Episode 147 - #palm19 preview

Welcome

00:00:18Scott Trickett: Another week has passed. We are on a roll. We are up to episode 147 of the parkrun adventurers or episode 4 of season 4. How about that, Mel?

00:00:32Melissa Erbacher: Oh, I like that.

00:00:34Scott Trickett: Yeah, I've started labelling our episodes this year under seasons because that's becoming a thing in the podcast world.

00:00:41Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, but, I mean, if you compare it to seasons on, like, Netflix, they all only go for eight episodes. So we could have – we're halfway through the season already.

00:00:51Scott Trickett: Yeah. Do you see where I'm going with this? It's going to be a short year. It could be a very short year. And after your bombshell last week where you dropped that on our listeners that you're having another baby, which means that I'm going to be looking for a co-host, which means let's make the most of these remaining few weeks together and just put in Top-notch podcasting.

00:01:14Melissa Erbacher: But see, here's the thing. I only had one week off after Wes was born. Yep.

00:01:19Scott Trickett: No, but then I had a few weeks off, so we sort of stretched it out a bit.

00:01:24Melissa Erbacher: So it seems like, yeah, you took paternity leave for a child that wasn't yours and living in a different state.

00:01:32Scott Trickett: I'm putting my foot down this year, Mel.

00:01:34Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:01:35Scott Trickett: I've made plans without you knowing. You will be replaced. I've lined up your replacement.

00:01:42Nicole: Oh.

00:01:43Scott Trickett: And we're going to give you a nice break. We're going to give you all the time you need.

00:01:46Melissa Erbacher: Whether I want it or not.

00:01:48Scott Trickett: Exactly, to bond with your new child, assimilate the family into four.

00:01:54Melissa Erbacher: I'm going on a parkrun podcast maternity leave, am I? Yes, yeah. Okay. Oh, I'm not sure how I feel about that.

00:02:03Scott Trickett: As I said, I'm putting my foot down, so you don't have a choice.

00:02:07Melissa Erbacher: Okay, do I go off before the baby is born? Like, how does this all work?

00:02:12Scott Trickett: I don't know. We've got to work out the timing and the logistics of all that, how it's going to happen. Look, this episode is all about we're going to get you excited for the parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup. We've got the legend from Highlands, Gary Murphy, coming on the podcast shortly, and he's going to inform us all about what's happening.

00:02:31Melissa Erbacher: It's not long to go now.

00:02:33Scott Trickett: It's a month away, so that might be sort of a nice time.

00:02:37Melissa Erbacher: What a good way to send off.

00:02:40Scott Trickett: Before you go on your maternity leave.

00:02:42Melissa Erbacher: No, you can't do that to me. You're going to make me waddle around The Beaches eight months pregnant and then not let me podcast anymore after it.

00:02:52Scott Trickett: Maybe I'll give you an extra week.

00:02:54Melissa Erbacher: Oh, gee, thanks. When did you become the boss of this podcast, can I just ask? Because last I heard we were supposed to be co-hosts. Season one. And I've been recording with you all this time, all these years, and I never really fully knew.

00:03:10Scott Trickett: Under a false illusion. But I always let you go first when you tell me where you were on the weekend because you were hobnobbing it with all the parkrun, what do we call them? They're not celebrities. They're ambassadors. Yeah, they're ambassadors, our lifeblood.

00:03:28Melissa Erbacher: I was, but you don't always let me go first. I'm sure you go first sometimes. Are you going to make me go back and listen to all our episodes just to see whether or not this assumption is true?

00:03:39Scott Trickett: Are you up to date with our episodes? Have you listened to every one of our episodes?

00:03:44Melissa Erbacher: I don't think I've listened to every one of our episodes.

00:03:47Scott Trickett: There you go.

00:03:47Melissa Erbacher: I'm halfway through last week. I am trying to catch up. I have had a couple of fairly long drives this week, which has helped me get caught up on podcasts.

00:03:58Scott Trickett: I'll tell you what, this is a great segue. I'll go first. Because on my way to parkrun on Saturday... I was travelling alone. I was heading to Studley's third anniversary, and I was listening to podcasts on the way. And one of my favourite podcasts at the moment is this little podcast out of the UK called With Me Now. It's one of my faves too. Yes, it is. And we love Danny and Nicola, as we've stated many times before. But on this particular episode, old mate Danny had a crack at you. At me? What for? He questioned your integrity. He called you a cheater for manipulating stopwatch bingo or trying to manipulate stopwatch bingo. Now, there are rules in parkrun that we have to follow.

00:04:49Melissa Erbacher: In parkrun, yes.

00:04:51Scott Trickett: Yes, in the parkrun world, there are rules that we have to follow. And then there are the guidelines. And then there is stopwatch bingo where I would suggest no rules apply. So with Danny's words fresh in my mind, I knew that I have one remaining time in stopwatch bingo. 48 seconds is all I need. So again, with Danny's words ringing in my head, as I approach the end of the five kilometres at Studley parkrun, I cross the bridge. It's a great suspension bridge there. Do you remember it?

00:05:24Melissa Erbacher: I do remember it, yes. It is a great bridge. Is it?

00:05:27Scott Trickett: So I crossed that bridge and I looked down at my watch and it was like it was a 48 seconds and I was nearing the end.

00:05:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you're only like 50 metres from the finish line really when you cross the bridge that last time.

00:05:38Scott Trickett: So I was determined to manipulate to get my 48 seconds.

00:05:46Melissa Erbacher: Don't tell me you've beaten me to the stopwatch.

00:05:50Scott Trickett: You can call bingo and stopwatch bingo already. Well, here you go. So I get to the finish line and I pull up about 10 metres short and I've got like 30 seconds to go.

00:06:01Melissa Erbacher: It's funny, isn't it? Because it's like, what do you do? Do you just sort of stop and you whistle and, you know, you can see the volunteers looking at you wondering what the hell you're doing.

00:06:11Scott Trickett: So I literally stop. I literally stop. And the time keeps going, keep coming, keep coming. Like they think that I don't know what I'm doing.

00:06:17Melissa Erbacher: Like you don't know where the finish line is at the event that you launched.

00:06:21Scott Trickett: Yeah. Nobody knows me there anymore. So it's great.

00:06:24Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:06:25Scott Trickett: So I'm just waiting and waiting. And then like all these people start coming through. Yeah. 30 seconds is a long time. And they broke the record at the start. It was over 300 people. But that's cool. I don't really care. I just jogged around anyway.

