Facts in a Haystack

Appears in 16 episodes, first in episode 3.

Every appearance

• Episode 141 - Facts in a Haystack

  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.

• Episode 97

  Ian Hay returns with January 2018 records: every week in January beat 2017's best single week of ~33,000 (the smallest was 37,000); ~174,000 runners in January 2018 averaging ~35,000/week against ~26,000/week in January 2017; events up from 205 to 272; volunteers up from 8,600 to 11,400 for the month; year totals 764,000 (2015), 1.15m (2016), 1.49m (2017). Ends with all three locking in end-of-2018 predictions for a prize - Ian 34,000/week, Scott 35,000, Mel 1.875 million (~36,000/week). Runs alongside a gag about banned filler words ("fantastic", "so", "now", "excited").

• Episode 78

  Ian Hay returns with parkrun Australia stats: only 0.3% of the 28,817 Australian events ever recorded have had a 59:59 stopwatch failure (85 in total, 36 of them in Queensland); most PBs overall (Alan Burrell, 64 PBs from 283 runs; Jordan McGaw, 58 from 197); longest PB streaks (Phil Downing, 28 in a row in 2015; Michael Holliday, 17 this year); and 'time streaks' - identical finish times repeated (Riley Watson 40:29 five times, John O'Grady 25:01 eleven times, Chris Tuck, David Harries). He also talks about pacing 4:30 at the Sunshine Coast Marathon. A no-cancellations-streak stat was requested but not ready.

• Episode 66

  Ian Hay (Stones Corner, Queensland) breaks down April's stats: the first ever one-million-runner month globally, a record global weekend attendance of 217,400, nearly 149,000 runners in Australia, 10,176 Australian volunteers for the month, 22,700 first-timers, nearly 34,500 adventurers, and year-on-year growth from 118,000 to 148,500 for the same (five-week) month.

• Episode 60

  Follow-up on stats requested from Ian Hay the previous week: the Pirate Club (parkrunners who have completed events starting with C and R). Scott reads Ian's figures, 50 pirates in Australia, 34 male and 16 female, broken down by state: 1 Tasmania, 4 South Australia, 5 Victoria, 9 New South Wales, 11 WA, 20 Queensland. Both hosts discuss how close they are to qualifying. Ian Hay is not present in the episode; he supplied the numbers off-air and Scott reads them out, so the bit is only implicitly his stats segment.

• Episode 59 - Nicola Forwood

  Ian Hay's first stats segment of 2017. January 2017 attendance ~130,000 across 205 events vs 119,000 in January 2016; February dipped to 123,000 across 210 events, a 7,000 new-year-resolution drop against 25,000 for the same period in 2016. Weekly numbers now 31,000-32,000. Event count 205 (end Jan 2017) vs 151 (end Jan 2016), now 210-211 vs 158. Also counts 26 Australian "C" events with 47,043 individual parkrunners having done one, as groundwork for the Pirate Club.

• Episode 50

  Ian Hay returns two weeks running to deliver the stats he owed from last week: the year-end "Mel versus Scott" rematch across all Australian parkrunners named Mel or Scott, 277 Mels with 933 volunteer stints vs 1,009 Scotts with 1,194 stints (Scotts win again on totals, Mels win on average), 10,500 runs by Mels vs 12,300 by Scotts, and the best events to find your namesakes: Maitland for Mels (37) and Newy for Scotts (57).

• Episode 49

  Ian Hay's 2016 year-in-review stats. Most attendance records for the year: The Ponds with nine, then Maribyrnong, Shellharbour and Stones Corner on seven; longest record streak Wangaratta with four weeks running. Biggest attendance range: The Terrace 28-693, and one further event 11-620; excluding launches, Newy 129-744, Lake Mac 71-591, Rocks Riverside 37-488. Smallest turnout of the year: Atherton with one runner and two volunteers; Broadbeach had a week of five. Smallest averages: Clare Valley 16, Atherton and Pittsworth 17. Volunteers ranged from two (Atherton, Hamilton Island) to 23 (Newy), averaging nine; 81,000 volunteer stints in 2016 against 60,000 in 2015. Australia passed 1 million runs for the year on 26 November (770,000 in all of 2015), about 5 million kilometres. Then a set of "49" stats for episode 49: 288 people sitting on 49 parkruns, 141 events all-time (61 this year) with exactly 49 finishers, Castlemaine five times, 15 people on 49 volunteer stints, and 10 people with an exact 49:00. Ian returns next week for one stat he and Mel forgot.

• Episode 36 - Lucy Bartholomew

  Answering listener Melissa Ellis's question about how many parkrun events each Australian state has, and whether statesmanship is harder in Victoria than Tasmania. Michael Schultz supplied the numbers and they are posted on Facebook: Victoria 37 events, Tasmania 3, and Queensland the hardest of all at 63, more than a year of a different event every week.

