episode 452 - The Away Game

Episode details · 224 speaker turns · sound cues from audio analysis

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

00:00:31Tony O'Connell: And welcome to episode 452 of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. A podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name's Toc and I'm coming to you from Inverloch. We're on the lands of the Bunurong people. And coo-ee to my wonderful co-host, Lyndell.

00:00:47Lyndell Murray: Coo-ee, Toc. Yes, it's Lyndell and I am recording tonight in Meanjin, which is the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Yugara. Welcome back, Toc.

00:00:57Tony O'Connell: Lyndell, it has been so long since you and I have had a chat. In fact, I'd look back and it's been eight weeks since I last recorded, which is like long service leave for someone who hasn't done long service.

00:01:08Lyndell Murray: Yeah, I will call it long service leave.

00:01:11Tony O'Connell: That'll work out. And Lyndell, you've settled in really well into the permanent chair in level two. I particularly love listening to you and Johan. That was a great podcast. Yeah, it just sounded really good. And

00:01:23Lyndell Murray: Johan settled into a co-host role pretty well yeah we had a lot of fun recording we had a few technical hitches at the start being my first time being the record meister but we got it going and we had a lovely time recording together and he did a really great job I thought

00:01:42Tony O'Connell: And you're dealing with a bigger time zone difference than what we normally do as co-hosts. I know when we record with Sarah, it's probably a fairly big time difference, but Johan would have been next level again.

00:01:54Lyndell Murray: Yeah, we had to bring it forward and record on a weekend instead of a Monday night. But we got there. It was great. And yeah, thanks again, Johan, for stepping in.

00:02:02Tony O'Connell: And you've been on three weeks or three episodes in a row now. You've been very busy in the, as I said, in the new seat in level two of the view. Have you cleared your own spot in the fridge yet?

00:02:13Lyndell Murray: Well, not yet. I'm a bit worried about what I might find in the fridge. I don't know. There's always mysteries in the back of the office fridge, isn't there?

00:02:21Tony O'Connell: I'm tipping after all these years, there's going to be none of that caramel chocolate left in there. That's well and truly gone.

00:02:27Lyndell Murray: I reckon that's right. Yeah.

00:02:30Tony O'Connell: Well, in the last little while, what have you been up to? I'll get on to my little bit later.

00:02:35Lyndell Murray: Yeah, well, it's four weeks since I recorded. And in those weeks, I have been working on my P-index.

00:02:41Ruth Perkins: So I've visited Rocks Riverside, South Bank and Zillmere here in Brisbane.

00:02:45Lyndell Murray: I also slept in one week. So clearly, I am not the most interesting one here, Toc. So I'm going to hand over to you. What have you been up to?

00:02:56Tony O'Connell: Right. Well, I haven't done anything. I've skipped parkrun for the last month or so, apparently. Settle in. I've got a bit of a tale. I've had an adventure, and it's been a ripping adventure, Lyndell. I have had a ball. I'm going to quickly run through where I've been. Not going to go into great detail because a few of them I have profiled in roving reports that will come up in the next month or so. We have a little backlog of the international roving reports at the moment. So, yeah, they'll pop up, but... Week one, after our 2023 trip, I had a massive fear that Ireland was not going to happen for me again. So we flew into Ireland. Two weeks before we left, the event that I really wanted to do cancelled. And so I thought, oh no, this is just not shaping up well. A really good friend that we met at Palm in Queenstown, Ali Sheppard, flew up from the UK to catch up with us and spend the weekend with us. And we ventured up to the University of Galway course. Beautiful course, as we heard on the roving report that I did from there. I love ruins. I love old buildings. I'm really into that kind of thing. And this along the riverbank had ruins and everything on the parkrun course. How good was that? Loved it. The Sunday we did Oranmore Junior, so we attended a junior parkrun. I got to do my Aussie warm-up. Not many places have seen this, but I've actually put the eight exercises into a bit of a routine, and I talk about an Australian day where you go to the beach, and so you go down to the beach, and the sand's really hot, so you've got to jog across the sand into the water, and then you go for your swim out, and then you see a shark, and you... You know, you backpedal and swim backwards. You think, I'm going to get out. And you go up and get an ice cream. But, you know, the tar's really hot. So you've got to run a lot faster across the tar. I'll put it into a big story. Anyway, some of the Irish kids thought it was a ball. Some thought I was a raving lunatic. I'll take either option.

00:04:54Lyndell Murray: Yep, bit in column A, bit in column B.

00:04:57Tony O'Connell: That's it. But I have a lot of fun delivering that Aussie warm-up. I've done it at a few events now. Probably has gone down better almost at the overseas events than a couple of Australian events that I've done it at.

00:05:09Lyndell Murray: I can imagine. Probably makes you feel warm just thinking about it.

00:05:12Tony O'Connell: Yeah, and look, for some of the kids that are inland a bit too at the overseas event, the bits about the beach probably don't resonate. Week two, we flicked across to Poland to Zolony Jar parkrun. Pippa White, the street master, flew over. from the UK and met us over and spent the weekend with us, which was lovely. The event team at Zaloni Jar were probably one of the most dynamic and upbeat teams I've ever seen in all my parkruns that I've been to. They just rock. They had music. They were just... pump and they were high on life that was brilliant they don't often go for breakfast but on this occasion they said it's probably one of the first times they've been for breakfast in years because breakfast involved getting on a tram or train and going several stops and it was a bit of a complicated but we went and then they took us for a tour around part of a former soviet town with a tank on a corner and everything it's pretty cool oh wow sounds amazing Just something different. We then flicked across to Finland. We went across to Pokkanen where we caught up with a few people for the Ascension Day. So we got a couple of bonus parkruns while we were there. We had the Ascension Day. Our son Dan joined us on the overnight train up to Oulu. It's the one I've profiled around the beach. Floating saunas. Floating saunas are the coolest things out.

00:06:29Lyndell Murray: It sounds like the best. Oh my goodness. It's on my list.

00:06:34Tony O'Connell: The stupid thing was we didn't even go to the sauna. We just ran past them and looked at them.

00:06:38Lyndell Murray: Yep.

00:06:40Tony O'Connell: A couple of the adventurers that we met there, Phil Olson and Dave Thornton. Dave's actually the originator of the Periodic Table Challenge for those that have got into the Periodic Table Challenge. So it was good to catch up with them. Across to Lithuania, we did Vingis parkrun, a beautiful park in the centre of town. unbelievably green trees probably the greenest parkrun it was a real lime vivid green and everywhere you look just you were swamped in this it's like a green highlighter someone had gone and painted it with a green highlighter it looked incredible the photos from that event did look like that it looked amazing met andrew lawrence who's a global employee so had a bit of a chat to him and he'd heard of the podcast funny enough

00:07:25Lyndell Murray: Did you sign him up as an adventurer?

00:07:28Tony O'Connell: No, it was too quick. He took off. From there, we went back to Poland. So we'd done the south down at Krakow, then we went up to Gdansk. We went to Zamek Malbork. Absolutely stunning. You run beside what's the largest brick castle in Europe, and it is massive. So you run along between the castle wall and the river. That's the parkrun course. So you've just got this massive castle dominating over the top of you. Unbelievable. There'll be a roving report come from that. Could not talk to any of the event team, unfortunately, because not one person on the event team spoke any English.

00:08:04Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:08:04Tony O'Connell: And my Polish is pretty terrible. Yep. So I had a chat with a lovely lady, Sue Page, from the Sowerby Snails Running Club in the UK. There was a group of the snails over there. Still going. We went to Netherlands next, to Oosterhout. parkrun which is north of amsterdam that was a wit monday so that was another bonus day we we managed to score a couple of bonus days and i got to have a run with one of our roving reporters ruth perkins which was really cool yeah it was good to catch up with roof i think i've met all the roving reporters in person now except for callum so our international ones i've met them all

00:08:43Lyndell Murray: Oh, well, another trip overseas talk is what I'm hearing.

00:08:46Tony O'Connell: Okay, sign me up. And we actually had quite a few other adventurers at that. There was Peter Thompson and Ivan Neville, who were both Australians, Canberra region that were over there, that both right over the pod came up and had a chat to me beforehand, which was good. And there's Wendy Pellant and C.D. Whitehead there. So another couple of adventurers. Then we flew home, but we decided to stop at Singapore on the way just because that's what you do. Went to Bay East Gardens and we've heard Sarah profile and do a bit on Bay East a little while back. Affectionately, it's called the Boost parkrun, as in Bay East, Boost.

00:09:23Lyndell Murray: I love it.

00:09:24Tony O'Connell: And it's just a sweat fest. Singapore, every time I've been there, our former host, Melissa Erbacher, used to call it stumidity, the stupid humidity. Yes.

00:09:34Lyndell Murray: Yep, I've experienced humidity in Singapore myself.

00:09:38Tony O'Connell: Oh, man, you walk to the parkrun and it's like you're already sweating. You're just, yeah, dripping. So that was the end of our international trip. And then this weekend just gone, we decided to do a quick road trip to regain our greatsmanship. That's only a five-hour drive each way up the road. So we went up to Kyabrum for Breen Avenue parkrun, and we met a few other friends up there, just out of the blue, didn't expect it, but Steve and Helen Davis, who are adventurers, Carolyn McCray, and Sarah Langley, who I've met a few times. She was RD on the day. She's a former ship parkrunner that we've met now at a few events. So that was my little adventure. That's my recap, and I can now take a breath.

00:10:22Lyndell Murray: Yes, take a breath, have a cup of tea, put your feet up, talk. You have been on a big adventure there, a couple of extra days, a couple of Zeds also I pick up there. You chased some Zeds while you were overseas.

