Episode 392 - Bolting towards Septmeber

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Tony O'Connell: And welcome to episode 392 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is TOC and I'm coming to you from Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:36Melissa Ellis: And I'm Melissa Ellis coming to you from Wurundjeri Country.

00:00:40Tony O'Connell: Mel, how are you on this fine sunny day?

00:00:42Melissa Ellis: Well, my quads have been happier, Tony.

00:00:46Tony O'Connell: Would that have anything to do with running up and down hills?

00:00:49Melissa Ellis: It would, but I didn't run around around yards.

00:00:53Tony O'Connell: No, Mel, you've got to admit, it was a truly awesome effort at the Clint Eastwood Backyard Ultra last Friday, I believe it was. Carolyn managed to crew for eight and a bit laps, which is 55k. So I'm really impressed with what Carolyn got through there.

00:01:10Melissa Ellis: I am very impressed. Good work for a rookie.

00:01:13Tony O'Connell: And by the way, I think Simon might have actually run the eight and a half laps. So well done, Simon. That's well and truly a great effort. Yeah.

00:01:21Melissa Ellis: It was. Did you get the reference to last week's pod title?

00:01:24Tony O'Connell: I didn't, Mel.

00:01:28Melissa Ellis: Clint Eastwood reference. Oh, we thought we were so clever.

00:01:31Tony O'Connell: Well, I listened to it heading up to my parkrun and I didn't even click.

00:01:39Melissa Ellis: Even with what was in the pod description? Do you feel lucky punk?

00:01:46Tony O'Connell: Come on, Mel. Realistically, you'd have to hit me over a brick for it to sink in for me to understand.

00:01:53Melissa Ellis: No, but we're very proud of Simon. He did well.

00:01:55Tony O'Connell: He did really well. And to get through the 55 Ks and he went out on the extra bit of a final lap just to get his total up to 55, which was a really great effort to get out and do.

00:02:07Melissa Ellis: Very good. So that would have been a distance PB for him. It was. Yep. I wonder when the next one is.

00:02:13Tony O'Connell: I'm sure his legs are looking forward to it and his back and his knees and everything else.

00:02:18Melissa Ellis: Did you take a while to come around to the thought of another ultra, backyard ultra?

00:02:25Tony O'Connell: I haven't entered another one yet, but, yeah, rumour has it that we're about to enter a multi-day in November. So, yeah, we've got a 60k on one day and a 42k the next.

00:02:38Melissa Ellis: Oh, my goodness.

00:02:39Tony O'Connell: 60k on trail and 42k road marathon on the Sunday. Crazy.

00:02:44Melissa Ellis: So, fun and games. Mm-hmm. Well, I don't know why I've got the next section where I have got it, Tony, but I wanted to reference last week's episode. That's why I've put it here. And it was the 5Ks challenge that Rachel brought up. And there was like 21 events in Australia that start with the letter K. And Simon commented there wasn't very many in New South Wales that he'd done most of his Ks in Queensland. So I thought I'd go back and add them all up as you do. And I did actually discover, and I don't think you'll be surprised, that the greater states got the most.

00:03:22Tony O'Connell: No, I think we have a lot of K events, Mel. I think I probably have 12 or 13 of Ks in my K club. Yep.

00:03:30Melissa Ellis: Well, we've got seven here in the greater state and there is four in Queensland. New South Wales and WA have just got three. There's two down in Tassie and one each in South Australia and Northern Territory. So that's how they are spread across our fine land. I didn't do the research for the whole world. Perhaps if anybody wants to do the research of their own country and let us know, quite welcome.

00:03:55Tony O'Connell: Feel free to email in and tell us how many Ks there are in every country.

00:04:00Melissa Ellis: Somebody probably could do that easily with a spreadsheet. And Budgie Talk has been released.

00:04:07Tony O'Connell: The Budgie's in the wild?

00:04:08Melissa Ellis: Budgie is in the wild. And I kind of feel a bit like the overprotective mother. I think I'm trying to orchestrate it and I really need to let go. I'm trying to give suggestions as to what could happen next and that really isn't the point. The point is that Budgie needs to just organically...

00:04:29Tony O'Connell: Mel, Budgie has flown the coop. It is time to release. It is time to sit back and breathe.

00:04:35Melissa Ellis: I know, I've got to let it go. It gets where it gets to, and it doesn't really matter.

00:04:40Tony O'Connell: And it's going to be a fascinating journey. I've seen lots of comments on our socials this week, Mel, people saying it'd be great if it came here, it'd be great if it came there. So let's see where Budgie ends up.

00:04:51Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and actually one thing I wanted to highlight because a couple of the rules are that Budgie must be handed over as a baton at a park or an event and it needs to go from adventure to adventurer. So it's going to be probably important for the person who's got Budgie to post maybe where they're going to be in the Friday post. So Eman, I know you listen and I know you haven't got social media. So Christine, we need your help, to maybe let everybody know where Eman's going to be. Now, I do believe is that Penrith is a parkrun, correct?

00:05:26Tony O'Connell: Correct, yes.

00:05:26Melissa Ellis: I believe that's where Eman's going to be. So any adventurers this weekend that know they're going to be touring, touristing, possibly interstate, maybe if you go to Penrith. Otherwise... Eman will hang on to it and it could go with him to his next event, which might be in South Australia.

00:05:46Tony O'Connell: And I'm tipping that we're probably going to be seeing Eman at Penrith Lakes parkrun, not Penrith parkrun.

00:05:53Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:05:54Tony O'Connell: Because I'm tipping he's more likely going to be in the western suburbs of Sydney than in the UK. Okay.

00:06:02Melissa Ellis: Fair point.

00:06:03Tony O'Connell: That would have been a quick trip for Budgie if he's in the UK already. And it breaks all the rules about visiting all the states.

00:06:05[crosstalk]

00:06:10Melissa Ellis: And maybe my memory is completely wrong and it wasn't even Penrith, but I think it was. Anyway, I need to stop worrying about how Budgie's getting from place to place and leave it in the hands of the adventurers now.

00:06:21Tony O'Connell: So Mel, as the overprotective mother, how are you going to track the progress of Budgie? Have you got something set up to track Budgie's progress?

00:06:29Melissa Ellis: We have an album. I've created a photo album. And our esteemed adventurers, when they go to the parkrun with Budgie, they're going to take a photo and they're going to post it in Dazza's. And I'm going to capture that photo and put it in the album. So we've got a photographical, what's the word? Evidence? Yeah, that. Record? Yeah.

00:06:50Tony O'Connell: Budgie's got a record.

00:06:55Melissa Ellis: Oh, let's move on. Please tell me about your parkrun day. Did you get locked in a toilet?

00:06:59Tony O'Connell: Mel, my parkrun day was awesomely excellent, like all parkrun days. Awesomely excellent. That's a new word. Lucky The Office Lady is not hanging around level two because she'd probably slap my hand with a wooden ruler for that little one. Well, I went up to McLean Beach, which, as you would be well aware, is in Deniliquin. It's on the lands of the Yakawa people. And there's a bit of a story with the public toilet there. So I took along my screwdriver and... A screwdriver's not something you often carry up to a parkrun, but I had my screwdriver just in case I got locked in the toilet. Now, you might want to elaborate a bit later about that dreaded toilet incident, but back to McLean Beach parkrun, I found this a really awesome parkrun. I go to a lot of the ones around the coast. Australians, we tend to hang around the coast quite a bit. But when you get inland, you truly appreciate the river, the river gums along it. There's houseboats along this. There's a ute on a pole about 10 metres up in the air. And for our friends in the UK, that's a utility vehicle. It's up on a pole because Deniliquin has a ute master every year and they celebrate utes. There's historical buildings along the course. There's bridges. There is everything on this course, but I just love... the river escarpments with the big cut-ins the the reflections of the sun's coming up it was about one degree so the water was steaming because it was a lot warmer than the temperature there around it so you had the steam coming up with the river gums in the background look it was just a really great experience to go there only 30 finishes but it was just a really great everyone sat around and chatted at the end yeah loved it as a course loved the team and uh That really great experience, Mel. How about you? Where was your parkrun this week?