• Episode 34 - Bill Irving

  Ian Hay returns after months away with parkrun stats. Event Director travel (Alan and Roseanne top the unique-events list on 74; Fiona Edmonds from Logan third); fastest EDs (Dave Robertson 16:50, Neil Bath 17:24, Adrian Royce fifth, 18:33 to make the top ten); then listener questions from Peter and Simon, youngest and oldest current course-record holders in Australia (Samuel Soper, 11-14, 19:12 at Narrabri; Neil Bath, 50-54, 17:58 at Pittsworth), longest run of events without breaking an attendance record (Blackbutt 160 weeks after a 538-strong launch, South Bank 144, Bunya 138), and events with the highest and lowest proportion of 50/100 club members (Surfers Paradise 27%; Rockhampton none).

• Episode 26 - Double Anniversary

  Ian Hay's stats segment. He abandons a planned State of Origin Queensland-vs-NSW comparison ("no matter which angle I looked at, I just couldn't find a way for New South Wales to win"), then covers the winter drop-off in Australian attendances (~25,000 in April down to ~18,000 in the last two weeks, and under 10,000 the week of the flooding), and analyses the Peel Club, one parkrun in each of the eight states and territories. Melissa Erbacher has just become the 10th member; 13 people sit on seven states and 64 on six or seven; Northern Territory, WA and Tasmania are the hardest to get. Peel Club members average 49 volunteer stints each, tapering to 29 at seven states and 19 at six. Newy parkrun supplies the most multi-state travellers, with Tuggeranong (39) and Ginninderra (40) leading on four-or-more states.

• Episode 20 - Scott Westcott

  Ian Hay's monthly stats segment, introduced by Mel as a chance for him to "redeem himself from what has been described as a lackluster Facts in a Haystack". Two batches of stats: junior parkrunners with the most unique events (by state and nationally, Scott's daughter sits 22nd by state percentage and 11th nationally, one event off the top 10; 12 of the national top 13 are JR10s), then parkrun adventurers as a share of attendance. Highest adventurer percentage at a 2016 launch was Sirromet, Queensland (479 of 620 runners, 77%), with Maylands Peninsula (WA) second and Kedron third; Studley was sixth on 66%, prompting Mel's "666, I think the devil's in your stats this week" joke. By raw numbers Sirromet again led, The Terrace second (443 adventurers of a 693 launch), Kedron third, Studley fifth. Outside launches, The Beaches took the top four weeks for highest adventurer percentage (73% down to 64%), with Hamilton Island next.

• Episode 19 - Facts in a Haystack

  Scott hands over "it's time for my favourite segment on the podcast... Our favourite segment, Facts in a Haystack", but the segment collapses: Ian's laptop will not start up, so he has no stats at all ("they're on my laptop and they're looking fantastic. Unfortunately, the laptop's not starting up"). The hosts salvage it by interviewing him about his own event instead: Stones Corner parkrun's second birthday, an attendance record broken by 100 to about 430 runners, cake left over, the whole South Bank parkrun crew coming down to take every volunteer spot so the Stones Corner RDs could run together in tutus, and South Bank's own 998-strong anniversary. Matches the show notes: "our favourite segment 'Facts in a Haystack' takes an unexpected turn".

• Episode 13 - Junior Adventurers

  Ian Hay's stats segment, opened by Scott "It's time to talk stats again with our stats man, Ian Hay" and closed "Thanks for coming on for our Facts in a Haystack. Still our favourite segment." This week's theme is juniors: 16% of the weekend's runners were juniors (3,800 of 23,000) against a usual 12-13%; Tamborine Mountain had the highest junior proportion at 30%, Shellharbour the highest number at 77; 18 juniors in the 100 club and 328 in the 50 club. Mel asks him to look at how many juniors appear on the Australian most-events list in a future episode.

• Episode 8 - parkdogs

  Ian Hay's stats segment, explicitly announced ("Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for Facts in a Haystack"). Settles last month's Scott-vs-Mel name contest on volunteering: Scotts 751 all-time Australian volunteer credits to Melissas' 595, with Ians topping both at 764. Then: four Australian record attendances already in 2016 and 102 course attendance records by late February against 101 for all of Q1 2015; six events with four course records each (Albert Melbourne, Maribyrnong, Mount Barker, Shellharbour, The Ponds, Wangaratta); PB leaders Torrens (427), Lake Mac (~350) and South Bank (~328), with Churchill 21%, Woodbridge Riverside 21% and Devonport 20% by percentage; and volunteer counts by running club, Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids Who Can't Run Good 3,734, 530 Runners 3,030, Running Mums Australia 2,900.

• Episode 3 - Ian Hay

  The literal on-air birth of the show's stats segment. Scott opens "a segment I like to call Fun Facts with Ian"; Melissa counters that it isn't "quite cool enough" and floats "haywire" from an earlier chat with Ian, then raises Scott's own suggestion "facts in a haystack". Ian Hay refuses to pick a favourite, they run the stats, and the name is settled at the end of the segment, "So we're going to join you once a month for a segment called?" / "I think we should call it Facts in a Haystack." Stats covered: ~335,000 km run in Australia since 1 January (about 9.5 laps of Australia, against 7 laps at the same point the previous year); the most common parkrunner first names (David for men; Sarah and Michelle neck-and-neck for women); 106 Scotts against about 80 Mels/Melissas among that weekend's runners; ~22,000 runners producing 3,300 first names of which 2,000 were unique; and the largest registered running clubs that weekend, Running Mums Australia (340), Derek Zoolander Centre for Kids Who Can't Run Good (232) and 530 Runners (third).