Episode 433 - Ready, Set, Streak...

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Tony O'Connell: And welcome to episode 433 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life's all about parkrun. My name's Toc and I'm coming to you from Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:35Melissa Ellis: And I'm Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country. Cooee, Toc!

00:00:44Tony O'Connell: A new call sign now.

00:00:45Melissa Ellis: It is. I decree. I decree it to be cooee. So adventurers, please, when you see another adventurer, give the cry. Cooee. How's your week been?

00:01:00Tony O'Connell: Or your month? That month's been a long time since we talked, Mel. This new format, it seems to be forever since we last caught up.

00:01:09Melissa Ellis: Yeah, the downside of that is that we don't get to chat as often.

00:01:12Tony O'Connell: Yeah, and I guess the downside to that is when we do chat, we spend a lot longer on our preamble having a little chat before we start recording.

00:01:21Melissa Ellis: That is correct.

00:01:23Tony O'Connell: It's a catch-up, Mel. It's a catch-up. It is.

00:01:25Melissa Ellis: Yes, but during the last week, I'll tell you what I have been up to. I've been listening back to previous episodes. I actually came across episode 170. Now, this was the episode that Scott announced that he would be leaving the podcast, and And as I listened, I was wandering around Bunnings, and now for our international listeners, Bunnings is a large hardware store chain in Australia. And anyway, I was listening and browsing the shelves, and as I did so, I realised there was a song playing over the store PA, and it was Bonnie Tyler's Bright Eyes. How weird is that? That was Freaky Friday.

00:02:05Tony O'Connell: LAUGHTER Now, I still have great memories of yourself and myself lying down on the Wynn and Vale course at the turnaround point where it had the turnaround out of that song.

00:02:19Melissa Ellis: Yeah, we did. But anyway, the hairs on my arms stood up. Anyway, if you haven't ever listened to the parkrun Adventures back catalogue, the connection to that song is very poignant and I encourage you to do your research. Anyway, it has caused me to reflect about when my tenure might end and how I will announce it.

00:02:42Tony O'Connell: Do you ever think about that, Toc? Not a great deal, Mel. It's just sort of more a fortnight to fortnight, getting together with a mate and having a chat. You're just like the footy coach.

00:02:52[crosstalk]

00:02:52Melissa Ellis: We're taking it one week at a time. I'm a planner. Anyway, that also caused me to have a think about how many episodes I've hosted. Because Ollie and I took over in episode 216. So I was guessing that I had probably exceeded the 200 mark. So one of our office fairies has done some calculations for me. And this is my 212th co-host.

00:03:21Tony O'Connell: That's an amazing effort, Mel. That's a lot of years considering the COVID break and some of the times off and lately going to alternating formats where there's yourself and myself and Sarah and Simon alternating. So, yeah, that's a long time.

00:03:38Melissa Ellis: Well, it's 212 co-hosts and it's a lot extra edited.

00:03:43Tony O'Connell: It is. So even on your off week, you're still working. Correct. You're still in the office. Yeah.

00:03:50Melissa Ellis: But there were some points to discuss from the last episode, Tony.

00:03:54Tony O'Connell: There was, and one of them, Simon was issued with the challenge of a pod host dip, and I'm thinking maybe that should happen at a future palm, given that you and I both jumped into the lake at Queenstown, and I'm guessing that was probably a lot colder than what we're going to be facing for a future palm. But I was reflecting on that when I was listening to Simon and Sarah, and I thought... Simon, you've got to stand up for yourself, mate. When they throw a challenge out like that, don't jump in. Knock it back.

00:04:28Melissa Ellis: No, we want him to do it. It's theatrics, yep it is and they also uh well I also noted the reference to the fact that I have now completed my 500 parkruns but I have still not completed stopwatch bingo so every week I hope and every week I get a bit excited when my email results come in but every week I'm disappointed it's gonna happen eventually

00:04:57Tony O'Connell: Let it happen naturally, Mel. You'll be one of the outliers. Some people claim to get there in 90 or 100 runs and you think that's got to be staged. Some people take over 500 and you think, how can you go that long without getting to it? Surely the probability of the numbers means you've got to be close to it.

00:05:15Melissa Ellis: They did say how many times I've got 59 seconds. It is a lot. I am aware of that. I'm constantly frustrated by that fact.

00:05:25Tony O'Connell: And also last week, Mel, it was mentioned that we have the people from the UK in the Consolidated Club, there were nearly 100 different events represented. And it was commented that that's nearly 5% of the UK covered. And in my head, I was thinking 5%, 100 events. No, that's way too... too many events for what they've actually got I had a look last week in the UK there are 833 events so if we had parkrunners at nearly 100 of those we're actually probably up around 11 or 12 percent of the events in the UK actually have someone that lists parkrun adventurers in their list of five clubs hooray that's really good hope they listen as well That'd be good rather than just ticking the box to say they're on the... Now, I'm sure there's quite a few out there that listen. I certainly get a few comments. And lately, it's been really good at parkrun. I've had people actually coming up to me. We often say, come up and talk to us. And lately, there's been people actually coming up and saying, do you talk?

00:06:31Melissa Ellis: Oh, how cute. That's great.

00:06:32[crosstalk]

00:06:33Tony O'Connell: Yeah.

00:06:34Melissa Ellis: That's really good.

00:06:35Tony O'Connell: And I enjoy having to catch up. And you talk to people from a whole fascinating range of different parkruns, different backgrounds, like you do at parkrun normally. But it's great that you've got that little connection that they're parkrun adventurers and they're listeners.

00:06:49Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:06:50Tony O'Connell: Now, Mel, what have you been up to in the last month since we've last chatted? You've had the biggest event going around.

00:06:57Melissa Ellis: I have. I have. Over the last month, I've had a couple of big adventures and a couple of low-key chicken soup events. So to recap, after our last recording, I ventured to Sirromet parkrun on the lands of the Quandamooka peoples for my 500th parkrun. As previously mentioned... Sirromet parkrun is on the grounds of Sirromet Winery in Mount Cotton and I was extremely appreciative of the effort that went into ensuring I had a memorable morning despite the liquid sunshine. Many of my friends came along, some that I hadn't met in person before and some that have been along on my journey for many years. Even my sister Cassie braved a very early wake-up call to join me on the trip. There were some who helped create a 500 balloon banner for me to pose under, made me a cake and some who brought gifts. Each and every person there was special and I was grateful that they came along to share my morning and memories. The next two weeks were a reprieve from the hectic self-imposed travel schedule. I re-indexed at Marriott Waters for event 501 with my friend Michelle, who had dragged me along to my very first parkrun. That was in part due to my grandson's baptism, but seemed strangely serendipitous. The second was a return to Sunbury parkrun with Dave, an event he hadn't done and an excuse to enjoy the beautiful Nook and Happy Hill, which he may one day forgive me for. But travelling is in my blood. And there was a trip prearranged for an adventure back to Queensland with Belinda to do Roma parkrun. This was on the most recent Saturday. Roma is on the lands of the Mandanangi. I can't say it. Mandandanji people and was a five-hour drive inland from Brisbane why Roma I hear you ask talk well number one Belinda hadn't visited it so it was an adventure for both of us number two it is a four-letter event name to tick off that challenge whatever it's called I can't remember now And it was event number 70 to launch in Australia. So part of the Top 100 Pioneer Club Challenge. And it's in the outback. What's not to like about that? Roma parkrun is loosely a double out and back course, relatively flat along the Bungil Creek and starting near the local tourist attraction, the Big Rig. Roma parkrun has had an upgrade from its original course. So if you know it for running along a road, that no longer happens. I ran, Belinda walked, and afterwards we enjoyed brunch at the Royal on 99. For a little town, Roma has big claims on the history front. Roma was the site of Australia's first oil and gas discoveries. We learnt all about the history by visiting the Big Rig Complex and attending the evening show. We also enjoyed the free history tour around town, which highlighted significant buildings, some of which weren't actually standing anymore as they'd burnt down in years past. We visited Roma's largest bottle tree, which is 9.6 metres wide and 15 metres tall. Interestingly, while it resembles the West Australian Boab, it is not related and is a Brachychiton rupestris. The town have embraced the Bottle Tree, even honouring the World War I fallen soldiers with a Bottle Tree Avenue of Honor. The heritage-listed avenue comprises of 140 trees along multiple streets, including in front of the Cenotaph and the RSL Hall. This unassuming town was a tourism highlight for me for so many reasons, a great weekend and a fabulous way to round off my parkrun month.

00:10:38Tony O'Connell: Lots of things going on there, Mel. Like you, I started off my month, or our last little month, at Sirromet Winery, funny enough.

00:10:47Melissa Ellis: Thank you for coming.

00:10:48Tony O'Connell: It was just random that we bumped into you there. Who'd have thought we'd go all the way to Queensland and bump into Mel at Sirromet? It was a bit wet, wasn't it? Well, you were lucky. You were one of the speedy geese. Oh. I was tail walking at the back with one of the friends of the pod, Julie Doolan, as well as Martine and Belinda's auntie, Annette. And it'd be fair to say that three-quarters of the way through the parkrun, it started to throw it down. And most of the people... We could hear when you crossed the line because we could hear the cheering across the valley, but we had a long way still to go. So... We walked in the rain. We got exceptionally wet. And I just wanted to find out, though, I never actually saw her on the course, but did you make your sister Cassie carry that big barcode that we printed for her the whole way? I did.

