Episode 125 - August Madness

Episode details · 325 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:15Scott Trickett: Hey, hey, hey, episode 125 is back. I'm here. My name is Scott. I'm looking for a catchphrase to open the podcast. I'm going with hey, hey, hey to start with. Immediately, I don't like it. But anyway.

00:00:32Melissa Erbacher: You've got to try before you buy these things, don't you, Scotty? Yeah.

00:00:34Scott Trickett: So we scrapped that one, but welcome, Mel. Welcome to the parkrun Adventurers, episode 125.

00:00:43Melissa Erbacher: Well, thank you very much. Happy to be here.

00:00:45Scott Trickett: Quick warning, I'm in holiday mode. I'm just coming back off holiday mode, so don't expect much from me today. You know, it's the first day back at work, catching up on emails, just sliding back into the groove.

00:00:58Melissa Erbacher: Okay, well, maybe we should let you off and we'll just do a quick and easy one today then.

00:01:03Scott Trickett: Yep, should be quick and easy. parkrun Adventures for me on the weekend just consisted of volunteering at Junior parkrun. It was a new event for me in the volunteering stakes, but no big parkrun. For me, I'm salivating now. Yeah, I'm just desperate for Saturday to come around again because I do have an adventure planned for this week.

00:01:25Melissa Erbacher: Ooh, well don't tell us about it this week. We'll hear about it next week, shall we? Yep.

00:01:29Scott Trickett: And you, you were back on the bike, back in parkrun, I hope?

00:01:34Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I managed to drag myself along with two and a half hours sleep under the belt. I felt quite ill, but I got there. I was not going to miss it two weeks in a row. And it was a onesie gym jam parkrun themed event. And myself and approximately four other people, including my son, were in fancy dress and nobody else was, but that's okay. I was comfortable and warm and snuggly and had a relatively good morning, so no complaints from here, Scotty. But before we just, you know, finish up the intro super quick today, you kind of glossed over the fact that you volunteered on the weekend and you became the first person in Australia to have volunteered at every single Junior parkrun event in the country.

00:02:18Scott Trickett: How about that?

00:02:19Melissa Erbacher: I think. that deserves some kind of kudos or yay or, you know, not so feminine clap.

00:02:26[applause]

00:02:26"Alan Ruck": Yay, Scotty. Well done.

00:02:30Scott Trickett: Thanks, Mel. Thanks, Mel. I'm very lucky to be in the opportunity to be able to do that, but I was at Cannonvale Juniors and got a different taste of juniors with a smaller event, but it was still fun. It was awesome.

00:02:43Melissa Erbacher: A smaller, warmer event. Were there less beanies and thermal clothing on show?

00:02:49Scott Trickett: Yep, not a beanie in sight, and all male participants, volunteers and runners were in shorts.

00:02:58Melissa Erbacher: Ah, that's what we like to hear. I can't wait for spring to get here. I'm sick of this cold already. Let's move on to the warmth.

00:03:06Scott Trickett: Yeah. You know, I have a love-hate relationship with it. So I step off the plane and my first immediate thought is, that's it, we're moving. But a few hours into it, it's like, oh, yeah, this is good. Like, I like being warmer. But I do – I'm a Melbourne boy, Mel. I can't – It's 2 a.m. I'm not going to move as much as I hope. I'm just going to bank on global warming and just hope.

00:03:36Melissa Erbacher: Reaching you eventually.

00:03:37Scott Trickett: Yeah. It's a horrible thought because it's coming. It's coming faster than we all think and hope, despite what I've just said.

00:03:45Melissa Erbacher: And you're just going to embrace it. Actually, it scares me. Take it for the silver linings that come. Well, there's not going to be any silver linings because there won't be clouds. It will all just be blistering sunshine. straight through the no ozone layer.

00:03:59Scott Trickett: Yeah. Just mindset. Just changing the mindset. It's cold. Deal with it. If I want to warm up.

00:04:04Melissa Erbacher: Glass half full kind of guy.

00:04:06Scott Trickett: Go for a holiday to far north Queensland. That's the solution. Just to break up the misery.

00:04:15Melissa Erbacher: Anyway, I think we should dive in. We've got a bit of a fun segment lined up with simon mackley and i'm i've been a bit nervous about it so do you mind if we just you know quit the banter now and head straight in so that we can rip off the band-aid absolutely go for it i'm like i said i'm in holiday mode i'm willing to take this episode off so let's go A little ways back in podcast time, we had a bit of a funny idea. We went through a whole bunch of our highlights on the parkrun adventurers. I can't remember the name of the episode because it was that long ago. But during the process of that, we kind of came up with an idea of throwing out some challenges and we knew August Madness was coming up soon and we thought about doing reverse freedom runs and then we As a marriage of those two ideas, actually, it kind of came out of the fact that the wonderful Simon Mackley offered to write us questions. And he wanted to send us the questions so that we could sort of vet them. But I didn't want to see the questions because I wanted to be surprised too. And then I thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool if Scotty and I were the contestants and we could do a reverse freedom madness instead of the normal August madness or freedom run challenges? And Simon very kindly agreed to be the host to spring some questions on us and Scotty and I could compete head to head. I am, I will admit, regretting this decision or this idea. Sometimes my mouth and my brain don't quite mix together and something comes out and I really should have thought it through. If you're a listener of the podcast, you've probably witnessed this happening before. However... is here. We're in August, finally, and we are joined by the incredible Simon Mackley. Simon, oh my goodness, I can't believe this, but welcome to the parkrun Adventurers as a host of Reverse Freedom August Madness.

August Madness

00:06:35Simon Mackley: Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me back.

00:06:39Melissa Erbacher: So we're going to just pretty much hand it over to you now. Scotty and I are going to be the passengers. We're going to try not to embarrass ourselves. Disclaimer, I have had a little bit of wine this evening to slash calm my nerves and also accompany my cooking forays in the kitchen, which I don't do very often. But enough about me. Take it away, Simon.

