Episode 229 - King & Queen of the mountain

Welcome

00:00:23Oliver Spake: Welcome to episode 229 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. I'm Ollie Spake and I'm joined by one half of our Main Beach parkrun live on the scene crew, Melissa Ellis.

00:00:36Melissa Ellis: Hi, Ollie.

00:00:38Oliver Spake: How are you, Mel?

00:00:39Melissa Ellis: Oh, I'm exhausted. It was a massive morning on Saturday.

00:00:43Oliver Spake: It was. It was. It was some pretty big turnout.

00:00:48Melissa Ellis: Definitely, and big thank you to Lyndell for being there and being my, what would you say, co-pilot for the day. Thanks, Lyndell. I really appreciated all your support.

00:01:02Oliver Spake: Yeah, it was wonderful to have you and Lyndell on the scene and obviously some support in the background too and hopefully enjoying the parkrun yourselves.

00:01:12Melissa Ellis: Definitely. It was a great vibe there. Always wanted to do the pilgrimage to Australia's very first parkrun. I had two years ago in my sights to be there for the 10th anniversary and the cards just fell in my favour. I just happened to be planning a holiday in northern New South Wales at exactly the same time that Australia the anniversary was going to occur and when I looked up the distance that it was going to be to Main Beach only you know an hour away I just couldn't believe my luck so blessed blessed to have made it there really blessed would you say that things easily fell into place Mel so you could just be there well no I

00:02:02Oliver Spake: Sorry, I do know the answer to that question.

00:02:04Melissa Ellis: Anybody that knows me away from social media would know that there was a lot of anguish and stress in the week prior to the anniversary with With the COVID situation, if I was actually going to make it to my flight to Brisbane due to the lockdown and whether I was going to be able to cross borders, being that my accommodation was in northern New South Wales and actually the night before when my flight was cancelled. So, yeah, nothing went smooth, but we got there. And it was fabulous. And I was so excited. Thank you to you, Ollie, for giving up your parkrun morning. And I do apologise. And I said this live, I know, on the morning. And I've said it privately. But when I got this... grand idea that we could go live on the morning, it didn't occur to me that you would actually have to give up your parkrun morning at Shellharbour or wherever you might have otherwise preferred to be to be able to host with Danny. So I'm sorry and thank you.

00:03:12Oliver Spake: No need for a sorry. Thank you for the opportunity. Look, firstly, it wasn't too hard a decision to want to be online there. Look, there was an event number two that was maybe within driving distance. The previously mentioned Avondale University College, parkrun that was on the radar, but there will be other event twos. This sort of thing doesn't come around very often. And look, in your defence, I still got to enjoy some of my favourite features of a parkrun. I got to be up at Shellharbour at first light, just taking the gear up there for the wonderful Shellharbour event team. That's two mentions already on the pod this week. And I got to have a coffee, which Hannah stepped in and brought me, which was fantastic. And to go up afterwards and chat to people after their parkrun. So as far as I said, I enjoyed two parkruns.

00:04:04Melissa Ellis: So I scored. I'm glad, Ollie. And I also saw afterwards that Mscholary, she had a milestone. So I actually felt doubly guilty that you may have missed that. So shout out to Em and congratulations on your milestone. What was it, Ollie? It was a volunteer milestone.

00:04:26Oliver Spake: Yeah, Em has notched up 200 volunteers and she's an absolute stalwart. She is just one of the family, one of the community at Shellharbour parkrun. I don't think, you know, for most people that would have visited Shellharbour parkrun, you can imagine it without her. And we are so fortunate to have had her help for so many different volunteer roles and volunteer days at parkrun. I think Em helps us all enjoy a parkrun morning. And she's certainly, when I caught her at the very end there, she looked like she'd had a good morning too. Didn't get to chat too much, but well done, Em. We really appreciate it.

00:05:05Melissa Ellis: Oh, big kudos to Em. And if we don't see you this year at...

00:05:11Oliver Spake: palm we hope we see you again very soon that's right and look Mel I think the the other plus was of course to to get to have a run at the live and and hopefully come this long-awaited return of parkrun in England to have a bit of a clue as to which buttons we're going to be pressing when we cross live over to our family over there in the UK or sorry in England at least uh for their return

00:05:36Melissa Ellis: I hope you're all over that, Ollie, because I've got no experience. I just know how to be on the ground. And that's not going to be any help on the day.

00:05:46Oliver Spake: I think it was a great experience. A huge thank you also needs to go to Danny Norman, of course, of With Me Now podcast, who... gave us this opportunity to go live, to share such a fantastic event for parkrun in Australia, for the Main Beach parkrun community, and really just for our enjoyment. Danny, you've been so supportive and we really look forward to paying that back to you.

00:06:11Melissa Ellis: He is the ultimate professional.

00:06:14Oliver Spake: That's right. But yes, I've still got the notes on the buttons and let's hope we don't mess it up.

00:06:20Melissa Ellis: That's good, Ollie. You're in charge of the buttons and I'll just talk with a mouthful of marbles underwater.

00:06:24Oliver Spake: Excellent. And so, Main Beach on the Morning Mill, how was it?

00:06:31Melissa Ellis: Oh, do you know, when we first arrived, I was like, oh, there's not a lot of people here. I really felt like this was an event where maybe the coronavirus had had an impact where people were staying away. I looked around at the crowd. I think, you know, I commented to Lyndell and Tracey, what do you reckon? There's, you know, maybe 200, 250, that kind of thing. We were thinking, oh, maybe it'll push out to 300. When we got to the end, we realised that there was in excess of 500 people, wow, where did they come from? They just converged at the last minute. That was amazing. It just didn't feel like there was that many people there, especially, you know, at the briefing. And everybody had masks on. Everybody was doing the right thing. And that's what was really brilliant as well, to see that level of compliance with the regulations that parkrun was asking for. That was really good.

00:07:30Oliver Spake: Yeah, big well done to all the parkrunners and the event team involved. That wasn't easy. I mean, for context, there was a snap three-day lockdown, wasn't it, called in Brisbane on Monday evening, which was only lifted on the Thursday evening, if I'm not mistaken. Didn't include the Gold Coast, but clearly that would have played on everyone's minds, yours included, going into this big event for us, certainly us as parkrunners and the parkrun Australia community. So well done to everyone who weathered that. We're fortunate to not see many cases and to have had that lifted and then to see, as you say, so many people wearing masks.

00:08:11Melissa Ellis: Yeah, Ollie, this just wasn't about... Main Beach having a birthday this was the whole of Australia this was you know the anniversary of Tim Oberg bringing parkrun to Australia and starting the trajectory that we now have.

00:08:25Oliver Spake: Yeah, it's a great milestone and it's probably also exciting that we will now get to celebrate lots more 10-year anniversaries as we roll through. Anyone clocking off your III, if you have the opportunity to travel, like Mel, who notched up your number one on the III, well done. Yes. You could follow these.

00:08:48Melissa Ellis: I've got big plans now.

00:08:50Oliver Spake: Anything you want to share, Mel?

00:08:51Melissa Ellis: Well, next week I'm going to do Kirra, which is also in the top 10.

00:08:55Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:08:56Melissa Ellis: However, I am missing New Farm. So I'm making plans potentially later in the year to come back to pick up a new farm, and when I do, I will jump to six.

00:09:11Oliver Spake: Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well, for a short space of time there, I was ahead of you on that one, but... I'm just going to sit back here on one for some time.

00:09:21Melissa Ellis: You've got to try a bit harder than that, Ollie.

00:09:22Oliver Spake: Yeah. No, that's exciting. Good to see you embracing the I, I, I.

00:09:28Melissa Ellis: Yes. But... We had some feedback from our pod last week where we both were a bit oblivious to the reference to the Weetbix parkrun at Avondale University College.

00:09:44Oliver Spake: Yes. Thank you, Peter Pohlman. Because that had gone in one ear and straight out the other ear. So... The Wheatbix parkrun, which is quite a nice name, but I had completely forgotten as to why the Dodd father had called it that name or obviously announced that it had that name, being on the grounds of the previous sanitarium factory. So, yeah, a big thank you.

00:10:08Melissa Ellis: Anyhoo, Ollie, you have an interview with the esteemed Bathurst EDs, I believe, Stephen and Jen.

00:10:18Oliver Spake: That's right, yeah. Had the opportunity to catch up to them after a, I'd say recent, but it was a few weeks, potentially longer than that ago, that they did visit a favourite parkrun of mine. And yeah, it was wonderful to catch up with them.

00:10:32Melissa Ellis: Well, let's have a listen.

00:10:36[music]

Meet the ED

Interview Jen Arnold and Stephen Jackson — Event Director, Bathurst parkrun; Event Director, Bathurst parkrun; former parkrun…

00:10:44Oliver Spake: Our guests this week on the parkrun adventurers podcast are the Event Directors of Bathurst parkrun. Between them, they've amassed more than 300 times volunteering and even more parkruns completed and visited a whole swag of different parkruns along the way. Welcome to the podcast, Jen Arnold and Stephen Jackson.

00:11:02Jen Arnold: Hi, Ollie. Good to be here.

00:11:04Oliver Spake: Hello, Ollie. Great to be here. Thank you both for joining. I know it's been a few weeks of catching up and chasing each other, but it's been great to finally get the chance to talk to you both.

00:11:15Stephen Jackson: Telephone tag is the way it tends to work. We tend to be travelling a lot and lots of touristing, and so we It's good when we finally cross paths.

