Episode 245 - Dan Buckley

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 245 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm joined by Bass Point parkrun's most prolific not parkrunner, Ollie Spake. Thank you, Mel.

00:00:40Oliver Spake: And hello.

00:00:41Melissa Ellis: Hello. How are you? I am good. And how was Bass Point parkrun this week?

00:00:46Oliver Spake: It was good. It was a little modified this week, but it was very festive and ugly. I'm very pleased to say. It was good fun to get out there in as many bandanas that I could possibly, or buffs, I could possibly wrap around myself, which was helpful because it was windy. It was also Sunday. So let's call myself adaptable.

00:01:08Melissa Ellis: We had a pretty busy Saturday, Ollie, so that's fine. Yeah. But I did see a photo of you on your Bass Point parkrun on a bridge pointing to something.

00:01:19Oliver Spake: Well, this is where I'm so adaptable that technically I've been lying. The Saturday ugly Christmas day I was, in fact, also running, but I didn't go to Bass Point parkrun.

00:01:29Melissa Ellis: Oh.

00:01:29Oliver Spake: Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:38Melissa Ellis: Behind the curtain.

00:01:40Oliver Spake: Yeah. No, I was inspired. We had the Dazza's Cafe reports last week and the local Bailey shot had mentioned a certain bridge that I used to always like running to. So I ran out there. knowing that it would take me a little further and encourage me a bit more. So my (not)parkrun day was in fact a double not parkrun, no, a triple not parkrun distance. Again, very ugly and festive. And I got to go to the bridge. Didn't quite time the sunlight shot, but yes, found that the timing was otherwise correct.

00:02:14Melissa Ellis: So this is Rebecca's bridge.

00:02:16Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:02:17Melissa Ellis: With the sunlight at a certain time of day. But what were you pointing to? Was there something written on the bridge?

00:02:23Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:02:24Melissa Ellis: Was it time?

00:02:25Oliver Spake: It was time. Yeah, I thought, well, the writing was yellow. It said time.

00:02:29Melissa Ellis: Yes, it was really hard to read.

00:02:32Oliver Spake: So yeah, look, drawing a bit of a long bow there, but it was time for an ugly celebration. It was also time for our English parkrunner friends to return as well. So it just jumped out at me.

00:02:43Melissa Ellis: Yeah, no, it was good. I assumed it had that English connection. So you hit the mark.

00:02:49Oliver Spake: Yes, thank you. But Mel, in Sunday's Not parkrun, I did do that adapted version of the Bass Point Not parkrun, and I was getting really excited because it was quite windy. And I'm fortunate where I am with it being in a certain direction, it can actually work in my favour. So I had a nice tailwind. I was on track for the post-COVID PB, ironically back in lockdown, but nonetheless. But yeah, as chance would have it, yes, there was a headwind, coming against me on the return there and all of my good work was spoiled and it was not a post-COVID PB. It was still a good day.

00:03:21Melissa Ellis: At least you got out there.

00:03:23Oliver Spake: Yeah, certainly thriving on the encouragement of everyone with their (not)parkruns and sharing in everyone else's parkrun experience as well. But what about your (not)parkrun day, Mel?

00:03:33Melissa Ellis: I can't even remember. It was so long ago. Let's see. Ellis Palace parkrun, we had a theme.

00:03:42Oliver Spake: You did.

00:03:43Melissa Ellis: And we took inspiration from our live the previous week where somebody, I can't remember who it was, but somebody mentioned that we looked like the Wiggles, Ollie.

00:03:53Oliver Spake: Yes, that's right.

00:03:54Melissa Ellis: And my brain just went, ta-da. Wiggles. Oh, that would be the best theme. Yes. For the next Ellis Palace parkrun. So that was what I did. I spent my week sourcing appropriately coloured skivvies for myself and Zoe. There was no balloons, thankfully, that needed to be inflated.

00:04:13Oliver Spake: I was going to ask, how many balloons are still standing?

00:04:16Melissa Ellis: Oh, actually, they all were deflated yesterday.

00:04:19Oliver Spake: Oh, okay.

00:04:20Melissa Ellis: So they're all disposed of, but they did hang around for the full week.

00:04:24Oliver Spake: Excellent. Excellent.

00:04:27Melissa Ellis: Yeah, a lovely, healthy fruit salad brunch at Ellis Palace parkrun.

00:04:33Oliver Spake: Just thinking about those balloons, sorry, Mel, given they were all red, you weren't tempted to tape them all together as a big red car?

00:04:39Melissa Ellis: No. No, no, I didn't think of that. Paul does have a red car. Also didn't think of that. Never mind.

00:04:48Oliver Spake: Never mind. Never mind. I hope everyone's, of course, familiar with the Wiggles. I'd like to think that many people are.

00:04:54Melissa Ellis: It was a big weekend, Ollie. Yeah. I had a lot on my mind. There's a lot of other things going on. So we were going for low-key themes and it was basically I did buy myself a yellow skivvy and a wig and that was about the extent of it. other than we had fruit salad for brunch.

00:05:10Oliver Spake: Which is a big tick. I think that had to be the brunch. So well done.

00:05:14Melissa Ellis: Thank you. And I sent Zoe to scavenge in her toy box for something that was Dorothy the dinosaur related and we managed to come up with a sun hat. Oh, yes, yes. To put on Daryl. And I bought him some roses because Dorothy eats roses.

00:05:30Oliver Spake: I had forgotten that, yes.

00:05:31Melissa Ellis: Had you?

00:05:32Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:05:33Melissa Ellis: Shame on you. LAUGHTER

00:05:34[laughter]

00:05:36Oliver Spake: I need to brush up on my Wiggles trivia.

00:05:39Melissa Ellis: Anyway, that was Saturday morning. So it was a bit of an easy theme this week, but I went out there and ran the course on my own, got it done. Yeah, and then settled in to prepare for our live that we did for England, Ollie. England's back. They're home.

00:05:58Oliver Spake: England's back. Welcome back.

00:06:01Melissa Ellis: Mm-hmm.

00:06:01Oliver Spake: Look, again, huge thank you to Danny, to Nicola and the whole With Me Now family for having us and sharing with us their parkrun Day experience. Wasn't it great, Mel? Yes. The weather was maybe a little bit glum given the weather that they had been having, but I don't think it spoiled the spirits one bit. It was just lovely to see so many people clearly had been waiting for that day and were there to enjoy it. Again, you know, the observations around everyone being very patient, spread out, just sharing the day and you could see people that hadn't seen one another for such a long time just reconnecting. It was lovely.

00:06:42Melissa Ellis: Very apt that parkrun is now home where it all began.

00:06:46Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:06:47Melissa Ellis: But, Ollie, there was also events that returned in other countries. We had a surprise event returning in the Netherlands. Yes.

00:06:55Oliver Spake: Yes. Caught me by surprise, absolutely.

00:06:57Melissa Ellis: Caught everybody surprised, I think. Maximo parkrun came back for their event number three, and we also had three events sneak back in Canada. Henderson Lake, River Valley, and St. Paulin. Don't know how to pronounce that, Ollie, but anyway. Canadians, please correct me.

00:07:16Oliver Spake: Yes, let's hear from some of the Canadians out there.

00:07:19Melissa Ellis: I'll reach out to some friends. I've got some connections. Had I known, had I had a heads up, I could have been all over it. But anyway, that's fine.

00:07:28Oliver Spake: I have to admit, I have been checking the blogs here and there, but I'm a long way off being up to date, that's for sure.

00:07:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah, well, they have a few events in Canada, so that was just a small selection that came back. So maybe we'll see more next week. Who knows?

00:07:43Oliver Spake: Yeah, we'll have to do some blog research. And so far as we know, we're still in lockdown at time of podcast release. So we can enjoy some more of the returns vicariously. But Mel, in the meantime, you got a bit of a double shot of parkrun England's return this week, didn't you? Yeah. Did I? You did. You did.

00:08:03Melissa Ellis: Oh, I did. Yes. Yes. 100% I did. Yes.

00:08:08Oliver Spake: You were fortunate enough to catch up with another English parkrunner returning and sharing a bit more of the enjoyment and excitement of the return day. Should we have a listen?

00:08:18Melissa Ellis: I think we should.

00:08:19[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Interview Dan Buckley — Run Director, Leazes parkrun and Town Moor junior parkrun, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK)

00:08:33Melissa Ellis: Our guest today is an RD at Leazes parkrun and Town Moor Junior parkrun in the UK. And this morning he volunteered at the return of Leazes parkrun in Newcastle upon Tyne. He's completed 170 parkruns in five countries and volunteered 130 times in 25 distinct roles. Welcome to the parkrun adventurers podcast, Dan Buckley.

00:08:54Dan Buckley: Oh, good morning, Mel. Thank you very much for inviting me.

00:08:57Melissa Ellis: Oh, you're most welcome. But firstly, Dan, how did it feel to be back at parkrun today after so long?

00:09:04Dan Buckley: It was just such an amazing feeling, there's been so much talk about when it was going to return in England and obviously it was delayed very slightly but yesterday in the Leazes Park core team the chatter on the the whatsapp group started to lift and you could just tell that everybody was excited about today coming and when we all met this morning for the pre-event setup there was just a feeling of excitement Everybody looking forward to it. Obviously, we were quite conscious that we made sure that it was done in a safe manner. And we sort of went by the parkrun framework they've put in place. And everything just went really, really well this morning. Everybody was in fantastic moods. There was lots of smiling and just really, really good time for England and for parkrun.

00:09:55Melissa Ellis: And you volunteered today?

00:09:56Dan Buckley: I did volunteer today. So I did pre-event setup. And then I did the first-timers briefing. Now, we only had three first-timers this morning, which was quite unusual. And then I was barcode scanning as well. Obviously, because of COVID, things have changed very slightly on how we do things. But it went really well. Had you used the app before? No. I'm a big supporter of the app and have been for some time. So for me, it wasn't a problem. We had a couple of people that haven't used it before, but because the app is so simple and straightforward to use, pretty much anybody can use it.

