Revisits and Backflips

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Tony O'Connell: Good evening everybody and welcome to episode 395 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 Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:35Melissa Ellis: And I might go with good morning and my name's Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country because you might be listening at any time of day Toc.

00:00:45Tony O'Connell: You could be, Mel. I pre-empted that. More of the curtain coming backwards. It's late at night. Are you ready for the one-take pod? Yep, no edits this week, Mel. We're going to go crack straight onto it.

00:00:59Melissa Ellis: Yes, I'm scared already. I'm scared already. But anyway, we had a week off last week and we are back and some feedback from the last podcast. I was very promptly informed that Gawler parkrun is actually in a challenge. I did declare that it was not likely a member of any sort of challenges. But apparently, TOC, there is a challenge called the Radelaide and that consists of 27 events, which I have painstakingly added to my 5k app. And as of last or two weekends ago, I have completed 18 of the 27 events in the greater Adelaide region. And I believe that that is worked out with a 60 kilometre radius around the CBD.

00:01:47Tony O'Connell: Okay, I'll have to have a look at my Radelaide Challenge, Mel. I'm not sure. I'd have a couple in there. Our palm visit to Mount Barker, obviously, and a couple of others. But, yeah, probably not too many for me in that one.

00:02:01Melissa Ellis: And we also, we have an update on Budgie. For those that are keen to know what's happening, actually, Budgie is parked up at the moment. Been stuck at South Toowoomba parkrun with Eman. Nobody has turned up to relieve Eman of Budgie duties. So Budgie will be... transiting this coming Saturday to Parama parkrun. So surely, surely we're going to have an adventurer at Parama parkrun that can take possession of Budgie and transport him off to the next location.

00:02:41Tony O'Connell: And given that we all know who Eman and Chris and their kids are, I'm sure we've got an adventure out there that's going to be at Parama parkrun this week, given its location and given that it's Sydney Marathon.

00:02:53Melissa Ellis: Exactly right. I might have actually a little sneak, peek at their roster just to see if there was any adventurers and there actually is there's an adventurer as Tail Walker okay so we might actually find out if that adventurer actually listens to the podcast but anyway enough of that would you like to give us a recap, TOC, of your parkrun adventures just gone

00:03:17Tony O'Connell: Mel, I had another adventure this week. It was a very lucky work occasion on a Thursday afternoon that saw me at a conference a couple of kilometres from Tullamarine Airport. And I thought rather than make the two and a half hour trip home, Jack and I just jump on an aeroplane, head to Queensland, get out of the wind that we've had. We've had eight days of gale force winds. Get away from the rain and we venture up to Queensland. Our destination was Gympie to the Victory Heights Trail parkrun on the lands of the Gubbi Gubbi people and we were there for event 208 with 72 finishes and that included a surprise pop-up visit from fellow Victorians Andrew and Martine who we didn't know until the night before were actually going to be up there and of course Eric Banner followed them along as well. The course itself is on a mountain bike park and it's a mix of up and down hills and up and down trails. There's a bit of fire trail, there's mountain bike trail, there's jump. So you get, as you're running along your parkrun, you get to launch off the jumps if you're so inclined and you're confident enough on a trail with tree roots and rocks to jump. A heap of fun. It was really good fun. There's some zigzag parts of the course. Being a mountain bike trail, at places, there's a zigzag down a hill where they have the cornering. And at one stage, I was running north. And there's a trail just beside me with people running south and there was another one further down with people running north again. So the zigzag, you've got people running every direction. It sort of reminded me a little bit of the pictures you see of the Curly Whirly in the UK. That was pretty cool. Great run. Really enjoyed it. We went across the road afterwards. There's a servo over the road that does a coffee and a milkshake and had bacon and egg rolls. So I actually fitted in with Dazza's theme of the week with bacon and eggs. And we were joined by Margaret from Bells Parade over there who's out touring around. She's off to Underwood next week, um we missed Greg Garner at the parkrun that uh gimpy's his hometown we did catch up with Greg for lunch on Friday which was pretty cool and I've got to say now Victory Heights Trail parkrun I have a list of about 10 parkruns in my phone victory Heights was one of the ones and it's my Australian bucket list victory Heights was one of them and it certainly deserved the place on the Australian bucket list so had a ball there loved it I'd love to do it again, but it's a long way away. How about you, Mel? Where did you get to this week?

00:05:56Melissa Ellis: Well, last week I was at Peppertree for my low-key arbitrary 450th event, and it was a quiet affair as I needed to hot-foot it across town to my daughter's baby shower. But the previous week I was at Gawler parkrun with Sarah from the West Side and the Belinda Fairy down from Queensland. And I must say, Belinda did very quickly remind me that I had in fact done Gawler back in January during our New Year camping trip. So, whoops, that's a bit awkward. I did declare that I knew nothing about Gawler and I'd been there, so... egg on the face but anyway as soon as we arrived I did recognise the park which is a lovely out and back course and it does have some substantial hills so quite a bit of elevation um it was brilliant to spend the weekend with the girls catching up and learning a lot about evs we hired a ev for the weekend I'd never driven an ev before let alone fuelled one up or or charged it if you like so I It was all a big learning experience. And I've got to give the tip. Now, I can't claim this as my tip. I will admit that it was Andrew Johnston who alerted me to the fact of EVs being a very good option when you're touring for a higher car because they're literally on par with... petrol vehicles as far as higher costs go but you don't have the fuel expense on top of your hiring and you don't even have to make sure it's fully charged when you hand it back so adventurers they look into the evs they are a very good option for a hire car but anyway that's it that's me uh very brief this week talk

parkrun news bulletin

00:07:37Tony O'Connell: Mel, you might be keeping your run report fairly brief, but the parkrun world at the moment is anything but brief. I know the last two weeks since we recorded, there's so many different things that have gone on in parkrun world, and we'll just quickly run through a couple of them. A lot of them people are familiar with through their social media anyway, but Bushy ran their event 1000, and apparently they had a small crowd there, not many people turned up. Only a lazy 6,204 finishers. That 136 volunteers from memory, and that's probably more than most events get as finishers. There were 10 adventurers in attendance for the Bushy 1000. So there's a fair crew of adventurers there. And... We've got a little bit of audio that we'll listen to shortly from one of the people that ran at Bushy on the day, Rob Everson. Rob has a parkrun number with four digits, so Rob's a fairly early adopter. He's been parkrunning 17 years now, and he's still in a fairly young age category, but he's done 511 parkruns. He was actually the first finisher the week before for event 999 out of 1700 people. Week 1000 he actually finished 15th so that probably gives you an idea of how many people were there and the relative times. He finished at 1623 and was still 15th at the event. Fun fact about Rob is I actually ran with Rob at an event in Sweden last year. Well, I ran at the same event. Rob ran about six minutes quicker than I did. So let's go over and listen to Rob's audio now.

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00:09:30Rob Eveson: Hi, everyone. Rob Eveson here from the UK, where I still think we are processing a little bit the events of Bushy parkrun number 999 and 1000. The 999, well, it was quite a rainy day in London, and I think some of the local sugar people of Bushy Park were put off a little bit, but it was still a lovely... parkrun Day I saw some friends who I'd met in Sweden and Helsinki which was really great and loads of people had dressed up in police or like emergency services type fancy dress which was fun and for me personally well I was I was the first finisher at bushy that day which I enjoyed too and yeah it was a good day which got us I think quite excited for the next week for the bushy 1000 but I don't think anyone quite thought there would be 6,200 people and on top of that 130 volunteers. Even now, when a few days have passed, I still don't think anyone can quite believe what happened. Running over, I could already tell that it was going to be a big one. But in like kind of in the start area before we set off, just you kept bumping into people and saying, oh, I can't believe the amount of people that are here. The start line at Bushy is probably about 100, 150 metres long. It was probably about 10 deep in terms of people. There are some videos going around of the start and I would recommend anyone watch that if you can. It really is quite something. I myself finished in 15th but it was kind of more what happened after that was just completely mind-boggling really. I think at one stage there were probably about six or seven finish funnels on the go. One woman crossed the line and sort of said to me, oh, you know, normally, normally I finish 100th, but I was I was 700th today, which I think she couldn't quite believe. And it got to a stage where people were taking over an hour from like finishing to scanning their barcode. I have a friend who she she finished her parkrun probably about 300 metres before the end, because that was where the queue that had backed up was. So from that point, from about 4.7k to crossing the line, to going through the finish funnel, to scanning her barcode, took well over an hour. And we went to the pheasantry, and we just couldn't believe that probably two, two and a half hours after the run had started, people were still coming and saying, oh, I've just got out of the funnel, just got out of the funnel. So yeah, a really, truly bonkers morning. I think the bushy... Team, well, they prepared really well. And I just don't think anyone expected that amount of people that were there. There was a real... certainly for me a real I was there feeling it's definitely one that you know everyone will remember for a long time and I think just yeah massive kudos to the bushy team for all the organisation that they did I think hopefully it will be a one-off I don't think those numbers every week would be ideal but as I say as a as a as a one-off it was a truly truly uh unforgettable morning

00:12:55[background music]

00:13:11Melissa Ellis: And that was really good to have that audio. Thank you, Rob. Thank you for bringing us the stats from Bushy. And TOC, it's really interesting. Our last episode that we recorded together, we commented about the sugar people at Bushy not turning up for event 999. Joke's on us. Everybody was waiting for the following week.

