Episode 458 - The Unicorn

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:19Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 458 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life's all about parkrun. This is TOC and I'm on Bunurong Country. Cooee, Lyndell.

00:00:32Lyndell Murray: Cooee, TOC. My name's Lyndell and I'm recording in Mianjin, Brisbane, and I acknowledge the traditional custodians, the Turrbal and the Yuggera. TOC, what have you been up to?

00:00:43Tony O'Connell: Well, I've actually had an adventure this weekend, Lyndell. It's been really interesting. I'll start back a couple of weeks ago, though. Jacqui and I shot across to Hoblers Bridge in Launceston in Tasmania, met up with Curly and Grumpy over there, and we ventured over there because H's are a little bit thin in our area. So we had to fly to Tassie to get another H. Had a great time over there. It was beautiful. Absolutely cracking day. People think of Tassie and they think it's cold, but the West Coast tends to be cold. But through the Central and the East Coast, Tasmania's got better weather than half of Australia. I reckon it's beautiful, mild weather. Great place. Week after, we went back to Rokeby Crossover Rail Trail. There was an event probably an hour and a half away from us. They put out a few call-outs during the week. They were pretty short on for a Timekeeper. So Jacqui and I went up there and we did the timekeeping, which was a bit of fun. It was a really small, great little community event. I love it. They ran up a rail trail. Most of the Victorian rail trails... You start running downhill for two and a half K, then you turn around and run up. Yeah. That is the opposite. Rokeby, you run uphill, so you bust it for the first two and a half Ks, and then you basically free fall for the two and a half Ks back to the finish line. So it's a great parkrun for that. It's a beautiful little track, and we enjoy our trips to Rokeby. And then last week, we're almost statesmen, Jacqui and I, you know. We've got one event to go in Victoria. We've given it the time to bed in and let the locals work out what parkrun is. So Friday night we did the three hour drive up to Heathcote to McIvor Creek Trail. It started raining about midnight and McIvor's one that gets very wet and slippery, didn't think anything of it. Back in the morning, seven o'clock, look,

00:02:43Lyndell Murray: yep, we're still on, cool. That's it. Quick breakfast. Our caravan park was probably 50 metres from the start line. So we didn't have a lot of preparation. We just had to walk out the door and we were at parkrun. About 7.20, I just scroll on through Facebook again and the event cancelled notification popped up. Yep.

00:03:06Lyndell Murray: Oh dear.

00:03:08Tony O'Connell: So, 7.20, we're in the middle of Victoria. Nearest parkrun's 39 minutes away. Now, I don't know about your maths, but Boy Maths tells me that 39 minutes and 7:20 is going to make probably chasing the Tail Walker becomes a thing.

00:03:23Lyndell Murray: Yep.

00:03:26Tony O'Connell: Jacqui and I are really good at packing up fast. We've had practice at this. So we packed up really quick, jumped in the car and headed to Kilmore. and we made it with a minute to spare. In actual fact, we were probably a minute or two late but talking to the Run Director later, a tree had come down on the track and he'd gone out with his chainsaw to cut the tree down and so he was a couple of minutes late doing his briefing. So that worked in our favour. We got a parkrun at the lovely Kilmore Racetrack parkrun. So all in all... We got a parkrun, it just wasn't the new one that we're hoping for.

00:04:01Lyndell Murray: Yeah, and foiled by the weather at one location and saved by the weather at another location.

00:04:09Tony O'Connell: Well, as we were driving and the rain was pretty heavy, we were thinking, hopefully this second one doesn't cancel as well. What's happened to us previously? But no, look, it's a great event to get to and a good catch up afterwards for a coffee. So now, all in all, parkrun's been pretty good. Lyndell, how about yours?

00:04:29Lyndell Murray: Yeah, I've had a great four weeks since we last spoke TOC. The parkrun day immediately after we recorded, I headed down to the Office Lady's 60th celebration parkrun at Australian Botanic Gardens Mount Annan, which was covered in some detail in last episode. For me it was really great to catch up with friends from all over the place and to meet some new friends and adventurers as well. It was really great, well worth the trip to get down to Mount Annan. The following week I was on the bench. The Festival of Stairclimbing came to South East Queensland, so I was climbing up a building instead of parkrunning on the Saturday morning. The week after that I volunteered up at Ocean View parkrun which is just north of Brisbane. I've volunteered there a few times now. I've actually volunteered there more often than I run because it's a smaller event that is always looking out for volunteers and I have friends every so often wanting to do it from time to time that reach out and ask me whether I want to go with them. It's a pretty rare event. It's a reasonably rare O. And so because I know they're always looking for volunteers and I've completed the course a few times, I always put my hand up to volunteer there. So I had a really nice time up at Ocean View. This last parkrun day, I had a real parkrun adventure and headed up to Maryborough, which is probably three hours north of Brisbane. I've recorded some audio from this parkrun, which you'll hear in a future episode, so I won't go into it into too much detail, but I tell you what, put it on your list, TOC. Maryborough is a terrific little event. Well, it's not so little, I guess, but Maryborough is a really historic town in Queensland. There's plenty of really nice buildings to look at. The park that the parkrun is in is just stunning. And there's some few, lots of street art in Maryborough and a really, probably Australia's best public toilet. So... I'll leave it at that.

00:06:40Tony O'Connell: So I take it from that, no screwdrivers required for the public toilet?

00:06:44Lyndell Murray: No screwdrivers. Interestingly, they do ask for a donation to get into the public toilet because it is so beautiful. But of course, nobody carries cash anymore, so they don't strictly enforce that donation.

00:06:59Tony O'Connell: Lyndell, you glossed over a little bit there about the week on the bench for the Festival of Stairclimbing. You said I was just up a building, but my memory of that is you actually climbed up a few different buildings over a very short period.

00:07:14Lyndell Murray: Yes, that is true. And before people think I'm really, really crazy... I was in the building in the fire escape not crawling up the outside of the building because that's a whole other level of crazy. Yeah I do a few stair climbing events around the place usually for charity and there's a few stair climbing events around Australia but we were lucky enough this year to have three events in South East Queensland over a period of four days. So there was a Thursday morning, a Saturday morning and a Sunday morning. And I tell you, it was so much fun. It was almost like the palm of stair climbing where people come from all over Australia who love this random thing called stair climbing. And yeah, it was just really great to just spend that extra time with my stair climbing tribe. The breakfasts and the dinners were just as fun as the actual activities themselves.

00:08:16Tony O'Connell: I must have a discussion with you one day about your definition of fun. I'm not sure whether climbing up a bunch of stairs sounds like a lot of fun to a lot of people. I'd climb up a mountain quite happily, but I've never given stair climbing a go. It might be something to add to the bucket list.

00:08:33Lyndell Murray: I reckon you should, TOC. Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:08:36Tony O'Connell: I think they do one at the MCG. I think they do all the stairs at the G.

00:08:40Lyndell Murray: Yeah, I don't know.

00:08:41Lyndell Murray: The stomps haven't been on for a little while, but Melbourne usually has a climb up the Rialto, have done a climb up Australia 108. And yeah, there's a few different buildings down in Melbourne. So I'll let you know when the next one's on TOC.

00:08:59Tony O'Connell: I'll look forward to it. I'll look forward to it. I'll write it in the calendar now.

00:09:03Lyndell Murray: Yeah.

Emails

00:09:05Tony O'Connell: Rightio. Moving along, Lyndell. We've got a little bit of feedback from our last episode and I'll kick off. First one was from Renata Koch. We heard from Renata on Facebook in relation to Simon's comment about the functionality of being able to search for others' barcodes via the app, and Renata said, I certainly hope this will not happen. I hope that headquarters know that the feature is not just very useful for those who have forgotten their barcode and don't have the app on their phone, but is also the most common way to scan children's barcodes after the run.

00:09:36Lyndell Murray: Yeah, looking up those barcodes can be really useful. It happens all the time. Actually, the friend that I travelled to Maryborough with just over this last weekend did it for a fellow parkrunner just this last weekend. So it is something that happens really commonly. I guess from a privacy perspective is probably where parkrun's going with that, but perhaps maybe they could introduce an opt-in or opt-out scenario and maybe that would be more useful to many parkrunners than just removing the functionality altogether.

00:10:07Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I know someone who RDs a lot at an "I" event. So, you know, we get a lot of tourists coming down for the "I". It's one of those letters that seems to attract people. We quite regularly end up looking up for someone. We get people that are almost fairly distraught. You know, they've travelled a significant distance to get to somewhere to do their "I". Look, we still get Western Australian people and that coming to Inverloch quite regularly. It seems to be the easiest one for them to get to. We get South Australians. I know we quite often will look up somebody and it's a really easy way of doing that. I don't mind it as a thing. As a backup too when we're travelling, you know, I have, you know, Jacqui, I have her barcode in my phone as well so that, you know, if she ever forgot, not that she'd ever forget because like all good tourists, she probably carries six different barcodes in six different spots.

00:10:55Lyndell Murray: Yep, yep, yep.

00:10:58Tony O'Connell: Yeah, but it is very useful. We did have a tourist come over from London one day, landed in Melbourne on a Friday night from the long haul flight, jumped on public transport down to Inverloch in the morning and she was almost in tears at the start line because she'd got to the start of the parkrun and realised that she didn't have a barcode with her. Yeah. And it was just because we were able to look it up on the app, it was just so easy to look it up and help her out and make a day.

00:11:28Lyndell Murray: Yeah, for sure.

00:11:30Tony O'Connell: I think it'd be good if they could come out with some opt-in, opt-out. If you don't want it there, fine. But for those that don't mind having it there and like to be able to look it up and use it, it's probably not a bad thing.

00:11:43Lyndell Murray: Yeah. Okay. We also heard from Cherie Martin after the last episode and Cherie listened to the podcast while doing her streak of laps of Centenary Park in Charters Towers. She had an hour to kill while waiting for their EV to charge and she used the time listening to the podcast to go through her to-do list, plan her trip to palm and tell us all about the tutu tree at her home parkrun at Meadowbrook. So congratulations, Cherie, on getting your 11 laps or 6k streak in while listening to the last pod.

00:12:17Tony O'Connell: And A little bit of feedback from the last episode with the episode photo that we used and With Me Now, the podcast over in the UK that we're great friends with, they acknowledge that the photo used of host Danny's mum Lynn and Ali Sheppard was used as a cover photo. Although it does appear that Danny's mum is not officially an adventurer, Calum and Ali, who are both well known to the podcast listeners, had a bit of a conversation on the With Me Now thread on that and, come on guys, you've got to get Lynn to sign up for the adventurers.

