Episode 373 - Geographical Inaccuracy

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 373 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country.

00:00:35Tony O'Connell: Hi Mel, my name's TOC and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country and it's hot.

00:00:41Melissa Ellis: It's so hot. We here in the greater state have a heat wave, TOC, and we're not quite used to this.

00:00:50Tony O'Connell: No, Mel, it's our third day of hot, hot, and it just alternates from hot, hot to really, really hot to sweaty hot. And happily, tomorrow is apparently going to be not so hot.

00:01:07Melissa Ellis: Less hot. Yeah, so currently 7pm here in Meltown and it's 34 degrees still. So we were just discussing, we usually have a bit of relief from the heat by this time of day. Not so tonight.

00:01:24Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mel, we live down by the ocean. Normally about four o'clock, the sea breeze kicks in. Yeah, we're sitting on 32 at the moment. So no sea breeze today. It's all northerly still.

00:01:36Melissa Ellis: And the news is saying it's the biggest heat wave we've had in March in 80 years. That's a bit dramatic though, isn't it really?

00:01:46Tony O'Connell: I don't know. I'm sure the people up in Queensland are looking at it saying 34, 32. That's not hot. But when you're in Victoria, that's hot.

00:01:56Melissa Ellis: We're just not acclimatised. It was cooler in Canberra, Tony. I came home and I went, oh, I want to go back to Canberra. Anyway, now thank you for coming in again this week.

00:02:08Tony O'Connell: It's not your week. No, no, I've got the keys to the lead yet for a second week in a row.

00:02:14Melissa Ellis: So Ollie's recovering from a small operation and he's doped up on happy gas. Now, he has given me his permission to say that. Of course, he is doped up on happy gas, so that could have affected his decision. But he was willing to record, but that may have been rather interesting and we decided best to let him rest and recover.

00:02:36Tony O'Connell: Yeah, so good wishes, Ollie. Hope you bounce back pretty soon.

00:02:40Melissa Ellis: And do you know what? I did it again, Tony, with my geographical inaccuracies. I posted the Consolidated Club report yesterday. And in it, I stated quite confidently that Queen Elizabeth Casino was in Queensland. Wow. And Richard quite swiftly pointed out my errors to say that had Queen Elizabeth floated upstream, because silly me, assuming it was in Queensland, because that's where Simon lives. So unbeknownst to me, he travelled and it is rather located in New South Wales.

00:03:21Tony O'Connell: Mel, when we were up there over the New Year's break, the rivers were bank to bank. So it's quite conceivable that the whole district has picked itself up and floated upstream.

00:03:33Melissa Ellis: I can remember Mel Erbacher going there as well. So in my head, all the people I know that have been to that event are Queenslanders. So that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

00:03:44Tony O'Connell: So perhaps this week we need to redesign the map of Australia. Not only is it turned 90 degrees, but we need to move the state boundaries and perhaps put a polar ice cap in Victoria.

00:03:54Melissa Ellis: Do we know somebody good with graphics that could redesign the map of Australia to suit my geography?

00:04:00Tony O'Connell: That'd be just one big south pointer.

00:04:08Melissa Ellis: Maybe I need to have a go at it or hand draw it or something. But anyway, that's boring. Let's hear about your day. You were at home in Inverloch, weren't you?

00:04:19Tony O'Connell: Mel, I was back at Inverloch at the sunny stump. It was obviously quite warm. It was the start of our heat wave or day one of it, day two of it. Inverloch had a really big celebration. We had a couple of our regular favourites, husband and wife team, running their 250th together, and it's taken quite a bit of stars aligning to get that to happen. In the notes, I put that we also had a 100th and a 50th. And since writing that in, we've actually discovered we had two of our locals run their 100th. One decided to fly under the radar, didn't want to acknowledge. So we had a double 250, a double 100, and a 50. So Inverloch was full of capes. We had superhero capes running around everywhere. And... One of the highlights of the day was a visit from Billo and Lila. So we had them down. They came down Inverloch, probably looking at camping Saturday night. And I'm thinking Saturday night was probably mid-30s, so it would have been pretty warm in the sloth mobile. But no, it was really great to see them down at Inverloch. It's an eye for Billo and Lila.

00:05:26Melissa Ellis: Had you met Billo before?

00:05:28Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I've met Billo a few times. Billo was... RD when we went up to Yackandandah and we've met him at a couple of other events. So yeah, have been out and had breakfast with Billo and had the pleasure of the company before. Now, My day was pretty straightforward. It was a visit to the stump. It was sunny. How about your day? I've seen some of your social media, and you fit more into 24 hours than I reckon I can get into a week.

