Episode 141 - Facts in a Haystack

Welcome

00:00:16Scott Trickett: The countdown has begun. We're winding down for the end of the year. We're just going to mail in this episode. We celebrated Christmas last week, so isn't that usually what happens, Mel, after the office Christmas party? Everybody just sort of starts filing all their stuff away and tidying their desk, and that's what I think we'll do.

00:00:35Melissa Erbacher: Well, I kind of think the office Christmas party, not that we're going to have one, but normally that's, you just go home straight after. You know, you knock off early for the said Christmas party. You know, you all go out for Christmas lunch at like noon instead of working through till five o'clock and then you just never go home, never go back to work.

00:00:53Scott Trickett: Yeah. So this highlights that we didn't really actually have our office Christmas party for the parkrun adventurers. So we're still going to put in for the next couple of episodes rounding out 2018.

00:01:07Melissa Erbacher: I think we owe it to the listeners, Scotty, to be honest. They've kept with us for almost three years. I think we can give them a couple more weeks of actual quality content before we have a little break.

00:01:20Scott Trickett: And if you're listening to this now, you've missed out. You cannot purchase a parkrun adventurers Ugly Christmas Singlet. Well, actually, I think you can, Mel. I think the link still works, but you cannot get it in time for Christmas.

00:01:34Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, we did ask them to disable the link, so I haven't checked it this evening, but I'm pretty sure it will stop working.

00:01:43Scott Trickett: Okay. Particularly if you're listening to this in 2019, we're pretty sure that link no longer works. And Christmas is gone. It was a good one.

00:01:52Melissa Erbacher: Well, we're assuming.

00:01:54Scott Trickett: Yeah, because we all looked good in our Ugly Christmas Singlets. Hey, speaking of looking good, were you looking good on Saturday at parkrun? Were you wearing a fancy singlet or anything like that?

00:02:08Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, my fancy singlet was fluoro orange and said parkrun on it.

00:02:12Scott Trickett: I've got one of them. I've worn one of them.

00:02:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. So, but I'm assuming this is leading somewhere, the whole looking good thing. Explain the segue to me, please.

00:02:23Scott Trickett: No, it was just a segue to find out where you went to parkrun on the weekend.

00:02:28Melissa Erbacher: Ah, okay. Yeah. Well, I was at my home parkrun volunteering. Big surprise. But, yeah, it was nice to be home and had a nice non-eventful morning. Although I actually had the virtual volunteer app on my work phone just in case. We've got a couple of parkrunners who normally – If Linda volunteers, she'll use her husband Dez's phone to barcode scan. But they were both on the roster this week and I thought, oh, I bet I know what's going to happen. They're going to show up and there's only going to be one phone between the two of them and that's not going to work. So I made sure I had a backup plan because the Run Director can't use their own phone because that has to be kept clear for emergencies. So I downloaded the app on my work phone, and took that along as a spare and gave that to Des. Only I haven't figured out yet how to lengthen the period of time that the phone screen is active before it goes to sleep. So there was one sort of minor freak out sort of halfway through the event where one of the finish token people ran over and said, Mel, you've got to come. The screen's gone black and we can't add any extra time. So Apologies to those participants who may have come in between 1.25 and 1.30. Your times might be out by a few seconds while I had to rush over and unlock the screen for Des. But yes, apart from that one little pressure moment, it was a good weekend. And, you know, I got an opportunity to do a bit of a clear out of the kit, which was nice. I went through all the tokens and we had a bunch that had little sticker numbers chucked on them. So, you know, when that happens, people have to be written down because The finish token doesn't scan, irrespective of barcode situation. So that's more work for the volunteers. And I went through and I printed out all the replacement scannable barcodes for those numbers and stuck them on. And it was really cathartic going through and making sure that we had the full set so next week they can have a nice, clean barcode, breakthrough but it made me made me think about you know this week um on the 5th of December it was international volunteer day or was it international volunteer week altogether um either way you know parkrun Australia highlighted the fact that our volunteers do a lot of stuff behind the scenes that you just never see and that's just one of those sort of examples you know spending an hour um cleaning out the tokens and making sure that they're all up to scratch so they can be used next week

00:05:15Scott Trickett: Did you give yourself a volunteer credit, maybe an other?

00:05:18Melissa Erbacher: For doing that?

00:05:20Scott Trickett: For doing that.

00:05:21Melissa Erbacher: No, no. Not in addition to just, you know, I was Run Director on Saturday. So, doing that on Sunday afternoon. And you know what else I did? I sewed up a bag. I got a little bit crafty and I sewed up a new bag to – store and transport some of our kit in. And it's one of those things that I've been meaning to do for like two years. And so I totally channeled Bow Miles and I'm starting to do the little jobs that I've been putting off for a long time, including mulching. On Friday afternoon, I mulched the two front gardens, Scotty. You know, I've been a powerhouse of productivity this weekend.

00:05:59Scott Trickett: Did you run a mile in between? No.

00:06:02Melissa Erbacher: No, I may not have done that every hour. However, I felt like I ran a marathon the next day after pitchforking all that mulch out of the trailer. So, yeah. Okay.

00:06:12Scott Trickett: Hey, last time I was up there and we went to Kawana, you showed me some of your kit and it was a bit unruly. So is this an admission that you've completely cleaned out and you've gone minimalist?

00:06:26Melissa Erbacher: It was unruly. What did I show you? I don't know.

00:06:29Scott Trickett: You had lots of extra bits in there. I asked you, what are you doing with this and what are you doing with that? And you just said, oh, it's part of the kit. I haven't got rid of it yet.

00:06:38Melissa Erbacher: Oh, we did used to have a wooden token box that had been donated. We got rid of that a long time ago. And I have had some complaints from people who missed the way that it was able to be sorted.

00:06:51Scott Trickett: They missed the old days.

00:06:53Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. And it's like, well, you know what? You don't have to carry it around every week. All my Run Directors do and it weighs like 500 grams. So it went. Yeah, no, I've even taken the laptop out. I asked the rest of the team on Saturday, does anybody actually use the laptop now that we're with the app? And everybody said no. So it's like great because that weighs about three or four kilos. So that is taken out of the kit as well. So it's really good. Streamlining. I like it. It's like spring cleaning but at the beginning of summer. What did you get up to, Scotty?