00:11:41Melissa Ellis: I even made her pose for a photo.

00:11:43Tony O'Connell: For those that haven't seen the photo, the barcode we printed was about a metre long and probably 70 centimetres high. So it was a big barcode to be carrying around Sirromet Winery. And she used it to scan. Yes, we had proof tested that it would work on the scanning, but you had to stand a long way back to get all the barcode in.

00:12:05Melissa Ellis: and talk I've got it I'm just interrupting you I'm really sorry but my sister Cassie only usually parkruns when I drag her along when she's accompanying me on one of my uh what would you call my adventures yeah well it's usually one of my milestones or a birthday or some reason that I'm out near her home but the last two weeks she's gone to parkrun all by herself so proud did she take the big barcode No.

00:12:33Tony O'Connell: Oh, come on.

00:12:35Melissa Ellis: But she's got the app now. Yeah, so we're making progress. Please continue.

00:12:41Tony O'Connell: Okay, so that was on the 9th. The 16th, I was RD back at the stump at Inverloch, so didn't run around, but I had lots of fun just being Run Director on the day. Two weeks ago, I thought, I'm going to go to Koonwarra. For those that have been following along on the journey, I'm up to running 1.3 Ks, or I was last week, 1.3 Ks now. So my ultra marathon consists of 1300 metres. I like to call it metres because it sounds a lot more impressive than 1.3 kilometres. Got over to Coonee and I'd forgotten how much concrete Coonee had now since they've done the roadworks from the bridge down. So I got a couple of short runs in. And then on Saturday, just gone, we had about four plans of where we're going to go. We had parkrun A, B, C and D. And the first three plans all basically got cancelled or we couldn't get to them because of trees over roads. Victoria had a massive storm go through on Friday night. There was a bit of carnage around. So we just ended up back at Inverloch, had a very pleasant day at Inverloch just walking along actually walk with the Tail Walker at Inverloch and yeah just enjoyed the day like you do at parkrun some days you want to get there and run some days it's okay just to get there and walk and talk and look up in the trees trying to spot koalas nearly said kangaroos then if you've got kangaroos up in the trees you've got a lot of wind and a lot of storm damage So Mel, that was pretty much what I've done. It's just a couple of the local ones, just revisiting them. You know, I had planned to work a little bit more on a P-index, but the weather dictated that we'd just go back to Inverloch. And it was actually sunny at the start of Inverloch. I posted a live video on Inverloch's page of the start. It's beautiful blue skies in the back. What you can't hear is the 80 kilometre an hour winds gusting through it, but the sky was blue. So it was a great day.

00:14:43Melissa Ellis: I did feel a bit smug that I'd escaped the Melbourne storms for the improved weather in Queensland.

00:14:53Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I think I messaged you before parkrun. I think it might have been something like eight degrees with a feels like minus two at Inverloch. It wasn't all that warm outside.

Streaky September

00:15:03Tony O'Connell: No. Now, the other big news, as well as what we've been up to the month, this month sees the start of streaky September. For those following along at home, there's a Facebook group. We encourage people to get out and do an activity each day. There's a lot more detail on the Streaky September Facebook page. I'm currently at Streak Day 2558, so I think I have an issue or a problem or something. LAUGHTER And I've noticed that as late as tonight, we're recording on the Monday night. Yeah, it's Monday. I can't remember what day it is. As of tonight, the first of the Bingoe cards has dropped on the Facebook page. So, yeah, for everyone listening in, jump over to the Streaky September page. Engage with it. Jump on. Put some pictures up. We get some great pictures. Look, we get some pictures of just ordinary life out there. Every day is different for everyone. So, yeah, encourage everyone to get involved.

00:16:12Melissa Ellis: I have also been streaking for a long time. I do try to do my minimum one mile walking activity every day and as well as a half an hour of some sort of exercise but I haven't been tracking it so I don't know what day I'm up to but good on you. You've been streaking every day since its inception I believe.

00:16:34Tony O'Connell: Yeah, pretty much. There's a group of us. There's a couple of Christine Timms from Launceston. There's a couple of us out there that have been streaking. Obviously, Jacqui's been streaking because most days we get out and walk together. Yeah, that was back from the Scotty and Mel days when they brought it in. I can't figure out how many years 2,558 days is, but it's a long time. Absolutely is. And our current streak is currently minimum chips of five kilometres a day because that's a (not)parkrun every day.

00:17:05Melissa Ellis: You crazy, crazy people. Now, one thing we forgot to chat about when we did our bit of a catch up before we press record was whether we were going to have the Brooklyn Bridge launch conversation here. So I'm going to go with yes.

00:17:19Tony O'Connell: Let's go with it now.

00:17:21Melissa Ellis: Let's go with it. Now, we will talk about the Brooklyn Bridge launch later on when we get down to our launch segment. But the point I think that was worth discussing and having a conversation with was the controversy that it caused because it was promoted in the USA.

00:17:43Tony O'Connell: And it was quite widely promoted, Mel. It wasn't just promoted on the parkrun USA Facebook page, which a couple of the European countries seem to be. I know there's countries with the soft launch policy, the UK, Australia, and a couple of others. And there's companies, companies, there's countries that quite openly... announced their their launches and usa's one I found it a little bit interesting that parkrun global promoted it quite heavily on their page as well I'm just not too sure what my thoughts on that are whether whether we want to be promoting it that heavily I've seen comments from the uh rd and the ed on the day who was More than happy that it was promoted quite heavily, and he loved the numbers, and I guess there's lots of RDs and EDs here that would love to see big numbers at a launch as well, but I'm just not sure where I stand on it and how I feel about that, because I am very used to the soft launch, and I know it's a very different beast where... If you promoted a launch, particularly in the UK, if you were somewhere around London and you widely promoted a launch and said, hey, everyone come here, you're going to get that bushy 6,000 people rush into an event and that will be overwhelming. But, you know, I guess where do we start to extend that soft launch into different countries? So what numbers did they get? They had 538 for their first week.

00:19:14Melissa Ellis: And that's significant.

00:19:15Tony O'Connell: It is significant in an area like that. They had 23 volunteers and they had a very inexperienced volunteer crew from the reports I've seen. They had one person doing timing and that one person, it was their first go at timing. Wow. And apparently they did a great job, got it right. But that's a lot of pressure to put on to one person.

00:19:36Melissa Ellis: Well, they didn't know.

00:19:39Tony O'Connell: they were under they had one person doing finished tokens that apparently hadn't done tokens before oh goodness me yeah 538 you know you take a parkrun running it just over an hour the first 16 17 minutes you don't get anyone or maybe one or two through that probably 25 to 35 minute period, the pressure they would have been under for a first time. We tend to have a launch here and if we suspect we're going to get slightly bigger numbers, we back end the event team and put a lot of experience in there to make sure that that launch stays successful and it all flows we make sure there's people that you know know how to cope with the bigger numbers and that I'm just not sure how that one went so I think the big issue here is that very clearly we have the countries like you said UK here in Australia

00:20:39Melissa Ellis: where we have this silent launch policy, where we try to strongly discourage people for going along, not just to the launch, but for the first few weeks, just until the event team settles in. And that is a definite policy that parkrun doesn't, They don't verbalize. It's not in writing, right?

00:21:00Tony O'Connell: It used to be in writing, and now they've gone with a softly, softly approach where they encourage people and tell people, but they don't actually put it down.

00:21:08[crosstalk]

00:21:09Melissa Ellis: But we all know, like those of us that know, know that the event teams are told behind the scenes not to advertise and to keep it very quiet. and so when parkrun as an organisation come out in the socials and blatantly promote the launch of a single event it's not even that wasn't even launching in the country it was just an event in a country that was existing it just seems to be a contradiction doesn't it it just seems to be sending the wrong message

00:21:41Tony O'Connell: It does, and parkrun were quite clearly in their comms saying, go out and spread the message, not just, here's a launch coming up in case you're interested. Their wording on their posts was very much, tell your friends, tell your neighbours, tell the neighbours' neighbours and put it in the local paper sort of thing. It was, get the word out there. And I think somewhere like Brooklyn Bridge is always going to attract people once people know it's there. It's one of those iconic parkruns that people are going to want to go to. Do they need to post in half the country's... Facebook pages for parkrun, not only parkrun America or parkrun USA, but they published it in nearly every country's page, Facebook page, and said, tell everyone about this. This is big. It's coming.

00:22:35Melissa Ellis: Yeah, it's a contradiction. And I don't know, parkrun, get your message out.

