Episode 157 - State of the Nation

Welcome

00:00:17Scott Trickett: Alrighty listeners, episode 157 is here. I'm your host, Scotty Trickett, and I'm joined this week by Mel Erbacher.

00:00:26Melissa Erbacher: Oh, there we go. How you doing, Scotty?

00:00:31Scott Trickett: Look, I'm really good. I'm really good. Again, we weren't sure if you were going to join us, but here you are. I'm starting to think that this is all a big story.

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: I'm not actually pregnant, and it's just an excuse that I made up. And I think it's getting a bit old and boring, wondering will I or won't I be here. So let's just leave it off the table for now, shall we?

00:00:53Scott Trickett: Okay. Okay. So no visits to the hospital for you this week. I had a visit to the hospital this week. Remember last week I was a bit under the weather and I want to share this with the listeners because a few people ask and I feel like we have a good relationship with our listeners now. and a few people asked or reached out about my crap week last week. So what happened is I went to the doctors and they discovered something that was wrong with my heart, potentially something was wrong with my heart. So we did all the necessary precautions, which led to me having a walk.

00:01:32Melissa Erbacher: At parkrun?

00:01:32Scott Trickett: At parkrun on Saturday. Yeah, which was really nice. I just went down to my semi-local, which is Darebin. I'm... There's two methods to my madness here. I'm secretly working on my P-index to get that up.

00:01:46Melissa Erbacher: Well, not so secretly when you announce it on a podcast to thousands of listeners. But yeah, okay.

00:01:51Scott Trickett: Yeah, but it's not front of mind. It's not like my motivating influence. But, yep, so I headed along to Darebin and said to my two mates, I said, let's just go for a walk down at Darebin. So they joined me, which was lovely. And it was a bit weird because my other two mates are really fast, like 17-minute parkrun fast. Yeah. And when everyone saw them, like me, it doesn't matter, Scott, who cares, but when everyone saw them walking, it was like, what's wrong?

00:02:18Melissa Erbacher: Are you injured?

00:02:20Scott Trickett: Are you injured? What have you done? Are you racing tomorrow? Why are you all just walking at the back 55 minutes? And then they just point it to me and say, oh. That makes sense.

00:02:32Melissa Erbacher: Solidarity.

00:02:33Scott Trickett: But it was. We were in solidarity walking, and it was a great chance. We're men. We're middle-aged men in our 30s and 40s who traditionally men don't, I don't know, do they? Do they get together and just walk for an hour and talk? I don't think it is, Scotty.

00:02:50Chris Timms: I don't think that's something that a lot of men do.

00:02:52Scott Trickett: No, no. But these are my best mates. These are my road trip mates. So it was good to do that.

00:02:59Melissa Erbacher: Breaking stereotypes. I love it.

00:03:00Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. But then so that led to I got to do one of these stress tests where they put your heart. So they connect you up to all the wires. You have an ultrasound on your heart beforehand. Then you get on a treadmill and they're checking blood pressure. They're checking heart rate. It's all on these big fancy screens. And your heart gets put through a stress test, and then they measure it, make sure that everything's working, and then they do an ultrasound afterwards. So I got to do that, and I got to see how my heart rate reacts to really hard work. Like I thought, this is going to be easy. They said, you're just going to walk on the treadmill. And I'm thinking, how good am I? I'm a runner. I can last on this forever. But what they forget to tell you is that they put it on an incline.

00:03:47Melissa Erbacher: So they make you walk up a hill.

00:03:48Scott Trickett: I don't know about you, Mel. Yeah, yeah. So like when I think of running on a treadmill, I feel like I could run forever. But when they start with like a 4% incline and it goes to 6, 8, 10 or whatever, ridiculous.

00:04:00Melissa Erbacher: But they keep the speed the same or do they increase the speed as well?

00:04:03Scott Trickett: No, no. No, so it gets faster. Every two minutes it gets faster and gets steeper.

00:04:07Melissa Erbacher: But you're not allowed to run. You have to keep it at a walk.

00:04:09Scott Trickett: Well, no, because I managed to get up to a point where I was allowed to run. But they said most people don't get to the running stage.

00:04:17Melissa Erbacher: Because their heart's not handling it?

00:04:18Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, because you only need to get your heart rate up to its sort of maximum or to the point where you just cannot go anymore.

00:04:25Melissa Erbacher: How do they know what that is, though? Like, is there some kind of extra beep where it's like, okay, the heart is coping with this at the moment, but if you push it any further, then this person's going to be flatlining? Like, I don't really understand how it's got to be different for everybody, right?

00:04:42Scott Trickett: Well, no, there's a general principle in that your heart rate is 220 minus your age. So, I think they just work on the the principle that that's your maximum heart rate. So we're going to get as close to that as possible.

00:04:55Melissa Erbacher: 220 minus your age. That just doesn't sound very scientific. Like where do they get that number from?

00:05:01Scott Trickett: Well, I don't know. The doctors, they came up with it.

00:05:06Melissa Erbacher: Are you not questioning the science, Scotty? I want to understand. Okay. Yeah. 220 minus your age. And so you got there when you were running and that's when they told you you could stop. And this?

00:05:20Scott Trickett: No. No, I said I've had enough. Because it was really hard.

00:05:24Melissa Erbacher: You asked if you could please stop.

00:05:27Scott Trickett: But when you're running uphill at that pace, it's really hard. Trust me. Okay.