00:10:36Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, I decided I do like, you know, working around on the different alphabets and things, Lyndal, and yeah, Zeds are a little bit hard to come by over this way, the opportunity, but it was also like Zamek Melbork, That was recommended to me by a number of people because of the castle that's there. And they said, take a full day, go to the castle and spend a full day in there. There's an audio guided tour. You walk around, it tells you where to go next and gives you a full history. And it's worth a full day. It was actually really good. Really enjoyed that part of the trip. So that'd be worth doing no matter what sort of letter it was. That was just a great parkrun, beautiful scenery. really friendly event team and I love an international parkrun where the briefing is delivered in you know not your home language yes but you know when to clap and when to cheer and when to yell out because you know when the RD stands there and puts his arm yeah does the watering system where he runs his arm around the crowd you know he's asking any tourists yell out where you're from Yeah. You know when he points at the volunteers, you know he's thanking the volunteers, so you clap.

00:11:49Lyndell Murray: Yep, exactly.

00:11:51Tony O'Connell: I love the way that briefing, it doesn't matter what language it's delivered in, you sort of know what they're up to and where they're at. And you know when they yell go, because everyone takes off.

00:12:01Lyndell Murray: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's one of those things, isn't it? You know they're looking for milestones, you know that they're thanking the volunteers. Yeah. I guess that's what brings parkrunners together. We've got that shared understanding and shared language as much as anything else.

00:12:17Tony O'Connell: No, look, it was a great trip. Four weeks away, seven parkruns plus a juniors. Yep, I love my travelling, but I was really happy to be home in my own bed as well. So start thinking about the next one, Lyndell.

00:12:31Lyndell Murray: Absolutely. Start planning. Start putting your dollar bucks away right now.

00:12:34Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I think that could be a few years of activity there.

00:12:39Lyndell Murray: All right. Now, one of the things that you talked about then was making a day and making an experience of a parkrun. And someone that we both know who is an expert at that, at finding wonderful experiences at parkrun, is our good friend Melissa Ellis. And it's the first time that we've recorded together TOC since Melissa stepped away from the mic. So thank you to Sarah and Simon for doing a really great recap of the contribution that Mel has made to the podcast. And I guess just to add to that from my own personal perspective, I'm just so, so grateful for the community that's been built around this podcast. And that all really started with Mel. So that's sort of my reflection on Mel stepping away. We've got this wonderful gift that Mel has really given us.

00:13:29Tony O'Connell: And look, I'd just like to add to that. I started on early with Mel. We did a couple of co-hosts. The highlight, and it's the same when I talk to you, Lyndell, I love the fact that we jump online and we're probably nearly an hour chatting before you even think, oh, right, we better hit the record button. It makes catching up. And that's one of the great things about parkrun. And Melissa just... She's exactly that. It's a mate that you want to catch up with. Melissa's been the backbone of the podcast for a number of years, carrying the editing by herself. I know in my early days, I never did anything on show notes or anything. I just turned up on the night and Melissa had what I needed to talk about already sort of prompted there for me, which was great. But it was all the load that Melissa was carrying that And I now recognise how much work and how much effort she's put into our community to get that going. And I love the way that's reflected when you turn up at an event like we did on the weekend and there's people in adventurous T-shirts that you didn't expect to see there and you've got that instant community. And I think Melissa's been a massive part of that. Yeah, 100%. I'd also like to reflect a few of the trips that we've done away. We've been lucky that... Melissa loves travelling and we do as well. So, you know, it wasn't unusual for us to pick her up. There's a service station north of Melbourne where she'd go and park and we'd pick her up there and drive up to Canberra for a Friday night, do a parkrun and drive home so that she could get to Juniors on Sunday. You know, we've done road trips to Kerrang and a number of other places with Mel. Been absolutely great, including a soaking wet trip that we did to Cronulla where we had 140 mil of rain in about two hours. It absolutely pelted on us and we were soaked. I can remember sitting, coming home and we were all just dripping water because it just, everyone on the plane was wet, but we were just soaked. Soaked through.

00:15:25Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:15:26Tony O'Connell: We've done those couple of trips. We had a surprise trip with Mel for a two-fifth, I think it was. We all turned up at Bateman's Bay. She didn't know we were there and we were all hiding behind a big roadside barrier when she walked up to it because we didn't want her to see us until we jumped out and surprised her. Another one up to Sirromet for her 500th was a great trip. And I'm proud to say I've got a Melindex of 63. I'm just wondering if any listeners can match that. That's 63 events that I've actually done with Mel over the last 10 years or so. Probably reflects what I think of Mel. I just love going to parkrun with Mel and sitting down and having a chat. So, yeah, thank you, Mel, very much for what you've done. And hopefully we can carry the good work forward.

00:16:08Lyndell Murray: We hope so. We hope so. Well, my Mel index is only eight and half of those have been at Palm. So I've got a bit of catching up to do. But we know Mel will still be part of our community and still part of our friendship group. And yeah, thanks Mel for everything that you've done.

00:16:28Tony O'Connell: Speaking of community and good people, Lyndell, I don't know if you've heard a lot of Darren Wood. Obviously, everyone's heard about Darren's finished years of thousands. I listened to some audio that was captured on the day from our really good friends at the With Me Now podcast, and Danny interviewed Darren and Darren just came across as a really nice really genuine type of person he's had a you know a few hard things in his life and he's just that really nice really genuine person you'd love to just sit and have a coffee and a cake with and have a have a yarn too I think he reflects a lot about what parkrun means to people and i think he's able to probably communicate that you know one of those rare people that can put that idea out and actually explain it really well we were lucky we actually also had some audio from the day sent to us from andy airy who captured the moment at morden so let's hear from andy now

00:17:24Andy Airy: Hello adventurers, I'm at Morden parkrun just south of London and I'm here with a legend that is Darren Wood. Now Darren today is the first person to complete 1,000 parkruns. Hi Darren.

00:17:39Darren Wood: Good morning and thank you for the very warm welcome. What can I say? I'm kind of taken back by the welcome today and the reception from everyone. I think there's been so many really kind and inspiring words and this isn't about me today this is about parkrun and how parkrun continues to change and save people's lives as it has done for me personally it's been there through the highs in my life it's been there through the lows i like to say that it's been the one consistent part throughout the past 22 years in my life the fact that i can turn up not be judged It's just amazing. And I think what it does to bring everyone from the community together, it's just wow. You can't put a price on this. And obviously this wouldn't be possible without all the volunteers who make the event happen week in, week out. And obviously when we look at people like the sponsors and donations which parkrun gets, we have to remember parkrun is a charity. So any donations are welcome there. And obviously it comes down to the sponsors as well because they're the ones who also keep it free forever. And I think my biggest thing which I'd like to take away from today is no matter how fast or slow you are, no matter whether you run, jog, walk or volunteer, you're part of this community. And this is what makes it for me.

00:19:12Andy Airy: And you've got well over 400 volunteer credits to your name, which is a phenomenal number, really. It's the top, what, 2,000 or so in the world as a volunteer as well?

00:19:25Darren Wood: Yeah, I like to volunteer. I like to give back. I set up Edenbrook Country parkrun a few years back for that exact same purpose. Just after COVID, it went live. I started trying to set it up before COVID with my co-event director, Steph Greenwood, who's now taken over as the event director, as I'm no longer in that area. For me, I wanted to give something back to that community of feet. Every community deserves their own parkrun, and that's what Paul set up to do in the first place, was this is about communities and giving every community that wants an event to be able to have one. And for me, it was giving that back to them and to be able to leave that legacy there on that first event It made me very emotional. I'll be honest with you, it brought tears to my eyes because I thought, look at all these people who are there and this is going to change their lives and they're going to get to experience exactly what I've had. So a massive shout out to all of the volunteers and all of the sponsors. I still get involved in volunteering now and that's why some may well question, oh, well he could have done it much earlier. For me, it's not about that. It's not about the time. I like to give back to parkrun 2.

00:20:37Andy Airy: I mean, you're so far ahead of second place. Danny Norman, I think, is just behind you on about 40 runs short. So you've been at it for so many years. And I've got a question about your 500 shirt. So I first, the very first 500 shirt I saw was on the Westminster Mile 10 years ago. And I just got my 50 shirt at the time. I was quite pleased. And I saw your shirt and I got a selfie with you. Have you got the same shirt from 10 years ago?

00:21:04Darren Wood: I do have the same shirt from 10 years ago and I've also got a newer version of it as well but I keep all of my old parkrun memorabilia safe because it does mean a lot to me. The whole milestones are amazing from there. And I think it gives you an aim. It gives you something to aim for. And hopefully if I can inspire others to be involved in parkrun, even if it's, you know, they've never been to one or if they're just starting out on their parkrun journey.

00:21:33Andy Airy: What can we do to get more people parkrunning, you think? Because we've both been a few parkruns and a few different locations.

00:21:40Darren Wood: It's about communicating and being inclusive and understanding that nobody's ever going to be judged. Don't be afraid to just turn up. nobody's ever going to be last that's why there's a run briefing beforehand and the new runners briefing at each event there's always a tail walker so nobody's going to be last but take that first step I know myself I felt very anxious when I was going through my own mental health battles and trying to go to parkrun I'd been unfortunately self-harming I'd been through that very bad mental state and I felt that I was going to be judged when I got to that event but I pushed myself and pushed myself to attend. Nobody cared. There was no judgmental. And it was just like being back with my parkrun family. And that is what keeps me. It's the people and it's parkrun. It's being there, non-judgmental. Everyone's so inclusive. I walk it sometimes. I run it. It has been about the numbers over the years. It's about the whole community now.