00:12:51[crosstalk]

00:12:51Lyndell Murray: Yes!

00:12:52Tony O'Connell: This is your mission. Come on guys.

00:12:54Lyndell Murray: Get onto it Calum

00:12:55Tony O'Connell: and Ali. And Ali quite openly admitted on that thread that she failed in the mission initially. Come on Ali, I know you pick up Lynn occasionally. It'd be great to see her as an adventurer. Here's a challenge. Righto guys, that's all our feedback for the week. But if you enjoy the pod, we'd love it if you could rate and review us on Apple, Spotify, iTunes, or whatever platform you choose to listen on it helps the other people find us so that we can keep spreading the adventuring love Lyndell moving on our merch our merch should all be distributed now hopefully everyone has all their merch but the great thing for me is was last week we managed to sell the last of our buffs so we've been slowly selling our buffs and one of our friends from across the ditch purchased the last two so Adventurers out there, if you're keen for a parkrun adventurer's buff, bad luck, you'll have to wait for the next big order. It could be some time.

Streaky September

00:13:48Lyndell Murray: That's a great segue into Streaky September where, of course, merch was one of the items on the Bingoe card. We are about a week into Streaky September at the time of recording. We're recording on Monday the 7th of September. And how are you going, TOC? With your Streaky September, I probably don't need to ask because you're up to streak number 7527 or something.

00:14:17Tony O'Connell: Not quite that crazy, Lyndell, but there are a few of us out there that actually officially started our streak on the first day that Streaky September started, which was way back on the 1st of September 2018. And that puts us, today is day 2,929 of continuous streaks. And I know there are a few adventurers out there that are on the same thing. How are you going with yours?

00:14:42Lyndell Murray: I am intact seven days in. I am counting running, walking and gym as a streak. As long as I'm mindfully active or engaged in some kind of physical activity, I am counting it as a streak.

00:14:58Lyndell Murray: I have not done the same length of streak as you, TOC.

00:15:03Lyndell Murray: The longest streak that I have ever had is 100 days of running 5k's a day and I did that a few years ago now so I am very impressed with your 2929.

00:15:14Tony O'Connell: Probably 80% of that has been the minimum 5k's a day so that's been something that we've enjoyed. The other thing that I enjoy is trying to get through the Bingoe card. Week one, as you said before, "Merch" was one of the squares. We had "Your Age", "How Odd", and "parkrun Adventure" and so on and so forth. And what I love about the bingo theme this year is they are a lot shorter in description than what they were in the past. So, it's very much up to you to interpret what you want to do, how you want to represent your age or how you want to represent your odd. And some of the your odd or how odd, sorry, some of the how odd descriptions have been very interesting takes on how odd. So I'm really enjoying that. Probably the only one I haven't really responded to is the How Odd one. And I guess, look, I could probably just take a photo of me running along the beach because that's pretty odd anyway. But I've got the other ones pretty well in check anyway. How about you?

00:16:21Lyndell Murray: I am up to date with bingo. Probably for the first time ever. I donned my Indigenous Marathon Foundation merch for the start of my virtual run for them. I worked out my age, in the gym one day. I captured some really cool stuff up at Maryborough for the How Odd and went to Maryborough for a parkrun adventure. So, I am tick, tick, tick, TOC.

00:16:48Tony O'Connell: Well, tick, tick, tick, TOC. Well done. I am tick, tick, TOC, too as well. Lyndell, how about we give the listeners, by now, when the podcast comes out, obviously the week two Bingoe card will be well and truly out. What are the extra squares that are coming up on week two's Bingoe card?

00:17:09Lyndell Murray: We have some more interesting ones this week. Again, open to interpretations. So week two, if you haven't already seen it in the Streaky September group, the week two bingo items are flowers, street art, somewhere new, and friend.

00:17:30Tony O'Connell: Friend's going to be one that can be very... liberally interpreted. That's going to be an interesting one out of that to see. There's always some great street art, but we've just really got some great stuff popping up in alleys and lanes and on the sides of buildings everywhere. Now, it's amazing. A while ago, you wouldn't see anything anywhere. Now, there's some really great examples of street art.

00:17:53Lyndell Murray: There sure is. And again, lots of ways to interpret that. Do you go back and go to that mural that you know is there because you've seen it a hundred times? Or do you happen upon street art serendipitously during a walk or a run and capture something new? Do you use it as a reason to stop and smell the roses a little bit and look around a little bit more, rather than seeking out something that you know is there. There's plenty of ways you can challenge yourself and plenty of ways you can interpret these four bingo items. But again, we have got our Streakmeister with us. So let's hear from Pippa now.

00:18:38Pippa White: Hey, parkrun adventurers. I'm having one of those days where I'm finding it really hard to do audio. So here goes and let's try one last time. We are a quarter of the way through September and isn't that fun? And I hope you're still streaking. Today, I want to just briefly talk about the value of actually having a streak in place. So, I've been streaking for a little while now, so doing this intentional exercise each day. Not quite as long as TOC, a little bit longer than the Office Lady, but I've been getting out and doing something intentionally. The value of my streak habit comes in on the bad days where really I don't want to get out the door when I'm tired, everything has gone wrong, I just want to laze around and hide my head. Everybody can get out on the good days. It's the bad days where it's really, really beneficial. And I see my time out streaking as a little bit of me time. I might be running, I might be walking, I might be with headphones on, headphones off, might be in company, or yes, quite often in solitude. But this is a little bit of time that I have carved out to do something that is just for me and not for everybody else. Nobody else benefits from my streak in the same way that I benefit. In a time where we're a quarter of the way through and for some people it's getting a little bit tough, I'm giving you this absolute gift of 30 minutes a day which is yours, which you can enjoy and benefit from. And if you keep going after September, that's great, we'll celebrate that too. And if you take the 1st of October as a duvet day, that's fantastic as well. Here's to keeping on going. Here's to the next few weeks of September. Here's to an update in the Bingoe card. Happy streaking.

00:20:25Lyndell Murray: Thank you, Streakmeister. So, Pippa was talking there about how having a streak helps her get out and about on the hard days, the days where she's tired or not as inspired to get out and exercise. And like you, TOC, has got a very impressive streak. So, I would agree, having a streak going really does help. And having somewhere up your sleeve that you know, like your streak saver, that you know is a 2k route or a 5k route that you can easily just go and smash out either quickly before work or at the end of a day. I've got a little streak saver that, a bit randomly, there's a tree not far from my house that I walk out to or run out to. It's this beautiful tree and I quite often take photos of it. If I ever go past it, I always take a photo and post it on my Strava. And so that's really my streak saver is a walk or run out to my bikeway tree. How about you, TOC? What's your streak saver?

00:21:31Tony O'Connell: Look, we've got a couple of streak savers and it depends a lot down here on our weather. So Jacqui and I get up before half past five in the morning to go for a walk each day. If we wake up and hear the rain, generally we'll just get dressed and have breakfast and Get in our work clothes and head into Wonthaggi. And we've got about a half K circuit with shop verandas that we can get around. So we've just got just four laps of that gets us our streak. And it means we're not wet and miserable before work. We have a longer one just around our estate as well. So we've got two streaks. So if it's not rainy, but we're just really not feeling the love for getting out and about, we could just walk around. The 3k around our estate, we generally will see wombats, we'll see kangaroos, we'll see, you know, different seasons, we'll see a lot of echidnas, we might see a couple of copperhead snakes. So we see all sorts of things. And it just takes your mind off the drudgery of having to get out and have a walk.

00:22:29Lyndell Murray: Yeah.

00:22:30Tony O'Connell: Seeing all this beautiful stuff out in a natural landscape.

00:22:32Lyndell Murray: Yeah, for sure.

00:22:33Tony O'Connell: We've got those two.

00:22:34Lyndell Murray: Sounds great TOC. Okay, if you're streaking with us, we hope you continue. If you haven't started streaking yet, it's not too late.

00:22:45Tony O'Connell: Now the great thing about the Bingoe card with four squares every week and seven days to do it is you can catch up in just over a week doing a different square each day.

parkrun news bulletin

00:22:55Tony O'Connell: Moving along with other news, Lyndell. And Lyndell, I've just seen the great opportunity for you, parkrun Global are searching for a Head of International Growth. The position skips over APAC, unfortunately, so we're not in the line for growth at the moment. But the position covers Europe, Africa and America. It does involve some travel, but they do highlight that it will be mainly virtual meetings. So it's not a job that you apply for thinking you're going to be in a plane every second day going around setting up international growth.

00:23:27Lyndell Murray: That makes it a little bit less appealing.

00:23:31Tony O'Connell: Yeah, as someone who's travelled a little bit in Europe, I can't wait to see what countries come on board next. There's a lot of speculation around in different groups about different countries of whether they will start, whether they won't start. Someone's heard a whisper that this country is going to start and someone else has heard a whisper that no, it's been put on the back burner. Personally, Lyndell, my hand's still up for Fiji. I'd love to see Fiji get up and going. I'd love to be the ambassador. I've been offering that for 10 years and no one's taken me up yet. How about you? Where would your goal destination for a new country be?

00:24:05Lyndell Murray: Yeah, well, the virtual meetings for events in Europe, Asia and America means being nocturnal TOC, so I'm not quite sure that that is the job for me. I reckon that Fiji is a good one. And I do know that you have been keen for that one for a little while. So I'll go somewhere different. Although I do always think of Southeast Asia as being a bit of an untapped region by parkrun. And it means that if you're holidaying over in Thailand or Vietnam, it means missing a parkrun or two. So they're two that I think would be great. The other thing I think about a lot is the big one, India. Every sport is keen to conquer India and apparently one of the main drivers of getting cricket into the Olympics was the population on the subcontinent. So there is a market that is untapped by parkrun so far. So yeah, that would be, they're my thoughts on that, TOC.

00:25:04Tony O'Connell: Yep, look, it's going to be interesting to see, and it'll be interesting to see, you know, this year was always advertised by parkrunner, it was going to be a year of consolidation, getting processes in place, and then next year will be the growth. So it's going to be interesting to see how quickly they announce some countries into the new year. You know, we've seen some of the British Overseas Territories popping up, you know, Cayman Islands has just launched, as a British Overseas Territory, it'd be good to see some of those standalone countries up and going.