00:05:57Melissa Ellis: Yes, well, I headed north, and yes, I'm sure, to the ACT, where I plonked myself at the I did manage to get up there by 10.30pm on a Friday evening, long enough to sleep, shower and head off in the morning for the 50-minute trip east to Braidwood Showground parkrun. Fun fact, driving 50 minutes east from Queanbeyan is not far enough to get you to the beach. We had previously heard from Braidwood Showgrounds in episode 193, when Marvellous Mark visited post-2020 bushfires, as well as Ollie's visit back in episode 270. But it was event 131 for Braidwood, and I'm pleased to report that Bec Bailey did make the trip down from Windang to join us. Plus, after releasing the pod last week, I received a PM from the famous Claire Corkill informing me that her and Jack would indeed be in attendance also. But that's not all. Then the adventurers received a message from new listener Nick Graney saying he too would be there. Frond! It was a stellar morning for a run and we were amongst a crowd of 30 parkrunners running the three and a bit laps of the showgrounds grass course. I'm going to claim first, second and third place for the adventurers with Jack taking line honours, Mark Stutchbury second and Nick with parkrunner Luna coming third. Not that it's a race. I played an important role on the morning in holding Bec back with a run chat. She's in training for a half and needed to save herself for Sunday's long run. Good job, Bec. And thanks for keeping me company. Also, thanks to Jack for our zoomy photo at the finish line and to the very lovely event team who had zooper-doopers waiting for everyone to enjoy at the end. We also met Jared, Elliot, Amanda and Hayley Webb, who are friends of Nick, and afterwards headed to the Albion Hotel for brunch before a wander of the main street. But, TOC, I was in town for a rodeo, so I headed back to Queanbeyan to change out of activewear and head to the Queanbeyan showgrounds to soak up corn dogs, dust and cowboying. Jokes, I don't eat corn dogs. And I actually didn't find anyone to go with, but I went anyway and I found myself a good spot on the bleachers to enjoy the atmosphere and the main arena. As well as the obvious events such as steer wrestling, barrel racing, cattle roping and bull riding, you'll find an amazing atmosphere of music, sideshows, food trucks and stalls selling hats, boots, belts and anything else you might need. I just loved it and it was my second year visiting. It's also a long weekend in the ACT with Canberra Day. And much to my delight, the ACT is in the middle of their Enlightened Festival. And thank God for Facebook and their direct marketing. Otherwise, I would never have known about the fact that the Canberra Balloon Spectacular was also happening. Following the link, I discovered that this annual hot air balloon festival takes place on the lawns of Old Parliament House in Canberra from the 9th to the 17th of March. While they stipulate it is weather permitting, I decided to set my alarm to be down there by 6am and, as luck would have it, conditions were favourable for launch. It was a vibrant atmosphere filled with colour from the balloons and excited shrieks as, one by one, they inflated and lifted gently upward. There were thousands of spectators as well as more food trucks and coffee vans. After the balloons had launched, I returned to check out and begin my long journey home. I'm so glad I still went this weekend, even if I was on my own, as I had a brilliant time and it just goes to show that you can do things solo and have all the experiences. I'm marking the calendar for next year. Who's in?

00:09:43Tony O'Connell: Mel, that sounds like it could be a good little adventure. Maybe you need to produce a calendar where all the rodeos are and we'd have little fronds appearing at all the different rodeos.

00:09:54Melissa Ellis: Oh, I like that idea. I don't think all the rodeo towns have parkruns though.

00:10:00Tony O'Connell: I do remember Casino saying that they had something coming up in May or June and that's a queue for Queen Elizabeth and parkrun actually have a float in the rodeo parade.

00:10:15Melissa Ellis: Oh yes, you did tell me that. I need to put that on my calendar.

00:10:19Tony O'Connell: Could be a big one. And I'm amazed that you managed to keep Bec to her training program. When we saw Bec up at Jindabyne, Bec told me what she had to run that day as part of her training program. She told me she wanted to run easy because she was racing a mountain bike that afternoon and she still went about 10 minutes quicker than what her training program said anyway. Yes.

00:10:42Melissa Ellis: yes I think it was very difficult for her to run at male pace she was looking very keenly on the first lady and uh trying to gauge whether she would have in fact got first female had she had the opportunity to run at a regular pace she was doing all the calculations in her head flat course on grass what's my time at Shellharbour yeah she found it tough but good work Becky did well So that was my weekend. Very, very fun.

00:11:13Tony O'Connell: Sounds like you had a ball and it sounds like you filled the weekend up to the maximum.

00:11:19Melissa Ellis: I did, yes. And I really rate Canberra. Look, and this is something else I have to say. Queanbeyan is technically in New South Wales. Yes, I am aware of that. It really is located within that Canberra region though. So they aren't actually in the ACT. They're in New South Wales, so. I sort of floated between the two states for the couple of days. And, of course, Braidwood is a New South Wales event too. Yes. So what we actually do have to discuss was last Friday being International Women's Day. A lot of events, TOC, were celebrating. There was a lot of reference in Dazza's this week and a lot of people wearing purple out there. Purple must be associated somehow.

00:12:02Tony O'Connell: Lots of different pictures of it. Mel, really great to see some of the events, some of the pictures. And one of our own, Lyndell, did her 50th volunteer on the weekend, 20th as Timekeeper and her 36th time at Bunyaville. So it's really great. We spoke about Lyndell being an amazing person last week and she's gone out and done it again.

00:12:24Melissa Ellis: She's our vote, isn't she, for International Women's Day representative. Yeah, well done, Lyndell.

00:12:30Tony O'Connell: Make Lyndell Prime Minister.

00:12:34Rachel: Absolutely.

00:12:35Melissa Ellis: Now, something else we need to talk about. A couple of weeks ago, somebody made a reference to the Periodic Table Challenge, TOC, and I've spent the afternoon doing my research. Well, it wasn't really research. It was asking other people what it means. But I believe we've come up with an explanation and that explanation is that it seems to be a version of an alphabet challenge where you complete a parkrun starting with the first letter of the elements of the periodic table. Is that your understanding, Tony?

00:13:14Tony O'Connell: Mel, does it need to be just the first letter or does the second letter need to be in the name as well? I was under the impression...

00:13:22Melissa Ellis: This is very contentious. Some people are saying.

00:13:27Tony O'Connell: Being an unofficial club, we can have it however we want it.

00:13:35Melissa Ellis: Or maybe we can't say that. I don't know. No, we shouldn't say that, should we? We should edit that out.

00:13:42Tony O'Connell: And we should leave in that we've edited that out.

