Episode 412 - Another One Bites the Dust

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 412 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast all about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name's Toc and I'm coming to you from Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:36Melissa Ellis: And I'm Melissa Ellis coming to you from Wurundjeri Country. And I don't think I've mentioned this this year yet, Toc, but it's our 10th year.

00:00:46Tony O'Connell: It is our 10th year. And when you look at 412 episodes, Mel, that's an awful lot of pod time that's been put into people's ears.

00:00:56Melissa Ellis: Yeah. So we apologise for that.

00:01:01Tony O'Connell: Normal programming will resume later.

00:01:04Melissa Ellis: Yeah, season 10. I do try to flag that when I enter all the information when I upload the episode, the season number. I don't know if anybody ever sorts or how it displays, but I definitely put it in there. That's how come I'm aware of it. And it's been regularly somewhere between 40 to 50 episodes a year. Obviously not when... COVID was on there was less and that evil thing yes that's long gone that's behind us now hopefully it's nearly the fifth anniversary of COVID it's coming up in a couple of weeks when our parkrun world as we knew it all fell in a big hole in some places I'm not complaining about the heat this week after the last two weeks where I've been whining being a whingy whiny sook about the heat it's a

00:01:53Tony O'Connell: Much more pleasant. And even in the little study that I'm in for recording, Mel, it is much more pleasant than it has been. So things are good on the parkrun front. Things are good on the weather front. The fires are under control in Victoria. Hopefully the floods are receding in Queensland. Hopefully we've got the balance getting closer to being right.

00:02:13Melissa Ellis: Excellent. And we've just got typhoons somewhere, I believe, don't we? I'm sure I saw that. Some typhoon had been declared somewhere today. But anyway, tell me about your parkrun Day, TOC. I'm dying to know.

00:02:28Tony O'Connell: My parkrun Day, I went back to an event that I was at only a couple of months ago for a second time. I went back and re-indexed at Emerald Lake parkrun. They were running their B course, which sounded like a bit of a challenge. It's... Definitely a lot hillier than their A course. I found it to be a good challenge. But I was only walking and I was walking with a couple of young parkrun kids that regularly turn up, see me and want to have a walk or a run with me. It's really cool. But we were at Emerald for a couple of reasons. We had an event ambassador catch up. So all the event ambassadors for the north and eastern side of Victoria, we all got together and had a bit of a chat, a catch up. And we're also there for Path Bomber Candy's Freyne Club. So 250 unique events, and he chose to do it at Emerald. So that was a great reason to go along there. And we'll hear more about Emerald a little bit later on in the podcast. Mel, how about you? How was your parkrun day?

00:03:28Melissa Ellis: Well I was at event 323 at Portarlington parkrun on the traditional lands of the Wathaurong people and I was amongst a crowd of 99 parkrunners and part of a frond of three with Dave and Debbie Jessop and it was lovely to chat to Debbie before the run. Thanks for coming up to say hi and fun fact Debbie was at my 250th parkrun at Wimmera River back in the day. Now, Portarlington is an undulating out-and-back course along the foreshore path and was profiled back in episode 85. That was in October 2017. And that was back before Scott and Mel were even naming the episodes. I listened back to Zara Curtis talking to RD Fiona at the launch, saying, Portarlington's course record, incidentally, is 300, and that was set on New Year's Day of 2020. And the only time they've come close to getting near that again was just a few weeks ago on the 4th of January when they got to 233. So that's just a little bit of research that I did. Now, I walked the course on the morning because I was saving my legs, but I decided to see how quick I could walk. So I was very pleased with my 43.24. Afterwards, Dave, Dermot and I headed to the main drag for takeaway coffee and to enjoy as we wandered along the foreshore path in the opposite direction before stopping for brekkie at Pier Street. Incidentally, the same venue we enjoyed dinner at. Now, of course, we were in town for the Bellarine Sunset Run in which you and Craig Ryan ran the 21 and myself, Dave Dermott, Belinda Kelly and Sarah Jantscher ran the 10K. It was great to be back at the event, which was my fourth occasion, but my first time running the 10K distance. Now, we didn't attract the interest from the adventurer community that we'd hoped, although we did have three Queenslanders make the trip down. But what's with that? What's with that, TOC? I keep hearing people want a palm in Victoria, but my little experiment tells me there's no interest. So I guess we'll just keep finding other places outside of the greater state.

00:05:43Tony O'Connell: Mel, I think if we would run palm in Victoria at this stage, based on the numbers from our experiment on the weekend, we could hold it in a phone booth. It was that few people.

00:05:52Melissa Ellis: And everyone could just stay at my place.

00:05:56Tony O'Connell: Ellis Palace Palm.

00:05:57Melissa Ellis: Yeah, Alice Palace Palm. And we'll go to Toolern Creek.

00:06:01Tony O'Connell: It's almost going back to the COVID days with Ellis Palace parkrun.

00:06:04Melissa Ellis: I could do afternoon tea. We can have cucumber sandwiches. We can zoom Pippa. Oh dear. Yeah. So anyway, how did you find, how was your run at the sunset?

00:06:17Tony O'Connell: I really enjoyed my run. I saw a couple of other parkrunners out on the course. So Joanna McCarthy and Jeff Witham were out there having a run on the course doing the half marathon as well. So I actually caught up with Jeff and walked up part of a hill with him and Had a quick little chat before we shuffled on. I really enjoy the run. I've done that one before, and it's one that I'd happily go back and do. I like running through the caravan parks. Last time, there were more people offering me stubbies than there were this time. Yeah.

00:06:49Vicky Smith: Disappointing.

00:06:50Tony O'Connell: There were people with barbecues and there were people offering you sausages and things, which is not probably considered traditional half marathon food. But, yeah, look, it's a really great little vibe event, good community event, and I really enjoy it. You go out and back. on the foreshore the whole way and so you run through a couple of caravan parks and as you said earlier it is a little bit undulating it's not hilly it's just up and down uh quite a bit of it a short section on the beach itself so

00:07:23Melissa Ellis: I really enjoyed it and we didn't have the heat that we've had in past years because February down here can get quite warm but our recent heat wave had subsided so we had quite good running conditions and the people in the caravan park I ran through two hoses

00:07:41Tony O'Connell: Yep, yep, there were a couple of people with hoses out. There were plenty of people out. I don't know if you noticed, Mel, but there were a few picnic benches out with lollies and chips and stuff on them that you could grab as you went past. So there was a couple of aid stations, but there was a couple of other little portable aid stations for people along the way. And a lot of people just giving a bit of a cheer and that. You do have those moments when you're running along where everyone's like, go TOC, go TOC. How the hell do these people know my name? And then you realise it's printed on a bib that's...

00:08:11Melissa Ellis: pretty prominent on the front of you so they're just reading the bib yes how was your race photos I I've got a good one I haven't purchased it yet but I managed to zoom you, TOC

00:08:23Tony O'Connell: Okay, now I didn't actually really see the photographers, so I didn't go out and do my usual show pony stuff, but a couple of good little photos in amongst it. I enjoyed the run. I didn't push. You behaved. Just recovering through. I did what my physio told me to do, and I stuck to the plan, and it all worked really well and pulled up really well, so I'm actually really happy, Mel. I thought... My first go over 21 for a month or so, I thought, I'll just see how it goes. The physio said, take it easy. I did, and it worked.

00:09:00Melissa Ellis: I've got to say I actually got one of the massages afterwards in the massage tent. And, look, this is a benefit, I think, from actually doing the 10K is most of the half marathoners hadn't finished, so there was no queue at the massage tables. And I got a really – well, actually, it was a really painful calf massage. But I tell you what, I've been suffering for some – I don't know what you'd call it – some bad foot pain. I don't usually – have much issues with running but I've been suffering but since I had that massage oh my goodness my feet have been great so thank you to those lovely massage ladies

00:09:42Tony O'Connell: And Mel, for you it would have almost felt like the morning again, wouldn't it? The course actually takes in the whole of the Portarlington parkrun course. It does. So you pretty well went out and back, out and back and did a double up.

00:09:54Melissa Ellis: That is exactly right. We pretty much start the event close to the parkrun start line and it runs along the same trail. So, yep, I've done my Portarlington deed for the year. All good.

00:10:09Tony O'Connell: Well, moving on from there, we actually got a fair bit of feedback last week, which was great. We love listeners to write in and let us know what they're thinking and what they're feeling about different things that came up last week in the show. So why don't you kick off with some of our feedback?

00:10:25Melissa Ellis: Yes. So this was mostly in response to my... idea of having a musical club and so firstly vel Warwick suggested Harmony Boulevard parkrun has to be part of an Aussie band challenge and that was clever I hadn't considered that one yep Alison King commented in, said Drumchapel parkrun was my first thought for an instrument based challenge and Tracy Leiper said could the instrument club be called the orchestra challenge

00:10:59Tony O'Connell: Sunil Chamund commented in and he said, parkrunners everywhere are waiting patiently for the arrival of the Xylophone parkrun.

