Episode 447 - You raise me up

Episode details · 220 speaker turns · sound cues from audio analysis

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

00:00:23Sarah Jefferson: Welcome to episode 447 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.

00:00:35Simon Mackley: And I'm Simon Mackley, joining again from Quandamooka Yarrabindra or Quandamooka Sea Country.

00:00:41Sarah Jefferson: Hey Simon, how are you going?

00:00:43Simon Mackley: I'm going well, Sarah. How are you?

00:00:45Sarah Jefferson: I'm going really well. Are you full of chocolate? It's Easter Monday that we're recording here tonight.

00:00:52Simon Mackley: I can't say I'm full of chocolate. Yeah, we have had some chocolate here, but I won't say I'm full of chocolate, that's for sure. What about you?

00:01:00Sarah Jefferson: Can you hear this, Simon?

00:01:03Simon Mackley: Oh, yes. Yes, I can. That is foil from an Easter egg.

00:01:07Sarah Jefferson: I have been munching on my Haigh's Easter eggs while we were chatting earlier and getting set up. So I'm not completely for where I feel sick. There's something about chocolate Easter eggs, right? They definitely taste different to regular chocolate. They definitely do. Like I'm sure it's the same, but it just tastes way better, I think.

00:01:29Simon Mackley: Especially when you're having Hague's from Adelaide. Oh, true.

00:01:34Sarah Jefferson: Yeah. Well, I didn't really get that many chocolates, but I did make sure that while I was there, I did buy a few sneaky, good quality eggs. As it turns out, with the price of chocolate in the supermarkets, I don't even think that Hague's chocolate was that much more expensive than supermarket chocolate like this Easter.

00:01:54Simon Mackley: I don't know. I thought Hague's was pretty expensive.

00:01:57Sarah Jefferson: Oh, it's pretty pricey, but some of these link bunnies are, like, well over $10, which, you know, they're mass-produced. Hague's, you know, it's a smaller, you know, Australian-based company.

00:02:10Simon Mackley: Handmade, yeah.

00:02:13Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, handmade. I wasn't going to go that far because we did go to the factory when we were there, actually, and we did see conveyor belts, but, you know, that's right.

00:02:20Simon Mackley: We didn't see anything working.

00:02:23Sarah Jefferson: I'm sure there are people on the floor there. Anyway, so Simon, we have actually since the last recording when we were sitting in our, you know, office chairs, we have actually seen each other at Palm, which was so lovely.

00:02:38Simon Mackley: We have indeed, yes.

00:02:40Sarah Jefferson: A beautiful area in the Clare Valley. I know for me I left much to explore another time. Yeah, what about you?

00:02:48Simon Mackley: Yeah, me too. Like I didn't hit any of the wineries. I didn't partake in any of that sort of thing. You didn't get to one? I didn't even get to one, no. I have bought some Clare Valley Riesling and I got, must have been a Pinot, I think it was. Yeah, so I do have two things from the trip, but neither have been opened yet. Yeah. But, yeah, we had a great time, Jackson and I had an awesome time in Clear Valley, especially seeing you guys. We didn't partake in every walk or run or that sort of thing, but definitely filled our cups. And it was really, really nice to put names to faces or faces to names. But I am absolutely kicking myself for not getting around the room more and talking to people. So, yeah.

00:03:36Sarah Jefferson: It is tricky. I mean, there's a lot of people there, which is great. But as you said, you kind of often leave and you feel like, oh, I didn't get to speak to this person.

00:03:46Simon Mackley: Yeah, exactly.

00:03:47Sarah Jefferson: Did you say that you did buy some Hague's eggs when you were visiting the factory, though? Yeah.

00:03:52Simon Mackley: We bought some of, like, the little eggs, the solid little eggs, but they lasted just three days after we got back. And the, what were they, the mint, what were they called, mint fingers, mint something? Mint fingers. I can't think of what they're called, that we bought for Carolyn. Didn't actually get opened until today. That's impressive. Yeah, well, Carolyn's been away and we did buy them for her. And then when she opened, I was very happy to have one.

00:04:23Sarah Jefferson: Oh, that's kind of her to share.

00:04:25Simon Mackley: Yes, exactly. Things that we'd eaten the other ones.

00:04:28Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, I was going to say, did you share your mini eggs with her?

00:04:30Simon Mackley: She had the offer of one, I think. Sorry, she had the offer of some. She ended up having one. Jackson ate most of them. I might have got two or three, but... I mean, there weren't a lot in there anyway.

00:04:41Sarah Jefferson: No, they were a pretty small packet, weren't they?

00:04:45Simon Mackley: They were. Anyway, we're a parkrun podcast, so let's keep going.

00:04:48Sarah Jefferson: We are. Simon, sorry to have one more thing to add in. Yeah, sure. Before we move on from talking about Adelaide, things like chocolate and palm, I did forget to mention that while we were waiting to catch our flight back to Perth, we do get in the lounge because Matt travels quite a lot. Yes. And there were some people sitting next to us and, like, we both had no idea, but we knew that they were – you know, some kind of fancy people or whatever. There's about five of them and the staff were fussing over them and making sure they had a space that was quite far away from everyone because we have a child who now walks and runs everywhere. We were also sitting away from everyone. And it took us a while, but we did figure out, so it was the people sitting near us, it was actually Josh Groban.

00:05:33Simon Mackley: The popera guy, the guy that sings ballads, yeah?

00:05:36Sarah Jefferson: Yes, yes. So I actually had no idea. And when I found out who it was, as you do these days, you Google the person. So an American singer, songwriter, actor, sold over 250 million records worldwide. So, you know, quite a big deal. Did a deep dive. He stood in for Andrea Bocelli. He's done a duet with Celine Dion. He's even been on Ally McBeal. And his most famous song being You Raise Me Up. We actually played that at my pop's funeral a few years ago, but I found this out after the fact. But anyway, that was really lovely. They were in Australia doing as part of his world tour. His partner, Natalie McQueen, was there. So she's an actress and she was actually talking to us about our daughter and how she reminded her of her niece who is now a teenager and is not friendly and basically say no more teenager, right? But that was so lovely. That was pretty exciting on the way back. Yeah, from Adelaide.

00:06:42Simon Mackley: Yeah, I think he sang, like I know this is a bit controversial, but I think him and Andrea Bocelli sang at Charlie Kirk's funeral.

00:06:50Sarah Jefferson: Oh, okay.

00:06:51[crosstalk]

00:06:53Simon Mackley: Yeah, so more recently. I can't think what they sang, but I know they sang a duet at the funeral, so... Yeah, right. I wouldn't have known who he was either, but when you say the name, I know exactly who you're talking about.

00:07:05Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, we were trying to eavesdrop and we heard like, we're trying to get little hints and he's like, oh, did anyone see someone proposing at the gig last night? I was like, oh my gosh, like Googling all these things. Like who just played in Adelaide last night? Yeah, it wasn't Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran was around that time, but anyway, it wasn't Ed Sheeran. That would have been cool. That was an exciting way to end our Palm weekend.

00:07:27Simon Mackley: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Alrighty, we might go to some feedback from last episode. So we obviously had the founder of parkrun Australia on the podcast. TOC had an interview with Tim Oberg and it was very interesting to hear what Tim had to say and what he's been up to and that sort of thing. I hadn't actually realised that Tim was teaching as well. So that was new for me. I know that he has a lot of kids and that he's had I must have, I think, four now, but it was good to hear from Tim. What did you think?

00:08:02Sarah Jefferson: Yes, I really enjoyed hearing what Tim was up to post parkrun. And I know, Simon, that I've heard from lots of people that, yeah, we have received quite a lot of positive feedback about this interview. I loved hearing about the RAD running program, Resilience, Attitude and Determination is what the acronym stands for. And I think anything to do with getting the youth of today involved you know, physically active. And I think, you know, tying in all of these things like, you know, resilience and determination, they're not things that I feel like a lot of kids have these days. So hopefully starting them young through physical activity and, you know, instilling that you know, as part of, you know, some healthy routines. I thought that was really good and I love that it's free and accessible basically to all schools around the country. Having initiated run clubs in schools myself and, you know, working with colleagues, I know that recording of, you know, running laps and all those things can be quite tricky. So I did have a little look and, you know, once kids are registered, getting that QR code and then just having someone there scanning that QR code when they're doing their laps, you know, it makes it really easy for teachers. So hopefully, you know, it does keep growing. Great to hear South Australia is growing fast. Hopefully that continues to pick up around the country and a lot more schools jump on board. And just like it did with parkrun when he brought that to Australia, I have no doubt that that program will just really take off.

