Episode 419 - palm 25

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:30Melissa Ellis: everybody to palm25 in Aotearoa in Tāhuna, Queenstown on the lands of the Ngāi Tahu. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm TOC. How are you Mel? I'm good, I'm good. We're here, we're seated. Thank you all for joining us.

00:00:50Tony O'Connell: Mel, just you and I are both here, but there's three hosts that are not here. And I'd just like to thank them for all that they've done during the year and question why they weren't going to come because they heard there was a swim on. And that was the reason they're not here. So Sarah, Simon and Ollie, wish you were here. The water was warm. It was beautiful in the water. The water was actually lovely.

00:01:11Ali Sheppard: They've got no cones. They've got no cones.

00:01:15Melissa Ellis: It was a nice swim and I enjoyed it. I thought it was going to be problematic, but it was not.

00:01:21Tony O'Connell: But who do we have here, TOC? We have a range of our roving reporters here today and we'd like to get them to come up to the front. So, because we've got them written down in order, let's call them up in order. Tracey in a Tutu. And very appropriately, Tracey is in a tutu. We have Lyndell the Legendary. And we have Johan from South Africa. And we have Ali Sheppard.

00:01:59Melissa Ellis: Yay! Of course, there was roving reporters that couldn't be with us here today. And so we will acknowledge all the work that they do all through the year. We love that they gather audio for your listening pleasure. And that is Mossy, Dave Moss from Queensland. PK from South Australia. I know I said South Australia. South Australia. Dave Messinger over in WA. Alison King from this lovely country here. Kevin Burrell from the UK. And Ruth Perkins. So we wish you all the best. And also our friend Pippa.

00:02:36Tony O'Connell: Yes. So as Mel was about to say, we really appreciate the work that all these guys do. And we love when we get other roving reports in as well. But the content, sometimes if we were just talking, I don't know about you guys, I'm going to be sick of my voice. I love hearing the range of experiences and the range of voices we get. So cheers for our roving reporters.

00:03:06Tracey Wood: Okay, I'd like to extend my thanks to the Queenstown parkrun event team for hosting us today. I believe most of them are actually up in Christchurch. There's an event happening up there. However, many thanks to the crew for putting an event on for us today, and thank you to the volunteers, including our very own Ali and Amanda as parkwalkers, myself and Sarah as Tail Walkers, and Janice, who was the Report Writer, three cheers please to the Queenslander.

00:03:40Johan Duvenhage: And then, thank you. Also, we want to thank the Office Lady for stepping in over Christmas and helping out with the merchandise. As well, don't forget our equal opportunity employee for helping out with the Facebook page.

00:03:55Ali Sheppard: And I would like to thank Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III. Was it so Reginald Yardley from Pop 3 the 3rd? And Pippa, Pippa White, and all the other contributors to this fabulous podcast.

00:04:10Lyndell Murray: And lastly, but not least, I would like to thank all of you for making the fabulous journey over to palm25. Yay! We do have attendees from... all over Australia and internationally, South Africa and the UK. So no matter how far you've travelled, thank you for coming. And the Kiwis. Yes, the Kiwis are also here. LAUGHTER And also to all of our listeners. So all the listeners that engage with us each week on social media, that send the emails in for the hosts to read out and, you know, put up with me banging on when I go to a parkrun. Thank you for listening. Thank you to our roving reporters. APPLAUSE

00:04:25[laughter]

00:04:54Melissa Ellis: This part of the morning we traditionally do, this is our eighth Palm. So this is the eighth year that we've held an event like this. It all started back in 2018. And we want to acknowledge the original hosts, which was Scotty and Mel, and the person that came up with the concept of Palm, which was Gary Murphy. So was it not for them that we wouldn't have the opportunity to continue as we do. So we thank them very much. And as is tradition, we would like to have a show of hands of people who've been to one palm. So that should be all of you. Okay, you've been to at least one palm. Now leave your hand up if you've been to two palms. And most of the people in the room still have their hands up. Now have you been to three? So there's a significant drop there. I'd say maybe a third of the room. Four. We've got, I should have my hand up, so we've still got two, five, five people. What am I up to? Five? Five. Still no hands went down. Six? Seven? Nathan, are you seven still? Have you lost count? Okay, well and so I believe, well I'm led to believe there's only three of us left that have done all eight and that's myself, Toc and Jacqui. And the events were, the very first one was 2018 where we went to Shellharbour, 2019 we went to The Beaches in New South Wales, 2020 was Mount Barker in South Australia, 2021 Nambour in Queensland, 2022 was down in Tassie at Bellerive. 2023, we went to the west side of the University of WA. Then last year, 2024, was South Toowoomba. And, of course, we are in Queenstown. That's six minutes. We've got six. We've got six minutes. Sorry, we can't count.

00:06:10[laughter]

00:06:55[laughter]

00:06:56Unidentified speaker: Okay.

00:06:56Melissa Ellis: That's okay. All right. What have we got next, TOC?

