Episode 218 - Alison King

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 218 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm joined by my co-host who is failing his parkrun adventurers subjects because he just talks about other parkruns rather than actually doing them. Welcome to the podcast, Ollie Spake.

00:00:40Oliver Spake: Thank you, Mel. Yeah, I don't have a great track record with homework. I wouldn't call myself a straight A student at this point.

00:00:48Melissa Ellis: Was I a bit harsh? No.

00:00:51Oliver Spake: No, look, it's the truth. The truth is never that harsh. I have again failed to do my homework and I'll have to own up. But look, it's going to make it all the sweeter when I do get to another parkrun. I got to go and actually do a parkrun.

00:01:07Melissa Ellis: Yay!

00:01:08Oliver Spake: That counts for something, absolutely. It was just my home parkrun.

00:01:12Melissa Ellis: That doesn't matter. Tell us, how was it?

00:01:14Oliver Spake: It was fantastic. It was a beautiful summer's day. We had 270-odd parkrunners out there and I got to be one of them for a change and get to experience actually getting that results email that everyone's slowly been relishing as we all step back into normal parkrunning. The lucky ones so far, that is. And it was lovely to have the opportunity to get to run around and thank the volunteers. But if I can be absolutely brutally honest, Mel, I had one thought as I was running around the course for the whole 5Ks.

00:01:52Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:01:53Oliver Spake: And after reading the COVID framework for our event, it was, this is embarrassing, don't spit.

00:02:02Melissa Ellis: Are you a spitter?

00:02:03Oliver Spake: I'm a spitter. Oh, I'm a spitter.

00:02:07Melissa Ellis: I wouldn't have picked you for a spitter.

00:02:10Oliver Spake: It feels even more shameful than it ever did before. And it should. It absolutely should. But yeah, hello to all my fellow parkrunners at Shellharbour there. I hope you haven't had the misfortune of running behind me. I'm a considerate spitter. I do try and apologise and move to the side, but I'm training myself out of it.

00:02:29Melissa Ellis: Wow, this is a great start to the pod.

00:02:33Oliver Spake: Yeah, failing subjects and takes the tone way downhill. Anyway, so that was parkrun and there was no spitting. It was just pure parkrunning delight.

00:02:47Melissa Ellis: But did you do a zoom zoom?

00:02:49Oliver Spake: I did a Zoom Zoom. I did as many Zoom Zooms as I could possibly fit in. Whenever I saw our favourite photographer at Shellharbour and a special call out to our special photographer there, it was good to have him back after a bit of an accident at a skate park a few months back. So, yeah, I was hamming it up with the aeroplane as much as I possibly could.

00:03:08Melissa Ellis: That's good. When I saw the photographer at my parkrun, I went to put my hands up and pose and then I had this, I've got to do a zoom zoom and down went the arms into the flight pose and the photographer gave me a big grin. Excellent.

00:03:25Oliver Spake: See, and that's half the fun. It's just... It's a bit of ham, just enjoying that moment with a photographer when hopefully you're getting as much out of it or more than they are. I think that's the answer to the question, whether it was a week ago or not. I can't remember. How did it start? Just from being a fool.

00:03:44Melissa Ellis: It's a good alternative for me when I still don't feel fit enough to do the jump shot.

00:03:49Oliver Spake: I was going to ask, no jump shots?

00:03:51Melissa Ellis: No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:03:53Oliver Spake: Given you've just commented that you did a Zoom Zoom, we've spoken about my parkrun experience. Victoria's back. You did a parkrun. Would you like to remind us where you went?

00:04:07Melissa Ellis: I went to Dandenong.

00:04:10Oliver Spake: How was it, Mel? How was it to have parkrun back?

00:04:13Melissa Ellis: It was so good. And even the dog came this week. We smuggled one of the dogs because we got three dogs. But taking three dogs, it's always kind of awkward because there is three of us. But if one of us wants to run, which me. Chihuahuas, they can't run for five kilometres. So that leaves Paul and Zoe trying to deal with three dogs, which you're only allowed to have one dog each. So we do have a dog pram. It just all gets really complicated. Anyway, one of our dogs was sort of wagging his tail as we were sneaking out the door. And I kind of, I sort of looked one end of the house and looked at the other end of the house. And I said to Paul, why don't we just take Chico nobody was looking the other dogs weren't around so we sort of grabbed Chico and shoved him in the car and off we went with a lot of guilt that we'd left the other two behind so Chico got to come to parkrun with us and walk with Paul and Zoe so that was really fun And it rained. It rained. But it didn't dampen our spirits one slightest bit because we were super excited about parkrun being back. And we were part of a field of 20.

00:05:19Oliver Spake: I did notice that. So that's a fairly intimate parkrun crowd.

00:05:25Melissa Ellis: It is. And we got to the start line, Ollie. And you know how usually the serious runners all go right to the front?

00:05:33Unidentified speaker: Mm-hmm.

00:05:34Melissa Ellis: I sort of went, oh, well, there's only 20 people, so I'll stand sort of back because I do intend to run. I'll stand back a certain way. And everybody else stood back and nobody actually went up to the start line. It was really weird. Anyway, there was a few blokes and they said, ready, set, go. And there was nobody on the start lines. Everybody was like that a few steps back. And I realised I'm the only girl, maybe for about 20 seconds as I'm running along with these blokes in front of me, I'm thinking in my head, I'm up for a first female here. And I started to get a bit excited because, you know, that's usually like no hope for me to be that first female. But then this other lady came sailing past me and I went, oh, well, it was nice while it lasted.

00:06:24Oliver Spake: Yeah. You enjoyed the experience though, obviously, being the first female.

00:06:29Melissa Ellis: I know, but it was funny because like it never would cross my mind to try to be any kind of position like that. And it was just that first few minutes where I had this realisation that there wasn't actually any females in front of me. And all of a sudden, like, I got this, like, wow, I could get this. Anyway, I was second female.

00:06:48Oliver Spake: Which is fantastic. And it's obviously, it's not a race. It's about enjoying the parkrun and enjoying whatever you want to get out of it. But well done, Mel.

00:06:57Melissa Ellis: But yeah, and at one stage, I actually lost sight of all the runners in front of me. We came to a bridge with an underpass and I had absolutely no clue and it was raining. So all the chalk markings had been washed off the footpath. And I had this horror feeling like, I actually don't know, am I supposed to go up to the road or down under the underpass? I really didn't know. But At the last minute, I spotted a volunteer, which gave me an indication of where I was supposed to be running. So I didn't get lost. Thank goodness. But yeah, that's the problem with a small crowd. If you haven't got somebody to follow.

00:07:35Oliver Spake: Well, it happens easier than you think. I know that we've had a moment or two Certainly in our history at Shellharbour where we'd have a Marshal in a particular spot, but if something happens and then just there's that gap, hey, you know, they get a bonus K out of the park, which is just fantastic. I mean, that's extra value, but you obviously don't want that if you're trying to be second-placed female.

00:07:59Melissa Ellis: Oh, and, Ollie, this is the other thing that happened at Dandenong. I turned up and there was an ugly singlet there out of 20 people.

00:08:09Oliver Spake: Oh, which vintage?

00:08:11Melissa Ellis: This year's one, a fluffy one.