00:05:30Melissa Erbacher: But how long had you been on the treadmill for?

00:05:33Scott Trickett: Not long. About 10 minutes.

00:05:35Melissa Erbacher: Well, that sounds like a long time to me lately.

00:05:38Scott Trickett: Yeah. Anyway. And then, but then, so you're completely exhausted and then you have to lie down and then they prod your chest with the ultrasound and try and look at it and make sure that everything's working. Good news, listeners. Everything is working. So I can get back to running.

00:05:55Melissa Erbacher: But is that also the bad news is like because they thought something was wrong, but then now they couldn't find anything wrong?

00:06:03Scott Trickett: No, I'm going to find out a bit more. I've still got more doctors to see. But the good news is that they said I'm all clear to return to running.

00:06:11Melissa Erbacher: You don't need to carry a defib on your person. Awesome.

00:06:14Scott Trickett: No, no, no. And my heart performed really well, apparently.

00:06:18Melissa Erbacher: That's awesome news, Scotty. I'm very relieved for you.

00:06:21Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yes. It is good news. I'm relieved for myself because I... I like my heart. And I liked running in the end. And it's this old thing where when you're injured, it's the more you want to run. When you're told don't run.

00:06:38Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's nothing like.

00:06:40Scott Trickett: You kind of miss it a lot more.

00:06:41Melissa Erbacher: Not being allowed to do something to make you want to do it.

00:06:47Scott Trickett: I also know that these cardiologists are very, very important people, and they sort of just quickly run in. They do the tests. They do it really quickly, and then it's like they're running out before you can ask them any questions. And I think it was good that he just said, you're all good. You can get back to running because maybe if I stuck around and overanalyzed everything on that machine and all the reports, I might have convinced myself that –

00:07:12Melissa Erbacher: Or if they'd stuck around and had worried looks on their faces and, you know, took a long time to decide whether or not it was appropriate for you to go back to running.

00:07:21Scott Trickett: They did at one point. They go, ooh, have a look at that.

00:07:26Melissa Erbacher: Did you almost fall off the treadmill? What? What?

00:07:28Scott Trickett: No, because I can't because you're locked into place and it's all happening behind me. But I just want to go, what? Tell me. And then they start talking some medical terms and they go, okay.

00:07:42Melissa Erbacher: Well, it's good. It's great to get checked out because I know a lot of people don't. A lot of people ignore the signs and the signals and they really shouldn't. And I got checked out by a cardiologist. I don't remember if we talked about it on the pod late last year just because – No, we didn't. I'm the oversharer. Yeah, well, you know, I guess it was something else more exciting happening that week. But – It was a relief to hear that everything was fine. You know, I have an abnormal heartbeat, but it's normal for me. So that's okay. You know, these things happen. And when you get checked out, at least you've got that confidence and that reassurance that you aren't just going to be the person who requires the defib somewhere out on the course on Saturday morning.

00:08:32Scott Trickett: But I'll put it back to you, Mel. I think we're lucky. I mean, we're lucky because we live in the country that we do. But I had to pay for this.

00:08:39Melissa Erbacher: Oh, yeah, it's not cheap.

00:08:40Scott Trickett: If I waited to – yeah, no, I could have waited like a month for it to be free, to be bulk billed, which is great that we can do this, that we have that afforded to us. But still, I had to wait if – If I didn't have the money, I would have had to wait a month and not have a month of worrying and a month of stress.

00:08:59Melissa Erbacher: In which time you develop an ulcer and you have some other problem because of the situation. Yeah.

00:09:05Scott Trickett: Yeah, there is something. So I'm going to see the doctor in a couple of hours. And they said, everything's good. There's just one thing that your GP will discuss with you. But you'd think they could have told me that on the day. But no, they give me 24 hours to stress about it. Look up Dr. Google.

00:09:20Melissa Erbacher: And what else could possibly go wrong? Is that what you Googled, word for word?

00:09:24Scott Trickett: Yeah. Heart problems.

00:09:29Melissa Erbacher: And you don't want to see the pictures either. Don't click on the images. Yeah. Yeah.

00:09:34Scott Trickett: Anyway, so that's my week and that's my oversharing for the podcast this week.

00:09:41Melissa Erbacher: Yes, that's great news. It's a good overshare and I hope it relieves a lot of the listeners to hear it as well. I'm sure it will. But you had a good walk at Darebin and, you know what, I really like that you walked with your mates and it wasn't just a, oh, I'll walk with Kasia this week and, you know, then it's the parent walking with the child and stuff like that, which is – I know it's a nice thing to do as well. But, yeah, I think there should be a week every year where the people that usually run sub-20 all walk and just – Just do it because that's, you know, it's a completely different way to experience parkrun. Not necessarily tail walk, just walk. Just walk and see what it's like. I mean, if we could have it the other way and those of us that are in the middle of the pack or at the tail end could have a week where we all just ran sub 20, I'm sure we would be up for that. It would be great if we had that kind of option, but we have to work a lot harder to get there.

00:10:45Scott Trickett: At the end of it, we all said, that was nice. Probably wouldn't want to do it every week. But, you know, once every couple of months, just to have a leisurely walk and chat was awesome. Now, you, did you have a leisurely walk and chat with your mates? I'm guessing not because you told us that you're not ready to do the 5K. Yeah, still volunteering.

