Episode 210 - Aussie adventures

Welcome

00:00:23Paul Kitching: Welcome to episode 210 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. My name is Paul Kitching, but you can call me PK. And as a roving reporter, it's an honour to once again co-host this excellent podcast. And by co-host, I clearly need another co. So it's my absolute pleasure to introduce the one and only, the wonderful Melissa Erbacher. G'day, Mel.

00:00:46Melissa Erbacher: G'day, PK. How are you doing?

00:00:48Paul Kitching: I am fantastic. And, yeah, look, it's been a while. And thank you so much for asking me to get back amongst this fun. It's been great listening to so many of the great parkrun adventurers out there keeping the dream alive. And, yeah, I'm looking forward to us having a chat for number 210. Tell me, what did you get up to on the weekend?

00:01:12Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it was a big weekend this weekend, PK. It was parkrun, real proper live parkrun related. I had the pleasure of being part of a Facebook live. Well, it was YouTube slash Facebook live that was hosted by Danny Norman of With Me Now, the podcast that is a parkrun thing podcast. We've talked about it many times here on the pod. I have also had the privilege of co-hosting a couple of episodes. A couple of years ago now, Danny hasn't invited me back. He claims that I didn't do anything wrong. Just, you know, he's had better offers, I guess.

00:01:51Paul Kitching: He felt threatened. You're too good.

00:01:53Melissa Erbacher: But I won't hold it against him anyway because he was kind enough to say, hey, you know, we're going to do a live cross to the Northern Territory and would you like to sit in on it and have a chat with the people on the ground? And, yeah, it was amazing, a really, really wonderful way to be a part of parkrun's return in Australia, even though obviously we couldn't be there ourselves in person. The vibe was just awesome and had a really lovely morning. So that's kind of the biggest deal that I've been up to recently.

00:02:26Paul Kitching: Yeah, it was great tuning in as well. And look, not only the return of parkrun in Australia, the return of parkrun, well, globally for certainly a lot of Danny's audience, that's for sure.

00:02:37Melissa Erbacher: Well, yeah, and there's only four events who operated on the weekend in the world and it must be pretty cool to be the person who came first or got the fastest time, I should say, across all four of those events to think that they were the fastest person at parkrun on the weekend in the world.

00:02:57Paul Kitching: In the world. For those playing at home, where do, for those who don't know where to find that Facebook Live or YouTube, where do they go?

00:03:04Melissa Erbacher: Well, you can just head to With Me Now Podcast's Facebook page and they have a link of it there. Or if you go to YouTube.com backslash withmenow, you'll be able to find that video and a whole bunch of their other live videos that they do across all sorts of parkrun topics.

00:03:22Paul Kitching: I really enjoyed, I got up early and watched it live over here in South Australia and it was great. It was lovely to see you. It was lovely to see Renee. Lovely to meet Shani. I hadn't met her before. Wow, she's certainly a bright spark and maybe future roving reporter, some would say.

00:03:38Melissa Erbacher: She was a natural. I don't know if she's ever heard of our podcast though. That's kind of a prerequisite to being a roving reporter on the parkrun adventurers. You need to have heard of the podcast at the very least.

00:03:51Paul Kitching: I think so too. No, I really enjoyed it. You enjoyed being part of it all, no doubt?

00:03:55Melissa Erbacher: I did. I really did. Yeah. No, it was a good morning. It was great fun. But enough about me, PK. What have you been up to? I mean, you mentioned it's been a couple of months now since you co-hosted. So I don't just want to know what you've been up to in the last week. I want to kind of bridge the gap, please. What have you been doing to keep out of trouble?

00:04:15Paul Kitching: Well, yeah, I've been doing my own thing. I did make up my own 5K not parkrun course around where I live, meaning I could actually run from the front door like Mel Ellis style. So that's kept me busy. Yeah, so I was also inspired by Tim Oberg back in – or even like last year when he talked about 5k a day and he talked about the fact that if you did 5k a day in 2020 you could potentially do 20 20k kilometres therefore 2020 kilometres and that kind of got me thinking so yeah and I've kept up I've kept that up so today was what uh well when we're recording it's 265 so whenever you're listening to this it's around the 260s 270s if you're doing 5k a day and I know there are a lot of people out there it's nothing new to a lot of people But I'm not actually running five kilometres a day.