00:07:01Simon Mackley: All righty. So you guys know the rules. You know to buzz in, you need to do your home parkrun. So let's do a test run. Mel, go for it.

00:07:09Scott Trickett: Kawana. Scotty? Well, Kiwana is very short, and my home is Westerfolds, but it's a mouthful. But to keep it fair, I will also go...

00:07:21Melissa Erbacher: It's the exact same amount of syllables, Scotty.

00:07:24Scott Trickett: But I have a lot of homes, and because I'm zero-focused, I haven't got any alcohol in my system. I already have an advantage. I'm going to stick with Westerfolds.

00:07:34Simon Mackley: That's my buzzer. That is the longest buzzer. I hope you're not going to go through that every time. I just wanted to justify it. I just wanted to justify it. Where's the phones? Get a bit of practice in. Where's the phones?

00:07:47Unidentified speaker: Okay. All right.

00:07:48Simon Mackley: All right. I think we're ready to jump into it. Are you guys ready? Yep. How many questions have we got? Just so I can plan. I think we're going to go with 10. And I do have a tiebreaker in case it is a tie. Okay. Is Tan okay with you guys?

00:08:06Melissa Erbacher: I reckon let's just ask them all and see how we go. We are either going to colossally embarrass ourselves right here and right now. Can I just ask before we launch in, Simon, when you were writing the questions, what was the method? How did you figure out, like, what was the scale of how hard to make them? Because I know that the questions I tend to write, Scotty's like, nobody's going to know that. And so I tend to have to modify them a little bit. but what was your methodology behind it?

00:08:35Simon Mackley: So my original process, because I thought I was writing this for Brendan Peel and whoever was going up against him, I went to a pretty high level. I then went back to one of our, one of the parkrun adventurers from the meetup and went through the questions with them and And they said, oh, that one's a little bit too skewed towards Mel, that one's a bit too skewed towards Scott, so you need to sort of level them out a bit. And then I rewrote them knowing that it was going to be you guys. So let's say we went to level nine to start with and we've gone down to, say, level six. Level six? You think it's too high still? LAUGHTER

00:09:22[laughter]

00:09:26Scott Trickett: Look, I'm just glad you had a method. I'll take level six. I just remind you I do this as a profession, so I know that's what worries me.

00:09:35Melissa Erbacher: What I'm really concerned about is what if we just totally tank on level six? Like, what does that make us? Does that mean we have to hang up our microphones and not do a podcast anymore? This could be terrible.

00:09:47Simon Mackley: Well, maybe we'll just go to the tiebreaker because you're both going to know the answer to the tiebreaker. It just depends how quick you are.

00:09:56Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:09:57Simon Mackley: All right.

00:09:57Melissa Erbacher: Now that can be awkward, Scotty. What if neither one of us gets a tiebreaker? No pressure. Okay. All right. We'll stop talking. Let's jump in.

00:10:07Simon Mackley: All righty. Name three parkruns with river in their name.

00:10:12Melissa Erbacher: Kewana.

00:10:14Simon Mackley: Okay, go.

00:10:15Melissa Erbacher: Rocks Riverside. Riverway.

00:10:18Simon Mackley: Yeah.

00:10:19Melissa Erbacher: And Cooks River.

00:10:20Simon Mackley: Well done.

00:10:22Melissa Erbacher: Is Cooks River a parkrun? Because that came out and I just, yeah, oh, awesome.

00:10:26Simon Mackley: Yeah, it's in Sydney. Yeah. Well done, Mel. You're on the board. Okay. Thanks, Simon. Three of the top five athletes on the most advanced list have only run in Australia. Is that true or false? Westerfolds. That'd be true. That is true. Well done, Scotty. On the board as well.

00:10:48Melissa Erbacher: Glad to see you not on mute there, Scotty.

00:10:53Simon Mackley: Alrighty. Next one. So recently the Chrome add-in has appeared from the UK with a whole lot more freaky stats for us avid parkrunners. What is the criteria of their compass club? Westfolds. I was just about to say Westfolds.

00:11:11Melissa Erbacher: And I was like, no, that's not my parkrun.

00:11:15Scott Trickett: Scotty? Well... Their Compass Club is wrong, but the correct answer would be it just has to have eyes on north, south, east or west in the name of the parkrun.

00:11:27Simon Mackley: That is correct.

00:11:29Scott Trickett: Thank you.

00:11:29Melissa Erbacher: I'm glad to clarify there, Scotty, that their Compass Club is wrong.

00:11:34Scott Trickett: I agree with you.

00:11:36Melissa Erbacher: I consider that a win.

00:11:38Scott Trickett: Can we have a quick score update? Yes. That's good, isn't it?

00:11:44Simon Mackley: Is that just because you're ahead two to one, Scott?

00:11:46Scott Trickett: I just want to keep the listeners up to date so that, you know, three questions can get confusing.

00:11:50Simon Mackley: Yeah, sure. It's like three laps of a parkrun course, right?

00:11:56Scott Trickett: Who would ever do a parkrun course that has three laps? Hey, come on. Is that the next question? No.

00:12:03Melissa Erbacher: You're not going to win any points with the host here, Scotty. You might pull out the question skewed to Mel. Exactly.

00:12:10Simon Mackley: Exactly. All righty, the next one. But hang on, just the score update. Hang on, the score update. Sorry, the score update is two to one. Okay, great. Two to one.

00:12:18Melissa Erbacher: He did actually get that, Scotty. I think he just wanted to have it repeated.

