Episode 436 - The Vote That Counts

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Simon Mackley: Welcome to episode 436 of the parkrun adventurers Podcast.

00:00:27Sarah Jefferson: A podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. I'm Simon Mackley and I'm joining you from Quandamooka Country. My name is Sarah Jefferson, joining from Noongar Boodja, Noongar Country. [Noongar: "Noongar country"]

00:00:39Simon Mackley: Cooee, Sarah.

00:00:41Sarah Jefferson: Cooee, Simon.

00:00:43Simon Mackley: How are things with you?

00:00:45Sarah Jefferson: I'm not going to lie. I am feeling a little bit tired and flat at the moment, Simon. I feel like I'm in desperate need of like a massage or to visit the chiropractor, to be honest. Let's hope I can get that into my day sometime soon. Nothing serious, of course, but I just need to find some time for myself. I feel like that's lacking a little bit at the moment. Apart from that, I have been back into my yoga, which it's taken me a while, but I do love going to yoga and I always feel good for that. So I'm trying to do the little things that I can when I can. What about you? How are you going? Please tell me your body's feeling better than mine right now.

00:01:29Simon Mackley: Yeah, I mean, I have a regular chiro session monthly anyway, and I really love going to that. It gets to sort of a couple of days before it, and I, yeah, I'm really hanging out for it. So, yeah, I haven't pushed my body much since the backyard, though, so I haven't taxed it enough to be having the major pains or anything like that. But, yeah, I mean, a massage, chiropractor, I totally get it. I'm on board with that.

00:01:56Sarah Jefferson: You probably needed to have a little bit of a break too. You did push it quite hard.

00:02:00Simon Mackley: I did. I did.

00:02:01Sarah Jefferson: So you deserve that. All right, Simon, where have you been since we caught up last time on the pod?

00:02:07Simon Mackley: Well, I'm happy to say that I've been on a few adventures. First of all, I was on Gadigal Land at Pirrama parkrun after a few days in the office in Sydney. Definitely takes the cake for Sydney's prettiest two-lap course with iconic views and a great event team. And the next weekend, I met up with a friend from Curl Curl, Glenn, and that was on Cubby Cubby Land doing the famed home of Fluffy with no Fluffy present at Nambour. I can only imagine now how hard Mundy is after completing the A course at Nambour, which apparently the B course is even harder. But yeah, the downhills on that are something else. And I do not love downhills that are steep because I always seem to fall when I'm on a trail. Yeah. And then the following weekend, I was on durable land, more local. I was with Peter Pohlman at Mansfield, Queensland. It had been quite a while since I was last there as well. After doing Nambour the week before, I certainly will not complain about the sneaky, tight uphill before you go into the turnaround hill. And then last weekend, I was on the lands of the Mononjali people at Sharon Park in Bow Desert, and I was surprised to see adventurers Emma, Emma Nico, and Gemma Kajewski. They were both out there, and I had breakfast with Emma and her friends, Damon and Jan, who'd made the trip from Kirra because it was closed due to the Gold Coast 50 that was going on and would be using their course. I knew that Joan Park had been very affected by the weather since it started in April last year, and it was really great to see the park had settled into its weekly visitors. While the ground is now cracking because it's too dry, it was really nice to see that the grass is making the course a little less ankle taxing than it was a year ago when I was last there.

00:03:59Sarah Jefferson: Wow, Simon. Woohoo. It's Adventurous Simon back in the house. I have missed this man. It's good to hear that you got out and done a few little weekend adventures. I actually was listening quite closely when you were talking about Sydney's prettiest parkrun and I hear what you did. You added in that it's the prettiest two lapper. So I'm sure hands down, given this is one of the most scenic cities in the world, I'm sure that it's what you meant by the prettiest two-lapper.

00:04:31Donella - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: You meant that it was one of the prettiest courses in Sydney.

00:04:34Sarah Jefferson: Yes.

00:04:35Tracey Wood: Or the prettiest.

00:04:37Sarah Jefferson: Without saying that. Anyway, moving on. But, yeah, great to hear that you enjoyed, yeah, your past month and it's been busy by the sounds of it, catching up with lots of friends, didn't manage to snap an ankle at Nambour, which is good to hear. I'm yet to do Nambour, but I have done Mundy, so I'm imagining what it's like. And shame you didn't get to meet Fluffy.

00:04:58Simon Mackley: Yeah, apparently it's not the season. I didn't realise Fluffy was only there at certain times of the season. Sorry, certain times of the year. So yeah, that was why I missed Fluffy.

00:05:08Sarah Jefferson: Well, you'll just have to head back.

00:05:10Simon Mackley: I will have to head back. But where have you been since we last spoke, Sarah?

00:05:15Sarah Jefferson: So for three of the four weeks, I did stay close to home, venturing to Applecross, South Beach Recreation Reserve and Lake Claremont parkruns. I must say, I am actually enjoying the sleep in on a Saturday morning and not racing out of the house super, super early. However, this past weekend, I headed to the newest parkrun on the West Side and my NENDY, Black Swan Lake parkrun. It is approximately 45 minutes from home, which meant that I could leave at the civilized time of 7 a.m. So this is a two-lap course with about 90% of it on trail. So funnily enough, I had actually been to this lake before. It's the home of one of the Mandurah Giants. So for those who don't know what I'm talking about, the Giants of Mandurah are six larger-than-life giant sculptures created by world-renowned recycle artist Thomas Dambo. I think that's how I pronounce his surname. So they've been hidden throughout the area of Mandurah, enabling people to go out and explore these areas. So Lakelands is home to Little Louie. Little Louie is a little over five metres high and six metres long, so quite large. And I believe little Louie is actually positioned on a tree that has fallen. So whilst this parkrun course doesn't actually run past the giant, it's actually not far of a diversion to see it. Anyway, I digress. So there was actually quite a lot of water still on the course as well. And given it was only their ninth event and the event hasn't run through all of the rainy weather, all of winter, it will be interesting to see how this course goes next year. There were five adventurers at the event, plus some other friends I knew, which was great. I did manage to snag a position bingo, being 0-0, coming in at position 100. So I have just two positions left to go now to complete that challenge. So this event is right near a train station as well, meaning that you can catch the train down from the Perth CBD in the morning. However, there aren't any toilets located at the actual event. The closest bathrooms are located at the train station. So allow extra time if you are someone who needs these before an event. I did attempt my first jog with a running pram. And let's just say that everyone has been making it look easier than it actually is, Simon. However, in fairness, the ground was quite bumpy. As I mentioned, 90% of it is on trail. So maybe next time I will aim to try this on a concrete path. I probably didn't pick the best course to try this. But Matt was away. He was doing True Grit down south on the weekend. So I had Hadley with me. So at about the 4K mark, I actually had to get her out and put her in the carrier because she wasn't liking the bumps anymore. But I was prepared with the carrier, as I said. After parkrun, we headed to Mandurah Surf Club for a bite to eat. It was super busy there and... Then I had to actually duck away after about half an hour to go to the toy library before 11am to swap over some new toys. Yes, that is my life now, going to the toy library on a Saturday morning, which I am loving, but it was a lovely morning.

00:08:31Simon Mackley: Yeah, great. I didn't know about the Giants of Mandra, so I'm going to be looking that up and seeing what they actually are. So you were talking about water on the course. Is it... What, like, does the water lie on the grounds there a lot? What is it that you are?

00:08:46Sarah Jefferson: So I guess there's a lake and I'm assuming it's a man-made lake in the middle. And then it's just risen. And I guess there's nowhere for the water to actually go because it is quite flat. So, I mean, we've had a bit of rain, but we haven't had, we've also had a lot of sunshine. So it hasn't been... like ridiculous in terms of rainfall so it just hasn't I guess it hasn't got anywhere to to run away to so it's all just kind of sitting there and lots of the path were actually was narrow there was a diversion at one point sort of around the main course which is great that there are kind of options around the course but yeah the lake hasn't subsided hasn't gone back down yet so I'm sure soon we'll be saying that we don't have enough water and there's been no rain so Very conscious of that. Yeah.

00:09:35Simon Mackley: So we'll see. So is it likely to be a floodplain? Is that maybe what it is? Yes.

00:09:40Sarah Jefferson: I'm thinking that, yeah, I'm sure that it would flood, yeah, over winter.

00:09:45Donella - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: So we'll see.

00:09:46Sarah Jefferson: As I said, it's 45 minutes from home. I've only been there once. It's new, like a new housing estate. Okay. So it's not anywhere aside from there being a giant there. It's not anywhere that I guess I would normally have gone to. Yeah. So time will tell with that. Yep. Okay. Maybe the team have already been troubleshooting that and it might not even be a problem. Yeah.