00:25:34Lyndell Murray: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Can't wait. Have passport, will travel. Okay, moving on to our next piece of news, parkrun Australia and the Daniel Morecambe Foundation have announced a partnership, for the upcoming Day for Daniel. Now, I'm a southeast Queensland local and I know just how big the impact was on lots of communities around Queensland, particularly when 13-year-old Daniel disappeared back in 2003. It took so many years for the perpetrator of his abduction and murder to be brought to justice, but in that time, His parents, Denise and Bruce Morcombe, started a foundation in Daniel's name and started the Day for Daniel where they invite all members of the public to wear red, to honour Daniel's memory, to raise community awareness and to educate children on how to recognise, react and report unsafe situations. So parkrun in Australia and the Daniel Morcombe Foundation invite all parkrunners to to participate in the day for Daniel and wear red to their event on Saturday the 31st of October. Such a great community initiative there and so important that message that Bruce and Denise have really championed and advocated for for so long is such an important one, TOC.

00:27:02Tony O'Connell: It is, and I think we'll hear quite a bit more about that on, I guess, the socials for parkrun Australia and a lot of events. A lot of events have already indicated they're getting right behind it. So that could be a fairly big day, and it is a very important thing. As a Victorian, we probably weren't as exposed at the time to the case. We've had similar cases, obviously, and unfortunate cases in other states. But everyone, probably in Australia, of our age group, knows when you hear Daniel Morecambe, you actually know a little bit of the history behind it. It's not a name that's unfamiliar. And it's great to see some of the recognition, some of the campaigns that they actually run to raise awareness. I think that's very important. So yeah, that'd be a great one to get behind. Rightio. Another one that could be interesting to get behind is, Lyndell, and this once again affects people up in your neck of the woods. There's a partnership been announced with the Brisbane City Council. They've launched a Move Well Brisbane program to help locals stay active and connected and parkrun's one of their partners. Funny about that. Stay active, stay connected.

00:27:22[crosstalk]

00:28:12Lyndell Murray: Go to parkrun!

00:28:14Tony O'Connell: At all lines, there's been some signage spotted along some Brisbane parkruns over the weekend and we have it on good authority that HQ are calling on Brisbane parkrunners to step up as Event Directors at five funded launches in the Brisbane City Council area with some friends of the pod getting an email from headquarters.

00:28:32Lyndell Murray: Well TOC, I'm in the catchment area but clearly I'm not a responsible adult because I didn't get that email. I have seen some posts on Facebook looking for an ED and Run Directors for an event that if it does get up will give Brisbane a J. I'm not sure if that's one of the events that will be funded by this initiative or not but it's great to see Brisbane getting some new parkruns and it's really great to see these partnerships that parkruns has become involved with the Brisbane City Council, have got so many programs as part of the Move Well Brisbane, they've got yoga in the parks they've got running clubs, as well as parkrun, so it's going to be really great for Brisbane I think. And, we know TOC that fundraising for a new event is always a challenge so from time to time we've been asked to put a call out to help new events fundraise and while we can't support each individual event It is a reminder that if you do want to support parkrun, you can go to the Australian Sports Foundation and search for parkrun. There's a few options there for you to contribute to, whether it's supporting getting defibs to events or helping with the costs to start up a new event.

00:29:49Tony O'Connell: And it is interesting to see someone like the Brisbane City Council agreeing to fund a number of events. Obviously, they recognise through the number of parkruns that are already established in that Brisbane area, they recognise the value that parkrun puts back into the community. And it's not just that active thing too. We do keep going back to it's about that coffee and the social life after it and the mental health aspect of it. I reckon it's really great that they've got on board and they've agreed to fund the five events. No, you didn't get the email, but I would consider you responsible. I'm wondering whether parkrun actually were able to target through their databases previous RDs or previous EDs or something and the email went out that way or what filters they actually used for who to send it out to. Maybe one of the filters was not a podcast host.

00:30:49Lyndell Murray: Maybe. Who knows? I don't know. Yeah. I don't have a lot of space on my dance card for taking on Event Director anyway, TOC.

00:30:59Tony O'Connell: Speaking of new events, Taman Pudu Ulu was earmarked to return on the 29th of August, bringing Malaysia up to three events. However, they had to cancel their relaunch due to smog. The relaunch was held over the last Saturday and on the day they had 77 finishers and of those, 47 of them were first-timers. I reckon that's a great effort. Welcome back Taman Pudu Ulu and it's an event that I've done in the past and I really enjoyed the day with Harry over there.

00:31:27Lyndell Murray: Yeah, I loved it too, TOC. We've got some more breaking news and a celebration of friend of the pod, Phil Gore. How amazing is he, TOC?

00:31:38Tony O'Connell: It was almost like a week. It was a week of Phil's life and we'll talk about what Phil did. But for so many of us, we were so invested in what Phil was doing. It was like a week of our own lives as well. Phil set up a backyard and Phil's been the world record holder a couple of times. He's always been, I guess, not held back, but he's always been defined in his world records by the assist. He can only go one lap further than the assist. And Phil, at the end of the last world record, looked like he had a lot more in him. And he actually said he had 24 hours more in him at the time. And I think a lot of the world looked at that and said, yeah, right, that's a bit of showmanship.

00:32:22Lyndell Murray: And Phil said, hold my beer, just watch me.

00:32:25Tony O'Connell: So Phil set up a... An event in a backyard format. So a backyard format is a yard is 6.7 k's starting on the hour every hour. I know I've run one of them. I know Simon's run a couple of them now. Great events. Phil set up to run seven days, 168 hours of one yard every hour. And it wasn't about Phil running for a week. It was about Phil pushing himself to the point that he broke and he had to stop. Phil got to an amazing 152 yards, which was 1,020 kilometres. So over six days, he's run over 1,000 kilometres. Just unbelievable. But what's more unbelievable is he set this up around a charity in WA, Telethon 7, which supports children's hospitals. He set himself up a goal... Audacious goal of raising 168,000, so $1,000 for every hour that he's running. The last time I had a look, he was just under $300,000 raised. And what's more incredible is the lift in the profile that he's been able to give that charity.

00:33:43Tony O'Connell: Because they're on every news station you know they're across the earth we've seen so much of Phil Gore and Telethon that we I've never heard of Telethon before so well done Phil just an amazing effort.

00:33:55Lyndell Murray: Yeah, like you TOC, I immediately went to that same thought process of Phil is out running all of his assists and so he needs to go it alone to see how far he can go. Hats off to you, Phil. Well done. Absolutely in awe. It's just ... I'm always inspired when people push themselves to see how far they can go and put their money where their mouth is and just go for it. It's just incredible.

00:34:30Tony O'Connell: Lyndell, I don't know if you actually saw the ending of it, but Phil went out on the 153rd yard and he was walking along, moving along, and he basically just fell over face first onto the ground. He was spent, he was done. But for someone to have run over six days, it's just an amazing effort and no wonder he was spent.

00:34:54Lyndell Murray: Agreed.

00:34:55Tony O'Connell: Yeah, so recover well, Phil.

00:34:57Lyndell Murray: Recover well. Someone else we are hoping is recovering well is our very own Office Lady. Over this last weekend, Sam competed in the Light Horse Ultra 24-hour race, and completed just over 91 kilometres. So this is an incredible feat. Imagine just running as far as you can in 24 hours. It's you against the clock. And Sam, this is hot on the heels of Sam opting to run 60 kilometres on her 60th birthday, which we heard about recently as well. So that was all part of her preparation to see how far she could go. I think she was hopeful of getting to that 100km mark, but the 91km is as far as she's ever run, TOC.

00:35:44Tony O'Connell: And it's just a phenomenal effort. And I'm sure Sam, being largely in charge of our Streaky September, realises that she probably completed her streak for both days that she was running.

00:35:55Lyndell Murray: And look, we'll give her her flowers, so that completes a Bingoe card.

00:36:01Tony O'Connell: Well done, Sam. Yeah, well done, Sam. It was a great effort. And it was great to see Luke filling in the socials a little bit and giving everyone updates. So that was really good. Rightio, let's get into some stats, Lyndell. We've just talked about some amazing stats and we've got a few more amazing ones to come, parkrun New Zealand attendance for the 29th of August. In New Zealand, there were 75 parkruns with 10,116 parkrunners, 12,241 volunteers, and out of all the events, Invercargill set a new attendance record of 415 finishes. The biggest New Zealand parkruns on the 29th were Hagley back in the box seat there and the smallest was East Otago. Across New Zealand, 31 events had a higher attendance than the week before, 41 had a lower attendance, and one had an identical attendance. So they achieved Groundhog Day. On the 5th of September in New Zealand, there were 75 parkruns. The number of finishers jumped up to 12,502. There were 1,276 volunteers, plus any pending results. And last week New Zealand had another 984 registrations, bringing their total up to about 230,000 people. 1,608 people achieved their personal best last week.

00:37:19Lyndell Murray: In Australia on the 29th of August there were 77,989 participants, 7,014 volunteers at 544 events and three attendance records were set and these were Pirrama,

00:37:38Lyndell Murray: Wentworth Common and Macquarie University. On the 5th of September, there were 74,841 participants, 6,749 volunteers at 529 events with 3,125 first timers. That is incredible. Three attendance records were set at Stones Corner in Queensland, the Ponds and Macquarie University in New South Wales. In the junior events, we conducted five events where 372 little legends were guided by 100 volunteers. For our largest events over the last few weeks, now, there's no Albert Melbourne in the top three for either week, which is a bit of a surprise. But what we find is that Pirrama got that bump on the 29th of the 8th, putting it in the top spot for that week, being the Saturday before Sydney Marathon. And there were 1053 at Pirrama. And that was that new attendance record that they set. Now, on the 5th of the 9th, footy finals fever took over down there TOC perhaps, and maybe that's why no one was up for Albert? Not sure, because the Ponds took the top spot that week with 960 finishes. Our smallest events over the last few weeks are some of our regulars in the top three. But the smallest on the 29th of 8th was Waterloo Plains with four. And on the 5th of September, it was Ball Park parkrun with three finishes.

00:39:15Tony O'Connell: It's interesting, Lyndell, that you mentioned Ball Park there because I was running with a lady last week and she said she's actually heading up to Ball Park because she's certainly been having a few lower numbers and she thought it might be a good opportunity to run a good position.

00:39:30Lyndell Murray: So she probably got on the podium if she went that week.

00:39:34Tony O'Connell: Ball Park's a beautiful little parkrun that runs alongside the Murray so it's a great little parkrun.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:39:40Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Lyndell, it's time for us to go across and listen to some other people for a while so let's go across to our roving reports.

00:39:45[background music]

00:39:48Lyndell Murray: Let's do that TOC.

