Episode 430 - Cleaner Wanted!

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:22Melissa Ellis: Welcome to episode 430 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country.

00:00:35Tony O'Connell: And my name is TOC and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country.

00:00:38Melissa Ellis: Ahoy TOC! She is, aren't you? I said, ahoy. I've been listening to Hamish and Andy. Do you know who they are?

00:00:50[crosstalk]

00:00:50Tony O'Connell: I know who Hamish and Andy are. I'm old enough to know that.

00:00:53Melissa Ellis: They are very well known. I think they began in Melbourne, radio presenters and now TV personalities in Australia, and I was recommended to listen to their radio show on one of my many long trips for touristing and I I just was taken at how they use ahoy as a greeting and so do their listeners when their listeners send in audio they use ahoy and of course I haven't been listening to for a long time, and much like a podcast, there's in-jokes or content that you might not be aware of that you would find out if you go back and listen to the back catalogue. So I'm guessing somewhere along the line they've decided that Ahoy was an underused greeting and that they might popularise it?

00:01:47Tony O'Connell: I did see it in the show notes, Mel, and I was wondering what the heck it meant. So if they clearly explain that now, I'll... Yeah, I'm not sure what I'll do with that little fact of information.

00:01:59Melissa Ellis: I think that we need, so this is the point where I'm, this is where I'm headed with this. I think we need an adventurer greeting because we do not have one.

00:02:08Tony O'Connell: Okay, well, we'd need to come up with a little bit of a thought about it. I'm not sure about Ahoy.

00:02:14Melissa Ellis: No, because that's taken. That's someone else's user.

00:02:16Tony O'Connell: That's Hamish and Andy's thing. But isn't it cool? We need our own one. We need to think about it. What's an adventurer context?

00:02:24Melissa Ellis: Well, it could be Cooee. Message deleted.

00:02:28Tony O'Connell: Hello.

00:02:30Melissa Ellis: I lost you. Ahoy.

00:02:32Tony O'Connell: I'm still recording.

00:02:33Alice: We're still recording.

00:02:38Tony O'Connell: Ahoy. Ahoy. Ahoy. Ahoy. I disappeared. You said there's something wrong. What's the last bit you heard me say? Oh, we were just talking about an adventurer's greeting and all of a sudden I had a black screen in front of me.

00:02:38[crosstalk]

00:02:58Melissa Ellis: Okay, and I'm panicking on the other side. What's happened? Yes, now this is what I was going to say was something that I think could be adventurer related would be Cooee. Yep. Or is that just Australian related?

00:03:10Tony O'Connell: That's probably very Aussie.

00:03:13Melissa Ellis: It is very Aussie, isn't it? And underutilised.

00:03:17Tony O'Connell: I tell you what, Mel, let's have a bit of a scratch of our heads about it and let's invite the listeners to come up with something and then we'll come up with something that we like anyway.

00:03:29Melissa Ellis: We'll give them the opportunity to tell us what they think and then we'll make our own decision. Let's have some creative input. I like that idea. That's pretty much how I operate.

00:03:39Tony O'Connell: oh dear so that is the the mystery behind ahoy well that sums up that one line in the show notes so thank you very much for making me laugh anyway and for making me panic when the screen went black that's going to be interesting when I edit I guess I'll leave all that in if uh if it's not too well hopefully it's just not me saying ahoy ahoy

00:04:05Melissa Ellis: Moving on. It's been a month and we've got a bit to recap.

00:04:10Tony O'Connell: It has been a month, Mel, and I reckon I'll kick off with what I've been up to in the last three weeks. Please do. I started off with another trip back up to Great Southern Rail Trail, which is one of my events up at a little town called Korumburra. We ducked up there because with my ongoing recovery, my leg is going very well and it's a granitic sand, so it's a soft sand track. And so it was much better for me than running on concrete. Yeah, couple of weeks ago we then went to Aintree Reserve we were chasing a Wilson number and it's quite funny we drove two and a half hours west and we almost got to Meltown and I think on the same day we'll get to where you were later but you probably drove an hour and a half east and came over my way so we almost probably crossed on the Westgate Bridge and We then headed off to the You Yangs after that, and one of our friends ran a 170-kilometre race, and she actually recorded a parkrun of elevation. So she had 5,000 metres of vertical climb during her race. So not only did she run lots of parkruns in distance, but a parkrun straight up in the air. And then this week, we were back to the stump. And a bit of a reference there to pod regular Ali Sheppard, who was at Richmond parkrun in the UK, and they also had a stump. So we will get to a little bit more about Ali later. But the friend that we crewed at the You Yangs last week, Alicia, she ran her 250th at Inverloch this week. So it was a bit of a double celebration and a bit of a celebrational run. And I was lucky enough to meet a couple of travellers that... One of the blokes, when we got to parkrun, he's got a t-shirt on. It's one of the ones with all the names of the events on the back. And he had 100 different events on the back. So there must be tourists. I'll wander over and say g'day, have a chat. And he turns out he's actually a member of the adventurers as well. His name was Steve Amor. And he ran his 200th unique event at Inverloch on the weekend, and even more impressive for me anyway his partner Anna who was there she's currently on 153 finishes and she's on 153 locations so so far she's never been back to the same event for a second go and I found that pretty awesome that is amazing good work Anna there's names for all those things but I forget there is names for those things and I tend to call it impressive

00:06:51Melissa Ellis: Yeah, let's stick with that. I agree. And how is the injury doing?

00:06:56Tony O'Connell: Injury's going really well, Mel. I'm back to running. I'm allowed to run two laps of an oval on the grass now. Good boy. I'm playing at the very conservative game, but I can sense that it's going well. I feel it's going well, and I'm back in the gym. So, yeah, I'm happy again. I can see that next year I'll be running, and maybe by next year I'll be able to run 5K again.

00:07:22Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. Next year, wow. Is it going to take that long, or are you joking?

00:07:27Tony O'Connell: I'd like to think it'll be earlier, but let's just see how it goes.

00:07:32Melissa Ellis: And well done, Alicia. Congratulations on your huge event. She did a...

00:07:39Tony O'Connell: ultra something yeah it's called a miler so it's um yeah it's 100 miles but being out in the bush on trails it's never an exact 100 miles so it was 21 and a bit k loops and she did eight of them and it included summiting flinders peak at the yu yang's eight times during the event so flinders peak is a massive set of stairs that you go up and down and And that was included eight times. And I walked up with five of the trips, I think. And I've got to say, by the time we got to the last trip, Alicia had no filter. It was a very interesting trip. Mel, what about you? How's your parkrun adventure?

00:07:40[crosstalk]

00:08:23Melissa Ellis: Well, thank you for asking, TOC. So over the last four weeks, I have travelled to South Australia on three occasions in my attempt to line up my 250th unique event with my 500th in a few weeks' time. It's been hard, I can tell you, and I am lucky to have been encouraged by my partner because I actually think I would have given up otherwise. I'm happy to announce I am on target to achieve the goal. So starting chronologically, I visited Myponga Reservoir, which was a two-night adventure meeting up with Sam Schroder, the OGOL, who flew in from New South Wales. There we met founding ED John Clements, who we identified as an adventurer by a sticker on his car. The course was a single loop through some very pretty mountain terrain on what was a very misty morning. The following week, I returned solo to Belair National Park in SA. Now, the best thing about this adventure was that I booked the local caravan park to do a camp in my car stay, not realising that the park was adjacent to the start line. PK previously brought us a report from Belair back in episode 366, so I had no intention of capturing any audio. However, sometimes the cards just fall differently, and so I was motivated to capture the following interviews. Okay, here at Belair today, we had a wonderful Acknowledgement of Country done by a couple of girls. Now, we've got here Llewellyn and Claire. Did I get it right? Llewellyn. Llewellyn. Right, okay. And I was going to get them to read the Acknowledgement of Country because they did such a brilliant job. Now, we'll start with Claire.

00:10:04Claire: Welcome to Belair National Park. Hello sun, hello sky, hello moon. We acknowledge the Kaurna people for the land they live. Today we acknowledge elders past, present and emerging.

00:10:20Llewellyn: We are lucky to have beautiful karra, trees, natu, kangaroos, mayanguia, turtles and other beautiful creatures. We are grateful to be able to run and walk on this land today. Natalia, thank you to the Kaurna people.

00:10:33Melissa Ellis: Now, that is just beautiful, girls. Did you come up with that yourself?

00:10:37Llewellyn: We had it, like, from the school, because our school does... Yeah. And we tweaked it a little bit.

00:10:42Claire: We got some inspiration from our school.

00:10:45Melissa Ellis: That's beautiful. And does one of you read it every week here?