00:09:39Simon Mackley: Yeah, I love that it was in Africa as well, like that he's exactly been able to get it installed there. I know that Tim's wife is South African as well, so that might have had something to do with that focus. Yeah. And obviously, he'll be really good friends with the country managers of South Africa. Yeah.

00:09:59Sarah Jefferson: No, it was great to hear.

00:10:01Simon Mackley: Yeah, awesome.

00:10:02Sarah Jefferson: All right. Simon. Simon. Where have you been since we last spoke? It has been a month now, if I'm right.

00:10:10Simon Mackley: It has been about a month, yes. So I have actually embraced the whole parkrun adventuring thing and have actually been to a few different places. Stop it. I know. But I must say, the first weekend back, I knew that I was going to be at Calamvale, which is one of my events, with a few of my ambassador colleagues. So, yeah, we caught up there and had a bit of a chat and, very, very busy parkrun. But yeah, it was really good to kind of calumvile. Then the next weekend I stayed very local and I achieved my P9 at Logan River. It was an absolute beautiful morning there. I think the temperature was pretty good. Then two weekends ago I went to Gatton, which was an hour and a half drive from home. And I knocked off a new event. But I got so much more than just a new event. I ran into friends and pod listeners, Lockie and Nicola, who we saw in Clare Valley. They hadn't actually been to their local Gatton in 13 weeks, so I was extremely lucky to have caught them because I didn't tell them I was coming. Another listener, Gemma, was taking photos as well, so it was really nice to see her again. I hadn't seen her since Jeanne parkrun a couple of months ago. Um, but I've got to say, I'm so used to city and surrounds parkruns that I forget about the hospitality and people in our regional areas. Um, I cannot tell you how many times someone said hi or welcome to me, um, when I was even walking to the start, realising that I wasn't a local at Gatton. It was a very welcoming parkrun and I would highly recommend it to anyone who's in the area. So it's, it's probably half an hour from Toowoomba, um, heading sort of west from Brisbane. So I know we've talked about it in the past, our pet peeve of people talking through a run brief. But Gatton has quite a unique problem with noise. It runs around a lake and at one end of the lake, the closest one to us, there were hundreds of corellas in the tree and making so much noise that it was hard to hear everything the run director was saying. But we got there. And for those of you who don't know what a corella is, it's a type of white cockatoo. It's got a short white crest, so not like the yellow we're used to. Pale bill and eyes that look like they're washed out. So it looks like, yeah, cockatoo light, really. They're really noisy, often destructive and can be considered a pest by our farmers as they damage crops and chew through infrastructure. Not as bad as the keas in New Zealand, but that sort of thing. But, yeah, like it was an interesting thing because the Corellas were so loud and you could hear them all over the course, that sort of thing. Then last Saturday I got to watch the numbers at Petunia Island parkrun in person. So I made the trip up to the Sunshine Coast. I had run the course late last year when we were staying in Bokarina, which is the next suburb over, although on the Saturday I went to Nambour instead. The course at Petunia is an out and back to make up one and a half k's before then completing a circumnavigation of the island for three and a half k's and finishing where you start. It was a little disconcerting though to see that the high tide was coming over the sandstone wall and encroaching on the course near the start. Although the locals didn't seem to share my worry and as soon as we got past the the start-finish area, like it definitely wasn't coming across the path. But, yeah, a little disconcerting.

00:14:02Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, well, Simon, adventuring. Exactly. A few times.

00:14:07Simon Mackley: This could catch on.

00:14:08Sarah Jefferson: Yes, yes. You've finally caught up with the parkrun adventurers. Congratulations on your P Index of 9. I know you've been working on that for a little while, haven't you, chipping away? Slowly. I have. And yeah, how lovely to see Lockie and Nicola again as well. Exactly.

00:14:31Simon Mackley: Yeah, that was really nice to bump into them. Yeah. So what about you, Sarah? Where have you been?

00:14:37Sarah Jefferson: So I have completed three out of four parkruns in the past month. So after returning from the Clear Valley, I headed home to Cottesloe the week after. This course we have approximately about one kilometre on the beach and So when I'm going to be talking about PBs, I actually have a PB for all other courses and I have a Cottesloe PB. So I actually got my post-baby parkrun PB at Cotter Slow on the day, which was pretty exciting. In fact, Simon, I actually ran, which I didn't realise at the time, I actually ran my fastest time since being pregnant, so over two years, actually at Palm. which was pretty good to see. The following week, Matt was away with his army commitment, so I headed to Sir James Mitchell parkrun in South Perth to catch up with Iman and Christine Vergara, who were visiting from Queensland, as well as Chloe Bravos. Now, the following week, we've all heard of Narelle, right? The cyclone that recently hit the west coast of Australia. So on the 28th of March, we had approximately one third of our events in the state cancelled, including quite a few in the metro area. So I made the call to head to the gym for a killer session instead. It was raining, you know, not super hot. heavy but you know it was raining um and I'm actually quite enjoying um incorporating some strength training into my week at the moment so it's a really social session still got my exercise and got my endorphins pumping um okay so about the past weekend I did go back to parkrun and I must say it was really nice to get back out there um And I headed to Kalup, which is G-A-L-U-Up Reserve parkrun. And I have been told that's, I know it sounds like a Kalup, but apparently that's how you pronounce it for the second time. So this is the indigenous name of this place means the place where the home fires burn or place of fire. So a fun fact in our Noongar language, up at the end of a word actually means place of so we have quite a few places um in perth with up after it so if you hear that it means place of um so the last time i attended this parkrun Pregnancy theme here. I was 34 weeks pregnant. So let's just say it was not really hard to knock 20 minutes off my wattle from last time. It's a really flat course. It's about one lap of the lake with a little bit of running on grass to extend the course to 5k. There's two toilet blocks on course. There's plenty of parking. And Simon, there isn't a side van and a coffee van. This course is only about four kilometres from the Perth CBD, so it's actually very central if you are visiting Perth City. And another fun fact about this parkrun, is that its location up until the 17th of June 2025 was actually known as Lake Monger, but it's actually been reinstated the traditional Whadjuk Noongar name to honour our local Noongar heritage. And then after parkrun, headed back to our place with fellow adventurer Brenton Pullman for some cinnamon scrolls and almond croissants as I had an appointment booked At 11 a.m. So a local one for me, but it was a lovely morning.

00:18:18Simon Mackley: Nice. I love that the name has changed back to the Wadjuk Noongar name. Yeah, that's really, really good. And I love that you got a PB at Palm. That is awesome. I think it was probably because Dave Bravos was pushing the pram, quite possibly. You were released from that.

00:18:43Sarah Jefferson: Dave Bravos was a champion. Yeah. They actually gifted us that pram. So that was Lucy's pram. Yeah, I was about to say. And it was like muscle memory. He was like, oh, this was the pram that I pushed my baby in. And I kept asking him. I was like, I can take the pram back now if you'd like. He's like, oh, no, I'm actually feeling really good. I was like, great, suits me. Yeah. Probably because, as I've alluded to before, pushing a pram and running, people make it look easy. It's really hard work.

00:19:13Simon Mackley: Oh, yeah. Like going out obviously was uphill as well. So even if you have got it from the turnaround point, yeah.

00:19:21Sarah Jefferson: Yeah. I'm trying to remember when he actually took the pram. Maybe I took my jumper off or something. Anyway, that was probably the best investment I made in that, yeah, taking my jumper off. So I lost the pram. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so yes, thank you again, Dave, for that. All right, so I'm in some parkrun news. Now, I don't know about you, did you remember that the 1st of April is April Fool's Day?

parkrun news bulletin

00:19:46Simon Mackley: Yes, of course I did.

00:19:47Sarah Jefferson: Okay. So, I did as well. So, you kind of jump onto socials that morning, right, going, ooh, really, like, cautious. Anyway, I did see some people got tripped up. But there are a few events who did post something. April Fool's. And I feel like more and more events are getting on board with this every year, do you think?

00:20:10Simon Mackley: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:20:11Sarah Jefferson: So just a couple to note. So Sandgate parkrun announcing that a bark run was starting only for dogs. I love the sound of that. It was like dogs only, no humans. Can you just imagine like dogs off leads going for gold? Absolute chaos. Absolutely. And Reddall Reserve with lots of different new volunteer roles, things like cake maker, vest washer, usher, chalk writer, production manager. I mean, some of those probably should be volunteer roles, right? Because like people bring icy poles and that's, you know, them still volunteering. So I liked that as well. And then Queen's Glasgow parkrun introducing the parkrun self-scan. announced that it was a pilot location for this. It was a new initiative designed to modernise and streamline the finish experience, quoting No More Queues at Kew. Did you see any others?