00:13:32Tony O'Connell: and now what a crowd it was the photos and the live video of the start line and look you know there are some impacts and implications from the number of people that were there but yeah the general atmosphere and the fact that people were lining up for an hour and 40 minutes in the finish shoot to get their finished token just blows my mind that you'd have that many people at an event and

00:13:56Melissa Ellis: It's amazing that the location can cope. Like, obviously, there was logistic issues and people had to wait a long time to get across the line and to get their barcode scanned, and then there was the issue with the delay in the results coming out. But I was thinking about this talk, and I don't think that there is an Australian location that I've visited in all the ones I've done across Australia that actually could cope with that many people. Like, it's amazing that they could cope at the start line.

00:14:27Tony O'Connell: No, and I think even some of our bigger events, we look at, say, Albert Park, for example, and they have a wider start chute that funnels down, similar to Bushy, but it's certainly not going to carry anywhere near that. In fact, I don't think there's many Australian events that would cope with 1,000 people on the track, and a lot of the courses I've done, even with a couple of hundred people there, they're getting congested. Well, in other news, it has been a big two weeks. Tom Williams, who was the head of EMEA in parkrun. So parkrun across the world split up into four different zones. EMEA is one of them, which is Europe, Middle East and Africa. Tom's actually stepped down after 14 years of being an employee for parkrun. And Tom's done a hell of a lot for parkrun. So look, it's... Yeah, just worth acknowledging that Tom's done a fantastic job and he's moved on.

00:15:23Melissa Ellis: Yes, I do believe it's come as a bit of a surprise to many, but we wish him well and we thank him for all his years of service. I just want to add, though, do we actually have any events in the Middle East? Am I missing something?

00:15:35Tony O'Connell: I don't think we do at this point, but it's probably an area of rapid growth when they get over there.

00:15:41Melissa Ellis: Rightio, maybe coming soon. Let's keep our eyes open for that. But not only that, Toc, we had changes to the 5K app that popped up in the last two weeks. They were announced and detailed. And then there was a backflip, I believe.

00:16:00Tony O'Connell: There was, Mel, and I've sort of put in these show notes, I think the backflip's probably worthy of a gold at the Olympics. The changes for all those that were following along, and it was certainly announced in plenty of groups, were that some of the search facilities, and as a Run Director, we actually quite often use this search now where people accidentally forget their barcode or whatever, and I know people are responsible for their barcode and all the rest of that. But, yeah, we do like to help people out where we can. And there were certain other statistics that parkrun had requested 5k takedown and not put up. But I guess on the Friday before parkrun, yeah the 5k app were able to announce you know great news that parkrun had reached out and they've had a conversation and they've rolled back some of the changes no doubt somewhere in the future there will be more changes um I think change is inevitable and I think we're going to see different things happen I'm not privy to what any of those changes are but I'm I just know in the time that I've been involved with parkrun and where we've come from with such a small number of events and such a small number of people trying to assist those events in the old Territory Director days and back when we had one permanent member of staff, to an Australian context, we have 500 roughly events at the moment and a number of staff. I think change is fairly inevitable, while some of the tightening up and changes upset some people I think that's just the growth of an organisation they have to pull things in a little bit and keep things fairly uniform and it's one of the the things we love about parkrun is you can turn up anywhere and I know I certainly when I was travelling sometimes briefings weren't given in english but I could actually understand what they were meaning because you know where you're at in the briefing you know it's always fairly uniform

00:17:57Melissa Ellis: So I think it's curious, TOC, and I don't know, did you actually do the updates, the 5K updates?

00:18:02Tony O'Connell: I did, yes.

00:18:03Melissa Ellis: Yeah. So in my head, I was like, well, if I don't do the update, nothing changes in my life. So I actually haven't read any of these, updates yet but I also thought to myself oh so if I can't search people through the 5k app I'll just have to revert to the way I used to do it in the old days before we had the 5k app which and there was ways there's always ways to find somebody if you want to you just have to be a little bit smart about the way you go about it and it's not in any illegal way it's just like oh well what's the last known parkrun that I knew they were at

00:18:40Tony O'Connell: And look, I know certainly, Mel, on the weekend, there was an issue with the run results going up onto the websites. I don't know what the issue was, but the results weren't updating on the website. So people ran or walked, they got their results emailed and they could click on the link on that and go to results. But if you went to a website of one of the events, you couldn't go to the latest results. It just came up with a spinny wheel of death. Um, the workaround for that was if you knew someone that was at the event and you knew where they'd run somewhere previously, you went to that person in the previous lot of results and you could click through to get today's results. So for me, for example, we're in Queensland. I want to see who'd run at Inverloch because every week I, I look at who's run at Inverloch, you know, my home event, um, Couldn't get to it, but I knew someone that had been there a couple of weeks ago and I was able to click on them and I knew they were at Inverloch Saturday, so it went across to it.

00:19:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah, you go in the back door. So I was also stalking because I think I mentioned in the last episode that my... My new partner, his son, has also started parkrun and we were keen to know if Dermot went off to Kilmore parkrun on his own or not. And so I kept hitting the Kilmore event page going, where is the results? Kilmore haven't posted their results. And it was frustrating. But then I started to see in the socials, I started to see people bringing up the fact that there was an issue. So I realised... And fun fact, everybody, Dermot did go to his third parkrun all by himself. Yay!

00:20:18Tony O'Connell: Well done, Dermot.

00:20:20Melissa Ellis: Now, where are we up to, TOC? parkrunner number 10 million. That also occurred and that kind of flew under the radar, but it was a legitimate one, which we're very happy to know about. And it was, must be, an under 14 because that person ran at Arrow Rest junior parkrun, who were quite proud of the fact and did actually post about it in their socials. So nice to know that parkrunner number 10 million was a junior.

00:20:51Tony O'Connell: And it was nice to see that 10 million is actually a serious figure and it's not one of the arbitrary hijackings that we've seen in the past.

00:20:59Melissa Ellis: Yes, all those people were busy.

00:21:00Tony O'Connell: Good to see that it actually is going to exist. And hopefully that barcode is going to get out there and actually run a few times. I know a few of the other...

00:21:09Melissa Ellis: the million increments and some of the bigger milestone barcodes haven't had a lot of use so it's actually good to see this one's a fairly fresh registration it's already been used that's true but I remember parkrunner the eight million was a Australian and I checked that barcode number only in the last few months and they have probably done I don't know a handful to a dozen parkruns so they are getting out there so that's good to know as well

00:21:38Tony O'Connell: Cool, we like to see our barcodes getting used. Now, the other thing that's worth pointing out is with me now are back from their summer holidays. It was good to hear the voices again this week, especially given that we had several hours of car road trip this week without radio reception because in the hire car we had on the weekend, You either had your Google Maps on the screen and you could play a podcast or you had the radio. And given the geographic displacement that we seemed to find ourselves in, I thought Google Maps was the best idea. So we kept that up there. But one of the things I wanted to pick up, Danny was talking about the indexes and he talked about how we call it, like the Tokidex and the Malidex and that sort of thing. And I actually think we're on the right train there because I was thinking about it and he said, oh, it should be the Tindex. But the Tindex, it sounds like a pickup page, I thought. Tinder for parkrunners. No, let's not have a Tindex. Let's stick with the Tokidex.