00:08:59Melissa Ellis: I think everybody already knows. Spoiler. I was at event 418 of the Ponds parkrun on the traditional lands of the Darug peoples. The Ponds sits in the Blacktown local government area and it's about 40 kilometres west-northwest of the Sydney CBD. There was 530, so it is one of Sydney's largest events, and it begins on a grassed area behind The Ponds community hub and is a relatively flat out and back course along a walking track cycleway through suburban development I've wanted to get to The Ponds for a visit for such a long time due partially to the wonderful involvement we've had with the adventurers the local community there via this podcast So many names have become familiar from reading them week after week and as well as meeting the lovely Jo McLean at Palm in WA and then afterwards at Toowoomba. So how lucky was I to be collected from the train station Saturday morning by Jo and delivered to the event with all the lovely Ponds Adventurers in attendance. You will hear their names later in the largest frond, another spoiler, and I really do sincerely mean it when I say it was such a joy to put faces to the names and have some wonderful conversations both at parkrun and at the brunch. I was also appreciative to the touring adventurers who came out to the ponds on the morning, and it was the first time I'd seen Eman and Chris since the birth of baby Arlo. I also had wonderful weather both at parkrun and at City to Surf, which was of course the reason for my trip to the Harbour City. A quick note about the race, for those who don't know, City to Surf lays claim to being the largest fun run in the world. I believe fun run is distinct to marathon event. This year they recorded 90,000 participants. City to Surf is a 14k run which begins in Hyde Park, Sydney and follows the coast to Bondi Beach. It's mostly uphill with a particularly notorious section called Heartbreak Hill. And it was my ninth City to Surf with seven being on the famous course and two being virtual during COVID-19. I will confess to not doing the training I had hoped to do being a little distracted recently with other things and although I'm the first to frown upon others for not doing the training I flippantly declared it's only three parkruns and threw caution to the wind. I did manage to come in around the same time as last year and surprised myself with only taking a walk break for the second half of Heartbreak Hill but as you would expect my quads are angry and I am now paying the price. I didn't see as many adventurers on course as previous years, but I know they were there. I had bumped into Dawny at Circular Quay the day before and spotted housemate Lance, of all people, in the beginner shoot. And I met back up with Jo and Natalie Wilson afterwards for the journey back to Sydney. So it was indeed another very memorable parkrun adventure with many new friends made. Thanks to Ingrid for the lift after parkrun to the expo and thanks to Jo for the hospitality... And to everyone for all the fun.

00:12:03Tony O'Connell: Mel, that sounds like a really great experience. And Heartbreak Hill, I've heard about that so many times from so many different people and no one seems to love it.

00:12:14Melissa Ellis: When are we going to get you to City to Surf?

00:12:17Tony O'Connell: One day. One year.

00:12:20Melissa Ellis: You don't really do road races, do you?

00:12:22Tony O'Connell: I don't do road. 90,000 people sounds like an organised sheep race.

00:12:31Melissa Ellis: Well, I tell you what, it is very well organised and I didn't notice the extra numbers anywhere. at the start of the event. And I, like, look, to be honest, it felt like normal numbers running the event. Where it was very evident of the extra people was at the finish line. So I couldn't actually run across the finish line because we stopped short with the backup of people crossing over. Just, yeah, too many people to get through the... over the mat at once. So probably... I don't know how they managed the timings. My timings didn't really seem... too much blown out considering I think you'll find a lot of those events Mel, the actual timing mat is back about 50 metres from the finish arch before you even get to the finish arch so funny you say that because just as we rounded the last bend into the sprint to the finish we ran over a mat and I thought why is this mat here and I thought maybe they used that to estimate like a backup yeah not sure Mel but I

00:13:34Tony O'Connell: I think a lot of the events, the timing mat is a little way from the finish arch to cater for those really big numbers and that potential backup. At some of the smaller races we do, they have a second mat out so that they actually call out your name as you're coming through. So they have the mat and your name pops up on a screen and the announcers can call it out. They can call up then if celebratories are running in the race, they can call them out and give the crowd a G up that way.

00:14:03Melissa Ellis: Well, anyway, so that's good. So the results were pretty accurate.

00:14:07Tony O'Connell: Cool. And your parkrun had 530. Mine had 30. So we had very similar numbers.

00:14:14Melissa Ellis: I couldn't have told you there was 530 there, though. It didn't feel like it. Didn't feel like that? No. Oh, but I actually, this is something else I didn't mention. I walked. Previous years I would not care and I would still run, but that's probably testament to how nervous I was about not having trained. I was resting as much as I could.

00:14:35Tony O'Connell: Right, now moving along. What else can we talk about?

00:14:41Melissa Ellis: Well, we should mention Singapore's special day. We did announce last week that that was going to be happening. We will hear a bit more about the Singapore special day from our friend Janet later on in the roving reports. We had nine adventurers there at Bishan, which was Janet and Geoff Reid, Bill and Yvette Turner, Andrew Johnston, Martine Barrot-Billow, Cam Story and Linda Coffey.

00:15:03Tony O'Connell: Now, the reports I'm hearing was it was very hot and very humid over there. I think the Melissa Erbacher humidity has been given a few runs again, so it was good to hear that one back out of the archives. But speaking of hot... Have you jumped onto the socials and had a look at the Coombs parkrun page with a hot air balloon that landed almost right on the course? And someone grabbed the selfie frame and actually took a selfie with the balloon coming in through the selfie frame. Worth jumping over to Coombs parkrun course Mel and having a look at that.

00:15:39Melissa Ellis: That would be exciting. I love hot air balloons. Now, we also heard from Alison. So after last week's episode where we mentioned, I think it was Richard who mentioned a couple of athletes that ran at the Olympics. One of them was Hayden Wilde. And Alison said Hayden Wilde is from Whakatane, but ran at Tauranga parkrun a few years ago. He also ran at Paranga in July of 2020, breaking their course record. But he and the next six finishers didn't have their barcodes. So guess what? Back in those days, no barcode, no results. And that was a high-performance squad visit, she says. Lulu Sun, who represented New Zealand in tennis, she ran at Lake2Lake Trail in January after the Aussie Open as well, apparently. So thank you for that, Alison.

00:16:29Tony O'Connell: I know locally we've got a couple of Olympians in our midst down in Gippsland. Eleanor Patterson, who was bronze in the high jump, she's run a couple of times at Koonwarra, down at Cooney. And Aslyn Smith, who competed in the skeet, actually was a Timekeeper at Cooney about four weeks ago, so she's been out to parkrun a few times as well. What's skeet? Skeet is a form of trap shooting, so clay pigeon shooting.

00:16:56Melissa Ellis: Oh, rightio. And I'm pretty sure when I was watching, because, yeah, Eleanor Patterson, the high jumper, I'd I did see that she was from Victoria.

00:17:06Tony O'Connell: Yes, Eleanor came from Leongatha originally. I actually work with Eleanor's father. So, yeah, he has been over in Paris. We haven't seen him back yet. But, yeah, so he travels around a bit and watches Eleanor compete. And did you watch the Olympic parkrun, Tony? Yes. I watched some of it, Mel, and we have the results. The Timekeepers have been out. They've been accurate to the thousandth of a second. And, Mel, in the women's parkrun, that was won by Kenya's Beatrice Chebet in 14 minutes 28. That's getting around the course at a fairly tidy pace. Most of us are probably about halfway around the course at that stage. The men's parkrun was won by a Norwegian. That was Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who won it in 13 minutes and 13 seconds. Also of note, Shellharbour parkrunner Jess Hull won a silver in the women's 1500 metres.

00:18:07Melissa Ellis: Oh, that was exciting watching Jess run.

00:18:10Tony O'Connell: It was. She ran really well.