00:10:48Claire: Yeah, we change it so I read one and then... And then I read it the next week. And then I read it every week.

00:10:55Melissa Ellis: I think that's really beautiful that you acknowledge and that everybody that comes to visit here knows the country that they're running and walking on. Thank you very much. Thank you. And let me just ask, Claire, how many parkruns have you done? 48. 48? So you're about to do your, well, you're going to do your 50th really soon. Yeah. And did you do them all here at Bel Air?

00:11:15Claire: I've done one somewhere else, but mostly here. And Luenic?

00:11:20Llewellyn: Mine's, I'm 50 today. 50 today? For volunteering.

00:11:22[crosstalk]

00:11:23Melissa Ellis: For volunteering, congratulations. Do you prefer to volunteer?

00:11:27Llewellyn: Yeah, and then sometimes just walk around, like today I walked around. And do you ever get to a different parkrun? I've been to a few different parkruns, probably three or two, but not that many.

00:11:37Melissa Ellis: And what's your school's name? We should give them a shout out. Hawthorndene. And is that close to here?

00:11:41[crosstalk]

00:11:42Llewellyn: Just over that way. Just over there? It's basically just that.

00:11:45Melissa Ellis: Wonderful. Do you get many of your kids from school come here?

00:11:48Claire: We used to, not anymore. Maybe just like one or two. We used to get quite a few, but not anymore.

00:11:55Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay. Maybe at school sports time when they're doing cross country.

00:12:00Claire: Maybe more in the summer as well. Yeah. It's getting cold.

00:12:03Melissa Ellis: It is. It's a bit 80 here today. So you've done well. If you've done 50 odd out of 80, good on you. And all right. Well, thank you very much for talking to me. It was lovely to meet you both. Thank you. Okay, now I am here post-event with Jason, who also happens to be the co-ED here of Belair National Park parkrun. And there's a bit of an exciting thing that also is going on in it. I'll let Jason explain it himself.

00:12:33Jason: Yeah, so being the Co-Event Director at the parkrun, I took on another initiative to launch what we're calling the Man Walk initiative. It's part of the manwalk network. It's a network of walking groups across Australia. Actually global now. They've got some walks in Japan and in New Zealand as well. But our manwalk here is the first in their network in South Australia. And we started it. There were some blokes that were kind of keen on coming for a walk. got the concept of what we call blokes at the back. So it started with me just doing the tail walk role, the volunteer role, because it was one of the roles I hadn't ever done at parkrun. I've always been a runner at parkrun. And so I thought, no, I'll try the tail walk. And so we kind of got, I think it was a few of the girls that said it as a bit of a joke. There's the blokes at the back. And it just kind of went from there. And then we engaged with the man walk and took on a franchise with them. So We've been going for 13 weeks now with the men walk. Um, and this is pretty solid, consistent group. We had 15 today. So getting, I think there was 17 a couple of weeks ago. It's pretty consistent numbers, getting some blokes coming out for the second time. The whole concept of that is, you know, blokes that, you know, maybe at different levels of physical activity that come out, have a walk, have a chat, um, look after their mental health and, uh, you know, make social connections and that sort of thing. So that's what it's really all about. Um, So, yeah, it's a really, really great initiative and getting a lot of support.

00:14:06Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. And so I see it as sort of like an active men's shed almost.

00:14:10Jason: Pretty much, yeah. And a lot of the guys kind of give us that feedback that they've done men's shed and they've done, like they might do cycling groups and that sort of thing. But there's a bit of a different feel about a walking group because you kind of... You're walking at an easy conversational pace and you're out there, like in a parkrun, you're walking 5km, which is taking us about an hour. So you've got an hour's worth of conversations and a group of 15, you might float between different blokes. You might have a long chat with one bloke, you might have a short chat with another bloke, but it's kind of just trying to dig through those conversations, surface level conversations, how are you, has your team won the footy and how's the weather, getting a bit deeper and a few of the blokes got some things going on and it's good to know that they're not on their own when they're going through it.

00:14:55Melissa Ellis: I think it's something that women probably traditionally do a lot better than men on that side. But we know as runners, as trail runners, how you go out for a run for an hour with somebody and by the end of it, you know their whole life story, right? And it's running side by side with somebody, not face to face. It's less confrontational, isn't it?

00:15:14Jason: Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly what we find. And most of these blokes, like I said, they're at varying levels of physical activity. So some of them haven't been active for quite some time. I had one bloke last week who's just coming back. from a knee surgery so he didn't walk the full 5k but you know we've got that option the man walks not it's it's uh we're co-located with parkrun but it's not affiliated with parkrun so there's no um stigma around it you don't have to walk the 5k if you we've got our course is perfectly designed for it you can join in um later or you can bail out early so um it works for for guys to sort of build their confidence and their fitness levels and And the confidence you get out of building up your fitness level as well. I think the blokes are finding that. And then we stay for a coffee after. We've got the goat shed right here for a coffee. And it's a beautiful location and a perfect location for a man walk. And it seems to be, you know, getting a lot of buzz in the community.

00:16:10Melissa Ellis: Well, well done you for both bringing parkrun to your community and the man walk. Yeah. Would you like to tell us a little bit about your parkrun history?

00:16:17Jason: Oh, wow. So I had been doing parkrun for maybe about a year before we started here at Bel Air, but probably only about six months or so. And I'd done a few parkruns down at Oaklands and then I'd known Catherine before. Catherine's our local Member of Parliament. As well, and she was quite keen to get a parkrun started in Bel Air, so it was actually her idea to kind of get started, and I joined her kind of group to get it happening, and we kind of went through the process you've got to go through with parkrun to get started, and while I was on that journey, I did a bit of parkrun tourism. I did 24 different parkruns in Adelaide consecutively. I was on a streak for a while. Excellent.

00:17:07Melissa Ellis: That would have given you a good feel and a wide...

00:17:10Jason: idea of what different communities that's what I was super keen to do because um I saw a lot of different parkruns and I'd probably seen a lot that had made some decisions in different ways in their journey and I kind of kind of almost felt like maybe they wouldn't have put the start or finish area in that space if they knew they were going to get 300 people rocking up every week that sort of thing interesting so I was very keen to see different locations meet different um volunteer groups and just build up the IP in my own head of how I wanted this event to run. And this space, where we are in Bel Air right now, had been dormant for probably about seven years. It used to be the golf course here, and the golf course closed. I think the golf course closed seven years ago, and they had the old country club there that was demolished about five years ago. The goat shed's actually the old pro shed from the golf course. Interesting. And Ian there owns a company called Escape Goats. Yeah. So he took over that pro shed. He pleaded with them not to knock that down because he wanted to use it as a location for his business, which is they lease out or hire out mountain bikes. So he can come grab a coffee here or go and grab a mountain bike and go and... take a spin and then come back for a coffee with Ian. So he was keen to do that. And for such a long time, he'd been the only tenant in here. So parkrun's been a good buzz for him. And shortly after we launched here, so we launched in December 23. And shortly after that, we had the disc golf, SA Disc Golf come in and they put in a disc golf course in here. So it's kind of like turned a course a former golf course that was on pretty much dormant land into a recreational thriving hub.

00:19:05Melissa Ellis: It's a hive now, isn't it? A hive of activity. Just give us a quick course description as well.

00:19:06[crosstalk]

00:19:10Jason: Yeah, so we're pretty much right next to the caravan park at Bel Air and there's where the goat shed is. We've got a nice little gazebo here for the setup of the volleys, which they're in the process of packing up for me right now, which is great. Our start line is just about, I don't know, it's probably about 50 metres just up the hill a little bit. So we've got a... We get lots of people come along and say it's a mountain, but it's not necessarily a mountain. It's a slight decline. The whole course probably gives you about 70 metres of elevation. But, yeah, there's a slight incline up for about 250 metres. And then it hits a fairly well-defined course or trail the rangers have marked out. It's called the Birdie Loop. And its history has actually been from when it was a golf course, all the little trails in between the fairways. Yeah. And they connected them up to form the Birdie Loop and turned it into a mountain bike trail and a running trail. Yeah. We basically follow the birdie loop and it goes in a nice little circumference. We're going, that's clockwise, isn't it? I think we go clockwise.

00:20:21Alice: Yeah.

00:20:22Jason: Round to, so pretty much from one end of the park to the other and then we hit one of the old golf fairways that we call the teardrop. So you basically run down one fairway and up the other and then we kind of do it out and back. And we were quite keen to do it as an out and back because I felt like of all the parkruns I'd seen, The ones that had the best community engagement were the ones that had you coming back on the participants. I felt that is the perfect example of a parkrun and embracing the spirit of parkrun. We could easily have made it a 5k loop, although we had some challenges around the course design. We ended up with 21 different course ideas before we landed on the one we call the parkrun course now.