00:08:13Oliver Spake: Brilliant.

00:08:14Melissa Ellis: Yeah, fluffy, that's right, isn't it?

00:08:16Oliver Spake: It absolutely is. It was the singlet version as opposed to the shirt.

00:08:21Melissa Ellis: Oh, now I've forgotten. It might have been a T-shirt.

00:08:24Oliver Spake: Well, I guess it's Fluffy. It's Fluffy to blame. Fluffy is very captivating, so it's very hard to look beyond. I mean, Mel did a fantastic job, obviously, with the whole design, but it's hard to look past Fluffy.

00:08:34Melissa Ellis: So shout out to Joanne Blackburn who was wearing the ugly shirt and I had a chat with her and, yeah, she was very happy to be continuing on the Christmas cheer with the relaunch of Victoria. And what better occasion to bring back the ugly singlets? But it's really good because at least you can spot the listeners.

00:08:59Oliver Spake: That's right. I mean, I too was in an Ugly Christmas Singlet, but that's just because it's fun and it's festive. But what better way to celebrate the return of parkrun in Victoria than the Ugly Christmas Singlet? And so Dandenong's a relatively new event, Mel? Yes, it was event four.

00:09:16Melissa Ellis: event four and tell us about the course it was an out and back and they've got a couple of little bridges so they do a little loop and you run across the bridge which is a bouncy bridge we got lots of warnings it was a wet morning so we got told that bridge will be slippery I didn't have any trouble even with my very low tread runners that are in desperate need of replacing I And to change the subject, this is another thing, Ollie. I've discovered that there is some runners out there that had an ugly Christmas pattern on them. Do you know about these?

00:09:49Oliver Spake: I have not heard.

00:09:51Melissa Ellis: I feel like I'm the last person in the world that's discovered them. And they're really expensive, Ollie, but I really, really, really want to buy a pair.

00:09:57Oliver Spake: Gee, well, sorry to disappoint, Mel, but you're, again, the second last person I hadn't heard. So you'll have to look this up and share. I mean, obviously, the Christmas singlet, the Ugly Christmas Singlet or shirt are the first and the closest to the heart, but hey, let's accessorise.

00:10:13Melissa Ellis: Well, I think they really only had a couple of odd sizes left, which luckily for me is in my size, so I could buy a pair. I'm kind of balking at the cost because it's not something that I would wear every day. Although I need a new pair of runners, they would probably be the ones that I save for one month a year, which is adding to my agony at trying to decide if I want to spend that much money on a pair of runners that I might wear for one month a year. But then somebody did comment to me that they would last me a very, very long time, which I think is a good point.

00:10:50Oliver Spake: Many, many Christmases.

00:10:51Melissa Ellis: So I think I'm going to have to buy them, but I haven't yet. But I'm on the verge.

00:10:56Oliver Spake: Well, the argument stacks up. You've got me convinced. And I understand there was another milestone this weekend celebrated at Dandenong, or at least achieved at Dandenong.

00:11:06Melissa Ellis: Oh, there was.

00:11:06Oliver Spake: Hopefully there was some celebration.

00:11:08Melissa Ellis: Yes. My husband, Paul, ran his 100th unique event, his Cowell. He joined the Cowell Club at Dandenong.

00:11:16Oliver Spake: That's brilliant. Well done, Paul.

00:11:18Melissa Ellis: Yeah. He's a pretty low-key bloke, so he didn't seek the limelight, I suppose.

00:11:24Oliver Spake: Ah, the limelight. He, in fact, shared it. I mean, was Paul walking Chico at the time?

00:11:29Melissa Ellis: Yes.

00:11:30Oliver Spake: There we go. Good work, Paul.

00:11:32Melissa Ellis: He had to carry Chico most of the way. Yeah.

00:11:35Oliver Spake: Well and truly sharing the limelight.

00:11:37Melissa Ellis: Yep. So that was our Saturday morning. So a very enjoyable return to parkrun in Victoria with a new event, a Cowell Club status and a wet chihuahua.

00:11:48Oliver Spake: Sums it up quite well. And hopefully there were a lot of listeners out there across Victoria and still some of the other states that are returning. We're still seeing a lot of fortunate parkrunners across Australia and our friends in New Zealand continuing and some of the others across the world, obviously quite limited, but a big step up in terms of attendance.

00:12:09Melissa Ellis: Oh yes, over 50,000 this week, I believe. That's the first time since the restart that there's been over 50,000 parkrunners. I saw that stat.

00:12:17Oliver Spake: Yeah, and still some events to come, but it's a nice start to the year.

00:12:22Melissa Ellis: And so apart from Victoria, apparently there was some other parkruns happening in Australia. Who knew?

00:12:29Oliver Spake: Outside of Victoria.

00:12:31Melissa Ellis: Yeah, the centre of the universe. So marvellous Mark. He has sent us another roving report. He was out on the road again at Fingal Bay, so perhaps we should listen to Mark.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Fingal Bay

00:12:43Mark Scarborough: Good morning parkrun adventurers, this is Mark reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew and we are today packed up again in our caravan for a couple of weeks and today we've visited Fingal Bay to get our F. And so Fingal Bay is the easternmost suburb of the Port Stephens area in the Hunter region of New South Wales and we're here for event number 370. Here normally over the Christmas period they have an explosion of visitors tourists coming to the area but on average they have 116 finishes with an average time of 31 minutes and 16 and we'll go have a chat with a few parkrunners So I'm here with Sue and Kevin now, who are avid volunteers at Fingal Bay parkrun. Good morning, Sue. How are you?

00:13:26Sue: Good morning. I'm very well, thank you.

00:13:28Mark Scarborough: It is a beautiful day here at Fingal Bay and I understand that you're a big fan of volunteering here at Fingal Bay.

00:13:34Sue: Yes, I enjoy volunteering. It's good. It's really lovely.

00:13:37Mark Scarborough: What's your favourite role?

00:13:38Sue: I usually go down to the boat ramp, down the Fingal Bay boat ramp as a Marshal and cheer on the runners as they go past and give them a clap and cheer. tell them to keep going and tell them that they haven't got far to go and encourage them basically.

00:13:53Mark Scarborough: So you like being part of the cheer squad?

00:13:55Sue: Yeah, I do. When I don't have a run, that's true.

00:13:59Kevin: And Kevin, what about yourself? I'm a Run Director here as well, but today I'm just going to be doing barcode scanning. I'm major rehabilitation from a very bad back injury, so I'm doing a lot more volunteering now and no running. So that's how it is so far and I love it here. It's just a fantastic community and a beautiful course.

00:14:19Mark Scarborough: I hope the rehab's going well, and I suppose that this does give you that outlet to still be part of the community by being a volunteer.

00:14:25Kevin: Exactly, yeah. Because you can't run, at least you can cheer people on, and that's what it's all about, really. I did do a lot of pacing before COVID, pre-COVID, and that gave a lot of satisfaction because obviously cheering people on and getting them to get a PB.

00:14:40Mark Scarborough: Yeah, excellent. And do you guys get out much to other parkruns?

00:14:44Sue: We haven't been to too many other parkruns around here. We have been to parkruns overseas when we've been able to travel. That was well before COVID.