00:22:46Melissa Ellis: Oh, dear, yeah, no, it is great to hear the guys back, and I am most of the way through their first episode back. I haven't got to that bit yet, but I look forward to getting up to that section.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:22:58Melissa Ellis: But, Toc, we have got a backlog of roving reports. Now, we haven't been able to bring them all to you this week, but we've got three on offer, so we bring them to you now.

00:23:05[background music]

Roving report Ruth Perkins — Sewerby parkrun

00:23:19Ruth Perkins: Good morning parkrun adventurers! This is Ruth Perkins from the UK and today I have come to a very special parkrun. Many people cite this as one of their most favourite parkruns so I've come to Sewerby which is in the East Riding of Yorkshire and I'm so excited. I can already see the sea. It's a one lap so it goes a long the coast and back and then we get a chance to rove around the house Surrey house and gardens and it just sounds marvellous so I'll be back soon with my reaction and hopefully an interview with someone from the team here Hello again, parkrun Adventures. So I am here with Jim Abel, who I believe is the Event Director here at Sewerby. And I've asked him to tell us a little bit about Sewerby. I understand that this was one of the earliest parkruns in the parkrun family.

00:24:22Jim Abel: Yeah it was set up in 2011. I've been coming from about five months after that so I've been coming quite a long time. Eventually I got involved fully during lockdown as the previous Event Director decided to step down. He'd been doing it for a lot of years and that's how I got going and The best thing I did was appoint a Volunteer Coordinator. We had a good crew already but the Volunteer Coordinator does a fantastic job and we need at least 19 volunteers to operate this course safely because it's a one lap course, possibly one of the most picturesque courses in in the country I'm going to agree I've been to 146 so far and I would say this is possibly the most beautiful one I've been to yeah it's lovely and we're so lucky to have it on our doorstep When you run down towards Bridlington on a clear day like this you're looking at right down over Bridlington because we're higher up here up the cliffs and then we run back up the cliff path which is superb views of Flamborough Head and the lighthouse and then we turn and come back into the park and it's a beautiful park is this and we're so lucky that the council's fully on board and supports us and we then run through the ornamental garden around a pitch and put course where we eventually go into a woodland trail and when we come out of that we're back into the gardens under a covered walkway covered with like a tree archway and back to the finish in front of the house and that's the course basically yeah

00:26:06Ruth Perkins: Yeah, it's really beautiful. And there were some very surprising things along the way. Some Lego dinosaurs?

00:26:12Jim Abel: Yeah, they're here for about a month, are the Lego dinosaurs. We had some Lego wild animals last year. And this company, I think it's called Iconic Brickwork or something like that. And they've put all these in. I think there are 18 around the grounds altogether. A lot of them are in the walled garden, which we don't go through on the run. But yeah, they're superb. They often have things going on here, lots of events and things. So there's always something interesting.

00:26:44Ruth Perkins: Wonderful. So parkrun adventurers are very keen tourists. They like to travel around to other parkruns. So we'd really like to know a bit about your parkrun history. Have you been to many other parkruns? Have you done many runs?

00:26:58Jim Abel: I've done, I think I'm getting on towards 400 now, three something.

00:27:07Ruth Perkins: And if you had to pick favourites, I know it's really hard and you're not allowed to say Sewerby apparently. I can see why you would say Sewerby. Can you pick maybe three others?

00:27:16Jim Abel: Yeah, I haven't done that many. I've done... The first one I did was... I've done Woodhouse Moor at Leeds, but that's fairly ordinary. I've done Conkers a couple of times down in Leicestershire, which is... That's a nice one. I've done... Daly Abbey which isn't going that's not running anymore isn't that one that moved to Markeaton Park in Derby near Derby well it's in Derby basically yeah I haven't done Markeaton but the Daly Abbey one was quite nice but I like when we've been on holiday I've done Keswick that's an out and back along a railway and it is a really nice one and they've got a lovely cafe at the end of it Same with the Bakewell, which is on the Monsal Trail. That's a nice one. I think that was maybe my favourite of the out and back.

00:27:37[crosstalk]

00:28:06Ruth Perkins: Yeah, I do love... One lapper is a really beautiful, special thing, but I do think an out and back can be fun for high fives and those kind of opportunities to see your friends.

00:28:17Jim Abel: It's always good for the organisers as well because we turn up here at 7 o'clock because it's such a big course to set up and sometimes we've had to divert the course across here because one week we had a deer which was stuck in the railings up here because we have deer that run loose sometimes in the woodland and things so we had to... To stop, so we didn't spook it, we had to divert the course of it, and we've had to do that. We had a wedding take place at half past nine in the Orange Room, we didn't know about. So, again, it gives us time coming up at seven. But, yeah, when you get to such as the Monsal Trail one, the Bakewell one, they can pitch up at sort of 20 minutes before they start, put their start out, and they've sent a Marshal to the other end, and that's all they need, you know. But, yeah, yeah, it's...

00:29:04Ruth Perkins: Well, I can see there's many people here today appreciating all the effort that goes into this park. You have quite big numbers, it seems, like 350, something like that?

00:29:13Jim Abel: Yeah, we're in a position, particularly in summer, where we get a lot of tourists because there's a lot of people staying in the local caravan parks and all that sort of thing. We also... um quite often get big groups even in the winter of running clubs coming from such as the West Riding or just north of us and things like that um we always get good numbers here we don't want many more though that's okay so you can other tourists you can definitely come you should come it's gorgeous but don't all come at once Yeah, yeah, that's it, yeah. We can cope with up to about 400 or so, but any more than that and we'd start to get a bit overwhelmed just because of the set-up.

00:29:54Ruth Perkins: Yeah, understandable. Well, thank you so much for talking to me and congratulations on what is an amazing parkrun. Yeah, thank you.

00:30:02Jim Abel: Okay, lovely, thank you.

00:30:04Ruth Perkins: Right, I'm here with David Duffill and he did an absolutely wonderful job of welcoming us in the first time as well, Kim. How long have you been involved with Sewerby parkrun?

00:30:18David Duffill: I joined Sewerby parkrun in the very first year it started in the late September, so I've been... nearly one of the original members here when we used to get 25 to 40 people every week wow yeah and what what is it that keeps bringing you back to this parkrun the people the friendly the camaraderie the family atmosphere that you get with parkrun it's good and everybody's in the same frame of mind it's good

00:30:44Ruth Perkins: It is a really good place to be. I can see there's a really good energy about this parkrun as well. Lots of happy faces.

00:30:51David Duffill: Happy faces and people that travel a long way to come to Bridlington and the surrounding area. It's a nice part of the world, a lovely part of the world to live.

00:30:59Ruth Perkins: And we had a chat before this and you were saying about weather-wise, we came on a very good day. Not always as beautiful and sunshine as this.

00:31:07David Duffill: Not always beautiful and sunny as this. Remember, we're on the coast and we're on the cliff top, so we do get pretty strong breezes at times. Sometimes it's helpful because you're running down into a bridge and then you're into it coming back and vice versa. So it's good. Yeah, it's very beautiful.

00:31:20Ruth Perkins: Yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to remember some of the things that you told us to remember during your briefing this morning. Is there anything in particular that people need to know about?

00:31:32David Duffill: Three things we have. One important thing is that when you're going down towards Bridlington that you turn because the next stop is a nice coffee shop and in the summer an ice cream shop and to bring me one back. The second one is we have a turning point near a golf course, which if you see any other colour flag other than a red one, you're on there and watch out for a little white ball flying past your luggles. And the third one is to remember that you're at Sewerby Park near Bridlington. And if you enjoyed it, tell your friends about it. But if you haven't liked it, you've been in Scarborough.

00:32:04Ruth Perkins: brilliant really really brilliant so have you been to many other parkruns yourself I've done over 350 around this circuit here and I've done several in London and I've actually done the mecca Bushy Park I've been out of Bushy Park and I've done Bushy Park as well oh so uh Bushy Park today are having their thousandth uh parkrun event today have you got any guesses for how many people might turn up today what do you think

00:32:30David Duffill: Well, I wouldn't know about Bushy Park. There was 1,200 when I did it, so obviously there'd be quite a lot more than that. It takes a lot more organising than Sewerby. But I think we've excelled probably 300 or a bit close to 300 today here, which is good for us.