00:12:22Simon Mackley: Yeah, I think he did. Wow. Okay, next one is Sailor of the Century style. It's Where Am I? I'm home to the Wiljikali people. I average 42 parkrunners per week. A well-known Australian company was started here. I'm the most westerly parkrun in my state. One of Australia's largest solar farms is located outside the city. I operate on central time as I'm only 34 kilometres from the South Australian border. Westerfold.

00:12:56Scott Trickett: Go for it, Scotty. Broken Hill.

00:12:58Simon Mackley: Well done.

00:13:00Melissa Erbacher: Okay, that was obviously a Scotty skewed question. I'm glad we're not first of all because this is embarrassing. Yeah.

00:13:07Simon Mackley: So, okay, we're going on to question number five. Which club is currently only in New South Wales but has nothing to do with New South Wales?

00:13:22Melissa Erbacher: Is it an unofficial club? Can I just clarify?

00:13:25Simon Mackley: Well, aren't they all apart from the 50s, 100s, 250s? I'll give you another clue. There's only four parkruns that belong to this club.

00:13:37Melissa Erbacher: Can Kiwana?

00:13:40Simon Mackley: Yeah, go for it.

00:13:42Melissa Erbacher: Is it the Rayfarer Club?

00:13:44Simon Mackley: No, because that's all of the Sydney ones. So there's 24 Sydney parkruns.

00:13:52Melissa Erbacher: Does that mean I can't come in again with my buzzer? Does Scotty get first right to answer and then I have to wait?

00:14:00Simon Mackley: Mel, if you think of it, you just jump in. If Scotty can't think of it. Because I've already buzzed. Can we have the question again? Okay. Which club is currently located only in New South Wales but has nothing to do with New South Wales? Like the title doesn't have anything to do with New South Wales. Westerfolds. Go for it. Is it the The Club? It is the The Club.

00:14:24Melissa Erbacher: Okay, enlighten me. What is the The Club?

00:14:27Simon Mackley: The beaches, the ponds, the terrace and the entrance.

00:14:33Melissa Erbacher: Ah, that sounds like something the Polmans have made up. Thank you very much for that, Peter Pohlman.

00:14:39Simon Mackley: Well, it's been around for quite a while. Anyway, score check. Mel, one.

00:14:47Melissa Erbacher: The first one on the board, I might add. I picked you early.

00:14:52Scott Trickett: Scotty, you're on four. Four, good. And to win, you have to get six or five.

00:14:59Simon Mackley: Yes. The good thing is, well placed for me, is the next one has extra points in it. Oh, great.

00:15:08Melissa Erbacher: I'd love extra points.

00:15:11Simon Mackley: Okay. How many parkrun countries are there in the Southern Hemisphere? And you get an extra point if you can name all of the countries.

00:15:20Melissa Erbacher: Kiwana.

00:15:22Simon Mackley: Go for it, Mel.

00:15:24Melissa Erbacher: All right. I'm going to say there are four parkrun countries in the Southern Hemisphere.

00:15:30Simon Mackley: Okay. Okay.

00:15:33Melissa Erbacher: Well, you can correct me if I'm wrong already because otherwise when I start naming them, I'm probably going to get it wrong if there's not four.

00:15:39Simon Mackley: There's not four.

00:15:41Melissa Erbacher: Ah, well, there you go. Which country have I missed? Well, I'm not going to start...

00:15:47Simon Mackley: I don't know what the four is you're thinking of.

00:15:49Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm not going to start talking about which ones they are because if I do, then I'm going to... Oh, no, there's five.

00:15:56Scott Trickett: Can I go west of... No, there's five.

00:15:58Melissa Erbacher: I already buzzed in.

00:16:00Simon Mackley: I'll just... Sorry, Scotty. Go for it, Mel. There are five.

00:16:05Melissa Erbacher: Okay. There's New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia.

00:16:13Simon Mackley: No.

00:16:14Melissa Erbacher: South Africa is not classified as.

00:16:16Simon Mackley: Hemisphere.

00:16:17Melissa Erbacher: Oh, seriously?

00:16:20Simon Mackley: South Africa is, but Singapore and Malaysia are north of the equator.

00:16:23Melissa Erbacher: Oh, my gosh. But there's still five. How is that even possible?

00:16:27Simon Mackley: There are five.

00:16:28Melissa Erbacher: All right, Scotty, take it away.

00:16:29Simon Mackley: Do I get a go now? Do you want to have a go, Scott? Well, there's Namibia. Yes, there is Namibia. There is Swaziland. Well done. That makes up the five.

00:16:42Scott Trickett: That was a trick question, I think, Mel.

00:16:44Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm getting that. Also, we all know I'm geographically challenged.

00:16:51Simon Mackley: All right, Mel.

00:16:52Melissa Erbacher: That is very embarrassing.

00:16:54Simon Mackley: You got four points from that, and Scotty only got two. What? Shouldn't she lose points for getting incorrect answers as well?

00:17:01Melissa Erbacher: I don't think anyone loses points.

00:17:04Simon Mackley: Do you just want to win, Scott? Is that why you're asking that question?

00:17:08Scott Trickett: Well, then I could have just fired off every country that parkrun's in and eventually got the answer right. But no, that's fair. Four points to Mel. So what does that make her? Five?

00:17:18Simon Mackley: That makes Mel five and you six. Great. So she's coming through on a bolter.

00:17:24Melissa Erbacher: How did I get four points for that when I only had three countries correct? Oh, and I got the number. Gotcha.

00:17:32Simon Mackley: The number, correct.

00:17:33Melissa Erbacher: Yes. I like how you work, Simon.

00:17:37Simon Mackley: Are you questioning my scoring?

00:17:39Melissa Erbacher: Not at all. I'm admiring it very much.

00:17:42Simon Mackley: Good. Perfect. Let's move on to question seven. In the past seven years, the number of individual runs at an Australian parkrun, sorry, at Australian parkruns, is approximately, and this is multiple choice, A, 5.4 million, B, 5.5 million, C, 5.6 million, or D, 5.7 million?