00:11:22Oliver Spake: Yeah, certainly a lot of touristing. I definitely want to hear a bit more about that. But maybe just to start things off, could you share with us, please, how did parkrun enter your lives or each of your lives, as it were?

00:11:36Stephen Jackson: Well, I used to run a lot. That was my sort of main pastime was just running, but a lot up to marathon sort of and ultras, I suppose. But then six or seven years ago, I was told by a surgeon that I A crash tackle I'd suffered in touch football meant I'd never run again. And just at about the same time, parkrun came onto the horizon. I was in Sydney and it sort of popped up and I thought, yeah, okay, I'll start doing that one. I was with Sydney Striders in Sydney and I started to look at that and nothing actually came of it in Sydney. But I moved up to Bathurst to get out of the rat race and I thought, okay, here's a place that needs a parkrun. Let's see if I can get it up and running. And in parallel to that, I had applied to the board for parkrun Australia. So I was getting quite involved with parkrun, not having run any. But I had tried to get parkrun started here in Bathurst and, unfortunately, new to the town, didn't know anybody, wasn't connected to council, had no, you know, so I had trouble getting organised in that space. And... So we went from there.

00:12:49Jen Arnold: While all of that was happening for Stephen, I'd actually done my first parkrun down where you are, Ollie, at Shellharbour parkrun. Yes. I'd never done it before, but I was a member of Running Mums Australia, as I'm sure many of your listeners are, know that group. And I was on holidays down at Shellharbour and knew there was a parkrun down there and had no idea really of what it was but wanted to give it a go. And I just remember how welcomed I was by everyone at parkrun. I felt like part of the family from day dot. And I knew no one there. But it was that moment that I decided that I wanted to bring parkrun to Bathurst as well. And I was living here in Bathurst at the time.

00:13:36Stephen Jackson: And we didn't know each other at that stage. There was no connection. But 1 January, I there took my youngest son to start fourth class school. and met the teacher and all good there. Went home, there was the email from parkrun Australia saying, is somebody else in Bathurst who wants to start a parkrun? Good. Okay. What's their name? Anyway, Jen Arnold. She happened to be the teacher of my youngest son. So I went into school the next day and said, parkrun. And it sort of started from there. Wow.

00:14:09Jen Arnold: That was the start of our parkrun journey, Ollie. It was quite strange. And And Stephen said to me, well, I asked him, what's been the holdup? Why have you not been able to get parkrun happening in Bathurst? And he said, well, being new to the city, I don't really know anyone here. I've got no connections at council and I don't know who to talk to. And, you know, with a wink, I said, leave that one with me. My father was the deputy mayor at the time and my running group were all directors on council. So it was a pretty easy process then of finding the right people that we needed to talk to. And it was only a couple of months later that we launched.

00:14:48Oliver Spake: Wow. That's certainly very serendipitous.

00:14:52Stephen Jackson: It was. I mean, I had the connections to parkrun Australia of being on the board and Jen had the connections locally. So six months bang, up and running. Although our very first parkrun, number one, got washed out, flooded. The course got absolutely, literally washed away. So it was a couple of weeks of getting that sorted out. having to come up with a new course. But since then, we've only been washed out once more, so it's been very good.

00:15:17Oliver Spake: Touch wood. So you've touched on the origins of Bathurst parkrun quite strongly there. So that was back, was it 2016, 2017?

00:15:25Jen Arnold: 2016, yeah. We launched at the end of July in 2016.

00:15:30Stephen Jackson: Midwinter in Bathurst, minus X degrees, freezing, but we launched and we've been averaging a couple of hundred every week ever since, which is brilliant for a country town.

00:15:40Oliver Spake: Fantastic support. So you've obviously got a very healthy contingent of locals, a strong community there.

00:15:46Jen Arnold: That's the key, isn't it, Ollie? I think in most parkrun communities is the people around. You know, I said when we had to pause parkrun for COVID, that was what we all missed the most. We can all do a five kilometre run or walk at any time, anywhere we like, but it's the getting together and belonging to something, feeling like you've got people around you who are happy to see you. That's the part that we all miss. So, yeah, we're very lucky here in Bathurst with the strength of the community and people that want to come out and support each other and look forward to seeing each other and feel sort of proxy family to each other.

00:16:31Stephen Jackson: And that's probably something to mention here is that it is family and that's We're both of us separately. We were just good friends for a couple of years there. We were both going through traumatic times outside of parkrun. And over that time, we kind of worked out that we kind of liked each other. And end result is we're together now, both as EDs and in private life as well.

00:16:57Oliver Spake: you could barely find a more appropriate match.

00:17:00Stephen Jackson: It's quite remarkable. It's one of those things that we travel the world together and do things together, but parkrun seems to be the common theme around the world.

00:17:08Jen Arnold: Appropriate or inappropriate partners, I'm not sure.

00:17:11Stephen Jackson: Well, we were just good friends for years there to begin with. It was funny, after we ended up together a couple of years ago now, a number on the team of our team said, yeah, it was just a matter of time for you two. So anyway, here we are.

00:17:27Oliver Spake: Yeah, that's the great thing about a strong community is they can read you like a book.

00:17:30Stephen Jackson: Yes.

00:17:31Oliver Spake: Oh, absolutely.

00:17:33Stephen Jackson: And very supportive ever since, which is brilliant.

00:17:35Oliver Spake: Well, that's fantastic. And along the way, so clearly you've, you know, as part of the event team, as the core of the event team, you've found a way to both volunteer many, many times and participate many times at Bathurst. Have you got any highlights across the Bathurst parkrun journey?

00:17:53Jen Arnold: Oh, I'd have to say... getting to know people's stories a little bit, Ollie. You know, we touched on it before that we feel sort of part of the family for quite a lot of people. And there's a couple here who are sort of stranded in Bathurst with COVID. They're from Reading in the UK and we've become quite close friends with Jim and Pam. They can't travel home at the moment. So Bathurst has become home to them. So we love that we've sort of become proxy family to them, but there was another woman who still runs with us, Anne, and this is a bit of a special story for us both, but the week after Anne started parkrunning, she's in her, I want to say early 60s perhaps, the week after she started parkrunning, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and for a long while things were not looking great for her, but she did not miss a parkrun. She turned up every single week and some weeks it was, She was feeling great and some weeks were a real struggle for her. She sewed herself a little sort of over the shoulder bag where she put her chemotherapy drugs that were still being administered while she was walking at parkrun. And her oncologist attributes so much of her health now to parkrun, to the community support of feeling like she belongs to something and the need to get up and move each day, at one stage she was talking to us about her palliative care which was really difficult for us to to you know think about for her and I'm sure it was for her also I work in health hence the connection um so it was it was a really touching moment when she was able to finally tell us that she was firstly completely in remission and and now no signs at all of her cancer and she she uh you know, is just over the moon and really does a tribute parkrun to saving her life essentially, I suppose. So it's lovely that we have her and her family. She's got a really big family group that run and walk with her of all different ages. But it's those sorts of moments that you don't have if you're just running by yourself, you know, around the block a couple of times.

00:20:11Stephen Jackson: It's just an extension of that. An interesting thing that we've done is totally left field is our course is two laps. So you've got two laps around the river. But what we did soon after we'd moved it to two laps through the river is that you do one lap, you do a U-turn and go back the same way. And that whole reason for that is community. So people see each other. I know you're not allowed to high-five at the moment, but see each other, say hello. And even the fast people see the slower people, the walkers, say hello to the tyre runners, and it just builds that community. And so it's probably one of the better things we did for the duration and got a lot of support out of that, as we all do.

00:20:48Jen Arnold: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

00:20:50Oliver Spake: I think it's a touching story and just fantastic that Anne was able to find that kind of support and that weekly, I wouldn't say balance, but obviously a way to just... embrace something through all of her ups and downs um you know clearly you know the heart's in the right place for the team in bringing that kind of approach um and and making that possible for someone like her and obviously so many more um big fan of the high-fiving um so I'm gonna love it when it comes back yeah we can't wait for that to come back isn't it silly just something so simple as I suppose it's human connection really isn't it that we're missing

00:21:33Jen Arnold: But just that ability to, you know, your friends or the little people, the littlest people that are watching us and learning from us and, you know, having those little high fives to power you up along the way is brilliant. Yeah.

00:21:47Oliver Spake: It really does help. Look, I look forward to getting out and enjoying that. And even if it means I don't have to high five, sorry, if I can't high five, I look forward to taking on your course and enjoying that reverse second loop.

00:21:59Jen Arnold: Yeah, it makes all the difference. I mean, it's, you know, there's, I suppose, some courses are limited that they can't do it or they, for whatever reason, choose not to. But I think some of the courses that we've run where you do cross people, where you're passing people who are running back and Out and back courses and those, I would choose those probably as some of my favourite runs because you do get to look people in the eye, look people in the face and you're not just have that sort of half dozen people around you that you're all running at a similar pace. Yeah. get to see everyone who's out there. It's a bit special.

00:22:37Oliver Spake: Very true. Now, I suppose almost to balance that, you're both clearly very speedy and show of passion. I mean, Stephen, you mentioned there some impressive running, triathlon and other pedigree beyond parkrun. So, you know, was sport a big part of life before parkrun and does it continue to carry that role in your lives?