00:32:42Ruth Perkins: Yeah, yeah, it looked like a good number and very well managed as well, I have to say. Thank you. So would you be able to pick maybe three other parkruns that are your favourite of the other ones that you've done, other than Sewerby, if you had to pick?

00:32:58David Duffill: There's one just on the outskirts of Norwich which was really good. I can't give it a name because it's a long while since they've done it. But Fountains Abbey, I do like Fountains Abbey. I think that's a nice course as well. I do like that one. And then the best of all is Sewerby. It's got to be in the top ten. The Forgotten Gem.

00:33:17Ruth Perkins: brilliant I totally agree I really do agree I think this is definitely up there for my own now possibly the best maybe Watergrove for me might be slight oh no it's hard to pick but thank you so much for chatting with me and thank you for a brilliant event I'd like to say it's run by the volunteers we're all willing volunteers and parkrun won't exist without the volunteers so if anybody wants to help please help out it's much appreciated yeah it's a good team I would say to be part of over here okay thank you thank you had a beautiful morning at Sewerby parkrun for anyone who wants to come there is free parking there's a lovely cafe to go to afterwards we've been sat there for a while and it's a good place to come to complete snakes that's the challenge I've completed today so I've come dressed as a cucumber mostly because some cats if you throw a cucumber near them they think it's a snake and they run away so that's the best I could do for snakes bit of a stretch but I've had a wonderful morning at a wonderful parkrun and what more can you ask for bye everyone have a good week

Roving report Janet Reid — Lochiel parkrun

00:34:30Janet Reid: Good morning parkrun adventurers it's Janet here yet again and this time I'm coming to you live from aboard the mothership Lochiel. I hope you've all had a fabulous week and looking forward to next parkrun day. So with me today I have Andrea who is the Event Director of

00:34:49Andrea Doney: Wildflower parkrun in New South Wales and she's here visiting so I thought I'd just have a quick catch up with her and say howdy so welcome to Lochiel, Andrea, how are you? Hi Janet, thank you so much and it's so good to be here did you enjoy our event oh my goodness I loved it it was so beautiful it was so green um and yeah just the undulations the park lands the river it was just gorgeous magnificent thank you good I'm glad I'm glad and what's brought you to Adelaide this weekend Mostly work. I've got a conference happening in the city for the next couple of days, but I always like to do a little bit of parkrun touristing when I can. So it was a good opportunity and I really needed an L. Ah, an alphabet challenge, Jason. Lovely. So Andrea, tell me, how did you get involved with parkrun? I think I started going to parkrun when they opened up Wildflower parkrun in my suburb which is St Ives in Sydney and it was literally two or three kilometres from my house and it seemed like a good idea. I was a quite a new runner at the time. I liked the idea of the sort of having the group around me and an opportunity to explore a new part of the Kuringai National Park which I hadn't really been into by that point in time. But I very quickly discovered that it was also a way to kind of surround myself with like-minded people. I love that feeling of running in a tribe. I love that feeling at the start line where, you know, I don't feel weird. I feel like I belong. Everyone kind of takes off and there's always someone who's more or less my pace, more or less my size. I guess I just felt very at home. I felt very comfortable. I started off just as a runner, but over time I put my hand up to volunteer more and more. And over a period of time, I graduated from that to Run Director. And then about, I think about a year and a half or two years ago, I became one of the Co-Event Directors as well. So parkrun is my church. It's my Saturday morning ritual. It's my home and I absolutely love it. I can echo all of that. And I get the accent there as well? Yes, South African born and raised, but I have lived in Australia for about 26 years.

00:36:59Janet Reid: Okay, South African raised, here for 10 years next week. Big celebration for me. Congratulations. Now, Andrea, you're also involved in another little thing. Would you like to chat to us a bit about the Slow Coach, please?

00:37:11Andrea Doney: Yes, thank you. Well, look... as a as a runner I started running in my early 40s I'm now 53 I've been a very very dedicated very consistent very passionate runner but despite all my best efforts I've never been anything approaching fast and that's never bothered me but about three or four years ago I just started to get a little bit frustrated with the sort of mainstream running conversation which at the time was very very concerned with things like pace and metrics and PBs and podiums and getting thinner and getting faster and getting stronger and all those things. And look, those are great. Those are awesome. I don't mean to take anything away from that, but my frustration was that that wasn't my running journey. That wasn't my running narrative. I was running for time alone, time away from the kids, time to think, as a pathway to feel proud of myself, as a pathway to sort of achieve a sense of progress in an otherwise... sort of messy life where I was coping with anxiety and trauma and all kinds of other things. So I wanted a way to frame running that didn't measure itself against what pace you ran. For me, that was the least interesting thing about why I ran. So I decided to become a coach just so that I could support runners like me. You know, we might cover the same distance as other runners, but often we're doing it in bigger bodies or over a longer period of time or with chronic injuries or other health conditions. So we just need a different level of rigor. We need science. We need empathy. We need support. We need insight for runners like us. And I decided to become the slow coach so I could create a little bit of a community around that. And I absolutely love that, Jane, the slow coach. It's brilliant. Thank you. Yes, and I'm very, very proud of it. As someone who's never been a runner, in inverted commas, it's quite extraordinary to find myself talking to you today as a coach today. But there you go. And it's been a wonderful way to find other like-minded people and to see the progress that they are making and the changes, the very powerful changes that running has made in all our lives.

00:39:20Janet Reid: That's one thing about parkrun, isn't it? The way you connect with people. I mean, I look at you and I. I had seen your posts on Facebook, so connected with you, sort of lurked on the side there a little bit, reading posts and a lot of things really, really connected with me. And then when we chatted to find out that we're both South African, we both do parkrun. We're both passionate about it. Found our tribe there and we're both Event Directors. It was just such a wonderful thing. And that's what parkrun does, doesn't it? It just joins people, unites people from all sorts of places. And I think as immigrants as well, it's a wonderful place to find your new tribe, to find your new family. So, Andrea, my next question for you is... Your top three parkruns and you can't include Wildflower.

00:40:05Andrea Doney: Oh dear, well that's an almost impossible question to answer. I feel a bit like I'm trying to choose a favourite child. I've done I think 55 or so unique parkruns but the few that stand out definitely Lochiel today with its absolute gorgeous beauty. Last weekend I did Umbagong in Canberra and I really enjoyed that. It's got a real sort of trail vibe. It's an undulating course. I was there on a very kind of misty morning with sort of sun sparkling off the greenery and it was just quite almost otherworldly it was so beautiful um and then back in Sydney I love Kamay parkrun which is down near the airport where you kind of run along the bay and through a graveyard which is strange but also spectacular yeah yeah um so yeah but there's many other favourites as well yeah I like that analogy though it's like picking your favourite child it's hard

00:40:48[crosstalk]

00:41:00Janet Reid: Well, Andrea, thank you so much for chatting with me today and being a part of the parkrun community and the parkrun podcast. I look forward to chatting again in the future.

00:41:09Andrea Doney: Thank you.

00:41:09Janet Reid: Thanks, Andrea.

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Dolls Point parkrun

00:41:10Janet Reid: Bye.

00:41:11Ali Sheppard: G'day, adventurers. Ali from the UK here. And I am here with my Australian twin, Ali from Australia. Hello. Hello. And I'm also here with Ingrid.

00:41:26Ingrid: Hey, guys.

00:41:27Ali Sheppard: And we have just done the most beautiful parkrun in Sydney. Or is it the most beautiful parkrun in all of Australia?

00:41:30[background music]

00:41:33Ali: It's the prettiest parkrun in Sydney.

00:41:36Ali Sheppard: Fantastic. Which is obviously Dolls Point parkrun. Woohoo! so we're sitting here looking at the the sea and it's absolutely wonderful we've just had coffee um afterwards and it was an absolutely fantastic parkrun and I have to say that I met my twin Ali Australian Ali um 20s um online through the with me now podcast back in the dark days of 2020 when we were in lockdown in the UK and we both posted some content on the pod and got to know each other then so it's been four years but I finally made it to Dolls Point parkrun and I have to say my back went yesterday so I was in a lot of pain but thanks to these two ladies I actually got round and did Dolls Point parkrun so how was that for you today?

