Episode 185 - Trails and Tales

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to parkrun adventurers episode 180. Only four more episodes away from Christmas episode, but that's not actually a number and I don't want you to be confused and think it's only episode 180. It's actually episode 185. I am Mel, co-host of this wonderful little podcast and joining me this week, we have the wonderful TOC.

00:00:49Tony O'Connell: Woohoo! I'm here right with you, the magnificent Mel. How are you today? I am fabulous, Toc.

00:00:56Melissa Erbacher: So excited to be here. Very excited also to have you join me. Did you know, and this is why I'm starting to talk about Christmas, the first Ugly Christmas Singlet delivery has been confirmed.

00:01:12Tony O'Connell: I actually did see a photo of it tonight hanging up in somebody's wardrobe, and I think they're very excited. They're going away, and it arrived before they left.

00:01:22Melissa Erbacher: How did you see a photo? Where did you see it?

00:01:24Tony O'Connell: Oh, Mel, come on. It's on one of the – it's actually one of the adventurers chat groups that I'm on. We have chat groups within chat groups.

00:01:36Melissa Erbacher: Well, we received the same photo, I believe, sent directly to the adventurers inbox on Facebook. And I was very excited, especially given that it is in a completely different state than it would have originated in. It's gone to New South Wales, straight out of Victoria. So we're recording... peeling the curtains back here on a Monday night this week. And the singlets weren't even due to be shipped until Wednesday. So our supplier, Ventoo, has been a little bit sneaky and started the posting a bit early, which I'm excited about because that just means everyone's going to be getting their ugly goodies so much earlier. Oh, so excited.

00:02:22Tony O'Connell: And there has been a bit of discussion about how they've got to Sydney quicker than they managed to get to Melbourne when they're based in Melbourne. So there's a very excited young lady in Sydney that has her ugly singlet.

00:02:34Melissa Erbacher: Yes, and hopefully that also means that all the international orders have already gone because I'm assuming or, well, I don't even need to assume, we were told that they would be given priority so that – They arrived in time. And I would love to hear from anybody else who's already got theirs. Start sharing your picks, guys, because it just makes me more and more excited for Christmas and our inaugural International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day. And that would be on the 21st, Mel. Yes, the 21st of December, counting down the sleeps. I'm very excited to be in December as well. There's just excitement. There's so much Christmas happening. And I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, but I am, one of those people who listens to Christmas podcasts every week - Vanessa and Liam get the pod out usually on a Thursday or a Friday and I've listened to it within a couple of hours and yeah so excited for Christmas we've got our Christmas tree up are you excited for Christmas, TOC? I'm looking forward to Christmas it's um it's a great time of the year where you get to go and uh

00:03:45Tony O'Connell: do a little bit of exploring while you're on holidays, maybe get out and have an adventure or two and generally just wind down at the end of the year. So I'm really looking forward to it.

00:03:54Melissa Erbacher: Yes, love the festive season. And when you say adventure or two, there's usually three when you can add an extra event on at Christmas and two on New Year's Day. Do you know where you're going to be doubling it this year yet or next year, I should say?

00:04:10Tony O'Connell: There's a bit of a rumour that we might be adventuring into the ACT to get a couple of runs up in the ACT. Ooh. It should be a bit of an adventure. We've got two events in the northern country in Victoria that we need to do, so we thought we might travel up, do one of those on the way up, do the double in the ACT and do the other one on the way back home. So we get four events in a week.

00:04:35Melissa Erbacher: I like your style.

00:04:36Tony O'Connell: How good's that?

00:04:38Melissa Erbacher: It's awesome. It is the most wonderful time of the year, for sure. However, we still do have a few weeks of just regular fun times at parkrun between now and then. And I heard from Little Birdie that you were at a new one last weekend. Where were you on Saturday, Toc?

00:05:00Tony O'Connell: Now, we adventured up to Aurora, which is in the northern suburbs of Melbourne in a town called Epping. It's a four-lapper around a bit of a creek. It has a couple of bridges. Just about every parkrun now, it's almost like there's a legacy that's been left by Scott. Every parkrun seems to have a bridge or two that I've been to lately. A lovely little event. I think we had... 52 people there on the day, 52 finishers. And it was just a really great little day, really great place to go and have breakfast afterwards. We got to talk to a few people we hadn't met before. And that's one of the great things about parkrun, as you know, is you rock along to the breakfast, you rock along to parkrun, and you just talk to people that you wouldn't walk up to in a street and start talking to.

00:05:48Melissa Erbacher: I don't think we've heard about Aurora on the pod before. Every time I hear the name, it makes me think of Briar Rose from the Disney Sleeping Beauty movie. Are there any Disney princesses running around?

00:06:03Tony O'Connell: No, and there was no tutus on the weekend either. I should have rectified that. I probably let the team down a little bit there.

00:06:10Melissa Erbacher: Do you not have a spare one in your car?

00:06:12Tony O'Connell: No. No, look, unfortunately, they were all in the wash from the week before at Inverloch where we had paces. So we all had our tutus on for the pacer week.

00:06:22Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's fair enough.

00:06:24Tony O'Connell: And how about you, Mel? I hear you've been down to Golden Beach. How was that parkrun?

00:06:32Melissa Erbacher: It was great. We decided it was a little bit of a late change of plans on Friday. We were umming and ahhing about whether or not we had down to Brisbane once more to get another new event crossed off the list but the boys have been a little bit challenging lately especially with our living in a state that does not have daylight savings time and then wanting to get up with the light despite the fact the light is up at 4 30 in the morning quarter to five so we opted instead for a little bit more of a sleep in and by sleep in I mean a lie in because we're never asleep anymore And stuck home or stuck close to home and headed to Golden Beach instead of Brisbane. And this one had another dual purpose of catching up with family because Adam's sister and her husband run down at Golden Beach. They used to run at Kawana before Golden Beach launched, but it's much closer to their home now. So that's where you can find them every week. And this is one of the other things that I love about parkrun is literally we catch up with family more frequently than than we would otherwise just by going and having a run with them on a Saturday morning and then having a coffee or, in my case, ice chocolate this week. to cool down after the event. And, yeah, it was a good morning. We had fun. Karen and Andrew took Wes in the pram, so Adam got to have a run and went and enjoyed a nice walk along. It's an out-and-back course. I'm not sure if we've spoken about Golden Beach before. We must have a couple of years ago, I think, because I used to be their event ambassador there. And, yeah, lovely wide course, very welcoming, friendly crew, of course. The volunteers are always that way. And, oh, but it was hot, TOC. It's only got – it's a very flat course. It's got something like four metres of elevation over the whole thing, which I think is one little two-metre rise that you go up and then down. And so that's classified as the elevation. If that's how elevations work, somebody will probably correct me. However, yeah, it was just really hot and I wanted to jump in the water at the end, but I was not appropriately attired to do so. So next time I'm going to remember to take my togs.