00:11:08Melissa Ellis: If only, if only. And we also had Ali Sheppard and Ali said, for the musical challenge in the UK, We've got Drumpellier Country, as well as Drumchapel, as Alison mentioned. And could you include Tooting Common? For the Grape Escape Club, the UK can offer Squerryes Winery parkrun and also Mole Valley, which is set on the Denbies Wine Estate. And talking of moles, has anyone come up with an animal farm club? Lots of contenders in the UK, including Catford, Catton, Beeston, Bug Hunter Waters, Frogmary Green Farm, Harleston Magpies. Oh, I like that one. I can put the Collingwood theme song in there. Swansea Bay, Mallard's Pike, phoenix if we accept mythical creatures the fisherman's walk Old Deer Park and of course Mole Valley parkrun could even include barking parkrun too so um I like that Ali's got on board with lots of ideas there, TOC

00:12:11Tony O'Connell: Yeah, lots of things. And there's one there, the Bug Hunter Waters. I've seen that. I've heard it talked about. And it's what I just love the name. There's a few different parkruns globally that I see that I really love the name of. Yowie in Queensland, I really want to do. Piggly Wiggly in South Africa. And now in my challenge on the animals one, that Bug Hunter Waters has got to be one name. Don't know about the Halston Magpies one, though. That's, yeah.

00:12:40Melissa Ellis: But seeing as you just mentioned Yowie, Yowie is a mythical creature. That could go into a mythical creature challenge with Phoenix.

00:12:50Tony O'Connell: And I guess if we have a look, Mel, we could think of some Australian animals, though there mightn't be one. Yeah, we have our Wallaby track. We've got Kangaroo Island. So we've got a few of the different ones out there ourselves.

00:13:03Melissa Ellis: We do. I'm getting carried away with mythical creatures, though. Pegasus. And this is a club that's international. We're bringing the communities together.

00:13:14Tony O'Connell: There's three for the club.

00:13:17Melissa Ellis: Oh, I'm on a roll. Anyway.

00:13:20Tony O'Connell: If anyone's got any ideas out there about mythical creatures, send them to us.

00:13:25Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

Budgie update

00:13:26Melissa Ellis: Now, speaking of mythical creatures, Budgie.

00:13:30Unidentified speaker: Budgie.

00:13:31Melissa Ellis: that's a stretch but never mind anyway we've got a budgie update I did see a photo cross my desk and it was from Gareth Arnold evidencing that budgie attended another parkrun but he did come into Dazza's and he said hiya dazzler popped in for a flying visit to Oakwell Hall parkrun where it was far too cold for any actual fly on the muddy trails and slopes No time for Park Faf as I had to get Mrs A to the airport for a flight back to WA. And there was a pic of Gareth with the pop-up and Budgie's pencil case. So I'm assuming Budgie was there inside his pencil case leaning up against the selfie frame. So evidence that Budgie is actually over there in the UK. I wonder where Budgie's going to head next.

00:14:21Tony O'Connell: Stay tuned. Stay tuned. We'll find out more. We also had our weekly update from our friend across the ditch from Alison. And this week in New Zealand, there were 57 parkruns took part. They had 12,151 parkrunners, which was actually about 500 or 600 down on last week's country record, but still impressive numbers nonetheless. There were 950 volunteers across New Zealand, plus any pending results. Five events this week set attendance records. And the five events were Barry Curtis, Dunedin, Lower Hutt, Palmerston North and the Fung.

00:15:02Melissa Ellis: The Fung.

00:15:04Tony O'Connell: The Fung got an attendance record. And, of course, there were three events that celebrated anniversaries. And off the top of my head, I know that Invercargill was one of those because I've been following their page in anticipation for going there prior to Palm.

00:15:18Melissa Ellis: Nice. Now, back home in Australia, we had 17 attendance records this week. Six of the records have only stood for a week. Drage Reserve in Adelaide went from 85 in week one to 363 in week two. Cat is out of the bag. Now, Rockingham on the West Side broke their record, which stood for 360 weeks since 2018. And they broke that by 10 finishes. Rouse Hill jumped by 113 finishes. Down in Tassie, Launceston jumped by 31. Now, hang on a minute. They hold the record. So that's a state record.

00:15:57Tony O'Connell: That is a state record. It's a record of a record.

00:16:00Melissa Ellis: And the ACT, Umbagong went up by a solitary one finisher. And also of note, roving reporter David Messenger joined the Peel Club. And interestingly, David popped into Dazza's, Tony, and he said... fantastic day my 200th different parkrun and finally joined the Peel Club by ticking off Tasmania and paced my lady to a 35 second PB and her first time sub 34 minutes also my first time running without the sling for the broken collarbone and there was a photo of David and his lady there with the selfie frame at queen's domain I believe he was at tock

00:16:45Tony O'Connell: I believe he was, Mel. It's interesting when you look at the stats. Growth still seems to be occurring across Australia as far as numbers-wise. I don't think we broke any attendance on a country basis this week, but normally we get that New Year's Eve resolution and we get our resolution runners for the first few weeks in January, right through to when school goes back. But traditionally, I think February for Australia, we probably see the numbers start to ease off a little bit. Whereas this year, we're actually setting attendance records, I believe. We had 22 last week. We've got 17 events this week. So there's a lot of big numbers still out there. And we're into the second week of February. So it's actually all going pretty well for some good numbers continuing through the winter.

00:17:31Melissa Ellis: Excellent. We'll keep our eye on it.

00:17:35[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:17:35Melissa Ellis: Something else we're keeping our eye on, though, is our roving reporters. And we've got three for you now. So let's have a listen to those.

00:17:46Alice: Thank you.

Roving report Ruth Perkins — St Albans parkrun

00:17:50Ruth Perkins: Hello parkrun adventurers, this is Ruth Perkins and today I am coming to you from a very sunny St Albans parkrun which is in Hertfordshire in the south of England and I'm very lucky to have with me two of the Run Directors and two of the co-EDs, so lucky me. So to my side here I have, hi I'm Emily and you're one of the Run Directors here, yep and

00:18:20Rob: And I'm Rob and I'm another Run Director.

00:18:22Ruth Perkins: Brilliant. And you've been our Run Director for today. How would you say it went today?

00:18:27Rob: It was a lovely day actually. We've had some pretty rubbish weather recently and it was very sunny and everybody seemed to have a smile on their face and it was very calm.

00:18:37Ruth Perkins: And I've also got with me the two co-EDs who are... Hi, I'm Cathy.

00:18:43Peter: And I'm Peter.

00:18:44Ruth Perkins: Brilliant. And as I understand it, this is your first ever week of being the EDs here as well. Yeah. So are you looking forward to this?

00:18:53Cathy: It was a bit of an unexpected challenge. We've had two very reliable Event Directors for many years now, and they've decided to step down. And Peter and I were the only mugs who went, yeah, go on, we'll have a go. Because actually they've been amazing and they're a really tough act to follow. So it's quite intimidating sort of stepping into that role and realising what there is to do. So it's just getting their heads around the job. But Peter and I have both been Run Directors for quite a few years. Peter was a volunteer at the very first event.

00:19:18Peter: The very first parkrun.

00:19:19Cathy: The very first in Torben's parkrun. So we know what we're doing at least.

00:19:23Ruth Perkins: We know how it should be done. Brilliant. So how long ago was the first parkrun here?

00:19:28Peter: It was in January 2012. I did my first RD probably about six weeks after that.

00:19:35Ruth Perkins: Wow, that deserves a round of applause. You got stuck in. So have you run the course much yourself or have you been more on the volunteering side?

00:19:45Peter: I've run the course about 100 times and volunteered only about 130. I only do half a dozen volunteers a year, but now I'm at ED, I think I'll be here a little bit more often than that.

00:19:49[crosstalk]

00:19:59Ruth Perkins: Yeah, it's good if you've got quite a few RDs who can chip in and volunteer so you don't feel like you have to do it every week. Is that the way it works here?

00:20:06Rob: We're really lucky because we've got a team of about 15 currently. We've just signed a few more up and everybody just seems very willing. It doesn't come around too often so we can all get a good number of runs in each year as well. So we definitely spread the load.

00:20:21Ruth Perkins: Lovely. All the reviews I read of St Albans parkrun were that it was very friendly and I've definitely seen that. What other things do you think people need to know about this parkrun? What makes it unique or what makes it something that people should travel for?

00:20:34Rob: Well, I think if you come in the winter, you have to be ready for muddy hills. And there was, a couple of weeks ago, we ran an event when everybody else was cancelling and it was a horizontal rain and people sliding all over the place. And the amazing thing was... We were expecting a small number, but everybody flocked here because we were one of the few places that were open. And the smiles on people's faces as they were finishing, they had just had the best time properly cross-country. So, yes, be ready for hills. And, you know, they're lovely in the summer and they're amusing and slightly scary in the winter.