00:07:28Scott Trickett: Well, I'll tell you what. I went to Darebin. So I'm chasing my P-index at the moment, but I'm playing the long game. So I figure I could get the low-hanging fruit. I could go to my Diamond Creeks. I could go to my Mullum Mullums and just easily jump up a P-index like that. But I'm going to put in a bit of groundwork and go to the events that I've gone to three or four times so that the P-index just gradually grows.

00:07:54Melissa Erbacher: Okay, you're going to spread the love around.

00:07:57Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm spreading the love around. But I wanted to... I'll tell you a story. I'll tell you a story. I went with one of my best mates, Chris. It was just a boys weekend at parkrun this weekend. So Chris came and picked me up to go to head to Darebin. And when he picked me up, I made sure I had everything, got my watch, got my shoes, got my drink bottle, got my barcode. And when I said I've got my barcode, it dawned on Chris that he had forgotten his barcode.

00:08:22Melissa Erbacher: Oh, no.

00:08:23Scott Trickett: Yeah, which he has done before. And I said, no, just because I work for parkrun and just because we could fiddle the stuff in the behind the scenes, I'm not going to do it. You know, if you'd forgot your barcode, you're not getting your time, mate. So what we ended up doing is we drove all the way back.

00:08:40Melissa Erbacher: He didn't ask you to do it though.

00:08:41Scott Trickett: No, he didn't. He didn't. But I'm trying to show that he didn't ask because he knew the answer would be no. But I would never consider doing it. So what we ended up doing was driving all the way back to Chris's place to get his barcode and then headed to Darebin. So this no barcode, no time, no exception rule, it's a rule that is enforced and so it should be at all events.

00:09:04Melissa Erbacher: Look, have I ever mentioned that one time Adam forgot his barcode and I was Run Director that day and was doing the results at home afterwards and he's like, but couldn't you just scan it now? I was like, no, you didn't have it at the event. I'm not scanning it into the Barcode Scanner before I upload it. You know, I'd have to get the tokens out again. That's not fair. So, no. So, he was unknown that week.

00:09:26Scott Trickett: But, you know, Chris actually had a wristband on. So, his barcode is one of the fancy new purple wristbands. He even managed to forget that. So, I told him, I reminded him that he can actually wear it all the time.

00:09:35Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you don't have to take it off, Chris.

00:09:37Scott Trickett: Yep. I was giving fashion advice this weekend at parkrun.

00:09:41Melissa Erbacher: Oh. Just with the barcode. Yeah.

00:09:45Scott Trickett: Okay. Yeah. So that was my weekend. It was a great day at Darebin. Beautiful morning down here in Melbourne.

00:09:52Melissa Erbacher: Was it warm? We've been having a really warm week.

00:09:55Scott Trickett: So I hear. It's quite funny that all these Queenslanders who live in the Sunshine State have been complaining for weeks on end that it's hot. Well, maybe you shouldn't live in the Sunshine State.

00:10:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm not complaining. I'm just making an observation. Have you seen a map that has like highlighted where all the bushfires are? Our state is burning. Like it is literally burning at the moment. And where I live is nowhere near the fires and there's just smoke everywhere. smoke haze everywhere and you can smell it. So it's really quite scary.

00:10:30Scott Trickett: It is kind of scary, isn't it? And you know where I live? I live near a lot of...

00:10:36Melissa Erbacher: Rural area.

00:10:37Scott Trickett: Trees. So I live quite close to Black Saturday a few years ago. Yvonne reminds me that I think we were three minutes from missing that from time to time. So that's scary. It's very conscious. So this global warming stuff does scare me when it comes to summer. It's a reality now. I don't know if we carry on too much about the weather because we can access it whenever we want and we can monitor the wind and the rain and where the fires are whenever we want. So we're more in tune with it.

00:11:11Melissa Erbacher: Or desensitized, perhaps.

00:11:14Scott Trickett: I don't know. I don't know. But it's a concern.

00:11:17Melissa Erbacher: We're getting very deep, Scotty.

00:11:19Scott Trickett: Sorry.

00:11:19Melissa Erbacher: We're not used to your deep forecast.

00:11:22Scott Trickett: No, no. I tell you what, let's go to our guest this week. We've been waiting all year to get to him. So let's get to him. And then I'm really keen to hear your goals for next year, which you've been put on notice for. And you've got another 15 minutes to think about it while we chat to Ian Hay.

Facts in a Haystack

Interview Ian Hay — parkrun Australia stats contributor; Stones Corner parkrun ED (described as having…

00:11:46Melissa Erbacher: Some may say it's been far too long, but I'm not going to say it. This year, 2018, has seen a great deficit in facts in a haystack, and we would like to blame, squarely and fairly, or place the blame, I should say, on Mr. Ian Hay. He got a new job. He got important, like super important, and is now a big deal. So we have taken a long time courting him to get him back on the show. He's here now. We're extremely happy to have him. Ian, welcome back.

00:12:23Ian Hay: Thank you. It's been, I don't know, I promise we wouldn't say that it's been too long, but it's good to be back.

00:12:29Melissa Erbacher: So have you had to dust off the haystack, as it were?

00:12:34Ian Hay: I did have to go digging up all those on queries and all those lookups and try and remember what I've done and try not to repeat absolutely everything. So, yeah, it did take a little while.

00:12:42Melissa Erbacher: But was it fun?

00:12:44Ian Hay: Yeah, it is fun looking at stats, especially when you see how much we've grown over the years and just how many new events have come in. And I haven't been looking as closely as I usually do, so it was cool to see where we've gone over the last year.

00:12:57Scott Trickett: Well, Ian, you mentioned it there. We're growing. So we asked you to have a look at some stats around how we're growing, how quickly we're growing. Bedazzles, what can you share with us?

