Episode 173 - Roving, Roving, Roving

Welcome

00:00:19Melissa Erbacher: It's episode 173 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. There's going to be a lot of malarkey. My name is Mel Erbacher. I am the co-host of this esteemed podcast. And joining me this week, a very lovely lady who has been a roving reporter for a little while. She is on the Channel 5 news crew and following on the trend from having people with initials, we had PK, Then we had TOC. Those are the initials of their names. It was pointed out to me that perhaps I should have another ME on to join the ME that I am. So everybody, please welcome Melissa Ellis to the parkrun adventurers.

00:01:01Melissa Ellis: Hi, Mel. Hi, everybody. This is not going to be confusing at all. Mel and Mel.

00:01:05Melissa Erbacher: No, well, see, it's not confusing for us because I know that when I say Mel, I'm talking to you. I'm excited to have another female voice on this week. It's been great having the boys, but it's always nice to have a bit of a gal talk. So I want to know where you parkran last Saturday.

00:01:23Melissa Ellis: I ventured back to a local parkrun that I've been to quite a bit recently, which is quite out of character for me because I'm usually never in the same place two weeks in a row. But to start off with, I had planned to go to Birdsland. But through the week, my plans were thwarted and I just didn't have the time that it takes sometimes for an adventure when you need a few hours to get over there and do your parkrun and a few hours to get home. So I was like, oh, a couple of my friends were doing a milestone over there and I desperately wanted to be there with them, but I just couldn't wangle it. So I was like, where else can I go? What's happening locally that I can reach and where will something, you know, piqued my interest. And it just so happened that Point Cook, where I'd been the week before doing the Where's Wally theme, they had another theme. So back I went, back to Point Cook. So they've got a unique situation at Point Cook where they have a surplus of Craigs in their parkrun community. So they had a a Craig's Day where all the Craigs volunteered. It was lots of fun.

00:02:32Melissa Erbacher: I would never call having a lot of Melissa's a surplus of Melissa's. I would just call it, you know, a strength of Melissa's or something like that because it can only add extra awesomeness to have more of us.

00:02:44Melissa Ellis: Is that the collective term for a group of Melissa's?

00:02:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, let's make it the collective term for us. Wait, what did I say it was? A strength. Yeah. Either a strength or an awesome. An awesome of Melissa's. That would probably work also.

00:02:59Melissa Ellis: What about you, Mel? Where did you go?

00:03:01Melissa Erbacher: I had an adventure too. I was at an event, a trail event called Glasshouse Mountains Conservation parkrun. It was actually the final event that I needed to complete to join an unofficial club for the region that I live in, which is the Sunshine Coast, but the club is known as the Pineapple Club, obviously you would be aware that I have quite a fondness for pineapples and I wore my pineapple tights to the events and yeah, it was a good morning. Great volunteers, wonderful atmosphere. I came, I think 35 out of 36 people. So really small boutique friendly events where everybody knows everybody and they pick you out immediately if you're visitor because obviously they're so close-knit. Some other locals from the Sunshine Coast that are friends of ours, the Mannings who we actually first met when we were in Malaysia, they came down as well and so we all had a bit of an adventure together with their girls who Wes adores playing with, which is always nice. And had breakfast afterwards and it was just really chill. It's an event that's really close to where my Nana actually lives. And so we popped in all parkrun fresh to see my Nana afterwards and she was happy to see us. So that was cool. It was a nice little adventure, sort of quite close to home. But it does mean that the NENDYs are starting to move a little bit further afield for me. And you would know all about NENDYs that are ridiculously far away because you are a very prolific adventurer. Where is your NENDY these days?

00:04:45Melissa Ellis: Oh, I think it's in Tasmania.

00:04:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's an achievement in and of itself. It's in a completely different state from where you live. That's very, very impressive.

00:04:59Melissa Ellis: That's as the crow flies. But I think I did some calculations the other day because I was getting itchy feet and I thought, oh, I really need. So that tourist tool, it just tells you as the crow flies. It doesn't tell you in, you know, drive time or kilometres.

00:05:13Melissa Erbacher: No. Yeah, I need to sort of cross-check it with Google Maps to do that.

00:05:17Melissa Ellis: Yeah, because I keep looking at Jindabyne and I keep thinking, no, I know Jindabyne's on the other side of a mountain range. That's going to be difficult. Yeah.

00:05:26Melissa Erbacher: That will add hours to the drive.

00:05:30Melissa Ellis: So I think it's Meningie is actually on the mainland. It's my NENDY.

00:05:34Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's still in a different state to where you live.

00:05:38Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:05:39Melissa Erbacher: So you still have to drive to South Australia to get to that one.

00:05:43Melissa Ellis: Correct. We haven't had a lot of launches in Victoria. It's been really quiet. I don't think we've had one since April.

00:05:48Melissa Erbacher: Ah, well, see, this allegedly great estate, according to a previous podcast co-host, and nobody's launching events down there.

00:05:59Melissa Ellis: There's one on the calendar. We've got Berwick Waters coming on board in November. Know the area well. And it'll be another lovely parkrun.

00:06:07Melissa Erbacher: Undoubtedly. You're a big-time adventurer. NENDY's not even in the same state that you live in. I would like to take it back, as Scotty would say, to where you first got involved with the podcast. Before you became a roving reporter and joined the Channel 5 News crew, which we made you jump through quite a few hoops to get into. Sorry about that. You did. It was totally worth it. No problem. It was totally worth it, though.

00:06:40Melissa Ellis: You got your enjoyment out of me, hey. And I said to Toc and Gary, I went, hey, guys, what did you have to do to get onto this news crew? Because this is really hard. And they went, oh, no, we didn't have to do anything at all.

00:06:55Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I think whether or not you consider it good lucky or bad lucky, I think when you were sort of arriving at the entry to the Channel 5 News crew, I'd say Scotty and I were just getting bored. And so we just had too much time on our hands and thought, how can we make this interesting? You know, obviously you already deserved it, but we – you know we thought we would make you work for a little bit harder just to make content and look we tried to do the same thing with mark who joined earlier this year but of course he completely put the kibosh on it by outwitting us at at the first um opportunity so we thought we were being extremely clever and it turns out not so much oh well it was all good fun and um I hope it was

00:07:46Melissa Ellis: A little piece of podcast history and memorable.

00:07:49Melissa Erbacher: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I certainly enjoyed and always got a good little giggle out of the challenges that we set you and when you just rose to them. I love a level up. Yes, you do. You do. And we love to give them out or historically we have loved to give them out and I still do. But yeah, you were a contributor to the pod far before you became a member of the Channel 5 News crew. You were one of the few people who would submit audio when we set out the random challenges in the early days and things like that. Can you remember some of the earlier things that you sent in for?

00:08:29Melissa Ellis: I do. I remember the first one. I think you asked for adventurers to go to a parkrun course that they hadn't done before and follow the course description from the website and run a freedom run. And so, yeah, I dragged my sister and Zoe down. Zoe was on her scooter and I dragged them down to Jells Park. I studied the maps. It's pretty easy, Jells Park, really. It's just two loops. But I hadn't been there before and I didn't really know the paths and I was nervous about recording the audio. And we were racing the...

00:09:03Melissa Erbacher: Racing the light, I think, too, weren't you?

00:09:05Melissa Ellis: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were racing the light and Zoe was, like, complaining because she was a bit littler then and she had sore legs.

00:09:14Unidentified speaker: Yeah, no.

00:09:16Melissa Erbacher: What is my crazy mum making me do this time? It's the same old story. Yeah.

00:09:21Melissa Ellis: So, no, that was the first one. And, yeah, and then a second one was another challenge that was set to run a parkrun course in reverse. And Paul and I were down at Portland Park. chasing our statesmanship events. And I recorded some audio there that day.

