Episode 193 - Podding in the Rain

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HostsMelissa Ellis Melissa Erbacher

Roving reportersMark Scarborough Tony O'Connell

Show notes

From the Facebook post

Come leap into Episode 193 with the parkrun adventurers! Guest co-host Mel Ellis heads to Frog Hollow (opens in a new tab) parkrun and your regularly scheduled Mel delights in downhills at Ipswich QLD (opens in a new tab) parkrun! Plus the Channel 5 News Crew head out to support fire-affected communities visiting the teams at Braidwood Showground (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Bright (opens in a new tab) parkrun.

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From the podcast feed

The parkrun adventurers leap along to Frog Hollow (opens in a new tab) parkrun and delight in downhills at Ipswich Qld (opens in a new tab) as Melissa Ellis returns to guest co-host. And the Channel 5 News Crew head out to support fire-affected communities visiting the teams at Braidwood Showground (opens in a new tab) parkrun and Bright (opens in a new tab) parkrun.

Roving reports

1Braidwood Showground2Bright

In this episode

• Welcome starts at 0:23

  Melissa Erbacher with Melissa Ellis, who dodges the intro for a fourth time. Mel E is recording through thunderstorms after repeated blackouts and power surges delayed recent episodes and killed a computer and a TV; Mel Ellis is still posted at Puckapunyal but got leave to run Frog Hollow's event 299, lifting her P-index to seven, and hopes to make palm20 in March. Mel E finally got to Ipswich QLD for event 310, a hilly two-lap course she'd long avoided in summer, with Adam pushing the double pram and the single rain cover fitted over one side, running the downhills and walking the ups for a 45-minute parkrun that just missed stopwatch bingo.

• Launches and anniversaries starts at 11:18"Where is the cake?"

  Erbacher reports on Ipswich Queensland parkrun's sixth anniversary (event 310), with the cake explicitly endorsed, "Wes made a beeline for the cake. And he ended up having two pieces. So well endorsed was the cake at Ipswich Queensland parkrun." Ellis's Frog Hollow visit was event 299, "just missed their arbitrary milestone of 300 by a week", which leads into a joke about rallying an attendance record at Frog Hollow on leap day, 29 February.

• Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew starts at 15:17

  Two crew reports back to back, both from fire-affected communities. Mark Scarborough reports post-parkrun from the Albion Cafe in Braidwood, interviewing Event Director Kelly about Braidwood Showground parkrun's return after 10 weeks of cancellations, with visitors travelling in from the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, Queanbeyan and Batemans Bay, and 27 finishers in the rain. TOC then reports from Bright parkrun in the Victorian Alps with Run Director Jill, covering the summer evacuations and smoke cancellations, the rail-trail course towards Wandiligong, Mystic Peak, and an appeal for tourists to come back and spend money in the town.

• Statesmen update starts at 22:42

  Hosts reveal what TOC was too humble to mention in his own report: he and Jacqui completed all 82 Victorian events at Bright to become Victorian statesmen, after their Christmas plan to pick up Bright was thwarted by the fires and the town's evacuation, forcing a 500-plus kilometre return trip to the Alpine area. Ellis reflects on her own statesman chase and Erbacher jokes the record won't last long, "It's all about the chase, isn't it?"

• Sign-off starts at 36:29

  Mel trailed next week's special guest, who had been heavily involved in the palm20 planning and would represent the planning committee, then thanked Melissa for joining her as co-host on episode 193, saying it had been fabulous even though it was an odd episode and Melissa had skipped the intro again. Melissa admitted she had put her hand up partly to get out of the intro after hearing the outtakes from episode 192, and Mel said they had all won because she had had a lovely time, thanked her for sticking her hand up, said she looked forward to the next time on the co-hosting couch and wished her a happy parkrun next week.