00:22:47Andy Airy: And one last question for you. Where's the end? 2000? You've got to dream big.

00:22:54Darren Wood: You've got to go 2000. For me, it's always going to be 2000.

00:22:56Andy Airy: Another 20 years at least.

00:22:58Darren Wood: At least another 20 years.

00:23:00Andy Airy: Well, if you stop partnering now, and in 10 years' time, I'll catch you up. I look forward to it. And I'm only six away from my 500, but it's a pleasure to meet you and to share this special moment with you. Well done, Darren. Thank you so much.

00:23:14Lyndell Murray: How terrific to hear from Darren there. And thank you to Andy for capturing that for us. Yeah, same talk. Every time I've heard of or read about Darren, he strikes me as that kind of really humble guy who just gets it and just gets along with people and has a great time at parkrun. So great to hear from him. Talking about community and the adventurers. Just a quick reminder that our new Adventurer merch range is available now. So we've got a few new items in the range. We have men's and women's hoodies and we've also got some running caps and visors, which is great. And if you need a replacement shirt or singlet or if you've missed out on our windows of ordering in the past, you can grab yourself a shirt or a singlet as well. So remembering as always, our orders are through a custom portal. So check our Facebook page for the link or email us. You do need a password to get into the portal. So just email us if you need more information or send us a message on the Facebook page. But don't delay because it is a custom order. They will close on June 28th. And we'll be at the whim of the office lady as to when it will open up again. So don't miss it. Now, one thing that I'm thinking about, Toc, with this window closing on the 28th of June, does that mean that this is a tax deductions?

00:24:37Tony O'Connell: Oh, look, I'm thinking it's got to be a tax deduction. And while we're on that, I'm just wondering whether the Saturday cake and coffee is a tax deduction as well as a legitimate business expense for a podcast host. yeah well you know you rack up a lot of miles as well so uh it's really great to see our range expanding the blue shirts have been so recognizable you can see them from a mile away we've gone a little bit different we've gone to a gray color for the hoodies just to break it up a bit we've had a little bit of feedback about that and our running caps and visors are white so they'll stand out quite well as as well But as you said, it is a custom portal. But there is a post on our Facebook page that has the password and all that on there and a click-through link direct into the portal. So jump onto our Facebook page and, yeah, go in from there. But remember, you've got less than two weeks now before the portal's closed. Rightio. In other news, we've got a lot of news this week. Lyndell, we quite often don't have a lot, but this week we have a lot, which is pretty cool. There's lots happening in parkrun world. And the first one I'll lead with is Sandgate parkrun held this Speed Week on Saturday, June the 6th. I'm always fascinated with Sandgate Speed Week, and I'd love to get to Queensland one year and actually see Speed Week. In terms of stats, and I'm a real steady nerd with this stuff, so it's great. I love it. But the one thing this year is the quality of the photos I got this year was exceptional. It was so much better than previous years. There's some sensational sunrise photos and that from Sandgate. Worth going to their page just to have a look at the photos for the week just for that. but they had 858 finishes and 38 and a half percent of them finished in under 20 minutes to give you a bit of an idea out of the 858 they had nine finishes under 15 minutes they had 68 finishes under 16 149 under 17 minutes and for us at envelope that's our normal week And that's finished in 17 minutes. You get to the 20-minute mark, and they had 330 finishes by the 20-minute mark. So if you finished 331st, you were just over 20 minutes. That's unbelievable. 501 finishes under 25 minutes. And then you go through another couple of them, 30 minutes, 633 finishes. 40 minutes, they had 762 finishes through it. The poor timekeeper, and I did notice this year they had two timekeepers. In the past, I know a few times, they've had a single timekeeper doing this. And to be getting your finger going that quick is just unbelievable. They ended up with 858 finishes, all under 65 minutes. They set six new age category records. The junior 10 male went in 1652. I can't go that quick on a bike, Lyndell. I don't know how kids do it. The junior women's 11 to 14 was just over 17 minutes. Some of these times are just blisteringly fast. And I think it'd be a

parkrun news bulletin

00:27:57Lyndell Murray: Imagine being that junior's parent. You would never be running with that child. You're always trying to find a speedy, responsible adult for them to run with.

00:28:07Tony O'Connell: I'm tipping if your junior tends running sub-17 minutes, you've almost got to set up a relay of people to run with them. Except in the case of Speed Week, where you had 149 finishes going under 17 minutes. No doubt there was someone there with them.

00:28:24Lyndell Murray: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

00:28:25Tony O'Connell: And there's just so many other records are all sub 17. The senior men's record in the 30 to 34 went in 14 minutes, 19 seconds. That's just unbelievable. Junior girls, 15 to 17 year old, running just over 16 minutes. Australia's got some great talent coming up for the Comm Games in Queensland in a couple of years.

00:28:53Lyndell Murray: Yeah, absolutely. Look, Speed Week at Sandgate is a bit of a local legend. Everybody knows that it's coming up. They mark their calendars. People like me don't go to Speed Week because it's all too fast and it's all too furious. And so it's interesting with those stats. I think that's why they get so many finished in those short times. because other people make decisions to go elsewhere but yeah just witnessing how they just take off and seed themselves and just go so fast it really is something to behold so definitely get up here talk you'd love it yeah what watching the video of it in the start and you know the sunrise in the background and all it was just a yeah really cool yeah anyway that's the fast people Yeah, it is. Our next bit of news, we'd like to pay our respects to Richard Scolyer AO, Vale. Richard was a world-leading cancer researcher and was the 2024 Australian of the Year. Richard had completed his 250th parkrun and all up participated in 288 parkruns. So well remembered by his parkrun community. His home parkrun of Greenway remembered him this last parkrun day on the 13th of June. The ABC News actually did a story on how he was really community driven, evidenced not only by his work in cancer research, but also his love of parkrun. They went to Greenway and interviewed a few of the parkrunners and he clearly is a beloved member of that community. The story was actually a really great promo for parkrun though. They did refer to parkrun as a run club, which was quite interesting. But it was just so nice to see him being recognised in that way on such a great platform. I've got a little bit of a connection to Richard. I never met Richard. Well, I hope I didn't because if I did, I might have been giving him a red card. He was an avid triathlete. He represented Australia in his age group at five world championships, including two that I officiated at, one in Lausanne in Switzerland and the other on the Gold Coast. And he was actually the flag bearer for the Australian triathlon team at the World Triathlon Multisport Championships in Townsville in 2024. So lots of communities missing Richard Scolia. The parkrun community, the scientific community and the triathlon community have all looked you know, reached out and paid their respects. And we do so as well on behalf of the adventurers.

00:31:24Tony O'Connell: Thank you very much for that, Lyndal. I never met Richard myself, but I know several parkrunners that have and he had an impact on quite a few people. Righty-o, Lyndell. Moving along to some more news from parkrun. And this weekend just gone, parkrun globally celebrated the delivery of one million events. Many events got behind the celebrations. And it's nice to... It's a nice thought that we've played a small part in that. I know the event I was at certainly celebrated that they'd contributed 12 events into that one million. They're a fairly new event. And although we'll never know where the actual milestone was achieved... I don't think that's all that important. I know a lot of events are claiming it and that just as a fun thing. But I think I'd like to thank for all those events. I'd like to thank all the event teams that are behind the events for all the coordination they do every week. But it's the front of the house stuff. You know, everyone sees the RD on the day and all that sort of thing. But there's so much happens behind the scenes and during the week. And I'd just like to thank all the teams that deliver all those events successfully. We had some more stats given to us. That was 1 million events. We had a few stats about how countries have got to 1 million finishers. So that's a million people in that country that have finished parkrun and the timeframe that that's taken. Because USA on the weekend actually achieved their 1 millionth finisher. It took the USA 732 weeks to achieve that. On the other end of the scale, South Africa achieved 1 million finishes in 196 weeks, so not even four years. As we know, South Africa, the parkruns, particularly pre-COVID, were just enormous, and they achieved that really quickly. Australia reached 1 million finishes in 209 weeks, so just on four years. Ireland was 287. The UK took 381. But of course, the UK also started with one event for a long time too. So they didn't have the advantage that some of the other countries did with that quick growth. But other countries that have actually achieved that have been Ireland, New Zealand and Poland. So yeah, lots of interesting facts and figures.

00:33:36Lyndell Murray: Massive milestones. And I have to admit, I was pretty surprised or I thought it was Interesting that there were two massive million milestones on the same weekend. So much so that I read the US news about the millionth finisher and was a bit surprised when I got a message in my app saying, congratulations on being part of the million events. I was like, hold on. I thought that was an American thing. Yeah. So it took me a while to figure out that there were two milestones and that's really worth celebrating, isn't it? What a tremendous weekend. It is.

00:34:12Tony O'Connell: A million different events. That's a huge number that have been facilitated in so many different communities. And we talk about all those connections that have been made and all that. Think of how many lives have been changed in a million events.

00:34:26Lyndell Murray: Yeah, for sure. For sure. So even more reason that no one event needs to claim it. It's a communal effort for sure. All right, more news. Moving overseas now, we have seen a very exciting announcement over the weekend that Taman Pudu Ulu in Malaysia is set for a return. So that will bring the number of events in Malaysia back up to two. TPU event was suspended in 2023 after the local authority removed the permit to operate, but it's been confirmed that it will be reissued. So Taman Pudu Ulu was the pioneer event in Malaysia and it was joined by by Precinct 18 Putrajaya. So they're back to being a dual parkrun country in Malaysia, which is great news.