00:13:12Ian Hay: Cool. Well, I thought for a start it would be fun to just take a bit of a look back at the UK and how they've grown. So obviously they're pretty massive now. Although I think we're, well, I know we are, we're catching pretty fast with the number of events that we're pushing out every year now. But what I did was I tried to look back to a time where they had a similar number to us. So I went back to 2010 where they had 18 events up and running at the beginning of 2010. So the beginning of 2013, we had 18 events and they also had 18 events in 2010. So it was just comparing similar numbers. So the following year, we bumped up to 56 and the following year they went to 50. So we got them by six on that one. So still huge growth there on both fronts over a year. The following year, we bumped up to 102 and they went to 95. So again, we're just out in front with the growth that they were having. The following year, though, we went to 146 and they jumped to 152. So they just pulled in front. And then after that, they sort of keep going up and up and up. Just their growth has exploded at that point. They've just taken off. So it's very cool to see. But, yeah, similar growth there for the first couple of years. Growth isn't too, there isn't too much of a big difference as the years have gone on. We've kept just a little bit behind, but not as much.

00:14:31Melissa Erbacher: As it stands in, the growth though, are we maintaining the same level each year or is the growth also growing each year?

00:14:40Ian Hay: It's going down slightly, but only slightly. So we're looking at around, so back in 2016, we had a 40% increase, then we've gone to 36, then 31, and then this year there's been 28% increase, but 28%, that's still massive. To be pushing out that number of events is huge. So the number of events we're opening is quite massive.

00:15:02Melissa Erbacher: I guess, yeah, well, I mean, I suppose it's a percentage of the amount that we already have, isn't it? Because, for example, this year in Australia we've launched 80 events, or we will have by the end of next week, 85 5K events plus three junior parkruns plus we facilitated the two events in Malaysia. So we've never launched that many events in one year before.

00:15:28Ian Hay: That is crazy. Our first three years, we only had just over 80 events. And then we're doing that in a year.

00:15:33Scott Trickett: So that's, yeah, massive. Did you look at the growth for actual participation, the numbers of runners and walkers we've got every week?

00:15:42Ian Hay: So I looked at it from Australia. So it was a bit hard to get UK. I don't have as granular stats on that. So first one I wanted to look at, though, was actually, no, I'll go back over the years. So first. So if we look at just our 5K events, I'll keep juniors out of it for a second, but looking at our 5K events, we had total number of runs that we had last year was 1.5 million. So that's total runners over number of events each week. This year to date, we've had 1.7 million.

00:16:11Melissa Erbacher: That's a lot of kilometres.

00:16:13Ian Hay: That is a lot of kilometres. With a few weeks to go. Yeah, exactly. So we'll still get quite a big bump in there. On the volunteer front, we went from... 116,000 to 140,000 volunteers. Now, I did want to call out the junior events. So what I did, just to try and put this into a bit more perspective, is I went back to a time when we had a similar number of events at the five-kilometre event. What I wanted to do is just highlight the number of volunteers at the junior events to take. So if I went back to 2011 when we had three events up and running, so we had 400 on average. So in total, we had 421 volunteers over that period. We've had this year 1,076 volunteers on the juniors. And that's not even the same timeframe. So... Just the amount of volunteers that go into the junior parkrun is just massive. It's been a challenge.

00:17:10Scott Trickett: There's no doubt about that. But also, we're introducing those large numbers of people into volunteering, some that maybe would never have done it because you don't need to do it at the 5k event.

00:17:21Ian Hay: Yep. It's fantastic to see that it's going so well. It's very cool to see. We've got 4,961 runs in total chalked up for those juniors. So the other thing I always like covering off, and this is a controversial one because people can play this one a little bit, is PB streaks. I love looking at PB streaks. It makes for interesting talk. So I've got two people I want to call out this year that have had PB streaks. So Johan Karlsson, he has had 18 PBs in a row. Now, I know the usual comment first there is, okay, has someone played the system a little bit to get that many PBs? Now, Johan, so he runs at Applecross. I had a look at his PBs. So back at the beginning of the year, on the 24th of the 2nd, he ran 44 minutes. Now he is progressively going faster and faster just by a little bit each week down to 35 minutes. So he looks like he's really working for his and he's done a really great job of getting 18 PBs in a row on Johan. That's awesome. Yeah, how cool is that? Now another person I wanted to call out was Tim Banks. So Tim... has done 16, so just a little bit under. But so he runs at Kirra. Again, he started at the beginning of the year around 22 minutes 30 and, again, has been progressively getting faster and faster until he went some 20 in the middle of the year. Yep, very cool. But he got to 16 and, get this, this sort of hurts a little bit, He ran an equal time to the previous week, which lost his PB, and then he ran another five PBs after that. 21 PBs, just by one second.

00:19:06Melissa Erbacher: And you know what? You've got no idea, but that could have just been somebody's slow reaction on the stopwatch.

00:19:12Ian Hay: Absolutely, yep.

00:19:16Melissa Erbacher: If they've all been at the same event, then I guess that's, you know, it's, It's negligible anyway. It doesn't really matter. It's consistent. So I'm sure they're using the same technology every week and all that sort of stuff.

00:19:30Ian Hay: So no, very, very cool to see. That's a pretty impressive streak there that he's got going. And he's just consistently dropping time every week.

00:19:39Melissa Erbacher: On the plus side, it might have broken his PB streak, but he got a Groundhog Day. There's one for your running challenges on the Chrome extension. Yep.

00:19:48Ian Hay: That's right. And, yeah, I think he did similar to me. He's run sub 20 and I think he's had a little bit of trouble going sub 20 again.

00:19:54Scott Trickett: I think I've done that once and, yeah, managed to get a hernia out of it so I'll never be running sub 20 again, I doubt so.

00:20:01Melissa Erbacher: Out of interest, what's your PB streak, Ian?

00:20:04Ian Hay: I don't have a very good PB streak because when I first started I got 20.01. This was before I started at Stones Corner parkrun. My goal was to go sub 20 before I started Stones Corner. About two and a half years after starting Stones Corner, I went sub 20. And, yeah, I haven't been there again since. So I think I've had two PBs in my whole parkrun time.

00:20:26Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. And that's not a streak because they weren't in a row. They weren't two consecutive weeks.

00:20:31Andrew: So there are no streaks.

00:20:33Melissa Erbacher: That's okay. I do actually have a PB streak of two weeks in a row. I think it was when I was marathon training. But just as with you, you know, that was a long time ago. It was like 2013. So it's been a long time for me since I've had a PB.

00:20:50Ian Hay: Set those goals too high and it's just hard to match again.