00:11:04Melissa Erbacher: I was anticipating, I was hoping to get out and do a course, pop down to the Gold Coast, for the weekend and surprise some special people at an anniversary, but I didn't do it because sleep won out in the end, and the idea of getting up at 3.30 or 4 a.m. to get started was not very appealing. But also I took Wes for a walk on – Thursday afternoon, and it was just one of those things where they tell you to get out and walk every day and whatever. And I thought, okay, yep, I'll do that. I'll take Wes for a walk. And it only probably took him, I was going to take him like 500 metres, turn around and go home. It was a nice sunny patch of an afternoon. But he realised when I said, okay, let's turn around now, that we weren't going to make it to the park if we turned around that's the direction of home like this kid he's smart he's starting to cotton on to things I was like oh I didn't have a pram he was he was walking this is my not quite two-year-old was walking along and holding my hand this 500 metres I thought oh Well, if we keep walking toward the park, that's all well and good. It's a couple of K away, but there's no way I'm going to be able to walk home, let alone him as well. So I called Adam and said, hey, look, you know, I'm going to have a tantrum inflicted upon me if I don't, continue on towards the park. Can you come pick us up after we've had a bit of a play? And that was all good. So we walked. Wesley took 42 and a half minutes to walk two kilometres. Wow. Like, I was just amazed that he could actually walk that far. He didn't ask to be carried. He just took his own little leisurely pace and everything. It definitely pointed out to me that I'm not capable of walking 5K at the moment. But at his pace, I can definitely walk two. And then he had a play at the park and had a great time. Yeah, I'm looking forward to being able to get back to walking five kilometres again. Everything's ankles are swollen and things like that. And with a head in your pelvis, it's not particularly comfortable to have your legs turning over for long distances. So, yeah. So, volunteering on Saturday it was, again, which is all good because I love it. And I had another good morning just at my home parkrun. Good.

00:13:38Scott Trickett: In National Volunteers Week.

00:13:40Melissa Erbacher: Yes, a very important week for everyone. And you know what? I really feel like we need more stats around our volunteers because there's just not enough stats.

00:13:48Scott Trickett: Do you reckon?

00:13:48Melissa Erbacher: I think I need to put in a request to somebody. Yeah.

00:13:53Scott Trickett: Well, you know the people to put it into, so you go ahead and do that. Now, Mel, I've heard that story, and I want you to take the next few minutes off. I'll carry the pod from here. We've got the State of the Nation coming up where we zip around the country and internationally.

00:14:10Melissa Erbacher: Okay, you think I can just put my feet up for a few minutes?

00:14:16Scott Trickett: Yeah. Cool.

00:14:17Unidentified speaker: I will.

00:14:17[12 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

State of the Nation

00:14:30Scott Trickett: Back by popular demand is our State of the Nation address by all our ambassadors all around the country. We've gone to the people. These are the guys in the coal mines. These are the guys in the nitty-gritty. They're the ones that are setting up these events, getting them ready to go.

Interview Chris Timms — Tasmanian parkrun ambassador

00:14:47Scott Trickett: And first cab off the rank is Chris Timms in Tasmania, the smallest state but one that's got a lot going on and probably the talk of...

00:14:55Chris Timms: the nation at the moment Chris because on and you've just got off the plane off launching a very exciting event um tell us all about it hi Scotty thanks for having me on yes very exciting this weekend we were very happy to be able to launch um flinders island oh sorry Whitemark Wharf parkrun on Flinders Island which is beautiful little island off the northeast coast of Tasmania And that's event number 14 for Tasmania. So very proud of that. And look, it's an island with a population of 800. And we got 30 people there. So it's just a phenomenal support from the local community. And we expect that it will actually grow because there were a few people busy with voting and kids sport who said they would have otherwise been there so very excited about that and went for a bit of a tour around the island because once you're on the island on Saturday morning for parkrun you can't get back off until Sunday afternoon so it's a good excuse for a weekend holiday and some beautiful spots to see. Other news around Tassie, we've been very fortunate and very grateful that we've received a Community Innovations Healthy Tasmania grant from the Health Department, which has given us full funding for another four events in Tasmania to launch. So that's really exciting. And we're actively working on events in Kingston, Sorell, Bridport up in the North East and And we're really trying to find someone to help us get down the east and the west coast of Tasmania. So, yeah, looking very exciting down here, looking at putting on some new event ambassadors to cope with the workload. But by all accounts, we'll be up to 20 events by the end of the year or not long after.

00:16:41Scott Trickett: Before we go back to Whitemark Wharf, I've got a question about the west coast of Tasmania. It's not a highly populated part of Australia. How far away are we from having a parkrun in that neck of the woods?

00:16:56Chris Timms: Look, we've had some preliminary conversations in the last couple of years. There's certainly a degree of excitement there. amongst individuals to get something going down there. They do have a reasonably strong running group down there who might be able to put something together in one of the towns down there. No, it's not highly populated, but it's an area that could really do with a parkrun, not just from a tourist perspective, of course, but it would be great to get the free recreational activity down into that area because they're so remote. Yeah.

00:17:32Scott Trickett: And speaking of remote, Whitemark Wharf, 800 people on the island. Now, we know this is small and it will be sustainable, the parkrun. Are they expecting a lot of tourists or are they hoping to just build a great community from within it?

