Episode 440 - Stop The Clock

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:27Sarah Jefferson: Welcome to episode 440 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name is Sarah Jefferson, coming to you from Noongar, Boodja, Noongar Country.

00:00:39Simon Mackley: And I'm Simon Mackley, joining you from Quandamooka, Yarrabingera, or Quandamooka Sea Country.

00:00:44Sarah Jefferson: Cooee, Simon.

00:00:46Simon Mackley: Cooee, Sarah.

00:00:48Sarah Jefferson: Merry Christmas, everyone. I still can't believe, Simon, that it's this time of year again.

00:00:53Simon Mackley: I know. It's raced around. Merry Christmas. Um, How are you going with your Christmas shopping?

00:00:58Sarah Jefferson: I am pretty well sorted this year. I am definitely not a last minute kind of girl. If you haven't already worked that out, I like to plan things quite far in advance.

00:01:09Simon Mackley: You certainly do. I know that you plan ahead and I'm mostly done as well. There's a few people still to buy for, but the important people have been bought for already.

00:01:19Sarah Jefferson: Fabulous.

Bonbon jokes

00:01:20Sarah Jefferson: Now, Simon, shall we start the show with a classic bonbon joke?

00:01:28Simon Mackley: We should.

00:01:29Sarah Jefferson: Okay, so I've got the bonbon here. Yeah. So hopefully the bits don't go everywhere. Okay, you ready?

00:01:35Simon Mackley: Yeah.

00:01:39Sarah Jefferson: And the bits went everywhere.

00:01:41Simon Mackley: I was going to say, I didn't hear anything.

00:01:44Sarah Jefferson: No, I can smell the smoky part, but no, it's a bit of an anti-climax, that one. Anyway, I got this little... Oh, it's a little nutcracker. Even in bubble wrap. That's a bit fancy. Oh, wow.

00:01:54[crosstalk]

00:01:55Simon Mackley: It's like a little Christmas decoration. Oh, that's cute.

00:01:57Sarah Jefferson: Yeah. And a purple hat. I might put my purple hat on. Okay. Joke. Why did the pig lose the race?

00:02:07Simon Mackley: Was he a pork run?

00:02:09Sarah Jefferson: Oh, that's a good one. No, because he pulled his hamstring.

00:02:15Simon Mackley: Oh, that's bad. Oh, gosh. I don't have my bonbon in front of me, unfortunately, but I do have a bonbon joke. Why are cows such great runners?

00:02:27Sarah Jefferson: No idea.

00:02:29Simon Mackley: They've got great calves.

00:02:31Sarah Jefferson: Oh, they do. Good one. All right. Now, Simon, moving on because I need to make an apology. So before we get too far into the show, and I can see that you're already laughing at me, I am so sorry, Lota parkruns. I mispronounced your parkrun name not once, but about five times last episode. Sorry for that. However, in fairness, the local man who I do record this podcast with could have corrected me on the spot, but he didn't. And I guess also sometimes when you make errors, a positive of this, Simon, is that you actually get lots of messages from listeners informing you that you made a mistake. So I actually knew lots of people who were listening. So... Thanks to everyone who pointed that out. And thanks for having my back, Simon, and correcting me when I mispronounced something five times on the podcast.

00:03:26Simon Mackley: Well, in my defence, I didn't correct you because after I let it go about twice, I thought I can't jump in without interrupting you. So I did just let it go. And I know you were saying it wrong, but that's okay. And I also knew that once you actually heard the run brief, you'd actually hear it correctly. So it's given the content. There we go.

00:03:46Sarah Jefferson: And I guess at least I rocked up to the right location. I didn't rock up to a completely different parkrun, even though I pronounced it wrong. Still rocked up to the correct parkrun.

00:03:57Simon Mackley: You certainly did.

00:03:59Sarah Jefferson: All right. So, Simon, how has your last month of parkrun been?

00:04:04Simon Mackley: Well, since we last spoke, I have run with the masses at, well, sorry, since we last spoke on the pod, should I say, I've run with the masses at South Bank on a very humid Brisbane morning. While I enjoyed it, I know why I don't run there very often. I'm not a huge fan of how many people go there. It's a very, very congested start, but I did have a good morning. Next, I ventured back to Quandamooka Country, and I met up with a little Western Australian and her amazing parent, plus Belinda. And I got to meet Mark for the first time. Then the next week I headed back to Jearn Park as I'd organised to meet up with all the Event Directors that I support. It was the first time that they'd used their alternate course since reopening in June. It had a lot of cancellations due to rain, flooding, and of course that faux cyclone that we had, back in March, and I was lucky enough to be the first one to do the course check on the alternate course. It also ticked a box for me to push my Wilson Index over 50, which was one of my things for the year. Then last Saturday, I had the pleasure of going to Logan River again, where I met up with Peter Pohlman for his first time there. So he was in town on the Gold Coast again, so he came and met me. We had a great chat going around, and then park faffed afterwards. And so this puts me just one time away from gaining my P9. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with that. I just now have to slot that into the next two or three parkrun days and P9 should be mine. What about you? Where have you been?

00:05:41Sarah Jefferson: Well, firstly, yes, congrats on the Wilson Index and nudging that one up. And, yes, good to hear that P9 is definitely on the cards for the end of the year. In response to your question, where have I been? The last month of parkrun for me has been a mixed bag. So I went to Edinburgh Oval parkrun to celebrate the legendary Mark Hurst 400th parkrun. As I mentioned in our last episode, that would have taken my P index up to nine and that it did. After the event, we had breakfast afterwards, and there were about 35 of us, so it was quite a lovely Park Faf filled morning. The following week, we did head across to Brisbane to check out Lota parkrun. It was so lovely to see you in the flesh, Simon, see the Belinda Fairy and Mark Walls, who had also come to say hello. It was lovely to meet you, Mark. Afterwards, we grabbed a drink from the coffee caravan near the end and had a lovely chat before we headed off for a family day of adventures. Yes, it was humid. Yes, my hair went frizzy. But yes, we had fun. Then the following day, we headed back on the longest flight path in Australia, that being Brisbane to Perth, and it felt very long. Fortunately, we avoided the crazy storms that took place the following day. So it was lucky that we actually flew out on the Sunday evening. Now, Simon, the following week, I actually missed a parkrun. So, yes, this is the first parkrun I have missed for quite a while, with the exception of when I was in hospital with a newborn baby earlier this year, of course. So sometimes something has just got to give. And for me, after much deliberation, I just had to decide that it was just too much for me to get there. So we have actually absolutely been struggling with sleep for quite some time. Hadley loves to party in the middle of the night and it was becoming completely unsustainable for us. So we got offered a spot at a sleep hospital. It's called Nagala and it's very similar to Tresillian for those of you who are on the east coast of Australia. So the short story was Matt was going to have to rush over, tag team with me in the morning so that I could race out to parkrun and then race back. However, after being up multiple times that night, watching screens with nurses, et cetera, et cetera. I just decided it was too much. And you know what? parkrun will always be there the following weekend. So last week I did get back to parkrun and Simon, I actually did a post baby parkrun PB at Shelley parkrun. So I was very happy to have completed this parkrun under 33 minutes. I didn't hang around as I had a birthday party and an army function to attend with my partner. And it was a really busy day. So I did tell you that it's been a mixed bag over the past month. It's been a little bit crazy.

00:08:43Simon Mackley: It really sounds like it. But congratulations on the PB PB, so post-baby personal best. Not that it's about time, but how far off your actual PB do you think that you are? And do you reckon you'll ever beat it?

00:08:59Sarah Jefferson: So there's a bit of a story with my PB on the 5K app, and it's not actually my PB, but I won't go into that now. But my actual PB that I have run was 26.57, and that was in July 2018. I don't know if I will get back to that. I'd be very happy, or my goal at this point would be eventually to run around the 30-minute mark. So I don't know if I ever get back to my ultimate PB, but hopefully, yeah, aiming closer towards that 30 minutes.

00:09:32Simon Mackley: Excellent. Well, that's good. Congratulations. And yeah, it sounds like a very, very busy month that you've had from coming over here to Brisbane. We have some feedback on the last episode. So Natalie Soper, she said, can confirm that was a photo of me at, sorry, of the back of me at Churchill. A lovely chat to Wendy afterwards, but she didn't share the sad tale of the lost tutus.