00:06:39Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:06:40Scott Trickett: So I'm waiting, I'm waiting. And then I look down at my watch and I'm like 10 metres away and I panic. It's about 43, 44 seconds.

00:06:48Elle: Idiot.

00:06:50Scott Trickett: But then this group of young girls come through at the same time and then I'm the guy that's sprinting to get across. Yeah. So I did the gentleman thing and said, oh, look, no. You guys go. And then, of course, you know what happened. I missed most of the question. Because I was too much of a gentleman. I was being too polite. I didn't want to. Sprint across the line to get it. But I was so bummed because I knew I was doing it. I watched the Timekeeper at the start with her finger to press on the app.

00:07:30Melissa Erbacher: So you get yours as close as possible yourself.

00:07:33Scott Trickett: I pressed exactly the same time and I crossed the line and my watch said the same time as the official time.

00:07:40Nicole: The official time.

00:07:42Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:07:42Melissa Erbacher: Which was what in the end? Was it 49 or was it 50? 50.

00:07:46Scott Trickett: I think it might have been 50.

00:07:48Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:07:48Scott Trickett: It might have even been 52. I can't remember. As soon as I crossed, I knew I'd blown it.

00:07:56Melissa Erbacher: I'm just picturing it with all the girls running in and you're trying to beat them because there is that panic. Like when you've stopped or you've slowed down so substantially, it's like, but I don't know how to pace at that pace. Like how many metres – How fast do I cross five metres in general? Like, can I do that in 10 seconds or is that too fast or too slow? It's an art form. Oh, dear, Scotty. Thank you for the laugh. That was priceless.

00:08:28[laughter]

00:08:32Scott Trickett: The moral of the story or the tale of the story is, you know, maybe don't try and manipulate. You stop, watch bingo, just let it happen.

00:08:41Melissa Erbacher: Well, see, this is the thing. Okay. And I will confess, I did hear their podcast yesterday. So, I knew he had a bit of a crack at me, but I don't take these things too seriously because I kind of disagree with the let it happen naturally. Like, the people chasing their alphabet, they're not letting the letters happen naturally. The people who are chasing Wilson Index, of which Danny and Nicola are actively doing, they don't let those events happen naturally. So, I'm not entirely sure why bingo's different. And I kind of thought, okay, well, maybe it's because it's supposed to be a game of chance, like the actual game of bingo is it's all about your luck and the luck of the draw. But if that were the situation, we'd all start with different playing cards. And we've all got the same card. Everybody's looking for the same numbers. So, you know, it just doesn't make much sense to me. Not going to hold it against you, Danny, in case you were worried.

00:09:48Scott Trickett: We tackle all the big issues here on the parkrun adventurers. And... Let's put that to bed. Let's never discuss. Stop watch bingo ever again. Let's just let it happen because we know you've got it. Let's just let it happen for me. When it happens, it happens.

00:10:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, I haven't got it. I still have two things to get. So it's still a competition, Scotty. I will be bringing it up again.

00:10:11Scott Trickett: I can delete that. I can delete that. I can delete that. Delete everything I just said. I'm not paying attention. It's on. It's on. It's a race.

00:10:18Melissa Erbacher: Like Donkey Kong. It's a race.

00:10:21Scott Trickett: Don't watch Bingo.

00:10:23Melissa Erbacher: By any means necessary.

00:10:28Scott Trickett: That wraps up my parkrun from the weekend. I was representing the Backwards Hat Club because they had a hat theme because it was their third anniversary. It was their hat trick.

00:10:40Melissa Erbacher: And hats off to the volunteers, I hope.

00:10:44Scott Trickett: Yeah, you've done this before. Now, tell me about Stones Corner.

00:10:48Melissa Erbacher: Stones Corner was awesome. And we know or our regular listeners will know of Stones Corner as being the home event of Mr. Facts in a Haystack himself, Ian Hay. And I will be honest, I have been avoiding Stones Corner lately. In the summertime because rumour has it that it's quite exposed. It's not too shady and that it can get really quite warm during the summertime and technically – If I was going to pick a time of year to attend, it probably wouldn't have been in February, which is like kind of the peak of the hot season, really, where I live. But it was set as the particular date to catch up with a whole bunch of South East Queensland event ambassadors. And I did not want to miss out on that, nor did I want to miss out on the opportunity to get a new event when you were returning to one you'd already been to before. So, went we did to Stones Corner parkrun. Based on the scale that we're rating everything, Wesley gives this park five out of five once more. In fact, though, I think if he could have given this one six or seven out of five, he would have because... He had the most fun at any of the parks he's ever visited after a parkrun. The slide is just perfect for a child of his age. You know, it's got the right gradient. It's got the right amount of slippage. It's not too grippy. It curves around a corner with the right sides on. Somebody was bang on going, you know what? I'm making a slide for a 20-month-old chubby little boy. That's what they were designing when they designed it and they nailed it. So... Awesome park.

00:12:36Scott Trickett: Let's keep it at five out of five. Don't get controversial.

00:12:39Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:12:39Scott Trickett: Because once you start slipping on the scale, once we get a sliding scale going – Beyond five, that's when it gets complicated.

00:12:49Melissa Erbacher: Okay, so we'll cap him then. We'll keep it at five out of five.

00:12:53Scott Trickett: Five out of five.

00:12:53Melissa Erbacher: And the weather was perfect. So I don't know what it was like down in Victoria, but the Bureau of Meteorology started fairly early in the week last week, fear-mongering people into thinking that there was a cyclone on the way.

00:13:09Scott Trickett: Knock. It doesn't happen, does it?

00:13:13Melissa Erbacher: I know, right? It was pretty funny to see because we had a booking, I think, for breakfast for at least 30 people and that was just ambassadors and some of their immediate family or friends that they were bringing along with them. And Rhonda, who was organising it, did a brilliant job to herd all the cats together, tried to get confirmed numbers in the middle of the week. She's like, oh, look, you know, if anyone thinks they're not going to come because of the weather or for whatever reason, can you please let me know because I don't want to tell the cafe. 30 people are showing up and only have half a dozen. And I called it, like, straight up. I said, look... There's not going to be a cyclone. I don't care what anyone says. You can quote me this. It's going to be a fizzer and the weather will be fine. The only reason we wouldn't show up is if the event got cancelled due to flooding. And I said, that's if there's even any rain, of which there was none. I was proved... Absolutely, 100% correct. There were a bunch of people who sort of called it a little bit earlier and said, no, we're not going to risk it and didn't come. But the weather was magic. It wasn't even hot. So all this time I've been avoiding it because of exposure and heat. It was just a cool, quietly breezy morning, perfect weather for running. I didn't have to run. Wes got – taken off me in the pram. So Adam even got a run in, which was nice. And just got to go out and mosey along and enjoy the course. I've tried to do alliteration with all the parkrun event names now. So because it was Stones Corner, I was thinking, well, is this a stumble or is it a stagger? So I think I've kind of gone with a stagger because it's sort of closer to waddle. So I had a Stones Corner stagger, on the weekend, and it was really nice, really nice. They actually broke their attendance record for no apparent reason, not because there was an onslaught of ambassadors, which there were, which was also awesome, but, yeah, just for no particular reason. Everyone was like, let's all go to parkrun today and let's do it at Stones Corner. So smashed their course attendance record, handled it brilliantly, and, yeah, great breakfast afterwards too.

