Episode 134 - Tim Oberg

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00:00:07Unidentified speaker: Thanks for watching!

00:00:15Melissa Erbacher: Welcome to episode 134 of the parkrun Adventurers podcast. Coming to you from the Sunshine Coast, which is not so sunny at the moment and hasn't been for a couple of weeks. My name is Mel Erbacher. I am joined by Scotty Trickett, who I believe is in the sunny Victoria. Is that correct, Scotty?

00:00:35Scott Trickett: It's a bit overcast today as we speak, but it has been glorious for a number of weeks now.

00:00:40Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's good to hear. What's been happening in your neck of the woods?

00:00:45Scott Trickett: I tell you what, let's keep with the weather theme early on. On Sunday, let's work backwards here. On Sunday, it was Melbourne Marathon, as I hope you're aware. And I had a great day running around Melbourne. It was the furthest I've run in a long time, which was encouraging. The body didn't break down, but it was really hot. And I got to run with some of my mates going through that horrible like 36K on wood stretch.

00:01:15Melissa Erbacher: So you were one of those running, cheery, supportive people. You didn't actually participate in an event this year?

00:01:21Scott Trickett: No, no, I didn't participate in an event. I just ran all around the course and got to run with some of my mates, as I said, for brief periods. Like the most I probably ever ran was a couple of Ks. Okay. With some people. But it reinforced that, Mel, I don't think I'm going to do a marathon again because these people were in so much pain. I never ran along anyone and said, I'm having the best time. This feels great. I want to do this again next week. It was all, I'm in so much pain. This hurts. Is it going to end soon? Help me with the conversations I was having on Sunday. Just reinforce that marathons are really hard.

00:02:01Melissa Erbacher: Or maybe just they're hard for your friends.

00:02:05Scott Trickett: No, no. No, I think because I was running with some of the boys at the front. And I'll tell you a quick story. I'll tell you a quick story. One of my best mates, Chris, was going for a sub three hour marathon. And I didn't try and interrupt his plan too much. Like I didn't run with him for two reasons. He's really focused and he was in a nice pack in the early stages. And the other one is that he's really fast and I probably can't run with him. Yeah, but he was coming up St Kilda Road, which is a 30km mark of the parkrun, just a bit beyond where it's really starting to hurt. And there was a fair bit of wind around on Sunday as well. So Chris was by himself. So I thought, I'll jump in with him. I'll have a chat to him, see how he's going. Anyway, he wasn't going as well as I thought. He was in a little bit of pain and his pace was dropping and the wind was picking up. So I ran along with him and then we had this great idea that I'd be a windbreak for him for a bit of it. The problem was he was like running four minute Ks. My eyes were popping out of my head trying to keep up to this pace, but I didn't want to let my mate down who I was trying to help. But, again, it just reinforced that sub-three-hour marathoners have to run really fast for a long time, and I don't think I could ever do it. And, yeah, amazing, amazing effort. And the good thing is, like, Chris was struggling at this stage, but he got in with two hours, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds.

00:03:30Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that must have been so sweet.

00:03:33Scott Trickett: So hopefully the couple of gusts of winds that I broke for him

00:03:38[crosstalk]

00:03:38Melissa Erbacher: Made all the difference. Made all the difference.

00:03:40Scott Trickett: That's what I'm telling you.

00:03:41Melissa Erbacher: But the worst part of it all is that I didn't turn my watch on for that couple of – Oh, and you could have got all sorts of personal bests on that little section. Yeah. Yeah. But you know what I love most about that story, Scotty, is you said it was at the 30-kilometer point of the parkrun.

00:04:00Scott Trickett: Oh, did I?

00:04:01Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. So all these people out there are going, holy shit, parkrun's got a lot longer than the last time I showed up.

00:04:08Scott Trickett: There you go. I go to one track mine now.

00:04:11Melissa Erbacher: You do. Oh, dear.

00:04:13Scott Trickett: So that was my Sunday. And I also cheered on a couple of Zoolanders, which was quite the opposite to what I was doing on the Saturday, because we had our walk-off at Westerfolds.

00:04:24Melissa Erbacher: You did. How did that go?

00:04:26Scott Trickett: Well, what did I say last week?

00:04:30Melissa Erbacher: On the podcast? Yeah. I don't remember.

00:04:34Scott Trickett: I said they were in dicey territory because they challenged me on my turf with my people. Your people. My people. Us and them. And look, all joking aside, it was a great morning. But they didn't, the Zoolanders didn't show up. Not in the numbers that I thought they would have. They were crushed by the might of the Westerfoldian army.

00:04:59Melissa Erbacher: Okay, because I heard a different story and I'm pretty sure from our perspective we thought we won, Zoolanders.

00:05:07Scott Trickett: Well, I was there. I know what really happened.

00:05:12Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:05:13Scott Trickett: But it was great to catch up with Matty Trent and his mates on the morning. And I think they had nice things to say about Westerfolds, which was even nicer because it's a pretty good parkrun mill. We should talk about it a bit more.

00:05:26Melissa Erbacher: Well, you know, Zoolanders are pretty good parkrunners. You know, they're nice people. They're not scary, nasty, obnoxious people either.

00:05:36Scott Trickett: Maybe my opinion's changing a little bit of that group. Anyway, did you run with any Zoolanders at your new event?

