Episode 394 - Dangling the carrot

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 394 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name's TOC and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country.

00:00:36Melissa Ellis: And it's me Mel, I'm back and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country. Howdy Toc. G'day Mel, how are you tonight? I'm good, I'm good. And back in the comfy chair. It's been vacant, so I thought I would make good use of it.

00:00:53Tony O'Connell: Back into the office and clean up the mess that the young'uns left last week.

00:00:58Melissa Ellis: Yes, lolly wrappers all over the place. Must be cravings. Hmm.

00:01:05Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, it was a bit of a bombshell last week that we have a new barcode coming our way.

00:01:11Melissa Ellis: I know. I was the most excited editor. That was a lovely way to find out while I was editing the podcast.

00:01:19Tony O'Connell: I was actually out on a long run, Mel, and I nearly ran off the road. I didn't know. I was jumping up and down.

00:01:29Melissa Ellis: I hope a lot of our listeners got a bit of a kick out of that news as well. It was happy news.

00:01:35Tony O'Connell: Now, obviously, baby brain has already started to settle in with Sarah, because on the subject of geography, Sarah, Lake Wallace is not migrated south. It is, in fact, located in western Victoria at a town called Edenhope. The Warruks were over here on a holiday.

00:01:53Melissa Ellis: They were, they were. And you've got more news about what they were doing over in the greatest state to come. But also on last week's episode talk, Heather Hunter said, as a paying supporter of the 5K app, I've gained access to a myriad of custom challenges shared by other users. Some people have got great imaginations. The Sound of Music, parkrun names including Do, Re, Mi, Fa, etc. Alphabeteer to the End, which is alphabet using the last letter of parkrun names. And fellow adventurer Johan shared the parkrun adventurers Challenge using the pod name as an acronym. And then Heather actually added congratulations to Sarah. And so I will put my hand up and say I am not a, what do they call it, a paying supporter of the 5K app. So do they get some extra features? Do they talk?

00:02:51Tony O'Connell: They do. They get access to the various challenges. They get a lot more access to challenges and they can share challenges amongst themselves. So it's something that I'm actually looking into is becoming a paid supporter of it because as an app, it is something that I get a lot of enjoyment and a lot of value from. But yeah, they do get access to some extra challenges and some extra bits and pieces.

00:03:12Melissa Ellis: Well, that's dangling the carrot. Now, I also wanted to mention that I saw Andrew Johnston had a suggestion for the In the Streets Challenge, which was Harmony Boulevard. And I love that that came from our street orienteering adventurer.

00:03:29Tony O'Connell: Yeah, it's good to see people out and about and coming up with some suggestions. We also had Ingrid Paris commented about the Australia Challenge. There's four parkruns that have the word Australia in them and there was a screenshot showing Australian Botanic Garden, Mount Annan, Australian Standing Stones, Charleston.

00:03:55Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's Charleston. I left the L out.

00:03:57Tony O'Connell: Charleston, South Africa.

00:03:59Melissa Ellis: Sorry.

00:04:00Tony O'Connell: Charleston, South Australia and the University of Western Australia.

00:04:04Melissa Ellis: Yeah, good work, Ingrid. And of course, Ingrid probably has a vested interest because she hails from the area of the Arse parkrun. So that event getting itself in quite a few challenges as well.

00:04:18Tony O'Connell: There are a number of parkruns around Mel that seem to be in a disproportionate number of challenges. That's one of them. Something like Rockingham seems to pop up in quite a few different ones as well. Yeah, there's a few around that do that.

00:04:26[crosstalk]

00:04:32Melissa Ellis: Now, we've got an update on Budgie. Budgie did, in fact, turn up at Lochiel with Eman, Chris Juno and Baby Arlo, but there were no adventurers there to pass... budgie too so budgie had to just do a quick turnaround quick flying visit to Lochiel parkrun in South Australia so budgie has made it to South Australia but budgie has left and budgie has travelled back to Queensland so budgie will be adventurous now come on queenslanders budgie's going to be at South Toowoomba next week who can get there and take possession and take budgie on more adventures bit of a challenge is out there Mel

00:05:17Tony O'Connell: Mel, parkrun Day, let's talk about our parkrun.

00:05:20Melissa Ellis: Where did you get up to this week? We go with me first. Sorry, I should have thrown to you. Well, okay, I'll go first. I returned to event 486 and my ninth visit to Point Cook parkrun on the lands of the Boon Wurrung people. So now to get my P-Index to nine, I only need to do two more events once. They are Wilson Botanic and Frog Hollow, both in the southeast. I was joined at Point Cook by my new partner and his son and while the plan had been we'd all run together, I couldn't keep up with younger legs and Dermot shot off ahead enjoying his first parkrun while Dave stayed by my side as I struggled again with heavy legs post blood donation. I should add that Dermot is 26 and well able to parkrun without his adults. Some eagle-eyed adventurers may have noticed the odd reference or photo, as I have deliberately kept coy about my new relationship, however. After three months, I feel ready to introduce him to you all and dispense with the secrecy. I will also declare that although Dave has never run a parkrun until he met me, he did possess a barcode, being one of those runners who'd seen a local event, registered, but never quite got down to the start line. So that aside, we were very lucky with the weather after a big storm cell hit Melbourne the previous night, momentarily interrupting Collingwood's fabulous win in the last game of the AFL home and away season. Melbourne is definitely in pre-spring mode with birds building nests and blossoms on the trees. This season is called Larnook, on the Gariwerd calendar which is in the Halls Gap region and is the only indigenous calendar I could find for Victoria Larnook is pre-spring and takes place during late july into august and is noted for nesting bird season plants beginning to flower and new growth appearing on eucalyptus trees dramatic weather changes and the wettest time of year with rivers running high So a lovely mild morning was had on the flat out and back course at Point Cook, chosen both for my P-Index and as a suitable first time course. Afterwards, Dermot chose the industrial kitchen for brunch in Truganina, which I highly recommend, rated a 4.5 for coffee, if that's your jam. It was relatively quiet and had ample tables which could easily accommodate a larger group of parkrunners. So do we need to have that conversation again, talk about Point Cook parkrun not actually being in Point Cook parkrun?

00:07:49Tony O'Connell: It goes back to that historical thing, Mel. We had a number of events that were named for a local area rather than being in that actual local area.

