Episode 416 - Falicitating Fun

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 416 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 Bunurong Country.

00:00:35Melissa Ellis: And my name's Melissa Ellis and I am back home on Wurundjeri Country. Welcome back, Toc.

00:00:41Tony O'Connell: Yeah, welcome back to you, Mel. It's been a big weekend, but in parkrun world, it's been a reasonably big week. We've had a little bit of news that came out last week after... our recording. So on Tuesday last week, parkrun Global published a statement and in part it read, it has been an absolute honour to lead parkrun and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity. The greatest privilege of all has been working alongside brilliant colleagues, volunteers and partners, helping to open up parkrun to more people. Signed by Russ Jeffries. And for those that aren't familiar, Russ was parkrun's global CEO. A lot of Russ leaving has been discussed on our friends with me now, but I guess there's been a lot of good things that have happened in the last few years, but one of the things that's really bugged me has been some of the comms issues that we've had to deal with, and especially as event teams and ambassadors and the like, dealing with things like Statsgate that wasn't communicated well. A more recent example of communications is the demise of France, parkrun use Facebook for so much of their communications now and we always put out this really positive message on our Facebook channels. But there's a second side to comms, and I feel that the passing of France and the closing of France should have at least been acknowledged on the parkrun France Facebook page. This is a page dedicated to parkrun in France, and we didn't even acknowledge that it's been closed up permanently. and on the global page. And I feel there was an opportunity there that we should have been at least saying thank you and giving recognition to those that kept the French events going for so long. So there's been a lot of those little communication things that just haven't sat right with me. But Mel, I guess on a parkrun level... The average person out there is not going to know day to day who Russ was or what Russ actually did in parkrun. It's not going to affect the event level. And in fact, I'd say most event teams probably wouldn't have a clue that there is even a global office that oversee events.

00:02:53Melissa Ellis: I think that's true. And do you think there's a level of understanding at a global level that the average parkrunner isn't going to care so they aren't too worried about passing down that information? The average Australian parkrunner isn't going to have an awareness that France even had parkruns to be worried that now they're gone. Do you think... Do you think they break it down to that level? I mean, the average parkrunner doesn't know that Russ's history was in comms.

00:03:26Tony O'Connell: No, in fact, he was the global lead for communications, I think, for seven years before he became CEO of parkrun about three years ago. So that's ironic. It is. The communications seem to have been one of the bigger bugbears for the last few years. But whether the average parkrun... knows or not that there's a page there that we've put information on in the past our global page we put lots of positivity onto it and parkrun's a very positive atmosphere you have to acknowledge that we are very positive we we drink from the kool-aid we're we're very rah-rah parkrun but things like a country closing are significant enough to warrant at least a comment on their page. Yeah, close it for comments so that you don't get all the vitriol of people saying you should have done this or you should have done that. But at least acknowledge it. And I think that's a failing that we've got at the moment.

00:04:28Melissa Ellis: I agree. And look, we're not in the position to have the inside knowledge that our friends at the With Me Now podcast have. We don't have those personal relationships over the history of parkrun. But we still probably have a responsibility to our listeners to address the issues. And... This was a big one. So I agree that we need to acknowledge that France is gone. We've got some audio coming up a bit later, coming to us from one of our favourite adventurers who had the pleasure of being in France and France is still continuing to run. So they haven't given up the dream.

00:05:08Tony O'Connell: They haven't. They still run a version, all unofficial and not supported, and we'll certainly hear a little bit more about that a little bit later in the podcast.

00:05:18Melissa Ellis: And I wonder, Tony, with somebody different at the helm, if a solution can be found, we can only hope.

00:05:26Tony O'Connell: Meanwhile, Mel, moving on to more positive topics. On Saturday, I had the pleasure of going down to Inverloch in the bright sunshine. It was just one of those days that, you know, some days you turn up to parkrun, you feel a bit blur, but you go and do parkrun because it's what you do. Some days you love it. Some days it's just good to rock up to parkrun, have a run, go to the cafe, have a coffee, talk to people and go home. And I had one of those days, sad day. We had 239 finishers with 17 volunteers. We had a visitor from Namibia and it was one of those almost a joke call out where for a while in the UK, apparently there were people yelling at Johannesburg when they were asking who's the furthest person. And When they called out, you know, any tourists from overseas, and the bloke put his head up and said Namibia. I thought, oh, that's got to be a set-up. But no, we had a visitor from Namibia, and I had a really good chat to him after he had a run. He jumped in and started barcode scanning because our line was getting a bit long. He asked the Run Director, Run Director said, go for it. And we had a chat to him, and it was just really good. Yeah, parkrun in Namibia is the same as parkrun in Inverloch.

00:06:45Melissa Ellis: Wow. I wonder if Johan knows him.

00:06:48Tony O'Connell: Well, his name's Mornay and I can't remember his surname, but yeah. We spoke about the three different parkruns in Namibia. We had a good chat about it. And it's a dream of mine one day to get to those countries over at the bottom of South Africa.

00:07:05Melissa Ellis: Well, now I can take you to our talk. That's it.

00:07:10Tony O'Connell: How about you, Mel? How was yours that day?

00:07:12Melissa Ellis: Ah, well, I was, as I said last week, at event 45 of Bungendore Common parkrun on the lands of the Ngarigo peoples. Dave and I ran with 75 others on the two-lap course around the Common on Formed Path grass and trails. We received our first-timers briefing from the lovely Nat, who we discovered later was also celebrating a milestone. The course was relatively flat and a very social one, with participants regularly crossing paths as they navigated the route. Now, Bungendore is a town in the Queanbeyan region of New South Wales. It's on the Kings Highway near Lake George, the Molonglo River Valley and the Australian Capital Territory border. It has become a major tourist centre in recent years, popular with visitors from Canberra. It's expanded rapidly in recent years as a dormitory town of Canberra. We were in the area so I could attend the Queanbeyan Rodeo which we did do Saturday afternoon and evening. It was Labor Day long weekend in Victoria so we camped in another outlier town of Yass. Now despite the bad weather further north we were fortunate to have good weather. Warm days but not too hot and none of the predicted rain. In addition to the parkrun and rodeo, we also managed to tour the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra and the Australian War Memorial, including the last post ceremony, which was honouring Private Albert Rowland. But back to parkrun. After my run, I interviewed Nat, who recommended coffee at the coffee van at the nearby The Melbourne. And I spoke to local Merle there, who gave advice on what to see at the War Memorial. But let's have a little listen to my chat with Nat. That's me. Okay, I'm here at the finish line and I've found Nat. Nat was our first time welcomer today. Welcome to the podcast, Nat. Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