Roving report Greg Moore — Sale parkrun

00:39:56Greg Moore: Hey, welcome parkrun adventurers, this is Greg all the way at Sale parkrun, 250 kilometres east of Melbourne in Victoria.

Talking to Trevor Willmott — Run Director, Sale parkrun (Victoria)

00:40:06Greg Moore: I'm here at Sale parkrun and I'm with the Run Director, Trevor, this morning. Welcome Trevor, how are you going?

00:40:11Trevor Willmott: Very good, thank you Greg and thanks for the welcome and thanks for coming down to see us in Sale this morning and enjoying a bit of winter weather in Sale.

00:40:19Greg Moore: Yes, it's nice and pleasant in Sale this morning actually compared to all the other winter mornings.

00:40:25Trevor Willmott: Yes, we've had a couple of frosty ones over the last couple of weeks but it was reasonably mild this morning, good conditions for running. We had a good crowd turn up this morning, 109 participants this morning and our usual crowd of happy volunteers to come and assist and all in all it was a very good morning.

00:40:44Greg Moore: Yes, you've got a good core group of volunteers here at Sale I believe.

00:40:49Trevor Willmott: Yes, very, very nice volunteers, very helpful. We normally struggle a little bit with numbers, but once we put the call out, we always get a response and everyone pitches in and helps. And today was another good example of that.

00:41:05Greg Moore: Awesome. Can you tell us a bit about Sale parkrun course?

00:41:09Trevor Willmott: Yeah, well we start in the Botanic Gardens of Sale at a council facility which is called The Leaf. It's like a sound shell that's used for events and that's where we start. We have an out and back course around the two lakes, adjacent to the Botanic Gardens, Lake Guyatt and Lake Guthridge. A mix of gravel and concrete paths and it's an out and back course. A couple of little wooden bridges that we have to cross and they can be a bit narrow for prams but everyone normally navigates those alright. And one little rise, it's not a real hilly course, fairly flat, good for PBs. And the weather today, I think we would have had a tailwind Coming down along the street, which would have been nice. So, yeah, all in all, a pretty nice course.

00:41:15[background music]

00:42:01Greg Moore: Awesome. Yes, it looked like a really nice course out and back. Elevation would be 20?

00:42:07Trevor Willmott: I think maybe 30 metres.

00:42:10Greg Moore: That's okay. It's still a good course to run if you really want to get your run on. Why would anyone want to come to Sale to do parkrun here?

00:42:19Trevor Willmott: Well, the course is very, very, very nice and flat, which is good for PBs. As we said, the volunteers are always nice and friendly and helpful. We normally get a good turnout and the weather, we don't normally suffer from rain. We don't often get a rainy morning, so we do get some frosty ones. Showers were predicted this morning, but they held off with a little bit of a southwest wind. And as we're going, we start in the gardens and around the lake, it's pretty well protected from the winds. And we have one long straight stretch that we run along beside a street. And normally if it's a strong wind, we'll get a good tailwind along there. So, yeah, nice course.

00:42:20[background music]

00:42:59Greg Moore: Awesome.

00:43:00Greg Moore: Yes, it was a nice course. What else about Sale and parkrun?

00:43:06Trevor Willmott: Well, we've been going, as Greg said, it was number 520 this morning. We've been going for quite a while. We always have reasonable numbers. Dropped off a little bit during the COVID years, as everyone did. But the numbers are starting to come up again. And especially holidays and long weekends, our numbers are always good. Everyone's friendly and chatty and out and back course. You always get to see everyone and give a well done as you go past and say hello.

00:43:37Greg Moore: What about the clientele, the participants? I saw a lot of young kids.

00:43:42Trevor Willmott: Yeah, we have a RAAF base in Sale. It's quite often young people come through on their courses. They sort of rotate every 12 weeks. So we always get quite a few young participants coming through, obviously young and fast, and fit. So they're always a good turnout. RAF or Army and yeah, our normal core people that we get all the time. It's a mix of all different speeds and walkers as well. Good, good crew.

00:44:12Greg Moore: In the core team, how many Run Directors have you got here?

00:44:16Trevor Willmott: We have a group of 10 that rotate through as the Run Directors, which our Event Director is Kat, she sort of keeps us all under control, and 10 gives us a bit of a break and lets us rotate through, and people travelling and... Other things to do on weekends. Normally it works pretty good. And our core volunteers normally step up if required.

00:44:44Greg Moore: Awesome. I saw one of your volunteers in a term, Bravehearts in Melbourne the other week.

00:44:51Trevor Willmott: Yes, Lynette, she's one of our good volunteers as well as a good runner as well and she likes to participate in whatever she can and obviously caught up with you down at Bravehearts volunteering down there midweek so it gave her an opportunity to get down and see a few things in Melbourne as well as participate down there at Bravehearts.

00:45:11Greg Moore: Awesome, yes, that's what we like about parkrun, volunteers travel far and wide just to volunteer, to get a credit. Whatever they need to do to be a part of parkrun. What about after parkrun, where are we right now?

00:45:27Trevor Willmott: We are at Wild Honey, a cafe in the Clocktower Mall or Mall, whichever you like, in Sale. We come here every Saturday for our after event catch up and coffee or brunch or breakfast and it's always a very good turnout here and always good food and coffee.

00:45:47Greg Moore: Yes, looks like, yeah. A good core number of participants came back to Wild Honey and a lot of bike riders at the front too, which seemed really good.

00:45:56Trevor Willmott: Yeah, it's a very popular spot for cyclists and runners and walkers and all the other locals as well. A very good handy spot and plenty of room and the sun's coming out now so it's quite enjoyable here.

00:46:08Greg Moore: Yeah, so you parkrun adventurers, if you want to come to Sale, it's all happening. Good parkrun and a good coffee shop to come to called Wild Honey. So if you're around, Trevor should be around. He'll be run directing, he'll be running, or he'll be on his bike doing something, but he'll be around. But anyway, parkrun adventurers.

00:46:28Trevor Willmott: Yep, please come down to Sale and see us. We'll look forward to catching up and coming to Wild Honey and have a coffee after.

00:46:34Greg Moore: Alright, thanks for all listening parkrun adventurers. Till next time, we'll talk to you then.

Roving report Eman Vergara — Mamquam Spawning Trail parkrun

00:46:38Greg Moore: Bye for now.

00:46:39Eman Vergara: G'day adventurers, this is Eman checking in from Mamquam Spawning Trail parkrun at Squamish and just north of Vancouver about an hour's drive. With me, as I'm tailwalking with Juno, is Co-Event Director Ben, with me walking his dog as well.

Talking to Ben — Co-Event Director, Mamquam Spawning Trail parkrun (Squamish, BC, Canada)

00:46:56Eman Vergara: Ben, how did this event get started?

00:47:00Ben: Yes so I'm originally from the UK so those of you from the UK and around you'll kind of know that parkrun's huge in the UK it's not quite as big in Canada although we've had a ton of new events crop up recently. So about six months before we started, myself and my wife Kerry, we decided we wanted to start one in Squamish. We thought it was something kind of lacking mainly because Squamish is kind of an adventure town so you get sort of ultra long distance runners and athletes and all kinds. We didn't really have much for the kind of people who you know have kids or just want an easy kind of morning run with a group and you're just to socialise really so It took us about six months from kind of conception to getting the event up and running and most of that was finding kind of the right venue which we obviously have the Mamquam Spawning Trails now which is a wonderful venue and there was some kind of paperwork and things to do but parkrun were super helpful getting us up and running. Yeah, so that was the that was the origin of our parkrun

00:48:10Eman Vergara: Yeah and Ben actually today is a special day because today is actually the first anniversary of the parkrun and we're walking in a beautiful trail, pretty easy, very pram friendly. Tell us a little bit more about the course.

00:48:23Ben: Yeah, so the course is on Crown Land in Canada. As you say, it's a very nice flat, wide path, tons of wildlife around, and the name actually comes from the salmon which swim up kind of later in the summer, early in the autumn, and the salmon swim from the Pacific and come back home to where they were originally born, and they, they lay their eggs up here, so that's quite a sight to see in the fall if you're here.

00:48:55Eman Vergara: Yeah, and speaking of wildlife, I know this is a two-lap course. I've also heard that there's been some spottings of bears.

00:49:02Ben: Yeah, yeah, we have regular spottings with bears, black bears, we only have black bears in Squamish, not grizzly bears, luckily. They tend to keep themselves to themselves, but it's always good to make some noise, just speaking, or playing some music or something, just so that you don't spook, especially mama bears with children, that can be the main source of conflict, but they're wonderful to see, and we also have the eagles. Here and we've got a resident skunk now. So yeah, if you like wildlife, it's definitely a parkrun for you.

00:49:34Eman Vergara: Yeah, that's awesome. And last question, for our listeners out there, are there any other memorable parkruns in Canada or ones that you visited that our listeners should check out?

00:49:43Ben: So it's always worth visiting the first parkrun in Canada, which is in the Okanagan. So that's about three or four hours from here over in the kind of inland area. Ambleside always has a special place for me. It's the one down in North Vancouver. You get a great view of Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge. And at Ambleside were kind of instrumental in helping us set up this one here as well. Some of the Event Directors there kind of helped us kick off and they didn't seem as supportive. So they would be my two kind of BC recommendations.

00:50:19Eman Vergara: Yeah, awesome. Thanks for that, Ben. And as a wine enthusiast, I didn't know that Okanagan, which is also nice as a wine region, was where the first Canadian parkrun was started. So that's good to know. But Ben, thanks very much again for your time this morning. I hope you enjoy the rest of your walk in this first year anniversary parkrun. And this is Eman signing out. Cheers, guys.

Talking to Mel — Run Director, Mamquam Spawning Trail parkrun; former Whistler parkrun Run Director

00:50:41Eman Vergara: All right, parkrunners, just finished the Mamquam Spawning Trail parkrun. Joining me today is Mel, who is the Run Director this morning. First year anniversary. Mel, tell me about your morning.

00:50:52Mel: It was an awesome setup this morning. We had a great turnout. We just beat our attendance record by one person. We may or may not have had a baby register just so we can beat that number, but we'll still take it. There was cake, there was music, there was lots of smiles, lots of visitors. And yeah, it was a great morning. We had absolutely torrential rain. And as soon as parkrun started, the clouds cleared and we had a beautiful day.

00:51:19Eman Vergara: Now, Mel, you've got a bit of history with parkrun. Tell us how you got started, because I understand you were part of the Whistler parkrun.