00:18:13Melissa Ellis: I'm just looking at those results for the Olympic parkrun. I hope they've measured it with the wheel.

00:18:18Tony O'Connell: Well, that's a good point. Look, I don't know if they're actually going to be official anyway because neither of them have a barcode. Right. I did do the deep dive. Neither of them have a barcode. So technically, I think in the Olympic results, they're going to come up as unknown. Yeah.

00:18:35Melissa Ellis: You know what makes me laugh when I see all these Olympians and they just have their athlete names pinned with safety pins on their, like, you know, we go out with our runs, with our fancy race clips and all these things. These professionals use safety pins.

00:18:53Tony O'Connell: A couple of pins, yeah.

00:18:54Melissa Ellis: Putting holes in their shirts. Anyway. Okay, what's next? Stalker app. Oh, I nearly called you Ollie. Stalker app talk. We've got an update. There's been a new update and it's one of interest to many because you can now see your P index in events. So previously you could just see what your P index was, but now it's a hyperlink. So if you click on it, it actually gives you the results of all the events, how many times you've done them in order in it.

00:19:26Tony O'Connell: descending order is that the correct that's correct now I saw you put this into the show notes and I got very excited I've actually jumped in and had a look and not only does it give you the ones that make up your p index but it lists all the ones underneath and it has a number to tell you how many more times you have to compete that or complete that to lift your index and so I started to have a bit of a look at that and I've come to the conclusion that I have a long way to go before I'm going to get anywhere

00:20:00Melissa Ellis: Ah, well, it is something that I like to look at if I can't get to a new event, which has been at a lot lately. So it just gives me a little side hustle.

00:20:11Tony O'Connell: Yeah. And our friends from with me now, I listen to Nick Nick talk about her P index and her little race, her petty index race that she's having. And I think I'm on five and I think I'd have to run somewhere four or five times to get it up to six. So I'm a long way behind everyone else, I think.

00:20:31Melissa Ellis: Yeah. Well, you know, everybody's got their thing, haven't they? You can just chip away at it in the background talk.

00:20:38Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, it'll happen when it happens.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:20:39Melissa Ellis: Now, we've got a couple of different roving reports for you this week, so let's have a listen to those now.

00:20:40[background music]

Roving report Janet Reid — Bishan parkrun

Talking to Yvette Turner and Bill Turner — parkrun tourist from Canberra, seven weeks on the road

00:20:55Janet Reid: Well hello parkrun adventurers, you will never guess first where I am. I'm at Bishan parkrun in Singapore and guess who's standing beside me? Would you like to introduce yourselves?

00:21:06Yvette Turner: We are Bill, well I'm Yvette.

00:21:08Bill Turner: And I'm Bill.

00:21:09Yvette Turner: And we're from Canberra and we are famous I guess from the parkrun adventurers podcast in the last few weeks.

00:21:16Janet Reid: So there you are, I tracked them down, found them and I thought I'd have a chat with them. So how have you been going today? How was today's parkrun for you?

00:21:23Yvette Turner: It was super hot and super humid. I have a waterfall running down my back. I think it's probably the most humid parkrun I've ever done. I'd agree with that. But such a great crowd and really friendly volleys and just a really great atmosphere here at Bishan.

00:21:38Janet Reid: You've been doing some great travelling recently. So of the parkruns you've done in your past, what, seven weeks on the road? Seven weeks, yes. What would you say are your top three, Bill?

00:21:48Bill Turner: um well it has to be bushy first but we had to do that pilgrimage yeah all right rub it in rub it in um Kralingse Bos in Rotterdam because we caught up with friends there that we hadn't seen in 10 years and one of them was a runner in the past and he'd seen all our posts about parkrun and didn't know it was in his hometown oh wow so we dragged him down and he he did it and he's been doing parkrun ever since and um I'm going to say today. Yeah, yeah.

00:21:50[crosstalk]

00:22:10[crosstalk]

00:22:20Yvette Turner: Awesome. Yeah, yeah, perfect. Same for you? Yeah, I think so. Yeah? Bushy was amazing. Yeah. And Liverpool and Southampton, they were huge. Huge. Huge parkruns. Yeah, Southampton pulls big numbers down there.

00:22:28[crosstalk]

00:22:30Janet Reid: Very big, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so what's the plan from here?

00:22:35Bill Turner: So tomorrow we're going to do West Coast parkrun and then Monday we finally get on a plane and go home.

00:22:43Janet Reid: And I'm going to say, how long are you back home for?

00:22:46Yvette Turner: Not long, we're continuing our parkrun touristing in Australia right through until October when cricket season starts proper and then we're stuck from October to March we stay in Canberra and parkrun. Lovely.

00:23:00Bill Turner: and yeah so we're looking forward to doing some water racing and trying out different parkruns over the next eight or so weeks so you're basically just going home to unpack the suitcases wash and repack yeah so we're the weekend after we get home Yvette's away in we're doing the wrecks New South Wales country New South Wales okay yep and I'm going to be up on the in Brisbane so I'm doing Kedron parkrun Then the following week I've got some cricket trials in Gloucester in New South Wales, so we're doing a parkrun there. As you do. As we do. The following weekend we're up in Brisbane for the Bridge to Brisbane, so we're doing Ipswich.

00:23:10[crosstalk]

00:23:17[crosstalk]

00:23:42Janet Reid: There we go. You need an eye for that.

00:23:42[crosstalk]

00:23:44Yvette Turner: It just goes on for me.

00:23:46Janet Reid: But it's one of the healthiest addictions we can have, isn't it? Absolutely. Thanks very much for chatting to me. It was a pleasure to meet you both and keep listening to the podcast. You never know when you're popping up again. We will. Thank you.

Talking to Thea and Xinsha — co-Run Director, Bishan parkrun, Singapore

00:23:57Janet Reid: Okay, bye. Hi parkrun adventurers, I'm back again. This time I am sitting down after our parkrun faff, chatting with Co-Event Directors at Bishan parkrun.

00:24:08Thea: First of all I have... Hi I'm Thea. Hi Xinsha here.

00:24:14Janet Reid: And they've decided to sit and have a quick little chat with me. So let's start with you Thea, how long have you been involved with this parkrun and what can you tell us about it?

00:24:23Thea: Well, actually, this is where I started my parkrun journey. I've been involved, I guess, for maybe like six years. So before COVID, I think it was, I was running in this park in Bishan and I saw these people running this parkrun race and I was like, oh, that looks fun. Shame I missed it. Came back the next Saturday. Oh, they're here again. Maybe I'll have a look into it. So yeah, I had a search online and I, yeah, so I actually discovered parkrun and running in this park and yeah. Ran for quite a few years and then became RD maybe about a year ago here. So we had a bit of a break with COVID. But yeah, it's nice to be back in this lovely Bishan Park. Good. And yourself?

00:24:55[background music]

00:25:00Unidentified speaker: Yeah, I started parkrun in the UK in my student time. Then I came back to Singapore. One day I found out, oh, it looks like there's a parkrun here as well. So I joined here at Bishan in 2020.

00:25:17Thea: I can't remember which year.

00:25:18Unidentified speaker: Anyway, but I started in 2013. So, yeah, I become a regular and then, yeah, become an RD as well. Yeah, it's lovely parkrun here. Like, we enjoy the community. Yeah, a very strong community over here.

00:25:25[background music]

00:25:33Janet Reid: It is a beautiful park. It's a lovely place to run in and everybody's just so friendly. Your volunteers are amazing. I mean, they made us all feel so welcome and congratulations to both of you for managing everybody that was here this morning. I mean, it was insane. What are your normal numbers like?

00:25:50Thea: So normally I think we have between like 70 to 100. Actually, when it's raining, so I looked out this morning and there's a bit of rain and our numbers tend to be a bit lower, but I think, yeah, we've had a lot of tourists and tourists come rain or shine. It's more, I think, the locals that are a little bit, oh, it's raining. So yeah, luckily the rain stopped for the start.