00:09:58Sarah Jefferson: All right, moving forward with some news. So we have some very important news at that, Simon. Cue the celebratory music. After 516 parkruns, it has happened. Our one and only Mel has now completed her stopwatch bingo. It's official. Well done, Mel. We're very happy for you. However, on a glance at your profile, we can see that now you only need to finish one more, that being 00, to complete stopwatch bingo once again. In all seriousness, no pressure, Mel, and great that you've ticked that one off to end 2025.

00:10:00[background music]

00:10:36Simon Mackley: Yeah, very much. Congratulations. And I looked that up as well. I looked to see how close Mel was to getting another stopwatch bingo and saw the same thing. So who knows? Maybe a 0-0 is in the cards for Mel to knock two stopwatch bingos off so quickly.

00:10:53Sarah Jefferson: I think, Simon, as well, I had a look and if she knocks off 0-0 for the third time, that will be stopwatch bingo again. So lots of her other numbers are up. Yeah.

00:11:04Simon Mackley: Yeah. Wow.

00:11:05Sarah Jefferson: It must be very frustrating.

00:11:06Simon Mackley: Let's see what happens. It's like buses. They all come along at once, right? At the end of the last pod, TOC let us know that you can now order an adventurers shirt. The ordering portal is still open, thanks to the Office Lady. There is a shirt and a singlet option. Singlets are $40.50 plus postage and handling, and shirts are $45 plus postage and handling, all in Australian dollars. There's a website link, so you can look at that on the parkrun adventurers Facebook page. We might try and get it put in the show notes for this when this one comes out as well, but you'll need a login code to get into it as well. But yeah, this is a great way to be recognised as an adventurer when touristing or if you're planning to head to Parm. Just a memo, most people will be wearing the shirt on the parkrun morning, and you don't want to be missing out on that, because we will take a photo of everyone who attends. The shirts won't be posted until after the New Year, and that's when the orders will close, but if you're considering it, jump to it, as once the ordering is closed, it is closed. We can't confirm when

00:12:14Sarah Jefferson: when we will be opening the ordering again oh Simon and they have options for kids too so I actually jumped on today and I ordered a size two shirt it will certainly be swimming on my daughter yes hopefully it will be super cute be swimming on her but at least it may last a few years so get onto it everybody place your orders you know you don't want to have fomo or said I wish that I had that shirt could even buy yourself a Christmas present right Simon

00:12:44Simon Mackley: treat yourself hey exactly right he's saying that I must jump on there and actually order one for okay so moving on we want to say congrats to The Office Lady on completing the cosy 50 so we believe this is your third ultra marathon that's a huge kudos particularly given that it was your PB and what can't you do Office Lady congratulations and enjoy a little downtime now what an achievement For anyone wanting to see what Sam went through, her son has pieced together some of the footage that Sam took into a neat YouTube clip, which if you look on, if you follow Sam, you may have seen it already.

00:13:25Sarah Jefferson: Well done, Sam. I don't know how you fit it all in. I know that you have a big event planned over on the West Side next year. It's very inspiring watching you tackle all of these challenges head on. And yes, agreed. What a fabulous YouTube clip that is. So well done, Sam.

00:13:44Simon Mackley: Look now what Sam's doing in the West Side. I don't know what that is.

00:13:47Sarah Jefferson: Yes. Well, hopefully I haven't let the cat out of the bag there, but I know that I've seen it on Sam's socials. So maybe have a check out on there. I don't let everybody know. Okay, Simon, we have a little bit of news around Palm, which is very exciting. As mentioned in the last episode, the party planners have been very busy behind the scenes. Lots of emails, lots of reaching out has been happening. So we have a location for the dinner on the Friday night. So for those of you who have not attended a Palm before, it's, I guess you could call it like a meet and greet. Everybody is welcome to attend Seven Hill Pub, I guess, for dinner on the Friday night to get the festivities started.

00:14:36Simon Mackley: And then on Saturday night for the themed dress-up, we're going to be going to Bentley's, and that has been booked as well. So we'll be doing a call-out for numbers a bit closer to the time so that we can let the venue know. But, yeah, both of them, we have the menus for them, so we can share those as well once we get a bit closer.

00:14:57Sarah Jefferson: Simon, you mentioned themed dress-up. Shall we reveal the theme for palm26? think we should you go for it okay okay so the theme for the dress-up night for palm26 is rainbow so think you can come representing all colours of the rainbow or you can pick just one colour of the rainbow and deck yourself out from top to toe in that colour Or you can be super creative and go off on a completely different tangent. I'm thinking back to the acronym ROYGBIV, Simon. Have you heard of that?

00:15:37Simon Mackley: I'm not aware of it. What is ROYGBIV?

00:15:39Sarah Jefferson: Okay, I'm going to tell you. It's the colours of the rainbow. I'm not going to sing the song. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. So, Simon, can you come dressed in pink?

00:15:51Simon Mackley: No.

00:15:52Sarah Jefferson: Can you come dressed in blue? Yes. Yes. But we don't exclude anyone. So if you feel like you want to wear pink and pink's your colour, I guess you can come in pink.

00:16:01Simon Mackley: Yeah, I'm already thinking about this. I've got some creative ideas, but I'm going to need to speak to Jackson as well because he's going to have to match what I'm doing. So we will have to see how creative the 14-year-old in my house is going to be.

00:16:18Sarah Jefferson: Well, and that's the thing with this, right, is that I'm thinking quite literally about it, but people always go on these tangents. I know... When we were in Toowoomba and the theme was flowers, I went as Rose from Titanic. So Rose being a flower, I had to feel like I had to explain that to everybody, but it wasn't like a bee or something straight down the line. So we're giving you the theme now so that people can, I guess, have a little bit of time to prepare and think about what they would like to come dressed as.

00:16:48Simon Mackley: We will remind you again next year as well, in case you've missed this episode.

Watching the numbers

00:16:53Simon Mackley: Alrighty, we might jump into the stats. So we'll head across the ditch. The parkrun New Zealand attendance and milestone stats for November 29th. In New Zealand, there were 64 parkruns with 11,340 parkrunners and 1,020 volunteers, plus any pending results, which I'm guessing should have been done by now anyway. The biggest New Zealand parkruns that weekend in third place was Palmerston North with 429, followed by Waitangi in second place with 5.16, and Hagley smashed it, as they normally do, on 7.52. The smallest New Zealand parkruns in third place was Lake to Lake Trail with 32, Hamilton Park with 26, and East Otago High School with 22. Moving to last weekend, the 6th of December, there were 66 parkruns with 10,715 parkrunners, and 1,038 volunteers, plus any pending results. The biggest New Zealand parkruns were Hagley at 703, Waitangi with 460, and Cornwall Park with 419. And the smallest were East Otago High School again, which had 17. Lost Lagoon had 22, and South End Reserve had 23.

00:18:14Sarah Jefferson: Moving back to Australia on the 29th of November. 73,025 active participants took a token, 6,466 volunteers supported 512 events with 2,307 first-timers. The smallest parkrun was Railway Park in Queensland with two, whereas South Bank took out the largest parkrun with 621. On the 6th of December, 69,725 people participated in 514 events with almost 6,572 volunteers with 380 first-timers. So the smallest parkrun was technically Baxter in Western Australia with one. However, Railway Park in Queensland and Coober Pedy South Australia both had zero participants turn up, only the volunteers. That's crazy.

00:19:17Simon Mackley: That is crazy.

00:19:18Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, the largest parkrun was Albert Melbourne in Victoria with 921, closely following by South Bank with 900 due to the Ashes cricket being on in Brisbane.

00:19:31Simon Mackley: Yeah, when I did South Bank it was 600 and something, so I cannot imagine a 50% increase on that.

00:19:39Sarah Jefferson: Good call that you didn't go on the sixth. Okay.

00:19:42Simon Mackley: I think it's time to reflect on our highlights and achievements from the year. So I would love to hear some of your greatest achievements and highlight in parkrun this year. Of course, if there are any noticeable personal goals you achieved, I'd love to hear those too. Are you ready to fire away?

00:20:01Sarah Jefferson: Sounds good, Simon. All right. So my greatest achievement probably would be travelling to Singapore and Malaysia with a four-month-old baby. with only hand luggage for a week. So this enabled Matt and myself to tick off the remaining two parkruns in Singapore and complete the country. Always a great place to visit and I always dreamed of ducking away for parkrun adventures and just taking hand luggage and we did it. Greatest highlight probably would be Katherine Hot Springs parkrun. At the time of planning this trip, I aim to finish all the parkruns in the Northern Territory, and this would make it so that two-thirds of the country would be filled on the Voronoi map. However, we've seen the launch of Alice Springs and a parkrun in Tennant Creek, which is fabulous, so it will give me an excuse to head back to the Northern Territory. It's definitely a very unique place, to visit I'm going to sneak a third one on here Simon taking our beautiful daughter Hadley to parkrun at 13 days old we dressed her in a little parkrun onesie that we had made when she was so tiny just over three kilos when I think back and look at those photos I think it was remarkable that we actually did it when we were there everyone was going wow I can't believe you're here I was like of course I'm here it's it's parkrun day but now I think back and go how did we do that So, yeah, it was a very busy year, but, yeah, lots of different goals or lots of different achievements for me this year.