00:06:59Tony O'Connell: Right out, just a quick recap over the weekend. It is a slightly different palm format, a little bit more casual and a little bit more having a look around the place rather than rushing off doing Freedos and partially because the newest Freedo is an hour away, um last night as everyone knows we had a pizza night at winnie's pizza which was a really good night and it was really great to see people that I didn't think probably would normally mix and I know we're all parkrunners and we all mix but it's great to see people table hopping and actually talking to different people and all that and that's one of the great things about parkrun is it brings us together and gives us the opportunity to catch up with people sometimes you're catching up with people you've seen multiple times. Sometimes it's people you're meeting on the day and I really love that bit about parkrun. Our program after recording, we've got a couple of hours spare and then it's 6.30 at Smith's but I'm sure the booking was for 6 o'clock at Smith's craft beer which is up on Shotover Street. It is our fancy dress night and I'm sure everyone knows that the theme is Queen. We're looking for someone to take over the mantle of from last year's host where we had Princess... Oh, Jasmine. Princess Jasmine. Princess Jasmine last year without night clubbing. Probably not going to be this host that takes over that mantle. So if anyone wants to step up, feel free. When I told the venue tonight that it's a dress-up night and it was going to be a fairly relaxed sort of a night... He said to me, the only thing he'll say is, underwear is not optional. You need to wear underwear. Which I thought was a very curious comment for a pub to make. That was the only rule he wanted to apply was that underwear is not optional. Yes.

00:08:15[laughter]

00:08:35[laughter]

00:08:48Melissa Ellis: Which means wear it. Does it have to be visible? DSYU.

00:08:54Ali Sheppard: Okay.

00:09:00Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay. All right. So I assume we'll see you all there. It's the favourite part of the weekend for me is the dress-up night. And a lot of the fun is we make the theme deliberately vague so that it's interpreted because the best thing is going around and trying to work out how everybody has chosen to interpret the dress-up. Anyway, we're going to move on now to this morning. I'm going to describe the course, but everybody knows, but for those at home that don't know what the course was like. So Queenstown parkrun basically starts pretty central to Queenstown at the Queenstown Gardens Band Rotunda, which was a beautiful park overlooking Lake Wakatipu. Well done. Thank you. And it is out in that course, but quite diverse, had a little section through a little forest, a bit of a downhill, and then we swung around and we ran past the lake. It was all very beautiful. There was a boat apparently called Tick Tock on this side, but it's not unusual for me to miss things. I have a history of that. So, yes, and it was out and back around the Queenstown Gardens, as I have said, and we had beautiful weather. And it was the first week of the year for the southern parts of New Zealand to start at 9 a.m. And the sun was out. It was a very pleasant, I don't know, what was it, the temperature? Low teens, probably. Anyway, that's it for the course.

00:10:41Tony O'Connell: diversity on the course we we ran through cultured rose gardens we ran through as you said a forest with disc frisbee games going we ran around the edge of the lake where if you went one way you were going to get wet the other side was the gardens um we covered all sorts of things so it was a really beautiful course stunning course I'm led to believe that Invercargill may be a prettier course. That has been told to me by the people from Invercargill last week that I had to pass that on. I actually like both courses. I've been really impressed by the New Zealand courses that we've had over here. Just a little bit of everything in them. Today's numbers for those that like their numbers, it was event 311 for Queenstown, there was 241 finishes, 19 wonderful volunteers and four people jumped in the lake. Out of our group, I think of note, a man came in in the first position and one of our members was in last position. So we covered the whole spectrum in there. Eman actually ran a PB. He's one of the people that have run here before and he still rocked up and enjoyed it. And as you said, Ali pointed out the boat tick-tock to me. I didn't see it on the race. A bit like your cooey pong.

00:11:12[crosstalk]

00:12:00[laughter]

00:12:04Melissa Ellis: It's not a race.

00:12:05Tony O'Connell: I didn't see that on the run. But yeah, lovely course. Beautiful course. Absolutely stunning. And even, you know, just... Being able to glance both ways as you're running and see different things as you're running and see different types of park, different types of trees. I don't know. I just love the course. It's beautiful. Very picturesque. And just surrounded by mountains. You look out one way and there's a lake, but you look beyond the lake and there's mountains and there's still a light dusting of snow on them. They had snow here during the week and we're only in April. Very early for dusting of snow. We thought we might have got a bit more last night when it rained, but The temperature was too warm, but just stunning course.

00:12:48Melissa Ellis: I was trying really hard to run and absorb it all and to take in the beauty. At the same time, capture it in some photos that I could have as memories and talk to people. And yeah, I think I did. I'm quite happy. I like my run.

00:13:00[background music]

Club Corner

00:13:03Tony O'Connell: All right, now I think it's time for us to throw over to Reginald. So over to you, Reginald.

00:13:15Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey, the third, with a faux club corner, where we usually talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, still coming to you from Arrernte Country. One has been inspired to take a break from regular proceedings by way of there being a palm. As an incorporeal being, one could not attend palm, but one hopes to give you a smile and a grin and that these puns are a win. I hope that you are ready. Here goes something, dot dot dot. I gave my friend an apple, but they prefer pears. So I gave them another apple. Pause for laughter. Here is a parkrun related one. I am trying to learn the alphabet, but I can't get past X. I don't know why. Get it? Why? Next, a classic of the schoolyard, yes, Reginald was young once... What is big and white and cannot climb trees? A refrigerator. And finally, what do you call a knight who loves to scare people? Sir prize. Sir, pause, prize. Dot dot dot. Well then, palm is over, and let us hope that the quizmaster did finish writing the answers to those fabulous questions. Come back again for our future club corners, where, thank you Sarah for the affirming words, we shall do another Who Am I?

00:14:30Melissa Ellis: So there's a little peek behind the curtain.

00:14:34[crosstalk]

00:14:35[laughter]

00:14:35Unidentified speaker: Where's Reginald?