00:35:14Tony O'Connell: It is. I was really excited when I saw that, Lyndal. I'm not sure about where you've been, but that was the one that I did when I was in Malaysia, and I was a bit disappointed when it... Went to the, we were here on the challenges, but it was a really great event. The park when we were there was, and I remember doing a roving report, the park was chockers with people out doing Tai Chi and all sorts of exercising and that. So, yeah, no, it's great to see they've come back. And their Facebook post on their page was their first post in just over three years.

00:35:47Lyndell Murray: Fantastic. Yeah, I have done Taman Pudu Ulu as well. It was quite an adventure the day I did it. I won't go into details, but if anyone's interested, it's quite a story.

00:36:00Tony O'Connell: Maybe after the episode. And other news in that general region, it's about as close to the Malaysian general region as you can get. Singapore Day is on Sunday, the 9th of August. Traditionally, Singapore, one of the five events, or in the past up to when BEDOC resumed, one of the four events hosted the day this year they've just announced that they're going to be running two events so up until recently though we're saying that east coast was going to be the host this year well they've just announced that east coast and west coast will be running this year so a couple of options there and hopefully that'll help with their numbers

00:36:37Lyndell Murray: Yeah, well, they might get a few extras this weekend, this time, given that Singapore Day will fall on a Sunday. So there'll be lots of people who are heading over for a long weekend, perhaps on that 8th and 9th of August.

00:36:51Tony O'Connell: Sunday, Sunday parkrun. You've got to love that.

00:36:53Lyndell Murray: You've got to love it. All right, TOC, we have talked a lot. Let's get into some stats.

Weekly attendance stats

00:37:01Tony O'Connell: Right, yeah, let's go through these stats quickly. New Zealand attendances for the week of the 6th of June. In New Zealand, there were 73 events. They had 10,520 parkrunners and 1,216 volunteers. The largest event on the day was Hagley and the smallest was East Otago. Moving to the 13th, which was the last weekend, they had 73 events again. They had 11,364 parkrunners, 1,232 volunteers, and one event set an attendance record there. The largest was once again Hagley. I'd love to see someone knock Hagley off just for a week, Lyndell. And the smallest was East Otago High. Yeah, so that was our New Zealand stats, Wendell.

00:37:50Lyndell Murray: Hagley is always at the top we might have to I don't know how we could help that out but anyway another trip to New Zealand okay heading back over to Australia on the 6th of June we had 87,618 participants 6,951 volunteers at 536 events and there were 3,306 first-timers on that weekend I wonder if that was the Queensland day bump who knows The junior events that weekend, all five events ran. There were 464 little legends guided by 101 volunteers. This latest parkrun day on the 13th of June, there were 69,943 participants, 6,938 volunteers at 535 events and 2,357 of those were first timers. In the junior events, there were 437 finishers, guided by 100 volunteers at all five events. The smallest and largest. What patterns do we have here? On the 6th of June, the smallest parkruns were Centenary and Railway Park with four each. The largest parkrun was Sandgate on Speed Week with 860. This last parkrun week on the 13th of June, the smallest parkruns were Railway Park with three, Moora, Meningi and Natalia showgrounds, all with seven. The largest parkrun last weekend was the Ponds with 671.

00:39:26Tony O'Connell: That's a little bit unusual, Wendell. We haven't seen Albert Park up in its normal spot there. So there is hope for the New Zealand events yet if we can knock Albert Park down again. A little bit. Maybe there is hope for someone. Maybe it'll take a marathon over in Auckland or somewhere for a large spike. Yeah, maybe.

00:39:48Lyndell Murray: Maybe they need Speed Week.

00:39:49Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that'll do. Let's export it.

00:39:53Lyndell Murray: Yep. Okay. Let's head over and listen to our roving reports. Music.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:40:05[background music]

00:40:07Alison Fraser: Yorokoto adventurers it's Alison here reporting in once again from Japan and today I've come to Uraya Sushi Sogo Koen parkrun which is one of the parkruns in Tokyo and I'm joined by James who is one of the volunteers today James was tail walking so welcome to the podcast James thank you very nice to be here And tell us about, well, you are English, living in Tokyo. What brought you to Japan?

00:40:34James: Well, so I first came out here as an English teacher. There's a Japanese government program called the JET program. And they bring out university graduates from various English-speaking countries to work in the Japanese public school system. So I first lived in Suzuka, which is where the Grand Prix circuit is, many people will know, for three years teaching English in the public school system. And then I later moved to Tokyo and joined an international school. And I've been here for... 25 years now.

00:40:58Alison Fraser: So you've been here longer than parkrun's been in Japan. That's it, yeah, for sure. So how did you find parkrun? Tell us your parkrun story.

00:41:04James: Mine is, it's a family connection. So a brother-in-law who's lived in both the UK and Australia and he and I would jog together occasionally. I'm a very... occasional exercise jogger and he would encourage me to go to parkrun and i couldn't really understand what it was sounded you know i'm not a i'm not a elite runner and i wasn't sure i wanted to turn up at a race or whatever it was and he explained it i didn't quite understand it but eventually i went with him and i was in sydney at the time and we went to i think it's called saint peter's in sydney and it was pouring with rain actually hammering it down um and but still there was a i know maybe 100 people or so turned up in the pouring rain ran around up and down the the hill and um But I got a feel straight away that it was a really nice, friendly, welcoming activity, low pressure, family friendly, all that good stuff. So he finally got me along to one and I enjoyed it. And then the following weekend, I was keen to get my family involved. So I started immediately promoting it to everyone else and I got my kids to go the following weekend. to Rhodes in Sydney, my wife and kids and wider family as well, cousins, and we got a group going the next weekend. So I was immediately hooked, I suppose you could say.

00:42:20Alison Fraser: And so coming back to Tokyo where you live, you looked for your nearest parkrun.

00:42:25James: Yeah, I was looking for my nearest one which I found to be Futako Tamagawa so I registered and put that down as my home parkrun and then actually when it came to doing my first parkrun in Japan I was working out the logistics of getting there and then I saw this other one here, the one in Ureyasu and I worked out that actually it was probably easier to get to this one even though it's slightly further away because I can drive to this one and the parking's convenient and all that kind of stuff so I decided to give this one a try And although the first time I came to a parkrun here, it actually, there actually wasn't a parkrun. I turned up to do my first ever parkrun and I wasn't very familiar with the app and stuff. And I got here and it was empty and there was no one around. And I thought, oh, I must have made a mistake. And then what transpired is I bumped, there's another guy milling around looking for people. And we sort of said, parkrun, parkrun. And yeah. Long story short, after a few minutes, we worked out the parkrun had actually been cancelled because there was a typhoon through the night and there was a little bit of rain still in the air, but it was very nice. It was perfectly mild conditions, but it had been cancelled, you know, preemptively because of the typhoon. They decided to cancel it the day before. But he and this guy who I met that day, we did our own unofficial parkrun. We did the 5k. We followed the course. So I almost feel like my first parkrun in Japan wasn't actually a real parkrun. It was an unofficial one. But then from the following week, I think I came down to Ureyasu here, having worked out that getting here with a convenient parking and all that kind of stuff was pretty nice. So this has become my home parkrun, even though technically on my profile, it's Futako Tamagawa. I come here much more regularly, 20 plus times in the past year or so. you describe the course for the listeners yeah it's a great course this one i think i mean again i'm not the most experienced i've been doing this for less than two years i've been to maybe eight or nine locations um but i think uh the the feedback on this one's always good it's it's relatively flat there's a there's a very slight incline at the end um but it's by the water for the vast majority of the time you get city views across the across the water um and Yeah, we're here in a park right now surrounded by lovely pine trees and, you know, 8 o'clock start here in Japan. So, yeah, you get a lot of, sorry, you know, breeze and fresh air and sea views. And the host team here are great, very friendly. as I'm sure is the case at most of the Japanese parkruns, I'm sure. But it's a lovely atmosphere, nice flat course. It's one loop, it's kind of out and back and then out and back the other way. So you're not sort of having to do multiple loops, which I know a lot of people like as well. So yeah, highly recommended.

00:44:54Alison Fraser: Yeah, and you get quite a few visitors, you were telling us as you were tail walking with us today.

00:44:58James: That's right. Yeah. So, I mean, one thing that I really like about this course here is that we tend to have, you know, maybe 20, 30, 40 locals or regulars, you might say, turn up and then there's always an additional 20, 30, 40 tourists. So every week down here at Uriasu, you're going to find a, you know, predominantly Australian and the UK would account for most of the tourism for the parkruns, but always several other countries as well, New Zealand and sometimes from the US and other places. But a significant high proportion of tourists come and always nice to meet new people and have a chat after the run and grab a coffee from the convenience store across the road and have a catch up and check in like today. So, yeah, it's always a nice mix of people.

00:45:38Alison Fraser: And you're the closest parkrun to the Disney, Tokyo Disney. That's right.

