trickett: No.

01:08:03Melissa Erbacher: It starts and finishes in a garden called Xanthorrhoea Gardens. Really? It really does. Oh my God.

01:08:12Scott Trickett: So how did we, how do we come to Whitemark Wharf?

01:08:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, because it's also Whitemark Wharf, like the Xanthorrhoea Garden is within Whitemark Wharf. It's only a little non-official garden at this stage. So we weren't allowed to call it Xanthorrhoea Garden.

01:08:29Scott Trickett: Okay. But the discussion was had?

01:08:31Melissa Erbacher: Oh, the discussion was had. There was a lot of discussion.

01:08:36Scott Trickett: People would have lost their mind if that happened.

01:08:38Melissa Erbacher: People would have lost their mind. Oh, look, it's a very – when I say it's a little garden, there are literally like five or six Xanthorrhoea plants in it. So, it's not a very big garden and it's not officially named by council or anything like that. So, yeah.

01:08:58Scott Trickett: Okay. One day. So it's going to happen. One day. Look, it is going to happen. Everyone needs to calm down. I see that there's another one planned over in Europe. There is Xavier Park in Japan. There'll be another Xavier Park. I mean, America's a big place. Surely they've got parks, and landmarks that start with an X. So I think we can – what's the one that everyone in Australia keeps mentioning? Zantipi? Zantipity?

01:09:24Melissa Erbacher: Xantippe, yeah, which is over in Western Australia, but it is a tiny, tiny, tiny town. So we need to let that one go.

01:09:33Scott Trickett: That's not happening.

01:09:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, no, there's not the volunteer base there. There's not the people base there to support a weekly timed five-kilometre walk or run.

01:09:43Scott Trickett: Could you imagine, Mel, if we did get it up and the event started in like Rotary Park and we called it Rotary Park parkrun?

01:09:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, we wouldn't do that because we don't call any events Rotary. Do you know that there are more Rotary Parks in Australia than there are currently parkruns? There's about a thousand of them.

01:10:05Scott Trickett: Yeah.

01:10:06Melissa Erbacher: So we will never call any parkrun Rotary parkrun just because there's too many. And also because it's an organisation. It's a whole thing. But yes, I get your point that it could be in the town of Xantippe, but that doesn't matter because mostly now we don't name events after towns anymore.

01:10:27Scott Trickett: Hence, Whitemark Wharf. It's launching next week. Nothing launching this week, but we have anniversaries to celebrate and they are in.

01:10:35Melissa Erbacher: They are in. Well, should we mention, we should give a shout out to last week's anniversaries because we missed them. Applecross in WA, Batemans Bay in New South Wales, Cleveland in Queensland. A lot of these celebrated with May the 4th. No, no, Cleveland. Yeah, that was last weekend. Yeah, May the 4th celebrations. Echuca Moama in Victoria, Nulkaba in New South Wales, Parkville in Victoria, Queanbeyan in New South Wales. But we mentioned Queanbeyan.

01:11:07Scott Trickett: We did. Something's going crazy.

01:11:08Melissa Erbacher: Something's going crazy.

01:11:10Scott Trickett: People are changing their anniversaries and they forget to tell me.

01:11:13Unidentified speaker: Hmm.

01:11:15Melissa Erbacher: Hmm.

01:11:15Scott Trickett: I think something like that. Okay.

01:11:17Melissa Erbacher: Well, and then there was also Rhodes in New South Wales.

01:11:21Scott Trickett: And this week, I'll do all this week, seeing as you hogged all last week.

01:11:24Melissa Erbacher: Go for it.

01:11:25Scott Trickett: We've got Altona Beach in Victoria, Curl Curl in New South Wales, Lancefield in Victoria, which I thought I would get to Lancefield before they notched up one year. Shame on me. Ocean View in Queensland, The Entrance, New South Wales, Timboon, Victoria, Wildflower, New South Wales, and Yarrabilba in Queensland. Mel, I have only done one of those events, Altona Beach.

01:11:50Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, Yarrabilba in Queensland. Hmm. I could be up for some cake. I wonder how far that is from my house.