00:08:02Melissa Ellis: I did reach out to a few of my local friends that I know have been parkrunning in the West since probably the early days of Point Cook to try to get a bit more information. I do believe Point Cook was initially named Point Cook, Truganina. Do you have any recollection of that?

00:08:21Tony O'Connell: I don't, Malin. Point Cook was one of my earliest parkruns. I did that in the days, I'm going to say it was mid-2014 when we were still in the process of setting Inverloch up and I was going around to parkruns trying to get ideas to wherever I could get to.

00:08:40Melissa Ellis: because Truganina is quite a new area so I think maybe there really wasn't many houses in the Truganina area at the time Point Cook was probably established no we visited Truganina we had some relatives living there and they were on a rural property miles from anyone so it's very much developed you know in that time Hmm, interesting. Anyway, how was your parkrun day?

00:09:06Tony O'Connell: Well, we went on an adventure. We did our fourth trip down to Cyril Curtin Reserve parkrun, which is located in Williamstown on the bay at Melbourne. We were there to celebrate the awesome Jodie Mosey reaching her, well, we thought it was a triple milestone, but it became much more. So Jodie... On Saturday, it reached 100 parkrun finishes at 100 unique locations, her 100th volunteer, her 50th unique Victorian event, and it was her NENDY.

00:09:38Melissa Ellis: Wow.

00:09:39Tony O'Connell: So we had lots of things to celebrate. The RD down there, for those that haven't been to Cyril Curtin, jump on their Facebook page. I love their social media. I love the way their presence on the day. It's just such an awesome event. They're led by Bronnie down there and Bronnie's just full of life. I reckon Bronnie's a real parkrun personality. We had a whole swag of parkrun adventurers in attendance because of the big milestone for Jodie. And we'll run through those later. But they were reinforced. We had Martine turned up as Barcode Scanner. And we had an unexpected guest appearance from Eric Banner. And even Eric wasn't sure that he was going until he was let out of the bag. I didn't see that in your socials. Eric was surprised to see himself.

00:10:32Melissa Ellis: And I think you meant a swather, not a swag.

00:10:35Tony O'Connell: Ah, swather. I missed that. L-O-G-O-L will be on the phone asking us to insert that word.

00:10:43the Birthday Boy: Yes.

00:10:46Tony O'Connell: A couple of the people that did rock along, we had a couple of interstate guests. We had the likes of Val and Steve Warwick come along. And their big connection with Jodie was they actually attended Jodie's first parkrun over at Kate Reed in Launceston. So they've known Jodie from day one of her parkrun journey. And we had a couple others there. We had myself, Jack and Dano. Chris Fraser rocked up. It was really great to catch up with Chris and have a chat to Chris about all things parkrun. Sarah Langley was there down from Shep. Dawny was there. Carolyn McRae. And Chantel was there as well. So there's a good collection of adventurers there. We went out and had breakfast at TikTok. Great food, great catch up. And eventually we had to move because we all realised we were probably getting close to the parking limit and probably going to get a parking fine. So we all bailed in a bit of a hurry.

00:11:42Melissa Ellis: We may as well just declare now that that was the largest frond this weekend.

00:11:47Tony O'Connell: Yeah, getting in early there, Mel. But no, look, it was a great day. Cyril Curtin, for those that haven't been, it's a three-lapper. It runs through a dog-off-leash area. Some people say, oh, three laps, terrible. It's got a little bit of trail. It's got a bit of concrete. It's just one of those courses where the team just really make it. And running around the laps that run up along the foreshore, We had blue skies. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning. You're looking out over the bay. You can see up towards Melbourne. You can see ships coming in. You've got aeroplanes going over the top to land at Tullamarine. It's just one of those courses. It was just, I don't know, I really enjoy it. As I said, it's the fourth trip to Cyril Curtin, and that makes it one of my events that I'm working on for the Pindex because there's not many that we get back to.

00:12:37Melissa Ellis: Yes, good job. Well done. And, yeah, I concur. Bronnie out there at Cyril Curtin is amazing. Congratulations, Jodie, from me as well. Fantastic effort. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with next.

parkrun news bulletin

00:12:51Melissa Ellis: Now, news and discussion from us, TOC. I will say that I noticed those new Collegiate Milestone shirts have made their way down under. They have popped up, not only in the Australian shop, but also on adventurers already.

00:13:10Tony O'Connell: We'd have to say, who would be the adventurer that you would most expect to be excited about parkrun merch and get the parkrun merch first? the adventurer with all the merch our very own Janet Reid well done Janet looking ravishing in her purple collegiate volunteer milestone shirt yes and that was probably a celebration for Janet after having missed a couple of weeks of parkrun whilst away on holiday so welcome back into Australia as well Janet

00:13:40Melissa Ellis: Yes, but there was more celebrations talk. There was, Mel.

00:13:44Tony O'Connell: Bushy, Bushy Park, for those that listen elsewhere. Bushy Park celebrated their 999th parkrun this week. There was a lot of discussion about how big it was going to be, but the sugar people came out. LAUGHTER Did it rain? They had a very wet day in London and they only had 1,787 finishers. So probably a smaller crowd than anticipated for it, but they are sugar people over there. And come on, UK people, write in and tell me I'm wrong. The 1,787, no, the ones that do write in, one of them's over touring in Australia. So we're off the hook, Mel. They had 82 volunteers last week, Mel. Just let that sink in, 82. That's more than most parkruns have finishes. This week for their 1,000th event, they've got a roster listed that you have to scroll and scroll, and it includes 25 Funnel Managers, 11 scanners, and 30 marshals. Wow. So just in those three positions, you've got lots of volunteers. Doing the quick maths, 66 volunteers in those three positions.

00:15:07Melissa Ellis: It's quite hard for us to fathom, isn't it? We really don't have anything at that level in Australia. We've hit around 1,000, haven't we, at some of our bigger events?

00:15:17Tony O'Connell: Yeah, we have hit close to 1,000. But to visualise doing that week in, week out and the number of volunteers that put that event together... to make it run and to have experienced bushy, not those numbers, only 1,400 people. If they get a sunny day this weekend, which they're anticipating, and I know in my Facebook feed there's a lot of groups that are taking buses or coaches as they call them. They've got coach tours going down. There's groups saying, oh, we've got 100 going. We've got this going. We've got that going. I'm thinking... It's going to be interesting to see how Bushy goes this weekend with their 1,000th event and then in about another five weeks when parkrun celebrates their 20th birthday.