00:13:50Melissa Ellis: But – Mel, either way. Yes.

00:13:53Tony O'Connell: However you want to spell, however you want to do the table, it's an unofficial challenge, so it's however you want to do it. But, Mel, it's got me thinking there's still a lot of messaging going around the parkrun world, different hashtags, people looking at different statistics, statistics that no longer appear. And it got me looking at the average attendance that's been removed and and some of the reasons behind it. And I think that one actually makes some sense. I was trying to work through it. An average attendance for an event is taken from event one and right through. So some of the older events or more established events, the actual average attendance that's reflected on the page is not actually anywhere near what they're currently getting on a regular basis. And I've got a couple of events here to demonstrate it. Naturally, we're going to go straight to the stump because, you know, why wouldn't we? If you look since we launched at Inverloch, we get 107 finishes a week. However, if you took that back to 20 weeks, the number jumps to 172 finishes. So we've had quite a busy run. And if you were looking and saying, I want a smaller event, you might pick Inverloch because it has a smaller event, but currently that number doesn't reflect. If we go back to Christmas, so if we look back over about the last 10 weeks, Inverloch's actually running at about 211 people. So it's nearly double what our long-term average is. And One of the other examples that I went back and had a look at is Albert Park. If you look at Albert as being one of the older events in Australia, their long-term average is 332. But we know Albert's had an explosion of numbers in the last six months. They're getting some really high attendances. So if you take it back to the last 20 weeks, their average attendance is 755. So it's more than double what they're long-term average is. I guess the other one, if we go back to Australia's original event, Main Beach, their average attendance long-term is 227. If you go back over the last 20 weeks, it's 297. I guess the actual figure that was on the page doesn't really reflect where a parkruns at at the moment and how many people are turning up. If you're looking at that number and you're using that as a gauge of where you want to go based on numbers. And some people might look at it, they want to go to a smaller event because they don't want to have a big number of people around them. Some people may want to go to a bigger event because they're chasing things like position changes indexes and things like that so they actually want an event with bigger numbers so yeah just on the actual page itself the long-term attendance wasn't really reflective of where parkruns are at at the moment

00:16:55Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's very interesting. And thank you for doing those calculations, TOC. I never really thought of that when I looked at averages myself, but then also I would go to the event's actual webpage and sort the results table. We don't really need to sort it. It's already in date order. So that all just gives you a good feel for the last few events and how many people they're attracting at the current time. So that's definitely a bit of indication of what the numbers would be.

00:17:26Tony O'Connell: And I guess when you look at that long-term event history, when you look at it long-term, you also have to factor in things like, you know, immediately after Christmas, certain events, you know, Inverloch is a classic example. We're a coastal community. We're a tourist location. Our numbers are naturally going to explode, you in the week after Christmas through to Australia Day when everyone's on holidays. And I guess the events all around the world, they're going to have different scenarios and different time periods where those numbers explode. But we know we have our New Year's resolution runners that our numbers jump on New Year's Eve or the first parkrun after it. So you take those factors into consideration as well. But... As a trend, I think a lot of parkruns, their average over the last 20 weeks would be significantly higher than their average for their whole life of the event.

00:18:21Melissa Ellis: So do you feel that, say, a 20-week average would be more useful data to have if available to events on their webpages?

00:18:32Tony O'Connell: I think some sort of shorter term, like 20 weeks or something, would give you a broader... average number than the long-term one, because when events start, and particularly those events that are in the, like the Pioneer Club events, the older events, where parkrun wasn't a known thing, and yeah, if you got 20 or 30 people turn up, sometimes that was a big event, where those events now have You know, multiples of 20, you know, they have significant increases of numbers. So I think that shorter term of, you know, say an arbitrary 20 weeks would give you a much better feel for how the event is for numbers rather than that long-term average.

00:19:14Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I agree. Good job, TOC.

00:19:18Tony O'Connell: It's just something to keep me amused while I was on patrol today. Yeah, something to keep the brain process going. But Mel.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:19:27Tony O'Connell: Yes. We have a roving report this week. We do. So let's go over and let's listen to Tracey.

00:19:30[background music]

Roving report Tracey Wood — Underwood Park parkrun

00:19:44Tracey Wood: Good morning parkrunners, it's Tracey in a Tutu and I toured over the south side of Brisbane to Underwood Park parkrun. Why am I here? Am I chasing a NENDY? No. Am I chasing a U? No. Do I have a good reason? Also no. It is simply unimportant, underwhelming and uninteresting. The reason I'm being here is just I have something on the south side. Hey, let's go find someone interesting to talk to.

Talking to Sandy — Underwood Park parkrun local

00:20:12Tracey Wood: Okay, team, I found Sandy. She tells me she's a local. Sandy, what can you tell me about Underwood Park parkrun?

00:20:19Sandy: I would say we're the best community of people. We're a super friendly bunch. We love being here. This course is pretty nice and challenging. We've got three inclines, we like to call them, in the last kilometre, so you've always got to save some energy for that. And most of the course you're actually running in shade, so it's not too bad, yeah.

00:20:39Tracey Wood: Excellent. Sounds good. Now, am I going to get lost here? No.

00:20:42Sandy: Look, it has happened a couple of times, but we do have markings on the path all the time and we have marshals in the spots where you have to choose which direction to take. So you should be right. And can you describe the shape of the course?

00:20:56Tracey Wood: Is it out and back, around a loop, up and down? No, figure eight. What am I doing here?

00:21:02Sandy: Yeah, what are you doing here? No, it's neither of those. This course, it does go out one way, but then it comes back part of the way and then ducks off another way and then comes back that way and then back to the finish line. So it might be one you want to have a look at the course map before you come. But we are pretty signed here.