00:17:46Chris Timms: They're primarily looking to build a great community from within, but it also, it's just beautiful for tourists. We did have two people apart from myself and my husband over there this weekend who'd flown in specifically to do parkrun at Whitemark Wharf on the island, and they stayed for the weekend as well. One of those two ladies at least, maybe both of them, are now the only people to hold Tasmanian statesmanship. So they were over there to maintain that. So, look, the Whitemark Wharf, the parkrun start and finish, is right next to the Flinders Wharf, which is a lovely food and wine precinct restaurant. It's just a stunning place to visit. So, you know, if people have ever thought of going there, they really should give it a go.

00:18:34Scott Trickett: We will. I mentioned on last week's pod, I think I'm going to start planning my next Westerfoldian road trip and we're going to hit up Whitemark Wharf. So exciting times in Tassie. Thanks very much, Chris, for giving us an update.

00:18:46Chris Timms: My pleasure. Thank you. Okay.

Interview Sonja Pohlman — parkrun ambassador, New South Wales and ACT

00:18:49Scott Trickett: Now, after working for 15 years at SBS, I know everything about Eurovision fever. So with that in mind, calling Tamworth BP, welcome to the parkrun adventurers, Sonja Pohlman, who's going to give us an update on New South Wales and a little bit of the ACT.

00:19:10Sonja Pohlman: Thank you. Very deep in the heart of New South Wales. At the Tamworth BP. Yeah. That's right. Yes, so New South Wales is, yeah.

00:19:20Scott Trickett: Yeah, so what's happening around New South Wales?

00:19:22Sonja Pohlman: Well, we're continuing to bubble along. New South Wales has currently got 86 of the 353 publicly available events, which means Queensland, you know, in the spirit of state of origin, I know there's a good rivalry between Queensland and New South Wales. Queensland still takes it with 29% of the events. Um, so I'm sure New South Wales would, you know, we'd still like to be, um, pulling our weight a bit more there, but we're working on that. Um, and the ACT has six events. So there's, yeah, a number. There's certainly a lot of prospects on the radar, but then that are spread out all across the state, that's for sure.

00:20:08Scott Trickett: That's good. Can you hit us with any of the prospects?

00:20:13Sonja Pohlman: Nothing in particular. I would say there's one that's going to be, I'd say, of good interest to people, which I won't say yet, but... Yes, it's being worked on. So that's all I'll say on that. Yes.

00:20:31Scott Trickett: Interest because you've got to give us a little bit more than that, Sonja.

00:20:34Sonja Pohlman: Oh, no. No, I don't. I don't, Scotty. I don't have to give you anything on that. No, I guess because of perhaps the type of event that it is.

00:20:46Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:20:47Sonja Pohlman: Yeah.

00:20:48Scott Trickett: Okay. Yes.

00:20:50Sonja Pohlman: Okay. So.

00:20:51Scott Trickett: Leave us wanting. That's good. Yeah. That's good.

00:20:53Sonja Pohlman: No, but there's a, there's a good spread of locations all across the state that are coming along. But yeah, nothing that we'd say, okay, this is going to be starting up absolutely straight away. And the other, probably the other thing that was, I was looking at the map and talking to some people about New South Wales is the fact that as parkrun adventurers, you now can get yourself from the Queensland border all the way down pretty much as far as Batemans Bay, which is around 1,200 kilometres. You could pretty much stop every two hours to, you know, drive safely, have a cup of tea and do a freedom run every two hours. And that would be a pretty good way to go. Travel safe with parkruns.

00:21:41Scott Trickett: You realise you've just challenged a few people.

00:21:43Sonja Pohlman: Oh, I think so. But looking at the map, because there was certainly a time not that long ago that there was a big gap up northern New South Wales way, which is certainly not the case anymore. Yeah, there's a lovely spread of parkruns all the way down that way. And when we were looking at it as well, If there was a parkrun perhaps in Cunnamulla, you would be, I think, every major highway out of Queensland coming south is covered by parkruns as well.

00:22:18Scott Trickett: Not being the expert on geography, we've got a new event starting in Casino, which is this Queen Victoria parkrun. Where's Casino?

00:22:26Sonja Pohlman: Where's Casino? Casino's near Lismore.

00:22:29Scott Trickett: Okay. Next question, where's Lismore?

00:22:32Sonja Pohlman: So in the northern New South Wales. So and Casino is now what's the, oh, I can't think of the name of the highway or the Summerland Way, I think, is the road that goes through. I can tell you if you drive through from Warwick to go through to Byron Bay or through to the coast, there is the most dreadful, dreadful road from Woodenbong to That looks like a shortcut but you should never, ever, ever drive on it because it's deceptive and it takes forever and it's horrible. However, Casino parkrun and the Summerland Way is a lovely way to go and Casino is a lovely town and you should go there and do a parkrun. So that's great.

00:23:18Scott Trickett: Okay, Sonja. Thanks very much. I'll let you get back to whatever's happening at the Tamworth BP on this Friday night.

00:23:25Sonja Pohlman: We have a four-hour drive back to, I think it's a four-hour, I think it's about four hours from Tamworth back to Newcastle now. We have just come, we've spent the weekend at the Warwick Pentathlon, which was absolutely fabulous event. Five events in two days, totalling a marathon distance. So there's a half marathon on the Saturday, a cross-country event, which is what, 4.8, something like that. 4.6, a 5k road event, which is where we have a, if you have a lookout, there's a massive parkrun photo before that one, where people wear their milestone shirts. And then on the Sunday, there's a 10k run up, which is an ascent, which has quite a big hill climb, which is where I was watching Eurovision beforehand. And then it finishes with a 1500 metre road race. in the main street.