00:22:40Tony O'Connell: I don't know get it clearer do better just get the messaging consistent that's yeah and look if you're going to promote it in different countries I get that you know some countries they they promote parkruns and we see uh launches with you know 60 people and that's it's being promoted that's you know what happens around but in a place like new York we're gonna get a big crowd for it you know the number of UK tourists I saw that hopped on a plane and flew over to it because it's not that far for them to attend the launch you know it just I'm not sure if it's sending the right message here's my analogy talk it's like parkrun is the parent and all the country are the kids and parkrun's going you can have a bag of lollies you can have a bag of lollies oh you can't have a bag not you not you oh well it is what it is moving on moving on there's a book tell us about the book there is Mel there's parkrun have released a book that lists the first 500 events in Australia it's a coffee table format book so it's quite a large book um a photo from every event from the first 500 and a sneak peek beyond the curtains if you're in the couple of events that launched just after 500 there may be a couple of extras in there with a trailer to the next book or the next issue so then maybe there's more than 500 in there but um it's basically they went out to events and asked them all to put in a photo something that represented their parkrun I know for example Inverloch, the photo that's gone in as a volley crew on the stump, because the stump with the ocean in the background is probably what we talk about most with with Inverloch I saw a draft copy of it at the south Australian ambassador conference I actually really like the look of it I have ordered a copy of it it's not cheap though is it it's not cheap no I guess looking at similar books in a bookshop, it's not expensive either.

00:24:47Melissa Ellis: I'm not saying it's not worth it. What's it retailing at, $100?

00:24:51Tony O'Connell: Yeah, $100, $99, post it out. Yeah, so look, for the size of the book and the type of paper that they've used to get the photographic, the number of pictures and that into it and have the pictures on good photographic quality paper, yeah. If I went into a bookshop, not that I go and buy that many books, but I wouldn't think that that was that far from the mark, to be honest.

00:25:16Melissa Ellis: Yeah, fair enough. Now, is it on pre-order?

00:25:20Tony O'Connell: No, it's basically you can order that and it's getting sent out. I have a copy that's on the way. I jumped in and ordered a copy. It's coming via Aramex.

00:25:32Melissa Ellis: Oh, yeah. I think that's typical now for their merch. I think I got my 500 top the same way.

00:25:38Tony O'Connell: Okay, they've changed because they were using someone else, but it's coming via Aramax, and Aramax are telling me that it's... I'm just stalling as I scroll through to this. Aramax are telling me that it's coming very soon, so I'll have my copy maybe by the time I get some wonderful visitors down to our new house. Oh, I'm hoping so. Aramax are telling me that it's... It's ready to be picked up, so I'm not sure what that means. It's been in transit and it's at a depot to be picked up.

00:26:11Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:26:12Tony O'Connell: Yeah. I think it's at Warragul, Mel. Warragul has a parkrun, so it can't be all that bad.

00:26:19Melissa Ellis: Now, another thing to bring up, there's been lots of news this week. Now, I thought I should appeal to our adventurers to avoid the Victorian Alpine area for tourism at the moment. So for those unaware, we've got a current situation, happening around the Porepunkah area where there's been an unfortunate shooting somebody has shot a couple of police officers wounded a third one and is on the run so the bright parkrun was actually cancelled this last weekend as there's a big police presence in the area is there they are undergoing a manhunt basically and so um there's there's three parkruns in the general vicinity there's bright there's Ovens River Trail and also Mount Beauty which I would probably suggest is also one that you might want to just steer clear of at the moment if you don't need to be in the area please reconsider any tourism until the offender is apprehended so there's our public service announcement

00:27:23Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mel, and hopefully the offender is apprehended fairly shortly because, yeah, well, it was not a very pleasant situation. Absolutely. Mel, I wanted to talk about the marathon effect. We've seen this quite often. Regularly, and it's funny, given our conversation only two minutes ago about New York and a new parkrun there, and then we'll get New York Marathon. But the Sydney Marathon was on the weekend, and we saw the marathon effect hit Pirrama parkrun this week, which was the closest event to the, I guess, the marathon hub where you go to collect your bags and start and finish line and all that. It's also one of those iconic... events now where you get to see the Sydney harbour bridge from the parkrun course their attendance record was absolutely blown out of the water this week previously it had been 627 which is fairly big for an Australian standard parkrun our friends from the UK may say 627 yep small run in the park but for us that's a fairly big one but their increase went up to 1031 that's an extra 404 parkrunners which is massive and that's a big hit for an event that's basically just over a year old on the day I noted that there were celebrations for someone did their 250th there there were five 100s 550s and 625 so a lot of celebrating happening apparently the day went off really well not a hitch at all they expected big numbers because of the the marathon but But yeah, a lot of people out on that course, Mel.

00:28:59Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and we should say that Sydney's first time as a new world major.

00:29:04Tony O'Connell: Yes, it's joined the world major series. So it's one of seven majors around the world now. We've actually seen in the past, you know, events at the world majors like Berlin, where when the Berlin Marathon's on, Hasenheide actually cancels for the day. So hopefully that effect won't hit hit Sydney there's a couple in the area st peter's and a couple of others in the area I noticed, I think it might have been Mosman also set an attendance record on the weekend so a couple of those Sydney ones obviously got well patronized but yeah hopefully they'll keep going on bigger and better things

00:29:44Melissa Ellis: So there were some big names that came out to do the marathon. Kipchoge came out for the first Sydney Marathon, as did Kristine Vergara.

00:29:54Tony O'Connell: Yes.

00:29:55Melissa Ellis: So congratulations, Chris.

00:29:57Tony O'Connell: Chris ran a great time and I saw a run through where she saw Eman and the kids out on the course and it looked like a great happy occasion for Chris.

00:30:07Melissa Ellis: How good was it? I also saw Jen Arney ran Sydney Marathon too. Shout out to Jen if you're listening. Upcoming Panorama Punish 2 in October. We haven't been mentioning much of that lately, but keep your eye out in the socials for the Panorama Punish.

00:30:24Tony O'Connell: Something for us to get onto our show note fairies and add in there, Mel. Been a great event that's been well supported by parkrun adventurers in the past few years.

00:30:35Melissa Ellis: Yes. So well done to all the parkrun adventurers that did take part in the first Sydney major marathon. But anyway, now, stats. We're running over time, Toc.

00:30:48Tony O'Connell: Okay, let's jump into the stats. And thanks to Alison, our friend who crossed the ditch, on the past parkrun Day, the 30th of August, we had 63 parkruns in New Zealand. There were 8,830 finishers, and they were supported by 1,009 volunteers. Hagley was the largest with... 571 finishes followed by Waitangi on 382 and Millwater with 336 and I've just realised Mel that my show notes have disappeared there I had the couple of smaller ones as well but they've disappeared off my show notes oh dear I wonder how that happened it wasn't me I promise I

00:31:32Melissa Ellis: all righty now moving over to Australia at the time of the show notes across Australia on the 30th of August we hosted 500 events complete with 57,657 finishers and 6,137 volunteers we also hosted five junior events with 385 finishers and 77 volunteers on the 23rd of August the smallest parkrun was Cobar with four and the largest was Albert Melbourne with 786 now due to the weather I did notice this last weekend that Albert Melbourne they had less than 300 that's really strange for Albert Melbourne to have so few but I also would suggest that many of the Albert Melbourne runners would have been in Sydney running with Kipchoge Anyway, moving on. The 30th of the eighth, the smallest parkrun was Jamestown Golf Course. It had four. And the largest we have already mentioned was Pirrama with 1,031. And oh, and it's in the show notes that Albert Melbourne had 295. So yeah, just shy of the 300.

00:32:42Tony O'Connell: And Mel, looking at that drop for Albert Melbourne of well over 50%, I think it might be a good thing that our friends at With Me Now are actually on a summer vacation because I think they might be throwing back a bit of the sugar people shade that we throw at the bushy people.

00:32:57Melissa Ellis: Yes, yes. Anyway, that is it for the stats.

00:33:00[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:33:01Melissa Ellis: So I think we better throw over to our roving reports.

Roving report Alison Fraser (King) — Halswell Quarry parkrun

00:33:13Alison Fraser (King): Kia ora koutou, it's Alison here reporting in from across the ditch and today this parkrun day I have travelled over the Cook Strait and I am in Christchurch at Halswell Quarry parkrun which is a parkrun that started last year and is now the parkrun with the most elevation of all in New Zealand and I am now with the co-director Anna who is going to tell us all about her parkrun so welcome Anna. [Te Reo Maori: "Hello / greetings to you all (spoken to more than two people)"]

00:33:39Anna: Oh, thank you for having me.

00:33:41Alison Fraser (King): So you set up this parkrun almost a year ago. And I know when it started, it was the elevation that got a lot of people. So can you describe your parkrun to us, where it is and what the course is like?

00:33:54Anna: Well, the course, we're very proud of because it does provide a lot of variety and a lot of views because you do get the elevation. And as you get to the top, you get to see views of the Southern Alps, especially like today. They were very clear. And there's some amazing downhills as well. And there's some really great challenges that really mix the run up. What I often say to runners when they come here, yes, there's elevation, but actually it never gets boring. And it always gives you a sense of achievement twice because you get to do the hill twice. But also I, for myself, I feel there's no pressure that I need to do a certain time. So that's why I really like having the elevation because I know that I'm pushing myself really hard. But at the same time, I'm not, I think I have to be at this time, but actually, no, I'm doing this amazing hilly parkrun. And as we're coming into spring, all the trees are coming out with beautiful colours. We're going to start having the blossoms coming through. So it's more than just a hilly parkrun. It is a parkrun with lots of beauty. So we're pretty spoiled.