00:21:32Simon Mackley: I can't believe you took Hadley at four months. Like, it only feels not that long ago that you were actually over there, but that's craziness. And getting her there after 13 days, well, that's just dedication, isn't it?

00:21:46Sarah Jefferson: Or craziness, but yes. Yeah. Yeah, cool. How about you, Simon? I'd love to hear. Some of your achievements and highlights of the year that 2025 was for you.

00:21:58Simon Mackley: So highlights, I think, would be running at a few of Australia's newer events. So I got to go to Pirrama in Sydney, Hidden Vale, which is out past Ipswich up here, and Gainsborough Parklands, which was the sort of reinvention of Gainsborough Greens. So those spring to mind as newer ones. I also ticked off a few events that have been in my bucket list for a while as well. So I got to go to Nambour, and experienced the joy, shall we say. And then more recently, Glass House Mountains Conservation parkrun. That was a bit of a fun one. And I got to go to Studley back in July. That was one that had been on my list for a very, very long time. And I've also met adventurers who've come up and said hello and caught up with a few old parkrunning friends as well. My biggest regret has to be that I wasn't able to get to Mel's 500th celebration with her at Sirromet I was, I know I've said this before, but I just, I could not get up after with Backyard Ultra. Fair excuse. Yeah.

00:23:01Dowdy (Shannon): But yeah, like I really wish that I had been able to get there.

00:23:05Simon Mackley: Anyway, achievement wise, I was really happy to notch up my P index to eight. And as I've said before, I'm almost to nine and to get my Wilson index up to 51. So I started the year on 41. And I'm finishing it on 51 and I'm not going to try and get that 52 just yet.

00:23:23Sarah Jefferson: Awesome. Congratulations. Some great achievements.

00:23:25[background music]

00:23:26Simon Mackley: All right.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:23:27Simon Mackley: I think it is time to throw across to our roving report.

Roving report Tracey Wood — Golden Beach parkrun

00:23:36Tracey Wood: Good morning parkrun, this is Tracey in a Tutu. I have logged into Golden Beach parkrun and NAB the Run Director of the day, it is Dowdy. Dowdy. Dowdy, do you have another name?

00:23:46Dowdy (Shannon): Shannon.

00:23:46Tracey Wood: Shannon.

00:23:47Dowdy (Shannon): But I hate it. Oh. So we go Dowdy.

00:23:49Tracey Wood: Dowdy, Dowdy is fine. Dowdy, Golden Beach parkrun seems to have gone well today. Any problems out there? No. No issues? Looks good. What a crack of a day, hey? Absolutely gorgeous.

00:24:00Dowdy (Shannon): Beautiful course, beautiful scenery.

00:24:03Tracey Wood: Out and back, two laps, too easy. Lovely volunteers. How long have you been doing this gig for?

00:24:10Dowdy (Shannon): Probably close to eight years now, I think.

00:24:12Tracey Wood: Yeah, okay, wow.

00:24:13Dowdy (Shannon): Yes. That's a long time. Pretty close, yeah.

00:24:15Tracey Wood: Yeah, okay. Interesting, today I was asking before we got volunteer Pacers today and you said no, they don't actually get a volunteer credit and I just have to ask about that.

00:24:26Dowdy (Shannon): We've debated that before and we've come to an agreement. I won't go into the details but we don't do volunteer credit for Pacer.

00:24:31Tracey Wood: Right, okay. That's just something you keep with the event team?

00:24:35Dowdy (Shannon): Yes.

00:24:36Tracey Wood: Alright, great. Anything that viewers or viewers, listeners at home should know about Golden Beach parkrun? Nope.

00:24:43[crosstalk]

00:24:43Dowdy (Shannon): Probably the same as every other parkrun.

00:24:44Tracey Wood: Oh, go on. Keep left. Keep left. Don't run into members of the public. Yes, yes. You did stress that several times during the run briefing. Yes. Has there been an incident that's happened?

00:24:53Dowdy (Shannon): Oh, there's always people complaining that we've taken up the path, but that's no different than any other parkrun I've ever run at. So, yeah, we're just conscious of it.

00:24:54[crosstalk]

00:25:00Tracey Wood: Right.

00:25:00Dowdy (Shannon): Keep the public happy. So we keep us going.

00:25:04Tracey Wood: There's a lot of units and things close by, being Caloundra, Beach City. Do you get complaints about noise?

00:25:10Dowdy (Shannon): No.

00:25:11Tracey Wood: Really? Okay. Well, that's very good then. Okay, look, great chat.

00:25:17Dowdy (Shannon): Thank you for your time. No worries. You have a good day. Okay. See ya.

00:25:21Tracey Wood: Tracey in a Tutu signing off from Golden Beach up at Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. Having a lovely day. Quick report. Cheers, guys. Bye.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Brierley Forest parkrun

00:25:30Calum Burrell: So good morning parkrun adventurers or should I say cooee parkrun adventurers. Today we're at Brierley Forest parkrun in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands of England and today we're with one of the people in parkrun world who again I suppose you well you introduce yourself come on.

00:25:54Louise Ayling: Okay, my name is Louise Ayling and I have been parkrunning for 14 years and when I started I did two parkruns at Wimbledon and then I did 49 different parkruns in a row because I wanted the variety and then I think basically my parkrun claim to fame I've never been first to any milestones but you know I'm kind of up there you know I sort of tag along slightly after anybody has broken a barrier but when I set up a Facebook group for parkrun tourists and initially it started off as being 40 odd people I knew I'd met through parkrun touring and I thought it'd be really nice if we could arrange to meet rather than just bump into each other by accident and so I stuck them all in a Facebook group and I think there's now about 13,000 members so it's a completely different beast.

00:26:52[crosstalk]

00:26:55Calum Burrell: And that's the UK parkrun tourist group? That's the UK parkrun tourist group.

00:26:59Louise Ayling: Which I actually am fortunate enough that there is a really good team of admins and moderators on. And so I've been able to step back from it because there was a point where I was the only admin and it was just full on. And I got a group of people from the group together to be admins and moderators and they've just been brilliant. So I've been able to take a step back. And I now pretty much don't tour. I mean, I rarely run the same parkrun twice in a row. So I do tour, but it's all local repeats. So, you know, I was checking out some statistics the other day. And, you know, I looked at, you know, who's done what number of parkruns. And I'm like, I think I'm way down. I've just about scraped 300 now. And I mean, obviously, Nicola Tarrant and Paul Freyne, you know, are way up there. Because I just, yeah, I've stopped.

00:27:41[crosstalk]

00:27:46[crosstalk]

00:27:52Dowdy (Shannon): I've eased off a bit.

00:27:53Louise Ayling: Yeah, I've eased off. I do local repeats and I'm now filling in stupid things like the Wilson Index and getting my P Index up and that. But I'm at Brierley Forest today, which I've run before... a couple of years ago because I have a friend who runs a cafe called Nibbles Needles and Hooks about six miles from here and it's basically a cafe and it sells wool knitting and chatting so after this after I've been at the parkrun cafe chatting I will then go back to Nibbles Needles and Hooks and I will sit and I will knit and chat to other people who knit and eat ridiculously portioned slices of cake And it was all a bit of a shock to the system. The first time I went in, because I'm from London and you don't even make eye contact with people. So I go into this cafe and it's quite small. And before you know it, you're in a conversation with everyone else in the cafe just talking from table to table. And yeah, it's quite different. It's a different world up here, isn't it? People actually talk to strangers. I mean, you know, anyway. So yeah, it's great. So I'm staying with her, which means I get to run this beautiful parkrun. And I've bumped into Callum, you know, blast from the past.

00:28:56[crosstalk]

00:29:12Calum Burrell: Yes, we last met at Squerryes Winery, a completely different day. It was absolutely lashing it down. It was a quagmire, event eight at Squerryes Winery.