00:23:00Stephen Jackson: I think it does. I mean, I've been a runner since... Forever. Probably the best way to put it. I used to run marathons at a decent pace and 5K, 10K, all that sort of thing, track. And when I was told that you can't run anymore because of my knee, that was sort of end of the world as we know it. But parkrun came along at just the right time and managing 5K was perfect. It's held together remarkably. But I've proceeded to extend that into Ironman triathlon, half Ironman. running many marathons and some ultras purely from managing the process. And at the heart of all of this, and we're doing an Ironman in a month's time, was doing it on a diet of parkrun, which is a great little balance there. So I've run forever and now it's very much parkrun is the obsession, to say the least.

00:23:58Jen Arnold: Yeah, I wasn't... I certainly wasn't a runner, not nearly as much as what Stephen was. I only took up running when I was about 30. I clearly remember the day that I decided that I was going to start running. I was reading the Sunday Telegraph, I think it was, and they had a couch to bridge in nine weeks program. And I was studying at the time and travelling backwards and forwards from Bathurst to Sydney to go to uni up there and working full time. And it was sort of juggling everything and And I thought that's just something for me and, you know, to feel better. It wasn't necessarily a weight loss or anything like that. I just wanted to feel better than what I felt and started running, you know, 30 seconds at a run and then four and a half minutes to recover. I'm sure lots of people are familiar with a program similar to that and ran the Blackmores Bridge Run, you know, 10 weeks later or something like that. And that's when I started running and I certainly wasn't a long distance runner and I wasn't fast. I'm certainly not anywhere near as fast as what Stephen can get. We tend to like to run together just because we're a bit social like that and off for a chatter. But if we're running together, I'll often, you know, tap him on the back and tell him to run off and I'll see you back at home again. It's like a racehorse. I can't keep up with it, um but yeah so there's lots of different things in our lives and and I slowly built up to running marathons and and um I've done a couple of ultras now um and it was only when I was training from for I did two marathons in seven weeks which is generally not recommended I was breaking my body was protesting quite loudly and Stephen said to me at the time he said why don't you start cycling instead to just cross-train, keep your cardio up and give your body a rest off the running. And I didn't hate it as much as what I thought I would. I fully expected to hate cycling. And then the week after I ran Melbourne Marathon, he suggested that I come and watch a triathlon and I thought, well, I'm not going all that way just to watch. I'll give it a shot. I'll participate. And I'd never been on a road bike. I was only ever cycling at the gym. And so the day before my first triathlon, I got on a road bike and did a few laps of the cul-de-sac and gave it a go.

00:26:34Stephen Jackson: And proceeded to win her age group. Yeah.

00:26:39Jen Arnold: Turns out I – Gentle start. Yeah. I think all the speedy ladies stayed home that day or something it must have been. But I was only in joggers. I was still much too scared to try and put proper cycling shoes on the cleats and whatever. But it just, it was a fun way to spend life. You know, there's so many really fun people to be around when we're doing triathlon or when we're cycling or running. And it's a great way to, you know, to travel and meet people.

00:27:10Stephen Jackson: Yeah, I used to travel a lot for work, both nationally and internationally. And running was one consistent thing I could take all over the world. And if only parkrun had been around 20 years ago, I could have, you know, used that at that stage. But I used a lot of different running locations around the world. It's been a great way to see the countryside, see a city. So running is very much part of our lives.

00:27:34Oliver Spake: Fantastic journey you've both taken so far. And you're both very modest, of course. I mean, as part of that, I understand you've donned the green and gold at least on one stage, potentially a couple of stages. Can you tell us a bit about that?

00:27:49Stephen Jackson: 2019, we qualified for the, it's age group, but for the World Triathlon Championships in Lucerne in Switzerland, which we both qualified for. So went over for that. Of course, detoured by Singapore to get a parkrun on the way over. And Jen, on the way back, managed to get Bushy Park in. So we left a day late for that, of course.

00:28:10Jen Arnold: Yeah, that's what you do.

00:28:13Stephen Jackson: So that was that World Champs. And then the year before that, I was at the Cycling World Champs in Albi in France, the south of France, and went down and ran La Ramee, which is near Toulouse, the parkrun down there. So we've done a bit. I've run the six majors marathons around the world, New York and Boston a couple of times. So, yeah, we've done a bit and we'll keep doing it. But now the objective is to get far more tourism, far more parkruns. Collect those. They're the focus now, certainly the obsession.

00:28:45Oliver Spake: Well, you've started a healthy collection so far. I mean, there's a bit of international tourism in there for sure. You're both international tourists, as I understand it, so four different countries in your repertoire so far.

00:28:56Jen Arnold: Yes, that's right. So Australia, obviously, but... As Stephen touched on when we were travelling to the World Champs in 2019, we'd sort of got all our flights organised and just about locked in and then it occurred to us that we were travelling on a Sunday and what a ridiculous day to leave Australia and travel on a Sunday. So we left Australia the Friday night instead and flew into Singapore and had less than 24 hours in Singapore but managed to get East Coast parkrun in there which was lovely. I mean, Singapore's a brilliant spot and to get a parkrun in there was really fun. And when we were in Lausanne in Switzerland, so the World Championships were on a Sunday, which was really considerate of them, leaving Saturday free for us to hire a car, drive across the border into France and do a parkrun at Lac de Divonne, which is sort of an hour across into the French border, into the French country.

00:29:59Stephen Jackson: It was really brilliant. The classic was after the race. We went to Paris, then to London for a bit, and we decided we had to do the parkrun on the Saturday, of course. Jen hadn't done Bushy Park, so we got the train down to Wimbledon, but I had done Bushy Park, so I had to add another to my list. So we got to Wimbledon, got off the train, She trotted a couple of K to Bushy Park. I trotted the other direction to Kingston. We ran our parkruns, got back together again for a coffee afterwards. But it was interesting in that Bushy Park has all the tourists, 1,500, 1,600 tourists, and Kingston had me. I was the only tourist there because it's 400 people, but it's all the escapades from Bushy Park. to get a non-turn. All the locals. All the locals going locally, but they've got so many parkruns there. It's brilliant.

00:30:47Oliver Spake: Good to hear that there's been a lot of sense in how you've planned that. What have you enjoyed most about visiting other parkruns, both abroad and locally across Australia?

00:30:56Stephen Jackson: I think in some ways the predictability in that you know exactly what it is, exactly where it's going on. And the type of person involved is the sort of people we like to be involved with. We like to meet and chat and um and so that consistency and repeatability and there is there's no once you're into it there is absolutely no um what's the right word taking a backward step as you arrive somewhere because you know what it's going to be like you know how it's going to work and you know what's going to happen and and people are always welcoming I'm yet to go to a parkrun I'm up to I don't know only 60 odd um that that's been you know anything but positive and welcoming and and so that that's what I like about yeah absolutely we we went to um

00:31:40Jen Arnold: Australia's southernmost parkrun down in Geeveston you know south coast of Tasmania there and you know we didn't know these people and we went down there specifically to do that parkrun but it was just brilliant how welcome we felt we were invited to breakfast with them all and and we were just part of the family from from the moment we arrived to to you know packing up from what turned into brunch sort of mid-morning by the time we'd finished talking and having umpteen coffees and you know sharing our experiences and learning theirs and it was a really nice and I think that's you know that's what you get at almost every parkrun we've been to we've you know you get invited to coffees afterwards and people want to know your story and and it's always fascinating learning theirs.

00:32:27Stephen Jackson: A few years ago I was flying over to visit my daughter in Perth and had a look at it and for a couple of bucks extra I went via Darwin um purely because one could um arrived on Friday night and Saturday morning there's a parkrun in Darwin of course and but there's a monsoon absolutely belting down there were trees down and uh Palmerston was cancelled and he thought oh here no it was on I ran with them great people I'm still in touch with many of them uh it was just brilliant running and climbing over trees and finishing the course brilliantly but again it was that consistency of environment and people. It was just brilliant.

00:33:03Oliver Spake: Yeah. And look, I suppose it's not just a reason to connect, but it's that opportunity ready-made to connect, always with the little differences, touch of local community.

00:33:15Jen Arnold: They all have their own flavour, don't they, Ollie? As much as Stephen said, you know what to expect, there's always It just has that sense of something different at each parkrun, you know, and that's what the community brings to it.

00:33:29Oliver Spake: That's certainly something that, you know, still brings that element of surprise on the morning but good surprise, well and truly.

00:33:36Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:33:37Oliver Spake: Now. I understand the weekend just gone um so we're speaking obviously after the weekend of parkrun australia's 10th anniversary and main beach's 10th anniversary of its inaugural event um that was also a bit of a milestone at least for you steven yeah I am that was my 200th parkrun um 150th volunteer and uh

00:34:01Stephen Jackson: It just keeps getting better and better. But, yeah, I didn't realise it was the 10th. It hadn't dawned on me until the newsletter came out. Oh, there we go.

00:34:09Oliver Spake: So everything rolled up and aligned properly and, of course, there were the cheers and carry on at parkrun in Bathurst here.

00:34:16Stephen Jackson: But we're away the week before and we're away this week as well, travelling again, but we'll find a parkrun somewhere.

00:34:21Oliver Spake: Yes, yes. And where are you off to this week?

00:34:25Stephen Jackson: Tuesday we fly to Perth to visit my daughter and the grandkids and, yeah, We're picking Whitfords Nodes as the parkrun we've got lined up this time. It's just up the road from my daughter's place, but we've done five or six over there already. And every one, again, consistent, nice, good place to visit.