00:21:06Melissa Ellis: Now, just lastly, tell me, you announced to the crowd at the start that we could take a pack of cards. Would you like to give us a quick brief about what the cards are?

00:21:15Jason: So parkrun's major sponsor is Medibank. And Medibank recently made a five-year commitment to mental health. And part of that was to design this card game, which is called The Family Roast. So the cards are just made up of little conversation starters. And it's really good to, you know, once your family's had dinner and you're sitting down after dinner and instead of jumping straight into Netflix or something, just grab a couple of cards and ask a few questions. And there's some stuff that can open up some conversations in there. Like I think one question that we looked at yesterday was what's one secret that you've never told your family or something like that. So some of them are challenging. Some of them are maybe a little more physical. It's like stand up and do five jumping jacks or something like that.

00:22:02Calum Burrell: I love it.

00:22:04Jason: It's some good stuff in there and it's just a bit of an engagement piece. I've grabbed my pack. Yep.

00:22:09Melissa Ellis: Did HQ send them out to all the events for their community or is it special here at Belair today?

00:22:13[crosstalk]

00:22:16Jason: No, it's across all parkruns, so every parkrunner in any other location, so any other parkrunners listening to this on this day. So we are 5th of July. They should have had their Event Director doing a very similar thing that we've got here. So these parks, there should be about... I don't know, 150 or so from each parkrun location that will be floating around the community and spreading the message about mental health. It's taking good care of yourself.

00:22:41Melissa Ellis: Fantastic. Jason, thank you so much. We got through so much today. Event Director, ambassador for the man walk and doing a great job out here. Thank you so much for your time.

00:22:52Jason: Pleasure.

00:22:53Melissa Ellis: I love that the Belair community have claimed the space where the old golf course was for parkrun. They've incorporated the man walk with parkrun. They have saved the old golf pro shed for a cafe and disc golf has also been installed. This event just personified the parkrun ethos for me and I travelled home on such a high. So the next Saturday I stayed home in the greater state because it was my birthday, a parkrun Day birthday. I've checked the records and the 12th of July has not fallen on a Saturday since 2014. That was the year I began parkrunning and my spreadsheet tells me that I did not attend parkrun that morning. So this was my very first Saturday parkrun birthday. Excitingly for me, I was able to attend the recently launched event out at Belvedere in Seaford and was joined by Dave, my sister Cassie and parkrun besties, Martine Barrot and Andrew Johnston. Also in attendance and who I chatted with were adventurers Deb Jessop, Cheryl Smit, Lynn Black, Bram Cassidy and Chris and Nathan Ruse. However, afterwards, I discovered that Mark Kant and Scott Wilson-Smith were also present. I've never met them in person, so I am disappointed that I missed the opportunity. If they are listeners, I hope they hear this and that I can meet them in the future. Please always approach me and say hello if you see me at an event because I do like to meet everyone. So that brings me to the Saturday just gone where I travelled back to South Australia with Martine and Andrew to Patawalonga River parkrun, a fabulous flat outback course in the Glenelg area that butts up against the Adelaide airport, meaning plenty of low-flying aircraft overhead during the event. It was nice to also bump into Mike Scott from Lakeview parkrun for a quick chat and of course share the long road trip home catching up with Martine and Andrew. So that's it. I've tried to keep it brief. And that's it for my month of parkruns.

00:24:55Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I think if we took it out beyond the month, I think you've now been to South Australia on six out of the last eight weeks. A car trip for each of those trips. And for people listening from overseas, it's, what is it, seven hours for you each way?

00:25:12Melissa Ellis: Oh, more, more.

00:25:18Tony O'Connell: It's a massive commitment to try to line up that goal. And I admire the way that you've actually gone about doing it because the thought of jumping in the car and driving eight hours on a Friday afternoon, doing a parkrun and eight hours home to get back in time to do things is just a massive achievement. So well done. You've certainly put the long miles in.

00:25:40Melissa Ellis: Yeah, let's not mention my carbon footprint. I'll have to plant a few trees to make amends for that. But anyway, it's been fun. It's been, it'll be memories. Remember that time I did all those crazy trips?

00:25:55Tony O'Connell: An adventure.

00:25:56Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I know. Anyway, what have we got next? We got stats.

00:26:01Tony O'Connell: We have, Mel, and I'm going to start off with our friends across the ditch in New Zealand. On the 19th of July across the ditch, there were 63 parkruns. That number's jumped up since the start of the year. They're kicking goals in New Zealand. There were 8,837 finishers last week and 987 volunteers. Waitangi on 370 was the second largest behind Hagley on 497. And Hamilton Park was able to guarantee a top 10 finish for the position bingo people because they only had nine finishes. For those following at home, Riverlution, which launched about a month and a half ago, they're now up to event six. And they were the ones we spoke about. They're about 3K from Hagley. We wondered what impact did it have on the numbers at Hagley. Well, they're running this week at 224 finishes. So they probably have... grabbed a few from Hagley probably also brought a whole heap of new people into parkrun the way a new event does um it's pretty hard to tell there's a lot of people at that event on low numbers so I'm figuring that it's brought a whole new cohort of people into the parkrun hooray

00:27:05[background music]

00:27:17Melissa Ellis: Now, last weekend across Australia, we had 506 events. There were 61,800 and a few finishes recorded at the time we did the notes with 6,019 volunteers. Interestingly, we had 10,306 first-time ever parkrunners, which is 16.7% of our finishes new to parkrun.

00:27:28[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:27:42Melissa Ellis: And the fun fact is that that number went up by one person since Sunday night. So thank you to the fairies that are watching that closely to pick that up. At Junior parkrun, there were five events that hosted 407 finishers, resulting in 58 PBs, supported by 102 amazing volunteers. Now, the smallest parkrun, if we go back to the 12th of July, was Mobilong with four, and the largest was Albert Melbourne with 677. But this last weekend, the 19th, the smallest was Railway Park in Queensland with only three, and the largest was out at South Bank, also in Queensland, with 805. Now, I happen to know there was something going on at South Bank, Tony. They had a onesie run.

00:28:34Tony O'Connell: Okay, so a bit of a costume run always brings in the people.

00:28:38Melissa Ellis: Yeah, did they have an event out there? Did they have anything? Not sure. Like, you know, on the Sunday, a fun run or something like that. But anyway, I don't know if it was their birthday. I didn't do the homework. I just know that it was the onesie run.

00:28:55Tony O'Connell: It was a onesie run. Yeah. And there was lots of photos on their page, including most of the volunteers got involved and had the onesies on underneath the vests. And being up in Queensland, I think that might have probably been a bit warm again. But best to do it in winter.

International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day

00:29:11Tony O'Connell: Yep.

00:29:11Melissa Ellis: Now, next, moving on to some news. Next Saturday, everybody, it's Ugly Christmas in July Day. We haven't really been leading up to this very well, have we? It fell off the radar, but we've put it straight back on and I noticed that we shared on our socials the details for Ugly Christmas in July. Of course, we expect most of our adventurer friends do own an Ugly Christmas Shirt and and we'll rock up to parkrun looking extremely ugly next Saturday.

00:29:45Tony O'Connell: That's right, Mel. So by the time the podcast comes out, it's going to be almost the day or so after, so that's Saturday the 26th of July. And even if you don't have an ugly shirt, put something ugly on and still take a photo anyway. Let's see if we can get some really ugly fronds getting together. Hmm. Now, another thing that came up from our last time we were recording, you said everyone's welcome to join you at your 500th at Sirromet. And I've had a few messages from people saying, that's great, but when is it? Well, I think we need to let people know to lock in the date, the 9th of August at Suramay in Queensland for those playing at home that would love to come along and say g'day.

00:30:30Melissa Ellis: So apparently I was doing a silent celebration, like a silent launch. You're not allowed to know. You could have looked at the volunteer roster. It might have given it away.

00:30:41Tony O'Connell: I don't know. I'm not sure who's on the volunteer roster. We'd have to have a look.

00:30:46Melissa Ellis: Yeah, who would be? Oh, Marta. All right. Well, yes, so 9th of August, and you're all welcome.

00:30:53Tony O'Connell: And let's make it a fun day. Party's going to be at the back with the walkers.

00:30:57Melissa Ellis: Should I dress up? I don't know. Maybe I need a tutu. Is that what you do? Oh, you know what we should also say? We should also say congratulations to Nicola Forward.

00:31:07Tony O'Connell: Nicola, who's achieved her 250th unique event. Or Nicola, who's finally signed up for the parkrun adventurers.

00:31:13Melissa Ellis: Adventurer Nicola Forward.

00:31:18Tony O'Connell: Well done, Nick. Great to have you on board.