00:14:36Melissa Ellis: Reginald has provided us with some audio that will be inserted post-production.

00:14:42Tony O'Connell: Was I meant to just go quiet then and not say throw the Reginald?

00:14:45Melissa Ellis: No, that's fine. But we'll come back from Reginald now. So thank you very much, Reginald.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:14:56Melissa Ellis: Now, Tony, what's been going on at the Homeland while we're away?

00:15:01Tony O'Connell: Well, normally I like to list the launches each week because I like to acknowledge the different places that are having launches. At the last time I had a glance at the site, there was no launches this week across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, probably South Africa. I'm sort of slowly working my way west. Not sure about the UK because they probably haven't run yet, so the launches only pop up on the list I've got after they start. However, last week we had four, and we had one in Victoria at Pyramid Hill. And out of that, Nathan actually ran it for us last week. So, Nathan, Pyramid Hills done, well done. They were also launched last week in Japan, USA and the UK. Moving right along, out of my little bit of stats there. And this would be run at half hour maybe, that would be a bit more editing. But we quite often have these breaks and they just get cut out because Mel's really good at cutting stuff in the top crack.

00:15:55[laughter]

00:16:02Unidentified speaker: What am I cutting in?

00:16:06Melissa Ellis: Oh, just leave it in.

00:16:09Johan Duvenhage: Everything seems original.

00:16:13Tony O'Connell: Tradition at Palm is that we normally get the local Run Director or the Event Director to come up and we ask them a few questions. Unfortunately, this week with the Christchurch Marathon, they've all headed off. We're actually very lucky to get an event this week because so many of the event team are involved with going to there. And I know there's a few that have gone down to Invercargill for a wedding. We're actually lucky to get an event in, so I'm really happy with that.

Interview Johan Duvenhage — podcast roving reporter and parkrun regional ambassador for the Free State, South…

00:16:44Tony O'Connell: But instead of talking to some of the local events, we thought we'd talk to the people who have come the furthest to get here today. So we're going to start off with a chat with Johan. Yeah. Johan has now run 311 parkruns at 171 locations. Johan has seven countries to his flag collection. 308 volunteer credits, which is absolutely massive. Almost one for one. His parkrun birthday is the 3rd of January. And his home parkrun is listed as Heidedal. But he's on a 21-run tourist streak, so I don't think he's actually been home for, I don't know how long.

00:17:34Johan Duvenhage: I haven't been volunteering in a minute.

00:17:37Tony O'Connell: But anyway, a couple of questions for you, Johan, and take these like any other interview we do, take it in whatever direction you'd like to go. Tell us about your history and how did you get involved with parkrunning? It was a little bit by accident.

00:17:50Johan Duvenhage: I ended up in hospital and my neurosurgeon said, no running for you anymore. I looked at him and said, you must be flipping crazy. He said, okay, make the promise to me you won't do long distance. So at the same time, our medical insurance brought out a program to encourage us to exercise regularly every week. And parkrun popped up. And it fit both things. I can do 5Ks, which is sort of sorting out my neurosurgeon. And it also sorts out my weekly exercise goal for the medical insurance. And got hooked. Maybe a little bit too much.

00:18:27Tony O'Connell: So how does your home parkrun? Was that always your home, or have you moved around?

00:18:35Johan Duvenhage: No, I started at Naval Hill parkrun, which is an absolutely beautiful parkrun in Bloemfontein, in a nature reserve, on top of a hill in the middle of the city. Unfortunately, we lost that parkrun due to a landowner disagreement. So it is still, I hope that one day Naval Hill will come back, but I probably won't, because I've had it always very close to my heart.

00:19:00Tony O'Connell: And since you've been involved with parkruns, you've sort of risen through the different volunteer opportunities. I believe you're now a regional ambassador for... How much of South Africa do you actually cover?

00:19:10Johan Duvenhage: I am a regional ambassador for the Free State, and then I also cover as event ambassador two or three events in the Northern Cape and the Northwest provinces.

00:19:20Tony O'Connell: Yeah. And you're also... I follow you around a little bit and watch some of your posts now, and it would be fair to say you're a pretty regular tourist. We can see that from your tourist streak. But you don't seem to mind a decent trip to get to a parkrun?

00:19:34Johan Duvenhage: No. Also, as much as Australia, our distances are quite far. And I live in the middle of the country, which means I'm far away from virtually everything. So, yeah, we like a road trip. And my three-legged companion, Levi, loves travelling even more than I do. So the further we can go, the happier Levi is.

00:19:58Tony O'Connell: I'd say if you're living in the centre of the country, you're not actually far from any parkruns, you're actually geographically well-placed to get to all the parkruns.

00:20:07Johan Duvenhage: Yeah, maybe, but it doesn't work out like that because I have an exclusionary zone, which is Gauteng, where half of the bunkers in South Africa are situated and I only go there in self-defence.

00:20:21Tony O'Connell: It's going to be very interesting. You've got such significant distance to travel to get to parkruns around you. The next person we're going to interview probably has the opposite problem, where they probably have 50 parkruns within a sort of a hat box sort of thing.

00:20:37Johan Duvenhage: To give you an indication of my P-index, the ones on them that I go to most frequently are geographically about...