00:34:54Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. And you get people that come back and do it week after week.

00:34:57Anna: Oh, completely. We've had a lot of people who have come and go, this is my one and only, one and done. But they keep coming back and now it's their regular parkrun because they're going, this is just, it's a lot of fun. And there is something about getting up that hill and that downhill goes on for a decent amount of time and you get some good speed. We always, I always have this motto, run like a kid. So you get to feel like you're running like a kid and you're just like, whoopee. Yeah.

00:35:21Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, it was a lot of fun today and you've got some awesome named spots where you have your Marshals like Nigel's Corner, Pride Rock, Legend of the Fall.

00:35:34Anna: Yeah, Legends of the Fall came about because, yeah, there's a nice little fall on that corner. And our park ranger, Nigel, very conveniently put in a rock wall for us so people would not fall off the edge. So that's quite important. But we have called it Legends of the Fall for that reason. Pride Rock, I mean, says it in itself is at the top of the hill. There's a lot of pride in getting up the top. When you do get to the top, it looks a little bit like Simba's Pride Rock. And we just feel like you just need to hold Simba out there and chant the Lion King songs.

00:36:06Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. And our Marshal today out there, Boonie, who people will have heard from the last time I came to Christchurch for parkrun. He was... In a lion onesie today. Yes, yeah.

00:36:17Anna: And we've got a permanent, if people want to wear it, they've got like a lion mane and a tail and everything they can put on. Nice. Yeah, so it's our favourite Marshall spot. Everyone wants to be up there.

00:36:24[crosstalk]

00:36:27Alison Fraser (King): Christchurch has had a bit of a boost in parkruns over the last couple of years. But tell us your parkrun story. How did you get into parkrun?

00:36:36Anna: Mine was actually back in Melbourne and we had moved there from Christchurch. And in 2016, I was teaching and one of my colleagues said, there's a parkrun standing up around the corner. It was literally a day and a half from our house. And so we were part of the inaugural Wilson's Botanic parkrun, which is also in a quarry, which is also very hilly. And so that started the parkrun journey and the obsession. And so I got to do most of the Melbourne parkruns, Victoria and Queensland, quite a few of the Australian parkruns. Then came back to New Zealand in 2022, was really involved with Hagley and enjoying being around that. And then our local Halswell Run community started we that was growing um and people just put two and two together and they were like oh if you guys are out doing that Halswell Roam thing um are you looking at setting up the parkrun and we're like no but all here we go lo and behold here we are um starting up a parkrun and the idea got planted and then this we're like well it makes sense my first parkrun in Melbourne was in a quarry on a hill so we'll just do the same here in New Zealand and yeah so it's pretty special and I've been coming to this quarry since my son's been really little he's 16 years old now and I used to go and do the course with him in the push tier when he was really young and it was always this place where I'd come for myself. So it's really cool to have it as a parkrun now.

00:38:05Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, it's pretty special.

00:38:07Anna: Yeah, no, we're pretty spoiled.

00:38:09Alison Fraser (King): You mentioned you've done quite a few parkruns, so I'm going to put you on the spot. Sorry, Anna. Can you pick Any three parkruns that stand out for you, not including your home parkrun. So we're going to include Wilson Botanic in that. Yes. So if you can pick any three parkruns that either mean something to you or you just had a really good experience. So I can include Wilson's? No, no. Okay. I'm going to count them both as home parkruns.

00:38:30[crosstalk]

00:38:34Anna: Okay, that's all good. So Frog Hollow is another one that's in Melbourne. So... That's very close to Wilson's Botanic Gardens, but it was also where we found a lot of friends when we were living over there. We didn't have a lot of family and they just wrapped their arms around us and pulled us in. So we were at Frog Hollow an awful lot when we went to Wilson's. Then probably Scarborough is another one, um just stunning it's by the water it's very different to this one yeah um but it's all about I'm all about the views um and yeah enjoying and soaking up what I can see um and also the community with that one's pretty awesome um and then oh the tricky one you know what, I went to, it's a run in Orewa in Auckland Millwater and my grandmother lives around the corner and so I've been to Millwater a few like just the once actually but it was really welcoming bunch of people and my grandmother lives around the corner so I know that if we're going to Auckland there's a really cool place to be and um

00:39:43Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, and it's a really pretty parkrun too. So, yeah. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Anna. And I think I mentioned when I finished, this has gone on my would like to visit again list. I did think it was going to be a one undone, but I know that now I've gone up that hill that I can...

Roving report Dave — Aveley parkrun

00:40:02Alison Fraser (King): run it yes yes get the faster time today was about having an enjoyable time not a fast time yeah yeah definitely and if anyone wants to come you can fly direct from Australia to Christchurch and that's where you'll find Halswell Quarry so yeah thank you very much oh very good thank you for having me Okay, I'm here at lovely Aveley parkrun in WA we've got Neil over from red cliff he's part of the Brisbane lions uh

00:40:06[crosstalk]

00:40:27Unidentified speaker: event day team I suppose and he's uh while he's over here he's decided to do a parkrun so Neil uh what number different parkrun is Aveley for you uh 252 different parkrun that's not bad at all uh Neil is of course an adventurer you'd hope he would be with that uh that sort of number under his hat he's also uh one of the RDs at uh lovely Des Connor Junior parkrun there in Queensland So how did you find Aveley today?

00:40:52Neil Scott: I thought it was beautiful. It's a very lovely park. The council do a wonderful job here and as you're meandering through the park and around the lake there's a bit of bird life around. Unfortunately I didn't see the peacocks which were mentioned. I was looking out for them but unfortunately didn't see them today. But it's a beautiful sunny day, clear skies, what better day to get out and do a parkrun or a park walk. Indeed, indeed it is a lovely sunny day.

00:41:18Unidentified speaker: I think the peacock was in a tree. You may have seen him if you kept your eyes really peeled. But he was hard to see in a tree.

00:41:23[crosstalk]

00:41:24Neil Scott: Nice and well hidden there. Unfortunately Dave, I've got a bung ankle and so I've got to keep my eyes on the ground.

00:41:30[crosstalk]

00:41:34Unidentified speaker: One pick at a time. No, fair enough. So one thing we adventurers always like to ask is a top three favourite parkruns. Now, you've got a few under your belt. You might not even remember some.

00:41:44Neil Scott: Well, I mean, I'd have to look at states, I think. But no, there's just... I've never been to a bad parkrun yet, put it that way. I've been to some very, very challenging ones like Mundy Regional here in Western Australia and Nambour in Queensland. There's always been debate over which one's the most challenging. Because I've done them both, I thought that I'd be able to form an opinion, but unfortunately I've done them several months apart. So when I did Mundy Regional, my good friend Neil Barnett, who used to travel with um some time to do parkrun and a lot of you would remember neil's name and uh so I told him about Mundy, so he made a special trip over here to do Mundy and he came back and said I agree with you he said we're too far apart doing the parkruns to make a decision so let's call it a dead heat But Mundy Regional was spectacular. It's about 210 metres of elevation, and I couldn't run it, but about the halfway mark, I stopped and took a photo of how high I was up, and with the Perth city in the background. Absolutely spectacular.

00:42:56Unidentified speaker: That is nice, yeah. I remember, because I have done it, and yeah, after all the hills are out of the way, you've got a lovely, long, straight stretch with the view over the city. It was really nice.