00:24:17Scott Trickett: Good. And the numbers were good this year.

00:24:19Sonja Pohlman: I was great. Yeah. It wasn't as normally it's really quite cold. Um, not quite that cold this year, but it's always, there's a really great community spirit. Yeah. Fantastic event.

00:24:31Scott Trickett: I'll put it on the list to get there one day. Thanks very much for the update for New South Wales and ACT Sonja.

00:24:37Sonja Pohlman: You are most welcome.

00:24:38Scott Trickett: And hopefully I'll see you on your, on our travels sometime again soon.

00:24:42Sonja Pohlman: Absolutely. I think I'm out at Mudgee next weekend.

00:24:45Scott Trickett: Okay, we're breaking new ground now in the State of the Nation because we're going a bit further abroad, not just including Australia. And I'm a bit nervous about our next guest, but let's see how it goes. Welcome to State of the Nation, Ambassador from Malaysia. What's up? Mel Erbacher.

00:25:08Melissa Erbacher: Thank you, Scotty. It's nice to join you for the State of the Nation. Very excited to be bringing you the North Island of Australia for the first time, good old Malaysia it's um it's been fun they they're doing a great job up there so uh I'll just dive in and give you some of the stats about what's been going on and what might be coming ahead to salivate the mouths of all the um is that a thing salivating people's mouths um all the adventurers out there for the new events coming please do go for it I'm looking forward to this sounds like you've done it before All right, so, well, I haven't done this side before, so please be kind. So, obviously, or maybe not so obviously, we've got two events currently in Malaysia. The first event, Taman Pudu Ulu, which we... covered when they launched last year has just celebrated its 53rd event and recently their first anniversary which is very exciting. Going from strength to strength at Taman Pudu Ulu and the event team there are doing a great job as are the event team at our second event in Malaysia which was Precinct 18 parkrun in Putrajaya. So they've just done their 30th event. So they're not too far behind. They were about roughly six months behind Taman Pudu Ulu. The guys at Taman Pudu Ulu have had to cancel a few events due to conflicts in the parks and things like that over the past year. So It's given an opportunity for Precinct 18 to catch up in the event numbers a little bit. But both events doing wonderful jobs. They're attracting a lot of attention and a lot of interest in new events. And over the past – oh, it's not even a year we've had – Lots of other inquiries come through for some prospects. Some of them, we've got two active prospects, which I'll leave till last, but I will just cover off some of the places that we have had interest from, which may or may not still come about in the end. So we've got Bangi in Selangor. We have Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur, which would be another exciting one for KL. We've got Universiti Teknologi MARA Puncak Alam Campus, which is also in Selangor. That one came through not too long ago. There's also been Malacca. And Penang. And then we come through to the two that are definitely super keen. They are working with our people on the ground over in Malaysia at the moment, going through the motions of getting permissions and mapping out courses and things like that. The one we've been working on the longest is in Gunung Lang in Ipoh. And the other one is in Tang. I'm going to get this wrong. Tanjung Lipat in Likas, Sabah. So I understand that one's on an island in just like this most beautiful little tropical setting. So that could be another exciting one for the Malaysians.

00:28:26Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm impressed. I'm impressed there's a lot of interest in new events in Malaysia. And I'm impressed that you got through the pronunciation on most of them. They sounded spot on. Well done.

00:28:38Melissa Erbacher: Well, hopefully we don't have too many listeners in Malaysia who are just going to like cringe when they hear that and think that those aren't even places and that people don't get in touch and write you angry letters next week.

00:28:53Scott Trickett: Mel, thank you very much. That was a very thorough update.

00:28:57Melissa Erbacher: You're very welcome.

Interview Steve Rayner — parkrun ambassador, Queensland

00:28:59Scott Trickett: And finally, to adjust the gender balance in this state of the nation, we're bringing in Steve Rayner from Queensland, who's going to give us an update on still our biggest parkrun state. G'day, Steve.

00:29:13Steve Rayner: G'day, Scott. G'day, adventurers. Hope you're all well.

00:29:16Scott Trickett: We are. How is parkrun in Queensland? Is that doing well? Yep. parkrun's going from strength to strength.

00:29:21Steve Rayner: As you say, we're the biggest state now, and since we last spoke, We now have over 100 events in Queensland, 104 with two new ones already announced, so that'll take us to 106. So going from strength to strength. The good thing from my point of view about where we're going, and at the moment we've got 21 prospective events still to come, but one thing I admire about our Victorian colleagues is that they've managed to fill in the gaps between the major centres in Victoria and Now, that's a bigger challenge in Queensland, but we're starting to do this. Most of the new events on the prospect list are not in major urban centres. They're in remote regional centres and allow us to fill in some gaps. Before I talk about the new events, I'll just throw in some anniversaries. During the month, we've got anniversaries at Ocean View, Yarrabilba, Roma, Varsity Lakes, Barron Bar and Bowen. In announcing the new events, I'd like to throw out a challenge to the parkrun adventurers, and that is to get out to some of the really beautiful remote regional areas of Queensland in particular. But I've got one particular challenge. We're starting new events at towns called Charleville, which is about 800km west of Brisbane, and Chinchilla, which is about 300km west, west of Brisbane. And strangely enough, they're both on the same road. And we have a number of events on the same road. So my challenge is for someone who really wants an adventure, start off in Brisbane. You can go 129k west and you hit Toowoomba where we've got two events. Another 82k on the same road, we've got Dalby. Another 83k, we've got the new event in Chinchilla, which launches on the 25th of May. Sorry, I'm wrong there. That's June the 29th. Then we've got another 48K, we've got Miles. Then another 142K, we've got Roma. Another 266K and you're at Charleville. And then if you're feeling really adventurous from Charleville, it's only another 837K to Birdsville and the famous Birdsville Hotel. And then if you want to get real adventurous, you can turn north and it's only another 720km and you're in Mount Isa with Mount Isa parkrun, Cloncurry parkrun, et cetera, and make a real trip of it. So I'd like to throw out that challenge and see who can take that on.