00:20:57Tony O'Connell: As far as, I know it's very hard to call our top three horses favourite parkruns, but are there a couple that stand out? I know we often get this question and we think to ourselves traditionally, what's the you know, the most scenic or the most stunning or whatever. But a parkrun for a lot of people can be a lot more than scenic and stunning. It can be that the volunteers on the day can make a massive difference to people's lives. The other runners around, and sometimes you get on a course where every second person sort of gives you a bit of encouragement. Are there any that really stick out in your mind?

00:21:37Johan Duvenhage: Yeah, so during COVID, I sort of changed my mind. I'm not very fond of the question. So I always And the next one is the one that I will be doing next week. And the third one is the one I did the previous week. But that's now copping out in question. So I think if I have to think about parkruns, that really is memorable for me. Internationally specifically, Mura di Lucca in Italy is something that was just awesome just because of all In South Africa, it will be very difficult, but of course Heidedal, oh, luckily Heidedal is excluded because of my homework. is absolutely awesome. Big Bay and Melkbosstrand, for instance, running on the beach with the view of Table Mountain is just awesome. And then I guess any one of the parkruns with animals in it, we have a few of those where we run with the wild animals, and those are not special. Do you run fast? Luckily, the lions are generally kept away. But you need to be very careful of the giraffes. They sometimes can be very aggressive. Well, that's not one of the animals I would have thought of as being aggressive in South Africa.

00:23:01Tony O'Connell: Just a final question, Johan. We often talk about Nendies and things, and I know as you tourist more and more, your Nendies get further and further, they get more challenging. For yourself, how far is your Nendi, roughly? And not by kilometres, but by hours, because we tend to have to measure things now in hours as they get further. Yeah. And this is just up the road, yeah.

00:23:24Johan Duvenhage: So because a lot of the ones that I haven't done is in the Gauteng province, which is about four hours away, most of my members will be in that area for now. But if I leave that out, I'm getting closer to five and six hours.

00:23:37Tony O'Connell: I only ask that question because I think a lot of our audience coming from places, now unlike the UK where parkruns are packed in, the member can be, you know, but they can have done a huge number of events and then maybe can be, you know, 20 miles up the road. We have that geo-distance, yeah. All right, well, thank you very much, Johan. We shall pass over to our next. Thanks very much.

00:24:03Ali Sheppard: Yes.

Interview Ali Sheppard — podcast roving reporter based in the UK, home parkrun Walthamstow; interviewed as one…

00:24:09Tony O'Connell: Right, how it is, with great pleasure that I introduce Ali Sheppard.

00:24:12Ali Sheppard: Yeah, that's interesting.

00:24:14Tony O'Connell: Ali has a parkrun number of A729932 which is only 42,000 away from my parkrun number. Ali actually registered probably six weeks before Jacqui registered me, so... That's amazing. Ali has done 269 parkruns at 195 locations. You have 17 country flags on your profile. I do. 198 volunteer credits, a parkrun birthday of the 9th of November 2013, and the home parkrun of Walthamstow. That's correct. I'm so glad I got the right answer. Ali is normally very reserved, doesn't really like talking much at all. Probably doesn't find a lot of words to say, but I'm going to try and drag some conversation out, Ali.

00:24:50[laughter]

00:25:11Ali Sheppard: I have to apologise to Rex, because I think last night I talked his ear off.

00:25:18Tony O'Connell: That's all right. I've had a few chats with Rex, and I reckon Rex will probably throw it back as well. LAUGHTER Ali, how did you find out about parkrun and where did your journey begin with parkrun?

00:25:20[laughter]

00:25:31Ali Sheppard: Okay, so my journey began in a tent, a Berber tent in the desert in Jordan in the Middle East. It's well known for parkruns, you know, that parkrun country. I was on an adventure holiday, one of these holidays where you walk with a group And there was a man, and it was following T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, and we were staying in this tent that was made of goat hide, and it was in the middle of the desert. And they said to us, you know, the one thing you must not do is go out into the desert, because you will get lost, and this is dangerous, and there were animals, it was just... So there was one guy on this group, and he was 78 years old, and he was a professor of something incredibly clever, and he was very absent-minded, and he kept leaving his camera in different cafes and things, and he was always like, oh, well, well, well. So anyway, one night we were in this tent, and it was really hot, so some of us went outside and slept outside, and some slept in the tent. And in the morning, we were all having breakfast, and somebody said, where's Martin? And we realised that Martin had not survived the night in this tent, and we were like, where is Martin?

00:26:55[laughter]

00:26:58Tony O'Connell: And suddenly he came running in, and he... Well, that's just taken a different... Martin had not survived the night.

00:27:09Ali Sheppard: Martin turned out to be an incredible runner, and he was a friend of Paul Sinton-Hewitt's. And he had been to the second ever parkrun at, I think it was the second ever or maybe the third ever parkrun at Bushy. And he was an incredible runner. He'd run London Marathon 32 times or whatever. And so I was so impressed with him. I said, you know, tell me, how do I get into running? And, you know, I can't run. And he started telling me about parkrun. He said it was in Bushy. And I thought Bushy, you won't know this, but there are two Bushys in, there's another place called Bushy near Watford, where I had a friend, and I was like, you've got to go to this parkfront. And she said, I don't think there is anything in where we are. So I looked it up, and I found my local one, and I went along and volunteered, handing out finish tokens, and the rest is history. Thank you.

00:28:04Tony O'Connell: I've got to say that's probably one of the first times I've heard of someone signing up in a tent in the Villa Jordan. I'm not too sure whether it's going to be too many to match that. So at the moment your home is Walthamstow.