00:31:20Melissa Ellis: Yes, thank you. Thank you for joining us.

00:31:23Tony O'Connell: And congrats on the 250 unique events as well.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:31:28Tony O'Connell: Righto, Mel, I think it's time for us to listen to a couple of other people talk for a while. So let's go across and listen to some roving reports.

00:31:30[background music]

Roving report Alison Fraser (King) — Te Awa parkrun

00:31:41Alison Fraser (King): Kia ora koutou adventurers, it's Alison here reporting in from across the ditch. Today I am at the very start of Te Awa parkrun, which has the address of Matariki Terrace and it is Matariki public holiday weekend. Hence the timing of the launch. And this is a parkrun that's out and back alongside the Waikato River on the Te Awa path. And I'm hopefully going to have a chat with the Event Director and we're going to hear the story of how this parkrun got started and how the day's gone. So I'm here with the Co-Event Directors, Vicky and Stu. Vicky was Run Director for this morning. How do you think today went? Yeah, really well. We couldn't have asked for a better crowd. So no, it was nice. Yeah. I know you were, we had a sweepstakes to how many people were going to be there, but you didn't need any extra tokens. [Te Reo Maori: ""Kia ora koutou" = "hello / greetings to you all" (to three or more people)."]

00:32:34Vicky: No, we didn't get above 300. So we were happy with that. Yeah.

00:32:38Alison Fraser (King): I remember the launch of Southern Path parkrun back in November and sitting at the table and you came up and said, how do we start a parkrun?

00:32:47Vicky: Yeah. Yeah.

00:32:48Alison Fraser (King): So what was the idea behind Te Awa parkrun? Go on, Stu.

00:32:52Stu: Yeah, we'd just been wanting to start one for ages, and we liked the area, so we thought, yeah, we'll nice bridge, and yeah, we just went and planned it out one day. Everyone liked it, who we took out with us, and it started from there.

00:33:04Alison Fraser (King): Easy to get over the line.

00:33:06Stu: It was pretty easy, actually. It was easier than we were expecting. Yeah, a lot easier.

00:33:12Vicky: Yeah, the longest part was waiting for an event ambassador because they'd recruited a new bunch, so we were like, OK, that's fine. And we wanted our summer, so we didn't mind it taking ages.

00:33:23Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. So your accent, Vicky, is not a Kiwi one from the UK. So where did you start parkrunning?

00:33:32Vicky: I started parkrunning in Coventry. And what got you into parkrun? I broke up with my boyfriend and I wanted to get fit. So then I started at parkrun because my sister did it. So, yeah, I just copied her.

00:33:45Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. And what about you, Stu?

00:33:47Stu: Mine was 2016 at Hamilton Lake and one of my friends told me about it and I thought I'll just go there and have a look and I really liked it and it's gone pretty much every week since.

00:33:59Vicky: Didn't know about the cafe though did you till I came along?

00:34:02Stu: I didn't know about the cafe for about three years.

00:34:05Alison Fraser (King): So I know you two do quite a bit of touring so Stu if you could pick three of your favourite parkruns that you've done not including any home parkrun what would they be? And for any reason.

00:34:19Stu: I'll tell you. I like Puarenga because it's nice and scenic. I like the University of Waikato because I like the community. It's a nice community. And third one, Palmerston North because it's my hometown and it's a pretty fast course. Cool.

00:34:40Vicky: And what about you, Vicky? Yeah, Puarenga because it's like no other parkrun in the world. Yeah. Jubilee in um bishop Auckland because the bubble ladies um and it was just really nice a nice community a small little parkrun and my third one oh I don't know I've done too many that they're all yeah they're everyone that's the thing about parkrun everyone has got a unique aspect to it that makes it special so yeah I can't think of a third one

00:35:10Alison Fraser (King): Well, thank you so much for an awesome parkrun day, an excellent launch, the 61st parkrun to join New Zealand parkruns. Was it 62nd? Oh, 62nd, you're right.

00:35:19[crosstalk]

00:35:21Vicky: Yeah, because Riverlution, we were very gutted to see Riverlution did have a similar looking bridge to us in the fog last weekend. And we were like, oh, they took our feature.

00:35:31Alison Fraser (King): Well, that's what Waikato is known for, isn't it? The River Waikato, the fog.

00:35:34Vicky: Yeah, the fog, yeah.

00:35:35Alison Fraser (King): And it certainly delivered today. It did, yes. I don't think we could see the river even after Park Faf. No. Well, thanks again and all the best for the future. Thank you.

00:35:49Stu: Okay, thank you.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Central Lakes parkrun

00:35:51Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers. It's Lyndell again and I have hit the road this morning to venture probably about 45 minutes north of the Brisbane CBD up to the traditional lands of the Kupi Kupi. I'm at Central Lakes parkrun. And I've tracked down Sarah, today's Run Director. How did you go today, Sarah?

00:36:12Sarah: Yeah, good. It was smaller numbers today. I think the cold weather kept a few people away. But, yeah, it's been a good day. Single digits. Yes, yeah, definitely.

00:36:21Lyndell Murray: Queensland is going to hibernation. Yeah, absolutely. It's chilly here. Chilly, yeah, yeah. Now, Central Lakes parkrun is in Caboolture. Is this the local parkrun in Caboolture or are there others around here?

00:36:35Sarah: This is the local one to Caboolture. So our next closest ones are North Harbour, which is out at Burpengary, and then Harris Avenue at Narangba is the other one that's close by. But yeah, this is our local one for Caboolture.

00:36:47Lyndell Murray: And we are, as the name would suggest, near a lake. Tell us about the course here at Central Lakes.

00:36:52Sarah: Yeah so we're an out and back course, nice and flat on pathways so it can be a pretty fast course. We've got a couple of Lakes sort of near the start finish line that people sort of and then a nice shady path which is nice in summer out along the back pathway beside the highway there.

00:37:12Lyndell Murray: Lots of trees, as you say, nice and flat and the local parkrun here in Caboolture. Now, Sarah, you're run directing here today. This parkrun has been going for around 10 years, I think. How did you get involved?

00:37:26Sarah: Yeah, so I'm one of our Event Directors here and one of the original Run Directors when we got started. I started parkrunning at the time North Lakes was my closest parkrun. So that used to be my regular parkrun. And then, yeah, friends of mine, we sort of started up Central Lakes parkrun here and that became our local parkrun. So, yeah.

00:37:49Lyndell Murray: And so really well established. I looked at my, because I'm on touristing now and I'm going back to events I've been to, I looked at my records. I came here in December 2015 and

00:37:59Sarah: Yeah, yep. So it has been, yeah, it's been going strong. We've got a really good crew of regular volunteers here as well that helps to keep things going, which is great. Brilliant.

00:38:09Lyndell Murray: Yeah. Brilliant. All right. Now, you got involved at North Lakes, came here, started up Central Lakes. You must be a runner. Have you done much touristing and have you got an adventure you'd like to tell us about as a tourist?

00:38:21Sarah: Yeah, I've done quite a bit of touristing. I'm working on my global challenge, so trying to get my little flags from different countries. I've got New Zealand at the moment. I did a Europe trip last year, so I picked up Italy. I did Bushy Park in England as well, and I also did one up in Scotland. And my kids and I are heading off to Japan in two weeks, so that will be our next. We've got some touristing parkruns planned over there, so that will be my next little collection of international flags on my list.

00:38:50Lyndell Murray: 5k app so that's exciting yeah fantastic now a question that we often ask is a top three not including your home parkrun can be based on whatever you like it might have been a really great experience it might have been your fastest times I'm gonna put you on the spot and challenge you to a top three Sarah oh top three um

00:39:11Sarah: that's a tough one bushy was a great experience I think just for it was huge there were so many people there so that was yeah an amazing experience to do bushy um I've got to put Central Lakes in my top three as well, not my home park. Well, in that case, it's a top four.

00:39:26[crosstalk]

00:39:27Lyndell Murray: Okay, top four.

00:39:28Sarah: All right. Queenstown in New Zealand was a really beautiful course as well. That was a really nice one to do. And there was a tiny little one in Italy that I did that had about 14 participants, and they had sort of homemade cake at the end that they shared, which was amazing as well. It was in a spa town over there. Yep. Montecatini, I think it was called Terme parkrun so it's translate to spa parkrun that was just um I think it's just amazing when you sort of travel to other countries and you've still got that parkrun experience and people are so welcoming so yeah it's amazing it's like a home away from home isn't it yeah yeah absolutely yeah but each country has its traditions I had that same experience in Italy where it was a complete party it was

00:40:11Lyndell Murray: every Saturday because the community came together and they yeah really celebrated parkrun yeah it was amazing yeah all right um thank you for telling me about your adventures Sarah before we wrap up is there anything else that you would like the adventurers to know about Central Lakes parkrun oh

00:40:29Sarah: I don't know. It's a great course. Yeah, fast course if you're looking for a fast time. And yeah, very welcoming and great little community here. So yeah, if you can visit us, we'd love to have our tourists and visitors.