00:21:13Ruth Perkins: Yes, I really enjoyed the undulations of your parkrun and the mud was fun kind of mud.

00:21:20Rob: I think people are quite realistic about the fact that they're not going to get a personal best time on a course like that. And they're very generous towards each other. And it's great. And from our golf course, the opposite of the ex-Mothball golf course where we run up and down these hills, you get a fantastic view of the Abbey, the Cathedral and St Albans. So it's just such a lovely course to be on.

00:21:41Peter: When we first started here at St Albans we weren't running around the golf course. We used to run around the lake three times but with the amount of the increase in rain over recent years that's been flooding quite a bit and the path is really worn away. There was one time when we were still doing that course where the runners were running through about six inches of water but it got to the point where the risk was just too great. And so we moved to the old golf course. St Albans used to be known as a really flat, fast course. It's now gone to be the opposite. And as Peter said, I think one of the highlights that really stands out is the fantastic view of the cathedral, St Albans Abbey Cathedral. Bits of it dating back to the fourth century. So it's a real fantastic monument. And a great view.

00:22:34Ruth Perkins: Yeah, really great view. And there's so much history here, isn't there? I think you were explaining that we're on the Roman part of St. Albans here. And in fact, there's quite like a highlight near the finish and the start, actually. There's something to go and explore right there.

00:22:54Rob: That's it. If you turn and look up the hill from where we start, there's a strange white building which is a shelter for an old Roman hypocaust. So this is the underfloor heating system and a beautiful mosaic on top of it. So you can go and have a peer in the window and have a look at that. If you're lucky, it's open as well during the day and you can go and go and wander around and have a look at that. And there's a nice Roman museum as well. But yes, the whole park is built on top of the remains of the Roman city of Verulamium.

00:23:22Ruth Perkins: My husband's quite a keen historian. He was telling me that there were two of the War of the Roses battles here. Can anyone speak to that?

00:23:30Cathy: A little bit, wasn't it? It was the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, so the White and the Red Roses. So I think that started with Edward IV and then Henry V and the two princes in the Tower. It's all that kind of medieval period. But we're a day's ride from the centre of London, so that's an obvious meeting place. We're on the Roman road of Watling Street. That would have been established by then. So yeah, we were kind of like the thing where everything happened just outside of London.

00:23:58Peter: That's one of the highlights of St Albans in my opinion. It's one day's coach ride by horse from central London. So at one time I think we had 78 pubs within a mile of the clock tower. It's down to about 35 now, but it's still most dense pub populations in the country.

00:24:17Ruth Perkins: So the other thing parkrun adventures are quite keen on is a bit of tourism. So have any of you done a bit of tourism? Have you got any favourite parkruns other than St Albans? Is there one that you've been to that made you go, oh, this is wonderful?

00:24:30Emily: Yeah, a couple come to mind. One is we were down on the south coast, was it Seaford? And that was great because it was a hot, hot day and it's very flat. And then right at the end, we just ran into the sea. That was a really good one. And another one that really made me laugh was in Ambleside in the Lake District. And we went there on a very, very rainy day. And at the beginning, instead of saying, are there any tourists here? The Run Director said, are there any locals? And they got a round of applause.

00:25:00Ruth Perkins: So I thought that was quite cool.

00:25:02Emily: Next week, I'm in Middlesbrough. And the following week, I'm in Newcastle. So I'm looking forward to those. Oh, a bit of maybe South Shields parkrun.

00:25:10Cathy: I think it's going to be St. James Park, that one. So Jersey and the Channel Islands, that was lovely. Partly because it was a gorgeous sunny day and we went in the sea afterwards. Tamar Lakes, half in Devon, half in Cornwall. That's quite cool. It's around the reservoir. And then Holkham, I think, up in Norfolk. Because we go there every year on holiday. And it's a great view. It's a tough park one. It's up the hill in the park. But yeah, obviously a good cafe afterwards is one of the things you really look for with every park one, isn't it? And it's definitely got that.

00:25:41Rob: And I've remembered the name of my favourite parkrun, it was Bedgebury Pinetum.

00:25:47Peter: The parkrun I've done a second number of times would be Penrose down in Cornwall. My sister lives down there so whenever I'm down to visit. And we're gradually working our way sort of east from Land's End for the Cornwall ones. But I've also done two in New Zealand. I was there for the 2017 Lions. So I did Cornwall Park and Western Springs.

00:26:13[crosstalk]

00:26:14Ruth Perkins: Ah, I've done Western Springs.

00:26:16Peter: Both of which are in where we were staying.

00:26:20Ruth Perkins: Ah, so did you, here's the question, when you did Western Springs, did you see an elephant?

00:26:26Peter: Not that I can recall.

00:26:28Ruth Perkins: My husband saw the elephant, but I did not see the elephant, unfortunately. But that is a pretty amazing parkrun as well. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so, so much for all your volunteering, for everything you do to make this parkrun a wonderful thing. I've really enjoyed it today and I've seen so many smiles around me. So thank you so much.

00:26:46Peter: It's a real pleasure.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Emerald Lake parkrun

00:26:49Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell and today I have adventured a long way from home. I am on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, down in your neck of the woods, TOC, at Emerald Lake parkrun. What a delight it has been here today, particularly to meet Vicky. Vicky, tell me, the reason I'm interviewing you is because you were... called out at the briefing as having a 70th birthday. How brilliant.

00:27:20Vicky Smith: Yes, I'm having a 70th, but it's tomorrow, not today. So I can still say I'm 69. Yes. But there was 14 family members, myself included, so 14 family members here today to help celebrate.

00:27:35Lyndell Murray: Excellent. And what better way to celebrate any kind of birthday but a 70th birthday, particularly at parkrun, is a celebration of choice. Yes.

00:27:44Unidentified speaker: Yes.

00:27:45Vicky Smith: Yep, we came here today because it brings us back to being statesmen in Victoria again.

00:27:52Lyndell Murray: That is amazing. Brilliant. So, 70 years old, statesman. You've roped in all of your family, I understand, from all over broader Melbourne to come here and celebrate.

00:28:05Vicky Smith: We've got them from Wyndham Vale and Werribee, Werribee-Wyndham Vale parkrun and down from Echuca. So there's, yeah, there's 14 of us all together.

00:28:14Lyndell Murray: And they're all adventurers?

00:28:16Vicky Smith: I'm not sure about the Echuca mob, but it won't take long to change them over.

00:28:21Lyndell Murray: All right, so we might be celebrating a frond as well. Definitely, at least eight of us anyway. Brilliant. Now, you are in a bit of an adventure, I understand. You've got your statesmanship. Have you been to any other places around Australia or the world?

00:28:36Vicky Smith: We've been to every state and territory in Australia, volunteered at each and every one of the states, and next week we're heading back to South Australia to do Torrens and Jubilee Way, and also we're going to help out at the Junior parkruns while we're there.

00:28:52Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. Wonderful, wonderful. Now, you know, if you listen to the podcast, you will know what I'm about to ask you. Do you have a top three parkruns that you would like to give a bit of a shout out on the podcast? Now, the top three might be that it was a lovely course. It might be that you had met a friend there or met family there or just had a wonderful time. What are your top three for us, Vicky?

00:29:14Vicky Smith: Well, this would have to be a top one because we're here celebrating with the family. So Emerald is beautiful. Bit hilly. Yeah. Then the other one that I always hated was Wilson Botanic, but now it's gone to the top of the list. Not as bad. And I think the best one is the home one, which is Wyndham Vale. We've got a lot of friendly volunteers. Everywhere we go, the volunteers are very friendly, very helpful, and they make it a lot easier to do the parkrun.

00:29:45Lyndell Murray: And you volunteer quite a bit as well. What's your favourite volunteer role?

00:29:49Vicky Smith: Usually Tail Walker. But when I'm at home, I'll get in and do Timekeeper or Barcode Scanner. And then when we do the junior parkruns, we're always marshals there. We love going there and watching the kids have fun.

00:30:06Lyndell Murray: Alright, so parkrun's a big part of your life. What do you like best about parkrun? What's the best thing? Meeting a lot of different people.

00:30:13Vicky Smith: And you meet them from all walks of life. You could be, well, we did one parkrun where there was a nurse and a doctor. And I thought, thank goodness they're here because if I need one, they're at hand.

00:30:31Lyndell Murray: Yep, so you meet different people, travel around. Do you travel for parkrun or do you collect them when you travel?

00:30:35[background music]

00:30:37Vicky Smith: No, our holidays are based around parkrun. If it wasn't for parkrun, we'd be staying at home. So we get out and we do parkruns and holiday at the same time.

00:30:47Lyndell Murray: So it's really good. Yeah, so parkrun has really helped you and helped... Keep you out and about and active.