00:21:20Tracey Wood: Beautiful. Okay, this was Tracey in a Tutu. And this is the last you've heard from me. If you don't hear again, please go look in Underwood Park. I may be wandering around aimlessly crying for coffee.

Talking to Angela — Underwood Park parkrun local and regular walker

00:21:33Tracey Wood: Hi team, I'm out on course at Underwood parkrun, where I have a lovely view of greenery and very big power poles. But I believe there's bushland along the side. And I'm walking with Angela this morning, who tells me she's a local. Good morning, Angela. Good morning. How are you?

00:21:54Angela: Very good. It's a little bit cooler today, which is much nicer for parkrun.

00:21:58Tracey Wood: Now, tell us your parkrun story. You said, just told me before, you've been coming to Underwood parkrun ever since it started. We can't remember the year. We think it's about 2018, but we're not sure.

00:22:09Angela: I think actually we had our 10-year anniversary just recently, now that I think about it, so...

00:22:17Tracey Wood: How did you get involved in parkrun and why do you keep coming, not every week, but you keep coming back on occasions? Why is that?

00:22:23Angela: Well, it's just a great way to get out and, you know, do a bit of a walk. I'm a walker, not a runner.

00:22:29Tracey Wood: And there's nothing wrong with that, folks.

00:22:31Angela: Absolutely. On a Saturday morning and there's a really good community feel to it. So if you come regularly, you know, you get to know a lot of the people in your local area, you know, that also like walking and running. And it forces me out of bed on a Saturday morning, which I don't always like, but is good for me. Awesome.

00:22:53Tracey Wood: Now, what would you like people to know about Underwood Park parkrun? Is there something special about this parkrun? Why should they come here?

00:23:02Angela: Well, we're super friendly. We do actually get that feedback quite a lot. We've got a fantastic group of locals, always willing to volunteer. We don't have to work too hard to get volunteers, which is wonderful. And we have young people, old people, everyone in between, walkers, runners. So whatever your style is, you'll feel at home.

00:23:27Tracey Wood: Awesome. Now, I see lots of runners wearing shirts that say Runners Jam. Now, I'm quite fond of jam, the strawberry variety, I think, or maybe I have an occasional raspberry. But can you tell me about that?

00:23:39Angela: Do you know about that? It's the local runners club. So they are based in the same park that parkrun is. So obviously, quite a lot of them do parkrun.

00:23:47Tracey Wood: And do they have strawberry jam?

00:23:50Angela: Not that I know of, but... You know, maybe they can work on that.

00:23:54Tracey Wood: Ah, yeah, I was chatting to a couple of people before wearing the t-shirts and they definitely seem quite friendly. All right, Tracey in a Tutu, working my way along Underwood Park parkrun. I think I'm at the halfway mark. Ooh, excitement. Hi, team. I've finished Underwood Park parkrun. I've come across a line.

Talking to Mark — Run Director on the day and Co-Event Director, Underwood Park parkrun

00:24:11Tracey Wood: I've dutifully scanned in, returned my token, handed in my vest, and I have found Mark, the Run Director of the day. How did it all go today, Mark?

00:24:20Mark: Everything went really smoothly. Here at Underwood Park, we have a motto is keep it simple. We keep it simple and it all goes to plan most weeks. And today was one of those weeks. So very happy.

00:24:33Tracey Wood: Excellent. And now tell me your parkrun story. How long have you been part of Underwood Park parkrun? Did you come from somewhere else beforehand? Why do you keep coming to parkrun? Why are you here, Mark? This is a very existential question.

00:24:47Mark: Well, I'll just stick with the parkrun story about why I'm here. I started at Wishart parkrun on the inaugural one back in 2014. One of my mates invited me along and said, hey, there's this 5K thing that you can run and they give you a time and it's free. And I thought, wow, that's a great idea. So we ran to Wishart parkrun and did that and went along there for a couple of years. And then we thought, why do we run 10k to get to Wishart when there's a beautiful park across the road? So we started our own. So that was Steve and myself with Event Directors at Underwood. And we started up in 2017 and we've been here ever since.

00:25:29Tracey Wood: Awesome. And it seems like a nice community. Do you struggle for volleys here or attendance numbers or how does it all go here?

00:25:39Mark: We've got a lovely community here and that's why we keep it going. We've got a really awesome group of volunteers. Lots of people volunteer very regularly. We've got a couple of guys and girls that volunteer every single week and we fill our volunteer roster really quickly on most weeks. Last night I needed a Timekeeper and I put out a message and within two minutes somebody messaged me and said, I want that job. So a big shout out to our volunteers here. We just have wonderful people and we've been averaging about 220 since Christmas. So we've had some really good numbers, which I think is probably about our capacity at the moment. We've got a lovely park and lovely people that come along.

00:26:28Tracey Wood: Excellent. Now, for our listeners, if you could give them one thing to take away from Underwood Park parkrun, what would you tell them in one word, two words, a sentence? What could you give them to take away with?

00:26:40Mark: Come visit us and get your U.

00:26:42Tracey Wood: Well, how simple is that? Absolutely. All right. Thank you for your time, Mark. I'll leave you to your packing up and continuation of the day. And thank you for having me.

00:26:45[background music]

00:26:50Mark: Thank you. Thank you.

00:26:58Melissa Ellis: And thank you very much, Tracey in a Tutu, coming to us from Underwood parkrun, chatting to Sandy and Angela out on the course, and then Mark, the RD at the end.