00:09:40Melissa Erbacher: I think we set those ones specifically because Scotty seems so geographically challenged when it comes to trying to follow course descriptions without a guide or a person to give him the in-person translation at an event such as you would receive in a first time as brief. So it's been a while, but between challenges like that, I think we need to bring more of those back in because I loved the early days of sending people adventures to go on and pushing people to challenge themselves.

00:10:11Melissa Ellis: I love them too. I love them too. I want to be that reporter that gets the challenges. It's like, You know how the TV shows, they always have that one person that has to go out and do the crazy stunt? I could be that person.

00:10:24Melissa Erbacher: Oh, don't give me ideas. I think you might have just thrown down the gauntlet.

00:10:30Melissa Ellis: Well, but anyway, so all these little challenges, they started to give me confidence. I just got a little bit used to recording audio and I was getting a little bit more, you know, relaxed with doing the whole audio thing and sending it in and Yeah, so eventually, I think at the start of 2000 or the end of 2017, I decided to set a New Year's resolution for myself to actually record a roving report in 2018.

00:10:55Melissa Erbacher: And did much planning go into where you would do it and that sort of thing?

00:11:00Melissa Ellis: No, not really. I think once I decided to do it, I wanted maybe an event that had a bit of a, like it was either a birthday or a launch so that maybe there was people watching dressed up or there was some sort of excitement about the day. So we had a launch coming up at Lakes Entrance. So I decided to do it there. And I tried to think, oh, what could I do that would be a little bit different? I want to do the same thing as everybody else. I don't want to try and copy anybody's style. So I think initially I started out trying to think along the lines of fashions of the field and interview people and ask them about maybe what they were wearing, what their running club was. Or the very first person I think I interviewed was one of the cardiac athletes. And I asked her about her shirt.

00:11:46Melissa Erbacher: Maxime so she's from Point Cook there you go you have an excellent memory I can't remember what we did last week on the pod let alone interviews all that all that time ago but it's it's been a fun ride we've loved having you along and now you've made it to co-host where to from here well who knows sky's the limit

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Ginninderra

00:12:20Mark Scarborough: Good morning parkrun adventurers, this is Mark reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew from Ginninderra parkrun which is in the northern town centre of Canberra. We're here for event number 381. This parkrun actually I think is quite big today. Last one for winter and I think half of Canberra has turned out to Ginninderra parkrun. This parkrun has an average run time of 30 minutes 45 seconds and its biggest attendance is 374. I think we go pretty close to that today to be honest. And has an average number of 167 per week. We'll go over a chat to a few different parkrunners. Well, I'm with Will Barlow, who got a mention on last week's parkrun for reaching a milestone, 250. Congratulations.

00:13:10Will Barlow: Thank you, thank you. We had an amazing pace group. Managed to rope in all my friends, and we all ran out 350s, 350s, 350s, and then 330s, and then 1855, and I don't know what happened. There was a bit of up, a bit of down, and now we're at the finish, and there's caramel slice, and lots of smiling faces, and lots of photos.

00:13:29Mark Scarborough: When I went past you, it was a bit of an Eliud Kipchoge feel. You were surrounded by a rather large pace group. That was pretty impressive.

00:13:35Will Barlow: It was, yep. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, I loved having all my friends surrounding me, just pushing me forward. It felt effortless. It was awesome.

00:13:44Mark Scarborough: Well, congratulations on the 250 and the PB today. Thank you. For those who are listening, a little fact is that it was actually Will that got me onto doing the roving reports for parkrun adventurers. So you can thank him or not thank him, depending on how you like it.

00:13:58Will Barlow: I like the stats, Mark. The stats are great. Thanks, mate.

00:14:02Mark Scarborough: I'm with Debbie, who's Run Director today, Ginninderra parkrun. Good morning, Debbie.

00:14:06Debbie: Morning. Hello.

00:14:07Mark Scarborough: I think you've got a pretty big turnout today. Do you know what kind of numbers we're expecting?

00:14:11Debbie: We had a massive turnout this morning on a beautiful morning in Canberra. I'm not too sure. I think it may be close to 300, maybe a bit more.

00:14:20Mark Scarborough: Certainly above the average, but may not tip the highest attendance record there.

00:14:25Debbie: Definitely above average, but known of the, who knows, it may even be the biggest ever in Ginninderra.

00:14:32Mark Scarborough: It seems that Canberrans have kind of realised it's the last parkrun of winter and decided to head out for a run today.

00:14:38Debbie: Absolutely, they've said goodbye winter, hello spring. They've come out for a run, a walk, a jog, a shuffle, just to meet people and have a good time.

00:14:47Mark Scarborough: It is a very good friendly crowd here today. One thing I wanted to talk to you about is that not long ago you had to change the course. What brought that about?

00:14:56Debbie: We changed the course mainly because we used to run part of a road and so for safety we swapped the course around and it's a great course, an out and back course now. So you can high five runners as they're coming back through and so it's all good and it's lovely. It's very beautiful.

00:15:13Mark Scarborough: How did the crowd take to the change?

00:15:17Debbie: They took to it really well and were very supportive and I think they enjoy it.

00:15:23Mark Scarborough: Well, you know, a change is always good, they say, and it is still a very pretty course running around Lake Ginninderra and some wonderful views.

00:15:31Debbie: I encourage you all to come and visit, have a look. It's fantastic, great people, great crowd, great coffee afterwards and it's very friendly. Come.

00:15:41Mark Scarborough: All right, well, thank you very much for today. I had a great run, and it was good to see Will get his PB for his 250.

00:15:46Debbie: Yeah, well done, Will Barlow, 250. Woo!

00:15:50Mark Scarborough: Go, Will!

00:15:51Debbie: Yeah!

00:15:51Unidentified speaker: Thank you.

00:15:53Mark Scarborough: Oh, that's me down at Ginninderra parkrun. Like I said, Ginninderra parkrun in the northern part of Canberra. It's a wonderful course. Next time you're in Canberra, I want to put it on the list and get you also towards your BGs for the parkrun challenges if you're chasing that. It's Mark reporting out for the Channel 5 News Group.

Roving report Grette Wilkinson — Strathalbyn

00:16:14Grette Wilkinson: Hello parkrun adventurers, it's Greta here and I'm at Strathalbyn parkrun this morning and it's a beautiful day and I'm here with Mel and Mel you're the Co-Event Director at Strathalbyn. Hello, yes I am. I'm the Co-Event Director with James Clegg. Awesome, awesome. So could you perhaps tell us a little bit about the Strathalbyn parkrun? What's the course like?

00:16:35Mel: um the course is an out and back course um it's a lovely course except we do have a little hill that we do complain about but it is lovely I reckon I I saw two hills well there's one hill especially with the pram when you're running with the pram um it's tricky pushing the kids but it's good yeah yeah so out and back

00:16:56Grette Wilkinson: running along the river it's beautiful it is gorgeous isn't it and it's a paved course and you're timing at the moment you've got someone coming in to yes concentrating so we're gonna we're gonna multitask here well done Sharon Sharon you're not at the line well done and I've just got another person coming well done good job And how long have you been Event Director at Strathalbyn? So 12, it's been 12 months.

00:17:24Mel: A whole year then. Yes, I have. Yeah, that's awesome.

00:17:29Grette Wilkinson: And did you start right at the beginning of Strathalbyn parkrun?

00:17:32Mel: Not long after it started. So I had my son and then I started running to get fit and then just started volunteering. And then over time, then I started being director and then I took over from Paul Jude as co. Oh, lovely.

00:17:45Grette Wilkinson: Lovely.