00:14:53Kevin: So where did you go to overseas?

00:14:54Sue: UK. Yeah, UK mostly.

00:14:56Kevin: Yeah, we went to one called Graves Park in Sheffield and Endcliffe Park in Sheffield. Now, Endcliffe Park has 750 on average to 800 people. In fact, they actually try to get people to go to Graves Park in Sheffield as well because that one only has a mere 400.

00:15:13Mark Scarborough: And so out of all the parkruns you've visited, what would be your top three, Sue?

00:15:17Sue: Well, this would have to be my top one. And the others would be in the UK that I've been involved with, yeah.

00:15:27Kevin: Anything different to that, Kevin? Pretty much this one's the best in the world. I always tell people that as a Run Director, this is the best parkrun in the world. But then again, I am slightly biased.

00:15:35Mark Scarborough: I'll have to let you know after my run today. This is our first time here at Fingal Bay. And excitingly for us, we're picking up an F for the Alphabet Challenge. So yeah, we're looking forward to seeing it. Thanks for your time today. You're welcome. No worries. Thank you.

00:15:45Sue: Enjoyed it. Thank you.

00:15:47Mark Scarborough: So I'm here with Kevin and Nerida now and I understand you're a bit of a prolific parkrunner and have reached some lofty milestones at parkruns. So Kevin, how many parkruns are you on? What would be today's number? Um, 257 I think it is. That's a pretty high number and how many of those would you say would be at Fingal Bay? 230. Oh wow, so you're pretty passionate about Fingal Bay parkrunning. Oh wow, yeah.

00:16:10Kevin: Well, I was the Event Director here for a while, so that's passionate enough, I suppose.

00:16:15Mark Scarborough: And what about yourself, Nerida? Do you remember what number today is?

00:16:20Nerida: 118 today, only because he looked it up this morning.

00:16:22Mark Scarborough: That was convenient, wasn't it? He must have known I was coming or something. And the majority of those here at Fingal Bay as well?

00:16:28Nerida: Yeah, probably only about three or four outside. International, but yeah, most of them are Fingal. We started here with Kevin's mum, who's still doing it at 91. She's right here now.

00:16:38Mark Scarborough: Here's mum. She's got the 250 shirt on as well, which is pretty exciting. Hi, mum. Hi. This is Mark. Good morning. Yeah, I'm Mark from parkrun adventurers podcast. Are you happy to have a chat with us? I'll just stand here and nod. So how many has Colleen done? 255, I think it is. 256.

00:17:01Unidentified speaker: Between 250 and 260.

00:17:05Mark Scarborough: And all of Fingal Bay as well, I imagine.

00:17:07Kevin: No. Raymond Terrace, we were there for the inaugural. And she's done a couple at Newcastle.

00:17:13Unidentified speaker: And Bowral.

00:17:14Kevin: And Boweral. We went down and saw a woman do her 50th who was the same age as Mum. So, yeah, it was freezing. Yeah.

00:17:22Mark Scarborough: Yeah, Bowral's actually my nearest event I haven't completed yet, so that's on my to-do list in the coming future.

00:17:28Unidentified speaker: Will you do it in the winter?

00:17:30Mark Scarborough: Yeah, well, I'm a Canberra runner, so I'm used to the cold. It's all right for me. So, Kevin, were you the founding ED of Fingal Bay?

00:17:37Kevin: No, I was probably the fourth. I was roped into it. The previous ones, they were a team called Fish and Chips, and they were going over to walk from Mexico to Canada. So they needed somebody to take over, and... I took over. And how would you describe the Fingal Bay parkrun community? Very, very friendly. It's typical parkrun where everybody sort of gets in and talks to each other and helps each other. We don't judge people. We don't say, oh, you're too old, you're too fat, you're too lazy. People come along and they try. And as long as they look like they're trying hard, well, that's all that matters. And we try and encourage everybody. And, I mean, there's so many people here who come up and say that Mum is an inspiration to them all. And it's tremendous. I mean, we've had some great experiences with parkrun. We were invited down to Newcastle when they had a pair of twins down there who were the youngest ever to reach 100. And so they got my mum, who was the oldest, to get 100 to present them with their T-shirts. So, you know, it's things like that that happen in parkrun that really, really...

00:18:54Mark Scarborough: you know we just don't miss it yeah well actually that's not true we did miss it for the last yeah but we still came every Saturday anyway so yeah keep going here's a volunteer so it's good good good obviously good to be back um for everybody here um did Fingal Bay parkrun do something different um to support the community you know offline I suppose um

00:19:18Kevin: Well, yes, they still did the virtual parkrun and kept the results up and kept encouraging people. They didn't want to come down here and have a big group because that's what they were trying to stop. So it was quite good. You'd come down here and you'd see regular parkrunners who were just coming down and having a run by themselves.

00:19:40Unidentified speaker: It just kept going and it was really good.

00:19:43Mark Scarborough: All right, thank you very much for your time and best of luck out there today.

00:19:46Kevin: Have a good run. We'll have a good run. We always have a good run.

00:19:49Mark Scarborough: Thank you.

00:19:50Kevin: Thank you.

00:19:51Mark Scarborough: So I'm now with Tammy, who's one of the EDs here at Fingal Bay parkrun. What a beautiful day and a pretty big turnout.

00:19:57Tammy: Yeah, I'm not quite sure how many we've got so far today, Mark, but it will be definitely our biggest for this year so far. It's definitely our biggest after COVID.

00:20:05Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, I've had a look at your numbers and you certainly do peak around that Christmas, New Year's time. And I think this is pretty consistent with what we've seen in the past.

00:20:12Tammy: Yeah, yeah, definitely. 327 is our biggest and that was last Christmas period. So we're certainly, we're getting bigger, but we're quite a bit this year.

00:20:22Mark Scarborough: Yeah, so have you found that the tourist numbers have been down over the last couple of weeks since you've returned?

00:20:27Tammy: So we found that our local numbers are down rather than our tourist numbers. So our tourist numbers are still quite large and all the accommodation around the place, they're all full. They're at capacity. So the tourists are still coming back, but our locals are still a bit shy about coming back.

00:20:45Mark Scarborough: Yeah, we certainly noticed it last night, trying to find somewhere for dinner last night. Everywhere was full and lots of people buzzing around the area, which is good to see for the local economy, for sure.

00:20:55Tammy: Yeah, definitely. Look, as locals, we always go, oh, it's tourist season, but we definitely need tourist season to keep the economy going up here. So we are pleased that everybody comes. We love tourists and we definitely love them coming to our parkrun.

00:21:11Mark Scarborough: And how long have you and Rick been here at Fingal Bay?

00:21:15Tammy: So we've been EDs here for about 18 months and back up here from Canberra, we came back up in end of 2017. We started our parkrun journey in Tuggeranong.

00:21:27Mark Scarborough: Okay.

00:21:28Tammy: Yeah.

00:21:28Mark Scarborough: So I'm on the north side of Canberra, so we wouldn't have crossed paths that often. The better side.

00:21:36Tammy: It's always that little fight there, isn't it, between the north and south of Canberra.

00:21:40Mark Scarborough: Do you have that kind of rivalry in Port Stephens?