00:15:31Scott Trickett: It was probably because of the Melissa Erbacher in town.

00:15:33Melissa Erbacher: Nobody knew I was coming, Scotty. Really?

00:15:39Scott Trickett: I would have ran with it.

00:15:40Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Yeah, but it was a great morning. Another fabulous post-parkrun breakfast, chatting to people. I mean, ambassadors are all good sorts. And it was great to meet some of their extended families, you know, like their children and their partners and stuff like that as well, because you do a lot of work and communication with your fellow volunteers in the extended parkrun family. And to actually meet with... their other halves and their kids and the people that you know also give up a lot of their time without any credit just because their partner is involved in this role um that's always really special too so another fabulous morning at parkrun big surprise

Interview Gary Murphy — Event Director, Highlands parkrun (Craigieburn, Melbourne); #palm19 listener meet-up…

00:16:34Melissa Erbacher: I've gone all quiet because I don't know. The words have escaped me for how to introduce our next guest. I'm crazy excited. I know Scotty's going to be excited. It's the gentleman himself, the wearer of the propeller hat, Mr. Gary Murphy, who is organising palm19. He's a roving reporter. He's an Event Director for Highlands parkrun. Gary, welcome to the parkrun adventurers Podcast as a guest.

00:17:04Gary Murphy: Thank you very much, Mel. Thank you, Scott. It's a pleasure and an honour to be on the podcast. I can let you know that.

00:17:11Melissa Erbacher: Well, you've started out very well by flattering us, so thanks for that, Gary. Can we start with, let's go to the first item on the agenda, which is the impending parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup for 2019. What is on the agenda for this year?

00:17:30Gary Murphy: Well, it's very exciting. We're starting off on Friday night, April the 5th, at Newy parkrun. We're doing a freedom run there at the course. We're going to do that from 5.30, and we'll have a special guest do the course description there. And then afterwards, we're going over to the Carrington Bowls Club, which is only a 450-metre walk from the finish line at Newy parkrun, or a one-minute drive, Google reliably informs me. So that's for dinner and a catch-up to meet with people that you haven't met before and to rekindle old friendships from last year's catch-up. And then Saturday in the morning is parkrun at the Beaches parkrun and followed by a live recording of the podcast by Mellon Scott. And then Saturday afternoon we may have a Choose your own adventure or there'll be something that the adventurers will be doing, but we'll let you know in due course when that's happening. And Saturday evening we'll be meeting at the Grain Store in Newcastle, which will be the traditional dress-up meet-up or catch-up or just fun dress-up. So last year we had a great time. We had lots of different dress-ups if you're stuck for ideas. So we had Woody from Toy Story. We had the Mexicans from South of the Border. We had Catwoman, Hawaiian shirts. We had trolls, witches. There was a Pat Cash or a Lleyton Hewitt. I'm not quite sure, but we can clear that up.

00:19:06Scott Trickett: He was a good-looking bloke, wasn't he?

00:19:07Gary Murphy: He was a good-looking bloke. Good-looking rooster.

00:19:10Melissa Erbacher: He was blonde, so I don't think it was Pat Cash, unless it was 80s Pat Cash.

00:19:16Gary Murphy: There's a few girls there too, but we'll let him back in. He was all right. There was a really great piglet. And Harry Potter and Hermione. So if you're stuck for ideas, that might help. Or just something that's fun. And if other people look at you, they'll think, geez, that group are having a lot of fun. And if you can't get dressed up, that's fine. We just want you there to meet you and talk to you and share your stories. But if you can dress up, that would be fantastic too. And on Sunday in Newcastle is the Newy Run Fun Run On. So there's events from marathon. There's a half. A double parkrun, so 10K. Our favourite distance, a 5K parkrun. And there's a junior parkrun distance to the 2Ks on Sunday as well. And I know we've got at least one team in that's doing a three in a team covering the marathon distance. So if anybody's up for that and wants to get a team together, they can jump on the Newy Run website and get involved in that.

00:20:17Scott Trickett: I might be eyeing off that 2K race. I might have a crack at that. I might get a first finish at that event. But, Gary, let's take it back to last year. You came to us with the idea, have this listener meet up. Mel and I, we weren't sceptical, but we were probably shitting our pants that nobody would actually show up. But we went along with it and we're so glad that we did because we had a great time. So what we want to do is we want to make sure there's more people coming this year or at least as many that came last year. And it's a great opportunity to meet other parkrun adventurers, isn't it? And you mentioned it there that just come along on Saturday night or come along

00:20:54Greg: to the dinners because we're just going to talk parkrun and touring and it's going to be lots of fun.

00:21:00Gary Murphy: Yeah, so I enjoy podcasts. I really love podcasts and one of the podcasts I listen to is the AvGeeks and that's an American podcast and they talk about aviation obviously from all around the world and they had an Australian desk so they had people from Australia where they talked about Australian aviation. But one of the things that they did was every year they meet up at the Smithsonian in Washington And so they get together and they talk to people from the industry and people come along that are friends of the podcast, I guess you'd call it. And I thought, well, geez, that'd be really great for the adventurers. And I put it to Scotty and Mel and you guys are really keen. And we put it out there and we got about 20 people come along to Shellharbour parkrun. And Brendan Scholarly was really great, the Event Director there, and helped us out a lot and made it really great. And it was just a really good chance to meet up with fellow parkrunners and adventurers and the people from Shellharbour parkrun. And it was just a really, I don't know, it was not parkrun on steroids, but it was just a really great opportunity to meet people that are passionate about parkrun. And you were at a place where Like I'm sure a lot of the people listening will go out to functions where they want to talk about parkrun and they feel guilty about talking about it because people won't know what they're talking about.