00:43:05Neil Scott: Getting back to which ones, you know, you would think might be your favourites, I've got two that are special and quite diverse. Hamilton Island is, I mean, what better place to go to than Hamilton Island? Beautiful blue Azura water and the wonderful Whitsundays and you actually run probably just over 2km on the beach. My recommendation to anybody planning to go there is have a look at the tides and try and go there at half tide or low tide because the sand up high is very, very heavy, but very, very beautiful parkrun. And if you get there on a rainy day, bad luck, but if you get there on a sunny day, the water even looks bluer. And then as complete contrast to that wonderful outback town called Cloncurry, It's miles from nowhere, but the event team there, they deserve an award because they turn up every week basically with very, very limited numbers, quite a few tourists. But it's quite unusual that when I went there, the plane taking me back to Brisbane was leaving at something like 10.40. And with a seven o'clock parkrun, an hour and a half or so's drive, it's always going to be tough to get there. So I parked my car near the start finish and I said to the Run Director, look, I'm not antisocial, but I've got my breakfast set out in the passenger seat, my drinks and my food and I've just got to bolt into that car and take off because I've got to fill it up with fuel 12 kilometres from the airport and I'm really running out of time and he said okay then no worries and I told him then my goal was to try and complete the whole of Queensland and become a Queensland States person. And so they awarded me a Cloncurry cap to take with me on my travels. But then the course itself, they open up a gate and you go into this paddock. And in the paddock is horses, there's little wallabies hopping around everywhere, little mimosa bushes, and the land out there is so parched because it's so hot, you get these cracks opening up from the clay in the ground. And so here you are running along in this complete contrast terrain to Hamilton Island, and then you get to the halfway mark, and here's this old rusty vehicle, and it's got a jug of water on it for you to have a drink at the halfway mark. And then as you glance across, you realise, wow, there's the start there. You can nearly reach out and touch the start, finish. You've done this loop through the paddock and come right back around without knowing it, you know. So, you know, it's just quite different, you know. And so, yeah, other states, you know, I like Mundy here because it's so different. In Hobart, or Tasmania, I really loved Geeveston. Down there, it's the furthest southern run. Northern Territory, Darwin, because it's all along the foreshore. Lots of monuments all the way along there. You know, lots of things to go for a walk after parkrun or before. have a look and take in a bit of their culture and a bit of their history up there. New South Wales, I loved Pirrama. It's one of their newest parkruns there, but you run from sort of one bridge, you run to the Anzac Bridge and then as you're coming back you can see the Sydney Harbour, but you shouldn't look at it while you're on the old Wharf area. There's been many falls and I had a group of my five friends went there last week and they witnessed a couple of falls. Yeah, friends from Redcliffe went there because there's a lot of crazies around like me that travel everywhere. And South Australia, I couldn't go past Torrens because I was fortunate. Oh, boy, yeah, when I was going along past the Adelaide Oval, the water was flowing out of the waterfall there into the Torrens. And so I've told people like, you know, how spectacular that is. And Western Australia will probably It's probably not the favourite course but my course with a story is Garvey parkrun and coming there with my friend Neil Barnett and we caught a plane from Brisbane about 7 o'clock on Friday night. We got a courtesy bus to a motel which was opposite the turnaround type at Garvey Park So we went across there the next morning and done it. We had to leave early. We ran back to the motel, had a shower, no time for breakfast, jumped in the courtesy bus back to the airport and arrived back in Queensland at 5pm that afternoon. So less than two hours from 24-hour period, we went across the country and did a parkrun in Western Australia.

00:48:06Unidentified speaker: That was very memorable. Oh, that's good. No, that's what we do for it sometimes. Yeah, I do like those ones where you have to keep running past the finish line because you've got somewhere to be. Anyway, Neil, lovely to have you in lovely old Aveley. Hopefully we can get more adventures down here in weeks and months and years to come. But yeah, lovely to see you. Enjoy your trip back to Brisbane. Thank you so much.

Roving report Ali Sheppard — Wimpole Estate parkrun

00:48:27Ali Sheppard: G'day adventurers. Ali from the UK here. And I am at Wimpole Estate parkrun, which is near Cambridge.

00:48:36Simon Skinner: And I am here with... Simon Skinner, Event Director and also today's Run Director.

00:48:42Ali Sheppard: Fantastic. And you're a co-ed here.

00:48:44Simon Skinner: Yeah, co-ed. You spent some time with Tina who did the VC role today because, as you saw, it was a special event today. We can go into that if you want to.

00:48:53Ali Sheppard: Yes, absolutely.

00:48:54Simon Skinner: So, yeah, today was a record event for us because nearby we have the vegan festival, yearly festival. And then part of the vegans are the vegan runners. And they decided to use us this year. And so we had a record turnout of 714, whereas we normally have a maximum of 350.

00:49:16Ali Sheppard: So that's absolutely amazing. And it's a beautiful, beautiful blue sky. Tell us about Wimpole Estate parkrun. How long have you been going? Why should people come here?

00:49:28Simon Skinner: Well, you know, so we've been going actually to once we first got here since January 2013. So we've been here 12 years. This is...

00:49:38Ali Sheppard: been involved since the start?

00:49:41Simon Skinner: No, I actually started in Cambridge. So this is a National Trust property, so this whole estate was owned by the author the last owner, this was the daughter of Rudyard Kipling. Oh really? So when she died, she bequeathed it to the National Trust. So obviously we have a huge expanse of land, so plotting out a course is easy. You came because Ali was Timekeeper today. you came at a good time because we have two courses so we're on our single 5k group at the moment but we also have another one which is like an out and back on a different course and as always our course is geared around wherever the livestock is because there's a working estate here so there are cattle and sheep and everything so today is actually the last day on this course before we revert to and that's basically because of the extreme hot and dry weather, so they need to move the cattle back onto South Park to graze.

00:50:37[crosstalk]

00:50:59Ali Sheppard: It's a beautiful estate, there's some incredible trees, I love all the trees.

00:51:02Simon Skinner: I don't know the acreage to be honest, but let's just say it's huge.

00:51:08Ali Sheppard: And I was timekeeping, so I was sitting down, so I didn't get to experience, I understand it's a little bit hilly.

00:51:14Simon Skinner: Well, correct. On either course, you're going to come to the same spot at the top of the hill. This one is probably a bit. So we have around 2K, you start to climb uphill. Yes. But it's worth it for the views, really, because you have the lake.

00:51:33Ali Sheppard: and you have the house and you have what's called the folly which is a castle room which is just built amazing amazing amazing most of these people are heading down to the farm yes the kids yeah and there's a big play area fantastic everything something for everyone so you have um you you started in Cambridge and your history of parkrunning you said you've done some parkruns in Australia

00:51:40[crosstalk]

00:51:58Simon Skinner: I have done some parkruns, so business has taken me to Australia, so probably to well-known companies in Australia, which is Knauf and BGC, they're big companies. So actually we made, we actually did some acquisitions out there because we're in the same line of business. Okay. So I spent some time in Sydney. So I've done Yarra Bay parkrun, which is in the Sydney area in Matraville.

00:52:31Ali Sheppard: Yep.

00:52:31Simon Skinner: I've done Cairns. Cairns? Yeah, which is, I got extremely wet there. It rained like it only can rain in Cairns. Yeah, in Cairns. And the last one I did was in Perth, which was, I think it was called Claisebrook. There were a few in Perth, yeah, but Claisebrook Cove or something like that, mostly by the water.

00:52:52Ali Sheppard: And have you done much touristing and parkrunning in the UK or other countries as well?

00:52:57Simon Skinner: Yeah, I mean, I spend most of my time here, but I've probably been... I've probably been...

00:53:08Ali Sheppard: the spot one question we like to ask on this podcast is if you can think of maybe your top three parkrun courses that you've been to and they don't have to be you know they could be your most memorable for different reasons it could be nice weather or the company or Not including this one.

00:53:33Simon Skinner: Well, I wouldn't actually say this one, of course, because it's an exceptional thing. But, I mean, easily I would say Cairns. Cairns? Okay. Well, yeah, because it's something completely different, isn't it? Yes. Different and not different because the format is the same wherever you go, nearby nearby here I mean there's some nice ones in Norfolk where we holiday so there's Sheringham, yes, Sheringham and Blickling which are both National Trust ones as well yeah so they I've done I've done those ones um and I suppose there's another

00:53:58[crosstalk]

00:54:14Ali Sheppard: another good one Henlow Lakes is quite nice yes around here yeah I mean there's so many aren't there I mean they're all different and varied yeah you know they're all wonderful we were talking earlier sometimes it's five times around the field and sometimes it's something like this yeah but they're all well I've had a wonderful time it's it's a wonderful Wimpole Estate wonderful parkrun um there's something for everyone here um so thank you very much um thank you and that's a wrap adventurers

00:54:16[crosstalk]

00:54:35[background music]

00:54:47Tony O'Connell: And, Mel, we had a great set of roving reports coming to us from all around the world this week. We had Alison from Halswell Quarry. New Zealand's most elevation on a parkrun. I'd really like to compare that with a few of the other ones, both in the UK and some of the ones that we've got, like Mundy and Nambour, and just see how they all stack up. But I love the sound of a bit of elevation on a parkrun. We had Dave coming in from Aveley. He was talking to Neil Scott, who was visiting Perth with the Brisbane Lions Football Club and who is an RD at Des Connor Juniors. And ironically, who I was messaging yesterday, he's coming to Inverloch in February. So what a funny little connection that was. And we had Ali coming to us from Wimpole. And she was with Simon Skinner, who was on another record attendance over there. And that was largely due to a vegan runners from a nearby vegan conference or get together or whatever the vegan people do when they're out and about. So, yeah, three great roving reports there. Yeah.

Dazza's

00:55:57Tony O'Connell: No, I think we'll just jump straight into Dazza's now. As the listeners know, we pick a couple of comments, five comments from each of the weeks. And on the 23rd of August, Dazza said, today is cheap flight day. Did you catch a plane to get to parkrun? Or did you go so fast you felt like you took flight? Or maybe you just popped a zoomie. However you flew, land at Dazza's and let us know how you went.

00:56:23Melissa Ellis: And the first in to land was Ingrid Botha from New South Wales. She said, I took flight at Mount Penang as I finished my 250th parkrun. And the photo showed Ingrid mid-flight in her rainbow tutu. Congrats, Ingrid, on the 250th.