Streaky September

00:05:03Paul Kitching: I'm just exercising five kilometres a day, though I am doing streaky September. So I'm doing at least two Ks of walking slash running, which has been fun. And certainly having, you know, hearing Mel Ellis last week talking about the fact that she can only walk run around, you know, the one block, et cetera. It does make us realise, you know, I know people are listening in from different parts of Australia, different parts of the world, and you've got to go by your local restrictions. I'm very fortunate to be able to mix it up a bit. So on the weekend, I did my own not parkrun in the foothills and Ran to, we've got a beautiful swing that overlooks, I'm in the Adelaide foothills and it looks down over Adelaide. And I ran to the swing. I was the only one there and I had no one to push me. But anyway, and even there were magpies around, but they didn't bother to help. But anyway. And then on Sunday I did another awesome run and actually did my best second K ever. I won't bother with the first K, but the second K was all downhill, but that's all right. And I'm not sure, you know, whether it was the fact that I had my Ugly Christmas Singlet on or not, I reckon actually contributed to that as well.

00:06:10Melissa Erbacher: Definitely performance enhancing those singlets. Yeah.

00:06:14Paul Kitching: Another thing that I've been getting up to is, of course, being part of the summiteers that you may have heard us yabber about here in South Australia. So it's a splinter group that's grown out of Mount Barker parkrun where we run to the summit of Mount Barker. It depends on the day as to how far you want to run. You can run from the bottom of the summit to the top or you can run from the start of the actual parkrun course and the reason I mentioned that is that another event that I did recently which was actually an organised event here in South Australia was conquer the summit which has been going um I'm not sure how many years now but um and this year it was meant to be on earlier in the year and it was postponed and we were recently able to do it which was fantastic it's it used to be just when I say just it used to be a 10k event so from the very start of um Mount Barker parkrun all the way through and that with a few extensions would equal 10ks by the time you get to the top of Mount Barker. And that was it. And then a bus would take you back, you know, back to your car. But then a lot of people were actually just turning around and running back because they could and they wanted to and why not? It was there. Why do you do it? Because it's there. And so they decided, well, let's make it either a 10K or a 20K event. And so I decided to do the 20Ks and it was fantastic and loved it. Oh, my gosh. It was brilliant.

00:07:38Melissa Erbacher: Congratulations. That's practically a half marathon with quite a big hill in it, a mountain in fact.

00:07:44Paul Kitching: Yeah, well, absolutely. So it was a trail run. So I was tempted to actually do another 1.1 just to claim a half marathon. But, no, it's all about Conquer the Summit. And the other awesome thing about it is that the start and finish line for Mount Barker parkrun at the Laratinga Wetland, well, has just been beautifully refurbished. And so the council have spent a bit of money on a whole new, like, seating, trees, a new covered area, which is going to be fantastic when we finally get back there. And so it was really nice to actually experience that at a proper running event. And I suppose for them also to test it and see how it went with COVID restrictions in place, and I can... I attest that it went really well and I'm hoping that that's, you know, the start of something good for whenever parkrun does return.

00:08:34Melissa Erbacher: Well, that sounds fabulous too. Now, PK, I actually want to go back to you mentioned your 5K a day challenge.

00:08:42Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:08:42Melissa Erbacher: That works out at roughly 2,020 kilometres for the year if you do 5K a day. It actually... I did the maths. I got my calculator out because maths is not my strong suit. But it actually falls about 190K short. Really? Yeah.

00:09:00Paul Kitching: Maybe it was five point something.

00:09:04Melissa Erbacher: Five point five. Well, maybe I don't know. Once again, I'm not good with the maths, so I was just wondering, is this something that you have done the maths on yourself? No. Okay, so you haven't figured out every month you need to do an extra 6.9 or whatever it is kilometres just to make sure that you get over the 2020 by the end of the year? Because wouldn't you be annoyed if you got to, you know, the 14th of December and you realised...