00:20:54Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's one of those things that Scotty likes to lord over me is the fact that he's got a longer PB streak.

00:21:00Scott Trickett: Well, I don't have much, Mel, so I take what I can. What else have you got? Have you got anything else for us?

00:21:08Ian Hay: So I thought I'd – yeah, I've got a few more. So course records this year we've had on the 31st of the 3rd we had 22 course records. I don't know what was happening on that day. I don't know if you can think back to the 31st of March. Is this course attendance records? Yes, course attendance records. So 22, and on New Year's Day we had 19.

00:21:34Melissa Erbacher: 31st of March. It doesn't ring any bells.

00:21:37Scott Trickett: No.

00:21:38Melissa Erbacher: I reckon we just had good weather.

00:21:40Scott Trickett: That's the busy time, February, March. Everyone's happy. Everyone loves parkrun.

00:21:47Ian Hay: Yeah. And so we're talking course attendance records. So Cairns and Emerald took the prize this year with five course records over the whole year. So well done to those, to them. So two more little bits I thought I'd throw in before I'll do the Mel and Scott stats. I thought I'd have a quick look at Christmas Day just to see if we got any prediction on what's coming this year. So last year, if we can think back, we had 73 events taking part and 9,106 runners take part. And that was actually an 80% growth from the previous year. So we only had 5,000 the previous year. So what do you reckon we're going to do this year?

00:22:31Melissa Erbacher: 16,000 participants.

00:22:33Ian Hay: Oh, you're going for 16? Yep. Okay. Big day. So check this space early next year to see what numbers we get. And New Year's Day. So this year, New Year's Day, we had 113 events take place and we had 19,800 runners joining us on New Year's Day. From 2017 to 2018, we actually doubled the numbers. So we went from 9,000, 9,500 up to 19,800. So...

00:23:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. I'm being conservative for Christmas Day. Scotty, you need to weigh in because if you don't give a guess, then it's not a competition.

00:23:12Scott Trickett: I reckon this year on Christmas Day we're probably looking at about 12,000 to 13,000, but I think everyone's going to save themselves for New Year's Day and we're going to double again. We're going to push maybe 35,000 to 38,000 on New Year's Day.

00:23:28Andrew: There we go.

00:23:30Scott Trickett: Now let's get on to the stats that really matter. We've saved the best till last. I've taken a bit of a beating this year, Ian. Every time I go head to head with Melissa Erbacher, I seem to come off second best. So hopefully you've put together, you've manipulated some stats to give me a bit of a boost to round out the year.

00:23:53Ian Hay: in the Mel versus Scott stakes. Of course I have. Just give me a second to change a couple of these figures and we'll be right together. Good, good. Give me some hope. Give me some hope.

00:24:01Melissa Erbacher: Just change the names on the two columns. That's all you need to do, Ian. Pop them around the record, I guess. Yeah.

00:24:08Ian Hay: So I've only got a couple that I've pulled up here. Now, I know, Mel, we were chatting before and you mentioned that you didn't have many PBs in the last couple of years, but PBs are based per event, so you do have, some more than you thought you did. But overall, PBs, maybe not, but event PBs. So between Mel and Scott, do either of you know how many PBs you had this year?

00:24:30Melissa Erbacher: Oh, so you mean like course PBs?

00:24:33Ian Hay: Yeah, of course, PBs.

00:24:34Scott Trickett: They count as well. If you run the event once, is that a PB? No. No, no. Classes and you start. Yeah. Okay, well, I don't think I've got a PB then this year.

00:24:46Melissa Erbacher: No, but you've run at a lot more events this year, that you've previously been to than I have I'm not saying you ran very fast at those so maybe you didn't improve your time yeah yeah I know but the the odds are in your favour I guess because you you probably ran at more different events than I did for the second or multiple times um Oh, I think maybe I've had two, two course PBs this year.

00:25:18Ian Hay: Spot on.

00:25:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. What events were they in?

00:25:22Ian Hay: I actually didn't pull the events that they were.

00:25:24Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:25:26Ian Hay: But there are two. And, Scott, I did all the work I could with the figures here, but I just can't. I could add an extra zero to the end, I suppose. You got one. I did get one. You did get one. So that's good. That's good. You've got to be happy with the people.

00:25:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm happy with one.

00:25:43Ian Hay: Yeah.

00:25:43Melissa Erbacher: Thank you for all the stats, Ian. It's always a brain strain for me to try and wrap my head around the numbers, but I'm still always fascinated by them as well. What has been going on in the life of Mr. Hay since last we spoke? How is your parkrun journey going?

00:26:05Ian Hay: So it's been great. I haven't gotten around as much as I'd like to, but I did go out and visit St. Lucia parkrun, so that was nice. I think I missed the launch by one or two weeks, but I popped out there a couple of weeks afterwards. And, yeah, they've got a great, very, very flat course, which is nice. I enjoyed that thoroughly. And, yeah, now I've been more getting my son into parkrun now. So he's nine and has never really been interested. So now rather than trying to get back to my sub-20s, which I should just really let go of now that I'm in my 40s, but it's just not happening. So getting him out there, so now doing around an hour at the moment and slowly trying to get him a little bit fitter and a bit faster. So, yeah, so it's been fun.

00:26:46Scott Trickett: So, Ian, you've been busy. We haven't been able to utilise you all year. Are you training an apprentice? Is your son young enough to take over this segment next year? Yeah.

00:26:58Ian Hay: And he might get a few of the figures a little bit better too, so he's a great jumper. No, I haven't quite got the bug with him yet, but, yeah, give me a little bit more time, you never know. Yeah.

00:27:11Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:27:11Ian Hay: Because they get a little bit older, so they get into these sort of things a little bit more, get into the computer stuff and things like that. So I'm sure he'll be better than me in no time.

00:27:19Scott Trickett: Okay. So we're not holding out much hope for your son. So I think what we've got to do is we've got to work on that sponsorship money, Mel, so we can actually start paying Ian, to come back and join us in 2019 because the people have spoken in the Perlustration. They love the stats. We love the stats. So thanks for coming back on this week, and we look forward to more in next year's edition.