00:05:45Melissa Erbacher: I did. I ran with some of my favourite zoos on the weekend at Underwood Park. We got, well, a U for those who chase the alphabet club. There was a U involved. And you know what? It's one of those things like have you ever seen the people who spell things out? Apparently spelling parkrun out is a thing. I don't know if it's on the Chrome extension that you've got it. you know, get all the letters, all parkrun events beginning with P-A-R-K-R-U-N. I'm too busy looking at the Underwood written in front of me with a U. And once you do that, then, you know, you've got all the letters of parkrun. I'm not sure if that's on the Chrome extension. I'll have to have a look. But I had a quick look at what my sort of most recent events were because I do know of people in the past who have done the events starting with those letters in reverse order so that when they look at the last seven events they've done, downward across the screen, it says parkrun. Now, mine doesn't spell anything out like that. However, it is an anagram. My last four events is an anagram for busy.

00:07:01Dorothy Dix: B-U-S-Y.

00:07:02Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Yeah. So I've been busy lately and that's because I went to four new events in the last four weeks, which is huge for me. In fact, I think that might be a new event streak. There you go. What's the B? You haven't done a B. I did Ballina Coast.

00:07:21Scott Trickett: Oh, so it's not in order. It's out of order.

00:07:23Melissa Erbacher: No, it's an anagram. So it's not spelt B-U-S-Y. If I had been more organized, I would have done them in order of yamba and then uh st lucia then underwood park and then ballina coast however i wasn't thinking about spelling things possibly in the future i will think about spelling things um but we'll we'll see how we go with that just something different to keep you interested i guess looking at all the different things in the parkrun world but Underwood Park was a great event really really pretty parkrun it was uh overcast we were a little bit concerned it might have cancelled because some of the other events locally were cancelled um due to the wet weather we've been having and it's it's a bit of a issue in Queensland at the moment um cancellations and things because courses aren't coping with the weather but it wasn't numbers were down nationally and i figured it was you queensland mob not liking getting wet well it's not us not liking getting wet it's the courses not liking getting wet this is true there were a number of cancellations as well yeah but i had i had a good morning um Out there with the crew, with some of my favourite zooies, the kids all had a play in. So Underwood Park has a massive children's play area with all these like jungle gyms and tree houses and all sorts of cool stuff. And it's called Thunderwood Park. And the kids had a great time crawling all in and out of those. And Wes is just starting to learn how to climb things. So that's fun. Yeah.

00:09:04Scott Trickett: Is it actually called Thunderwood or is that the name that locals have given it?

00:09:07Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, the park is called Thunderwood Park because it's in or next to Underwood Park.

00:09:12Scott Trickett: Well done, council.

00:09:13Melissa Erbacher: I think we test out a swing at every new event and I might have to create a coffee table book of all the swing sets and Wes can give them his smile or stink face reviews. Because that's what we do now after parkrun. We check out the swing sets.

00:09:32Scott Trickett: Can't wait. Looking forward to the coffee table.

00:09:35Melissa Erbacher: Oh, it'll be a big seller at Christmas. I'm sure of it. It's been a little while since we've had him on the show. He used to be a bit of a semi-regular, especially as we had a whole segment to ask him questions. However, we decided, Scotty and I, that it was time that we got him back because we have more questions ourselves. Tim Oberg, CEO, Head Honcho Big Cheese, parkrun Australia. Welcome back to the parkrun Adventurers podcast.

Tim Oberg monthly Q&A (segment not given a name on air)

00:10:09Tim Oberg: Always a pleasure to be here and always a pleasure to be called Big Cheese by you, Mel.

00:10:15Melissa Erbacher: You're the only one I call Big Cheese.

00:10:19Tim Oberg: Very good. No, great to be here. And you're right. I think I did used to come on a little bit more, and I'm happy to come on as often as you want. So bring it on.

00:10:29Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. I think Scotty's got some plans for you in mind, but we might talk about that a little bit later.

00:10:33Tim Oberg: All right. Okay.

00:10:38Melissa Erbacher: So since we last had you join us, Tim, what's changed in the parkrun world for you?