00:34:44Jen Arnold: My sister is over in Perth as well, and she's a Run Director at Claisebrook Cove parkrun. So it was a bit of a toss-up, do we go back to Claisebrook? But it's almost a certainty that when we visit a place that we have to try a new parkrun. So Claisebrook Cove is just an absolutely stunning parkrun there, right on the water. But, yeah.

00:35:05Stephen Jackson: I like Quinns Rocks. Quinns Rocks up north there is on the beach as well.

00:35:11Jen Arnold: It's a good Q to get. There's not many Q parkruns around. Yeah, Q's around there.

00:35:15Stephen Jackson: But each time I've gone over there, there's another parkrun popping up. So the chances of being a statesman, unless you live there, are pretty remote.

00:35:22Oliver Spake: Yeah, it's a tough gig when you've got to wait for a Saturday.

00:35:25Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:35:26Oliver Spake: I have to ask between the two of you or each of you maybe, do you have a top three? Are there events that have stood out?

00:35:35Jen Arnold: Well, we've been chattering backwards and forwards about this sort of most of the day, Olly, and we've mentioned a couple of them. Lac de Divonne in France is probably my top of the notch. It was because I guess probably because it was such an exciting time for us being over there for, for the world champs and things, but we hired a car, picked up a couple of other Aussies in the hotel that we're in. We just said we're going to France for a parkrun and they're like, okay, we'll be in for that as well. So they came with us, didn't know them, but they came with us. But the Run Director stood up and gave the brief in English first. He was a Brit, gave the run brief in English and then very seamlessly, I presume, because I didn't understand it, switched into French and gave a beautiful sounding run brief in French. And it was just lovely. It was only quite a small parkrun. It was 20 or 30 people, I guess, from memory. But going to the boulangerie in the town square afterwards and looking at the markets and chattering away with the other French people, that was pretty special. So that one would have to top my list.

00:36:49Stephen Jackson: Yeah. Similarly, French one, there you go. I was... in France in Albi for the Cycling World Champs. And a friend of mine, just out of the blue, said, I'm in France. I'm going to go down to Toulouse for the parkrun. Do you want to come along? Done. So we worked out how to cross paths. And on the Saturday, again, the race was on the Sunday, so the Saturday we drove a couple hundred K to get to Toulouse and go to the La Ramée. And it was the same sort of thing. It was a Scotsman with a broad accent giving a run brief in French to a bunch of expats from around the world, brilliant absolutely brilliant but so that'd be that'd be right up there I've got to say Victor Harbor here in Adelaide that's a favourite um because it's fast I I ran my parkrun type PB not my 5k PB but my parkrun PB was victor harbour um and again nice people straight out straight back and good surface and of course the Kingston one in the UK was was a classic because of the The bushy escapades, I guess, is the classic. I've done bushy on a previous visit.

00:37:57Jen Arnold: Ginninderra for me down in the ACT would have to, you know, be on my list for sure. It's just such a pretty parkrun there around the lake or pond or whatever they call it. But it was a lovely atmosphere. It was, yeah, I really enjoyed that sort of, you know, rolling hills and, It wasn't hilly per se, but there were certainly some lumps and bumps. And then, of course, Claisebrook Cove over in Perth, it was just stunning. And it's no longer, but I ran a parkrun PV there as well at the time. And I think the altitude training that we get here in Bathurst then Then running down at sea level always makes us just that little bit faster, I suppose.

00:38:42Stephen Jackson: The classic with Ginninderra was that we live in Bathurst, but I go to Canberra every week or two for work. And then when the ACT came back to parkrunning before anywhere else did, I just happened to move the days I had to be in Canberra to Fridays. What a coincidence. So we stayed overnight and we've worked most of the state. We're working on it, one or two together.

00:39:04Oliver Spake: Well done. Look, there's some beautiful parkruns and definitely some to add to the list there. I must ask as well, there is another event in Bathurst that you could probably give us a bit of context about and many of our listeners would have taken it on before, but several years old now. I think it kicked off, what, 2017? Is that right?

00:39:22Jen Arnold: Yes, that's right, Ollie. It was... That was one of my harebrained ideas and Stephen just didn't step back quick enough when I asked him if he'd be interested in helping me organise a running race around Mount Panorama. Of course, that's been all over our TV screens the last couple of days with the Bathurst 6-hour and we have the Bathurst 1000 there in October. But yeah, so we organise, it's just one lap, so it's only 6.2 kilometres, about 174 metres of elevation gain in the first 2.9 k's. So it's It's a pretty tough climb, that one, and then, of course, the downhill just smashes your quads. It's equally painful, I'm told. I don't ever bother racing it, but Stephen's fast enough to race it and then come back and help me run direct. But, yeah, so the Mount Panorama Punish, it's growing in popularity. The first year we had about 400 runners, and then we topped 1,000 in 2019. Yep. Dave Cronitti, who's a Commonwealth Games runner, you know, marathon runner of some renown, came up and raced it and set a new course record for us in 2019. And I said to him afterwards, how are your legs? And he looked at me like I was an absolute idiot. You know, he is a Commonwealth Games marathon runner and he'd just done 6.2 kilometres. And he said, oh, no, I'm fine, don't you worry. And then we talked to him two or three days later and he said, oh, my God, I've never hurt as much as I have after that.

00:40:58Stephen Jackson: So it's a bit of a fun race, that one. It's right, yeah, running down through the Esses and down Conrod Straight absolutely destroys your quads. So it's one of those ones that you do once. We have worked out, we've looked at the numbers and the runners and that if you can go under 40 minutes, at parkrun at parkrun then you'll get around it within the cutoff time because we've got to slot this running race into car racing that's on the track so we we get it so we get it sorted in there but we're getting a lot of support from council and from from locals and and with over a thousand people entering we're certainly looking uh looking like a good little event just a that's just one of the community events we like to do yeah yeah we had people travel from

00:41:41Jen Arnold: again, all over the world to run it. There's a bloke in France who came and ran it in 2018, I think, yeah. And he's still in contact with us and sends us photos wearing his Mount Panorama Punish shirt all over the world. But his thing is to run racetracks. And so when he heard that we had a running race on Mount Panorama, he came to Australia pure and simply just to run and run the race in Mount Panorama. But we've had a, a friend from the UK came over and he raced it in 2019. But yeah, we have flights coming in from Sydney. There's Rachel's Runners come in from Sydney and they brought three charter flights, I think, in 2019. And they've got more than that lined up for this year already. So, People come from all over Australia certainly to run this little race that we've created.

00:42:36Stephen Jackson: So this year will be the fifth edition. It'll be October 24th this year.

00:42:40Jen Arnold: Yeah.

00:42:42Oliver Spake: Yeah, curiosity is certainly getting the better of me. I'm going to have to take a close look for this year.

00:42:47Jen Arnold: Yeah, yeah. And, of course, you get a brilliant medal. That's, you know, something that you don't get at parkrun but you do get at the Punish, at Mount Panorama Punish is – a pretty spectacular-looking medal, that's always a nice way to finish it at the end.

00:43:00Stephen Jackson: And there's always Bathurst parkrun the day before for warm-up.

00:43:04Jen Arnold: Oh, yeah, of course.

00:43:06Oliver Spake: Match made in heaven. Look, excellent and well done once again. It sounds like the both of you, you know, certainly take embracing the parkrun community and, you know, indeed just being active and building a community to a whole new level, keeping it in the family too, as it were. Any other goals, aspirations or parkruns on your wish list?

00:43:28Stephen Jackson: Well, we're looking forward to getting back to Europe. You know, we're hanging out for the... international Japan my youngest son wants to go and run um parkrun in Japan uh so that's on the list but again we just gotta wait for the borders to open up again and uh get that sorted out that's about the the biggest limiting factor at the moment and uh so in the meantime we'll knock off a lot of Australian ones and we have a lot of uh visitors that come here and it's surprising who you bump into and where you bump into them again and again and again it's uh so yeah uh It's part of our lives well and truly and will continue to be so for quite a while.

00:44:06Oliver Spake: We look forward to seeing you out there. We look forward to seeing you in Bathurst too. But thank you both so much for your time today and for the chat. It's been wonderful to hear what is an incredible parkrun story and wish you safe travels.

00:44:21Jen Arnold: Yeah, thanks, Ollie. That's all part of the fun, isn't it, getting out and seeing more of our country?

00:44:27Stephen Jackson: Yeah, now we've done Shellharbour, we'll have to – Husky will come back, won't it? We were down in Husky. We went to Shellharbour because the Husky triathlon was on.

00:44:37Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:44:37Stephen Jackson: That was the Half Ironman was there. So we had no doubt we were going to travel up to Shellharbour to do that one, and Jen had history there, of course. So Husky is next on the list down there. We'll kind of get down and do that one. But there's a handful in the area, so, hey, we don't mind driving a bit to get to another one. Yeah.

00:44:56Oliver Spake: Yeah, it's all part of the experience. Thank you both so much.

00:44:59Stephen Jackson: Thanks, Ollie. Thanks, Ollie.

00:45:00[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:45:14Melissa Ellis: Great to hear from Stephen and Jen there, Ollie. What a wonderful couple.

00:45:18Oliver Spake: It was a great chat. The two of them have so many different experiences. But yeah, what they've done for the Bathurst community is lovely. Hope to see you out there in October at the Mount Panorama Punish.

00:45:30Melissa Ellis: That's an event I've been wanting to get to. I don't know that I'm currently fit for it, Ollie. Perhaps in my heyday, in my marathon running days, I would have been. But it's something to strive towards. It is an event that I'd like to get to.