00:16:09Melissa Ellis: Yeah. Oh, well, good luck. Good luck, volunteers. Hope it goes well. Now, interestingly, Toc, we had a little email that popped into our, not our adventurous email this week, but our personal emails just as we started to discuss the podcast. And the email was from... parkrun Australia hq and it was about spreading parkrun into the pacific and anyway that email said we are currently in the very early stages of exploring opportunities to bring parkrun to new locations around oceania and we would love to hear from people in those areas who are interested in finding out more about parkrun if you know of anyone in the following locations who might be interested we'd appreciate it if you could forward them this email and ask them to contact us at support at parkrun.com And the list is the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. And it ended, many thanks for your support. And it was signed by Renee Gimbert. So parkrun, TOC, wanting to spread into the Pacific region.

00:17:25[background music]

00:17:26Tony O'Connell: Mel, I've got to put my hand up here and declare an interest. As one of the parkrun event ambassadors, I'm putting my hand up now. I'm going to take on half of those places. That's sorted out. Good. Moving right along. Which way? Most of them.

00:17:46Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay. You're going to be the event ambassador.

00:17:49Tony O'Connell: I'll be the roving event ambassador.

00:17:51Melissa Ellis: The event ambassador of the Pacific Islands. Okay.

00:17:55Tony O'Connell: I'm looking at that list there and I'd love to go to most of those places. We actually had discussions years ago about Fiji, and at the time I put my hand up then as well to become an event ambassador for Fiji, and it didn't get accepted. It didn't go anywhere. At Fiji, as we know, it didn't happen at the time. It was probably just the pre-COVID era. So it would be awesome to see some of those places. I know some of the times where I've been on runs particularly in fiji where I've been a couple of times um you get some of the little local kids come out and they run along with you for a while yeah so yeah hopefully somewhere like that can get some um get some legs and start running yeah excellent anyway food for thought and for once that email actually came out while we were able to mention it on the recording and it didn't happen on Tuesday Yay. Someone in comms is listening and they know that Monday is when the action happens.

00:18:55[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:18:58Melissa Ellis: That's right. But anyway, now let's throw to our roving reports.

Roving report Alison Fraser (King) — Morrinsville Recreation Ground parkrun

00:19:13Alison Fraser (King): Kia ora koutou adventurers it's Alison here reporting in back again across the ditch at Morrinsville Recreation Ground parkrun which launched today and Morrinsville is on the North Island of New Zealand its nearest city is Hamilton And it's definitely a parkrun you should come visit. And I'm with the Event Director, Heather, who's going to tell us all about it. So welcome, Heather. Thank you. Congratulations on your launch. Yes, it was quite a morning to have it. Tell me about your parkrun story. How did we end up having a parkrun in Morrinsville? [Te Reo Maori: "Hello / greetings to you all, adventurers (koutou addresses three or more people)"]

00:19:49Heather: Well over the last two years there's been about four or six people who have randomly posted Is there a parkrun in Morrinsville? Is there a parkrun in Morrinsville? And so by the time I saw the sixth one, I was thinking oh, this is a gap Let's figure out what this parkrun is and let's get one happening here. So back in February, we contacted, put the initial inquiry in, saying we're keen to get one going, got ourselves an event ambassador, and started the process. So you'd never been to parkrun before then? Nope. My very first one was back in June when I went down to Cambridge just to check out what it was all about when we were getting our course sorted. But yeah, no, that was my kind of...

00:20:27Alison Fraser (King): First parkrun ever. When you did Cambridge parkrun, what did you think about it then, having experienced what people were talking about?

00:20:36Heather: It was really cool. It was a really nice vibe they have going there. It was nice that we could just rock up. Somebody told us what we were supposed to do, where to go, and then it was a really fun course that I ran with my girls, um lots of people out on the course cheering us on and so it was a really lovely feeling yeah did it make you feel confident then you were doing something that was going to be great for oh absolutely I was like and it felt easy yeah it was like oh it's actually not that difficult to make it happen there's not a lot of pieces that you need to have together um and then I could just see lots of different people from lots of different walks of life who are able to get together and you

00:21:13Alison Fraser (King): and be part of something. So your course at Morrinsville Recreation Ground, that is where we start and we pretty much run the perimeter of it. That's right, yep. Is it easy to find the course in your town?

00:21:25Heather: We always knew we wanted to be there. It was the biggest green space. It has lots of features that we really wanted to promote. What was tricky was getting from four to kilometres to five kilometres. We had a lot of experimenting of where we could go to get that extra bit of kilometre to make the course exactly the 5k. And it's a real sociable parkrun with the course that you've got. Yes, yes, it's an out and back and so we've got a lot of chances for doing high fives and smiles along the way. with others.

00:21:56Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. And what's about the vibe today? Tell us about, was it what you expected it to be like?

00:22:02Heather: Oh, it was so much more amazing than I expected. We've been having a few practice runs for the last couple months, but we've been lucky to get 10 people along, which has just felt a little bit... But having 170 out today was fantastic. It just felt like a bit of a party. It felt like an event. Do you know how many of those were brand new to parkrun? I did a little bit of a hands up at the start of who was new to parkrun and maybe 20, 30 people put their hand up.

00:22:30Alison Fraser (King): That's pretty good. And it's got a bit noisy here because we're actually recording outside one of the cafe options. We've been to the healthy parkrun cafe, Loxie's, and now some of us have come to get our cream doughnut fix.

00:22:45Heather: Yes, the Wagon Wheel does have wonderful cream doughnuts. Yeah.

00:22:48Alison Fraser (King): So there's lots of options for people who come to Morrinsville to hang around in the town afterwards. Absolutely, yes. And why should people come to Morrinsville aside from doing the parkrun?

00:22:59Heather: We've got the herd of cows here. So there's over 60 painted cows on street corners around the town. Each of them were done by a different local artist representing one of the businesses that have sponsored it. So there's a lot of cool artwork on the cows around town. And there's no traffic lights in Morrinsville, so it's a nice relaxed kind of place to be.