00:10:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I agree 100%. And so it was event 30 at Leazes today.

00:10:38Dan Buckley: Yep.

00:10:39Melissa Ellis: Prior to the pause, they were averaging 155 runners. And so how many did you get today?

00:10:45Dan Buckley: Well, we're just waiting for the final numbers, but our numbers were down a little bit today, and I think we had about 63. Okay. they've had. So whether people went to different events or whether people are still being slightly cautious, we're not quite sure. So I think it's going to take a few weeks to work out where it's going to be. But I'm quite confident we will get back to those numbers. But the best thing is we were back. That was it.

00:11:18Melissa Ellis: Exactly. So just putting context, whereabouts Newcastle upon Tyne is in relation to the country? Yeah.

00:11:25Dan Buckley: Up the top. Okay. So we are up in the northeast of the UK. So the Scottish border is not that far, but we're quite far up.

00:11:36Melissa Ellis: And for everybody that's listening, can you describe the course at Leazes?

00:11:41Dan Buckley: Leazes Park is a stunning park that's got quite a lot of history to it. It's run by Urban Green and they look after all of the green spaces within the Newcastle region and are really good supporters of parkrun as a whole. The park itself, the route itself, should I say, it's a three-lap route and you run around the lake so there's a bit of a a hill going down to start you off and then round the bottom and then you run up that hill, which is the hardest bit. But it's a stunning course, really nice.

00:12:17Melissa Ellis: And will you be able to run next week? Is that your hope?

00:12:21Dan Buckley: Well, I'm Run Director next week. The week after that, I'm doing Tail Walker. But the week after that, I'm just going there for me and to have a run. But I like to keep my volunteers and my running and try and get a happy medium of both.

00:12:35Melissa Ellis: And you're quite the tourist as well. You've done 68 different events.

00:12:39Dan Buckley: Yes.

00:12:40Melissa Ellis: But how did you find out about parkrun?

00:12:42Dan Buckley: Well, through a mutual friend of yours as well, Rachel McCracken. I'd never even heard of parkrun. And when I first met her, and she's saying about every Saturday morning, she goes and does this run. I didn't even run at that point. And I kind of got a little bit interested. And when I came to Australia and went to Berwick Springs, and that was my first ever parkrun. And that started all of this.

00:13:08Melissa Ellis: And I actually met you that morning.

00:13:11Dan Buckley: You did. You did. And then here we are, I think, five years later. Yes. You know, 170 runs, the volunteers, and it's become a way of life for me, like so many others.

00:13:24Melissa Ellis: And you guys like to do a bit of touring. As I said, you've done five countries.

00:13:29Dan Buckley: Absolutely.

00:13:30Melissa Ellis: So what are the countries that you've been to other than Australia and the UK?

00:13:34Dan Buckley: Canada. America and Poland and Poland I actually did with some people you know some fellow statesmen Michaela and Paul kirk ah yes that's right you met them over there on their on one of their trips we did and we went um had a fa I can't remember unfortunately the name of the the parkrun but obviously went there, made very welcome. And again, it was another flag for the parkrun. For the challenges. For the challenges. Absolutely. Yes.

00:14:04Melissa Ellis: So, Dan, you're so close to the Scottish border, did you say? And you haven't done a parkrun there.

00:14:09Dan Buckley: I have. I have. We've been over to Scotland, but it classes as the UK. So, you get the Union Jack flag rather than a Scottish flag. Because we're all one.

00:14:20Melissa Ellis: Yes. United.

00:14:22Dan Buckley: Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:14:23Melissa Ellis: And so you're also an RD at Town Moor Juniors, which I do note they're not back yet, are they?

00:14:29Dan Buckley: No, we're close. They are talking about the dates of early August, but we're just currently waiting for some permissions to come in from some of the stakeholders that part runner working with. So fingers crossed, it will be early August. We all met up a few weeks ago just to go through and make sure we were going to get everything correct because it's been a long time that we haven't been there. So we're all ready. We're just waiting for the permissions now.

00:14:58Melissa Ellis: Is there many junior events as well up your way?

00:15:01Dan Buckley: It is building. I mean, round the kind of Newcastle, Durham region, there's three. So, you know, it is becoming far more accessible for young parkrunners.

00:15:13Melissa Ellis: So I guess when you come back, you'll have the four to 14 year olds straight off the bat. Yes. Because I believe now in the UK, all the 10 to 14 year olds can go back to junior parkrun.

00:15:24Dan Buckley: Yes, absolutely. So when we come back, we'll have everybody there.

00:15:28Melissa Ellis: And so you're a Run Director there as well. So you Run Director at a seniors and a juniors level.

00:15:33Dan Buckley: That's correct.

00:15:34Melissa Ellis: And how did you become involved with Town Moor Juniors?

00:15:37Dan Buckley: I was actually approached by one of the other Run Directors who is in the same running club as me and just said, you know, we're looking for Run Directors. I was quite involved with Leazes at that point and just asked me if I would like to be involved. And I just thoroughly enjoy the junior events because, you know, the children, they get so much from it. There's so much effort put in. You know, there's a social aspect as well, not only for the children, but for the adults as well. And what we all want to see is these children just progressing their running and enjoy their running. And, you know, when we come back, there's going to be children there that we've not seen for 15 months. Yeah. They're bigger, they're running, they will have been working on that and improved and yeah, it's a great thing. Get a lot of enjoyment from it.

00:16:26Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I was taken with just how much you get out of putting on the event for the children and they make their own little friendships. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've seen that at Eynesbury, you know, kids that wouldn't normally cross paths and forming little bonds. And even Zoe now, she has made a friend and previous to that friendship forming, she was a little bit reluctant to get up and she came along because I sort of dragged her.

00:16:54Dan Buckley: Obviously.

00:16:55Melissa Ellis: But now she wants to see her friends. So she gets up and it comes out. Sometimes it's the only sort of social interaction she gets for the week.

00:17:02Dan Buckley: And that makes it such a positive thing. And there's also the point of a little bit of healthy competition between certain children if that's what they want from the event. You know, that's not right for everybody. But I've noticed a couple of children every week and you can see them, you know, one one week, one the other. And it's just all good fun for them.

00:17:22Melissa Ellis: They're looking around to see if that person who usually gets that first finished place, are they here today?

00:17:28Dan Buckley: We do that in senior events as well. A few times I've run with people and I'm thinking, right, I'm going to catch him on the last thing. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

00:17:37Melissa Ellis: 100%, yes. Ah, so what else happened at Leazes today? Have you got any stories or what did you observe? You said there was only three first-timers and obviously the crowd was, there was less people there than you generally get. So were they your staunch regulars that were back?

00:17:58Dan Buckley: Pretty much so.

00:17:59Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:17:59Dan Buckley: They were, just to say, a couple of the first-timers had travelled down from Scotland, because I'm sure you're aware Scottish events aren't on yet.

00:18:07Melissa Ellis: Okay. And they're allowed to do that.

00:18:09Dan Buckley: Yeah. They spent three and a half hours driving down to Newcastle, hotel overnight, so they could come to parkrun. Oh, brilliant. You know, which was a fantastic thing. But the thing that I got most from today was everybody was smiling. Everybody, you know, was pleased to see each other. And I know everybody thanks the volunteers at the end of it, but it just... seemed people were just a little bit more grateful that we were all back. And that's the thing that I took away from today. So it was really, really positive.

00:18:43Melissa Ellis: Excellent. And Rachel couldn't go. She had to work.

00:18:46Dan Buckley: Yes. Just to say she was not happy this morning when she left for work at 10 past six.

00:18:51Melissa Ellis: So does she have to work every Saturday morning?

00:18:54Dan Buckley: It's not every Saturday. I think from now she will get about one in five off. Right. So which is better than it was. So we've got a tourist trip planned for early August and we're going to go down to Norfolk, have a little bit of time away in the camper van and then do a bit of tourism as well, which will be exciting. I'm not sure where we're going yet. I'll need a little bit of research to be done. But yeah.

00:19:22Melissa Ellis: Okay, so the event that you're going to go isn't chosen?

00:19:26Dan Buckley: It's not chosen yet.

00:19:27Melissa Ellis: It's in Norfolk, but it's not called Norfolk.

00:19:29Dan Buckley: In Norfolk, we're not sure which one. We need to do a little bit of research and find out which one.

00:19:36Melissa Ellis: Do you chase any challenges? How are you going with your alphabet and...

00:19:41Dan Buckley: Alphabet, I think without looking, I've got a few more to go because it's only this last week that I've actually started to look because there hasn't been any reason to look. So I've taken a bit of time this week and I think there's a new name challenge as well that I spotted on there for the challenges. True. And so that will come into it. It's absolutely a factor. So, yeah, we'll see what we can work out.

00:20:07Melissa Ellis: Excellent. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to speak to us today, Dan. And one question that we ask all our guests is not including your home parkrun.

00:20:17Dan Buckley: Yes.

00:20:17Melissa Ellis: Can you give us your top three parkruns and why?

00:20:20Dan Buckley: Oh, absolutely. I think the first two are easy. My number one Berwick Springs. Because that is where the journey began for me. That's where all of this started. So, and one, my first parkrun in Australia, meeting you guys and Paul and Michaela and yeah, absolutely top of the list. My second will be one called Druridge Bay parkrun and that's in the North East. The reasons for that is one, it was the first parkrun I did in the UK and I did that on my own. The location there is absolutely stunning and it's right next to the beach. Now, I know you're so privileged in Australia having some fantastic beaches, but Druridge Bay is like an Australian beach. Golden sands everywhere. beautiful sea and there's not many people there. And I have to say that's only on a sunny day. If you go there on a rainy day, it's not that great, but it's stunningly beautiful. And my third one, I've got so many thirds, but I've picked out one which is Fountains Abbey Park, run and the reason is it's an old an old abbey and it's just a beautiful location when Rachel and I went it was a sort of misty morning so there was the mist over the abbey and it was just a stunning location really beautiful so they are my top three

00:21:46Melissa Ellis: Oh, that's great. And that's really nice that the Australian one got in there at Berwick Springs. All right. Well, I will let you go back to your day, Dan. Sorry if we pulled you away prematurely from your event.