00:09:00Tony O'Connell: Fair enough. It sounds beautiful up there. Victoria put its best welcome to summer weekend on this weekend and turned cold.

00:09:11Melissa Erbacher: Yes.

00:09:12Tony O'Connell: There was no jumping in the water down here.

00:09:14Melissa Erbacher: This allegedly great state seems to be very confused about its seasons.

00:09:19Tony O'Connell: Yes. No, we were much warmer back in September, October than we are in December. So it'll change. You talked about Aurora giving you different visions. I saw that you're at Golden Beach and I had in my mind's eye this little seaside hamlet with, you know, 30 or 40 people running around a parkrun. And when I looked up the stats for Golden Beach, it's quite a big one.

00:09:44Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's the biggest on the Sunshine Coast and has been for several years now. And, yeah, it definitely accommodates the larger people.

00:09:54Tony O'Connell: attendance numbers that they get while still sort of maintaining that very um strong community feel about it which is always good yeah sweet sounds good another one to have a go on onto the list the trouble is as you know those lists just get longer and longer they do indeed

00:10:11[17 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Ros Gregor Trail parkrun

00:10:28Lyndell Murray: Good morning, parkrun adventurers. It's Lyndell and I'm checking in this morning from Ros Gregor Trail parkrun in Nanango in Queensland. Clearly last week becoming a pirate wasn't enough because I've come for another hour. But I won't subject you to that again, don't worry. Enough pirate accents for a little while. So Ros Gregor Trail parkrun has launched six or seven weeks ago. A bit of a sad story about the number of runs here. I've been planning this trip for a little while to get my seven from my Wilson index, and unfortunately due to the bushfires in regional Queensland the parkrun was cancelled last week so this week is actually parkrun six so now I've got more than one six and no seven so sad story on the Wilson index front but that's okay I'm here and look it looks like a lovely little spot to run through the gum trees here in Nanango let me just check in I'll do the check out the briefing so I don't get lost have a bit of a run and I'll check in with you later All right, post parkrun, I've found a few of the local parkrun ladies. What's your name? Carly. Casey. And Prue. And? Roz. Ros, now, Ros, is this trail named after you? No. No, no.

00:11:50Melissa Erbacher: After another councillor that was in council years ago.

00:11:53Lyndell Murray: So does that mean you're a councillor? I am. Excellent. Thank you. Have you been supporting parkrun? Most definitely. I think this is great for the name game. It sure is. Now, the rest of you ladies, what's your story? Your parkrun story, how did you get into it?

00:12:08Unidentified speaker: I've got a friend that lives here that does them, so she conned me into it, and this is my third run.

00:12:15Lyndell Murray: So you live not in Nanango, but in Kingaroy, which is just up the road. Yeah.

00:12:24Unidentified speaker: And how are you enjoying parkrun? Yeah, I love it. It's really good. Social fitness and social and yeah, it's good. Starts your weekend off good.

00:12:32Lyndell Murray: Sure does. And it's done by eight o'clock. You can go and have a coffee and get on with your life. Start on the junk food then.

00:12:37Belinda: No, I'm joking.

00:12:40Unidentified speaker: And how about you? Similar story? Yeah, this is my second parkrun, I think. Just come over for a bit of a run, fitness, yeah. And what do you like about it? Just the social of it. It's relaxed.

00:12:55Lyndell Murray: Pretty fun. I haven't seen anyone that's not smiling this morning, so that's a good start, isn't it?

00:12:59Unidentified speaker: And how about you? I think this is my fourth parkrun. So I got into it because I've just started a fitness journey, trying to train for a 10K run, next year at the gold coast so um but yeah only my first 5k's I did I think about two months ago I've never been a runner so but my partner started parkruns um in miles so their company over there support them to do that for the local community Cool. So when it started here, you had no choice. Yeah, that's it.

00:13:33Lyndell Murray: That's it. So when he's home, we do it together. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for having a chat to me today on the parkrun adventurers. It's okay. Once you start getting out and maybe head out to another couple of parkruns in the local area, have you ever thought about that?

00:13:48Unidentified speaker: I want to try the Wondai one. I haven't done the Wondai one yet. So that'll be my next one, I think. Give it a whirl.

00:13:56Unidentified speaker: Any other ideas? You've done Hervey Bay? I've done Hervey Bay. It was beautiful. A lot different to here, that's for sure.

00:14:04Lyndell Murray: I thought this was really nice in through all the trees and the gum trees. It's really beautiful, yeah. But very different along the water, isn't it?

00:14:11Unidentified speaker: Yeah, it is. It was beautiful. And a lot flatter in Hervey Bay compared to here.

00:14:15Lyndell Murray: Oh, yeah, that uphill. You turn off the main road and you just run uphill for half a kilometre. Yeah. No one told me about that. Just wanted my money back at that point. All right, ladies. Well, I'll let you get on with your day. Thanks for having a chat. And happy parkrunning. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now parkrun adventurers, I have, well, I haven't tracked her down. She tracked me down. Welcome Belinda to the parkrun adventurers. Hello. Now, you have a story to tell.

00:14:49Melissa Ellis: I do.

00:14:51Lyndell Murray: I thought my tourist streak of 23 was pretty awesome. Where are you at today? 102. And how many parkruns have you done in total? 103. And when do you foresee this tourist streak ending? Is it going to go forever?

00:15:05Belinda: I don't think it can go forever. I live Brisbane Southside and my next closest ones now are Bundaberg and Grafton and Charleys Creek at Chinchilla.

00:15:16Lyndell Murray: Yeah, so they're weekends away really.

00:15:20Belinda: Yeah, not morning of. No.

00:15:23Lyndell Murray: All right, so you've driven up to Ros Gregor Trail this morning? Yes, two hours and 20 minutes. Excellent. So how many Ks have you put on your car doing all of this? Oh, good question.

00:15:36Belinda: A lot.

00:15:36Lyndell Murray: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so out of all this adventuring, do you have any favourite parkruns that you've done? No.