00:51:26Mel: I was indeed. So I took over as a Run Director there a couple of years into that one. There was a couple of others that started it, but being that Whistler's a bit of a transient town, people ran out of visas and stuff and had to leave. So I took over about... I think it was 2016, 2017, and yeah we had a good couple of years run there. Uh, just a bit of a trickier one because people come and go from that town very quickly and uh yeah so unfortunately once COVID and everything happened that one sort of uh fizzled out a little bit and then when it started back up again unfortunately I had moved down to Squamish and we were sort of getting started down here. So, yeah, unfortunately, there are a group of people that are hoping to get that one started again. So fingers crossed we can get that one back up and running and have another local BC parkrun.

00:52:15Eman Vergara: Speaking of the event team, I've met a few of the event team here at Squamish. What's the community like over here?

00:52:23Mel: Incredible. We have such a great team and such a great team of volunteers. Mike is up there, do not tell anyone, but he is one of my favourites because he has elevated our parkrun so well. He used to be a scout leader and so he is very handy and we have Flagpoles and we have bike racks and we have mysterious extra signage that comes from donations and he does such a great job of elevating our parkrun to make it bigger and better and yeah lots of great ideas Kerry and Ben are our Run Directors as well and they started the parkrun they were the ones that did the hard work of the paperwork and the permits and everything and yeah we've got a great core team so no one is relied upon like every week people always have a good opportunity to run and participate and yeah really really good really good team of people around here and Our walking group is getting bigger and bigger every week. We're really trying to push it out to seniors in the area because Squamish is quite, we have some really elite level participants around here. So sometimes run clubs and everything in town can be, you know, you have to be at a certain level to be able to participate. Whereas parkrun is so inclusive of anyone and everyone, no matter your pace. And that's what we try and put out to the community and just get people to join in. So it's been really popular and it's great.

00:53:45Eman Vergara: Yeah, nice. I think to your point on inclusivity, last question, what does parkrun mean to you?

00:53:50Mel: parkrun? Connection. I really love the connection that I have made with a lot of people from all over the world. I've gone to other parkruns, I've met other people, I went back to Australia and I saw one of the volunteers that came over here and she was on a bit of a run around as well and it's just been amazing. I love it. The connection that you make and the being outdoors is really, really good. It's an amazing little community. I love it.

00:54:14Eman Vergara: Yeah, great. Well, thank you so much on behalf of all the parkrunning community here and those that visited. Mel, thanks so much. It was great to celebrate your first year anniversary and wish you many, many more years of parkrunning, especially in this event.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Kingsway Park, Urmston

00:54:27Eman Vergara: Cheers, guys.

00:54:27Mel: Cheers, indeed.

00:54:28Calum Burrell: Hello, good morning and Cooee adventurers and this is a special one today because we've got three adventurers. We have a Frond and we have Sunil Chamund and myself, Calum, and we have Ruth Perkins.

Talking to Sunil Chamund — parkrunner from Leicester (Watermead Country Park), completing his Explorer 100 /…

00:54:42Calum Burrell: Now it's a special day, we're at Kingsway Park in Urmston for event 13 and I think we're going to speak to Sunil Chamund. What is it you've done today?

00:54:54Sunil Chamund: I've completed what used to be known as a Cowell, now known as an Explorer 100 today. 100 different events. Fantastic. So how long has it taken you to do that? I think I started taking everything very seriously from 2023, but I began my first parkrun in 2021 in October. My home parkrun in Leicester at Watermead Country Park.

00:55:17Calum Burrell: Ah, Watermead.

00:55:17Calum Burrell: Yeah, I should say I first met Sunil last year at Abbey Park at Cowfest, and so I've got to go straight in. What are your top three for parkruns, if you can narrow it down?

00:55:30Sunil Chamund: So, you know, it's really hard because we've got so many brilliant parkruns in Leicestershire alone, let alone all the other places of the hundred. But what I'm going to do is give you a top three that's very parkrun adventurers specific. So I'm going to start with Ziegelwiese in Halle (Saale), Germany, because that's where I first met TOC, and Jacqui and Heather Morgan. So that's a pretty special one for me because I really started listening to parkrun adventurers properly after meeting TOC. I didn't before. I even said to him, oh, you're Australian. Do you listen to parkrun adventurers? I was clueless. So then my second one would be Kagerzoom in the Netherlands because it's a beautiful parkrun with something for everyone including that windmill but that's where I first met Ruth Perkins because I was wearing my parkrun adventurers t-shirt for the very first time my palm from I think it's last year or two years ago t-shirt for the first time and she gravitated towards it. So there you go, I picked up a roving reporter. And then the last one I'll say is Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire. That is where they filmed the Dark Knight Rises film. It's where I ran with my work colleague from our Australian office, Pete, who is from the UK but now lives in Australia, and I got an Obi for posting the picture when I went to Wollaton Hall. So that's another special one for parkrun adventurers.

00:56:30[crosstalk]

00:56:57[crosstalk]

00:57:00Calum Burrell: Well, congratulations on your Cowell or Explorer 100. I think we still, I'm old school, I've still got to go Cowell, and if we go from Cowell to no, we're slightly different, a Full Bailey.

Talking to Ruth Perkins — parkrun adventurers roving reporter, Manchester; completed a full Bailey (250 different…

00:57:12Calum Burrell: Hello Ruth Perkins and congratulations on your, well 250. You're now part of the 250 club, let me welcome you to that, but one of the few who've done a Full Bailey, so please explain the Full Bailey.

00:57:23Ruth Perkins: Cooee Adventurers, so yeah the Full Bailey is named after Gregory Bailey. So he was the first person to do 100 venues in his first 100 parkruns and then he carried on going. I think he stopped at 251 and and so a full Bailey is if you do 250 different venues in your first 250 parkruns, which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to do but I've done it. So there we go and I think maybe I'm about the 19th person to do it.

00:57:53[crosstalk]

00:57:53Calum Burrell: Oh, wow, a very exclusive club, yeah.

00:57:56Ruth Perkins: But then there's a surprising number of people who do have done it already as well.

00:57:59[crosstalk]

00:58:00Calum Burrell: Yeah, so yeah so tell us about your parkrun journey, Ruth ... you ... we've heard you on the show we need to know.

00:58:08Ruth Perkins: There's not much to say. I started running in the first lockdown and I didn't do my first parkrun until September 2021, I think, something like that. And it was my friend Dennis that took me to Worsley Woods near me in Manchester. And then I found out it was a thing about not repeating. So I just went to a different parkrun every weekend, and so I've yeah it's just it's become all-consuming but wonderful I think it's just it's the human interaction that's the bit that I really really love it's the it's the friendships that you make yeah the new ones you make every parkrun.

00:58:38[crosstalk]

00:58:44Calum Burrell: Yeah, yeah, because that's the point. So I first met you I was dressed as a penguin you were dressed as a gherkin,

00:58:50Calum Burrell: Doing the Wilmslow 10k. I think you happened to spot my With Me Now top, I think it was, or the hat, I think it was. So I didn't actually meet at parkrun, but then I saw you again at Bramhall at Christmas. Again, you were both in fancy dress at Bramhall parkrun.

00:59:05Ruth Perkins: Any excuse.

00:59:06[crosstalk]

00:59:06Calum Burrell: Absolutely.

00:59:07Ruth Perkins: And today we're both rocking our ugly Christmas jumpers.

00:59:11Calum Burrell: Christmas, yes.

00:59:12Ruth Perkins: I must think it wrong. Go on, use it. What?

00:59:14Calum Burrell: The Ugly Christmas Singlets. So I'm wearing my budgie. Yeah, I should point out, you're wearing your quokka. Yeah, quokka. And with the most, yeah, people just scratching their heads the whole day, weren't they, when they're seeing the Ugly Christmas tops, thinking, why are you wearing Christmas stuff in July? But

00:59:18[crosstalk]

00:59:34Ruth Perkins: And the thing that we need to work out, we're going to have to ask somebody, is why it's the 25th of July rather than the 25th of June? Because lots of people have been very confused about that today.

00:59:39[crosstalk]

00:59:43Calum Burrell: Yeah, because at least June will be halfway through, but July is very summery for us, so I'll roll with it anyway. So go on, quickly, what's your top three?

00:59:50Ruth Perkins: Oh, that's a really hard question. I'm not going to give a top three. Okay, fair enough. I do have a favourite. My favourite is Watergrove in Rochdale, which is not that far from here. It's got really lovely views. There's a big reservoir. It's quite hilly. It's a trail. There's cobbles. There's loads of wildlife. But, you know, there's no obvious immediate cafe or toilet. Yet, I think it's one of the best parkruns I've been to. Yeah, I've been lucky enough to go quite a few abroad. I really enjoyed Western Springs in New Zealand because there's a chance to see an elephant on the course. I didn't see the elephant. My husband did. Yeah, I think I've probably mentioned that before. I'm not bitter. Oh, and Rotorua as well in New Zealand. There's a parkrun.

01:00:28[crosstalk]

01:00:34[crosstalk]

01:00:36Calum Burrell: That's the one that Alison does. She's one of the RDs there, I think, isn't she?

01:00:41Ruth Perkins: I've done a freedom run there and it was amazing. Just the chance to be running in a place where if you don't stick to the path, there's serious consequences.

01:00:50[crosstalk]

01:00:51Calum Burrell: That's one with the geysers, yeah. Yes, yeah. Brilliant, and actually we're both boomerangers as well now, so I took on a boomerang a month ago, you had Bertie, I've had Ozzy, we've both had named boomerangs as well, yeah, so part of the boomerang club as well as the 250 club, and we're all part of the adventurous club, so thank you to both for the interview today, well done you both for lining, I don't know if it was deliberate, was it planned?

01:01:19Sunil Chamund: Yes, kind of, it was. Once I knew about Ruth 250, then I stopped doing unique events to get to 100 at the same time as Ruth.

01:01:24[crosstalk]

01:01:26Ruth Perkins: That's very sweet.

01:01:27Calum Burrell: And I believe your running club, Sail Dragons, they moved their club event today just so you could do it as well.

01:01:32[crosstalk]

01:01:33Ruth Perkins: Oh, that's so sweet, yeah.

01:01:35Calum Burrell: So yeah, all the stars have aligned and yeah, thank you both and congratulations.

01:01:39Ruth Perkins: Thank you for coming and thank you for my pickle gherkin hat as well.

01:01:40[background music]

01:01:43[crosstalk]

01:01:43Calum Burrell: You're more than welcome. Okay, thank you, Adventurers over and out.