00:29:16[crosstalk]

00:29:23Louise Ayling: Yes, absolutely. Oh, gosh. I think I may have done one muddier, but that is definitely up there on my top ten muddiest. It was just after a storm, wasn't it? My home parkruns Wimbledon, so I'm used to mud, but Wimbledon mud is not slippery. Right. Whereas Squerryes Winery was, oh gosh, how people stayed upright. And there was someone running with a dog. How they didn't fall over and face plant. Just kudos to them, really. So yeah, it's been a while, but lovely to see you again. And this is the fabulous thing, isn't it, about parkrun tourism, that you run into... people you know and who share your hobby however whether it's you know whether it's different parkrun every week or chasing you know chasing this statistic or just want you know happen need to be in a place there's so many different ways of enjoying parkrun and so many different ways of enjoying tourism it's you know fabulous yeah no thank you for your chat today

00:29:32[crosstalk]

00:29:52[crosstalk]

00:30:03[crosstalk]

00:30:17[crosstalk]

00:30:24Calum Burrell: Anything you want to say about either today or the other parkrun experiences? Have you been anywhere abroad recently at all?

00:30:34Louise Ayling: I did my first non-UK special event. I went to Germany for Unity Day. Oh, nice. And with a friend who I met through parkrun Tourism, we went to Nuremberg and we did... I'm going to mangle the name. Wöhrder See. And then the one slightly out of Nuremberg. So we were terribly... We thought we were being really adventurous going and doing two German parkruns. And then we were talking to other people, oh, I'm going to do a Z in Berlin and then I'm going to drive across the border and do a Z in Poland. And someone else was doing Germany and Austria. But we had a really, really lovely time because we just wandered around Nuremberg and there was no pressure. There was no, you know, no pressure, uh no panic jogs yeah um and and yeah and nuremberg's a lovely lovely lovely city so yeah that's the I think that's um as I say my first special event that's overseas obviously Christmas Day New Year's Day but um yeah it was and uh yeah it was it was just really fun um going somewhere you don't know yeah well I suppose if this is the parkrun adventurers podcast having a

00:31:05[crosstalk]

00:31:15[crosstalk]

00:31:49Calum Burrell: and just getting to spend time with a friend and yeah it was lovely and so welcoming I loved both parkruns they were fabulous all right well great to see you today and thank you for your time and uh thank you for bringing us the UK parkrun tourist group which I joined in 2016 after doing my 20th parkrun at Pennington Flash many many years ago but so thank you for all you've done for the parkrun world and uh great to meet you again today pleasure thank you

00:31:50[crosstalk]

00:32:10[background music]

00:32:24Tony O'Connell: And it was great to hear those two roving reports. We had Tracy coming to us from Golden Beach with Dowdy, who's the RD up there. And very interesting that they don't do the PACER credits or the Auslan credits for the volunteering. But I guess each event has their own little idiosyncrasy, Simon. And we also heard from Calum from Brierley Forest. He was with Louise Ayling, who set up the UK parkrun Tourism Group that I'm a member of and quite a few of us are a member of. And she was also a host for a time on Free Weekly Timed, the official parkrun podcast.

00:33:03Simon Mackley: Yeah, okay.

00:33:04Tony O'Connell: Hey, TOC.

00:33:05Simon Mackley: Welcome to the Christmas episode. Can't believe it's been a year since we actually hosted just the two of us, which was a week before the Christmas episode last time. So, yeah, welcome back.

00:33:16Tony O'Connell: It's great to be back again, Simon. It does seem funny. We seem to get a gig together at Christmas. I don't know whether they want to give the boys the coos for the rest of the year or what it is. Are they scared we're going to go off and talk about footy or cricket or something? I don't know. You're not going to get either of those two out of me, that's for sure. We'll have to bring this up at a management meeting.

00:33:38Simon Mackley: Yeah, fair enough. And I'm sure you don't want to talk about your AFL team most of the time anyway, right?

00:33:43Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, I'm quite content with just sitting on the sidelines and being a member and enjoying the ride. Let's call it that.

00:33:52Simon Mackley: Fair enough. What have you been up to in the last two weeks since you recorded with Lyndell?

00:33:57Tony O'Connell: I have been the epic tourist, Simon. I have been going all over the place. I've been to Inverloch two weeks in a row. The first week, yeah, it was bucketing rain in Victoria. It was one of those really wet, miserable days where Your new numbers were going to be down all over the place. Half the people wouldn't come out. Inverloch for us is still a quarter of an hour drive away. And we just thought, if we're going to get soaking wet, let's just go to Inverloch so we can jump in the car after it and get home and have a hot shower. And then the weekend just gone, we were going to travel. Had a couple of little adventures planned. Not too distant, but a couple of adventures planned. And I got wind that the parkrun Wiggles were going to visit Inverloch. And I can see you nodding your head. You're obviously not for me with the parkrun Wiggles. No. We've got a family in Victoria. Go back to when I first started parkrun. And the first time I met them was actually in Queensland at the Calamvale launch, which was parkrun number 100 for Australia. Back in, I'm going to say, 2014. Yeah. And there were four brothers and they always turned up in different colour tops and always ran together. So we called them the parkrun Wiggles. Heard that the Blue Wiggle and the Red Wiggle were heading down towards Inverloch. Caught up with them a lot of times over the years. One of them lived in Western Australia for quite a while. It's the Baldwin brothers for those that haven't worked it out.

00:35:20Simon Mackley: I was going to say, I've got no idea who these people are.

00:35:24Tony O'Connell: Dan lived in WA. When we went over there nine years ago, He drove down to Geo Bay to parkrun with us. And then for the next three weeks, he just popped up at every event that we went to in WA. So, yeah, we caught up a fair bit there. They've got family that live down near Inverloch. Heard they were coming down. And we did the big park faff. You know it's a good day when you're sort of looking at your watch and it's after 11 o'clock and you think, oh, I really need to get moving. But you just keep talking and, you know. You're just enjoying the day. It doesn't matter. And that's one of the great things about sometimes going home to your local event. Love the touristing. Love the tourism. But I love getting back home and just that every person you pass on the back course, you nearly know the names on, probably 80% of the people, and then you go to the cafe, we go to Paul's, and I reckon this week we probably had 30 or 35 people go back to Paul's, so quite a good crew, mix of ages, experiences, everyone just sits around and chats, it's like a family. So that's what I've been doing, not major tourism, but I've been out and about close to home.

00:36:31Simon Mackley: You've been happy. The name Dan Baldwin does ring a bell now that you've said that, but I wouldn't have wouldn't have clicked who the parkrun wiggles were.

00:36:39Tony O'Connell: We've had some really good memories. We turned up at Euroa one New Year's Eve, I believe it was, and we were going to run Euroa. Euroa is a really funny course. It runs out through a park and it runs around a tree and you turn left at a stump and right at a bit of grass that stands a bit taller than everything else. They put cones out on the day so it's easy to follow. But we decided to do a free dough on the Friday night. And there's four of us, well, four blokes and Jacqui. There's five of us walking around in this basically a paddock, all on our iPhone, all saying, no, no, I think we turn left. No, turn right. All arguing about which way to go. And we just ended up going to the pub. That was probably a good idea. That's a good call.

00:37:20Simon Mackley: What have you been up to? You've already recapped that. I've already recapped that with Sarah.

Dazza's

00:37:29Simon Mackley: Shall we jump into Dazza's? Let's do that. We have chosen five comments from each of the last two weeks of Dazza's. So on the 29th of November, Dazza said, Reggie reckons it's electronic greetings day. So share your greetings for their pomfreeness and let us know how your morning's been. Now, Do you know who Reggie is?

00:37:48Tony O'Connell: I clicked, yeah, it clicked pretty quick. I thought, shots fired.

00:37:52Simon Mackley: Yep, definitely shots fired, yes.

00:37:55[crosstalk]

00:37:56Tony O'Connell: The Reggie bit took me a bit, but when we got the pomperiness, I thought, oh, shots fired. We've got a staff dispute. Call in HR.

00:38:04Simon Mackley: The Office Lady's having fights with the AI.

00:38:08Tony O'Connell: Oh, that can only end badly. Very badly.

00:38:12Simon Mackley: We've all seen Terminator, right?

00:38:14Tony O'Connell: Yep. Right, yeah. Well, we had a whole heap of people, and I think we had about 130 comments for the week, Simon. But the first one that we're going to read out is Fiona Hinchliffe. And Fiona was at Cronulla in New South Wales. Fiona said, 7 a.m. start at Cronulla parkrun this morning. Them hills. And she posted a glorious photo of the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean, with a little dragon plush, it looks like. We aren't sure about the significance of this, but what a spectacular sunrise.