00:09:12Nat: And congratulations, you ran your 25th event today. I sure did. I've done 24 of them here at Bungendore and I did one at Queanbeyan. That was my very first one and that was a tough introduction to parkrun. It's a very steep course. Those who've been there know what I'm talking about. I've done Queanbeyan, so I can agree with you there. So was that before Bungendore was launched? That's correct. So I did Queanbeyan a couple of years ago, then sort of took a rest. And then when I heard one was coming to Bungendore, I live in Bungendore. It just seemed magical. It's quite a flat course. I'm not the fittest runner, but it's just great. I love it here. So does that mean you were involved from the outset? No, but I did attend the very first parkrun. They got an OK to go at very short notice. So I saw the Facebook posts the night before, rocked up, and there were about, I think there were about 20 of us at the first one. And since then, we've just been building and building. Brilliant. What are your average numbers? Oh, not so great. I tend to be a walk runner, so I sort of finish around the 40-minute mark. Fantastic. Would you like to describe your course here for the listeners? Yeah, so Bungendore's a pretty flat course. We run around a couple of our beautiful ponds, and then we go past a couple of our local sort of features, including our preschool and our bowling club. We have some horses along the course. It's a very country course, very picturesque. It's beautiful. And would you describe Bungendore as sort of an outlying town to the ACT? Yeah, we're about 40 minutes out of Canberra and we're southern New South Wales, very proudly so. About another hour to Goulburn as well, so sort of halfway between Goulburn and Canberra. And thank you for volunteering. So have you done many volunteers here? Yeah, I'm up to about my 17th volunteer. So I've been doing about a volunteer for every three runs. So yeah, probably a little bit more actually. Like today I was able to double up. So doing the first time as welcome means I can also run. So I get to help out and still have fun. And do they have much trouble filling the roster out here? Sometimes, particularly in the cooler months. I think that's true of any parkrun, you know, so the interest drops off a little bit during the cooler months. But we have a really active community in Bungendore and, you know, everyone likes to get involved, so it's good. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for volunteering.

00:10:15[background music]

00:11:12Melissa Ellis: Congratulations again on the 25th and thank you for talking to me today. No worries. Thanks so much. So I indeed had a very good long weekend up in Bungendore Common in the ACT region and I haven't had An adventure for quite a few weeks, Tony. So it was very exciting to be back out at a new event. I enjoyed it very much. I haven't been home long. I've only been home a couple of hours. So thank you for helping me prepare the pod notes.

00:11:41Tony O'Connell: My pleasure, Mel. Bungendore Common's not actually one that I'm familiar with. I'm going to have to look that up. If it's in the Queanbeyan region, sort of vaguely for me with that area, having passed through it a number of times and having run Queanbeyan parkrun before. So I must have a look at that one.

00:11:58Melissa Ellis: You definitely should. So if you were staying in the Queanbeyan region and you were heading to Braidwood Showgrounds, you would pass through Bungendore.

00:12:06Tony O'Connell: Okay, well, I have done that road.

00:12:09Melissa Ellis: I've got to say, it's a very quaint little town. It had a lovely array of unique and very interesting shops. When we originally arrived, of course, everything was shut. But by the time we headed out after parkrun to find a coffee... The town had come alive and there was farmer's markets and shops with art galleries and all sorts of things. It was really buzzing. It was a beautiful little town and I would have really liked to have spent more time exploring it.

00:12:40Tony O'Connell: Okay, Mel, I must look that one up. You should because it's probably a NENDY. Add it to the list. Oh, it wouldn't be far off the NENDY. As the crow flies it, it'd have to be close.

00:12:50Melissa Ellis: yeah but uh okay so we've also got some feedback talk from last week's pod where I did muse and I also called out to you about the Steve Milne that was in the frond at Black Rocks last week now I wondered if that was tiny Steve but it is not

00:13:11Tony O'Connell: Mel, I was yelling out at the pod saying, Mel, it's not, it's not. No, you've got the wrong Steve. I have actually met Tiny Steve and I've had a couple of runs with Tiny Steve before and he's not so tiny.

00:13:25Melissa Ellis: No, but Steve Milne is not Tiny Steve. Tiny Steve is Steve Malick, I believe. Oh, no, Steve Ramek. Steve Ramek. Steve Ramek, Malick, Ramek, goodness me. Okay, but thank you for those that pointed out my error.

00:13:40Tony O'Connell: And, Malin, other feedback. There's been the discussion, are they selfie frames? Are they core flutes? Are they event signs? I'm going to say that they are officially selfie frames when we set up a new event I've had a couple launches in the last six months or so on the event template the new events order the equipment that they need and one of the tick boxes that they can order from is a selfie frame so officially on the order form it's a selfie frame so I'm going to stick with that

00:14:11Melissa Ellis: But we do appreciate that some people like to make up their own names. And Peter Pohlman is technically correct, being that it is a Corfu.

00:14:21Tony O'Connell: He is technically correct, but he's probably got his feet wet.

00:14:26Melissa Ellis: But TOC. Do we have stats this week?

00:14:29Tony O'Connell: We do. Our correspondent from across the ditch has been unavoidably detained at a pipe band concert. And so this week we've dived into the stats ourselves and we've come up with in New Zealand there were 10,196 finishes across 54 parkruns in New Zealand and they were supported by 911 volunteers. The largest event in New Zealand was Hagley once again with 727 people.

00:14:58Melissa Ellis: We're going to get to know Hagley as being the largest, so I'm glad that we're doing this now, because otherwise we wouldn't know.

00:15:04Tony O'Connell: It's quite a busy region, too, around Hagley. There's three or four other parkruns, so obviously it's quite a well-supported area.

00:15:11Melissa Ellis: And for those who don't know, Hagley, I'm assuming, is on the North Island.

00:15:17Tony O'Connell: I believe Hagley is on the South Island now. What?

00:15:20Melissa Ellis: Really? Really? No.

00:15:22Tony O'Connell: Says Tony as he quickly types it into Google and says, it's definitely on the South Island. And I'm going to be saying that it is in the town of Christchurch on the South Island.

00:15:37Melissa Ellis: Yay, Team South Island.

00:15:41Tony O'Connell: So it is surrounded by a couple of events that we haven't really heard from in the past. Broad Park, Scarborough, Halswell Quarry and Foster parkrun. But there's one just to the north that we may have heard occasionally. Oh, yes. Oh, oh, oh, oh. A little event called, Mel, what is it? Pegasus. Pegasus parkrun, just to the north.