00:21:44Tammy: Not really out here because we only have one parkrun, but in Newy they've got a few in there and there's definitely a few. The Stockton's got their own special run along and they like to drag everybody in. The beaches, people just like to go and run on the beach as an opportunity. So there's definitely a few rivalries in Newy, but we're pretty lucky out here.

00:22:09Mark Scarborough: Now you're saying that parkrun has been nominated for an award. What can you tell me about that?

00:22:14Tammy: Yeah, so each year Port Stephens Council has a number of awards, Australia Day Awards, and one of the awards that they have is called the Port Stephens Medal, and it's... people or community groups that are doing something for the community of Port Stephens and our parkrun's been nominated this year for it. So on the 26th of January we'll find out how we went with that and our founder Jackie and our last ED Kevin are going along. We're only allowed two people to go along. So they're going along to the ceremony and hopefully we'll come out with a Port Stephens award.

00:22:51Mark Scarborough: That's excellent. Well done to you all for that. And you'll have to let us know how you go.

00:22:56Tammy: Yeah, definitely. You know, it's the first time this area has really started to recognise parkrun as having a lot of community benefits. And, you know, it's one of the reasons that I and Rick got into it is we love the community of the whole thing. And... It's great. I probably like volunteering more than I like running. It's just I like helping people get through whatever adversity that they're going through at the time. So we just love it.

00:23:24Mark Scarborough: Well, I think it's good for people that do move around that obviously you can kind of pick up from your community in Tuggeranong and move here and just kind of integrate quite seamlessly into a new community.

00:23:34Tammy: Absolutely. And one of the things I also noticed, we're getting quite a few people that are starting to wear run-down-under shirts, and it automatically leaves you something to talk about when you go to places. So parkrun and run-down-under, they all interconnect and certainly promote that shared sense of I've got something in common with someone so I can start talking with someone.

00:23:56Mark Scarborough: Yeah, and that's a good icebreaker. I saw somebody here today with a Dubbo Stampede half-marathon shirt. I'm like, yeah, I did it that year as well.

00:24:02Tammy: Yeah, yeah. It makes it easier when you already know you've got something in common with somebody to have a chat about it, where you're from, what you're doing. So, you know, Hubby and I are military, so we like that. You've always got something in common when you go around to the bases as well. So it's nice to have something in common to chat about.

00:24:25Mark Scarborough: Now, last and most important question, where's coffee?

00:24:29Tammy: Right in here, Longboat Cafe. That's our local supported cafe. So we'll be popping in there afterwards.

00:24:36Mark Scarborough: I think you guys get the award for the closest coffee place to the finish line ever. Like, what, it's about 10 metres?

00:24:42Tammy: It's in the middle of the course.

00:24:45Mark Scarborough: This is ideal.

00:24:46Oliver Spake: All right, it's time for coffee. Thanks for that.

00:24:48Tammy: Lovely. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for coming along.

00:24:50Oliver Spake: Thank you, Mark, for again taking us on the road and congratulations to the Fingal Bay parkrun team on the nomination. Certainly Fingal Bay looks like a beautiful course. I really, really wish that I had timed my visit there last year when parkrun was actually happening, so it's definitely one for the list to come back to. Obviously it's well supported in the community too.

00:25:13Melissa Ellis: Yes, and both Sue and Kevin named it number one best in the world for

00:25:21Oliver Spake: That's blowing top three right out of the water.

00:25:24Melissa Ellis: It is. But I've heard that before. I've heard people who've gone to Fingal Bay that have rated it very high. So it must be a lovely parkrun.

00:25:32Oliver Spake: And it's an F. Yeah, it's just that nice combination, isn't it?

00:25:35Melissa Ellis: Yeah, they're few and far between those Fs.

00:25:37Oliver Spake: Oh, I like your alliteration.

00:25:38Melissa Ellis: I know, how good was that?

00:25:41Oliver Spake: But I remember the bushland for a big part of the run and then coming and stretching around the back of the beach there. It really is a beautiful spot. Just to imagine it with parkrunners, with actual parkrunners, I'm sure it would be a pretty special time. So we certainly wish Tammy, Kevin, Jackie, the whole Fingal Bay parkrun family all the best for the 26th and obviously good news on the award. But look forward to visiting you one day as well.

00:26:09Melissa Ellis: Definitely. And even though I've already got an F, there's plenty of people out there going for their second alphabet. So I might have to jump on that bandwagon.

00:26:16Oliver Spake: I think it's a must.

00:26:17Melissa Ellis: And Kevin's mum, Ollie, Colleen, she's got a 250 shirt. She's still parkrunning at the age of 91. And I believe she has got a connection at Newy where she visited. Did you know about that visit?

00:26:32Oliver Spake: I didn't know about that visit. I do recall the twins. I absolutely do recall the twins. And I really think that that's just beautiful how the hunter connection really shows again, hearing that Colleen was there to obviously recognise them and to just spread that parkrun love. I've heard of Colleen and that's very impressive. Obviously, she's working quickly towards her 500 shirt.

00:26:58Melissa Ellis: And Fingal Bay is at capacity with tourism at the moment, which is really good in these COVID times. The community, which obviously relies on tourism, is doing well and benefiting at the moment.

00:27:12Oliver Spake: Yeah, there's obviously a lot of people taking it on the road locally, a lot of people that might have gone overseas or really just want to get out and have a bit of a change after a long time locked up. It's great to see that local tourism.

00:27:24Melissa Ellis: And the COVID numbers are settling down, Ollie. I know in Victoria today we had our 12th day of no community transmission. I believe New South Wales had no community transmission. So things are looking good that we can potentially travel to Queensland for PALM. We need numbers to stabilise and we need those borders open so that we can plan this Adventurer Listener Meetup.

00:27:52Oliver Spake: Yeah, look, we've put it out there. We're really, really, truly hoping. We need numbers to keep working in the right direction and it is really heartening. Obviously, that's just one angle towards it, but it's really heartening to see those numbers improving and people having the opportunity to take local holidays and to spend time with loved ones. It's been a tough Christmas and New Year and we'd really like to... even slightly make up for that by having a gathering for PALM up in Queensland in April.

00:28:22Melissa Ellis: Does it reflect on me, Ollie, that I'm not too bothered about visiting family for my holidays? I just want to go and see an emu?

00:28:30Oliver Spake: Well, again, that's just the power of Fluffy by the sounds of it. Have you told your family this, I suppose, is what I should be asking.

00:28:38Melissa Ellis: I don't even know if they'll be coming with me at this stage. The way they're going, I think I'll be coming on my own. But that's okay.

00:28:45Oliver Spake: Yeah, it will be a fantastic PALM. We just hope it can happen.

00:28:49Melissa Ellis: And we have an interview. You've got an interview. You spoke to Alison.

00:28:55Oliver Spake: I did. I might be getting a little New Zealand obsessed here, but it was a good opportunity to speak to someone who's obviously also enjoying parkrun regularly at the moment and just hear a little bit about her story.

00:29:09[music]

00:29:09Melissa Ellis: Let's hear your interview with Alison now.