00:42:10[background music]

00:42:35[background music]

00:42:35Ingrid: I loved the chat but honestly that is my favourite thing about parkrun anyway other than the coffee afterwards the chat is fantastic so it was really nice to be able to share it obviously I'm very passionate about my home parkrun I think most people are which is great and it's just really nice to see it again through visitors eyes so yeah it was really lovely And for you, Ali?

00:42:54Ali: Well, you know what? I'm recovering from long COVID and chronic fatigue and you kept me to pace, my friend.

00:42:55[background music]

00:42:59[crosstalk]

00:43:00Ali Sheppard: Well, I have to say, I would not have got round that if it was not for you two. I was in so much pain and you distracted me because we talked all the way round. Non-stop. Non-stop. And you were also performing another role today, a volunteer role.

00:43:15Ali: Yes, I was photographer today. And I love doing also the Instagram in particular for Dolls Point parkrun. Wonderful. But I tried to get every single face that participated today, which also kept me distracted from the paying.

00:43:30Ali Sheppard: And I think you managed to get almost every single thing. I hope so. So you've got a really good team here. You've got a wonderful community. Been chatting to them. The course is, it's a sort of out and back with a sort of little mean bit at the end where you think you're coming into the finish and then you have to go off and do another little bit of a loop.

00:43:49Ali: Just a tiny little dog leg.

00:43:51Ali Sheppard: A tiny little dog leg. The fun never stops. The fun never stops at Doll's Point. That could be another saying. But yeah, no, it's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. And anything else you want to say about Dolls Point? Oh, I love it.

00:44:08Ali: I love it. Look, we as a group of core volunteers, we have chats regularly about trying to make this the friendliest, parkrun possible and trying to get to know everyone and we're only 10 minutes from the airport as well so where are you headed to after this Ali I am headed to the airport I have to get on a flight and I have to know we're not letting you go I called the UK they're closed

00:44:15[background music]

00:44:34Ali Sheppard: So if somebody could arrange between now and this afternoon to cancel my flight, that would be most appreciated. Yeah, something could happen. Could we have some kind of freak storm that happens and I don't go back to the UK? Maybe a park on visa as well.

00:44:45[background music]

00:44:49Unidentified speaker: That might be useful.

00:44:50Ingrid: Yes. That would be really good. I thought you guys got transported for seven years. I thought that was the deal. Yeah, that's all right.

00:44:57Ali Sheppard: I wish, I wish. No, thank you guys. It's been absolutely wonderful. And parkrun adventurers, that's a wrap for me from Australia. Over and out. Bye, Twinny.

00:45:00[background music]

00:45:16Tony O'Connell: And thanks for the lovely roving reports that we had there. We had Ruth Perkins coming to us from Sewerby. The Sewerby course, Mel, on that roving report just sounds like it's got a bit of everything. It sounds pretty cool. Still can't work out completing the snakes challenge dressed as a cucumber, though. That one's got me a little bit lost. But no doubt Ruth's reason that she explained through there makes a lot of sense, I guess. We also heard from Janet at Lochiel. She was talking to Andrea Doney, the co-ED at Wildflower parkrun, and she's also the Slow Coach. And that was an interesting listening to the background behind the slow coach. And last but not least, Ali Sheppard managed to get to Dolls Point. Hooray! We're all a little bit worried that Ali wasn't going to get there on the Friday when she actually had a really sore back and she wasn't sure whether she was going to get to parkrun. Ali did Dolls Point parkrun. It was her final one. And then she bolted to the airport, took off back to the UK, and she managed to get over there in time to go and volunteer at Junior's on the Sunday morning with the time difference. So that's an amazing effort from Ali Sheppard. And I hope you enjoyed your time in Australia.

00:46:36Melissa Ellis: Yes, I did see that Ali caught up with Ingrid out there.

00:46:40Tony O'Connell: She did, yeah.

Dazza's

00:46:41Tony O'Connell: Right, moving along, Mel. We're going across to Dazza's. This week, Dazza has said, today is International Bacon Day. Whether travelling near or far, I love finding a cafe after parkrun and settling in for coffee and breakfast. Where did your adventures take you this weekend? Wherever or however you want, indulge in your favourite post-parkrun pastime and come to Dazza's. Bacon is optional. LAUGHTER

00:47:07Melissa Ellis: And the first one in the door was Andrew Blanda coming to us from the greater state. And he said, I ventured south of the border to visit the Wangaratta parkrun and dragged along a couple of Wang friends, Mike and Jodie, for their first ever parkrun. Forgot to get a selfie with the selfie frame, but the photographer snapped what I think is the perfectly synchronised double zoomie. And he shared the photo for evidence.

00:47:32Tony O'Connell: Right, so we've had someone from up north come down south. Now we've had someone from south go north. Chantelle Hosking went up into New South Wales. Australian compass completed with a tick. Chantelle provided a photo of Chantelle in the selfie frame at Kingscliff parkrun.

00:47:51Melissa Ellis: Very good. Well done, Chantelle. I'm yet to get out there to pick up that compass point at Kingscliff. It's very high on my list, though. Now, we also heard from Ian Thompson coming to us from the UK, and he said... Hey, Dazza, did the Pac-Man round Waka Waka Hurst, which is Wakehurst parkrun, bacon afterwards as part of the full breakfast afterwards barcode scanned after my run? And he says natch. I don't know what that means.

00:48:19Tony O'Connell: Naturally. Naturally he had his barcode scanned.

00:48:23Melissa Ellis: Right. Oh, it's slang and I don't know the lingo. But I just included this one because I wanted to be able to say Waka Waka Hurst. But the photo was of a very nice looking breakfast there, which I would call a farmer's breakfast here in Australia. What do you reckon?

00:48:40Tony O'Connell: I don't know. I reckon it'd take me about two days to get through that breakfast in Ian's photo, but I'd be willing to give it a shot. Right. Moving further north up to where I was, in fact, Charmaine Grobbler. Volunteer Photography at Victory Heights Gympie had the pleasure of capturing these beautiful people today. And we had a camera emoji and a clapping emoji. And the photo that she put in was a photo of Andrew Johnston zooming out on the course. Now, the funny thing is, Mel, I actually chatted to Charmaine before the event, and Charmaine... got me to get a couple of photos with the selfie frame. And then when Jack got down, she did some more photos. And I didn't even know she was an adventurer. So I'm just wondering, Charmaine, do you actually listen to the podcast? Yes.

00:49:27Melissa Ellis: Fess up. We want to know. And please, people, if you see us at a parkrun, please come up and say hello and let us know you're there because we see your names in the results and we feel bad that we didn't say hello. That happened to me at Gawler, actually. There was another adventurer there with us and I missed them and now I feel guilty. Anyway. The next one we have heard from is Hannah Newton coming to us from New Zealand. And she said no time for bacon after Dunedin parkrun had to hit the road quick before the weather got to us. Bacon in a few days time, hopefully for James, not me. And she shared a photo out on course of the Dunedin countryside. But James commented and he said, Dunedin parkrun in New Zealand conquered with Hannah Newton. I'll take the bacon. And he had the little emoji with the hanging out tongue. And a photo there of James showing his strong arms. Maybe that was the bacon that made him strong. I don't know.

00:50:28Tony O'Connell: Maybe it's like his secret Popeye. Maybe. Has the bacon and the arms blow up. Righty-o, moving across to Western Australia, and we have Chris Gore checking in with us. Sorry, Dazza, no bacon for us, just a muffin, thank you. Karen and I attended the Ridley Place Foreshore parkrun this morning. It was event number 22, so we had to wear our tutus, and it was a number that we needed for our Wilson Index. It was also another Western Australian parkrun ticked off for us, only two to go to get Western Australian Statesman. The course is a sort of double out and back on a mixture of paving and grass that runs alongside the Australind Estuary. A lovely course but it can get a bit windy at times. Karen liked it because you pass the toilet block four times, not that she needed to take advantage of it this week. We had a lovely chat afterwards with a couple of local participants over coffee at the local coffee shop before making our way back to Perth. And the picture was Chris and Karen in the tutus with the selfie frame.