00:22:21Scott Trickett: It was a safe place, wasn't it?

00:22:22Gary Murphy: And it was a safe place to talk about parkrun, yeah.

00:22:25Scott Trickett: Yeah, no discrimination, no blowback if you just wanted to bang on about parkrun for the next 15, 20 hour, two hours.

00:22:32Gary Murphy: Yeah, and there was plenty of that. It was really good. And to meet people from different parkruns and share stories. was just fantastic. So this year we're hoping to get, I think we had probably about 20, maybe 25 come last year. So if we could get more than that, that'd be great. And I'm sure after everybody hearing about how great last year was that they'll want to come along and we'd welcome them to come along because we want to meet them. And it's good to put a face to names that you see on the Facebook page and meet people. And it's a good excuse. then to go and meet them at their parkrun and try their parkrun. So, yeah, it's a great thing. So we'd encourage anybody that can make it to come along.

00:23:14Melissa Erbacher: It's definitely one of those weekends where – and you talked about in the afternoon on the Saturday, there may be a choose-your-own-adventure or something else to sort of opt in, to take part in. But the whole weekend is kind of a choose-your-own-adventure because if you want to go to the dinners, you can and skip the Freedom Runs. If you just want to do the running parts, you can. Nobody is obliged to do anything else. that they don't want to do. And you can just pick and choose which parts. And you can come along just for all the Saturday stuff if you're a local and you can't quite fit in what's happening for the rest of the weekend and all that sort of thing too. So it works really well in that way. You mentioned, Gary, that there's going to be a special guest who's providing the pre-run brief on Friday afternoon, which is a bit exciting. But I don't know if everybody knows that there's at least – four confirmed roving reporters who are going to be in attendance this year which is up on I think we had two of you there last year so that's like is that 50 or 100 increase I'm not great with the maths I'm going 50 but but I'm the same as you Mel I'm not good on the maths either I think it might be 100.

00:24:29Gary Murphy: 100, yeah.

00:24:31Melissa Erbacher: It could be 200%, you know, if you multiply. Yeah, okay. Obviously, maths is not any of our strong points.

00:24:39Scott Trickett: This is not the maths podcast.

00:24:41Melissa Erbacher: It is not. It is not. It's the parkrun adventurers podcast. And I did like how you mentioned that it was a safe space too, Scotty, because, you know, you do see people even now out there in the world when you talk to them about parkrun and their eyes glaze over after about five minutes of enthusiastic chat. And this is not the crowd where that happens. You know, you can show up not knowing anyone and the whole weekend is going to be magic because parkrunner adventurers are just friends you haven't met yet.

00:25:12Gary Murphy: Perfect. I like that, Mel. That's the exact way to put it. I can't describe how last year was. Everybody that's listening loves parkrun and it's just, an extra addition to your parkrun. And like you said, it's a great, you don't have to come to every event. Maybe you just come to parkrun or you just want to come to dinner or just want to meet Mel and Scott or you want to meet someone that you've met or met online, but not actually met them physically. It's a great opportunity to do that. So yeah, it'll be a great weekend. It really will. And such a unique parkrun too, to run all on the beach at The Beaches will be something that not many people have done. And we had a taste of it at Shellharbour, so I think that's probably why we've picked the Beaches this year because it's such a, like I said, such a unique parkrun.

00:26:02Scott Trickett: Also a windy parkrun, one of the challenges. So we record the podcast live as well, and last year we had some challenges with the wind, and this year we've somehow managed to choose to do it by the beach again. But we'll work through that, and we're all looking forward to getting to the Beaches. Yeah.

00:26:20Melissa Erbacher: We didn't say it was an outdoor live podcast though, did we? Well, it's going to be outdoors.

00:26:27Gary Murphy: Sonja Pohlman and the event team at the Beaches have been really great. They've been helping me quite a lot and they've got access to the surf club. So if worse comes to worse and we need to access the surf club, they've got a spot for us there to watch you guys do the recordings. And we'll be out of the weather there. I don't know if people want to go back and look at the beach's Facebook page or even the parkrun adventurers listener page. We put a video up there of last week or the week before when the tide was right up and they were right up, right at the top of the beach. So the weather might be a factor, but we've just got to pray to the parkrun gods that it'll be a good day.

00:27:13Scott Trickett: I'm sure it will. I'm sure it will. I'm learning something every moment for this interview. Thanks, Gary. Now, I want to learn something a bit about Highlands parkrun that I don't already know because you're the Event Director out there. You share it with the lovely Sue. If I was to review it now, five out of five, guaranteed. Tell us a little bit about Highlands and tell me something that I don't know. Surprise me, Gary.

00:27:39Gary Murphy: Ooh. I'm on the spot. Jesus. We had a trick, it's trestle, but you knew that, so that's not a surprise.

00:27:47Scott Trickett: Was that a one-week-only thing?

00:27:49Gary Murphy: One-week-only. And we've had quite a few. We had Zoe Ellis come and do the statesmanship at Highlands, and so we had a Zoe zone that week. That was really good. And one of our birthdays, we've got a tiny little bush in one corner of the park, so that was the Bushy parkrun corner. So we like to name some of the sections of the course from time to time. But we're a three-lap course in the north of Melbourne, probably about 40 minutes north of Melbourne. And a lot of people don't like the lap courses, but it's really great for us because the volunteers get to see the runners three times and the runners get to, or walkers and the runners get to be encouraged three times. So it's really great in that way. And we're coming up in May to our sixth birthday. So we're looking forward to that. We're just working on what our theme will be for this year. We're excited about that. So, yeah, so it's going really well at Highlands and we love it.

00:28:49Melissa Erbacher: Coming up on your sixth birthday and you just broke the course attendance record recently, I don't think we've done that at my home event for about four years. So that's really impressive. How much sort of time and effort went into promoting the Bring a Friend Day?

00:29:08Gary Murphy: It was really funny. We didn't really put a lot of effort into it. We just put up a post on Facebook and And we wanted to have a crack at the record and we thought that we might go close. The week before, we'd gone close and then we actually broke the record before the Bring a Friend Day and we were a bit disappointed that we'd broken it that weekend, but it was great. And then we had the Bring a Friend Day and it was really great that people brought people that, that they didn't think would want to come and they just encouraged them to come along and, yeah, we broke it. I've just found it here, 281 we got. And it was really good because the team, the volunteer team, handled it really well and we didn't know if we'd have any issues, but we didn't. It actually ran really smoothly. So we've got a really great team of Run Directors and volunteers. So, yeah, we're really pleased with how it went.