00:29:12[17 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Interview Alison King — Co-Event Director, Puarenga parkrun (Rotorua, New Zealand); creator of the blog "Runs…

00:29:29Oliver Spake: Our guest is a friend of the parkrun adventurers from way back. In episode 26, Mel and Scotty spoke to the Event Director of the then-new Puarenga parkrun, which is the very unique geothermal parkrun in Rotorua, New Zealand. Since then, she's taken her parkrun passion on the road a little more. She's now a member of the World Tourist Club and is the creator of the blog, Runs With A Barcode, An Unofficial Guide to New Zealand parkruns. Welcome, Alison King.

00:30:00Alison Fraser (King): Thanks for having me.

00:30:02Oliver Spake: No, thank you for joining. And it's nice to hear a little more about New Zealand and to hear more about the action from the weekend and obviously what's been going on. How are you, Alison? And how's Puarenga parkrun going?

00:30:13Alison Fraser (King): Well, we're going awesome. It was a bit of a scorcher today. I was run directing and I didn't see what the temperature was before. But our Timekeeper, who usually wears a hoodie, had to take it off, and just being a t-shirt so it was a very hot day for us in terms of our parkrun and when we started we celebrate our fifth birthday this year and we got 128 I think at our inaugural and then numbers dipped because you get heaps that come to the first parkrun I mean it's New Zealand-wide and it happens worldwide. We average probably around 70 in winter. And in summer, pre-COVID, we used to get a lot of international tourists. And we'd be the whole of last summer until lockdown, we were getting over 100. And we've just got back up into the hundreds the last couple of weeks. So we had 115 today.

00:31:04Oliver Spake: And you're starting to see some more, at least New Zealand-based tourists coming through?

00:31:09Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, we've been getting New Zealand visitors pretty much since we restarted. I think as New Zealanders, we're used to travelling and most people would go over to Australia on holiday. So this is not being able to leave the country for a holiday is actually a really good excuse to see more of what we've got in our own backyard. And we've got so many awesome parkruns and so many amazing national parks and just

00:31:37Oliver Spake: hidden spots in our own regions really you don't have to go far to have a good time yeah it's certainly been one of the silver linings of the experience of the last year or so is that discover your backyard we found it here too and obviously as parkrun is getting started again in Australia now it's giving a bit of an opportunity to explore more of those spots yeah what I do remember though of course and I think it was at least four years ago when you were last on the pod with Scotty and Mel We did hear about some of the pretty spectacular features of Puarenga parkrun. So for those that might not have listened or, of course, if anything's changed, could you remind us about some of the features of the parkrun there?

00:32:17Alison Fraser (King): So we remain the world's parkrun's only parkrun that goes through active geothermal area I suppose geothermal activity um we haven't had any changes to the course because of the geothermal activity which is you know quite lucky for us we don't want we don't want anything else of the ordinary because otherwise we might not be able to keep going we have a few barefoot runners and they always tell us where it you know where it's a bit warmer than you can tell where that their activity is when they run just because of how much warmer it is

00:32:49Oliver Spake: And so today's scorcher is absolutely climate, not geothermal?

00:32:53Alison Fraser (King): Yes, totally summer related. It was, I think it went up to 27 today, which is a bit hot for me.

00:33:00Oliver Spake: Yes, absolutely. And some of the pictures there, of course, have been beautiful. And so if I understand correctly, when we spoke, Puarenga was just being launched. You were the Event Director. You're now Co-Event Director, is that right?

00:33:13Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, when we were just starting, it was actually a real funny coincidence. There's this guy who just moved to Rotorua. He had spent the previous year in Pororoa and before that had been living in the UK where he had helped set up four parkruns. His name's Jason Chapman. And he was out for a run one evening and met up with some other runners and said, oh, it'd be really cool if the city had a parkrun. And they said, you need to talk to Alison. And so he helped with the launch and he's Co-Event Director as well. And it's been really awesome because he's got that history. He was involved with parkruns since 2008, 2009. Bramhall parkrun was... The very last parkrun to be known as a time trial in the UK before they switched to parkruns. So one of the original 10. So he was involved with that and has been involved with heaps of others. And it's always good to have experience when you're trying to do something that you've never really done before.

00:34:15Oliver Spake: That's right. And with the pause, the parkrun pause and the relaunch, we've seen 2020 clearly change a lot of things for us all. But New Zealand's parkrun community has done a pretty good job at spreading a bit of parkrun joy for everyone, both locally and globally. We've obviously seen yourself pop up on the live stream with Danny from With Me Now and Joe Sinton-Hewitt. And we... Absolutely loved the relaunch Adopt-A-Country. So for those that might not have heard, who did you adopt?

00:34:46Alison Fraser (King): We adopted Germany. We have a German family who come to parkrun. And so some of the countries had already been snapped up, the ones I thought we could adopt. But it kind of made sense for us to choose Germany when we've got this German family and some other German expats in the city. And everyone really got into it. Red, yellow, black, pretty easy colours to dress up in. And we even had some beer at the start.

00:35:11Oliver Spake: True style. That's fantastic. And did you hear back from parkrun in Germany? Any connections there or anyone reach out?

00:35:19Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, well, I emailed all of the parkruns in Germany just to tell them what we were doing and that we were thinking of them. And we received some really nice emails back. So that was quite good just to let them know that we were thinking of them.

00:35:32Oliver Spake: That's great. And I suppose you're well and truly settled, it seems, into parkrun life since the unpause or the relaunch. And from when we last heard from you on parkrun adventurers, I think you'd done one parkrun other than your own?

00:35:47Alison Fraser (King): I don't know. I'd done one parkrun total.

00:35:49Oliver Spake: Oh, one parkrun total. My apologies. So I trust your total has obviously expanded significantly since then. And as we said at the start, you've been writing a blog. What's inspired your blog and how have you enjoyed producing that?

00:36:03Alison Fraser (King): Well, at the start of last year, I just really wanted to write a book. I'm a trained journalist. I've worked in a newsroom for like 15, 16 years and I At that time, I wasn't doing any other writing. And I wanted to write a book. And I was trying to come up with all these ideas. And I thought, I'll just do one on parkrun. And so I came up with this idea to do a guidebook to parkruns of New Zealand to help the international tourists be able to find their way around a bit more and to help them choose which parkruns to do if they're here on holiday. Because a year ago, we were getting a lot of international tourists to our parkruns. and to other parkruns around the country. And then so I started putting all that together. And then I thought I should do a blog as well, just stick it all online. And from there, I started writing people's stories. So well, I've spoken to one of the other New Zealand correspondent you have, Steve Darby, I've spoke to him, I've spoken to a guy called Scott Arrell, who is behind the Scott Airplanes movement here in New Zealand. So that's where you, you know, is your your zoomies as the male calls them I love those yeah and spoken to people who've run every every parkrun in the country people who just volunteer a lot yeah all kinds of different things I've done volunteer profiles to help people learn about what the volunteer roles involve and how easy it is really, like how you really can't go wrong when it comes to barcode scanning, for example, or tail walking to try to encourage more people to give it a go.

00:37:38Oliver Spake: Oh, look, it's a great initiative. And have you had much in the way of feedback from anyone reading, anyone using that to help guide them in terms of where to visit or even to try some of those roles?