00:10:44Tim Oberg: Oh, wow. Big, big broad question there to start. I mean, I guess looking at my personal local parkrun world here in Airlie Beach, our event here has grown, which is one thing. So we're in the third year of Airlie Beach parkrun and started off like most events, started off quite small, sort of 20 to 30 people a week, probably year two, looking at 40 to 50. And now... probably sort of consistently 80 to 90 each week. Um, and what's really nice is, is there's still the same core of people coming week in week out. Um, and you know, it really does feel like home for me when I'm at early beach parkrun. Um, but lots of tourists coming, uh, early beach is a bit of a tourist hotspot obviously. But, um, yeah, I mean last week we had South Africans, we had, um, English, uh, of course people from all over Australia. Um, so, Yeah, it's just got a really, really great vibe. So I really, really love just my little local Airlie Beach parkrun every Saturday. And actually, even just the way I participate changes almost every time I go, depending on what's happening with the rest of my family. So the typical scenario is that I've got the double pram, the double bob, which has seen me through All the kids, well, we've got two Bobs actually. We've got the single Bob. That was our first ever running pram, which when Jack was born, we had, we had that. And then when Evie came along, we got the double. And so, so, so I'm on the double now because Jack's, Jack's six now and he's doing about a 30-minute parkrun. The neighbour's dog is going off in the background there, probably hearing that. So Jack's doing a 30-minute parkrun now. So he'll be running. I'll have Evie and Archie in the double pram and Nikki will also be running. So we'll run as a family unit. And it's just, for me, it's just joyous. I just love running with the kids and running. listening to all the funny stuff that comes out of their mouths as we're running along and they're talking and, you know, high-fiving other people out on the course. So that's a typical Saturday. But then sometimes I'll go on my own depending on, you know, whether the kids might have had a big week at school or whatever and we think they need a lie-in. And if I go on my own, then I get to have a completely different experience, which is, you know, not really me trying to run PBs, but I like just catching up with people. You know, I see people, see friends there, and I'll just run with a couple of friends and we'll run and talk as we go. You know, lots of high-fiving out on the course as is customary at parkrun. And then every now and then it'll look a bit different again. I think about three weeks ago I just took Archie with me. So I had Archie, who's 18 months, I just had him in the single pram. Um, and single pram runners will know that they, a good single pram doesn't really slow you down too much. You can still get out and run, run pretty fast. So, so yeah, so it always looks a little bit different. And then of course, every now and then I'm, I'm, I'm away somewhere else. Um, you know, on, on parkrun business. So two weeks ago, uh, we were down at the ponds and that was just an amazing weekend. And, you know, you've already covered that off on, on this podcast. So, so yeah, parkrun for me is, is, is, yeah, still good. really exciting really varied and i'm really loving my little home community up here in early beach so what's the tim oberg experience when he goes and visits the ponds for example are you the celebrity you the man who brought parkrun to this country how's that experience for you at early beach when i go i would like to think that i'm just one of the parkrunners definitely like you know i don't volunteer much because one of the things i try to avoid is I don't want the local team here to feel like I'm looking over their shoulder and critiquing what they're doing or anything. So I intentionally don't volunteer up here very often on Saturday. Obviously, I'm event director of junior parkrun on the Sunday. I'm sure we'll talk about that in a minute. So I'll probably run direct up here three or four times a year, you know, when they get stuck. And I've got a little tradition that I run direct on Christmas Day as well. But the rest of the time, yeah, I'll just pitch up. And, yeah, I'm sort of just, you know, one of the parkrunners. And every now and then somebody who's a tourist might want to grab me for a photo because they, you know, they heard that the guy that started parkrunner Australia lived in Ely Beach or something. So they come looking for me. But, yeah. And it's lovely. I always love meeting people when they're up. And obviously, if they want to have a photo with me, all that really means is they really love parkrun. So it's a great thing. And then, yeah, when I travel, it's probably a bit different because often when we do travel for work, and Mel and Scotty, you'll know this, people will know we're coming. There's often a... you know, some sort of Facebook event or whatnot that people from parkrun management team are going to be at parkrun to come and meet them and whatnot. So often when we travel or when we adventure, as we call it for this podcast, it's a bit more organized. People know we're coming and people come specifically to meet us. So, yeah, at the Ponds the other week, It was such a thrill to be down there. And I think to be fair, I think I got as much of a thrill out of meeting everyone down there and the event team there as they did out of meeting us because it was an event that we talked about wanting to get to for a long time. We specifically planned to get down there on that weekend. They were opening their new path that the state government had paid for. Um, so, so yeah, there are lots of photos. I mean, I probably have never been in so many photos as I'd been in at the ponds two weeks ago. Um, and lots of, you know, lots of great photos on Instagram and Facebook and whatnot afterwards. And, Lots of people having a bit of fun with the pickies and tagging us and whatnot. We did lots of jump photos and everything. So it was a great experience. And yeah, I guess answering your question, yeah, there were a lot of people that were there to meet, not just me, but meet you as well. And yeah, it was a great time. So yeah, I guess that's a bit typical when we travel is that people know we're coming and they want to come and meet us.

00:17:12Melissa Erbacher: How do you not get a big head about that?

00:17:14Tim Oberg: Well, something like I said earlier, like I think it's not, you know, it's not that they want to meet me. Well, they do want to meet me, but, you know, really it's a reflection of their love of parkrun. It's not a reflection of, you know, it's not like a celebrity thing. I think when you look at celebrity culture, people get obsessed with individuals and they don't know you know they watch a movie and they think oh i love that person and you know i'm gonna get obsessed with them or whatever and it's so fake whereas what we have here is people who have something in their lives i.e parkrun which is really meaningful and they really they really love it and they they want to say thank you to the people that bring that to them and so it's a it's a real genuine show of thanks for something that is real And so, as I say, it's not about me, it's about parkrun and they're showing their love of parkrun and their thank you for parkrun to people like, you know, all of us, yourself as well, Mel, you know, and any of us. And it's like I'm sure event directors, if you're an event director or a run director, you know, every time you do it, I would like to think you feel the love somehow from people saying thank you and showing their appreciation and then I guess it's just, with myself and, and, and our, and our team, our, our management team, it's, it's just on a wider level because when we go to any event, you know, they all sort of somewhat trace it back to, you know, me for starting it, but then for the rest of us as well, who, who run this sort of steer the ship week in, week out. So, so yeah, so it's just, I think it's a really great, um, Great show of thanks and appreciation on parkrun as opposed to the individuals.

00:19:00Scott Trickett: And now for the first time in your parkrun journey, you are an event director. Does this give you a great appreciation of what's involved in running an event? Because you're in a small town, it's not a massive event, old Cannonvale Junior parkrun.