00:38:48Simon Mackley: Maybe Fiona can write in and tell us what the little dragon plushy is. Next, we heard from Heather Hunter, who is on holidays in Europe. So she was at Park Nadnyski in Poland, and she said, not exactly an electronic greeting, but Google Translate and Google Maps helped me to find my way to parkrun, Park Nadnyski. Oh my gosh, I've been absolutely stitched up here.

00:39:09[crosstalk]

00:39:11Tony O'Connell: I did not put this in.

00:39:15Simon Mackley: I know who has, but I've still got stitched up. Yeah, so in Zgorzelec. Anyway, that's lots of friendly and patient volunteers who waited for me to slip and slide my way around the snowy, icy two-lap course. The cup of hot apple juice provided by someone celebrating their 25th milestone run went down beautifully. I could go another if it's on the menu at Dazza's today. You'll have to take my word that there's an adventurers t-shirt somewhere in amongst my multiple layers of clothing. And there was a photo of Heather looking very rugged up with the parkrun pop up in the background with snow all over the ground. What an amazing experience, Heather. We can see there were 32 other brave souls who ventured out in the cold with you last week as well. Certainly a different experience to the ones that you get in Australia.

00:40:04Tony O'Connell: And Simon, we're going from somewhere that was really cold to somewhere that chances are was reasonably warm. And we're going to hear from Sheridan Davis at Main Beach in Queensland. Sheridan wrote, in true parkrun adventure spirit, I'm celebrating my newly minted accreditation to the Cowell Club, having completed my 100th location with a visit to Main Beach today. And Sheridan shared a photo of herself wearing a Milestone 100 shirt detailing all of her 100 different locations. We can see some challenges on there too. Congratulations, Sheridan, and we look forward to hearing all about your future goals.

00:40:41Simon Mackley: Next, we heard from Gareth Arnold on the West Side. Gareth said, Hey up, Dazza. I was bringing the energy as Timekeeper at Kadinga Trail parkrun and managed not to press the button more than I should have. Big zero one zero zero one zero anyway there was lots of zeros and ones to all the paranoid androids out there today and there was a photo of Gareth doing his signature move that being a super high jump in the air with his feet splayed backwards

00:41:12Tony O'Connell: And I'm going to take that as a really big nod to the subject. Lyndell and I were talking about Simon the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Because I'm tipping that he's referring to Marvin the Paranoid Android in his comment there. Fair enough. So coming back from Western Australia and we go to South Australia. And we heard from the lovely Janet Llewellyn-Reed. And Janet was at the Mothership, where Janet loves to be. Had the best morning RDing aboard the mothership Lochiel for our 500th event. along with 21 terrific volunteers and a big blue heart emoji. And there was a stunning photo of Janet and husband Jeff dressed in blue to celebrate Lochiel's 500th. Congrats to Lochiel. Yeah, congrats to Lochiel. And that was that week. Simon, moving on to the 6th of December. And as I said, and he had a sun emoji, summer at last in the Southern Hemisphere, heart emoji Dazza has whipped up some icy drinks and he's testing out his new acai machine although I can't even tell what that emoji is with my eyes but I'm gonna say come on in and tell us how your morning has been and I reckon that was a stitch up that I've got given that word to say because I think the listeners that listen back or many pods ago probably now I've struggled with that word and And in fact, Yvette Turner had to write in on the Dazza's thing and tell me how to pronounce it because she knew I'd get it wrong.

00:42:39Simon Mackley: Fair enough. I do remember her doing that. I think that's a little cocktail emoji. I think in a hurricane glass is what I'm seeing.

00:42:45[crosstalk]

00:42:47Tony O'Connell: Anyway. With my eyes, it looks like a chook.

00:42:51Simon Mackley: A squint? Yes, okay, it could be. Well, I'm going to jump on over to Calum Burrell in the UK. He was at Burnage and he said, I'm super proud of my dad, David Burrell. who completed his 50th parkrun volunteering today. I joined Dad on Tail Walker duties at Burnage parkrun, and there was a photo of the zooming burrows by Lindsay. And, yeah, so there was a photo of Callum and his father, David, doing a zoomie in their Tail Walker vests.

00:43:17Tony O'Connell: Rightio, and congratulations to Callum's dad. We're going to come back to Dolls Point. Apparently, it's Sydney's most pretty parkrun. Have not heard that for a while, but... We're going to talk to Paul Whelan, or we're going to hear from Paul Whelan, probably more importantly. And Paul, for those that know, is the Viking. The Viking was at Dolls Point parkrun today. Last minute volley call up as the original Tail Walker never turned up. Right place, right time. Love, Tail Walker, number 81, moving towards 100. And there's a picture of the Viking in the photo, complete with horns, a run-down undertop, and the Tail Walker vest.

00:43:58Simon Mackley: So just to clarify, Dolls Point is the prettiest single-lap course in Sydney, just FYI. We've been able to break up the Dolls Point, Mosman and Pirrama thing because they are a different amount of laps. Anyway, just so that the listeners know.

00:44:14Tony O'Connell: I can almost hear someone trying to justify that every parkrun in Sydney is the prettiest because they've all got something unique.

00:44:21Simon Mackley: No, no, no, there's some pretty bad ones, but we can talk about that another time.

00:44:25Tony O'Connell: So Grinnella would be the prettiest sand dune parkrun? Quite possibly, yeah. Also the meanest and most brutal? Quite possibly, yeah. It's not as brutal as the beaches, but it's up there.

00:44:38Simon Mackley: Let's move on to Belinda Rachel Cave Cafe. I'm not sure we've ever worked that out. So she was at Gainsborough Parklands here in Queensland. And she said, took the uglies for a spin at Gainsborough Parklands parkrun. And of course, I mean the singlets. And there was a great photo of the uglies, the teacher kind that is, four Bean chickens, a magpie and a fluffy. So that was quite a collection of the uglies.

00:45:05Tony O'Connell: And it's really interesting, Simon, to see the uglies already breaking out this early in December. We're having a bit of a collection of uglies. We've decided we're going to wear a different one in the lead up to Ugly Christmas Shirt Day. So we've given a few different ones a run so far. We're going to hear next from Kamay in New South Wales. And we hear from Eva Blanda. Andrew and I got up early to beat the heat at Kamay parkrun and we attempted a double zoomie at the end. The best part about Kamay, other than the cemetery, is that you go for a dip afterwards. So no refreshments other than a peaceful floating in the salt water. I love a zoomy photo, and Eva and Andrew have pulled off a great zoom.

00:45:47Simon Mackley: Indeed they have. And lastly for this week, we have Tony Reeves. Could be Tony Rivers, I'm not sure. He was at Ferry Meadows in the UK. He said, Morning Dazza, six hot chocolates please, as we're a bit chilly afternoons, cold soggy morning at Ferry Meadows parkrun in Peterborough UK some bloke called Paul insisted on joining our group for the photo anyone know who he is and there was a photo of seven people between the parkrun flags with the pop-up and a bloke that people seem to recognise something to do with setting up parkrun or something yeah not sure who that was but I've seen him somewhere I reckon I've seen him in a book or something getting some board sometime who knows

00:46:30Tony O'Connell: He's a regular, apparently, around the parkruns. Just a reminder, Simon, when people are putting photos into Dazza's, we'd really love more photos in landscape, not portrait format, please. Make them wider. It just looks a lot better. Now, Simon...

the Obi Award — Janet Reid

00:46:49Tony O'Connell: Out of all those people that we have up there that have written in, and there were quite a few more, obviously there's a couple of hundred more that we didn't read out.

00:46:59Simon Mackley: Yeah.

00:46:59Tony O'Connell: Do we have an Obi out of any of that group?

00:47:02Simon Mackley: We do. And let me open the Obi for the last time this year. And here we go. And the Obi goes to... Janet Llewellyn-Reed.

00:47:15Tony O'Connell: Well done, Janet. That was an awesome photo of you and Jeff all dolled up in your blue, glittery blue too. Righty-o.

Emails

00:47:22Tony O'Connell: Simon, moving along. Emails. Now, I explained last time that I'm an old bloke and I love my email. All the youngsters are getting kicked off their social media this week, but they can still do email. They can't. I wonder if any of them know how to email. They're probably not in the current thing. But emails for this week. We had nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero. Come on, listeners. Lift your game.