00:18:08Melissa Erbacher: Can we hear the question again, please?

00:18:11Simon Mackley: Okay. Sorry, I may have confused it to the start.

00:18:14Melissa Erbacher: Because when you said individual runs, I'm thinking, okay, one runner has run this many times. And I'm thinking, no, none of them have run more than 5 million times.

00:18:21Simon Mackley: No. Okay, so, yeah, it's the, sorry, individual runs is what it's showing on the parkrun website. So it's the amount of runs that have happened in Australia, in Australian parkruns.

00:18:36Melissa Erbacher: Gotcha. And do we go in?

00:18:38Simon Mackley: Okay, go, Scott. Can I have the answers again, though? Okay, so A, 5.4 million. B, 5.5 million. C, 5.6 million. D, 5.7 million. Oh, God. A. You are correct.

00:19:00Melissa Erbacher: How's that for a guess?

00:19:03Simon Mackley: I know. Tell me about it. No, no. I meant it. I meant it. Or you're on the website having a look at the figure.

00:19:13Scott Trickett: Is that right, Scott? No, that's not. Simon, please. Okay. All right. That's fine. Okay.

00:19:18Melissa Erbacher: All right. We didn't establish that nobody was allowed to Google beforehand. I mean, I haven't because I was just assuming that that's what was going to happen.

00:19:27Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, I've got a spaceship of controls in front of me, remember? I've got to make sure everything's still recording, so I couldn't possibly.

00:19:35Simon Mackley: Of course. All right, shall we move on to the next question?

00:19:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm sure Scotty probably wants a score update again by now. LAUGHTER

00:19:43[laughter]

00:19:45Simon Mackley: Well, can I just get back to the previous question? What was the actual answer? 5.4 million people, 5.4 million runs. So the number is actually 5,370,104 as at last weekend. Of course.

00:20:01Scott Trickett: Yeah, that's what I thought. You knew that.

00:20:06Simon Mackley: I think that includes unknowns as well.

00:20:08Melissa Erbacher: I like how he gets the right answer, but he still wants to have the questions. He needs to clarify it afterwards. But he meant to answer that. It was intentional.

00:20:20Simon Mackley: Of course. Of course he did. Should we do a score update?

00:20:24Melissa Erbacher: Yes, because I've lost track of all the numbers now too. It's all good.

00:20:29Simon Mackley: It's all good. So, Scotty, you're on seven and Mel, you're on five.

00:20:33Melissa Erbacher: I did love that question where I got four points.

00:20:40Simon Mackley: It couldn't have been better placed. All right, now this one's going to bend your brain a little bit because the others haven't. So we all know the fastest parkrunners in Australia are Liam Adams and Celia Sullohern. If they were to run a relay race, so effectively they do 5Ks each, would they be faster or slower than the average run time at Australian parkruns? Kewana. Kewana. I'll go, Mel.

00:21:14Melissa Erbacher: They would still be faster.

00:21:16Simon Mackley: Correct. They're faster by about two minutes.

00:21:20Melissa Erbacher: Yay. And I legitimately knew that, Scotty.

00:21:24Scott Trickett: Well done, Mel and Celia and Liam and all the other parkrunners who can't run as fast as them.

00:21:30Simon Mackley: Exactly. It's still 5Ks no matter how fast you do it.

00:21:36Melissa Erbacher: Exactly.

00:21:37Simon Mackley: All right. On to question nine. Now, this is going to need a little bit of knowledge of UK parkruns, and it's probably going to be a guess, to be fair. Which of these is not the name?

00:21:51Melissa Erbacher: I love your faith in us. Thank you.

00:21:54Simon Mackley: Well, I couldn't believe some of these names. Okay, so which of these is not the name of a UK parkrun? Wait till the end before you buzz in. Pocket parkrun, red car parkrun, rising sun parkrun, Pontypandy parkrun, haven't parkrun, non-such parkrun, or street parkrun?

00:22:17Melissa Erbacher: Kiwana.

00:22:19Simon Mackley: Go for it, Mel.

00:22:21Melissa Erbacher: Haven't parkrun.

00:22:23Simon Mackley: No, that is the name of a parkrun. Do you want to have a go, Scott? Street parkrun. That's also the name of a parkrun. Do we want to go on until we actually get one right?

00:22:35Melissa Erbacher: Red car parkrun.

00:22:36Simon Mackley: Okay, no, that's the name of a parkrun as well. What was the one after that? How about I go through them?

00:22:45Melissa Erbacher: Okay, please.

00:22:46Simon Mackley: So the ones that are left are Pocket parkrun, Rising Sun, Pontypandy or Nonsuch. Pontypandy.

00:22:56Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's got to be Pontypandy.

00:22:57Simon Mackley: You are correct. That's the town that Fireman Sam lives in.

00:23:02Melissa Erbacher: See, my child is not old enough for that yet.

00:23:06Simon Mackley: I know.

00:23:06Melissa Erbacher: That was completely swayed towards Scotty.

00:23:08Simon Mackley: Well, I don't think so because I'm not guessing Kasia used to watch Fireman Sam.

00:23:14Melissa Erbacher: Just because you got it wrong doesn't mean it wasn't swayed towards you.

00:23:21Simon Mackley: All right, shall we go to question number 10? Yeah, bring it on. Actually, well, hang on, we've got a score check. We've got Scotty on eight and Mel on five, and I think this is a five-pointer question. I'm sure I'm on six by now. Of course it would be.

00:23:37Melissa Erbacher: I'm pretty sure I'm on six.

00:23:39Simon Mackley: Oh, you're right. You're right. Apologise. You are on six. You got that Celia Sullivan and Liam Adams question correct. I did. All right. So this is a five-pointer question and probably the hardest question of the whole night. Port Hedland is Australia's most isolated parkrun. Name one of its closest ten parkruns. Where's the first one?