00:10:06Simon Mackley: Okay. It sounds a lot like De Niro in that respect, because they had the problem because they are on a floodplain, but there's been lots of work, which is why it's now been open. I don't know how many months it's now been open, but yeah, they had exactly the same problem because of the cyclone and then all the rain we had and that sort of thing. So I get it. It makes sense.

00:10:26Sarah Jefferson: All right. So before we jump into the new content of this episode, we really would like to give Dave Bravos a massive shout out for his first time editing on our last episode four weeks ago. There were hours and hours of work that went into this, learning new systems, adding in roving reports, sound effects, et cetera. So well done, Dave. We just wanted to acknowledge your hard work behind the scenes and know that we appreciate you. I'm sure it wasn't fun listening to our report, voice on repeat for over six hours I hear. So well done and thank you for your efforts.

00:11:01Simon Mackley: Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree there, Sarah. So the listeners may have noticed that there was some tweaks in how the pod sounded. But in my mind, Dave had the bases loaded, ready for a home run in this pod episode. No pressure, Dave. We might kick on to the last episode and a bit of feedback. So when I was listening back, I heard the question about helicopters landing on parkrun locations. And straight away, I thought of Cairns parkrun in far north Queensland. So it runs in front of the hospital and right next to the helipad. So my understanding is that parkrun is delayed if there's a helicopter on the pad, or it's stopped if one lands during parkrun. And I have had confirmation through the Facebook page on that episode that that is actually the case. So I wasn't just dreaming it up. So both Lyndell and Helen confirmed this.

00:11:55Sarah Jefferson: Do you know of any others, Sarah? Honestly, Simon, I didn't even hear that in the last episode. I did listen to it. Maybe I was multitasking or doing something when that part was on. I don't know. But I must say that I haven't ever looked into or even thought about this with courses. And I don't know of any other events that are near a helipad. But that would make total sense that parkrun would be paused to allow for the helicopter to land. And obviously, those things aren't often planned.

00:12:25Simon Mackley: I know exactly, exactly. Like I know a lot of the hospitals here have helipads on the roof now, like the newer hospitals, but this one 100% is across the road. Like I've been to Cairns, you know, a bit in the last couple of years and yeah, I can totally appreciate a helicopter landing right next to the course would be quite a sight.

00:12:44Sarah Jefferson: Yes, definitely. Yes, I think most of that, we've got one that's near the Perth CBD that still has a pad near the car park, I guess. But yes, I think other than that, they're all on the roof now.

Stopwatch bingo

00:12:55Simon Mackley: Okay, so the segment that we started a couple of episodes ago, watching the stopwatch bingo of Melissa Ellis, we still got nothing. So she hasn't made it there yet. Her last two parkruns ending with 20 seconds and 17 seconds. So, yes. Bum bum. Yeah, bum bum indeed.

00:13:18Sarah Jefferson: But recapping some exciting news, there is a date and location for Palm 2026. So for those who have been living under a rock, Palm 2026 will be held in the Clare Valley in South Australia on the 7th of March next year. Now, Simon given that we had a bit of a process as hosts in terms of finding this location and you were sort of in charge I guess of this or it was your little baby would you like to talk us through I just got us organised that's all I did was like yeah I love that we were organised I love being organised

00:13:57Simon Mackley: So yeah, at the time of the discussion, when we started talking about this, I had put together a list of the 130 parkruns that the four of us had not done. So we only chose from ones the four of us hadn't done. I then asked the three other hosts for a top 10 in no particular order. That brought us down to 34 because we had a couple of double ups, which was good. I then asked the hosts for their top five of those 34 and weighted them with the first one getting five points, the second getting four points, et cetera. We then had five very, very different locations that had six or more points, which meant that they'd been voted for by at least two of the presenters. And then we jumped on a call. And we talked through what we thought should be the location. And then we talked through the available dates and landed on the 7th of March. So I'm not going to divulge what the other ones were, but I'm sure you can remember, Sarah, that they were quite diverse in the decisions.

00:15:01Sarah Jefferson: They were. And it was good that I guess all of us didn't know who was voting for which locations as well.

00:15:07Simon Mackley: Yeah. I did keep that to myself. Yeah. Yeah. And as things got released, then obviously, yeah.

00:15:15Sarah Jefferson: Yeah.

00:15:15Simon Mackley: It was a process and it worked. Yeah.

00:15:17Sarah Jefferson: But, yes, thanks for organising that and thanks for sharing that so that the listeners, I guess, understand a little bit about how we went about deciding or coming up with Clare Valley for next year. So on that note, Simon, have you booked for Palm 2026?

00:15:33Simon Mackley: I booked my accommodation. I booked my flights. I booked my car. My son is coming with me.

00:15:41Sarah Jefferson: Oh, awesome. Yeah. That's very exciting.

00:15:44Simon Mackley: I am coming. I am.

00:15:46Sarah Jefferson: You go. Very organised indeed.

00:15:50Simon Mackley: Well, to be fair, this is the first time I've actually stayed for the entire weekend. I normally come for the Saturday, the recording, and then I normally go home. So, yeah, this is the first time I'm actually committing to the entire weekend.

00:16:04Sarah Jefferson: Given it's a little bit further from home, it's probably good that you're not just going down for parkrun or something. Yeah.

00:16:09Simon Mackley: Yeah. What about you? What have you done?

00:16:12Sarah Jefferson: Yes, I have booked flights to Adelaide. We are actually leaving late on the Thursday night. Sorry, we're leaving after work on the Thursday night and getting in late. And I'm yet to book flights home, but I will get on to that soon. And I have locked in accommodation and a car as well. And I will be there with Matt and Hadley. Very exciting event.

00:16:34Simon Mackley: That's right. I'm hoping you've booked a car as well.

00:16:36Sarah Jefferson: Oh, yes, I did just say that I booked a car. Didn't I just say that? Oh, sorry. If you're reading my notes, I didn't put that in my notes, but I did just say that I booked a car. I'm really pleased that you're listening to what I'm saying. This is a great conversation that we're having. If everyone could see, Simon, what colour is your face?

00:16:58Simon Mackley: Red, very red.

00:17:00Sarah Jefferson: It's hot in here. Is it hot in Queensland, is it?

00:17:04Simon Mackley: It is actually hot, but I mean, that's not...

00:17:06Sarah Jefferson: Okay, let's go with that.

00:17:07Simon Mackley: I'm so red. Yeah.

00:17:09Sarah Jefferson: I'm moving on.

00:17:10Simon Mackley: Speaking about heat, there was wild weather in the UK two weekends ago with Storm Amy, and there was lots of cancellations. At the time of recording, I couldn't actually put my finger on how many there were, but unfortunately... Bushy, the home of parkrun uh actually didn't get to celebrate its and parkrun's 21st birthday so yeah it um it disrupted a lot of the UK shall we say there was a lot of red ticks on the on the map that I saw

00:17:42Sarah Jefferson: And not as bad as the UK. However, we did have quite a few cancellations back in Australia in Tasmania this weekend after some bad weather or a bad weather front arrived on Friday. So this saw the cancellation of eight Tassie events. And I guess when we look at all of those locations, they were in, you know, north, south and east. So they were all over Tassie. So hopefully everyone stayed safe down there.

00:18:12Simon Mackley: So I hope you made it stay safe. And I was listening. I wasn't reading ahead then. We might jump into the stats. I'm going to start off with our friends over the pond. So on the 4th of October, so two weekends ago, in New Zealand, there were 62 parkruns, with 7,372 parkrunners and 966 volunteers, plus independent results. There was a big drop in attendance, which was likely due to wet and stormy weather across most of the country. And there's a note here from Alison saying, Happy 21st birthday to parkrun and the 11th birthday to Hagley. On that weekend, the smallest parkrun was East Otago High School with just eight, and the largest was Millwater with 339. Going to this past weekend, the 11th of October, there were 61 parkruns, which was actually one less than the previous week. But there was over 3,000 more parkrunners with 10,595 and exactly 1,000 volunteers plus any pending results. So next weekend in New Zealand, it will record its two millionth finish. So they're currently sitting at 1,999,891 finishes recorded by 173,370 different parkrunners. The largest parkrun, going back to normal, was Hagley with 627, and the smallest was again East Otago High School with just 16, which was actually double the previous week.

00:19:47Sarah Jefferson: Hmm. Back in Australia, on the 4th of October, there were 79,880 active participants who took a token and they were supported by 6,489 volunteers at 516 events. On this day, the smallest parkrun was Waterloo Plains in Queensland with only three and the largest was Albert Melbourne in Victoria with 1,030 participants. On the 11th of October, there were 74,468 active participants at 508 events with 6,017 volunteers. The smallest parkrun was Zeehan Golf Club in Tasmania with only five. And I guess that reflects the weather down in Tassie. And the largest was again, Albert Melbourne with 1,073. So just to note as well, second place was actually quite a long way behind, which was South Bank in Queensland with only 600. I say only, only 693. That is quite a difference.