01:11:57Scott Trickett: You should head there. They would love to see Mel Erbacher.

01:12:02Melissa Erbacher: It could be a bit of a drive. I do have an appointment on Saturday afternoon that I have to be home for. We'll see. There could always be an adventure. I don't know what I'm doing this weekend, so... like to leave these things open and available at the moment.

01:12:19Scott Trickett: Yep.

Sign-off

01:12:22Melissa Erbacher: Have you got big plans for this weekend, Scotty, or as you mentioned, you're sticking close to home?

01:12:27Scott Trickett: No, look, I'm going back to an event that I haven't been to for, I think it's got to be like five years. So Berwick Springs launched about the same time as Westerfolds, a couple of weeks beforehand. And I think I went along just before Westerfolds launched to sort of see how this whole parkrun caper worked. And I'm going back there on Saturday to celebrate our parkrun Hero. So as you know, we've got this competition, Medibank are celebrating parkrun Heroes and we're sending them off to an event, which is a pretty cool prize. And then the end of year prize is the trip to Bushy that I'm a bit dirty that as a staff member, I can't win. Yvonne, as a family member of the staff member, she can't win. But anyway, I'm going back to Berwick Springs, which I'm looking forward to.

01:13:15Melissa Erbacher: Bushy Park. So as a staff member, you're not allowed to enter. Does that mean I'm not allowed to enter?

01:13:23Scott Trickett: Well, are you a staff member still? I mean, you're on maternity leave. I am still a staff member. Yeah, just on leave. Yeah, sorry, Mel. You can't.

01:13:32Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well. That's okay. It's one of those awkward things where I know you can nominate yourself, but is anyone really nominating themselves as a hero? Like, it's a lovely competition. I think it's brilliant, especially because, you know, people can nominate other people and make them feel recognised for their contributions, which is just a beautiful thing. But I don't know how many people are going to nominate themselves unless they were really, really super keen to head off somewhere and yeah.

01:14:03Scott Trickett: Yeah. But don't shame them, Mel. I think it's perfectly fine. If you want to nominate yourself, go for it.

01:14:08Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I don't think there's any shame in it. I just think that most people would probably feel a little bit awkward about doing it.

01:14:16Scott Trickett: Yeah.

01:14:17Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. I mean, maybe I'm just coming from my headspace where I would feel awkward nominating myself or something. But yeah. Yeah.

01:14:24Scott Trickett: Yeah, so don't bother nominating Mel and I because we can't win. People think it's great working for parkrun and then you hear about these atrocities.

01:14:34Melissa Erbacher: These pitfalls of the position. We're just going to have to go the old-fashioned way.

01:14:42Scott Trickett: Yeah. So you're on maternity leave. You've got a life of leisure ahead. The countdown's on till baby Erbacher is out. Lyndell's sitting there waiting, ready to go. Is this it? Can Lyndell come in next week? I think we're all concerned. We need you to get ready, Mel.

01:15:02Melissa Erbacher: Why are we all concerned?

01:15:04Scott Trickett: We just want you to be, you know, ready to give birth, to relax and... Embrace the moment and continue living your life of leisure.

01:15:14Melissa Erbacher: And not podcasting is part of the preparation for that.

01:15:17Scott Trickett: Yes.

01:15:20Melissa Erbacher: No, I'm not ready to go yet, Scotty. Well, look, I can't promise that Lyndell won't be here next week because by Wesley's clock, in fact, this baby's late. So Wes was already here by now.

01:15:34Scott Trickett: I know. I know. So I'm making plans just in case that happens, people, because I don't want you to miss out on another parkrun adventurers podcast so soon after missing out last week. So have faith in me, listeners. We are coming back next week for 156 with or without Mel.

01:15:53Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. It's not all about me, even though it's half about me, but. It could be half about Lyndell next week. You never know. It's the mystery of the podcast. It could change from week to week.

01:16:08Scott Trickett: Yeah, let's leave episode 155 on that cliffhanger and we'll find out if Mel's with us next week.