00:47:50Simon Mackley: I need something to read out. Exactly. Who knows? There might have been some emails that came in late today. I haven't checked them, to be honest. So, yeah, maybe there has been. So, TOC, it's time to reflect on your highlights or achievements for 2025. So, I've already done mine earlier with Sarah. So I want to know what are yours for 2025?

00:48:10Tony O'Connell: Look, Simon, we know parkruns are full of highlights. Some of them are the standout highlights. Some of them are those little Saturday, you know, sitting down with a couple of mates that I haven't caught up with for probably a year or two. And spend two and a half hours in a cafe just chatting and catching up. Those sort of things are a big part of my highlight for the year. But if I had to pick a couple of big ones, I'd say Palm in Queenstown was pretty epic. Driving back into Queenstown after a week and having the snow on the mountains around the outside and all that. It was epic. And my other one was launching another parkrun. I love my launches. I love getting a community to the point. The one I did this year was at Eildon Pondage. Eildon really struggled to get a course approved. There were a lot of things going against it. And the community got out and made adjustments to a path. I don't know. Someone turned up with a bobcat. Someone turned up with a truckload of stones. No one knows who did it. No one knows how it happened. The council got a new asset. They're pretty happy with it too. No one knows. It just happened. And small communities do that. They pull together. They wanted to see it there. And they got it done. And I really love it. Look, they're a small parkrun. They don't get a massive number of people every week, but they just keep turning up and enjoying themselves and putting the event on. So I think that's probably one of my highlights for the year, just seeing that event just tick over every week. They're enjoying it. As an ambassador, they don't chase me up a lot. They just tick. They've got it worked out. Yep. You know, they've got someone in there that's good on computers. They've got someone good on social media. So they just do all that stuff between the group. And I love it. My achievement of the year was probably getting my V250. That was a bit of an achievement. Pretty tickled with that. And just today, I've hit another milestone. I've done my 2,000th consecutive not parkrun today. Fantastic. I'm pretty pumped with that. There's two people in the world that have actually done more notties than I have. I happen to be in hospital for the first three days of the notties and couldn't get out. There's a bloke in South Africa and one in Germany. I think that there are one or two events there in front of me.

00:48:45[crosstalk]

00:50:31Simon Mackley: Oh, there are only one or two?

00:50:33Tony O'Connell: Yeah. Oh, gosh. So every day for the last 2,000 days, I've got out and done a 5K. It's been a walk, a run. Yeah, it doesn't have to be fast. Doesn't have to be pretty. Just got out and got it done. And that's been my big achievement.

00:50:49Simon Mackley: Wow, because you were on crutches for part of this year. I know that. So that must have been quite hard to get out there. Like not obviously to push yourself because you've got the.

00:50:57Tony O'Connell: mental tenacity to do it but yeah that must have been hard physically yeah look I got through a couple of good parkruns too on the crutches I was on crutches for about eight weeks I remember walking with Claire Corkill up in Canberra at a parkrun and then we did one at Pambula and they've got a web type surface underneath a plastic honeycomb web and the crutch tip goes into that web perfectly and locks in so that was that was an entertaining parkrun that one wow so no look it's been a great thing we love getting out and having our walks around or our runs around and it's it's done what I think it set out to achieve it's got certainly got me out and active and at Inverloch I think we still have eight or ten people each week that log a (not)parkrun so yeah you know it's still ticking a few things over there

00:51:45Simon Mackley: Yeah, like I've noticed the numbers like really starting to fall off in Australia and worldwide when you get that email every week. So I think there was only 72 last week from what I remember.

00:51:55Tony O'Connell: Yeah, numbers have definitely dropped. I'm going to have to have a push in the new year. It might be a subject of an episode. You know, we have a push and try to get a lot more people because I don't want to see them disappear. I'm worried they're going to reach a number where they just won't be getting enough people to justify putting it on each week. Yeah. I think worldwide the numbers are just under 1,000. They were quite a bit more. Australia has dropped down to about 70 or 80. Yeah, come on, people. Log your notties. Just one a week. Keep me entertained.

00:52:24Simon Mackley: Yeah, I'm actually on a streak. Like, I haven't broken my streak. I've done one a week since they started. At least one a week. But, yeah, like, I'm not every day 2,000, you know, days in a row. Like, I'm not that obsessive like you are, Toc. But, you know, I'm still on the street.

00:52:39[crosstalk]

00:52:40Tony O'Connell: I'm not obsessive. I've just got to get it done. Call it what you like.

Club Corner

00:52:45Tony O'Connell: Right, yeah, so having enough of that, I think it's time that we hear from Reginald. Thank you.

00:52:54Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: Ho ho ho oh no, this is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III, with a Cooee-ee in Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. This week is my wrap-up of 2025 and let us talk about what we learned, or at least listened to this year, before we launch into this year's Bon Bon Jokes. We started the year with a retrospective of our first two years of podcast insertion, and this third year has been similarly busy. We completed the volunteer series, finishing up with Pacer, Marshall, All Things Finish Token Related, Funnel Manager and Number Checker, Barcode Scanning and Token Sorting, Results Processor and Report Writer, Post Event Close Down, Equipment Storage and Delivery, and finally, Other and Unregistered Volunteers. Phew, there are loads of ways to get involved with your local event. In between some of those we started our Who Am I? series, which so far have been Balyang Sanctuary in Victoria, Queenstown in NZ, New Farm in Queensland, Claisebrook Cove in WA, and Newy, New South Wales. If you have noticed anything about these, maybe you can be first to the punch next time around. And finally this year saw the start of our parkrun country profiles. And this will conclude in 2026 with the last half dozen or so countries remaining. I have enjoyed Simon's occasional travel facts, so here is hoping to hear more of that also. Oh to have all the monies and be able to tootle around. Please let one know if you have a topic yearning for coverage, whether it be short or long, boring or interesting. I do know someone who loves to spout on about parkrun smileface. Now to bring a smile to your ears, here are this year's bonbon efforts. What is the difference between a camera and a foot? A camera has photos, while a foot has five toes. Why are the pyramids in Egypt? Because they were too heavy to carry off to the British Museum. And we're back from Reginald for his Christmas message. So it was a short one from Reginald this time.

00:54:53[23 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:55:16Simon Mackley: the requisite bonbon jokes, and one being a little controversial. Don't know if you caught that little controversial one there, TOC. But I'm looking forward to hearing about those last few countries to launch. For me, I'm absolutely itching to hear about Lithuania, which has grown its parkrun footprint 300% in the last couple of weeks.

00:55:39Tony O'Connell: And a bit of news that I heard on the weekend, Simon, was it's going to grow from three events to six events early in the new year as well. So Lithuania is certainly a country that's on the improve, on the up and up.

00:55:52Simon Mackley: That's amazing. Yeah, because when you think about when you bring on a new country that doesn't speak the same language as another country, it adds a little bit more pressure to parkrun to be able to translate everything and that sort of thing. So, yeah, it's awesome that. country that is not very well known around the world. Another big commitment for parkrun to get into too as you said it's a translation it's it's the extra production of all the materials and all that sort of thing as well so yeah it's great to see though yeah it is because yeah like you can add you know obviously in Germany they speak german in Austria they speak german but switzerland we don't have yet so we could have yeah switzerland could be an easy one for next One of the newer ones.

00:56:35Tony O'Connell: Simon, I am dreaming of Switzerland or Brussels launching the first half of next year. I would jump backwards for that. I'd jump forwards. I'd jump any direction for that.

00:56:48Simon Mackley: Yeah, that would be amazing. Either of those two countries. I know there's been talk of other countries, but I'm not sure that is actually going to happen now. So let's wait and see.

00:56:57Tony O'Connell: Stay tuned.

Consolidated Club Report

00:56:58Simon Mackley: Exactly. Okay, so let's head on over to the adventurers Consolidated Club report for Saturday the 6th of December. Of a total of 852 members, 600 exactly, took part on this date in 10 countries across 304 locations. Locally, there were adventurers at 58 events in Queensland, 51 events in New South Wales, 45 events in Victoria, 20 in Western Australia, the... South Australia had 18 events, Tasmania had 9, the ACT had 7, the North Island had 6, South Island just had 1, and there was none in the Northern Territory. Internationally, there were adventurers at 71 events in the UK, 10 events in South Africa, 2 events in both Germany and the USA, and one each in the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, and Sweden.

the Frond

00:57:51Tony O'Connell: Rightio, Simon. Our international frond for the last two weeks. On the 29th of November, there was a frond of six at Roosevelt Island in D.C., in USA. That was Ellie Sopper, Christopher Miles, Andy Airey, xavier sanchez Rhiannon Taylor and David Mundy on the 6th of December Queenswood Country Park in the UK had a frond of the numbers not written there for me that's true one two three four five six again that was Debbie and Andy Airey James Averly Ellie Soper Christopher miles and the edge Rutter and we had an interesting comment coming on the last episode release Xavier was mentioned on the 29th the 11th at the Roosevelt Island one Xavier Sanchez put for a long time I thought Tracy surname was no to to I assumed that she had an African connection

00:58:51Simon Mackley: pretty fair to say because we don't actually say what her surname is most of the time so yes it's Tracey in a Tutu because Tracy's quite often in a tutu at parkrun that is correct and then pilgrimages so on the 29th of November we had no one but on the 6th of December we had Danny Norman Not his first time, and I'm sure it won't be his last either.