00:21:59Dan Buckley: Not at all. It's an absolute pleasure to catch up with you.

00:22:02Melissa Ellis: All right. Well, you take care. Enjoy your volunteering over the next few weeks. And we might hear from you again, I hope.

00:22:09Dan Buckley: Absolutely. And thank you very much indeed, Mel. Thank you.

00:22:12[15 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:22:27Melissa Ellis: And thank you to Dan Buckley. It was absolutely fabulous to talk to him after Leazes parkrun and hear all the excitement, Ollie, from the UK on Saturday morning.

00:22:40Oliver Spake: Yeah, look, congratulations, Dan and the whole gang and pretty stellar effort. It sounds like he's stacked up a fair few volunteering stints to help get everything back up and running, which is just fantastic.

00:22:51Melissa Ellis: Yeah, he's a champ, Dan.

00:22:53Oliver Spake: Yeah, and Mel, that's a pretty impressive top three as well.

00:22:58Melissa Ellis: I know, and an Australian event snuck in there at number one.

00:23:01Oliver Spake: Yes, yeah, very special. And we both think this now because, of course, we were just chatting about it before recording, but Druridge Bay, that looks spectacular.

00:23:12Melissa Ellis: It has shot up on my list of events to do, Ollie. I've now Googled it and, yeah, I think I need to go and visit Dan and Rach now and go and see, check out Druridge Bay for myself.

00:23:26Oliver Spake: Yes, definitely one for the list.

00:23:28Melissa Ellis: You have a long list, Ollie.

00:23:30Oliver Spake: Yeah, I like to think that it's limitless.

00:23:33Melissa Ellis: Have you got family up that way?

00:23:35Oliver Spake: Not in the northeast, southwest.

00:23:38Melissa Ellis: Oh, you'll have to come with me to visit Dan and Rach then.

00:23:40Oliver Spake: That's right, yeah, happily. Thank you so much, Dan, and thanks, Mel, for sharing a bit more of the parkrun enjoyment from England's return.

Emails

00:23:50Oliver Spake: In terms of the other festive occasions, Mel... You've got mail. We heard from Eman. And, yeah, not to miss a beat because, of course, Eman was all over the festive of occasions. Did I get that right? The most festive of occasions locally. LAUGHTER being Ugly Christmas in July. And he wrote, hi guys, I hope you're both coping well with the current lockdowns in your respective states. Back on the parkrun tourism this week after doing a couple of RD duties out at South Toowoomba. Travelled down to Brisbane with the Green Streets and ran Underwood parkrun while representing the Ugly Christmas in July singlet. It was a cold and misty morning, but had a great time. I hope you guys get your parkruns back soon. Amen.

00:24:06[laughter]

00:24:37Melissa Ellis: Excellent. And there was a photo attached of Eman wearing his ugly singlet there at... Underwood.

00:24:44Oliver Spake: Was the photo from Underwood? Yes. Yes.

00:24:46Melissa Ellis: He must have been going for his U, do you think?

00:24:49Oliver Spake: Yeah, surely. I haven't done all the stats researching there to check if he's got a U, but I'll see if I can knock that over while we're talking.

00:24:57Melissa Ellis: And Ollie, the Green Streets, would that be his running club?

00:25:01Oliver Spake: I can only assume so because he's got a different club that comes up in his profile. Fun fact, he was the first finisher as well. So well done, Eman.

00:25:10Melissa Ellis: Oh, Eman, of course he was. Yeah.

00:25:12Oliver Spake: By a tidy 41 seconds. So yeah, well done to him.

00:25:15Melissa Ellis: Nice work.

00:25:15Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:25:16Melissa Ellis: parkrun adventurer's own Eman.

00:25:18Oliver Spake: Streaking ugliness. But thank you for the email. We hope to have our parkruns back soon too. Thanks, Eman. But keep up the good work.

00:25:25Melissa Ellis: Yes, we're living through you, Eman. Keep on touring, please.

00:25:30Oliver Spake: Absolutely. And always love the South Toowoomba videos as well.

00:25:34Melissa Ellis: And we haven't forgotten, we are going to plan when restrictions permit our trip to South Toowoomba.

00:25:40Oliver Spake: Yeah, when we're allowed in the state.

00:25:42Melissa Ellis: It feels like never, never, never, never.

00:25:44Oliver Spake: It's good to have things to look forward to though, right Mel?

00:25:47Melissa Ellis: I'd just be happy to get out of my five kilometres at the moment, Ollie.

00:25:50Oliver Spake: Yeah, I keep forgetting that I'm lucky enough to have 10.

00:25:52Melissa Ellis: You're lucky enough to have a beach.

00:25:54Unidentified speaker: Yes.

Dazza's

00:25:56Oliver Spake: And, Mel, of course, this week we also heard from, well, plenty of parkrunners enjoying the festivities at Dazza's.

00:26:03Melissa Ellis: There was plenty of ugly at the cafe.

00:26:06Oliver Spake: There was, yeah. It was nice to see you all looking so terrible, wonderful and terrible. And, of course, a bit of celebration for our friends on the other side of the globe there.

00:26:17Melissa Ellis: And firstly, we heard from Sonja Pohlman. She said, we had a Christmas cracker to call the start today. And this was the joke inside. Very appropriate. What's the fastest fish in the world? A motorbike.

00:26:35Oliver Spake: Fantastic. Thank you, Sonja. Bernadette Bennett, shirts and buffs out at Newy too. Our daughter moved to England in February. She has been waiting patiently for the restart. Unfortunately, she is isolating, quarantining with COVID now and missing the restart.

00:26:53Melissa Ellis: Oh, but Bernadette shared a photo of herself. And who was she with?

00:26:58Oliver Spake: I'm not sure.

00:26:58Melissa Ellis: They were both in ugly buffs and singlets.

00:27:01Oliver Spake: That's right. And, of course, Bernadette, I hope your daughter feels well soon.

00:27:05Melissa Ellis: Yes. And Janet Reid, we are staying within our 2.5 exercise radius, no bakery, so Jeff decided to make me scones and coffee. We had no cream, so we used milk froth for aesthetic purposes. I have no choice but to award him five out of five, even more so since he went along with me insisting that he wore his Ugly Christmas Shirt when we did our (not)parkrun. I think the neighbours are confused or maybe concerned. Merry Ugly Christmas in July, everyone. Now to start preparing for Christmas dinner.

00:27:41Oliver Spake: Jeff and Janet really know how to do that festivity. That's spectacular. And we heard from Brett Bailey, ran Pegasus with Brunner, handed him over to Tanya on the return leg, then ran back to walk with them back to the finish. Home for bacon and eggs and avo smash. Our thoughts go out to all Australian parkrunners in lockdown and our plans to come over in September have hit a speed bump, it seems. Midwinter Christmas run next week.

00:28:09Melissa Ellis: And Tamsin Smith, Merry Ugly Christmas in July from Southampton, England. Just 561 runners for us today. Pre-COVID, we regularly had over a thousand runners with a record of 1,612. We also had 56 amazing volunteers. What? !

00:28:29Unidentified speaker: 56?

00:28:31Melissa Ellis: What? And a ukulele band by The Finish. And Tamsin posted a photo of herself in an ugly singlet. Well, hang on a minute. How do you have 56 volunteers, Ollie?

00:28:44Oliver Spake: Well, when you get over 1,000 parkrunners, I think it's probably going to need a few helping hands. But, yeah, firstly, welcome back, Southampton.

00:28:52[laughter]

00:28:52Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

00:28:54Oliver Spake: I do love Southampton in particular. But, yeah, no, interesting to see the numbers down. It seems strange to call 561 down from where I'm sitting, but it must be fantastic to have everyone back and to do it with a ukulele band.

00:29:07Melissa Ellis: What better way?

00:29:09Oliver Spake: And we heard from Penny Simpson. Photo taken today after Mount Clarence parkrun, after the removal of the RD vest and raincoat. Sorry, was hardly representing, but it was cold and wet. Met the famous Scarborough family. Breakfast afterwards with visiting family who had sensibly proceeded straight to the cafe.

00:29:31Melissa Ellis: Ooh, they met the famous Scarborough family.

00:29:35Oliver Spake: That's right. Great to see Penny with the ugly singlet there too.

00:29:38Melissa Ellis: Marvellous.

00:29:39Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:29:40Melissa Ellis: And Linda Coombes, Warwick parkrun represent. Not as chilly as it has been this past week. And Linda shared a photo of four ladies in tutus and ugly, fluffy singlets and buffs with a dog also wearing a koala singlet.

00:29:59Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:29:59Oliver Spake: I love it. Love it. Everyone's in. Yep. We also had Irene. Not parkrun on Mullum Mullum Trail in our 5km bubble to the local bakery to buy some delicious snot blocks. Classic vanilla slice for our son. Parth and I will be sharing a vanilla French slice with coffee icing and a homemade coffee. Warm feels.

00:30:21Melissa Ellis: And Rebecca Bailey. Saturday sleeping this morning after watching the Kiwis at the opening ceremony last night. Heading out for a Banksia Avenue not parkrun later today in the ugly buff. I'll try time the light for an ugly photo under the bridge. The bridge.

00:30:40Oliver Spake: The bridge. That's right.

