Episode 165 - Justin Scholz

Welcome

00:00:19Scott Trickett: Episode 165 of the parkrun adventurers is here. We've been experimenting a lot with co-hosts over the last few weeks, and my regular co-host fired a few shots last week, so this week it's just the Scotty Trickett Hour. I'm going to host it all by myself. People have been asking for it, and I think it's time we gave people what they want, so...

00:00:44Melissa Erbacher: Who's been asking for that?

00:00:45Scott Trickett: Mel. No, no, Mel's here. I did try and mute her, but I thought I had the all-powering control. You did.

00:00:56Melissa Erbacher: I thought had I muted myself, I didn't mean to do that. So I did say something that was hilarious while I was on mute. So unfortunately, all the listeners missed out on that, but I can't remember what it was being a whole minute ago or so. Shots fired though, Scotty.

00:01:16Scott Trickett: So we're going to peel back the curtain. Last week you and Lyndell did the intro and then we caught up for the outro. But I didn't hear what you said in the intro until after the edit. So I was all buddy-buddy with you, great to have you back. And then I listened back to the intro and you're saying that, you know, Lyndell carried me. I've been dead weight. Did you use dead weight for four years? I think that was my interpretation of what you said.

00:01:39Melissa Erbacher: I would not have said dead weight, surely.

00:01:42Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:01:44Scott Trickett: I don't know.

00:01:45Melissa Erbacher: I don't remember.

00:01:46Scott Trickett: Yes, I thought I'd do an hour, an hour solo. You know, Bill Simmons, you won't know who he is, but he's the podfather. He quite often rambles for an hour, and I admire his ability to do it.

00:01:59Melissa Erbacher: Doesn't Bill Simmons do those NFL ones?

00:02:02Scott Trickett: Well, he's encompassing all pop culture, American sport. Ah, okay. But I just did a minute, and I think I was out.

00:02:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, it's lucky I'm here then, isn't it?

00:02:14Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. I need you, Mel. I need you to bounce off for our rippy, our witty repartee.

00:02:20Melissa Erbacher: Our rippy wepartee?

00:02:22Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:02:23Melissa Erbacher: That's what we should have, rippy wepartee. It sounds like we're all ask-a-wee-wabbits.

00:02:30Scott Trickett: Yeah. Not a good start. Not a good start. But great to have you back. And I wrote down a note for this week, my one note for Episode 165. I had to remember this, so I'm going to say it now in case I forget. Okay. We hypothesized about the name of your newest child, Emmett, on the show, how the name came about. I want the answer.

00:02:55Melissa Erbacher: Oh, did somebody get in touch with you to remind you of that? Because I do recall listening to it while I was off and thinking, oh, okay. And then, yeah, nobody asked me about that last week. But last week was a bit of a schmuzzle for me because I felt like I was all over the show. As much fun as I was with Lyndell. Oh, you read the feedback as well. Oh, I read the feedback. No, I didn't. That was my own feedback. Did I write it somewhere publicly? Did I? Whoops. Meant to say we were fabulous. That's awkward.

00:03:28Scott Trickett: Yeah, you were. Yeah. No, you were great.

00:03:31Melissa Erbacher: But you were hypothesizing about Emmett's name as in the etymology of it.

00:03:37Scott Trickett: Well, yeah. So I said Doc Emmett Brown.

00:03:40Melissa Erbacher: And Lyndell, did she say, she said it sounded like it came from somewhere in America, did she? Or is that somebody else that I'm thinking of? See, this is the problem, baby brain. It's real. It's real people. I think I probably only just recovered from it with Wes and now I've got the second dose with Emmett.

00:03:59Scott Trickett: Was I right?

00:04:00Melissa Erbacher: Well, we've had a few people say, oh, was it from, I want to, there's an old English show. What's the English show called? I don't want to say Keeping Up with the Joneses. No, it's something about next door neighbours or something. And there was a gentleman named Emmett who was a pianist and he lived next door. He was the brother of the next door neighbour or something like that, random. And I was like, nope. Might be as time goes by or something. I don't know. Somebody will write in and let us know, no doubt. No, they won't. No, they won't. Or they won't.

00:04:33Scott Trickett: No, they won't. We have no user interaction.

00:04:36Melissa Erbacher: No, no, not to us officially, but I'll get a message later on. Somebody will message me and tell me what it was that I forgot. Remember how I always used to forget what words were? And I would always get people messaging me during the week to tell me what the word was that I had forgotten because you were always never any help. Maybe that's going to come back again now that I've got fresh baby brain. It's possible. But in answer to your question, yes. Yes, sort of, actually. I'm a big Back to the Future fan. I may have a Marty McFly costume for myself and my husband has a Doc Emmett Brown costume that we've worn to an 80s party or two in the past. And, yeah, I love the Doc. And Adam had aspirations before Emmett was born to nickname him Doc, but he's never once used that in the last six weeks that Emmett's been here. Okay. Yeah.

00:05:31Scott Trickett: It's coming. It's coming.

00:05:32Melissa Erbacher: It wasn't – I won't say that we were watching Back to the Future one day and went, Emmett, that's a really good name because you don't really hear it until the third movie anyway. However, we were both aware that his character's name was Emmett and that did not deter us in the slightest. In fact, it just made us like the name even more. So, yes, you were right, Scotty. Yeah.

00:05:56Scott Trickett: Yes, I knew I was. And look, he's got an impressive head of hair. He does. As Doc Emmett Brown.

00:06:02Melissa Erbacher: He does, yes.

00:06:04Scott Trickett: Yes, it's all lining up. It's all lining up.

00:06:06Melissa Erbacher: So I hope I live long enough to see when Emmett's hair goes that magnificent white and crazy because it's already crazy. It's spiky and voluminous. But, yeah, when it goes white. And I hope we all live long enough to see that.

00:06:24Scott Trickett: Did Emmett go to parkrun with you on Saturday? We were both at home. I'm spoiling the surprise for all our listeners.

00:06:31Melissa Erbacher: He did. He did. And, you know, I think I may have mentioned a poonami to Lyndell last week. He is making a habit of it. It turns out parkrun gives Emmett the shits. which is really quite awkward because he's got good timing at the very least. He waits until right at the end when I finish volunteering and then he unleashes the poonami of it all. This week I managed to get it on my jeans as well. Okay, okay.

00:07:00Scott Trickett: Let's see. This is where we're going.

00:07:03Melissa Erbacher: This is what our podcast is now.

00:07:05Scott Trickett: It's me. No, well, look, the foot's going down. Okay. We don't need to talk about this anymore. Much prefer to hear about the great social connections and the fun times you had at parkrun, not what was coming out of your child's body. Okay.

00:07:21Melissa Erbacher: I won't talk about colour or consistency then for you.

00:07:25Scott Trickett: Yeah, no, please don't. Please don't. Really, Mel, I don't want to hear about it.

00:07:30Melissa Erbacher: And I'm sure you speak for many listeners. See, this is what was missing last week, Scotty. Lyndell and I, I think we did all right. But I reckon if you'd been there, then you could have reined in this. And Lyndell was probably a little bit too polite to tell me that I shouldn't be talking about crap. Because we do enough of that as it is. Yeah.