00:30:54Vicky Smith: It's our way of life now. As I said, if it wasn't for parkrun, we'd be sitting at home with all the old people in the old people's home.

00:31:05Lyndell Murray: When I saw that you were celebrating your 70th, I had to come and speak to you. When I'm 70, I want to be just like you, Vicky.

00:31:13Vicky Smith: Well, I hope I can still do this when I'm John's age and he's 77. Yes.

00:31:20Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for talking to me today on the parkrun adventurers. All the best with the rest of your adventuring. Congratulations on becoming a statesman once again.

00:31:25[background music]

00:31:31Vicky Smith: Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that.

00:31:35Lyndell Murray: Enjoy the rest of your celebrations with your family.

00:31:37Vicky Smith: Yep, we will. Thank you.

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Neckarufer parkrun

00:31:40Ali Sheppard: Good day, adventurers. Ali from the UK here. But I am currently in Germany. So I should say guten tag. And I am in near a town called Esslingen, which is just south of Stuttgart. And I am here with Nigel Dawson and Noms Dawson and Markus Geiger. Hello. And we have just finished Neckarufer, which means... [German: "So I should say good day / hello."]

00:32:10Nigel Dawson: The river bank of the River Neckar.

00:32:12Ali Sheppard: Fantastic. And Nigel's at ED here. And we have had a very special day today because it is Noms' 250th. And it is also Marcus's... Volunteer 100. Is that right? And Nigel, you are not a newcomer to this podcast because you have been interviewed before for parkrun adventurers.

00:32:38[crosstalk]

00:32:38Nigel Dawson: Yeah, was it in Norway?

00:32:39Ali Sheppard: It was in Norway. And you were interviewed by the other Ali Allison.

00:32:44Nigel Dawson: Yeah, I remember. In a horse... A stadium of some sort, I remember.

00:32:49[crosstalk]

00:32:49Ali Sheppard: Was it?

00:32:50Nigel Dawson: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So it was Alison from New Zealand?

00:32:53[crosstalk]

00:32:53Ali Sheppard: Alison from New Zealand. Ah, okay. Who you also know. Yeah, of course. And where did you meet Alison from New Zealand? In Norway.

00:33:00Markus Geiger: In Norway, okay. I was there with the Viking, the Viking.

00:33:03[crosstalk]

00:33:05Ali Sheppard: The Viking, yes. Viking adventurer, yeah. So tell us about Neckarufer parkrun. How did it all come about?

00:33:11Nigel Dawson: Well, me and Noms moved here from Singapore in 2018, the end of 2018. And at that time, there was only one parkrun in the area, which was Kräherwald, which is a beautiful parkrun in the forest. And it was quite a long distance for us to travel. And the ED for that was Chris Greenaway, who was also... up to very recently the regional ambassador in Germany for parkrun. And we talked about, I said, well, it would be nice to have one in Esslingen because it's closer. You don't have to travel as far. So me and Chris set this one up. Actually, within six months of us moving from Singapore to here. So that was April 2019, I think.

00:33:22[crosstalk]

00:34:01Markus Geiger: I saw the Facebook post for bringing parkrun to Esslingen. So that was the reason I joined in. Had you heard?

00:34:07[crosstalk]

00:34:08Noms Dawson: Never escaped.

00:34:11Markus Geiger: No escape now, yeah.

00:34:12Ali Sheppard: Had you heard of parkrun before?

00:34:13Markus Geiger: Yes, of course, because my wife Manu, a friend of her, they work in Stuttgart. So Carmen did the parkrun at Kräherwald and Manu did the first parkrun at Kräherwald and her second one in Australia in Atherton, Queensland. Ah!

00:34:20[crosstalk]

00:34:32Ali Sheppard: What was it called?

00:34:33Markus Geiger: Atherton.

00:34:34Ali Sheppard: Etherton, okay. In Queensland. Okay, okay.

00:34:35[crosstalk]

00:34:36Markus Geiger: So the second parkrun of mine was in Australia.

00:34:40Ali Sheppard: Yeah, and you've done parkrun in Australia? No. No, you haven't? No, we've never done it.

00:34:43[crosstalk]

00:34:45Nigel Dawson: Even though we lived in Singapore and we've been to Australia, the stars just were never aligned. I mean, we were on the core team in Singapore for West Coast parkrun, of course.

00:34:55Noms Dawson: West Coast, yeah. We've been to Japan and America and lots of European, but not Australia yet.

00:35:01Markus Geiger: 20 plus. Me too.

00:35:02Noms Dawson: Yeah, so Manu wins.

00:35:03[crosstalk]

00:35:04Markus Geiger: I still miss. So Manu is the only one who did the parkrun in Australia. She wins in Australia. Okay. The second one.

00:35:10Ali Sheppard: Okay. So Neckarufer parkrun, I mean, did you have much resistance from the council or whatever?

00:35:16Nigel Dawson: No, I don't think we had an awful lot of resistance.

00:35:18Noms Dawson: Luckily for us, the Burgermeister, the mayor of Esslingen, at the time was a runner. Okay, okay. So he was very supportive. Yeah, he was very supportive. He came to the inaugural. He was very supportive.

00:35:26[crosstalk]

00:35:31Nigel Dawson: And we've never really had a problem. To be honest, when we're on an alternative course because of some building work at the moment, That which people seem to like. Yeah. But changing it with the city has never really been a challenge. We seem to do okay.

00:35:36[crosstalk]

00:35:45Noms Dawson: It's quiet at 9am on a Saturday morning in Germany, so they don't mind us speaking.

00:35:49Nigel Dawson: Yeah, nobody does anything until a little bit later.

00:35:52[crosstalk]

00:35:52Noms Dawson: And it's beautiful along the river.

00:35:53Ali Sheppard: It's beautiful. It's like an out and a back along the river. And we have a beer garden. And we're having a park faff at the moment in a beer garden.

00:36:02Nigel Dawson: Although we're inside because it's too cold outside. Yeah.

00:36:02[crosstalk]

00:36:05Noms Dawson: And a medieval Christmas market. There are many reasons. What we're saying is you need to come and visit us all at Neckar Ufer.

00:36:13Ali Sheppard: Come to Neckar Ufer.

00:36:14Nigel Dawson: Our city has the oldest half-timbered street in Germany. Wow. The oldest half-timbered house in Germany. And it does a very good guided tour. The second oldest stone bridge in Germany. Don't forget Kessler. And it has Kessler, the famous Kessler.

00:36:22[crosstalk]

00:36:27[crosstalk]

00:36:31Ali Sheppard: Sparkling wine. Sparkling wine.

00:36:32Noms Dawson: Just to explain.

00:36:34Nigel Dawson: The oldest one in Germany. The oldest one in Germany.

00:36:36Noms Dawson: They drank it, Nigel. They drank it on the Hindenburg.

00:36:38Nigel Dawson: They drank it on the Hindenburg. That's why it crashed, probably.

00:36:39[crosstalk]

00:36:43Noms Dawson: Do they drink it in Parliament?

00:36:45Nigel Dawson: They drink it in the favourite tipple. It was the favourite tipple of Queen Elizabeth II.

00:36:50[crosstalk]

00:36:50Ali Sheppard: Amazing.

00:36:51Nigel Dawson: And JFK. Yeah. And many other people.

00:36:54Ali Sheppard: So, guys, if you come to Neckarufer, you should find Nigel and see if you can persuade him to give you a tour of medieval.

00:37:00[crosstalk]

00:37:01Noms Dawson: There's no persuading needed. He's always happy to.

00:37:04Ali Sheppard: Of medieval Esslingen, which is wonderful. So, Nigel is known for being a bit of a connoisseur of dressing up. What is your top three parkrun fancy dress outfits that you've worn?

00:37:20Nigel Dawson: Oh, that's a good one.

00:37:23[crosstalk]

00:37:23Vicky Smith: Very quickly, I always remember...

00:37:26Nigel Dawson: The koala was really cool. My inflatable koala one for the juniors. I also 3D printed a... And I think you were there, Ali. Yeah. A... an Italian Centurion's outfit, a Roman Centurion's outfit for the Milano Nord. And what I liked about that was the ED pointing out to me that I was in Milan and they hate the Romans, which I thought that was really funny.

00:37:40[crosstalk]

00:37:50[crosstalk]

00:37:52Ali Sheppard: But then they were all queuing up trying to get their photo with you.

00:37:55Nigel Dawson: They were. My Fluffy the Destroyer outfit.

00:37:59Ali Sheppard: Viking outfit.

00:38:01Nigel Dawson: The Viking outfits that we did for Norway and for Sweden. Yeah, that was very good. That was pretty good.

00:38:04[crosstalk]

00:38:09Ali Sheppard: That was very good. So the celebrations today, 250. Yay! Yay! It's taken a long time to get here. Because a lot of the time you're doing your Run Director here at Neckarufer. I like marshalling. You like marshalling. So thank you very much for all you do for parkrun, which is brilliant. So what about you? What's your...