00:20:52Simon Mackley: There is still a lot of parkrunners, yes. And while we've been on our little break, the fortnight, Germany's actually had their special event day. So on the 3rd of October, of the 839 members of the parkrun Adventurers Club, 50 took part at 14 events in Germany. There was two at Georgengarten, one at Werdersee, five at Alstervorland, one at Unisee, three at Riemer, seven at Ziegelwiese, six at Offenthal, four at Rheinpark, one at Allerpark, two at Rosensteinpark, six at Havelkanal, three at Lousberg, two at Stadtpark, Chemnitz, and seven at Mauerweg.

00:21:43Sarah Jefferson: Well done on the pronunciation, Sir Simon.

00:21:46Simon Mackley: I think I've murdered it. And yeah, I will defer to Serientia to tell me how badly I did with that.

00:21:50[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:21:51Simon Mackley: But anyway, let's throw to our roving reports.

Roving report Alison Fraser (King) — Neale Park parkrun

00:22:03Alison Fraser (King): Kia ora koutou adventurers, it's Alison here reporting in from across the ditch and again I'm on a parkrun adventure to the South Island and today I have been to Neale Park parkrun in Nelson. It started last year so it's coming up to its first anniversary and with me now is Co-Event Director Ruth. So welcome to the podcast Ruth. [Te Reo Maori: "Greetings to you all, adventurers"] [Te Reo Maori: "Greetings to you all"]

00:22:23Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): Kia ora Alison, nice to be here.

00:22:25Alison Fraser (King): Thank you so much for an awesome parkrun morning. Can you please tell us how Neale Park parkrun got started? What's the story behind it?

00:22:33Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): Okay, our story for Neale Park parkrun is that there had been, see you Andrew, one of our parkrunners, love it. It's all about the community. There had been some different people along the way that had thought about having a parkrun in Nelson, but it's hard to find the right course. You'd think for such an outdoorsy place, we don't have a big park, we don't have some nice straight pathways to use. But a couple of us had definitely had a bit of a fire in our bellies about getting parkrun started. I had a personal parkrun story that I really wanted to get something started. So come hell or high water, we're going to get this started. And we had the encouragement from other parkrun events to focus on the community rather than on getting the perfect event. So we re-looked at what we had and we went back to a course that we'd discounted and said, hey, I think this could work. Nice and straight along the motorway. It's got toilets. It's got the cafe. It's got lots of parking. And we forgot about all the problems we had with it and we just cracked on.

00:23:32Alison Fraser (King): Here we are. You say motorway. It's not what people might think. You're right.

00:23:36Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): No, no, no. It's not. But I think we kept thinking, surely we can get something. We really wanted to show off Nelson.

00:23:42Alison Fraser (King): Yeah.

00:23:43Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): The reality is it's... It's a beautiful course anyway. One way you're looking at the centre of New Zealand, the other way you're looking across Tasman Bay. So it's a special course. We thought we can make it better, we can make it more interesting, but that's not what it's about.

00:23:56Alison Fraser (King): So tell us your parkrun story and why you mentioned it was important for you to get a parkrun started.

00:24:00Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): So tell us about that. So I was introduced to parkrun when we lived in the UK. We were there for eight years and Avery Hill parkrun was my home parkrun. And I thought it was just a nice way to be active. I was already a runner. But I mentioned it to my parents and they got into parkrun in an entirely different way. They made friends. They went to different ones each week. They went to the cafes and they really interacted with parkrun quite differently than how I was interacting with it as a drop-in, drop-out runner. And I loved seeing the community they built and it really transformed their health in their 50s. And then my dad was diagnosed with cancer and parkrun became really significant to him as he navigated his chemotherapy journey. And when he couldn't run, he walked. And when he couldn't walk, he volunteered. And when he couldn't even volunteer, he'd come and he'd stand and cheer. And it was really significant to him. And he was very proud to get to 151 parkruns. And when he passed away... That's really what gave me a real impetus to say, I've got to make this happen rather than just sort of wait for someone else to do it. So I thought, right, I can do this. Why not? And we did. And it's great. So nice to have you here, Alison, with us.

00:24:15[background music]

00:25:10Alison Fraser (King): What's it mean to you to have, you're part of the community because you work for Health New Zealand and you, you know, as a runner and you've got kids, so you know a lot of people. But what have you seen has happened to your community because you've got part from here?

00:25:25Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): Oh, it's so special. I think we thought that we were well, I think we thought we were connected in the community, being a nurse and a teacher. My husband, Grae, who's our Volunteer Coordinator. then there's this whole different level of people. And I think parkrunners are connectors. And so, yeah, it's given us a much more of a width and breadth of the community that we've connected with. And I love having that thing in common with people. It's not, yeah, I'm not articulating myself particularly well, but I think, It's a connectedness that's different than the different ways that we've met people in the community.

00:25:30[background music]

00:26:00[background music]

00:26:03[crosstalk]

00:26:04Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: Yeah, enriching is a perfect word.

00:26:08Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): People are really grateful and encouraging, which is really nice for us as putting in the mahi because it's not insignificant choosing to invest in a parkrun. People are really encouraging and that really fills our cup. And we still, all the tonight... We can't go to Pack and Save without having at least one good parkrun chat. And I love that. It's given us a feeling of a village. [Te Reo Maori: "putting in the work / the effort"]

00:26:31Alison Fraser (King): I think that's a nice way of saying it. And your father-in-law is also a parkrunner because I met him at Paunui.

00:26:36Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): Yes, that's probably been one of the biggest surprises. Yeah, that was really neat. I would say that my in-law's side of the family would not identify as runners at all. And so that seemed really neat. Again... That's a different parkrun village. It's got its own culture. It's got its own feel. Beautiful course there. And that's been a really neat surprise to come across it. And he loves it. A really great way to give back. And again, different life stage. Being in his retirement years, you can interact with parkrun in a different and really valuable way. And no one is more surprised than I am that my father-in-law is running 5K on the weekends.

00:26:45[background music]

00:27:05[background music]

00:27:14Alison Fraser (King): You've done quite a few parkruns, so can you please share with us three parkrun courses, not including now, so I'm going to put Avery Hill in this as well, no home events, discounting those, what three parkruns have you really enjoyed for whatever reason?

00:27:29Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): great question um there's a really special one to me uh in the UK um bracknell parkrun which is the one closest to my parents one and it's a lovely one in the forest um a really nice one and um including a football field there's always a football field and a UK one but a special one because we'd often meet there together as a family with my siblings that live in the UK so I love That one. I love Dunedin parkrun. I really think it's a good wee challenge. I love being in the botanics there. It's got a really nice feel to it. I like that challenge. And am I allowed to give one that's nearly started? Am I allowed? No, because it hasn't started yet. Okay, yes, true, true, true. Okay, true, true, true. What is another one that's a significant one?

00:28:07[crosstalk]

00:28:15[crosstalk]

00:28:15Alison Fraser (King): Would you say newly started or nearly started? Nearly started. No.

00:28:17Ruth Rogers - Co-Event Director, Neale Park parkrun (Nelson, NZ): No, okay. No spoilers. Yeah, yeah, no spoiler alert. Do you know what? I think Hagley has such a cool vibe. I love that feeling of being in a big crowd. I think it is relatively unique in New Zealand, that feel. And it reminds me of UK parkrunning, of that big crowd around you. The vibe is different and very enthusiastic crew down there. So yeah, Hagley makes me feel like I'm on a proper city break tourist parkrun adventure.

00:28:40[background music]

00:28:42Alison Fraser (King): Cool. Thank you so much for your time and your hospitality here, Ruth. It's been awesome to come to Nelson. So good to have you here.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Abbey Park parkrun

00:28:51Calum Burrell: Right parkrun adventurers, we're at Abbey Park at Cowfest East in Leicester and with the wonderful, exciting and colourful Jo Yarnall from Walsall Arboretum. How was that today Jo?

00:29:02[crosstalk]

00:29:05Jo Yarnall - Walsall Arboretum parkrunner: Absolutely loved it, it was fabulous to see all the fancy dress costumes because I'm really into my fancy dress. Lovely to see everybody, blow up carers, bananas it was just fabulous and great to meet everybody we met people last night as well for a social and it was just great to see everybody come together yeah and it's a beautiful park as well absolutely stunning yeah there's so much to it there's the river there's the ruins the abbey and the team's been absolutely superb today oh it has absolutely great to see so many familiar faces as Yes, it is.

00:29:24[crosstalk]

00:29:33[crosstalk]

00:29:39Calum Burrell: Yeah, so we've got to obviously try and catch up with as many people as we can later on. But whilst I'm grabbing here, so you're from Walsall. Describe where Walsall is in the country.

00:29:48Jo Yarnall - Walsall Arboretum parkrunner: So Walsall is probably between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, I would say.

00:29:52[crosstalk]

00:29:52Calum Burrell: Yeah, and go on, what's your top three parkruns off the top of your head? What are your top threes?