00:07:52Scott Trickett: parkrun, Mel. parkrun. parkrun. Focus. Friends. Stay focused. People. Outdoors. Nature.

00:07:58Melissa Erbacher: Nature. Good morning, yeah? Yes. You know what? I wasn't Run Director, but I did get up for just a little sort of announcement, and it was a sad announcement, and I didn't think I was going to, but I got emotional, and I all choked up and had trouble talking because we recently had a parkrunner pass away. And I was letting the participants know. And what we actually did to mark this one was when the time passed 25-24, which was his PB. His name is Bailey. When the time passed that, we actually rang a bell. And I'm going to get all emotional again. Yeah.

00:08:40[other]

00:08:43Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:08:44Melissa Erbacher: It was lovely. Anyway, it was a lovely morning to see the support from all the participants. We encouraged the parkrunners to do a heart sign with their hands when they saw the photographer if they wanted to show support to his family. And I know it meant a lot to his family as well because they looked at the photos and they saw how many people were there. And yeah, the whole Sunshine Coast parkrunning community I've really been behind him and shown him support. So that was lovely.

00:09:17Scott Trickett: This is it, Mel. I mean, we say it so often, but parkrun is family. And then when you lose someone, it's okay to get emotional about it because it's shit. It is. It's real shit. It's emotional shit.

00:09:31Melissa Erbacher: But I'm hoping you had a less emotional, more happy morning at home this week, Scotty. Anything interesting happen?

00:09:41Scott Trickett: Look, what has happened? So we went back to home and it's all my fault. We're still on this adventuring sort of model, the Trickett family. We're chasing P-indexes, doing all that sort of stuff. But I was a shit husband this week because I think Yvonne wanted to go to Darebin and but I just couldn't get my act together in the morning. So by the time we'd actually left home, we weren't going to make it to Darebin. So we just ended up back at Westerfolds, which is great. And we're doing this other thing now that Kasia has recently turned 11 and she can run by herself and she wants to run by herself all up until the point where it comes to the running by herself part of it.

00:10:23Melissa Erbacher: So she arrives with all the intentions and then it's just like, but I want company.

00:10:28Scott Trickett: Yes. No, no. So she took off and then she got a stitch and then I caught up to her and said, do you want me to run with you? And she said, yeah. And then we started walking, walk running. Then it got really cold and she said, my face hurts. I think my ears are bleeding, daddy. My ears are bleeding. Can ears bleed from cold? I think they can, Kasia. I think they can.

00:10:49Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure I've been there. I know what pains you're feeling.

00:10:53Scott Trickett: I said they couldn't. I said ears bleed, but I don't think it's from cold. But we checked and they weren't. And I gave her an out. So at the turnaround point of the Westerfolds Junior course is the 2K point of the Senior, do we call it Senior or the 5K course?

00:11:11Melissa Erbacher: It's the just regular series.

00:11:13Scott Trickett: Regular. Yeah. Anyway, so I gave her the out. I said, you've just got to run back up the Junior course and you can go back to the car. But. Here's the twist, Mel. Like, even though she can run by herself, I'm still her father. I didn't want her running through the park at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning. So I ran back up through the juniors course with her. So I did an 8K parkrun. So I ran her back to the park.

00:11:37Melissa Erbacher: So you could still get your barcode scanned in.

00:11:40Scott Trickett: Yeah, so I did a 44-minute 8K parkrun, which was the hardest 44-minute parkrun I've ever done.

00:11:46Melissa Erbacher: You've got to be a responsible parent too and do what makes you feel comfortable. Yeah.

00:11:51Scott Trickett: Yeah, so great to be back home, but cold and pretty much in and out. It was an in and out affair for the Tricketts. It's on Saturday.

00:11:59Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I mean, not that it would have impacted me if you had gone to Darebin and I don't at all encourage you to be not a very good husband to your wife and you should get more organised. I'm quite pleased that you didn't have too much of an adventure this week because somebody has managed to equal me on the Australian Most Events list while I've been off and has actually snuck ahead when you factor in the international events by two. Good. I don't know. I'm not really willing to let that stand.

00:12:34Scott Trickett: How did that happen? What have I done the last few weeks? I can't even remember.

00:12:39Melissa Erbacher: I'm not sure, Scotty. I think one of them actually was before Emmett came along. But I think you must have got the other new one in while I was definitely off. Like I haven't been religiously stalking you on Strava or anything like that, on the weekends, but I just noticed and I didn't, I didn't actually mention it last week, but now that I'm back and I'm back on my game with adventures and stuff like that. Yep. You're going down, Trickett. Good. Just quietly.

00:13:10Unidentified speaker: Time has come.

00:13:11Melissa Erbacher: Adam and I have started planning all our adventures between now and the end of the year to make sure that we – well, he wants us to drive places so we use fuel so we get more frequent flyers when we use Caltex cards. Don't even get me started on points hacking.

00:13:27Scott Trickett: We're going to do that one episode. That's going to be about episode 200 and something. We're going to get the showman on to do points hacking. Yeah.

00:13:36Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, we'll be coming to you from overseas where we've flown to for free because of points hacking. Yeah, so, but it ties in well with me needing to drive far distances to get to new events and things like that. So, yeah, looking forward to being able to report about adventures not from my home parkrun very, very soon, Scotty.

Interview Justin Scholz — Race Director, Ned Kelly Chase; Wangaratta parkrunner and Australian Centurion…

00:14:07Melissa Erbacher: We are joined by a bit of an adventurer now, who is also one of the race directors of a very interesting event that's coming up in October. It's not the first time they've had it, so they're all hot at it now. It was launched in 2011. And here to talk to... to us about the Ned Shelley case. I knew I was going to do that. The Ned Kelly Chase and his adventures is Justin Scholz. Justin, welcome to the parkrun adventurers podcast.

00:14:37Justin Scholz: Yeah, g'day Mel, g'day Scotty. How are you guys today?

00:14:41Melissa Erbacher: really well thank you that's good I'm gonna jump in Justin and ask the first question because I am intrigued by the ned Kelly chase the history of it as much as the the structure of it so can you give us a bit of a rundown of your event

00:14:57Justin Scholz: Yeah, I sure can. And you made some comments a moment ago about not being quite sure how the event works. You're certainly not alone there. And it was something, the concept of the Ned Kelly Chase is something that Sharon and I discussed in depth before we actually ran the event for the first time. Because in our running history by then, we probably completed somewhere around about 40 or 50 ultras between us back in 2013 when the event first got underway. And what we constantly found is that races about the place had a big field at the start and everybody took off together when they felt fresh and good. But invariably the slower runners got left behind and often they'd end up finishing very late when the crowds finished, had gone away and or it was dark and cold. And so we thought that if we were going to create an ultra event, we wanted to do something that was a little bit different, something that genuinely celebrated participation rather than just fast times. And so the basic concept of the Ned Kelly Chase is that entrants in all events, with the exception of the 10 kilometre fun run, they choose a starting time that will allow them to finish somewhere close to 12pm on Sunday. So rather than all starting as a mass group, entrants are looking to finish close to each other at the end of the day. And that means that when entrants most need support out on course, they're going to have more other entrants around them. And when they cross the finish line, as long as they're somewhere close to 12 p.m., they're going to have the big atmosphere of the finish. They're going to have hundreds of people in the park. They're going to have music playing. They're going to have the PA system going. And so it doesn't matter if you're a 14-hour 100km or an 8-hour 100km, for example, you're going to experience that same finish line atmosphere. And for us, that was very important. And certainly the feedback that we've had from entrants over the coming up to the seventh year, of the event. Now entrants have been very grateful for that especially those that are usually a little bit slower because they do get to feel as though they get a bigger finish than what they may not in an event where they're struggling to meet cut-off times and even the faster entrants are saying that they really like it because they don't finish on their own they're not running for a half an hour at the end all by themselves. So overall it seems to us to be a very good format can take a little bit for some people to get their heads around. But once you do that, it's certainly something worth having a go at.