00:23:18Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, cool. Well, thank you so much, Heather, for putting on this parkrun, getting it started, and I'm sure it'll be a big success for not just people who already know about parkrun, but actually for your local community. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Pirrama parkrun

00:23:34Ali Sheppard: Good morning adventurers, Ali Sheppard here from the UK, except that I'm not in the UK today. I'm very excited as I'm down under in Sydney and about to do my first ever Aussie parkrun. Hello again, I'm still tail walking at Pirrama parkrun and I'm joined now by Craig who is one of the Event Directors here Pirrama parkrun.

00:24:03Craig: Am I pronouncing it correctly?

00:24:04[crosstalk]

00:24:07Ali Sheppard: So I was explaining to my fellow Tail Walkers that when I planned this trip Pirrama parkrun didn't exist but and then it suddenly popped up and it seemed ideal so tell me about how this got started.

00:24:19Craig: So most of the people who are on the committee are now Run Directors and so I think that You know, we had great cooperation from the City Council, City of Sydney, which is a big council, but they weren't too bureaucratic and they helped us a lot.

00:24:34Ali Sheppard: Yeah.

00:24:34Craig: Right from the CEO down. And then we also, the people who look after the harbour foreshore, because the run goes along a lot of the Sydney harbour foreshore. Yep. So that's called Places NSW and that government body also helped us a lot. And so then we got the money from the community and we were able to launch late in July.

00:24:56Ali Sheppard: Fantastic. So how long was it sort of from conception?

00:25:01Craig: About 18 months. A lot of cups of coffee and about 18 months. And I think the secret was to have a really good committee of people that just took responsibility for certain things to do. So even though I was sort of de facto head of the committee, people took responsibility and got stuff done. It was so fantastic working with a group like that.

00:25:25Ali Sheppard: And it runs along Sydney Harbour and you can see the Sydney Harbour Bridge at one end and you can see the Anzac Bridge at the other end.

00:25:33Craig: Yeah, there's two iconic bridges in Sydney that are featured in the run. As you said, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is, you know, what Sydney's most famous for other than the Opera House, I suppose. And then we've got Anzac Bridge at the other end. So for locals in Sydney, Anzac Bridge is also pretty iconic, yeah and I guess for tourists like me it's it's an iconic parkrun to come to because of you know there's the setting yeah I was looking at the runners that we've been having I think about um about 30 to 40 percent of runners each week seem to be from out of town and visiting so it is a bit of a tourist destination destination I know that people who were in town for the the big city to surf from a few weeks ago yes they um they came here on the day before so yeah and we're anticipating a lot of runners the Sydney marathons on in about three weeks right and we're anticipating a lot of runners on the day before for that too so so it is a it is a sort of destination run if you're staying in the city or yeah Then people say, yeah, let's give this run a go.

00:26:07[crosstalk]

00:26:37Ali Sheppard: Because I noticed you'd had about 200, 240, and then it jumped up to over 400 for the city to surf.

00:26:44Craig: That's right. Our numbers seemed to fluctuate. We started even the first day we had the run, day number one after our trials.

00:26:52Ali Sheppard: Yeah.

00:26:53Craig: It was torrential rain and seven degrees. Oh, no. And we had 226 runners. Wow. So, yeah, so we our biggest one's been over 400 and um today I'll be over 300 I think so uh so it seems to be that the the numbers are between um about 230 and and 350 that seems to be about the average so it's it's enough I don't want it to get too much bigger because um that puts a bit of strain on the community but yeah the best thing about it is that I've got a really good um leadership team I think that everyone I've got about 10 Run Directors so the load the load is spread between the team pretty well and I think that's a great thing it's not reliant on me or anyone else it's it's actually the community's parkrun not mine or anyone else's yes And the other thing is, when it's finished, there's so many smiling faces, which is a great thing about parkrun anyway, really. And the other thing for the business community is that all the cafes are really full to overflowing.

00:26:56[crosstalk]

00:27:55Ali Sheppard: Yeah, and I noticed you've negotiated a whopping discount for parkrunners at the cafe.

00:28:01Craig: One of the cafes, Carla, has really helped us a lot, and so I think it's important to have a, I think it's a parkrun thing to have an anchor cafe, but there are about three or four cafes around And they're all full at the end, so that's good for business. That's good for business, yes. Because we're like anywhere in the world. We have restaurants open and shut all the time. And it's a hard, hard business. So it's nice to be able to support the local businesses.

00:28:24Ali Sheppard: And you've got toilets at the start.

00:28:25Craig: Toilets at the start and toilets at one of the U-turns as well.

00:28:28Ali Sheppard: And it was very easy to find. I came on the bus, on the 389 bus. I got off at the wrong stop.

00:28:35Craig: Being close to the city, we're very lucky to have... Yeah, we have two bus services, one coming from the main railway station central, and then another one coming from Town Hall, and then we've got the light rail, which is just underneath as well, and then we've got a ferry actually as well. Amazing. Yeah, so it's part of being close to the city, isn't it?

00:28:58Ali Sheppard: No, it's fantastic. I've absolutely loved it. It's my first Aussie parkrun. Is it the first one? So, yeah, I'm very excited to be doing it and it's just been wonderful. I couldn't have chosen a better parkrun, I think, for my... Oh, that's nice to hear.

00:29:14Craig: It's lovely feedback and that's what we do it for, isn't it? I mean, it's... The people enjoy it and they get out. It's a way to start the weekend and set your weekend up, isn't it? It is. After a stressful week and... Yeah. This is a very historical area in Sydney. It used to be where they had sugar refineries and things like that, and a very rough area of Sydney.

00:29:33Ali Sheppard: Okay, so I saw something written on one of the boards that was a sort of golden syrup.

00:29:39Craig: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so they used to take the sugar cane and bring it in by boat to the wars here and then make lots of sugar products, including rum, actually. Yeah. I've had a distillery here and a few other things. Fantastic. But that's why there's a lot of pubs around. It used to be quite a rough neighbourhood, but now it's been gentrified and the pubs are gastropubs, so that's the way life is, isn't it? It is, it is.

00:30:01[crosstalk]

00:30:04Ali Sheppard: No, thank you so much. It's been really wonderful. I've absolutely loved it. And, yeah, guys, come to Pirrama parkrun.