00:40:43Lyndell Murray: It's certainly been my experience today, Sarah. It's been a very welcoming and a lovely course. So thank you for having me today. And thank you for everything that you have done for parkrun and your community here in Caboolture.

00:40:55Sarah: No problems. Thank you for visiting us. Thank you.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Burnage parkrun

00:40:59Calum Burrell: Okay, good morning parkrun adventurers, it's Calum and we're in a super hot humid Burnage um I'm walking at the back we've got my dad David Burrell on Tail Walkers but um someone who's literally just hot-footed it because we're on our second and final lap we're on the small trail section it's all very uh dry this is a super super dry day today uh but I'm with

00:41:24Gabi Lipshen: Gabby and it's Gabby Stott Gabby Lipschiner beg your pardon not Gabby Stott sorry that's okay I can do either but you're a fellow adventurer and how was your parkrun today it was hot but fabulous because it's dry it's been a bit wet here at times but it's dried out and it's just beautiful parkrun with loads of people loads of celebrations arbitries and non-arbitries and it's just a big party atmosphere

00:41:52Calum Burrell: We've got all sorts of weird and wonderful insects flying around here. We're in the meadows, so you do get some wildlife thrown here. Yeah, it's Lindsay Burrell, aka Wifey. It's her 400th volunteer in today. She's in funnel managing, and I believe, I think we probably smashed our attendance records today, because when I walked past, we were already on 320, and I think we might end up using raffle tickets at the end if it's that busy today. So yeah, go on, tell us a little bit about your parkrun journey.

00:42:25Gabi Lipshen: So I started parkrunning in 2012, I think, with a friend of mine who was helping me to get fitter and lose a bit of weight. And I doubled 2012-2013, came back in 2016, and then became really obsessed from about 23 onwards. And The exciting thing for me is that at Christmas time I'm coming over to Australia, going over to Australia, and the person who got me started on parkrun lives in Adelaide and we will do our final parkrun of Australia with him, which is really exciting.

00:43:02Calum Burrell: Fantastic. So any particular courses you've got your eye on?

00:43:07Gabi Lipshen: um we're in Melbourne for the first week oh is that the greatest straightest state I believe isn't it yeah Victoria yes so we're obviously planned the trip around arriving in time for parkrun um so I'm not sure whereabouts in Melbourne we're staying possibly Frankston which is near where we're staying and then just outside of Melbourne then we're going to Tasmania for two parkruns Christmas Day and the one after that and then we'll be in Adelaide for the final one

00:43:35Calum Burrell: Yeah, so with your doing a lot of touring and see I've met you a few times over the last year or two and you're always keen tourists so what's your top three? Go on, what's your top three?

00:43:48Gabi Lipshen: Oh, as in anywhere?

00:43:51Calum Burrell: Yeah, as in wherever, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, just your top three moments, doesn't have to be your courses, moments, whatever you want to highlight.

00:43:59Gabi Lipshen: So, Zandvlei in South Africa.

00:44:02Calum Burrell: Oh, wow.

00:44:02Gabi Lipshen: Because that was the first time we realised there was such a thing as an alphabet. We did it by accident for Christmas Day when we were there. It was the closest one. And then we found out about the alphabet. I love watergrove which is yes in the north of Manchester so scenic yeah if you get there on a really sunny day it's that fab views across Manchester it is absolutely we did it the day before our wedding oh wow so it's a special place um and my third one oh uh we we loved Sweden when we went to um Sweden and I can't pronounce the run that we did the new one with the j yes but that was and the team was so fantastic I I love I love a friendly team that for me makes the parkrun yes even if it doesn't actually matter what it what it is it's about community it's about being with people who love parkrun whether you love running or not it doesn't matter

00:44:16[crosstalk]

00:44:21[crosstalk]

00:44:38[crosstalk]

00:44:53[crosstalk]

00:44:59Calum Burrell: yeah thank you for coming today and uh yeah so we've got a bit of a from going because we've got uh Wendy we've got colette and we've got yourself and Lee and myself and Lindsay so we've got we've got a from so thank you congratulations thank you so yeah we've got just about to finish off well we've still got another half of the this last lap look to do We've got an interesting bit where we're approaching where we've got people leaving in their cars. We've got two important, very important people doing Car Park Marshals. Sorry, that's my fault for being behind the Tail Walker. Sorry. Thank you. So anyway, we've got to call it a wrap here because we need to catch the Tail Walker because the Tail Walker, as I say, is just ahead and we should be actually ahead of the Tail Walker. So let's catch the Tail Walker. Anyway, Calum, over and out and thank you, Gabby. Bye. Bye-bye.

00:45:11[crosstalk]

00:45:35[background music]

00:45:50Melissa Ellis: thank you very much to our roving reporters now before I go into recapping the roving reports we probably should say these roving reports have come from previous weeks because now that we've gone fortnightly we've got a little bit of a backlog so we're trying to take the the oldest ones to bring you and so that we can track and we keep them in order as we go through

00:46:14Tony O'Connell: It'd be fair to say, Mel, that we're getting a bigger backlog on roving reports than parkruns currently having launches. Oh, yes. Well, we're winning that race.

00:46:24Melissa Ellis: Now, we did hear from Alison out at Te Awa. OK, so Te Awa means the river and Te Awa River Trail is the path the parkrun is on. Now, Cambridge New Zealand parkrun is on a section of the same path, but on the other side of Hamilton Road. Now, Alison was walking with Vicky and Stu when she broke her ankle and they've been to quite a few parkruns together. So it's really cool that they've started this one themselves in a community that didn't already have one. We also heard from Lyndell out at Central Lakes in Caboolture and speaking to Sarah the ED, sharing her tourist experiences in Italy with Lyndell. And then out at Burnage, Calum brought us news of a frond and talking to Gabby, who is coming to Victoria, Tassie and South Australia, I think it was, at Christmas. [Te Reo Maori: ""Te Awa" = "the river" — Mel supplies the translation on air."]

00:47:18Tony O'Connell: That'll be great to see Gabby over this way. I've heard Gabby quite a bit on a few different podcast mails. So yeah, quite a, quite a touristing type person. So it'd be great to catch up with Gabby if she happens to be around when we're around.

00:47:31Melissa Ellis: Gabby will have to come to Dazza's. Oh no, not Dazza's. She'll have to come to the Friday post and... Let us know where. Yes. Or maybe she can send us an email.

00:47:41Unidentified speaker: Hmm.

00:47:42Tony O'Connell: See what we can do.

Dazza's

00:47:43Tony O'Connell: And now talking about Dazza's. We've got two weeks of Dazza's to get through. So we've chosen five comments from each of the weeks. And two weeks ago, Dazza's said, today is new conversations day. This is a day to go off the beaten conversation track and talk about something else. For example, instead of asking where someone is from, ask them what their home parkrun is. Instead of asking a favourite colour, ask a favourite parkrun. Instead of asking what part of somewhere they're from, ask if they know the adventurers from that part. Talking about strange things with strangers is nothing new for us adventurers. But come on in to Dazza's, tell us how parkrun went, and tell us what you found out today.

00:48:26Melissa Ellis: And first in the door was Belinda Cafe. Belinda Cafe in the cafe. Belinda comes to us from New South Wales, and she said, Today I found out that the suggested post-parkrun brekkie spot, Malt and Honey Cafe, was absolutely awesome, and the parkrun was pretty great too, except for the sneaky inclines. And Belinda shared a picture of Rachel and Simone with the Horseshoe Bay Reserve selfie frame and sunrise over the water.

00:48:55Tony O'Connell: Now also coming to us from New South Wales was Joe Trimby. I was Tail Walker at Australian Botanic Gardens Mount Annan and got chatting to the other Tail Walker and the first question was, what's your home parkrun? And we had the little... or starry eye emoji going then I asked the parkwalker the same question and finally caught up to two brand new parkrunners who chose the hardest parkrun in New South Wales as their first they had no idea it was a great morning and it was that great that Joe didn't even send a photo in

00:49:30Melissa Ellis: Next, we heard from Yvette Turner coming to us from Canada. Hi, Dazza. It's really hot, so an iced latte, please. We just finished Corner Brook Stream Trail parkrun, the only parkrun in Newfoundland. We are travelling with our friends from Minnesota, who both did their first parkrun when visiting us in Australia last year. I wore my adventurers shirt and had some great conversations with locals about this fun group and the podcast. With only one parkrun here, they are not so much into the various parkrun challenges, but they have a great community feel with lots of cheering and encouragement, and it is one of the prettiest parkruns I've done. And there was a photo of Yvette Bill and some friends from Minnesota with the podcast.