00:15:44Belinda: Everyone is different for a different reason. There's things that I like about particular parkruns. I definitely am drawn to bush and water. But, like, there's some really beautiful ones around Australia. Yeah. This one's pretty nice. It ticks the bush boxes. It's definitely nice. And mostly flat, except for the sneaky decline and an incline.

00:16:05Lyndell Murray: Oh, I don't know. When you turn off the main road and head out onto the... That was all uphill for a very long way.

00:16:11Belinda: You still class that as pretty flat. Some of the ones I've done, this is pretty flat.

00:16:16Lyndell Murray: Oh, this is flat. Yeah, my home is Bunyaville, so go figure.

00:16:19Belinda: Bunyaville was one of my first parkruns that I did in Brisbane. And you haven't been back since.

00:16:24Lyndell Murray: See, this is where you started your tourist streak. You're like, gee, I'm not going back there.

00:16:27Belinda: No, no, no. I really like Bunyaville. I would go back to Bunyaville.

00:16:31Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And do you have any tips for parkrun adventurers?

00:16:35Belinda: Find yourself a buddy to travel with. Good tip. Find yourself some family members who live in locations that you can get free accommodation. Yeah. And get out and meet the people. Enjoy. There's some beautiful parkruns around. And lots of friendly parkrunners. Definitely.

00:16:53Lyndell Murray: All right. Well, Belinda, thank you so much for saying g'day and telling your story on the parkrun adventurers podcast. And hopefully I'll see you at another parkrun soon. Thank you. Okay, I've got a treat, parkrun adventurers. I found Trevor Adams. He's the first finisher today. And usually by the time I finish, the first finishers have all, you know, gone home, had a shower, had breakfast and read the paper.

00:17:16Trevor Adams: But Trevor's still here. Still here. Just encouraging everyone to finish past the line. So, yeah, still here clapping along. So it was good. It was a good run today. The time, it's a hot day. It wasn't the best time. But, no, it was a really good run.

00:17:32Lyndell Murray: That's all right. You were smiling out there. So you obviously enjoy your parkrun.

00:17:36Trevor Adams: Yeah, absolutely. So always, always smiling, always trying to encourage others. I think it's good to see other people out there. So everyone's got their limit. And just because I happen to be at the front doesn't mean that, you know, it's not everyone pushing to their best ability.

00:17:52Lyndell Murray: Yeah, and there's a nice crowd here just standing around cheering everyone across the finish line. That's a really nice touch.

00:17:58Trevor Adams: Yes. Yeah, no, this generally happens per week. So this is probably about my eighth one since it started up. So I really enjoy coming here. So at the moment, both myself and my wife, we're actually training to do a marathon in about two weeks time in Hawaii.

00:18:15Lyndell Murray: In Hawaii. Oh, fantastic. Yes.

00:18:19Trevor Adams: So that should be really good. So five kilometres is quite a nice jog in the morning just to warm up for the day.

00:18:26Lyndell Murray: So warming up for your long run or doing your speed work?

00:18:29Trevor Adams: Long runs at the moment. We did a 32 last weekend and about a month ago I actually did around 42 kilometres just as a bit of a training. So it was tough. It was tough. So I'm not...

00:18:47Lyndell Murray: Is it your first marathon?

00:18:48Trevor Adams: First marathon.

00:18:49Lyndell Murray: Yes, I can see the nerves in your face.

00:18:51Trevor Adams: Yes, because I realised when I did the practice one, I got to about that 37K. It's tough. It's tough. All the muscles start freezing up and stuff. The breathing was still okay, but the muscles, they certainly weren't carrying me home very well.

00:19:09Lyndell Murray: What about the mental side? That's what's important?

00:19:12Trevor Adams: Mental side's good. So mental, definitely like pushing through it, making sure that I stay hydrated and everything. So I've been doing some research and everything. So mentally strong should be really good. And I'm hoping the environment and everything and the weather's nice. So it should be good. We'll see.

00:19:30Lyndell Murray: It sounds like you're very prepared. Yeah.

00:19:33Trevor Adams: Prepared but nervous. Always nervous.

00:19:35Lyndell Murray: Oh, yeah. Well, look, I'm sure that the whole community here at Ros Gregor Trail parkrun are going to be right behind you and your wife. Yeah. And that'll be something else that can help keep you going on race day, yeah?

00:19:45Trevor Adams: Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

00:19:48Lyndell Murray: All right. Well, thank you for having a chat with me on the parkrun adventurers. Well done on your first place, first finisher today.

00:19:54Trevor Adams: Thank you. Thank you very much.

00:19:56Lyndell Murray: And hopefully I'll see you at another parkrun.

00:19:58Trevor Adams: All right. That sounds good.

00:20:00Lyndell Murray: Okay, now, adventurers, I've tracked down Therese, our Run Director for today, and Event Director, is that fair to say? That's correct.

00:20:08Therese: Run Director and Event Director, yeah, big title, big title.

00:20:12Lyndell Murray: Chief parkrunner. That's it, chief parkrunner. And you started Ros Gregor early in October.

00:20:19Therese: We did, we did. It all eventuated with a post on Facebook, believe it or not, on New Year's Eve about something positive we could bring to our community. So I suggested that I'd like a parkrun and somebody told me to put my mouth where my mouth is, put my money where my mouth is, so that's how it all started. Yeah, it's great. Great thing for the community is bringing a lot of people together and giving a lot of people purpose, which is what the whole idea of it is, yeah.

00:20:45Lyndell Murray: And that was your main focus, more so than the running? Yeah, more so than the running.

00:20:50Therese: I've walked around town for 12 years doing long distance walking. A lot of people have approached me to help. And we invite them to come, but they get a little bit overwhelmed with the distance that we do and the hills. So this is one way we can have everyone being involved and included. So it's great.

00:21:06Lyndell Murray: And running or walking at their own pace.

00:21:09Therese: Yep, no matter what, you can run, hop, skip, jump. We don't mind. Everybody's welcome at parkrun.

00:21:15Lyndell Murray: Now, it looks like you've achieved your goal of having a nice community event here.

00:21:20Therese: Yes, we have. And we've got a very overwhelmingly big number of volunteers, which is fantastic. And here they come now, the Tail Walker and a couple of our trail marshals. Well done, guys. Good job. Good job. And hopefully I'll win the volunteer tally count. Every week we have a volunteer tally count of how many people we've got. Whoever wins with that gets a free coffee. So a bit of luck I'll be in today.

00:21:49Lyndell Murray: And it's a big contingent of volunteers you've got.