00:26:04[crosstalk]

00:26:12Janet Reid: And so it's Steph, is it? Yes. So you did First Timers Welcome for the first time today. Yep. You made a great job of it. Thank you. Did you enjoy it?

00:26:17[crosstalk]

00:26:20Steph: Yes.

00:26:21Janet Reid: Yeah, good.

00:26:22Steph: Always keen to help out where needed.

00:26:25Janet Reid: That's it. That's what volunteering is all about, isn't it? So how long has this parkrun been going for?

00:26:30Thea: Gosh, when did it start? 2018 or 2018? We had our sixth birthday this year.

00:26:35[background music]

00:26:37[crosstalk]

00:26:37Janet Reid: Yeah, but then we had a couple of years off for COVID. Yes, yes. So which was the first parkrun to launch in Singapore? East Coast. East Coast, yeah, yeah. If you look at the parkruns that are here in Singapore, which would be your favourite one?

00:27:01Thea: It is the most northern parkrun in Singapore. I think it's also at the highest elevation. I'm not sure quite how the new East Park Road or Bay East Park Road is. But yeah, it's more in there. Oh, we have our coffees.

00:27:08[crosstalk]

00:27:18Janet Reid: Yeah, we have our coffees delivered. Thank you. Thank you so much.

00:27:21Unidentified speaker: I think this is more local as well, more close to the local community in this park.

00:27:25[background music]

00:27:30Janet Reid: Have you had the opportunity to do parkruns in any other countries?

00:27:34Thea: Yeah, two weeks ago I was in Canada. I did the Noel Booth in Langley, BC. Yes. That was nice. And then the week before I was in Montreal. Yeah, so that was cool. But I haven't done one in Australia yet. We'll have to fix that then, won't we? We've done a few in Japan and New Zealand as well. Oh, lovely. One in the UK. Thank you. I've come Australia.

00:27:58Harriet White: It's the first time I've actually come somewhere especially.

00:28:01[crosstalk]

00:28:01Janet Reid: See, the Aussies are popping up all through the interviews. It was great.

00:28:05[background music]

00:28:05Harriet White: Lovely. And again, really great road direction.

00:28:08Janet Reid: Thank you. Thank you. Which other parkruns have you done?

00:28:13Unidentified speaker: I mean, I started in the UK, Singapore and Malaysia. Oh, lovely. Yes, yes.

00:28:14[crosstalk]

00:28:19Janet Reid: Well, thank you very much for allowing us to come and join you today and for hosting on Singapore National Day. So happy National Day to you all. And we've really enjoyed ourselves and we look forward to welcome you back in Australia at some stage.

00:28:33Carrie-Anne: Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Roving report Janet Reid — East Coast Park parkrun

Talking to Carrie-Anne — Event Director and Run Director, East Coast Park parkrun, Singapore

00:28:36Janet Reid: Good morning parkrun adventurers. It's Janet here with another roving report from yet another parkrun in Singapore. This time I'm at East Coast Park, parkrun correct? Yes. Beautiful out and back course with the most amazing tree canopy. Lots of lovely lovely volunteers who are so super efficient and beautiful views of the bay with more tankers and cargo ships than I've seen in my life. It was wonderful. A little bit muggy, not as bad as yesterday, and certainly no rain. So that was great to see. So I'm sitting here with Carrie-Anne, who is Event Director and Run Director today, and we're just going to have a little chat. So good morning and welcome to the Podcast Adventurers interview podcast.

00:29:17Carrie-Anne: Good morning. Thank you very much.

00:29:19Janet Reid: How do you think today went?

00:29:20Carrie-Anne: I think it was absolutely brilliant. It was so lovely to have so many people from all over the world, loads and loads of tourists. Yeah, just so great to see everyone coming together. Obviously with National Day yesterday, we have loads and loads of people visiting Singapore. So yeah, a really great event today.

00:29:34Janet Reid: Can you tell us a little bit about your parkrun journey, how you came to get involved in parkrun and how you landed up in Singapore?

00:29:40Carrie-Anne: So I started parkrunning in 2018. I moved to a new sort of town, had no friends. Someone recommended parkrun to me. Yeah, never looked back. So that was in 2018. In 2020, I moved out to Singapore. My husband got a new job. We moved out here. But as it was during COVID, there was no parkrun. So really excited to move to a parkrun city, or country but then not having parkrun but we came back about a year later and I become an RD here and then at one point the old RD team stepped down and it was just me I was the solo RD at East Coast Park I think for about three four months well yeah so that was that was quite a bit well thank you for keeping it going yeah can you imagine losing this

00:30:17[crosstalk]

00:30:23Janet Reid: Oh, no.

00:30:24Carrie-Anne: Yeah, so we kept it going and I've managed now to build up an amazing team. You've met most of our team today with our RDs, so Finish Tokens, Barcode Scaling, all our RDs today. Yes, we've got an amazing team here now and I've loved seeing this grow back from us. We only had about 80 people coming after COVID and we're now up to about 150 every week. Oh, that's brilliant.

00:30:42[crosstalk]

00:30:43Janet Reid: Yeah, so it's turned into a great event now. Yeah, that really is good. And tell me, how many parkruns do we have in Singapore?

00:30:49Carrie-Anne: we have four now so um after covered we had three come back so we have East Coast Park here we have West Coast Park over in the west and we also have Bishan where a lot of people ran yesterday and we have just recently opened bay east gardens um I think it's their 10th 10th event today so we have four and we are also hoping to try and bring back Bedok Reservoir who people may have run here before if they ran pre-covered um hopefully at some point that will be coming

00:31:15Janet Reid: back oh fingers crossed wow so if people want to do the thingapore it's what I love it when you've done all the events if people have done the four the three they're gonna have to come back and do the fourth and do the fourth oh that's amazing I like that thing that's very good um I wanted to also ask you uh if you could sum up parkrun in a sentence what would it be for you

00:31:38Carrie-Anne: community happiness yeah I think it's just you know we all have tough times the past year for me has been a pretty pretty tough one yeah um but just having this as a Saturday morning coming and seeing friends and it's not just people you know like parkrunners are your friends you have something in common like I've met so many people this weekend that just I'm friends with automatically because they have parkrunner lives and we all have like the same

00:31:58[crosstalk]

00:32:00Janet Reid: like love for it yeah it's just yeah community and happiness oh that's wonderful I feel very much the same as well yeah so carry on thank you very much for joining us this morning and uh I must say I think I need to start planning another trip back to Singapore I need my Singapore but make sure you come back here as well because it'd be lovely yes I'll have to do a Saturday Saturday yes I think thanks so much

00:32:14[crosstalk]

Roving report Calum Burrell — Lancaster parkrun

00:32:23Calum Burrell: Hello there parkrun adventurers, it's the return of Calum and today I'm in Lancashire so a little bit further north of Manchester and today I'm going to hopefully have a little parkrun round, a little bit of a hilly parkrun, there's a bit of a wind in the air so hopefully it's not too windy while we go round the parkrun course but I'm heading to Lancaster and today is the last day for a certain volunteerist to be doing a long stint of volunteering at a parkrun at Lancaster and I'm hoping to speak to Harriet White otherwise known as the tame volunteer the TV so catch you later

Talking to Harriet White — "the Tame Volunteer" (the TV), Lancaster parkrun volunteer, daughter of Pippa White

00:33:17Calum Burrell: okay so I've done the parkrun we've had a little bit of park faff and can I say a warm welcome to the parkrun adventurers to Harriet White otherwise known as the tame volunteer otherwise known as the TV and uh uh yeah so how was the parkrun today it was a really good one so as we probably still get into it it was my very last event here and we sort of

00:33:43Harriet White: loads of people who I thought wouldn't be able to come were able to make their way down and sort of say hello and a bit of a goodbye and so it's just been a really lovely day oh brilliant so what role did you do today so I was one of the three scanners um me and lindsay's all working as a team and one of my other friends Sue and also very big so we had a lot of people to be scanned more than Maria yeah just over 200 for us

00:34:11Calum Burrell: So how did you come to be a regular at Lancaster parkrun?