00:21:10Simon Mackley: I saw heaps. And actually, I didn't see some of the ones that you've – actually, the only one I saw was the Sandgate one that you've talked about. I was taking screen grabs all over the place so that I could remember to talk about them on the pod. The one that I loved was Bushy the Tree, the new mascot for parkrun. That was straight out of Global HQ as well. So, yeah, that was good. I loved the one from Hagley, which was about enrolment zones, so kind of like school catchments. So because Hagley is obviously so busy and there are other parkruns around Christchurch, you were being suggested to go to the ones that are actually in your catchment zone. There was Park Buff at Haigh Woodland, which was for the naturalist parkruns, shall we say. The buff being in the buff. So that would have been very interesting. I'm sure there was no photographer for that one. This one was a little controversial, but charges to participate at Castlewellan. They were charging £5 for runners and £10 for walkers. And the reason they said that walkers were more expensive is because they take longer. I wasn't a huge fan of that. And the volunteers were going to be paid £10 per week. Cash prizes for top finishers. For me, that was a little on the nose, but, you know, it was all in fun, obviously, all in jest. And then there was another one that was a decision from the board to rename as Park Fun to encourage more walkers. And then a great one that I saw as well, which was, From our friends over at With Me Now was the parkrun credit card. That was very well executed, I thought.

00:22:55Sarah Jefferson: Yes, I did see that. I quite liked it as well. I thought that was very clever.

00:22:58Simon Mackley: Yeah.

00:22:59Sarah Jefferson: Maybe parkrun can take note of some of these ideas that people put forward because some of them aren't too bad.

00:23:04Simon Mackley: Not the worst, yeah.

00:23:06Sarah Jefferson: All right, Simon. So we are... around 100 days into the year. So the 100th day would be the 10th of April. So pending when this podcast drops, about 100 days into the year. How are you going with your goals for the year?

00:23:26Simon Mackley: I'm actually doing pretty okay. I'm four new events into my target of 10. So every year I set myself a target of going to 10 new events. Obviously, COVID was a little bit Dicey with that and I didn't get it done. I am a few months away from getting my 250th volunteer. As I said earlier, I achieved my P9. That was one of my focuses and I'm still going for my V9. My Wilson index is now over 60. So that was another tick. That was, you know, I wanted to be 60 plus. My re-index is five away from 50, which was my target. And the one that's kind of been up and down, is me trying to get my average time under 27 minutes by year end. Yeah. Right. I've had a couple that have gone over 27 minutes. Like there's one where I know the course is a bit long. I didn't bring, I didn't sort of consider that when I, when I did that parkrun, I should have pushed it a little bit further. So it's about a 5.1. So I was, I literally went seconds over, but I should have thought about that one. Obviously at Palmer ran with Jackson as well. So yeah, that one was a bit slower than my normal pace. and then there was another one where I wasn't feeling great. So we'll see what happens with the average at the end of the year and see whether I do get under 27 minutes, but at least I'm giving it a crack every week. What about you, Sarah?

00:24:49Sarah Jefferson: It sounds like you're pretty well on track with most of your goals, which is great.

00:24:53Simon Mackley: Yeah, I've hit a couple and, yeah, obviously I am on track, as you say. But what about you? Remind us of your goals and how you are doing against them.

00:25:01Sarah Jefferson: Okay, so I did share that I wanted to be a statesman again. So I have achieved that. So as they call it, I'm a sand groper again. So that's tick until we have a launch, of course. In terms of home parkruns, I was hoping to get 100 events at home. So I'm 13 away. So I am edging closer. But as I did say at the start of the year, it's crazy how quickly you I'm like, oh yes, it's only 13 parkruns at my home parkrun. But every year I feel like I do less and less at my home parkrun. So it's still... I still need to really make a concerted effort to get there this year to get those 13 in. So fingers crossed. And I am still on track to do my special day in Japan very, very soon. So that's coming up nice and quickly. I'm still yet to figure out exactly which course I will be doing on the special day. I did have a quick look last night. And when I was online, I could see that nine events have declared that they are holding events so far, while six events have stated they won't be. So very early days in terms of that information coming out. But I have got my eye on one. So I feel like I do have that one picked out. I just haven't confirmed that yet. But, yeah, we'd love to hear from the listeners, wouldn't we, Simon, as to – you know, how they're tracking. Nice to remember your goals early enough in the year that you can still pivot, right?

00:26:38Simon Mackley: Exactly.

00:26:39Sarah Jefferson: And go, oh, that's right. That's what I was aiming towards rather than realizing, you know, October or November when you don't have too many parkruns left. So yeah, if you're, yeah, if you've achieved some of your goals for the year, we'd love to hear from you. If your goals have changed, we'd love to hear from you as well.

00:26:57Simon Mackley: So, yeah, congratulations on getting Statesman again. That is awesome. I'm wondering whether you do actually have something coming up in WA that you might know about. I don't know. Do you know if anything is coming up?

00:27:10Sarah Jefferson: I have heard of, yes, I have heard of a couple. One is nowhere near here at all. Right, of course. So anyway, who knows until it launches? Who knows? Yeah. But yes, it's possible that one is a very big journey to get to. Anyway, that's okay. It's great for smaller, more remote places to have parkruns launch, isn't it? So moving on to the Panorama Punish. So this is our first comms for the year about this. So you haven't missed anything, but we have had a few adventurers asking questions. So we thought that we would put it out to everyone. So the Panorama Punish will be held on the 25th of October this year and early bird entries are now open. So... If you are considering, normally there's quite a few adventurers who do go along for this. It's an event in Bathurst each year. When you're signing up, pop down the adventurers as your team. We're not quite sure if the team has actually been set up yet, but we know that they're working on that. We know that the office lady and Luke will be volunteering for the event. I think they volunteer on the Saturday handing out gifts. bibs, et cetera. And I know that they have booked their camping site as apparently you can actually camp at Mount Panorama track this year too. So that sounds like a pretty amazing experience in itself. So if you're someone who wants to get in super early and secure your spot, there's no time like the present.

00:28:48Simon Mackley: Yeah, definitely. Before we kick on to the New Zealand and Australian stats, we thought that we might give you some stats that might be of interest. So Saturday Just Gone saw a huge new global attendance record of 438,419 finishes worldwide with new national records for both the UK and Poland. In addition to this, one million parkrunners have now qualified for their 25 milestone T-shirt or above. Wow.

00:29:20Sarah Jefferson: How amazing. And we had a cracking weekend this past one just gone. So it was Easter weekend with clearly lots of people travelling for the four days away. So this actually saw 49 new attendance records set throughout Australia with Geographe Bay in WA gaining 55 as well as Tamworth and our eastern compass point Kingscliff gaining 72 to set the new attendance record for 553.

00:29:51Simon Mackley: One that jumped out to me was Bairnsdale in Victoria. While it only went up one, their record had actually stood for 525 weeks. So over 10 years, their record had stood for. So, yeah, tiny little jump, but to break the record again after that long is absolutely phenomenal. So, yeah.

00:30:13Sarah Jefferson: Incredible.

00:30:14Simon Mackley: Okay, so let's jump into the New Zealand stats. So on the 28th of March, there were 63 parkruns with 11,140 parkrunners and 1,067 volunteers plus any pending results. On the 4th of April, New Zealand saw 69 parkruns with 13,867 parkrunners and 1,146 volunteers plus any pending results. The biggest New Zealand parkruns on the 28th was... Hagley, as it always seems to be, with 842. Then Waitangi, Palmerston, sorry, Waitangi and Palmerston North. The smallest were Hamilton Park with 25, Southend Reserve with 26, and Mungawiro River Walk with 27. And then this last weekend just gone, Hagley went down about 62 to 780. Waitangi and Palmerston North again, they actually both had the same on 448. and Hobsonville Point, which is in Auckland, 430. The smallest was East Otago High School with 25, Balclutha with 33, and Hamilton Park with 36.

00:31:24Sarah Jefferson: Back in Australia on the 28th of March, 71,431 people participated in parkrun. supported by 6,525 volunteers at 496 events with 2,779 first-timers. In junior events, there were five events conducted where 642 little engines were guided by 99 volunteers and there were 49 first-time ever finishers. On the 4th of April, there were 98,767 participants at 49, 529 5K events, including 6,996 volunteers. There were also five junior events with 479 juniors helped by 113 volunteers. There were 54 new registrations with 41 first-timers. On the 4th of April, the smallest three parkruns were Waterloo Plains in Queensland with 5, Railway Park, Queensland with six and Coober Pedy Oval in South Australia with seven. The largest three were South Bank in Queensland with 776. The Ponds, New South Wales with 810 and Albert Melbourne, Victoria with 903.