00:21:52Therese: We do. We do. And I still have more. So we don't say no to anybody volunteering. We encourage. We make a position available. So that's the whole purpose of it.

00:22:03Lyndell Murray: It's fantastic. And I tell you what, they were so encouraging out on course. So they get two thumbs up from me for their spirit.

00:22:10Therese: Thank you. Thank you. Yes, they are. They are. Very encouraging.

00:22:14Lyndell Murray: Fantastic. And you get a few fast runners here as well? We have.

00:22:17Therese: We've got a couple of our local people that aren't here today that hold our records. Young Matthew Rankin and Kirsten O'Connor. Yeah, we have quite a few athletes in Nanango, believe it or not. We do. Just not the Run Director. Yeah.

00:22:31Lyndell Murray: Fantastic. All right. Well, thank you so much, Therese, for having the vision of starting a parkrun here in Nanango. And well done on getting it up off the ground. It's a really nice event. I've had a really lovely morning here.

00:22:42Therese: I'm pleased you enjoyed it. And thank you very much for coming.

00:22:45Lyndell Murray: All righty, parkrun adventurers, that is a wrap from me, Lyndell, from Ros Gregor Trail parkrun in Nanango, where I met a Ros, but not the Ros. Had a chat to our first finisher and met Belinda, the parkrun adventurer extraordinaire, 102 Tourist Streak. How is that? So what a great morning here in the bush out at Nanango for Ros Gregor Trail parkrun. This is Lyndell signing out for the Channel 5 News crew.

Roving report Scott Watkins — Byxbee parkrun

00:23:16Scott Watkins: Hi, I'm Scott and I am reporting in this week from Byxbee parkrun, which is in Palo Alto in California. So this is the second parkrun in California and it's probably up around, I think probably getting close to 50 events in the US now. So it's really great to see it growing here. As I'll introduce, this parkrun has quite an Australian feel to it with a number of the key people involved in setting it up and running it being Australian. So it's located beside the bay in the south part of the bay area here in south of San Francisco. And it's really great to see another event starting here. Okay, we've just finished Byxbee parkrun number 11 and I'm here talking with the Event Director, Sarah. So Sarah, you're from Australia and you've come over here and brought parkrun to your community. So tell us how that happened.

00:24:13Sarah: Well, that's right. So I used to run Curl Curl parkrun in Sydney and I started there in 2014. And so it's been a big part of my life. I've done 140 parkruns.

00:24:24Unidentified speaker: Wow.

00:24:25Sarah: And about 12 different locations. So leaving Australia and coming to America was a big decision. And one of the things I definitely missed the most was my Saturday morning parkruns. So I got in touch with parkrun USA and said, hey, is there any plans to start one in the Bay Area? And they said, oh, actually, there's another guy who's keen to do that. So that was how I met Sam, who's the other Event Director here at Byxbee. and we started scouting for a location. It took about six to 12 months, and after lots of negotiations with the local city and the rangers, we managed to get Byxbee off and running here.

00:25:05Scott Watkins: So we... And Sam's Australian as well.

00:25:07Sarah: He is. So he's from... I think his home parkrun in Australia was Brightwater in Queensland.

00:25:11Scott Watkins: Okay, okay.

00:25:12Sarah: So we didn't know each other before we met through parkrun, but that's what parkrun does. It gets you in contact with people.

00:25:17Scott Watkins: And have you got some Americans involved in running it now?

00:25:21Sarah: Uh... we have a few some of our volunteers definitely are locals which is wonderful um we have a lot of uh a lot of local expats so there's a lot of people from the UK and Australia and uh um who are living in the bay area um but are very aware of parkrun from their home country yeah and we also get quite a lot of tourists so we've had tourists from Russia and South Africa come just just to visit us which is amazing but But every week we're picking up more locals, which is the best of all because that's what we want. We want local people to come and join us.

00:25:55Scott Watkins: Yeah, and the course I found today was great. It's very accessible, and you're seeing a growth in the number of walkers here?

00:26:04Sarah: Absolutely, yeah. So we're definitely seeing a lot more people coming in and walking. We're seeing lots more under-11s coming to join us, which is wonderful. We have quite a lot of dogs who come and run with us as well, and that was a really big thing we had to make sure because not all of the trails here are dog-friendly. Mm-hmm. So that was one of the big attractions of Byxbee that, you know, we could have everyone come and join us.

00:26:26Scott Watkins: Yeah, yeah. And what do you see as the benefits for you? Have you met people here in the community through parkrun?

00:26:34Sarah: Absolutely. So a couple of things for me. So one was learning how the city of Palo Alto worked and getting to meet some of the people who work in the recreation department. That was really interesting. And another one was, yeah, I've definitely met quite a few people who live in my local area and the neighbouring cities. And yeah, I've met some brand new friends, which is lovely. And that's why I love parkrun. It's so good.

00:26:57Scott Watkins: I think, you know, certainly I feel the same and I'm sure many of the people listening do. And for the listeners, when I was coming here, I looked up your record before because I'd seen that you'd done a lot of parkruns and I actually found out that you'd visited Albert Melbourne parkrun where I'm the Co-Event Director and I was the Event Director, the Run Director there the day that you did it and you were Run Director here today. So that was a nice bit of symmetry, I thought.

00:27:19Sarah: Very nice, yes. And it was so nice to have you come and visit us today. Yeah.

00:27:22Scott Watkins: That's great. Well, thank you for all you've done for your community. It's really, really great to see. I really enjoyed it. I'll definitely be back when I'm back in the Bay Area here for work this week, but I'll endeavour to do it again. So thank you and I really wish you all the best.

00:27:34Sarah: Thank you very much. Thanks for having us and thanks for coming to visit Byxbee parkrun.

00:27:39Scott Watkins: Okay, great. Thanks. Okay, I'm here speaking with Stephanie now and you have been involved since the start here at Byxbee parkrun? Yes.

00:27:48Stephanie: have I have it's been amazing so we're up to 11 parkruns now so it's been amazing so positive and what roles have you done here everything so I'm social I do all the social media plus I set the course up every well I've been doing that for the last few weeks I've time kept I've done pretty much everything

00:28:08Scott Watkins: And like several of the others here, you're from Australia. Had you done parkrun in Australia before coming over here?

00:28:14Stephanie: I have, actually, but most of them I did in the UK. In fact, parkrun was my very first timed run ever. So, yeah, I never really lived in Australia where there was one very close, but I'm very involved here.

