Episode 128 - Streaky September

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HostsMelissa Erbacher Scott Trickett

Roving reportersDavid Moss Lyndell Murray

Show notes

From the Facebook post

Episode 128 is all about the streaking!

Plus Nobles (opens in a new tab) parkrun on the Isle of Man and Ipswich QLD (opens in a new tab) parkrun feature in roving reports from our ever dedicated Channel 5 News Crew.

Get your streak on:

#streakyseptember

From the podcast feed

The parkrun adventurers are all about #streakyseptember this week and we reveal details for the much-anticipated #levelup challenge: streaky BINGOE. Foreign Correspondent Dave reports in from Nobles (opens in a new tab) parkrun on the Isle of Man, while closer to home Lyndell is back with a wrap up from Ipswich Qld (opens in a new tab) parkrun. Plus the parkrun adventurers hotline receives another call!

Roving reports

1Nobles2Ipswich

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:06

  Mel Erbacher on the Sunshine Coast and Scotty Trickett in Melbourne for one night before flying to Sydney for the parkrun Australia conference, where both will do GreenWay as a new event and Scotty proposes a showdown. Thanks to the listeners who sent step-by-step Wilson index instructions and corrected Mel that Jessie is in Toy Story 2; Scotty ticked off his NENDY at Gardiners Creek and joined the unofficial Bee Gees Club, praising RD Trevor's briefing; Mel barcode-scanned at the deliberately quiet soft launch of Mudjimba Beach, the team moved across from the now-closed Town of Seaside. No guest this week, just roving reports.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 11:27

  Two roving reports back to back, both explicitly signed on as Channel 5. David Moss files from the Isle of Man, reporting from Nobles parkrun's alternate course in the Conrenny Community Woodlands (in use for four weeks while the Manx Grand Prix takes over the island), with a primer on Manx independence, the triskelion flag and the tailless Manx cat, then interviews the Nobles Event Director on the 18-month slog to get permissions and the island's week-long run festival. Lyndell Murray then reports from Ipswich parkrun in Queensland, chasing an I for her Alphabeteer Club and kicking off her Streaky September, interviewing Mark on his 50th parkrun (came to running at 52, lost 25kg, ran the Paris Marathon two years after a heart attack), Run Director Tom, Event Director and event ambassador Kay, and Gary, who has volunteered over 200 times and never run a parkrun. Scott scores the reports 10 out of 10 and jokes about starting to rate them.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 29:39"Where is the cake?"

  No launches this week. Anniversaries at Bega (NSW), Inverloch (Vic), North Wollongong (NSW) and Wynnum (Qld), with the usual wish for fabulous costumes and/or cake. Separately, in the hosts' opening chat, Mel reports the soft launch of Mudjimba Beach parkrun on the Sunshine Coast, deliberately kept off the calendar so the team relocating from the now-closed Town of Seaside parkrun could settle in quietly.

• Streaky September starts at 30:11

  Streak status updates four days in: Mel is holding her extra streak, off chocolate, Skittles and wine, and reports her husband Wes at day four and the dogs at a 50% attendance rate; Scott's pledge to give up coffee lasted exactly one day, undone by a Father's Day breakfast at his favourite cafe. The pair then reveal the returning "Streaky Bingo" card (the level-up challenge trailed in the show notes): two carried over from last year, do a parkrun, and streak with a friend, plus six new ones: Streaky Strava art, record a hotline question while streaking, streak with a dog (or with a person named Max, Charlie, Jack, Bella or Jessie, with Buster, Champy, Clover and Eno also accepted), the "last minute streak" after 11pm, "Groundhog Day" (same time, place and distance two days running), and backwards-cap streaking. They also explain the switch from a Facebook event to a Facebook group, since Facebook won't allow month-long events.

• Hotline starts at 48:47

  A listener call is played: Jackie Exilin of Gungahlin parkrun asks how two hosts living in completely different states met and ended up making a podcast together. The answer: they were both in the original intake of about a dozen parkrun Australia Territory Directors (since morphed into the event ambassador program), got to know each other in the private Facebook group for that role, probably first met in person at the Ron Clarke memorial service in Victoria, and Scott reached out to ask her to co-host when he wanted to bring the podcast back, "Mel was always my first choice".

• Sign-off starts at 54:53

  With Mel's laptop battery down to 5 per cent, Scott said let's end it now, and they looked ahead to parkrunning together at the weekend at an event new to both of them. Mel thanked Jackie for her hotline question about how the two of them met, promised a guest the following week, and then they abandoned the returning sing-along - a live version of Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now, Scott's karaoke song of choice - agreeing it just was not the same, blaming the corporate greed of big music, and leaving the episode to peter out over the theme music.

• Sing-along starts at 55:38

  The closing sing-along, described by Scott as "a new tradition" that "returned last week". This week it is abandoned almost immediately over music licensing, Scott nominates Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" as the song it always needed, then cuts it short: "don't blame us, blame the corporate greed of big music", with a promise that one day sponsors or a lawyer will fix it. The episode instead peters out over the show's own theme music.