00:16:04Melissa Ellis: Our Bailey's event.

00:16:06Tony O'Connell: That's it.

00:16:07Melissa Ellis: Okay, now turning our sights to Australia. We had 409 events with 63,176 finishes, 4,957 volunteers and 104 cancellations. Wow. which wasn't good. But that was because we had 80 cancellations in Queensland and northern New South Wales, there was 14 due to a bloke called Alfred.

00:16:35Tony O'Connell: Alfred, for those that are not familiar out there, was a cyclone that hit the, almost on the border between Queensland and New South Wales. It downgraded, but It caused mass cancellations, and for those on the 5K app, there was a sea of red right from the Sunshine Coast down to the northern waters in New South Wales.

00:16:55Melissa Ellis: And it was affecting a lot of our pod listeners. We have a lot of... Queensland centric people we were concerned for Simon Mackley who was in the heart of things up there wherever he lives I don't know but he's in amongst the redlands area he has no power he has no power for a couple of days also the Belinda fairy was up there um battling the elements lindel the legendary she's been posting on her socials and Tracey in a Tutu she's up there too uh who else Tony

00:17:28Tony O'Connell: Mel, we have so many people up there. I don't think we should keep naming because we can miss a couple if we do. But to all those people, yeah, we just hope you've got through it okay.

00:17:38Melissa Ellis: Yeah, we were listening out and we were tracking everything. Now, attendance records. Applecross in WA, St George and Seaview in Queensland set attendance records. In New South Wales, The Ponds leapt to 783 and joined Inverell and Lawson, Drage Reserve in South Australia, while the Greater State had Gardiners Creek at 627. And Kilmore Racetrack, what? They had a newer tennis record. So Dave and I noticed this one because Kilmore Racetrack is Dave's home parkrun, and we couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. We actually thought... It was a joke.

00:18:19Tony O'Connell: I'm not sure what happened, Mel, but they certainly raced to a new attendance record.

00:18:24Melissa Ellis: They did. There was like a lot more people than normal. And I really would like to know if anybody knows what happened out there at Kilmore. Can you write in and let me know? Because I'd like to know. Now, that's it. I think we've waffled on enough.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:18:37Melissa Ellis: So we've got some roving reports for you. They're not from this week, guys. They are varied. So here they are.

00:18:40[background music]

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Toowoomba parkrun

00:18:53Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell and today I have ventured up to the traditional lands of the Djiabal people. I'm west of Brisbane, I've headed up the range from Brisbane to Toowoomba, to Toowoomba parkrun, which is in Queen's Park, right smack bang in the middle of the town. And I've found Kev, now I found Kev, he was giving me a bit of cheek as we were running around, waddling, shuffling around the parkrun this morning. How are you going today Kev?

00:19:19Kev: Yeah, I'm good. Good, Lyndell, very good. Nice to meet you.

00:19:22Lyndell Murray: That's the way. Now, you are a bit of an institution here at Twin Park, right?

00:19:26Kev: Yeah, I am. I've been coming for about nine years. Yeah, and I think I've done 377 a day. So, yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:19:33Lyndell Murray: And you volunteer regularly?

00:19:35Kev: Yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I torment more regularly. So, there's a lot of banter. So, a lot of people know me here. Yes.

00:19:39[crosstalk]

00:19:43Lyndell Murray: Well, as you were saying, the more cheek you give, the more you get back.

00:19:46Kev: That's right. If you hand it out, you've got to take double in return.

00:19:50Lyndell Murray: That's it. Now tell me about Toowoomba parkrun. Of course, many of the podcast listeners will know that we were in Toowoomba last year for Palm, our listener meet-up, and we did do a Freedom Run of Toowoomba. So can you describe the course for us?

00:20:04Kev: Yeah, well, it's run at Queen's Park, so it's two and a half times around or through the park, through the botanicals as well. A couple of hills, which a lot of people don't like. But there's two other parkruns in Toowoomba, but this one's probably... probably the most prettiest I suppose and a couple of nice coffee shops nearby so yeah brilliant lots of trees yeah well in winter time it's yeah hidden from the um the cold a bit because of the trees and in summer time you get the shade so it's got the best of both worlds brilliant brilliant now um big crowd here today um and the other thing the other reason I had to talk to you we were matching shirts today yeah yeah we both shop at lowe's No, it's Medibank's parkrun. They had an open day down here, I suppose, so there were shirts and bananas out for everybody.

00:20:56Lyndell Murray: I didn't get a banana, just a shirt.

00:20:58Kev: Yeah, they have nice bananas too, but they're not red, they're yellow. Yeah.

00:21:02Lyndell Murray: So we've got our Medibank shirts on. I didn't know Medibank were still doing those kinds of visits to parkrun, so I was pleasantly surprised to see them here.

00:21:10Kev: Yep, yep, yep. Well, we have the Peak to Park coming up in two weekends' time, and Medibank are a... A sponsor? A sponsor for that as well. So there's normally bananas there as well and a fruit stand. Brilliant. So they do partake a bit at Medibank.

00:21:27Lyndell Murray: So they're part of the community here as well. Thank you to Medibank for sponsoring parkrun and Peak to Park. Yep. Now, the other thing that I'd like to ask you, Kev, this podcast is for people who like to tourist and adventure with their parkruns. Yes. You've done a little bit of adventuring. I'm going to put you on the spot to name a top three parkruns or parkrun experiences, not including Toowoomba.

00:21:41[crosstalk]

00:21:51Kev: Yeah, probably Bargara, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, pretty good. And I've done quite a few in Perth, but I'm not sure of the actual parkruns. I've done probably a dozen over there. So, yeah, but pretty good wherever you go. This is probably... More friendly than most, I think, Toowoomba, but yeah.

00:22:16Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. So there you go, the Bs, Bargara and Bundaberg.

00:22:21Kev: Well, Bundaberg and Bargara. They're two different parkruns, but they're within about eight mile of one another.

00:22:27Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. Well, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would like the parkrun adventurers to know about Toowoomba parkruns?

00:22:35Kev: No, I just think it's friendly and engaging and, yeah, just a great atmosphere and, yeah, the foliage and the trees and you run through the botanicals.

00:22:46Unidentified speaker: So, yeah.

00:22:48Kev: You're welcome. You're all welcome here.