00:30:42Melissa Ellis: And she managed. She did. It was a great photo under the bridge. Is that the bridge you were on previously?

00:30:50Oliver Spake: That is the bridge.

00:30:51Melissa Ellis: Forever known as the bridge. Does it have a name, the bridge?

00:30:57Oliver Spake: No, it's the bridge.

00:30:58Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:30:58Oliver Spake: Pure and simple. Great photo, Bec. Thank you. We heard from Alison King, Run Director at Puarenga parkrun today, where it was four degrees. I may have put my jumper and puffer jacket back on after this pic.

00:31:13Melissa Ellis: Oh, no. but thank you for making the effort in a very chilly looking four degrees and Mandy Oliver got my H at Hervey Bay parkrun in my Ugly Christmas Singlet quite humid heading off for breakfast and an explore and Mandy had a photo of herself in a selfie frame with her ugly singlet

00:31:34Oliver Spake: Chantelle Hosking, lockdown airing of The Ugly Gear. Seat decided it needed to get into the action as well. After a walk, a Kit Kat muffin is waiting for me.

00:31:44Melissa Ellis: And I need to give a bit of context. So Chantelle has been posting a photo of that same seat every day for goodness knows how long. I don't remember when Chantelle's starting. I don't know if it was at the start of the pandemic or the start of this year, but for whatever reason... I think it might have been the 1st of January. Chantelle decided to take a photo of a seat a day and every day and it's a motivation for her and she's a listener to get out every day and at least walk to her local park and take a photo of that seat and that's her motivation every day. She hasn't missed a day.

00:32:22Oliver Spake: Oh, that's incredible.

00:32:23Melissa Ellis: She now has this following of people that wherever they are, if they see a park bench, they will take a photo and they will send her the photo or they will link it in her comment for the day of their park bench. And I did it myself when I was at Cabarita Beach. I remember, you know, running up to the point and I would say, oh, there's the park bench. I'll take a photo and I'll send it to Chantel. It's just another way that people have found in lockdown to motivate themselves and to engage their friends and community. It's fabulous.

00:32:55Oliver Spake: Oh, it really is. And to celebrate with it as well.

00:32:59Melissa Ellis: That park bench is really famous now.

00:33:03Oliver Spake: Well and truly. What's the saying, peeling back the curtain? I can't remember if I'm number one or number two.

00:33:08Melissa Ellis: You're next. Oh, do you think I've forgotten? No.

00:33:13Oliver Spake: No, I'm pretty sure it's me.

00:33:14Melissa Ellis: I started on number one, so you must be two.

00:33:18Oliver Spake: Fun fact, this week I was responsible for numbering the different Dazza's posts. Little old me. Yeah. Instead of the good old alternating one, two, one, two, one, two.

00:33:31Melissa Ellis: You should have put our names. It would have worked a lot better.

00:33:34Oliver Spake: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But. Look, not to take away from the amazing tinsel we had from William Barlow, Cairns in July, a bit warmer than Canberra.

00:33:50Melissa Ellis: How did those Barlows get to Cairns?

00:33:53Oliver Spake: Well, yeah, ACT, they're able to go. There's a lot of them. Those Territorians, they're living it up at the moment.

00:34:00Melissa Ellis: They are. They've escaped everywhere, haven't they?

00:34:03Oliver Spake: dressed to match the occasion as well. So yeah, fantastic to see you all looking ugly and celebrating Fluffy.

00:34:11Melissa Ellis: Absolutely. And I actually shared on my own personal socials today, a memory from Will from a year ago where he performed a song. Ah, yes. We're all in this together. And I thought it was very apt because we are. There's a lot of rivalry and a lot of we might say bickering between the states of Australia the states and territories over this lockdown but really you know we are all in this together so it was a nice reminder will thank you yeah and it was a very good version it was isn't it good

00:34:45Oliver Spake: Yeah, he's a fantastic musician, our Will.

00:34:48Melissa Ellis: Can we have another one, Will? Can we have some more, please?

00:34:51Oliver Spake: Please. I mean, I digress, but I saw that live only a couple of months ago. I went and saw Ben Lee live. And I don't know if I've told this. It was just when the mask restrictions came in. So we were all in it together, but he had to keep telling us not to sing along.

00:35:04Melissa Ellis: Oh, really? Really?

00:35:05Oliver Spake: Because that was when we didn't have singing. We're allowed to do a lot of things, but not sing at that point.

00:35:10Melissa Ellis: But also to digress, Ollie, how is that gold medal today? What's her name?

00:35:15Oliver Spake: Ariarne Titmus.

00:35:16Melissa Ellis: Yes.

00:35:17Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:35:18Melissa Ellis: And her coach, he went off his nut. Totally outside all COVID restrictions, clearly.

00:35:25Oliver Spake: Yeah, we have seen a bit of excitement go outside of the restrictions there. Have you been enjoying the Olympics, Mel?

00:35:30Melissa Ellis: I haven't had time to watch anything, Ollie, to be honest. I've been otherwise busy with either my own running or editing. Yes. Though I did see it on the news and in social media because it's getting a lot of attention.

00:35:45Oliver Spake: But we digress. Yeah.

00:35:46Melissa Ellis: We do. And we also heard from Michael Sharp. Good to hear from you, Michael. And he said the Beaches Park Runny posted a photo of ugly singlets at the Beaches.

00:35:57Oliver Spake: Looking fantastic. Nice to see a bit of a mix of ugly singlets as well. We heard from Louise Minty. Got ugly for my NENDY at Whitfords Nodes parkrun, a lovely coastal course with a surprise killer hill in the dunes.

00:36:12Melissa Ellis: And Val Warwick. Yes. In Devonport, the rain held off as we celebrated the 100th parkrun of a special lady, but we were happy to get brekkie and coffee afterwards as the miserable weather set in after we'd uploaded the scanning and the times. Our Saturday sky is now shedding very cold tears for all you in lockdown. Please take care of yourselves, all of you in New South Wales, Vic and South Australia. And Val posted a photo from the morning at Devonport.

00:36:42Oliver Spake: Lovely light shot. And Ingrid Botha. I went for a 5K walk, but while Paris happily wandered into the creek, I slipped over onto my butt on the moss and dropped my phone into the water. And Jazz did her best not to laugh as I am. I'm sorry, Ingrid. I would rather have been at parkrun. P.S. the phone seems to have recovered, so it all ends well. And I hope you were okay.

00:37:07Melissa Ellis: Oh, Ingrid, and you are doing a really good job at staying positive through all of this.

00:37:12Oliver Spake: That's right.

00:37:12Melissa Ellis: Sending love to you. Yes. And Tracey Wood, a very foggy start at Kedron, but turned out to be another lovely day. Tracey posted a very foggy photo.

00:37:24Oliver Spake: Didn't that look wonderful?

00:37:25Melissa Ellis: Mm-hmm.

00:37:25Oliver Spake: Mark Scarborough. Scarborough's have done Mount Clarence parkrun in Albany, WA. Now waiting on breakfast and coffee at Three Anchors.

00:37:34Melissa Ellis: And a lovely photo of the Mount Clarence coastline. Mmm. Sam Schroder. Week four of Love Shack, not parkrun, in my very versatile fluffy ugly buff and a delicious smoked salmon feta and dill phyllo parcel feast from Luke's Cafe. Mel, he wanted you to know he deliberately chose a dish with no new words in it for you this week.

00:38:00Oliver Spake: That's very thoughtful.

00:38:01Melissa Ellis: No new baked goods for me to have to research this week. Thank you, Luke.

00:38:07Oliver Spake: They're always outdoing themselves. And Sonja Pohlman, Ugly Christmas in July at the Beaches.

00:38:13Melissa Ellis: Sound up. And that was in reference to a video, which was the Grinch song, which then panned to, I think, P4.

00:38:24Oliver Spake: That's right.

00:38:26Melissa Ellis: Perhaps inferring Thomas was not completely invested in the Christmas theme at the Beaches. And Claire Stutchbury, surprisingly sunny morning at Mulliney Trail parkrun this morning for our 92nd event. Much harder than expected. They're edging closer to that cow, those two.

00:38:48Oliver Spake: They are. Tanya Bailey, a chilly minus two this morning for Pegasus parkrun. Tail Walker today and lower numbers, 57 hardy souls. And what about that picture?

00:38:58Melissa Ellis: Minus two?

00:38:59Oliver Spake: That one was cold.

00:39:01Melissa Ellis: And we heard from my mate, Dan Buckley. Nothing ugly here, but I am actually going to parkrun here in England. First in nearly 16 months. Very excited. And wasn't he just?

00:39:14Oliver Spake: He was. Stuart Brandwood, a cast of thousands, is poised and ready.

00:39:19Melissa Ellis: I'm assuming Stuart was coming to us from over there in the UK. Ollie, would you make that assumption?

00:39:26Oliver Spake: There were two English flags in his post emojis. So I'd say that's a fairly safe bet. I hope you had a good one, Stuart.

00:39:33Melissa Ellis: Caro Vos, still in lockdown, but took the ugly buff out for a (not)parkrun this morning. And Caro shared a photo of herself in her ugly buff. In front of?

00:39:44Oliver Spake: The beautiful waterways out at the central coast there. Great to see a bit more fluffy. Melanie McGregor, I welcomed England back to parkrun from Greytown Woodside Trail parkrun during the Olympic theme event.

00:39:56Melissa Ellis: Yes, and I had to Google where Greytown Woodside Trail parkrun was, but it's in New Zealand, Ollie. Yes. And Melanie was in a tutu holding an English flag and a welcome back sign.

00:40:10Oliver Spake: Yes. Fantastic to get in on the action. And I have to say Mel, Greytown is one of the ones on the list from some of the New Zealand event reviewing we've heard. So great to see them supporting there.