00:09:30Paul Kitching: Oh, my gosh.

00:09:30Melissa Erbacher: You were still 200-odd K away and how were you going to do that in two weeks?

00:09:36Paul Kitching: I have to keep an eye on that. I hadn't actually thought of that. I do get my Strava report and I need to add it up. You're right. I hadn't thought about that. I'm actually, I've just done the maths and it's, yeah, you're right, it's 5.53 Ks, 462, whatever, 424. But thank you. You've actually reminded me that I need to go and have a look at that. And the next time we talk, I'll give you an update as to where I'm at. But you've reminded me that I usually try and do, you know, a minimum of five and often it's a lot more.

00:10:04Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's good. So you might still be on track without having to spend the next two and a half months trying to make up for lost time. Well, three months. We've still got three months to wait, October. Yeah, we've still got three months left of the year. Exactly, even if you have to up it to, you know, six kilometres a day or something, a couple of times a week perhaps. I will.

00:10:25Paul Kitching: Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad. That's a great reminder. Thank you.

00:10:29Melissa Erbacher: No worries at all. Well, it sounds like you have been very active. I'm a bit tired hearing about all that activity. I'm struggling a little bit with Streaky September, enjoying it and finding it to be a challenge as always. But yeah, even just two kilometres every day, if you don't plan for it and it creeps up on you the afternoon, it can be a bit tricky. So

00:10:53Paul Kitching: Yeah, I've found that I'm either, yeah, either running, if I'm doing my 5K a day and I'll try and get a 5K run in early in the morning, or I'll go for a walk at lunch, or walking the dog, like tonight, we'll get out and head out and, you know, take the dog for a walk. And even if the dog walk, which is what, about 20 minutes, is like one and a half Ks, I'll just keep walking for another hour, you know, 500 metres to get up to the 2Ks. So I suppose that's how I'm kind of making it happen this year. I found it actually a bit easier this year for some reason. I have to admit that I am yet to actually have a look at the Bingoe card and so I need to actually get on top of that because otherwise I'll miss out because there's a few things that I actually have to do whilst I'm out and about, aren't there? I know you've covered this off so many times but I need to just, you know, work that out myself.

00:11:41Melissa Erbacher: You've probably done a bunch of the challenges already without even realising it. They're that kind of easy to chuck in. But yeah, no, there's a few things that you do have to be a bit conscious of doing, you know, like the streaky Strava heart, for example, where you have to chuck a heart in to your course at some point of whatever size or dimensions you like. That's one I'm yet to do. And I mentioned, I don't know if it was, no, it was a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I'll often be out there and realise, oh, I should have done this or I should have done that. One of them is streaking in your pyjamas. And I did make the most about a week ago of a very cold day to get out in my flannelette pyjamas. Adam was less pleased about that because he's actually been streaking with me a lot this year, which is really nice. We're spending a a lot of time walking and talking with the boys and getting the dogs out and just making a big family outing of it each time. But one particular afternoon that was cold and I was getting the boys ready and he said, oh, I'll join you. I'll join you. I just, can you wait five minutes? I said, well, yes, but fair warning, I'm going to be in my navy blue with white love heart flannelette pyjamas. And he's like, oh, okay. And I said, it's all right. I don't mind if you want to walk a couple of metres behind me or in front of me so that you're not with me. And he's like, well, no, that's kind of not the point of coming with you. And in the end he just sucked it up and came along and I don't think we got any particular extra odd stares or anything like that. So...

00:13:18Paul Kitching: I'm used to the stares. I'm usually either wearing something bright pink, bright yellow, crazy. I always have a buff to keep my unruly hair well tamed. And or, you know, like the other day I wore the singlet. So, you know, I bring it on. I'm happy to wear some pyjamas.