00:22:50Lyndell Murray: Thanks, Kev. If you come to Toowoomba, make sure you find Kev. This is Lyndell reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew in the parkrun adventurers podcast. Thank you.

00:22:59David: Thanks, Lyndell.

Roving report David — University of Western Australia parkrun

00:23:01David: Hi, this is David from the West Side. I've just finished University of WA parkrun and I've noticed a very unusual coloured t-shirt. There's someone here with a Volunteer 1000 shirt. So I'll see if I can find them after the run and give them an interview. And I'm here at the finish with Rory Marriott from the UK. How are you Rory?

00:23:24Rory Marriott: I'm very good thank you very much I'm very happy to be here where it's nice and warm compared with the UK which is incredibly cold.

00:23:33David: Yes I have not done any parkruns in the snow or ice in my life so I can only sympathise. So what brings you to the University of WA today?

00:23:43Rory Marriott: We are here because we're on sabbatical from work. So we were over in Australia for a long period of time. We flew direct into Perth. We thought, if we're here in Perth, we might as well do University of Perth so that we can start heading towards completing our first alphabet, even though there's no X's, so we're never going to complete it. But that's a different story, isn't it? And is this your first parkrun in Australia? It's the first time that I've completed the 5K in Australia. We've done two parkruns where I volunteered. So last year we was here and I was a Run Director at Ipswich, Queensland.

00:24:24David: Okay.

00:24:24Rory Marriott: Which they allowed me to do because I was also the original Event Director at Ipswich in the UK. I'm the reason that they had the QLD on the end of their name.

00:24:35David: I'm sure there's a challenge somewhere where people do the same name but different country.

00:24:39Rory Marriott: I think they do and for me I went that one bit extra and I thought I know that there have been people that have run it at both of them but there was the potential that they volunteered as well but volunteering as Run Director I don't think so that's probably quite unique.

00:24:58David: Okay, and you obviously volunteered quite a few times to get that yellow shirt and you're telling me there's only four people that have done a thousand?

00:25:07Rory Marriott: There are only four that have done a thousand. There was Nikki Clark who did it first, I was second, then it was Roger, can't remember what just surname for the moment followed by Jackie mcdonald who completed it just after Christmas so there's just four of us in a very exclusive club at the moment very exclusive club with a very limited edition around of t-shirts um and of all that volunteering has that been a mix of parkrun and parkrun junior it is predominantly parkrun although I say that I'm up to about 450 odd on the junior events And I do recognise that in the UK we're very lucky because we have lots of junior events. We're there every Sunday. It's probably my more favourite place to be compared with Saturday parkruns.

00:25:56David: Although I didn't say that. A different vibe from the families and kids than one where people are more doing the 5k look?

00:26:04Rory Marriott: I think it's just seeing the children running around. with sheer joy on their face. There's no one that's running around thinking, oh, I've got to do this, I've got to get my PB. They're just running around with a bit of fun. And where I used to be Event Director at Ipswich Juniors, you'd see them running around and suddenly they'd be like, oh, squirrels, just stop, they're watching the squirrels. The parents might be there thinking, what about your time? The children don't mind about it.

00:26:33David: They're just there having fun. And I understand for the volunteering, there's a few challenges associated with your name.

00:26:42Rory Marriott: There are two to a degree one is the Marriott Club, which is when you've completed a hundred different locations for either the 5k or the junior event Which obviously is quite difficult in Australia because you've only got the five junior events. Yes, but I also renamed the 50 volunteer locations, and I named it the Riot Club. Riot Club? Because half of my name is Riot. Okay.

00:27:12David: And if you've got halfway to the Marriott Club, you're part of the Riot Club. Well, that's the first time I've heard of that one. I think I'm up to today something like... 36 locations for volunteering, so I'm halfway to a riot. You're more than halfway, and it's a great club to be part of. Okay. And what else brings you to parkrun? What makes you come every week or every second week, whatever the frequency is, what makes you enjoy this sort of activity?

00:27:39Rory Marriott: For me, it's my happy place. It doesn't matter what else is going on in the world around me. A parkrun event... I'm happy, there are people there that, it doesn't matter what walk of life we're from, we're just at a parkrun event and we talk. I've probably spent more time talking to people at parkrun events and then years later I suddenly find out what they do for a living. No one minds or cares about what people do for a living at parkrun. You're just all there, you do your 5k or your volunteering and then you have the fun part which is socialising afterwards.

00:28:17David: And people normally ask about the top three parkruns, but because you've volunteered at so many, you won't remember any of them. Is there any particular theme or category or type or something that you like the most? Or is there a particular parkrun you want to call out?

00:28:31Rory Marriott: I'm actually going to call out where we are right now at the University of Western Australia, because for me, one of the beauties of parkrun is, whilst it says Park in its title, you don't need to be in a park. You can be anywhere. And to have gone around the grounds of the university today, I've probably spent half of the time just looking around, thinking, that's a nice building. That's another nice building. Oh, I wouldn't have minded going to university here. Not that I ever went to university in the UK either, but it's just seeing the variety that you get at each different event, whether it's the people or the place itself, it's nice not to actually be in a park. Did you notice the koi pond? There's a koi pond that you've all passed? I noticed the koi pond and because this is the first time that I've been going around in my electric wheelchair I kept as far away from it as possible because I didn't want to go anywhere near water with the electric car sounds like a good idea did you see any peacocks there's sometimes peacocks out about I did not see the peacocks I had heard about them but no I did not see them I suspect I can hear them in the background though okay is there any other last points you'd like to make about parkrun or volunteering before we sign out I would suggest that if you're ever concerned about

00:29:48David: participating at parkrun or being a volunteer at parkrun put your worries aside turn up enjoy it because they will absolutely love you being there yes certainly everyone gets welcomed um that's part of the first time it's welcome brief but also the Run Director and people certainly um cheer and clap when you're there for the first time and no one's pushing you or pressuring you about your time it's purely up to you it's

00:30:12Rory Marriott: totally up to you although to be to be fair I did try to track down the person in front of me today couldn't keep up with them found out they're at another local as well relatively speaking they're from taunton in the UK but I did let them finish before me okay yes I know how you're talking about all right thank you very much for your time Rory and it's a pleasure to meet you you're very welcome David thank you thank you

Roving report Ingrid Botha — Bois de Boulogne

00:30:36Ingrid Botha: So it's Ingrid here and I'm at a very unusual parkrun. Now I'm going to say Debois de Boulogne, but Simon is going to say that correctly.

00:30:44Simon: Le Bois de Boulogne.