00:31:48Scott Trickett: Well, Sonja gave us a challenge for New South Wales and I think people are going to take her up on that. And people will do this, Steve. You know they will.

00:31:58Steve Rayner: I hope so. I've been out to some of these events. I've been to Roma and it's a beautiful event. Been to Cloncurry, lovely. Not in the wet season, but in the dry season it's better. But, yeah, do it, people. So that's roughly where we're at. As I say, a number of new events to look out for. Assuming the prospects get up, we've got a couple of very famous regional places in Queensland that are coming and I hope we get those going pretty soon. So that's about it with where we are in Queensland.

00:32:27Scott Trickett: Okay, that's a great update and I love the idea that, I'm with you Steve, that we're getting into these, we're filling in the gaps in Queensland because it is a big state and those numbers that you just threw around in kilometres, they're significant distances and to have towns in between and parkruns in between is making it all and more accessible. So, exciting times ahead for Queensland.

00:32:55Steve Rayner: Yep, without giving it away, we've got another couple of events on the same road that would fill in some of those gaps between here and Birdsville.

00:33:01Scott Trickett: Very good, very good. Okay, thanks, Steve. Thanks for the update from Queensland. Cheers, everybody.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Interview Tony O'Connell — parkrun ambassador, Victoria; Channel 5 News Crew regular, roster member

00:33:08Scott Trickett: Not being biased at all, but now it's come time for the best part of State of the Nation. This is where we get an update from Victoria, and we welcome back to the podcast. He's here nearly every week. Anyway, welcome, TOC.

00:33:22Tony O'Connell: Howdy, parkrunners. It's TOC reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew in the Greater State, and I think that goes without doubt. Scotty?

00:33:31Scott Trickett: Yep. There's no argument from me, and there's no one else here to argue tonight, so we're going with it as factually correct. In the Greater State, what's happening, TOC?

00:33:41Tony O'Connell: Look, let's come with that, Scotty. I was reflecting on the Greater State earlier, and I may have mentioned this to you yesterday at parkrun where we ran together. Four or five years ago, we launched Inverloch. There was 14 events in Victoria. Today we're sitting on 75 events and one junior event. So the growth in parkrun in Victoria has been phenomenal. We have 19 prospects sitting in the wings at the moment, and I'd expect we'll probably see about half of those potentially launch in the next six to eight months. So, you know, there'll be quite a few of those this year. And we've got some really exciting events that have launched recently. We've got events like Mildura, which is very remote. They're averaging 210 people a week. So we've got a bit of a growth area. We think a fair bit of potential in an area north of the Western Highway and south of the Murray River. We've got a couple of really good prospects in the Goldfields area up there. And we're expecting to see both of those potentially launch this year. We've got a potential coming up that's going to be up in the snowfields, and that'll be a good one over winter, your chance to go for a ski and a run all in one day. And we've got a really new potential in the extreme east of the state, which is almost closer to New South Wales than it is to Victoria. Just running around the state of Vic, we had 7,217 finishes in Victoria this week, which is a really great number. Out of that, we saw a fairly high number of PBs as well. There was about 1,320 PBs amongst those. So about 18% of the people running around scored a PB. The weather was sensational, as it would be in the greater state. Just sort of looking more broadly and looking at some of the clubs that we've got kicking around, Victoria's got 18 people in their statespeople list. And one of those young Zoe Ellis, as well as the 75 events, she's the only one that's eligible to run the juniors.

00:35:52Steve Rayner: So Zoe's actually on 76 events.

00:35:55Tony O'Connell: So she's doing really well for a young runner, um apart from that we're just looking forward to getting a couple more launches up and going we've got some great new events along the surf coast and the events are spreading out all through Victoria the maps starting to fill up and looking quite good

00:36:12Scott Trickett: Now, TOC, you wouldn't have heard this, but Steve was on just before you and he mentioned how Victoria is doing a really good job of spreading around the state and filling in some of the gaps. Have you identified a couple of the gaps? I know you just mentioned Mildura up there. Have you identified a couple of gaps where you think we are lacking and we can perhaps get a few more events up and going in those areas?