00:17:46Mel: And you bring your kids out to parkrun? Most weeks, yes. Yeah. I like to bring them, not have them occasionally so I can run myself without them. But yes, most weeks, yeah.

00:17:56Grette Wilkinson: And so what made you start coming to parkrun? You were talking about getting fit. Did you have a friend who brought you?

00:18:01Mel: Yes, my friend Rebecca. So I got into running with my friend Rebecca. She had already started coming, so then I came. And then, yeah, it was from there I just started doing more and more. Oh, awesome.

00:18:14Grette Wilkinson: And speaking of more and more, you were telling me earlier that you were going to do quite a long run, Sue. Tell us about that.

00:18:21Mel: Yes, I'm doing Yurrebilla for the first time. Crazy, maybe.

00:18:25Grette Wilkinson: Oh, you've got another one coming on. Well done. Good job. And for those people who aren't in South Australia and who might not know what that is, can you tell us a little bit about it?

00:18:35Mel: So Yurrebilla is 56 kilometres, but I'm told that it's a little bit over that. Maybe about 58. Okay, oh gosh, oh gosh. And it winds through the hills and, yeah, so... It's not flat, is it? It's not flat at all. So my poor knees going down the hills, I think, will be my challenge. But we'll get there and hopefully I don't get... disqualified by not making the time but I just need to do it. It's been on my bucket list so yeah. And you're doing it with friends? Yes I'm doing it with a few people from parkrun.

00:19:11Grette Wilkinson: Well hopefully you'll have a lovely time. It is a beautiful course and it's on trails so You've just got to enjoy it.

00:19:18Mel: Yes, thanks, Greta. Take lots of photos.

00:19:20Grette Wilkinson: Thank you. Thanks, Greta. Well, good luck for Yurrebilla. Thank you for everything that you do for parkrun. And thanks for having me today at Strathalbyn parkrun. That's okay. Thanks for coming out. Hello, parkrunners, and we are now having our post-parkrun coffee, and I'm here with... Robin. And... Helen. And, Robin, you're from Main Beach. I am, yes. And you're visiting here today?

00:19:46Robin: I am, yes, yes. Staying in Strathalbyn. Excellent. And who are you visiting? My cousin.

00:19:51Grette Wilkinson: And your cousin is Helen. That's me. Now you were telling me you've done a fair few parkruns. How many have you done today?

00:19:59Robin: Today was my 224th. Excellent.

00:20:02Grette Wilkinson: So coming up close to the 250.

00:20:04Robin: That's the aim.

00:20:07Grette Wilkinson: And you were also telling me that you're chasing a few of the milestones, of the unofficial milestones. So you're almost an alphabeteer.

00:20:15Robin: Which ones haven't you done yet? I haven't done E, H... Or J? Excellent. And so what's your plan for those? I think I'll go to Highfields, which is near Toowoomba, for the H. J is a toss-up between Jubilee Way or Jindabyne, which would be in the summer. Well, I'll put in a vote there for Jubilee Way, South Australian parkrun.

00:20:39Grette Wilkinson: Come back to South Australia.

00:20:42Robin: And the E, I'm undecided. I'm going to Europe next year. It might be Edinburgh. Oh, that would be lovely, wouldn't it? That would be really good.

00:20:52Grette Wilkinson: Yeah, that would be wonderful.

00:20:54Robin: Depends on the weather.

00:20:55Grette Wilkinson: Yeah. And what about you? How many parkruns have you done?

00:21:00Helen: I'm actually not a parkrunner. I'm a cheerleader. But I have done three, I think. Okay. I've done a volunteer in Darwin for the parkrun. They were very short on helpers the day that we were there. I was happy to be able to assist.

00:21:18Grette Wilkinson: Oh, that's lovely. That's lovely. And you've done some travelling to get all of your various milestones.

00:21:26Robin: Where else have you travelled to? I've been as far north as Cairns, south as Albert Park in Melbourne, and I've done Woodbridge Riverside Park in Western Australia. Oh, wow. Yeah, and a couple in South Australia.

00:21:44Grette Wilkinson: Yep.

00:21:45Robin: So you're getting close to your peer club? Yes. I've only got Tasmania to go. I've done ACT in Northern Territory. Yep. So just need a trip to Tassie. Excellent.

00:21:55Grette Wilkinson: And is that on the cards for this year?

00:21:58Robin: I've just paid to go on a cruise in Europe next year.

00:22:04Grette Wilkinson: So the Peel Club might need to wait for a little while. Yes, it might.

00:22:09Robin: But, yeah, I'll probably go to Launceston with Helen. So do you two do a lot of travelling together? We do, yes. We're known as the two travelling grannies.

00:22:18Grette Wilkinson: Excellent. And how long have you been... So your home parkrun is Main Beach. How long have you been running at Main Beach?

00:22:24Robin: I did the third one. Event number three back in the day. So if you look at how many I've done, I've probably done about half the amount of parkruns that I could have done. 30-something volunteers. Wow, that's great. 35 volunteers. And you were saying to me that you've got a bit of a pattern with the way that you do your parkruns. I have at the moment. I'm aiming for two a month at Main Beach, one tourist and one volunteer, but I'm a bit behind in my volunteering. Right. So I need to make up time. Right. And what's your favourite volunteer role? Well, I like doing tail runner. That is a good one. Yeah. But I'm happy to do handout tokens at the end because you get to see the finishes and being back of the pack person now, I don't get to see the front runners and I like to do that. Yes, yes. Some of them are fairly impressive, aren't they, when they come across the line? Yes, yes. We had someone in Queensland who walked it in 19 minutes 28. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So if you're watching the World Athletics Championships this month, look. Give a cheer out to Dane Bird-Smith.

00:23:35Grette Wilkinson: Oh, he's amazing. He is. Actually, I think we've spoken to him on the... Mel and Scott have spoken to him on the podcast before. Oh, right. Yes, yes. And I've seen him race. He's amazing.

00:23:46Robin: He is, yeah. Yeah, very impressive. He probably holds the parkrun world record for a walker.

00:23:53Grette Wilkinson: Yeah, probably, probably. We'll have to get our stats guy to look that one up. There you go, Mel. That's one for the stats list. Well, thank you so much for visiting Strathalbyn parkrun today. It was lovely to meet you and to hear about all your parkrun adventuring. It's a pleasure. And continue to enjoy parkrun. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you.

Roving report Paul Kitching — Lochiel

00:24:15Paul Kitching: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's PK checking in from Lochiel parkrun for a roving report and I'm here with a lot of people wearing fluoro. I know a lot of people love wearing fluoro for parkrun but they're wearing fluoro today because it is Lochiel's fourth birthday. Beautiful parkrun here at Lochiel. It's on Linear Park. It's one of three parkruns that go along Linear Park in Adelaide and in the Campbelltown area, just near a golf course. We go past some wetlands and then out along the river, which I think is going to be pretty well flowing today. Anyway, we've just heard from Janet, today's RD, do the speech. And yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. I've seen some cupcakes, bring it on. I know there's going to be a few bridges, Scotty. Hope you're listening in, that you'll appreciate that. Yeah, let's get out there and get amongst it, and then maybe chat to some crew after. Well, I have just done the awesome Lochiel parkrun, and it's lots of fun, and it was such a pleasure. I was hoping that this young lady was going to be here, and not only is she here, she is today's RD. G'day, Janet.

00:25:27Janet Reid: Hello, PK, and welcome back.

00:25:29Paul Kitching: Thank you so much. Janet, you're one of the... Are you the co-ED or the ED? I am the ED. Vishi is the ED, sorry. And congratulations on a beautiful parkrun and on your fourth birthday.