00:17:38Scott Trickett: Justin, it's a brilliant concept. I've had lots of my friends actually do the Ned Kelly chase. Can you talk about how it's grown over the years? And you said it's been going for seven years. It's a different concept. It's hard for runners to embrace something that's a bit different. How have you grown over the years? Are you continuing to grow?

00:17:56Justin Scholz: Yeah, we've changed the format a little bit. Well, the basic format has always been the same. Choose a start time, aim to finish near a given time, either later that day or the following day. If you're a very slow runner or a walker by choice, we allow walkers as well, then you'll start somewhere late on the Saturday night. But in the early days, we had different formats with the bicycles as well because there is a bicycle component to the Ned Kelly Chase. But we had a run bike option. We'd have two people in one bike. We had 50-50s where runners would do 50 k's each. We had relays. We had all sorts of things. And essentially looking at the entry numbers for each of those event types and then speaking to entrants afterwards, that's allowed us to finally settle on a format now that we will be running for the third time this year, which won't have changed in three years. And that's basically a standalone 100 kilometre, 50 kilometre marathon, half marathon, and all of those events are AIMS IAAF certified, incidentally, and then the 10k fun run. Plus what we have is a 100 kilometre bicycle chase and a 50 kilometre bicycle chase. So those entrants that choose to cycle, they're given arrest warrants for the runners out on course. like literally a paper arrest warrant and they have to open up those arrest warrants on the start line to work out who they're chasing down and of course because those cyclists are also aiming to finish near 12 p.m they start much later than the runners and invariably they travel the same course and eventually they catch up to their runners pull over to the side of the track and then discreetly hand out a rubber wristband to signify that the runner's being caught so You know, it's quite a serious race for those entrants that come along and run around fast 100 kilometre times. But we've tried to make sure that regardless of the motives of the entrant, everybody feels as though they're equally important in the event. And I must say it did take a lot of creative thought and discussion and trying different things between not only Sharon and I but also some people that we're very close with to come up with the concept that we've got now that seems to be well embraced by all.

00:20:18Melissa Erbacher: I'm fascinated by the chasing leg and the cyclists chasing down the runners. Is there any – you say they get a wristband to say they've been arrested and things like that, but are there any extra – I don't know, spoils of war that go to the cyclists if they catch a runner? And is there any sort of penalty for the runners if they get caught? Like, do you have runners dashing off the side of the course to evade the cyclists and things like that?

00:20:50Justin Scholz: Yeah, well, yes and no. This is where the fun component comes in. In our race briefings, before each group starts, we make it clear that if runners want to try to evade arrest when their cyclists catch them, that's fine. They can make a bit of a game of it. Obviously, in the end, they need to submit to that arrest, but they can certainly try to evade arrest initially if they want. We also make it very clear to the cyclists, though, that their first action must be to cycle past the runner and go 50 or 100 metres or whatever, pull over and just discreetly hand out the wristband. Because we do have very serious 100k, 50k marathon runners as well who want to do the best possible time they can. And if they're in the zone, they don't want to be hindered. or unreasonably held up in their race. So again, we try to cater for all. Now, as far as the runners in all the events go, they get their normal awards based on fastest time. And to try to make that even, we ensure that the times for the podium placements can only come from people who finish after 11 a.m. If you finish before 11 a.m., then it's arguable that you might have completed the course in much cooler conditions or in some way had undertaken a different race. So as long as runners finish after 11 a.m., then awards are based on the fastest three times. With the cycling, though, it's not a race. There is no award whatsoever for completing the course quickly on a bicycle. So to ensure that we can give away winners prizes for the bike events, what we do is we pull out at random from those runners that were captured on the course, a top trooper and a deputy trooper. So every runner that gets caught When they come across the finish line, they drop their wristband to signify their catch into a box. And then at the presentation and celebration dinner that we have later in the afternoon, we pull out of the box the top trooper award. So if, as a cyclist, you've got five arrest warrants, if you capture all five of your runners, then you get five chances to be pulled out of that top trooper draw. And we found that that's the fairest way, and it works well. Again, it's been really good. There's a lot of excitement and anticipation when we go to pull out that top trooper at the dinner. And then what we also like to do is ask the trooper and or the runner to recollect the experience of the... of the of the arrest and sometimes we get quite some funny stories coming out so yeah we look it's just we just try to make the event fun at the end of the day you know there's a lot of serious runners out there that's great we all like to achieve PBs and things from time to time but I think most runners also understand that it's not always about PBs it's not always about fast times it's very much about being included socially enjoying the running experience and knowing that you're in the company of like-minded people who are out there to just be the best that they can be, you know, have a healthy lifestyle, improve their fitness, you know, celebrate and try to promote those things in the broader community. And we believe that Ned Kelly Chase helps to achieve some of those aims.

00:24:15Scott Trickett: Love it. Love that you're having a bit of fun. Any controversy around the name? I mean, Ned Kelly was a bush ranger. We've got this funny relationship here in Victoria where we've somehow... glorified this criminal of 100-odd years ago. How do you deal with that? Has anybody questioned you on that?

00:24:33Justin Scholz: Yeah, they have. We've tried to be very balanced and very careful. Obviously, Ned Kelly was the bushranger, hence the chase, Ned Kelly chase, because you're chasing Ned Kelly. Now, that doesn't, to us, that wording doesn't in any way suggest that Ned Kelly was a good guy or a bad guy. We just don't get into that debate. Similarly, when you look at our banner, when you look at the event structure, when you look at all of those things, we try to have Ned Kelly's helmet about as prominently displayed as the trooper's helmet to show that there are absolutely two sides to this story. We're not glorifying... Ned Kelly and what he did, nor are we necessarily saying that there wasn't a side of him that was good as well. We don't know. I wasn't around in 1880 and before. I don't know anything more about the Ned Kelly story than anybody else. So, yeah, in the early days, we did have a couple of contacts from people who were descendants of one of the troopers involved in the Stringybark Creek Massacre, and he was quite parochial in his disdain for what we were trying to do, and that disappointed us. We worked with that person for probably a year, in so much as just forwarding them emails, sending them... details occasionally of how we were trying to keep the whole story of that time in balance and really celebrating and providing understanding of what the 1880s were like in North East Victoria. And I suppose if people... I want to go down the line of saying, well, we should just completely forget about Ned Kelly and forget about Bushrangers and forget about all of the crime that took place. Aren't we then, by extension, ignoring the role, the important role that the police had in managing the law? taking down criminals, upholding the rights and the laws of our country. So we don't want the Ned Kelly story to be lost, but nor do we want to glorify or support either side out of balance. And I think we're getting that about right.