Dazza's

00:27:09Tony O'Connell: And Mel, jumping across to Dazza's. This week, Dazza has said, Dazza will listen to this week's episode and he thinks Mel needs him to jump in and navigate on her next adventure. That's a bit rude. Did you go north, south, east or west this parkrun day? Come on in and tell us all about it. And, Mel, we had 175 comments on Dazza's this week, so a fairly big number of comments for Dazza. And the first of the comments that we've picked out to read comes from the greatest state, Joe Richards. Whichever way you head is relative to where you start, Dazza. If I was at home, I'd be heading northwest to the southeast suburbs of Melbourne. However, I'm heading southwest to arrive at Karkarook. And Jo didn't have a photo there, probably because Jo probably got lost as well.

00:28:00Melissa Ellis: That's a bit cryptic. Did we try to figure out where she was possibly starting from?

00:28:05Tony O'Connell: Well, I know normally her starting or to head northwest would be from down near Inverloch, so... Not sure where the heading southwest was.

00:28:16Melissa Ellis: Anyway, next we heard from Michael Blain coming to us from Queensland, I'm pretty sure anyway, and he says, got my Queensland statesman status at Hamilton parkrun. And there was a great photo of Michael crossing the finish line and it looks like he was gesturing the letter Q with his hands.

00:28:36Tony O'Connell: So would that be Q or should he have been gesturing with the K for Queensland?

00:28:40Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:28:43Tony O'Connell: Next up, we had a post from Ian and Lydia Knox, and it said, North? Nope. South? Sorry, no. West? Why? East? Why not Central Australia? Coober Pedy Oval parkrun is our parkrun for today. Hot yesterday, up to 45 degrees today, is milder at only 38 degrees later this afternoon. So here's our parkrun adventurers contribution for today. And they posted a photo. Ian and Lydia were in the pitch frame with a couple of firefighters who were doing a very hot parkrun, dressed in full firefighting gear, including the breathing apparatus. They had the tanks on the back. They had the works. And the surround is very quintessential Australians, very dry-looking Coober Pedy. And they had the four of them in the selfie frame.

00:29:39Melissa Ellis: I can't imagine doing a parkrun in that gear. You've been a firefighter, haven't you, Tony? You would know what that's like.

00:29:46Tony O'Connell: I've done parkrun in the gear, Mel, but I certainly don't think I've done parkrun in 38 degrees in the gear, and there is no way that I would do that.

00:29:55Melissa Ellis: Wow. Would that be a training for them? Why on earth would they do that?

00:30:01Tony O'Connell: For the love of it.

00:30:03Melissa Ellis: Because they can.

00:30:05Tony O'Connell: Because they can.

00:30:06Melissa Ellis: And we also heard from Dawn Branton coming to us from over the ditch, a long way east this weekend to the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. So now I've done a parkrun in every state and territory of Australia, plus both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. And the happy party face emoji from Dawny. And she sent a photo of herself in the selfie frame there at the University of Waikato. So she's joined our self-anointed Oberg Club.

00:30:38Tony O'Connell: Yes, she has. It's a great achievement. Wouldn't be too many, I wouldn't imagine, in the Oberg Club.

00:30:44Melissa Ellis: I don't think so.

00:30:45Tony O'Connell: Well done, Dawn. And moving back to the West... we had a heather hunter in New South Wales. I travelled approximately 1.5 kilometres south, then 1.5 kilometres east, or about 2 kilometres southeast as a crow flies, to scan barcodes at Forster parkrun. And there was a picture of Heather at the finish line in the volunteer vest with one of the other volunteers.

00:31:11Melissa Ellis: Very good. Hey, you know what I've just realised? If you look at the initials of New South Wales, it's like North, South, West. North, South, West.

00:31:21Tony O'Connell: Only the East escapes us there.

00:31:23Melissa Ellis: Anyway, we also heard from Chris Gore coming to us from... The West Side, and he said, hi, Dazza. Karen and I headed south this morning for parkrun today. We went to Rockingham parkrun. It was an absolutely glorious morning and perfect weather for parkrun. Karen managed to get a PB again today, but I was about 35 seconds away from mine. There was a lovely photo of the parkrun flag with the coast in the distance showing us the lovely Rockingham.

00:31:52Tony O'Connell: And, Mel, if we come back to the east... We end up back in the ACT and we had Ryan Stoddart out there today, parkrun, where strangers become instant friends and breakfast goes for two hours. First visit to Canberra, ticking off Ginninderra parkrun and number six on the Eye Index. And there was a photo of Ryan and his new friends.

00:32:15Melissa Ellis: Very good. I saw Ryan on Insta too. He also saw the balloons. So I didn't bump into him, but there's lots of people in Canberra. Now, we also heard from Tamsin Smith coming to us from the UK, and she said, headed to Southampton today to run direct with Morglen this morning. It was another busy week with 1,049 participants and 84 volunteers to coordinate.

00:32:41Unidentified speaker: Oh, my God.

00:32:42Melissa Ellis: If you want to know what a start with that many people looks like, check out this. And there was the link to, obviously... a group photo out there at Southampton. So Tamsin also shared a photo of herself with a couple of volunteers on the start line about to be run past by over a thousand participants and oh yes plus the link to the video showing the very big start line. So I wonder if that's the same as the previous week, TOC, when the surrounding events were cancelled.

00:33:14Tony O'Connell: I'm not sure, Mel, but I went and had a look at the video and it's sort of one of those, I guess, bushy type links where you see the first runners going past and then the next people and the next people. And I don't know how many minutes you go down through the video and there's still hundreds of people moving through the start line. So I saw the photo of Tamsin and a couple of the volunteers and it really grabbed me because I thought – Tamsin looked like she was doing the briefing and I thought, if you yell go at this point and you're on the start line, you're going to get trampled.