00:51:32Melissa Ellis: Oh, nearly WA statesman. Good job, guys. That's a big effort. That's a big state. Yep. And lastly, we hear from Helen Rutter. Now, Helen Rutter was at Zuiderpark, which I think is in the Netherlands. Is that right, Toc?

00:51:47Tony O'Connell: That's correct. There's actually two Zuiderparks there. We need more context. And I know from the context that it was the one in The Hague.

00:51:55Melissa Ellis: Okay. And anyway, Helen said... Zuiderpark. Went because I was told it was fast and I wanted a fast time. Did okay, but not as fast as I would like. If I can't do it here, it will never happen. And she's got this sad face emoji. But I had a nice morning, saw lots of tourists and some we met before. And Helen posted the photo of her balancing act on the pop-up that we're very familiar with now. I love those balancing little mini Helens on the pop-up. Good job. Yeah.

00:52:27Tony O'Connell: She does a great job with those photos. She positions it just right. And I don't know how she manages to put all her weight on one of those little pop-ups and keep it upright.

00:52:37Melissa Ellis: Anyway, Seven, that rounds it out for this week. That's all we've got for you.

the Obi Award — Andrew Blanda

00:52:41Melissa Ellis: So we just need an Obi winner, an Obilope, TOC.

00:52:46Tony O'Connell: We have the Obilope here, Mel. I'll grab it down off the bench. And our Obi winner this week is... Andrew Blanda well done Andrew that yeah synchronized zoomie that you've posted the picture of it's got to be the closest thing once again Olympic reference it's got to be almost like synchronized swimming it was almost perfectly synchronized well done

00:53:00[background music]

00:53:26Melissa Ellis: Yep, it was pretty good. And I should say, I did notice Andrew was, I think he was in town for some sort of motor racing event. He does like to zoom around the racetrack in his little blue i30, bluey. So that must have been what brought him to the greater state. And why wouldn't you come and visit us, Toc?

00:53:46Tony O'Connell: Definitely. Rightio, Mel. Moving along.

Emails

00:53:52Tony O'Connell: We've got mail. You've got mail. This week we had an email from Billo and it's following on to our discussion at our last episode and I'll read it out. Hi, parkrun adventurers host team. In response to your question around the Meningie Challenge from podcast episode 394, I have one. Here it is. The challenge is called The Albert. The challenge is how many parkrun event locations are run around the edge of Lake Albert? And the answer is there are two. Meningie... And Wagga. However, technically, you could add a third, being Albert, Melbourne, which, as you know, runs around Albert Park Lake in Melbourne. Cheers, Billo.

00:54:39Melissa Ellis: That's a good point. Thank you, Billo. And I've actually heard that brought up in the past, that there's been discussions in the tourism pages about the Lake Albert.

00:54:49Tony O'Connell: So good remembering, Billo. I actually went off, Mel, and I've actually... I thought, I'll put this into Google and I'll do a bit of hunting. And I thought, surely with the number of lakes that parkruns seem to congregate around, we have other Albert Lakes. And no, my Googling effort, unless the listeners want to write in or message in and let us know any different, I could only find the two that Billo's identified. So well done, Billo.

00:55:17Melissa Ellis: And I am a member of that club. Yeah.

00:55:20Tony O'Connell: I am 50% of the way out of the two events.

00:55:25[background music]

Club Corner

00:55:25Melissa Ellis: OK, TOC, now we have Club Corner. We've got a very different Club Corner this week. So let's throw now to Rachel.

00:55:33[13 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:55:46Rachel: This is Rachel with Joke Corner, where we share some lame jokes that work in an audio medium, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. I hope that you are ready. Here goes... Knock knock. Who's there? Cargo. Cargo who? No silly. Owls go who? Cars go beep beep. Pause for laughs. What did the Terminator say at the shops, when someone asked where the milk was? I'll be back. Pause for laughs. What type of race is the Tour de France? French. Pause for laughs. What kind of car does an egg drive? A yoke's wagon. Pause for laughs. Why do you never see elephants hiding in trees? Because they are good at it. Pause for laughs. Why can't you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the P is silent. Pause for laughs. For this next one, pretend that you are a lost parkrun tourist. Excuse me, can you tell me the quickest way to parkrun? Are you driving or walking? Driving. Yes, that would be quicker than walking. Pause for laughs. And finally, you are a touring parkrunner, asking a fellow tourist what they thought after parkrun. How did you find parkrun today? Google Maps. Just pause and breathe. And remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

00:57:08Tony O'Connell: And now we're back from Rachel. And as a father, I've got to say I appreciate a good dad, Jake. But I think what Rachel's trying to do there is give us some incentive to write in and give us some great ideas for some new challenges for Club Corner. What do you think? Yeah.

00:57:26Melissa Ellis: Please send us content.

00:57:30Tony O'Connell: Send help now.

00:57:31Melissa Ellis: Send help.

Consolidated Club Report

00:57:34Melissa Ellis: But that leads us to this week's Consolidated Club report for Saturday, the 7th of September, 2024. Of a total of 682 members, 504 took part on this date in eight countries across 278 locations. In the UK, there were adventures at 55 events, seven in South Africa four in the USA three in the Netherlands two in Canada and one in Italy but locally we had adventurers at 56 events at Queensland which makes Queensland the gold medalist after the UK with the silver this week and coming in with bronze and 48 events is New South Wales Victoria had 44. Australia, 19. I am very impressed with our growth in Western Australia. They are doing well. South Australia had 16. There was nine events in Tassie, seven in the ACT, four on the North Island, two on the South Island, and one in the Northern Tree.

the Frond

00:58:40Tony O'Connell: And Mel, our largest international frond this week, actually goes to four different events. There were four fronds of three people. And there's one of these events, I love the name of this parkrun, Bug Hunter Waters. That's pretty cool. We also had three adventurers at Hampstead Heath at Arby's. Old Railway Trail, Llangollen, and at Southampton in the UK and I picked one of those at random and I picked Bug Hunters and at Bug Hunters this week we had Maria Wicks, Mark Pinney and Branca Moss.

00:59:15Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. Now we go to the pilgrimage. Now I must say the week before Bushy's inaugural, not inaugural, 1000th event you did mention that we had 10 adventurers. That was the largest frond for last week. This week, we had one adventurer do the pilgrimage, and that was Maz Strong. And they came into Dazza's, and they said, after two sadly park-run days in France, a quick post-Paralympic trip across the channel. Tick, where it all began. Tick, 50th course. So a half Cowell there for Maz and obviously the pilgrimage. Right, what's this with the paralympic reference I had to do a little bit of googling on maz and see what I can come up with and from what I can establish research suggests that maz competes in the F33 shot put and has represented Australia in both Tokyo and Paris, earning a bronze medal in Tokyo. So well done, Maz. Congratulations.

01:00:24Tony O'Connell: And important to note, Maz is also a Run Director at one of our Victorian events as well. So Maz run directs at Kirkdale.

01:00:32Melissa Ellis: Kirkdale with Dano. Yep. Fabulous. Excellent. Even better. Now, the largest local, or I should say the largest Australian front, we had seven out at the ponds. We had six adventurers at three events, North Wollongong, Rex Jackson Oval and Schlaba. And we had five at two events, which was Scribbly Gums Conservation and Toowoomba. But I have picked Rex Jackson Oval to highlight this week. And out there was... the wonderful Bec Bailey, Paul Rainbow, Sam Duncan, Sue Keane, Paris Lawrence and Paul Whelan.

01:01:13Tony O'Connell: Lots of big fronds happening there.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:01:15Tony O'Connell: Now, moving along to launches. I thought it was worth just mentioning that last week there was a new event in Scotland, Crinan Canal, because we didn't give them a shout out last week. And week one, they had 83 finishers and 17 volunteers. Yes. But it has been a cracker of a week on the 7th of September, Mel. We had a massive number of launches, eight in fact, which is one of the biggest number of launches across the world since March.

01:01:48Melissa Ellis: It is. So you're saying that there was just the one the week before?

01:01:51Tony O'Connell: Just the one the week before.

01:01:53Melissa Ellis: Just the one. Okay. And now we've got eight. And the first one was Hanmer Forest parkrun in New Zealand.

01:01:59Tony O'Connell: The second one, Mel, is Serengeti Estate parkrun in South Africa. Okay.