00:37:50Alison Fraser (King): I've seen other parkruns sharing the Timekeeper when they've got a vacancy, for example, and just, oh, this is what it involves. So I've seen that from some parkruns. I was down in Invercargill at New Year. I ran Balclutha parkrun on New Year's Day and Invercargill parkrun on Saturday. And I met up with another tourist who reads the blog and was like, oh, is there anything that you'd like to see? And he goes, oh, just keep doing what you're doing. It's all good. So, I mean, that's really cool to hear that. But I really just want to hear people's ideas as well. There's no point telling me that you love it. There are always lots of stories. So tell me who you want to see on there and I'll do my best.

00:38:29Oliver Spake: More inspiration. Well, that sounds like a challenge.

00:38:32Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. Yeah.

00:38:33Oliver Spake: We'll absolutely advertise that if people want to see and want to hear of some of those more angles, particularly New Zealand focused.

00:38:41Alison Fraser (King): I'm trying to find, see if I could find who has volunteered the most in New Zealand. But I think I covered that in my photographer profile story. Yeah, she's volunteered a heck of a lot. I think it was 180 times as photographer.

00:38:57Oliver Spake: Which is fantastic. I know that when you find a good parkrun photographer, it's really hard to let them go. There are some great ones out there and it sounds like that would be one. Now that's clearly taken you to a few more parkruns. So what's your event tally up to now and what are some of the highlights there?

00:39:14Alison Fraser (King): In total, I've now run 59 events across four countries. So after I set up Puarenga parkrun, we ran what was the eve of our second event when I got the news that my dad had died in the UK. Not quite unexpected, but still comes as a bit of a surprise. Then I went back to the UK for a couple of weeks and I ran my second and third parkruns in at Stratford-upon-Avon. Then I came back here and ran Cornwall parkrun. And then after a few weeks, we decided we were going to move back to the UK. And we ended up being there for 16 months. So that helped with my parkrun tourism tally. But I didn't really get into tourism until we were thinking about moving back to New Zealand. I ran over 20 events at Stratford-upon-Avon. I joined their core team as well. They're a really cool event. If you ever get the chance to go to the UK or if you're a UK listener and when parkrun starts up, I highly recommend going to see those guys. Not biased at all. But I've run in New Zealand out of – there's 32 at the moment. 33rd starts in two weeks from today that we're recording, January the 30th, and I've run 27.

00:40:26Oliver Spake: So you're well on the way.

00:40:27Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. I've already got –

00:40:29Oliver Spake: flights booked for the new one plans for I'm missing currently two on the North Island I haven't done and three on the South Island so all bar one I've got plans for so that puts you pretty close to being is there an official name I think you know because we've got our statesmanship in Australia um I think we've we've had a stab at trying to um impose statesmanship on New Zealand but far from us to actually dictate maybe what's the term for a north islander or a south islander in parkrun world

00:40:59Alison Fraser (King): um well no one really separates the two islands when it comes to parkrun other than parkrun themselves when you've run all of them you're a countryman yep we haven't got a snazzy title yet I think we need need to to get something pretty cool all right so sadly nothing really amazing sorry we need to be a

00:41:21Oliver Spake: Oh, that's all right. I'm sure we can help with some ideas too. But yeah, so you've got some travels planned. Does 2021 have more adventures in the pipeline or is it more of a case of let's see what the world has to offer and you'll just plan some travels around that?

00:41:37Alison Fraser (King): Well, there's the five parkruns. Well, there'll be soon six that I haven't yet done. They're in my sights. And also some Wilson Index hunting.

00:41:47Oliver Spake: Ah, yeah. Yes.

00:41:49Alison Fraser (King): It's really hard where we are. Where Rotorua is, I'm an hour, just about an hour and a half at a nice cruisy drive away from four or five parkruns now. But there's still quite a way to go in the morning if you just want to go and get a Wilson Index number. But I have been known to do that. There's a new one, the University of Waikato parkrun, which started in November. I was there for their inaugural and then I went back for events four and five.

00:42:16Oliver Spake: So it's good to fill in those gaps.

00:42:17Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, so I'm going back there soon.

00:42:19Oliver Spake: Okay, so four and five still to be filled in.

00:42:24Alison Fraser (King): Oh, no, I filled those.

00:42:26Oliver Spake: Oh, yes.

00:42:26Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, I need a six and an eight. I'm going to Trentham Memorial for my six. So I'm not going there until March 8. I've no idea where I'm going to fill that. And then I've got nothing in my teens. So I've got a lot of low numbers to get.

00:42:40Oliver Spake: Okay, you'll be well on the way then. And so what else outside of parkrunning? Any other plans and more plans with the blog or even the book in 2021?

00:42:50Alison Fraser (King): The book is going to get published this year, I promise. I'm just working on finding high-res photos for each of the parkruns. I'm halfway there and it's really hard to find exactly what I want because I need vertical pictures. So if anyone's got any high-res pictures of parkruns in New Zealand, then feel free to message me.

00:43:08the Informant: Yes.

00:43:09Alison Fraser (King): When I go and do the parkrun, like a new parkrun that I haven't done, my time doesn't actually look that great because I spend most of that time, I take pictures, I get video, I make Instagram reels out of the parkrun. That's what parkrun's about really, isn't it? Enjoying, when you're touring, you're soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the sights rather than just gunning for a time.

00:43:29Oliver Spake: It's a community event much more than a running event. I do the same thing. In fact, I think that's taught me to do it just even when I'm meant to be out training.

00:43:37Alison Fraser (King): Yeah.

00:43:37Oliver Spake: I find something that just distracts me.

00:43:39Alison Fraser (King): Although if you are a fast runner and you'd like to, you know, see if you can get a course record at a different parkrun, then go for it. I would never be getting any course records.

00:43:49Oliver Spake: That's obviously given you pretty good opportunities to make connections with the local teams, to share a bit of their story. So yeah, has that given you great experiences in getting to know those local communities?

00:44:01Alison Fraser (King): I've had such awesome experiences. I think just from being an Event Director, we've got a little Facebook group for the EDs here in New Zealand. And so it's quite collegial. But yeah, with the book as well and the blog, I've spoken to every founding Event Director and most of them are still at their events.

00:44:19Oliver Spake: Are there any other highlights across New Zealand, the UK or the other two countries you visited?

00:44:24Alison Fraser (King): Well, I've done three in Australia. The three I've done are Main Beach, Broadbeach Waters and Centennial, all because I was at conferences and they fitted in.

00:44:34Oliver Spake: Perfect. So I can ask you your Australian top three, of course.

00:44:37Alison Fraser (King): My Australian top three are in no particular order, Main Beach, Broadbeach Waters and Centennial.

00:44:42Oliver Spake: Excellent.

00:44:43Alison Fraser (King): I like Broadbeach Waters because I saw a kookaburra and a bat. That was a major highlight for me. Main Beach I did because it's like the Pioneer parkrun for Australia, isn't it? The Pilgrim event. And I did Centennial because the timing fitted in with the conference I was at because it was a seven o'clock start.

00:45:00Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:45:00Alison Fraser (King): But my favourite New Zealand one is Puarenga parkrun because it's my home parkrun. And we have an awesome cafe called Ciabatta Bakery, which is a Swiss owned bakery. And there's pretzels and cronuts and streusel and long dogs, all kinds of deliciousness.