00:24:03[crosstalk]

00:24:03Melissa Erbacher: Kewana.

00:24:04Simon Mackley: Oh, Kewana. Mel, you got in there.

00:24:06Melissa Erbacher: What?

00:24:08Simon Mackley: Go back and check the recording. Kununurra is correct.

00:24:14Melissa Erbacher: Yay! You can check the recording, Scotty. There was a definite kerf before the dubber.

00:24:20Simon Mackley: Yeah. Mel, I definitely heard you first.

00:24:25Melissa Erbacher: Unless you're on some kind of delay, Scotty.

00:24:30Simon Mackley: This has been fixed. Do you want to have a go, Scott? Just tell me if you know any of the other nine.

00:24:35Scott Trickett: Well, no, there's no point. Do I get any points for it?

00:24:38Simon Mackley: No. Well, then I'm not going to answer. Is that because you just lost?

00:24:48Melissa Erbacher: No, because there's still the tiebreaker. The winner takes all the tiebreaker, no?

00:24:52Simon Mackley: Sure. I mean, I've still got more questions if you want me to ask more questions.

00:24:57Scott Trickett: I think we better wrap it up. I can see where this is going already. I stood no chance no matter how many questions I got right.

00:25:05Unidentified speaker: Oh.

00:25:06Scott Trickett: No matter how quick I was with my buzzer. Is that right? I knew I should have gone with Jells as my buzzer.

00:25:10Melissa Erbacher: But you know what, buddy? You were still more than a syllable behind, so it doesn't matter. I'm checking the recording.

00:25:17Scott Trickett: I'm checking the recording.

00:25:22Simon Mackley: Well done, Mel.

00:25:23Scott Trickett: I'm not a sore loser, so well done.

00:25:26Simon Mackley: Did you actually win? She won by three.

00:25:32Melissa Erbacher: Six and five is 11. Yeah. I'm good at maths.

00:25:37Simon Mackley: Scotty's on eight. Okay.

00:25:39Scott Trickett: Yes. I had to answer eight questions correctly. You only had to answer three, but you're the winner. Well done, Mel. And thank you, Simon, for being the host.

00:25:48Melissa Erbacher: The thing is, Scotty, work smarter, not harder. Yeah.

00:25:51Scott Trickett: You are the people's favourite.

00:25:52Simon Mackley: We don't want to go for a winner-takes-all tiebreaker question.

00:25:56Melissa Erbacher: I would like a tiebreaker. I reckon that's how it should always end.

00:26:02Simon Mackley: Okay, let's do it.

00:26:04Melissa Erbacher: Come on, Scott, you're still in the game.

00:26:05Simon Mackley: Are you ready? Yes, Scott, are you ready? I'm ready.

00:26:08Melissa Erbacher: If you want to buzz in on gels, I will accept that.

00:26:13Simon Mackley: I'm ready. I'm going to go for the first voice I hear, okay? I don't care what you yell out.

00:26:19Melissa Erbacher: I might yell out Scotty.

00:26:22Simon Mackley: If I hear your voice first. Okay. What is the exact date of the first Australian parkrun?

00:26:30Melissa Erbacher: Kewana. Go for it, Mel. The 2nd of April 2011. Well done. Yay! Well done, Mel.

00:26:39Simon Mackley: Okay.

00:26:47Scott Trickett: No, there's no disputing it now. There's no disputing it now. You've won it fair and square.

00:26:52Melissa Erbacher: Okay. I'm not going to gloat too much. I'll be just quiet about it.

00:26:58Scott Trickett: That was good fun. So where do we go from here? So has Mel – is now Mel the champion and she has to go head-to-head next time against Brendan?

00:27:07Melissa Erbacher: God, no. Not Brendan.

00:27:09Scott Trickett: I think so. I think so.

00:27:11Simon Mackley: I went up against Brendan. You go up against Brendan.

00:27:17Melissa Erbacher: I thought I was supposed to win something. That sounds like a punishment.

00:27:22Simon Mackley: You did win. You win the glory of going up against Brendan Peel.

00:27:28Melissa Erbacher: Of course. I'm going to have to get, you know, a tutor, I think, and study.

00:27:33Simon Mackley: Or all the answers?

00:27:35Melissa Erbacher: Yes. I wonder if I could get all the answers from the quiz master. That could work also. Thank you, Simon. That was fun and tense and stressful.

00:27:48Simon Mackley: I'm glad to hear it.

00:27:49Melissa Erbacher: Especially the part where I got confused and wanted to yell out West of All. I don't know where my head was at at that point in time. I would love to hear how people went at home as well, everyone who's listening to the podcast, whether or not they managed to buzz in before us or not and what questions they managed to buzz in before us. Obviously, I need to spend more time at international parkruns so I can get a better concept of who is north and south around the equator.

00:28:22Simon Mackley: Yeah. I mean, that was – I thought you might jump in with that seeing that you'd been to Malaysia. But, yeah, it was close.

00:28:30Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. And the thing is – You boys, well, you particularly, Simon, you know, it was your suggestion that we play Africa. And, you know, that whole continent over there that I need to go and become familiar with, I should have guessed.

00:28:46Simon Mackley: Yeah. I mean, I didn't put these things together and I, in researching, I didn't know there was actually two more in Africa, to be fair.

00:28:55Scott Trickett: And yet I'm the only one who did and I'm the one who lost. Go figure. Yeah.

00:29:01Simon Mackley: But you picked up those two. You would have lost by more.

00:29:05Scott Trickett: Yeah, this is true. This is true. So Mel got the low-hanging fruit of Australia and New Zealand and South Africa.

00:29:14Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. We're stepped over the parkrunners.