00:45:41James: Yeah, we're right here. Tokyo Disneyland is just literally just across the way there. So very close. yeah and you mentioned just before eight or nine locations you've done yeah um which kind of stand out for you yeah so from your home park yeah so if i'm going to count this one as my home parkrun which again technically it's not on my profile but it is in practice um i would say that so my my um my favorite parkrun in the uk where i'm from in nottinghamshire is is definitely sherwood pines it's beautiful fantastic sort of easy, easyish trail. Um, you know, you can, you can wear your regular running shoes. There's nothing too crazy, but it's a trail and it's in the forest and the trees have, you know, magnificent. And, um, yeah, and it's, it's pretty sizable and the facilities are good and there's a nice cafe there and all that good stuff. Parking's easy, et cetera, but it's beautiful. So, um, and a nice big one looper as well. So Sherwood Pines would definitely be on the list. Um, And then if I can't pick this one, which would be on my top three, if I could pick it, but if I couldn't pick Oreasu, I would then look to Australia and I would go for Rhodes, which I've already mentioned, um, which was also had, um, I've only done it once, but my memories of it were really positive. It's the first one I did with my family, the first one I did with my kids. Um, and it was big, six, seven, 800 people, I think at the time, um, a lot of water in that one as well. Um, well organized it was it was really enjoyable and a kind of a bit of an origin story for my family doing parkrun together and I'd stay in Australia for my third one for a special mention would be Wagga Wagga I was staying in Sydney and meeting friends from Melbourne and we decided to meet in the middle which is which is Wagga so we did the parkrun there and yeah me and one of my sons turned up um and again i think it's the water the water is the theme here the the you know sherwood pines obviously doesn't have that as the forest but it's it's near a lake in in in waga there and um again not not a um not hundreds and hundreds of people but like a you know similar to maybe this one in terms of size um but yeah just really nice people um like people bring snacks and refreshments and catch up with people and and just a lovely out and back by the water so i'd certainly recommend those three

00:47:47Alison Fraser: Cool. Thank you so much for your time today, James. Thank you for your awesome first time as welcome. You did the English version and then tail walking as well. And you've got a lovely park around here. So I hope you and your family continue to enjoy it.

00:47:59James: Pleasure. Thank you so much.

00:48:03Ruth Perkins: Cooey parkrun Adventures, or I should say, hey, because today I am in Sweden and I'm at Billdalsparken and I'm going to get corrected potentially on that name right now. So I'm here today with today's RD, who is?

00:48:20Stuart Bailey: Stuart Bailey.

00:48:22Ruth Perkins: Brilliant. And then also we have?

00:48:24Janne Losman: Janne Losman.

00:48:25Ruth Perkins: And you are the ED here?

00:48:28Janne Losman: Yes, I'm the ED and my wife as well. We started this parkrun four and a half years ago. It's still running, so that's good.

00:48:36Ruth Perkins: So four and a half years ago, what brought parkrun here then? What did you think was special about having parkrun here?

00:48:42Janne Losman: Actually, I started the second one in Gothenburg nine years ago and was approached by a guy living here who wanted to start this one. So we helped him start this one and eventually it drifted away, so we had to take over it, my wife and I. And since we really enjoy the parkrun community, so we continue to do this one instead.

00:49:01Ruth Perkins: And Stuart, how did you get involved with this parkrun?

00:49:04Stuart Bailey: I got involved in this parkrun because my sister came over visiting from England and she said, oh, there's a parkrun just down the road from you, which I'd not heard about. So we came down here. There weren't many people here. There weren't many volunteers. I saw on a website that they were looking for volunteers and that was my... daughter who mentioned that, so I came down and helped out.

00:49:32Ruth Perkins: Brilliant. So you're here now, but you have been to some other parkruns as well to support and to volunteer, you said?

00:49:40Stuart Bailey: All my volunteering has been here officially, but I have helped out at one in South Woodford, and I can't remember the name of it. But I remember it's going around a couple of football pitches three times. I remember doing that. But I've also been supporting my... sister or my daughter to salzburg in austria for example several in the uk obviously newcastle springs to mind for example yeah lovely have you many traveled to many other parkruns or yes we travel around a bit we try to do one in the summer time when a vacation time so we've done one in italy one in germany and one in poland as well so we try to get around in the community of parkruns

00:50:33Ruth Perkins: Do any of those parkruns you've done elsewhere stand out for you?

00:50:36Janne Losman: Yeah, I think the one we did in Lucca, Italy, was one of the nicest. We tried it this far, so I really recommend that one.

00:50:45Ruth Perkins: So today I'm talking to you in, I think you said, is this the gardener's house?

00:50:50Janne Losman: Yeah, in the park this is the old gardener's house, but it's now turned into a nice cafe. So after parkrun it's really good here as well.

00:50:57Ruth Perkins: We had a reasonably long wait for the cafe, but I would say this is one of the best cafes I think I've been to after parkrun. The cakes were absolutely delicious. Do you have a favourite cake here that you'd recommend?

00:51:09Janne Losman: Well, we tried to go for the apple cake or the cinnamon buns. That's a really good one.

00:51:14Ruth Perkins: Yeah. How about you, Stuart? Do you have a favourite?

00:51:17Stuart Bailey: I think the cinnamon buns are special, and of course they're a Swedish speciality, so I would recommend everybody to try one of those. But any of the cakes or even one of the breakfasts is worthwhile trying. Really spectacular.

00:51:35Ruth Perkins: I had a vacuum cleaner, I think, dessert, which is marzipan and some punch, and it was quite lively, yeah. So this parkrun route, we're going through some nice woods, we're going along a stream. Is there anything particular that people should know about this area here where we are?

00:51:55Janne Losman: No, it's an old traditional garden here. So it's been here for like 200 years. And it's a really nice park. And you have quite a variety of both the tarmac and the gravel to run on. So it's a nice one.

00:52:08Stuart Bailey: I would point out a couple of things. There's the old house, which was built in the 1800s, I believe, by a family as a summer home. unfortunately there's no running water so it is so it's not being used for anything at the moment other than as a museum and next to that as you run up the parkrun you probably notice it in the springtime there's actually an apple orchard where they've got different apple trees many different apple varieties 50 different trees each one is different and it's free to people to pick the apples

00:52:51Ruth Perkins: That definitely sounds like a good reason to come here as well, to get free apples of exciting varieties.

00:52:57Janne Losman: And it's all about timing.

00:52:58Ruth Perkins: Yeah.

00:52:59Janne Losman: And there is a sign with each apple tree describing what kind of apple it is.

00:53:04Ruth Perkins: Ah, well, that sounds really lovely. Well, I am very grateful for you putting on this parkrun this year. I think you swapped between this and the other parkrun in Gothenburg. Yep, yep. So thank you so much for having this today. We really appreciate it. I think we've had a good turnout. It's not your biggest numbers you've ever had.

00:53:25Janne Losman: But it's quite a good number this weekend. It's the second biggest.

00:53:29Ruth Perkins: Ooh, second biggest. Lovely.

00:53:31Janne Losman: And usually we're like 30, 40 people each week.

00:53:34Ruth Perkins: Oh gosh, yeah.

00:53:36Stuart Bailey: And it's very easy to get to. So even though it is just outside of Gothenburg, There is a direct bus which drops you no further than 20 metres away from the start.

00:53:50Ruth Perkins: Ah, that is very convenient, yes. So, is there anything else that people should know? Oh, we've covered some good stuff.

00:53:58Janne Losman: I think we put the pride in and never cancelled. So we try to go to the park even during the wintertime when there's snow outside. So Stuart is usually out shoveling snow during Wednesday to make sure there can be a park on on Saturdays.

00:54:11Ruth Perkins: Oh, that's so kind.

00:54:13Janne Losman: Team effort.

00:54:14Ruth Perkins: oh that's really wonderful yeah well so uh i think all i've got left to say is tusentak um and yeah thank you so much yeah thank you thank you it's always nice to turn up to our special days [Swedish: ""Tusen tack" — "A thousand thanks" / "Thank you so much""]

00:54:31Lyndell Murray: G'day, parkrun adventurers. It's Lyndell, and today I have packed up my little Honda Jazz, driven down the M1 to the lands of the Yugambeh people. I am at the Gold Coast's newest parkrun, Greenheart Robina Parklands parkrun. I think I've got that right. I'm going to just fact-check that with the event director, Mark.

00:54:53Mark: Yes, yeah, that's right. The event name underwent a few changes. And then we realised that we'd make it specific because if you pop that name in Google Maps, people can actually find it. Whereas if you pop just Greenheart Parklands in, no one can find it. It doesn't pop up. So just to make it a bit logistically easier.

00:55:16Lyndell Murray: I'm a big advocate of putting the locality name into a parkrun event name, but we won't get into that today because we've got a lot to talk about here at Greenheart Robina. Tell me, Mark, what drove you to start this parkrun? It's been a bit of a passion, I think, for you for a while.

00:55:34Mark: Well, I was quite an intermittent parkrunner since I began in 2019. I began at a very big parkrun, the first in New South Wales at Peters. I even used it for study, for university. But then I moved to an extremely rural location in Casino, Queen Elizabeth Park, parkrun Casino, which taught me a lot about the community of parkrun and about it being simply a catch-up for a lot of people. And once I saw that side of it, I admired the culture greatly and I wanted to make something similar on the Gold Coast because there are so many large events on the Gold Coast and it's very difficult to... try and establish and maintain that kind of culture as numbers grow. So I wanted to make a parkrun that was going in the right direction from the start with regards to that culture. And, um, that would, um, yeah, borrow some lessons from Casino, a much smaller parkrun that usually only gets 50 people, only got 20 people when I was there. Um, so I'm trying to make it a parkrun that is a large parkrun, but has a small parkrun attitude.

00:56:49Lyndell Murray: Nice one. So a parkrun with heart, if you like.

00:56:52Mark: Exactly.

00:56:53Lyndell Murray: Yeah. And now you've started the parkrun with a few founding run directors. You had a handful of core team. How is that? And what's the community like so far?

00:56:59[crosstalk]

00:57:05Mark: The community is really good. Everyone has different communication styles, of course. So the first thing that you do is you learn... The best way to talk to everyone who likes to be spoken to in a more friendly way, who likes to be direct. It's all about. accommodating people as an event director the most important thing I think is that you lead from the middle in that you find the right people to support you at the start and don't try and ride roughshod over the event even though you're in the hot seat for doing so it's important to let the community as it develops play a role in developing the culture so that people feel a sense of connection and authenticity And the run directors I started with all have great experience in bureaucratic organisation. So they understand ticking boxes and doing the essentials and things like that. And I try and play a role counterbalancing that with the kind of...