00:19:13Tim Oberg: Yeah, and look, it's a good point. And a lot of people probably don't realise that when parkrun, you know, I get credited as starting parkrun in Australia, but I was not actually involved. the first event director. You know, I sort of viewed the role of starting parkrun in this country as right from the start, it wasn't going to be about me starting up an event and getting that event going. It was about I've got to find people to start events. That's the job. And so even from week one on the Gold Coast, Main Beach parkrun, you know, John Borbich was our original event director. So it So I've always had my finger in the sort of operational pie, if you want to call it that, and I've known what was going on, but I've never until now had that week in, week out responsibility of event directing. But when we decided we were going to pilot Junior parkrun and we were going to, one of the locations would be up here in Cannonvale where I live, then yeah, that was it. It's like, okay, here's my first time to actually be an event director. And It has really been an eye-opening experience for me because I've gone through exactly the same emotions and had the same challenges as event directors all over Australia and all over the world. How do we get all the volunteers each week? And in Junior parkrun, for our event, we require a minimum of 12 volunteers. So given we're only getting, we get about 20 kids, The sort of volunteer to participant ratio is very high compared to, say, again, looking at Airlie Beach Park around here, they probably have six volunteers each week and 100 participants. So you're looking at a very high percentage of people volunteering. So, look, it's been, you know, I think we're 14 weeks in or 13 weeks in with juniors up here and I'm definitely, you know, in the swing of it now. Got the little sort of systems in play for juniors how and when I try and recruit and I use Facebook a lot for encouraging people to volunteer and whatnot. But the reward you get for doing it is immense and I love, particularly with juniors, you get to see all the kids running around and it's such a great buzz on a Sunday morning to see little kids running around, running, walking two kilometres. I mean, I just, when I was you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, running two kilometers just was not on my radar. It was not something that I physically would have even thought I would have been able to do. But here we are, we're creating a generation of kids who are, you know, out and active on a Sunday morning running 2K and it's just brilliant. So, yeah, I take my hat off to all the event directors around the country. I mean, we've got some who have been doing it for seven years, I think. Paul Wilcock in Sydney has been an event director there at St. Peter's for seven years. So it's an incredible feat. And there's a lot who've been doing it for multiple years. So good on them.

00:22:24Scott Trickett: Let's change topics a little bit. A couple of months ago, you were over in Japan, hobnobbing it with PSH and crew. Can you give us an update on what's happening with Japan? We're asking for people to help us out. Launch there. Can you give us a bit more detail around that?

00:22:38Tim Oberg: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a bit, it's a bit of an evolving base, but you know, in, in broad terms, the plan is that we want to launch parkrun in Japan in the first half of next year. Um, there's a, there's a big focus within Japan around health and wellbeing and sport initiatives, uh, as the rugby world cup is in September next year. Uh, and then they've got the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. So, so government is, is really focused on getting, getting people active. Um, and obviously parkruns a great vehicle for doing that. So we're having various conversations with, with the government over there and other interested parties to help support the growth of parkrun. But, you know, one of the things that I noticed when I was there is I've never seen so many people just running in the streets, you know, just before work, after work, during the day. So the running culture is already massive. And we didn't – and there wasn't a noticeable amount of, you know, visible obesity and things like that. It was – You know, the people didn't seem to have the same physical health issues that you might see in a typical Western country. However, what we were being told is there's a lot more issues there in terms of social isolation, mental health. A lot of people working very, very high-pressured, long-hour jobs. So it'll be really interesting once we do get parkrun happening to see where the strongest impacts are. And I definitely think it's going to be in that sort of social space and mental health space. But yeah, really excited. It's going to be great if we're sort of viewing Japan as our first real foray into a culture that's kind of quite wildly different to, all of our existing kind of European and Commonwealth sort of countries that we're in at the moment. You know, Japan's something completely different. So it's a great challenge. And, you know, our Australian team here are directly involved in managing all of that. So, yeah, really exciting times ahead.

00:24:42Melissa Erbacher: It's usually the case with Murphy's Law and things like that, that people book a holiday overseas to a country that hasn't got a parkrun and then they find out that a parkrun's going to launch there the following week after they get home. I know you don't have a definite launch date and you say the first half of 2019, but can you rule out a couple of the months that exist in the first half of 2019 yet? Should people not book flights in January, for example?

00:25:13Tim Oberg: So we're looking at, in an ideal world, it's going to be April, but it definitely won't be earlier than April. So yeah, don't book your flights before April is what I would say to that one.

00:25:27Melissa Erbacher: Okay, good advice, good advice. And then the next question I've got, how are you coping with, I mean, obviously I know English is widely spoken in Japan. However, I don't anticipate every conversation could possibly be had in English. How is the translation between the languages working?

00:25:49Tim Oberg: Yeah, so it was actually really one of the most interesting parts of our trip when we were there a few months back was having meetings that were basically conducted with translators as the intermediaries. I'd never done that before. And so basically you would, if whoever was speaking would, you'd have to try and be as efficient as possible in making your point. And you couldn't speak for too long because you've got these translators who are furiously doing sort of like shorthanded notes. And then, and then, you know, we would stop speaking and then the translator would translate all of that into Japanese. And just the way, I mean, they were so fast and we did have people in the room who were bilingual, who were able to sort of report back to us that the translators were getting what we were saying word for word, right down to a lot of the nuances and everything like that. So, yeah, they were incredible. We were so impressed with the various translators that we came across. But, you know, what's going to be obviously different key for us is that we need people on the ground in Japan who speak both English and Japanese. And potentially even here in Australia, as we grow our staff here, it might be that we look to recruit a staff member here in Australia who actually speaks Japanese as well, because then they'll be able to help participate in meetings where that's required. So yeah, it's definitely a challenge, but also very interesting to be part of.