01:01:50Tony O'Connell: Righto, Lyndell, that's a couple of great roving reports again. We heard from Greg at Sale parkrun. He was talking to Trevor, one of the RDs, having a chat about Sale. Fun fact about Sale, it was one of the first events that I launched as an Event Ambassador or a Territory Director back at the time. And from the time we walked into the council counter, the front counter, to when we had a stamped event permit was eight minutes. So they hadn't heard we were coming or anything. We had an event permit in eight minutes. So I reckon that's almost got to be a parkrun record.

01:02:21Lyndell Murray: It must be. That is hats off to you, TOC.

01:02:25Tony O'Connell: Well done. We heard from Eman at Mamquam Spawning Trail parkrun over in Canada. He came to us with two interviews. One was with Ben Co-ED, talking about setting up the course, bears and skunks, and I reckon it's got to be possibly the first reference to a skunk on the parkrun adventurers podcast that we've had. Part two was with Mel, who was RD, and talking about the people in the core team and the connections that they had. And then we heard from Calum from Kingsway Park, and Calum said to us in the email, we're having a report from event 13 at Kingsway Park, Urmston in Manchester, honoured to have interviewed Sunil Chamund who completed his Cowell and I met Sunil at Ziegelwiese in Germany on one of our trips, and our very own Ruth Perkins, who not only joined the 250 club, but she also completed the Explorer 250, which means she's the 19th person in the world to have completed a Full Bailey. So her first 250 parkruns were all at different locations.

01:03:26Lyndell Murray: That is incredible. Well done, Ruth. Thank you to all our roving reporters. But TOC, we're on the lookout for some more roving reports, particularly from all around Australia. If you've ever thought about it, this is a challenge for the listeners. If you've ever thought about recording a roving report, please do give it a crack. So to help you out on this quest, the here is a few bits and pieces that might help you overcome any of the things that might be stopping you from taking the plunge and recording something for the podcast. So, firstly, equipment. What equipment do I use? I personally, I just use my iPhone without any microphone attachment. I just use the Voice Memos app that comes on the iPhone. It's always a good idea to just move a little bit away from the crowd and to shelter from the wind if there's any wind around, but you don't need any particular special equipment. The other thing that people sometimes say is that, oh, I don't really know what I'm going to say. And again, just remember, all you need is a few good questions. You don't need to worry about what you're going to say because the roving reports are about the person that you're interviewing and their parkrun adventures or their event. So you don't really have to have anything interesting to say about yourself. The other question sometimes we get is what if I can't find anyone to interview? I always start with the Run Director of the day. Sometimes they point me in the direction of the Event Director or another Run Director who they think might be more involved with the event or have a longer history with the event. But I've had very few people actually say no, that they don't want to be interviewed. So please, again, something that you don't necessarily need to worry about too much. The other option that you have in finding an interviewee is sometimes when they're doing the milestones or visitors at the run briefing, sometimes you'll have someone put their hand up and say, I'm from a faraway place or I'm doing my 250th run at the 250th location.

01:05:33Lyndell Murray: They might be a great person to ask if they'd like to be interviewed.

01:05:37Lyndell Murray: The other question sometimes we get is I'm not sure if the event has already had a roving report done from it. The podcast has been going for over 10 years. Can you believe that TOC? Over 10 years. If you're a regular listener and you're looking to do a roving report, if you don't remember hearing audio from the event, chances are it hasn't been done, or if it has, it's been a little while ago. So there's always something new to tell about an event and there's always new people to talk to. So they're my tips for having a crack at recording a roving report. What about you, TOC?

01:06:12Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, a couple of them there, Lyndell. I remember at one event I went to at Maribyrnong, A bloke put his hand up during when they were asking for tourists and he was from the UK and it just sounded like he was going to be an interesting bloke to talk to. So I went over and had a chat to him and he was one of the more fun people that I've interviewed. It doesn't need to be the RD, it doesn't need to be the Tail Walker, it doesn't need to be one of the volunteers. It can be just someone that sounds interesting. A couple of times I've gone to an event thinking I'll do a recording at this event, and just during the day I haven't really grabbed anyone and done a recording. We've been sitting around at coffee afterwards and someone started talking about their parkrun story and it's fascinating. And I've said, hang on, can we go outside and have a chat? I remember I did that at Portland once. We were standing outside the coffee shop having a chat while everyone else was inside still turning away. Things like that. You get different experiences. It doesn't need to be how did you set the event up? You know, what's the history behind the event it can be the person telling their own story about why they're in parkrun and what they love about parkrun what's been unusual there's just so many stories out in the parkrun world and it's great to hear a little bit of variety and it's great to hear some different voices. So I'd really love some of our listeners to to jump on board, even shoot one in. Just see how you go with it and uh yeah just that's all we can say, have a crack, have a go ... it'd be great to hear some new voices.

01:07:45Lyndell Murray: Yeah, I've had the opposite, TOC, as well where I've been resolute that I wasn't going to do a roving report but I found someone who was so interesting that I just couldn't not have a chat. So there's the challenge listeners if you choose to accept. Please have a go. Reach out to us if you need any more tips or any more encouragement. We can't wait to hear about the events that you go and the places that you adventure to.

Dazza's

01:08:13Tony O'Connell: Righto, Lyndell, I think it's time we duck over to Dazza's. We've chosen several comments from each of the last two weeks of Dazza's posts. There's so many great comments. I say this each time, but it's so hard to pick a selection of them, so if you didn't get in, keep having a go at it. Dazza's also wants to remind you that when you send your photos in, he loves them in the landscape orientation. They work really well for lots of things.

01:08:38Lyndell Murray: And on Saturday the 29th of August, Dazza's said... It's International Cosplay Day. If you could cosplay anyone, who would it be? Let's segue that to parkrun dress-ups. Are you a fan or nah? Come on in, tell us what you think and share how your parkrun morning went. Firstly, we heard from Heather Hunter. And Heather was at Foster parkrun. Heather said, Dazza, I can't think of a good answer to the cosplay question, but I'm always up for a dress-up at parkrun. Photos from today haven't been posted yet, so here's a flashback from another day that I was Timekeeper at Foster parkrun. Same role and location as today. And Heather has posted a picture of herself timekeeping at Foster in a unicorn inflatable. Heather, were you wearing the inflatable last weekend as well? I'd love to know. It's a great costume.

01:09:38Tony O'Connell: Rightio, next we heard from Calum Burrell at Alderford Lake. We had a party themed hat for Alderford Lake's 7th birthday, so I happily obliged with the little dress up for the occasion. And Calum posted a picture of himself doing a zoomy in a sparkly party hat and a rainbow lei.

01:09:56Lyndell Murray: Next we heard from Adrian Luscombe, who was at Worcester Pitchcroft parkrun. Adrian said, I would love to cosplay just once as a sub-26 minute parkrunner. Those days are long gone. Today it was an early morning train to the pleasingly damp Worcester Pitchcroft to tick off another racecourse event, a lovely one too. And Adrian posted a picture of himself with the event pop-up beside the racecourse barriers. Adrian, I share your desire to cosplay as a much faster parkrunner.

01:10:34Tony O'Connell: Jumping across the ditch to Pegasus and we heard from Tanya Bailey. Perfect theme today, Dazza. Pegasus 500 event today with a blue theme. And Tanya posted a picture of herself and Brett dressed as Smurfette and Papa Smurf. We also heard from Jackie Hancock at Pegasus who was wearing a blue dress based on Van Gogh's Starry Night painting.

01:10:57Lyndell Murray: And lastly on Cosplay Week, we heard from Ria Eris, who did not share her parkrun location. But even so, even though Ria did not say where she was this week, we couldn't go past this photo, which was totally on brand with Dazza's theme this week. Ria said, I've already done my dream cosplay and I found a Roman too. Ria posted a picture of her brilliant cosplay as WWE character The Demon alongside a cosplay of Roman Reigns. The costume took a lot of face and body painting. If you didn't see it in Dazza's, it's worth a look. And I have to say, TOC, I am not a WWE fan. I'd like to thank the research department for putting the pieces together to figure out that cosplay.

01:11:50Tony O'Connell: Teamwork makes dream work.

01:11:52Lyndell Murray: It sure does.

01:11:55Tony O'Connell: Rightio. Dazza's on Saturday the 5th of September, Dazza's said, it's International Bacon Day. Dazza's has killed the fatted pig and is ready for your orders. So come on in and tell us all about your morning.

01:12:07Lyndell Murray: We heard from Lucille Pead at Claisebrook Cove in Western Australia. We ticked off Claisebrook Cove parkrun for my pioneer challenge and also met Michael and Annika, who are also parkrun adventurers. Great catch up with a lovely breakfast after. Lucille is sharing the selfie frame with Michael and Annika Little who are frequent visitors to Dazza's on their lap around Australia.

01:12:33Tony O'Connell: Yes, they certainly are and we ran into them at Palm as well. They came across to Claire. Next we heard from Greg Garner from Wes Mitchell Park in Queensland. Enjoyed a breakfast pie which included bacon, eggs and a hash brown with Brendan Peel after being RD at Wes Mitchell Park parkrun today. Forgot to get a picture in the event frame while at parkrun so after breakfast ducked back down to the park and had a random person take our picture in the frame. Thanks Brendan for making the trip up to Tin Can Bay. And the event selfie frame was surrounding Greg and Brendan with the bay in the background.

01:13:09Lyndell Murray: Next we heard from Peter Pohlman from The Beaches in New South Wales. Peter said, I got my ham hocks out to fetch in a loose board today at The Beaches parkrun. Rider and board united. Peter is pictured with his shorts pulled way up, way too high there Peter, with his shiny legs retrieving a surfboard from the rocks.

01:13:35Tony O'Connell: Great picture, although I'm not sure what they're doing surfing right in front of those rocks. There's a lot of rocks there. Next, we're going to go across to South Africa where we heard from Johan. Johan was at Dorothy Nyembe parkrun in South Africa and Johan said: It was an awesome morning at Dorothy Nyembe parkrun in South Africa where my zoomies confused the locals but hopefully earned my bacon. Lovely people to chat to, some local, some new, some from afar. And finally got Susan Conradie signed up to the Adventurers Club. Johan's picture is Johan completing a huge zoomie and I think we might hear more about this parkrun and Johan's visit in future episodes.

01:14:19Lyndell Murray: We also heard from Joanne Holt who was in Redcliffe in Queensland. Redcliffe parkrun with David Hodjo, a cracking morning, no bacon however, and Joanne and David are pictured in their adventurous singlets with a sunny ocean behind them framed by the Redcliffe selfie frame.