00:30:03Melissa Erbacher: I think that's hilarious that you were disappointed you broke the attendance record the week before. It's like you're trying to save it for the following week.

00:30:14Gary Murphy: I know it was funny. It was like an anti-climax, and then we broke it again. It was really nice to do that in that couple of weeks. It was great.

00:30:24Melissa Erbacher: Now, Gary, you mentioned that the course is a three-lapper, but what does one lap consist of? Like, is it shady? Is it flat? Have you got undulations? Run me through a lap of the course.

00:30:37Gary Murphy: Okay, so we meet at parkrun Pergola, we've named it, and we do our run briefing there and then we walk a short distance over to the lake and we all start by a tree there at the start and we head in a... clockwise direction around our lake, and it's all concrete. And once we get around the other side of the lake, there's a section, it's only one little hill that we've got, and we call it Bill's Hill. And it's named after one of our parkrunners who, when we did a redesign of the course, because we had too many people at the start, and we needed to change that. And so Bill Page is a 85, 89 age group parkrunner. He measured our course for us. So we named the course after Bill. So it's a short little hill and then it's a gravel section after Bill's hill. And then we run down the back straight, which is all slightly downhill to another corner, which brings us back to the pergola. And that's about a mile, a lap. So then we do another two laps of that course. And we only need one Marshal up on Bill's Hill. And it's really great because we can see probably two thirds of the course. There's only one section that you can't see from the pergola. So the volunteers that are scanning or timing can see most of the parkrun for most of the time.

00:32:04Scott Trickett: It's an absolute cracking event, as I've said on this podcast before, and it's where I got my start. I'm bummed that our time together never really crossed over there, Gary. I think I was leaving when you were coming, but never mind. I've got a question, though. So you mentioned that it's 40 minutes north of Melbourne. So do you get many tourists? So if you're coming into Melbourne, I reckon the parkrun adventurers and the parkrun tourists probably hit up Albert Park and they go to Parkville, the ones that are easy to get to. So I'm curious, do you get many people actually visiting out to Highlands from interstate and internationally?

00:32:39Gary Murphy: It's funny because we're pretty close to the airport, but I think we don't really get a lot of tourists. We do get a few, but I think we're in the suburb of Craigieburn in Melbourne's north and we're actually called Highlands parkrun. So it was when Stocklands started the parkrun there or helped to start the parkrun, they wanted to name Highlands after the estate. So that's why we're Highlands parkrun. So I think people see Highlands and are not quite sure where that suburb is. So we don't get a lot. We get a lot of people that are coming to visit friends and they'll come and visit with their friends because they're close by when they're staying with them. But, yeah, we don't get a lot of tourists here, come along to Highlands but if you're hearing this please come along because we love having the tourists it's really great we get really excited when they come along

00:33:33Melissa Erbacher: Well, we can't wait to see you again at palm19 in just a few short weeks. Gary, you were the first person who wore a kilt to a parkrun that I was also at. So you will always hold a special place in my heart. I can't wait to see what your fancy dress is this year. Last year you were... I don't want to call you an Oompa Loompa, but you were wearing an orange suit, which was magnificent. And more people need to have those sorts of things in their wardrobe, just in general rotation. So I can't wait to see what you wear, get out at the fancy dress on the Saturday night as well thank you for joining us on the podcast this week I have you have definitely got me extra excited for palm19 um it's going to be upon us before we know it so we hope as many people join us as possible and come meet the amazing Gary Murphy because he truly is a legend of parkrun well I am excited about my costume now so thank you for mentioning that it is palm related so I'm really looking forward to getting there to

00:34:36Gary Murphy: Get that out. And thank you to you and Scott for all that you do for the podcast and parkrun and much appreciated. And looking forward to seeing everyone and meeting new people at palm19 in Newcastle.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Tony O'Connell — Mildura Weir

00:34:57Tony O'Connell: Howdy, parkrunners. It's Toc reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew. This week, Jacqui and I have ventured up to the lovely Mildura The sky around me is a beautiful shade of blue. We're on the banks of the Murray. This place is gorgeous. I'm sitting here with the Co-Event Directors, Greg and Nicole, and I'll get you guys to tell us a little bit about the course. So, Nicole, do you wanna start off and tell us a little bit about your course?

00:35:22Nicole: I think it's an amazing track. It follows the beautiful river along and well, they say Mildura is a pretty flat track but I reckon we found an alright little hill to get up near the homestead there and yeah, I love it.

00:35:35Tony O'Connell: Greg, some of the things, it's one of those courses that you run along and stop and take photos, which I always love a course that's like that, you know, down through the lock area and that. You've got a beautiful course out here.

00:35:46Greg: Yeah, magnificent. I think it's got to be part of our Event Director briefing is eyes up because you're just taking some magnificent scenery. I run that track a lot. It's part of my running schedule and I'm guilty. I don't look up and, yeah, you've got to do it. It's magnificent.

00:36:02Tony O'Connell: And one of the things I found probably the most incredible is travelling around parkruns, you see launches, you see a fairly big crowd turn up, and then in the weeks after, you see that little bit of a drop off. What's the secret of Mildura? We've got week three, you set an attendance record, you jump your figures by about 10%, and we've just had week four, and you've set another attendance record, and it's gone up another 10% on last week. That's amazing. I've never seen a parkrun that set attendance records in week three and four.

00:36:35Greg: I think we're a good community. I think we try to give people a good time. Every parkrun I've been to has been really friendly and I think we've just tried to mimic that a little bit, make people feel special from the first runner to the last runner, be encouraging with people. People go away with good stories and come back. It's no secret and I think it's what parkrun does.

00:36:58Tony O'Connell: You really are building that community. Just once again, the number of people that sat around at the finish line once they finished chatting. I had a couple of older gentlemen come up and talk to me, and they said they didn't know people at Mildura until parkrun started. And he said he now knows different people around. He's lived here for a while. To have achieved that four weeks into an event is amazing. It's really reflective of the community that you're building around parkrun.

00:37:25Nicole: Can I just say on that I can relate because I only moved here last year and so I didn't know anyone. And we were just talking about the fact that the event team, all the RDs, we didn't really know each other at all before this. And the team that we've got, the regulars we got from when we first put out the ROI interest and say, hey, we're thinking of starting a parkrun here. like that same core group of people have rocked up pretty much each week and just yeah they're really um supportive and just word of mouth these are just spreading so it's been fantastic for like us personally not knowing many people in the area as well it's been a huge thing for us

00:38:07Tony O'Connell: Typically, when you look at new events starting, you look at the results each week and you see a lot of people with 150 finishes and 70 finishes. It's people touristing around. Mildura's results are really exceptional. We're at week four and you look at the results and it's people that have done two and three parkruns. So you've brought a whole new community into parkrun. Last week, I think there was only a couple of people that had done more than 20 parkruns out of 220 finishes. That's just amazing that you've been able to bring so many people into a community so quickly.