00:38:20[crosstalk]

00:38:30Noms Dawson: top three favourite parkruns well I think what sticks with me is a wonderful parkrun that I love doing was in copenhagen I don't know how you pronounce it whatever it's called yeah just it was a mixture of things on the day we had beautiful weather yeah we were running along the sea which is gorgeous I got a PB. Yep. All good. All good. And then even afterwards, we went to a little supermarket and we got a picnic and so many people sat and had a picnic. Yeah. We did a quiz. We did a quiz. Some people went for a swim in the sea. Some people played middle. I went for a swim in the sea. Me too. Yeah. It was good fun. It was so much more. What part run often is for many people, it was just so much more than just a 5K run. That is a great weekend with lovely people.

00:38:38[crosstalk]

00:39:00[crosstalk]

00:39:14[crosstalk]

00:39:15Ali Sheppard: Yeah. Wonderful. It was a real friendship.

00:39:18Nigel Dawson: It's really strange we're doing this and we were all there.

00:39:20Ali Sheppard: We were all there.

00:39:21Nigel Dawson: It sounds like we're always together and we're not.

00:39:24Ali Sheppard: So I should also explain to the Australians that I met these good people virtually in the pandemic. So when the pandemic happened in the UK, we were all shut down in lockdown. And across the world, they stopped all the parkruns. And Nigel and Nom started up a quiz called the Quarantine Quiz. And it was every Sunday night.

00:39:46Noms Dawson: Well, it was initially every Saturday at parkrun time. Right. Because we wanted to fill in that time when we would normally be together. Yeah. And then after the pandemic went on for quite a long time, we did then move it to being Sunday evening so people could still make the best they could of there. We were trying to enjoy the weekends. And yeah, so it was Sunday evenings.

00:40:08Ali Sheppard: And the idea was to try and keep your community together here at Neckarufer.

00:40:12[crosstalk]

00:40:12Noms Dawson: We're quite a small community and we just didn't want to... Yeah, to lose. Well, yeah, and some people were alone and couldn't go out or couldn't see people. Exactly. And once a week you had a little... A little get-together. A little crazy get-together. Yes, Nigel also wore a lot of costumes for this house.

00:40:27Ali Sheppard: He wore a lot of costumes, changed costumes between rounds, and we started joining in from the UK, and it was fantastic. And so then after... parkrun started back up again we decided we were going to come and actually meet in person and the first one after you decided to come here to Neckarufer and I was going to come and I got COVID and I couldn't come but that's a story for another time but that's how we know each other and we've met up and so I'm really thrilled I can be here today for your 250th parkrun and Marcus so you've also been all around the world so what are your top three

00:41:04Markus Geiger: So, Amager is one of the favourite. Running along water, river, lake is favourite of me or us. So, for example, Great Lake in nearby Toronto, beach strip.

00:41:05[crosstalk]

00:41:21Ali Sheppard: Yes.

00:41:21[crosstalk]

00:41:21Markus Geiger: You've been to? I've been to, yes. Not with me.

00:41:27Ali Sheppard: In Canada, yes.

00:41:29Markus Geiger: One of the favourites and of course Mura di Lucca is really special.

00:41:33[crosstalk]

00:41:34Ali Sheppard: Mura de Luca, yeah. We really want to go there to Mura de Luca.

00:41:38Markus Geiger: That course on the wall and the old town is really beautiful.

00:41:41[crosstalk]

00:41:46Ali Sheppard: But I think the whole thing, and as you said, that's what parkrun is about. For me, I'm able to go to see these amazing places, but I'm also able to meet friends. I've made amazing friends through this, like you guys. And I'm really grateful for it. It's just such an amazing community.

00:42:03Markus Geiger: So thank you for coming.

00:42:04[crosstalk]

00:42:05[background music]

00:42:05Ali Sheppard: Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you for all you do for parkrun. And that's a wrap.

00:42:20Tony O'Connell: And Mel, back from our roving reporters, we had amazing three reports come in from all around the world. We heard from Ruth at St Albans where they have 15 Run Directors. And that, for most teams, is just mind-blowing. Imagine only having to do it every almost four months. You basically have to do a run direct. Great effort by the team over there. We heard from... the legendary Lyndell at Emerald, where there was a party with Vicki Smith and her 70th birthday.

00:42:50Melissa Ellis: We heard a bit about that last week.

00:42:52Tony O'Connell: And we also heard from Ali Sheppard coming to us from Neckarufer in Germany, and she was talking about the facts around the birth of a parkrunner in one country, and it came from a grounding and people, expats, moving from another country. And I find that sort of thing, those little parkrun seeds being spread everywhere, really interesting. So it's just good connections around the world. And it's quite often talked about, how did you hear about parkrun? Well, it's interesting to hear it's jumping country borders.

Dazza's

00:43:23Tony O'Connell: And we also heard this week from Dazza. This week, Dazza said, it's storytelling week, a time to celebrate coming together and telling a story. It's the highlight of Dazza's week, having different people come and share the highlights of their Saturday morning. And this week is certainly no different. Come on in, find an empty spot and share a yarn about your parkrun day.

00:43:45Melissa Ellis: I'm just going to go off script for a minute because our Equal Opportunity employee had a story to tell himself this week. So I just wanted to say congratulations to Dave because he graduated from university.

00:44:00Tony O'Connell: Yeah, we saw him all gowned up in a social media post. So well done, Dave.

00:44:05Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so it's a lot more respectable costume than we saw recently, wasn't it, Douglas?

00:44:14Tony O'Connell: Ah, I don't know. You don't know what he had on under that gown.

00:44:17Melissa Ellis: What was under the cape? What was under the gown? We'll never know. Anyway, moving on, moving swiftly on. First in the door this week at Dazza's was Monty Slade coming to us from the UK. And he said, it's not parkrun related, but 34 years in the making to join the 100 Club. So that's definitely a story. And he gave us the thumbs up emoji. And... Then it says 100 Marathon Club with a blue emoji and a yellow emoji. I don't know what's with the colours. Anyway, and the photo showed a race bib for Enigma Quadzilla 100. Four marathons in four days. So I'm assuming Monty did the four marathons because there was definitely three medals in the photo. And somebody on behalf of the parkrun adventurers commented and had done the maths, which I have confirmed, 100 marathons equates to 844 parkruns. So there's our link.

00:45:22Tony O'Connell: There's our link. And it's still a very impressive achievement. So well done, Monty. Moving back to New South Wales and we heard from Bernadette Bennett. Bernadette said the Bennetts have decided to venture to South Australia and stopped off on the way at Broken Hill Racecourse parkrun where we were treated to an overnight downpour after a 40 to 42 degree day. There were no street drains so the roads were flooded and a dry cooler morning was only 23 degrees and 50 percent humidity in the morning. And the photo was a selfie of Bernadette and co in the selfie frame.

00:46:01Melissa Ellis: Now, we also heard from Andy Poole coming to us from Ireland. We completed our international alphabet at Templemore parkrun in Ireland. A to Z outside of the UK. And there was a pic of Andy and friend with the Irish flag by the pop-up.

00:46:17Tony O'Connell: Coming back to New South Wales again. I seem to be coming back to New South Wales a bit today, Mel. We've got Catherine Pirotta. Volunteering as Barcode Scanner at Rouse Hill parkrun to give Run Walk a break just for today under the Run Director of Yelsha Ragoon. What a fantastic day, and also this is the third week in a row that Rudy Hill parkrun has broken the attendance records of last week by an extra four parkrunners. They turned up today, there was a total of 391, last Saturday it was 387. And the photo was of Catherine with the ED.

00:46:54Melissa Ellis: Up to Queensland now and Sheridan Davis. Dad and I flew up to Mackay from Brisbane for Seaview parkrun. Lovely flat course on wide pathways with plenty of room for everyone. Lots of water still laying around from the recent weather events. Volunteered as Tail Walker today as well. And there was a photo of Sheridan and co in the selfie frame.

00:47:16Tony O'Connell: Okay, I'm going to have a break from New South Wales and I'm going to jump across to Western Australia. And we heard from Chris Gore. Hi, Dazza. Have we got a story for you? Last year, Karen and I achieved W Statesman status after a run at Esperance Foreshore. Then we had a couple of new ones start up. Galup Reserve started up just before we're heading over to the Eastern States on a summer parkrun holiday. So we made that our first one to do when we arrived back in WA. Yay, Statesman again. But then the next week, Sir James Mitchell parkrun started up and we lost our statesman status after only a week. Well, today we rectified that by taking part in their event number four. It was a warm day as we set off. The course is a mixture of grass and concrete path with lovely views of Perth City across the Swan River. They had plenty of friendly marshals to keep you on the right path. There were no flies, and there was certainly lots of fly emojis in there, on us as we regained our statesman status again. But there are rumours of another starting soon, a few hours east of Perth in the Wheatbelt. Oh, well, looks like there may be another weekend holiday in the next couple of months. Maybe as it gets a little bit cooler. And there was a photo of Chris and Karen in the selfie frame by the water. And they had the Perth skyline in the background and highlighted by the Swan River. So, yeah.