00:27:00Melissa Erbacher: I'm really impressed that you've put that much thought into it, to be honest, Justin. I guess it was probably spurred on to an extent by, people's perceptions of things and stuff like that. I mean, to me, it all just sounds like a whole bunch of fun. And basically all I really want to know is does anybody get dressed up as either a trooper or a highwayman, a bush ranger?

00:27:29Justin Scholz: Yeah, heaps. Yeah, look, it's so cool. Again, not everybody because we have all different levels of people participating. Some only for fast times aren't going to dress up, you know, in armour. But we definitely have had the odd trooper on bicycles who are dressed up as troopers. Sharon and I usually get into trooper's garb as well. We put our helmets on and we blow our whistles and have our big trench coats and things so that we're, you know, as we send the bush rangers off on their journey. And we've had quite a few people over the years as well who have made Ned Kelly helmets of some type, be they out of fabric or paper or whatever, and they've run across the line. We had one guy last year, Snowy, who we won't forget. He was quite funny. He was dressed up like a guy from the Wild West in the US, actually. But I guess he was a bushranger of his own type. And he had these two cap guns that he ran around with. Oh, look, it's just a whole barrel of us. Yeah. Love it. And so, yeah, we do. To answer your question simply, yes, we absolutely do have some people that dress up on occasions.

00:28:32Scott Trickett: Now, another form of having fun, Justin, is doing a six-day race through Hungary to some people. One of those people is you. Tell us about that.

00:28:42Justin Scholz: Oh, look, yeah, that was, I guess, a moment or a year of madness in a way. It kind of sounds a bit flippant, but when you've done over 70 ultras, which I have now, I'm up to, I think, 77, 78. 77?

00:28:59Scott Trickett: Ultras, hang on, just define an ultra before you go on.

00:29:05Justin Scholz: Well, longer than marathon distance by foot.

00:29:08Scott Trickett: 77 of those, okay. So over, say, 43.2 k's, yeah.

00:29:09Justin Scholz: And of that 77, I think 23 or 24 of them are 24 hours or longer. So usually the 24-hour events have been running around a track or walking around the track. Although I have done Coast to Kosci three times, which most people probably know of, from Eden to Mount Kosciuszko and then part of the way back down. And as I said, I don't want to sound flippant about it, but you get to a point where you've done that many that entering another 24-hour event just becomes a bit meh. It's just another 24-hour event. And if you don't feel as though you're in a condition... Yeah, I know. Like I said, I know, I know, I know. I get it. I do get it. If you don't feel as though you're in a condition to run a PB or you don't particularly want to compete even at your best level at that moment for whatever reason, just because you couldn't be bothered, then you start to question why you would enter. Should I bother enter? Well, I guess I can because I can go. And particularly with the track 24-hour events, I love them because you're in close company to so many other people who have so much varied experience. Some are there for the first time. Some are there to run Australian qualifying distances. Some are there to try to get what might look like fairly small totals, but to them it's meaningful. It's just a really good environment to be in. and you can catch up with a lot of people because you're in a pretty confined space. So I think increasingly over the last couple of years for me, not feeling as though I'm in PB form for 24-hour events, I've gone to just participate, and I've enjoyed that. But I also felt like I needed something that would scare me a bit, something that would challenge me, something that would help force me to focus on an outcome that I hadn't previously achieved. And so that's where the idea to do the six day race came in. I wanted to do it as a walker, not as a runner because Well, part of the reason, to be honest, the Australian six-day walk record looked pretty soft at 540 Ks. And by global standards, when you look at the national records from other countries, that was a fairly soft total. So I thought, well, if I walk it, I can have a crack at that. But looking at the six-day run record, it's held by Yiannis Kouros. And I think it's about 1,033 kilometres. And I look at that and I go, yeah, nope. I certainly can't be doing that. And I've been enjoying the ultra walking in recent years as well. So I thought, well, you know what, I'll set myself up and see if I can't walk around a 926 metre course for six days. So I kind of made that decision really about March last year. So what's that? Sort of 16, 17 months ago. And even though I continued to run and continue to run ultras, my primary long term goal was to do the six day race in Hungary and have a crack at breaking that Australian record. And then the rest is history, really, I suppose. I went over there and I did just that. I didn't break the record in the manner that I'd hoped, but I still got there in the end. So that was important.

00:32:30Melissa Erbacher: And in doing so, you also became an Australian Centurion, Justin. Is that correct?

00:32:36Justin Scholz: Well, again, I guess. Again. I'll give you a little bit of background on that. Please. On my centurion status, yeah, because that's probably the thing that I'm most proud of with all of the ultra events that I've done and including with Sharon because to become a centurion, you have to walk 100 miles in under 24 hours. That's the first thing. So that's 8 minutes 50 per kilometre if you don't stop at all for 24 hours to get over 160.8 kms. And I first got onto that idea, oh, gee, probably nearly 10 years ago now at the Coburg 24-hour event. And the Coburg 24-hour event's been going forever, like 30-something years. Tim Erickson and Bernie Goggin and the Coburg Gats team down there do just a great job at that event every year. And so I'd been running the 24 down there for many years and I found out that it co-hosts the 24-hour walk championships as well and the Australian Centurion qualifying event. So I thought, you know, I reckon I can have a crack at that. And I told Tim Erickson, I told him that I would definitely have a go at walking the 100 miles at some stage. Anyway, eventually I did, and I managed to succeed down there. And so I became an Australian centurion doing that. And then from there, I worked out that there's like a fellowship of centurions. There's six countries in the world where they have official centurion events. So I thought, well, gee, wouldn't it be nice to have a crack at all of those? So anyway, Sharon got her centurion in Australia as well, the Australian Championships in 2003. I think, which was at Middle Park that year. It wasn't with the Coburg 24-hour event. It was a standalone event at Middle Park. And she and I actually walked that whole 100km together because I thought, you know, that'd be nice, nice thing to do with your wife, go and walk 100 miles. So we did, so we walked that and then we decided that we'd like to incorporate doing all of these other Centurion events around the world if and when we could as a part of our annual holiday. So we then eventually completed them all and that included New Zealand, the USA, the UK, South Africa and what's called the Continental Centurion, which is in the Netherlands. So Sharon and I walked all six of those events international centurion events together, achieved our centurion status together and we're two of only six or seven people I think now in the world that have done all of those centurion events. So we're very proud of that.

00:35:17Melissa Erbacher: That's incredible. And so even though it's not one of the official international events, participating in other events like the EMU Six Day Race in Hungary is That sort of still, I don't know, it qualifies the word. It means you meet the requirements. So, for example, you set an Australian open record while you were there for the 500-kilometre walk under the Australian Centurion Walkers. And even though it wasn't like an official international event, you can still qualify. That's what I'm looking for.