00:30:45Ingrid Botha: Yeah, that's that one. And we're in France and this is quite an unusual one because, as we know, parkrun in France is suspended, but the spirit lives on. And you guys have got quite a good little active group. There are about 20, 25 people here today.

00:30:59Simon: That's correct, yeah. So every week we get 20 to 30 people who come here. So basically, for the last two years, parkruns in France have been suspended officially. So despite that, we kept going. So in the old days, we had 80, 90 people who came every single week. But there was this core group of... I don't know, 30 or 40 people who was here as friends and came together. And so despite not having the official barcodes and everything else, we still came because it's fun and we're a group of people who enjoy each other's company. And a few months ago, we actually decided to relaunch a little bit with what is called Le Parc Ren, which you can probably work out what it means. But essentially, it's a slightly French, well, clearly it's a French slant on the original one, just to give a bit more momentum to it. But essentially, And I do have to say, we're not affiliated at all to the official parkrun. We would be delighted to rejoin the community if and when it comes back. But essentially, it's the same thing, just organised by ourselves.

00:31:15[background music]

00:31:56Ingrid Botha: It would be fabulous. Everybody agrees it would be fabulous if parkrun France could resume. But until then, you guys have got an amazing group. You've got great, the park faff afterwards. We've just had... Christmas cake and all sorts of things, pain au chocolat, it's been a fantastic, like it is really very much the experience that I'm used to. Do you want to describe the course to us?

00:32:17Simon: Sure, it's basically two laps of a lake. It is extremely flat, so extremely fast for people who want their times. It's also relatively easy for people who aren't there to do the fastest time but just want to get into running. And I think, I mean, to what you're saying, what is nice with our group is that there are some people who are super fast, there are some people who are not super fast, there are some people who are young, some people who are old, some people who are in the middle. It's exactly what parkrun is about. What is nice here is that most of us... I mean some of us would have come across each other in normal day-to-day life but most of us probably wouldn't have and that's what's nice that we meet people that you know we wouldn't normally hang out with we get different experiences we share experiences and it's just a nice group of like friends who comes together and in terms of if and when you know we come back a little message to our friends at headquarters it is absolutely fine and authorised in France to do what we're doing here so we'd be delighted to be re-approved sometime soon

00:32:55[background music]

00:33:05Ingrid Botha: This is a fabulous space. The park itself has huge numbers of people running around and Yeah, just enjoying the place. It is very pretty. Everybody knows that I quite like pretty parkruns and this definitely does, right? Even though it's mid, well, it's the winter solstice today, so it's quite chilly, but it's a beautiful, beautiful space and beautiful groups. I just wanted to say thank you for putting on such a great event and yeah, hopefully we'll come back. And in the meantime, I am just going to give a bit of a plug. These guys have got some amazing shirts. So if you're in France, there's some very cool souvenir shirts that I need to get one of these guys. Safe travels and talk to you soon.

00:33:35[background music]

00:33:52Tony O'Connell: And, Mel, coming back from those three wonderful roving reports, and I really think I'm going to have to go to Specsavers myself. I missed that whole comment that we had to talk about parkrun's new sponsor, which is, of course, Specsavers.

00:34:07Melissa Ellis: That was news to everybody, but I guess it's good. Do we get, like, discounts on our specs? I don't know. What's happening?

00:34:16Tony O'Connell: I don't know. There hasn't been a lot announced about it yet, but I guess from a... point I can't remember the exact number of spec savers branches they've got around Australia but it was something like 500 branches and they're going to promote parkruns so look forward to seeing it and there's another pun I look forward to seeing it well I suppose you need to have your specs in good order to run your parkruns and I've got to admit I've bought most of my glasses in the past from spec savers I believe they're also a sponsor in New Zealand they are yeah that one popped up as well but back to our roving reports Mel and we heard from the wonderful Lyndell and she was having a chat with Kev out in the wind we heard from Dave he was at the university of Western Australia talking to Rory Marriott of course Rory for those that don't know he's one of only four people in the world that has achieved the v1000 the coveted gold shirt so well done Rory once again and we heard from Ingrid talking to Simon and and a little bit of context on Ingrid's email that she sent her roving report in she had some context and it's I finally unpacked my bag for my trip at Christmas and found the interview I did with Simon at Le Bois de Blonde and I've butchered that but that's my best effort the group is not affiliated with parkrun but does have a wonderfully familiar feel to it While the interview does nothing to show off my French language skills and does reveal I was suffering from a little jet lag, I think it gives a nice glimpse into a neat thing to do on a Saturday morning in Paris. The city, not the dog. And, of course, that's a reference to Ingrid's dog, Paris, as well. Now, the French parkruns, we spoke about those before. Obviously, this was recorded before the announcement was not made that... France no longer exists. They disappeared off the parkrun map, which gave it away to a lot of people. And on each of the event pages, it says that this event no longer takes place. The French parkruns, the holdup was the requirement to get a medical certificate for those that were going to participate. And the event teams, the onus was being put on them to have to check those medical certificates before people participated. And it was just too much paperwork for a week-to-week event where people just turned up without having to book in or anything like that. There were a number of people suggesting there are ways around that, but ultimately I think the legal advice was parkrun would leave themselves very exposed if they tried to work on one of those workarounds around the French border.

00:37:04Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that's a shame because, obviously, legal aspects are important, but we should make it clear that France, the French events, they were willing to try to take on that responsibility for their events to continue. But, obviously, the legal ramifications, it was deemed not viable.

00:37:27Tony O'Connell: Not workable.

00:37:28Melissa Ellis: Yeah, not workable, which is sad.

00:37:30Tony O'Connell: It is, and there's a lot of people that have really... Would love to see the events go ahead in France. I think another thing for context for the Australian audience too, I think the people from... the UK would be very familiar with this was that the french events a lot of them were run by expats and they'll run with very small skeleton volunteer teams of locals but essentially most of people going and doing a lot of them were tourists so they didn't have a real regular volunteer base to draw on either but they they seem to work with it fairly well But, Mel, enough of France.

Dazza's

00:38:10Tony O'Connell: Let's go on to Dazza's. And this week, Dazza has said, Today is International Women's Day. Today and every day we appreciate the contributions the women in our lives make, whether that's at parkrun, in the broader community, or to life in general. How was your parkrun day? Full of appreciation, we hope. Come into Dazza's and tell us how it went.