00:29:56Jo Yarnall - Walsall Arboretum parkrunner: Eden Project is my favourite I think that I like Dudley actually because you've got the running track mixed and it goes over a railway although you can't do buggies there or dogs there so I like that one and I must say I like Lanhydrock as well even though it's a bit hilly at the end right on the south coast of England brilliant, lovely to speak to you enjoy the rest of your day thank you send anything back

00:30:03[crosstalk]

00:30:18[crosstalk]

00:30:23[crosstalk]

00:30:25Calum Burrell: So parkrun adventurers, it's Calum and I'm with the lovely Nicola Tarrant. Nicola, is it Nicky or do you prefer Nicky?

00:30:28[crosstalk]

00:30:33Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: I'm Nicky. Nicola.

00:30:34Calum Burrell: And we're at Cowfest East at Abbey Park in Leicester, which you've organised. I believe you're like the prime instigator of Cowfest right from the get go. So you've been to all of them now, have you?

00:30:47Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: Yeah, I've been to every single one, definitely. Yeah, it was my idea a long time ago now.

00:30:52Calum Burrell: So what was the original premise?

00:30:54Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: well it was back in the day when touring was so so different to it is now back in 2016 we were on a train home from parkrun and we were like how cool would it be to just go somewhere stay over have a few drinks have dinner and then do parkrun just purely for parkrun and back then that just wasn't something anyone did like now that's very common but back then it's just something different so and also the north walls were announced differently back then so we knew rugby was coming it was announced and

00:31:22Calum Burrell: we could pre-plan it in the future so yeah February 2017 we did the first cow fest brilliant yes this is my first cow fest I have to thank you thank you for organising it's been an absolute fab day and it's great to bring people from all over the country and you know absolutely superb um you enjoyed it today is it how has it been for you today

00:31:28[crosstalk]

00:31:43Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: Well, I love it. I like to step back and just watch it and take it all in. But what I loved today was the people in the park that are like, why are people dressed as bananas? Why are people dressed as cows? And the kids are just like putting smiles on their faces. That's lovely, spreading that joy.

00:31:57[crosstalk]

00:31:59Calum Burrell: It's fantastic.

00:32:00Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: And that was nice. But no, I loved it. I love the fact that people come together. They love it. They're still here. Some of them have all gone to different cafes. It's just nice. It's just nice. Happy morning.

00:32:10Calum Burrell: yeah and I'm just so happy that I was able to do it on I mean there's so many coincidences today with the railway thing because the 200th anniversary of the birth of railways and they've got their own little miniature railway and it's 125th different venue as well so intercity 125 yeah so but I have to ask you because you're obviously in the top 10 of like most prolific tourists if you can narrow down three moments in your parkrun career what would be your three moments well

00:32:22[crosstalk]

00:32:38Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: Three moments in my parkrun career? Where do I start? I don't know. I'm still alive.

00:32:38[crosstalk]

00:32:42Calum Burrell: In the recent, well, it must be, if there's cornerstones or anything you can think of, any three moments?

00:32:49Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: I don't know. I literally couldn't tell you three moments because literally parkrun has been a lifesaver for me. So as I say, being still alive is quite an achievement and something that I'm actually, yeah, parkrun has made that happen. And I've seen so many places around the world I'd never have gone to. Yeah. But so many people, and that's just brought a whole level of new life to me, really. But yeah, I don't know. I love running on the beach, love running by water, just running through the mud, the puddles.

00:33:17Calum Burrell: Yeah, there's so many different courses, isn't there? And there's so many different little communities. The way everyone puts on an event, everyone's different, isn't it?

00:33:25Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: No, definitely. I wouldn't be able to corner it down to three things.

00:33:28Calum Burrell: Fair enough. Anyway, all that remains for me to say is thank you again for organising what's been an absolutely brilliant day.

00:33:34Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: The team have loved it and it's just nice to see the team are buzzing as well.

00:33:37[crosstalk]

00:33:37Calum Burrell: Yeah, that's the great thing about it, isn't it? Yeah. No, thank you. And from Abbey Park in Leicester, Calum, over and out. Thank you.

Roving report Tracey Wood — Coolum Eco parkrun

00:33:46Tracey Wood: Good morning parkrunners, it's Tracey and I have headed north up the coast to the new Coolum Eco parkrun. It is, you know what, I really haven't checked out the location except that it's in Coolum. But there's great signage around, I've found people here and look, it's exciting. Let's go talk to people. Okay, team, I'm standing at the start line with Gerry. It's three minutes to go, so we're holding the hordes back, and they're rearing to go. It's very exciting, so I'll pin down the Run Director and also Event Director. Is that right?

00:34:22Donella - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: Both of you, Gerry.

00:34:24Tracey Wood: Donella and Gerry here. Fantastic. Hey, I have heard that this is your third set-up, third parkrun set-up. Is that correct? It is correct, yes. Oh, my God.

00:34:34Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: You're a sucker for punishment, aren't you, love?

00:34:36Tracey Wood: Yeah, Terry is, yeah.

00:34:37Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: I can't help myself, and I'll get Danilla involved, and she does all the work for me.

00:34:41Tracey Wood: Awesome. So what was the reasoning behind setting this one up?

00:34:45Donella - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: The Mudjimba Beach parkrun, which was our second parkrun that we've set up, is getting too busy, yes particularly over the school holidays the Christmas school holidays we're getting about 500 people there yes so it's become the biggest parkrun on the sunshine coast so we needed to take a little bit of that pressure off yes yeah so that was the reason why we set this one up oh fantastic yeah and this is the number three today how have one and two gone

00:35:11Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: Very well, yeah. They've been nice, not too busy, but just manageable.

00:35:14[crosstalk]

00:35:15Tracey Wood: Settling into numbers, yeah.

00:35:16Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: Gives the volunteers a chance to get to know how to do their jobs.

00:35:19Tracey Wood: Although today's numbers look a bit busier than last week.

00:35:22Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: People might get a record today.

00:35:24Tracey Wood: Oh, wow. Now in the one minute we have before you let the hordes go, can you quickly describe the course or tell me about it or...?

00:35:31Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: It's a Y course, so you go to the 1K point and you turn left and then you do a little U turn 300 metres up and you go back to that Y point, the middle part, and head north and then you do a little turn up there and then you come all the way back.

00:35:43Tracey Wood: All on trails?

00:35:44[crosstalk]

00:35:44Gerry - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: All on trails. There's a little bit of path. A little bit of path. Only a small amount and yeah, it's a nice, pretty course.

00:35:50Donella - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: So we have three marshals out there and we've named each of the Marshal positions. So we've got the sewer central marshal who's standing on a sewer plate. Yes. And then we have the Perugian pivot marshal that tells you to pivot and go back to the sewer central marshal. And then we have the motorway turn and burn marshal that tells you to head back and burn your way back to the... finish line.

00:36:15Tracey Wood: Alright, we've got 30 seconds to start so I might let you go and I might even talk again later. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey team, I'm out on the course. Looks good so far, walking along. I just want to do a shout out to my fellow Tail Walker. Sorry, what was your name?

00:36:16[crosstalk]

00:36:30Coppo - Coolum Eco Tail Walker: Coppo.

00:36:31Tracey Wood: So, Coppo is doing his 200th different event today, is that right? Yeah, that's right. And he's done 517 parkruns and he's just going to do this one and jump in his car and where did you say you were heading?

00:36:48Coppo - Coolum Eco Tail Walker: Go to Sydney and then off to Western Australia via the Nullarbor.

00:36:52Tracey Wood: yeah yeah as you do he's going to go to Sydney then west Australia uh anyway um quick shout out to this guy congratulations and um yeah wow hello again parkrunners as it's international week of the deaf I've cornered Stephen buckley today at cool Eco parkrun I'll be chatting with him But the voice you will hear next is not him talking. It will be Cherie who will be voicing for him. Good morning, Steve. How are you? Hello, Tracy. I'm good. Excellent. How did you go today? Awesome. We walked the course. That's great. So you enjoyed Coolum Eco parkrun? Yes, I love doing parkruns. And how many parkruns have you done now? This is my 70th. Wow, that's fantastic. And tell me about your parkrun journey. Do you like going around to different places?

00:37:58Cherie - sign language interpreter voicing Stephen Buckley: Yes, I love visiting different parkruns. It's a new experience every time. My favourite parkrun is Beaches. It's five kilometres of sand, which I really love. It's in Newcastle. And also I like Nambour. That's the hardest one in Australia. I really enjoyed that. And the best thing I find about parkrun is meeting people, meeting up with my deaf friends. It's very social and also relaxing. I enjoy doing parkrun every Saturday.

00:38:34Tracey Wood: That's great. And are you going to breakfast now after parkrun? Oh, yes. Yeah, great. That's the important bit of parkrun, definitely. All about the coffee.