00:45:44Oliver Spake: Oh, well, there's opportunity. So, yeah, we'll see, Mel.

Dazza's

00:45:48Melissa Ellis: We'll see. And we had a plethora of comments. In the cafe this week, park faff aplenty.

00:45:57Oliver Spake: Yeah, standing room only. First in queue was one of your fellow main beach attendees, Mel. Jack, Jack Corkill, 10th place at Australia parkrun, 10th birthday. That's a pretty solid effort there.

00:46:11Melissa Ellis: It was, Ollie. I love the synchronicity there, Jack. And it was also brilliant to speak to you and discover that you were a listener and Yeah, thank you for chatting to us on the day. Great to hear from you.

00:46:27Oliver Spake: Good to see you cross paths at least, me virtually. I felt like I was there, but I was just watching it all.

00:46:32Melissa Ellis: And Bruce Purdy, we visited. Sunny Newborough parkrun in Gippsland today and am now enjoying the art trail with a takeaway coffee in hand. And Bruce posted a lovely picture from the art trail.

00:46:47Oliver Spake: That sounds like a nice way to spend the morning. It does. We also had Jenny Reedman. It was a great morning, which absolutely was. But we might need a bit of help there for a bit of context, Mel. Yeah.

00:47:00Melissa Ellis: I think so, Ollie. I think we need to ask the oracle. So, shout out to the oracle. Please give us some context.

The Oracle

00:47:08the Oracle: This is the Oracle. At Main Beach, Jenny could be found. Volunteering, she was. Tokens, she was handing out. Knowledge is power. This has been the oracle.

00:47:28Oliver Spake: Thank you, Oracle. Another great helper and part of the community at Main Beach on a fantastic morning. So I have to agree with you there, Jenny. It looked amazing. Thank you for all of your support. It must have been a lot of fun.

00:47:40Melissa Ellis: And we had Alison King, RD at Puarenga today, washed it down with a chai latte, a mini streusel and a mini passion fruit cronut. That's fabulous. Thanks, Alison. And we should add, Please give a shout-out, everybody, to your cafes. We want to hear the names of the cafes. Give them a plug.

00:48:02Oliver Spake: That's right. Get a few more cafes on the radar. Do a bit of maybe cross-promotion, Mel, next time there's a World Cup on a certain podcast.

00:48:09Melissa Ellis: Do you think they might sponsor us, Ollie? You never know.

00:48:13Oliver Spake: Maybe so. But yeah, Alison, once again, levelling up with those post-parkrun snacks. Penny Simpson, about to head off to Mount Clarence parkrun. Looking forward to catching up on the live from Main Beach later. Hope you enjoyed it, Penny. Sorry about my ukulele playing.

00:48:29Melissa Ellis: And Ollie and Neil Taylor, we celebrated at Burley Griffin parkrun with Sky Whale Papa drifting over the course. And Neil... shared with us a Facebook what do you call it a Facebook link yeah oh yeah yes yeah so I I looked up what sky whale papa was because I had no clue and sky whale papa is the spouse of the initially controversial sky whale hot air balloon unveiled in 2013 now this sky whale papa is stands as tall as a 10-story building. That's how tall it is.

00:49:08Oliver Spake: Oh, jeez.

00:49:09Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I know, 10-story, right? That's how tall this hot air balloon is.

00:49:13Oliver Spake: Because I've seen the picture. I mean, that is something else. But yeah, yep.

00:49:16Melissa Ellis: I know. So these flights are running concurrently with a multimedia exhibition at the NGA that includes Patricia Piccinini's new children's book called Every Heart Sings, which tells the story of the Sky Whale family. The Sky Whales are scheduled to go on tour, floating across the skies of Australia throughout 2021 and 2022. The tour is going to kick off in Albury, New South Wales sometime in mid-April and will make its way around several states, providing more Australians with the opportunity to marvel at the enormous art projects. Now, Ollie, that was a mouthful, but this is inspiring me to try to get to Albury mid-April because I'm Now I want to see the Sky Whale Papa.

00:50:09Oliver Spake: I thought you were going to say you're going to go on the Sky Whale Trail. But you will stop at Albury.

00:50:14Melissa Ellis: Well, I just want to see these things because they look pretty amazing. I love hot air balloons. I did go on a hot air balloon flight recently and it was my second hot air balloon flight. But I just love the story. Like this is Art, the very first Sky Whale Papa. Hot Air Balloon was created in 2013, and now this is like a sequel balloon, if you like. It's the partner of the original balloon. Yes, yes. So the original balloon's a female. Sky Whale is a female balloon, and Sky Whale Papa is the male, and the male is hugging, if you like.

00:50:53Oliver Spake: Yes, yeah.

00:50:55Melissa Ellis: A group of babies. Yes. And signifying that this – It doesn't necessarily need to be a stereotype that female is the maternal or the, I don't know, what do you call it, the caring.

00:51:09Oliver Spake: That's right, the nurturer of the family pack.

00:51:13Melissa Ellis: Exactly, the nurturer. That's the word I was looking for. The female doesn't have to be the nurturer. So, in this instance, it's the male that is the nurturer. Anyway, I digress.

00:51:24Oliver Spake: It's just amazing, and thank you for sharing, Neil. I'm really curious to go and check it out. I hadn't actually heard about it. I may have seen just a passing reference to the sky whale previously, not looked at it, but I'll go and look it up. I think it could be something interesting to share with the kids.

00:51:40Melissa Ellis: Another reason to go to the ACT, Ollie?

00:51:43Oliver Spake: Yes. I have to check the timeframe on that one since I'm missing one of those other timeframes on these limited time artistic features of parkruns.

00:51:54Melissa Ellis: So many parkruns, so little time.

00:51:56Oliver Spake: That's right.

00:51:57Stephen Jackson: It's a shame. What are you going to do?

00:51:58Oliver Spake: Well, another cafe attendee was Chantelle Hosking, celebrating the 10th anniversary of parkrun in Australia at Queanbeyan, trying to get the alphabet right.

00:52:08Melissa Ellis: Yeah, good on Chantelle. She travelled all the way up from Victoria up to Queanbeyan to get her Q.

00:52:16Oliver Spake: Yeah, not an easy option for some, so good to see.

00:52:20Melissa Ellis: It's where I got my Q as well.

00:52:22Oliver Spake: Ah, I don't have a Q.

00:52:23Melissa Ellis: Just another thing that I'm ahead of you on.

00:52:26Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:52:27Melissa Ellis: And Chris Fraser, no time to faff, just enough time to fuel up for a kayak adventure, only 2.5. Now, I'm assuming only 2.5 relates... to the photo that he posted of his sausage roll, juice, and his lamington.

00:52:44Oliver Spake: That's right. Yeah, no, we had to get some research help here and see which one of those that Chris was talking about. It was the fill. There was a concern with the fill. Look, that's a shame. I'm sorry it was only 2.5, Chris.

00:52:57Melissa Ellis: The fill? Hang on, hang on. What does that mean? The sausage roll fill?

00:53:03Oliver Spake: Well, that's as far as the research went, so I'm assuming it was the sausage roll fill. Yeah.

00:53:06Melissa Ellis: Because I saw the photo and it looked like that pastry was a little bit less than up to standard. I thought it might have been a bit too flaky, but that was the pastry, so I wouldn't classify that as the fill.

00:53:17Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:53:18Melissa Ellis: Context. Context script. Jeez.

00:53:22Oliver Spake: Never mind. There's next week's cafe to clarify. All right. And we heard from Caro. Caro Vos. Woy Woy parkrun. Look in the goods. And beautiful early morning light shot of Woy Woy there. Yeah, I love the waterway.

00:53:35Melissa Ellis: It was. Caro posts some really nice photos. Yes.

00:53:40Oliver Spake: Yeah, I love those light pictures.

00:53:42Melissa Ellis: Okay. And Mark Scarborough, we had a leisurely sleep in and morning for a 9am parkrun start at Geeveston parkrun. Gotta love the Tassie parkruns, Ollie. They start at 9am. That's a very respectable time to start a parkrun.

00:53:58Oliver Spake: There's something about Tasmania. Good work. And it looked like a fantastic time too, Mark.

00:54:03Melissa Ellis: You're not hard to be swayed, are you, with Tasmania?

00:54:05Oliver Spake: No, no, no. Tasmania, New Zealand, there's something about those places. Our own Additional Channel 5 News crew member after Mark, we've got TOC. Two lattes and a hot choc for the O'Connells. Third week in a row of watching Dan smash his times. P.S. It was sunny at Inverloch.

00:54:25Melissa Ellis: It's always sunny at Inverloch. But I want to know... Which TOC had the hot choc? I'm guessing it was Jack.

00:54:35Oliver Spake: Yeah? Okay. Okay.

00:54:37Melissa Ellis: And Erica Liotta. Bunny ears and whiskers for a tourist adventure at Goondiwindi. Is that how you say it, Ollie? Gundwindi. Gundwindi. An eight-hour return trip with local coffee and hot cross buns on the drive home. Erica... posted a photo of herself in bunny ears with whiskers sporting an apricot singlet that says Adventure Erica.

00:55:03Oliver Spake: Definitely a well-earned title there too. What an effort.

00:55:06Melissa Ellis: I know. Eight-hour return trip. Yes. She's right up there.

00:55:10Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:55:11Melissa Ellis: That's a hardcore adventurer.