00:38:32Melissa Ellis: And we were remiss in not announcing International Women's Day last week in the pod. But I would also like to say we appreciate our men as well, TOC, not just our women. But first in the door at Dazza's this week, coincidentally, was Ingrid Paris coming to us from New South Wales. And Ingrid said, I got a chance to practice my Auslan today, which is still pretty limited, but better than it was. I also ran in the buff. But I like this photo better. And Ingrid posted a photo of herself in the selfie frame with two others. Plus a second photo of Ingrid in the buff.

00:39:13Tony O'Connell: Ingrid in the buff. At the prettiest parkrun. Second in the door was Greg Garner from one of the few Queensland events that actually went ahead this week. Wes Mitchell? It's been a very interesting week with our friend Tropical Cyclone Alfie. Will we or won't we go ahead with our event this week? To wake up this morning without a breath of breeze and for the sun to be out, we're able to go ahead with our International Women's Day event at Wes Mitchell Park parkrun. Thoughts with all the parkruns that had to cancel today. Hoping not too much damage has been done to your courses and also wishing everyone associated with any parkrun all the best for the cleanup ahead from this weather event. And the photo was a buff on a stick. Oh, okay.

00:40:01Melissa Ellis: Now, we also heard from Michael Sharp coming to us from New South Wales, and he said, took photos at the Beaches. I captured some tourists doing headstands post-run, and there was a photo of said tourists, a double headstand and a Pohlman.

00:40:17Tony O'Connell: And a Pohlman to boot. There we go.

00:40:20Melissa Ellis: Double points.

00:40:22Tony O'Connell: We jump across to the UK and our good friend Pippa White called in. Bother, late to Dazza's, may I have a coffee before juniors? Chilly at Leamington where we started yesterday. And there's a picture of Pippa buffed up using the buff as a face cover.

00:40:40Melissa Ellis: Oh, good to hear from you, Pippa. Now, Maria Wicks also came to us from the UK, and Maria said, wore my OH Ladies buff, OH Ladies is my running club, to celebrate International Women's Day at Oaklands College parkrun. Lots of friendly faces, and it was amazing to stand around in the sunshine and catch up with friends. Earl Grey with Oatmeal Please, Dazza, although it feels like soon we can be having iced drinks after parkrun, and there was a photo of Maria with the pop-up in front of the college. And, of course, Maria is referring to the fact that the UK is going into spring.

00:41:20Tony O'Connell: They are, Mel. And coming the long way across Australia, all the way to New Zealand, and we hear from Tanya Bailey. Our lack of photo says it all today, Dazza. It was too wet for the camera. Had a soggy run-slash-walk around the lake in the rain. Happy with my time, though, thanks to Coach Jackie, raced home for hot shower and homemade cheese scones I did wear my buff today for the listener challenge and but there was no pic attached because obviously it was too wet for the camera that Brett Bailey also came into Dazza's and said that brunner was wearing one of the buffs as well so both baileys came in and zipped photos

00:42:01Melissa Ellis: Now, we heard from Rodney Glossop coming to us from the WA. He said, we enjoyed a fun-filled, movie-themed parkrun to celebrate my 12-year-old daughter's 250th parkrun. Marty McFly even made a special trip to attend the event and stepped in as park fun activity felicitator. What? Felicitator. Apparently, that's the name of the Run Directors in the future. Park fun activity felicitator. Wow. Felicitator. Okay. And there was a large group photo at Pioneer, parkrun.

00:42:35Tony O'Connell: That's Facilitator.

00:42:37Melissa Ellis: What did I say?

00:42:38Tony O'Connell: Felicitator.

00:42:41Melissa Ellis: Oh, my God. Well, okay, so I'm likely dyslexic, but okay. Facilitator, not Felicitator.

00:42:51Tony O'Connell: And next we heard from Bernadette Bennett from South Australia, parkrun Adventure number 5 out of 6 saw us at a long anticipated visit to Mount Gambier parkrun, an undulating out and back around three quarters of the volcanic Blue Lake. I'm pretty sure David appreciated me planning such iconic parkruns for our escape in the van. Too hot for a neck buff, so it's a wrist buff this morning. And there's a picture of Bernadette and David buffed up with the Mount Gambier sign. And Mel, like anyone that's been to Mount Gambier, I'm wondering how long they spend at the bakery afterwards. Because I think Mount Gambier is well known for having the longest park faff in history.

00:43:32Melissa Ellis: Is it the Metro? I'm trying to think of the name.

00:43:34Tony O'Connell: I'm pretty sure it is the Metro. Yes. And I reckon we were still there when they were serving afternoon tea.

00:43:39Melissa Ellis: And I can remember it being overflowing with people. It was like such a party atmosphere when I went there. It was full of parkrunners and it was full to the brim. But buffs can be worn anywhere. It doesn't have to be, I don't know, too hot for the neck buff. It doesn't have to be on your neck. I wore mine around my wrist. But next we heard from the OGOL Sam Schroder coming to us from Tasmania. And Sam said, found a few friends and ticked off another pioneer event at Launceston parkrun this morning. There was a photo of Sam and crew at Launceston on a Sam's Plans trip away.

00:44:20Tony O'Connell: Now, next we heard from the lovely Mel Ellis from New South Wales, representing at Bungendore Common parkrun. And there's a clappy hands emoji and a smiley face emoji. And to me, it looked very much like Monty Slade was being channeled there with the photo of the adventurer's buff meeting up with a With Me Now buff and a Runs With A Barcode buff, all in the one picture.

00:44:45Melissa Ellis: I thought that was very apt because that very much sums up our affiliations with our UK friends and our across the ditch friends.

00:44:56Tony O'Connell: It worked very well.

the Obi Award — Michael Sharp

00:44:59Melissa Ellis: Mel, do we have an Obi? We do. I seem to get all the pleasure lately. Let me get the envelope. This week's Obi goes to... Michael Sharp at The Beaches.

00:45:22Tony O'Connell: And that was a fantastic photo with the two people doing headstands. And if you look carefully in between them, as noted above, you will see a poleman in the middle.

00:45:32Melissa Ellis: If you're curious to see what the Mr Peter Pohlman, who was my co-host a few weeks ago, looks like. But often you can't see what he looks like. Toki has his habit of doing these backwards photos where you only can see his hat. Yes, yep. OK, so...

Emails

00:45:50Melissa Ellis: Where are we next? We've got mail.