00:38:47Cherie - sign language interpreter voicing Stephen Buckley: Yes, I enjoy having bacon and eggs afterwards.

00:38:51Tracey Wood: Great. Well, you have a good day and thank you for your time, Stephen, and thank you, Cherie. Thanks. Bye. Okay team, that's Tracey in a Tutu signing off from Coolum Eco parkrun. This was a fantastic course. Thoroughly recommend. Wide trails. Lots of room. You see people out and back. I didn't see any wildlife except for this horrible small hoppy thing on the park. Did not enjoy that. People here are really lovely. I had a great time. And there's a coffee shop nearby. Hey, I'm off. I've got to head off. Go do things. Have a lovely day. Bye.

00:39:20[background music]

00:39:25[14 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:39:39Sarah Jefferson: We are back from our roving reports where we heard from Alison at Neale Park parkrun who talked to Ruth Rogers. It's great to hear about the course establishment and about her parkrun journey. Fantastic to hear about her parents and how they got into parkrun and even when her dad was unwell. It sounds like his legacy does live on through Ruth though. We also heard from Calum Burrell talking to Jo Yarnall and Nicky Tarrant. The event, Cowfest East Abbey Park in Leicester in East Midlands. It sounds like it was a great buzz. And not to forget, we also heard from Tracey in a Tutu at Coolum Eco parkrun, who spoke to Donella and Gerry, Coppo the Tail Walker, and Stephen conversing through interpreter Cherie. about his parkrun morning. The Pohlmans will be pleased to hear that Stephen's favourite parkrun is The Beaches in Newcastle. And don't forget to also keep listening. A little bit later on, there'll be another roving report from Alison while we try and get through the backlog that was formed since we went to Fortnightly Pub.

Dazza's

00:40:47Simon Mackley: We're going to go right into Dazza's here. So we've chosen five comments from each of the last two weeks of Dazza's posts.

00:40:54Sarah Jefferson: On the 4th of October, Dazza sung Guess Who's Back, Back Again, OG's Back, Tell a Friend. The Equal Opportunity employee got a promotion and the Office Lady got an offer too good to refuse. She's back. Did you go back, back again, somewhere you've been before or venture somewhere new today? Dazza has whipped up waffles with ice cream and maple syrup for The Office Lady and and pour a kombucha for Mel because he's versatile like that. Come on in and tell us all about your morning.

00:41:30Simon Mackley: We started with Rodney Glossop, who was at Canning River parkrun in WA. Rodney shared, First we're setting off with the best side on the West Side. Rodney said, It just so happens I was back where my parkrun adventure began in 2016, returning to my original home parkrun, Canning River. A Fibonacci event 610. I even managed a course PB. Not bad given it was my 112th run there. Great to be joined by a few warriors too. And there was a photo of Rodney displaying with a W with his hands with most people wearing Woosha Warriors t-shirt. Looks like a lovely morning, Rodney.

00:42:07Sarah Jefferson: And shout out to Rodney. I think that he completed his 12th marathon on the weekend as well with a cracking time. Can't tell you off the top of my head, but it was a great time. Well done, Rodney.

00:42:18Donella - Coolum Eco parkrun co-director: We heard from Ryan Stoddart at Charleston parkrun in South Australia.

00:42:24Sarah Jefferson: Ryan wrote, celebrated Charleston parkrun's seventh birthday today. Now in the Barossa Valley for a half marathon tomorrow. Then I'm attending the Spring Fling Spirits Festival. Absolutely loving my time down here in South Australia. Eight SA parkruns done so far. I'm here until May, so should get to tick off 38 of their 52 parkruns in that time. There was a collage of Ryan in the selfie frame with a volley vest and adventurers shirt and another with a big box of fancy doughnuts from Brown's Barossa Donuts. Now, I had a look at the eight parkruns that Ryan has completed to date and Clare Valley parkrun isn't on his list. So given he will be in SA until May next year, I wonder if he will be making an appearance at Palm. You'll have to let us know, Ryan, if this is in your SA plans.

00:43:14Simon Mackley: Last time I caught up with Ryan, he had this big map of exactly what he was going to do. So maybe we have screwed that up for him. Maybe we haven't. At least he's got plenty of time not to do it.

00:43:25Sarah Jefferson: Well, maybe he's versatile like Dazza and he can work some magic with his map.

00:43:31Simon Mackley: Maybe he can. Next, we heard from Mark Walls, who was at Queen Elizabeth parkrun in Casino. Mark said, a long weekend meant a trip back to my childhood home. It also put me in range of Queen Elizabeth parkrun Casino. Alphabet now completed. What an amazing community and the best grass course I've run to date. And it was a photo of Mark with the Queen Elizabeth parkrun Casino selfie frame in the background. And the I've just run, sorry, I've just finished my parkrun alphabet spot. The adventurers logo down at the bottom. Oh, and let's not forget Mark is wearing his adventurers shirt too. Congratulations, Mark.

00:44:10Sarah Jefferson: congratulations mark we heard from David Bravos at Saigawa Ryokuchi Koen parkrun rhinoceros river Green Park parkrun went on a pre-promotion jaunt to Japan and found myself on the west coast in kanazawa so did the parkrun that I mentioned Lovely course along the river with a double loop in some nice parkland, a nice way to start my last day in Japan. Dave also shared, and seeing it was on Japan's west coast, I couldn't help but take a trip to the beach and dip my feet into the sea of Japan and find what Andrew and Sarah and I have always known, irregardless of where you are, hashtag West is best. And there was a photo of David, which featured as the Consolidated Club Report photo, as well as a photo on the beach doing a zoomie. It looks to me that he went for a swim rather than just dipped his toes in, unless it was a super hot day. Anyway, it sounds and looks like a fabulous time away. David did mention to me that one week in Japan isn't long enough just for future adventures.

00:45:18Simon Mackley: Totally agree with that, and I'm sure you do as well.

00:45:21Sarah Jefferson: Definitely. We did four days there a couple of years ago, and that was ridiculous. So minimum a week.

00:45:29Simon Mackley: That's a long way to go for four days. My gosh. Lastly, in that weekend, we heard from Andy Airey. Well, he didn't actually mention where he was, but it looks like he was in Germany. And I'm going to murder this. I think it says Prießnitzgrund. So anyway, Andy stated, my most complex weekend group trip so far. I hired Kolditz Castle for two nights for 168 of the Andy Airey Airways posse. We needed three 50-seat buses plus three minibuses to get us to the four different events for Unity Day and parkrun Day. Great support crew made sure everything worked and we could be back in 2027. And Andy shared a photo of lots of eager-looking parkrunners on cobblestones, which looks like it's outside the castle he was talking about. Sounds like an incredible time away, Andy. What an achievement organising an adventure of this kind and a massive amount of people you took with you. That's crazy.

00:46:29Sarah Jefferson: That gives me anxiety hearing about planning that for that many people. That's incredible. And the fact that he's talking about it for 2027 makes me think it wasn't disastrous at all.

00:46:42Simon Mackley: Exactly. Martin Castle is just like, how cool is that? Incredible.

00:46:47Sarah Jefferson: Right, so such a foreign concept to anyone living in Australia, right?

00:46:50Simon Mackley: Yeah.

00:46:51Sarah Jefferson: Yeah. That's probably why.

00:46:53Simon Mackley: Foreign castle.

00:46:54Sarah Jefferson: We wish. Anyway, moving on to Dazza's on the 11th of October. Dazza said, it's bookshop day. Are you a reader? Is there a book in your bag or on your bedside table? The Office Lady just finished One Small Step by PSH. Have you read it? Welcome to Dazza's. Come on in and tell us about your morning and maybe share the location of your favourite bookshop while you're here. Now, I personally loved reading all of Dazza's posts this week, Simon, learning about what everyone's currently reading. It's a great one. Office Lady?

00:47:25Simon Mackley: We're kicking off with Chris Gore, who was at Perth parkrun in Scotland. So Chris wrote, Hi, Dazza. We've seen plenty of old books in the old Scottish castles where we've been visiting, but there were none mentioned here at Perth parkrun in Scotland. Being from Perth in Australia, Karen and I just had to do it. It was a perfect sunny morning as we lined up. Courses and out and back, mostly tarmac with a grass section. It's a fast course and I achieved my fastest time this year and my highest ever H grade. Park faff afterwards at the Blackwatch Museum Cafe with a few of the local runners was lovely. And there was a photo of both Chris and Karen with the Perth pop-up. Or Perth, yeah, pop-up, sorry, yes. It looked lovely in green there. Great to see you wearing your adventurer's buffs too. What an apt choice of a parkrun.