00:27:43Ian Hay: Fantastic. We'll be back. Thank you. Fun as always.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Steve Marston — Weipa

00:27:56Steve Marston: Hello, parkrun adventurers. It's Steve Marston. I'm here with my colleague Michael. We're in Weipa today. We've got up earlier than the birds and we've made the two-hour drive from our work site where we've been fortunate enough to work to Weipa parkrun. We're very lucky that our rest day today has fallen on parkrun Day. So we've made the journey up to parkrun. And on a relatively, a pretty balmy morning, though I think we've been relatively lucky, Michael. It's only 30 degrees here at the finish line, as we finish the run but it's what it's 30 or so minutes since we finished the run and we're still sweating buckets but so it was a nice course out and back course on an asphalt surface a bit of shade how did you find the run Michael and how was your time this morning?

00:28:43Michael: Yeah the run was a nice run along the footpath the whole way the birds were chirping underneath the mango trees in some places it was yeah it was quite humid but We were quite lucky with a little bit of cloud cover this morning.

00:28:58Steve Marston: I think it could have been worse, couldn't it?

00:29:00Michael: It was definitely manageable. I think I was saying to you, sometimes it seems worse when you actually stop. The run itself wasn't too bad, but standing here right now, yeah, it looks like we've just been for a swim. Yes, yes. But no, lovely course, lovely people.

00:29:13Steve Marston: Yes, very friendly. I had a lovely chat to a guy out there we're running with today, his eighth parkrun. It's only your second parkrun today, Michael, isn't that right?

00:29:21Michael: It is, yeah.

00:29:22Steve Marston: I've roped you in, mate. You've caught the parkrun bug now.

00:29:26Michael: For sure, yeah. Great way to get a bit of exercise on a Saturday morning.

00:29:29Steve Marston: Yeah, when we're away for work. And so it's a lovely course here, very friendly locals, some tunes at the finish line, which is nice, a little touch. And we're also, I think we're celebrating Alicia, the Event Director, her final run here today before she hangs up the ED gloves and passes the baton on to another team. So we might just go and see if we can catch Alicia for a chat. Hi, parkrun adventurers. I'm here with Alicia, the ED for Weipa parkrun. Today's her last run before she relocates to Melbourne. How have you found parkrun? Your parkrun time as ED in Weipa, Alicia?

00:29:33[music]

00:30:10Alicia: It's been incredible. The community's really gotten behind it. We always have volunteers stepping up every single week, and it's just been incredible. We have a really supportive team up here. The local... sports clubs, the local schools, they all really enjoy coming down to the events so I think it's been just a great addition to a fairly sporty community.

00:30:32Steve Marston: Yeah, fantastic. And you're off to Melbourne?

00:30:34Alicia: I am, yes.

00:30:36Steve Marston: parkrunning in your future down there?

00:30:38Alicia: Well, I spoke to Carol Cunningham earlier this week, she said they don't want to let me go so she'll try and ring me in. That doesn't sound like Carol. I'll be around Kew area so if there's any parkruns down there looking for another Run Director I'll be happy to help out but Yeah, I'm looking forward to changes scenery, all my family's down there, so it's really about going back and reconnecting with them, helping them out when they need it.

00:31:01Steve Marston: Oh, well, you've had a... And your father, it's been a family affair up here in Weipa, hasn't it?

00:31:05Alicia: Yeah, well, I moved up to Weipa originally two years ago because Dad was up here working with Rio Tinto at the bauxite mine, but he left six months later and I decided to stay on and I took over the parkrun reins and helped that continue on.

00:31:22Steve Marston: Awesome. Well, thanks for having a chat and we'll talk again.

00:31:26Alicia: Hope you enjoyed the heat this morning. We kind of swam this one.

00:31:30Steve Marston: Yes, it's not too bad. I was just saying earlier, I think we hit it pretty well with the weather. It's not too bad today. Only 30 degrees at 7 o'clock.

00:31:38Alicia: Yep.

00:31:38Steve Marston: Alright, thanks very much Alicia. Thank you very much. Bye. Well, that's a wrap from Weipa parkrun. We've grabbed some supplies, refuelled and we're about to head off on our two hour drive back to work. It's been absolutely fantastic to have the opportunity to come out and and see a community like Weipa and how they support and participate in their local parkrun, and the volunteers like Alicia who do an amazing job bringing parkrun to communities like this all over Australia every Saturday. And so until next time, goodbye.

Roving report Gary Murphy — Highlands

00:32:09Gary Murphy: Okay, so it's Gary Murphy reporting in for the parkrun adventurers with a roving report from home this weekend from Highlands. I'm not adventuring, but the adventurers come to us. I've got Robin Rishworth here who's joined the Cowell Club today. Half Cowell. Half Cowell Club. Thank you, Robin. 50 different parkruns in... How long have you taken to do that, Robin?

00:32:29Robin Rishworth: Oh, there's two earlier on, but basically 12 months other than that. 48 in the last 12 months, different ones. I've never ever run... On a Saturday, I've never run the same parkrun yet. In Victoria, I've never done the same parkrun yet. And I'm saving the closest one on Healesville, Lilydale for the last one. That's like the finishing straight. And that's a fantastic way to do it. I like that. How did you get into parkrun? We sold the farm and I used to run up a 1,000-foot climb in 1.3km on the farm and had to find another adventure. That farm, I'd run 1,280 ascents of this 1,000-foot climb. I needed something different. Wow. What kind of farming were you doing? Oh, no, we just had 60 acres, but it was a big mountain at the back of it that I used to run up. Okay. I cleared the track myself.

00:33:07Gary Murphy: Okay. Wow. And so how did you hear about, what was your inspiration to start doing all the different parkruns rather than having a home parkrun?

00:33:16Robin Rishworth: I published Maps for a Living and I liked seeing a different country and it seemed like a reasonable challenge at the time. I had no idea when I started how many people have already done it beforehand.

00:33:24Gary Murphy: And we've spoken to Robin about the Chrome extension, the running challenges, that's going to be right up your alley.

00:33:31Robin Rishworth: Yeah, I'd never heard of it before but there's amazing things that just keep growing from trying some adventure. Don't worry, we'll get you onto that and you'll absolutely love that. Where are you off to next week? Hastings next week, but then the following week I'm in trouble because we're catching the train to Perth and the train doesn't get in until five o'clock on the Saturday. No, good. So what are you going to do? Run up and down the train. There's not much else I can do.