00:13:34Melissa Erbacher: Me too. And see, that's the thing. I don't have an embarrassment gland. Where normal people have an embarrassment gland, I just obviously was born without one because that sort of thing doesn't faze me whatsoever. And Yeah. I mean, I even took Emmett out in the double pram the other day because it's actually lighter than our single pram. And I thought, you know what? It's already out. It's huge, but it doesn't matter. I'll just put the kid in. And I was kind of quietly taking bets with myself on how long it would be before one of the passersby made a comment. Because invariably, if I take both boys and the dogs at the same time, two dogs, two boys in the double pram for a walk, I will get probably half a dozen people say, oh, you've got your hands full. They can't help themselves. But this time when I only had one child and no dogs but a double pram, I was fairly surprised that I was almost all the way home after doing I think about 3K and a couple just said, oh, you've lost one. Yeah. I almost got home without anyone saying it. I did pass a few people who didn't say anything, but, you know.

00:14:40Paul Kitching: Next time that happens, you should just deadpan, just freak them out and go, oh, are you serious? Can you help me go back and see if I've dropped a child somewhere? And see what they do then.

00:14:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, actually, I did play up to it. I don't know if I've got a – I don't have a beepy button, so I won't say the swear word that I said. But I did say, oh – swear have I and I looked in and pretended to look shocked and I don't know if they were more shocked that I swore at them and I'm a stranger or that that I pretended to have lost a child I mean they there was a bit of awkward laughter after that but I figure well you know if you feel the need to make a comment to me then obviously I feel comfortable enough to joke with you about it absolutely oh one thing I did do over the weekend as well I was all inspired on Saturday morning to get out and do my (not)parkrun I didn't do it until later in the afternoon and and it was still just a walk at this stage but uh yeah I did my (not)parkrun on Saturday this week and didn't leave it till the last thing on a Sunday afternoon and then almost forget to log it so I got my (not)parkrun in for the week which was good too

00:15:50Paul Kitching: Congrats. Well, that's great. Someone who didn't have to worry about doing a (not)parkrun is Mark because he actually did a parkrun.

00:15:56Melissa Erbacher: He did. And he's also joined us for an interview. So let's go and listen to that.

00:15:59[music]

00:16:01[16 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Interview Mark Scarborough — parkrun adventurers roving reporter, on an extended family road trip around Australia

00:16:18Melissa Erbacher: Now, of course, we're very excited to have Mark Scarborough back to have a chat with us. He's still on his Aussie adventure with his family. And as many of you would be aware, he did a parkrun on Saturday morning, a real live parkrun. We'll jump right in. Mark, how was parkrun on Saturday morning?

00:16:37Mark Scarborough: Mel, it was just so amazing. Yeah. You know, we are so fortunate to have been able to be in the position to be in the Northern Territory when parkrun is recommencing, you know, in Australia as part of the Northern Territory. It's an absolute privilege to be there, you know, and it really did strike me on the day just how much parkrun, you know, means to me personally. And, yeah, it was just, it was so cool. It was so cool to be part of it. When we packed up for this trip, you know, we had kind of built an itinerary around, parkrun in case it did start up and of course we packed our barcodes like every good parkrun adventurer. But I think that we kind of resigned ourselves to the fact that parkrun wasn't going to start while we're away on this trip. So when we saw the news come through a couple of weeks ago, We were just blown away. Funnily enough, we were in Kakadu the night that the news broke. And I had a couple of people tag us in that post. And the next day, we were meant to be packing up and moving to Darwin for the next part of our adventure. And I'm like, oh, this is like too early, you know, to line up with parkrun. And I quickly was able to change some of our itinerary so that we could be in Darwin on the weekend, which was just absolutely amazing.

00:17:54Paul Kitching: G'day, Mark. Great to hear your voice, mate. And it was so nice to see you on the YouTube, Facebook, I saw it on YouTube and Facebook, the reports that we'll talk about in a minute. Mate, you sound very emotional about it. Did you have a bit of a tear on the day?