00:33:51Melissa Ellis: Wow.

00:33:52Tony O'Connell: So it'd be interesting to be on the starting line of a parkrun that large.

00:33:56Melissa Ellis: Yes, definitely.

00:33:57Tony O'Connell: Now, Mel, if you jumped on an aeroplane from the UK and started flying in a direction and the pilot knew where they're going, eventually you'd get to the USA and you'd find Mary Botto. Yes. Mary said east, way east of Australia to the far off east coast of the USA, Kensington parkrun. And Mary didn't share a photo from there. So we're not sure how far east that was.

00:34:24Melissa Ellis: Good work, Mary. I wonder if she's visiting. There's a dirty cheetah over there in the US. Yeah. Bixby though isn't it where the other dirty cheater is yeah I'm not sure I'm not one of the cheaters oh okay well we also heard from Phil Olson and he is in the UK and he said took my wife Julie to Abbey Park parkrun for her 250th at her 250th different venue first lady ever to do so and there was a photo of Julie with the Abbey Park pop-up so her 250th parkrun So she's never repeated in 250 parkruns.

00:35:01Tony O'Connell: It certainly looks like that. Wow. Good work, Julie. It's an amazing effort. That's tourism to the next level.

00:35:08Melissa Ellis: Wow.

00:35:10Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that's impressive. Now, going from the UK, we head across to South Africa for our weekly chat with Johan. Johan this week said, I've ventured north again, this time to visit Aviators Paradise parkrun, which starts and ends at a small airfield with the route around various crop fields and irrigation channels. While this visit, I have now completed the northwest province of Although unfortunately I missed a few that never reopened after the pause or since before I could get to them. Sadly the airfield has been sold and is currently a hive of construction activity as a chrome ore processing plant is being constructed and the future of the event is now uncertain. It was excruciatingly hot even at 7am as El Nino continues to torment us. And there's a pic of Johan doing a zoomie in front of a small aeroplane. And Mel, I'm sort of getting a theme this week. Everywhere was really hot.

00:36:09Melissa Ellis: And I guess just like we are having the effects of El Nino as are South Africa. But fancy having your parkrun at risk of closing because of a chrome ore processing plant. That's just rude. Anyway. Lastly, we heard from Jason Andrews, also from the greatest state. Westerfolds for us, no witches in sight, but the hill to the manor is scary enough. And a laughing face emoji from Jason and a photo of himself and Oliver out there at the folds.

00:36:43Tony O'Connell: That is a nice little hill that leads up to the manor, Mel.

00:36:46Melissa Ellis: It is, and on occasion they do change their start-finish area. I think I've done a couple of events at Westerfolds where they've actually finished at the top of that hill at the manor. One of their anniversaries they did that. It's a killer. Anyway, I digress.

the Obi Award — Ian and Lydia Knox

00:37:04Melissa Ellis: Do you have the Obilope?

00:37:07Tony O'Connell: Now, we have the Obilope. The Obilope. And opening up, we have drumroll. Drumroll. The winner is... Ian and Lydia Knox. Thanks.

00:37:20[background music]

00:37:33Melissa Ellis: Well done. Thank you for bringing us that content from Coober Pedy.

00:37:38Tony O'Connell: I really did. The photos, I love looking through, seeing everyone's interpretation of parkrun. Sometimes it's with a selfie frame, sometimes it's out on course, sometimes it's volunteering. That one just really struck me. It had that harsh environment around them, the red dirt, the gums, a couple of fireys in turnout gear, and it was just a brilliant photo. So well done, guys.

00:38:06Melissa Ellis: Excellent. Well done. Well, that's it for Dazza's, time to turn our attention. Actually, you're doing that, so you can say it.

Emails

00:38:15Tony O'Connell: Mel, this week we didn't have an email. No. So, people, get on the computer. What's that internet thing called? Send us an email. Well, send Mel an email. Okay, boomer. I'm probably not here next week.

Club Corner

00:38:30Tony O'Connell: But, Mel, we do have a club corner. So, let's listen to what Rachel has to say.

00:38:35[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:38:49Rachel: This is Rachel with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. Today we are getting down to brass tacks and going to bang through a number of, quote, classic clubs, end quote. A starting point for today, and possibly a few more, will be the Aussie parkrun Tourism open bracket unofficial close bracket Facebook group. Many of these classic club-slash-achievements are based on the spelling of a parkrun event name, typically focusing on the starting letter or word, or perhaps whether a keyword is included in the event name. The majority of these clubs-slash-achievements can be completed using any event in the world, but some are specific to Australia. Some have cute nicknames, so listen up. You can achieve Pirate Club status by completing seven events starting with C and one event with an R. This completes the classic saying. How classic? The term, seven seas, can be traced to ancient Sumer in 2300 BC, where it was used in a hymn by Sumerian high priestess Enheguana to Inanna, the goddess of sexual love, fertility and warfare. Jeepers A favourite for children of the 70s is The The Club, where you complete all the events in Australia that begin with the word The. The avenues, the beaches, the entrance, the ponds, and the terrace. Did you know that The The, that is the band The The not the club slash achievement The The, was formed in the 1970s, and had a song featured in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? Would you like to become a mountaineer? Well, all you need do is to complete all events that begin or contain mount, mountain, MT bracket the abbreviation for mount close bracket, or mountains. And finally for today, let's celebrate those that are hillbillies by completing all of the events in Oz with a hill in their name. Events like Anstey Hill Recreation parkrun or Blue Gum Hills parkrun Smiley Face. That will do it for part one dot dot dot. I wonder how many of these there may be dot dot dot. And remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

00:40:53Melissa Ellis: And thank you to Rachel for giving us a little bit more insight into some of those clubs. Apart from the Pirates Club, I'm not really making much headway into the other ones. The The Club does interest me, TOC, and although I've never heard of the band called The The, I don't know, maybe it's one of those weird Eurovision bands, but I am willing to watch Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 to do some research, so I'll take that hit.