00:32:40[background music]

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:32:44Simon Mackley: Okay, I think it's time that we throw to our roving reports.

00:32:56Alison Fraser: Kia ora koutou adventurers, it's Alison here reporting in across the ditch and today I have travelled all the way to the west coast of the South Island to Lost Lagoon parkrun. I found the Lost Lagoon and I'm joined today by Mary Rose who is the ED and today's Run Director. So thank you for such a beautiful parkrun, Mary Rose. [Te Reo Maori: "Hello/greetings to you all (koutou = three or more people)"]

00:33:17Mary Rose: Oh, our pleasure. Our pleasure to invite you to our lovely area. So what's your parkrun story? So for me it was... We planned this quite a few years ago. We looked at it originally, probably three years ago. And it was like, it's quite hard to do. And then we got some other ones. And Paul, a local policeman that shifted here from, I'm not sure where he shifted from, down south, I think. But he'd been involved in the parkrun down there. So he helped us get a group together to get it up and running again. So the process took us about a year. And this is our 41st event. So it's still quite new, but it's very exciting. And it brings so many people to our community. We can guarantee usually half of our participants are from other areas. So it's really nice. And I love that side of it. I love being the first time a welcome to find out where everybody's come from and their stories of why they're here. And yeah, it's very exciting. So yes. Yeah.

00:34:14Alison Fraser: Had you done parkrun before? No. No? No, never done a parkrun until this one started. So what was your understanding of the concept?

00:34:15[background music]

00:34:22Mary Rose: Well, I just, I actually didn't know if it would work here, whether people would join in, because we're quite a small community. But it wasn't until it started, and then we get all these people from all over New Zealand and over the world, and it's like... oh and then one first time I was doing and he says have you not joined the cult and I went beg your pardon he said it's a cult and it is now I'll plan my holiday around the parkrun and it's just the camaraderie it's the friendship it's the relationship building it's you know it fills your bucket for the week

00:34:52Alison Fraser: What's it done for your local community? Because you are quite remote here.

00:34:56Mary Rose: Heaps. It's brought people here that would not normally come to our community. Because we're not on a thoroughfare from anywhere. A lot of people will turn off. They'll come up from Greymouth and they'll turn off up to Nelson. They won't come down to us. And it's just brought more people to our community. And people from overseas. We're a destination now. Which is so exciting. Yeah, so exciting.

00:35:15[background music]

00:35:19Alison Fraser: And what about the locals who come to your parkrun every week? Have you got a good little group there?

00:35:22Mary Rose: Yes, we've got a core group that come. Like today we had 10 that I've never seen here before that are local. So that is, it's building. It's slowly building and people are starting to get the idea of what it's all about. Yeah. Yeah, so good. It's been really, really good for our community, the growth in our community.

00:35:35[background music]

00:35:40Alison Fraser: So could you tell us about your course? What can people expect when they come to Westport?

00:35:45Mary Rose: So our course is a three laps. We go three laps around the lagoon, which is around... So we start at the wharf, at the yacht club, and then we go across our... a boardwalk across the bridge and then we do three laps and you go over our volunteers bridge which this course has been built by volunteers probably 10 years ago. And so volunteers look after it. And so you go and you're running along the estuary right round. And you've got just beautiful sights. Quite often, as the year goes on, you'll see the sun come up when you're running it. And every lap, I feel you see something different. It's never the same. Because there might be different birds in the estuary. It changes all the time. And I think that's the exciting part of it. So it's a trail run. It's not... on tarmac or anything so it's a trail run so it's probably a bit slower than some of the other runs but it's well worth it yeah yeah it's apt then that you the area was created by volunteers and parkrun is run by volunteers yep yep and we've got a core group that keep it like this is this track's probably looking the best it's ever looked and that's from our volunteers and our volunteer group that come out and maintain it all the time so it's stunning it's really really good

00:36:45[crosstalk]

00:37:01Alison Fraser: Now you mentioned that you like to plan your holidays now around parkrun. Yes. So how many different ones have you done?

00:37:06[crosstalk]

00:37:06Mary Rose: I haven't done many.

00:37:07Alison Fraser: Okay. I've done Te Anau.

00:37:09Mary Rose: I went down and did that. My daughter-in-law did Kepler, a big race down there, and I could go and do that at the same time. And then I've done a couple in Christchurch. So I got my PB at Foster Park, which I'm probably never going to do again, never get that fast again, because it's quite flat and it's on that concrete, so it's quite easy. But yeah.

00:37:33Alison Fraser: So what do you look for in a parkrun? Volunteer photos! Volunteer photos. We'll have to wrap this up then as Mary Rose has been called for a volunteer photo. Yeah, I'm getting told what to do now.

00:37:41[crosstalk]

00:37:45Mary Rose: You love volunteering, clearly. Yes, I do. I do. And just on a side note, we have events here. We've just had the full marathon. And the visitors come with their ones that run all the big events, and then they'll come and do the parkrun. So we've had quite a few events lately. We've had an ultra and all sorts of things. And that gives big numbers here because the people that come for them come and do this. It works really well.

00:37:58[crosstalk]

00:38:04[crosstalk]

00:38:05[background music]

00:38:06Alison Fraser: Yeah, well, thank you so much for having a parkrun here. We would never have come here without it. And you'll be back. Yeah, I've never been to Westport before. And we're having such a great time with our road trip yesterday. And we're going to have a road trip back to Christchurch tomorrow. So there's lots to see and do here.

00:38:20[crosstalk]

00:38:21Mary Rose: And it's so awesome to see you guys. I love that side of it. That's my thing. Yeah, thank you. Right, I better go to get my photo. Thank you.

00:38:24[crosstalk]

00:38:31Ruth Perkins: Good morning, parkrun Adventures. I should say Cooee, or even I could say Labas. This is Ruth Perkins coming to you from Vilnius in Lithuania. And I'm very lucky today because I am joined by... Andres Falconer. And Andreas is the run director here today at Vingis parkrun. And you're also, I understand, the ambassador for the whole of Lithuania as well, is that correct?

00:39:04Andreas Falconer: That's right. At this point, the sole ambassador for Lithuania.

00:39:09Ruth Perkins: Amazing. So today is a very special day here in Lithuania. I've seen it wrote as Lithuanian Independence Restoration Day. Is that correct?

00:39:22Andreas Falconer: Yes. So Lithuania celebrates two independence days. This is the second one. We're celebrating the 1991 restoration of Lithuanian independence after the fall of the Soviet Union.

00:39:35Ruth Perkins: So this is a national holiday for everyone in Lithuania?

00:39:38Andreas Falconer: It's a big date.

00:39:40Ruth Perkins: And are there any traditions, any things that particularly happen on this day other than parkrun?

00:39:45Andreas Falconer: I think we're starting a new one here. But you've seen there's a lot of flag waving and showing national colours. But this is also a very festive time of the year because, as you can see, spring is springing. So people are out and about and our numbers will start growing as well.

00:40:03Ruth Perkins: We had some beautiful sunshine today. There were still some slightly icy bits. They were avoidable, but icy on the course. But I understand it's been quite snowy here, quite a lot more challenging conditions for a while.

00:40:18Andreas Falconer: This is our second winter. It was fairly brutal this year compared to last year. We were worried, but so far we have not had to cancel. That said, we'd had a few snow turning into slightly icy days and we had expected that by now the snow would be gone, but there were a few icy patches here and there.

00:40:37Ruth Perkins: So it's not just walkers and runners here. Today we've also seen some, what would you say, cross-country skiing?

00:40:46Andreas Falconer: Yes, Nordic skiing. There's a lot going on. There is a track that runs more or less parallel to the start of our course. But during the snowier months, we'd actually have people skiing and overtaking parkrunners on skis.

00:41:02Ruth Perkins: So it's not an official way to take part in parkrunning. They just happen to be there as well, enjoying themselves on the skis. So you helped set up this one with your wife, I understand?

00:41:14Andreas Falconer: So Jolanta and myself were parkrunners. We started a parkrun journey in the UK, Wimbledon Common, quite 15-ish years ago. Moved on to the US where we helped set up a few events around the Washington DC area. I'm not Lithuanian, my wife is, and as we moved here, I guess one of my preconditions, well, it may be a long shot, but we could try setting up a parkrun, and we somewhat pulled it off. But to be absolutely fair, there was a team that we became aware of that had just started running unofficial parkrun events and had reached out to parkrun HQ and we joined forces and really this is how it came to be about a year and a half ago.