00:27:19Scott Trickett: Well, I've been brushing up on my Japanese, Tim. My daughter, Kasia, learns Japanese at school, so we can have a conversation that pretty much extends to hello and goodbye. Am I suitably qualified to help out with this expansion in Japan?

00:27:33Tim Oberg: Yeah, why not? Well, given that you're the head of communications, then yeah, you'll probably be required. Great.

00:27:40Scott Trickett: Now, my next question for you is, are you suitably qualified to co-host the parkrun Adventurers with Mel Erbacher next week?

00:27:48Tim Oberg: Well, look, you know, I've never been one to take qualifications too seriously. I have two university degrees that are gathering dust somewhere around the place. You know, there is no Bachelor of parkrun, so I dare say there's no Bachelor of parkrun Adventurer podcast hosting. So that being the case, then I would love to co-host with Mel next week.

00:28:14Melissa Erbacher: I think Scotty doesn't set the bar very high, so I'm pretty sure you'll be fine. Yeah.

00:28:21Tim Oberg: I mean, it's obviously the dynamic between you two is that Scott's the sort of dry, serious one and Mel, you're the, you know, kind of slightly crazy, funny one. Now, the problem is that I'm the funny one as well. So are we just going to both be funny?

00:28:43Melissa Erbacher: It's going to be too hilarious. Maybe I'll try being dry and serious.

00:28:49Tim Oberg: Yeah, did you ever see that Seinfeld episode where Jerry was told to stop being funny because George's girlfriend was laughing too much at Jerry's jokes and George got jealous? Did you ever see that one?

00:28:59Melissa Erbacher: No, I didn't.

00:29:01Tim Oberg: That could be us next week. You might be Jerry Seinfeld trying to be serious and I'll be the funny one. But I'm sure we'll work it out anyway.

00:29:09Scott Trickett: I'm still here, you know. I can hear all this.

00:29:13Melissa Erbacher: This was your idea, Scotty.

00:29:16Scott Trickett: I'm not sure about this myth that I'm the dry, serious one. I thought I was hilarious.

00:29:22Melissa Erbacher: I think you're hilarious. That's why I laugh at you all the time.

00:29:24Tim Oberg: Yeah. You know what? I think off the back of this, you need a poll, a Facebook poll on the – parkrun adventurous facebook page to get the listeners to sort of you know vote on your vote on the on the dynamic is scott is scott the dry funny one yes uh the dry serious one yes or no well i think you've just i think you've just added a question to the pearl illustration tim so thanks for that we were struggling for questions this year and um that's going to be in there now thank you

00:29:55Scott Trickett: Good. Making contributions already.

00:29:57Melissa Erbacher: Already. He's not even the host yet.

00:30:00Tim Oberg: Yeah. I mean, this could actually be the last time you host, Scotty, because it could go so gangbusters next week that by popular demand. We don't ask you back. We might just stay on. We might be the new it team on the podcast.

00:30:16Scott Trickett: Well, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. If the people speak, if that's what the people want, I give the people what they want.

00:30:22Tim Oberg: This is a bit of a leadership challenge really, isn't it?

00:30:25Scott Trickett: Do you want to swap jobs, Tim? Is that what you're saying?

00:30:31Tim Oberg: Very Canberra. Anyway, okay. Let's just say that yes, I will do the podcast next week and we'll see how it all goes.

00:30:41Unidentified speaker: Okay.

00:30:41Scott Trickett: That's awesome news. So we've heard enough from you this week because we'll have a whole hour with you next week. Tim, thanks for coming on the podcast and answering our questions as CEO of parkrun Australia. We really appreciate it.

00:30:53Melissa Erbacher: And as Tim Oberg, the parkrunner.

00:30:56Tim Oberg: Fantastic. Thanks, guys, and I look forward to speaking to all the listeners next week. Thank you.

00:31:09Scott Trickett: Our podcast can be very black and white at times. We go from last week having like 40, 50 minutes of roving reports to this week, nothing.

00:31:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, you can't have too much of a good thing, Scotty.

00:31:21Scott Trickett: This is true. We need more balance in our life. But speaking of balance, I need to – well, I'm not sure if it's an apology or a retraction, but I want to swing the balance back in.

00:31:35Melissa Erbacher: Well, a correction. It's a correction. You were misinformed or you had the wrong idea.

00:31:42Scott Trickett: So I've been driving this narrative on the podcast for a number of weeks, as you pointed out off air, that New South Wales is the black hole of the parkrun Adventurers audience. And I was challenged on that when I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. and they were right. I looked up the numbers and we actually have more downloads coming from New South Wales than anywhere else in Australia. So I take it back and I love all the people, I love all our parkrunners in New South Wales and it's actually ridiculous of me to say that because we went to our Listener Meetup in New South Wales. We're planning the second Listener Meetup in New South Wales. Because they're places we want to go to and here I am trashing the state. So, I take it all back.

00:32:28Melissa Erbacher: Well, you weren't exactly trashing the state. You just didn't think we were getting as much love from them as we actually are.

00:32:34Scott Trickett: Yeah. So I'm going to pick another state to – Pick on. Pick on, yeah. But I'll reveal that state in the next couple of weeks.

00:32:46Melissa Erbacher: All right. So let's move on to what's happening in the world. We've got zero launches coming up this week.

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

00:32:53Scott Trickett: We do, but that's good because we've got anniversaries to celebrate. Up in your neck of the woods, Brightwater, something you had a bit of history in. They're celebrating, how many years have they been around?