00:58:11Lyndell Murray: weird unhinged sprightly kind of attitude so there you go i love to hear it mark so it sounds like you've got a great little balance in your team let's talk about the course here at um green heart um two lapper yeah nice green space here um how did you come to find this location and tell us about the course

00:58:35Mark: well this was a location that was earmarked maybe even a few years ago and a lot of people used to run in this area when it was still a gravel track so if you go back far enough you'll find plenty of strava segments that have quite confusing names given the appearance it has now but um I picked it up when I heard that a previous event director who was trying to start it had stepped away from doing it. Because when I came here as a wildlife photographer, actually, I noticed it was just the kind of place that I would like to spend mornings at doing parkrun because my biggest passions are wildlife. running, parkrun, photography and dogs. So I thought this was perfectly ticked all of the boxes for me. And I thought it had the best chance of being the canvas for the culture I wanted to create. And the course, being two lapper, is really easy for people who feel like they want to pull out halfway if it's just not their day. That's me a lot of weeks. And so, yeah. Yeah.

00:59:39Lyndell Murray: Yep. And lots of out and back and a big loop so you get to see everybody. Now the wildlife, I just noted there's a body of water here beside us and there's a big paddock of cows. Not that you can pat the cows if you come to Greenheart, Robina, but they're right there. What other wildlife is in the area?

00:59:56Mark: well i can give you latin names but i won't because that will be just needlessly complicated um you've got australasian darters you've got black cormorants you've got uh little pied cormorants you've got um all of the i think quite underappreciated magpies and the and the um short bill corellas you've got pelicans you've got swans you've got pacific black ducks, you've got chestnut teals, you've got blue-faced honey eaters, you've got noisy miners, the list goes on. Really, there's a lot. There's vanilla smileys, that's the masked lapwing, or people commonly know as the plover, that's one that causes problems at some parkrun events, because they like to nest in the middle of lawns, which tends to be the start area for a lot of parkruns.

01:00:46Lyndell Murray: not ours thankfully but um yeah it's wonderful and it's really good for people who just want a nice place so yeah but super handy as well the stadium's right here there's coffee shops close by a great little location all right now mark we've covered a lot here is there anything else that you would like the parkrun adventurers to know sure about your parkrun here

01:01:08Mark: Of course. I am a massive, massive believer in making volunteering very accessible, giving people as many ways to be involved as possible, and in particular, gateway volunteering, because Volunteering, especially when you're used to large events, can feel a little bit intimidating at the start. That's just a communication issue, I believe, and it's one I aim to solve. So I do my best to open up the roster as much as possible. I make a point of saying that we can have more volunteers than might appear on the roster. um i always always say the roster is never full i can find a place for someone if they turn up because i personally sometimes like to turn up and and just volunteer last minute i mean it's nice to know that there's a place to do so um and apart from that walking culture i'm i'm a 16 and a half minute parkrunner But only very, very occasionally. Very, very occasionally. So I have a big connection with walkers. I love to walk as well. I spend a lot of time walking when I'm doing photography. And I just want to make sure it's extremely friendly to walkers. That's another big thing.

01:02:33Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. Okay. Well... Let's leave it there, Mark. Sure. Thank you so much for talking to me today. Thank you for taking the time. And thank you for everything that you've done here for the community at Greenheart Rubina and for everything that you'll continue to do for parkrun.

01:02:50[background music]

01:02:50Mark: Thank you very much. Wonderful to talk to you.

01:02:54Lyndell Murray: Beautiful.

01:03:03Tony O'Connell: Lyndell, great to hear another set of roving reports coming to us from all around the world. We had Alison from New Zealand, but coming to us from Yuriasu in Japan. She was with James, who was the tail walker. We had Ruth coming to us from Bildersparken in Sweden. She was with the RD Stewart and the ED Jan, and they were at the Ascension Day parkrun, and they were talking about some cakes and breakfasts that I reckon I might have to go to that parkrun just to experience cake and the breakfast. I didn't look at what the course was like. I don't care. The cake sounds good.

01:03:39Lyndell Murray: Sounds great. Hook me up too.

01:03:43Tony O'Connell: And you came to us and we heard from you talking to Mark and the background behind how Greenheart Rabuna came into being.

01:03:51Lyndell Murray: And always you can send us a roving report wherever you are. It doesn't have to be a special day. It doesn't have to be a long way from home. We love hearing from you wherever you are.

01:04:01Tony O'Connell: Yeah, even if you want to throw one from your home event, like you know the people there, find someone really interesting and have a chat.

01:04:09Lyndell Murray: Yeah, absolutely. All right, Toc, speaking of cakes and breakfasts, let's head over to Dazza's. On June the 6th, Dazza said, Fun fact, on this day in 1859, Queen Victoria signed the letters patent formally separating Queensland from New South Wales. That makes today Queensland Day, so Dazza has whipped up some sunshine themed snacks to celebrate. Come on in and tell us about your parkrun morning.

Dazza's

01:04:36Tony O'Connell: Rightio, and I'm going to kick off. And our first one comes to us from Queensland. It's Greg Garner. And Greg said, it was a cool start to the morning at S.S. Koopa Trail parkrun, but I quickly warmed up as I did my fourth fastest time ever out of 161 parkruns. Wore the maroon this morning to help celebrate Queensland Day. Greg posted an image of himself in the event frame with the Bribie Island beach in the background.

01:05:02Lyndell Murray: Next, we heard from Stephen Warwick, tail walker at Sunning Bells Parade parkrun. Though the sun stayed behind the hill throughout the event, the skies were clear. The reflections magical and the atmosphere among all those attending incredible, as usual. And Steve posted a photo looking across the Bells Parade track beside the Mersey River. Val also dropped in with a comment.

01:05:26Tony O'Connell: Radio across to WA and we heard from Chris Gore. Karen and I certainly had heaps of Queensland sunshine, but not much of the Queensland warmth weather when I did my 500th parkrun at WA's newest parkrun, Longpoint parkrun in Port Kennedy. Our granddaughter Raven helped me celebrate and my nephew who was working at the local police station came down to join in the fun and recorded the speed of the runners as they headed to the finish line. We managed to catch up with many parkrun friends and had a very enjoyable park bath at the golf club afterwards. Also, and we have a series of emojis, we have a white heart, a black heart, a white heart and a black heart. thanks mel for all your contributions to the podcast we hope to catch up somewhere and like i'd like to say big congrats to chris on his 500th finishing and for posting a photo of himself at or in the long point selfie frame with the 500 certificate he also put up a photo of himself and karen and a photo of his nephew who is the local policeman standing there watching the start so i was wondering what that policeman was about when i looked in the photos initially before i read the comment

01:06:35Lyndell Murray: Yeah, just as well we got that explanation. Context. Context is important. Next we heard from Michael Blaine. Six Queenslanders bravely headed to Uralla to visit Constellations of the South parkrun on a very chilly morning to celebrate Queensland Day. Sending much warmer hugs, love, best wishes and thanks to Melissa for her huge effort and contribution to the pod and the whole parkrun Adventurers community this past five years. And Michael posted a group photo of himself plus a group of adventurers all wearing the adventurer's shirt proudly. And they were all in the event frame.

01:07:15Tony O'Connell: Next, we heard from Ian Lydia Knox. Ah, a Queensland parkrun for us this morning. Bit chilly at Wynnum parkrun. Nice scenic course with Tracy Wood. And there was a pic posted with Ian Lydia and our good friend Tracy Wood in the selfie frame, complete with a blue sky background. Gee, Linda, I am having trouble getting my words out tonight.

01:07:38Lyndell Murray: Wait till we get to the event launches, everybody. Lastly on Queensland Day, we heard from Natalie Soper. And she has also posted some black and white hearts from Melissa in her comment. And she said... Had a lovely time at Nightcliff parkrun meeting Sam and friends. If that experience doesn't convince my non-parkrunning friend to give it a try next weekend, I don't know what will. Had to spend the hour after breakfast explaining all the various challenges we talked about. And there's the rolling on the floor laughing emoji. Thanks to Mel for all the podcasts. Have so enjoyed listening to all your adventures over the years. You have been such an inspiration for me starting parkrun and adventuring properly. And there's the heart eyes emoji and black and white hearts for Melissa. Natalie's posted a great photo. in her adventurous top with the sunrise over the ocean in the background. Beautiful.

01:08:42Tony O'Connell: Was another great photo. Rightio, we're going to move on to Dazza's last weekend on the 13th of June. And Dazza said, it's World Gin Day and Dazza reckons it's 12 o'clock somewhere in the world. So cheers. Was your parkrun morning filled with cheer? Come on in and tell us all about it. And there's a little hashtag note there saying drink responsibly.

01:09:02Lyndell Murray: Firstly, we heard from Yvette Turner. Bill Turner and I have been in Darwin for a few days, having a fantastic time with a group of friends. Today it's parkrun day. So while the rest of the group went to Darwin parkrun, we adventured further afield to Palmerston parkrun, 20 kilometres away. The course was a little complicated, but I just followed everyone and made it to the end. Afterwards, we headed back to Darwin for a fabulous breakfast with 16 friends. And I'll be sure to have a gin-based drink at dinner tonight to celebrate World Gin Day. And there was a photo of Yvette and Bill, both in their adventurer tops, surrounded by the selfie frame with a water fun park in the background.

01:09:44Tony O'Connell: Rightio. Across the ditch this time, Lyndell, and we heard from Tanya Bailey. Tanya said, Hi, Dazza. Well, gin day.