00:34:15Harriet White: Well, so, as I used to do a lot of touring with Pippa, my mother, and I sort of came up here for uni. Definitely didn't just choose it because of the parkrun close by. It had a little bit of a bearing. The Lancaster parkrun is about a 5-10 minute walk from the university campus, literally leaving from the halls of accommodation very handy so as soon as parkrun started again after COVID because I came up during then so I was coming down every week and so volunteering and got to know the team really well so you always have a connection here now after all that time so how many volunteer stints you reckon you did you did here Over a hundred. I managed to get my single tonne.

00:35:03[crosstalk]

00:35:07Calum Burrell: Brilliant.

00:35:07Harriet White: Not quite at the double tonne.

00:35:09Calum Burrell: Brilliant. So I believe this was at 419 today, I think.

00:35:14Harriet White: I would have no clue.

00:35:16Calum Burrell: And what I should also say is my last interview I did for the parkrun adventurers was with Rory Marriott, and you are a member of the Marriott Club. So it's a nice little segue between the interviews. So, yeah, so I'm privileged to speak to another member of the Marriott Club. Thank you for the lovely biscuits today. They're absolutely really smashing. And thank you, obviously, for all the volunteering you do. I mean, as I say, you've done 104 locations across. Of course, that's juniors as well as seniors. Yeah.

00:35:48Harriet White: We had a local juniors start up two years ago now over in Rylands Park and it's been taking a bit slow to start off but we started having a regular group of kids coming to run and volunteer. Last week they had their 100th event.

00:36:04[crosstalk]

00:36:04Calum Burrell: Oh brilliant, so at least you got that in before it finished.

00:36:06Harriet White: And we checked and I had done 78 of those 100.

00:36:09Calum Burrell: Brilliant, oh wow.

00:36:10Harriet White: Sadly, they're not on this week as all the Run Directors are off doing things.

00:36:12[crosstalk]

00:36:16Calum Burrell: Yeah, no, that's fair enough. A bit sad, but... Yeah, so do you have a favourite volunteering role?

00:36:21Harriet White: I want to actually... It's either finished tokens or timekeeping.

00:36:25Calum Burrell: Yeah, yeah.

00:36:27Harriet White: I know a lot of people don't like timekeeping as a sort of special, but I just saw it as one of the shooting games you played at an arcade.

00:36:33Calum Burrell: Yeah, get this. Harriet has done 94 timekeeping stints and I think today might have been 93 for both. You've done a similar amount for both. That's absolutely amazing. Finished tokens 82 times and marshaled 46 times.

00:36:48Harriet White: That was almost all the juniors.

00:36:50Calum Burrell: Also, you have done actually 28 run, walks or jogs at nine locations as well. But given you're on 419 credits at the moment for volunteering, have you got any plans for your 500?

00:37:01Harriet White: Not actually yet.

00:37:03[crosstalk]

00:37:03Calum Burrell: No, yeah, okay. Well, you've got plenty of time to think about it.

00:37:06Harriet White: About a year and a bit.

00:37:07Calum Burrell: Yeah, so I guess you'll get to 500 volunteering before you get to your 50th at Parker.

00:37:12Harriet White: Most likely.

00:37:13Calum Burrell: Fair enough. Because obviously you're known for being a volunteerist, a tame volunteer. What made you become a volunteerist?

00:37:23Harriet White: Well, so, of course my mum was the one who first got into parkrun, and I started going along and doing the runs.

00:37:30Calum Burrell: How old were you when you first got involved?

00:37:34Harriet White: It was 2015, so, 12.

00:37:39Calum Burrell: Oh, right, okay, so very young, yeah.

00:37:41Harriet White: Yeah. Failing at maths. Yeah.

00:37:44Calum Burrell: So you got your volunteer tent. Well, actually, you didn't do volunteer tent.

00:37:46[crosstalk]

00:37:47Harriet White: I got my running tent. You got your running tent. I'm the only one in the family who has got one. And I was very much sort of like, that whole volunteering thing looks a lot more fun. And so I started doing that. And then as my mother sort of got more into the actual tourism part, I just went along with her and volunteered at the locations.

00:38:09Calum Burrell: Yeah, because I remember going to your 50th different location, which was Squerryes Winery in Kent. And again, actually, that was another link to Rory, because Rory was there for that as well. It was the first time I met Rory.

00:38:20Harriet White: He was my 100th volunteering in the 50th location.

00:38:23[crosstalk]

00:38:23Calum Burrell: So 100th volunteering at that time as well.

00:38:24Harriet White: All my 150th volunteering.

00:38:27Calum Burrell: Yeah. All of the two.

00:38:28Harriet White: Yeah.

00:38:29Calum Burrell: So any future plans for your volunteering, or volunteering for that matter?

00:38:34Harriet White: So I sort of know that since I'm now moving down to Warwick, so I'll be a bit closer to family, I know they're all going to very regularly be going to the Stratford-upon-Avon Rec junior parkrun, and they've actually started the process of becoming a junior RD.

00:38:47Calum Burrell: Oh, brilliant.

00:38:49Harriet White: So not RD'd for quite a few years and having to go through the DBS process.

00:38:51[crosstalk]

00:38:53Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:38:54Harriet White: But I think other than that, it's going to be a lot sort of hopping in the car with mum again and sort of touring a bit.

00:39:00Calum Burrell: Brilliant. Well, it gave you a chance to do a bit more of that and now you've finished your studies. But anyway, congratulations on your studies. What was it you actually got and what was it in?

00:39:08Harriet White: So I did an occupational therapy degree and I managed to get a 2.1.

00:39:13Calum Burrell: Oh, brilliant. Well done.

00:39:14Harriet White: Yeah.

00:39:14Calum Burrell: Fantastic. So in terms of the future jobs market, you're still kind of looking at the moment?

00:39:22Harriet White: I got an offer for an interview for a brain injury unit.

00:39:26Calum Burrell: Oh, fantastic.

00:39:27Harriet White: and hoping that goes through well yeah good luck with all that so yeah I believe you encourage a lot of your friends to volunteer as well so tell us how you get them involved a lot of times it's sort of if we're going like somewhere like camping or on holiday I'm sort of like so I'm going to the park do you want to come down yes you're doing yep you're doing this now brilliant so I went camping with a friend I was like I was trying to get to Muncaster Castle it was the second attempt and I was going to the Lake District with a friend to camp and we're like If we just go close to this campsite, which is about a 15 minute drive from Muncaster Castle, it means we can get there in the morning and have a great time afterwards. We crashed a car so we couldn't get there. But I just sort of told my friend, I was like, do you want to sign up for a volunteer? She was like, sure. And I got signed up. So we never actually did manage to do her first volunteering there. But it's like another friend I sort of invited for a birthday camping trip. And because me and my mum were going to parkrun, we're like, you want to come along? Yes, you do. Let's get you signed up.

00:40:30Calum Burrell: Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

00:40:31Harriet White: So you don't get much choice. Yeah.

00:40:34Calum Burrell: So you've done some international places, so you've obviously got quite a wide knowledge of different places for volunteering for parkrun, so go on, narrow down your top three, and not including Lancaster, I suppose not including Stratford-upon-Avon, so go on, narrow down top three.

00:40:50Harriet White: Well... I think the one which I'll always remember is Dolgellau in Wales. I mean mainly because it was so fun and amusing that all the dogs got to come and because there's a really thin bit of bridge they weren't allowed on the course so they all came along and had a great time relaxing at the finish funnel where I could say hello to all of them and then all the dogs got to come inside the cafe afterwards and it was a good breakfast. I think another one which I remember, I count them almost in the same lot because I did it as the last New Year's double.

00:41:25Calum Burrell: Oh, yeah.

00:41:25Harriet White: It was Caffarella and Roma Pineto in Italy.

00:41:28Calum Burrell: Italy. Italian double, folks. That's brilliant.