00:55:13Oliver Spake: Yep. I hope you had a good rest after that and I hope the coffee was good too. We also had... Car in the background. We also had Greg Garner. First time as RD at Victory Heights Trail parkrun. Bit wet, so numbers were down this morning, but who doesn't mind a bit of mud?

00:55:30Melissa Ellis: Oh, well done, Greg. Brilliant. And congratulations on your first go as RD.

00:55:35Oliver Spake: That vest looks perfect on you. It's a natural fit.

00:55:39Melissa Ellis: And Val Warwick. Happy 10th birthday signs for the Devonport Volleys on a brilliant, sunshiny and warm morning. And the sign said... parkrun Australia, happy 10th birthday.

00:55:51Oliver Spake: What a way to get in the spirit. Nice work, Val. And one of our fantastic supporters this weekend, Tracey Wood. Pineappling at Main Beach. Very appropriate, given the theme, Mel.

00:56:03Melissa Ellis: It was. And a lovely photo there of Tracey and Lyndell with one of the pineapples hanging from a tree at Main Beach. And Mandy Oliver, Main Beach. So... For a bit of context, Mandy had a photo from Main Beach And Mandy says she's disappointed that she missed us there and she's an avid listener of the pod. And we're disappointed that we didn't get to chat to you too, Mandy, but thank you for sharing your photo.

00:56:32Oliver Spake: Yeah. Oh, look, it would have been great to have an extra catch-up with those listeners. Sorry to have taken up so much of your time there, Mel. It looks like we had a fair few listeners out and about at Main Beach.

00:56:44Melissa Ellis: I know. I could have talked to so many more people if I hadn't have had a job.

00:56:48Oliver Spake: Next time. Hey, look, you know, maybe if everyone gets on the III trail for the 10th anniversary bus, we can all meet up at each respective 10th anniversary.

00:56:58Melissa Ellis: Or just come to Palm.

00:57:00Oliver Spake: Oh, there's an idea. I should probably be promoting that, shouldn't I?

00:57:05Melissa Ellis: to Palm and we can have freedom runs to chat to you and dinners and dress-up night. Everybody's welcome.

00:57:13Oliver Spake: You're absolutely right. You can see this podcasting thing at work, which we've only fairly recently discovered. Well, you had an experience before. It would be fantastic if anyone is out there and looking for what to do in the next week or two, assuming you're listening to this before Palm, get to the Sunshine Coast.

00:57:34Melissa Ellis: And if you're not, well, too bad you missed all the fun.

00:57:37Oliver Spake: That's it. Now, also in the cafe was Bec, Rebecca Bailey, kicking off the month of April with the first of four weeks of touristing and alphabeteering. Went to Kamay for a K. Aiming for a roadie this week to get my Zed next weekend. That's quite a roadie. Missed the home run, but I'll be back to Shellharbour in May. It always has to get a mention, doesn't it?

00:58:01Melissa Ellis: Okay, Bec, well, it's all right. It's you giving it the mention, so that's okay. And well done on a really impressive tourism.

00:58:11Oliver Spake: That's right. And look, just thinking of the trajectory, if she's heading for a Z, she's clearly going north. What were we just saying about people that were heading in that direction?

00:58:20Melissa Ellis: Oh, they could come to Palm? They could come to Palm. Come on, Bec. You can do it. And Lyndell Murray was also at Main Beach and she took the time to snap a photo of the dancing Marshall and doing so bagged herself another bingo number. I'm a little bit jealous of that.

00:58:40Oliver Spake: Yeah, and well done to Lyndell. We were almost going to finish up the live and then bang, Lyndell had finished and we got more time talking about it all. So it was great and thank you for jumping straight on and I hope you weren't too puffed after that, Lyndell, throwing you straight into a chat. She did fabulously. Yes. Speaking of doing fabulously, Shannon Aspinall shared with us and a very important role this weekend, the chief Easter egg hander-outerer at White Rock parkrun.

00:59:11Melissa Ellis: And that was a very cute photo of a Juju volley holding a container of Easter eggs.

00:59:17Oliver Spake: Nice work. That would have been a very popular volunteer.

00:59:20Melissa Ellis: And Irene... Visited Meningie parkrun. Decent crowd of runners, 32 in total. Came in fifth and first female with a PB. Brunch at Meningie Bakery, iced latte and an apple scroll, the best one I've ever eaten. Baked by the main baker, who is also the RD and ED. Wow.

00:59:44Oliver Spake: Now, that is a person you want to be friends with.

00:59:47Melissa Ellis: Yes, I think so. So well done for Meningie to have such a claim to fame as the local baker, as an ED. And well done, Irene, for a very good position at Meningie parkrun.

01:00:00Oliver Spake: Brilliant. Congratulations on the PB. Well done also to the splendid-looking Cameron Drake, another member of the team, keeping it classy, followed by a long black at the local. Hopefully this one wasn't as hot, Cam, but I have to commend you. What an outfit combining the elegant purple volunteer with the bunny ears.

01:00:22Melissa Ellis: Yep, we like to see that.

01:00:24Oliver Spake: And a bow tie. I almost missed that.

01:00:26Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I know. He was looking very spiffy. It was our cam.

01:00:29Oliver Spake: Yes.

01:00:30Melissa Ellis: And Josie Kidman, happy 10th birthday to parkrun Australia and Main Beach. Proud to say that Main Beach parkrun was my inaugural parkrun on the 15th of June, 2013. Well done, Josie. That is a fabulous claim to fame.

01:00:45Oliver Spake: Nice way to start. Yeah, fairly early days for Main Beach too. And then we had Dawn Branton. Great podcast last week, parkrun adventurers. Thank you very much, Dawn. But although you sound like they should be sheep, they are actually very friendly imaginary creatures that look a bit like wombats. And it would be fun if they did go on tour around Australia, but they are going to be auctioned with proceeds going to the Royal Children's Hospital.

01:01:11Melissa Ellis: Oh, thanks for getting back to us about that, Dawn. And yes, UooUoos are indeed fictional creatures loosely based on the dugong and the wombat.

01:01:22Oliver Spake: Yeah, I have been Googling UooUoos after Dawn's clarification and, of course, after the chat last week. Very cute. And I'm very sad to have missed them because my understanding is that things are pretty much wrapped up now, Mel.

01:01:36Melissa Ellis: Well, you never know, Ollie, because maybe being that they're being auctioned, one could turn up anywhere. Ah, yes. I'm assuming they're going to be like those marine creatures from the Sydney Olympics. You'll go to some random little country town and there'll be a UooUoo.

01:01:55Oliver Spake: Excellent. Keep your eyes peeled, people. We want UooUoo reports.

01:01:59Melissa Ellis: And... Adelina Trott. Family affair this week. Volunteering at Westerfolds. Stephen as RD and our youngest Isabella with mum as Tail Walkers. Happy 10th birthday, parkrun Australia. Thanks, Adelina. And it was really lovely to see Isabella joining in the volley fun.

01:02:17Oliver Spake: And then we had Lee Hargraves adventuring at Studley. Bouncy, bouncy bridge. I haven't been to Studley, Mel. What's the bridge?

01:02:24Melissa Ellis: Lee is referring to the historic Kane's Bridge. Ollie, Kane's Bridge is a pedestrian single-span suspension bridge over the Yarra River. Ah, connecting Studley Park with Yarra Bend Park. It was rebuilt in its current location after the original version was swept away in the 1934 floods. So it's been around a while, that bridge. Very picturesque, and as Lee eloquently describes, very, very bouncy.

01:02:52Oliver Spake: Bouncy, bouncy, in fact, yeah.

01:02:54Melissa Ellis: And Rio Montalaba Lambino, happy 10th anniversary, parkrun Australia. From the Ponds parkrun and Rio posted a group photo with signs from the event team holding up that said, happy 10th anniversary parkrun Australia. I saw lots of bunny ears and tutus, Ollie.

01:03:15Oliver Spake: Yeah, what great support from the Ponds. Nice to see them getting in the celebration. Yes, thanks for joining. And look, at the end of the queue, last but certainly not least, this week at Dazza's, Ingrid Botha ran Willow parkrun with my sister and my daughter. W for my alphabet. 17th different location, first Victorian run. I thought it'd be an easy run as my daughter doesn't run much, but it turns out she has two speeds, walking and supersonic running.

01:03:44Melissa Ellis: Isn't that just typical of kids though, Ollie? I'm sure that the supersonic was at the probably 100 metres to go. for that white line fever.

01:03:58Oliver Spake: Yes, that's it. You can't program them.

01:04:00Melissa Ellis: No, you drag them along for 4.9 kilometres and then they see the finish flags and they're like off.

01:04:07Oliver Spake: See, I haven't experienced that yet. It's been some time since I've tried it with Zali. I can't remember if I've tried it with Ava. I think I have. But yeah, mine don't save anything in the tank. They just go and then the tank just gets packed up and shut away.

01:04:21Melissa Ellis: Well, it was great to have you in Victoria, Ingrid. I hope you enjoyed it.

01:04:26Oliver Spake: So, Mel, it was certainly a lot of fun, a lot of great sharing, and thank you so much, everyone, that joined us at Dazza's Cafe. Thank you also to Mark, who we've heard from this week in the far, far south, the deep south of Geeveston parkrun. After he popped up in the cafe, we have a roving report from Mark. So we'll have to have a listen to that and, of course, catch up with the latest from the informant.