00:25:42Janet Reid: Thank you very much. We've had a good turn up, just waiting to see what the final numbers are. But it looks like everyone's come back with great big smiles and I think definitely a couple of PBs because the cupcakes are on the other side and they're all rushing back for them.

00:25:54Paul Kitching: Well, I have to admit I've had a few of them and they're pretty, pretty good. Good. And great to see so many people getting into the fluoro theme.

00:26:01Janet Reid: Yes, yes.

00:26:01Paul Kitching: Yeah.

00:26:02Janet Reid: Nice, easy theme, I think. It's easy for everybody to find something to wear. And if you don't wear anything, you don't feel out of place. So it's fantastic.

00:26:09Paul Kitching: Well, I hope people do wear something. Yeah, well, yes, yes, yes. Just not.

00:26:13Janet Reid: We do have a naked run coming up. Oh, indeed.

00:26:16Paul Kitching: That is coming up. That's lots of fun, isn't it? And how's it been here at Lochiel over the last year? I'm not sure. Someone probably did a report. Greta might have done a report from here before, or is this the... Anyway, if not, welcome, Lochiel, to the parkrun adventurers world. But, yeah, so four years, highlights, challenges... The good times? I don't know.

00:26:36Janet Reid: There have been so many. And I think we're just so fortunate here. We've got the most amazing community. You look at our volunteer roster, it's always full sort of six weeks in advance. It's really, really great. We've got a fantastic culture of volunteering here. Challenges that we may have had probably in our second year when our course flooded. And it really flooded. So where the yellow playground was totally underwater. Oh, my gosh. And then when Campbelltown Council redid our start, I don't know if you remember, we used to go around the level. Now we've got this delightful little hill to go down and give you a bit of speed to get going and then just challenge you on the way back.

00:27:11Paul Kitching: It is a lot of fun. It's been great. Well, it is a gorgeous course. And I did actually today, I mean, it's been a bit wet, but we've been blessed. There's been no rain. Never rains on parkrun, do we? I know, right? How good is that? I think that would have helped with the numbers, certainly with my crew. And so what numbers do you reckon you've got?

00:27:28Janet Reid: Well, we always like to guesstimate at the start. It's a big competition between all of us. I have gone at 297. Richard's going with 333. The others are more conservative, around the 268, 270. We did have 313 last Saturday.

00:27:44Paul Kitching: Oh, wow.

00:27:44Janet Reid: So it would be nice if we could top that this week.

00:27:47Paul Kitching: Well, I've got a nice surprise for you. I just bumped into a friend. And in the beginning of your speech, you said, was anyone back here for the second time? And there was someone.

00:27:56Janet Reid: Oh, thank goodness.

00:27:59Paul Kitching: And we know as RDs and, well, as anybody at parkrun... Yes, it's great to have first-timers, but the key is, do they come back? And there's a lovely girl called Polly who I'm hoping to chat with. If not, she might have gone already. But I said, oh, g'day, Polly, what are you doing? She's like, I came last week, I walked, and today I ran it.

00:28:15Janet Reid: Oh, that is amazing. There you go. See, those are stories I love to hear. And I love that here at Lochiel, we've got a very, very big walking community. There's probably a good 30, 40 that are out every week walking. Brilliant. And I just love it. They're a great bunch.

00:28:27Paul Kitching: It's good, isn't it? Well, speaking of that, I'm going to walk back to find a coffee. There's coffees at Lochiel. They are, and lime milkshakes. Oh, I can't vouch for that, but the coffees I can. Thank you, Janet, and congratulations on everything that you do for parkrun and making everybody's parkrun day so special.

00:28:46Janet Reid: My pleasure. It means the world to me.

00:28:48Paul Kitching: Love your work. Good on you. Thanks, Janet. Oh, and happy streaking. Happy streaking, yes. Streaking September. There he goes. Janet, you're doing 365, aren't you? Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. See, one of Billo's mates. Well done. Good on you. Thank you. Good on you, Janet. All right, I'm going to wander back now to find the crew walking back past the legends who worked on it. Well done, Kate. Thanks, PK.

00:29:10Will Barlow: Well done. See you again. See you, mate. Say bye.

00:29:13Paul Kitching: Bye. Bye. Fantastic. Yeah, so it's been another awesome day. I don't think I'm going to actually get a chance to catch Polly, who I referred to, but I can talk about her. How wonderful, as I said, it is that someone does come back. As we know, it's not easy coming to parkrun, but to actually do it the next week. And those who are addicted, I don't know if you can remember. Can you remember your first time? Can you remember your second time? I certainly remember my second time. I was just so enamored with this world and had to convince my family to come back. You know, I think that's what it was because he wanted to share it. I'm hoping there are a lot of people that did do parkrun for the second time this week after last week coming along, for the Bring a Friend. Actually, I think that's what Polly, who I talked about, she came last week as part of Bring a Friend and then came back for the second week. So, yeah, we're just walking back now. And I also just wanted to just chime in here and thank you, Mel, for... The wonderful experience, again, of being the co-host. Not sure who we're listening to this week, but I'm sure they're awesome and doing a great job. And Toc, loved your work last week, mate. Love it. So how good is it that this podcast is still continuing and keeping people inspired about the awesome world that we love, that is parkrun. Anyway, signing off now. Just a short one for PK today. You'll be pleased to know. Keep doing awesome things, everyone. Cheers.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Milano Nord

00:30:46Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell and I've just left my hotel in North Milan or Milano Nord in search of the Milano Nord parkrun. Now, I don't know whether Google Maps is making this overly complex for me, but apparently there's not very many entrances to the park. And even though the parkrun is literally across the road from my hotel, I have to walk for one and a half k's to get to the entrance. So, I've left with lots of time. I don't want to miss this one, particularly, look, I drove three hours from France to get here. And I'm driving four and a half hours back to France after the parkrun to fulfill my other commitments. So you could say it's been a bit of a mercy dash of an adventure today to tick off another country and a new parkrun and yeah, see what it's like to do parkrun in another country. Wish me luck. The other thing I'm not so sure about, it's my first parkrun in a non-English speaking country. So wish me luck on that front as well. It will be an adventure in more ways than one. So I'll check in again soon when I've found the parkrun. All right, I think I'm on the right track. I've found a flag, but it's not in a park. It's at a coffee shop. I've never seen a parkrun flag at a coffee shop. So this must be the after coffee place. Now I've found the owner. Is that right?

00:32:26guest: Yes, we are a partner for Italian Parco Nord parkrun. And after the race, we offer for the runner coffee and ice cream. The best ice cream in Italy.

00:32:41Lyndell Murray: That sounds like a deal to me. See you later on.

00:32:46guest: See you later.

00:32:50Lyndell Murray: All right, I've finally found the entrance to the park. Hello. This is the welcoming committee. There's a man here directing people. Hello, what's your name?

00:32:58Battista: I'm Battista.

00:32:59Lyndell Murray: Battista. Do you help people find the parkrun here?

00:33:02Battista: No, I don't speak English.

00:33:04Lyndell Murray: It's okay. No, no, no. It's okay. Thank you. Thank you.

00:33:09Battista: Grazie. Grazie. [Italian: "Thank you. Thank you."]

00:33:11Lyndell Murray: For parkrun.

00:33:12Battista: Please. Please.

00:33:15Lyndell Murray: Let's do the run.

00:33:16Battista: This way? Wonderful. Grazie, grazie. [Italian: "Thank you, thank you."]

00:33:19Lyndell Murray: Prego. [Italian: "You're welcome."]

00:33:19Battista: Bye.

00:33:30Lyndell Murray: So one of the folks that jumped out of a taxi to the welcoming committee found these guys. What's your name? Where are you from?