00:48:43Melissa Ellis: And good on them for waiting for event four. Now, we heard from Andy Airey in Poland, and he said, a flying visit to Cieszyn in Poland to complete my international alphabet. That is where you do all 25 parkrun letters outside of your home country. There was a screenshot of the international alphabet here.

00:49:05Tony O'Connell: And moving from Poland across to Germany, so not that far away, and we heard from Ali Sheppard. Hey Dazza, wavy emoji, it's nearly time for me to fly, as an emoji, back to the UK after a flying trip to Germany so that I could help my friend Noms Dawson celebrate her 250th parkrun at Neckarufer parkrun, Esslingen. Lots of fun and cake to be had. And I was volunteering as an almost unpronounceable schlossbegelting. And in brackets, we've got Tail Walker. And I have butchered that, Mel, but maybe we need to get Sarah Jantscher back on the phone.

00:49:48Noms Dawson: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:49:50Tony O'Connell: And the photo that was used in the Consolidated Club report was Ali and a friend with the pop-up. And I have totally butchered that one. Apologies to all the German people that are listening.

00:49:59Melissa Ellis: Well, I don't suppose we're used to trying to say the word Tail Walker in German. Anyway. All right. Next in the door was Nana Vicky Smith, and she said, Hi, Dazza. We park walked at Torrens parkrun. What a crowd of 340-odd runners, walkers, and pram pushers. Some good views as well. And there was a photo of Nana and Pa at Torrens. They also went to Juniors. Thank you for supporting Juniors, and it's time to come home to Eynesbury.

00:50:28Tony O'Connell: And then we heard from Nick Graney and Nick was in Victoria, the greater state. Decided to fly down to Melbourne to tick off another event. Great location at Warringal parkruns. Very well run event with almost 400 people taking part. Would recommend. Almost time to head back to the airport though. Time flies when you're having fun. And there's a plane emoji and a fly emoji. And the photo was Nick with the selfie frame.

00:50:53Melissa Ellis: And last but not least, our friend Johan coming to us from Sudafrik. Levi and I went to Inibos parkrun in South Africa for a special, albeit arbitrary, milestone of my V300 and V-Index SUVs, increased to 17 also checking in with the team and a photo op with the ed the ea the ra the rd and the dog and there was a group photo showing all those people that were mentioned and oh my goodness v index of 17 what that is huge for a v index I did not know anyone with anything even approaching that now he's pretty special our Johan he is

the Obi Award — Chris Gore

00:51:34Melissa Ellis: But, Tony, it is time for an Obilope.

00:51:38Tony O'Connell: I actually have the envelope here, Mel. I shall open it. Thank you. Mel, our winner is... Chris Gore from WA. Well done, Chris.

00:51:40[background music]

00:51:58Melissa Ellis: Hooray! Congratulations for regaining your statesmanship and being a very good adventurer.

00:52:04Tony O'Connell: And for an awesome photo with the Perth skyline in the background.

00:52:07Melissa Ellis: Oh, yes, we like that too. That helped get you over the line.

Emails

00:52:12Melissa Ellis: But guess what else we've got?

00:52:14Tony O'Connell: We've got mail. You've got mail. Lots of mail this week, Mel. It's certainly great to get a few people writing in. I love to hear these. And the first one that we have is from Calum Burrell. And it says, It features a casio, again spelt wrong, some drums, horns, six bells, including Bell Reeve and Bell's Parade, a couple of harps, three gongs, including North Wollongong and Umbagong District, and of course, Tambourine Melton, the OG spelt wrong. I'm not sure how this orchestra would sound, but it's certainly a task to get round them all. I think I've exhausted them all, but there's every chance I might have missed some instruments. All the best, Calum Burrell.

00:53:08Melissa Ellis: That's clever about the gongs. I wouldn't have thought of that.

00:53:11Tony O'Connell: Didn't think of the gongs. I talked about umbergongs earlier and didn't even think of that.

00:53:17Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and the bells. Very good, Callum. Now, we also heard from Billo and he said, happy Friday to the parkrun adventurers host team. From the does a segment in episode 411 GPS fail, you are right in saying that you must complete an event starting with the letters parkrun adventurers. Therefore, you need the following. One P, two A's, four R's, one K, two U's, two N's, one D, one V, two E's, one T and one S with no repeats of locations. Here is a screenshot of mine. And he provided the images. Regards, Billo. So thank you, Billo. And congratulations on managing that. So he must have done them in order.

00:54:00Tony O'Connell: I'm not sure if he's done them in order, Mel, or if he's just completed all the letters. And there's quite a few letters that are completed.

00:54:06Melissa Ellis: No, when he says no repeats, it means you can't. So your four R's have to be different.

00:54:11Tony O'Connell: Four different R's.

00:54:12Melissa Ellis: Yeah, rightio. I get you now.

00:54:14Tony O'Connell: That one's probably for me. The four R's are probably the biggest challenge out of that list.

00:54:19Melissa Ellis: We're a bit light on R's down here in the Great Estate.

00:54:23Tony O'Connell: We are. We need a few R's.

00:54:28Melissa Ellis: Back in the day, I had to go to Rhodes to get my pirate challenge before we got Rosebud.

00:54:34Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, we had an email come in from Lyndell the Legendary. And it says... As a serial adventurer, I don't often tend to run very often at my official home, Bunyaville. So when I started volunteering, I only did so at my home parkrun and aimed to keep my tally of runs and volunteers even at Bunyaville. They're a little bit unbalanced at the moment with 40 runs and 36 volunteers at home. Volunteering there regularly helps me stay connected to the community through meeting other Bunyaville regulars. I really only started volunteering at other events when I wanted to support friends who were celebrating milestones but didn't want to run at that event for whatever reason. Usually for some stats related reason like not breaking a streak. Then a few years ago I set myself a goal for myself to go and volunteer at each of the events that I have in my P-Index. I still have two of my 10 P-Index events to go. While I always enjoy volunteering wherever I am, I'm definitely a passionist to volunteer at heart and I've never set any tourist goals for volunteering. I also think I've lost a bit of the connection I originally had with Bunyaville by not volunteering there as much as I did earlier in my parkrun life. Signed, Lyndell the Legendary. Mel, I think that makes a really interesting point about the volunteering and staying connected to the community. I know you definitely, when you're doing things like barcode scanning or even timekeeping of those things, you definitely do engage with a lot more people than you do when you're out on the run and a much wider variety of people. And Lyndell's little challenge there of volunteering at each of the ones in her P-Index, I reckon that's a great little challenge too.

00:56:30Melissa Ellis: I wonder if she's the first one to think it up. Now we also heard from Tony Reeves and he said, hi Mel, TOC, Simon and Sarah and special welcome to Sarah's new mini parkrunner. I am a UK parkrunner and heard Mel on with Danny on With Me Now a few weeks ago and have since started listening to the parkrun adventurers podcast too. Great show. I wanted to relate a little story. In 2018, my wife Alison and I flew to Australia to see one of my old mates, an Aussie called Dan who lives in Canberra. We'd only run a handful of parkruns at that time and we thought it would be great to snag one of the local ones while we were out there. Obviously you guys start parkrun earlier in the day than we do so he kindly took us to Tuggeranong but grumbled all the way, what the hell are we doing up at this hour to go for a run? He had a fine time at Tuggers and much enjoyed the Brekkie Park faff afterwards. This was all new to Dan. Fast forward to 2023 and we're on our second trip to Oz. This time we cheered Dan on for his 100th parkrun, again at Tuggeranong, which is now his home run. That trip we enjoyed Sydney, Mossman and Willoughby, then flew to Adelaide and skipped across to Kangaroo Island. Blimey, that was special. Then back to the ACT for Tuggers for Dan's 100th. He's since run at our home parkrun of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and we are now starting to think seriously about our next trip to Australia. What a joy this parkrun tourism is. Thanks for a great show, and maybe we'll bump into one of you before too long. Cheers, Tony Reeves, A2707674. So that's great. I like that little connection with Tuggers. He's got all the lingo. Yeah. We've got Dan into parkrunning.

00:58:13Tony O'Connell: And I wonder who Dan is. I've run tuggers. Maybe I've run with Dan as well. So maybe there is a third-party connection or a degree of separation in there.

00:58:23Melissa Ellis: Interesting. I've run tuggers too. We need to know his last name, Tony, so we can stalk him on the 5K app. Or maybe you do that. You know our last names. You can check and get back to us. Oh, that was a lot of emails. I'm all tuckered out from that.

00:58:40[background music]

Club Corner

00:58:40Melissa Ellis: So let's have a break, TOC, and let's throw to Reginald and see what they've got to say this week.