01:04:50[music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Geeveston parkrun

01:05:05Mark Scarborough: Hello parkrun adventurers, this is Mark reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew and we have adventured to Tasmania and we are actually at the Geeveston parkrun at Heritage Park in Geeveston with Tasmania's Forest Town and the good thing about Geeveston is it's the southernmost parkrun in Australia so now we've ticked off our northernmost at Nightcliff in Darwin and now our southernmost here in Geeveston. It's a beautiful day here in Geeveston today. It's actually quite warm. Seasonally warm, I believe, for Tasmania. But we're going to go have a parkrun and have a chat to a few of the other parkrunners here today. I'm at the finish line here with Nadine. Good morning, Nadine.

01:05:45Nadine: Good morning, Mark. Nice to meet you in the flesh.

01:05:46Mark Scarborough: Must have been the microphone that called it out for you.

01:05:50Nadine: Well, the GoPro gave me a clue and the Wagi Bridge, and then the microphone just was the deciding factor.

01:05:56Mark Scarborough: Did you see the troll out there today?

01:05:58Nadine: No trolls. I did keep a lookout for platypus, but I'm going to have to have a walk afterwards and see what I can find.

01:06:05Mark Scarborough: Well, I think the Waggie Bridge troll was here, Louise. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Where's the troll?

01:06:11Nadine: Oh, I think I can spy it.

01:06:13Mark Scarborough: Yeah. Wherever there's a bridge, there's a troll. So, yeah. So, Geeveston parkrun, well done. What brought you here?

01:06:20Nadine: My husband turned 50, so we thought we'd have a little getaway. So we thought, why not come to Tasmania?

01:06:25Mark Scarborough: Excellent. And where's home, parkrun? Yeah.

01:06:27Nadine: Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula.

01:06:30Mark Scarborough: And do you get around Victoria much and tourist?

01:06:32Nadine: I try to. Definitely this year I've put the accelerator on touristing and getting around pretty much almost every week. Much to Bev at Rosebud is very unhappy because I'm never there anymore to give her a hug. So everyone at Rosebud, please make sure you give extra hugs to Bev when you go there because she's missing me. I'm her second unofficial daughter.

01:06:53Mark Scarborough: And what's Rosebud parkrun like?

01:06:56Nadine: Rosebud is a coastal run. We do a double out and back along the foreshore. Beautiful place to run. Lots of great coffee places. Bit wild and woolly on the windy days, but that's what makes it all the fun is you have your lovely days and you have your not so lovely days and we get out there and do it anyway.

01:07:14Mark Scarborough: Is it always sunny there like at Inverloch?

01:07:15Nadine: Probably, yeah, pretty much, except when it's not, but don't tell Toc that.

01:07:21Mark Scarborough: And have you done many other parkruns in Tasmania?

01:07:24Nadine: This is my fifth in Tasmania. So I've done Launceston, Railton, Hobart, the Risdon Dam, and what else have I done? Bellerive. And this is parkrun number five in Tasmania. And high on the list is Kate Reed, which is set up by our good friends Lee and Leanne. And the next one is also Whitemark Wharf. They're top of my list for Tassie to get to.

01:07:49Mark Scarborough: Bit of a challenge to get out to White Mark Wharf though. But in Tasmania, what's your top three?

01:07:58Nadine: Well, I've only done five, so all of them. Railton, 100% Railton because I do like a trail run. Bellerive was nice. And once I do Kate Reed, that will be top of as well.

01:08:13Mark Scarborough: So we've got to find a couple of more parkruns to do in Tasmania. And Kate Reed gets mentioned a lot.

01:08:18Nadine: You might want to speak to one of their regulars here. Mr. Lee Evans is sitting here right beside me.

01:08:22Lee Evans: All right, Lee. So where's your home parkrun? Is it Kate Reed? It is Kate Reed. It is, yes. Started by my beautiful wife, Leanne, who's out there walking somewhere with our granddaughter, and um what can you tell us about Kate Reed it's a it's a trial run uh yes it's a trial run it's in the Kate Reed uh national uh state reserve actually which is behind the velodrome um we have plenty of parking by the way um and it's a true trail it's all on um even the fire trail is rocky it's a combination of single trail fire trail with a lot of undulation a lot of rocks I wouldn't say it was pram friendly, but one guy has got around three times with a cross-country pram now. So kudos to that guy, whoever he is. And it's undulating gently. Okay. Yes, so it is a challenge. You probably won't run what you run on your nice flat parkrun normally, but it is beautiful. We see snakes, wallabies, kangaroos, echidnas, everything we see on that course.

01:09:34Mark Scarborough: I'm not sure if you're selling it or not now saying snakes but you know that's I suppose the joys of Australian parkrun isn't it?

01:09:41Lee Evans: Look we've only ever seen one that scooted across the course once and he got out of the way very quickly because he only got run over by a very quick runner so...

01:09:51Mark Scarborough: Mind you, back home in Canberra at Mount Ainslie, you've got to be wary of the kangaroos there. We've had a few runners actually collide with kangaroos on that course. So it's an interesting trail run there as well. So, all right, well, thanks for that. We'll see where our travels take us in Tasmania and where we end up over the next couple of weeks. So thanks for the chat.

01:10:08Lee Evans: Enjoy.

01:10:09Mark Scarborough: I'm here with Nina, the Run Director for today. Good morning, Nina.

01:10:12Nina: Good morning. How are you?

01:10:13Mark Scarborough: I'm good. Thank you for having us at Geeveston parkrun today. It's quite a warm day for Tasmania.

01:10:19Nina: Very warm. Unseasonably warm for here. But yeah, not PB weather. PB weather. But yeah, it's good.

01:10:26Mark Scarborough: So what can you tell us about Geeveston parkrun?

01:10:29Nina: Well, we've been here for just over two years now. And we've had a couple of setbacks in that we had some bushfires here and COVID. But yeah, back into it now. We love it. Yeah, we'd be lost without it.

01:10:44Mark Scarborough: It's a beautiful play space here, the Heritage Park. Nice big open play space with brilliant playground for the kids. And we've also got a stream that runs through where there may be some platypus.

01:10:54Nina: Yes, we've got the Kermandie River that runs through our course and we do have a resident platypus up at one of our turnaround points. And he is visible quite often, which is really nice for people to be able to see. Yeah, it's great. We love it.

01:11:11Mark Scarborough: And do you get around in parkrun and visit any other parkruns in Tasmania?

01:11:16Nina: We get around a few, not as many as you guys, as you can see from your Adventures of the Troll, but we have a few local parkruns. We have Kingston, which is amazing, and Bellerive and Montrose, which are fabulous parkruns, and quite a few more than we had a couple of years ago, which is amazing to see. Yeah, we're so lucky.

01:11:37Mark Scarborough: And you're volunteering as Run Director today. What other volunteer roles do you do? What's your favourite volunteer role?

01:11:42Nina: I think I've only done it once before, but I love tail walking. So you still get to get your walk in. But I also love run directing. I love seeing all the new faces and I love seeing all the community get together. It's fantastic. I love volunteering.

01:12:00Mark Scarborough: Well, great. Thank you for your time today and thanks for having us at Geeveston parkrun.

01:12:03Nina: Thank you so much for visiting. Good to see you guys.

01:12:07Mark Scarborough: All right, parkrun adventurers, we've finished at Geeveston parkrun. It's a beautiful parkland space they have there at the Heritage Park for Geeveston. And unfortunately, we didn't spot any platypus today, but don't let that discourage you for coming to Geeveston and having a bit of a look for yourself. Now, James from the Channel 2 News crew, what were your thoughts on Geeveston today?

01:12:28James: Very beautiful and nice. I thought we were going to find a platypus, but we couldn't see one.

01:12:34Mark Scarborough: Ah, there's always next time, isn't there? All right, we'll catch you next time on The parkrun adventurers. Mark out.

the Informant

01:12:47the intern: Hi, everyone. This is the intern. The boss has gone away for Easter and left me in charge. No Ferrari will ever head to this part of town. I'm left with a 1991 Nissan Pulsar. No reverse camera, no cruise control, barely their aircon, not even Bluetooth. As you know, these are unofficial stats. I'm sure they're correct, but if they're not, well, nobody really cares anyway. Well done everyone who got out and ran or volunteered last weekend across the 417 Down Under events and a post-COVID record of 508 worldwide. This is due mostly to the Ruskies. They had a huge Super Saturday with eight events launching and something like 30 other events coming back for the first time since the lockdown. In Australia and New Zealand, we had 50,763 runners out of 55,954 worldwide. Another new COVID world record. We had 7,176 PBs, while 2,459 people participated for the first time. Yay!

01:13:43[13 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

01:13:57the intern: 179 juniors reached their 10 milestone, 198 reached their 50 milestone, 133 reached their 100 milestone, and 18 people reached their 250 milestone. Well done, guys. 16 people called bingo. Ross DeBoer took the longest with 278 events, and Danielle Stasinowski only took 169 events. We have 10 new statespeople. In the ACT, Patrick, Nathan, Helen and Matthew Loosom went to Coombs, while Annalise Arnold, Jodie Cloughton went to Wagi Bridge. In South Australia, Greta, Jessica, Cain and Stephen Wilkinson became statespeople at Yedl... Yeld... Yeldulknie Weir Trail. On the most Aussie New Zealand events list, 10 people moved up six spots. Congratulations to Chloe Bailey, James Rees, Bruce Purdy, Andrea DJ, Russ Glenn, and David Ray. In the top 20, Neil Schultz and Robin Wishworth were equal 15th last week. This week, Neil drops down to 16, and Robin continues his climb by running at Riverbank. Robin is now equal 14th with Tony Jennings, having 137 different events each. Biggest Wilson mover of the week is Brad Gossett, who jumped 13, going from 29 to 42. Carol Perez from South Australia remains our highest windexer, now on 173. That's it, all done and before lunch. I don't know why the informant gets so grumpy. He doesn't even have a spreadsheet. It's a SQL Server database. All these stats will be on the blog at the informant.me. That's the informant, all one word, .me. See you at Palm. Bye, everyone.