00:35:55Justin Scholz: Well, yes and no. I suppose I've just given you the background to our centurion status, Sharon and I. The extension of that is I've walked quite a few other centurions as well, like duplicates of the Australian centurions and so forth. Just get rid of that, sorry. And so I think I'm up to either 13 or 14 centurion finishes now that are officially recognised by the Australian centurions. And basically, once somebody becomes an Australian Centurion, it's not guaranteed, but you can seek permission from the Australian Centurions to allow you to complete additional Centurions at other events around the world. And in the case of Australia, again, Tim Erickson and the committee of the Centurions will make a ruling on that. But usually, if you've already done a Centurion and you're capable of more, and the event that you want to walk is on a 400-metre track around a stadium or something similar like that where it's really easy for other people to scrutinise the individual to make sure that they do walk and not run, then they will give you permission to do it. So what I did for the EMU race, because it was on a 926 metre track, I was allowed to complete that officially as a walker, which is why the Australian Centurions recognised my distances and awarded me the records. But also in the very first 24 hours, I made the decision to walk 100 miles, which in a six-day event as a walker, if you want to get your very, very best total, frankly, it's madness to walk 100 miles in the first day. It's just too hard, too far and all the rest of it. But I decided I wanted to do that anyway because it gives me another centurion finish, which as I say, I think it's taken me to 13 or 14. And currently the most prolific Australian Centurion finisher is Peter Bennett, who's done 21 or 22. So now one of my longer term aims as well is I've got my eye on that. And if I can, over the next 10 years or so, I wouldn't mind becoming the most prolific ever Australian Centurion walker. So there you go. Just something else to aim for. So that was why I did the 100 miles and became the Centurion in Hungary, and then continued on after that to walk whatever distance the subsequent five days to eventually get to that 500 kilometre total, past the 540 existing Australian record and on to, I think I finished with 572 kilometres or thereabouts.

00:38:32Scott Trickett: An event a bit shorter in distance is parkrun, Justin. You've been to a few. Your home is Wangaratta, underwater at the moment, I think. Yep.

00:38:43Justin Scholz: Tell us a bit about your home event. Yep, there would be one. Yeah, there would be one section down at the boat ramp which floods fairly easily. And the Ovens River is looking really healthy at the moment with some good rains and stuff that have come through. So I suppose from a selfish perspective, I don't mind it when the parkrun course is flooded because we get to see really healthy rivers and good water flows. But the Wangaratta event's great. I just really love it. It's a great testament to Laura Tonkin, who originally set it up, and the team here that serve tirelessly as race directors and volunteers every week. They do a really great job. The course is fully sealed. It's flat. It's got one tiny little rise of about two metres over 20 metres up a ramp at the boat ramp. And other than that, it's flat, so it's fast. It goes along the banks of the Ovens River, which is really quite picturesque. You know, and usually in the summer we get 100 finishes. In the winter, this time of year, it can drop down as low as about 50 when it's minus 4 degrees at the start. But, yeah, it's great. Just it's a really terrific event.

00:39:50Scott Trickett: And you've park-runned overseas as well. I know you've had a run at Green Point in South Africa. Yeah.

00:39:57Justin Scholz: I have, yeah. Well, when Sharon and I went over for the African Centurion last year, that was when we did the Green Point race. And I can't, I don't know, you probably do know this, you've heard, but those South African parkruns, they're massive. They've got three over there in Cape Town where we stayed. And I think the Cape Town one that we did at Green Point had 833 runners that day. And I said to the organisers afterwards, I said, I can't believe how big this is. And they go, oh, there's a half marathon on tomorrow and it's taken away our numbers. And I nearly fell over. And I said, what do you mean? And I said, oh, we never get under 1,000. And they're, I think, the second or the third largest parkrun in Cape Town. So if you ever want to go and participate in a big atmosphere parkrun, South Africa seems like the place to do it. So that was great fun. Yeah, look, it's just great. And even here in Australia, I've done, I think, Albert Park two or three times, running to you there, Scott, a couple of weeks ago, of course. And, you know, they often have up to 500, I think. So it's great. It's just great to see so many people. It's a really – it's just a good thing for society and for our communities in general that parkruns come along. And it's not in isolation because you do run a parkrun that might only have – 30 people in your hometown, but you feel as though you're part of something bigger. Because you know at that moment, all around Australia, there's tens of thousands of runners. You know that all around the world, at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning, there's hundreds of thousands of runners all doing the same thing. I don't know, I can't speak for anybody else, but I just find it to be a really cool concept and a great way to continually promote the benefits of health and fitness.

00:41:50Melissa Erbacher: And how does it fit into your sort of running schedule of a week, Justin? Like is it just you're going down to the corner to get coffee kind of thing, 5K in the morning before you do another ridiculous amount later in the day? Or when somebody does as many kilometres as you must to keep fit for these ultra events, how does parkrun fit in?

00:42:11Justin Scholz: Usually I like to go to parkrun on Saturday and run fairly hard, not quite at race pace but hard. And so it works out to be one of usually only two sessions a week where I'll run hard. And so I use it in that way and I really enjoy that because I know most days I run, it's very rare that I'll run less than 10Ks and usually most days it's sort of 15 to 25 in the morning. And when you run that far every day, you really can't go too hard because if you just get too tired and too worn out and subject to injuries and all sorts of things. So probably the biggest thing that I've learned in now over nearly 11 years of ultra running is to be really sensible with your pacing on a week-to-week basis. A lot of people say listen to their body, and I don't know if that's necessarily the right thing, but get the planning right. Don't just plan to go out and run hard every time you run because we've seen so many, Sharon and I have seen so many people come and go from, the ultra running circuit that have probably just pushed it a bit and then they've sustained injuries and things and haven't been able to get back so probably the most important thing I've learned is that and then therefore for me parkrun is just the perfect opportunity to go and have a shorter harder run once a week And it fits well in that we cycle to parkrun. Our Wangaratta parkrun is 5km from home So we just have a nice gentle cycle down to the start to warm up the legs And then after parkrun we cycle with a local Bicycle users group and we normally do between 50 and 70 kilometres on the bike From 9 a.m. So it's really good nice gentle cycle down to the park and

00:43:58Scott Trickett: slam at a parkrun and then a nice gentle 50 to 70k ride with the bugs after that makes for a pretty good Saturday home by lunchtime certainly does and sensible great advice to leave us with Justin thanks very much for coming on the parkrun adventurers having a good old chat to us about ned Kelly chase and running really really far

00:44:18Justin Scholz: Oh, that's a pleasure. Before I go, can I just mention a couple of other things quickly? Firstly, I think this is your 165th podcast, isn't it?

00:44:26Scott Trickett: It is, yes.

00:44:28Justin Scholz: And did you know you're talking on an earlier version because I went and did a little bit of homework. If you hurry up, if you do your three podcasts each week, which I know you were flippantly talking about that.

00:44:39Colin: It is a lot of podcasts.

00:44:43Justin Scholz: Well, I know, but to get to 186, right, now I don't know if you've done the maths or not, but the 187th, if you just do one a week, would be on the 17th of December. So I reckon you should hang on to just one a week and then you give yourself a nice Christmas present when you get to the 187th on the 17th of December. How does that sound?