00:18:13Mark Scarborough: Oh look, you know, so afterwards we completed parkrun and we went across the road to their normal cafe for breakfast and I quickly recorded a roving report just in case things didn't work up. Phone coverage can be a little bit sketchy when you're on the road. And I don't think it really hit me until I was finishing up that roving report, you know, that it really, I did get emotional and kind of just realise again, just, just how important parkrunning is, you know what, and on reflection, it's not about the run. At the end of the day, you can go on a 5k run whenever, wherever you want. And a lot of people obviously doing that at the moment with not parkrun. But for me, I think it's, it is just the, it's the community behind parkrun, you know, that you can, you can rock up at a, at a park and, People will come up and talk to you and you can go to talk to people because you've got that commonality. And just the camaraderie that goes with parkrun, that's what I've been missing. And yeah, it was an emotional thing and it was just, it was so amazing to be part of it. We were just so lucky to be at the right place at the right time to be part of it and be a part of this strange time and a bit of history.

00:19:26Melissa Erbacher: You weren't exactly inconspicuous. You mentioned people coming up and talking to you. You guys were pretty out there on the weekend because it was a special parkrun for James in particular. What was the motivation behind going to Nightcliff? You had three parkruns to choose from for James' 50th. Why Nightcliff?

00:19:50Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, I looked at it a bit to work out which one for us to go to. And, you know, being good parkrun adventurers also, you know, chasing the parkrun challenges as well. So I've already got an N in the alphabet challenge for Nepean River, Western Sydney, but Nicole and the kids didn't have an N yet. So that was a good deciding factor. They'd already had a D and a P, but Nightcliff is also the northernmost parkrun in Australia. So that was hard to go past. I've done Freedom Run at Darwin before when I've been here for work. And during the week, I did a Freedom Run at Palmerston. Didn't do the Palmerston course, because the water park kind of fencing is closed at certain times and couldn't do that. But, yeah, for me it was the alphabet challenge for Nicole and the kids and the northernmost parkrun in Australia.

00:20:42Paul Kitching: I was really intrigued. I watched the video and it was great to see you live when I was watching on the Saturday morning. you actually there and being amongst it. And seriously, it just felt like I was back at a parkrun and it was great to experience that. Is that how it felt? And tell us a little bit more about the actual welcome speech and how that all rolled.

00:21:04Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, it was quite funny that, you know, Sharni picked us out to have a chat on the Facebook Live. That was quite funny. And to hear Mel's voice from the end, that was kind of cool. It was a nice little, I suppose... connection there as Mel said on the broadcast that wasn't set up or staged that was just purely just happenstance you know which is really really cool But look, you know, the day was just like parkrun, except for us, you know, having to get up an hour earlier, you know, so that was a bit fun getting up bright and early before the sun came up to get there for 7am start. But, you know, everything was just normal parkrun, to be honest. You know, there was a first-timers briefing, so we had the course explained to us, and then we did the run briefing, and yeah, it was shorter than it would normally be, and There was a lot of, you know, safety messaging there around COVID-19, you know, asking people to respect the social distancing and also be mindful, more mindful than normal, I suppose, of other park users noting that parkrun hadn't been around for six months. But, you know, it was just like, you know, putting your comfortable shoe back on. It just felt comfortable, felt at home. Nothing uncomfortable or awkward under the new COVID frameworks or anything like that. It was just parkrun, which is really, really cool.

00:22:26Melissa Erbacher: James has waited some six months now on 49 parkruns to make it into the 50 Club and How did he enjoy the morning?

00:22:36Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, you know, it's quite funny when we think back to Christmas and New Year's. You know, Nicole had to wait six parkrun events to get her 50 due to the air quality from the bushfires around Canberra over that time. You know, and we thought that was a really long time. You know, it was just so deflating in a way when the pause happened on parkrun, which we, you know, we still understand the reasons about it. But, you know, for James to be stuck on 49 for six months and It's been interesting. You know, he was disappointed because I did warn him that, you know, it can't be celebrated as it normally would be, you know, pre-COVID. And he was disappointed about that. At Wagyu Bridge, we do have a tradition where milestone is get to lead the group across Wagyu Bridge to the start line. And that was something that he was looking forward to doing back home. But, you know, we couldn't pass up this opportunity, obviously, to get a parkrun in up here. So we wanted to make it special for him, the night before we secretly bought a large five and zero helium balloon and hid that from him and Elise so that he didn't know about that until we got to parkrun the next morning and we tied that to him and to acknowledge the event Nicole, Elise and I we wore our 50 shirts and James wore his Wagyu Bridge apricot shirt but yeah he enjoyed it and I threw him up on the shoulders for the finishing line and yeah so it was I think it was all good in the end and to make it even more special is our parkrun family and friends back at home they put on a special not parkrun event on the Saturday morning as well and used the opportunity to test out an alternate course for Wagyu bridge which was quite good and they all dressed up in their red 50 shirts and and did a guard of honour across the bridge um you know to acknowledge James's 50 as well which was really really special and yeah I really do appreciate them doing that for him