00:56:40Tony O'Connell: And next we had Michael Lyttle coming to us from Queensland, cooee from St Lucia we got the cooee in was meant to be travelling to winham but stayed local as we had a last minute volley cancellation but it meant I got graduated as I earned my 100 volley milestone St Lucia is on the uni of Queensland campus so we get to don the mortarboard and the hundred stole and the picture was Michael in his mortarboard and stole attached with evidence

00:57:10Melissa Ellis: Next we heard from Aileen Gallivan coming to us from across the ditch. I caught four planes Edinburgh to London to San Francisco to Auckland to Tauranga to get to Gordon Carmichael Reserve parkrun. My luggage decided to overnight in London rather than travel with me so I had a nervous wait for it to be delivered. Luckily I was reunited with it and my running kit last night just in time for parkrun this morning and there was a photo of Aileen and her friend in the selfie frame.

00:57:41Tony O'Connell: Rightio. Air traffic control was not required for Olive King at Queensland. Olive drove to Proston yesterday and did Railway Park parkrun this morning. Great parkrun. Location number 116. And Olive shared a photo in the event call flute sign.

00:57:57Melissa Ellis: And we also heard from Ruth Perkins coming to us from the UK. No cheap flights, but plenty of boats. My 100th volunteer celebrated at Lee-on-the-Solent parkrun with my husband, Chris. Seaside, sunshine and smiles. And there was a photo of Ruth and Chris on the beach with the pop-up. Congratulations on your 100th volley, Ruth.

00:58:18Tony O'Connell: We had a couple of good celebrations a couple of weeks ago there with Ingrid's 250 and Ruth's and a couple of others there, Mel. Rightio. On the 30th of August, Dazza said, it's literacy and numeracy week. One part of parkrun can be tracking number and letter theme challenges. Whether you were filling an alphabet, chasing an index number, or just making sure you could count to five kilometres and that your coffee order was written down correctly, come into Dazza's and tell us about your parkrun day.

00:58:51Melissa Ellis: And first off, we've got Lyndell Murray coming to us from Queensland. She said, it's all about numbers for me right now. Today, I continued my tourist streak at Scribbly Gums Conservation parkrun. As it turns out, I collected a date bingo and a Wilson number two. And she had the emoji with the nerdy glasses. And there was a photo of Lyndell with her bright smile and a bush background in her adventurous T-shirt and bike.

00:59:17Tony O'Connell: Rightio, coming down to Victoria we heard from Natalie Soper. What a morning! Firstly ran a beautiful Cobram parkrun where the storm cleared up in time for parkrun and then I'm not sure if I'm more excited about seeing a koala on course or finally getting stopwatch bingo. Oh no Mel, there's a stopwatch bingo, that's harsh. I've been chasing the elusive 44 seconds for more than two years since my last number, and it's taken 266 parkruns to complete stopwatch bingo. And we had a starry eye emoji and a timekeeping emoji and a video of the koala in the comments. And the posted pic was Natalie in the selfie frame with the bush in the background, but But the bonus in the comments, and I do encourage everyone to go in and actually have a look at the bonus video, is a video of a koala crossing the track. And it actually stops and drinks from a puddle and just looks up and looks all very happy and spaced out like koalas do.

01:00:15Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, congratulations, Natalie. 266 events.

01:00:22Tony O'Connell: It's only half of yours, Mel.

01:00:24Melissa Ellis: I'm not jealous at all. Now, we also heard from Sue Keane coming to us from New South Wales. And Sue said, today I was volunteer photographer. The wind was howling. It was cold, but it was sunny. It was my 151st volley and my 119th at Shellharbour. I just noticed I volunteered four out of five parkruns this month. And there was a photo of Sue taking a photo in the buff. Well, I think she was wearing the buff, the parkrun Adventurous buff, that is. That was a great photo, actually.

01:00:58Tony O'Connell: And Mel, that is an awesome effort, isn't it? Four out of five weeks volunteering. But we're going to move across to the UK and we're going to hear from Adrian Luscombe. Stevenage's parkrun's 416th event, my 448th parkrun, and I completed the course in 372nd position. A beautiful sunny morning. And there was the Great Britain flag as a little emoji in there. And Adrian was pictured with the Stevenage pop-up.

01:01:29Melissa Ellis: Very good. Last but not least, we heard from Dan O'Connell coming to us from the greater state. And Dan said, speaking of tracking number related challenges, ticked off unique location number 75 at Wimmera River parkrun Horsham this morning. A stunning course along the Wimmera River. Who could have guessed? With the fun of a suspension bridge, post parkrun coffee conveniently held where I stayed the night before. And there was a photo of Dan with the selfie frame and the Wimmera River in the background. Now that bridge I happen to know is the Anzac Bridge as that is one of my favourite courses. Good work, Dano.

01:02:07Tony O'Connell: And I know that Dano actually caught the V-Line train up there. I was part of their promotion at the moment where they're running $11 fares all around the state. You can go anywhere for $11, which is pretty good.

01:02:19Melissa Ellis: I could do that on Saturday. And Dano likes bridges too, doesn't he?

01:02:25Tony O'Connell: Dano has a thing for bridges, being a bridge engineer. Yes, he probably spent more time. He probably actually got a slower time because he probably stopped and actually checked the structural connections. Yeah.

01:02:36Melissa Ellis: Well, it's good to know it is being checked. I do appreciate that.

the Obi Award — Lyndell Murray

01:02:42Melissa Ellis: All right. Now, we've got an Obi to award, Tony.

01:02:46Tony O'Connell: We do, Mel. I have the envelope here. I'm going to open up this well-gummed-down back of the envelope. Someone's really licked the back of this envelope. Oh, ew. Mel, our Obi goes to... Drumroll... Oh, Lyndell Murray. Well done, Lyndell.

01:03:15Melissa Ellis: We love it how Lyndell's always in her merch. Good job, Lyndell, and doing her tourism streak. Did she say what she's up to? I don't think she did, but it's a good job.

01:03:26Tony O'Connell: No, she didn't. She didn't say what she got up to. I imagine she's up to a reasonable number now, but she did get the date bingo and the Wilson number all in the one parkrun.

01:03:35Melissa Ellis: Yep, and she was out at my 500th as well. She was one of my friends that came along and spent the day or the morning there with us, and she volunteered as well on the morning. Thanks, Lyndell. All righty.

Emails

01:03:52Melissa Ellis: Now, we had an email.

01:03:54Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: You've got mail.

01:03:56Melissa Ellis: And it came from Sarah Jantscher. And Sarah said, Hi fellow adventurers. Austria is getting a new parkrun tomorrow. Yay! And it's actually possible for me to get there on Saturday morning, albeit taking a train at 5.37am from my mum's place. It will be the sixth parkrun in Austria. It's called Innpromenade parkrun. Inn is the river going through the city and promenade is the German word for a riverbank path. I've attached the course description in German in case you'd like to include it in the podcast. The rough English translation. And it follows. The course is out and back alongside the River Inn with a turnaround point at halfway, mainly on gravel and mostly flat. The start and finish are next to the Sieglanger Steg bridge near Dr Stumpf Strasse. The meeting point is at the corner of Rehgasse and Dr Stumpf Strasse and the briefing will be held there. There is something very Austrian on the event page that made me laugh. The start is located next to the green glass recycling containers. And she put two little crying, laughy face emojis. Such a landmark. They are even visible on Google Street View. FYI, Austria is very much into recycling and has the second highest recycling rate in Europe after Germany. Happy adventuring, Sarah. Now, that was lovely to hear from you. Thank you for checking in, Sarah. And Sarah was actually also at my 500s. She came along and I walked part of the course with her. So it was lovely just to catch up with her then. And now she's already over in Austria. Goodness me.

01:05:48Tony O'Connell: No, Mel, she didn't actually go to Austria. I just had a quick look at it. And I think her reference is it's actually possible for her to get there, but she's not actually over there. She actually, I just had a quick little stalk and she went to Jern Park on Saturday. Well, thank you for that. Which is not in Austria.

01:06:06Melissa Ellis: No, it is not. Although Jern is a very... european sounding word um yeah so I completely mistook that because when she said it's actually possible for me to get there on Saturday morning I thought she meant literally but she did not she just meant when she's visiting her mom it's going to be possible apologies and thank you for picking me up on that Anyway, we're going to play you the audio because we think Sarah is really clever and we like to hear the different languages spoken. So we'll throw to Sarah and then to Reginald.

01:06:39Sarah Jantscher: Streckebeschreibung. Die Strecke verläuft als Hin- und Rückroute entlang des Innufers mit einem Wendepunkt auf halber Strecke. Sie führt über einen Schotterweg und ist überwiegend flach. Start und Ziel befinden sich neben der Sieglanger Stegbrücke in der Nähe der Dr. Stumpf Straße. Treffpunkt und Einweisung finden auf dem Platz nördlich der Brücke an der Ecke Rehgasse und Dr. Stumpf Straße statt.