00:45:02Melissa Erbacher: That's more sensible advice. I like it. It means we don't have to podcast three times a week.

00:45:10Justin Scholz: Yeah, that's true. It'll be easier to find subject material. Well, it's been a delight. I'm really grateful that you asked me to come on board and I think it's terrific that you're able to provide this service to people in the broader community. It's just another way of celebrating parkrun and making sure we get the word out there. And I hope all of your followers really appreciate what you do.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Tony O'Connell — Taman Pudu Ulu

00:45:42Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, it's Toc reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew. I'm over here in sunny, hot, humid, hot, humid, and I repeat, hot, humid, Taman Pudu Ulu. Hey, hey, hey, I've got Harry here with me. How are you, Harry? Harry, you're just running a pretty good time today for the heat. I suppose you're used to the heat.

00:46:02David Moss: Yeah, but not a good time. So I don't know.

00:46:06Tony O'Connell: I'm used to the heat, but not a very good time. So maybe that evens out with you. Well, I just looked at our weather forecast at home and it's got a feels like temperature of 1.5 degrees. It's southerly and it's blowing its tail off. Over here, it's 29 degrees and about 90% humidity, or as Mel calls it, stumidity. I'll catch up with a couple of the parkrunners. This is a lovely little course. There is so many people out here doing tai chi, doing yoga, just walking. The path when we got here was fairly quiet, and now there is just a multitude of people. This is great to see so many people out. I'll catch up with some people shortly. Howdy adventurers. I'm about halfway through the course. I'm down here with one of the Marshals, Lachie, who has a high five hand up in the air. How are you today? I'm good. I'm good. Oh, we've got a photographer coming in to take a photo as well. You're a local here. Yes, I am. How are the numbers today compared to normal?

00:47:05Unidentified speaker: Oh, today we have more visitors.

00:47:08Tony O'Connell: Seems to be a lot of tourists. Yeah, yeah. When they did the call out, I think we had visitors from England, from Ireland, Australia, from some other places. Yeah, so... Yeah, no, it's very hot here at my parkrun at home at the moment. It's about three or four degrees. Oh, okay. It's raining and it's hailing.

00:47:28Unidentified speaker: Wow. Where are you from in Australia?

00:47:30Tony O'Connell: I'm down near Phillip Island, a place called Inverloch. So right down the south and we've got a fairly bad storm hitting at the moment. Some of our local events have even had to cancel because of lightning.

00:47:39Unidentified speaker: Oh, okay.

00:47:39Tony O'Connell: Whereas over here it's about 28 degrees and about 90% humidity.

00:47:43Unidentified speaker: I think it feels more than 28, right?

00:47:45Tony O'Connell: It feels like about 35 from where I'm from. Yep. Tell us a little bit about your course. It's a bit of a loop course.

00:47:53Unidentified speaker: Two small loops, two big loops and then one small loop back to the starting, to the finish funnel. Yep.

00:48:00Tony O'Connell: And there's so many people out here exercising and walking that are not part of parkrun.

00:48:04Unidentified speaker: Yeah. It's a popular park. Hi, Uncle. Morning.

00:48:09Tony O'Connell: It always entertains me to see runners out running the opposite direction to the parkrun as you think, guys, get on board, come and do a parkrun.

00:48:16Unidentified speaker: Well, I encourage those that I see, like that uncle. I've been trying to get him to get into parkrun.

00:48:22Tony O'Connell: Well done. Thanks for volunteering at parkrun and, yeah, enjoy your day.

00:48:26Unidentified speaker: Thank you.

00:48:28Tony O'Connell: Well, we've finished recording and you've just told me that you got into parkrun. Tell us your story of how you got into parkrun.

00:48:35Unidentified speaker: Oh, okay. My sister in Australia, she lives in Launceston. She got into parkrunning and then when she told us all about it and when she came down, we said, okay, we'll do one. We signed up and that's where I am now. Yeah.

00:48:48Tony O'Connell: So you've done Launceston as well?

00:48:50Unidentified speaker: Yep, we have. We've done the Lochiel Park in Adelaide.

00:48:55Tony O'Connell: Okay, yeah, Lochiel Park. Beautiful flat course along the river. Yeah, we've done that one.

00:49:00Unidentified speaker: And Jubilee Way.

00:49:02Tony O'Connell: I haven't done Jubilee. That's one you've got up on me. Well done.

00:49:06Unidentified speaker: Well, it's quite enjoyable. It's not as hot as here. Nah, I don't think anywhere is. When we went, it was in August, so it was quite cold, like three degrees too. But it was very enjoyable, a different kind of experience in parkrunning.

00:49:22Tony O'Connell: Very, very much so. And every parkrun you go to is a different experience. And that's the great thing about parkrun.

00:49:27Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:49:27Tony O'Connell: All right, well, enjoy your day.

00:49:29Unidentified speaker: Thank you. Thank you.

00:49:31Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, I'm here with a lovely young lady called Trixie at Taman Pudu Ulu.

00:49:36Trixie: Taman Pudu Ulu.

00:49:38Tony O'Connell: Oh, sorry. I've got the locals correcting me. That's very good. Trixie, you did the first-timers briefing today. You did a superstar effort. It's your first time.

00:49:47Trixie: yeah I use I usually just volunteer like a Marshal but then um ellen one of the leaders she said she was talking to people about doing the first time as briefing because she always does it so she came up to my family and she said just listen to what I do next week and then you can do it the week after that and I said yeah sure

00:50:06Tony O'Connell: And how do you find standing up in front of a group of people?

00:50:09Trixie: I find it okay because my parents are drama teachers and I like acting, so I can stand up in front of people and talk, but it is quite nerve-wracking when you're only expecting five people and then you get 30.

00:50:23Tony O'Connell: Yeah, quite a big crowd apparently today of visitors.

00:50:26Trixie: Yes.

00:50:27Tony O'Connell: And when you stood up and started talking, you said it was your first time and I thought, no way, you've done this a heap of times before. You spoke very well.

00:50:36Trixie: Thank you. I speak in front of a lot of people quite a lot of the time because at school we have different projects we have to show off and then we have to speak in front of the whole class, which is about 20 people. So it's just an extra 10 people put in.

00:50:50Tony O'Connell: Yeah, yeah. And they're only parkrunners, so they're all friendly. You know they're not going to bite.

00:50:54Trixie: Yeah.

00:50:54Tony O'Connell: Yeah, now well done, and it was a great parkrun. You've been here for seven years, you said?

00:50:58Trixie: Yeah. We have been at Taman Pudu Ulu since it started, but we weren't able to make the first one, so the second Taman Pudu Ulu parkrun was our first one here.

00:51:09Tony O'Connell: Okay, well done, and great to talk. Thank you.

00:51:11Trixie: Thank you.

00:51:13Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners, I'm here with Colin. Colin was RD today. Colin, this place is hot, this place is humid.

00:51:20Colin: Is it always like this? Yeah, pretty much. Some days we have a little bit more cloud and it's not quite so hot, but it's more humid. But that's just running in Malaysia. We get used to it after a while.