00:28:27Scott Watkins: And so what parkruns had you done in the UK before you came here?

00:28:32Stephanie: Richmond was my home parkrun, Richmond Park in London. And it was, I don't know, it changed my life. It absolutely changed my life.

00:28:39Scott Watkins: That's awesome. I think many of the people listening to this will say the same thing. So how long a gap was it between you being in London and doing parkruns there and this one getting set up?

00:28:48Stephanie: I started in 2012. I had a friend who dragged me very reluctantly to my first parkrun and I just caught the bug. And then I was there for seven years and came back to Australia and then we moved here in April. So I haven't been here that long.

00:29:04Scott Watkins: Okay, so your arrival here pretty much coincided with this getting set up.

00:29:09Stephanie: I know, it was just really good timing.

00:29:11Scott Watkins: That's great. And have you found that it's been a way for you to meet people here?

00:29:15Stephanie: Oh, definitely, definitely. And I think, you know, the community spirit in California is actually surprisingly amazing. So the reaction has been wonderful. But I think meeting, just being, I didn't know anyone when I moved here. So it's been great to have that core group of people that like-minded me.

00:29:33Scott Watkins: Yeah, and for those that are listening, talk us through the course here.

00:29:37Stephanie: It's in Byxbee Park, so it's actually an old waste dump, actually, which sounds horrible, but it's beautiful, and it's just a lovely out-and-back trail course, completely flat, no traffic. It's beautiful. Yeah.

00:29:53Scott Watkins: Yeah, I mean, you've got views over what's become wetlands now. I guess they've let the bay water come in and go over the top of the waste.

00:30:00Stephanie: Well, it's been 20 years. So, you know, if you didn't, if no one told you, you wouldn't actually know that. It's really had an amazing opportunity for all the wildlife to come back. And it's amazing. It's wonderful.

00:30:11Scott Watkins: Yeah, it doesn't at all look like waste. It just looks like part of the bay.

00:30:14Stephanie: Yeah, it does. So it's great what they've done.

00:30:17Scott Watkins: And what sort of reaction have you heard from locals who are discovering parkrun for the first time?

00:30:23Stephanie: Well, Americans really had no idea about it. They'd never heard of it before. So everyone, you know, people stop us who were just in the bay and who happened to be running past. They want to know all about it and they're interested. So it's been quite slow growing, but it's, you know, the community is great.

00:30:39Scott Watkins: And have you done the one up at Crissy Field in San Francisco?

00:30:42Stephanie: No, I haven't.

00:30:44Scott Watkins: Okay, so you've got to get your statesperson badge.

00:30:47Stephanie: I know, I do.

00:30:48Scott Watkins: Because I just thought of that before when we were talking, that I had done that a while ago, but now I've, I guess, regained my statesperson status in California by having done all of the parkruns in California.

00:30:57Stephanie: Wow, and there's so many of them, yeah.

00:30:59Scott Watkins: Both, both. So, well, thank you for all that you've done for the community here. I know what a big part of your life parkrun can be. And I think that this is awesome that this is up and running.

00:31:12Stephanie: Oh, look, me too. Look, I really feel like I owe parkrun so much. It really honestly changed my life. So it's just so good to give back.

00:31:18Scott Watkins: Yeah, great. Well, thanks for talking with us today and good luck with growing the parkrun here.

00:31:22Stephanie: No problem. Thanks.

Roving report Melissa Ellis — Benalla Botanical Gardens parkrun

00:31:25Melissa Ellis: Good morning, parkrun adventurers. It's Melissa here and I'm coming to you, finally, from Benalla. Beautiful morning here in country Benalla. About a two and a half hour drive this morning up from Melton. And I've got one of the volunteers today here with me. What was your name again?

00:31:42Robert: My name's Robert.

00:31:43Melissa Ellis: Hi, Robert. Love your parkrun. Thank you. How did you get involved with Benalla?

00:31:50Robert: I moved up here quite a few years ago and heard... that they were running a parkrun, so I thought I'd come along and volunteer.

00:32:00Melissa Ellis: That's really good. And have you ran parkruns before?

00:32:04Robert: I've gone in a couple where I've been unknown but haven't been registered, but I've not actually competed with my registration.

00:32:13Melissa Ellis: Okay. And you said to me you're recovering, is that right, from an operation?

00:32:17Robert: That's correct. Yes, that's correct. Three months ago I had a hip replacement and I'm hoping that within the next month or so I'll be able to get back and I'll probably do a parkrun and see what happens.

00:32:33Melissa Ellis: That's really good. So you must have known the people that were getting it organised?

00:32:37Robert: No, I didn't. I didn't know them from a bar of soap and I just walked over and said, well, look, because I've come from a running background, I would like to help you out because I think parkruns are great and I have a mate that volunteers a lot and also runs a lot of the parkruns down Lilydale Way.

00:32:55Melissa Ellis: Oh, fabulous. Yeah, it's a really good way to become part of the community, isn't it?

00:32:58Robert: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

00:33:00Melissa Ellis: Yeah. So can you describe your course for everybody who's listening?

00:33:04Robert: Well, the course actually incorporates part of the lake. We start off at the botanical gardens, which is absolutely beautiful. takes you out along through the botanical gardens around past the art centre which has a boardwalk in front of it running along the edge of the river and then it's a bitumen all the way around that follows the lake around probably for about halfway where there's a turnaround point and you come back running back through finishing in the botanical gardens again.

00:33:35Melissa Ellis: Yeah, a couple of pretty little bridges and some water lilies.

00:33:37Robert: Absolutely.

00:33:38Melissa Ellis: Very picturesque. There's a lovely playground right at the start-finish area that Zoe's enjoying very much today, the Rocket Playground. And you've got toilet facilities here and a covered briefing area as well. So, yeah, it's beautiful. So how long did it take them to get it up and running from when the idea was first...

00:33:59Robert: A long time from what I heard. It was a case of they had two or three meetings and it was just a matter of trying to sort out what the requirements are from a parkrun point of view and to see if they could actually get it up and running. One of the biggest problems that they had was the fact that I think initially they wanted to run around the lake, which is absolutely magnificent. 4.2km directly around the lake, you incorporate the botanical gardens, which would make up your 5km. But unfortunately, we cross a couple of driveways that run into what we call an RV park, and that created a bit of a problem, so we had to make it an out-and-back course. But it's still very picturesque in that it takes in the southern end of the park, which is predominantly bushland and so forth.