00:33:51Gary Murphy: That's fantastic, mate. And I can't ask you for your top three or can I?

00:33:58Robin Rishworth: I think I like Hamilton, Kangaroo Island's not too bad and Port Lincoln's nice on the coast too.

00:34:04Gary Murphy: And so we talk about crazy start hours and people getting up at all times of the morning to get to parkrun, what's been your earliest start? I won't leave before 5, I'll sleep in the back of the car out in the bush if it's any further, it's too dangerous.

00:34:17Robin Rishworth: My pet hate with the parkruns is ones that don't have toilets. Like even today, the push bike's tied to the front of the bull bar because I need to go to the toilet and it's too far to go. I need to use a push bike. I don't like ones without toilets. I've used a shovel at one event.

00:34:30Gary Murphy: I'm not going to ask you which one. We'll leave that out. That's terrific, Robin. I'm really impressed and congratulations. Thanks. And good luck with the rest of your adventures. Thanks. And thanks for talking to the parkrun adventurers. Thank you.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Melissa Ellis — Geeveston

00:34:43Melissa Ellis: Good morning parkrun adventurers, it's Melissa here checking in for the Channel 5 News crew. I've had a big adventure this morning so I thought I would let you all know about it. Last week I couldn't get to parkrun, sadly, and I was a bit grumpy because I had other things to do. I know, sometimes that happens. But today, big adventure. I had a 3am alarm and I had a 6am flight out of Melbourne. I'm not going to tell you the location. Let's call it the parkrun that shall not be named. I did a few things for the first time. One of them is hire a car because if I hadn't, I never would have made it here on time. I got here with 10 minutes to spare. We've ran the parkrun. We've got beautiful sunshine, I hate to say. I ticked off a letter for my Bee Gees challenge, for my Staying Alive challenge, sorry, which I've now completed. I got a number for my Wilson Index. And I may have got a compass point as well. So, standing here by a babbling brook, where there's a platypus walk, and I'm going to go for a little walk now, and I'm hoping that I might spot some platypus, and I've got to fill in my day in a different state. Oh, and I've got another adventure. I actually was gifted the air flight by a friend who had booked it and couldn't manage to come, but the catch was, or the... the deal was that part of me taking the the gifted air flight was that I had a companion for the day so I came to parkrun with a stranger that I've never met before um and he's accompanied me down to this mystery parkrun location um and yeah we might have a chat to him as well parkrun's finished now and I'm here with my uh mystery um partner for the day Andrew hi Andrew

00:36:49Andrew: Hi, how are you, Mel?

00:36:50Melissa Ellis: I'm really good. Now, we've just met today, haven't we?

00:36:52Andrew: Indeed we have. It's been a magical mystery tour.

00:36:56Melissa Ellis: Never should have excitement when you come parkrunning with me. So, we have a mutual friend that has allowed us to attend today this parkrun that shall not be named.

00:37:09Andrew: Thank you, mutual friend.

00:37:10Melissa Ellis: Yes, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. You're quite new to parkrunning. Yes.

00:37:14Andrew: Correct, yes. This is my fourth run and I was introduced to it by a mutual friend. The whole idea of it appealed to me because it's more about self-improvement rather than competition, which I thought was quite a good concept. And I've also had experience with athletics through my children, et cetera, as a volunteer, so it ticked a lot of boxes for me.

00:37:38Melissa Ellis: Oh, very good. And what did you think of our mystery course today?

00:37:43Andrew: I thought it was it was quite quite picturesque perhaps it was what three laps so I'm normally used to doing a continuous continuous circuit at Diamond Creek so this was a bit different it was just a pleasant change yes it was good very good and I like the the water aspect of it that was quite soothing

00:38:03Melissa Ellis: I do. I must admit, I love parkrunning near water.

00:38:06Andrew: Yeah. It sort of helps, doesn't it?

00:38:08Melissa Ellis: Yeah.

00:38:09Andrew: Don't you think? Yeah.

00:38:10Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I do. And we've got beautiful weather for it here today.

00:38:13Andrew: Oh, it's gorgeous. This is extraordinary. You know, not too hot, not too cold. Just perfect, actually. I could actually feel the heat as I was running. Could you?

00:38:21Melissa Ellis: Yes, remarkably warm. We haven't had many that warm yet in Melbourne. No, no. So it takes you a bit by surprise.

00:38:27Andrew: It is summer, you know.

00:38:29Melissa Ellis: Yeah, good point. This area that we're in is actually a farming area, apple area. So there's a little clue. And also I believe if you watched the series on Channel 2, Rosehaven, this little town is the location of the filming of that series.

00:38:49Andrew: Yeah. It's very picturesque, extremely picturesque. It's picture postcard stuff, actually.

00:38:54Melissa Ellis: It is. So we've got a day to fill now before our whirlwind day ends and we fly home tonight. So we're going to go and explore. So have a great day, adventurers, and we'll check in next time.

00:39:05Andrew: Thanks, Mel.

00:39:06Melissa Erbacher: Many thanks to Steve Marston putting in a roving report from Weipa parkrun, heading very far north in Queensland to get that one for us. Cheers for that, Steve. And Melissa Ellis, who is reported in from the parkrun that shall remain nameless or should not be named. How do they say it in Harry Potter? He... he who should not be named or something. She was at Geeveston parkrun, if anyone didn't quite pick up on all those hints, doing it pretty much exactly the way it should be done, in the sunshine on a day when it's not cancelled, taking in the view with a little paddler of a platypus in the in the creek alongside the course and having a great morning of it. So I'm glad everything, all the stars aligned with that whole trip and it all went well. That's two Channel 5 News crew members who've done Geeveston parkrun in two weeks since my misadventure some one month ago. I appreciate her sensitivity. I don't know if you picked up on it, Scotty, but I heard the guilt. She was feeling guilty about having a good parkrun experience when I had not had a good one, which is extremely sweet and entirely unnecessary. Everybody should be having wonderful parkruns everywhere all the time, irrespective of other people's experiences.

00:40:39Scott Trickett: So you've come to terms with it?