01:07:00[background music]

Club Corner

01:07:14Reginald 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. As mentioned previously, today is a 2-4-1, and we are venturing to Russia and Singapore. They both launched in 2014, hence joining them up in a single episode, and they are an exercise in contrasts. Russia began in March and Singapore in the June. Russia participated in parkrun through until Feb 2022 and Singapore is continuing. Russia is a huge country. It occupies more than 17 million square kilometres, which is more than twice the size of Australia at 7.7 million square kilometres. Singapore on the other hand, well, it is 716 square kilometres. Yes, no millions, no thousands, just hundreds. If you love your maps, and frankly who does not, Singapore is half the size as Flinders Island, home of Whitemark Wharf parkrun. Or to put it in terms of cities, about the same size as Canberra. There is a nifty website called Versus.com where one can compare one thing to another, and so Canberra and Singapore were plugged in. Population density in Singapore is nearly 8,000 people per square kilometre versus 470 in Canberra. Canberra has more embassies 80 to 66 but fewer universities 4 to 8. And the thing that matters, Singapore has fewer parkruns, with only 5. In date order, Singapore's events are a East Coast Park parkrun, then in 2016 West Coast Park, then two years again to Bishan, with Bedok Reservoir in 2019. And finally Bay East Garden parkrun in 2024. A final comparison is their start times. Canberra parkruns start at 8am and Singapore at 7.30am. Fun fact, parkrun in Singapore was started by Carol Cunningham after a move from Australia for work, and it lives under the support umbrella of parkrun Australia. East Coast Park, aka ECP, is reportedly a favourite with tourists given its close proximity to Changi Airport, but popular opinion is divided, as is usual about favourite parkruns, between all five. Bishan has otters, Bay East Gardens has iconic buildings, East Coast and West Coast are obvious compass points, and Bedok is a flat single loop around the reservoir. Each year Singapore events have the option to celebrate their national day on the 9th of August as their special day, and as usual, New Year's Day. Now to Russia... They are not a parkrun country any longer. They began with joint event launches of parkrun Kolomenskoe and parkrun Severnoe Tushino, and at their peak had more than 100 active parkruns. After the close of parkrun in Russia, an organisation called Five Versts, took up the parkrun spirit. Here I quote their website, after the well-known events, parkruns in Russia were suspended. End quote. That organisation now has more than 170 active events in Russia. The distance of 5 versts is actually 5 kilometres and 334 metres, but as they point out in their blurb, they decided not to overthink it. In the vein of parkrun, Five Versts has two slogans. You can choose from the long, Saturday, morning, park, five kilometres, or the short, free, for everyone, every Saturday. Stay tuned for our future Club Corners, and next time, another doubleheader.

01:10:44Tony O'Connell: Right, Mel, we're back from Reginald, and it's always good to hear from a couple of countries, even if one of them is currently not in operation. It's currently suspended and not showing up on the maps. Russia, obviously, is that country, capital of Moscow, and it's basically a long way from anywhere at the moment. Russia, I think, is probably the fairest thing to say about Russia. Yeah. I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail there. Singapore is currently in operation, though, and it's a town where the city is actually the country, basically. It basically covers the whole of the island. Not too far from Australia, so it's good a lot of people duck over there. I guess a couple of things of note, it's about 6,500 k's from Sydney or Melbourne, 8,500 from Auckland. It's actually further from London, so it's about 11,000 from London, 15,000 from New York. It's a very popular stopover if you're heading to Europe. One of the things that's amazing about Singapore is how clean the place is. There is no rubbish anywhere. People don't spit. It's just a beautiful place. You go out for a walk on trails, and there's not even rubbish dropped out on the trails, let alone in the city. The trails are actually spotless. Lots of things to do there. Very efficient public transport sitting around, and they've got some great hawker centres for... you know local foods and that sort of thing to go to a couple of big tips um follow the local laws strictly do not litter or jaywalk because you'll get in a lot of trouble and stay hydrated Singapore is one of those places you wake up in the morning to go to parkrun and you sweat putting your clothes on to actually get up to go to parkrun so yeah encourage people to hydrate adequately

01:12:32Melissa Ellis: I've done a Singapore parkrun. I did West Coast Park parkrun, and I remember I submitted a roving report. I spoke to Dorota, and she said moist.

01:12:43Tony O'Connell: Moist. Good description for it. It's one of the few places where the taxis throw you a towel as you get in. And West Coast, Mel, that's one that I haven't done, so you've got another one up on me there.

01:12:57Melissa Ellis: Well, I've only done three countries, so I think you're winning that one.

01:13:02Tony O'Connell: Yeah, we've done Bishan and East Coast.

01:13:04Melissa Ellis: I might get back there one day. I live in hope.

Consolidated Club Report

01:13:08Melissa Ellis: But Tony, the adventurers Consolidated Club report. For Saturday, the 30th of August 2025, of a total of 835 members, 577 took part on this date in 14 countries across 285 locations. Internationally, there were adventurers at 67 events in the UK, 12 in South Africa, Finland, Germany, Italy and the USA each had two, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland and Singapore had one. Locally there were adventurers at 46 events in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria tied on 44, West Australia had 25, South Australia 12, Tasmania 8, the ACT had 5, The North Island had four and Northern Territory and the South Island were on two.

the Frond

01:14:02Tony O'Connell: Our largest international frond, Mel. On the 23rd of August, we had a frond of four at Jubilee Bedford. They were Chris Copas, Nigel Arnold, Susan Cartwright and our very, very good friend, Pippa White. On the 30th of August, we had a frond of three at three events. That's a tongue twister. Come on, you know my use of English language is not that good. At Cardiff, we had Denise Evans, David Wright and Matthew Robert Wateridge. At East Holmes Field, we had a frond of three. They were Shane Corcoran, Steve Milne and VKP, Victoria Knight-Phillips. And at Southampton, we had Tamsin May-Smith, Morgan Smith and Stuart Smith.

01:14:53Melissa Ellis: Alrighty, now we also had pilgrimages or pilgrimi. On the 23rd of August, we had Bruce Bryan. It was his first visit to Bushy. He finished 757th out of 1575 in a time of 2746. We think Bruce is an ambassador from Queensland and research tells us it was his 250th parkrun and his 50th location. I'm just reading the side notes.

01:15:23[crosstalk]

01:15:24Alice: The fairies are making me giggle.

01:15:28Melissa Ellis: Oh, dear. Okay, and then last weekend, the 30th of August, we had Danny Norman. And Danny finished in position 650 in a time of 26.26. Oh, is that a – didn't we have a terminology for that or no? No.

01:15:48Tony O'Connell: No, it'd be backwards.

01:15:49Melissa Ellis: You're looking for 2662 palindromes. It was his 235th time at Bushy. Shout out, Danny. Now, moving on to Australia's largest fronds. There was, on the 23rd, a frond of eight at one event. That was Black Swan Lake. That's the recently launched event in WA. There was Chris Gore, Andy Charlotte, Christiana Charlet, Rhianna Williams, Rosie Williams, Rebecca Simpson, Andrew Yeatman and Karen Gore. And on the 30th of August, we had a frond of 20. Good gracious, 20. That was Grahamstown Aquatic Centre, Medowie. And it was Rex Gream, Mark Hibbert, Andrew Johnston, Heather Morgan, Cathy Mudge, Mike Scott, Sam and Luke Schroder, Andrew and Eva Blanda, Susan and Dexter Roddick, Asher and Evelyn Dixon, Sharon Lark, Sherry Brandtman, Renata Koch, Sally Gutierrez, Michelle Fyfe and Martine Barrot. Now, I happen to know there was a reason for that very large frond. Sam's plans had a car rally, which started the day with the parkrun and then ended the day zooming around doing whatever car rallies do at the pub. Yeah, probably. No, I shouldn't say that. Now, also a special mention to the frond of 15 at Pirrama and frond of 11 at Macquarie University. They were both thanks to the Sydney Marathon.

01:15:50[crosstalk]

01:17:20Tony O'Connell: And I guess it's a good time to remind everyone that you can add the Adventurous Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. And we'd love to help you if you can't manage to do it.

01:17:32Sarah Jantscher: We have all the tech here.

01:17:33Tony O'Connell: We do.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:17:35Tony O'Connell: Mel, moving along, let's go to launches. We've got a few to get through, not that many, but we do have a couple of them there. And we're going to go back to the 23rd of the 8th and we're going to start off with the aforementioned Brooklyn Bridge in the USA. We've discussed the course previously because the course was well advertised. Last time that we actually recorded, we discussed the course. So four weeks ago, the course was out. The launch was a huge one with 538 finishes, 23 volunteers, and 141 first-time-ever finishes.

01:18:11Melissa Ellis: Next, we had Anagach Woods in the UK. Anagach, I can't say it. It's a two-lap, though, through the woods, and it's located in the northern part of Scotland. Oh, it's probably Anagach, something like that. Near the town of Grantown-on-Spey. 85 finishes and 15 volunteers completed week one.