00:28:19Ali Sheppard: It is. How often do you get there? I haven't been there probably over a year. So I got into touring, adventuring, we call it touring. So I used to be on the core team at Walthamstow and a Run Director and so on. And then in COVID times, when we were all in lockdown, I got into, there was a guy who ran a parkrun and he was Event Director in Neckarufer in Germany. And he and his wife, so that's Nigel and Norm Stawson, big shout out to them. They have been interviewed for this pod. They started doing a quiz on a Sunday night. And we were all locked down in our houses and it was brilliant for an hour. Every Sunday night, it was just fantastic, great fun. And sorry, yes, I realised that it's not recording. And so we started doing this quiz and people from the UK started joining in. And we, you know, he would say, oh, hi to Ali from Walthamstow and hi to, you know, Top from Inverloch or whatever, whoever was joining in. And then when we could all start again, he said, why don't you all come, all the people from the UK, why don't you come to Germany and do the parkrun for the special Unity Day? And we all planned it and we all went to go and I got COVID the week before and couldn't go. So, but they didn't like this. And from that little group of people, they have become my touristing friends. And then it was a few weeks later, one said, oh, I've got a milestone here or, you know, in Birmingham or whatever. And so I started just going to the touring with them and discovered this whole new world of touring with my quarantine quizzer friends. So, Yeah.

00:30:08Tony O'Connell: So following on from the questions I asked Johan, within, say, a 10-mile radius of you, how many parkruns from your home do you think would be in a 10-mile radius?

00:30:18Ali Sheppard: I think I have 20 parkruns within a 10-mile radius.

00:30:23Tony O'Connell: Just a completely different context and probably shows that the UK is obviously a lot more advanced with parkrunning. They started years before everyone else. They've got more and more events. But it's just interesting that Space and time.

00:30:35[laughter]

00:30:37Ali Sheppard: I think my NENDY is seven miles away. I won't go there because it's hilly. I've had people get lost on the course.

00:30:46Tony O'Connell: All right, well, another follow-up question, the same as Johan. I'm going to say top, and I'm going to say, what's your worst rate? No, I'm not. Are there three parkruns that stand out, or are there a couple that stand out for any particular reason? And as I said before, it doesn't have to be scenery, it doesn't have to be anything in particular.

00:30:55[laughter]

00:31:08Ali Sheppard: It's so hard. I say I have 25 parkruns in my top five. So I don't know, top three off the top of my head. Bere Island, is a tiny island off the southwest coast of Ireland. And it is incredible, because you have to go on a little ferry to get there. And you get on the ferry, and they call up. The parkrunner calls down to the ferry and say, how many parkrunners are on the ferry? And they say, how many? And then they send minibuses to pick you up. And they take you to the Gaelic Football Club. And the course is around this beautiful island. Just on the roads. Just ordinary on the roads. No marshals. They've just painted the course with arrows where you turn. And you can't really get lost. You just go up and come back. And it is beautiful and they are amazing there. They are a fantastic community. So that one. And I think my second is Lilsjön in Sweden, which is about 25km outside of Stockholm. And nobody goes there. People go to Sweden, and they do Haga, the main one in the centre of Stockholm, or all the others. And this one, you have to get a bus, and a tram, and a train, and walk. And you get there, and they normally have, it's a really small number of people there. And we went for their special weekend, their special day. And there were six of us, I think, went there. And they couldn't get over the fact. They have four volunteers who do all the roles, and they've got a beautiful lake and you walk around the lake and beautiful forest and it's incredible and a beautiful cafe with homemade ice cream and it's just go go to miltion it is amazing and so for my third I think it would have to be piram beaches Dolls oh no good nazi one coming up Pirrama, The Beaches and Dolls Point Or maybe Trentham Gardens in the UK which is in a beautiful brand and they've got little fairy sculptures everywhere and I did my 100th different event there dressed as a cow.

00:33:04[crosstalk]

00:33:15[laughter]

00:33:24Unidentified speaker: Oh, Ali, well, great to hear from both yourself and from Johan.

00:33:32Tony O'Connell: It's great to get a little bit of an international perspective. And what I really wanted to do was try to contrast the difference between space and proximity. And I think we've achieved that quite well.

00:33:44Tracey Wood: So thank you very much.

00:33:46Melissa Ellis: Thank you.

Palm quiz — Tanya - winner of the palm25 quiz

00:33:52Tracey Wood: Okay, this is the time of the episode where we have our traditional quiz. So would the quiz master standing in, standing as a standing quiz master, like to come up?

00:34:06Melissa Ellis: And would you like to take over and introduce your guest? Okay. The tester.

00:34:13Lyndell Murray: Thank you, Mel. It's Lyndell here, standing in for Simon as the quiz master for palm25. Firstly, I'd like to introduce my assistants. So assisting me today will be Tracey in a Tutu and Johan, as well as Mel, who's going to go through the rules. But I think next I will introduce our contestants. So our contestants today will be Rex. Welcome, Rex. You're the first contestant on the parkrun adventurers podcast, please. Yes, I'm the first. Next is Andrew. And, of course, we're in New Zealand, so we need to have our resident New Zealand contestant, Tanya.

00:35:05[background music]

00:35:07Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: One of our baby shapes.

00:35:10Melissa Ellis: All right. Mel, would you like to go through the rules very quickly? Okay, the rules are pretty simple. When you know the answer to the question, you rattle your buzzer. We'll do a buzzer check shortly. Stand down, Rich, stand down. Now, do not call out the answer until we say your name. The correct answers are gonna be one point, and Johan is our score master. But we've handed out a musical instrument to each of the contestants, so we'll check that they work. We'll start with Rex. And then... Andrew. OK, I think we're right now. I have an envelope. Ooh!