00:42:05Ruth Perkins: And it's going really strong, I can see that you've got a great community here today and lots of people dressed in the national colours of yellow, green and red and lots of lovely tasty things afterwards and we've even got some sparkling water, is that local sparkling water?

00:42:23Andreas Falconer: Yeah, that sparkling water, Vitautas, is a well-known Lithuanian brand. It's fairly salty. It's a high in mineral content, so it's very good for post-run. And we're often given these for free at parkrun.

00:42:41Ruth Perkins: Are there any particular things that you people should know about parkrun here or in Lithuania that you think everyone should know?

00:42:52Andreas Falconer: We've become very popular among tourists because it's a new country. The letter V, I think, plays a role in people wanting to be here. But what we found is that most of the tourists that come to visit us have no preconceived idea of Lithuania, would probably not have been here for any other reason. And they absolutely fall in love with the country. So parkrun is great. It's a great course. It's a lovely park. It's very, very enjoyable. But I think what we hear from many is that what they bring back is opening a whole new Europe, a whole new corner of Europe that they weren't really aware of.

00:43:35Ruth Perkins: Yeah, this city is incredible. I've not travelled much further within Lithuania, but it's such an amazing place to come to. There's statues everywhere, there's something to look at everywhere, there's so much culture. I would agree, people come here, maybe you come for the parkrun, but explore more because there's so much to see.

00:43:56Andreas Falconer: Definitely stay. Vilnius is a lovely town. Lithuania is a small country, 2.8 million. We're starting our fourth parkrun event next month, so there's plenty to see. And I would say four parkruns in Lithuania, that makes it per capita quite similar to some other European countries by proportion of population. But we hope to have a fair few more before the end of the year. Just watch the space, it's happening.

00:44:24Ruth Perkins: wonderful and so of all the other park rooms you've been to because i get the feeling that you've traveled to a few different park rooms if would you pick one or two that stand out to you that you've enjoyed or are memorable i don't i don't like to do that um and i've done a bit of tourism i think i've done 50 to 53 events in 10 countries actually

00:44:46Andreas Falconer: But I did travel quite a bit for work, so generally my tourism was related to the opportunity to stop by at a place with a parkrun. Stopovers between Lithuania and the US typically offered quite a few opportunities in Scandinavia, in the UK, even France at the time. I think this is my third home parkrun in three different countries. My first parkrun was Wimbledon Common. My second home parkrun was Fletcher's Cove in Washington, D.C., where I was at one point the event director, and Vingis. So my favorite parkruns are always my home events. They'll always be my home events.

00:45:28Ruth Perkins: Well, lovely. Thank you so much for putting on this special event today. It's been wonderful and there's been so much enjoyment all round. So thank you very much to you and for all the volunteers. And yes, that's it. Thank you. Oh, I should say, aciu!

00:45:46Andreas Falconer: Achoo!

00:45:50Jo McLean: Hello adventurers, it's Jo doing a lap of the map and some parkrun adventuring on the way and I'm here at Edithburgh parkrun on the Yorke Peninsula on a beautiful sunny morning in South Australia and I'm talking to Danielle who's the ED and timekeeper this morning. Hi Danielle.

00:46:07Danielle: Hi Jo, thanks for coming along today.

00:46:09Jo McLean: It's just magnificent. Can you tell us a little bit about the course?

00:46:13Danielle: It's out and back pretty much, marked by a cone and a flag, gravel track, um i guess it's on the coast it's trail-ish a bit windy gets nice little pockets um out of the wind as well so yeah it's a good track yeah i noticed there was some memorial parks along the way yeah yeah that's just a new thing come up in the past few weeks it's a vietnam war memorial so it's recognizing all the different um battalions yeah from the vietnam war so yeah the only one in australia so it's quite nice when you've got time um to go yeah have a walk and sit down excellent just got someone coming through well done

00:46:53Jo McLean: And the course is just completely along the beautiful coast. It's just spectacular. So I believe you were one of the people who started this parkrun.

00:47:02Danielle: Tell us a little bit about that. A friend of mine said to me at Christmas once, he said, oh, do you know what Yacht Peninsula needs? It needs a parkrun. And I said to him, what's parkrun? Hadn't heard of it. So we did a bit of a Google and I was like, oh, yes, we need parkrun. And chatting to another girlfriend about it. And she said, oh, have you heard of parkrun? This is eight years ago. And, yeah, so we connected. And, yeah, we did our course. We were like, let's do it together. And she was pregnant with a baby. And, yeah, and then we just sort of worked together and started it all up. And, yeah, she's, yeah, she's no longer ED. It's just myself. But, yeah, it's been, yeah. was and now it's been my life every Saturday morning for the last eight years.

00:47:47Jo McLean: Well this parkrun is for people whose life is about parkrun so that's very appropriate.

00:47:51Danielle: Well done. Excellent. Good job Margaret.

00:47:55Jo McLean: And do you seem to have a good core of volunteers here?

00:47:57Danielle: We do. We're so lucky. I know that you know if we are short on volunteers I know I've got at least a handful of people I can call up on the morning and go look can you hand out some finished tokens? Can you scan some barcodes? Can you take some photos? And you saw that this morning. We just did a shout out for a photographer and and someone put their hand up. So I don't really stress about not getting volunteers.

00:48:17Jo McLean: And are you from the York Peninsula originally?

00:48:19Danielle: Yeah, yeah, born and bred.

00:48:22Jo McLean: Fun fact or interesting something?

00:48:24Danielle: I don't know, I'm a butcher as well. Oh, okay. Yeah, so that's a bit of a fun fact. Interesting. Yeah, done lots of different things.

00:48:31Jo McLean: And this podcast is for people who go around to different parkruns. You said you've been to a couple of others. What ones are they?

00:48:37Danielle: I've done... I've done Nooriukta parkrun and I've done Goolwa parkrun as well. And I've volunteered at the Clare Valley parkrun as well before we launched this one because we didn't know, I didn't know what it was. So, yeah, we just went up and volunteered at parkrun up at Clare. And we were actually the first parkrun in Australia to launch straight on the app. Oh, okay. Yeah, when that first started. Yeah, so that's a bit of a fun fact about it.

00:49:02[crosstalk]

00:49:07Jo McLean: yeah yeah well thanks danielle it's just been fabulous and thank you for coming along having me and it was fun um you know sort of being here and corresponding with you up to the lead up thanks for making me feel welcome and um no no that's okay and i understood what you meant with that so so yeah and um well i'll finish up that's a first time um roving reporter for me so thank you very much have a great day okay see ya

00:49:15[crosstalk]

00:49:25[background music]

00:49:28[crosstalk]

00:49:38Sarah Jefferson: Thank you to our roving reporters this week. We heard from Alison, who came to us from a lost lagoon parkrun in Westport on the rugged west coast of New Zealand. Alison spoke to Mary, the ED and RD on the day, and it was so great to hear from such a small parkrun once again, and just how important parkrun is for these small towns, bringing people, I guess, from all over the world and creating such a sense of community. However, Mary, I think I disagree. Hashtag not a cult. Then we heard from Ruth at Vingis parkrun in Lithuania, who spoke to, I think it's Andreas Falkner, the RD and sole ambassador for Lithuania. I really loved hearing about the unique experience of parkrunners being overtaken by Nordic skiers. What a funny sight that would be and like an incredible experience. And a new Lithuanian event is launching next month. So that was exciting to hear. Simon, I think that I really want to go to Lithuania now. Like I know that you've shared before, I think that it's already on your list, but I'm now adding it to my list. And we also heard from Jo McLean, popping her roving report cherry, who spoke to Danielle, the ED of Edithburg parkrun in South Australia. This course also sounds really lovely. And it was so happy to hear from you, Jo, on your lap around the mat.

00:51:18Simon Mackley: Yeah, definitely. Jo did a great job for her first roving report. So I hope that we hear more from you, Jo. And yes, Lithuania is definitely high on my list. It's not easy to get there, but I would really love to get there. And actually this weekend just gone, I should have been at Bushy if I had have been on this Europe trip with Carolyn. So anyway, she's back home now. So yeah, I did get to go on that trip with her.

00:51:47Sarah Jefferson: Shame. I'm pleased she's home safe, though, and that she did manage to get to Europe and back.

00:51:52Simon Mackley: She did, yes.

00:51:54Sarah Jefferson: Quite a tricky thing to do.