00:59:16Tony O'Connell: Righto, Simon. The largest Aussie frond. On the 29th to the 11th, we had a frond of eight at one event, and that was Coolum Eco in Queensland. They were Chris Hood, Delise Schoolding, Eric Hubbard, Irene and Parth by McCanty, Janet and Dave Tozer and Michaela Rees on the 6th of December we had a front debate at three events there was de Souza in Australia was David Johnson Melissa Rallis go Mel Joanna McCarthy I ran a path by McCanty Dawn Branton, Vicki Hellam and Marg Press. And I see Irene and Parth were at the Fron two weeks in a row. We also had Fronds of Eight at Umbagong District, which is up in the ACT. That was Bill and Yvette Turner, Ian Brown, Malcolm Peaty, Jack and Claire Corkill, Moira Byrne, Rebecca Gordon. And we also had a frond at Woden Town, which is also in the ACT. So it's interesting, there were two large fronts in the ACT last week. Ian Shaw, Nicole Clark, Nick Graney, William Barlow, Anthony N. Gay-Powell, Peter Thomson and Lynn Black.

01:00:22Simon Mackley: It's funny you say that, that Parth and Irene were at... two in a row because we also had Ellie Soper, Christopher Miles, Andy Airey at two this past two weeks as well.

01:00:33Tony O'Connell: And they did theirs in separate countries. Parth and Irene were in separate states.

01:00:38Simon Mackley: Yes, they were. Indeed, they were. They're two home states, I'm guessing. I'm not sure whether they've moved back to Victoria.

01:00:43[crosstalk]

01:00:44Tony O'Connell: They're back in the greater state. So they're still in Queensland. Yeah, no, they've moved back to the greater state.

01:00:48Simon Mackley: That's what I said, yeah. Okay, remember adventurers, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile and please reach out to us if you don't know how to do it we are very very happy to help with that we never got around to chasing up the avocado lady Simon seeing if any of the avocado ladies did sign up I am actually going to do that because I know one of the avocado ladies because they are from Brisbane Valley Rail Trail Blackbutt and that was one that I set up with them two years ago. So I'm going to reach out to them and chase that up. So when we come back from the break, hopefully we have eight new people.

01:01:26Tony O'Connell: Extra members.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:01:27Tony O'Connell: Rightio, Simon. parkrun has been exceptionally busy with launches. The launches are going crazy, as we explained last time. On the 29th of November, there were 11 launches, including a Super Sad Day in the UK where they held seven different launches across the UK. That's an amazing number of launches. And that's probably just trying to, I guess, split the tourist crowd a little bit, I'm guessing, try to have them go to all different places. But I'm not sure it works, Simon, because our first one that we're going to talk about is Greenwich Peninsula parkrun. It's in just sort of slightly east of central London, but in that London, Greater London area, opposite Victoria Dock. So it's the opposite side of the river to Victoria Dock parkrun. They had a whopping 925 finishers, 64 volunteers. They ran out of finish tokens, as you would think. And I'm not sure about Reece. Maybe you should have expected that something in central London was going to attract a big crowd. Particularly when this one was so widely promoted by one person in particular who's been mentioned in numerous formats. But he advertised it and advertised it. And so every man his dog knew about it. Maybe a bit of preparation with the tokens there, but it's UK's biggest ever launch. And there might be a few lessons learned out of it, I'm guessing. I'm hoping so.

01:02:51Simon Mackley: Next we jump to Germany. So Illerufer parkrun in Kempten. It's an out and back in Kempton. It had 53 finishes and 14 volunteers. But we're going to hear a little bit of audio from Sarah, who's going to give us some info on that.

01:03:00[background music]

01:03:10Sarah: And here is the route description of the Iller river parkrun in Kempten, Germany. 2.5 km are run along the Iller. Then the route is run back again. The route consists mainly of gravel with a little sand.

01:03:27Tony O'Connell: Rightio, our next parkrun that we're going to hear about is Kirkharle Courtyard parkrun. It's in the UK. It is way up north in the UK. So if it was any further north in the England region, it'd be in Scotland. It's got the highest finisher to volunteer ratio I've seen with 51 finishers and 31 volunteers. So 60% of the people that were at parkrun volunteered. Week two had 73 finishers and 28 volunteers. So a bit of a concern there, Simon. Their volunteer numbers dropped from 31 to 28. That's a big drop off.

01:04:01Simon Mackley: Okay, so the next one we've got is much closer to home. It was Lake Dunstan parkrun in New Zealand. It's west of Queenstown, had 143 finishers with 11 volunteers and 23 first-timers.

01:04:16Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, I'm going to try to wrap my tongue around this one because it's a Welsh one, and I thought this one had been stuck down to your name, Simon. Someone's jumbled the order up here. It's Parc Dewi Sant parkrun. It's in the Welsh town of Carmarthen. They had 76 finishers and 21 volunteers. [Welsh: "St David's Park — translated on air by Ali, 'St David being the patron saint of Wales'."]

01:04:36Simon Mackley: I think you've absolutely nailed that, Toc. I think you've You've got that one perfect. I'm not going to repeat it. I'm not going to actually say the proper name of this Lithuanian one, but what I'm going to do is, like you did last time, do the translation. So Lithuania's third event, which is what I was alluding to earlier, is called Dane's Cycle Path in the town of Klaipėda, and they had 54 finishers and 12 volunteers. Now... A little bit of a peek behind the curtain here. I thought I was absolutely stitched up here because I thought, okay, it's a cycle path in a place called Klaipėda. I thought somebody's written like cyclopedia, but it is actually in the town of Klopida in Lithuania. So moving on.

01:05:15Tony O'Connell: No stitch up, Simon. We get the difficult ones equally. It's just some of us are more equal than others. Right here, I've got the real difficult one. Next one. Perton Playing Fields parkrun. Oh, struggle with that one. It's in the Birmingham area in UK. They had 138 finishers and 36 volunteers.

01:05:34Simon Mackley: Moving on to Queenswood Country Park, parkrun, which is north of Hereford in the UK. And they had 128 finishers, 25 volunteers. No first timers.

01:05:45Tony O'Connell: St Matthew's Field parkrun, also in the UK. As we said, there were seven launches in the UK. It's in Bridgewater. About 122 finishers and 29 volunteers.

01:05:55Simon Mackley: And moving on to the US, there was a launch in Sunset Dunes parkrun. So parkrun is returning to San Francisco. 195 finishers with 19 volunteers and 50 first timers for the launch. Week two was unexpectedly paused. We don't know why that is. But the parkrun course is along a promenade that was once a highway, but it was converted to a park during the spicy cough.

01:06:21Tony O'Connell: Righty. Oh, someone has been into these show notes. Right now, I'm just going to say the first bit of this because we have some assistance coming up fairly shortly. I'm going to say it's Y Promenade parkrun. Andrew Hollow. Y Ross parkrun. It's in the north of Wales, so it's another Welsh parkrun, and I've copped another one. It's a big launch. They had 502 finishers and 31 volunteers. Of these, 16 did their first parkrun ever. So now that I've had a fair crack at butchering a few of those names, let's hear from another one of our regulars, Ali, and she can give us the correct pronunciations. Over to you, Ali.