00:35:40[background music]

00:36:11Tracey Wood: Is it making the appropriate sound effects?

00:36:14Lyndell Murray: Okay, so when you buzz in, Toc is the judge as to who is going to answer the questions. And then Tracy will come to you with a microphone for you to answer the questions. So why don't we do that so that everything is recorded. Alrighty, with no further ado, here are our questions. Our first question is a who am I? Make sure I've got no writing on the back. Yeah, good. Our first question is a who am I? My name is well known across the parkrun world. I have volunteered 12 times and run over 225 times. While I've been to 20 different events, I recently notched up my double ton at home. My home event is here in New Zealand. I recently set a new world record parkrun time, but it's not my PB. I am the oldest known parkrunner in the world. My initials are CT. Any takers? Okay, so if nobody knows the name of this parkrunner, the question will be, What was the new world record this parkrunner set? Or what was he known for? Rex.

00:37:35[background music]

00:37:47Tony O'Connell: They had to open up a new category from the 101, 304, 100,

00:37:59Lyndell Murray: And for the record, his name is Colin Thorne.

00:38:01[crosstalk]

00:38:01Unidentified speaker: Oh, I was saying Colin.

00:38:05Lyndell Murray: Okay, next question. How many registered parkrunners are there with a surname of Queenstown? It's a multiple choice. Is it A, 0, B, 5, C, 7 or D, 9?

00:38:25Tony O'Connell: We have the tamper.

00:38:27Lyndell Murray: B. That is correct. Okay, third question. In a recent pod episode, Reginald, our friend Reginald, talked about four parkruns with numbers in the name. This is not a multiple choice, so buzz in as soon as you know. Which is the closest one to Queenstown? Okay, question four is a multiple choice question. The question is, which parkrun location is likely to see the sun first each parkrun day? Is it A, Nelson, B, Inverloch, C, Invercargill, or D, Gisborne? Gisborne. That is correct. Okay, score check, please, Johan.

00:39:24Johan Duvenhage: All right, so we've got... and Tanya leading with two.

00:39:35Lyndell Murray: Okay, the next question is a where am I? So I'll read out each of the clues. You can buzz in at any time, but once you have guessed, you cannot guess another time. Okay, clue number one, my course is 5,000 metres long. I'm located in New Zealand. I've had almost 5,000 finishes. My course is two laps clockwise. I would be the perfect parkrun for Derek Zoolander because all of the turns on the course are to the right. I'm often mentioned on a podcast and I could be a contender for New Zealand's world award status. Yes, Tanya. Pegasus. That is correct. All right, so next question. Recently, South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales were bracing for cyclone Alfred. How many parkruns are there with Alfred in the name? This is a multiple choice. Is it A, one, B, two, C, three, or D, zero? Is it three? It's not three. It is not two. Zero? It is not zero.

00:41:00[laughter]

00:41:04Unidentified speaker: It must be three.

00:41:11Lyndell Murray: So there are no scores for this question. This question was probably made for Johan because there is one, and it is Port Alfred in South Africa.

00:41:21Tony O'Connell: Score check?

00:41:22Lyndell Murray: Score check. Score check, please, Johan.

00:41:26Johan Duvenhage: Right, we're still on one pick. CJ times zero, Andrew on one, and Tanya on three.

00:41:32Lyndell Murray: So Tanya is our hometown hero. We're picking Johan in the league currently. Okay. This question might also be one that Tanya knows the answer to. If a Hoffman is the first 50 parkruns at 50 different locations, what is a full Bailey? Tanya does not know the answer to this question. 100 at 100 different locations? It is not 100 at 100 different locations. I'll do a larienda and go, higher! Come on guys, jump in. Have a go.

00:41:45[laughter]

00:42:11Tony O'Connell: I just need a drink.

00:42:14Unidentified speaker: Any other takers?

00:42:15Lyndell Murray: Anyone else want to take a go? $500? $500? $250? $250!

00:42:18[16 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:42:34Lyndell Murray: Okay, next question. The latest event to launch in New Zealand, excluding today if there is one, and we've had confirmation that there wasn't one. The latest event to launch in New Zealand is called, is it A, Neale Park, B, East Otago High School, C... Tanya, let's do it again. Over to you, Tanya.

00:42:57Unidentified speaker: East Otago High School. That is correct.

00:42:59Lyndell Murray: Oh, my God. OK.

00:43:05Unidentified speaker: He's one of the Australians.

00:43:10Lyndell Murray: OK, stick with me here. This is... Hopefully I get this one out right. OK. The question is, one of Australia's states has all of the available alphabet letters except Q and, of course, excluding X. Which is the next closest state to having all of the letters? This is not a multiple-choice question, so just buzzing all over the place. Victoria? It is not Victoria. ACT? It is not ACT. Queensland? It is not Queensland. South Australia? It is not South Australia. Okay, so I'll give you a hint. The state, and this is up for grabs again, buzz in first if you want to have a guess. The state that has all available letters except Q is actually Queensland, which is ironic.

00:44:00[background music]

00:44:06Ali Sheppard: Yeah.

00:44:07Lyndell Murray: And the question is, which is the next closest state?

00:44:09Ali Sheppard: I would go again.