00:33:38Trish: My name is Trish Mattymo. This is my husband, Trevor. And we are from Lough Key parkrun in Boyle in County Roscommon in the west of Ireland. That's a really long place location. It's a long place location. But to give you the full directions, it is in Connacht, which is on the western seaboard. So it's a small little place in Ireland, but we love it. And we are 48 people that have travelled here, to Milan for parkrun tourism and you've come 40 out just to tour just to tour yeah just because we've travelled earlier on this year we went to the parkrun at Severn Bridge in Bristol and what else have we done yeah in the UK and we have we do a lot of parkrun tourism locally in Ireland so yep We try to do our 5Ks, shake it up a little bit every week and just see a different place, you know?

00:34:25Lyndell Murray: So why Milano Nord and why Italy? Why not? Precisely, why not? Hey, I've got a hot tip. They do ice cream afterwards, so... Win-win all the way. Best ice cream in Italy, apparently, so... Win-win.

00:34:43Trish: Win-win-win. Great. Brilliant.

00:34:45Lyndell Murray: And how long are you in Italy for? We're here until Monday.

00:34:48Trish: Okay, so just three days. Yeah, three days. Travelled yesterday and we're travelling back on Monday morning early. So back to square one on Monday, but we'll have bounce in our step after the Milan box ticked.

00:35:01Lyndell Murray: Yeah, we'll have the Milan parkrun box ticked. Ciao, ciao. Ciao, ciao. This is our Run Director. [Italian: "Bye, bye."]

00:35:07guest: Hello. No, not only direct, I'm a starter and a token assistant. A very important job? My job? Yes. I work in the office.

00:35:32Lyndell Murray: And you volunteer at parkrun? It's okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for helping to run parkrun today.

00:35:42guest: Okay. See you later.

00:35:48Lyndell Murray: Ok we're back at the cafe we've had our post parkrun ice cream and I have to say it might be the best ice cream in Italy and I'm here with Max Nice to meet you Max, you are the Run Director today and also the Event Director for Milano Nord.

00:36:14Max: Yes, so today we have broken the national record with 230 people running and walking. So I'm pretty happy about it.

00:36:26Lyndell Murray: Yes, it was a very celebratory, festive parkrun today.

00:36:33Max: Yeah, we did a special party just for the foreign people coming today, a lot of Irish people, Australian and English people. We have also people coming from the southern part of America, Russian ones, so a lot of foreign people.

00:36:54Lyndell Murray: So you have lots of tourists here every week?

00:36:59Max: Yeah, every week, every week, so... even if we are not a very touristic place in Italy obviously you know venice or florence or rome so we are pretty international cities so there are a lot of people coming here for business so tomorrow for example there's a formula uno yes in monza next to the park so I guess some people are coming here just for that event.

00:37:30Lyndell Murray: Yes, I spoke to one man from the UK who was here for the Grand Prix and also two from South Africa who had come for the Grand Prix as well.

00:37:41Max: The forecast is 200,000 people tomorrow in Monza. So a lot of people coming just for the Grand Prix.

00:37:52Lyndell Murray: I wonder why we only had 200 at parkrun. Now, Max, how long have you been involved in parkrun and how did you get involved?

00:38:01Max: So we started three years ago. We have the anniversary in a pair of weeks. This has been the third parkrun that started in Italy. We were less than 1,000 registered people in Italy at that time, and I discovered it just for case I was typing on the on the internet for a run in the park yes so I discovered parkrun and I wrote an email and they answered to me so I decided to start here yes wonderful and that's how you got involved was just jumping in and starting a whole new parkrun Yes. I guess today is my presence number 140 as a volunteer.

00:38:58Battista: Yes.

00:38:59Max: So probably I'm in the first three in the ranking in Italy as a volunteer.

00:39:04Lyndell Murray: You are a super volunteer, Max.

00:39:06Max: Yes. I volunteer because I'm a little bit lazy. I don't like to run.

00:39:13Lyndell Murray: You don't like to run, but you like to volunteer.

00:39:16Max: Oh, yeah. Someone has to do it.

00:39:20Lyndell Murray: That's right. And you bring so much happiness to so many people. Oh, thanks. I've been to a lot of different parkruns and the party at Milano Nord is second to none. It is probably the most festive parkrun I've ever been to.

00:39:40Max: Thank you. I was thinking because I'm used to go to the Six Nations parties tournament and we have always a lot of Irish and Italian people singing all together before the match so I decided it was the right way to party today with the national anthem it was very beautiful I should have tuned up my vocal cords and sung land down under or something no no I will save you from that Max You need to invite a lot of Australian people so that we can sing as well. Yes. The Australian anthem.

00:40:22Lyndell Murray: Yes, I think that's a plan. All right.

00:40:25Max: Why not?

00:40:25Lyndell Murray: Why not?

00:40:26Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:40:27Max: I've been in Australia three times, so I'm very fond of Australian people and habits. So I would be grateful for me to have a lot of Australian people hosting here.

00:40:43Lyndell Murray: Well, I will certainly give Milano Nord parkrun a big thumbs up to every Australian that I know.

00:40:50Unidentified speaker: Thank you. Thanks a lot.

00:40:51Lyndell Murray: Because I've had such a wonderful experience here. So thank you very much, Max. Okay. And all the best for another big party in a few weeks' time at your anniversary. And is there anything else that you would like to say to the adventurers?

00:41:05Max: Just to invite all the Australian people coming here in Europe. So they want to pass here. We'll be happy, to show some of the beauties we have in Milan. Thank you.

00:41:20Lyndell Murray: Thank you, Max. Thank you so much. And thank you for putting on this parkrun. It's wonderful. Thank you.

00:41:25Max: Thanks a lot.

00:41:27Lyndell Murray: All righty, parkrun adventurers. That's a wrap from me from Milano Nord parkrun. Now, I am so, so happy that I came here. It wasn't a given. It wasn't on our original itinerary. But, you know, Aussies being Aussies and knowing that it's only three hours drive or four hours drive, that's nothing for us. So it was too good an opportunity and I thought I'd give it a crack. And what an experience. The community here is so friendly. They're so happy. It's a party atmosphere. The course itself is really quite beautiful. It's a flat two-loop course through one of the probably biggest parks going around in metropolitan Milan. um so it's a really nice course um and max what a sweetheart what just a lovely lovely man he is and the contribution he's made to start a parkrun here in milan is just really really special so that's it for me that's a wrap um this is lindell over and out for the channel 5 news crew on the parkrun adventurers

Roving report David Moss — Harcourt Hill

00:42:37David Moss: Hello, we're at Harcourt Hill parkrun and I'm with Catherine Daly and Mark Taylor. Okay, and you two are virtually looking after the run today. Could you tell me a little bit about the history of the course?

00:42:54Catherine Daly: Yeah, sure. So Harcourt Hill is just on the outskirts of Oxford, so we're part of the Oxford parkrun group. We're hosted by Oxford Brookes University, so we run on their campus. Our course is a two-lapper. It's run pretty much all on grass, and despite our name, it's a pretty flat parkrun.

00:43:16Mark Taylor: Very.

00:43:18Catherine Daly: I think of all the local runs, we're probably the baby of the group. We probably get an average of about 100, 120 runners here every week compared to our neighbours who tend to get more like 300, 400, 500. So we like to think of ourselves as small but friendly. And yeah, I think next week we'll celebrate our 250th run and in October we'll celebrate our fifth birthday. It is our fifth. So we're looking forward to celebrations for that.

00:43:49David Moss: Darn I've missed out on cake yet again.

00:43:50Catherine Daly: Oh yeah yeah sorry if you were here next week or in October there'll be cake. First rule of parkrun.