00:34:53Melissa Ellis: It is. Some of the central country towns, they really do have some of the most prettiest parkruns.

00:34:58Robert: Oh, absolutely.

00:34:59Melissa Ellis: I have found in my travels, so yeah. Okay, well, thank you very much for talking to me today.

00:35:03Robert: It's okay.

00:35:04Melissa Ellis: And good luck with the future of Benalla parkrun.

00:35:06Robert: Thank you very much.

00:35:09Melissa Ellis: Okay, so I'm home from parkrun now and on the drive home I had Danny screaming in my head going, context Melissa, context! And I realised I didn't really state where Benalla parkrun was. So Benalla Botanical Gardens parkrun, as it's correctly known, is 212 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, off the Melbourne to Sydney Hume Freeway. Now, Benalla is a beautiful rural country town, and it's known as the Rose City due to its public gardens. And yes... in the area where the parkrun is located start to finish there is beautiful rose gardens and and I didn't mention that so had to add that in so fabulous morning two and a half hour drive home Paul drove up there, but night shift worker He was dead on his feet after running parkrun. I walked with Zoe today, so I had the pleasure of driving home. We're home now. Another fabulous morning at parkrun. Special shout out to Cam. Cam, wow, you did it. I think, was that like two weeks? Not quite long enough for my liking, but still, good job. Especially like that I was one of the roving reporters named by your interviewee. And welcome to the Channel 5 News crew. I look forward to listening to your roving reports from West Australia. That's me signing off. Talk to you all next week.

00:36:43Tony O'Connell: Oh, what a marvellous set of roving reports we've got there. Lyndell coming in from Ros Gregor Trail parkrun, who spoke to one of the EDs up there, and some ladies that are relatively new to parkrun. Belinda, who came up with some great tips there, and that's travelling with a buddy, find a buddy to travel with. And how amazing is it that she's got out? She's over 100 parkruns, but so many of them are different parkruns. She's only repeated one or two.

00:37:11Melissa Erbacher: It's very impressive. And, yeah, like you say, I do like the tip, get yourself a partner in crime because I find you tend to get up to more shenanigans when there are other people involved. Is that your experience, Toc?

00:37:25Tony O'Connell: Yeah, yeah, definitely a lot easier to get up and get going in the morning if you've got a long drive, if you've got someone with you too. But as you try to adventure more and more, the parkruns get further and further away. Your NENDY seems to become further and further, so you have to get up that bit earlier. It's great to have someone to travel with.

00:37:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, definitely is. And then we had Scott Watkins, and he was at Byxbee parkrun. I should mention as well that both Lyndell and Scott submitted these roving reports last week, and we did mention that for reasons of brevity, we weren't going to include them until this week because – It would have been a bit of a corker of an episode last week and nobody would have listened when they saw it was an hour and a half long. So we took the decision with the blessing of both Lyndell and Scott to include their roving reports this week. And as they were relatively timeless, I think it works.

00:38:18Tony O'Connell: It's really amazing too that Byxbee parkruns another trail. So we've had Ros Gregor as a trail and Byxbee as a trail. When I started in parkrun, Mel, we seemed to be a lot more on concrete and paths. Now we're getting some really great trail runs out there in the mix too.

00:38:34Melissa Erbacher: We are. It's almost like people aren't scared anymore to throw a little bit of difficulty in. Into their events, which is very cool.

00:38:41Tony O'Connell: And, yeah, it's the second event in California. Lots of Aussies involved, building that new community around. When you look at their stats, there's a lot of people on two and three runs. The event's only 12 events old, but there's been two Zoolanders there, Mel.

00:38:56Melissa Erbacher: Has there?

00:38:57Tony O'Connell: So Byxbee's on the map with the Zoolanders. Yeah. I often think I wonder how people are not familiar with the Zoolanders when they see that one pop up in the results. What sort of curiosity that spikes in them.

00:39:11Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. I don't know what your experience has been, Toc, but I have had a lot of people who get confused about what kids we're running for. How can you think Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids Who Can't Run Good is a serious thing? Obviously, they're not into the pop culture. And it has been a long time since the original movie was released, so perhaps they missed that one.

00:39:35Tony O'Connell: Yeah, it was on TV only a couple of weeks ago, though, Mel. It keeps getting the replays.

00:39:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's because it's a classic.

00:39:42Tony O'Connell: Well, I have to agree with you there. Look, we don't see many of the Westerfolds in the movie. I haven't seen that one. New Anders are out there.

00:39:52Melissa Erbacher: Exactly. So thanks to Scott for submitting a report from Byxbee. He informs me that of the five international events he's done this year, he's submitted roving reports from three of them. I would like to know what happened at the other two events because that seems like he's dropping the ball a bit there. But I expect 2020 to have 100% hit rate there. Please, Mr Watkins.

00:40:19Tony O'Connell: Could be a big year for Scott. And then we had Melissa down at Benalla Botanical where she made the big road trip up last week and had to do the dash back to Euroa after the event was cancelled. She made it there this week.

00:40:35Melissa Erbacher: Great to hear from her. Speaking to Robert, who is just another example of the awesome people in the parkrun community. Never participated officially in terms of being scanned in at an event, but is so willing to volunteer and participate take part in that awesome aspect of parkrun.

00:40:54Tony O'Connell: And I wonder if Mel actually got to stop and smell the roses. I haven't had a look at her time. Maybe she spent a bit longer in the park, in the botanical section than she normally would on a run.

00:41:05Melissa Erbacher: I think that would be what I would be doing. I've only actually run in one parkrun that is in

00:41:12Tony O'Connell: a botanical gardens have you run in very many, TOC? they always sound so picturesque and beautiful yeah about a month ago we ran at a place called Wilson Botanic uh which is down in Berwick and that's not only through some botanical gardens but it runs around a lovely lake over a couple of bridges so it's got a bit of everything there but yeah beautiful place to run through I need to get to more Botanical Garden parkruns now Mel in last week's episode there was a few um I'm not going to call them allegations. I'm not sure what I'd refer to them as. But we sort of cast a bit of a shadow on the newest member of the Channel 5 News crew. And I do understand you haven't got his press pass to him yet, so he's probably feeling a little bit left out there. But I put on my Inspector Gadget coat and hat and went out and did a bit of parkrun investigating. Oh, yeah. We've tracked down Tricia. Tricia does exist. Tricia's actually a bit of a tourist. She's done 106 events, and out of that, she's been to 38 different events. So I reckon she's an adventurer in her own right. And she's just not a person that would listen to the podcast. So I think Cam might be on the ball there.