00:45:17Oliver Spake: I'm going to have to ask, sorry, and I don't know if I've lived a sheltered life, but a long dog.

00:45:21Alison Fraser (King): It's a really long hot dog.

00:45:24Oliver Spake: Okay. I thought maybe it could have been a bit like a very long sausage roll, which is very popular amongst some of the parkrun circles in Australia. It sounds like there's quite a lot of variety there. How far is that from the finish?

00:45:35Alison Fraser (King): You could walk it. It's about a kilometre, I think.

00:45:37Oliver Spake: Fantastic.

00:45:38Alison Fraser (King): It's really easy. I love giving directions to it because it's left, right, left, right, and you're there.

00:45:43Oliver Spake: And you mentioned pilgrimage before. You have done your Bushy pilgrimage?

00:45:46Alison Fraser (King): I have, yeah. I did it the day before the London Marathon.

00:45:49Oliver Spake: There would have been, yeah, some buzz then.

00:45:51Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, I'd done the Boston Marathon the Monday prior. So Bushy was to shake out my legs after the previous marathon and see if I could get through London.

00:46:00Oliver Spake: And I trust you manage?

00:46:02Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, I actually ran the London Marathon. I mean, the times aren't amazing because I was very grossly under-trained. If you get the opportunity to do those two events, then just do them. My times were 14 seconds different between the two.

00:46:16Oliver Spake: Wow, that's very consistent.

00:46:18Alison Fraser (King): Consistently slow, but I had a great time.

00:46:20Oliver Spake: That's important too. That's impressive. Any more marathon plans?

00:46:24Alison Fraser (King): I keep saying another one, but I'm not too sure. I just, I really like the fact that with parkrun, you can just show up and either push yourself as hard as you can for 5Ks or run around with a friend and then you can do it all again next week.

00:46:37Oliver Spake: Thank you, Alison. I really appreciate you joining us this week. Certainly sure there are many listeners here in Australia and across the globe who would look to put your guide to very good use when we can all visit New Zealand, of course.

00:46:49Alison Fraser (King): And we'd love to have visitors. We really miss our tourists, our international tourists.

00:46:54Oliver Spake: I can rarely think of a more hospitable bunch than New Zealand, obviously. With the parkrun love you've been sharing, please keep it up. We will look forward to many, many more tips around the parkruns of New Zealand and for more blog reports.

00:47:07Alison Fraser (King): Thanks.

00:47:08Oliver Spake: Thank you for joining us.

00:47:09Alison Fraser (King): Oh, it's my pleasure and thank you so much for having me on.

00:47:12Melissa Ellis: Thanks for that interview, Ollie. Top marks on pronunciation, Puarenga.

00:47:18[laughter]

00:47:18Oliver Spake: LAUGHTER

00:47:20Melissa Ellis: is the one that I have actually wanted to visit, the geothermal area. So I've always thought that that is a very unique parkrun. That's always piqued my interest. So that's number one on my list when I come to New Zealand. I'm not sure if it's anywhere near the area that I'm potentially going to be visiting. But also I think regarding the status of somebody in New Zealand that's ran every event in the country. Alison, you need to come up with a snazzy term. You need to come back to us with that, perhaps in a roving report.

00:47:56Oliver Spake: I wholeheartedly agree. I am clearly enjoying the New Zealand input.

00:48:00Melissa Ellis: And of course, I'm not letting Steve off the hook. Just because we've got Alison now doesn't mean that you can stop sending us content. Steve did let us know, I will add, that there is actually no prison parkruns in New Zealand or any discontinued events. So thanks for getting us that information, Steve. We appreciate that listener feedback. Fabulous.

00:48:20Oliver Spake: That's right.

00:48:21Melissa Ellis: We also had some feedback, Ollie. Peter Pohlman, he let me know the way that they clean their finish tokens in a sink of cold water and some detergent. So thanks, Peter. Is there a point to cold water and not hot water? I don't know. Maybe hot water makes the barcodes go fuzzy, Ollie, and that's your Shellharbour problem.

00:48:40Oliver Spake: Yeah, look, Shellharbour certainly has been looking into this one closely and it's hot at the bottom of the pile there and we'll certainly steer away from hot. And Mel, after last week where we heard from the informant, have we heard again?

00:48:52Melissa Ellis: We have. He is back this week, so let's hear from him now.

the Informant

00:48:57the Informant: This is the informant. These are unofficial stats. They may differ from the stats you read elsewhere. They are only current at the time they are collected with a 100% chance of an error from time to time. The number of current events down under has risen to 432 with the launch of Lake Boga foreshore in Victoria and SS Cooper Trail in Queensland. Not included in that number is the new Junior parkrun launch at Eynesbury Heritage Trail. We had 393 events run in Australia and New Zealand, up from 257 last week. This is due mostly to the return of Victoria but also many other events in other states also returning for the first time since lockdown. We were joined by 31 events from outside the region in Japan, Russia and Cape Pembroke Lighthouse in the Falklands. There were three event launches in Russia. All other countries remain on hold. We had 52,076 runners this week at an average of 132 per event. That's up from 29,536 runners at an average of 115 last week. Looking at Victorian stats only, there were 78 events with 9,277 runners taking part at an average of 118 per event. This can be compared to 84 events with 9,036 runners at an average of 107 on the 14th of March just before lockdown.

00:50:23[13 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:50:36the Informant: Nationally, we had 3,425 first timers, 208 people reached their 50 milestone, 117 reached their 100 milestone, and 23 reached their 250 milestone.

Statesmen update

00:50:52the Informant: On the statespeople front, all six Victorians lost their status due to the event launch. Up north, Jessie Delaney, Kayla Fuller, Ash Pei, and Kim Thompson joined the Northern Territory list. Flynn Kelly, Kay Salara, Jennifer Eddy, Jared Spence, and Paul Hospins joined the ACT list. While Amanda Hardy, Emma Zammett rejoined the NSW list after running at World Cup. Amanda and Emma also become the only two runners to be crowned Triple States People, having completed all of NSW Northern Territory and the ACT. This has been The Informant, and my spreadsheet is bigger than yours.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:51:42Oliver Spake: absorbing listening from the informant nice to hear that we've got a couple of new events coming on board with all of the unpausing events including junior parkrun Mel could you maybe tell us a bit more about the junior parkrun Mel I maybe can

00:51:59Melissa Ellis: I wasn't allowed to talk about it before, but surprise, there's a new Junior parkrun in Victoria that launched on Sunday. I might be the Event Director and it is Eynesbury Heritage Trail Junior parkrun in the Western suburbs of

00:52:16Oliver Spake: Melbourne has a second Junior parkrun and you're obviously front and centre on hand to enjoy it. Yeah, Ned, I say, how was it?

00:52:23Melissa Ellis: It was fabulous. We had 27 happy little Junior parkrunners that came along to our first event. It all went super smoothly. It's a beautiful course in the Eynesbury Forest, which is, how do I describe it? It's south of Melton. It's a beautiful little grey box forest and a little protected forest with a lovely community which surrounds a golf course. It's just a fabulous little spot and so excited to have brought this to the western suburbs.

00:52:57Oliver Spake: Yeah, and I saw a few of the pictures, Mel. I mean, the course looked lovely amongst the trees there. So you've got a new crew, a whole group of you, bringing Junior parkrun to the west of Melbourne. Tell us about the crew.