00:38:41Greg: We'd love to hope we can sustain that and it's going to be fun. I suppose at week 50 we'll have some milestones. We might have some long pre-event briefings when we're coming up to that because there's going to be some milestones. But that's great. It's wonderful to see so many people coming back.

00:38:54Nicole: And so many families as well, and that was my focus when I said to Greg, you know, had I been setting this up at a different time in my life, you know, I probably would have chosen a different track and done things a bit differently. But the family focus was just huge for me, and it's been so good to see so many kids. And kids that I can't jolly keep up with down on the track, they're out there having a ball.

00:39:18Greg: And I think that community thing as well, we're having people already sort of apologise saying, oh, I can't make it this week, I'm really sorry. That's fine, no worries at all.

00:39:28David Moss: It's that unwritten code you have to come and treat. No, not at all.

00:39:32Tony O'Connell: You've joined the cult, you must attend. Well, guys, welcome to parkrun. It's a beautiful course. This is an absolutely stunning course. I've loved coming up here. And congrats on what you've already built around the town. Well done. Oh.

00:39:46Greg: Thanks, TOC. Thanks, TOC and Jacqui. Thanks for visiting. We really appreciate your support.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report David Moss — Yowie

00:39:50David Moss: Hello, we're at Yowie parkrun and I'm with... Elle. Elle. Elle, what brought you to Yowie today?

00:39:58Elle: Well, we've come for a bit of parkrun tourism today. So we've got a few people that want to tick off their parkrun alphabet and why... Being Yowie parkrun, we thought it was perfect to come up here. It is just such a stunning parkrun too.

00:40:12David Moss: It is. And you seem to have a few teams of people, a few different shirts.

00:40:17Elle: We do. So we're here for Run Down Under day. So helping to raise money for defibrillators for parkrun. But we're also with Girls Run This Town. So a women's running group based on the north side of Brisbane.

00:40:28David Moss: Okay. Where on the north side?

00:40:30Elle: Around the Moreton Bay region. So heavily based in North Lakes though.

00:40:34David Moss: Okay, beautiful. And how many parkruns have you done?

00:40:38Elle: I'm in the 140 region.

00:40:40David Moss: Okay, getting up.

00:40:42Elle: Yeah, getting up there. And my kids are in the 80s.

00:40:45David Moss: And what got you into parkrun in the first place?

00:40:47Elle: Is there something else you do on a Saturday morning? Like, really? Did you used to do something else? No, no, no. It's just been a habit we've gotten into, and we hope that the kids think it's completely normal that this is what you do.

00:41:01David Moss: Yeah, it is. It's a good, healthy thing to do.

00:41:03Elle: It is, and a fabulous community. And it doesn't matter which parkrun you go to. You can have a chat to anyone, muck in at the last minute, and take some photos if necessary. It's just great.

00:41:13David Moss: Okay, beautiful. Thank you very much. No worries.

00:41:16Elle: Thank you.

00:41:17David Moss: Okay, I'm now with Esther who is the, are you the Event Director? Or one of two? One of two Run Directors. Run Director. Yep. Okay, and I believe you actually started Yowie.

00:41:27Esther: Well, actually my son initially, and then we got together with another lady, Sarah, who's now running the Lookout Milk Bar. She went overseas, and I continued with my son Joshua and myself, and then Charlie came on board about three weeks later, and the three of us have just gone with it.

00:41:48David Moss: And it's done really well. So this is week four of Yowie?

00:41:53Esther: Yes. But we have been running it since June last year at a non-professional parkrun. Getting our numbers up and getting the word out there about parkrun. and we've changed the course many times and yeah just getting it out in the paper and in the community and it's now this is our fourth official Yowie parkrun and yeah it's building each week and we should say uh Yowie is in Kilcoy and Kilcoy is not really the biggest of towns but you've got a really good turnout and a good group of volunteers oh yes it's it's lovely to see in each week we're building on that um our launch day we had 228 and that's just fantastic we had the mayor And Cheryl, one of our councillors, come and that brought many people. So it was lovely.

00:42:50David Moss: No, it was very good. And people today enjoyed the run as well. Oh, yes.

00:42:56Esther: And we had the Run Down Under crew and that brought our numbers up and it was fantastic to see. And they're fundraising to get a defibrillator, I think, for a parkrun that doesn't have one.

00:43:08David Moss: Which I'm glad to say I did see Yowie's got a defibrillator, yes yes thank you that has not been used no yeah yeah I don't ever wish to use it so I better just ask this um Yowie for anyone who doesn't know what is a Yowie? It's a mythical Aboriginal creature um

00:43:28Esther: Um, that's as far as I know at the moment, so.

00:43:31David Moss: Okay, so for anyone who does visit Kilcoy, Yowie parkrun is in Yowie Park.

00:43:37Esther: Yes.

00:43:38David Moss: And there is a statue of a mystical Yowie.

00:43:41Esther: Yes, that's right, yes. So, um, you may see him, you may not. But he was here on the launch, so he knows when to come.

00:43:49David Moss: Thank you for watching.

00:43:50Esther: Thank you.

00:43:50David Moss: Okay. Look, thank you very much for an enjoyable day. Clouds have come out. I wish that was the case about 30 minutes ago. Yes. No, it feels great now.

00:44:00Esther: All right. Thank you, David.

00:44:02Melissa Erbacher: Thank you. And we had TOC at Mildura Weir chatting to the EDs there, which is very cool. Thanks, TOC. And Dave Moss checking in from Yowie parkrun, where he also spoke to one of the co-EDs and a parkrun adventurer, Elle. Love your work, gentlemen.

00:44:21Scott Trickett: You know, I've been to Mildura. We had a summer holiday there a couple of years ago. It's stinking hot. But the whole time I was there, I was planning out this parkrun, and I think they run where I ran. So I'm kind of taking credit for the success of Mildura Weir parkrun because it's been a massive success.

00:44:39Melissa Erbacher: So you planted the seed in the ether, didn't actually tell anyone about this course, alleged course?

00:44:45Scott Trickett: Look, I'm an influencer.