00:50:15Tony O'Connell: coming back to Queensland and one of my favourite people Sarah Jancer my 500th parkrun at Capestone Lake today I did get asked a lot what the balloons were for laughy face and congrats Sarah it was great to see you finish your 500 that's a great photo of Sarah with the selfie frame with balloons and there's a brilliant sunrise and that photo was actually used as our last week's CCR photo

00:50:41Melissa Ellis: It was. Congratulations, Sarah. She got in before me by a few weeks there. So we must have started our parkrun journeys at similar times. Now we head over to South Australia and we heard from Chris Gore. He said, hi, Dazza. We had some lovely conversations with locals at the cafe after. Karen and I left Perth Tuesday night for the Yeldulknie Weir Trail parkrun in South Australia. This was an undulating up and back course with a pickaxe, picturesque farmland backdrop there were just 24 runners walkers participating today I received the number one token and got the age group course record there was two clap hands emojis for chris's park race we had a lovely park faff at the pink door afterwards with the local and tourist parkrunners and he shared a photo of the morning stunning sunrise photos And a photo of the RD doing the briefing, and I can't read all the instructions, but I believe the flags were also in the foreground, or something else was in the foreground.

00:51:49Tony O'Connell: The RD was in the foreground, the flags were in the background, and there was a sunrise in behind both of those lots of things. Thank you. Another stunning sunrise photo, Mel. My typing, my words, my bad. That's all right.

00:52:03Melissa Ellis: So this last week on the 19th of July 2025, Dazza said, today is stick out your tongue day. parkrun has a lot in common with poking one's tongue out. Sometimes you're a bit silly. Sometimes you're thinking deeply. And sometimes a photo just gets taken at the wrong time. Wherever you and your tongue went, come into Dazza's and taste a delicious post-parkrun treat.

00:52:26Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I went through some of these photos and I found some particularly funny looking people poking their tongues out. And the first one was Ali Sheppard from the UK. Hey Dazza, I found a parkrun twin with Inverloch. Here's me sticking my tongue out, at the weather on the stump at Richmond parkrun in the UK. This was at the end after they'd taken the pop-up away. We'll put another pic up of the RD doing the briefing from the stump. Wettest parkrun I've done in a long time. Torrential rain throughout. Got soaked to the skin despite wearing what I thought was a waterproof jacket. And the pic was a great one of Ali standing on an alternate stump in an alternate universe, I think, with her pung... with her pung... pung... There we go. With her tongue poked out, Ali's in her adventurer's top and adventurer's buff, so she's got all the merch going there and looking a little bit like a drowned rat. It must have been heavy rain.

00:53:24Melissa Ellis: Did you know about that imposter stump at Richmond?

00:53:27Tony O'Connell: I didn't until I saw Ali's comments on a personal post on Saturday where she'd been there to the alternate stump.

00:53:37Melissa Ellis: That's good. Thank you for bringing us that. Now over to New South Wales, we heard from Stephen Cox. Hi, Dazza. Sensational morning at Panania parkrun in Sydney. There to help the great man, the Viking, celebrate his 250th parkrun. Congrats to Paul Whelan with the muscles emoji. Unfortunately, that pesky photobomber made a return, thought he was done but there he was p.s he always has the tongue thing going laughing face emoji looks like he might have stolen a parkrun flag too and that was face palm emoji but a nice frond to help Paul celebrate an awesome milestone time for the viking clap is that a thing I don't know And there was a photo of Paul the Viking with all the 250 things at Panania with the photo bomber who are, we assume, is Stephen in his adventurers top in the background. And Rocky. Was Rocky not in there too? Rocky the rock at Panania?

00:54:36Tony O'Connell: Rocky was in that photo. Rocky was in the middle of the selfie frame. Paul was surrounding it. And we think it was Stephen jumping up in the background. Yeah, we actually had a conversation about this photo in the car drive home when I know when I mentioned I think I need to go to Panania I think I need to put that on my list if only to get a photo with the famous rocky right now we're going to go across to Germany next and Andy pool's written into us today wendella and I completed our fifth parkrun alphabet at the very hot and sunny ziegelweiss parkrun in harley so hot at the end we're all panting like dogs with our tongues hanging out And the pic was Andy Wendola pictured with the OG alphabet flag, which was the blue alphabet flag that was going around in the park. And having been to Ziegelwiese, I'm wondering whether they went about 200 metres down the track. There's a bit of a river and a canoe higher place. They could have jumped in and had a swim.

00:55:33Melissa Ellis: Uh-huh. Okay, next. Next we go over the ditch and we hear from Alison Fraser. Too cold to stick anything out. I went to Tauranga for another PB but it was too frosty on the boardwalk to risk it. But how good is this sunny view? And Alison shared a photograph in front of a sun-filled creek.

00:55:56Tony O'Connell: And going to South Australia and we heard from the lovely Melissa. Who said, and it was a very brief comment, 497 slash 248 exclamation mark. And there's a photo of Mel, Andrew and Martine at Patawalonga, all with their tongues poking out. So I picked that photo instead of the other one that was in front of it.

00:56:20Melissa Ellis: Oh, thank you. You didn't need to put me in there. I'm just keeping everybody updated with my numbers so that you can see I'm on target.

the Obi Award — Stephen Cox

00:56:32Tony O'Connell: Now, Mel, we have to pick an Obi out of that. Do you have the envelope worldwide this week?

00:56:38Melissa Ellis: Where is it? Well, I have to say, we've been neglecting the office, Tony. It's a mess. It is absolutely a mess. We need an office cleaner, I really think, because this sticky notes have just gone viral. Can sticky notes go viral? Well, they just have. And there's ripped envelopes all over the place. I blame Simon for that. He likes to rip an envelope, you know.

00:57:04Tony O'Connell: I think when we left here a month ago, Mel, the office was pretty clean and tidy.

00:57:07Melissa Ellis: I think the kids have left it in a pretty ordinary state.

00:57:10Tony O'Connell: We're going to have to discuss this.

00:57:12Melissa Ellis: Well, Sarah's got an excuse because she's busy with the baby. So I don't know.

00:57:17Sarah: Maybe Jasper got in here and chewed up all the envelopes.

00:57:20Melissa Ellis: Anyway, long story short, I think I've got it. I shall reach for it and pull it out of its envelope. There we go. All right. This week's Obi winner is Stephen Cox.

00:57:30[background music]

00:57:47Tony O'Connell: Well done, Stephen. We're hoping that's you that's jumping up in the background, but you sent the comment in, so congratulations.

00:57:55Melissa Ellis: Absolutely.

Emails

00:57:56Melissa Ellis: Now, Tony, we've got a couple of emails this week.

00:57:59Tony O'Connell: We have mail. You've got mail. And I'll kick off, Mel. The first email that I've got here says, And that's awesome given the way our numbers are going up on the Consolidated Club Report. I just flicked through a couple of the different ones that are in the top 10. Interestingly, Andy Airey and his group, the Airey Airways, are up on top. And as a combined group, they've gone through 269,780 runs. It's enormous. And they're just amazing. 100 runs in front of the vegan runners. We work down through the list. There's the Lonely Goat. Not sure what that's about, but I think the Lonely Goat runners are quite happy with that title. The parkrun World Tourists. Team Vitality South Africa comes in at number five. And at number six, there's the adventurers. And as a group, we've run a combined total of 195,856 parkruns, we have with me now the redway runners and coming in at number 10 is running mums Australia on 116 000. um I think it's worth and Andy makes a comment quite a few members are also part of a few other groups there's a bit of double counting going on in that as you know you can be affiliated with five clubs I think I'm looking at that list and I'm affiliated I think with three out of the top tens but um Andy then finishes up with, keep up the great work, Andy Airey, a 108, 3171. So thanks for that, Andy. That's a great set of stats. I love my numbers.

00:59:45Melissa Ellis: And should we also mention and thank Andy, who has sent a couple of alphabet flags over to us in Australia. Now, I'm going to take one and you're going to take one, TOC, so that we have them on hand, should they be required.

01:00:01Tony O'Connell: Yep, very much appreciated. And yeah, looking forward to waving mine, hopefully fairly soon when I get through number four.

01:00:11Melissa Ellis: Excellent. So thanks very much for our parcel, Andy, now we have another email and I shall read it out and it said Yo ho ho parkrun adventurers. I wonder, TOC, if that is a contender for a greeting

01:00:30Tony O'Connell: Yo ho ho ho. If you try to yell at someone, I'm thinking especially like on an out and back course, by the time you got to about the third ho, you'd be like, you'd be 50 metres up the track and people would be like, what are they yelling at? What are they talking about?