00:42:28Melissa Erbacher: So what kind of stalking did you have to do to track Tricia down?

00:42:33Tony O'Connell: Oh, look, my sources probably wouldn't let me reveal that now. No, look. The parkrun adventurers budget didn't extend to flying over in the Learjet over to Perth.

00:42:47Melissa Erbacher: The parkrun adventurers budget doesn't extend to staying in the free centre of Melbourne on the trams, I'm afraid. It'd be great if we had a budget. Maybe we should get a sponsor.

00:43:00Tony O'Connell: Yeah, yeah. Let's find someone really impressive. It needs to be... perhaps a French sponsor or someone that could justify a trip, you know, back to a base in France or somewhere like that?

00:43:13Melissa Erbacher: I would be totally on board with having a European-based sponsor that would like us to jet on over frequently.

00:43:22Tony O'Connell: Look, my sources have revealed a little bit of information, and I'm absolutely positive that Tricia exists. And not only that, that Cameron has jumped into the Channel 5 News crew quite happily, and I think he's going to be a great asset into the team.

00:43:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm glad to hear that you've been doing some stalking, TOC, because as it turns out, Trish is a bit of a stalker herself and this is not something that you would know because it came direct to the parkrun adventurers inbox that trisha also says she exists we got this message a little bit earlier in the week or over the weekend hi guys I do exist I met Cam at the hidden cafe last Saturday I recognised him as I had heard his roving report from shipwreck parkrun a few weeks ago which we had been at and I went through the photos to see what he looked like after hearing his report, just in case, dot, dot, dot. My son and I were at a launch last week but had popped down to the cafe to catch up with our buddies from Champion Lakes. And then it's that tears of joy emoji. Love listening to your podcast. So I would just like to say, for the record, thank you very much, Trisha, for getting in touch and letting us know that you are not, I don't want to say a figment of Cam's imagination, but that you do exist. You gave us a plausible reason as to why you weren't at Champion Lakes where Cam was.

00:45:00Tony O'Connell: I felt like I had to defend Cam because, after all, I was one of the two people that Tricia did bring up, myself and Melissa. We had to get on board with the defence there.

00:45:11Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. And I'm sure Cameron will be very happy to know that his badge, his ID badge, will be in the post just as soon as he gives me his address and bank details.

00:45:23Tony O'Connell: Bank details. That's a good one.

parkrun the Musicallistener song-title poll

00:45:29Melissa Erbacher: So considering we're kind of tying up loose ends here, TOC, some people may have noticed listening last week that we put the poll up from the week before, as per PK's suggestion, about parkrun the musical. And we wanted to know whether it was a yay or nay. Would people be interested? And we do have the results in from that. Technologically speaking, Backward me. When I was creating the poll on Facebook, I somehow managed to miss the make this poll only go for 24 hours situation. and instead made it run for a week. And once you have created it, you cannot change the duration of said poll, which is why we didn't include it in the podcast last week. So that's why we're going to give you the results now. So I would like to announce that parkrun the Musical, 73% said that'd be cool, as in they would go and watch it, and 27% went, meh, not so much. Now, I thought this was interesting, TOC, because obviously it's largely, you know, three quarters in favour of, yes, we want to see parkrun the musical. And there were lots of fabulous suggestions for songs that could be included, which we'll share in just a moment. But do you think this is indicative of the fact that people love musicals or the fact that of all the episodes of the podcast where we have had singing on with the Channel 5 news crew, people are on board and, you know, they might want us to participate in said musical.

00:47:12Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, I think it might be a little bit indicative that it is coming up to that Christmas season and there has been a bit of a tradition in past years of the Channel 5 news News crew making noise. I wouldn't call it singing. In my case, it's definitely not singing. It's more making noise. But I wonder if the other reason that people have, you know, 73% have come out and said, yeah, go for it, is they realise that musicals tend to go for more than one day a week. And is this a way of filling a parkrun void for the rest of the week?

00:47:47Melissa Erbacher: Hmm. That's a very interesting take on it, TOC. Obviously, people want more parkrun.

00:47:53Tony O'Connell: I'm wondering how many theatres would be happy to see a whole heap of people turn up in lycra and carrying water bottles.

00:48:01Melissa Erbacher: Going to the theatre in my active wear.

00:48:03Tony O'Connell: Active wear.

00:48:07Melissa Erbacher: Now, let's get to some of the fabulous suggestions for songs that could be part of the score of said musical. We'll start with Christy Shermer suggested Don't Cry For Me, Timekeeper. I am not going to try and sing that like the Evita soundtrack. I don't think anyone wants to hear that.

00:48:31Tony O'Connell: No, I think my singing is probably worse than yours, Mel. Michael Gentle suggested parkrunning Across the Universe.

00:48:39Melissa Erbacher: That could be a good one. Charlotte Nevison said, run by Snow Patrol for the tearjerker heartbreak-y bit. I'm on board with that. Big Snow Patrol fan.

00:48:50Tony O'Connell: Yeah. Chris Fraser came up with a number of suggestions. One of them, Billy Don't Lose My Barcode by Phil Collins. Slow it down a little bit. That one, that could be towards the Tail Walker end. Speaking of which... These boots are made for tail walking by Nancy Sinatra.

00:49:13Melissa Erbacher: Chris Fraser went to town, didn't he? Like he shared so many. And not only did he make suggestions in writing, he actually, it looks like he photoshopped some vinyl records so that the titles read what he wanted them to read. He read all the running puns. And the next one he had was Lycra and Laces by Stevie Nicks.

00:49:37Tony O'Connell: And not only did he alter the title, he even edited some of the artists as well. So that went down quite well. So we had, I want to hold your hand, the under-11s rule for the boodles.

00:49:52Melissa Erbacher: And also, as PK had suggested, don't you forget about me. And Chris also edited out the artist being your barcode.

00:50:02Tony O'Connell: We've got a reference, Stephen Tucker, giving the hill at Westerfolds, highway to hell. We get a bit of a theme going there.

00:50:12Melissa Erbacher: Yes. And Mitch McDonough, Springsteen's Born to parkrun. I like it. I mean, it does add another syllable into the song, but I reckon you can do whatever you like with music these days.

00:50:27Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, as long as it works and it keeps everyone happy. And Bruce Purdy suggested Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush. I'd really love to see a few Kate Bush songs in there, someone I used to really enjoy back about 30 years ago.