00:44:12Lyndell Murray: I think that was a Rex.

00:44:14Unidentified speaker: Rex.

00:44:14Unidentified speaker: Tasmanian.

00:44:15Lyndell Murray: It is not Tasmanian. It's a bit of an equivalence. So I think that question proves that Queensland is the greatest state and New South Wales is the second greatest state.

00:44:34Johan Duvenhage: Okay, score check please, Johan. Alright, let's change a little bit. Next on 1, Yvette now opens her score at 1 as well. Andrew at 2 and Thal is still leading with 4 now.

00:44:35[background music]

00:44:48Lyndell Murray: There's also a multiple choice question. Which parkrun country has had the most launches in 2025 as at the 31st of March? Is it A, the United Kingdom, B, the United States of America, C, Germany, or D, Australia?

00:45:06Unidentified speaker: Australia.

00:45:08Lyndell Murray: The answer is Australia, that's correct. So the answer is Australia has had 14, the UK has had 11, The USA only won, and Germany has had two. Okay. That's the conclusion of our questions. I should have said that before the questions. Over to you.

00:45:28Johan Duvenhage: Do we need the tiebreaker? No. So, Ericsson won, Yvette won one, Andrew won three, and Tanya's still leading with a four.

00:45:40[background music]

00:45:41Lyndell Murray: So congratulations Tanya. You are the winner of the Palm Quiz for 2025. Yay! Is there a prize that you would like to present to Tanya?

00:45:50Unidentified speaker: Local knowledge.

00:45:51Lyndell Murray: I want to interview you. How did you go? Did you get the two points from the team? That was good fun. A little bit of local knowledge there. So yeah, great. I noted that there was a question about Pegasus.

00:46:05Unidentified speaker: The only beast that can't run in the South Island.

00:46:09Lyndell Murray: It was pure coincidence. We didn't know, well, I knew that there was a question about Pegasus, but when we chose you as a contestant, nobody else heard you, so congratulations.

00:46:19Melissa Ellis: Thank you. Tanya.

00:46:23Tracey Wood: Tanya, we had some presents here. Would you like to choose something?

00:46:27Melissa Ellis: You might already have a collection of Kiwis. We've got a New Zealand book. There's a a visor, and some onions. We've also got these t-shirts.

00:46:42Unidentified speaker: Small sizes. You have to give the tambourine.

00:46:59Melissa Ellis: The other contestants, would they also like to pick something from the prize box? Who comes second? Andrew. Can I just say Tanya's lip reading is horrendous.

00:47:19Unidentified speaker: Just like to point out that in the Trans-Tasman Trophy, Australia beat New Zealand in the quiz there. So check that baby.

00:47:25[background music]

00:47:29Melissa Ellis: We are outnumbered. And the other two. We've got one.

00:47:40[crosstalk]

00:47:41Tony O'Connell: We've got a kiwi.

00:47:42Melissa Ellis: There's some parkrun branded lanyards.

00:47:46Tony O'Connell: There's t-shirts. They're small, but if you fit them on, you probably can't move about. He's got a heart attack.

00:47:52[22 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:48:14Melissa Ellis: All right. So that's the quiz.

00:48:18Tracey Wood: Where are we up to?

Host thank yous

00:48:23Melissa Ellis: Host thank yous. All right. So as we said at the opening, we were sad that all the hosts couldn't be with us. It's very much a team effort putting on the podcast. I couldn't do it. Definitely couldn't do it on my own. I need the support. I appreciate the support. Thank you, Tony, for coming on board when Ollie wasn't able to continue on. And, of course, Simon and Sarah, who can't be here today. They do so much to help me, to support me, to put up with me, okay? Because it's not easy. I can tell you and they can confirm. So I also want to thank all our roving reporters that do so much and contribute the content. We hope you enjoy it. We hope that you like listening to the little bits, all the little grabs. I think the different voices and colour and interests, and you don't want to just hear us, walling on every week so thank you to all the roving reporters of course an Office Lady who who jumps in and out is sort of more of our backup at the moment she came in over Christmas and gave their equal opportunity employee a week off for a few weeks off actually held the fort got their shirts up and running so we had another availability of shirts for sale she's sort of our go-to person for the merch. And yes, and for David Bravos, who's over there on the West Side who helps with the social media posts. So we've mentioned him a couple of times now.

00:49:50Tony O'Connell: The couple of thank yous I've got, and it was really awkward handing over a bit of paper to Mel because she can't find hers. My first thank you is to Mel. Oh. Mel is a gun with the podcast. I don't think we appreciate how much work goes into the editing and that. We jump on, we fill out the run sheet and all that. We try to help with that. But Mel's the backbone behind the podcast. A big hand for Mel. I'd also like to thank the Queenstown Bowling Club They've given us a venue for the day. I was talking to the president before. He said, it's a community thing. We support the community. Go for it. I said, if you want to put the ball in, I'll make some money out of it. He said, no, we're bowling. You just do what you do. So I really appreciate the Queenstown Bowls Club, and we'll pass our thanks on. Other little sales note, we have more buffs to sell if anyone wants a buff. Here's a word from our sponsor. And that is about me done with that.

00:50:20[laughter]

00:50:58Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I'll just mention too, when we do sell the shirts and the buffs, we are making a tiny little margin. That money just goes to the things like today, we've hired professional equipment. So in the past, sometimes that's come out of our own pocket. So that's when we do the little fundraising things, that's just to help us pay for things like that. And we'll have those dates and prizes for next year and that sort of thing. So just so you know.