01:00:47Melissa Ellis: Anyway, I will continue. I am riding this on my replacement bus back to my Sydney home from my adventure today. I toured to the frightfully friendly Rex Jackson Oval parkrun located in Helensburg in the Wollongong LGA in New South Wales on the traditional lands of the Cubbage Barter Clan, it was a very friendly parkrun and challenging I love the big switch in the course as a double lap course the first 400 metres is on a path but then you are directed off the path to the trail and you have a steep downhill fire trail into garawara park on top of that it was a bit wet also which was not enjoyed that much whilst I was doing my Token Sorting volunteer role. Good times for all the family. I took Gramps for a run. Then afterwards, I went up the road and grabbed a latte and spinach and feta roll for my digital trip to Dazza's. Stay happy parkrunning Adventurers, Alistair. Now, it's nice to hear from you, Alistair. Thank you for writing in. And nice to know that he grabs his brunch at the cafe and logs in to join us at Dazza's. So good to hear from you.

01:01:56Tony O'Connell: Yeah, great to hear from you, Alistair. And it actually sounds like another one of those parkrun courses. I like the sound of a downhill bomb on a fire trail. So that might be one to go on the list as well.

01:02:08Melissa Ellis: Alistair did attach a couple of photos to his...

Club Corner

01:02:12Melissa Ellis: email as well there was one with whoever is gramps dad or it may be a family member I'm assuming maybe maybe his grandfather who knows I think Alistair hails from act we met Alistair, do you remember, TOC, when we went to Umbagong yep right now Mel I think it is time for us to have a listen to Reginald

01:02:30[background music]

01:02:45Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III, with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. We are following on from Aotearoa with a country that began the next month. In June of 2012, the USA began their parkrun journey at Livonia parkrun in Michigan. Livonia has now hosted more than 600 parkruns. Within a year, the US had two more events open, Clermont Waterfront in Florida and Durham, North Carolina in North Carolina. So to get to from Event 1 to Event 2 was a 16- to 17-hour drive with no stops and 1,800 kilometres. That is like driving from Australia's first event main beach on the Gold Coast in Queensland open bracket the greatest state close bracket to our third event to launch at Albert parkrun, Melbourne. That trip is just over 17 hours and 1700 kilometres. Once the third event started, Livonia was only 10 or so hours away in just over 1000 kilometres, which is approximately the distance from Main Beach to Ginninderra parkrun in the ACT, which was the sixth event to launch in Oz. These days, Livonia has two other events within 20 kilometres. Much easier. But back to the U.S. overall, they now have more than 80 events, with recent years having greater urgency and launches are now coming more quickly across the country. Events are spread throughout the country, but there are many states yet to taste the special flavour that is parkrun. Speaking of special, the special day in the U.S. is Thanksgiving Day, which falls annually on the fourth Thursday of November. In 2025 this will fall on Thursday, November 27, and will always fall in the date range of November 22 to November 28. Thanksgiving was proclaimed as a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. Out of curiosity I looked up if the U.S. had a Lincoln parkrun...and the answer is no. There is a Port Lincoln parkrun in South Australia, and the Lincoln parkrun in Bootham Park, Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire which is in the East Midlands. If you are travelling to the U.S. for parkrun, then you need to check the start time for each event carefully. Some are 7.30 a.m., others 8 a.m. or 9 a.m., and yet others are seasonal, with start times of 8 a.m. for May through September and 9 a.m. for October to April. Always check. One of the great questions of parkrun has long been why are there not more parkruns in the U.S.? And certainly opinions abound... Speculation includes that parkrun was launched with a national approach rather than local or regional, as the US is much more state and region-centric than the UK or Australia. Another theory involves charity paperwork filed with the IRS, specifically the difference between a 501 and a 501 . You can Google those forms if you care enough to do so. What are the standout events in the U.S.? We have a sad face first. It is now closed, but Crissy Field took place in the shadow of Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and also included view to Alcatraz. Back to current times, there are, of course, many scenic courses, so forgive me for neglecting any of your favourites. A recent event is Coal Creek Trail, which is under 12 months old, where you parkrun in a canyon with views of Triassic and Jurassic Red rock layers. Or you can explore some indigenous connections at another recent event at Tollgate Farm Park parkrun, Park Wub, which has views of the mountains and is on the Snoqualmie tribe's ancestral lands. This was short and sweet for the US. We will be back next time with more country-related content in Club Corner.

01:06:27Melissa Ellis: And that's it from Reginald, bringing us the USA, Tony.

01:06:33Tony O'Connell: He is, and a few fun facts from the USA that our secret squirrel has put into our... Our set of pod notes here. The capital city is Washington, D.C. The currency is the U.S. dollar, and I think everyone would know the greenback because it's probably one of the currencies that the rest of the world bases themselves against. Travel times. It's about 14 hours from the east coast of Australia to the west coast of the U.S.A., and that's sort of the L.A., San Fran area, San Francisco. It's about 12 hours from Auckland for the same journey across to LA. Eight hours will get you from London to New York and about 15 hours from Johannesburg to New York. Our Aussie dollars are currently worth about 63 US cents, I think, or 64. So about... two-thirds of a dollar. But the comment in here is it's not an overly expensive country. You do get value for your money. The top tourist places to see. The USA has so many different diverse landscapes and cities and towns. It depends what you look for. And so we're not going to list too many there because there's so many national parks, glittering cities, mountains and towns. You really need to do your own research and find out what you want to go and have a look at, um top tips there's about 90 parkrun events in the continent of the United States choose one or as many and build your trip around that and it's actually really good because for the first three or four years I was in parkrun there were five events in the USA it didn't change for about four or five years they've got 90 now they've got plenty coming online it's great to see

01:08:14Melissa Ellis: Where would you go if you could go to the USA?

01:08:17Tony O'Connell: I would have loved to have done the one with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background before it got finished. I don't know, a couple of the trail ones, a couple of the smaller country town trail ones really fascinate me when I listen to the descriptions and that of them. Some of them where you've got to take bear protection or whatever, you've got to look out for bears or whatever. That would be just an awesome adventure.

01:08:44Melissa Ellis: it'd probably make you run fast what about just a tourist attraction in America not parkrun related where would you go oh probably have to be one of the national parks I think I'd love to go to so I think I would need to go to the grand canyon because I saw the Brady bunch go to the grand canyon and I need to do that yeah so I reckon I'd go to something like yosemite national park I think is that where yogi bear was that's where he's from so I'd have to go and take a picnic And where else would I go?

01:09:20Tony O'Connell: I don't know. Some of the surf spots for me, I'd have to go along the coast. And some of the spots that I've heard as a child all the way through to now.

01:09:29Melissa Ellis: You'd have to see the Statue of Liberty.

01:09:31Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that's probably not high on my list. I reckon there'd be a lot of other things I'd love to go and see. Probably like a lot of places, you have a perception of what a place is going to look like. And when you get there, it's... Some of the places are probably big towns now that you think are small. I'd love to do some of the Route 66 trips across the USA. But if you're going on a holiday, you'd also have to bear in mind how long you've actually got to do all that sort of thing.

01:10:00Melissa Ellis: Interesting. I need to think a bit more about that. Not sure I'm ever going to get to the USA.

Consolidated Club Report

01:10:04Melissa Ellis: But anyway, talking about travel, the adventurers Consolidated Club Report for Saturday, the 19th of July 2025 of a total of... 823 members. 580 took part on this date in 13 countries across 284 locations. Internationally, there were adventurers at 63 events in the UK, nine events in South Africa. There were four in Germany, Ireland and the USA. The Netherlands had two. Canada, Italy, Norway, Singapore and Sweden had one, one locally there were adventures at 46 events in New South Wales 45 in Queensland Victoria had 44 west west Western Australia I just want to say west Australia Western Australia had 18 South Australia had 17 act Tasmania and the North Island had seven the nt and the South Island each had one

01:11:11Tony O'Connell: Mel, I found that number fairly incredible. We sat there as hosts waiting to get to 800, and we seemed to be waiting to get to 800 for about 800 weeks. And it seemed to be hovering in the 790s. And all of a sudden, bang, we're on 823 members of the adventurers. That's awesome. 580 of them taking part. And that doesn't include the volunteers. So you had all our volunteers that...

the Frond

01:11:38Tony O'Connell: you know our members the Adventurers Club and we're well over 600 people out there in so many different places around the world and speaking of different places our biggest international frond for the first time that I can remember on the 12th of the 7th it was at Bushy Park hooray That was the four out of the Williams family were there on the 12th. On the 19th, our biggest frond was a frond of seven at Unisee in Germany. And that was Jason and Lisa Patterson, Christopher Miles, Andy and Debbie Airey, Ellie Soper and Ivan Storer. And a special mention of three people in Trentham Gardens, UK, which was Calum Burrell, Steve Mild and Nicola Ford. And there's audio coming in future episodes about that one.