00:29:19Scott Trickett: Those points are the same value as Namibia and Swaziland. No, that's fair. That was a fairly run quiz and madness. But seriously, no, we've got to go. We've got to go. This is the longest madness ever. Simon, thank you. Quick update on Mosman. How's it going?

00:29:36Simon Mackley: Yeah, it was great. We had a wonderful weekend last weekend where we had the Polmans come to town and they did their usual little video overview. which was a bit of fun. But, yeah, no, we're doing well. The numbers are starting to come up again. Now the weather's getting nicer. But, yeah, it's all good.

00:29:56Scott Trickett: And as a big podcast fan, how are you coping fitting three parkrun podcasts into your week?

00:30:02Simon Mackley: It's getting harder.

00:30:03Scott Trickett: It is, isn't it? It's a real challenge. It's okay to admit that you're falling behind, just as long as your number one podcast is not one of those that's falling behind. Yeah. Congratulations, Mel. Thank you again, Simon. And that's it for August Madness.

00:30:20Melissa Erbacher: Reverse Freedom August Madness.

00:30:22Scott Trickett: Correcting me again. Thank you very much.

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:30:45Melissa Erbacher: We don't have any roving reports filed this week from any members of the Channel 5 news crew or otherwise. However, Mr. David Moss, our foreign correspondent who's on the ground in the UK at the moment, did have a couple of failed attempts at grabbing some audio. We don't have any of that to share with you. So instead, I will just give you a description of the pictures that he managed to get through to me instead. one of which was him with quite a famous face, a couple of famous faces in the parkrun world. He was at the Isle of Man half marathon on Paul Sinton-Hewitt's birthday. And apparently that was a birthday gift from his wife, Joanne Sinton Hewitt. And so there's a picture there of Dave with Jo and Paul. And then he also sent me through another random one, Scotty. Apparently there was a participant who was running in a full rhinoceros outfit. And when I say full outfit, I mean like a rhinoceros-sized head sort of attached to the front of their body. And it all looks like it's not even a cartoon version or a onesie version or something. It's full proper replica rhinoceros.

00:31:55Scott Trickett: As a connoisseur of costumes, were you impressed?

00:31:58Melissa Erbacher: I was impressed. I'm also a bit perplexed and intrigued about why or how or, you know, what the motivation is for running the Isle of Man half marathon dressed as a rhinoceros. There's got to be more of a story there. I don't know what it is. Mr. Moss just sent me the pictures. So thanks for that, Dave. Maybe next time we could have some audio. We're going to give you this week off since, you know, technically you're traveling around on holiday. However, we don't want you to slack for too long. So get with the program.

Launches and anniversaries ("Where is the cake?")

00:32:27Scott Trickett: Getting with the program is parkrun Australia. We have got four launches, four new events planned.

00:32:35Melissa Erbacher: Far out. We haven't had that many launch on one week for a long time.

00:32:39Scott Trickett: No, it's big. It's big. So we've got launches in WA, Burswood Peninsula. parkrun is launching.

00:32:47Melissa Erbacher: We've got Meningie in South Australia.

00:32:50Scott Trickett: Seacliff Esplanade in South Australia.

00:32:53Melissa Erbacher: And Willow in Victoria.

00:32:55Scott Trickett: There we go. And anniversary-wise, we've got only three. So launches outnumber anniversaries this week. Crazy, crazy world. But they're happening at Aldinga Beach. How do I go with that? Aldinga Beach in South Australia.

00:33:10Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I'm pretty sure you nailed it. Good. We've got Brimbank in Victoria.

00:33:14Scott Trickett: And Callaghan in New South Wales.

00:33:17Melissa Erbacher: Now, Scotty, are you ready? We no longer have the Palm Zone. The Palm Zone wrapped up last week. We've got something new and exciting to share with our listeners and some listeners have actually already contributed to this next segment.

00:33:31Scott Trickett: They're excited. Look, it's great. We've had a great response to the new segment that comes with a new intro music and... That's right. It's the parkrun Adventurers hotline. How's this going to work, Mel? Explain it to me again.

00:33:35[music]

Poem Zone

parkrun Adventurers hotline

00:33:51Melissa Erbacher: Well, so what happens is we put the call out for people to ask us questions using audio. So we got them to record themselves either directly via Facebook Messenger. There's an audio function in that. Or they could record using an audio app on their phones and email it in to us at parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. And they've got questions. They introduce themselves. They ask away. And topic-wise, whatever they want. It doesn't have to necessarily be parkrun related, which is a little bit scary. But I like that we live life on the edge, Scotty.

00:34:28Scott Trickett: I kind of want them to be un-parkrun related. Come at us with anything.

00:34:32Melissa Erbacher: This is people's opportunity to learn some new and creative things, potentially about us, potentially about other people or other things and places. Yeah.

00:34:41Scott Trickett: So here we go. Let's start. So our first caller to the hotline is...

00:34:46"Alan Ruck": I'm Alan Scott. This is Alan Ruck, long-time listener, first-time caller.

00:34:51Melissa Erbacher: Well, we're going to just stop Alan right there for the first thing. Yeah, Scotty?

00:34:56Scott Trickett: Yep, yep. Love it. Love the long-time listener, first-time caller. Love that he's been a long-time listener.

00:35:02Melissa Erbacher: Obviously, the first time caller thing, well, yeah, because this is the first time we've had the hotline. But thanks for getting in touch with us, Alan. The name, Scotty, does that ring a bell for you?

00:35:16Scott Trickett: Hotline? That's commonly his name. No, Alan Ruck. Alan Ruck. No, it doesn't. No, no, I'd have to, no. You?

00:35:26Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, well, it's actually the same name as the actor who played Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller's Day Off back in the 80s. I would have thought that one would tweak for you because you're such a connoisseur of 80s films.

00:35:41Scott Trickett: Speaking of, sing along. Quick tease. Got another one. It's a beauty.