00:40:41Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I think so. Well, you know, today I have. Ask me again in a couple of weeks and the bitterness may have returned. Who knows? Yeah. You know, because it was one of the three major goals for me for 2018 and it's disappeared, there's always going to be a little tinge of sadness that I didn't get that goal for this year. But... You know, it's still on the horizon. I will make it back at some point.

00:41:15Scott Trickett: Hey, Mel, I started the year hoping to run sub 20 and finish a marathon. Look at me now. So... Things change, things happen.

Top three goals for next year

00:41:26Scott Trickett: But it's a nice little segue to your goals for next year. We're going to jump straight into it.

00:41:31Melissa Erbacher: The top three, rip it off like a Band-Aid.

00:41:33Scott Trickett: Yep. Share them with me. You've had a whole week to think about it. And I know you've dedicated a couple of hours each day. to thinking about this.

00:41:42Melissa Erbacher: To researching, to really soul-searching.

00:41:45Scott Trickett: Yeah, you've put a lot of thought into it and I really appreciate that. So share with me and the listeners your goals for next year that we can hold you accountable for for 52 weeks.

00:41:55Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so this... This year, just as a basis for comparison, I wanted to do 20 new events, which has been placed in jeopardy, but I still think I'm going to scrape it in by the skin of my teeth. But it's going to leave me at not a round number. So even though my goal was to do 20 new ones, I actually wanted to do 22 new ones so that I could get to 70 new, on the most events list with the idea in my head that perhaps in 2019 I would do 30 new events and then I would be at 100 different but that's really not going to happen I'm I'm trying to be realistic you know if Geeveston has taught me anything it's that um sometimes things happen that are out of your control and the best laid plans don't always come off so And that's okay, but I just want to be a bit realistic so I'm not like devastated or disappointed if I have to readjust to get to where I'm headed next year. So, I will not be doing 30 new events next year, but I am, oh, do I say it out loud? I'm going to try, I'm going to try for 22 so that I can get to the nice round figure of Maybe I should scale that back to 17.

00:43:14Scott Trickett: 22. Did everyone get that? 22. Mel's going for 22 events, new events next year. Great goal.

00:43:22Melissa Erbacher: Maybe, maybe, no, let's change that. Let's rewrite. I want to change it to 17. So, 85 is perfectly reasonable. It's a round odd number. So, yeah, I'm changing that one as we speak to 17. It's written down now. Yeah, 17 year olds.

00:43:41Scott Trickett: I wrote down 22, but okay, 17 as well.

00:43:44Melissa Erbacher: But I promise I'm not going to change these other ones that I've already written down, so it's going to happen. I like to have – I spend a bit of time on the Chrome extension going, do I want to join that club? Do I really want to work towards that? Do I want to make this part of the thing? And rather than looking for one of the existing clubs or challenges that are there, I like to set my own. So I have volunteered as a Run Director so far 86 times. So next year, I'm going to volunteer as a Run Director, not just any volunteer role, but as a Run Director 14 more times. That's my goal so that I can take that Count to 100.

00:44:35Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:44:37Melissa Erbacher: These are very, very specific to Mel goals, but that's okay.

00:44:40Scott Trickett: Do you know how many times you've run directed this year as a comparison?

00:44:46Melissa Erbacher: I can look at my diary very quickly and give you a rough idea. It's pretty much like… Once every five to six weeks.

00:44:56Scott Trickett: So that's 14?

00:44:58Melissa Erbacher: No, it's not 14. And I've picked up a few extras where other Run Directors on the team have had to pull out or whatever. So, yeah, I don't know exactly how many I've done this year, but I don't think it would be 14. I don't even think it would be 12. So, yeah, it's more than once a month, which is definitely upping the ante.

00:45:16Scott Trickett: You should start a new event. I find whenever I started a new event, I was run directing a lot. So can we add that to that goal? Mel starts a new event.

00:45:26Melissa Erbacher: Look, let's not get too ambitious there.

00:45:28Scott Trickett: That wasn't the third one? Okay, let's get to the third one. No, no. Let's get to the third one.

00:45:32Melissa Erbacher: The third one. Okay, and this is another, but this is one that everybody can, everyone who's an adventurer can aspire to if they want to. It's not super Mel specific. Have you ever heard of the perfect month?

00:45:46Scott Trickett: I've got my idea of what a perfect month is. It could be different to yours.

00:45:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so it might be closer to the original idea of what a perfect month is, which I got from a TV show called How I Met Your Mother, which one of the characters, Barney Stinson, who is played by Neil Patrick Harris, absolutely hilarious. This is a family show, so I'm not going to go into what his challenge was, but effectively he had a goal to obtain every single day for an entire month. And if you got to the end of that, it was the perfect month. So I'm putting a parkrun spin on it. It's not a daily thing. It's a weekly thing. And a perfect month in parkrun world as an adventurer would be a different event every week for the entire month. That you haven't done before. So one new event every week for a full month. Out of the whole 12 months, it doesn't matter which month it is. It could be one of those months that's got four. It could be one of those months that's got five. You know, this is no run the date my way kind of thing where I think I'll probably go for one of the months that's only got four just to be helpful.

00:47:07Scott Trickett: There you go. That's a good one. That's a good goal. And you're right. Everyone can have a crack at that.

00:47:12Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so something a bit different for next year, you know. And I did think long and hard about these things, Scotty.

00:47:18Scott Trickett: Good, good. Thanks, Mel. That's your top three goals for the year, which ticks off that segment, which means we can move on to the next one.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:47:27Scott Trickett: And we're going to be welcoming a new event this week. Our last one for the year, is that right?

00:47:33Melissa Erbacher: Checking in with the ops team. 100% correct. This is it.

00:47:37Scott Trickett: Close the books.

00:47:38Melissa Erbacher: For parkrun Australia in 2018.

00:47:42Scott Trickett: And tell us where it's going to be because it's close to you, isn't it?

00:47:45Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's going to be on the Sunshine Coast. It's called Baringa parkrun. So it's down the southern end of the coast in Caloundra, which has for a very long time only had one event. And it's a very successful, happy, friendly event down there, Golden Beach. But I think Baringa is going to be great for the area.

00:48:04Scott Trickett: Are you heading along to the launch?

00:48:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, actually, I've got a prior engagement this weekend. Okay.