00:24:25Paul Kitching: Mark, the actual event itself, how many people did they get and were they happy with numbers? I'm sure they managed it exceptionally well, but were you aware of that kind of thing? And I know obviously with the new framework and the number of scanners per people and how did that all roll?

00:24:40Mark Scarborough: Yes, I think they got about 30 or 40 more than what they would normally get. So I think they're up around 180, 190 from memory. But yeah, no, it all went smoothly. We were at the back end of the finishing group. You know, it was rather humid for what we're used to. So we took it nice and slow and easy on the day. So, yeah, we were at, like I said, the back end of the group. But, yeah, we got scanned in straight away and made our way across to the cafe for breakfast. So it all went, like I said, it felt like parkrun. It didn't feel uncomfortable or awkward with the new COVID framework in place. From my experience, the token scanning, we just had to kind of communicate to the kids is that when they got their barcodes, that you hold out the barcode, hold out your wristband, and then we place the barcode into a plastic container. So we just had to be careful, mindful of saying that to the kids, just that you hold onto the barcode and you put it into the plastic container. Yeah, look, it all works really smoothly, to be honest. They did really well. We had a bit of a chat to the event team afterwards and congratulated them on it. And, you know, they said there was a few little hiccups, but, you know, to be honest, I wouldn't have known. And of course, it's going to be hiccups as we come back to parkrun after six months not doing it and also just being mindful of the new framework. So they did really well.

00:25:59Melissa Erbacher: There are hiccups just in normal parkrun times anyway, so that's a normal week really, isn't it? Mark, I'm sure it's been a massive highlight on your travel adventures around Australia. You're in the Northern Territory still, but you've headed off from Darwin now and you're on the homeward stretch. Are we going to get many more check-ins from you while you're away or are the days numbered?

00:26:25Mark Scarborough: Yeah we've only got a couple of weeks left on this trip so yeah we're about 500 odd kilometres south of Darwin now to a pub called Daly Waters Pub, which is a bit of an iconic stopover in the Northern Territory as people head to the Red Centre. So yeah, we're really looking forward to getting to Uluru later on this week. That's something that will be a big highlight for all of us. But yeah, look, there's not a lot of parkrun courses to be able to do Freedom Runs at between here and home, but I'll certainly try my best to check some of those courses out on this trip. But yeah, we've only got about another three weeks left before we're back home.

00:26:58Paul Kitching: Uluru sounds fantastic, mate. Surely you can do a (not)parkrun obviously with respect to the traditional landowners, but surely there will hopefully be somewhere that you can do a (not)parkrun in or nearby Uluru.

00:27:11Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, I hope to get up early one morning and put on my run down under Singlet and do a run around the base of Uluru just to take in the The awesomeness that it is that. Yeah, this weekend marks the time that we should actually have been in Berlin for me to complete the Berlin marathon in memory of my stepfather. I was running for Pancreatic Cancer UK, raising funds and awareness for them. That's when my stepfather passed away from last year. And I think for me, just to kind of mark that, I want to just have a little quiet run around Uluru and just remember him and... taking the energy and what Uluru represents, I suppose, this weekend.

00:27:57Melissa Erbacher: You made it all serious now. I was going to say, isn't it somewhere down near Alice Springs that they've parked all those planes that they've grounded at the moment? Do you know where that is and will you be able to take a bit of a side trip just to see, you know, dozens and dozens of planes all parked?