00:40:20Melissa Ellis: I look forward to seeing you get through this list, Ollie. And Mel Erbacher. Took our koala hugging a pineapple ugly singlet and buff to find a pineapple, then forgot to display the koala hugging a pineapple parts of our ugly items in the pic. Maybe next time. Merry Ugly Christmas in July, everybody. And merry Ugly Christmas in July to you, Mel Erbacher.

00:40:45Oliver Spake: Yes. Thank you for spreading so much fun and making us all look so spectacularly ugly.

00:40:51Melissa Ellis: And Mel shared the photo, which was herself and Clover.

00:40:55Oliver Spake: And one big pineapple.

00:40:56Melissa Ellis: Mm-hmm, never seen that pineapple it is on my to-do list if I could ever get to Brisbane hang on where's the big pineapple again well isn't it in the sunny coast oh okay yeah all right okay yeah I know we drove past it Mel did we I didn't see it yeah didn't you stop no it's down the road from Nambour I did not see a pineapple you I went to the big pineapple you quit there I didn't

00:40:58[crosstalk]

00:41:26Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:41:26Melissa Ellis: I should have been in your car then.

00:41:30Oliver Spake: Next time. Next time. We've still got to do the alternative course.

00:41:35Melissa Ellis: Plan B. I say Brisbane because I flew into Brisbane.

00:41:38Oliver Spake: Yeah.

00:41:39Melissa Ellis: And because I drove, I still felt like I was in Brisbane, but apparently I was in the Gold Coast or the Sunny Coast or whatever.

00:41:49Oliver Spake: Next time.

00:41:50Melissa Ellis: Next time, yeah.

00:41:51Oliver Spake: Yeah. Thank you, Mel. And we also heard from Monty Slade. Hashtag arbitrary. And the photo there was of a flat lay, his With Me Now t-shirt, ugly buff.

00:42:04Melissa Ellis: Contra cap.

00:42:05Oliver Spake: Contra cap, yep. And the barcode, of course. And I trust that barcode was not forgotten when it counted.

00:42:11Melissa Ellis: He was covering all these bases there, wasn't he, Monty?

00:42:14Oliver Spake: Yep.

00:42:14Melissa Ellis: We hope you had a great run and enjoyed your return to parkrun. And our friend Pippa White. I'm happy to read this one, Ollie. I got a PB. Latte and all the baked goods, please. And wasn't it fabulous, Ollie? Pippa, she did. She took, I don't know, minutes off her parkrun PB because she's one of those people that's just gone all out during the pause and has done so well, has increased her fitness and has just come back all guns blazing. And the grin and the happiness in the photo was just wonderful to see.

00:42:53Oliver Spake: Looking fantastic in the ugliness as well, but that's incredible. Well done, Pippa. And I think we could have suggested a better way to celebrate the return of parkrun in England. You did it in style.

00:43:04Melissa Ellis: And she was holding token number 100. Yep. Oh, here come the chihuahuas.

00:43:08[other]

00:43:13Oliver Spake: And we also heard, Mel, from Neil Taylor, got my ugly on at Burley Griffin parkrun.

00:43:19Melissa Ellis: Yes. Well done, Neil. Good to see you in your ugly shirt.

00:43:24Oliver Spake: Yes.

00:43:25Melissa Ellis: An excuse to our exiting the room.

00:43:28Oliver Spake: I thought they were going to come and join the cafe. Who did we have? Who did we have?

00:43:32Melissa Ellis: That was Chico.

00:43:33Oliver Spake: Chico. Hello, Chico.

00:43:34Melissa Ellis: He just came in to say hello and he left. Good grief.

00:43:39Oliver Spake: Thank you, everyone. I really feel like after this weekend I've done a couple of parkruns. Thank you to everyone sharing and joining us at Dazza's. Mel. Fair to say, you know, we have had a lot of people sharing their experiences. We've still got roving reports from last week as well, because we've been fortunate enough to have so many people share their adventures. So how about we have a listen to our roving reports this week?

00:44:03[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Alison Fraser — Taupo parkrun

00:44:17Alison Fraser (King): Good morning parkrun adventurers it's Alison here reporting in for the channel 5 news crew from New Zealand and today I am running at Taupo parkrun. Now Taupo is a town it's probably about an hour's drive south of where I live in Rotorua. It's on the northern shores of Lake Taupo which is the southern hemisphere's largest freshwater lake and to give you an idea of how large it is If you were to pick up the whole of Singapore and put it on the lake, you would be able to fit it all in. That's, you know, it's a pretty impressive lake. There's a cycle race that goes around it once a year. It's the Great Lake Cycle Challenge and it's Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, is 160 kilometres so gives you an idea of just the circumference of it and I think it's maybe something like 42 kilometres from Turangi in the south to Taupo in the north and quite a few people have swum the length of the lake which is so impressive but anyway I'm here to do a 5k which is a lot more within my means I'm not sure if you can hear it but it's very windy and very wet outside To be honest, if I wasn't here for my P-index and meeting up with another parkrunner, I probably wouldn't be here. I think this is going to be one of those days when only the hardy parkrunners come out. I'm not too sure what audio we'll get, but we'll see what we can do. All right, so I finished parkrun and it is very wet still and it's very windy still and I am not going to attempt to get any audio outside because it'll be more like this, it's um yeah it's really bad they luckily have got a gazebo at taupo which is where everyone is hanging out they've got it right on the finish so you can the Timekeepers there the finish tokens are there and the Barcode Scanners are there and absolutely no one else because everyone who's finishing is doing the sensible thing and going straight to their car So I'm going to drive over to the cafe which is just around the corner at the sailing club and I'm not too sure how many people will show up but whoever's there I will be getting some audio.

00:46:38Unidentified speaker: So we've escaped the wind and the rain to come inside the cafes. I'm with Claire, who's also visiting Taupo today. So welcome, Claire. Hi. And what brought you down to Taupo today? Oh, so we've got just a family holiday. We've got three families down here, 12 of us, adults and kids, went up the snow yesterday. And of course, it goes without saying, you've got to visit the local parkrun. Were you in any doubt about doing parkrun this morning? oh no because I was going to come and meet you and parkrun is also always awesome but um yeah the weather was a bit gnarly out there it's all good that's what parkrun's about and did you get a high finish token today uh 23 I think which is really low for me that was awesome yeah bonus of being a hardcore parkrunner a day like this so um could you tell the listeners what this course is like so out and back um pretty flat compared to what I'm used to um yeah it's a pretty nice easy course I've done it once before in the summer obviously running along lake taupo is pretty awesome as well yeah my eyes were kind of half closed today battling that headwind but yeah good course nice and easy yeah and now we're enjoying a nice hot nice flat white yeah cool um not including Millwater what would be your top three parkruns that you have run wow Ooh, three. Probably going to have to be one of them. Love that. Love the geothermal element of that. I think I've done that twice. I wouldn't say I loved Dunedin at the time, but looking back, that's a really cool one. The views of the city when you get at the top of those stairs of despair are pretty cool. Gosh. Let's go Pegasus. Pegasus is a cool one. Yeah. That's my most southerly. No, it's not. Dunedin was my most southerly.

00:48:23Alison Fraser (King): Yeah.

00:48:24Unidentified speaker: You've got a few more to run.

00:48:25Unidentified speaker: yes I've got lots to go I'm on 13 new zealand's now so be 14 as of next week one more yeah my name on that list cool awesome thanks so much so is that with Bronwyn and her family so how do you find that today from when I really enjoyed it yeah yeah tell us who you brought along today um I've got my two daughters Caitlin and Fiona and my husband Stuart so where have you come from Auckland um Cornwall park's our home run but we mostly run at Millwater yeah And what's brought you down to Taupo this weekend? We came down to Turangi to go skiing and I've always wanted to do a parkrun outside of Auckland so I was actually quite pleased it was raining so we could come to this. The rest of the family weren't. No, why not? Because they wanted to sleep in. And how did you find it today? Oh, it's really great. It's really nice, you know, going to one outside of Auckland and everyone's so friendly and bizarrely enough, meet people that we knew, an old friend of my husband's and, yeah, everyone was really good. Yeah. And it was fun. Even despite the wind and the rain? Well, for me, it was fun despite the wind and the rain. Yeah, why was that?

00:49:37Unidentified speaker: Because the rain wasn't that bad.

00:49:39Unidentified speaker: How did you find it?

00:49:41Unidentified speaker: It was alright. It's not one of my favourite hobbies but it was alright. The rain has actually made it a lot better I think. A bit more enjoyable for me.

00:49:53Unidentified speaker: So there will be some more adventures, do you think, other parkruns? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Which one's going to be next? Well, we've been talking about doing the Hamilton ones. We've heard particularly one of them was really, really lovely to do. We're just waiting for the netball season to finish. And then talking to some people today, to the Tauranga people and Rotorua people, so hopefully we can end up doing one of those ones. I quite like that. The plan last year was to do a Sydney one. Which one in Sydney? Well, we hadn't really decided where we were going to because we were planning to go there and just figuring out where we were staying and finding one that was close by. But that's a little bit further in the future.

00:50:30Alison Fraser (King): Now, since you've run all the Auckland parkruns, we do a top three on the parkrun adventurers and it's usually not including your home parkruns. So can you pick a top three not including the one that you run at most? Millwater.

00:50:43Unidentified speaker: Millwater. Sherwood. Sherwood. Yeah, we really enjoy that. And Western Springs. Yeah, Western Springs. I like it because then we go to the zoo afterwards. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Thanks so much.