00:41:31Harriet White: It was the very last double which you could do. Just the volunteering team was the same for both on that day.

00:41:38Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:41:38Harriet White: And they were all so friendly and really nice. And it was just a really great time. And... I don't know how down to another one. They've all just been really nice in their families.

00:41:50Calum Burrell: I seem to remember you appearing on Nicola Run's video on one of the, was it one of the Scandinavians?

00:41:59Harriet White: Probably Malmo.

00:42:00Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:42:01Harriet White: Yeah.

00:42:02Calum Burrell: that you've been getting around so uh I think that's absolutely brilliant you're an absolute um you know a shining example of what it is to to volunteer at parkrun I I was having a chat with your mother I think you could be definitely one of the youngest to get to 500 when you get there so yeah I think uh anyway it'll be a big event so I hope I can come along to that wherever it is and whenever you decide to do it but keep in the group chat mention updated Brilliant. OK, well, thanks for chatting with me today. Thanks all the volunteering you do and thanks for chatting with me. And anything you want to say to the parkrun adventurers?

00:42:25[crosstalk]

00:42:37Harriet White: even though I'm not going to be there anymore, come to Lancaster. It's a really nice parkrun and a really great cafe.

00:42:42Calum Burrell: Yeah, I have to say, I have to fully agree with that. It was a proper hilly affair today. But yeah, proper work. It was nice and dry, a little bit, not too much windy because I think the woods kind of shield up. But anyway, brilliant to speak to you again, Harriet, and good luck for all your future endeavours.

00:42:59Bill Turner: Thank you. Bye-bye.

00:43:00Calum Burrell: So today was event 366 at Lancaster parkrun. A couple of things to note, the parkrun is a two lapper, very undulating affair, partly on tarmac, partly through wooded trail. Fantastic course, proper technical, and the proper challenge also should also point out the Marriott club for those who are interested is for 100 different volunteering locations whether that be junior locations and 5k locations combined or just 5k locations or just junior locations but anyway 100 volunteering locations and also it should also point out Harriet is the daughter of Pippa Pippa White otherwise known as the Streakmeister and you'll be hearing a lot more of her over the coming weeks during Streaky September, Calum over and out

00:43:45[background music]

00:44:02Tony O'Connell: And Mel, coming back to you from those roving reports, it was really good to hear from Janet talking to Bill and Yvette and Bill and Yvette naming their favourite three parkruns of their trip and Bushy unsurprisingly came out on top of that with a couple of other contenders in there and Bill and Yvette talking about their future plans. It doesn't sound like they're going to be home for long before they're back out and adventuring around Australia. We heard from the co-EDs from Bishan as well and then Carrie-Anne from East Coast parkrun. So Janet's had a very busy weekend there for her Singapore special. That was followed up by Calum, who was chatting to the TV after her last event at Lancaster. I found it really impressive that Harriet, or the TV, or Tame Volunteer, is going to hit 500 volunteers before she gets to her 50th finish credit. So that's basically 10 volunteers to every run. That's amazing. And I did have a chuckle at Calum there describing the Lancaster course as a proper hilly affair. I got a bit of a giggle at that, Mel. Very good.

00:45:13Melissa Ellis: I was just going to say, Bill and Yvette, do you think they've got to saturation point yet?

00:45:17Tony O'Connell: Getting that way. We've gone about four weeks in a row where they've been the star attraction.

00:45:22Melissa Ellis: I know. Okay. Don't get used to it, Yvette. It's not going to happen forever.

00:45:25Tony O'Connell: Yeah.

Dazza's

00:45:29Tony O'Connell: And now, moving back into our socials, and we go across to Dazza in our Saturday post. This week, Dazza said, today kicks off National Science Week in Australia. Maybe now is the time to discover what you can do, experiment with different routine, or explore a different parkrun. Whatever you concluded this parkrun day, come into Dazza's, share a picture if you've got one, and let us know where you went.

00:45:54Melissa Ellis: And first up, we heard from Johan coming to us from Suid-Afrika. And he said, after a rather late change in plan, sent me off to Komatipoort in the Krunga, ah, Toc. [laughter] Kruger Lowveld area of the Mpalanga, to visit [Afrikaans: "South Africa"]

00:46:15[laughter]

00:46:16Tony O'Connell: That was actually really close. I actually did pronunciation on that. As you nailed that, no longer.

00:46:26Melissa Ellis: Kambaku Golf Club parkrun. A small team was assisted by several visitors of whom there were loads, seeing that it was a long weekend. The course is lovely and flattish, more brush felled than golf course really consisting of two out and back sections in between the confluence of the Crocodile and Komati rivers on the border with mozambique and Johan shared a picture of himself bolting towards the parkrun teardrop flag in a field of milestone cutouts and I think we used that in the consolidated club report

00:47:00Tony O'Connell: We did, Mel. Jumping across to the UK and we had Calum Burrell this week. The first front of summer and the TV's last parkrun volunteering at her adopted home during university studies of Lancaster. Had a fab time with Pippa White, Kit Kat White and Lindsay Burrell at Lancaster parkrun. And they provide an excellent photo, Calum, of Calum, Lindsay, Pippa and the TV bolting with an old building in the background.

00:47:30Melissa Ellis: Now, Rex came to us again from the USA. Completed Central parkrun, Burnaby, pretty well, very shaded two-lapper, supported by a small squad of volunteers. Course is well signed, which allows no marshals being needed. The plant statues reminded me of my perceived running events over here due to obviously too much holiday cheer. Would recommend this one if you are ever in Vancouver. Unfortunately, this brings my overseas adventures to an end, so I'll just bolt out here. Good luck to everyone participating in City to Surf. And there was a picture of Rex doing the bolt in front of the central Burnaby pop-up.

00:48:07Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I think there's a second photo in there that Rex put in and the plant statues were actually snails. So I think that was his reference to them being his perceived running effort, maybe a little bit slower than normal. Mel, I've got to say that there were quite a few emojis scattered through this week's Dazza's post, but due to my lack of IT skills, those emojis have not transmitted across. So I know my next one, Helen Patricia commented from Vienna, and I think Helen probably had about... five or six emojis in and none of them are there so how this is how it reads Donaupark Vienna, went with friends, it was a bit hot, and there was a picture of a bolting Helen at Donaupark with the city in the background, and for those that know it Donaupark's a couple of kilometres out of the main part of the city in a really lovely park

00:49:01Melissa Ellis: And next we heard from Tanya Bailey coming to us from New Zealand. Hi, Dazza. Very foggy and cold at Pegasus this morning. Brunner wasn't sure what a bolt was, so I showed him. And there was a foggy bolt by Tanya with Brunner in the foreground.

00:49:15Tony O'Connell: Coming back, Dazza. And we go to New South Wales to Cathy Mudge. Did the bolt to Yamba parkrun for an early 7am start. Managed to score my Y and my fastest time in a long time. And there's a picture of Cathy bolting with boats and the inlet at Yamba in the background.

00:49:34Melissa Ellis: Then Heather Hunter, also in New South Wales. I ventured to a new parkrun to collect another letter for my volunteer alphabet by scanning barcodes at Maitland parkrun. I'd run walked there but hadn't volunteered and photo with Heather bolting in the Maitland selfie frame.

00:49:50Tony O'Connell: Mel, I think New South Wales must have got the trifecta this week. There are a lot of people that obviously listened to last week's podcast and got our little reference or got yours and Simon's reference. So next we heard from Jan Yates, also from New South Wales. Hi, Dazza. Went to Australian Botanic Garden, Mount Annan parkrun today and found fellow parkrun adventurer Mark Hibbard to form a frond of two. Awesome, super hilly course and happy to volunteer as parkwalker today. And we had a double bolt in the pictures with Jan and Mark with the selfie frame.

00:50:23Melissa Ellis: New South Wales has the fever.

00:50:25Tony O'Connell: They do.