00:43:56David Moss: I will say it's a really nice course to run around it's relatively level but there's a section that does go uphill somewhat and my legs were certainly feeling that by the second lap through there. You've also got some fantastic trees on the course which I really did appreciate going through

00:44:14Catherine Daly: Yeah, it's lovely. I was tail walking today, which is always nice because you get the chance to take in the scenery and the views. And so, yeah, we run around a small golf course, which is nice. And then there's a small section through a little woodland as well, which breaks up the course a bit. So, yeah, it's good.

00:44:34David Moss: And Mark, you were saying that you've actually been involved with an MS group.

00:44:38Mark Taylor: Yeah, so parkrun in the UK, with the Department of Health, set up something called the PROVE project, which was set up to get people with chronic, acute and long-term conditions involved in parkrun, whether it was running, walking or volunteering. And one of those groups was the multiple sclerosis group. And I've had MS for about 16, 17 years. So for a year I was the parkrun ambassador for MS, going around encouraging people with MS to join in and volunteer and getting some of the larger charities in the UK, the MS Society and the MS Trust to take over a parkrun to sort of spread the message. And that has been a lot of fun, especially since a lot of people don't realise The importance of volunteering. So parkrun's fabulous if you want to get fit, but it's also fabulous if you want to just get out and spend some time with people. And for the MS community, it can be quite a lonely life. But if you know you can come out every Saturday and help with a run, get to know people, have a coffee afterwards, it stops the loneliness of that particular condition. So parkrun's fantastic for that.

00:45:53David Moss: Yeah, parkrun is actually quite useful for many different things. And I guess the guy who started it does consider the social side to be as important as the, or more important than the actual running.

00:46:05Mark Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. It's a huge thing. I think when he started off, the idea was that he would organise everything as long as everyone would have a coffee with them at the end. And that is a core thing. I think parkrun is very proud. the average time of a parkrun has gone down each year. If people want to run fast, that's fine, but it's much more of a general community of people who just want to get together on a Saturday morning and get a bit of air on their skin and have a coffee afterwards.

00:46:34David Moss: Okay, and the other one is both of you two seem to get around to quite a few different parkruns.

00:46:38Catherine Daly: Yeah, we're slightly obsessive parkrun tourists, especially me. I'm the parkrun tragic of the family, so I plan our holidays and our weekends around parkruns, so I think... I'm on about 83 different ones. I think Mark's done about 60 something different ones as well.

00:46:55Mark Taylor: 62, 63, yeah, something like that.

00:46:57Catherine Daly: So we're not here at home at Harcourt Hill probably as much as we should be.

00:47:02David Moss: And what would you say would be some of your favourite courses?

00:47:05Catherine Daly: Oh well I think what a real highlight this year for us was we were two of a group of about 150 people that did the New Year's Day double running in Copenhagen in Denmark at nine o'clock and then two hours later in Malmö, Sweden. So it was the first international New Year's Day double and it was just fantastic. We had an absolute blast, brilliant actually brilliant having to run not just the parkrun but to the train we never stopped running that day from from the running the parkrun running to the train getting in the train running to the start running the second but it was just brilliant we were on a high for weeks after that absolutely and the people of Copenhagen and Malmo are incredibly friendly so the parkrun directors of both races coordinated runs not races

00:47:55Mark Taylor: It's a race, stroke, run, walk, whatever, whatever.

00:47:58David Moss: Okay Mel there's a bit of editing that may be involved here.

00:48:02Mark Taylor: No no no so but the coordination was fabulous and the Malmo Run Director deliberately slowed down her briefing to make sure people could sort of join and catch up and it was just fabulous. It was probably my favourite tourist run so far I think overall.

00:48:19Catherine Daly: But and I've This year I completed my parkrun alphabet, which I was quite proud of. And in the UK, there's no Z, you have to go abroad. So I went over with a group of other UK parkrun tourists to Zielona Gora in Poland, which was a fantastic experience. So yeah, we've been around a bit. We've just come back from a family holiday in Canada where we managed to squeeze in three parkruns on the West Coast, west coast of Canada.

00:48:45Mark Taylor: I think you'd qualify rather well as a parkrun tourist. I've got an injury at the moment, so I only walked one of them, but, you know, volunteering across the world, you know, David, you know this, you've just volunteered today. It is just as fabulous. So, you know, helping out at Whistler and helping out at Richmond parkrun in Vancouver was great, but it was nice to walk Calgary. That was a really friendly parkrun. Yeah, Nose Hill was great.

00:49:13Catherine Daly: Nose Hill, yeah, thank you. So, yeah, we've got around and we try to travel a lot in the UK as well. We're lucky here that we're really never that far from a parkrun. You guys, I think, have to travel a bit further sometimes to do your touring, but, yeah, but it's growing.

00:49:28David Moss: No, look, it's great. I enjoyed the course today, the people more than anything else.

00:49:33Catherine Daly: Oh, and it's great to meet you, great to have you here.

00:49:35David Moss: And I thank both of you.

00:49:37Catherine Daly: Very much.

00:49:38David Moss: And I should also say, I'm glad to hear that you knew all about Scotty and Mel.

00:49:43Catherine Daly: Yes, well, I'm a big parkrun podcast fan. I love listening to the With Me Now podcast. I don't know if you know that, which is hosted by Danny Norman and Nicola Forwood. And through them, I got to hear about the parkrun adventurers. And so hello to Mel, hello to Scotty. Yeah, we think you do a great job too. It's great to hear about our parkrun friends on the other side of the world. Yeah.

00:50:04David Moss: Beautiful, thank you both!

00:50:06Catherine Daly: Thank you, come back soon!

00:50:07[13 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:50:20Melissa Erbacher: another massive contribution of awesome roving reports from the Channel 5 News crew. Again, I should mention that Mark's report from Ginninderra parkrun should have been included in last week's podcast, 100% my bad. I had a bit of a moment or several moments actually because he told me via email and Facebook that he had submitted said files and I still completely missed adding it in and didn't realise until after I'd edited the pod. So, Mark, my apologies.

00:50:55Melissa Ellis: But how lovely is Ginninderra? I've been to Ginninderra.

00:50:59Melissa Erbacher: It is gorgeous and, I mean, I obviously would like to try out the new course but I don't imagine it is extremely different from what the old course was. They still run around the lake. But, yeah, beautiful event. And Greta, Greta was at Strathalbyn talking to some grannies, which was awesome. It sounds like they've definitely been around, especially coming from Main Beach, heading all the way down to SA. We have PK. And you know what I really loved? When he was chatting to Janet and they were talking about the pre-event briefing and that she asked if there were any second-timers, Janet, I am totally stealing that for my pre-event brief in future. I love that idea.

00:51:42Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and that's really good that Medibank's Bring a Friend Day has been a success and that those people came along on Bring a Friend Day and decided they liked this thing called parkrun that we're addicted to. Yeah.

00:51:57Melissa Erbacher: And Lyndell was in Italy this week. This one was a bit of a special one for me to listen to because I used to live in Milan. I mean, pre-parkrun, unfortunately, but I cannot wait to have a visit, look at all the old haunts and grab myself a parkrun while I'm there.

00:52:15Melissa Ellis: Just this week, I had this idea that if I was going to book an overseas trip, How would be the challenge of trying to do every single country in the world? That would be a level up.

00:52:26Melissa Erbacher: It would definitely be a level up. It would take about six months of your life and a lot of finances, I expect. You would need some kind of really rich benefactor to bankroll it for you. I mean, unless you can just afford that.

00:52:43Melissa Ellis: No, no, no. We're going to win Tattslotto on the weekend because Paul got a ticket. So I'll be good.