00:50:56Alison Fraser (King): Only a couple of adventurers there at the cafe, but never mind. And it turns out they're both regulars at, well, they're all regulars at Millwater parkrun in Auckland. So add that one to your list. But you should definitely consider coming to Taupo. You might have heard a different pronunciation of it. Taupo is the Māori pronunciation. It's T-A-U-P and then O with a macron over the top, and when you have the macron it changes the length of the vowel um the english way is taupo but we're trying to be a bit more I'm trying to be a bit more respectful of the language of our first people so uh taupo it is I'm about to go back to the motel I don't normally stay over when I come over here because it is only an hour's drive or so from rotarua but they've got the winter festival on its school holidays and they've got this really awesome free winter lights show down at the northern Tongariro domain in the centre of town so I thought it would be a great opportunity to tie in some school holiday family fun and stay in a motel I get to do parkrun the next morning and we're now going to go and probably have a look at Huka Falls which is an awesome waterfall along the Waikato River and then go to the Lava Glass. We've really got into watching Blown Away on Netflix, so that's going to be a fun thing to do. There's always stuff to do when you go on these adventures. That's it from me. Oh, I forgot to say that visiting Taupo today takes my P-Index up to five. So this was the last of my five parkruns that I needed to run five times total to get my P-Index up to five. So the challenge now is six. So that's it from me on a wet and windy parkrun day. I'll see you the next time.

Roving report David Moss — Graham Andrews parkrun (Charleville)

00:52:52David Moss: Hello, David out at Charleville and I'm with... Jenny Peacock and Joe Marnie. And we've just done the run today at Charleville. Tell me, Joanne, when did the run start?

00:53:06Unidentified speaker: So we started in May 2019. It was a bit of a process. There was a few keen runners around in Charleville and we thought it would be great to have parkrun here in town. And so it's a really terrific thing for a little community to have parkrun available to everyone.

00:53:24David Moss: So most of the people who do turn up are locals?

00:53:28Unidentified speaker: Yeah, probably most weeks we have like some visitors from all over Australia, but generally there's a core component of locals that come to run or walk, yeah, every week.

00:53:42David Moss: Okay. And what made you choose this place?

00:53:45Unidentified speaker: So Graham Andrews Park is probably one of the most scenic parks in Charleville. It created a nice 1.6 kilometre loop that we can just repeat a couple of times to get the 5km in. It's a nice sort of central point and it's got everything you need to have a nice run at.

00:54:06David Moss: It's nice having a bit of a fountain going in the background as well, water. Temperatures I assume swap from being rather cool like now to stinking hot in the middle of summer?

00:54:18Unidentified speaker: Yeah, you can need everything from an overcoat to a bikini to run in, really.

00:54:24David Moss: Yeah, I'll pass on the bikini.

00:54:26Unidentified speaker: So will I.

00:54:27David Moss: Okay, and I've got to ask about the Graham Andrews. We wonder about these things at times in a lot of the country towns. We'd be looking for Charleville and it's actually Graham Andrews. I mean, what's another one? Melton has Toolern. Why is it called the Graham Andrews Park?

00:54:46Unidentified speaker: So Graham Andrews was a mayor in Charleville. That would have been sort of in the 1990s, early 2000s and for quite a long time. So this park was established and named after him.

00:55:00David Moss: Okay, fair enough. And what are the highlights around Charleville? So somebody happened to be somewhere in the area.

00:55:06Unidentified speaker: Oh, so there's some fantastic things to do. So if you're a keen exerciser, you can do parkrun on a Saturday morning. Definitely. You can walk on down and go along the river walk, and you can do that during the day or at night time. It's got some lovely lighting down there. Out at the airport, you can go and see the RFDS Museum. They also do the wonders of the World War II mystery tour out there, because Charleville was of significance in World War II. That's something to Google later on for everyone. And there's the Cosmos Centre of an evening, so you can look at the stars, which is spectacular out here. You can also go and do the bilbies and just generally enjoy the sights and sounds of Charleville.

00:55:50David Moss: I saw for a lot of people the Cosmos Centre did look pretty spectacular. And I'll also say last night, the stars and things, it's a fantastic area for people to come out, just lie back and look up. Yeah. It's really good. Yeah. I did like that.

00:56:05Unidentified speaker: Yeah, no, it is pretty amazing there. The Outback Skies put on a show every night for us, so yeah.

00:56:10David Moss: Oh, the other one for people who don't know, where is Charleville?

00:56:15Unidentified speaker: If you look at a map of Queensland and you look, if you go about halfway out between the Northern Territory border and the coast is Charleville situated roughly right in the middle of that. So about 800km west of Brisbane and about 800km east of Birdsville.

00:56:34David Moss: I'm actually hoping they'll open up a new one a little bit further west of Betoota, but that's just me.

00:56:41Unidentified speaker: Isn't there only one local at Betoota?

00:56:43David Moss: There's one pub with one local, yes.

00:56:46Unidentified speaker: Yeah, a population of one. That might make it hard to get enough volunteers every week.

00:56:50David Moss: It's only a matter of time.

00:56:51Unidentified speaker: It's a lovely spot, Betoota. It would be a great place for a parkrun, yeah.

00:56:55David Moss: Thank you. So whoever the dude is out there, they'd like to start it up. I'm sure a parkrun would be all behind it. Yeah. Look, thank you very much for this. Nice mob of people. When in doubt, head out to Charleville. Sorry, the Graham Andrews course.

Roving report Tracey Wood — Kedron parkrun

00:57:09Tracey Wood: Yeah. Thank you. Thanks a lot.

parkrun Park Patrol

00:57:12Tracey Wood: Good morning, parkrunners. It's Tracey in a Tutu on parkrun Park Patrol, formerly known as Event Day Course Check, here at Kedron. Nothing to worry about for this course unless it had torrential rain last night, which it hadn't. So the breach is good and it's okay to go. Welcome to parkrun Day and welcome back to England. Congratulations, you made it. Also my love to New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria who are again in lockdown this week and unfortunately no parkrun there. Now if you were listening last week you would have heard the team issue me a challenge to interview a person for every single parkrun volunteer role. That's not going to be easy. For a start, there are 27 distinct volunteer roles and some of which are not even available in Queensland, let alone Brisbane. So, challenge accepted. I'm going to work through the list and you're going to join me on this adventure, which in my estimation is going to take up to about a year. Anyway, let's head to the parkrun start and let's see who we can chat to there. Okay, I have found not one but two Marshals. I've got Jacob and Mike here with me this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Morning. And you're marshalling here. So what's your job here at Kedron?

00:58:28Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: to make sure that nobody gets injured crossing the bike path at the finish.

00:58:33Unidentified speaker: Oh, okay. Are you doing the same, Jacob? I do help out a lot. My main job is first-timers briefing and barcode scanning as well. So I do three main jobs.

00:58:43Tracey Wood: And it's pretty busy along here on the bike path?

00:58:45Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: Absolutely, especially during the middle of the run when there's a lot of people coming through and a lot of bikes going up and down the bike path.

00:58:52Tracey Wood: Yes, yes.

00:58:52Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: You've just got to make sure they don't run into each other.

00:58:55Unidentified speaker: Yeah. Has it happened before?

00:58:57Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: He's come close.

00:58:58Unidentified speaker: There was one accident about two months ago, I think, where a kid went out in front of a bike before we could see. And it was a bit of an accident. We now enforce a lot more restrictions about this, having more Marshals out on the course and also being really vigilant. If you're here during the briefing, we always enforce it and also really big on being people off the bike path.

00:59:23Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: We've got flags up to funnel everyone into a certain area. But the runners finish their 5k run and they're not thinking too clearly sometimes.

00:59:35Tracey Wood: Yes, with the brain fog happening.

00:59:37Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: They're not looking for bikes and so forth, so that's what we're here for.

00:59:40Tracey Wood: Right. And, Mike, this is your home park, isn't it? It is. The same day? Yes. And do you do any touring at all?

00:59:49Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: I've done two parkruns down at Coffs Harbour. Oh, wow. But all my parkruns are at Kedron.

00:59:56Tracey Wood: Yeah, yeah, excellent. It's a fantastic course. Yeah, I quite like it here too. Thanks for your help today, gentlemen. I always appreciate it.

01:00:03Mike - marshal at Kedron parkrun: Not a problem at all.

01:00:03Tracey Wood: Thanks. There's three of us now with our lovely fluffy shirts on and I'm standing with a couple of people who tell me they're from Redlands. Who have I got? Louise Penglis.

01:00:14Unidentified speaker: And I'm Sean Conway.

01:00:16Tracey Wood: Welcome to Kedron. And was this your NENDY or are you just touring today? We're just touring today, yes. Oh, lovely. And do you stick to a tour a lot or you get around or stay close to home? What do you like to do?

01:00:28Unidentified speaker: We have toured this year. We've done a lot of touring. So every week we've done a different parkrun. Oh, awesome. It's really, really good.

01:00:36Tracey Wood: And are you aiming for a particular parkrun challenge, a Bruce Vegas club?

01:00:41Unidentified speaker: No challenges, just enjoying being able to travel, get to the different parkruns, experience the different courses, travelling with lots of others in our group to enjoy friendship and running together, really. And then we all get together. for coffee and breakfast afterwards in one of the local places.

01:01:02Tracey Wood: Very important. I agree. Coffee is important. Yeah, coffee is so important. I agree. Go to New Farm, or if you listen to my report, you can find all the coffee places. There's markets nearby. It's awesome. So get the early heads up for you as well. Oh, great. Anyway, you'll enjoy Kedron. You haven't done this one before? No, we haven't, no. Right. It's fast and flat. It's easy. There's a few puddles, but it's all good. And obviously we're all wearing our fluffy shirts. Have you got the other parkrun shirts, the ugly shirts? I do, yes.

01:01:31Unidentified speaker: I've got last year's one.

01:01:33Unidentified speaker: Yeah, I haven't.

01:01:35Tracey Wood: This is my first one. Excellent.

01:01:37Unidentified speaker: I don't have the buff. I see you've got the buff.

01:01:39Tracey Wood: Yes, I've got all three of those. I couldn't help myself.

01:01:41Melissa Ellis: I ordered all of them.