01:09:52Unidentified speaker: Hmm.

01:09:53Tony O'Connell: Rude not to take part. I did wait till after 5 p.m., though. Walked parkrun today and had pleasant conversations with a few people. A chilly start, but always looks lovely. Sunrise on the lake. The photographer thankfully left Brunner out while he was doing his ablutions. And the photo that Tonya posted was a picture of herself in a very cheery yellow top, holding a dog leg that appears to be unattached to a dog. So I'm not sure what's going on there. And the other thing... She didn't say where she parkrunned and there was nothing in the photo for context. We had to get the research department onto it. And I've got to tell you, our research budget's not great. But our research departments revealed that Tanya was at Pegasus and the lake was in the background. And I'm assuming that Brunner the dog was off the end of the leash doing whatever ablutions Brunner wanted to do.

01:10:46Lyndell Murray: Yeah. Dogs will be dogs. Next, we heard from Bernadette Bennett. We met up with Andrew Blander at his home parkrun, Cooks River, this morning for some cheerful chat and a lovely run along the river. And there's a photo of Bernadette and David Bennett in the event frame.

01:11:03Tony O'Connell: We're going to go a long way this time. And we've heard from Nick Graney at Spanish Banks Beach parkrun. Where's that, you ask? Well, let's listen to what Nick's got to say. It's past midday in Canada. albeit still Friday. Haha. Emojis of a Canadian flag and a runner. Excited for a Canadian parkrun tomorrow morning in Vancouver, followed by a gin and watching the Socceroos play Turkey in the afternoon for our first World Cup game. Emojis of a football, green and gold hearts and the Australian flag. Nick didn't actually post a photo when he put the comment in with his original post because he posted before parkrun But he commented later with a photo, a group of six Australian parkrunners at Spanish Banks Beach Pop-Up. Six of them were wearing Socceroos jerseys or shirts. And the weather looks stellar over there, Nick.

01:11:56Lyndell Murray: Sure does. Next, we heard from Katie Clues. And Katie said, Point Vernon Foreshore Reserve parkrun celebrating one million events and Katie and the team from Point Vernon are pictured holding large inflated gold numbers totaling one zero zero zero zero zero zero with the ocean in the background righty-o Linda I think it's time for us to work out who's got the Obi and I believe you've got the I'm not even sure what format we use these days what are we using

the Obi Award — Nick Graney

01:12:27Tony O'Connell: I've just received an email.

01:12:29Lyndell Murray: And this episode, the Obi goes to Nick Graney. Thanks, Nick, for doing your thing over there in Canada, cheering on the Socceroos. Well done.

01:12:40Tony O'Connell: Well done, Nick. And if we've given you a shout-out in Daz's today, send us an email or comment on the post on Facebook to let us know that you're a listener. It's always great to know who actually listens and who just drops in on Sunday and comments.

01:12:53Lyndell Murray: Yeah, it sure is. Okay, on to our emails.

Listener emails ("You've got mail")

01:12:57Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III (Club Corner contributor, pseudonymous): You've got mail.

01:12:58Lyndell Murray: We have one very long email from our friend Pippa, the Streakmeister. Hello, team. This is an email specially for TOC. Sometimes it can be quite frustrating as a well-established tourist to find new challenges. New challenge, birthday squared. This challenge is to run a parkrun on your actual birthday... on a day when a parkrun started, i.e. on their anniversary. Back in 2019, I found that Amager Fælled parkrun in Denmark started on the 16th of May 2009, on my 38th birthday. Plans were made to visit on the 16th of May 2020. I emailed the team in January and my daughter, the tame volunteer, was on the roster. Flights were booked and then the world changed. The next time that the anniversary and my birthday were on the same date was this year, 2026. So flights were booked in October 2025. The tame volunteer was added to the roster. Rather a surprised ED adding her in January. And we made it. There was no name for this challenge. So after bouncing it around the internet, I decided that it should be called Birthday Squared. So Birthday Squared was achieved for me on the 16th of May, 2026. My gulp, 55th birthday and Armageddon 17th. It's a delightfully silly challenge, says Pippa. The next time that Pippa can do this is in 2037, she said. And that's because of leap years. So Pippa says, check out the parkrun anniversary page to see where and when you can do it. And if your birthday is the 25th of December or the 1st of January, you almost definitely will never have a chance of doing it. But consolation, yay, you get to parkrun on your birthday every single year. The other difficult to achieve challenge for those in Australia or New Zealand is the periodic table challenge proposed by Dave Thornton. Another rather fun challenge. Essentially, Do a parkrun where the first letter is the first letter of an element in the table and the second letter is in the name. For example, Na, sodium, could be ticked off by visiting Nambour. To see how you're doing, visit the wonderful Challenge Chaser website created by Mark Pinney and we'll pop a link to that in the comments. That was a very long email from Pippa. She signs off. Happy parkrunning, Pippa, the Streakmeister. Tock. Have you done your research on birthday squared?

01:15:35Tony O'Connell: I've only done a very small amount of research. I can, in fact, achieve that at a number of events. But I guess there's only one event that I can find in the world that actually gives you the option if you were born on the 1st of January, and that's in New Zealand. So if you're a Kiwi, you've got more chance. As for Christmas Day, no, you don't have, sorry, you don't have a chance at that one.

01:15:57Lyndell Murray: You can't get birthday squared. I had a look at my birthday. My birthday next falls on a Saturday in 2033. I have no idea what events I might be able to do, but it might be time to do some forward planning and find somewhere a long way away just for something fun.

01:16:14Tony O'Connell: I know I've definitely done a parkrun on my birthday, but I also know that it wouldn't have been at an event that was celebrating their birthday. And I think that's the tricky bit is finding one that's both your birthday and their birthday. Yes. Very tricky. When I look at my birthday and I have in fact done one parkrun on my birthday and at Pakenham and interestingly enough Pakenham probably it was probably their week two second celebration so I missed it by a week.

01:16:27[crosstalk]

01:16:48Lyndell Murray: Yeah right I've parkrunned on my birthday at least once I park I did my 50th parkrun on my birthday one year and it's quite confusing because everyone thought it was my 50th birthday but it was not.

01:17:04Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Linda. We also have a second email this week, and it's a short one, and I get the pleasure of the short one. Thank you very much. And it says, hi, in the next pod when you're discussing new events, I'd just bring your attention to Queensway, which ran on the 6th of June, 2026 in the UK with 640 finishes, as we'll hear a bit later. As Q is the world limiting letter for alphabets. So those people that have the multiple alphabets, excluding the X, of course, there's only 12 Qs and that's the smallest number. Even the letter Z has more Zs in the world than there are Qs. And that was sent to us by Dave Messenger. So thanks for that heads up, Dave.

01:17:47Lyndell Murray: Indeed. OK, now it's time to throw over to Reginald.

Club Corner

01:17:55[background music]

01:17:58Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III (Club Corner contributor, pseudonymous): This is Cooee from Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III, with Club Corner, where we quiz the hosts and listeners with Who Am I, and I am coming to you from Aranda Country. I am continuing with this unasked for, and unwanted format smiley face. Who am I is an easy game to play. I will ask questions and you will shout the answer when you think you know it. I will continue asking questions and you will, or will not, realize how wrong you were, and then at the end, all will be revealed. Let us get going. Who am I? Pause if you need. Question 1. My state or territory has not been featured on Who am I? As I am getting soft, so far we have had Victoria, North Island, Queensland, WA, New South Wales, and SA. Question 2. I am the northernmost event in my state or territory. Question 3. I am a two-lap course, but I do not finish where I start. Question 4. My starting letter is found twice in my state or territory. Question 5. I am in the top of the Pops Club, but so are two other events in my state or territory. Question 6. I am a two-lap course, but only cross my bridge once. And finally, question 7. There is a troll associated with me. Who am I? I am Wagi Bridge, in the Australian Capital Territory. That is your lot for the week, and we will return to our countries with only four countries to go. How many club corners is that? No idea. And remember, in parkrun life, parkrun now hosts various renamed non-milestone clubs in their app, so they are now official and supported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

01:19:50[background music]

Reginald / Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III

01:19:57Tony O'Connell: And it was really great to hear once again from our friend Reginald. I've got to admit, Reginald really had me stumped on this one. My mind did not go to the ACT, but I should have known better because Waggie Bridge was actually the location I ran my 250th parkrun. I made a special effort to get there. I should have known that. Lyndell, how about you?

01:20:17Lyndell Murray: No, I didn't get it either. Admittedly, I don't know what the top of the POPs challenge is. I don't know whether I should say that here or not. And yeah, I didn't think of ACT either. I was thinking about Nightcliff as being the most northern in Northern Territory. Maybe somewhere like Burnie being the most northern in Tasmania. So, yeah, well done, Reginald. You've stumped us. But just another note to Reginald. I love that they think that they're getting a bit soft by giving us clues. Please, Reginald, give us clues. Clearly, we need them. All righty. Moving swiftly on, let's get into our Consolidated Club Report. On Saturday, the 13th of June, 2026, of a total of 932 members, 658 took part in 352 locations. Locally, there are adventurers at Queensland with 61 events, 57 events in Victoria, 55 events in New South Wales, 22 in Western Australia, 18 in South Australia, 8 in Tasmania, 5 in the ACT and 3 in Northern Territory. Across in New Zealand, there were nine at North Island events. And on the South Island, we had adventurers at three events. Internationally, there were adventurers at 87 events in the UK, nine events in South Africa, three events in Poland, two events in each of Canada, Ireland, Italy and Japan. And Germany, Norway, Singapore and USA each had one event where there was an adventurer present.