00:28:17Mark Scarborough: Yeah, yeah, look, that's certainly one of the things I'd be very keen to go and check out because there's going to be some rather large, you know, commercial planes parked up at Alice Springs there that I want to go and have a look at. And there's a light festival happening in Alice Springs as well. I've heard some really good feedback about as well. So, yeah, really keen to check that out. Look, the Northern Territory, you know, you spoke about it over the last couple of weeks on the podcast and It really is a special place. We've really enjoyed our time up here in the Northern Territory. We've had the opportunity to do some Indigenous cultural experiences, and I think that's been amazing for us and the kids, just getting to understand how the Aboriginals lived on the land, their history, their culture and things like that. And we're looking forward to learning more as we head into the Red Centre because there's different cultures and things like that, depending on where people grew up in Australia, which we're looking forward to experiencing.

00:29:12Paul Kitching: Well, Mark, thank you so much, mate. What an honour it must have been to be one of the few that were there but able to actually experience parkrun once again for real, to do a parkrun and not parkrun. And thank you for sharing that with us. It sounds like it was a special day for you and your family and for James. And thanks for giving us such great insight into not only your day but also your journey and what you still have planned. Thanks so much. I always love your reports and I love having this opportunity to chat with you today and tonight. Thank you so much, mate.

00:29:46Mark Scarborough: Yeah, no worries at all. Thank you for letting me come on and relive the weekend with you again. And like I say, it was an absolute privilege for us to be able to do it. We are very lucky to have been able to do the travel we've been able to do in Australia and to be able to do parkrun. There's certainly been the icing on the cake. So, yeah, it's been great. Thanks, guys.

00:30:06Melissa Erbacher: Wonderful to hear from Mark who has been to a parkrun, as we said. I think I feel like I need to say that over and over again because it's still a little bit surreal to me. We obviously don't have any dates, even expected dates announced yet for Queensland or South Australia where we are PK. Yeah. I'm going to stay on the (not)parkrun bandwagon for a bit longer. And you know what? I'm even considering, and my mind might change as the weather warms up continually, but I'm considering streaking until New Year's Day to keep out of mischief. I'm not sure. It's a big time commitment. But yeah, ask me again at the end of the month whether or not I'm still, like I said, I'm considering it. But what, have you got any plans for other events? You're pretty much the most active of any of the co-hosts I've had for a little while in that respect. So I'm assuming you've got something on the horizon.

00:31:05Paul Kitching: There are a few things coming up, yeah. No, I mean, there have been a few other events. We have the Adelaide Marathon for Not do, but there are. And there are a few other events coming up here in South Australia, but the ones that I'm actually looking at are virtual events. And I know there are a lot of virtual events happening around Australia, the globe, but there's two in particular that I'm looking at, both in November. One is a global international event called Run in the Dark. So Run in the Dark. I think they've had it before. I've only heard about it this year, but you can either do a 5K or a 10K run And it is to raise money and awareness for the Mark Pollock Trust. Sorry, .org is the website, Mark Pollock. But it's an event that happens on Wednesday, the 11th of November. And I've managed to get a number of the summiteers involved, um involved with that one we got in early and um if you registered early they send you a bright yellow running top which is really the main reason I registered because I wanted a bright yellow running top so I was pretty happy with that I think that you can still register though I think that's up until the end of October and anybody who um now registers you get a phone holder with flashing lights as well as a medal and it's all about completing five or ten k's individually all in or in small groups subject to government restrictions wherever you are You also do get access to their online wellness hub, which has training, fitness and nutrition plans. And actually, I've had a quick look at it and it's great for those people who might be doing Couch to 5K or maybe need to go back and do Couch to 5K because they haven't been doing not parkrun etc so I think you know things like that I think some of the virtual runs are um maybe what people may help people you know get closer to actually returning to parkrun and the other one that I've just noticed here in South Australia that's just popped up today is an event called BRIGHT, B-R-I-G-H-T, which the local SAHMRI institution, which is the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, are holding as a bit of a fundraiser and awareness event in November. And it's challenging yourself and your mates to walk 50 or 75 Ks over 10 days in November. So either 5Ks a day or 7.5Ks a day. You'll get fit, have fun and raise vital funds for life-saving medical research at SAHMRI. So that one looks super. And again, I don't know, maybe this is my motivation, but again, there's a T-shirt in that one as well. So I think that's what's motivating me at the moment.