00:30:13[crosstalk]

00:30:13Craig: You're welcome, yeah.

00:30:14Ali Sheppard: You won't regret it.

00:30:15[background music]

00:30:15Craig: Bring your camera.

00:30:16Ali Sheppard: Yeah, thank you.

00:30:18Craig: That's all right, it's a pleasure.

00:30:28Tony O'Connell: And Mel, it was really great to hear from Alison. We heard from two Alisons this week.

00:30:33Alice: We did.

00:30:35Tony O'Connell: It's a pair of Alisons. Alison, our UK visitor, coming in to us from Pirrama parkrun, having a chat to Craig, the ED. Alison was hot off a plane or maybe half asleep off a plane and straight into parkrun. So welcome to Australia, Alison. And we heard from our other favourite Alison, Alison with Heather at Morrinsville over in New Zealand. So welcome to our Kiwi Alison as well.

Dazza's

00:31:03Tony O'Connell: Now, this week, moving down to Dazza's. This week, Dazza has said, on this day 18 years ago, Pluto was stripped of its planetary status to the disappointment of many. Did things work out for you on this parkrun day? Maybe the weather wasn't so great, or maybe you didn't want to get out of bed, or maybe, worst of all, your socks were still wet. Whether or not things turned out the way you hoped, come on in and tell Dazza all about it.

00:31:30Melissa Ellis: And we should mention, Toc, that this week's challenge that we gave the adventurers or that Sarah and Simon gave the adventurers last week was to mention the word Paris in your comment. Unfortunately, we should have made it Jupiter or Pluto or something, shouldn't we? But we didn't know. Anyway, our first comment this week comes from Dave Bravos, our Equal Opportunity employee and the owner of the Dazza's post. And he said, It seems the weather forecast for clear skies was made with outdated information. And Dave shared a photo of himself in his 250 shirt and his adventurous buff carrying cute little Lucy.

00:32:21Tony O'Connell: Mel, coming back to us into New South Wales across from WA, we had Joe McLean write in. The planets didn't align for the Ponds parkrun this morning, cancelled due to construction barriers on the course. This, however, was a lovely opportunity to tourist not too far away to East Richmond parkrun amongst the blossoms. I count that as an interstellar success. And then Joe had a massive set of emojis, all planetary involved. We had stars, we had more stars, we had... the moon and I think we had some planets even in there and Joe posted a lovely photo of Joe in with the pink blossoms and as we said really great use of emojis there Joe well done

00:33:06Melissa Ellis: Now, we also heard from Andrew Turner coming to us from the Great Estate. And he said, we celebrated 10 years of Maribyrnong parkrun today. It was good to see old friends who returned for the occasion. That's about double the time I spent living in Paris. And he shared a photo of himself at the food table, it looks like, with all the goodies and the 10 balloons. So happy 10th birthday, Maribyrnong. Yes.

00:33:33Tony O'Connell: And going north again, Mel, Erica Leota this week. Today I became a Queensland Stateswoman with a group of great friends at Capestone Lake parkrun. Laughy face emoji. Couldn't stop smiling. Tracy Lupia made me a cape and a banana crown. One lucky parkrunner. And the picture was of Erica in a cape and another photo of a cape saying banana bender.

00:33:59Melissa Ellis: Well done, Erica. Good work. Queensland statesmen, that's two female statesmen two weeks running because there was another one last week. Excellent.

00:34:10Tony O'Connell: There is, Mel, and it's a bit of a mission to get around and become a Queensland statesman, so that's a fair effort.

00:34:15Melissa Ellis: Now we also heard from Belinda Taylor coming to us from the NT. So BT in the NT. Continuing with my month of parkrun adventures, today I visited Katherine Hot Springs parkrun. My mate Johnny and Fink Dog joined me for their first parkrun. Fink Dog must have thought he was competing in Paris with the other doggos as he tried to take off running a bit faster than our speed. And Belinda shared a photo of herself with Johnny and Fink And the selfie frame and it looks hot.

00:34:47Tony O'Connell: Right Mel, we're going to go across the big, big ditch and we're going to land in the UK now. And we're going to start with Gareth Arnold. Hey Dazza, it felt a little chilly and the start's a little hilly. But do you pronounce the name like Willie at Penistone parkrun? Now take care on the pod as the name's a bit odd. And you really don't want to cock this one up or be laughing from Paris to Pluto. And now that's almost like a tongue twister and I've got a feeling I was thrown a bit under the bus there. Who typed these notes up? And the picture is Gareth zooming with the Penistone pop-up.

00:35:35Melissa Ellis: He had a bit of fun. He had a bit of fun in the Friday post too with his emojis too. I did notice. You're cheeky, Gareth.

00:35:43Tony O'Connell: I think that's two weeks in a row that he's... Had some fun posts.

00:35:48Melissa Ellis: Yeah, he got the Obi last week. Now, staying in the UK, we heard from Helen Rutter. A small frond at Epworth Equestrian, watching the horses jumping, reminded me of the Paris Games. And there was a pic of the frond with the Epworth Equestrian pop-up. That's a bit of a mouthful. Epworth Equestrian. Had to really enunciate.

00:36:13Tony O'Connell: Righto, Mel, leaving the UK, we're coming across to South Africa. Petaluru. The hand-painted route map at Atlasville parkrun this morning.

00:36:23Melissa Ellis: like some little meandering parisian walkways and the photo was showing the course map signed so welcome Peter and from South Africa back to the UK we heard from Monty Slade he said it certainly wasn't Paris weather in Chippenham Playing Fields parkrun, Monmouth But I did pick up a boomerang from Australia and we had our usual thumbs up photo from Monty with one of the boomerangs. Now it's numbered six from South Beach Recreation Reserve in WA. So there is a successful baton, not the one Monty was hoping to get back.

00:37:03Tony O'Connell: No, Mel, but that number six was one of ten boomerangs that were released out into the wild. And there's actually a Facebook page of where they're all going and where they've been. And they have had a couple of carryovers as well. So it's not our own little budgie that's having the carryovers.

00:37:23Melissa Ellis: Interesting. The batons are being very popular lately.