00:44:47Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:44:48Scott Trickett: And if I just go for a run, it influences other people to create an event.

00:44:55Melissa Erbacher: They want to follow in your footsteps.

00:44:58Scott Trickett: You know why I've got such a big ego, Mel, this week?

00:45:01Melissa Erbacher: Just this week?

00:45:02Scott Trickett: No, I don't. You know why I'm coming off as a complete wanker this week?

Flashback

00:45:07Melissa Erbacher: Tell me.

00:45:07Scott Trickett: Let's go to the flashback segment and it will all become clear.

00:45:13Melissa Erbacher: So this week we are flashing back to the 12th of January. We are slowly catching up in time to where we actually are now. And 12th of January was an adventure weekend for both of us, Scotty. Where were you?

00:45:28Scott Trickett: I was down at the sunny Inverloch that wasn't actually sunny on the day I was there, chasing my eye for my alphabet challenge. Where were you?

00:45:37Melissa Erbacher: I was at Mansfield, Queensland. Surprisingly enough, in Queensland.

00:45:43Scott Trickett: So there's three Mansfields, I think. That's the event that has three different. There's one in the US, one in the UK, and obviously the best one down here.

00:45:53Melissa Erbacher: Well, that makes four, because we've got one in Queensland. There's one in the US, as well as one in the UK.

00:45:59Scott Trickett: Our one down here is called Mansfield Botanic.

00:46:01Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I know, but...

00:46:02Scott Trickett: So there's a bit of a difference.

00:46:03Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:46:05Scott Trickett: Anyway, well, tell us about the one in Queensland.

00:46:07Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, I want to know why your ego's so big.

00:46:10Scott Trickett: Oh, okay. So we go to Inverloch. And our old mate, TOC, who we've just heard from, that's his event. And he wasn't there, so I got it. Didn't get a chance to experience Inverloch with the man himself because it was the weekend of a big trail running event down here in Victoria. But Inverloch was pumping, lots of tourists in town. It was in holiday season. It's by the beach, so there's a big crowd. And Toc had pre-warned them that I was going to be there because I'd reached out to him.

00:46:41Esther: I said, are you going to be there around that weekend?

00:46:43Scott Trickett: Let's catch up. So during the pre-event briefing, they said, we've got a celebrity with us. We've got a celebrity. He walks amongst us.

00:46:53Melissa Erbacher: They used the C word.

00:46:55Scott Trickett: Yeah, they did. They did. And then they introduced me to just lots of her. And looking around to see like it.

00:47:05Melissa Erbacher: How awkward was that?

00:47:07Scott Trickett: Mel, it was a month ago. It was over a month ago. I think I put my hand up and just acknowledged it. And then people go, oh, yeah, right. So that was my takeaway from Inverloch. I also had a nice little run there, pushed it a little bit, and I was pre-warned going down, Mel, that it's Inverloch and it's by the beach, but you can't see the beach because there's bushes and there's trees covering the beach. But I saw a lot of beach when I was riding along Inverloch. Did you?

00:47:32Melissa Erbacher: Because you do have a habit of not seeing water where water is.

00:47:37Scott Trickett: Apparently, apparently. But no, at Inverloch, I definitely saw water. I definitely saw sand. It's a great little run. It's a fast run. No hills whatsoever.

00:47:52Melissa Erbacher: And you got your eye for your alphabet.

00:47:55Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:47:55Melissa Erbacher: Intentionally, as it were.

00:47:58Scott Trickett: Intentionally, yeah. So we were sort of halfway in between. There's an event called Koonwarra that's got some big wraps on it. It's got lots of bridges, which we know that I'm keen on. to run across a bridge or two.

00:48:11Melissa Erbacher: You're rather partial.

00:48:12Scott Trickett: Yep. And it was actually, I think it was closer to us where we were actually staying. But we were chasing the eye. We wanted the eye. The Tricketts were all together and this was our only opportunity. And we got it. We got our K. We got a few Ks. Don't need any more Ks.

00:48:32Melissa Erbacher: But it's always sunny at Inverloch too. It's definitely on my must-do list. Goodness only knows what I'm going to get down there.

00:48:39Scott Trickett: And Mansfield, Queensland, take us back.

00:48:41Melissa Erbacher: Mansfield, Queensland was a lovely course. So whereabouts it's situated, it actually sort of runs the event – well, it starts in a park, which is another great park. Wes rates it highly, just so you know. Heaps of space for everybody to mill about and socialise afterwards. And it runs – for the majority of the course along Bulimba Creek, which is a very long creek because it also is home to two other parkrun events. It's got Minnippi and Wishart. You know, sort of if you zoom out, it's like there's one parkrun and you go further down the creek and there's another parkrun and you go further down the creek and there's a third. So it was the second of the three events, that we had done along the Bulimba Creek. And it was lovely and shady. The pre-event brief, like the first time is brief, where they sort of explain the course. And I'll be honest, I don't usually listen very much because I'm not going to be at the front. You know, directionally, all I got to do is follow the people in front of me. But this particular time, I listened. And it's like, oh, yeah, and you do this and you follow there and et cetera, et cetera. And you turn around at the paperbark tree. And I'm like, oh. Well, that'll be easy to remember. I love paperbark trees. But the tree that we turned around, I'm pretty sure that wasn't a paperbark tree. So I don't know if my botanic knowledge and horticulture is letting me down and that was some species of paperbark tree. Probably not super important. It was fairly obvious it was the tree to turn around anyway because there were cones and it was a well-worn path. But, yeah, I just thought that was an interesting descriptor for it. Anyway, yeah, fabulous event. The Event Directors, both very friendly, met them after the event and they followed – well, they didn't follow us, but they returned the visitation favour the following week and came and visited us at Kawana. But that's for another flashback.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:50:53Scott Trickett: Let's catch up with the parkrun calendar in Australia. And we've got a launch this week at the Narromine Wetlands in New South Wales. Also got a few anniversaries. Yep. We've done this before, Mel. You know what comes next. But the anniversaries in Calleya in WA.

00:51:14Melissa Erbacher: Largs Bay in South Australia.

00:51:17Scott Trickett: Now, Plantation's back on the calendar. Remember, we mentioned them a couple of weeks ago, but they were underwater. Yeah.

00:51:23Melissa Erbacher: We did. Is it their actual anniversary that they're going to celebrate?

00:51:27Scott Trickett: They're celebrating it this weekend, yes. They're back in town. Excellent. They're back up and running, so they're going to celebrate this week.