01:12:29Melissa Ellis: Now, the pilgrimage on the 12th of the 7th, the aforementioned George, Rihanna, Rosie and Leo Williams pilgrimage. Now they're visiting from WA and they came in finished position 1-2-40, 1-2-41, 1-2-42 and 1-2-47 respectively from 1,426 finishes. So good job Williams family and on the 19th of July no one doing their pilgrimage.

01:12:48[12 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

01:13:00Melissa Ellis: Now, our biggest Aussie frond on the 12th of the 7th was a frond of 13 at Belvedere in Victoria. Now, I mentioned all those people in my recap earlier, so we won't go through those names again. But yay, I was in the largest frond. On the 19th of the 7th, we had nine at Shellharbour. And we had eight at Panania. And we heard about Panania earlier. And they were Michelle Fyfe, Andrew Blanda, Stephen Cox, Cathy Crispin, Jan Yates, Paris Lawrence, Catherine Pirotta, and the Viking Paul Whelan. And we used that picture of that frond in this week's Consolidated Club report post.

01:13:38Tony O'Connell: And remember, as we said earlier, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. If anybody needs any help at all to do that, just message us or put a post up on the page or comment on the page and we'd love to give you a hand to see you're a member of the adventurers.

01:13:56Melissa Ellis: We would.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:13:58Melissa Ellis: Now, launches, Tony.

01:14:00Tony O'Connell: Launches, Mel, have slowed down a little bit. We had that real flurry. And now on the 12th of the 7th, we only had one launch globally in the 5K series. And that was West End Community Park in the USA. Okay. That's located in the Florida town of Gainesville. There are 120 finishes on week one, backed up by 61 on week two. The course is described as a treeline form of golf course situated on gently rolling green fields. And if you go and look at the course map, you can actually tell they run up some of the greens because they run a straight line, then turn a dog leg and then run up another straight line. So obviously they're following the old golf course. Very good.

01:14:43Melissa Ellis: Now, moving to the last Saturday, the 19th of July, we had Mamquam Spawning Trail in Canada. Canada's latest event is located in Squamish on the western side of Canada. Squamish. Fancy that. Never heard of Squamish, but now I have. This one is Canada's sixth launch for 2025. They've had more than Victoria. And it's just north of Vancouver. 86 crossed the line in week one with over a third being first-timers.

01:15:12Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel, I've got the challenging one for the week. Thank you. In Japan this week, we had Saigawa ryokuchi koen, which Ryokuchi translates to green space in Kowen's Park. So it's the Saigawa Green Park parkrun. On the northern side of Japan, the course is described as, it's a pleasant course that runs upstream along the green path along the river, goes around Akusu Guruguru Park twice, then makes a U-turn and heads downstream along the same green path along the river back to the starting point. This week they had 44 volunteers supporting 145 finishers. 92 of those were first timers and there was 33 unknowns. So I'm sort of assuming a lot of those unknowns were also first timers. So they've probably had well up over 100 out of 145 as first timers.

01:16:10Melissa Ellis: Very good, and good job on your pronunciation. And finally, we had Fordingbridge Recreation Ground in the UK, south of Salisbury, north of Ringwood in Hampshire. This is a four-lapper around a sports field that has one leg along the River Avon. There were 40 volunteers supporting 310 participants around the course, and they shepherded them too, apparently. Dropped that little one in there to trick me, didn't you?

01:16:41Tony O'Connell: I'm enjoying looking at the launches each week, Mel, and I actually go to each page and have a good look. I look at the course page. I look at the general descriptions, the finishes. I look at the times. I actually enjoy putting the launch stuff into our show notes and learning a little bit more about our places. I quite often go to different resources to try to find out some little fun facts, but Didn't find a lot this week, but yeah, occasionally you find the odd little one like last time we recorded the Jedi Knights. So yeah, I keep trying to find those little treasure troves.

01:17:18Melissa Ellis: Excellent.

Watching the numbers

01:17:19Melissa Ellis: Now we are going to put our segment watching the numbers on hiatus for a little while until we come up with another event that we fancy to track at this stage. We haven't got anything on the radar.

01:17:32Tony O'Connell: No, come on Australia, get some launches for us so we can get something decent to track. Come on guys. Please, we had a little burst of them and it's been a little bit quiet again Mel I thought Victoria was going to come online this year I think they're all waiting for the spring yeah end of footy season oh true true yeah Mel looking forward the thing I'm most looking forward to at the moment is catching up with you in person at Sirromet on the 9th of August I reckon it's going to be a great day it's going to be a real party at the back and yeah I'm really looking forward to that how about you what you said

01:18:11Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so I guess in the next month that is the thing that's looming. Of course, I am looking forward to my trip to the West Side. And so, oh, that's a spoiler for what's about to come up, but we'll just jump to that because next parkrun Day I am headed westbound to... to catch up with Sarah and the lovely Matt over there. We don't know what event we're doing yet. I'm going to spin a wheel apparently. That could be fun.

01:18:42Tony O'Connell: I'm assuming you're going to catch up with Hadley as well while you're over there.

01:18:45Melissa Ellis: Oh, yeah. Whoops. I am really looking forward to my first cuddles with Hadley and just hanging around. We're going to have cheese platters and we're going to have lots of girl talk and Matt's away on a weekend. So, yeah, it's going to be fun. Can't wait. And if there is a way that I can do a live when I spin my parkrun wheel to find out where I'm going to be going, I will. But maybe it's not possible. I don't know.

01:19:15Tony O'Connell: I reckon that's a ripping idea for a tourist Mel is get to somewhere on Friday night and spin a wheel with several options on it to work out where you're going to go to actually get to Friday night in a new town and have no idea where you're going to go well we'd have to travel pretty far like I've got to go to wa to be able to do that so I wouldn't be able to do it in Adelaide I wouldn't be able to do it in Sydney I could do it in Brisbane

01:19:41Melissa Ellis: Belinda, you're on notice.

01:19:43Tony O'Connell: I know. Sirromet might have just got changed.

01:19:47[crosstalk]

01:19:47Melissa Ellis: No, no, no, no, no, no.

parkrun adventure challengelistener challenge

01:19:49Melissa Ellis: Anyway, I skipped the listener challenge. That was remiss. So we need to backtrack.

01:19:55Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel. Our listener challenge for this week, given it's the 26th, it's Ugly Christmas Shirt in July Day, is to get a photo in an ugly top. And as I said, it doesn't have to be one of the OG original tops. It can be any ugly top that you want to have to celebrate Ugly Christmas in July and to post it in Dazza's so we can get a real collection of ugliness going.

01:20:18Melissa Ellis: Hooray, I'll have to pack my Christmas runners that I only wear twice a year. I'll pack them for WA and my Santa hat. Yes, excellent. Now, what about you? Where are you next week?

01:20:31Tony O'Connell: Next week, Mel, I'm going to South Australia. I'm going to Adelaide because you're not going there this week, so we thought we'd better have one of the pod hosts get over there, and given it's been so long since they've been devoid of a pod host, there's actually an event ambassador conference on. The actual conference is going to be, or the run that they're officially going to is Belair, but I think I'm going to skip across and go to Oakland's Estate Reserve and... Yeah, chase another letter O that I'd like to get. And then Sunday, I'm going to experience the joy that can only come from being a volunteer at Thornton Juniors, one of the junior events.

01:21:12Melissa Ellis: That is so good. All right. Well, I bet you'll have a lot of fun over there for Ambassador Conference.

01:21:19Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I've got to say, the South Australian Working with Children check is so much easier to get than the Queensland one.

01:21:27Melissa Ellis: Yes, it is, yes. It's all online. It was quite easy.

Sign-off

01:21:32Melissa Ellis: I do remember that.

01:21:33Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel. Next fortnight, I think in two weeks, I think you and I might get together again because I think we need to keep this office tidy.

01:21:43Melissa Ellis: Yes, yes. I haven't finished cleaning it up yet. So, yes, we are back in two weeks' time and you'll have to wait for two weeks' time to find out why.

01:21:55Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel. It's been a pleasure, as always, to chat. Really great to catch up.

01:21:59Melissa Ellis: Thank you, Tony. I hope my audio all worked. We'll find out in a couple of days when I start editing.

01:22:06Tony O'Connell: And as always, you can contact us via the parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another episode. We'll see you next time for more adventures.