00:52:49Melissa Erbacher: Oh, so I shouldn't bother buying one myself then if you're going to win it. And Dave, our final roving reporter for the week, he was at Harcourt Hill parkrun in Oxford speaking to some listeners of the pod. So hello to Catherine and Mark. Thank you so much for listening. And by all accounts, Dave had a wonderful morning. So thanks for your hospitality there as well, guys.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:53:14Melissa Erbacher: Now, Melissa, there are no launches this week. You've already mentioned that there's been quite the dry spell in the formerly known as the greatest state of Victoria.

00:53:26Melissa Ellis: I don't know that we need to go that far. I'm going to keep holding the flag. We're still the greatest state down here.

00:53:35Melissa Erbacher: Oh, Scotty's not here to defend the title. I mean, half of the Roving reporters granted are Victorian.

00:53:41Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I think we've got the balance of power. How many Queenslanders are on the roving?

00:53:49Melissa Erbacher: We've got two. We've got two in Queensland. We've got three in Victoria. Two in South Australia. We still never quite got that one in WA. I had somebody in mind who I was hoping would step up to the plate, but he never sent me the roving report. He promised he would. I'm talking to you, Maddie. We need another girl now.

00:54:08Melissa Ellis: We're not balanced. Girls to boys in the Channel 5 News crew.

00:54:12Melissa Erbacher: Oh, we need more gender equality. This is true. All right. Well, ladies, look, we should have an amnesty period where it's not difficult to join the Channel 5 News crew.

00:54:22Melissa Ellis: Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on.

00:54:24Melissa Erbacher: Let's walk that far. Having spoken to you, I'm starting to worry that maybe we've made it seem really difficult and unattainable and scared people off. And we don't want people to be scared of it. And look, there's not even any requirement to join the Channel 5 News crew. If you just want to do a one-off roving report, you can do that. Just head out there, use the in-built audio recording thing on your smartphone if you've got one, and drop us an email at parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. We would love to hear from all over the country, all over the world, anyone who wants to do one. Send it in.

00:55:02Melissa Ellis: And Mel, can I give people a little tip? Please do. I used to get really stressed at first because I thought I had to record a whole interview from start to finish and not make any mistakes. And if I made a mistake, I had to go, oh, can we do that again? You know, I fluffed it. And then I realised, oh, I can just edit it and just cut the crappy bits out.

00:55:23Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. And even if people don't have the power or the knowledge to do the editing themselves, we can do that for you on this end. I am... you know, four weeks into being self-taught at this whole editing malarkey. And I think I'm doing okay so far.

00:55:39Melissa Ellis: You are.

00:55:40Melissa Erbacher: I've got some room for improvement, I know, getting there slowly. And I know how to remove ums and ahs where they happen with enough. Well, there you go. I'll get rid of that one. I won't. I should probably keep it in for illustrative purposes. I know how to remove them when there's enough space either side without the noise. And usually there is. People tend to take a break before they do them.

Streaky September

00:56:03Melissa Erbacher: Speaking of breaks, I have not had a break in 10 days from streaking. But how are you doing, Mel? You're still on the streak bandwagon?

00:56:11Melissa Ellis: Yes, I'm streaking. I'm still going. I'm making an effort every day, at least walking two kilometres if I don't have a run. But you know, Mel, mine's more swoopy September.

00:56:23Melissa Erbacher: Spring is the time for magpies to nest and or get very protective about said nests and do some swooping. We've already had swoops on the podcast. Gary got swooped a couple of weeks ago on the Gold Coast when he was just standing there minding his own business in his propeller hat, giving high fives on the course. And you're having your own version of streaky September, swoopy September. You've moved to a new house and the magpies live there too.

00:56:51Melissa Ellis: Well, I've spent all year feeding these magpies. I'm trying to make friends with them. I want to be that lady who can hand feed them and I go out every morning and I give them a little bit of meat. You know, I know you're not supposed to give them bread and the other things. So I've been reading up and learning how to make friends with them because I love magpies. But it just seems that all I've managed to do is make my house ground zero for magpie swooping and nobody can come to my front door and my kids are swooped and the postman's swooped.

00:57:23Melissa Erbacher: Do they swoop you though?

00:57:25Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:57:26Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So they're swooping the head of the hand that feeds them. Yes.

00:57:32Melissa Ellis: I know right.

00:57:33Melissa Erbacher: Well you've debunked that myth.

00:57:35Melissa Ellis: I know and I put on social media I did a little video footage because it was hilarious the other day my daughter came to visit and she brought the dogs and the dogs were trapped in the car because she got swooped as she got out she was too scared to go back and Paul had to go and rescue them and the magpie is madly swooping and I'm standing there videoing, laughing my head off, thinking it's hilarious. And I posted it on social media and everybody's saying, you've got to feed them, you've got to feed them. And I'm like, I have been.

00:58:02Melissa Erbacher: So what you need to say is that's a lie. Feeding doesn't work.

00:58:07Melissa Ellis: But it's okay because I love them and I know they're only doing what comes naturally and he's being very protective and of his little magpie family that's obviously close by. I can just empty the mailbox at night and I can take the bins out at night. It's all good. It's only for a few weeks.

00:58:26Melissa Erbacher: Birds do funny things at this time of year.

00:58:29Melissa Ellis: So I'm trying to streak in different places. So I clearly can't go up and down my street. That's my goal.

00:58:34Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm really bored with my local area. This is my problem. I want to streak elsewhere just because I'm tired of all the local streets.

00:58:43Melissa Ellis: I know, right? How about all these people on the Streaky group and all the fancy photos they've got? I'm getting very jealous.

00:58:50Melissa Erbacher: The photos are awesome. I'm loving now that Streaky Bingo is out, starting to see the incoming pics of unusual letterboxes and gnomes. I'm waiting for the influx of gnomes.

00:59:02Melissa Ellis: Yes, I've got letterbox FOMO. Everybody in my estate is very by the rules. I'm going to have to go searching.

00:59:11Melissa Erbacher: I'm wondering – How many people are going to streak to Bunnings to get a selfie with a gnome?

00:59:17Melissa Ellis: Oh, I'm working at Bunnings. I didn't think of that. Damn it. Next week.

00:59:27Melissa Erbacher: Next week. And this is the thing. I was having a chat to Scotty about the different Streaky September challenges this year and he wanted to know what the significance of a selfie with a gnome was because this was my idea. And I said, well, you know, we had Tabitha on the pod recently and they have Kirk who's their resident gnome out at Broken Hill Racecourse parkrun. And I said, so it's kind of significant because of that. However, mostly it's just like, what do I want to see pictures of? I think people taking selfies with gnomes would be fun. So let's just see how many people we can get to take selfies with gnomes. All over the world. Maybe, okay, we should probably go back and we should talk about what Streaky Bingo Challenges are for this year because we're probably getting a little bit ahead of ourselves and possibly we've got listeners out there who haven't seen the Bingoe card, which has been shared on the parkrun adventurers Facebook page. But I will go through the Streaky September Bingo Challenges. Okay. So we want to make sure everyone's on the same page. We have had some interesting interpretations. I believe TOC, he took a selfie and he's like, I think this is going to be my selfie, streaky bingo and I was just wondering where the gnome was but somebody else pointed out to him are you the gnome, TOC and he's like oh I completely missed the gnome part and just read selfie so yes um that's one of the bonus well it's the only proper bonus on the card this year is a gnome selfie as we've just been talking about so you need to take a photo of yourself with a gnome. We have had Errol. Errol, thank you for listening to the pod and thanks for taking part in Streaky September. I appreciate seeing the picture that you took of the gnomes. And I did comment about where were you and you said you wouldn't be in photos. But we want to see you, Errol. We want to see you with the gnomes. And we want to see everybody with the gnomes. So please take the selfie with the gnome in order to cross that one off your Bingoe card. Tie or Tutu? Mel, do you think you can understand what this one might be? go for a run wearing a tie or a tutu absolutely or a walk in public any kind of street parkrun that's the easiest one this is the one we've had every single year on streaky bingo and it's it's one we hope everybody should be able to achieve in the month of streaky September we've got with a pooch and it's got an asterisk do you remember what the asterisk meant last year Mel No.