00:35:47Melissa Erbacher: Oh, good. I'm looking forward to it.

00:35:49Scott Trickett: So do you think this is Cameron Frye?

00:35:51Melissa Erbacher: Well, he said his name was Alan Ruck. I mean, it could be. Who knows?

00:35:56Scott Trickett: Shall we hear the rest of his question?

00:35:59Melissa Erbacher: Yes, let's.

00:36:01"Alan Ruck": You know, I've noticed a distinct lack of millennials at parkrun. Have you guys thought about any ways that we can attract more to our events?

00:36:09Scott Trickett: Oh, great question, Alan. Great question.

00:36:12Melissa Erbacher: That's a big, serious question.

00:36:15Scott Trickett: I think long and hard about this because I agree with Alan. He's an insightful listener. I have noticed the distinct lack of millennials at parkrun. And what are we doing about it? What are we doing on the podcast about it? Well, I'll tell you what we are doing is that what we do is we talk a lot about parkrun. We don't actually do it. We talk about it. And so I think that sort of fits right into the millennial ideology, behavior, talking about it and not doing it. And we're on a medium now. that is new and current, or it's a medium that's come back in favour from, you know, it's instantly accessible, it's accessible whenever they want, you know, it's, again, it's convenient. Via technology, which they love. Yep, yep. And, look, Man Bun's never been a fan personally, but I've been thinking of trying to create a Man Bun look, because, as you know, I'm, I have a fascination with hair, because of, obviously, my own.

00:37:20Melissa Erbacher: And you have been looking for tips.

00:37:21Scott Trickett: Yeah, I have been looking for tips and offering advice in that space. So happy to adopt a man bun for a couple of weeks and see if that, you know, like white on rice, does that attract? Does that attract? Millennials, they see man buns and then they're like a magnet. That's what I'm doing. Mel?

00:37:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm the same as you, Scotty. Obviously, you know, we talk about it. We don't show up as often as we possibly should. However, what I am doing is I'm kind of going the method acting. Like I want to understand the millennials. I want to get into their heads. So I have stopped driving manual cars.

00:38:04Caroline: To be honest, I've probably forgotten how to drive manual cars, which is probably about as close as I can get to being on level with a millennial.

00:38:12Melissa Erbacher: And I'm just going to see if I can really understand and empathize with them. And then perhaps I will be inspired with what would get me to parkrun if I was like that.

00:38:23Scott Trickett: Great. No, that's good. Like it. Like it. So if they do come, you can talk about the mysteries of the manual driving. Yeah. So you've got an instant connection. So there, I think that answers that question.

00:38:36Melissa Erbacher: Yes, thank you very much, Alan, for calling in. It's awesome that you've adopted, you completely have embraced the parkrun Adventurers Hotline and excited enough to get involved. So thank you.

00:38:51Scott Trickett: Okay, so that's what we want you to do. We've got a couple of questions. of others from maybe more familiar names in our audience. So shall we go to them? Here's our next caller.

00:39:04Peter Pohlman: Hello, parkrun Adventurers Hotline. This is your Dorothy Dixer calling. What size shoes do you wear?

00:39:13Melissa Erbacher: Dorothy Dixer. Dorothy Dixer's got a very masculine voice, Scotty.

00:39:18Scott Trickett: Well, we know this is not Dorothy. This is Peter Pohlman. Who loves a spreadsheet, we know that, and loves a bit of tourism.

00:39:27Melissa Erbacher: Do you suppose he's going around asking everybody what size shoes they wear? Do you think he's going to send us free shoes?

00:39:34Scott Trickett: God, I hope so. Well, this is what we mean, people. You can ask whatever. So, Peter wants to know what size shoe we are. I can answer that quickly, Mel. Ten and a half. Okay. Ten and a half for me. I think it's a US ten and a half. I know there's some crazy different sizes, but I'm ten and a half.

00:39:52Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, for me, in Australia, it's a size 5 or 6, depending on the make of the shoe. If I were in Europe, that would be a 37 or 37 and a half.

00:40:03Scott Trickett: Next part of Peter's question.

00:40:05Peter Pohlman: And why? Why?

00:40:06Melissa Erbacher: Why do we wear that size shoe? Scotty, I'll let you take this one first.

00:40:13Scott Trickett: I mean, I don't have a witty answer. It's just because that's the size of my feet, pretty much. Okay. That's what fits. Well... I will say, you know, earlier in the year I did that half marathon and I think my shoes were a bit small, my feet swelled, my toenails fell off. Six months on, only half my toenails grown back. So it takes a year to grow a toenail back. That's what we've learnt.

00:40:40Melissa Erbacher: So for you that is enforcing why you wear shoes that actually fit you. Yep. Okay. Yeah, that would probably be my go-to answer as well. However, I've tried wearing shoes that are too big and I find that I have difficulty standing upright or not tripping on things. So that's why I wear shoes that fit me. So thank you very much, Dorothy, for getting in touch as well. That was Peter. We do have another one. It was Peter now.

00:41:13Scott Trickett: It was Peter. That was his Dorothy Dixon question, but it was Peter.

00:41:19Melissa Erbacher: Okay, sorry. Thank you, Peter.

00:41:22Scott Trickett: For the gender balance, though, for the gender balance, which we all know you're a massive fan of having the gender balance right, our Poem Zone Hall of Famer, Caroline, came through. And I'll let you in on a secret. So Caroline is the one who told me, let me know that you can send audio messages through Facebook Messenger. So it was right up her alley. Well, thank you for the education. Yeah, I was expecting a question from Caroline, and here it is.