00:50:43Melissa Erbacher: Well, speaking of about, well, that's not quite 30 years ago, but Tracey Wood has suggested, well, she's actually singing the song, Whoa, You're Halfway There, in brackets, living on a prayer for the turnaround.

00:50:57Tony O'Connell: That'd work at a number of their courses. That'd be a good one. It would. Amy Rosa Hanlon has suggested, don't rain on my parkrun. I think there's a lot of towns in Queensland that actually like that at the moment, Mel.

00:51:13Melissa Erbacher: Yes. And then I love this one, or Hopelessly Devoted to webFMS, which is the RD's Ballad. Now, I like that one because, obviously, it's taken from another musical somewhere else. That'd be Grease.

00:51:29Tony O'Connell: Scott Watkins has suggested Paul Dempsey, Fast Friends.

00:51:33Melissa Erbacher: That could be topical. I have lots of friends that are way faster than me.

00:51:38Tony O'Connell: Cameron Drake, and this is one of my favourites. I actually read through this and thought this is a cracker. He's got the book of parkrun. Hello. Today is parkrun day, and I'd like to tell you all about our amazing course.

00:51:46[music]

00:51:54Melissa Erbacher: Yes, and then one that we couldn't help but get involved with was Helen Jane Davis shared an old favourite of mine. It's nine o'clock on a Saturday. The regular crowd shuffles in, and she said that she hasn't worked out how to change the next line yet, so give her some time, but I couldn't help myself, and I said, well, how about... Oh, and I should go and read exactly what I said so I don't stuff it up.

00:52:22[music]

00:52:22Tony O'Connell: There's a fast-looking man standing next to me, reading GPS on his Garmin.

00:52:27Melissa Erbacher: There you go. Toc's just done it. And if you didn't already have any of those songs as an earworm, you know that that one is going to stick, and you will be singing along to Piano Man for the rest of the day. Now, I loved this whole exercise and all the contributions from everyone who came up with some songs. I'm sure there are a million more out there. I know there's at least a dozen different songs titled Run or Run for Your Life and things like that. So they could all make a play for being included as well. But I do love the ones where people have just altered things verses and titles and haven't gone for the obvious things. So thanks very much, everybody, for your contributions. And PK, it looks like everyone wants a musical. Maybe you should be the guy who makes that happen.

00:53:21Tony O'Connell: PK, our artistic director.

Running Challenges fun fact

00:53:25Melissa Erbacher: Now, a common theme that seems to be running through many an adventurer's life of late I have noticed, Toc, is that we're all a little bit fond or a little bit more than fond of the Running Challenges extension. And I know personally, it's been delved into by myself of a weekend and you go down the rabbit hole like Alice did. And there's just so much, so much, so many random things that you can find in there, that don't seem related to anything else but I always find fascinating. And I think we need to make this a little bit of a segment in that each week somebody, perhaps my guest co-host because I haven't necessarily got one for myself this week and that makes other people do work that I don't have to do, needs to share something, some kind of a fun fact about their personal running challenges.

00:54:24Tony O'Connell: Would you be on board? Yeah, I'm on board. I've got one for mine, but I've also looked up this for yours as well. So I think we can share these fun facts.

00:54:34Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's a good idea.

00:54:35Tony O'Connell: The average location, I love the mapping on the running challenges. It lets you click on a link and it takes you to a map and shows you where out of all the parkruns you've done, where your average place is. And I love looking at it when you go to a distant one and seeing how minutely it actually moves across the map. So I clicked on my average location today and discovered that my average location that I've gone to is Seymour in Victoria. And it's just out of Seymour. And up until recently, I was actually in a park in Seymour that would have been ideal for a parkrun, but I've just slipped to the south of it. So I'm no longer in a really good parkrun territory. But Mel, I was looking at yours and you're almost at the turnaround point of the miles parkrun in Queensland. And how amazing is that? You'd almost be on a parkrun course for your average location.

00:55:28Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's pretty cool. I reckon anyone who pretty much exclusively parkruns at the same parkrun would have that parkrun course as their average location. However, for it to happen... to an adventurer who isn't always at the same course and ironically has never actually done that parkrun because I haven't actually been to Miles yet. I do find that really interesting. So I'm near the turnaround point, am I? I might have to keep a track and see whether or not I shift about the course when I go do some other events.

00:56:03Tony O'Connell: You're near the turnaround point. You're just a little bit south of it. So I'd suggest you probably need to head up the coast a little bit, maybe go and do Airlie or somewhere, and that might just bump you up to the turnaround.

00:56:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, if you say I need to go back to Airlie Beach, TOC, another visit to paradise, who am I to disagree with you? The things we do for adventures, eh?

00:56:28Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

Sign-off

00:56:29Melissa Erbacher: It's been another fun episode, Toc. Thank you for joining me once more. It's always fun to have the news crew on board and hear your lovely voices, almost live with me in the studio.

00:56:42Tony O'Connell: It's been a pleasure, Mel, and I've really enjoyed having a chat. I'm sitting here listening to the rain outside now and it's bucketing down outside, so I wish we could send a bit of it north.

00:56:55Melissa Erbacher: We wish you could send a bit of it north. There are lots of places that could really do with a bit of a drink right now. But can't send the actual rain, so thanks for sending your voice instead, TOC. And look, let's leave everyone with a little bit of a tease for next week. We are in the final stages of confirming the venue for Palm 2021, or palm20, as it were. And we will let everybody know what location it will be at next week. Everybody already knows, if you're a long-time listener, that it's going to be in Adelaide in South Australia, March next year. But we're going to confirm the event in case that in any way informs people's decisions about where they would like to pick their accommodations. It's a safe bet if you want to just get accommodation in Adelaide City. It's not going to be too far out. But just in case, we will reveal that for you all next week.

00:58:00Tony O'Connell: Really looking forward to the build-up to palm20, Mel. It's going to be a great weekend. The last two years have been sensational. And, yeah, I'm really looking forward to catching up with everyone again. It's one of those events where you catch up with all the voices that you hear regularly and you probably only see once a year. So it's a great weekend.

00:58:20Melissa Erbacher: It is, not to mention the fact that it's just 24-7 parkrun for a few days with a whole bunch of other fanatics and who wouldn't want in on that?

00:58:29Tony O'Connell: Eating, drinking and parkrun. It sounds like a normal Saturday. A normal Saturday on steroids. It'd be a great day.

00:59:32Unidentified speaker: Thank you.