00:51:35Melissa Erbacher: Happy to hear it. And there's also another one in Queensland, White Rock, that we'll be celebrating this weekend.

Sign-off

00:51:43Scott Trickett: Mel, I want to talk, as we finish up 147 of the parkrun adventurers, I want to talk podcasts. Okay.

00:51:51Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:51:52Scott Trickett: I want to get – I've done this a few times on the pod in the past and it doesn't really go very well, so I want to try it one more time. I want to get some iTunes reviews. Oh, okay. Because they're usually pretty good. People that listen to us like us. Like, refused to use this app did in January 2019. Thanks to Mel and Scotty and all the guests. You are part of my podcast family. Five stars. Thumbs up emoji.

00:52:21Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's nice.

00:52:24Scott Trickett: The next one's even better.

00:52:26Melissa Erbacher: It is. We actually got a rating. Like, there were five stars, but there was also a 10 out of 10 recommended.

00:52:33Scott Trickett: Wasn't enough.

00:52:35Melissa Erbacher: So that's like the title of it. It's not like one out of five dentists. It's 10 out of 10 recommend. But the comment itself actually says, I could not get enough of this podcast. It's the best. There's lots of exclamation marks. Thank you so much, Mel and Scott, for the laughs and all things parkrun. It is quite nice reading nice things about us, isn't it, Scotty?

00:53:00Scott Trickett: It is. So we'll stop there. But we want to hear more. So pop along to iTunes. I know I mixed things up last week. I did some background work and changed some settings and whatever. But I think everyone still managed to find the podcast this week. The downloads were still consistent.

00:53:18Melissa Erbacher: Okay, that's good to know. We didn't lose too many people in the technology translation.

Podcast recommendations

00:53:25Scott Trickett: We're sharing the podcast space now with a big name. And we've liked in the past to recommend other podcasts for you to check out. There's a man... going by the name of Ron Burgundy. Remember him?

00:53:39Melissa Erbacher: I do. I know Ron Burgundy.

00:53:41Scott Trickett: Wow. He's trying to muscle in on our turf, and he's put out the Ron Burgundy podcast. It's worth a listen. Yeah. I think you'll enjoy it. I'm mentioning it because I think our listeners will enjoy it.

00:53:56Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm intrigued. What's it about?

00:54:00Scott Trickett: Well, I listened to it today and they had their Christmas episode. Oh, awesome. Christmas memories in February. And, you know, you think Ron Burgundy and all the issues that he's going to tackle. One of his early guests, Deepak Chopra.

00:54:20Melissa Erbacher: Wow. Okay. One of his early guests. So he's not starting entry level. No. We need some more reviews, I guess, to try and compete.

00:54:32Scott Trickett: So what have you got? Have you got any recommendations? I'm putting you on the spot here. I didn't tell you that I was going to do this.

00:54:38Melissa Erbacher: Podcast recommendations? Yeah. Have we talked about this before? Because I don't want to repeat ground that I've gone over.

00:54:46Scott Trickett: Well, then just give us a new one then.

00:54:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, what if I don't have a new one?

00:54:51Scott Trickett: Then say I don't have a new one and we'll wrap up episode 147.

00:54:55Melissa Erbacher: Okay, but I can't remember if we've talked about this on the pod or if it's off the pod talk. Can you remember if I've recommended Blank Check with Griffin and David before?

00:55:05Scott Trickett: No. No. Not on or off. So tell me about it.

00:55:09Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So Griffin and David have this podcast series called Blank Check. And basically it's about, they do, you'll like this because it's kind of seasons. It's serialized. They do a series of podcast episodes on a particular director who has been given what they deem to be a blank check to just go make whatever the hell they want. due to earlier successes in their career. So one example would be the Wachowski siblings, you know, effectively were given a blank check and based on The Matrix effectively. And yeah, they do all different directors and they go through and they do the whole back catalogue of all their films and they watch it. It's definitely a spoiler of the thing. Don't listen if you haven't seen the film and you don't want to know pretty much everything that happens because it's Each episode goes for like two hours or the length of the film. I think they actually did a series on the Star Wars movies and the actual series of podcasts went for longer than the series of movies. And they did the same with Titanic as well when they were recording, talking about James Cameron. But it's fantastic if you've seen a particular film that you really enjoyed or something that you hated. You can listen to these guys, and they're really funny and very entertaining and engaging. So that's my pick. Not podcast-related, I mean parkrun-related, not running-related, even remotely, but good entertainment value nonetheless.

00:56:53Scott Trickett: Perfect, Mel. We're not one-dimensional. here on the parkrun adventurers. I mean, it's Oscars week. This could be the Oscars episode. So it's very timely.

00:57:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go.

00:57:06Scott Trickett: I'm going to end the show singing Shallow.

00:57:09Melissa Erbacher: Are you?

00:57:10Scott Trickett: You want to do a duet? I'm putting you on the spot again. I'll do the gaga bits.

00:57:14Melissa Erbacher: You'll do the gaga bits.

00:57:18Scott Trickett: Because she's got the big bit. She's got the big, you know, crescendos and she gets to scream at it.

00:57:22Melissa Erbacher: I think you're just saying that so I have to do the Bradley Cooper parts and he starts first and you're not sure I'll go all the way through with it.

00:57:33Scott Trickett: Well, let's try. Let's test it out. Have you got the lyrics in front of you? Or do you know them off by heart?

00:57:38Melissa Erbacher: I may have listened to this song on Spotify a little bit, possibly saw their Oscar performance on YouTube a couple of times. But no, I'm shy, Scotty. I don't do the solos. I only sing when I've got the roving reporters to back me up. And we're all there together as a team and a chorus.

00:58:03Scott Trickett: So what you're saying is we're going to sing it at palm19?

00:58:07Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Let's do some random karaoke, possibly not while we're recording the podcast, but at some point over the weekend, we should totally sing Shallow.

00:58:19Scott Trickett: Okay. That's enticing. If the rest of the podcast didn't sell it to you, that's got to. Come to the live recording at the Beaches on the Saturday after parkrun.

00:58:30Melissa Erbacher: I don't know. Do you reckon that might scare people off? It might have a detrimental reverse effect than what we were hoping.

00:58:40Scott Trickett: Everyone loves that song, Mel. It doesn't matter who sings it. Everyone loves that song.

00:58:44Melissa Erbacher: Okay. And I will do the Bradley Cooper bits and Scotty will do the Lady Gaga bits.

00:58:52Scott Trickett: Got a month to practice. It's going to be special.

00:59:04Unidentified speaker: Thank you.