Palm audience Q&A

00:51:23Melissa Ellis: nice to have a little insight into that type of thing no consolidated club report this week or in this pod but it'll be up tomorrow uh the Belinda Fairy will magically make that appear for us but we've got what is traditional is uh the audience questions if you've got questions for us Ali's going to come around with microphone if anybody wants to ask anything of TOC and I or any of the other roving reporters oh they're shy

00:51:50[laughter]

00:51:57Unidentified speaker: So what country next year?

00:52:00Melissa Ellis: We knew this was going to happen. Last year we did announce that we were going to be going to New Zealand this year. This year, to be completely honest with all of you, we have not had a discussion about it. We haven't talked to Sarah and Simon. There's no decision being made, and that's hand in my heart. We don't know. So when we do, we will announce it.

00:52:22Tony O'Connell: That's both date and location. That will be announced. We'll give everyone as much notice as we can, but at this stage, we just have not even discussed it at this point.

00:52:33Melissa Ellis: And Ali has a haiku as well.

00:52:37Ali Sheppard: Well, yeah, I've been doing parkrun in haikus. So every parkrun I go to, I try and think of a haiku, which is a Japanese poem, five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. So walking around the course of the day, I thought of

00:52:53[16 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:53:09Unidentified speaker: I think making the podcast just seems so easy. We just turn it on and listen to it. Well, most of us do. When it comes out, I find it really great since I started listening. Can you just give us a little bit of insight into how much work? There's obviously a lot of work that goes in behind it, which you don't really think about, but can you just give us a little overview of what you guys actually do during the week to make the podcast ready for publishing?

00:53:32Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so probably most of the work starts on a Sunday afternoon to start putting show notes together. So we have an Excel spreadsheet that the four regular hosts have access to. We jump in and start populating the data and looking at DASs, choosing the, a lot of thought goes into who we choose to mention in the DASs post. We look for things like, things that will be talking points, things of interest that we can chat together, adventurers that have done milestones or maybe a new name that hasn't really popped up before and that we want to encourage them to interact with us on the pod. So yeah, a lot of work goes in on Sunday and then Monday will actually be recording night. Recording starts at seven, well. We jump online at 7 o'clock and we talk for an hour, just between us, mostly catching up and then going over what we're going to discuss on the pod, if we chose the right Dazza's or if we should have, you know, what should we talk about, what should we leave out. And the actual recording part probably takes an hour. And so that's it for Monday night. And then I will probably spend at least two evenings editing. Usually pretty much two full evenings, get home from work, a quick tea sometimes I don't have tea so I'm like I've got to get editing done so and then yeah by the end of the second eye we will have pretty much all of edited it and then I'll be sort of trying to write a description because that's got to go it's not just in the social media but it's actually embedded in the file so I can't even upload it to podbean until it's written and then think of a pod name and then we choose a photo oh and then we've got to choose an Obi So yeah, it sort of goes on all week and yeah, hopefully I try to get it out by Thursday night so that people have a chance to listen to it for Friday before Saturday morning.

00:55:33Tony O'Connell: I think a large part of it happens, sort of the magic happens on a Monday night and then with Mel doing the editing. But with the four of us involved in it, we tend to jump in, like I'd traditionally probably drive to parkrun on a Saturday. Jacqui always drives home because I sit there scrolling, looking for content, looking for ideas. And I'll read. I've got post-it notes in the car and I'll be sticking post-it notes on the dashboard of content ideas and things. Some weeks it's really easy. You find just so much in it. Hell, I've got too much here to talk about. Other weeks it's really hard to find content. But because all four of us jump in and put stuff into the spreadsheet, it really helps. And sometimes people will jump in. You'll do all your spreadsheet. You'll have a read-up at Monday Arvo before Mel and I have a chat. And then Simon or someone will jump in and he'll add a little comment or he'll change something. And it's almost like a gotcha moment sometimes when you're reading through and you realise that what's been attributed to you to read out is not what you were thinking or not what you said. But yeah, so the pod sort of happens, not all day, every day, but as you, you know, you'll hear something, you'll be talking to somebody, you'll see a social media post and you'll jump in and think, that's a great bit of content or, And sometimes we look at it and we say, no, that's not our cup of tea for what we want to talk about. Other times we jump on things and we love the ideas.

00:56:55[background music]

Sign-off

00:57:10Melissa Ellis: Hello there adventurers. If you're thinking to yourself, hey, the sound quality has changed, you are correct. At approximately the 57 minute mark of our recording in front of the live Palm audience, we had technical issues. We stopped and restarted, but unfortunately, the restarting part of the audio gave me a completely silent audio file. So here we are. Luckily for the Palm attendees, they have nice memories of the entire Q&A session, which will be a special keepsake forever lost to the wider audience. And if you happen to possess IT skills that can possibly prevent this reoccurring, we'd love to hear from you. So what else followed the Q&A? Well, I'm glad you asked. TOC said, Mel, where will you be on Saturday? And I said, Pyramid Hill Golf Trail parkrun. Then I asked, Toc, where will you be on Saturday? And he said, Pyramid Hill Golf Trail parkrun. And as luck would have it, we're both staying at the pub. And that was it. Our palm25 weekend was over and Toc said, 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. Sarah and Simon will see you all next week for more adventures.

00:58:25[outro theme playing]

00:58:44Unidentified speaker: It's free, it's free, it's free.