00:33:06Melissa Erbacher: This will be number four, Scotty.

00:33:08Scott Trickett: Here we go. Happy anniversary, Brightwater.

00:33:11Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, happy Annie, Brightwater. Grafton in New South Wales, also having a birthday.

00:33:16Scott Trickett: Gungahlin in the ACT.

00:33:19Melissa Erbacher: Hamilton in Victoria.

00:33:21Scott Trickett: Kingscliff, just in New South Wales.

00:33:23Melissa Erbacher: Not just in New South Wales, but what Scotty means is it sneaks over from the Queensland border. Murray Bridge in South Australia.

00:33:32Scott Trickett: I love Kingscliff, by the way.

00:33:34Melissa Erbacher: It's a beautiful one.

00:33:35Scott Trickett: Never run there, but I love it. North Lakes in Queensland.

00:33:39Melissa Erbacher: And Paradise Point in Queensland as well.

00:33:42Scott Trickett: So plenty of anniversaries to get to. Let's get to the hotline question because they're still coming in.

The hotline (listener question)

00:33:47Melissa Erbacher: They are. And we've got another one from Dorothy Dix this week. Ah!

00:33:51[music]

00:33:55Dorothy Dix: Bye-bye. Hello, parkrun adventurers. When attempting a new freedom run, do you prefer a local guide or to tough it out yourself?

00:34:09Scott Trickett: Freedom runs. Now, Mel, I love a freedom run. If you go to my parkrun profile, you will see that I have logged a number of freedom runs.

00:34:17Melissa Erbacher: A lot more than me lately, that's for sure. Yes.

00:34:20Scott Trickett: And in direct answer to Dorothy's question, I think I like to go it alone. I like the challenge of looking at the map, reading the description, and trying to figure out where the hell you're actually running on this Freedom Run because it's an adventure. Everything's a surprise.

00:34:36Melissa Erbacher: It's a magical mystery tour that you usually get wrong.

00:34:39Scott Trickett: Yeah. I guarantee, almost guarantee you get it wrong. Unless it's an out and back, even then you can get it wrong because you can take a wrong turn.

00:34:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, some people can. Some people have a talent for it. Okay, so you like to go it alone. See, I'm not sure I am either of those options because a local guide sort of implies that you've got somebody who's running it with you and I'm not usually fast enough for that to happen. However, I do like getting a personal run brief from somebody who's local. Because I just feel like receiving the instructions vocally or being given to you vocally, it makes it just, I don't know, it sinks into my head better than when you hear about things on the map. And you can see people pointing and then describing, turning around things and all that sort of stuff. So it just goes into my brain better. Is that what you said? It does.

00:35:41Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:35:41Melissa Erbacher: A bit tired now. Oh, I was so trying to hide that yawn. It didn't work, did it?

00:35:43[other]

00:35:46Scott Trickett: It didn't work. We all heard it. We all heard it. Sorry to keep you up so late today.

00:35:52Melissa Erbacher: What time is it? Almost midday?

00:35:53Scott Trickett: Yeah, almost midday. Well, crack on. Can you give us another five, ten minutes?

00:36:00Melissa Erbacher: Well, we'll see. I can't promise it'll be quality. I'll try to mute next time I need to yawn.

00:36:06Scott Trickett: Okay, because thanks for the question, Dorothy. Keep them coming, everyone else. We love them. We love the hotline. Love that theme music. I don't want it to go.

00:36:17Melissa Erbacher: It is very cool. And I did love it when you added the trumpets a few weeks ago as well.

00:36:21Scott Trickett: That was great. Did you have a dance last week to the Charleston?

00:36:24Melissa Erbacher: I did. I loved the Charleston. And I don't care that we're now banned in Spain.

00:36:29Scott Trickett: Totally worth it. How about that? So the corporate heavies did come down on us, including that. So you were wrong. It wasn't royalty free. But only in Spain.

00:36:39Melissa Erbacher: Used anyway. Yeah.

00:36:40Scott Trickett: So only in Spain. So we figure we might have lost maybe one listener last week. We don't know.

00:36:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. We apologize to any Spaniards who were not able to listen to episode 133 because it is now banned in your country. I wonder if Catalonians get to hear it, though.

00:36:59Scott Trickett: Good question. I stay awake at night thinking, wondering about that, Mel. Yeah.

00:37:05Melissa Erbacher: Hey, you know what happened to me last weekend, Scotty? I didn't mention it in the intro apart from, you know, where I went to parkrun. But my wristband, which I never take off, I have worn since it was given to me like four years ago. I think it was four years ago. It didn't scan. Oh, wow. Yeah, I know. I had to go to the car. And get my wallet out, which has a printed and laminated version of my barcode in it. Yeah.

00:37:43Scott Trickett: Your emergency backups. Is this because the barcode got so smudged that – They wouldn't read it?