Consolidated Club Report

00:41:24Tony O'Connell: One I know to smell.

00:41:25Melissa Ellis: But the adventurers Consolidated Club Report, TOC. For Saturday, the 9th of March 2024, of a total of 595 members, 465 took part on this date in 10 countries across 240 locations. In the UK, there were adventurers at 36 events. There were four in South Africa, three in the USA, and one each in Italy, Sweden, Japan, Poland, and Singapore. Locally, we had adventurers at 55 events in New South Wales, 45 events in the greatest state, 39 in Queensland. There was 13 on the West Side, 12 in South Australia. I was going to try and say the south side. I don't know if that works. Nine in Tassie. The ACT on the North Island had seven, and there was four on the South Island. But wait, there was also one in the Northern Territory.

00:42:27Tony O'Connell: And, Mel, we had another big week there where we seemed to cover our whole region, both east, south, west, and north. So well done, everyone, for getting out there.

the Frond — Irchester Country, Riverside Walk and Tidworth (three-way international tie, three adventurers each)

00:42:37Tony O'Connell: But internationally, our largest frond, and we had a three-way tie this week. So we'll read through all of them. We had Irchester Country where there were three people. That was James Avery, Tracey May, and Nadege Rudder. Riverside Walk, also three. Debbie and Andy Airey and Mark Perkins. And Tidworth, which ironically also had three. Kim Leonard and Sammy and Cameron Jerish.

00:43:08Melissa Ellis: And worth shouting out also to an old fart in the UK, Alan Raven, who ran at Ford parkrun. Now, locally, we had the largest frond of 10 at Schlaba, but we also had nine at the stump, Tony. At Inverloch, we had Ray Farr, Toc and Jack, Adrian Sell, Joanne Harland, Serena Newman, Jane Wiles, Lila Butler, and, of course, Billo and Billo did come to Dazza's this week and he said South to do the standard hashtag parkrun adventurer zoomie at Inverloch parkrun with Lila Butler and there was a photo of Billo doing the zoomie with Lila behind and the sea in the background.

00:43:52Tony O'Connell: And, Mel, I'm quite happy to say that I took that photo while I was out on course running around. Oh, good job. Just happened to be a really good time frame. Yeah, Billo and Lila were at the right spot at the right time.

00:44:04Melissa Ellis: So you just whipped the phone out.

00:44:06Tony O'Connell: Yeah, took a few photos, put them up on Facebook, as you do.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:44:11Tony O'Connell: Mel, launches this week, we're back in the numbers again with a grand total of one new parkrun.

00:44:19Melissa Ellis: In the whole world, just one. Where was it, Tony?

00:44:22Tony O'Connell: Mel, it was in the greatest state. Mel, this week we welcome Trebeck Reserve based in Winchelsea. So it's southwest of Melbourne and west of Geelong. Yes. So the course itself is a two-lap out and back. With one large lap, we run out two kilometres and then return. And then the second lap is a 500-metre out, 500-metre back. The launch had 92 finishers and nine volunteers. And a couple of things to note, it's a little bit out of town, but public toilets, children's playground and a free camp location. So it's one of those places that has free camping, are located approximately a kilometre away from the start line near Cafe Lahut, which is the post-parkrun meetup cafe. Now, the fact that we had another launch two weeks in a row after a few weeks off got me doing a bit of a deep dive into the number of launches that we've had this year. And in January, we had nine launches. We only had two across the whole of February. And so far for March, a couple of weeks in, we've only had two. And it got me looking at parkrun's global five-year strategy and doing a bit of a deep dive into numbers. Part of the strategy parkrun was divided into four regions. We had America, APAC, which is Asia Pacific. We had EMA, which was Europe, Middle East and Africa. And we had the UK as its own area. One of the big target goals was to both double the events. So at the time they wrote the strategy, there were 2,200 events. So doubling that to 4,400 and to double the participation from around 250,000 to the big stretch goal is to get to 500,000 people doing parkrun each week. And so I had a look at this week's numbers just to see how they're ticking along. And this week we had 2,379 events, which is up 8% on the original number. But interestingly, the number of participants this week was was sorry the number of finishes this week was 316 107 which is up 26 on last year so there's actually been a significant increase in the number of people doing parkrun but the number of new parkruns hasn't kept up with the number of new participants and that goes back to our attendance figures we're talking about earlier where the number of people at every parkrun is increasing

00:47:04Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's interesting. So although attendance is going up, we aren't having the events coming along to support the numbers? Is that how you would interpret that?

00:47:17Tony O'Connell: I think at the moment, the events that are out there are supporting the growth in numbers. But I think they probably would have been envisaged that there would be some more launches. And I know that they've targeted certain countries to try and increase the number of launchers. So it'll be interesting to see, I guess, in another 12 months, whether we've been able to get the number of launches up across the world or globally to try and distribute some of those new participants. Because obviously, if we kept our number of events around where they are now and tried to double the number of participants, a lot of those events would become too large to be viable.

00:47:57Melissa Ellis: Goodness. So hopefully there's more on the horizon? Yeah.