00:45:52Tony O'Connell: You've got mail. We have mail. And, Mel, our first email comes to us, and I'll read it out. Greetings, parkrun fans. In episode 412, you read an email from my mate Tony Reeves from England and his linkage to Tuggeranong parkrun. He mentioned Dan, and you both said that you'd run at Tuggers. Well, I am Dan. Have you run with me? Probably a good chance, but I would assume that you're well ahead of me on that account as I'm pretty slow. I can do 5K in 37 minutes. I'm pretty happy. I will often do the first-timers brief. That's a good volley job. I've done about 38 volunteers so far, timekeeping, barcode scanning, marshal, Tail Walker and first-timers. First-timers is probably my favourite. Since my introduction to parkrun, I've now completed 199 runs, of which 161 have been at Tuggeranong. I've now been a tourist at England, Tony's Huntingdon, Holland and Norway, oh my god the Oslo course I did was very tough the same hill four times and he makes a note that he was on 199 as of the 9th of March so he's coming up to an arbitrary 200 next time here in Australia I've done runs in New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Victoria my best ever finish was 6th at Jamestown in South Australia and For the record, there were 20 finishers. Albert Park in Melbourne was the most participants I've run with, over 800 on that run. I'm not as fanatical as Tony, but I really love my parkrun and will always try and coordinate a run with tourism. Thanks for the shout out, Tony. And here's your question about who is Tuggers Dan resolved. Cheers, Dan Carmody. And Mel, I went in and had a look at my Dan index and I have not run with Dan. How about you?

00:47:45Melissa Ellis: Well, I searched my D index and I discovered that when I went to my one event at Tuggers Dan, Dan was there so I have a d index of one that was the 13th of November 2021 I don't think Dan ran that day I believe he volunteered okay as I said my one and only trip to tigers Dan must have been on one of his little tourism trips Ah, interesting. But thank you very much for writing in, Dan. It was good to get that little bit of information back. Now we know who you are. We might be able to catch up. Oh, my goodness. I should have let you know I was in the area. Never mind. But next, we also had an email coming to us from across the ditch. And it said, hi, team. Great to see the plans are in place for palm25 in Queenstown. Pizzas and craft beer, two of my favourite things. There may be some snow on the mountains by April, so bring some warm clothes. Tanya and I have our fancy dress all sorted. Looking forward to see the Queen's dress-ups. I caught up on two pods while on the road for work last week. To help you with the South Island geography, yes, Wanaka is the closest parkrun to Queenstown, about 45 minutes over the Crown Range, longer around the block in winter if there's snow, with Otago Central Rail Trail in Alexandra next closest, one hour, then the toss up between Hamilton Park in Gore and Lake2Lake Trail in Te Anau, both around two hours drive. Balclutha is about two hours 45 from Queenstown. My vote for Budgie's German friend's name would be Birgit. See you next month, Brett Bailey. And thank you for writing in, Brett. I think we've got Budgie's friend's name sorted, but Birgit, that is a good idea. And we are looking forward to catching up with our Baileys when we are over there in Queenstown.

00:49:42Tony O'Connell: always good to get a little bit of local advice about travel times and that, because we quite often look at a map when we're travelling somewhere, Mel, and you think, oh, it doesn't look that far. But as we know, distances can be very deceptive. And travelling times, a lot of the roads that I've experienced in New Zealand are not 100 kilometre an hour roads. The travel times take longer than the distance would suggest.

00:50:07Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so I will admit that originally when I was planning my flights into New Zealand on the South Island, I was going to drive from Queenstown to Christchurch, but I knew that that was quite a long trip and my airline changed the flights and I wasn't going to be able to make it. So now the plans have been changed and I do believe I've got time to land in Queenstown and get to Wanaka. So that is my new plan for the week before Palm.

Club Corner

00:50:37Melissa Ellis: But anyway, all things aside, now it is time for us to listen to Club Corner. So let's hear from Reginald.

00:50:40[background music]

00:50:52Reginald 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. Today for Club Corner, we are trying something new. Let us play Who Am I? The rules are simple, I will ask questions, and you will shout out the name of the event when you think you are correct. Mel and co may stop me when they think they have it, but you will hear all the clues. And the answer, of course winky face. Let us begin. Who am I? 1. I am a parkrun in Victoria. 2. I am old. 3. I am not in Melbourne. 4. I am a significant event, as things go in unofficial parkrun clubs. 5. I have three words in my name, including parkrun. 6. I am near Geelong. 7. I am not in the Compass Club. 8. I am in the Baker's Dozen Club. 9. I am in the Dirty Dozen Club. 10. I am in the Successor parkrun's Club. Who am I? My name is Balyang Sanctuary parkrun. When did you guess my name? Mel and the team, when did you guess? I hope that you enjoyed this diversion, and remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

00:52:12Tony O'Connell: I don't know about you, Mel, but I don't mind that new idea from Reginald, the Who Am I segment. I had it pretty well sussed out at about the third clue, but it wasn't until clue number five that I was absolutely sure that I was on the right money with our answer there.

00:52:29Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and you may have got it before me. Look, I can't remember at what point it was that I realised it was Balyang. It would have been likely around the time that they said that it was the successor event. I actually, fun fact, I became a statesman for the first time at Balyang Sanctuary and was presented a certificate by the lovely Joanne McCarthy. Yes, Joanne McCarthy out there at Balyang. So I'm very fond of that event and I look forward to returning one day soon.

Consolidated Club Report

00:53:04Melissa Ellis: But you know what, Toc? It's my favourite time of the pod. It's time for the Consolidated Club Report. And this week's Consolidated Club Report for Saturday, the 8th of March 2025, saw a total of 762 members, 481 of which took part in 11 countries across Australia, across across 236 locations in the UK there are adventurers at 49 events there were 10 in Sudafrique four in Poland two in the USA and one in Denmark Japan Lithuania and Singapore locally we had adventures at 52 events in New South Wales, 48 events in the greater state. There were 16 in South Australia, 15 in West Australia, 10 in Tassie and oh dear me, Queensland was down with eight and we're sad for them. All those cancellations. ACT had seven, the North Island had also seven. There was four on the South Island and none in the Northern Territory. [French: "South Africa"]

the Frond

00:54:13Tony O'Connell: And now our biggest international frond came to us from Dulwich in the UK. And that was Christopher Miles, James Avery, Andy and Debbie Airey, Ellie Soper and Rhiannon Taylor.