00:51:55Simon Mackley: Yeah, exactly. So she had to cancel her flights with Qatar to get to Europe. And yeah, so going over was supposed to take 25 hours. It ended up taking over 35 because she had to stop twice. So yeah, that was a bit hard. But at least she got out of Munich to Hong Kong and then home.

00:52:14Sarah Jefferson: Yes, that's certainly... Certainly an adventure, isn't it?

00:52:17Simon Mackley: Is indeed. Okay, we might move on to Daz's. So we've chosen five comments from each of the last two weeks of Daz's posts.

Dazza's

00:52:27Sarah Jefferson: On the 28th of March, Daz said, Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them. AA Milne, did you know it's Weed Appreciation Day? Daz did, of course. Were there weeds at the parkrun you were at? Come on in and tell us all about it.

00:52:44Simon Mackley: And we're starting off with Tanya Bailey from Pegasus parkrun New Zealand. And Tanya shared, volunteered as first-timers welcome this morning and then was towed around by Brunner. He found plenty of weeds to water along the way. And there was a photo of Tanya Brunner and another lady and her dog enjoying a beautiful morning stroll together.

00:53:06Sarah Jefferson: Now, Simon, we heard from someone at Inverloch in Victoria, but no. No. It actually wasn't our very own TOC. This person did post in Daz's and they wrote, I've got no time for weeding as I'm usually off on a parkrun adventure. And this week was no different as my son Blake and I escaped Perth and Cyclone Narelle to venture to the one and only Inverloch parkrun to finish the Alphabeteer Challenge. We even bumped into the man, the myth, the legend himself, Mr. Inverloch, Tony O'Connell. What a special morning. I also volunteered as report writer. Check out their parkrun page if you'd like to read more about the morning. And there was a photo with Blake holding both an alphabet tier flag and sporting very wide grins. And that was actually shared by Rodney Glossop. Congratulations to both of you. You certainly travelled a long way to achieve this goal. Way to go.

00:54:09Simon Mackley: Next we heard from a friend of the pod, Rex Green from Armidale parkrun. Rex said, hello Dazza, showed up at my local Armidale parkrun to do my 50th volunteer. Planned it so it could be acknowledged in the milestone announcements by fellow adventurers and today's RD Clancy Skinner. While it didn't go perfectly, hey Clancy, we got there in the end. I decided to weed out how I got to the 50 credits, 53 times. So 12 times as Marshall, 7 as Finish Tokens, 7 as Park Walker, 6 as Trail Walker. I don't know if that's supposed to be Tail Walker or maybe it is a Trail Amateur. Tail Walker, surely. Must be. 4 as Barcode Scanner, 4 as Timekeeper, Pre-Event Setup and Run Director, 3 times each. First Time as Welcome, Funnel Manager, Event Day Course Check, 2 times each. and one time as pacer. I consider it's a pretty good mix while maintaining a volunteer ratio of 24%. Just need to learn to jump. Jump for joy as good as Ingrid Paris and Koi Bravos. Cheers, y'all. And there was a collage shared by Rex being presented his 50 volunteer certificate and another of him jumping for joy into the air. Congratulations, Rex. What an achievement.

00:55:29Sarah Jefferson: I love that he teed up this milestone with a fellow adventurer, Clancy. I love that. Congratulations, Rex. We heard from Dan Baldwin coming to us from Alice Springs Telegraph Station parkrun in Northern Territory. Dan celebrated saying Territorian Tick at Alice Springs Telegraph Station parkrun. That's half of Australia done now. Dan shared a photo of his map of Australia, having completed what looks like a little bit more actually than half of the country, maybe even two thirds of the land of Australia. Amazing effort, Dan. So that is now WA, South Australia and Northern Territory all completed. Very impressive. He has 297 locations in total. So not too bad at all, right?

00:56:18Simon Mackley: That is huge. Yeah, like to cover more than half of the map is just, yeah, phenomenal. And obviously you know how big WA is and to become a statesman in, well, statesman in two states and territory in Northern Territory, it's very impressive. Yeah, amazing. And the last one we've got on the list from two weeks ago is Calum Burrell, who was at Clitheroe Castle parkrun in the UK. So Callum shared twice this week. We thought this one was worth a mention. Two members of a core team are overheard having a chat at their local event, having spotted the Daz's post on Facebook. parkrunner 1, we EDs? parkrunner 2, no, we RDs. So the dub, the we EDs looks like weeds when you read it. Anyway, well played Callum. Well done.

00:57:08Sarah Jefferson: All right. On the 4th of April, as I said, it's International Carrot Day. No, really, I promise. And there were some carrot emojis. How was your parkrun morning? Come on in and tell us all about it.

00:57:22Simon Mackley: First of all, we heard from Audrey Boswell, which is a name I haven't, I don't remember being in here before, who came in from Point Vernon Foreshore parkrun in Queensland. Audrey shared, As a group parkrun coffee, we venture to Point Vernon foreshore parkrun to support the event start of each month. So I enjoy this course, fairly good gravel path, great view and the breeze helps me along. It was their 25th event, so Purple requested along with ears, mask and some dress up. We met afterwards to do an egg hunt and an egg cup competition. It was a great get-together, amazing, the varied egg cups. We had a special guest to select and award prizes. The social side can be just as rewarding as the walk slash run, whatever. And there was a photo of nine parkrunners and a park dog all wearing bunny ears, and they all look like they're enjoying a beautiful morning filled with chocolate eggs, smiles and coffee. What a wholesome morning indeed.

00:58:24Sarah Jefferson: Simon, I wonder what an egg cup competition is like. Do they design, is it like a plaster egg cup and then they have to design it? I wonder.

00:58:36Simon Mackley: I'm guessing something like that. Yeah, I'm guessing what the egg actually sits in, but yeah, I don't know.

00:58:42Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, that sounds like a fun morning. And if that is your first time posting, welcome to Daz's. Audrey. We heard from Karen Hurrell at Middleton Wood parkrun in the UK. Karen said, For no particular reason, I went to Middleton Woods for my 175th different event. That's halfway from 100 to 250. No pop-up. So here's a selfie from in the park. And Karen shared a selfie, as mentioned, without the pop-up, rather with a metal sign saying Nick's Way in the background while donning her cat's beanie.

00:59:19Simon Mackley: And then we heard from Mia Ross in Davino, another name I haven't heard before, from Berrith Waters parkrun in Victoria. Mia wrote, started my morning with a course check before completing parkrun with a wonderful community at Berwick Waters singing and sending well wishes for my birthday. Happy birthday, Mia. And she shared a photo of seven parkrunners, lots of bunny ears and smiles all around. We pleased the local community, made your birthday morning that little extra special.

00:59:49Sarah Jefferson: Oh, nice pun, punny one, Mr. Mackley. All right, coming to us from White Mark Wharf parkrun on Flinders Island in Tasmania, we heard from Rebecca Bailey. Bec kept it simple, writing, Easter adventure, and a special day it was. What an epic Easter weekend you had, Bec. It looks like you really made the most of the four-day long weekend, summiting mountains and all. Bec shared a photo of herself next to the White Mark Wharf selfie frame. with a 250 singlet in her hand while wearing the tail walker's vest. There's not a cloud in sight. Having done this parkrun, Simon, getting to this island off the mainland of Tasmania, just getting there is part of the adventure. Congratulations on your 250th parkrun as well, Bec.

01:00:44Simon Mackley: Well done, Bec. Very well deserved and a great place to be celebrating your 250th. And last one for last weekend, we have Joe McLean, who this time was at Port Lincoln parkrun in South Australia. Joe shared, not a carrot and no bunnies at Port Lincoln parkrun this morning, but a wonderful flat foreshore run, two laps with a jetty and a headwind thrown in for good measure. Happy Easter, adventurers. And Joe shared a photo of the port-like Port Lincoln selfie frame with the Southern Ocean in the background. Great to see Jo tracking around Australia one parkrun at a time, six different course in a row. We can see that Jo's longest tourist streak is 14, so surely that'll be easy to beat in the next few weeks. Certainly looks like you're living the dream, Jo. Great to see you.

01:01:30[background music]

Obi Award — Rebecca Bailey

01:01:37Sarah Jefferson: All right, Simon, did you hear that? I did. I think the Obie Lope has just been delivered electronically. This week, the Obie goes to... Rebecca Bailey. Congrats again on your 250th and making it an incredible adventure to celebrate that.

01:02:05Simon Mackley: Awesome work, Bec.

You've got mail (listener emails)

01:02:06Sarah Jefferson: And we might go on to emails now.