00:37:49Melissa Erbacher: It has kind of, yeah, the barcode section on it has kind of bled over the years. And up until the week before last, like it's literally got, if you measure it, you would need a magnifying glass to measure it. But it probably across the top of the barcode has maybe 0.5 of a millimetre where I reckon it's still scannable um but for whatever reason it was muggy and um maybe it's been reduced to 0.4 of a millimeter and it's just not cutting it anymore but my my wristband didn't scan and i was i was like well what do i do with this now do i take it off um i do have a second wristband which i have to go and try and find now because it's um Been in storage for a couple of years. Hopefully the rubber hasn't perished just because it hasn't been worn. But it did get me to thinking. Obviously I had a backup barcode. And look, I had my printed barcode as well. So I guess technically they would have written me down if I had asked them to because I had brought it along. But I didn't want them to. You know, I was happy to go back to the car and get the other version so they didn't have to go to the extra work. But it is, I only had the one backup. But, oh, no, technically I've got one on my set of keys too, which I'd forgotten about. And funnily enough, I grabbed those keys to take it back to the car to get out my printed barcode. Now that I think about it, that was a bit silly. Yeah. But backup barcodes, I think it's time for me to print another sheet and redistribute them because over the years, I guess they've been used and not been put back where they go. So I thought I would ask, where do you – like, do you have backup barcodes, Scotty? Where do you keep them?

00:39:38Scott Trickett: We do. We have a whole set in the car, similar to yourself, the printed barcodes that have been laminated. Yvonne and I are fine. I think Kasia's on her last one because – Yeah, we've used up a few of those in the years when she's forgotten. But it's a good reminder. But they're always in the car. We've always got them. But you know what else, Mel? This is great timing for you because, you know, we've released new colors. You can get a purple and a green wristband now. And we're just about to release the new athlete key tags. So you can get a new one of those as well.

00:40:12Melissa Erbacher: Oh, see, that's very tempting because I could chuck a couple of those on some shoes, different pairs of shoes that I wear. Oh, that is, yeah, that's exciting. I did know that there were new coloured wristbands and the problem is there's too much choice now and I don't know whether or not to get green or purple. One of each? Well, yeah, but, you know, budget conscious as well. And I would only wear one at a time. I'm not one of those people who will wear two. And I have seen those getting around, and that's fine if that's your choice. But, yeah, I would only wear one at a time.

00:40:48Scott Trickett: So they've got backups of their backups on their wrists. I've never seen that. So if the first one doesn't work, they just use the second one. Oh, good on them. Good on them.

00:40:58Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. So you only keep them in the car because, you know, I've been trying to think about all the possible places that I could keep them so that – because if you take a different car, like if you've got one of those families that have two cars and you take a different car another week, Some people ride their bikes to parkrun and that's often the case that they've forgotten because they're wearing different shoes because they rode their bike as well. But I've thought you could cable tie one, not to the spokes perhaps, but you could probably cable tie a barcode to one of the handlebars on your bike.

00:41:35Scott Trickett: Yeah, these are all good reminders. We've got two cars. I'm pretty sure we've got backups in both cars. But, yeah, I only ever drive to parkrun, which is not great, is it?

00:41:45Melissa Erbacher: Well, not necessarily. But if you're traveling and stuff, I guess, yeah. Because I have one in my wallet as well and one in my keys, which obviously I forgot about last week. But I would be interested to hear from our listeners if you've got any sneaky, weird – I have heard of people sliding them underneath the insole in their shoe.

00:42:07Scott Trickett: That's a bit gross.

00:42:09Melissa Erbacher: Why is it gross? If it's under the insole, it's not between your foot and thing. It's protected.

00:42:15Scott Trickett: Look, sweat's a liquid. Liquid travels through fibers and down into the, no, no. And it's, no. Pulling your shoe off to pull out a barcode and getting that.

00:42:26Melissa Erbacher: I thought you don't sweat, Scotty.

00:42:28Scott Trickett: I don't, but we're not doing it. For those people who do, it's not appropriate to keep your barcode there.

00:42:34Melissa Erbacher: Not even if it's laminated?

00:42:36Scott Trickett: Oh, and then it's even worse. Like I said, sweat's liquid and it gets in between the laminates.

00:42:41Melissa Erbacher: But the thing is, the kinds of barcodes that get presented to barcode scanners on a weekly basis are pretty gross and disgusting from sweat anyway. Like even the finish tokens, they cop a beating from all the runner-ness that happens.

00:42:58Scott Trickett: Yeah, look, can we move off the topic of sweaty barcodes? Yeah, I'm thinking about smelly shoes being pulled off a parkrun. And let's bring it back to a really happy topic to round out the podcast because I know I'm keeping you awake. Perlustration, it's ready. It's ready to be released and we want your feedback and answers and opinions. So look out for it. It's on the Facebook page. We worked really hard on the questions this year. Absolutely. Devoted hours and hours. And as you just heard, Tim added a question at the last minute. And that's probably the one I'm probably most interested in now. But there's a couple of others in there that we really want to know about. And as we also alluded to, our friends at TomTom are giving away a watch. We did it last year. We're doing it again this year. So all you have to do is enter and you're in the running at the end of the month. No, we're going to run it for a month.

The Perlustration (annual listener survey)

00:43:53Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so not the end of October. No. It's going to go for a month from whenever it gets released. So today is the 18th of October. Are we releasing the podcast today, Scotty?

00:44:02Scott Trickett: We will be, yes, as a birthday gift to myself.

00:44:05Melissa Erbacher: To yourself. Yep. And I haven't mentioned it yet and I was going to without prompting this year. Happy birthday, Scotty.

00:44:14Scott Trickett: Thank you. I got to the bloody end of the podcast and you hadn't done it, so I had to do it.

00:44:18Melissa Erbacher: Look, all things come to those who wait and good things come to those who wait and you just need to be a little bit more patient. Are you getting a little lack of patience in your older age? Have you moved up an age category this year?

00:44:32Scott Trickett: Good question. What are the age categories?