01:01:43Tracey Wood: I think we're going to be drowned out in a minute, so I might continue on. And thank you for talking with me.

01:01:48Unidentified speaker: Enjoy your run.

01:01:49Tracey Wood: Cheers.

01:01:51Unidentified speaker: Okay, I'm now with Cherie, the Run Director. Hey, how did it all go today? Yeah, really well. Lots of fog this morning, Tracey. Any records broken today? No, not today, but there were some fast times. I think 15.17 was the first runner today, so it was pretty fast. Yeah, well, it all seemed to go well despite a few puddles on the path, so you're happy with all that? I'm just really appreciative for all the volunteers that we actually have and hope that people keep stepping forward and volunteering each week because that's the only way this event happens. And you're one of them, Trace, so thanks so much. You're too kind. Thanks for that, Cherie. That's great. Have a good day. Thank you, Trace. See you.

01:02:25Tracey Wood: Well, there you go, Parkies. One volunteer role of Marshall ticked off. Only another 26 to go. That's Trace in a tutu signing off from Kedron. Toodles from me. See you on the B-side. Bye.

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Mount Clarence parkrun

01:02:40Mark Scarborough: Hello, parkrun adventurers. This is Mark reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew. And today we are in the amazing southwest of Australia at Albany. And we're at Mount Clarence parkrun, which is a out-and-back course that runs at the foot of Mount Clarence here in Albany. And we're here for event number 334. So we're going to go do a parkrun and have a chat to a few of the other people here. So I'm here with one of the co-EDs, Penny. Good morning, Penny. How are you? Morning, Mark. Good, thank you. Thanks for having us at Mount Clarence parkrun here in Albany. It's a beautiful course here. Well done.

01:03:13Penny Simpson: That's an absolute pleasure. Sorry about the weather.

01:03:16Mark Scarborough: Yeah, look, what can you do? It is winter. We have to accept these things when we're travelling in wintertime. But the rain kind of eased off for us and it was refreshing on the run back. How long have you been involved with the Mount Clarence parkrun?

01:03:29Penny Simpson: My first ever parkrun was Mount Clarence parkrun's first as well, which was August, I think, 2014. I had only just started running, really. And the founding ED of Mount Clarence, Bill Irving, started following me on Strava. I didn't know him, thought that was a bit weird. As it turns out, he was just trying to recruit for the parkrun. So I did number one, Mount Clarence, and started run directing probably after a couple of years I think and then took over as ED from Bill in I think towards the end of 2018 maybe. Now I have a co-ED Susie and totally in love with parkrun. I used to have a completely different Saturday morning routine and now parkrun's it.

01:04:12Mark Scarborough: So you were a runner before parkrun. What were you running before? Like what was your inspiration for running?

01:04:18Penny Simpson: I don't really remember. I had always, well, for the last few years before that, I suppose I had run on and off, but never really got into the habit of it. And then one of my friends started a running group. And so a few of us started running together, did a sort of couch to 5K kind of a thing. And she and I are actually the only ones of that group who have kept running. And I probably wouldn't have kept out if it wasn't for parkrun, I guess. I don't know. So great motivation.

01:04:45Mark Scarborough: For our listeners, if you were to describe the course...

01:04:48Penny Simpson: We usually describe it as undulating. It's very hilly, runs around. It looks like it could be flat on a map because it runs around sort of a headland on the coast and you might think that that's flat, but it's actually on a boardwalk that is very undulating. Absolutely beautiful course, beautiful views. It's actually also quite historic. It runs past Ataturk Entrance, which is where the ships left to go off to World War I. So it runs just underneath the National Anzac Centre. But yes, very hilly and very scenic. The last... kilometre is all downhill which is a fine thing at the end of your run and at the moment we start and finish on the beach. We used to only finish on the beach and we're not sure what our future course will be like because there's a fair bit of work going on at the moment but the beach is an important part of it so we'll see but yes hilly and scenic is how I would describe it.

01:05:47Mark Scarborough: So the beach is not too bad. Like the sand was quite firm and compact, unlike Cottesloe last week, which was rather hard running. It was also only 50 metres worth of running. So that'd be better than Cottesloe last week. We certainly appreciate this. But this is a stunning course. We really, really did enjoy that. Do you get out and parkrun to other runs around the area?

01:06:06Penny Simpson: Well, there's nothing really around the area. So our closest parkrun, the next closest is about 300km away in, I think, Manjimup is our closest. But when I travel, I try to get to other parkruns. So I think I've maybe done about 24 different ones out of 141 or something total.

01:06:26Mark Scarborough: Can you name a top three for me?

01:06:28Penny Simpson: That's very difficult. So my mum parkruns at Korean Glades. Korean Glades probably doesn't very often get a mention, but it's special to me because my mum runs there. So I'd have to put that in my top three. I did do a pilgrimage to Bushy. That was very exciting. So that would have to go in my top three. And then it's tricky, isn't it? Because it's really more about the experience often than the run. I had, I guess, one that sticks in my mind is Canning River where I just met a couple of really great people who came up and introduced themselves to me and who were part of the core team there. And so that made it special. But I love them all. It's not necessarily to do with the course. It's to do with the people you meet and the experience you have.

01:07:14Mark Scarborough: If you could go anywhere in the world next week to parkrun, where would you go?

01:07:17Penny Simpson: Tricky. Very tricky. I spent a fair bit of time in Germany when I was much younger, and I haven't done a German parkrun, so I'd probably do, I'd like to do Neckarufer, which is near where I spent time. I'd love to do Fountains Abbey, allegedly the most beautiful parkrun in the world. The last time I was overseas, I really had thought I would do Bear Island, and then we didn't get around to it, but I'd love to do that as well.

01:07:43Mark Scarborough: Where was the one in Germany you mentioned?

01:07:45Penny Simpson: It's called Neckarufer and it is quite, now what's the closest town to it? Could be Esslingen, but I spent some time in Tübingen when I was younger and it's not far from there.

01:07:57Mark Scarborough: We were meant to be in Germany last year and we had a few hired off there to do. So yeah, we're certainly hoping to get back to go to Germany one day in the future and take some off there as well. Well, thank you for your time. The rain's starting to come in, so I think we might run off to the cafe.

01:08:10Penny Simpson: Great. I hope you enjoy it.

01:08:11Mark Scarborough: All right. Thank you. Alright parkrunners, that's us done here at Mount Clarence parkrun. Everybody's run away on us with the rain settling in and we've gone and had breakfast and coffee. During the week we did a Freedom Run at Geographe Bay parkrun in Busselton, which is an out and back course along by the water. Nice and flat actually, a nice fast course there. Nicole actually did her fastest 5km, time there shame it wasn't a real parkrun uh and we also as part of the the pie challenge that was talked about the podcast a couple weeks back one of the pie shops that was mentioned was the Denmark bakery in Denmark uh in the southwest Australia near albany so we visited there during the week as well tried their pie sausage roll and vanilla slice The pie, yeah, I'd give it a seven out of eight. The pie at Port Elliot Bakery, certainly still top notch there. And the sausage roll is probably on par with the Port Elliot Bakery sausage roll, but I do prefer the vanilla slice at Denmark Bakery. It was a lot easier to eat and very tasty. That's us, so yeah, done here at Mount Clarence parkrun. We'll talk to you next time on the parkrun adventurers from the westernmost parkrun in Australia.

the Informant

01:09:40The Informant: This is The Informant, coming to you live from my house. This week's view was of the TV. You see, my dad was watching this boring ABC iView and he insisted that I come sit next to him and watch an old TV show from the 80s called Mother and Son. Come and get some culture. It's an Australian classic, he says. Well, if it has two black bars down the sides of the screen, it's ancient history, and I'm not interested. But I had to sit with him for a little bit, just to pretend. Oh, my God. It was like a documentary about beige trousers. Everything was beige. The walls were beige. The furniture was beige. The man was beige. Even the granny was beige. It was so beige, at first I thought I had a sepia filter on it. Anyway, it wasn't long before he got sick of my commentary and sent me away. So here I am with the stats. They are only current at the time they are collected and may differ from the stats you read elsewhere. But you wouldn't do that because you can get it all right here at the parkrun adventurers. On the juniors front, we were down to two events due to COVID lockouts. 153 junior parkies took part and a huge 58 got PBs. There were 23 first timers. Jackson Carroll is the only junior parkrun milestone this week, scoring a half marathon. Just like the juniors, in Australia, regular 5K parkruns were heavily affected by COVID restrictions. But with lots of activity overseas, almost all the post-COVID international records were broken. There were 1,014 runs taking place in 12 countries. There were 235 in Australia and 34 in New Zealand. Canada came back with 3. Denmark and France had 8. Germany 11. Japan 20. Netherlands came back with 1. Poland had 75. Russia had a big jump from 42 to 58. USA had 36. And the UK is back with a bang with 525 events. There were four launchers. Ecco Ripley launched in Queensland. Ulitsa Golubaya in Russia. Chilton Fields in the UK. And Danny E Park in the USA. Aussie New Zealand attendance was down by 300. We had 22,484 runners out of a hectic 129,177 worldwide. That's up almost 95,000 on last week. We had 2,562 PBs, while 685 people participated for the first time. 43 juniors reached their Junior 10 milestone. 105 people reached their 50 milestone. 79 reached their 100 milestone. and 13 people reached their 250 milestone. 17 people called bingo. Anna Reid was the quickest with 162 events. Douglas Klitscher was the slowest person taking 322 events. We had three new states peoples. Christian Van Dam and Gavin Evans completed all the ACT and Kevin Parker completed all in the Northern Territory. On the top 20 most Aussie New Zealand events list, Robin Rishworth moves into 11th outright running at Darwin. The biggest winner was Dave Blakey, who moves up 10 to 204. Dave, who was also running his 100th run, ran at SS Koopa Trail. On the other side of the ledger, the biggest loser was a man called Scott Trickett, who moved down 11 spots down to 107. 168 people increased their Windex, mostly due to the Ecco Ripley launch. John Spooner was the biggest mover, up 29 points to 42, which also puts him on top of the ACT runners. OK, Parkies, that's your lot from me this week. As always, to see these stats in full, you should definitely follow The Informant on Facebook or visit the blog at www.theinformant.me. That's The Informant, all one word, dot M-E. This has been the informant and my stats report is like a long hot bath after running the rain.