01:15:48Melissa Ellis: Okay. Thank you, Mark, all the way from lovely Geeveston down south in Tasmania. And as an aside, happy 50th birthday, Ian Crawford. Now, Ollie, The intern. So, we need to address this. The informant, he did not use official channels to request leave.

01:16:10Oliver Spake: That's right. There are processes and processes are there to be respected, right, Mel?

01:16:14Melissa Ellis: Apparently, he was away for Easter and left the intern on the job. However... What a brilliant job the intern did. I was very impressed.

01:16:24Oliver Spake: Yeah, not bad intern, not bad.

01:16:26Melissa Ellis: Somebody we can definitely rely on going forward, Ollie.

01:16:29Oliver Spake: Well, it's good to have someone. Yes, that's right.

01:16:33Melissa Ellis: And less grumpy and less sassy. So very up vibe. I mean, that definitely fits with our outlook.

01:16:40Oliver Spake: Our outlook on things. Yeah, we do take a slightly less sassy approach than the informant there. No, I think the intern's a good option, Mel.

01:16:50Melissa Ellis: I wonder if the informant's intending to be back next week.

01:16:53Oliver Spake: Maybe the intern will have to tell us. They seem to be in the know.

01:16:57Melissa Ellis: All right. And, Ollie, I wasn't at juniors this week.

01:17:02Oliver Spake: No.

01:17:02Melissa Ellis: I'm away.

01:17:03Oliver Spake: I don't think we've even addressed this, Mel. I mean, this could potentially be the, I was going to say the third, just thinking back to all the episodes, recording where posts have been in the same state. You are in New South Wales, right, Mel?

01:17:17Melissa Ellis: I am.

01:17:18Oliver Spake: Yes.

01:17:18Melissa Ellis: And can I just say, Ollie, the weather is crap. What's with this? I know. It's not your fault. It's La Nina.

01:17:29Oliver Spake: Well, I hate to say it, Mel, but it's not bad down here, but hopefully it clears up up there for you, especially whenever you're visiting the Sunshine State there. Sunshine State.

01:17:42Melissa Ellis: Well. I'm seeing lots of photos from Victoria and it's nice and sunny down there. So anyway, whatever. It's still warm. I'm not going to complain. But I didn't get to Juniors this week. But I did get a special message from my dear little Abby. And so I'm going to play it for you now.

01:18:03Abby: Hi, Mel. I came 22 today. I miss you. Bye.

01:18:10Melissa Ellis: Oh, thank you, Abby. I miss you too.

01:18:14Oliver Spake: It's good to hear from Abby and well done once again.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:18:17Melissa Ellis: Ollie, there was another juniors this week that launched. Yes, how exciting. Des Connor Park juniors in Brisbane. They launched this week.

01:18:26Oliver Spake: Yeah, well done to the team there.

01:18:28Melissa Ellis: 37 kids.

01:18:29Oliver Spake: Yes, fantastic effort. Not tempted to make an appearance, Mel?

01:18:33Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, I was tempted, Ollie, I have to say. However, I have a preteen who was already woken quite early to get to Main Beach parkrun on Saturday.

01:18:45Oliver Spake: Yeah, that was a rough one.

01:18:47Melissa Ellis: Yeah. So, we are in Queensland at the moment. We're in northern New South Wales. So, it was quite a decent drive to get up to Main Beach. And because I needed to, for my own mental health, to be there nice and early.

01:19:01Oliver Spake: Yes.

01:19:02Melissa Ellis: We departed quite early from our accommodation. However, Over the last week, savings has ended in New South Wales, which means if we were to attend the Queensland launch, we would have to have got up an extra hour early.

01:19:17Oliver Spake: Yeah, so that did work in your favour.

01:19:19Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, it did for Main Beach, but not for the potential to go to juniors. Oh, yes, very true, yes. Would have meant a roughly 4am start maybe next weekend or maybe we just have to come back another time.

01:19:35Oliver Spake: Always a good reason to come back.

01:19:36Melissa Ellis: Exactly. Oh, Ollie. Yeah. I'm on the job for Longest Run North Brisbane.

01:19:42Oliver Spake: Oh, do tell.

01:19:43Melissa Ellis: Oh, no. Well, so Tracey Wood, she's already got an event planned for Longest Run North Brisbane and I'm looking at a tourist weekend for Queen's birthday in Victoria is the weekend. I've already, I'm pretty sure it's the weekend after the launch of

01:20:02Oliver Spake: That's right. That's exactly right. Unless, of course, as Danny says, unless, of course, the launch date shifts back to the 12th or the 19th. It should be the week after the return of parkrun in England.

01:20:13Melissa Ellis: Oh, dear Lord, let's not hope that that weekend changes. But if it does, that's fine. I'll just co-host from Queensland.

01:20:21Oliver Spake: That's right. Mel's proven it can be done. We can host from Queensland, so I'm sure it'll be fine. And that would make that weekend particularly exciting. But so North Brisbane, that will be an excellent array of parkruns to choose from.

01:20:36Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so last year, obviously, we were all in lockdown and for a longest run, we actually created our own little local event with just a very reduced amount of people. The previous year, I went To Sydney. Ollie, you know I was there with you.

01:20:55Oliver Spake: That's right. That's right. We carpooled.

01:20:57Melissa Ellis: We did. That was so much fun.

01:20:59Oliver Spake: And we hobbled across the last parkrun together. Yeah.

01:21:02Melissa Ellis: I enjoy the longest run interstate tourism so much. So I've got that in my sights this year to do that again. So, hey, come with me. Come to Brisbane.

01:21:14Oliver Spake: Oh, look, it's a really appealing option. And I mean, I've talked about if Tassie had an option, I'd love to jump at that. But I'm thinking, Mel, and look, everyone out there, I've seen North Brisbane actually post their longest run event details. I haven't really seen any others. So everyone out there, if you're planning a longest run, love to see those pop up. Do share.

01:21:36Nina: But...

01:21:37Oliver Spake: Yeah, I'm just wishing or wondering what way I can help bring the longest run just a little bit closer to home. So I'm not sure if that'd be possible, but I don't know if I'll make it to Brizzy.

01:21:49Melissa Ellis: Ah, well, I'm sure you can get an event going in your lovely state of New South Wales. I'm sure you've got multiple options happening.

01:21:59Oliver Spake: There are a few opportunities there. As we move closer, very excited to see the longest run plans. Always a fun day. Highly recommend it to anyone that hasn't tried it.

01:22:08Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and it's exciting that it's drawing closer and promise we won't let it eclipse the event also imminent in England.

01:22:16Oliver Spake: Oh, yes.

01:22:17Melissa Ellis: That's our top priority. Danny, we're not forgetting. I promise you we're not forgetting.

01:22:21Oliver Spake: Can't wait. But, Mel, I suppose in the meantime, yeah, if there are any longest run details that you want to send us or if you'd like to send us anything else, you can email us at parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. You can always message us on Facebook. Just drop into the Cafe Dazza's for a chat after your parkrun day or on your parkrun day. We'd love to hear from you.

01:22:46Melissa Ellis: Yes, you can. And did you notice Dazza had a Hawaiian shirt this week, Ollie? Nobody commented.

01:22:52Oliver Spake: Doesn't miss a trick. I guess he's just that seamless. It's just that expectation with Dazza.

01:22:57Melissa Ellis: He was in theme with Main Beach's Hawaiian theme.

01:23:01Oliver Spake: Yeah, he did a good job. No wonder he pulls a crowd. Speaking of crowds, we're looking forward to seeing a crowd in, by the time the pod's out, about a week.

01:23:11Melissa Ellis: I know. Palm is so close, Ollie. Have you got your costume organised? Nope. What?

01:23:19Oliver Spake: Heaps of time, right, Mel?

01:23:21Melissa Ellis: Well, maybe for you, but I'm already, like, away from home. My costume did not arrive in time for me to pack it, so I'm... Currently costumeless. It's okay. I'm sure I can pull something together at the last minute. It's a parkrun theme. I've got plenty of scope.

01:23:42Oliver Spake: Yes. There's one thing that theme has for a group of parkrunners.

01:23:46Stephen Jackson: It's scope.

Sign-off

01:23:48Oliver Spake: In the meantime, Mel, it's been a fantastic week. Another great opportunity to hear about everyone's parkrun days and look forward to doing it again next week. Have you got plans for next week, Mel? You said you were off to Kirra, was it?

01:24:00Melissa Ellis: Yes, I'm working on my III.

01:24:03Oliver Spake: Excellent. Well, enjoy your parkrun day, Mel, when it comes around. Thank you again for all of your wonderful work at Main Beach and for joining us this episode. Thank you, everyone else, for joining us. Have a good parkrun day.

01:24:15[music]

01:25:08Unidentified speaker: Thank you.