00:48:17Sarah Jefferson: We heard from Wendy Glen at Gardiners Creek parkrun in Victoria. Wendy said, highly recommend Gardiners Creek parkrun where you regularly find Kate Solley, writer who will happily sign her books at the barbecue before briefing. Both her current books are fantastic reading and I'm holding my breath for her third book coming out. But for today, it was an outing to Lewis Park Reserve because it's closest to where my grandbabies lived. There was much post-parkrun reading of Dear Zoo. Wendy shared screenshots of Kate's books being the Parasite Heights Craft Store Stitch-Up and Tuesday evenings with the Copeton Craft Resistance. If anyone wants to have a look at what the books are, please check out Dazza's posts.

00:49:06Simon Mackley: Okay, next we heard from Martine Barrot, who was at Nightcliff parkrun in the Northern Territory. Martine shared, Hey Dazza, I'm completing a book of sorts, a book of stamps, in addition to magnets and postcards from everywhere we travel on our parkrun adventures. This morning, Andrew, Eric and I travelled to Nightcliff parkrun for our third compass point. And of course, I added to my stamp collection. It was hot and steamy, but the course along the Nightcliff foreshore was stunning. And Martine shared a photo of her Australian Adventure Passport book. What a great idea. Another photo was shared with a stamp at Crocosaurus Cove too.

00:49:45Sarah Jefferson: We heard from Claire Corkill at Jells parkrun in Victoria. Claire said, finished our road trip book on our way from parkrun this morning, leading with empathy Jacinda Ardern. Jells parkrun for us this morning, ticking off a new event for the second week in a row with our fourth J, sixth parkrun in Victoria and my 219th different event worldwide. Now, Claire didn't share a photo this week, but we thought that these stats were impressive, so chose to include them. Yes, let's not forget about audiobooks. Such a great way to get through books, especially as we adventure, particularly if we are driving or taking a road trip. And we hope that Amelia travelled well in the car for your road trip as well.

00:50:27Simon Mackley: Yes, the audiobooks are a new addition, obviously. And lastly, we heard from Heather Hunter, who was at North Sydney parkrun. Heather wrote, I'm working through DCI Jack Logan series at the moment. My home is so small. Sorry, my home is small, so most of my reading is on a Kindle or the library app. I do miss being able to pass a book on to someone else to enjoy. That's parkrun. Kevin and I drove down to North Sydney parkrun, to his 30th different event location, my 84th, and North for our Compass Challenge, NH for the Periodic Table, and my 300th unofficial milestone. There were 400 more people than I'm used to at home, but I managed to spot Andrew Blanda in the crowd, another fab moment, parkrun morning and Heather was wearing her adventurers shirt and got a photo with Andrew in the North Sydney parkrun frame so congrats on your 300th parkrun Heather Simon I didn't even ask you what are you reading at the moment are you a reader or not really I used to be a reader I unfortunately can't keep my concentration long enough to read a book before I fall asleep now it's got nothing to do with the book it's just that was the way I used to fall asleep and now I just yeah I can't hold a book for more than a couple of pages before I doze off and then I have to reread it so I used to be a reader not a reader I've actually got three books sitting on my desk here that I really want to read. And one of those is There Is No Finish Line, which is the Backyard Ultra story, which was written by the ED of Underwood Park here in Queensland. So I've started reading it. I just haven't got very far through it.

00:52:06Sarah Jefferson: Fair enough.

Emails

00:52:07Sarah Jefferson: Okay, moving on. We do actually have an email this week. It's from Andrea Booth. It says, Hi, Sarah and Simon. It's the first time I've reached out via email, but I wanted to thank you both as well as Mel and TOC as I always enjoy listening to the podcast. This past week, I had an interesting parkrun experience that I wanted to share. I was travelling between Brisbane and Cairns, and while I was stopped at the Big Mango in Bowen, I couldn't drive past it. One of the information centre workers said to their colleague that they were volunteering at parkrun the next day. Hearing this, I had a chat with her about their local Bowen parkrun and the volunteer role she was assisting with. It was a lovely and unexpected parkrun chat with a local. I'm finding that I'm not needing to explain what parkrun is to people as much as I used to and even have these unexpected encounters. I was wondering if anyone else has had an unexpected parkrun conversation in regular life or when travelling. I ended up parkrunning at Riverway parkrun in Townsville, but Bowen parkrun did look lovely, maybe on a future adventure. Thanks for always being entertaining and informative. Andrea Booth, A4910289. It does sound like you had a really lovely experience, Andrea. It made me think about times when I might have had an unexpected conversation about parkrun. And I can think of a few, but one that I am thinking right now was when I was actually at a wedding and there were shots going around. I do not drink very much. I will happily pass on a shot and shot water. But then there was someone who kept trying to give us extra shots. And I said, actually, because it was a Friday wedding, I'm actually not going to have any more. I do this thing called parkrun, on a Saturday. And this person kept taking shots and was drinking. I was like, me too. I was like, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Anyway, he got out his phone and it had a clear cover and he showed me his barcode. So then we pulled out the 5k app and we were looking at each other's achievements. We hadn't actually been at any of the same parkruns, but I'm not sure that he would get to parkrun the next day, but that was my excuse for not having shots. But anyway, we bonded and I talked to a stranger at a wedding for quite some time about parkrun.

00:54:25Simon Mackley: That's a good story. And thanks to Andrea for that email. We haven't been getting very many emails recently, so it is nice to hear from you, Andrea.

Club Corner

00:54:34Simon Mackley: What we will do now is we're going to throw over to Reginald.

00:54:41Reginald 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. Välkommen till Sverige. We continue with 2016 and the Northern Hemisphere and say welcome to Sweden. Sweden is the inside section of the dangly bit that hangs out off Europe up above the UK. You know which bit I am talking about. We have previously passed by Sweden, with Malmö Ribersborg parkrun being just over the bridge from Amager Strandpark parkrun in Denmark. There are 12 events in Sweden at time of scripting and it all began at Haga parkrun in Stockholm which started in August 2016, and the country has 9.30am starts. As of 2024, the special day for Sweden is Ascension Day, which is 39 days after Easter, so it moves each year. E.g. in 2025 Ascension Day fell on May 29. The majority of events are in the southern part of the country with exception being Broparken parkrun up north, with a cluster of events around the capital, Stockholm. Avid listeners of the pod will recall TOC's fabulous, envy-making trip to the northern hemisphere where he picked up parkrun country flags like a meat pie on the fence post picks up flies. Moving on... The country is extremely picturesque, and again, it seems impossible to pick favourite events from people. Each person who goes to a parkrun in Sweden claims that that event is the most picturesque, etc, etc. So maybe you would like a single-lap forest trail at Skatås parkrun or the aforementioned Malmö-Ribersborg parkrun by the Öresund. The whole country looks great for parkrun, and locals may say, Det finns inget Daligt väder, bara Daliga kläder. I will give you a hint, it refers to clothing and weather. There is a sad tale from Sweden, Badhusparken parkrun was scheduled to begin right as all parkrun countries were paused for Covid. And they have never launched sad face. Let us keep this week short and sweet, and we shall return next time with a diversion, and then we will return to countries with 2017. And remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners. [Swedish: "Welcome to Sweden."] [Swedish: "There is no bad weather, only bad clothing."]

00:57:02Sarah Jefferson: We are back from Reginald. Now, I didn't know that parkruns in Sweden start at 9.30 a.m. I'm not sure if you knew that, Simon, but I always learn a lot from Reginald. And I certainly do remember TOC's incredible bucket list trip a few years ago. For sure, I was one of those envious people wishing that it was me living up all of those special days and different parkruns.

00:57:30Simon Mackley: Yeah, I'm the same. I won't forget TOC's trip over there. And just a peek behind the curtain, he's going to do a similar thing again next year after Palm. So, yes, heading to Europe again for some of those special days, I believe. And... I did know that they start at 9.30, but I didn't realise it was a year round. But I really feel like Sweden's batting above its average. Like I have no idea how few parkruns they were actually there. So to have heard about Swedish parkruns and there'd be so few was very interesting.

Consolidated Club Report

00:58:03Simon Mackley: Definitely.

00:58:04Sarah Jefferson: Okay, so rolling on to the Consolidated Club Report for Saturday, the 11th of October. Of a total of 839 members, 590 took part on this date in 10 countries across 309 locations. Internationally, there are adventurers at 72 events in the UK, 10 events in South Africa, 3 in the USA, 2 in Ireland, and 1 event in Austria, Italy, Netherlands, and Poland. Locally, there are adventurers at 58 events in Queensland, 54 events in Victoria, 46 in New South Wales, 18 events in South Australia, 17 events in Western Australia, 8 events on the North Island, 7 events in the ACT and Tasmania, 2 events in the South Island and 1 in the Northern Territory.

the Frond

00:59:00Simon Mackley: And the largest international frond from two weekends ago was a frond of six at Prießnitzgrund in Germany. So that was Denise Evans, Debbie Andieri, Penelope Thesen, Tiny Dury, and Rhiannon Taylor. And then last weekend, there was eight people at Burgess parkrun, and that was Christopher Miles, Denise Evans, Deb and Andieri again, James Avery, Ellie Soper, Colin Hare, and Tina Dury again.