00:41:49Caroline: So I went to the launch of Run Nation with Keith Hong, who you've had as a guest on the show before. And I want to let you know that I was in tears at some points. I was teary. I smiled. I laughed loudly several times. And so my question, dear Mel and Scotty and listeners – is when are you going to your local Run Nation event? When is it on in your city? And are you going? And are you going to use the opportunity to meet up with other parkrun and Run Nation enthusiasts?

00:42:33Scott Trickett: So many questions in there.

00:42:35Melissa Erbacher: Lots and lots of questions. Do you suppose, Scotty, that the tears were related to the content of the films or perhaps you just had a poor experience at the ticket office?

00:42:45Scott Trickett: Look, well, I've been to the last couple of Run Nation Film Festival screenings, and I think it would be a reflection on the movies that she just saw. They evoked some emotions within her, brought her to tears. And Caroline's right. We have had buzz on the pod before. We're massive fans of the festival. parkrun is also supporting it this year with our parkrun editions. And I don't know when I'm going to get to see it, Mel, because when it's happening in Melbourne, I'm not in Melbourne.

00:43:20Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that was poor timing. I know.

00:43:22Scott Trickett: I need to make alternate arrangements. So obviously I think I'm going to have to seek out a parkrun edition version of it. There is a screening in Bright a few weeks into September that I'd love for an excuse to go back to Bright. and visit there, but I don't know. Yourself, Mel, I think.

00:43:45Melissa Erbacher: Yes, well, this is actually quite timely because I'm heading along to see it tonight. We're recording a little bit on a Thursday this week and, yeah, I'm heading to see it tonight at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast and I will be going with a whole bunch of other parkrun friends people, fellow volunteers and parkrunners from my local events. And I'm sure the entire cinema is going to be full of local faces that I know from parkrun as well. I'm really, really looking forward to it. And it's great that we do have the parkrun editions happening this year too. So hopefully that means a lot more people will have access, like yourself, Scotty, who aren't able to make it along to the main screenings, but can make head along to one of the more intimate versions that we're hosting all over the place.

00:44:33Scott Trickett: Yeah, so if you aren't familiar with that, what we wanted to do this year is because parkrun's everywhere, Mel. We're not in the big cities. We are in the big cities, but we're also in the small towns, and sometimes those small towns miss out on things like this, and Keith can't take his tour everywhere, but with parkrun, we can bring it to these communities. So that's what we want to see happening. We hope it works. And a great opportunity to get social with your parkrunners. And that's what the experience has been for me the past couple of years. I've gone with my running group. You heard of them? Westerfoldians. We've got a little group together, gone together in the past. But when I've been there, the room's full of parkrunners. So yes, it's definitely an opportunity to get to know your fellow parkrunners from different parkruns that you don't go to or you don't see every week.

00:45:26Melissa Erbacher: And that's another fabulous question. This one, once again, parkrun related. So we've got two out of the three there that are parkrun related. To reiterate, it doesn't have to be about parkrun. If you want to get in touch with us and you want your call on the hotline, we would love to have you. All you need to do is introduce yourself, give us your question and we will play it on future episodes and just email it through to parkrunadventurers at gmail.com.

00:45:54Scott Trickett: Enough of us tonight, Mel. or today, it's time for a sing-along. I'm ready for a sing-along. The lawyers haven't come after me, so we're going to continue. We're going to continue.

Sing-along

00:46:06Melissa Erbacher: I'm excited. It's another 80s movie, right?

00:46:08Scott Trickett: It is. It is. Look, I said we're going to take requests, but we're going to get to the requests after we've got through my back catalogue. So bear with me. Bear with me. But I don't think I've disappointed too many outside of my wife. So far.

00:46:26Melissa Erbacher: And she's used to disappointment, isn't she, Scotty? She's married to you. Oh, Mel.

00:46:32Scott Trickett: Shots fired. Steady on. Didn't you see? There was lots of love for me this week.

00:46:37Melissa Erbacher: You gave me that one. You gave it to me. I know. You know I love you. I'm the one who started the hashtag ScottyWeLoveYou, which got a lot of play out in the world of social media last week. Thank you to everyone for showing your love to Scotty, who we do all love.

00:46:52Scott Trickett: I appreciate it.

00:46:52Melissa Erbacher: And he does not disappoint us at all, do you, Scotty?

00:46:56Scott Trickett: Oh, well, anyway. Look, what I don't do, hey, what I don't do is I don't disappoint with a sing-along. And this is a movie that, again, it's from an 80s movie. It's the title of an 80s movie. I encourage you, I implore you all to get on Stan, Dave, Netflix, YouTube, whatever you need to do, and look up Stan.

00:47:23Melissa Erbacher: Some people could even go to video stores, Scotty. They do still exist.

00:47:27Scott Trickett: Do they? I don't think they do down here.

00:47:30Melissa Erbacher: Well, you guys are living in the past, and if you don't have video stores, they're retro.

00:47:35Scott Trickett: Yeah. So that's what's going to take us out. It was a great film. Still stands up. Technology-wise, maybe not.

00:47:42Melissa Erbacher: Okay, well, I want to give everyone a hint about what it is. You've got 10 seconds or even maybe five seconds after I give you this line before the music starts to guess what the film is that it's from. Pleased to meet you, Mole.

00:47:59Scott Trickett: I don't remember that.

00:48:00Melissa Erbacher: Actually, no, he calls him Moles. He calls him Moles. Here. Pleased to meet you, Moles.

00:48:06Scott Trickett: I think, should you Google that first?

00:48:09Melissa Erbacher: No, I shouldn't.

00:48:14Unidentified speaker: Hi.

00:48:52[music]

00:48:52Unidentified speaker: Sometimes it's hard to recognize Love comes as a surprise And it's too late It's just too late to stay That you gave Has taught me to be brave No matter where I go I'll never find a better prize, find a better prize We're miles and miles away I see you every day I don't have to try I just close my eyes I close my eyes

00:50:24Unidentified speaker: We'll always be together