01:02:09Simon Mackley: You've got mail. So we have one that says, can we talk Mel, Sarah, Simon and Lyndell? Just finished listening to episode 445 and wanted to drop you an email to say a Thank you again for the organisation that goes into Palm. This was my first Palm and there was lots of excitement leading up to it. I knew it was going to be fun, but boy, oh boy, I didn't realise just how much fun. Saturday night's dress-up dinner was amazing. It was wonderful to see so many bright, colourful and imaginative costumes. A shout out and congratulations goes to Ingrid, Sam, Luke and Bec for taking out the coveted prize for best costume. Well done. Can't wait for the next Palm Adventure. And that was Sherry Brantman, who is A1326779.

01:02:58Sarah Jefferson: Well, thanks for your email, Sherry, and it is lots of fun. And that's nice that Sherry was congratulating Ingrid, Sam, Luke and Bec for taking out the prize. However... I don't know that her outfit actually got as much kudos as it deserved. So friend of the pod, Paul Rainbow, actually attended the first palm ever, which was at the Beaches. Second palm. Is that right? The second palm. Yeah. So the theme this year at our palm being rainbow, she dressed, she actually went and collected the exact outfit that Paul Rainbow wore to the second palm at the beaches and wore exactly what he wore and came as Paul Rainbow. How amazing is that?

01:03:48Simon Mackley: That is amazing, yeah.

01:03:50Sarah Jefferson: I don't know that, you know, lots of people know of Paul Rainbow and I certainly didn't know what he dressed in many years ago. Yeah, how incredible. Great idea.

01:04:02Simon Mackley: Yeah, no, I'm great friends with Paul and that was, yeah, it was a phenomenal effort to make.

01:04:09Sarah Jefferson: All right. We have another email. How exciting is that, Simon? All right. It says, hi, Adventurers team. In the latest episode, 444, Sarah asked if completing the alphabet was one of my goals for this year. So this is Ingrid, just to clarify. The answer is not quite. I have a goal of getting two letters this year and I'm thinking I might put completing the alphabet on my list for next year. My parkrun goals for this year are get two new letters, one down, one to go, take my P index to five, take my Wilson index to 20 by filling in 16, 17 and 19, two down, one to go, join the peel club, Thank you to Palm and Sam's plans for making that likely to happen. My goals are pretty much will make my life happier if I get them done rather than must be completed at all costs. I'm all for finding the joy. Thanks for bringing me joy with your excellent podcast, Ingrid. Ingrid, I love your outlook on your goals. I know that. A previous Sarah who didn't have a child would really run herself ragged to achieve goals that, to be honest, in a week's time I'm chasing, or actually after parkrun I'm just chasing the next one. So I love that, you know, if it fits in and it's possible that you will make it happen. So fingers crossed you do make them happen this year, but I really like that outlook and thanks for sharing.

01:05:38Simon Mackley: Yeah, I like that she's doing it organically, not forcing anything and, yeah, Chasing things down, but, you know, as they happen. Next one, I want to actually thank Seriancha for sending in a recording for a new German event that Mel and TOC called out last pod. Unfortunately, it wasn't noticed until it was too late to add it, but we appreciate you sending it in, Seriancha.

01:06:03Sarah Jefferson: All right, and we have another email. How exciting is this? Thanks for episode 446. I'm currently traveling in South Africa, completed two parkruns so far. The one I'd really like to share is Cannibal's Cave, highly scenic and rather different to my previous 96. I also met Muzzy, who alerted me on Rad Run Club. Great initiative, Paul Lau. cannibals cave sounds interesting simon it sounds a little bit scary what do you think it's one of two that i've got on my list cannibals cave and piggly wiggly are the two that i would love to be doing in south africa just because the names are so weird yes the names yes i just don't want to go near the cave it's i'm sure it's safe and fine but definitely unique

01:06:58Simon Mackley: And we have another email. So this week, this fortnight, we have had a treasure trove of emails, which is fantastic. And we would love to have more coming in. So we'll start with this one. Well, sorry, end with this one, should I say. Cooey Adventurers, I'm a tad late to the party and only now catching up on missed episodes. Thank you, Sarah and Simon, for the shout out in episode 444 regarding my adventure at the Tarawera Ultra Trail, where I ran the Miler. And what an adventure it was. Mud, 28 hours of rain, mud, an electrical storm, and did I say mud? Yet, in spite of the conditions, or maybe due to the conditions, it was great fun, and I dare say my best ultra. Not due to my time, as I was significantly slower than my goal, which I was on target for until 5km of knee-deep mud around 110km in. But for the overall experience and comradeship, of fellow runners, the amazing selfless volunteers, and, of course, my crew, who were all there to brave the challenging weather while keeping us crazy runners hydrated, fed, and safe. My amazing crew, my ever-supportive husband, Lee, well-known parkrun adventurer, Alison King, and parkrunners Gary and Sarah braved the rain and mud while keeping my spirits high and ensuring I had dry socks at every aid station, my awesome pacer, Yoke, Also, it could be okay, I don't know. Also, a parkrunner kept me moving through the night and mud, ensuring I finished well under the cutoff. parkrun friends are the best. And that was Leanne, who is A382990.

01:08:43Sarah Jefferson: Wow. Wow, once again. Thank you for sharing your perspective on your run, Leanne. Incredible job.

01:08:54Simon Mackley: After 110Ks and hitting knee-deep mud of 160Ks that you were doing is just, that is ridiculous. You know, mere mortals would have given up.

01:09:05Sarah Jefferson: I wonder if Leanne's still finding mud like under her nails or like in her belly button or something. I once did Tough Mudder and I'm sure like two months later I was still getting mud out of my belly button. Like it just gets everywhere.

01:09:20Simon Mackley: I can imagine. All righty, I think it is time for us to throw to Reginald.

Club Corner

01:09:25[background music]

01:09:33Reginald Yardley-Pomfrey III: This is Reginald Yardley-Pomfrey III with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arundel Country. What is this about a new Wilson? Back in 2023 in Club Corner No. 11, Rachel covered Wilson and floating Wilson indices. These Wilsons are consecutive event counts, either starting at one for a straight-up Wilson, or from any number for the floating Wilson. But we mentioned a new Wilson...the Park Race app has three more Wilsons. This app includes tracking for a double and a triple Wilson. These are completing each event number twice or thrice. Much like the ever-present multiple alphabet people... Not very exciting IMO, but there is a very cute Wilson also included, the Golden Wilson. A Golden Wilson is where you collect event numbers, but each event only counts once. This appeals as there is no incentive to attend multiple number ones, and in fact, this Wilson encourages one to delay and attend a new event on event numbers smiley face. In club corner number 12 Rachel covered some non-Wilson indices, like P-index and V-index. And our hosts have various named dash index indexes, of which the smack index is objectively the best named of those, smiley face. The Park Race app handles the P-index very nicely with a clear graphic, top marks. they do indulge the world mob with a PC Index, which is a count of events per country. So a PC Index of 3 could be achieved by attending 3 events in 3 different countries. E.g. 3 in Australia, 3 in New Zealand and 3 in Singapore. For those who are immediately wondering how high could your PC Index be, as of February 2026 it is a PC Index of 13. You need Denmark or Norway to add two more events to hit a PC index of 14. And if they both add three events, and Sweden adds one, the PC index could rise to 15. The alphabet graphic is also very nice, it is a horizontal bar graph simple and very clear. As mentioned by moi in Club Corner 95, the Park Race app includes much stat-heavy data, which you may explore at your own leisure. That will do for now, and remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

01:11:55Sarah Jefferson: We're back from Reginald, and I really don't like the sound of a double or a triple Wilson either. I mean, getting the event numbers once is tricky enough, and there's just not enough Saturdays in the week or parkruns in the year. And Simon, I think I have a PC index of three and soon to be four, which is exciting. So I have Australia, lots of events, four events in New Zealand and five events in Singapore. And soon I will have five events in the land of the rising sun.

01:12:32Simon Mackley: That is amazing.

01:12:34Sarah Jefferson: That's quite an effort. Sorry, what about you?

01:12:37Simon Mackley: I think I'm a PC index of one because I've done Australia and I've done one in Japan. So I'll go back to Japan for a second time. Then, well, sorry, if I get to go to Japan to parkrun for a second time, I will take that up. But, yeah, no, I'm nowhere near a PC index of anything. But what I'd like to know is what is a SMAC index?

01:13:02Sarah Jefferson: Oh, that is a great question. What is a SMAC index, Mr Simon Mackley? Aren't you the person to answer that? I see you.

01:13:13Simon Mackley: I am that person, yes. I was only joking.