00:50:27Melissa Ellis: But also the fever coming from WA from Andrew Yeatman. Dawesville parkrun to complete a run and volunteer at every Perth and surrounds parkrun. A walk around the markets and off for an ocean dip. Hashtag West is best. And there was a photo of Andrew pointing west to do his bolt at Dawesville.

00:50:47Tony O'Connell: And finally, Mel, we go slightly north and a little bit west and we go to Singapore where Eric Banner popped in again. A bunch of adventurers bolted over to East Coast parkrun to see me before I leave Singapore. And the photo was Eric Banner with a large group of people bolting at East Coast Park.

00:51:07Melissa Ellis: He's getting around is our Eric. I haven't seen him for a while.

00:51:12Tony O'Connell: Eric is doing a huge amount of travel. He's going quite well. I'd love to have the travel itinerary of Eric at the moment.

00:51:20Melissa Ellis: I'll have to suss out his future roster and see if I can't catch up with him soon.

the Obi Award — Calum Burrell

00:51:27Melissa Ellis: But, Tony, do you have the Obilope?

00:51:32Tony O'Connell: Well, we have an Obilope here. Are we just going straight to the announcement? Okay, I have opened the envelope and our winner this week is... Calum. Well done, Calum. Huge congratulations once again to Harriet for finishing her university work at Lancaster and enjoy moving back up with Pip.

00:51:45[background music]

00:52:04Melissa Ellis: And that concludes Dazza's.

Club Corner

00:52:06Melissa Ellis: We didn't have any emails this week, so now it's time to throw to Rachel.

00:52:15[background music]

00:52:25Rachel: 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. Are you on top of your parkrun clubs? Today's clubs relate to the ups and downs of parkrun life, but we are not, I repeat, not, going to be speaking about elevation. For some people, this club can be a bit funny, as it uses the official address of parkruns, and in some cases this has led to confusion about why events were in, or out, of this club. The club is called, Top of the Pops, and is all events where starting point is greater than or equal to 600m above sea level, based on their declared address. There are 23 names on that list, and the top most of these are. Australian Standing Stones at 1140 above sea level. Walcha at 1,050. Armidale at 984. Lithgow at 949. Orange at 918. Jindabyne at 910, noting that the temporary replacement event with Jindabyne Sport and Recreation was at 984, so it went down the mountain somewhat when it reopened. Jubilee, Tenterfield at 843. Stanthorpe at 787 and Atherton at 771 metres.

00:53:23[16 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:53:40Rachel: If you want a top 10, then next would be Lawson with 694, but Bungendore Common is only just behind at 693. For those that were at the 2024 Palm, you can note that Picnic Point Parklands is at 679 and South Toowoomba at 677 metres. The opposite end of the height scale is the, How Low Can You Go, club, where it's events whose address is equal to, or less than 1.5 metres above sea level. There are 17 events in that list, and some clearly get very wet when the tides rise. These three have an official elevation of zero aka equal to sea level, and they are The Beaches, Yamba and Panboola Wetlands. You can't get much lower than zero. How about some jokes to round off this week? What's a tall person's worst fear? Ceiling fans. What did the tall person say to the short person? What? Sigh. And remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

00:54:41Tony O'Connell: Mel, once again, it was really good to hear from Rachel. Rachel comes to us with all the facts and figures in our parkrun life. And today we're talking top of the tops. And I note with interest that the three in the top of the tops are all in New South Wales, Mel. We have... ass parkrun, Walcha and Armidale all in probably in the similar area but then we talk about how low you can go and once again the three lowest parkruns are all in new south wales so what's with new south wales having the highest and the lowest um don't know about you mel we've got The Beaches, Yamba and, uh, Pambula there I have two of those. I have the Beaches and Yamba. How about you?

00:55:27Melissa Ellis: I've got The Beaches and Panboola Wetlands. Cool. But just the one in Top of the Pops, just Armidale. But, you know, we've got to let New South Wales win at something. We can't be greedy.

00:55:42Tony O'Connell: As long as they don't claim greatest status.

00:55:44Melissa Ellis: Well, you know, there can only be one.

Consolidated Club Report

00:55:47Tony O'Connell: That's us.

00:55:48Melissa Ellis: Anyway, Tony, the adventurers Consolidated Club Report. For Saturday, the 10th of August, 2024, of a total of 671 members, 511 took part on this date in 15 countries across 274 locations. 15 countries.

00:56:05Tony O'Connell: We are getting around.

00:56:07Melissa Ellis: In the UK, there are adventures at 53 events. There were seven in South Africa and three in Ireland, two in the USA, Singapore, Canada and Austria, and one in the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Japan, Denmark and Norway. But locally, there were adventurers at 52 events in Queensland, who got the silver medal after the UK this week. Bronze went to the Greater State with 45. Sorry, New South Wales, you placed fourth with 43. And West Australia came in atop South Australia with 18. South Australia had 14. Tassie had eight. Seven on the North Island, six in the ACT. And the Northern Territory and the South Island had...

00:56:52Unidentified speaker: Two.

00:56:53Tony O'Connell: Rounding that out, Mel.

the Frond — East Coast Park parkrun, Singapore (largest international frond, 5 adventurers); The Ponds parkrun (largest Australian frond, 19 adventurers)

00:56:55Tony O'Connell: And our largest international frond was East Coast Park in Singapore, unsurprisingly, where we had five adventurers. Andrew Johnston, Billo, Martine, Janet and Geoff Reid.

00:57:08Melissa Ellis: Now, we had a pilgrimage this week. It was Lyndell topping off her fabulous trip of a lifetime to the Paris Olympics, officiating as a triathlon official. I said that twice, but you know what I mean.

00:57:27Tony O'Connell: She was the chief referee, in fact.

00:57:29Melissa Ellis: Chief referee? Yep. I did not know that. But that's why she is Lyndell the Legendary. But anyway, she was at Bushy parkrun doing the pilgrimage with all the commoners. I shouldn't say that, should I? And she said, my experiment with London public transport paid off and I got to explore not only a new parkrun, but the parkrun. It was the pilgrimage for me this week at Bushy. What a beauty of a location this one is, Dazza. A very happy parkrun day. And she shared a photo of herself, Lyndell the Legendary, with the pop-up and the chopped up tree. I always think that's funny. I know the logo, the parkrun logo, isn't the tree at Bushy, but every time I see that pop up with the chopped up tree, I kind of feel like it's, yeah.

00:58:20Tony O'Connell: Just Danny up.

00:58:21Melissa Ellis: Oh, yes, we're just stirring. We're just stirring. Now, the largest frond in Australia was at the ponds. We had 19 adventurers there, and they were Eman Vergara and Jack Corkill, who incidentally came in first and second. Then we had Gus and Louise Garbers, Natalie Wilson, Joe McLean, Alison Sutton, Kim Mimani, Manish Bindroo, Sharina Giran, Rio Lambino, Ingrid Botha, Me, Mary DeLuna, Lisa Spencer, Claire Corkall, Craig and Bec Ryan, and Kristine Vergara, only on her second parkrun back after having Arlo. Now, I also want to give special mention to RD of the day, Dennis Peden, also an adventurer, and Charles Burns, who was out on course marshalling.

00:59:09Tony O'Connell: So all up, you had 21 people in attendance at the ponds that are adventurers. Yes. That's not a bad hit rate, Mel. Yes, that was party central.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:59:21Tony O'Connell: And Mel, moving right around the world and having a look at our launches this week. And we have two, the first of which was at Skinadin, which is on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. This week there were 98 finishes and 38 of them were the first time ever parkrunners, thus supported by 12 volunteers. The course starts and finishes at the Skinadin Car Park, an out and back which is a mixture of forest tracks and hardcore trails. The course is undulating with the majority of the first 2.5km being a gradual uphill gradient with a few short steep ramps near the turnaround point, which, Mel, I assume means that the second 2.5km is predominantly downhill. And, in fact, I have done a little bit of Strava stalking and seen someone's Strava elevation profile for the course, and it does, in fact, drop from the 2.5km, so you get a free ride home.

