Episode 141 - Facts in a Haystack

Episode 141 — open the full-size artworkShow artwork, January 2018

HostsMelissa Erbacher Scott Trickett

Roving reportersGary Murphy Melissa Ellis Steve Marston

GuestIan Hay

Show notes

The parkrun adventurers are playing the long game with our adventures this week. It’s like old times as podcast fave Ian Hay returns with Facts in a Haystack. And roving reports are in from Steve Marston who visited Far North Qld’s Weipa (opens in a new tab) parkrun, Gary Murphy was adventuring at home and Melissa Ellis who ventured to the opposite end of the country to snaffle a Compass Point and join the Stayin’ Alive Club at Geeveston (opens in a new tab) parkrun.

From the podcast feed. No Facebook post text is recorded for this episode.

Guest

Roving reports

1Weipa2Highlands3Geeveston

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:16

  Scotty Trickett and Mel Erbacher winding down for the year after last week's Christmas episode; the singlet link should now be disabled. Mel was RD at home at Kawana, lending her work phone with the volunteer app to Des when he and Linda were both rostered (the screen went to sleep mid-event, so a few finish times may be seconds out), then spent Sunday replacing sticker-numbered tokens with scannable barcodes, sewing a new kit bag and dropping the laptop from the kit, with a nod to International Volunteer Day; Scotty went to Darebin with his mate Chris, who forgot his purple wristband barcode and had to be driven home for it, no exceptions. They touch on Queensland's bushfire smoke and Scotty living near the Black Saturday area before going to guest Ian Hay, with Mel's goals for next year to follow.

• Facts in a Haystack starts at 11:46

  Ian Hay returns after a year away for the show's stats segment. He compares parkrun Australia's growth with the UK's at equivalent event counts (18 events in AU 2013 vs UK 2010, then 56/50, 102/95, 146/152), notes annual growth easing from 40% in 2016 to 28% this year, 1.7m runs and 140,000 volunteers year to date, 1,076 junior volunteers and 4,961 junior runs. PB streaks: Johan Karlsson (Applecross) 18 in a row, Tim Banks (Kirra) 16 broken by an equal time then five more. 22 course attendance records on 31 March; Cairns and Emerald top the year with five each. Both hosts predict Christmas Day and New Year's Day numbers. Closes with the running Mel-versus-Scott head-to-head stats - Mel two course PBs, Scott one.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 27:56

  Two back-to-back roving reports. Steve Marston reports from Weipa parkrun in Far North Queensland with colleague Michael, after a two-hour drive from their work site on a 30-degree morning, and interviews outgoing Event Director Alicia on her last run before relocating to Melbourne. Gary Murphy then reports "from home" at Highlands, interviewing Robin Rishworth on joining the Half Cow Club - 50 different parkruns, 48 of them in the last 12 months, never repeating an event, saving Lilydale for last.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 34:43

  Melissa Ellis files a deliberately coy report from "the parkrun that shall not be named" - a 3am alarm, a 6am flight out of Melbourne, a first-ever hire car and arrival with ten minutes to spare. She completes her Stayin' Alive (Bee Gees) letter challenge, adds a number to her Wilson Index and claims a compass point, then interviews Andrew, a near-stranger and fourth-time parkrunner who came along as the condition of a gifted flight. Co-host Erbacher reveals it as Geeveston parkrun in the crossover afterwards.

• Top Three starts at 41:26

  End-of-year segment in which Scott holds Mel to three stated goals for 2019: 17 new events (talked down live from 22, to reach 85 different events); run directing 14 more times to reach 100 as RD; and a "perfect month" - a different, never-before-done event every week for one whole calendar month, her parkrun spin on the Barney Stinson idea from How I Met Your Mother. Scott names it a segment "That's your top three goals for the year, which ticks off that segment".

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 47:27"Where is the cake?"

  The last new event of 2018 for parkrun Australia: Beringa [Baringa] parkrun on the Sunshine Coast, at the southern end of the coast in Caloundra, an area that has long had only Golden Beach. Anniversaries at Central Lakes (QLD), Marriott Waters (VIC), Menai and Rooty Hill (NSW), Stanthorpe (QLD), Stockton (NSW) and Windsor Precinct (TAS).

• Sign-off starts at 48:43

  After the calendar, Scott asked whether Mel was planning to have fun that weekend given her prior engagement: she said she was heading to a state she had not parkrun in since Wes was born, and Scott talked up Westerfolds as the greatest event in the great state, recalling that on her first visit in about March 2016 she took him and Adam to Studley instead and they did a Westerfolds freedom run the next day. They then wrapped up episode 141 by thanking everyone who ordered an Ugly Christmas Singlet, stressing the singlets were being made in Melbourne, that the podcast had made nothing from them, praising the manufacturer's customer service and their promise to prioritise the international orders, and noting two more episodes to go before the break.