00:53:09Melissa Ellis: Yes. So we've got a nice... reach of experienced Run Directors that have come from the surrounding events the surrounding 5k events so we've got a lot of experience coming together and bringing the communities from all those different parkruns together in a central area to bring this to the children of the Western suburbs so it's just I don't know I think it really works.

00:53:36Oliver Spake: I think having that connection with a number of different parkruns, that's obviously great that they can feel like they're a part of it. Certainly hope that anyone that truly enjoys parkrun and wanted to have the opportunity to extend that love on a Sunday for the kids would be able to have that. It's nice to hear that the geography works for you guys and got a great support network.

00:54:00Melissa Ellis: And we were due to launch Ollie right before the pause. We were due for our first trial when they literally came down to a day or two before our trial when they said, no, it's cancelled. And I was just absolutely devastated. So we've had to sit and wait all this time. And then by the time we came back... Our landowners had given us a 12-month trial and that had expired before we'd even been able to launch. So when Victoria was given the okay to come back, we had to race out and get our landowner permissions again, which we did. Yeah, it's all fallen into place and couldn't have gone better and all the kids were super excited and happy. Brilliant day. Oh, had the biggest, happiest parkrun weekend and I am still floating, floating on a high off parkrun.

00:54:46Oliver Spake: Were any of the kids familiar to some of the other parkruns? Or do you think there were some that were trying it for the first time? How's the mix at a launch of a juniors event?

00:54:56Melissa Ellis: Well, because it was a soft launch. So there wasn't a lot of kids from the local community. They were mostly children of the volunteers. So Zoe was there. Zoe knows Westerfolds very well. Zoe's, I suppose you could say, a veteran of junior parkrun.

00:55:13Unidentified speaker: Yep.

00:55:14Melissa Ellis: So she was all across the warm-up procedure, of course. One of the other Run Directors, her kids had done a junior parkrun as well. They'd come out and done a couple of trial runs of Eynesbury with me at different times when we were testing out the course. And, yeah, we had another couple from a local parkrun whose kids had done Westerfolds as well. But most of the kids were new to the concept.

00:55:39Oliver Spake: That's exciting too in itself and obviously as the word gets out it'll be great to see some more kids maybe discovering that shorter distance. I know that my kids would benefit so much more from having a 2k course than a 5k course so it's good to see Junior parkrun getting its presence re-established after the pause and you mentioned there with the landowner permission and that's clearly been a challenge for a lot of parkruns so well done to yourself and to the team and everyone behind the scenes in bringing that out to the community and introducing a new junior parkrun for a whole bunch of kids that haven't enjoyed it.

00:56:12Melissa Ellis: Yeah, actually there was a couple of kids that had maybe been brought along by their parents just because it was a junior's concept that maybe don't love 5k parkrun, that maybe were a little bit suspicious about what's mum and dad taking me to do.

00:56:31Oliver Spake: Sounds like the trip to the vet.

00:56:32Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:56:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah, but once they kind of went out and came back and they ran in, you could just see a noticeable difference. Like they really enjoyed it. They came over the line. They were happy with how they'd done. They were excited. It wasn't overtaxing for them that short a distance. So the feedback from the kids is what I'm trying to say was positive after they'd experienced their first parkrun, their first junior parkrun.

00:56:58Oliver Spake: What do you think is maybe different about Junior parkrun from your perspective, Mel, when it comes to the likes of volunteering and the opportunities there?

00:57:07Melissa Ellis: Volunteering at a junior event and doing it just purely for the kids, that is completely different. I don't really know how to articulate it. Just the giving aspect and to see the kids all run off together, their little faces when they come over the line. They're not overly concerned with their times what they want to know is what number were they they get number 19 they'll go oh I was 22 last week they only care about the number it's not so much the time there's still obviously a big personal achievement factor but it's not quite in the same way Yeah, and they all have different strategies. There was one little boy, he wasn't going to run. All the other kids ran off and he walked and his strategy was to wait for the other kids to get tired because they had expended their energy. And then he did the run to the finish.

00:58:01Oliver Spake: Excellent.

00:58:02Melissa Ellis: He saved himself for the end and he was quite happy with his strategy.

00:58:05Oliver Spake: Paid off.

00:58:08Melissa Ellis: It was cute.

00:58:08Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:58:09Melissa Ellis: Yeah. And some kids just walk. Zoe walked. Yeah, she very rarely does much running. She'll just walk it, which is completely fine because kids can do that too. It's all being active and enjoying nature. And Eynesbury Forest is a beautiful place to enjoy nature. And of course, Westerfolds was back too this week. They had 76 kids at Westerfolds, which was a really good turnout for their first week back.

00:58:31Oliver Spake: That's great.

Sign-off

00:58:32Oliver Spake: Back in full swing.

00:58:33Melissa Ellis: And where are you off to next week, Ollie? Please tell me it's not Shellharbour.

00:58:38Oliver Spake: In terms of next week, I'll be at Shellharbour. I have a couple of weeks planned. I think since the unpause, we've been obviously settling back into our routine. We're really fortunate to have a bunch of regular volunteers that haven't been a part of the event team and are showing a bit more interest and want to get involved. So over the next week, we'll be giving more people a chance to trial the run directing roles and other roles. Looking forward to sharing that around. It does mean that I'll potentially be failing my homework again. Mm-hmm. But it's all for a good cause. I will try and look out for that Freedom Run opportunity.

00:59:16Melissa Ellis: Yeah, yeah.

00:59:19Oliver Spake: And what about you, Mel? Where are you going next week? I mean, I hazard a guess where you're going on Sunday.

00:59:24Melissa Ellis: I'll just make up for it. I'll do all the work. I'll do all the touring.

00:59:29Oliver Spake: Someone's got to. And I'll talk about it.

00:59:33Melissa Ellis: I'm going to Lake Boga. And I will be regaining my statesmanship. Oh. I didn't this week because Lake Boga launched on Saturday.

00:59:44Oliver Spake: Catch up is possible for Victorians at this stage, including yourself then?

00:59:48Melissa Ellis: Yes, as long as I get to Lake Boga on Saturday with probably 20 other fellow Victorians who may have just had their own reasons to be where they were on Saturday, which weren't necessarily tourism related. I've got it on good authority that the accommodation in Lake Boga is pretty booked out, and I'm pretty sure that's not just due to school holidays. We've got a room, so we're happy. We'll be off there to experience that.

01:00:15Oliver Spake: I look forward to hearing about that one, Mel.

01:00:17Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and I think, Ollie, we've had a pretty jam-packed podcast this week, so I don't know how the edit's going to go. We could be up for a mammoth episode. I don't know what the record is. Here's some homework for you that you might actually be able to do. figure out what the longest podcast was and see if we've broken any records.

01:00:38Oliver Spake: Either we've scraped past or we're just so far behind it's not funny and I should have done that homework first. It has been an enjoyable time. Thanks, Mel. It's been really nice to obviously reflect on the big weekend that you had and so many other Victorians had in having a home scanned barcode and the launch. Congratulations again. I look forward to doing it again next week.

01:00:58[music]

01:03:05Unidentified speaker: Bye. Bye.