01:00:18Melissa Ellis: How on earth did you manage to find somebody who had done that event? How did you take... Like, literally, how did you do that?

01:00:26Tony O'Connell: Strava stalking skills. LAUGHTER

01:00:30Melissa Ellis: Okay.

01:00:31Alice: Okay.

01:00:32Tony O'Connell: And I've got to be honest, someone actually posted a photo of their Strava map in one of the UK groups.

01:00:38Melissa Ellis: Very good. Well, sorry that I spoilt the mystery there. Now, their second launch was Woodthorpe in the UK, and Woodthorpe is a closed facility, and they had 12 finishers and 12 volunteers. And that's all we've got to say about that.

01:00:53Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mel, that one's very difficult to find. Sometimes you can find out a little bit more information, like a general geographic locality. Not with this one.

01:01:01Melissa Ellis: No, okay. Well, secret squirrel stuff.

01:01:04Tony O'Connell: That's it.

Streaky September

01:01:07Tony O'Connell: Well, looking forward, we have Streaky September coming up, or for those in the know, Streaky Stepmiba.

01:01:15Melissa Ellis: I'm never going to live that down.

01:01:18Tony O'Connell: So there'll be lots of more information coming out about that, and we'll have our traditional Bingoe card coming out, hopefully in time for the start of September. For those people that want to play along at home and follow along, remember to jump over to the Streaky September page, which we will be renaming shortly across to Streaky September. Jump across, and we encourage people to put their regular posts up and into there.

01:01:45Melissa Ellis: And we probably should maybe expand on it for some of the newer listeners like Ali Sheppard. She probably wouldn't know what streaky Septmeber is. So Ali, let me explain. It started way, way, way back with the original co-hosts using September as a month to get back into their running, I guess. Tony?

01:02:08Tony O'Connell: Yeah, back into doing a little bit more physical activity.

01:02:08[crosstalk]

01:02:10Melissa Ellis: Yeah, by creating a Bingoe card with challenges to tick off each week at parkrun. No, every day. Not each week. Every day. Every day. We want you to streak every day. And a streak can be a minimum of a two kilometre activity and it doesn't even have to be running. It could be walking. It could be a bicycle. We're pretty lenient with our rules, aren't we?

01:02:33Tony O'Connell: It could be yoga. It could be anything. If you're going to do yoga, we'd suggest maybe half an hour of yoga. But yeah, we're pretty flexible. If you can think of it and... work out some way of massaging it into being a physical activity, we're sure that it would count for streaky September.

01:02:51Melissa Ellis: And we've got people that have been streaking since the start, haven't we? Are you one of those people, Tony?

01:02:56Tony O'Connell: I am, Mel. I think I'm up to about day 2000 and something. I actually honestly can't remember. There's some people out there like Chris Timms and a couple others that usually are able to remind me. And if I scroll rapidly on my watch, my watch is going to tell me that we are currently up to streak day... 2,173.

01:03:22Melissa Ellis: Wow. And so I'm one of these people that just gets on board in September and all of a sudden starts posting in the streaky September group. But anyway, the challenge is that's all just a little bit of fun. And we give you silly tasks to do like running a tutu at parkrun or

01:03:40Melissa Ellis: introduce a friend to parkrun or con a friend into joining the adventurous club I don't know just little little things just to bring everybody together doing something a little bit light-hearted and now I think we should explain where the Septmeber comes from because there's a lot of people will be thinking every time they see that they can't spell and they're probably largely correct

01:04:03Melissa Ellis: Yes, yes. The first year when I took over as the co-host of the pod, I changed the name for the month in the Streaky September group. I misspelt September. And once you name something, you can't change it for a month. So I had to stay there for the whole month.

01:04:22Tony O'Connell: And so it has remained Sep Meeba.

01:04:25Melissa Ellis: But it's rather in line with the original host who created a Bingoe card and spelt bingo with an E on the end. But that wasn't a mistake.

01:04:33Tony O'Connell: He just thought bingo really was spelt with an E. We're obviously very good with our spelling, Mel.

01:04:40Melissa Ellis: That was in the days before we had Office Lady's.

01:04:43Tony O'Connell: Perhaps we should all join the Zoolanders and become people who don't spell good.

01:04:47Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I'm on board with that. But anyway, we have...

01:04:52Tony O'Connell: another announcement well our next exciting announcement and this has been getting asked in a lot of the groups and a lot of messages is our palm date for next year at this point we're not announcing a location we're just saying it's going to be in New Zealand but palm next year will be on the 12th of April which is a week before Easter, and it lines up with every state's school holiday, so there's no excuse not to go to New Zealand, have an awesome holiday and incorporate Palm in either the start, the middle or the end of your holiday.

01:05:28Melissa Ellis: Oh, that's my plan. I think I'll head over to be there in time for Palm, stay the week and celebrate Easter in New Zealand.

01:05:35Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I think we'll be looking at being there for two parkrun days and trying to visit some new and exciting locations.

01:05:45Melissa Ellis: So, yes, and we will put our collective heads together behind the scenes and we will bring you a location in the not too distant future.

01:05:53Tony O'Connell: Yes, we must do that, Mel, so that people can get along and start booking their flights.

01:05:57Rachel: Including us.

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

01:05:59Melissa Ellis: Yay! Now, we have got a challenge for everybody for this week. I rather enjoyed the Bolt one, even though I forgot to do it. It was my clever idea and then I forgot to do it. I got too excited at the ponds with Budgie and everything and I forgot to do the thing. But anyway, would you like to tell everybody what this week's is?

01:06:20Tony O'Connell: Well, this week, in the lead up to streaky September, and one of the other things that we call it in the southern states is swoopy September because it's magpie swooping season. And we all know they're vicious little creatures. And that's not encouragement to play the Collingwood theme song at the end of the pod.

01:06:38Melissa Ellis: Oh, no.

01:06:39Tony O'Connell: Our challenge this week is to put an emoji on your post and we're looking for a bird emoji. So if you can come up with a bird, it could be any style of bird. That's our challenge for this week.

01:06:56Melissa Ellis: I'm just taking a selfie of my jacket because I've got a Collingwood hoodie and it's got the magpie embroidered. Anyway, yes, bird emojis. Swoopy September is coming. Birds are nesting already, never mind it still being winter. It is spring here in Victoria.

Sign-off

01:07:15Tony O'Connell: One of the magpies at Cape Patterson has already started swooping. They're obviously looking for an early spring and they're swooping already down here. So there we go. Mel, next bit of exciting news, parkrun Day is only a few days away. Where are you headed? Well, same place as you evidently.

01:07:37Melissa Ellis: If only the listeners could see our show notes. I have not decided yet. I'm sounding like a broken record. I've only just got back from Sydney and got into preparing for the pod, and I haven't even consulted with anybody about where I might head. There will not be any new events or touristing of any sort, so I will pick a local parkrun. I might check the Friday post even as late as that and see where my friends are going. What about you?

01:08:08Tony O'Connell: Well, I'm very much the same boat. We have a function in Melbourne on Saturday, so it's going to be in the Melbourne area somewhere. We'll probably catch up with Dano and find out which direction he's headed and probably piggyback along there. And I shall post that in the Friday night post as well.

01:08:25Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. And next week, you will be hearing from Simon and Sarah. It's Sarah from the West Side back filling in for me so I can have a break.

01:08:37Tony O'Connell: Well, I think that just about sees us out.

01:08:40Melissa Ellis: Well, thank you very much for joining me again tonight, TOC.

01:08:44Tony O'Connell: My pleasure, as always. Except when you're wearing a Collingwood jumper, I'm not too sure about that.

01:08:49Melissa Ellis: Oh, dear. Well, you said the word, so I guess now I can use the theme song for the outro.

01:08:58Tony O'Connell: No, I've actually really been enjoying the song that you've been playing the last few weeks. It has really been good to hear that one again, and I'd like to see that continue on.

01:09:08Melissa Ellis: Right. Okay. Well, everybody, as always, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.