00:58:53Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs. And I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. We continue our exploration of volunteer roles this week with two of the roles on the finish side of the finish line, the Funnel Manager and the Number Checker. Let me begin by saying that I am not on my high horse, but unfortunately, Funnel Manager is sometimes a flexible title in the eyes of some events. It is intended by parkrun that there be only one Funnel Manager, and other volunteers helping in the funnel are marshals dot dot dot, but some events call everyone in the Finnish area a Funnel Manager sai. Moving on... The Funnel Manager is responsible for the whole finish area and is primarily focused on ensuring the participants move smoothly and swiftly through the finish funnel. They keeps things flowing at large events, especially those with any particular funnel system like a double, triple, or zigzag, plus at smaller, large events, they often also take on the role of Number Checker, but more on that role later. A Funnel Manager is a key role at Junior parkrun as young people plus parents can make the finish funnel a challenging area, parkrun HQ asks that every Junior parkrun finish funnel has a dedicated volunteer whose sole responsibility it is to ensure that the children pass through this area safely and appropriately. Now, back to the often neglected and rarely utilised role of Number Checker. The Number Checker facilitates communication in the finish funnel, particularly between the Timekeeper and finish tokens volunteers. They keep the tokens and timer in step and also keep the finish tokens and finishes in step. I am a big believer in having specific people for specific roles, not to say that there cannot be flexibility during an event and people swap roles, but by having a title and a task, volunteers can be clear about their expectations and Run Directors can relax, knowing that tasks are being performed. Speaking of relaxing, I am keeping my New Year rhythm and signing off at fewer than 400 words, so stay tuned for our future club corners. One hopes that you enjoy that slight peek behind the curtain.

01:01:10Tony O'Connell: And once again, Mel, it was great to hear from Reginald. I certainly have a bit better understanding of the Funnel Manager role. I actually learnt a little bit out of that description. So yeah, it's always good to hear the different roles and have them explained properly, not how I necessarily imagine them.

01:01:27Melissa Ellis: I still haven't found out what the Number Checker is. Can you enlighten me?

01:01:33Tony O'Connell: So the Number Checker process technically is someone that follows the system through from where the Timekeepers are through to the tokens person and technically is making sure that it's in step as you go through. So you'll have quite a few people sometimes in the funnel. There's someone that follows through that order and makes sure that The Timekeeper are giving the right time to the person to the token allocated so that you can make adjustments if you need to. If you get funnel duckers or anything like that, you can make the adjustments early on rather than when you're trying to process and work it out.

01:02:10Melissa Ellis: Okay. So, is that not dissimilar to when you just have a smallish parkrun and the Timekeeper's yelling out to the person with the finished tokens, next one's number seven?

01:02:22Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that's essentially how we do it at Inverloch. But I... As Run Director at Inverloch, I also have a clipboard with me and I'll write down when I hear my Timekeeper and my token person talking and making sure they're right. When they agree, I'll always write that down so that when I'm processing later, if something's happened, I've got a point of reference, I know where things have gone a bit pear-shaped. But, yeah, we tend to do it at Inverloch because smaller run, a lot closer distance between the Timekeeper and the finish token person, the funnel's not all that long, they can actually yell out across that distance and, you know, cover that roll off without needing an extra person.

01:03:04Melissa Ellis: Right. So, yeah, it's checking that you're still in sync.

01:03:08Tony O'Connell: Correct, yeah.

01:03:09Melissa Ellis: Hmm. Very good. So the Funnel Manager, that is a mandatory role in juniors and it's a point of frustration for Eynesbury because we're such a small event. We'll usually have about 10 kids. Absolutely no need to have a Funnel Manager because we don't have... more than one child coming through the finish at at a time but I have seen where for instance at westerfold juniors where it's absolutely necessary because you've got to keep those kids going through the moving through the funnel and not getting out of line because some will finish with a head of steam and they'll actually overtake in the funnel and yeah the Funnel Manager's got to try to make sure they stay in the order they cross the line before they receive their token

01:03:54Tony O'Connell: And I'd very much imagine that that's the case up at the Queensland Juniors where they had over 400 finishes last week.

01:04:02Melissa Ellis: Oh my goodness.

01:04:04Tony O'Connell: That number is just absolutely massive. It's a little bit hard to imagine with the smaller parkruns we have for our juniors, the fact that they're going to get 400 odd finishes. I can't remember the exact numbers.

01:04:18Melissa Ellis: Was it 418? 418 at Des Connor, yeah. Yeah, that's crazy, parkrun Australia, they need another parkrun up there. You've got to do something. That poor team up there, they are getting overwhelmed.

01:04:19[crosstalk]

01:04:32Tony O'Connell: That's one thing I did learn about the Funnel Manager is that you can only have one Funnel Manager. I've been to events where they've had a couple of Funnel Managers moving people through. But as we've learned from Reginald, you can only have one Funnel Manager. The other people are, in fact, funnel marshals.

01:04:48Melissa Ellis: What? Is there such a role?

01:04:50Tony O'Connell: So, well, they just go down as Marshal on the volunteer list, but they're a Marshal in the actual funnel itself.

01:04:57Melissa Ellis: Oh, I see what you're saying.

01:04:58Tony O'Connell: So there's only one person overseeing the actual function of the funnel, and that's the Funnel Manager.

01:05:04Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so we tend at Eynesbury, we tend to utilise our Funnel Manager to funnel the kids between the flags because we come off the path into our funnel. And sometimes the kids just want to, if they haven't visited before, it might be their first one, they just want to run straight ahead. So we get our Funnel Manager to sort of funnel them the right direction.

01:05:25Tony O'Connell: So they could actually be a funnel catcher.

01:05:27Melissa Ellis: Yes, it could.

Consolidated Club Report

01:05:29Melissa Ellis: Anyway. It's time for our favourite segment, the adventurers Consolidated Club Report. For Saturday, the 8th of February, 2025, of a total of 746 members, nearly at 750, 567 took part. in 10 countries across 283 locations. In the UK, there are adventurers at 56 events. There were seven in South Africa, five in the USA, and one each in Poland, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, and Italy. And we did get some of those in Dazza's this week. Locally, we had adventurers at 50 events in New South Wales, 49 in the greater state, 47 in Queensland. There was 21 on the West Side. 15 in South Australia, 10 in Tassie, the ACT had 7, the North Island had 6, the South Island had 2 and there was 1 in the Northern Territory.

01:06:25Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I would say that chances are with 746 last week, if my friend Flick has got the job done that she should have, we should have Caitlin Archer and Ollie as new members and we should be somewhere around there 750 already. Hooray! So Flick, it's up to you. Don't make a liar out of me.

01:06:48Melissa Ellis: So if parkrun creates their new website and brings all back the stats, we might get a list again of biggest clubs and then we'll be on it.

01:06:58Tony O'Connell: We might be, Mel. That'd be a good thing.

the Frond

01:07:01Tony O'Connell: Now, speaking of biggest groups, our international frond this week. We had two international fronds with four people. There was one in Cieszyn in Poland and one in Queenstown in New Zealand. And at our New Zealand one, we had Kerry Jackson, Rosie Lowe, Gary Labretton and Kevin Pickup. And I'd like to say a special thanks to Kerry and to Chris Seymour, who have been providing a little bit of local information for me in the lead up to Palm about venues and locations. So good to see Kerry appearing in the largest international frond.

01:07:35Melissa Ellis: And while we're talking about palm for any of our new listeners, we might highlight that palm is an acronym and it is in reference to our annual parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup.

01:07:48Tony O'Connell: And so palm25 is naturally our 2025 version of Palm.

01:07:53Melissa Ellis: Correct. Now, the pilgrimage. Nobody at Bushy this week, just the deer. But the largest frond, TOC. We had a frond of 10 at Bushy. Emerald Lake. And that was Bram Cassidy, Cheryl Smit, Toc and Jack. Irene and Parth, Mel Flentjar, Felicity Castellan, Chantelle Hosking and Joanne Blackbourn. Now, Joanne actually came to Dazza's too, but I saved her post for now. And she said, Hi, Dazza. I celebrated my ninth parkrun birthday by finally becoming a Vic Statesperson. After being determined to achieve it early this year, I've been in to stay ill and attending a Mate's 100th Folly event. Today was finally the day, and as it coincided with the birthday weekend, I'm pretty stoked. So many kilometres driven, so many very early starts, so many interesting experiences on V-Line buses and in country motels and pubs, and so many visits to little towns I've never been to before. Literally, what a journey. Emerald Lake was hard, so happy to finish, but beautiful. And it was really lovely to see a familiar face with Jodie Maisie barcode scanning. What a morning for this victorious Victorian. And she had an emoji of a champagne pop, and an emoji of a medal and a happy face and she shared a photo of herself in the selfie frame and I just love this story um I came across Joanne years ago at um I think she came up and said hello to me because she was a listener and that was at the Dandenong parkrun after covert after we came back from covert So I've known Joanne for a little while. So it's great to see that she's finally completed the journey. And the reference to the Victorious Victorian, because I believe that is one of the adopted names for the collective term for somebody who's done all the events in Victoria.