01:13:46Melissa Ellis: And thank you to our roving reporters and our informant this week. And, Ollie, Tracey has taken up the challenge.

01:13:55Oliver Spake: Yes. Excellent work, Tracey. And she's already off to a massive start, let's be honest. If anyone's made for this challenge, it's Tracey.

01:14:03Melissa Ellis: Yes. And a reminder, Tracey, all previous reports do count towards your challenge.

01:14:08Oliver Spake: Yes. Nonetheless, we look forward to hearing many more volunteer roving reports.

01:14:14Melissa Ellis: Yes, and thank you to Alison from Taupo and Dave at Charleville. Charleville? How do you say, Ollie?

01:14:23Oliver Spake: Charleville.

01:14:23Melissa Ellis: Charleville. We held those over from the previous week because of the amount of content we had last week, so great to hear from them.

01:14:32Oliver Spake: And finally, just a shout-out to the Scarboroughs. Number two now completed on the Sausage Roll Club there. And congrats to Nicole for a fastest 5K, even if it was a Freedom Run.

01:14:45Melissa Ellis: Yes, well done, Nicole. And Mark spoke to the co-ED out at Mount Clarence, who also rated Fountains Abbey very highly.

01:14:55Oliver Spake: Yeah, a bit of love for the English this week, fittingly so.

01:14:59Melissa Ellis: Yeah, it's all about the poms.

01:15:01Oliver Spake: But, Mel, am I right that it's going to be about someone else sometime soon? Nice and broad, that.

01:15:08Melissa Ellis: Ollie, Austria is looking at launching a new country, the 23rd country.

01:15:14Oliver Spake: Yeah, how exciting is that?

01:15:16Melissa Ellis: Yes, in August. Heilbrunn parkrun, I believe, is going to join the parkrun family.

01:15:24Oliver Spake: I don't know, Mel, like I think I had probably taken it for granted that we'd have any new parkrun countries in current times with everything going on. So it's really exciting to see. They're no doubt in the final throes of getting ready. So, yeah, we'll have to watch it very, very closely.

01:15:41Melissa Ellis: Yeah, we will. And there's something else that we're looking forward to, Ollie, that is on the radar and not too far away, which is Streaky September. We need to get prepared.

01:15:53Oliver Spake: We do. I think there's a certain bingo challenge that I think would be very welcome, very, very welcome.

01:16:00Melissa Ellis: Or should I say Streaky Sept-Miba?

01:16:04Oliver Spake: Streaky Sept-Miba it might be.

01:16:06[laughter]

01:16:06Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

01:16:08Oliver Spake: Maybe one of the challenges should be to find a – no, that's probably a bit hard to find a sign with a spelling error or something.

01:16:19Melissa Ellis: Oh, dear. Who's going to make the Bingoe card? Can we put a call out to our listeners? Anybody out there has got sufficient skills in – Bingo? No. What do you call it when you make these Bingoe card things?

01:16:34Oliver Spake: Creating? Creating.

01:16:37Melissa Ellis: It's a more technical word for it. It's like art, you know.

01:16:44Oliver Spake: Yes.

01:16:45Melissa Ellis: Like visual art, online, that kind of thing. If anybody can make that for us to share on our platform because we don't have these skills that previous hosts had. To create said Bingoe cards. If anybody can help us out, please let us know.

01:17:02Oliver Spake: That's right. That's right. And I suppose on that note, just as well, we're not the ones creating the ugly shirts. They might truly be ugly.

01:17:11Melissa Ellis: This is why we outsource.

01:17:14Oliver Spake: That's right. Yeah, I think that'd be great. And hey, bingo challenges too. We've got to start thinking. Yeah, exactly. It's only a matter of weeks to go. Call it a month, maybe. It's coming. It's coming.

01:17:25Melissa Ellis: We'll take suggestions for the Bingoe card if anybody wants to drop us a line, send us an email.

01:17:32Oliver Spake: Yeah, yeah. And look, we may not be able to necessarily include them all. I mean, there's only 30 days, right?

01:17:39Melissa Ellis: You think we're going to get more than two? Yeah.

01:17:42Oliver Spake: We will see, but it will be a lot of fun.

01:17:44Melissa Ellis: Maybe Eman. He's the only one that seems to email us.

Sign-off

01:17:48Oliver Spake: Oh, we have had some other emailers as well at times. Yeah, we'll see. And thank you in advance, everyone, for all of the suggestions. Look, Mel, another week, possibly another week of not parkrun for you and I and thankfully parkrun for a number of other people. But what do you think the plans are this coming parkrun day? Yeah.

01:18:11Melissa Ellis: I am waiting eagerly. So currently it's Monday evening, the 26th of July. We are going to hear from our esteemed Premier tomorrow morning who will let us know what our relaxed restrictions will be. So I am not under any illusions, Ollie, that parkrun will return this coming Saturday. I think that Victoria will take a few more weeks to ease restrictions enough for parkrun to return. However, what I am eagerly awaiting is to see... How many people I can run with in public and what the kilometre restriction?

01:18:46Oliver Spake: Yeah, what it will be changed to, expanded to.

01:18:49Melissa Ellis: Expanded, yeah, thank you. That's the word I was looking for because I have a few people that are interested in coming to Ellis Palace parkrun.

01:18:56Oliver Spake: Ooh, yes.

01:18:57Melissa Ellis: And they are, you know, not necessarily in my five-kilometre bubble currently. So I need that perimeter to be released.

01:19:06Unidentified speaker: Yep.

01:19:06Melissa Ellis: Now, if that occurs, we do have some keen tourists keen to come to Ellis Palace parkrun and are waiting their opportunity because, you know, it's a limited experience.

01:19:19Oliver Spake: It is. Yeah, and that just makes it all the more premium, all the more special. LAUGHTER

01:19:23[laughter]

01:19:24Melissa Ellis: And what about you, Ollie?

01:19:26Oliver Spake: Yeah, look, there will be more Not parkruns. Bass Point Not parkrun, I'm sure in some form, some adapted fashion, I like to call it adaptation rather than just butchering constantly. But yeah, that'll happen, but it'll all be Olympic themed. I'm not saying necessarily we'll be running Olympic themed, but there's a lot of Olympics going on in our household. In fact, our home Olympics have kicked off. And here you are, Bailey shotters. New Zealand is absolutely kicking the backsides of all the other countries in our home Olympics here.

01:19:59Melissa Ellis: Well, Ollie, can I just say?

01:20:02Oliver Spake: Yes.

01:20:02Melissa Ellis: Is there any chance of a Bass Point Junior parkrun with Ava and Zali? Because I did note that Abby was engaging at the end of last week's pod with Zali and Ava. So I think they could maybe do some gymnastic ribbons or hoops or something along Bass Point Junior parkrun. Yep.

01:20:29Oliver Spake: And I think with a little bit of motivation that would be, I think, quite a good suggestion. We'll have to wait and see. They're a very comfortable pair in lockdown at the moment, and when they get going, they certainly get going, but it's taken them a bit to get going.

01:20:49Melissa Ellis: I can just see, Ollie, it's the maypole theme I'm seeing in my mind's eye. I can see them holding those little ribbon things at the gymnast's heels.

01:20:57Oliver Spake: Yes, yes, yeah, like the good little part fins they are. As they run along. Well, sadly, the maypole is back up inside the roof of my parents-in-law. But, hey, gymnastics and athletics are both events in our home Olympics, so there's certainly ample opportunity for me to structure the events to suit.

01:21:17Melissa Ellis: Speaking of which, Ollie, as much as it pains me to mention the word starting with S...

01:21:24Oliver Spake: Oh, you're referring to Shellharbour?

01:21:29Melissa Ellis: Maybe. Do you not have some related, I don't know, celebrities in the Olympics?

01:21:37Oliver Spake: Well, yeah, look, there are a couple of parkrunners out there at the Olympics and shame on me because I haven't done enough research to find them all. I think we also have a South Australian parkrunner doing the parkrun at the Olympics, if I'm not mistaken. Oh. I have tried a bit of researching the ones that I am absolutely across. There are two Shellharbour parkrunners, our former course record holder and our current course record holder of the women's and men's respectively. We'll both be, I think both of them are targeting the 1500 metres. That's their prime event. So yeah, looking forward to watching, we'll claim them, Shellharbour's own Jess Hull and Jye Edwards.

01:22:16Melissa Ellis: We're very excited and looking forward to following them and hoping that they do really well at the Olympics.

01:22:25Oliver Spake: In the meantime, I will have to do the research and find all the other parkrunners because it's great to see that, you know, there's a bit of representation. Naturally, you know, these guys, they get out there and absolutely train more than I could possibly imagine. So it's nice to share a parkrun with them here and there. But, yeah, hopefully that all comes together, just like it did for Pippa on her return to England parkrun. Yes. Yes. No, I suppose rather than me keep talking about Shellharbour, we should probably wrap up. So as always, you can contact us via Facebook or on our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com, especially if you have bingo creating talents or ideas. Or if you're at the Olympics. Absolutely. Drop us a line. Tell us how it's going. But for now, that's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.

01:24:22Unidentified speaker: Hi Mel and Ollie. Today we did a not junior parkrun and we pretended mum and dad were velociraptors and we had to hide from them and like hunt them. Bye.