00:33:35Melissa Erbacher: Gotta love the merch. I do like these events that, and I've seen quite a few of the virtual events going around and there are even team ones where, you know, for the month of September or the month of October or something, you have to run X amount of kilometres as a member of a team and you can have a certain amount of people. And so, yeah, I do really... see the appeal of those ones that aren't just a one-off, one-distance thing or you've got 24 hours to do this amount of kilometres. It's the ones that are over a longer period of time that are going to get people out there doing more exercise more frequently, not unlike streaky September, I guess, you know.

00:34:15Mark Scarborough: Yeah.

00:34:16Melissa Erbacher: as you say I think there are a lot of us out there and I would put my hand up and be the first to admit that I'm one of them who instead of couch to 5k I've done more of a COVID to couch kind of scenario which is not gonna do well for my summer wardrobe and I certainly don't want to go shopping just because I can't fit into a lot of my shorts so I'm gonna have limited clothing options unless I get off my butt and do something about it literally

00:34:46Paul Kitching: It's getting out there, isn't it? It's just reminding us that we do need to. And I suppose we're fortunate here in Australia that we're heading towards spring is now here and summer is on its way. So hopefully that will help inspire a few people as well. So, yeah, it's just some nice things to look forward to, I think.

00:35:04Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, well, I look forward to hearing how they go, PK.

Sign-off

00:35:07Paul Kitching: Thank you.

00:35:08Melissa Erbacher: I think that probably pretty much wraps it up for another week. Thanks for joining me again. It's been fun having you along for the ride.

00:35:15Paul Kitching: I've absolutely loved it. Thank you. I forgot how much fun this is. And thank you again for the opportunity to chat with you.

00:35:22Melissa Erbacher: all our wonderful listeners out there and I wish them all the best and just keep on keeping on hey keep on that's all we can do at the moment one step ahead of each other and keep on doing it yep and if you're part of the streaky September mob which I know PK you are as well as I am fabulous seeing you out there wonderful to see all the streaks coming in and hope you're sticking with it and if you don't stick with it you manage to break your streak it's okay just start it again the next day

00:35:49Paul Kitching: Yeah, that's it. You've got to be kind to yourself. That's what I'm saying at the moment because only you can do that. We've got lots of support out there and lots of people, but also only you can be kind to yourself. So you've got to do that.

00:36:01[music]

00:36:01Melissa Erbacher: Those are words to live by.

00:37:01Unidentified speaker: Thank you.

Ugly Christmas Singlets

00:37:27Melissa Erbacher: Just recording a little short and sweet post script to go along with the short and sweet episode this week. It's been a couple of weeks between recording and releasing the pod as other creative endeavours got, I don't want to say in the way. They just took precedence over releasing another episode because the Ugly Christmas Singlets are here. And we are well into October now and orders are currently open. They're going to be open until the 21st of October. But if you're not on our regular social media channels, then you may have missed the fact that they're out. And just because you may not be on social media certainly shouldn't mean you miss out on the glorious ugliness of the 2020 release of the Ugly Christmas Singlets. And this year we've got shirts too, also kid sizes. So if you're interested, head to our Facebook page, parkrun adventurers, and or head directly to the International Ugly Christmas Singlet or Shirt Day page because they are now the home of Ugly Christmas and they have all the information you could possibly need or want in terms of Ugly Christmas Singlets or shirts and ordering them for this year. So get on it. The time is running out. Orders are open now, as I said, until the 21st of October. So get in quickly to grab yourself a limited edition, never to be repeated, the International Ugly Christmas Singlet or Shirts, which will be going along with the International Ugly Christmas Singlet or Shirt Day to be held on the 19th of December this year. Look forward to seeing you out there and ugly. Happy adventuring in the meantime.