00:44:34Melissa Erbacher: I think you have. I think they go from 30 to 34, 35 to 39. So you would have moved up one, wouldn't you?

00:44:42Scott Trickett: Yeah, somewhere around there. Somewhere around there. I am pretty old, Mel.

00:44:47Melissa Erbacher: Well, this is exciting. Just think about all the new age gradings that you could potentially get. You've entered a new group, so you might start being competitive again in your age category, whereas previously you may have not been as competitive. I don't know. To be honest, I don't actually look at these things. I'm just trying to find some silver linings for you.

00:45:08Scott Trickett: Thanks. Thanks, Mel. Appreciate it.

00:45:12Melissa Erbacher: Have you had birthday cake yet? Did you have it for breakfast?

00:45:15Scott Trickett: No, nothing. Got nothing. I'm sure it's coming. Yeah, there's still time.

00:45:19Melissa Erbacher: Did you know what I found out yesterday? Nicola from our friend from With Me Now pod, she shares my parkrun birthday.

00:45:27Scott Trickett: Oh, really?

00:45:28Melissa Erbacher: we're birthday twins parkrun birthday twins granted she started her journey about seven million years before me although she's not that old but look a few years she's got on me but it's definitely the same birthday so we've decided that we're going to celebrate with either twice as many cakes and across both time zones so we each get to have two cakes or one of us uh we'll each have one normal cake and one upside down cake

00:45:57Scott Trickett: There you go. And this is coming up next month.

00:46:00Melissa Erbacher: This is coming up. Yeah, it's in a two-week way. It's very exciting. Looking forward to it, part-time birthdays. So happy birthday to you for your actual person in the world birthday, Scotty. I hope you get all the – accolades isn't the word – all the salutations you deserve from your friends.

00:46:23Scott Trickett: Thanks. I'm not going to be here next week, which is going to be a bit sad. So I just want to let you know that I'm heading down to Eastern Gardens this weekend to get my E. I'm going back there for a couple of reasons. I really enjoyed it when I was down there, but I really want my E, Mel.

00:46:41Melissa Erbacher: Me too. For your alphabet. How many letters have you got left of your alphabet?

00:46:45Scott Trickett: I've still got a few to go. I've still got a few to go. But I am starting to focus on it a bit more than I'm willing to admit.

00:46:51Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:46:52Scott Trickett: So there was a bit of convincing. Actually, there wasn't much convincing to get down there. But that's where I'm going this weekend.

00:46:58Melissa Erbacher: Cool. Hey, you know what I realized? As much as I've been moving towards my parkrun goals for the year, there's one I'm not going to reach. And I don't know whether or not I feel bad about it or... Yeah. Do you want to know what it is?

00:47:14Scott Trickett: Yes.

00:47:15Melissa Erbacher: One of my goals for this year was to get a new parkrun PB.

00:47:20Scott Trickett: Oh, was it really?

00:47:21Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. That was really ambitious.

00:47:23Scott Trickett: That was very ambitious. Yeah. I shouldn't laugh, but yeah, what were you thinking?

00:47:26[laughter]

00:47:31Melissa Erbacher: I was thinking I had a whole year to do it. And then what have I done? I've fritted away my year. I haven't worked on getting any faster.

00:47:40Scott Trickett: Yeah, really good start to the year. You were running the date. I think that really improved your running, didn't it? Well, it had me running. Yeah. So, yes, that's an improvement, definitely.

00:47:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, well, I obviously peaked too early. I must be having you rub off on me too much.

00:47:56Scott Trickett: Yeah, you can't be a high achiever anyway, Mel. You've got to always leave something in reserve, something to reach for next year.

00:48:03Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but I don't like not achieving my goals. That's why I set them. I set challenging yet achievable goals.

00:48:11Scott Trickett: We match. We match. Remember, I was going to run a marathon this year and I said at the start of this podcast that I'll never run a marathon ever again. So I've come completely full circle, completely missed my goal.

00:48:23Melissa Erbacher: Well, I still have hopes that you're going to change your mind because you know what? I rather fancy running a marathon with you one day, Scotty.

00:48:29Scott Trickett: Oh, really?

00:48:30Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Okay. But you would have to run it with me, so you would have to run it at my pace, which means you'd have to be out there a lot longer than you probably would want to be.

00:48:39Scott Trickett: Yeah, see, I mean, it's enticing to run with you, Mel, but running for a long time is not that appealing.

00:48:45Melissa Erbacher: I'm good company.

00:48:46Scott Trickett: Okay. What are we talking? Five hours? Six?

00:48:51Melissa Erbacher: Well, if you go by my previous record, it was... Closer to seven. But I would be expecting to run faster this time because there wouldn't be wine every two kilometers to stop for. Unless you want to come to France. Bring Team Trickett to France and we can all have a wine marathon. Might have to wait a little bit longer for Kasia to be of age for that one.

00:49:17Scott Trickett: One day. Eight years. Eight years. Let's plan for that one. Okay. Over the next eight years.

00:49:23Melissa Erbacher: It's on like Donkey Kong.

00:49:25Scott Trickett: Yep. Thanks, Mel. Let's wrap this up. Episode 134 is in the books. I'll see you again for 136.

00:49:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. You even get to skip your intro next week. That's really how you mastermind it, isn't it?

00:49:39Scott Trickett: Yep. A lot of pressure on Timmy. Hope he delivers.

00:49:42Melissa Erbacher: Well, have a good week off, Scotty. Thanks.