01:14:37Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Lyndell, jumping across to one of my favourite parkruns from our recent trip, Vingis. In Lithuania, we heard from Cheryl Bickle, no bacon, but parkrun country number 10 was ticked off at Vingis parkrun in Lithuania. Rained up to the start, but the parkrun gods played nice and it stopped, at least until after the rain was done and I was safely at the train station to change cities. And Cheryl was pictured hiding under a large purple umbrella with the Vingis pop-up.

01:15:08Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Thanks for calling in to Dazza's, everybody.

the Obi Award — Heather Hunter

01:15:10Lyndell Murray: And now it's time for our Obi. Our Obi this week goes to Heather Hunter, our favourite unicorn at Foster parkrun.

01:15:23Tony O'Connell: Well done, Heather. Another great pick. And as Lyndell said, you must write in and let us know if you wore the same one for the most recent timekeeping.

01:15:31Lyndell Murray: Yes. The research department wants to know.

01:15:37Tony O'Connell: If we've given you a shout out at Dazza's today, send us an email or comment on the post on Facebook to let us know that you're a listener. A lot of people just track Dazza's, but it's great to know who the listeners out there are.

01:15:51Lyndell Murray: It sure is.

Club Corner

01:15:53Lyndell Murray: Okay TOC, it's time now to throw over to our friend Reginald.

01:16:00[background music]

01:16:04Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III with Club Corner where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. Continuing our grab bag, we have Lithuania, Gibraltar, St Helena Island and the Cayman Islands, are all of these parkrun countries, no...picking up from where we left off, we are now in 2024, and Lithuania started hosting parkrun Vingis from September of that year. In 2026 Lithuania recently changed from the parkrun special day default to have their own special day. Which day is for Lithuania? They celebrate Independence Restoration Day on March 11th annually. If you are wondering what happens on Lithuania Independence Restoration Day, it is the day of restoration of independence of Lithuania. Not to be confused with the day of the re-establishment of the statehood of Lithuania on February 16th, or the statehood day on July 6th. All three of the events open in Lithuania on March 11 this year hosted a special day parkrun, and next year they will have at least five events possible, with parkrun Didžioji Dailidė having opened in April 2026 and parkrun Dainai in June 2026, parkrun Dainai aka Song's parkrun looks fascinating. Their event is a near-perfect circle, with four laps around Song Park. Is Lithuania a country? Yes, smiley face. Now we're almost up to current times, with Gibraltar Botanical Garden's parkrun beginning in February 2026, and is no surprise, in Gibraltar. Gibraltar is another British Overseas Territory and a special member state territory of the European Union, but not a country for you tourists. Gibraltar is a very popular tourist parkrun and one can see many visitors each week on their Facebook page, and they host a small whiteboard for people to indicate where they are touring from. Then finally, question mark, we have our most recent parkrun locations, Plantation Forest parkrun on St Helena Island and Festival Green parkrun on the Caymans, both British Overseas Territories. Why were these events not highlighted in the UK Club Corner? Refer episode number 76, it is simply that they had not started. The former is two laps through forest and the latter is three loops winding through wooded mangrove areas. An interesting factoid about Helena Island is the hosting of Jonathan the Tortoise, the world's oldest land animal. An interesting parkrun factoid is that St Helena Island and Gibraltar jumped into second and third position respectively on the geographically remotest events table. They are each more than 1,000 kilometres away from their nearest other parkrun. The top of the geographically remotest events table is Cape Pembroke Lighthouse which is more than 6,000 kilometres away from their neighbour. In that top ten, five are from Oz, with the above two British Overseas Territories, and two Canadian events. If you think you know which are the most remote parkruns in Australia, then let our illustrious hosts know by sending an email to parkrunadventurers at gmail.com with your thoughts. For now, we have covered all countries and country-like places...or have we? Can you think back over this country series and recall if one has mentioned all 20 active countries, plus the two closed countries, plus all the bits and bobs? Hmm. 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.

01:19:25[background music]

01:19:39Tony O'Connell: Righto listeners, Reginald has once again brought us another couple of countries, being Lithuania and the British Overseas Territories. It'll be interesting to see whether Reginald has to do a recap next year with potentially some new countries opening up. But it was good to hear about Lithuania and their expansion. They've expanded really quickly. When we booked our trip last year, I think there was one or two events. I think there's six events there now. But I love how Reginald made... Their extra day and their number of extra potential days that they had to pick from sound like something out of Life of Brian. I thought we had the Judean People's Popular Front or the Popular Front of Judea. I'm not sure what was going on there, Lyndell.

01:20:22Alice: Yeah.

01:20:23Tony O'Connell: And the other one was the couple of British Overseas Territories. They're just probably dangling the carrot there to get a little bit of the travel imagination inspired. Cayman Islands are certainly going to be a lot easier to get to than Plantation Forest will be to get to, but yeah, thanks to Reginald for recapping those and I'll look forward to hearing what Reginald starts to talk about next.

01:20:46Lyndell Murray: Yes, Reginald will always find something creative.

Consolidated Club Report

01:20:50Lyndell Murray: Let's move on to our Consolidated Club Report. And on the week of 29th of August, we were represented at 57 events in three states and Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, with the other states having slightly smaller numbers. And on the week of the 5th of September, Queensland led the way with 59 events with adventurers. On both weeks, all states and territories were represented, as well as both the North and South Island of New Zealand. Internationally, on the 29th of August, adventurers were at 14 countries, and on the 5th of September you had a fair chance of spotting a fellow adventurer at 16 countries. As always in both of those weeks the UK had the most adventurers but over the last couple of weeks there have been eight events with just one adventurer. Italy had one adventurer both weeks and the other countries were Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Austria, Denmark and Lithuania. Now before we move on to our fronds and pilgrimages we want to know what you think. Sarah's been experimenting a little bit as have I with how we present the Consolidated Club reports and our stats and we'd like to hear from you on this listeners. Do you like the percentages or the raw numbers? Do you like getting a brief summary or would you like us to read straight through all of the stats? We'd really love to know what you think so please send us an email or comment on the post on Facebook to let us know what you like about our stats.

the Frond

01:22:34Tony O'Connell: Rightio, moving along with our stats, Lyndell. Our largest international frond on the 29th of August was at Jeskyns Community Woodland in the UK. It was a frond of four with Alexander and Lucy Kington, Cass Castleton and Gail Banghart. On the 5th of September 2006, the largest frond was at Rothamsted Park in the UK. That was a frond of five. That was Debbie Airey, John and Louise Garrett, Ellie Soper and Christopher Miles.

01:23:04Lyndell Murray: Our pilgrimage over the last couple of weeks on the 29th of August, there was Clancy and Samantha Skinner from Armidale in New South Wales and we met them at Palm in Toowoomba a few years ago. On the 5th of September, Alexander Kington was representing the adventurers at Bushy.

01:23:26Tony O'Connell: So Alexander's gone from being in the biggest overseas from one week to the Bushy pilgrimage the next week.

01:23:33Lyndell Murray: I wonder where he'll be this week. Go Alexander!

01:23:36Tony O'Connell: Our largest Aussie fronds on the 29th of August. We had a frond of eight at one event, Parkville in the Great Estate, and they were David Johnson, Jordan Fussell, Jane Bryan, Melissa Ellis, Barbara Luther, Gemma Koyaski, Russell and Pauline Taylor. On the 5th of September we had a frond of 9 at 1 events, surprise, surprise, it was at Rockingham in Western Australia and they were Bretton Pullman, Matthew Stevens, Jasmine Marks, Chloe Bravos, Chris and Karen Gore, Sarah Jefferson, Sam and Luke Schroder.

01:24:13Lyndell Murray: Remember you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile and our research department has kindly added a note for us that our adventurer numbers are growing nice and consistently. We are in fact only 31 adventurers off reaching the 1000 mark. TOC, how quickly do you reckon we can get to a thousand? Surely by the end of the year?

01:24:42Tony O'Connell: Right, I'm going to say my next recording is on the 5th of October, so that's four weeks away. We are going to be at a thousand clearly by the time I record next time. So guys, you need to get out there and recruit your friends, recruit your family, recruit someone you completely have never met before. You've just sat next to at the coffee shop and get them to join the adventure so that I'm right.

01:25:04Lyndell Murray: Yes, offer someone a lift and lock them in your car until they join up.

Watching the numbers

01:25:09Lyndell Murray: Okay TOC, let's check in with watching the numbers at Plantation Forest parkrun. So listeners, this is a segment where we select a parkrun of interest and as the name suggests, we watch the participation numbers. So this event has now been going for nine weeks and the last two weeks went down like this. On the 29th of August there were 32 finishers, eight volunteers and nine first timers. Again many of these are genuine first timers or perhaps reinvigorated parkrunners that ran some time ago on the UK mainland and have popped up here on the island of St Helena. On the 5th of September there were 20 finishers, 9 volunteers and just one first timer. I had a bit of a look, TOC, at the volunteer lists since the event started and they've had a handful of different Run Directors leading the way on St Helena Island. So even though the numbers are getting smaller and it looks like it's going to be a nice small little parkrun over there, let's hope that the shared volunteering indicates that it's really becoming part of the community fabric and it really adds to the well-being of the residents of that island.

01:26:31Tony O'Connell: It's very encouraging, Lyndell, to see a number of different Run Directors in an event that's just kicking off rather than the load being on one person. I know it's something that parkrun have been encouraging for a while, having a few Run Directors, but it's actually great to see it happening out in the wild with events kicking off with not just one or two Run Directors, but a bit of a pool of Run Directors so that people don't burn out and the event becomes difficult for them. Yeah. Very good to see.

Notties check-in

01:26:59Tony O'Connell: Right, yeah, we put out a call out for notties. (not)parkruns are something I'm very passionate about. I love my (not)parkruns. I record and I get angry if I haven't recorded one as it's going dark. I'll get out and walk around in the dark if I have to with my head torch, but I'm going to record a (not)parkrun until parkrun stop doing them. I've got to admit, when we hit day 1,000, I thought, oh, this has got to finish soon. They won't keep going with it. It's great to see it's still happening, and our Australian parkrunners have come sort of through with the goods. The baseline that we put out was 87 not parkrunners in Australia and 901 around the world. On the weekend of 30th of August, we had 94 not parkrunners in Australia. So the number's gone up about 10%. But unfortunately, the rest of the world's let us down. That was only 899. It went down two people. Come on guys, lift your game. I want to see the numbers up, so parkrun, keep it going. We had a couple of comments come in about not parkrunners. Sherry Brandtman's mentioned in a comment on the pod that she's been logging notties since I put the call out, which is great to see. And Pippa White commented, Pippa's up to an amazing 2047, or at the time that she commented, she was up to 2047 not parkruns, which is an amazing effort. It's over 10,000 kilometres.