01:13:18Sarah Jefferson: You are. But I agree with Reginald that that is a, sounds pretty impressive compared to the other hosts.

Consolidated Club Report

01:13:28Simon Mackley: All right. We might roll on to the Consolidated Club report. So for the 4th of April, 2026, out of a total of 894 members, 642 took part on this date in 10 countries across 346 locations. Locally, there were adventurers at 66 events in Queensland, 58 in Victoria, 51 in New South Wales, 20 in WA, 17 in SA, 10 in Tassie, 8 on the North Island, 7 in the ACT and the South Island, and 1 in the Northern Territory. Internationally, there were adventurers at 78 events in the UK, 12 in South Africa, four in Ireland, two in Italy and Poland, and one each in Germany, Japan and Sweden.

01:14:21Sarah Jefferson: Simon, now I'm just going back to the numbers here. Okay, so we only have six, we're six members away from 900. And what is half of 900? Phew, 450. You passed the math test. So how amazing would it be if we lined up our 900 members with our 450th episode? Just saying. Because we do love it on this pod when numbers line up.

01:14:50Simon Mackley: We do indeed. We do. That would be, yes, quite synchronous.

01:14:57Sarah Jefferson: I feel like it'd be nice and neat tied with a bow, so to speak.

01:15:01Simon Mackley: Yeah. Definitely. So yeah, we only have six members to get. So if you know of someone who's not an adventurer, that would be amazing for them to sign up and take us to 900 in a couple of episodes time. And I'm trying to remember what my prediction was for when I thought that we would hit 900. I'm pretty sure I said it at Christmas time, but I cannot remember what date I thought it was going to be. So maybe our listeners could let us know either Via email or on Facebook.

01:15:36Sarah Jefferson: Did you make a prediction for 900 or did you make a prediction for 1,000?

01:15:40Simon Mackley: Oh, yeah, you might be right. You might be right.

01:15:44Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, around – well, I know 900 is a round number, but I feel like you might have mentioned 1,000, but I could be wrong too.

01:15:52Simon Mackley: No, no, no, you could be right. 900 was probably too close for me to guess. Anyway, moving on. That's okay. Okay.

01:16:02Sarah Jefferson: All right. So the largest international frond on the 4th of April was at East Holmes Field, and there were four. Shane Corcoran, Callum Burrell, Ali Sheppard, and Andy Wilkinson.

The Frond

01:16:17Simon Mackley: And we, in pilgrimages, on the 28th of March, we had two adventurers at Bushy. That was Matt Miller and Nicholas Stott. But on the 4th of April, we had no one there.

01:16:30Sarah Jefferson: You would have loved to have seen your name in this segment, wouldn't you, Simon? I know.

01:16:33Simon Mackley: That would have been amazing.

01:16:35Sarah Jefferson: I'm really sorry. We are moving on. I'm just imagining it. It will happen one day. I know. Okay. Moving on to the largest Aussie front. So, there was a front of 10 at one event, which was Coonwara. That was Daryl, John and Thomas Smith, Jutta Howe, Donna Anderson, Archer Oliver, and Caitlin Joe Richards and Joss Fingo.

01:17:04Simon Mackley: And remember, Adventurers, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile.

01:17:12Sarah Jefferson: All right, Simon. I think I need a sip of water or something stronger because there have been so many launches recently. And hopefully we can pronounce them okay. So on the 28th of March, we had seven launches around the world. The first one, Azid Lal Adventure parkrun, which is located near Sandton, South Africa. There were 706 athletes supported by 37 volleys with 24 of them being first timers.

Launches and anniversaries ("Where is the cake?")

01:17:43Simon Mackley: And the next one going alphabetically was Bongal Bongal parkrun located west of Sawtelle in New South Wales, Australia. There were 56 athletes, 10 volunteers and four first-timers.

01:17:56Sarah Jefferson: The next launch was in Victoria, Breen Avenue Walking Track parkrun. In Kyabram, there were 110 athletes, 16 volunteers with 21 first-timers. So that's around 19% first-timers.

01:18:13Simon Mackley: And the next one was also in South Africa and it was called Orient Beach parkrun and it's located in East London. There were 901 athletes, 31 very busy volunteers, but there were 226 first timers. So that's about a 25% first timer to all participant ratio, which is unbelievable.

01:18:24[crosstalk]

01:18:39Sarah Jefferson: That is amazing. Hopefully we keep seeing those people return week after week.

01:18:46Simon Mackley: Yeah. Yeah.

01:18:48Sarah Jefferson: All right. Our next launch was in Poland. So parkrun Park Mierzycki Olowa. Oh, why do I have to get this one? Mierzycki Olowa in Poland, which is southeast of Wrocław. There are 129 athletes, 14 volunteers with 17% first-timers.

01:19:16Simon Mackley: And then we move to Germany where we have Tele-U parkrun in Waiblingen in Germany. So that's northeast of Stuttgart. There were 148 athletes, 14 volunteers and 13 first-timers.

01:19:34Sarah Jefferson: Another launch in South Africa is a Fountain Beach parkrun located north-northwest of Cape Town. 400 athletes with 25 volunteers and 27 first-timers.

01:19:48Simon Mackley: Alrighty. And then rolling on to last weekend, we only had two launches around the world. And you can go for the first one.

01:19:56Sarah Jefferson: The first one, Ahrens Park, parkrun in Grinnell, Iowa, USA. Located between Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. So there were 48 athletes and seven volunteers. However, it looks like there may have been a problem when uploading the files as every single person is known, is showing up as unknown.

01:20:22Simon Mackley: Yes, they were. And then last one, or the second one for last weekend, was Rothamsted Park parkrun in Harpenden, UK, located north-northwest of London. There were 345 athletes, 30 volunteers, and eight first-timers.

01:20:41Sarah Jefferson: So lots of the launchers in South Africa are getting huge numbers, aren't they? So we've got 706 parkrunners. We've got 901 and 400. Yeah. I assume they don't advertise launchers over there. I mean, I don't know. Oh, I don't know. It seems like the numbers are.

01:21:02Simon Mackley: reflecting that it would be but i was assuming they'd have the same rules and they weren't to advertise but when i was looking at that marion beach one and calculating how many first timers there actually were a lot of those first timers were actually back of the pack so they were probably walkers or um or slower parkrunners um yeah like It took me ages to count them because I had to do it individually. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was amazing how many of them were actually at the back of the pack of that 901 athletes.

01:21:33Sarah Jefferson: Yeah, wow. Impressive numbers for a launch. Hopefully it was an experienced volunteer team on the day.

01:21:40Simon Mackley: Yeah.

Where are you headed next parkrun day?

01:21:41Sarah Jefferson: All right, Simon, it's that time of the pod. Where are you headed next parkrun Day?

01:21:48Simon Mackley: Next parkrun Day I am staying as local as I can and I am going to be at Redland Bay. That's because I'm going to be meeting up with Sarah Yancher, who's coming to Redland Bay for the first time. Then the week after that, I will not be at parkrun because there will be a birthday celebration the night before. Not mine, but I don't expect that I will be at parkrun. What about you?

01:22:10Sarah Jefferson: Sounds like you're planning for a big night that night before, Simon. It might be a late night. Yes. I see. I see. Fair enough. This Saturday, I'm actually, well, I'm actually headed away for a month, which is crazy. So I'm hoping to actually share, I might do a few roving reports, see how I go. A little bit rusty with the roving reports. Haven't done any for a little while. But stop one will be Parama parkrun in the Sydney CBD. So I am eager to check out the prettiest parkrun in Sydney. before I head up to the beaches the following week. And then I'll be heading over to Japan to do four parkruns, hopefully, if everything goes to plan. So, Simon, I actually won't be recording with you next time we're due to record. And I probably won't be talking to you like this until June.

01:23:13Simon Mackley: Sounds like it, yes. Alrighty. So the next episode, as we've alluded to before, the next episode will be Lyndell back in the comfy chair. This will be the first of the three, Pete. So Lyndell's doing three in a row and she'll be joined by Toc before he heads off on his big adventure as well.

01:23:34Sarah Jefferson: Oh, I am excited to hear. I know Toc normally does some roving reports when he's away and I do really love hearing about these, particularly the special days over in Europe. All right, Simon, I think I've eaten enough Easter eggs talking to you here tonight. I feel like I might need to get off my comfy chair and go and move. So 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. Sayonara. [Japanese: "Sayonara = Goodbye. Said in reference to Sarah's upcoming trip to Japan."]

01:24:10[outro theme playing]

01:24:16Unidentified speaker: Bye. See the flags fly and