00:37:28Tony O'Connell: Now, for somewhere different, we're going to go to Norway next, to Ian Thompson. Did my first parkrun in Norway this morning at Stavanger parkrun. Barcode scanned afterwards. Also registered a new participant, a lady from Brazil who'd just run her first ever in the absence of a home event in her home country and me not wanting to navigate the parkrun Norway registration page. Did it on the UK site and set it as Basingstoke parkrun. Norway flag as an emoji then a Paris inspired double park raf with waffles first then a walk to our accommodation for an incredible continental breakfast And the photo was a selfie of him and a photo of his waffles. And I just tried to get my head around that. So we've got a lady from Brazil running her first ever parkrun in Norway, being registered on the UK site because it was easier as a language translator. With a Paris reference in there as well. So we've got about half the continental Europe covered there, Mel. That's pretty good.

00:38:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah, very good. If only he'd made a planet reference. Never mind. Good job, Ian.

the Obi Award — Erica Liotta

00:38:41Melissa Ellis: Now, TOC, do you have the Obilope?

00:38:45Tony O'Connell: I have the Obilope. I have the Obilope.

00:38:50Melissa Ellis: And take three.

00:38:52Tony O'Connell: I have the envelope now. And this week our winner is, let me open this envelope. Our winner is Erica Liotta.

00:39:11Melissa Ellis: Good job, Erica. And good work at getting around all those parkruns around Queensland. Lots of frequent flyer points there, no doubt. Now that's it with Dazza's. I think we've covered everything this week.

00:39:25[background music]

the Birthday Boy

00:39:29Melissa Ellis: Now it's time to throw to the birthday boy.

00:39:38the Birthday Boy: Howdy, it's the birthday boy here with some of the goings on for September 2024. There is plenty of action this month, so let's get to it. September in the southern hemisphere means spring is here, so feel free to insert something pithy about spring being sprung. Or should we say spring being streaky? We've got more events to celebrate in September than August by one, which means there are 36 events with anniversaries this month. Now, speaking of anniversaries, let's start with the anniversary reminder that events may celebrate what they like, when they like. So please check all details with the local source, i.e. their webpage and or their Facebook page. This is especially true for dress-ups, cakes, etc. We have four parkrun days in September, the 7th, the 14th, the 21st and the 28th. But the event counts are spread throughout as like a third, a sixth, a sixth and a third. So I'm going to aim to highlight let's say 6, 3, 3 and 6 in the weeks across the month. So in week one, from the 12 who are having an anniversary, let's go with the youngest, Wilson Inlet Heritage Trail, who turned one. Robelle Domain would turn 2, but they're on pause for works in their park. Jerrabomberra Mountain Reserve is turning 2. Marina, the former Western Compass Point in WA, is turning 5. Broadbeach Waters on the Gold Coast is turning 10. And the eldest this week is Warwick in Queensland, who are turning 11. Moving on to week two, and the three I've picked out are Tynwald Park, Tasmania, the youngest this week, they turn two. Bega, a four letter word, and they turn nine, which is also four letters. And Wynnum is the eldest this week, turning 12. Week three, with another three events, we have Kingston Park, a member of the Five Ks Club, they're the youngest and they're turning five. Palmerston, Northern Territory, a member of the Successor Club, they're turning eight. And New Farm in Queensland is the elder this week, turning 13, and it's a member of the It's What's New Club. Finally, we have week four. Now, I know I said I'd aim for six, but I decided on seven. You'll hear why in a sec. The youngest this week, turning two, is Memorial Park in South Australia. And then, big block, Braidwood Showground, Cowpasture Reserve, Camden, Montrose Foreshore, Perry Lakes, and Stebbin, Stebonheath, sorry, all turn six. So I didn't want to split them up and have one of them miss out, which means the seventh one I'm celebrating is Toowoomba in Queensland. They are the elder and they are turning 11. If you need to look up where these events are, then head to the parkrun map. on parkrun's website. You can type in events or locations. That's parkrun.com.au forward slash events. As always with our parkrun adventures, the parkrun cancellations page is a valuable tool. Check out parkrun.com.au forward slash cancellations. This is the official cancellation page and it contains information for the coming weekend plus two outer weeks. So be sure to check it mid-month if you're going for the end of the month. Oh, and before I forget, be sure to check out parkrun Malaysia to see if they're hosting an extra event for Malaysia Day in September. Anywho, see you next month for some more birthday boy banter, and be sure to let Mel and Co know if you have any requests. Oh, and speaking of requests, one more thing. I did hear the request for topics from Rachel, so I'm answering that call with a request for volunteer club information.

00:43:35[background music]

00:43:44Tony O'Connell: Mel, how good was it to hear from the birthday boy? I'm filled with excitement that there's 36 events having birthdays in September, and that to me says 36 lots of cake. I'm so keen for September. This is so good. A notable absence, though, in the birthday boy's list was Inverloch turning 10. Come on, birthday boy, get with the stump. Yes, Inverloch's turning 10 in the second week. And it'll be interesting to see outside of Australia, Malaysia has Malaysia Day on the 16th of September. So it'll be interesting to see if anything occurs there on their special day. I know the last couple of years nothing's happened, but it'd be interesting to see if anything happens for Malaysia Day.

00:44:33Melissa Ellis: Come on, Malaysia, we believe in you.

Consolidated Club Report

00:44:37Melissa Ellis: But TOC, the adventurers Consolidated Club Report for Saturday, the 24th of August 2024. Of a total of 675 members, 501 took part on that date in 11 countries across 245 locations. In the UK, there were adventurers at... 48 events. There were seven in South Africa. We're getting real growth in Sudafrique. Four in Canada, three in the USA and Ireland, and one in Germany, Norway, Singapore, and Italy. Locally, we had adventurers at 58 events in Queensland. Gold medal for Queensland. And the UK had the silver, and the bronze goes to... New South Wales with 46. Victoria had 39. South Australia pipped the West Side this week with 16 events. West Australia had 13. Tassie had 7. There were 5 on the North Island, 3 in the ACT, 2 in the Northern Territory and 1 on the South Island. So we were represented all across Australia and New Zealand again this week. And yeah, we're just spreading more regularly in the other countries. [French: ""Sudafrique" is a playful French-styled form of South Africa (French: Afrique du Sud)."] [translation uncertain]