01:07:07Ali Sheppard: I thought I'd do a little recording to help potentially with some of the pronunciations for some of the new parkruns that have started in the last couple of weeks. I can't help with the Japanese or Lithuanian ones, I'm sorry. But I can with some of the others. So to start off, the new one in Germany is called Ille Ufer. Ille Ufer. It's two words put together. The word Ufer means the bank of a river and Ille is the name of the river. So Ille Ufer is the bank of the river Ille. It's a little bit like Neckar Ufer, which is another parkrun in Germany, which is the bank of the River Neckar. And you don't pronounce the R. So it's Iller Rufa, not Iller Rufa, but Iller Ufa. On to the Wales ones. Wales, which is quite difficult for a lot of people to pronounce because a lot of words start with double L, which you have to put your tongue behind your top teeth and then sort of blow air out of the sides in order to make that LL sound, which is like LL, LL. So you've got Llanfoist Crossing, Llanfoist Crossing. Then you've got Parc Dewi Sant, Parc Dewi Sant, which just means St. David's Park. St. David being the patron saint of Wales. Then you've got a promenade, parkrun, a promenade, parkrun. This is the third promenade, parkrun in Wales that started up recently. And a promenade just means the promenade along the side of the sea. And then the final Welsh one is Llandrilo an Ros. Llandrilo an Ros. And then the English ones, I think, are all fine, except I just thought I'd warn you that it's Greenwich Peninsula. Greenwich Peninsula, not Greenwich Peninsula. And I am reliably informed that the one in the northeast, which I didn't know how to pronounce, is Kirkcal. Kirkcal Courtyard. Forgive me if I've got that wrong. [German: "Illerufer = 'bank of the river Iller'. Ali gives the translation herself, and compares it to Neckarufer, 'the bank of the river Neckar'."] [Welsh: "The Promenade — 'the promenade along the side of the sea', as Ali explains; the third Welsh promenade parkrun."] [Welsh: "The Welsh name for Rhos-on-Sea in Conwy, north Wales; literally the church-site of Trillo in Rhos."] [translation uncertain]

01:09:08Sarah Jefferson: So that's it. Bye.

01:09:10Simon Mackley: On the 6th of December, there was a lot less launches. We had just three. So the first one from that group of three is West Coast Fossil Park parkrun in South Africa. It's on the West Coast, as it's named. It had 188 finishers, 14 volunteers, and the course description mentions flamingos.

01:09:32Tony O'Connell: Yeah, very interesting that it mentions to look out for them as you're running around a couple of particular points. So we had one in the UK. It was ARU Writtle parkrun. That's in the Chelmsford area. They had 209 finishers and no first-timers or unknowns. So it suggests a lot of regular parkruns attending. Yeah, it does. So there must be a few parkruns around that area.

01:09:57Simon Mackley: And the last one is back in South Africa again, and it is called Moorreesburg Golf Club parkrun. It's just east of the West Coast launch. 275 finishers, 96 first-timers, so that's a good turnout for first-timers, and 40 unknowns with 25 volunteers.

01:10:16Tony O'Connell: I found that one a little bit interesting, Simon. Those two, West Coast and Moorreesburg, are actually almost side-by-side. They're separated by a little bit of distance, but they're probably the two closest parkruns to each other, and they've launched at the same time. And between them, they had nearly 500, parkrunners.

01:10:33Simon Mackley: It shouldn't be a surprise with South Africa. We know that they do get a lot of people along there. Obviously, they have a big contingent of walkers. Did you have a look at sort of the spread of times?

01:10:45Tony O'Connell: No, I didn't do the deep dive peek behind the curtain with 11 launches the first week.

01:10:50Simon Mackley: It took a long time to look up all those numbers. Yeah, of course. And thank you for doing that, Tom, because I know that you did that. I put them in there, but I meant to go back and actually fill in the data there.

01:11:02Tony O'Connell: One of the things I find interesting too, Simon, with our launches, you look at the number of finishers versus volunteers. And it'd be fair to say that a lot of the UK events have a much higher percentage of volunteers to finishers. Typically, if they're up around 150 finishers, they might have 25 volunteers. Yeah. Whereas you look at the ones probably more locally, and I think we had the one in New Zealand, 143 finishers and 11 volunteers. So I'm not sure whether they're marshalling a lot more or whether they're putting a lot of people on pre-event set up and post-event pack down. But yeah, their numbers generally are quite a bit higher.

01:11:48Simon Mackley: Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I think they're probably more prepared. Yeah, they probably do have a lot of marshals who could then turn out to be a Barcode Scanner or that sort of thing.

01:11:56Tony O'Connell: So yeah, it's... I've also noticed that number is fairly stationary too, that if they have 200 finishes, they have 25 or 30 volunteers. And if they have 500 finishes, they still have 25 or 30s.

01:11:59[crosstalk]

01:12:07Simon Mackley: Earlier in the pod, Sarah and I pulled out the bonbon jokes and we're hoping that you have one too.

01:12:14Tony O'Connell: I do. Being Christmas, of course, we've got to be prepared for our rather humorous and well thought out jokes. And I'm going to run with, why did the runner take a pencil to the start line? I don't know.

01:12:27Simon Mackley: Why did the runner need to take a pencil to the start line?

01:12:32Tony O'Connell: It's in case they need to draw on their reserves later. Oh, very apt.

01:12:37Simon Mackley: Simon, how about you? Have you got another one for us? I do have another one. I am prepared. Why did the runner take a ladder to parkrun?

01:12:45Tony O'Connell: I've got no idea, but that sounds awkward. Why did the runner take a ladder to parkrun?

01:12:50Simon Mackley: Well, their coach wanted them to take their fitness to a new level.

Sign-off

01:12:57Tony O'Connell: Very good. Righty-ay. Simon, we're getting to that end of the show, that point of the show. Next parkrun day. I don't know about you. I'm probably just going to hang around local again. It won't be Inverloch. It'll be somewhere a little bit different. I've got to get out of the... at some stage yeah but this time of the year it's there's so many Christmas parties there's so many things to do there's yeah my life-saving commitments with requalificate there's just so much happening it'll be somewhere close to home how about you I think that I am going my long way to trip to patina island so let's see if that actually comes off but uh yes I am planning that this week oh so you'll be one of the ones counting the numbers

01:13:42Simon Mackley: Ah, yes, I will be very much so.

01:13:45Tony O'Connell: Simon, I think it would be remiss of us if we didn't thank Mel for all she's done during the year. Mel's just been caught up with a whole heap of other things. It is that time of the year where you double book yourself and triple book yourself and then try to work out how you're going to get to different things with the seasonal rush. So thank you, Mel. I have loved chatting to you every couple of weeks through the years. It's always a great catch up.

01:14:08Simon Mackley: Yeah, like I want to thank Mel as well. Like it's been, yeah, I mean, she has done the editing for most of the year and we have to give a shout out to Dave as well, who's been editing for the last couple of shows also. But yeah, like I love listening to you and Mel, the dynamics every second, sorry, every month, I guess it is. So every second pod.

01:14:26Tony O'Connell: And I think Simon, we need to give a big shout out to the whole team behind the pod. You hear our voices, but it's the people like the Office Lady, it's the equal opportunity employee. So Sam and David, we've got someone in the background that does a lot of our stats for us. We've got our regulars. We've got Reginald, who is a cyber personality somewhere. There's a whole heap of people that get behind the pod to make our lives a little bit easier. I love doing the pod and I love it even more when it's a team effort because we do bounce a lot of stuff between us. Yeah, and our rating reporters as well.

01:15:03Simon Mackley: We're remiss not to... to mention them as well, because they give us some pretty good content during the year.

01:15:09Tony O'Connell: They do. And yeah, they're the ones out and about there. And I love hearing the different voices, the different experiences, and just knowing that parkrun globally is same but different no matter where you go. You know, it's based around the same thing, but everyone's got that little unique experience. And that's what I think we get from the roving reporters is that little bit of a variation of variety.

01:15:33Simon Mackley: Yeah, and we'd love to hear new people as well. Like, just get out your phone, do the voice memos. Like, yeah, we'd love to hear some new voices. We love our old voices as well. But just saying that it's nice to hear from other parts of the world. Like, it'd be great if we had some European or some US, South African, you know, like. Yeah, we'd love to hear some more thoughts from all over the world.

01:15:54Tony O'Connell: And some emails. Oh, emails for sure, yeah. That would help. Get the old bloke happy. Righto, Simon, I think it's time for us to wrap up. There's no pod now until after the 12th of January, so we're having a couple of weeks off. That should be around then, so it'll be later that week. There should be a new episode out. Have a very safe and happy Christmas, everyone, filled with safe parkrun adventuring. And until next year, take care.

01:15:55[crosstalk]

01:16:17Simon Mackley: As always, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook and our email, as we've been mentioning, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another episode. We'll see you all in a month's time for more adventures. Merry Christmas.

01:16:33Tony O'Connell: Merry Christmas.