01:02:04Melissa Ellis: Then we had parkrun Zalew Leg in Poland, meaning the floodplain.

01:02:11Tony O'Connell: Next one is Moorbek parkrun in Germany.

01:02:15Melissa Ellis: And Stadtpark parkrun Chemnitz, which translates to City Park parkrun. Yeah, they're in Germany as well.

01:02:23Tony O'Connell: Okay, moving across to Canada, we've got the pretty cool-sounding Spanish Banks Beach parkrun. That's a fair bit to get out, Spanish Banks Beach parkrun.

01:02:34Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

01:02:35Melissa Ellis: And a bit more pronounceable over in South Africa, St George's parkrun.

01:02:40Tony O'Connell: And in the Netherlands, we had Wezenlanden parkrun.

01:02:44Melissa Ellis: Oh, I wonder if that's a V pronunciation like Wensenlanden. I don't know. Sometimes those Dutch do that European thing.

01:02:52Tony O'Connell: I'll just pronounce it as it's spelt because I'm a builder. That'll do it. Well, interestingly, this year so far, we've had 93 launches across the world and 18 of those have been in Australia, nine in New Zealand. So 27 of the new events and I guess the extra one in Singapore, 28 out of the 93 have been in our little sphere in the Asia-Pacific region.

01:03:20Melissa Ellis: APAC, go APAC, but not enough in the greater state, Toc. I'm like, what's going on? Three, three so far this year.

01:03:29Tony O'Connell: Yeah, got to lift the game there, Mel. I think if you listen back to the pre-Christmas episode last year, I might have suggested there might have been about a dozen in the greater state by now. We've had a bit of a shortage of new events, but yeah, hopefully there's a few on the horizon.

01:03:46Melissa Ellis: That could only mean we're about to be inundated.

01:03:50Tony O'Connell: Let's hope so.

Streaky September

01:03:51Melissa Ellis: But anyway, there is something else exciting going on at the moment. And never mind about new events. We've got Streaky September, and that is pretty important. And it's time to turn our attention to that. Now, I do believe, Toc, we've got a little bit of audio from Pippa.

01:04:08Tony O'Connell: We have from the Streakmeister.

01:04:10Melissa Ellis: So let's have a listen to that.

01:04:18Pippa White: Hi Streakers, it's the Streakmeister and it's one quarter of the way through Streaky September. I'm out there, I'm doing it, I'm getting out, I'm getting my head up, I'm smiling. What's really lovely is I've got friends who don't even necessarily parkrun, who are now sending me messages going, yeah, I'm streaking, it's September, I've done my 2K, I've been out, I've done my yoga or whatever. And I just love the fact that this is a community thing, a bit like parkrun, that's just gone out and spread its little tendrils around there. So mixed bag this week. I've had some days where I've absolutely loved going for a run and I've had days like today where I got halfway around and thought, oh, I can't be bothered with a run. So I stopped, had a moment, did a little bit of a walk and then started looking at what I could see as I was walking. And there were still beautiful flowers and berries in the hedgerows. And it was nice. I got home. I'd done my time. I'd done my distance. I hadn't run. Didn't matter. I was streaking. So if you're having problems with that whole bit about do I keep going or I've not done enough, then sometimes just knowing that that streak savers there to go out and have some fun with, just go and do that little bit of 20, 30 minutes of exercise. And suddenly the whole day goes into perspective. It's great. And if you're starting to ache a bit because you maybe you've overdone it, then go back to a bit of a walk. If your streaking is one that isn't quite getting out every single day at the moment for whatever reason, and you know there's lots of reasons why we can't, but you're actually doing a little bit of something, then we're really pleased to have you part of this. Anyway, by the time you listen to this, we'll be nearly a third of the way through, can you imagine? Have a brilliant week of streaking.

01:06:08Melissa Ellis: And thank you very much as usual, Pippa. Good to hear from you. Now, it made me wonder, Toc, actually, have you found your streak saver? Have you needed it yet?

01:06:19Tony O'Connell: Mel, I did find my streak saver. I actually took Pip's advice before Streaky September even started. And I went out and measured a course in a nearby town in Wonthaggi. I got a two kilometre course that's basically cutting laps in the shopping centre under all the verandas. And with eight days of gale force winds, including one day where we probably had 15 lots of hail come through, I definitely needed the streak saver. My walk on that day was probably... Two kilometres of about 150 metres up, 150 back, and repeat. Wow. The beauty of that is there's a coffee shop not too far along the walk, so I was able to rehydrate along the way.

01:07:05Melissa Ellis: Yeah, right. I think I've been lucky. I really haven't... Even being sick as I have been, I haven't needed to have to fit in a streak saver. I haven't had to do that last minute before midnight dash yet. Is that on the Bingoe card? I can't remember. TOC, I think you better refresh me. What's on the Bingoe card?

01:07:29Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel, the Bingoe card that's in play at the moment, and I guess by the time most listeners hear this, the first of our level-ups will have been released into the wild, but just taking people through the Bingoe card as it stands at the moment. The first one is selfie, so it's obviously taking a selfie of yourself out on a walk or run or ride or whatever your chosen activity is. The second one is the one that's been open to interpretation. I've loved seeing some of the results on this one. It's the budgie streak. I'd encourage people to jump across to the Streaky Sipmiba page and have a look because some of the interpretations of what a budgie streak are have been very creative and I've enjoyed looking at them. The next one is spelling. So spelling out a street name or doing a walk or run across a park and spelling a word, you can interpret that. Like all our challenges, they're open to interpretation and they're open to however you want to present it, um streak in the rain and I've got to say I think I succeeded with that on the first of September and nearly every day since streak savers our next one and as I said I really needed that I got up one morning we normally jump out of bed go for our walk I had to have breakfast because it was bucketing and in the end I just called it and jumped in the car and drove into Wonthaggi and walked under the veranda so I got my streak saver done nice and early in the piece and The next one on our Bingoe card is streaky Strava art. And once again, this is open to interpretation. I could think of a few different ways you could do Strava art. And I guess, yeah, it's open to interpretation. I've got one way that I'm thinking of that I might have a look at that doesn't actually meet what people would think. So I'm going to have a crack at something different maybe.

01:09:27Melissa Ellis: I'm going to look forward to that.

01:09:29Tony O'Connell: Or I might just end up doing the usual, try and map something out and run around.

01:09:34Melissa Ellis: Oh, no, you can't now. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, you've said it. You've got to come good with the goods.

01:09:42Tony O'Connell: On our card, the next two that we've got are the early birds. So getting out before 7 a.m. That's probably a variation on the late night one, but that's getting out before 7 o'clock. Doesn't need to be finished before 7, but yeah, you need to get out and start your activity before 7. And of course, being who we are, the last one on our current card is parkrun. And as I said, by the time you're listening to the podcast, there's probably going to be a bonus one out there, but I'll let you have a look at the page to...

01:10:15Melissa Ellis: to get that detail so most of the adventurers they should have already two parkruns ticked off unless they volunteered and if they volunteered we forgive them if they volunteered they still went to parkrun yes but it's a bit hard to get a streak done it is yes yes but you could do it after we could volunteer to Marshall and walk out to your point true You could. So, yeah, we hope you're enjoying the Bingoe card and getting involved in all the shenanigans over there on the Strictly Septmeber page. And if you need help to find the link to get to that page, just give us a hoi and we will help you out there. But anyway, more, more to come.

International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day

01:10:57Melissa Ellis: Something exciting happened today, TOC. There was another update and it is... coming to us from the elves at the ugly Christmas in no it's not ugly ugly Ugly Christmas Singlet and Shirt Day I was going to say Ugly Christmas in July but we're way past that we are coming up to the fair dinka monthly Christmas and the uh wonderful announcement shows that there's going to be a reimagined shirt release now if you do pop over onto that it's pretty obvious of what the reimagined is this year because it's a well-known palm photo with a certain very well-known emu, that hails from Nambour so that original fluffy shirt is going to be redesigned now I have got permission from the elves to let you know that it's pretty obvious from the photo but there is another brand new design that's coming to you this year and by the time this pod comes to air you will have seen a sneak peek of what it's going to be. So I believe I have been reliably informed it is an iconic Aussie reptile. So that only leaves us to guess and ponder as to what that might be. What do you think?