00:36:36Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Scott, look, we've got a few areas. Victoria has been really good at filling the gaps fill in the gaps in Victoria. And we're probably, geographically, we're a little bit more fortunate probably than Queensland in that we don't have such a large area, but we do have some fairly large areas between the dots on the parkrun map. As I said before, north of the Western Highway, so north of Ballarat, we've got that line of Ballarat, Ararat, Horsham and Nhill. North of that area, we've got a fairly big gap in there, but As I said, there's really good prospects for a couple of events in the Goldfields area, and we've got a really good one at Woodend. So we're going to slowly start to fill in some of those areas. I guess further to the east, we've got a fairly long drive out of Melbourne, and one of the latest prospects is actually over at Mallacoota. So it's going to fill in a dot right at the junction where New South Wales meets the sea and Victoria.

00:37:41Scott Trickett: That one sounds exciting. Anything in Metro Melbourne we can get excited about?

00:37:46Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, we've got a couple of really good prospects. Scott, the area down around Frankston, Seaford, that area, we've actually got quite a large area there with a lot of really keen runners come out of that area. There's some really strong running clubs. But we've sort of got parkruns to the north of Cranbourne and then down at Hastings and Rosebud. We've got quite a big gap, in that part of Metro Melbourne, and probably Bayside. We're also lacking a few dots in that area, and there's a couple of really good prospects in there at the moment.

00:38:22Scott Trickett: Okay, that's very exciting, as I would expect from you, TOC, and Victoria. So thanks very much for the update.

00:38:29Tony O'Connell: No worries, Scotty, and enjoy.

Interview Grette Wilkinson — parkrun regional ambassador, South Australia

00:38:32Scott Trickett: Okay, we're continuing the Channel 5 News crew theme as we head to South Australia, and welcome back to the podcast, Grette Wilkinson.

00:38:42Grette Wilkinson: Hey, Scott.

00:38:43Scott Trickett: I'm welcoming you back in your role as our regional ambassador. So give us an update on what's happening in South Australia.

00:38:51Grette Wilkinson: Okay. Well, at the moment in South Australia, we're working with about three prospects at the moment. All of them are in their kind of early stages. So if there's anyone out there who is thinking about launching a parkrun in their local area, step up, get in contact, let us know that you're interested and we'll come and help show you how it's done and help you get up and running. Probably the most exciting thing that has happened in South Australia lately is we launched in Mobilong. So Mobilong is the second prison parkrun in Australia and the first in South Australia. They launched on the 27th of April. So Mobilong is in Murray Bridge, which is probably about an hour, maybe hour and a half out of Adelaide. And we launched with 33 runners 31 of those runners were from the prisoner group and all the medical staff ran on the day which was great. All of the volunteer roles were filled by prisoners and we were also lucky enough to have an Aboriginal inmate who performed a bilingual welcome to country so we were very honoured to have that on the day. We also had one of the prisoners do the RD role. He did a great job of welcoming everyone and doing the briefing and setting up the course and then encouraging everyone. And then we had a lot of support and encouragement both by runners and walkers, some of who returned to complete the rest of the course with some of the walkers. And we had lots of spectators and encouragement from people watching the parkrun happen.

00:40:29Scott Trickett: And how did you find the experience of the day, Greta? I mean, I talked about my experience on the podcast. I wasn't sure what to expect. Did it live up to your expectations?

00:40:39Grette Wilkinson: Yeah, to tell you the truth, I wasn't sure what to expect either. But interestingly, it kind of, you know, once I got over the notion that I was in a kind of area that I wasn't used to being in, it just felt like a normal parkrun. Obviously, there were some differences, but It had the same parkrun vibe, had the same kind of level of encouragement from parkrun participants, that same sort of, you know, elation and community spirit of people coming over the line and encouraging each other. So, yeah, it was the kind of event that I actually felt really proud to be a part of and I think it will really benefit the community that's there at Mobilong.

00:41:22Scott Trickett: That's awesome. Now, can I also just go back to these prospects that you're talking about? Are we talking about some metropolitan events or are these out in the country areas?

00:41:32Grette Wilkinson: Actually, yeah, most of them are country. And actually, interestingly, a lot of the events that we've had launching lately have been country events, which is great for rural South Australia. So, yeah, we have two of the events that are quite rural. and one is sort of closer to town but still sort of out of the metropolitan area. So it looks like they were growing the sort of regional area of South Australia in terms of the parkrun coverage, which is great.

00:41:59Scott Trickett: And I'm going to put you on the spot here. Last one. Can you give us an update on Meningie? I know Meningie launched and that's in a – well, it's not a heavily populated area of South Australia. And how are they going now?

00:42:14Grette Wilkinson: They're going great, yeah. So Meningie is a really small town and a really small community and they had a bit of a rocky start. They've got a great team now, incredibly passionate people. It will probably always be one of those smaller parkruns but we all know that you don't have to have a big parkrun to have a successful parkrun. They've got a great community there. and the people there are really keen behind it. Of course, it's football, netball season there now, so the numbers are small, but the people there, you know, still get out and enjoy it. And I think they actually had a record attendance over Easter, so they had their record attendance of 37 people, which they had a great day. So, yeah, hats off to the ladies who've stepped up and taken on that event at Meningie.

00:43:04Scott Trickett: Indeed. It's great to see. Greta, thanks very much for a South Australian update.

00:43:10Grette Wilkinson: No problem, Scotty.

00:43:23Melissa Erbacher: Well, we don't have any roving reports this week, Scotty, but I think the State of the Nation kind of makes up for that. Would you agree?

00:43:31Scott Trickett: I would agree, yes. We've already heard from some of our Channel 5 news crew who double up their roles in the parkrun world.