01:09:48Tony O'Connell: Yeah, we've got Victorious Victorian and we've got the Greatsman. Yes.

01:09:52Melissa Ellis: Well, the Greatsman is my preferred version, but there's a couple. I remember voting for Mexicans back in the day.

01:09:59Tony O'Connell: Mel, we also had a frond of seven this week at one event at Drage Reserve and a frond of six at three events this week at Main Beach, Shellharbour and Sir James Mitchell.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:10:12Melissa Ellis: But did we have any launches, TOC?

01:10:14Tony O'Connell: Yes, after a flood of launches over the last four weeks or five weeks, this week we had a solitary launch at Thoulstone in the UK. This is located near Bath, so sort of down in that southwestern region of the UK. It's a two-lapper that's mainly on a private property. It's actually on a working farm site. There were 170 finishers this week and 26 volunteers. And interestingly, in their course description, they say there are sheep on site. And part of the course, you run along a gravel path and you run out into a field for a couple of laps. And they actually have a Marshal on a gate to open the gate for you as you run up, probably to keep the sheep in the paddock.

01:10:56Melissa Ellis: Hmm, very good. Now, what's your theory of why there's only one launch this week? TOC, I know you've got a theory.

01:11:02Tony O'Connell: My theory is, Mel, with parkrun, we're currently at six weeks from when all the paperwork submitted to a launch date. And if you go back six weeks, it was Christmas and not a lot of people are submitting paperwork or working over the Christmas break. So I think we might have a week or two of quiet and then it might be a bit of a bump again.

01:11:22Melissa Ellis: I like that theory now. All righty. What have we got next? We are going to make an announcement. We've got an announcement about Palm, if you're coming to Palm.

01:11:34Tony O'Connell: What is that announcement, Mel?

01:11:37Melissa Ellis: Well, Tony, I'm glad you asked. It's quite surprising, actually, that we haven't been nagged for this piece of information because usually after we get nagged about where we're going and then we get nagged about what's the date going to be, the next thing is usually going to be, what is the theme for the dress-up?

01:11:54Tony O'Connell: And we have great pleasure in announcing the theme, Mel. This year's theme is going to be...

01:12:05Melissa Ellis: Queens. Queens. Not kings. It's not about Kingsland. That was last year. This year's all about the queens. So see how you can be creative, what you can think up.

01:12:19Tony O'Connell: How you can translate queens into so many different themes. Last year up in Kingsland, we had the whole family of bees. We might have had a queen bee amongst them. We've got so many different ideas bubbling around the head about queens, queens so there's a challenge let's come up with some new and innovative ideas and as um for some of the previous announcement the location for the dress up night is still to be advised because I'm still working on it what a shame David Bravos isn't coming I could just imagine him dressed up as a queen what was under that ground okay

01:13:00Melissa Ellis: What is coming up next? What else, Toc? What have you got to look forward to?

01:13:05Tony O'Connell: Well, my next big event coming up is in about five weeks. It's the Inverloch Running Festival. And I'm looking forward to catching up with Sherry Brandtman and some of her friends that are coming down for the festival. It's on the 15th and 16th of March. It includes a 2K, a 5K, a 14K, a half marathon and a full marathon. And the 14K actually runs from my home of Cape Patterson. Not actually my house, but my hometown. Yeah. You don't start my driveway. Runs from my hometown of Cape Patterson along the Coast Road, and I reckon the Coast Road's one of the most spectacular stretches of coast. I certainly like to compare it with the Great Ocean Road. You know, it's probably on a much smaller scale, but... Now, for us, when you know the little beaches and that's a beautiful bit of coast and it runs around the Inverloch, the Half and the Full both run from Inverloch out on the Coast Road. The Coast Road's actually going to be fully shut for the day. So it's a great opportunity to run on the Coast Road with all the stunning scenery without any traffic. What about you, Mel? What have you got to look forward to? Oh!

01:14:13Melissa Ellis: I've got Run Army to look forward to. Hooray. It is going to be held in Brisbane on the 30th of March. Now I'm not going to be in Brisbane on the 30th of March, but I'm going to do it as a virtual event. So the main event is held in Brisbane, but there are locations around Australia that do host events as well. But obviously if it's a virtual event, you can do it Anywhere you like. So I signed up for the 5. I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I did that. I really should have signed up for the 10. Too late. I can run 10 if I want anyway. So there you go. That's what I've got to look forward to. But what have we got next?

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

01:14:50Melissa Ellis: We've got a listener challenge.

01:14:52Tony O'Connell: And Mel, given our theme for our palm that we've announced as queens, we thought the listener challenge this week might be to give your post on Dazza's a bit of a royal twist. Once again, welcoming all sorts of ideas and certainly the twist bit could come into play. So come at us with your most royal twists.

01:15:13Melissa Ellis: Yes, I shall do my best to get this podcast out as I usually do on a Thursday night. So you've got time to listen so you know what you have to be doing. I've actually got a bit of a change up with my work schedule, which is going to mean me working on a Tuesday night. So this could impact my editing. So it's just a warning. Although if it's late... You're not going to know why until after it's late. But anyway, yes, looking forward to that challenge. Let's see who listens and who doesn't.

Sign-off

01:15:52Tony O'Connell: Mel, coming up, what's happening with you for next parkrun Day?

01:15:55Melissa Ellis: Well, Brimbank. I'm going to Brimbank, Tony. Little insignificant Brimbank that we never talk about all of a sudden is getting all the love.

01:16:05Tony O'Connell: And certainly it's been listed in the Financial Times as one of the six... Best parkruns in the world.

01:16:12Melissa Ellis: Exactly. So I shall return. I think I've only officially ran Brimbank once. It was one of those big Medibank hoo-hahs. Remember those?

01:16:24Tony O'Connell: Yes, I was at the launch. I actually fulfilled the role of Funnel Manager at the launch of Brimbank.

01:16:31Melissa Ellis: How funny.

01:16:32Tony O'Connell: Fun fact, I actually didn't get back there to run it for about a year.

01:16:36Melissa Ellis: Wow, I was at the launch too. That was back in the day when we were allowed and Michelle Bridges was there.

01:16:42Tony O'Connell: I was just about to say, Michelle Bridges, the big stage, everything going on.

01:16:47Melissa Ellis: Yes, it was hectic, absolutely hectic. The TV show was there, wasn't it? And they wanted us to turn up early and they did a live cross.

01:16:55Tony O'Connell: Yep, all went on for many, many weeks in a row back when Medibank sponsored 40 new parkrun events to kick off.

01:17:03Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so Brimbank's always been a little bit spesh. Anyway, Toc, that's where I'm going to be. And what about yourself?

01:17:12Tony O'Connell: I'm undecided this week, Mel. I'm thinking maybe Inverloch, but I might even duck across to Newborough. That's one of the events that I'm the ambassador for, and it'd be great to catch up with the team over there and just say g'day. Fantastic. And, Mel, next week, I've heard a little whisper that there's a mystery host...

01:17:33Melissa Ellis: There is, because Simon's buggered off to Japan.

01:17:38Tony O'Connell: And it's such a mystery that none of us know except for the Mel. Correct. And possibly the other host.

01:17:44Melissa Ellis: The mystery host knows. But I haven't told Toc or Simon or Sarah or the Equal Opportunity employee or the Office Lady or anybody. I haven't told Reginald. I haven't told, oh, that's it. I've just exhausted level two.

01:18:02Tony O'Connell: So I'm assuming this person is not going to be granted access into the adventurers page, Facebook page as an admin? No. Oh, that would have been a giveaway. That would have been the next spot to look.

01:18:13Melissa Ellis: I'm trying really hard to keep this under wraps because I just want you guys to have a little giggle when you hear who it is. I'm just waiting. I like to give people joy. Cool. So there you go. You'll have to wait. And I'm going to keep it secret. in the description of the episode as well.

01:18:30Tony O'Connell: So write up tool.

01:18:31Melissa Ellis: You'll have to actually listen. You're not going to know.

01:18:35Tony O'Connell: So how secret are you going to keep it? When we get to editing, how are you going to edit the other person out so it's a real secret?

01:18:43Melissa Ellis: talking to myself there's the surprise no no you're gonna have to listen you're gonna have to put your cans on or or while you're out running and you'll hear the music and you'll have the anticipation I'm building it I'm building it up

01:18:58Tony O'Connell: I've got so many names I can think of and I don't think I'm on the money with any of them. So until next week, Mel, I'm looking forward to hearing who you have with you.

01:19:08Melissa Ellis: Thank you for joining me again. 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. I'll see you with the mystery guest next week for more adventures.