01:18:34Tony O'Connell: Rightio, we're going to go to South Africa and we have Riverside Reserve parkrun. This is the ninth course in the world with Riverside in the title. Part of the course description is as follows. The route is run through a biodiversity reserve in a green belt area. The route passes a river with a backdrop of nature and scenery en route. Nine volunteers supported a crowd of 274 finishers for the launch.

01:19:01Melissa Ellis: Rightio, and that brings us to last weekend, the 30th of the 8th, and this much-awaited launch in the greater state, and it is called The Phar Lap Track. And in the 1930s, this track echoed to the hoofbeats of the mighty racehorse Phar Lap. Fast forward 95 years to Saturday and the echoing feet were 189 parkrunners participating in the greatest state's newest parkrun. Supported by 17 volunteers, this one looks like a very fast course.

01:19:35Tony O'Connell: We also had Lukens in the USA located in the Philadelphia suburb of Horsham. And it was a bit funny given that we've got a Horsham in Victoria as well. The Horsham's everywhere. Lukens is an out and back course and they had 48 finishes on week one with 12 volunteers and 15 of those doing their first ever parkrun.

01:19:58Melissa Ellis: Next, we had Innpromenade, Austria, where we heard earlier from Sarah about this launch. This one is right next to the Innsbruck Airport, within one kilometre of the check-in gates. 13 volunteers, 71 finishes for the launch. I guess that means that's a good one to fly in, fly out.

01:20:15Tony O'Connell: It is, Mel. When I actually zoomed in on the course map to fill out the show notes, the airport's the main feature. Basically, you run along the fence of the airport, basically.

01:20:25Melissa Ellis: Oh, but you were on that one off, weren't you? We can just stop here, Jackie.

01:20:33Tony O'Connell: Now, the next one's one that I should have given you quite clearly because of my love of the English language. I don't think I would have done any better. And we're going to head across to Poland, and that gives you a reference. It's not going to be an easy one. So we've got parkrun Drogowskazow. And I did listen to that about 27 times on Google Translate. Poland welcomes its newest event close to the German border with Berlin, and that's going to be perfect for the Berlin Marathon. It's actually the closest one outside of Berlin to Berlin, if that makes sense, with the Polish border not that far away. It's a two-lapper, leads through the park of signposts and milestones of civilization. There you go. So it's deep and meaningful. First place in the field of 94 was Dacian the Butcher was his parkrun name. And I looked up the results. I was fairly impressed with that. They put their occupations in as well. The event had, it might be just Google Translate too. The event had 29 volunteers, 45 first time ever participants participating. And impressively, there were no unknowns in their launch results. Very good.

01:21:49Melissa Ellis: All righty.

Watching the numbers

01:21:52Melissa Ellis: Now, guess what? I've got some great news. I'm bringing this segment back, watching the numbers at Brooklyn Bridge parkrun. Now, Event 1, as we've already said a couple of times, saw 538 cross the finish line, supported by 23 volunteers. Of the 538, 141 were first-timers to parkrun. Event 2 saw 382 finishers, supported by 18 volunteers. Scrolling through the results for Week 2, there were approximately 48 results which didn't have first-timer or unknown listed. What does that mean?

01:22:27Tony O'Connell: It means out of the 382, there are only 48 people returning. The rest were all first-timers there or unknown.

01:22:36Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay, yep. Okay, so the point was it was easier to count the people that were returning to work out the first-timers. I get it. Right, I'm on board now. It's been a long day. Now, the following points, which incidentally have not been fact-checked, is that the following info was pulled from the parkrun gossip page. The average number of parkruns the other 398 parkrunners had attended was 68,000. Branch Brook Park parkrun, which is the closest parkrun to Brooklyn Bridge, was closed for the day with comments suggesting that they were supporting the new event. The attendance was a US record inaugural. The RD and Funnel Manager had previous parkrun volunteer experience, but apart from that, the team was brand new. Fantastic effort.

01:23:30Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mel, it sounds like another big one and one that we'll be worthy of keeping our eye on. We like those little iconic ones. We've had a couple of them so far, but yeah, that'll be a good iconic one to keep our eye on for the first 10 weeks and just see how it stacks up for numbers across that time. Mel, I just want to get a quick plug in. I have a couple of the parkrun adventurers. I'm going to call them buffs, neck head thingies, whatever we want to call them. Neck tubes. Neck tubes, head scarves, whatever we want to call them, the adventurers ones. If listeners out there want one, just hit me up for one and I'll get banking details organised across to you. It'd be great to clear some of level two with a view out and get rid of a couple of them that we still have spare.

01:24:19Melissa Ellis: How many have we got left, roughly? And what are they worth? What are we asking?

01:24:23Tony O'Connell: They're $12 plus postage, and we have about 15 of them left.

01:24:29Melissa Ellis: How many pounds is that? How many rupiah? How many?

01:24:33Tony O'Connell: How many Singapore dollars?

01:24:35Melissa Ellis: How many?

01:24:36Tony O'Connell: Russian rubles.

01:24:37[crosstalk]

01:24:37Melissa Ellis: How many kilometres do they have to travel? Oh, lucky the cleaning lady hasn't thrown them out.

01:24:46Tony O'Connell: Postage is very easy to Australia. It's not so easy to the UK. I rely on parkrunners that are returning back over there posting them in the UK for me because otherwise postage is worth more than the actual buff itself.

01:24:59Melissa Ellis: Hmm.

01:25:00Tony O'Connell: So we've been very lucky. We've had people going over that are quite happy to put them in a postbox for me in the UK.

01:25:07Melissa Ellis: What a community. Alrighty. Well, what are we looking forward to? Well, you're looking forward to clearing out the buffs. I'm looking forward to streaky September and taking part and getting onto my Bingoe card and finding new ways to amuse myself as I do my laps of... Mostly I'm doing my daily walks at work, actually. So that might be... I might have to find a way to incorporate those challenges into my work location. But we'll see if I can manage that.

01:25:42Tony O'Connell: Mel, the first four things on the Bingoe card this week, there's one or two new ones there that we haven't had previously. So there's going to be some interesting photos popping up in the group.

Sign-off

01:25:52Melissa Ellis: Yes, and we did share the Streakmeister; actually we should mention the Streakmeister helps us out every year she did do a video just prior to the start of September we shared it on our socials so check that out if you like but talk it's come to the end of the pod again where are you parkrunning on Saturday

01:26:13Tony O'Connell: Mel, I haven't made a decision yet. How unusual is that for me? It won't be at Inverloch, so I am going to travel. I am going to warrant my place in the show still. I have a conference in Melbourne that's going to finish about lunchtime Friday, so I'm thinking of jumping in the car and cruising up the Hume Highway and possibly doing one of the events maybe in the ACT area or Jerrabomberra or Goulburn or somewhere up that way. But that'll be a... end of the week decision when I see what the weather's going to be doing because I don't want to drive somewhere that's going to be windy and rainy I'm over the wind and the rain

01:26:51Simon Skinner: How about you, Mel?

01:26:52Tony O'Connell: What's your plans?

01:26:53Melissa Ellis: Well, my plans have changed since our pre-pod discussion.

01:27:00Tony O'Connell: The show notes had an event in there and they've now gone.

01:27:03Melissa Ellis: It is, yeah. So I am reassessing what I'll be doing. But I'll probably look for an event Dave hasn't done that might help me with my P-index to amuse myself until my next adventure. Yeah. Next week we are going to, well, not next week, next fortnight, we'll have Simon and Sarah back again. So we look forward to hearing from them. I've got to put in a little apology. We didn't mention it, but during the intro part or the first section of the pod that we recorded, I could hear some funny traffic noises going on in the background and I thought they were coming from your end, Toc. And you thought they were coming from my end. I've no idea if they're going to be in the audio, but I thought I'd tell the listeners what it actually was. Go ahead, Mel.

01:27:49Tony O'Connell: What was making the funny noises in the podcast?

01:27:52Melissa Ellis: I could hear it through my cans. I could hear what I thought was trains. Turns out it was Melbourne trams.

01:28:00Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

01:28:01Melissa Ellis: Because this time of year I follow the peregrine falcons that nest on the ledge of the Collins Street building in Melbourne CBD. They have their own YouTube page with a live feed. And apparently it also has sound. But here was the live sound coming from the Peregrine Falcons perch up on goodness knows what level of a skyscraper. And it was the Melbourne trams dinging in the background.

01:28:32Tony O'Connell: Apparently a few Melbourne ambulances and Melbourne fire trucks.

01:28:36Melissa Ellis: Ambulances, yes. I could hear sirens. I'm thinking, oh, there's a lot going on in Cape Patterson tonight. So, yes, pretty confident it won't come through in the audio, but you just never know. Anyway, thank you for recording with me again, Toko. It was great to catch up with you.

01:28:54Tony O'Connell: That's fine. My picture, my audio might be going.

01:28:58Melissa Ellis: No, well, I know you are breaking up.

01:29:02Tony O'Connell: Danger, danger, Robinson, danger.

01:29:06Melissa Ellis: So talk is glitching, guys, but I will sign out and say, 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 episode. We'll see you all next time for more adventures.

01:30:03Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: It's free, it's free, it's free.