01:12:15Tony O'Connell: I don't know, Mel. I'd have to go back and have a look and I'm just going through my head and trying to think what we've had on there already and what's left to... What's left to go? Have we had a kangaroo on before?

01:12:29Melissa Ellis: Is a kangaroo a reptile though, Toc? Is it really?

01:12:32Tony O'Connell: Well, no, maybe not. I thought of iconic and Aussie and, you know, I could have come up with the opera house, but, you know, a reptile. Oh, that's a challenge.

01:12:46Melissa Ellis: Maybe it's one of those reptiles that can be alongside a parkrun course maybe up north. There could be a sign that could say, beware of the said reptile.

01:13:04Tony O'Connell: Oh, you're probably closer to the money than I am with the kangaroo there, Mel.

01:13:08Melissa Ellis: Well, I don't know. I don't know. We're only guessing. We don't actually know. The elves don't tell us. But anyway, that's pretty exciting. So we do like to promote the Ugly Christmas Singlet and Shirt Day. And just a reminder to everybody, it's not us. We are not the elves. we are not the ones behind it but we do encourage our audience to get behind it and and enjoy it so there you go

01:13:36Tony O'Connell: And Mel, the orders will be closing fairly soon. Once they come out, there'll be a fairly short window to order in.

01:13:42Melissa Ellis: Yes, absolutely. 29th of September. So I believe the portal should be open by the time we go to air and getting quick. That's all I can say. Don't miss out.

01:13:55Tony O'Connell: And Mel, like every year, I know I wear my ugly top occasionally. I wear the budgies to a parkrun. People say, oh, great top. Where do you get it from? It's very limited. If you don't jump in quick and order, yeah, it's going to be hard to get one later on.

01:14:12Melissa Ellis: Absolutely. It'll be too late and you will have remorse and envy.

01:14:19Tony O'Connell: Budgie envy. Yeah.

01:14:20Melissa Ellis: Budgie envy, yes.

Sign-off

01:14:22Tony O'Connell: Anyway, Mel, moving along, we're getting close to the next weekend, and funny enough, recording a little bit later, we are getting closer to the weekend. What's your next parkrun day see for you?

01:14:34Melissa Ellis: Well, I am going to have a local adventure. I'm going to return to an event I have been to before. But this is more of a regional revisit, if you like. You know, sometimes, Tony, you go to events and you just love them. And often as a tourist, we go to events once. But sometimes an event stands out and you just go, yeah, I'd like to come back here. So that's what I'm going to do. I am going to venture back out to Nhill parkrun. I have got fabulous memories of the time that I went to Nhill and That was back in the day when it was actually acceptable to go to the launches. So, yes, I was at event one in Nhill. Fabulous community out there. We had a wow of a time. And it was absolutely beautiful parkrun course that runs out and back everywhere, uh at Lake Nhill out there in regional Victoria there's a lot to do in that area there is silos to visit there's a pink lake there's some attractions in the actual town of Nhill they've got a pinball museum and they've got an aviation heritage centre so I am going to go back spend more time out there and do all the things I didn't get to do in my first visit so very much looking forward to that Dave's coming too, so he's going to get a little taste of a country adventure, Mel style. But what about you, TOC? What are you up to?

01:16:05Tony O'Connell: Mel, I have the biggest adventure planned for this weekend. I'm going all the way down the road to Inverloch parkrun, where it's our 10th birthday party. So there will be cake. Hooray for Inverloch. And one of the funny things where the universe is lined up is one of our participants this week is going to be our 50,000th finisher at Inverloch. So we're pretty tickled to pass that sort of a milestone as well. We've got a bit of a theme going where we're party socks and party hats or something, dress up in socks or hats or however you want to interpret that so I've got to do a little bit of work on a costume make sure I've got something something to wear to that but yeah I'm Run Director this works I'll be standing up on the stump and the great thing about that is when I yell go and everyone takes off I can eat all the cake before everyone gets back

01:17:03Melissa Ellis: But I want to know, how do you know that you're approaching your 50,000th participant? How do you get that information? Does parkrun send you a little message and go, hey, guys, going by statistics, this week is the day? How do you know? And how do you know who it is?

01:17:21Tony O'Connell: Nothing quite that fancy or anything, Mel. When you go to the results page, when you scroll down to the bottom, they still have how many people have completed your course down the bottom. And at the moment, I think Inverloch is on 49,971, I think. So maths is going to tell you that there's a position there, number somewhere, that someone's going to be the 50,000th person through. And... For those that have jumped on board and have heard about that before, there'll probably be a pack of people all trying to cross the line about the same time.

01:17:58Melissa Ellis: Oh, I think that'll be a high number though, wouldn't it? Like, they'll have to be the fast people. That's not going to be the Tail Walker.

01:18:07Tony O'Connell: No, no, look, we get about 100 a week at Inverloch and we need quite a bit fewer than that to actually complete the number this week. So, yeah, someone nice and, well, someone almost mid-pack is going to be our person that hits it.

01:18:24Melissa Ellis: I'm going to, so there's been a lot of talk about guessing numbers at Bushy, with the 999 and the 1000th event and now there's even I've seen in the socials people guessing how many people are going to be at the 20th anniversary let's have a little guessing game as to how many people will go to invalox 10th birthday because I reckon you'll pull the numbers you know being that you've got a celebrity rd and then I'm there as well yep

01:18:58Tony O'Connell: Crazy hats and socks. That's what I was trying to think of. Not party hats. Crazy hats and crazy socks.

01:19:05Melissa Ellis: You spent all that time trying to think of that. Did you hear my question? We're going to have a guessing game. Yes. I think you're going to pull numbers. I think you might even pull, you know, you might even drag people as far away as from WA.

01:19:17Tony O'Connell: What do you reckon?

01:19:19Melissa Ellis: Well, it could. Like, anything could happen.

01:19:22Tony O'Connell: I wonder if they're coming for the alphabet, the cake, or the...

01:19:26Melissa Ellis: Probably the crazy hat. They probably just want to wear a crazy hat. I don't know.

01:19:30Tony O'Connell: Well, I suppose it's equal opportunity. We can cross their way. They can cross our way. Maybe we need an equal opportunity employee. Okay.

01:19:39Melissa Ellis: So your average finishes are about 100, are they?

01:19:43Tony O'Connell: About 100. Okay. But in March, I've got to say, I was RD at an event. We had 320. That wasn't a long weekend, of course. Okay.

01:19:54Melissa Ellis: And what is your attendance record?

01:19:57Tony O'Connell: Ah, 330 something, I think.

01:20:02Melissa Ellis: Right, okay. Wow, do you reckon you'll break your attendance record?

01:20:07Tony O'Connell: No, I don't think so. Unlikely. No, it's not tourist season, is it? It's not tourist season and it's a week before school holidays start. I think if it was the week later and school holidays were in action, we'd probably have another 50 to 100 people. But yeah, no, with school holidays starting the week later in Victoria, I don't think we're going to be that big. I'm going to say we're going to have 153. Oh, okay.

01:20:37Melissa Ellis: I'm going to go with 127. You better write that down because if I try and type it in, then you'll just hear click, click, click, click. I think there is an event this week going on in Sydney that might pull a lot of Victorians north way. So that might impact your numbers.

01:20:59Tony O'Connell: I think so, Mel, and I think there's a couple of events in Sydney that are going to have fairly high crowds this week because of the Sydney Marathon that's taking place.

01:21:08Melissa Ellis: And just a reminder, adventurers, if you're anywhere near Parama, look for a little budgie the aeroplane and grab him off Eman and run and take him to the next event. See where we can get him. Yeah. And anyway, I think that's about it, Tony. Two weeks in a row, sir, and we have got you next weekend as well.

01:21:30Tony O'Connell: Oh, no, we'll be able to report back on exactly how many we got at Inverloch and who was the 50,000th person. And more importantly, we'll be able to report back how much cake did Toc eat before the first finish he got back.

01:21:42Melissa Ellis: Can I have a photo? I want a photo. I want a photo of you eating cake, even though I'm not going to be eating cake um but anyway thank you very much for joining me tonight apologies for recording a day late that oh that is me again um but I appreciate you accommodating me and uh We shall chat again next week. But, adventurers, as always, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That is it for another week, and we'll see you all next week for more adventures.