Consolidated Club Report

01:22:02Tony O'Connell: When do I keep looking and listening to this Consolidated Club report? In Malaysia. I know they've got the one event and they're soon to have two, but I'd love to see an adventurer pop up at Malaysia more often. And I'd love even perhaps one day we could have it an international largest frond there. And speaking of the international largest fronds, on the 6th of the 6th, we had a frond of nine at one event, which was Queensway, which would have been the launch. That was Debbie and Andy Airy, James Newt, Wanda Day, Ellie Soper, Christopher Miles, Colin Hare, Cass Castleton and Matthew Hay. On the 13th of June, Our largest frond was a frond of five at one event, and that was at Y Promenade, Leandro and Ross, and I've completely butchered that, but that's going to be my best effort at a Welsh parkrun with lots of letters and things in it, Lyndell. That was Andy and Wendella Poole, Cherry and David Eccles, and Karen Hurrell.

the Frond

01:23:02Lyndell Murray: The Welsh ones are the hardest because they all have 27 consonants and three vowels in them. You did a great job, Toc.

01:23:11Tony O'Connell: And the office lady did send us a guide on how to say that and I completely forgot to look it up before the episode, so I just had a crack anyway.

01:23:18Lyndell Murray: Yeah, good on you. I applaud that. Okay, our pilgrimages. On the 6th of June, there was nobody at Bushy. But this last parkrun day on the 13th of June, there was Leanne Blaney and Terry Logan.

01:23:36Tony O'Connell: Rightio, we're going to go across to our Aussie largest fronds. On the 6th of June, there was a Frond of Nine at one event. And it's the event that we can now name. We never used to be able to name, but now we can. It's Shell Harbour. And that was our very, very good friend, Oliver Spake, Julie Wells, Louise Aitken, Patrick Peacock, David Forster, Delveen McKenzie, Kirsten McKenzie, Gordon and Julie Turner. And kicking across to the 13th of June, we had a massive front of 11 at one event. And that event was Darwin. I wonder what was going on up there. The people in the front were Tim Robbins, Michael Little, Anne Hart, Luke Schroder, Catherine O'Connor, Janet and Dave Tozer, Natalie Soper, Ingrid Botha, Sue Gittens and Amanda Lake. And also up at Darwin, there was our very own office lady, Sam Schroder, volleying as Chief of Tokens. She posted in Daz's and is the 29th parkrunner in Australia to achieve the Ollie Volley Club. And that is volunteering in every state and territory in Australia. So well done to the office lady.

01:24:43Lyndell Murray: Yeah, absolutely. Well done, Sam. Remember, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. Okay, heading over to our launches. And on the 6th of June, there were five launches globally. Firstly, Miyagawa Love River Cohen parkrun. It was due to launch this week, but the launch has been delayed until the 27th of June due to venue unavailability, which leads me to ask, where is the love, TOC?

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

01:25:15Tony O'Connell: Linda, we list this one in the launches because it does come up on the parkrun page as launching on the week. Although they didn't launch and they have a couple of weeks where they can't run, we have listed it there. So hopefully we might remember to pop it up again when they do finally get to have a run.

01:25:33Lyndell Murray: Well, always remember, you can't hurry love. You'll just have to wait.

01:25:36Tony O'Connell: Sounds like a good line for a song. How about we start singing it?

01:25:41Lyndell Murray: Let's not.

01:25:43Tony O'Connell: You lead, I'll follow a long way away. I think we've tried singing on this podcast before and 99 Red Balloons and Turn Around by Bonnie Tyler will never be the same again. Rightio. Our second launch on the week was Queensway parkrun in the United Kingdom. This one's located north of London near Wellingborough and its first event saw 640 finishes supported by 51 volunteers.

01:26:11Lyndell Murray: Workforce. showgrounds parkrun launched in new zealand now walkworth is on the north island north of auckland and this is a three looper with two out and backs and on their first event was completed by 177 finishers and 19 volunteers running the show

01:26:30Tony O'Connell: Rightio. Across in Germany, Wittelsbacher parkrun launched. The run walk consists of three laps around Wittelsbacher Park on gravel and paved paths. The route is also barrier free. The start and finish are located near the ping pong tables. They had 42 volunteers guiding 157 finishers on the day. And out of 157, 65 of those completed their first parkrun ever. And I guess I've got to ask the question, that's their course description. What does barrier-free at a parkrun mean?

01:27:04Lyndell Murray: I mean, in my experience, parkrun, you know, does have pretty low barriers of entry.

01:27:09Tony O'Connell: Not sure about that one a little, but there we go. Barrier-free.

01:27:13Lyndell Murray: If you know, let us know. Lastly, on the 6th of June, Batten Rig parkrun launched in the UK. Now, this one takes place in a closed facility. It had 22 finishers and 11 volunteers in its first showing.

01:27:27Tony O'Connell: Linda, to break a trend, about the last five weeks, there's been five parkruns launch every week. That's been very consistent. On the 13th of June, there was one launch worldwide. So, yeah, a bit of a break in, almost a tradition there. And that was Zonnestraal parkrun in the Netherlands. It's slightly southeast of Amsterdam, so it's probably one of the close ones to Amsterdam you can get to. This week it launched and it brought the Netherlands total up to four Zeds for the country. So they've been a little bit greedy with their Zeds there. The courses are two lap clockwise on unpaved paths through the woods and across the heath. And the team welcomed 143 participants to their first event and they were helped by 16 wonderful volunteers.

01:28:12Lyndell Murray: All those Zs over there. That is, next time I go to Europe, I'm going to the Netherlands, I reckon.

01:28:16Tony O'Connell: Netherlands and Poland. They're both full of Zs.

01:28:20Lyndell Murray: Yeah.

01:28:21Tony O'Connell: And both wonderful places to visit too. So not just all about the parkrun, but we know that secretly it's all about the parkrun.

01:28:30Lyndell Murray: Alrighty. Talk. We're nearly at the end of the show. What are you looking forward to?

01:28:37Tony O'Connell: Well, while we're away, the new one up at Ulladulla has launched. And funny enough, that's almost my Nendi now, Lyndell. I don't have, I think my Nendi is possibly in South Australia. I've got a couple in Tassie, but they're too far to swim. The ones I can drive to, I consider Menendi. And I think my nearest one now is probably a seven hour drive. So Ulladulla is possibly almost the closest. There's a couple just inside that, but Ulladulla is a cool little place and I'd love to go back there. So that's what I'm looking ahead to. How about you?

01:29:13Lyndell Murray: Well, Toc, I'm going to lay it out on the line and put it out there. I'm feeling a little bit lost now that I've drawn a line under my tourist streak. I feel like... I don't really have a home parkrun anymore. And perhaps the adventurer community and our listeners and the community that we've, well, that Melissa has really built and initiated, that's my parkrun home now. So I'm looking forward to more adventures with more adventurers. So...

01:29:44Tony O'Connell: I wonder how we get parkrun adventures listed as a home parkrun.

01:29:48[crosstalk]

01:29:48Lyndell Murray: Yeah, I've got some ideas about that. Anyway, I don't know. But yeah, I don't know what challenge to tackle next. So I guess I'm hoping to catch up with some adventurers soon. And if you're close by, give me a shout out and maybe I'll come along and meet up with you.

01:30:04Tony O'Connell: The touristy Linda, that's been a long goal. You've been working on that for, what, three years?

01:30:10Lyndell Murray: Yes, I kept it going for over three years, so it's a long time to be wandering. It was fabulous. I enjoyed it so much. I don't know whether I would ever do a streak of 112 again, though, so it's probably one and done.

01:30:27Tony O'Connell: Oh, well, you just have to pick one or the other. Official challenges now. Now that we've got the app and they've all become official challenges, so plenty there to have a look at. There sure is. Yeah, pick one and go for it. Oh, just find the challenges. Give me that little bit of enthusiasm as well just to, yeah, try to chase something down. That gives me a little bit of an interest point and a discussion point with people as well.

01:30:53Lyndell Murray: Definitely.

01:30:53Tony O'Connell: So what about you? What's next parkrun day for you looking like, Wendell?

01:30:58Lyndell Murray: Yeah, look, in the meantime, this next parkrun day, it's looking like I'll either be at New Farm or Nambour parkrun. How about you, Tok?

01:31:06Tony O'Connell: I'm going to be back at the stump. It seems like I only get back to the stump now to run direct and stand up on it and talk to people. But, yeah, I'm run directing at Inverloch this week. So, yeah, home parkrun for me, nice and close, only 15km around the road, so not that far away. lindell i'd just like to say a big thanks we sit here and have a chat and you know the podcast comes out but i'd like to say a big thanks to the team behind the podcast and that's the office lady dave the editor reginald and the belinda fairy they do so much work for us behind the scenes all the hosts put in a fair bit but it's we couldn't do this without our team so thanks to those guys 100 thanks team all righty as always you can contact the team via parkrun Adventurers on Facebook

01:31:52Lyndell Murray: send us your roving reports or reach out on email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com.

01:32:00Sam Schroder ("the Office Lady"): Hi, listeners. It's the Office Lady. Hope you're getting your merchandise orders in. I'm so excited about the hoodies, hats and visors. And of course, some of you might still need a shirt. Just a heads up in case it hadn't occurred to you. This is the only time the portal will be open before next year's Palm. So if you are thinking, depending on where it is, that you might come along to Palm, this is your opportunity to be dressed in the blue at Palm next year. So get those orders in.

01:32:30[outro theme playing]

01:32:31Lyndell Murray: that's it for another episode we'll see you all next time for more adventures bye bye

01:32:49Unidentified speaker: Three, two, one, go.