00:48:11Scott Trickett: Well, they'll just have to wait for your appearance the following week, maybe. Or the week after. That's great. Anniversaries this week. We've also got a whole bunch of anniversaries, starting in Queensland again at Central Lakes.

00:48:23Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, then we can go down to what you like to classify as a state of greatness, Marriott Waters.

00:48:31Scott Trickett: Menai and Rooty Hill in New South Wales.

00:48:34Melissa Erbacher: Then Stanthorpe in Queensland again.

00:48:36Scott Trickett: I'm dominating the New South Wales events with Stockton.

00:48:39Melissa Erbacher: And then we head to Windsor Precinct in Tassie.

Sign-off

00:48:43Scott Trickett: All those events. They'll have fun this Saturday at parkrun. So you've got a prior engagement. Are you planning to have some fun this week?

00:48:54Melissa Erbacher: Well, I certainly hope so. I'm heading to a different state, one that I haven't parkrun in all year. Wow. In fact, one I haven't parkrun in since Wes was born. And you know what? He's 18 months old today.

00:49:07Scott Trickett: Wow. Wow. You don't visit the greatest state that much.

00:49:11Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I visited. I visited. I just haven't parkrun.

00:49:15Scott Trickett: Oh, there you go. You know what? There's a great event in the greatest state. Some may say it's the greatest event in the greatest state. It's close to me. We should head along.

00:49:26Melissa Erbacher: It's plural, you know, Scotty. It's more than one person.

00:49:29Scott Trickett: I reckon I can find more than one people that will vouch that it is the greatest event in the greatest state this Saturday. So you should come along. You should join us.

00:49:38Melissa Erbacher: You're talking it up pretty big. Well, this is it. I don't want to be disappointed.

00:49:43Scott Trickett: We're being silly. But you're coming to my home, which is the first time. Remember in year one of the podcast, you came and visited, but it wasn't on a Saturday. So we couldn't do an official parkrun, but we did a freedom run together. So you have actually visited Westerfolds.

00:49:59Melissa Erbacher: Well, see, no, when I went down, it was in like the first 12 weeks of the podcast. I think it was like March 2016. God, that was a long time ago. And you had a beard and you were the event, you were the Studley Event Director. I was. So you were determined to take me and Adam to Studley. So we obliged, you know, originally I wanted to do Westerfolds, but you're like, no, no, no, no, Studley's where it's at.

00:50:28Scott Trickett: Is that what happened? Yeah. It was such a long time ago, I've completely forgotten. I haven't forgotten my time as the Studley Event Director. That was all true.

00:50:37Melissa Erbacher: But then we did a freedom run of Westerfolds the next day to make up for it.

00:50:42Scott Trickett: And so you're bringing Wes back to his home?

00:50:45Melissa Erbacher: Wes to Westerfold.

00:50:47Scott Trickett: Yep. Yep. That'll be good. You're coming to the home of your running club. You are a Westerfoldian.

00:50:54Melissa Erbacher: I am. Should I go code green? I probably won't, you know, because I don't really fit into that singlet. I'm waiting for a Christmas singlet, an Ugly Christmas Singlet to arrive that hopefully I'll be able to fit into.

00:51:09Scott Trickett: Maybe you might be able to fit into mine because I don't fit into it anymore.

00:51:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, who knows? Who knows?

00:51:17Scott Trickett: Who knows? Yeah. So that's good. That's good. Hopefully we show you a good time and you can give us a glowing or a scathing review on next week's pod.

00:51:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm a paid member of the running club, so I'm not likely to give you a scathing review, am I?

00:51:32Scott Trickett: I'm talking about the parkrun. I know the Westerfoldians is the greatest running club in Templestowe. Okay.

00:51:38Melissa Erbacher: So here's the thing. I'm probably going to end up pushing Wes around in the travel pram, which is not like a running pram. And even if it were a running pram, that's still like 30 kilos more than I actually want to push. Am I going to be on my own this weekend or are you going to run with me or will you run with Adam or try to beat Adam? Like how is it going to work for you, Scotty?

00:52:02Scott Trickett: I don't know. I haven't given it that much thought. I'll do whatever you want me to do, Mel. You're the visitor. I'm the host. I'll show you hopefully a good time. I don't know. It's up to you whether that's determined by me spending more time with you to have a good time or whether it's better if you just meet someone new and I run with Adam if I can keep up with him.

00:52:27Melissa Erbacher: Who knows? You've got the home course advantage. And I don't think he's moving particularly quickly lately anyway.

00:52:33Scott Trickett: We're a good match then. So that's great. So that wraps it up for Episode 141. We want to thank everyone who did order one of the Ugly Christmas Singlets. We also wanted to point out, we did mention that they were dinky-dye Aussie in last week's episode, sourced and made. They're going to be made here in Melbourne, the greater state, once again. So they'll be the greatest singlets. But also, have we got rich off this, Mel? Is this what's funding your trip down to Melbourne?

00:53:03Melissa Erbacher: No, no, we have made $0 off this, Scotty. We have passed all the savings and slash all the expenses on to the people. Yeah, no, there's no money coming our way. This is not a commercial enterprise.

00:53:20Scott Trickett: It's great for the company who made them and did all the ordering to get them. I think they made a bit of money. I hope they did anyway. Yeah.

00:53:29Melissa Erbacher: yeah, well, you want it to be worth their while so that they've got some pride in their work. And look, to be honest, their customer service has been absolutely incredible. Very, very good with how they've handled everything and looking forward to the shipments coming out. Hopefully, most people will get their stock in time for Christmas. And even though they haven't been able to guarantee the international orders, of which we received quite a few, there's quite a few singlets I think we're going to see pictures of in the UK and in future weeks or months or years, Scotty. They've said that they'll, you know, if any get finished even an hour earlier than others, they'll prioritise those to go to the international post because they know it's going to take a little bit longer to get there, which is just awesome in my opinion.

00:54:13Scott Trickett: It is. Yeah, it's great. We love our UK parkrunners. Yeah, to know that we've got people in the UK listening and wanting to wear a singlet with our silly nonsense on it is awesome.

00:54:23Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, gives us the warm fuzzies.

00:54:26Scott Trickett: So we've got two more episodes to go for the end of the year, and then we're going to have a little bit of a break, but that's it.

00:54:32Melissa Erbacher: That's it for 141.