00:54:27Melissa Ellis: Ooh, and the Pilgrimage. Nobody at Bushy. So with my new attempt to fill in and find a replacement for Bushy, Bush Tree Peppertree parkrun. We had Kylie Cooper, Debbie Jessop, Donna Markwick and Chantel Hosking. Also, for our largest frond in Australia and New Zealand, we had a frond of 10 at one event. And that was the prettiest parkrun, allegedly, Dolls Point in New South Wales, where we had Sherry and Jason Cottell, Leah Morley, Josh Barton, Mark Weber, Ian Knox, Laura Amos, Lydia Ssss, satia one Ingrid Botha and vincenzo coco and remember you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile not in the 5k app talk uh-uh you got to do it on your official parkrun profile you can access that through your parkrun email and if you need help just let us know

00:55:33Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I find it rather ironic that you can have five affiliations on your parkrun profile. And I reckon Ingrid has had about five mentions on tonight's podcast. She has. It's all about Ingrid. She's been very well represented at the Prettiest parkrun.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:55:52Tony O'Connell: Now, moving on to launches, and this week we had two launches. We had Merredin Peak in Australia. Merredin is located about 260 kilometres west of Perth on the road to the goldfields, so if you're heading to Kalgoorlie, you're heading the right way. The launch was attended by 44 finishers and supported by 11 volunteers, including our own Andrew Yeatman as the photographer.

00:56:18Melissa Ellis: And we also had an event launch in the UK. It was Cuningar Loop and it is up in the north in Glasgow. They had 363 finishers and they had 34 volunteers.

Watching the Numbers at Birtinya Island

00:56:32Tony O'Connell: And the ongoing segment that we've been calling Watching the Numbers at Birtinya Island.

00:56:38Melissa Ellis: Oh, you've got to sing it. Watching the Numbers at Birtinya Island. OK. LAUGHTER

00:56:46Tony O'Connell: There was no event this week due to that gentleman called Alfie. And now almost a launch, but not quite a launch. In the UK this week, Greenwich parkrun has been renamed Avery Hill due to the fact that it was probably not in Greenwich and there were several parkruns actually closer to Greenwich. So well done for renaming and making it more geographically correct.

00:57:14Melissa Ellis: Excellent. OK, good to know. Thank you for that, Tony. But what are we looking forward to next?

00:57:22Tony O'Connell: Now I'm looking forward to doing a heap of planning for Palm and I'm asking anyone that's planning on going to go to the adventurers Meetup Facebook page and on there there's a number of events. Please click that you're going to the events so that I can get some bookings right, especially for our two nights out. Otherwise you could be sitting at a table in a room far, far away.

00:57:45Melissa Ellis: And I guess if you're bringing a plus one and that plus one is a Facebook profile, please encourage them to join and also acknowledge that they're attending.

00:57:55Tony O'Connell: Yes, because it would be rather embarrassing to book for 30 people and have 50 turn up.

00:57:59Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

00:58:01Melissa Ellis: Now, a listener challenge. I think that's next on our agenda. Tony, you've made a suggestion. Would you like to explain? I have. Look, given the...

00:58:11Tony O'Connell: The events of our northern friends have gone through in the last week, and I'm going to call it a week because the cyclone was due to hit, I think, originally on Wednesday, and then it was Thursday, then it was Friday, then it was Saturday. And the cyclone, I've heard it variously described as a drunken old uncle at the pub. There's a whole heap of things. It just meandered across the ocean. It didn't travel the way they normally do. But to support our friends up in New South Wales and Queensland, I'd like people to throw the wind emoji somewhere into their comment next week.

00:58:45Melissa Ellis: Oh, very good. I hope that is taken in the right context. I can think of somebody dear to me that might use the wind emoji in a bad context. LAUGHTER

00:59:00Tony O'Connell: Charcoal, Mel, charcoal.

Sign-off

00:59:03Melissa Ellis: Mel, where are you next parkrun day? Well, thank you for asking. I don't know. I haven't planned that yet. I've just got back today, Toc. I only got back at 5pm prior to recording from this last week's adventure. So, ooh, look, it's not going to be a new event for me. I actually would like to attend an art show out in the Box Hill region. So... Being a Victorian, I'm sure that you might have an idea of what the closest event in the Box Hill region might be that I might be eyeing off.

00:59:37Tony O'Connell: Probably Box Hill, that would be somewhere around Gardeners or... Could be, could be.

00:59:44Melissa Ellis: Could be.

00:59:44Tony O'Connell: What about yourself? Well, look, I'm adventuring. I'm getting a bit of a name for this after three weeks in a row. I'm going to be at the Sunny Inverloch parkrun where I'm going to be VI guiding a runner around the course on Saturday and The same runner is going to run in the Inverloch Running Festival on Sunday where I'm doing the half. So, yeah, just staying nice and local to home and probably try to get off my legs Saturday afternoon.

01:00:12Melissa Ellis: That's right. It's your Inverloch Running Festival this weekend. I really would have liked to have attended. I do have a theatre date with my daughter, Olivia, on Sunday. So that is...

01:00:25Tony O'Connell: precluding me from attending your event I hope it goes really well out there at Inverloch and I hope to join you in maybe in future years well I know we've got several pod listeners coming and I'd really like them to come up and say g'day at Inverloch parkrun I know there's a crew coming from Queensland and I'd really like them to come up and introduce themselves to me

01:00:49Melissa Ellis: Well, I'd really like a frond photo, please.

01:00:52Tony O'Connell: I'm sure we can organise that.

01:00:54Melissa Ellis: But I am wondering if it's time we start doing a fine of some sort every time we start mentioning Inverloch because it's starting to get a little bit like the Shellharbour mentions.

01:01:08Tony O'Connell: I'll tell you what, I'll go to Inverloch this week and then I'll go somewhere else after that.

01:01:12Melissa Ellis: Okay, all right. Oh, good plan. I like that. All righty. But next week, Toc, it's not us and it's not me.

01:01:21Tony O'Connell: Next week, Sarah's back. Sarah's back. And Simon. Simon, if he's got power and internet, Simon will be back.

01:01:28Melissa Ellis: Oh, goodness. Yeah, we should maybe asterisk that and go... assuming that Simon's back on deck because he has been one of the people that's been affected by Cyclone Alfred. And he's got a backyard pool full of dirty mud, I believe.

01:01:42Tony O'Connell: Yep. So hopefully next week we have Sarah and Simon, but no doubt you'll hear all about that the weekend after.

01:01:49Melissa Ellis: Yes, and thank you for joining me, TOC. Great to catch up, as always.

01:01:54Tony O'Connell: Always a pleasure, Mel.

01:01:55Melissa Ellis: But you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. It's pretty simple. That's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.