00:59:31Sarah Jefferson: on the 4th of the 10th as we mentioned Bushy was actually cancelled due to Storm Amy so there were no nobody headed to well I don't know actually if people had to change their plans but there was officially no one at Bushy however On the Saturday just gone, Mal Saunders went to Bushy for the first time and had a very respectable position token 404 with a time of 24 minutes and 38 seconds. It also looks like Mal has just ticked off his 100th volunteer and is two locations and two runs away from some other milestones.

01:00:07Simon Mackley: Congratulations, Mal. And the largest Aussie frond from two weekends ago, there was a frond of 12 at one event, and that was The Phar Lap Track in Victoria. That was Sal Turi, Adrian Homborg, Chris and Nathan Roos, Vincent Heng, Natalie Soper, Sally Heppleston, Ian Knox, Cassie Bodie, Melissa Ellis, Melissa Flentjar, and Stuart Brown. And then this past weekend, there was a Frond of 13 at one event, but we're not going to talk about it because it was a launch. We are going to talk about the Frond of Nine that was at Shellharbour, and that was Julie Wells, Paddy Shimmo, Kristen and Delvene McKenzie, Gordon and Julie Turner, David Foster, Louise Aiken, and Gaillyn Cooper.

01:00:55Sarah Jefferson: Remember that you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. We are eagerly approaching the 850 members. Not be long at all. Growing very quickly.

01:01:09Simon Mackley: I wonder when we can hit that thousand.

01:01:14Sarah Jefferson: I mean, I was going for 850, but I guess let's set the bar high, Simon.

01:01:18Simon Mackley: Yeah.

01:01:19Sarah Jefferson: No idea. But you're putting it out there. Is that what you're thinking? End of 2026.

01:01:24Simon Mackley: Yeah.

01:01:25Sarah Jefferson: Okay. Heard it here first. I wonder if we'll get there.

01:01:28Simon Mackley: Let's see.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:01:29Simon Mackley: Well, with the amount of launches that have happened in the last two weeks, I think that we should be able to get some adventures out of that. In the past two weekends, we've had eight launches on the 4th of October and six launches on the 11th of October. And they were across a lot of different countries around the world. Starting off, we had Beccles Quay parkrun in the UK.

01:01:50Sarah Jefferson: We had Bo'ness Foreshore parkrun in the UK as well.

01:01:54Simon Mackley: Innesfree Park parkrun in South Africa.

01:01:57Sarah Jefferson: Lake Fyans Walking Track in Australia.

01:02:01Simon Mackley: Victoria, so that adds to their total. We had Mashikimachi sogoundo koen parkrun, which means Mashikamachi General Athletics Park in Japan.

01:02:14Sarah Jefferson: We had Uedina Sad parkrun Germany. I probably didn't do a very good job of that.

01:02:22Simon Mackley: And we had Ushaw Historic House parkrun in the UK.

01:02:27Sarah Jefferson: In Japan, we had Yodogawa kasenkoen Yagumo chiku parkrun, which is Yagumo District of Yodogawa Riverside Park.

01:02:41Simon Mackley: Well done. And then coming back to Australia, we have Auburn Botanic Gardens parkrun, which was in Sydney.

01:02:49Sarah Jefferson: Budapest parkrun in Canada.

01:02:51Simon Mackley: Downs Link parkrun in Shoreham-by-Sea, UK.

01:02:56Sarah Jefferson: Elara Riparian Parklands parkrun in New South Wales, Australia.

01:03:02Simon Mackley: So that's the second one in Sydney for that weekend. And then we had Gustav Klingbiel Nature Reserve parkrun in South Africa.

01:03:11Sarah Jefferson: And the Domain parkrun in the UK.

01:03:16Simon Mackley: A lot of parkruns launched in the last couple of weeks. So that's, yeah, that's good. You watch. There'll be none next time when TOC and Mel record just to make up for it.

01:03:27Sarah Jefferson: That's right. I'm wondering if TOC's listening going, oh, I wish that was us. Or if, oh, lucky we didn't have to pronounce those. Not sure if TOC actually likes. I feel like TOC quite likes the parkruns that are hard to pronounce.

01:03:40Simon Mackley: I think he does. And he'd always say to us, I'm just a builder.

01:03:44Sarah Jefferson: That's right.

01:03:45Simon Mackley: Yeah, that's his excuse.

Watching the numbers

01:03:47Simon Mackley: So moving on to the ongoing segment of watching the numbers at Brooklyn Bridge parkrun. So Event 7 on the 4th of October saw 251 people cross the finish line, supported by 21 volunteers. 203 of those were first-timers to Brooklyn Bridge parkrun. And we had our second adventurer, which was Karen Hamilton, who finished in position 48 in a time of 23.17. So that's pretty swift. And then event eight, which was last weekend, saw 218 people cross the finish line supported by 14 volunteers. 173 of those were first timers to Brooklyn Bridge parkrun. So the numbers are definitely starting to cut, like they're definitely coming down from that initial 538. And we're coming down sort of every week, pretty much. I think the only, like it's jumped up a little bit here and there, but from 538 down to 218, I think we might be starting to settle.

01:04:42Sarah Jefferson: It does seem like it's around that mid, give or take a little bit, mid 200s. But I do, it will be interesting as it heads into winter and obviously we've got the marathon approaching. I'm going to be very intrigued to, I know the marathon weekend's cancelled, but the weekend before and the weekend after, I'll be eager to hear what the numbers are.

01:05:02Simon Mackley: I'm wondering how we'll see tourism actually be affected, because like in both of those last two weekends, there was still a lot of tourists going there for the first time. So, yeah, it's also good to see that we get like that there's people that have returned after their first time as well.

Rapid fire

01:05:20Simon Mackley: Shall we kick on to the rapid fire, Sarah? Sure. Yeah, so in this segment, Sarah and I will be presented with a range of questions that we haven't seen previously, and as the segment suggests, we respond in a quick way. We have a set of would-you-rather questions, so strap in, feel free to play along at home, and let's see if your responses would match the host's or differ. Now, let's get the segment underway. You are starting off, Sarah.

01:05:47Sarah Jefferson: Okay. Simon, would you rather beer or wine?

01:05:51Simon Mackley: That's hard. I am going to say beer.

01:05:55Sarah Jefferson: Bare feet or sneakers?

01:05:58Simon Mackley: Sneakers.

01:05:59Sarah Jefferson: Sweet or savoury?

01:06:01Simon Mackley: Sweet.

01:06:02Sarah Jefferson: Text or calls?

01:06:04Simon Mackley: Text.

01:06:05Sarah Jefferson: Realist or a dreamer?

01:06:08Simon Mackley: Realist.

01:06:09Sarah Jefferson: And I'm going to break the rules. And number six, spicy food or mild food?

01:06:13Simon Mackley: Spicy. Okay. Now, I have put mine into AI again, and I've specifically put in funny. So I am really hoping that these two get a giggle.

01:06:27Sarah Jefferson: Great preparation, Simon. Let's hope it's really funny then.

01:06:31Simon Mackley: Okay. Would you rather have spaghetti for hair or sweat, honey?

01:06:37Sarah Jefferson: This is bizarre. Spaghetti for hair, I guess. Yum.

01:06:42Simon Mackley: Would you rather always have to hop everywhere or always have to crawl like a baby?

01:06:49Sarah Jefferson: Given Hadley's crawling and she actually moves very swiftly, I'm going to go with crawling.

01:06:54Simon Mackley: Okay. Now, this is one my son has said to me before. Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?

01:07:08Sarah Jefferson: One horse-sized duck or I'll just say the first one.

01:07:12Simon Mackley: Okay. Would you rather have a permanent clown face or permanent clown shoes? clown shoes but I wouldn't be very good at running yeah no that's true would you rather have a voice that sounds like a flock of ducks quacking or a car alarm every time you speak are you saying I talk too much I'm saying to you that perplexity came up with some really random questions.

01:07:39Sarah Jefferson: I'm going to go with the ducks, the first one. What I am going to do is before we record next time, I'm going to text you because you don't want to listen or take my call. And I'm going to remind you that you need to be prepared. I was prepared.

01:07:55Simon Mackley: Okay. I was prepared. Sure. Stupid one. This might be the end of this segment.

01:08:00Sarah Jefferson: I think it might be. Okay.

Sign-off

01:08:03Simon Mackley: Well, I'm hoping that the listeners have had a little laugh, if not at questions at me anyway. Where are you heading on your next parkrun day, Sarah?