00:51:30Tony O'Connell: For a poor Victorian, this place, we call it stupid humidity.

00:51:36Colin: But you had quite a good turn up today. We did. I think I understand that there's holiday week in Australia this week. So I think we had a record number of tourists. It looks like at least 20 plus, which is nice. Always good to welcome our overseas visitors.

00:51:50Tony O'Connell: You had tourists from the UK, from Australia, from Ireland. And there were some others that I can't quite remember. So you had quite a good geographic representation as well. Yeah.

00:52:00Colin: We did. Typically our tourists are about 50% from the UK, the other 50% from more or less every other parkrun country in the world. We haven't had any Japanese visitors yet, but I think every other country has been represented at some time.

00:52:15Tony O'Connell: Okay. Yeah, no, look, it's a lovely little course, loop course around, so you get to see a few people in that as well, so that's really great.

00:52:21Colin: Yeah, no, we're pleased. We're in pretty good location. We're not too far from the city centre, so it's good for people to get to. It's a friendly little park and yeah, we like it.

00:52:33Tony O'Connell: And when we started, there weren't all that many out on the paths. There were quite a few people, but as we got into the second and third loops, there were people appearing from everywhere there's a lot of runners and walkers and tai chi groups and all sorts of things out there.

00:52:46Colin: There is and of course because of the climate here everybody exercises early in the morning so we tend to be out here at the same time as most other people and actually running and jogging are pretty big in Malaysia despite the heat so a lot of people we try to encourage them to join parkrun but a lot of people just want to do their own thing so but yeah we share the space but I think it all works quite well and everybody always seems to be smiling and happy to see us

00:53:14Tony O'Connell: And Colin, just detecting a little accent there, I'm guessing you're not a natural born Malaysian?

00:53:20Colin: No, not quite, but I've lived here for 15 years, so... That's getting close. I guess it's getting that way, but I'm actually from UK. Okay, and what's your parkrun history? Did it start here or...? Seriously, it started here. We first found out about parkrun back in UK when we were going back for holidays about five, six years ago. That was my wife that first got me into doing it. And then we used to do it on summer holidays. Again, through my wife, we heard that there was an attempt to start parkrun in Malaysia. She got involved with the core group right at the beginning, a lady called Ima, who's not here this week. She's in Ireland this week. And then I think there was one particular meeting where my wife was away and she asked me to go in a place and before I knew it, I'd got shoozled into helping out.

00:54:11Tony O'Connell: And that's a great story because that's the way so many people fall into parkrun. It's not so much walk up to it, it's falling into it and just discovering that it's a great little community to be involved in.

00:54:21Colin: And what's really nice, especially being involved, is that you just get to meet a lot of people that you don't meet in your day-to-day life. So we've now got a whole new circle of friends here that we wouldn't have come across otherwise.

00:54:31Tony O'Connell: Perfect. Well, thank you very much for that, Colin, and enjoy the rest of your day.

00:54:35Colin: Yeah, well, thank you, and I appreciate you coming along, and we hope to see you again. All right, cheers. All right.

Roving report David Moss — Lac de Divonne

00:54:49David Moss: Hello, and we're at? Lac de Divonne, Divonne-les-Bains, in France And I'm with... Sandra Kelly Emily And whereabouts are you all from?

00:55:03Unidentified speaker: The central coast of New South Wales And your home parkruns?

00:55:07David Moss: Mount Penang And the reason you're here?

00:55:11Unidentified speaker: Why are we here? We're here to hike Mont Blanc and to go to the Netball World Cup. So we're throwing- And to run parkruns.

00:55:17David Moss: And to run the French parkruns. So is this your first one overseas?

00:55:21Unidentified speaker: Yes. First international parkrun.

00:55:23David Moss: Okay. And it looks as though it's a perfect day for, well actually it could be a little bit warm, but the weather is absolutely perfect here.

00:55:30Unidentified speaker: Definitely. Beautiful.

00:55:31David Moss: And how many of the, how many parkruns have you done in the past?

00:55:35Unidentified speaker: 103, I think I am now.

00:55:38David Moss: Congratulations on that. And the reason you chose to come here?

00:55:45Unidentified speaker: To this particular parkrun, because it was close to Geneva where we had to fly into.

00:55:51David Moss: Okay, thank you. And other questions. Why do you enjoy parkrun? Because you've made a bit of effort to come out here this morning. All three of you.

00:56:02Unidentified speaker: Why do we enjoy parkrun? Great way to be. Yes, great community. It's motivation to get you up on a Saturday morning when you would easily stay in bed otherwise. But yeah, we've got a great community parkrun back at Mount Penang. So it's a great group of people to go and run with, socialise with, have a coffee after.

00:56:18David Moss: Well, if you've done 103 runs, that gives some idea that you certainly enjoy it.

00:56:22Unidentified speaker: Definitely.

00:56:23David Moss: Okay, we're actually about an hour before the run starts here. So from now, we're just going to go for a little walk and... Then we'll have a go and see how this run eventuates. Okay, and some of us, the race is still, race, the run is still going on, but some of us have finished. And I'm with? Ray Compton. And you're doing the timekeeping today?

00:56:46Ray Compton: Yes, I'm doing the timekeeping today.

00:56:49David Moss: Okay, and how did you get to do the timekeeping?

00:56:53Ray Compton: I've been doing parkrun for about two years now and in fact I found this run by accident one day while I was out for my morning run and they kind of kidnapped me along the next week and I've been having a great time ever since. So where are you living at the moment? I live here in France in Gex, small town sort of halfway up the mountain and I work in Geneva.

00:57:16David Moss: And where do you come from originally?

00:57:18Ray Compton: I'm a New Yorker, born and bred.

00:57:21David Moss: So how did you find out about parkrun?

00:57:23Ray Compton: Again, I was out for my morning run and I ran into this very large group of people having a really good time and somebody passed me a flyer and I came the next week and now I've been able to get my wife involved in it as well.

00:57:38David Moss: So she's out there somewhere or come in?

00:57:39Ray Compton: No, she's off this weekend but she's here most weekends.

00:57:43David Moss: Okay, so how long has this run been going for?

00:57:46Ray Compton: We've just celebrated our two-year anniversary. Right. So we're up to about 110 runs now, 115.

00:57:55David Moss: And I notice you've got quite a few tourists. I assume this is normally the case?

00:57:59Ray Compton: Yeah, it's very popular. There's a lot of people who come through Geneva for work, and we're just about 15 kilometres from Geneva. So anyone who knows parkrun always does a quick search of the area and finds us for their Saturday morning. Yes, yes.

00:58:14David Moss: And how would you describe the run, the actual course?

00:58:17Ray Compton: The course, it's beautiful. It's very flat. We run around a lake, that's got a lot of greenery around the surface is good the weather is normally lovely it is a perfect day today if you wanted to come as a general tourist you can't get any better than this this is lovely yeah and even even through the winter I mean there's a day or two with some ice on the road but aside from that it's really nice okay yes thank you very much and thank you for volunteering thank you very much

00:58:49David Moss: and we're currently at the blue no blue moon full moon cafe in the town of Divonne, Divonne-les-Bains and I'm with uh Lisa Lisa Woodburn Alan and Alan Taylor Okay and how did you all come to be here and what did you think of today's run?