01:28:22Lyndell Murray: It sure is. These notties are yet another way to get involved with parkrun and share your runs with the parkrun community. And TOC, I must admit, I haven't logged a nottie myself, but I did suggest to our friend Alison Fraser that she log one. So hopefully she did and she's one of those 899 international parkruns that have been logged as a nottie.

01:28:48Tony O'Connell: Lyndell, Lyndell, Lyndell. I'm not sure if we can record together. You've only got half a point. You've encouraged one person, but you've let me down.

01:28:57Lyndell Murray: Hey, I went into bat for you, TOC.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:29:01Lyndell Murray: Let's head on and check in with these launches. TOC, listeners, get your cup of tea ready. There's a few to get through. On the 29th of August, there were eight launches scheduled globally and one relaunch being at Taman Pudu Ulu in Malaysia. No new events were listed in APAC. Interestingly, the eight launches were all in separate countries. So we're going to start in Canada at Moose Beach parkrun, which is in Orillia in Canada. Orillia is just north of Toronto and at this parkrun there were 148 runners to complete week one including 43 first-time ever parkrunners and they were assisted by 14 volunteers. The course is an out-and-back overlooking Lake Couchiching.

01:29:54Tony O'Connell: We've got some really great ones to pronounce this week, Lyndell. The next one is Kiellinie parkrun in Germany. It's located in Kiel. This is Germany's most northerly parkrun and runs along the Kiellinie promenade with views of the Kiel Fjord. Interesting, the turnaround is at a naval base. Week 1 saw 114 people scanned with 18 volunteers and 38 people completed their first ever parkrun, which is a bit of a theme for the 29th of August. There's a lot of first time ever parkrunners.

01:30:27Lyndell Murray: I love to see it. Next we are heading to Sweden and Kålgården parkrun launched in Falun. A three lapper mostly around a lake edge and this new parkrun attracted 55 finishers for their first week with eight volunteers.

01:30:43Tony O'Connell: Festival Green parkrun is listed as the United Kingdom, although it's really a British Overseas Territory. This was the parkrun that was located in the Cayman Islands between Cuba, Jamaica and Mexico, and it will be a really popular holiday destination with parkrunners. The course is a two-lapper, mostly on unpaved trails running through mangroves. For a fairly remote parkrun, interest was high at the launch, attracting 251 finishers, of whom 58 were first-time-ever participants. 18 volunteers assisted, and the launch had one participant with over 250 runs, two with over 100, and a further seven with over 50. So most of the participants at this parkrun were fairly new parkrunners. Only 10% of the field had done more than 10 parkruns.

01:31:32Lyndell Murray: That's great, TOC. It sounds like that strategy of going to places where parkrun isn't yet and going to communities where parkrun is needed, is working in the UK. Okay, TOC. On the heel of the boot that is the shape of Italy, Sirenhello parkrun is located to the south of Lecce. The course is mainly flat trails located on land owned by the Corolli Motel and is part of a regional nature park. There were 11 finishers at the launch and those were supported by six volunteers. Now, this one could be an interesting one to watch. The closest event is Salento parkrun, which is north of Lecce, and that one averages around 16 participants a week and has been running since May 2018. So it might be one of those little boutiquey kind of parkruns that we know and love TOC.

01:32:26Tony O'Connell: It's interesting, you don't need big numbers to be a successful parkrun. I discovered that at so many of our remote country parkruns around Australia, Some of the best parkruns are the ones that get 20 people a week and they're just the locals every week that come out and get together. We're going to go across to Norway for our next one at Theisendammen parkrun. It's the second parkrun near Trondheim in central Norway. 70 people scan in for the launch with no unknowns. assisted by nine volunteers. The course is two and a half laps of mainly flat forest trails. Theisendammen is a popular lake for swimming in summer and ice skating in winter. And my comment there would be don't get your seasonal activities the wrong way around.

01:33:11Lyndell Murray: That's a great tip, Toc. You would either sink with your skates on or get a headache from diving in in winter. Yeah. Storms River parkrun in South Africa is on the southern coast of South Africa. The course is described as set in the pristine forest above Storms River Village, Tsitsikamma 6308. The course is run on a mixture of grass, gravel and permanent surfaces. It has a steep climb towards the contour path. Then a gentle climb as you run along the contour path beneath the majestic landmark that is the Storms River Peak. The course ends with an exhilarating downhill to the finish. The launch had 48 finishers and 8 volunteers. It sounds like that would be a good one to focus on the majestic landmark and not all of those peaks.

01:34:09Tony O'Connell: Yes, we've got a few of those coming up. Right out to the west of Los Angeles you'll find Upper Las Virgenes Canyon parkrun in the USA. The course is described as an out-and-back course on a fire road in the Santa Monica Mountains that has great views of the West San Fernando Valley area. 28 of the 72 participants were first-time ever parkrunners, which is fantastic. There were 10 volunteers assisting, and I'll just once again make the comment it seems like we had a higher than average number of first-time ever parkrunners at these locations I'm just sort of wondering whether it's due to yeah we had a lot of Nordic countries in there we had Italy we had a few other places that probably not as heavily parkrun populated and not surrounded by other events a couple of those events were fairly remote and they tended to have a higher than average number of first-time participants

01:35:07Lyndell Murray: Yeah, it's great news. It means probably the event teams have done a great job of getting out in the community and promoting the event and attracted some local participants. That's great news.

01:35:17Tony O'Connell: It was. Rightio, moving on to the 5th of September because we've got another heap of launches. There are another six launches worldwide and once again they're in six different countries. So that's two weeks in a row with multiple launches in multiple countries. And we're going to start at Hiroshima Stadium Park, parkrun in Japan. Hiroshima Stadium is a new soccer complex and shopping arcades, otherwise known as Hiropa. The course is a three-lapper along the river and was attended by 65 participants, with 45 of those completing their first ever parkruns. That's about 70% of the field doing their first ever parkrun. Only 10 finishers had done more than 9 parkruns, and they had 22 volunteers.

01:36:01Lyndell Murray: Okay, next we are headed to Germany and Schloss Rheydt parkrun west of Düsseldorf. This parkrun is two laps in a forest along a river and it was completed by 127 finishers supported by 23 volunteers.

01:36:16Tony O'Connell: The central Finnish town of Kuopio has hosted Valkeinen parkrun and that translates to White parkrun and I don't know why I didn't just run with the White parkrun because it's much easier.

01:36:30Lyndell Murray: You've stitched yourself up, TOC.

01:36:33Tony O'Connell: I should have written the notes a bit better. 50 of the 61 finishers were doing their first ever parkrun. So once again, our theme holds out there. 82% of the field were doing their first ever parkrun at a lawn. The course itself is three laps around a lake.

01:36:48Lyndell Murray: Val du Charron parkrun in South Africa's southwestern corner and north of the town of Paarl. You need to go online to look at this single loop course. It goes through vineyards, a hidden valley, Eucalyptus Forest and an Olive Grove. It crosses dam walls, has climbs and panoramic views. Their launch was attended by 355 finishers supported by 46 volunteers. And that certainly looks like one to put on the list, TOC.

01:37:18Tony O'Connell: It does, Lyndell, and looking at the course, as I said, you really do need to go and look online. It actually looks like it's a A series of figure eights that connect. But when you zoom right in, the figure eights don't quite connect. You almost meet the trail and then you head off again. So it's sort of a big single loop, but it's an interesting course and well worth a look. Moving across to the UK, we had Ulnes Walton parkrun, southwest of Leyland. It was possibly a prison event at a closed facility because their webpage is not live at the time of doing notes and I couldn't find any details about numbers. So I assume it's a closed facility.

01:37:57Lyndell Murray: Sounds like it. Okay, lastly on our list of launches is Zuiderpark parkrun in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Now this is the third Zuiderpark parkrun in the Netherlands and this is because Zuiderpark translates to South Park and the last launched edition of Zuiderpark on the weekend welcomed 156 finishers and 28 volunteers. It's a two lapper and it starts beside the canoe pond in Rotterdam.

01:38:32Tony O'Connell: Rightio, that is a massive list of launches, Lyndell. That's 14 launches in two weeks. After a couple of weeks ago, we had no launches and then one launch. So I think we drew the short straw on the launch calendar.

01:38:45Lyndell Murray: Well, the, you know, all the long straw, I don't know. I quite like talking about the new launches, it's fun.

01:38:53Tony O'Connell: For our listeners out there that are going out for a long run, this is going to be a great podcast for your long run.

01:38:58Lyndell Murray: Yes it is.

Sign-off

01:39:00Tony O'Connell: Righto, Lyndell, what have you got that you are looking ahead to? What are you looking forward to in parkrun world?

01:39:06Lyndell Murray: Well, a couple of visitors to Dazza's over the last couple of weeks when we were talking about costumes and cosplay, has reminded me that Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up on the 19th of September. So it might be a good excuse for some of our adventurers to get out to a C or an R and dress up like a pirate perhaps.

01:39:23Tony O'Connell: Arrr, that would be a good excuse.

01:39:23Lyndell Murray: Aye, what about you TOC, what are you looking forward to?

01:39:23Tony O'Connell: Well, after our little adventure or our misadventure on the weekend in McIvor Creek, I'm actually looking forward to getting out there in a couple of weeks and completing it. And once again filling that little dot in my Voronoi map that is Victoria.

01:39:46Lyndell Murray: Excellent. I wish you well on that quest.

01:39:50Tony O'Connell: Thank you, Lyndell. I think we're getting close to the end of our show. Where are you aiming for next parkrun Day?

01:39:57Lyndell Murray: I'm hoping to join a frond locally at New Farm Park.

01:40:00Tony O'Connell: And I am hoping to go somewhere local after last week's travel. I think I'm just going to stick close, but I haven't decided. It's still too early in the week to decide.

01:40:08Lyndell Murray: Okay, TOC, it's time to thank the team behind the podcast. So, the Office Lady, our editor, Reginald, and the rest of the team that keeps this podcast happening.

01:40:22Tony O'Connell: And as always, you can contact the team via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or you can send an email to parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. Send us your roving reports, we'd love to hear them.

01:40:34Lyndell Murray: That's it for another episode. Next time you'll hear from Sarah and Simon. We'll see you next time for more adventures.

01:40:41Tony O'Connell: Bye.