00:45:49Tony O'Connell: And Mel, it's really great to see that we had over 500 people again, 500 club members finishing. And when you add up the number of volunteers that we have out there, that number is significantly higher. So yeah, really great to crack the 500 again.

the Frond — Inis Meáin parkrun frond of eight (Stuart Henderson, Andy and Deb Airey, Dennis Evans, Adrian Luscombe, Mark Perkins, Heather Morgan, Kaz Timbrow)

00:46:05Tony O'Connell: And speaking of big numbers, our international frond, we had a frond of eight at one event. That was at Inis Meain in Ireland, where we had Stuart Henderson, Andy and Deb Airey, Dennis Evans, Adrian Luscombe, Mark Perkins, our very own Heather Morgan and Kaz Timbrow. And that was a part of a large group that Andy had organised. I believe there was a hundred and... 50 or 190 parkrunners went over to the island. They had a very rough ferry trip over there. The weather was fairly bleak and windy and I saw some footage that Heather put up showing the seas rolling in and the ferry ride looked like it was going to be fairly miserable. Happy to say that Heather survived it without any turning green incidents. And we had Adrian who popped into Dazza's and said unforgettable day at the iconic Inis Meain in Ireland parkrun with the 11am start time. Great to meet fellow adventurer Heather Morgan and there was a selfie of Adrian in his adventurer shirt with Heather and the parkrun flag seen in the background.

00:47:15Melissa Ellis: Now, pilgrimage. We had two adventurers at Bushy for 999. That was Stephen Noble and Sadiq Damour. Stephen popped into Dazza's and said, the final steps on my pilgrimage, number 999, and the photo that he shared was a photo showing people walking along the road. So I assume that's a road into the park. The people were walking along the edges of the road. I'm guessing to the start line. And as we mentioned before, yes, the big 999. Top 10 highest number of finishes, even though it was significantly lower than what they were expecting.

00:47:51Tony O'Connell: It's the sugar people, Mel. The sugar people didn't come out.

00:47:55Melissa Ellis: Oh, but the largest frond. Now, we did already mention this, so we won't go through that again. We will just remind everybody that it was Jodie Macy's quadruple milestone at Cyril Curtin Reserve that brought all the adventurers out to celebrate.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:48:10Tony O'Connell: Moving along to launches, TOC. Mel, normally we give the difficult pronounce launches to yourself. And this week we had one launch in New Zealand, which we heard from Alison, who was at the launch. About 170 finishers, 46 first time ever parkrunners and 19 volunteers. Located south-southeast of Auckland and east of Hamilton. Welcome to the parkrun world, the very difficult to pronounce for a New Zealand, for a Kiwi name. Morrinsville Recreation Ground parkrun.

00:48:43Melissa Ellis: I see what you've done. I've got the Polish one. Damn it. I'm going to... I'll show you I'm going to get help from my Polish friends. I'm just going to say that there was a new parkrun in Poland and it's located to the east of Warsaw. Poland's latest parkrun was attended by 246 finishers, supported by 34 volunteers with 46 first-time-ever finishers. The course description... Thank goodness is in English. And it says the route consists of one lap. The start is located behind the barrier on the road to the forest. The route leads straight along a forest path with a loop at the turn and return along the same route. The finish is located 300 metres after the start. Welcome, Las Malcanow parkrun.

00:49:36Tony O'Connell: Well done, Mel. I thought I'd just change the order around this week.

00:49:40Melissa Ellis: Yeah, ha, ha, ha.

00:49:43Tony O'Connell: I picked a very difficult to pronounce Kiwi name.

00:49:46Melissa Ellis: Dorota's going to help me with that.

00:49:50Tony O'Connell: Mel, looking forward. We're recording this on the 26th of August. So that's peeling back the curtains a little bit. But it's only a few days now to September.

Streaky September

00:50:01Tony O'Connell: And we all know that come September... um we have a number of teams that are no longer in the football finals and we have a number of our bird species that start swooping and more importantly come Sunday we start streaky September or for those in the know streaky September and we have a little bit of audio now to listen to from Pippa to talk us through what streaky September is all about

00:50:37Pippa White: Hi, Streakers. It's the last of the summer holidays in the UK, and I'm out camping. Did a parkrun, but there we go, out with friends. And I'm thinking about the 1st of September. I am ridiculously delighted about it. It's my reset time of the year. My first day of streaking was back in 2019, 1st of September 2019. It's a while ago, and I've kept going ever since. If you are a streaker who just does September, that's fantastic. If you've heard of it and you're not quite sure what it's all about, then that's fantastic too. We're asking that you do a 30-minute set of exercise, generally about two kilometres walk-ish, a little bit less if you swim, a little bit more if you run. But it's 30 minutes. And if at the moment you're injured and what you can do is 30 minutes in the gym or yoga or Pilates, but you're committed to doing that every day, then absolutely you're a streaker. So that's my reassurance for all of you. Get out there, do something. Keep yourself honest by posting on Facebook, within the Facebook group. Or if you really don't, then tell your mates and put it on Strava as well and they'll think you're a bit bonkers. You go streaking day four, streaking day five. We're really happy to have you here. We're really happy to have you thinking about making a positive change. And for you guys in a different hemisphere where you've got the joy of September, We will now look out for all of your posts and all of your roving reports and everything else that talks about the sun and new flowers and baby birds and the rest of it. As the leaves start to change here, the weather comes in and we move towards winter. Happy streaking!

00:52:28Melissa Ellis: And thank you very much to Pippa for, again, taking time to send us the update on Streaky September coming to us from the UK. And we also have the Bingoe card prepared, TOC. It's going to be out very shortly. We'll have it out for you by the 1st of September.

00:52:47Tony O'Connell: This look out for the Bingoe card. It'll probably come out closer to this weekend, but the Bingoe card will be out. I encourage everyone not to try and complete the Bingoe card on the first day. Set yourself a bit of a challenge. Use it as a bit of a prompt to get yourself out regularly exercising. We try to get everyone out every day of the month, and uh yeah use the Bingoe card as a bit of motivation there are a couple of items on the Bingoe card that are open to a little bit of interpretation you might want to try to think of something a little bit creative and we have our Facebook group streaky and we encourage you to put your photos into there and encourage other people to get out and about in past years we've had different parts of the world will be nice and sunny and we're able to share a little bit of that sunshine with people that are not so fortunate so let's get out there and give the page a little bit of love and get our photos out and about

00:53:45Melissa Ellis: I'm actually getting worried. I haven't seen what's on the Bingoe card. I'm scared now. I think you might have some tricks up your sleeve open for interpretation.