00:43:38Melissa Erbacher: Volunteering upon volunteering upon volunteering. Legends, all of them.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:43:43Melissa Erbacher: But we do have some anniversaries and we've got a launch, a Queensland launch this week.

00:43:49Scott Trickett: What do you know about Graham? Graham Andrews.

00:43:53Melissa Erbacher: I know it's in Charleville. And it's been one that we've been hoping to get off the ground for a very long time. So it's a bit exciting that finally they're getting their launch date this coming weekend.

00:44:07Scott Trickett: Yeah, so this is the event that Steve alluded to on his State of the Nation update. So Graham Andrews is launching in Charleville this Saturday.

00:44:19Melissa Erbacher: But we also have anniversaries all over the country, all over the Aussie country. They would start with Ballina Coast in New South Wales.

00:44:28Scott Trickett: Castlemaine, Victoria, been there.

00:44:31Melissa Erbacher: Devonport in Tassie, I've been there.

00:44:34Scott Trickett: Highlands in Victoria, I've been there.

00:44:36Melissa Erbacher: Mawson Lakes in South Australia, haven't been there. Keen to go though.

00:44:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, they have great photos at Mawson Lakes. Mount Beauty in Victoria, I've also been there.

00:44:48Melissa Erbacher: Mount Penang in New South Wales, two mounts in a row haven't been there.

00:44:53Scott Trickett: Spelled differently, though.

00:44:54Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. How is that? I don't know how that is. I think it's got to do with, like, how the town spells it. Like Mount Isa, for example. I think it's abbreviated. Maybe.

00:45:07Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:45:07Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:45:08Scott Trickett: No, I don't think it is. Is it? I don't know. Mount Gambier, the same. They're abbreviated.

00:45:14Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm not sure what the ruling is on that, but obviously we can have it either way.

00:45:19Scott Trickett: Someone will tell us. Hey, North Sydney, New South Wales, Penrith Lakes, New South Wales, and the Ponds, New South Wales. I've been to the Ponds.

00:45:28Melissa Erbacher: You have, and didn't you get lost trying to do a Freedom Run of North Sydney?

00:45:33Scott Trickett: No.

00:45:33Melissa Erbacher: No? That must have been somewhere else. You like to go to New South Welsh events and get lost doing Freedom Runs, don't you? Do I?

00:45:44Scott Trickett: Yeah. This is news to me.

00:45:45Melissa Erbacher: I feel like it's a bit of a trend. I'm sure you've got lost on more than one, so that makes it a trend.

00:45:52Scott Trickett: Okay. Hey, no South Australian anniversaries this weekend. A bit disappointing because I'm going over to South Australia.

00:46:00Melissa Erbacher: Mawson Lakes, Scotty.

Sign-off

00:46:01Melissa Erbacher: Mawson Lakes.

00:46:02Scott Trickett: Oh, there it is, yeah. And I even talked about it. They do. But I'm not going to be there. I'm going to be at Torrens on Saturday. So, Mel, it's a new event for me. I know I was going to play fair, but this one's out of my control.

00:46:17Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it's out of your control. Somebody's forcing you to run at Torrens this weekend. You could volunteer, you know, Scotty.

00:46:25Scott Trickett: I could, actually. Look, I'll have a look at the roster and see how they're travelling, but probably won't. I'll get that new event up on you.

00:46:35Melissa Erbacher: That's fine. You know what? Because if I was capable last weekend, I totally would have done it myself.

00:46:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, that's what I thought when you mentioned Mawson Lakes. I thought, hang on, what's going on here? I know she volunteered last time she was there.

00:46:50Melissa Erbacher: Yes, and I haven't got that one on my list yet, so that's okay. Yeah, like I said, good enough for the goose, good enough for the gander. But Torrens, what's happening at Torrens? Are we having another hero at Torrens this weekend? Yeah.

00:47:05Scott Trickett: No, no, that's once a month. So we've got to wait a couple more weeks for the hero. And I think I'll only go because it was in Melbourne last time. Oh, okay. I don't think parkrun will ship me around every month for the hero.

00:47:18Melissa Erbacher: Wouldn't that be nice?

00:47:20Chris Timms: Yeah. Yeah.

00:47:21Scott Trickett: Yeah. But no. Yeah, another conference in South Australia and we're staying over, inviting everyone to come to Torrens on the Saturday and be there with the big CEO, the big cheese.

00:47:35Melissa Erbacher: It's a beautiful run. I'll be interested to hear which course you end up doing.

00:47:39Scott Trickett: Okay. They've got multiple?

00:47:42Melissa Erbacher: They do. They've got the zoo. They've got the zoo. I always get it wrong. There's a zoo course or the brew course. But I feel like there's another thing that they use instead of course because I feel like it rhymes with zoo or brew as well. Maybe I'm just confusing the fact that there's zoo or brew and those two things rhyme. But in one direction, you hear monkeys and in the other direction, you smell hops, I'm assuming.

00:48:09Scott Trickett: Not great. I went to school next to one of those factories and it always stank. I don't know if it was yeast or it was the yeast factory or if it was the hops.

00:48:18Melissa Erbacher: I used to live somewhere in Scotland that was near a brewery and it always smelled like hot Weet-Bix to me.

00:48:26Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:48:27Melissa Erbacher: So that's what hops smells like to me. It's not offensive. It's just reminded me of winter breakfasts.

00:48:40Unidentified speaker: Thank you.