00:59:07Unidentified speaker: I live here, well live very close and I've been in France for 31 years and it was our son who set up the Divonne parkrun and asked us to come along to support it so been running ever since.

00:59:21David Moss: He's done a bloody good job.

00:59:24Unidentified speaker: He also set up the one in Paris, yeah he has.

00:59:30Unidentified speaker: Well my wife and I have an apartment up in the in the mountains so we came down today just to do the parkrun.

00:59:36David Moss: And that was an hour and a half was it?

00:59:38Unidentified speaker: About an hour and a half to get here yeah yeah see that's the wrong side of Geneva really so there we are and it's too hot today so I didn't enjoy it very much I'm afraid.

00:59:49Unidentified speaker: Yeah so I'm here over to visiting Lisa from the UK and again the run today was the heat was the the hardest thing for me today.

00:59:58David Moss: And my

01:00:00Scott Trickett: home runners on the Sunshine Coast and I will say that the humidity did sort of match a lot of what we get back home however there wasn't a beach an ocean that could jump into that to cool off okay thank you very much and enjoy future running a very international feel from the boys this week Toc in Taman Pudu Ulu and Dave getting very European in France

01:00:26Melissa Erbacher: Just goes to show what you can do when you've got a bit of a budget in the podcast coffers. Hey, Scotty.

01:00:31Scott Trickett: Don't say that. They might come collecting expenses. And I checked the coffers, Mel.

01:00:39Melissa Erbacher: We don't have a budget.

01:00:40Scott Trickett: No.

01:00:43Melissa Erbacher: Whoops.

01:00:43Scott Trickett: We're in the red. Oh, well.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:00:48Scott Trickett: Let's carry on with some launches and anniversaries news. I'm drawing a line under this, Mel. We are going to – I've threatened this before, but now I'm really going to make it happen. We've got two more weeks of anniversary announcements.

01:01:01Melissa Erbacher: And then we're going to stop.

01:01:02Scott Trickett: And then that's it. There's too many. No one's listening. Nobody cares. It's just an excuse to rattle off some names. And for us to mispronounce stuff and get the dates wrong and the states wrong. So we're going to do it for two more weeks. So if it's your favourite part of the podcast.

01:01:18Melissa Erbacher: Relish these last moments.

01:01:20Scott Trickett: Take it all in. But we have one launch this week just announced fresh off the presses. We're launching the world's first parkrun in a women's prison over in WA at Wandoo.

01:01:32Melissa Erbacher: How exciting is that?

01:01:35Scott Trickett: Yes. Great work from all the team involved in that. So we'll see what happens there.

01:01:41Melissa Erbacher: Very cool. Very cool.

01:01:43Scott Trickett: In terms of anniversaries?

01:01:45Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Now, should we do this really slow?

01:01:50Scott Trickett: Just hope they're right.

01:01:51Melissa Erbacher: Well, the first one we've got is Armidale in New South Wales.

01:01:56Scott Trickett: Geeveston, Mel, I was looking. I got the Jetstar email on Friday. What do they call it? Friday Frenzy or whatever.

01:02:03Melissa Erbacher: Friday Fair Frenzy, yes.

01:02:06Scott Trickett: $42. Oh, my goodness.

01:02:09Melissa Erbacher: You know what? I was just thinking about this yesterday because we are going to get a new Western Compass Point, and when we do – It means I have to go back to both Western Australia and Tasmania before I can be a navigator, unless I got to Geeveston before Western Australia happens. And I just don't know. I mean, Emmett hasn't been on a plane yet, so it would be great to just chuff on down to Geeveston. But you don't fly with Jetstar, Scotty.

01:02:38Unidentified speaker: Why are you looking at their currencies?

01:02:40Melissa Erbacher: I know. I know. They're very cheap sometimes. But you are all snobbish about it.

01:02:48Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, I didn't do it. I'm just saying that it came up and it piqued my interest.

01:02:53Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. If Geeveston were a little bit closer to the airports, you could almost just pop over for a day trip, but you'd probably have to go down the night before, wouldn't you?

01:03:01Scott Trickett: Probably. Probably. Yeah, and it is really, really cold down there at the moment.

01:03:07Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it's cold. It's cold the country over at the moment. Yeah.

01:03:11Scott Trickett: See how we're dragging out this anniversary, making the most of it?

01:03:13Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

01:03:14Scott Trickett: The next one. Mansfield.

01:03:16Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, Mansfield in Queensland. And we've got another Emma in Queensland with Meadowbrook as well.

01:03:22Scott Trickett: Pilara and rounding out Renmark, an event I have been to many, many months ago.

01:03:29Melissa Erbacher: Which means we will not be going there for the 2020 parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup.

01:03:37Scott Trickett: So it's definite we're going to get to 2020 and the listener meetup next year. Even if the podcast finished, we'll have the listener meetup.

01:03:46Melissa Erbacher: What are you talking about finished?

01:03:49Scott Trickett: It's my threat. I haven't done it for a few more months.

01:03:50Melissa Erbacher: No, I was going to say, you do this all the time. You do this every year. It's like, will we finish? I don't know.

01:03:57Scott Trickett: Look, I think the replacement co-host has worked really well. So I think we might start taking expressions of interest. If you want to replace me on the parkrun adventurers, contact us, parkrunadventurers at gmail.com.

01:04:12Melissa Erbacher: Not necessarily indefinitely, but maybe just as a guest.

01:04:16Scott Trickett: I've already had conversations, Mel.

01:04:19Melissa Erbacher: Oh, well, you haven't had conversations with me, Scotty. We might have to talk about this off air, I think.

01:04:25Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

01:04:26Scott Trickett: Hmm, okay. Another big episode.

01:04:29Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, well, you know, they had to happen again eventually, didn't they?

Sign-off

01:04:33Scott Trickett: So let's wrap it up. Let's try and not go to our home events this weekend.

01:04:40Melissa Erbacher: Try and not do it? Well, okay. I'm not sure if I can help you out with that one, but I do promise, and as I mentioned in the intro, Scotty, that there will be adventures in the not-too-distant future coming from the Erbacher side of the podcast.

01:04:54Scott Trickett: Okay. Just not next week, which means I might go home next week as well and we'll do it all again.

01:04:58Melissa Erbacher: Or you could try to be a bit interesting to make up for my lack of next week.

01:05:05Scott Trickett: Yeah. It's really hard. Look, I do admire. It's fun adventuring in summer.

01:05:11Melissa Erbacher: It is. Yeah.

01:05:12Scott Trickett: It's much more fun. Like in winter, you've got to get up. It's dark. It's cold. I'm a real fair weather adventurer. Yeah. Let's just go home.

01:05:23Melissa Erbacher: Maybe we should just do the podcast six months out of the year during the spring and summer and then we can be the fair weather adventurers. There you go. All right. Well, I would like to podcast with you next week, irrespective of where you go, Scotty. So I'll chat to you then.

01:05:41Scott Trickett: Yep, sure. Lock it in.

01:05:43[music]

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