01:02:16Unidentified speaker: No? What?

01:02:19Melissa Erbacher: Oh, my goodness. You're sacked now too. Every co-host keeps coming on and doing some kind of sackable offence. So that's yours. You don't remember last year. So last year we decided that if you didn't have a dog – oh, no, no. You know what? What? What? No, I completely am misremembering what it is. Oh, who's sacked now? I'm mixing it up with streaking after 11 p.m. I don't remember what the asterisk meant last year with the pooch. If somebody can remember, please let me know. But this year, what it means is if you can't do it with a pooch, either yours or somebody else's, please don't steal a dog unless you want to take one from a refuge and take it out for a walk for a day and there's some kind of program within which you can do that. That's great and we encourage you to do so. No, if you can't do it with a pooch, your own or borrowed, You need to streak with a pineapple because we all know I love pineapples.

01:03:25Melissa Ellis: That wouldn't be awkward to run with at all.

01:03:29Melissa Erbacher: On a leash? Well, you could put it on a leash if you want to, but I know they're a bit spiny and prickly. I mean, you might want to skin your pineapple first.

01:03:40Melissa Ellis: Baby carrier.

01:03:42Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you could do it if you've got access to a baby carrier. You know, people can get creative with these things. And then, okay, so moving right along, barefoot. That one I think is pretty self-explanatory. Take your shoes off. Do it someplace. We recommend surfaces that are kind to feet if your feet aren't necessarily used to doing it barefoot. Sand is a good starter or possibly grass. I always barefoot run on the grass. With a friend, that one is also what I would consider to be self-explanatory. I should say, Mel, have you got any questions about any of the ones that are on the card?

01:04:23Melissa Ellis: Well, I've been looking at with someone new. So I guess I've got to find somebody that I haven't been on a walk with before. So maybe one of my friends that isn't particularly active and I've got to drag them out for at least two kilometres. Yeah.

01:04:39Melissa Erbacher: Well, you don't, it doesn't necessarily have to be an inactive person, but just, yeah, you're right when you say with somebody who you've never been out with like one-on-one before, I guess. And this was Scotty's suggestion that I am co-hosting with someone new every week throughout the whole month of Streaky September. So let's let everyone streak with someone new and, you know, make some new connections and hear some new stories because that's what, always happens when you streak with someone. You always end up talking. I thought that was a nice one to add in. Good idea, Scotty. I like it. Yeah. Then we've got Streaky Strava Art has made a return. I love this one. And it's open to interpretation what you consider to be Strava art. But yeah, anyone can do any kind of Strava art. They don't have to be massive, massive Ks. We are not asking people to go that crazy. You know, you can do your Strava art on an oval and it can be quite small as long as it looks like something. And, you know, it could be abstract art. That's okay. We will not judge. Beauty and art is in the eye of the beholder. Now, Unusual Letterbox. This is another of Scotty's brainchilds. I'm really intrigued about this. I'm enjoying seeing the letterboxes that have come in so far. People taking photos of people's letterboxes. I hope nobody sort of gets in trouble with any of the owners of houses for just stopping and taking pics of letterboxes. But you mentioned that you've got really boring letterboxes in your neighbourhood.

01:06:21Melissa Ellis: Well, we've got regulations that you're not allowed to have, you know, they've got to be of a certain style. So... So that restricts us. So I just have to go running other places. I'm on the hunt. It's my challenge for the week.

01:06:35Melissa Erbacher: It's not a restriction. It's forcing you to go outside of the norm. Let's put it that way. But the final one is a parkrun adventure. Now, I would like to clarify this one. It doesn't necessarily mean you go to an event that you've never been to before. It can mean that. Absolutely can mean that. But it could also mean some other kind of parkrun adventure. Because, you know, we've always been about experiencing parkrun in a different way or in a way that is not usual parkrun, for you and I've got mine planned for a couple of weeks while I am going to a different event every week of this month I've got an actual what I call my adventure planned for a fortnight and I know there's another streaker in the UK who's got um a similar adventure planned over there for that week so that that's going to be that's going to be our parkrun adventure And I think this is an opportunity for people to once again be creative with what they want to do with Streaky Bingo. And if they're not able to travel further afield for the month, then just do something a bit different. Just make your parkrun an adventure in whichever way you please. And that will classify as a tick for that item on Streaky September Bingo. I like it. So hopefully that keeps people a little bit interested with streaking and helps them mix it up a bit. I don't know how you're going with doing it every day this month, Mel, but I'm having some troubles with some days and struggling to get out there with the boys and squeeze it in every day. How are you getting on with it?

01:08:32Melissa Ellis: I'm managing to fit it in. Today was a good day. Zoe was at school, so I didn't have any other obligations this morning so I was able to jump in the car and go down to the local Botanic gardens and have a have a streak in some new magpie free area so that was really good take a have a Strava map that isn't my boring round the block Strava map which is also good oh well I'm glad you're still on the streaking bandwagon I have heard from other co-hosts I've had in the past that they are no longer on said bandwagon

Sign-off

01:09:03Melissa Erbacher: So we need to support each other and all of us will get there in the end. 10 days down so far, 20 to go. We can do it. Now, we've been chatting. We've been having a really great blather. This is possibly the longest intro I've ever recorded. Oops. That's okay. It's been fun. But I do want to know before we head off, where are you going next week? I've got a big adventure and I'm really excited.

01:09:30Melissa Ellis: Details. We've got our very first overseas parkrun. Just a few days and we're heading over to Singapore with some parkrun friends. And, yes, it was planned purely around parkrun, so I could get my first flag. That is a big adventure. Yeah. So we're going to Bishan parkrun in Singapore. Very excited. Very excited.

01:09:54Melissa Erbacher: And what about you, Mel? What are you up to? I'm headed to Ocean View parkrun this weekend, another trail event, my new NENDY. Very, very excited to be able to finally tick it off. It has been going for a little while now and, I've always been conscious that it's not super pram friendly, but I'm making Adam do it because it's just too close for us not to have done it yet.

01:10:19Melissa Ellis: Awesome. Is it on the sand?

01:10:20Melissa Erbacher: It's ocean view because it's up in the hinterland and I'm assuming there's a view of the ocean.

01:10:25Melissa Ellis: I don't know. I'll be able to report in on that next week. Oh, that sounds like my kind of parkrun.

01:10:31Melissa Erbacher: There is a champagne breakfast on offer afterwards for anyone wishing to stick around. That's just gone on the list. Well, I think we've probably talked everybody's ears off, Mel. So we might need to wrap this up now. Thank you for having me. I've loved it. Thank you for coming. It's been wonderful having you on the pod this week. And I'm excited to have had another female voice to have a chat with, even if you are from Victoria.

01:11:03Melissa Ellis: The greatest state.

01:11:08Melissa Erbacher: I hope you have an amazing time at your adventure in Singapore this coming weekend. I can't wait to hear all about it. And thank you so much for all your contributions to the podcast over the years.

01:11:20Melissa Ellis: Oh, thank you.

01:11:22Melissa Erbacher: I know we made it hard for you to join the Channel 5 News crew, but it was all in good fun and only because we knew you could handle it and would rise to the challenge. We know you love your level ups and there's no more levels to go to now, so. I've reached the top. You have. I hope you don't get bored. Never. Never.