00:48:02Tony O'Connell: Well, for the adventurers, I think it presents a good picture in that there's plenty of opportunity out there, and I think some of the countries that are probably targeted for some more events launching and some expansion can really use it. We often look at our friends in the UK, and you throw a 50-kilometre radius around some of the towns, and they've got, like, a plethora of parkruns there's 100 parkruns in the radius whereas you go to some of the room more remote places and not even the really remote places but you know somewhere like Perth for example and you throw a 50 kilometre radius around Perth and you don't have anywhere near that opportunity in that number of events the density yeah there's plenty of potential for sure but obviously the population is spread as well here Yeah, so you need a population and you need a volunteer base to support the event. So I certainly don't want to see new events popping up just because we're trying to fill a quota of new events. They have to be well supported and well thought out. But I do see, and looking around our own neck of the woods, I do see opportunities out there. So, you know, watch your space. Hopefully we can expand and grow.

00:49:19Melissa Ellis: Yes. And we also want to remind people that you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. And if you need help with that, just give us a shout out. And one person that is trying to help us in that manner is Andrew Yeatman. He came to Dazza's this week and he said, on a recruitment drive this morning at Canning River parkrun with the Perth Active Singles, parkrun adventurers, is there a commission thing I can apply for? And he had the laughy emoji faces there and shared a picture of himself with his Perth Active Singles crew. Now, Andrew, I had a little bit of a look on the Consolidated Club report for Canning River and you haven't actually signed any of them up yet. So you'll have to give them a few tips on getting the adventurers on their parkrun profile. But you know who else was there? Abdul. Abdul was at Canning River. So shout out to Abdul. He is one of our very own as well.

00:50:19Tony O'Connell: Looking forward, Mel. One of the items that's coming up in a great hurry is palm trees. And if you want to be all matchy-matchy with our parkrun Freedos and the main event at South Toowoomba, head over to the parkrun adventurers Listen and Meet Up Facebook page where The Office Lady has posted a suggestion of what shirts to wear on which occasion. And we do emphasise, don't worry if you don't have all the tops or you don't own the tops. It's completely optional. Everyone's still welcome. It's purely for the mass effect in our photos.

00:50:51Melissa Ellis: Yep, that's right. And I think we kind of started that back down in Tassie at Bellerive when we asked everybody to wear purple for the recording because we had our little mock renewal of vows.

00:51:04Tony O'Connell: Our Cadbury special.

00:51:06Melissa Ellis: Yeah, Cadbury's special.

Sign-off

00:51:09Melissa Ellis: And that brings us to our next parkrun day, TOC, and where we are going to be. So what plans do you have for next Saturday?

00:51:18Tony O'Connell: Mel, I'm doing a duplication. So two weeks in a row at Inverloch, which... I think is almost a rarity these days, but I'm RD this week at Inverloch and we've filled our volunteer roster with residents of the estate that I live in to the point where we're having pace a day as well as lots of other volunteers because out of our estate, our little estate, we have 24 volunteers for the weekend. So we've well and truly taken over.

00:51:52Melissa Ellis: How did you get – what did you do? Did you do a door knock? How did you – explain. How did you get all these residents into parkrun? What have you done?

00:52:02Tony O'Connell: Well, it's possibly part of the reason the envelope is starting to jump up on our front numbers. We have a very active residence group in the estate that I live in, and people – a couple started to come to parkrun – and then a couple more, and they bring their friends. And suddenly, I think we have, from about six weeks ago, where we probably had two or three or maybe a bit longer, we now have about 15 or 20 of the residents, and I think we've only got 100 houses. So I think we're batting on a fairly high population rate out of our estate, making the great trip from Cape Patterson to Inverloch every Saturday morning.

00:52:43Melissa Ellis: Which poses the question why there isn't actually a parkrunning Cape Patterson.

00:52:48Tony O'Connell: It's because finding five kilometres without a road crossing is very difficult unless we do a beaches style and run around the beach. But then we have a rock promontory that we have to go from one beach to the other. And I don't think that's going to get through any form of risk assessment.

00:53:06Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:53:06Tony O'Connell: in the building industry haven't you got some pull with the developers down there with all the new housing estates to do a purpose-built parkrun course well it's probably something that we should have thought of earlier and laid out the estate we live in actually has eight kilometres of walking trails through it but they do tend to cross roads damn it

00:53:26Melissa Ellis: Never mind.

00:53:27Tony O'Connell: Mel, where are you this weekend?

00:53:29Melissa Ellis: I am adventuring again. I'm jumping on an aeroplane and I'm going to Lonnie down in Tassie, so Launceston parkrun, for me to finish off the Pioneers Club.

00:53:42Tony O'Connell: Mel, just give us a refresh. How many events are there in the Pioneers Club?

00:53:46Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, there's one in every state and territory.

00:53:49Tony O'Connell: Well, that would make eight then, wouldn't it?

00:53:51Melissa Ellis: Very clever.

00:53:51Tony O'Connell: Yeah.

00:53:54Melissa Ellis: Yes. So yeah, Launceston's the last one I need for that. I haven't booked my accommodation yet. So I'm hoping I can find somewhere nice and close to the parkrun so that I can walk.

00:54:07Tony O'Connell: Lots of accommodation in Lonnie in the central area and it is only about half K or a K walk or whatever out to the parkrun. So I'm sure you'll be fine.

00:54:17Melissa Ellis: Excellent. That's this week's problem. But who's doing the outro? You're doing the outro.

00:54:24Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, thanks. It's been a great episode again. It is still stinking hot in the house here. I'm hoping that when we go outside, the sea breeze is going to kick in. Didn't as of about half an hour ago, but let's hope. As always, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or in our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.

00:54:45[outro theme playing]