00:53:53Tony O'Connell: No, no. It's very much our traditional Bingoe card with a few little extras.

00:54:00Melissa Ellis: I can say I have run around in the past. In the very early days when Scott and Mel first started Streaky September, I ran around a park in my pyjamas.

00:54:08Unidentified speaker: Oh.

00:54:11Melissa Ellis: Anyway, that's enough of that. Yes, looking forward to it. It's a lot of fun. But what else is a lot of fun, Tony, is the Panorama Punish. And we wanted to get in early and remind adventurers that the Punish is coming up in October. So it's the 27th of October. And there is a discount code for adventurers to use if they want to sign up as an adventurer in the Punish. And the discount code is parkrun. So use that code and get a 10% discount off your entry. And you can also register as an adventurer and we can maybe win, win a prize for having the most. I think we've got close in the past of having the most, the biggest team out of all the different ones going around. So yeah, anyway. Get on board, guys. You should too, Toc. It's a great event. I might not, I can't get there this year, but you should.

00:55:03Tony O'Connell: Mel, it sounds awesome, a hot lap of Bathurst. And I guess the other thing too is if you've already signed up and you haven't joined the adventurers team, just send them an email and they should be able to slot you into the parkrun adventurers team. But yeah, the idea of running a hot lap around Bathurst without the cars zooming around sounds fairly appealing. There's a little hill up to climb. Sounds good.

00:55:25Melissa Ellis: Yep.

Sign-off

00:55:26Tony O'Connell: Excellent. Mel, we're coming up. It's going to be parkrun weekend again. Where are you off to this week?

00:55:35Melissa Ellis: I am going to hit up South Australia and meet some of my girlfriends. I'm meeting Sarah from the West Side and the Belinda Ferry over there in SA and we are hoping to go to Gawler. I don't even know much about Gawler. Nothing actually. It's not a parkrun we hear about very often so I'll have lots to tell you when I get back from there. But what about you? TOC, what's on your plans.

00:56:02Tony O'Connell: Well, I'm going to head back to an event that I went to about 10 events ago for their launch. It's one that I'm the ambassador for. So I'm heading back to the Great Southern Rail Trail in Korumburra just to check in and say hello and see how they're going along. I know they've been going quite nicely chatting to the team over there. But yeah, I'm going to go over and have another jog along there. Love the little section of rail trail.

00:56:27Melissa Ellis: I heard somebody reference their event in the socials just this last week. I think somebody was asking for confirmation that they would get a compass point for doing that event, which I would say, yes, they do, because it does have Southern in its name.

00:56:43Tony O'Connell: That's correct. The South part in Southern certainly gets you into the 5K and all the other apps for the Compass Challenge. So, yeah, it's one of those events that ticks off one of the challenges.

00:56:57Melissa Ellis: I wonder what challenge I could get for Gawler. Hmm. I've never heard Gawler come up in a challenge. That's interesting.

00:57:06Tony O'Connell: I'm sure it's in one of them. It'd be in a geographic challenge.

00:57:11Melissa Ellis: There's the challenge. There should be a challenge for all the poor events that aren't in a challenge. The no challenge challenge. I'm going to create that.

00:57:23Tony O'Connell: But then that'd be in a challenge. Yeah.

00:57:26Melissa Ellis: Oh, yeah, that's true.

00:57:27Tony O'Connell: So you can create a challenge that has no events in it.

00:57:35Melissa Ellis: But then everybody's in it. No, but don't you think there should be a challenge for all the poor events that don't fall under anything?

00:57:45Tony O'Connell: Yeah, we referenced earlier, there's a few parkruns out there that are in a disproportionate number of challenges.

00:57:51Melissa Ellis: Greedy.

00:57:51Tony O'Connell: Perhaps we should share the love a little bit and set up some challenges for the ones that are... That's what it could be called, share the love.

00:57:58Melissa Ellis: I like it. All right, adventurers, come up with some ideas for parkruns that don't fit into any other criteria. I can think of one, Meningie. Tell me a challenge that Meningie would be in. Pfft.

00:58:15Tony O'Connell: uh parkruns around Lakes is there a no awesome parkruns with people riding ostriches statues at them it's a very niche niche club I've got to write it down before I forget share the love And, Mel, in our other big bit of news, there's going to be no episode next week. We're taking a week off for the holiday, year in our most popular month of the year whoopsie now I've got to ask and uh you know this is not not a personal question but is this any reflection on the fact that collingwood didn't make the finals that you take a week off where did st kilda finish Tony uh we finished below collingwood we're holding the ladder up

00:59:11Melissa Ellis: no this isn't why this is just because my daughter is in her school production and I'm going to be a very busy single mum ferrying her every night to or picking her up late from her production and attending the said production no time for editing absolutely no time so unfortunately as there's no time to edit then there's no really any point recording because uh yeah we'll just have to skip a week

00:59:39Tony O'Connell: Fair enough, Mel. Fair enough. Family first. And enjoy the production. Thank you. But remember that the Bingoe card will be out and Streaky September will be starting. So jump over and join the fun on that page for a little while.

00:59:52Melissa Ellis: Yes, we'll still be on the socials. Dazza's will still be there. Still jump in and say hey and tell everybody where you went. And yeah, we could even do a live, couldn't we? On Saturday morning, you could do that, Toc. I could do that too. Might even do that. But... Thank you for joining me again this week.

01:00:09Tony O'Connell: Always a pleasure, Mel. Always a pleasure to sit up in the Level 2 with a View, find the comfy chair. It's a little bit sad up here now that the caramel chocolate no longer appears.

01:00:23Melissa Ellis: You've got the squeaky chair, not the comfy chair. That's what you've got tonight.

01:00:27Tony O'Connell: Yes, I have got the squeaky chair. I must oil it up before our next catch-up.

01:00:34Melissa Ellis: All right, well, you take care and I'll see you in a couple of weeks. But everyone, 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 in a couple of weeks for more adventures.