01:08:14Sarah Jefferson: Next parkrun day, I'm going to tick off another new event for me, Merredin Peak parkrun, to regain my statesmanship in Western Australia. So this will reset my NENDY to be over 1,888 kilometres away. So I'll be going on a road trip on Friday, I'm thinking. It may, however, be a very early morning drive, Saturday morning. I'm not decided yet, yet, but I am looking forward to that. And then I actually have the following two parkrun days over in New Zealand. So got a little bit of time away this coming month.

01:08:53Simon Mackley: I have some questions for you then. The NENDY that's 1,888 kilometres away, where is that?

01:08:59Sarah Jefferson: That is Port Lincoln in South Australia.

01:09:02Simon Mackley: Oh, okay. Fair enough. And do you know which two parkruns you're doing in New Zealand?

01:09:07Sarah Jefferson: Yes. Sorry, I know one of them. It's out south something. It's out, we're going out to Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove. It's not Moana. It's Moana, if I'm pronouncing it right. I know that's like the movie, but south something. It's one of, it's a Wilson number that Matt needs. So we're doing that one. And then we will be back in Auckland for the following weekend. And it's, sorry, I've just looked it up. It's South End Reserve. Okay. And then the 1st of November, I'm not decided, as most of the listeners may remember, my daughter's name is Hadley. And every time I hear Hagley, it reminds me of her. So I'm tempted to do Hagley. But I did like the sound of the new parkrun event that's around the crater area, of a volcano that I think launched or was spoken about two weeks ago yeah yeah or something yeah something like that so I haven't yet decided because I thought that sounded cool half crater one sounds good I did actually put that on my bucket list Yeah, this sounds different. I think we'll do it because we're going to Rotorua as well. So the stinkiest parkrun is out because we won't be there on a Saturday, but we will be exploring that area as well. Sorry, that was a very long-winded answer to your question.

01:10:29Simon Mackley: No, that's good. It gave me more context. That's good.

01:10:32Sarah Jefferson: What are your plans for next weekend?

01:10:34Simon Mackley: So this Saturday, I believe that I'm going to be joined by the Jays. So both my son Jackson and my dog Jasper at Logan River. It will be weather dependent because it looks like it might actually rain this week. And Logan can sometimes get a bit of water across the path. But anyway, we'll see what happens there. And then I'm heading to St. Lucia the week after. So, yes, so Logan will be, again, to get me closer to my P. So Lucia will increase my re-index, which last weekend I took up to 40. And I also bumped up my Wilson index to 48 from 41. Oh, well done. Yes, I'm very happy to be doing that.

01:11:16Sarah Jefferson: Kicking lots of goals.

01:11:18Simon Mackley: I have kicked a couple of goals in the last month, yes.

01:11:21Sarah Jefferson: And I hope that Jasper doesn't get car sick this time.

01:11:25Simon Mackley: It's going to be a much, much closer journey this time. And I will have the help of Jackson in the car as well.

01:11:32Sarah Jefferson: Fabulous. So next fortnight, Mel and TOC will be back. So we look forward to hearing what they've been up to.

01:11:41Simon Mackley: Indeed we do. And don't forget that we do have a bonus roving report to listen to after our outro.

01:11:49Sarah Jefferson: 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. Bye. Bye.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Alison Fraser (King) — Henley Lake parkrun

01:12:55Alison Fraser (King): Kia ora koutou, it's Alison here reporting in from across the ditch. And today I've gone to Henley Lake parkrun in sunny Masterton, which is towards the bottom of the North Island. And joining me right now is Event Director Katie. So welcome to the podcast, Katie. Kia ora, how are you?

01:13:13Nicola 'Nicky' Tarrant - Cowfest organiser: I'm great.

01:13:13Alison Fraser (King): Thank you so much for an awesome parkrun today. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Can you tell us a little bit about your parkrun story and how Masterton came to get a parkrun?

01:13:23Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): Yeah, sure. So I started doing parkrun when I lived in Hastings. So we used to go to Anderson parkrun back when I was a fit little person and doing lots of running. When the Flaxmere parkrun started, I started doing that one too. When we moved to Masterton, we went, where's parkrun at Masterton? That was about three or four years ago. There's a parkrun in Greytown, it's a gorgeous parkrun, beautiful place, about 40 minutes for me to get to. So I kind of went, hmm, I should look into if someone's thinking about doing a parkrun in Masterton. And I went through the form on the website and no one else was looking at it. So I started kind of looking at different courses. There were so many different things I was thinking of. And then I had a baby and the baby stopped all that for about two years. And then about January this year, I got an email from parkrun saying someone else had put in an interest to do the parkrun in Masterton. And I went, hey, why don't I make it the New Year's resolution to meet up with this person, get something going. So it took until September, but we got there and we got parkrun going. Yeah, it was quite a lot of work, especially in the last year, kind of section of getting it going like putting everything together making sure we had a great course making sure we had all the consents and things we needed um and getting all the agreements from parkrun to get it going yeah well I think the masterton community will be grateful for you to you know contacting that other person and getting it going yeah I think it's been really interesting that um We've had lots of first-timers coming from Masterton. You know, I thought the first few would be people visiting, maybe people who'd known about parkrun before, but the number of people who live in Masterton and it's their very first parkrun and they just want to come and see what it is, they've heard about it. We've not done a whole load of advertising. I've popped it on Facebook and there's been a newspaper article and a radio article, but nothing like... crazy about it and they just wanted to come and do it.

01:15:20Alison Fraser (King): So how many did we have today?

01:15:22Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): I think it was about 132.

01:15:23Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, so I went through the results just before and we had 31 people logged their very first parkrun.

01:15:32Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): Yeah, we're so proud of that because it feels like it's such a community event. People sitting at the end, cheering on people, clapping, having a chat. It's awesome.

01:15:40Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, and at the other side we had eight people who are members of the 500 Club having done more than 500 parkruns each. It's just nuts to think about today. I should say that's unusual to have eight 500s all at one event but one of them Martin was doing his 100th different event today.

01:15:58Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): And he bought cake. He did. And biscuits. And biscuits. So you know now we're going to be unprecedented to have have cakes and biscuits I think.

01:16:06Alison Fraser (King): So what have people said to you after your parkrun about the course?

01:16:10Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): People have really, really loved the course. It's set out in very much parkland. It's really kind of off-road. You see the rivers. When it's a lovely day, you can see the mountains. You run past a lake. The landscape's varied. I think people have really enjoyed doing it, it's a bit hard for me to set up because there's like 30 different off courses we have to block off but apart from that well no one got lost as far as I'm aware I found it easy to follow and well that's why we had the trials because people got lost in the trial yeah yeah so have you done many different parkruns yourself Katie um yeah I've done three international ones Well, three countries, and I've done, I think, around 10 in New Zealand.

01:16:55Alison Fraser (King): Okay, so if I were to ask you to pick three of your favourite parkruns that you've done, not including, we'll say Flaxmere or Henley Lake, because we usually say not including your home, what events would you choose and why?

01:17:09Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): I buttering you up now, but I did my, um, I had my hens do at Rotorua parkrun. So I think that was such a cool experience. So I think I'll call that just from a personal experience. Um, the Queenstown parkrun I've done, that was quite recent. And I was really impressed with the way that those guys kind of have everything planned out really well. Cause it's quite a tricky parkrun narrow bits and they, they did an awesome job. And, um, I think I really like Ōtaki River as well. It's really near my in-law's house, but you feel like you're out in the middle. There's not many people around. It's a beautiful space to be.

01:17:44Alison Fraser (King): That one is quite a special parkrun. You've got the mountains and the river.

01:17:45[crosstalk]

01:17:48Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): Yeah, I really like it.

01:17:49Alison Fraser (King): And where have you done parkruns overseas?

01:17:51Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): I've done one in Sydney, and I've done one in Weymouth, where my parents used to live. I'm actually from Bushy Park. I used to see the parkrunners running around Bushy Park when I was 15 on a Saturday morning, and I used to be like... who the hell would get up and go and run 5K on a Saturday morning and guess what this is where I am now halfway halfway around the world um you know 15 20 years later so have you ever done Bushy Park no I left before I knew about it so but yeah I've got I've got people I know back home yeah he were like part of that to start with yeah

01:18:25Alison Fraser (King): so have that on your bucket list yeah it'll be good yeah apparently it's crazy yeah and we sat outside the cafe and we've just enjoyed some breakfast and we sat with your dog Bex who's behaving so well he loves coming he sat on the bench you said he was got excited when people set up yeah he wants to be part of it for sure he's like why can't I go too when we're volunteering but he's so good yeah and they'll come and give get a pat from from anyone yeah Well, hopefully we'll put Masterton on the map, on the parkrun map with Henley Lake parkrun.

01:18:27[crosstalk]

01:18:35[crosstalk]

01:18:58Katie - Event Director, Henley Lake parkrun (Masterton, NZ): We'd love to see anyone and everyone come visit us.

01:18:58[crosstalk]

01:19:01Alison Fraser (King): This was just event three, so I think it's going to be a great thing for your community. Yeah, no, thank you. Awesome.