Episode 167 - Ian Rutson

00:00:00[music]

Welcome

00:00:18Scott Trickett: Episode 167 is coming at you, and it's a hot one, Mel. We might be in the depths of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, but goddammit, I'm hot this week. You're hot? Why are you hot, Scotty? I'm hot. I don't know. The heating's up in the house. Maybe I'm just excited. You know, the blood's rushing. I'm really pumped for episode 167.

00:00:44Melissa Erbacher: Maybe you're just getting some of the heat waves from the UK who I understand are having a bit of a heat wave.

00:00:51Scott Trickett: Yeah, yeah. Heatwave in the UK is called summer.

00:00:53Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I know. Isn't that funny?

00:00:55Scott Trickett: It's funny. It is funny. Or could it be, because I'm really excited about our episode this week, we've got a cracking guest that everyone would already know. Ian Rutson's joining us later. We've got the results from our Instagram showdown to go over. Yeah. Can't wait to hear about your adventures at parkrun this week. We've got a roving report from the G-Train, a new voice, one we've heard before, but it's been a while between...

00:01:27Melissa Erbacher: The G-Train, does he know you call him that?

00:01:30Scott Trickett: He calls himself that. Okay. Mel, you need to listen to these roving reports. They take the time to do them, Mel. You should take the time to listen to them. I... And... Okay. And so, yeah, just really excited about this episode. So let's crack on with... How was your parkrun day this week?

00:01:48Melissa Erbacher: My parkrun day, Scotty, was very quiet. So quiet, it was almost like I was sleeping in my bed.

00:01:58Scott Trickett: Numbers are dropping at Kawana this week, are they? Well, they were dropping, actually.

00:02:05Melissa Erbacher: They were down approximately four Erbachers this week because we didn't make it to parkrun on Saturday.

00:02:13Scott Trickett: You went somewhere else or you...

00:02:16Melissa Erbacher: We actually had plans to go somewhere else, but the plans had a little bit of an asterisk at the end of them, and the asterisk was if we had a rough night and or the levels of snot had not reduced significantly from our two little boys, and they had not. So we decided it was the responsible parent thing to do to make let everybody sleep and get some healing time in the warmth of their own beds rather than dragging them out in the middle of the night to get them all cold and exposed to the elements.

00:02:56Scott Trickett: So you were under the weather as well on Saturday?

00:03:00Melissa Erbacher: I was under the weather of the boys. I was fine. I could have gone off by myself, but I didn't think it was a great idea just leaving them with Adam, especially as I am Emmett's only food source at this time.

00:03:14Scott Trickett: Yeah, I guess that's a good enough excuse. One in all, when if one of you is sick, you're all sick. I get it. I get it.

00:03:22Melissa Erbacher: But where were you, Scotty? I'm hoping – Do you want to hear about my day? Yes, please. Tell me. I need to live vicariously through you.

00:03:30Scott Trickett: Okay, so I hinted last week's episode that I thought I'd have something exciting to take a photo for Instagram.

00:03:37Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, something special you were working on.

00:03:40Scott Trickett: Well, we were going to be on a TV show. It was a TV show that had reached out to Ballarat and said, we want to come and do a segment. Anyway, that fell over. late in the week. So I was a free agent. I could go wherever I want. And I've got to tell you, Mel, I spent more time than I thought I would trying to decide on Friday night where we could go. I wasn't factoring in P-indexes. I wasn't factoring in, like, if there was any special events going on. I was kind of just sort of factoring in Where do I want to go? Which event do I want to revisit? And we settled on the mighty Highlands up in the north of Melbourne. Now, I want to start off by saying Highlands, it's got a cool sounding name, but a lot of people actually don't know where it is. So it's in a suburb called Craigieburn, which is about 40 to 50 minutes north, north of the CBD. I don't think they get a lot of visitors but the locals have really embraced it and I love going there. I had an awesome morning. I love the people there. I love that I reckon about 50% or 40% of them are walkers. So much to the point that Kasia and Ivona walked and they weren't at the back of the field, which is refreshing, I guess, because quite often Ivona and Kasia are one of the last ones to come in if they decided to walk. We might do a bit of a deep dive on that. The experience of the walker, because Mel, it's not always 100% positive, but at Highlands, it definitely is. It's three laps around a man-made lake. It's flat. You get to see people a lot. Great vibe, great community. Got to parkrun with Mr. Gary Murphy. Got to meet a bunch of podcast listeners that, Mel, these are people that actually do listen to the podcast. They knew who I was. They made references to things that happened that we've said in the podcast. So my ego was fed and I just had some great parkrun chat. That's lovely to hear.

00:05:47Melissa Erbacher: Random question. Highlands parkrun in Craigieburn. These are all very Scottishy kind of references. Why is it called Highlands and were there anyone in kilts there this weekend?

00:05:59Scott Trickett: That's a good question. We need to do a parkrun wiki thing like the With Me Now guys do. I don't know. Actually, we don't because that's their thing. But maybe we should just do a bit more research. It's called Highlands because the housing estate that it's set up in is called Highlands. I don't know. Is Craigieburn a Scottish name? Definitely. It sounds a bit Scottish. Definitely. Say it with your best Scottish accent, see if it sounds authentic.

00:06:27Melissa Erbacher: Oh, no, I can't do it justice. But you live there now. I know, and I'd probably still end up sounding Irish.

00:06:36Scott Trickett: Okay. So, yeah, it's called Highlands because that's where the housing estate is called. And kilts? Any kilts? Kilts? Look, I've seen photos from time to time of Mr. Gary Murphy in a kilt. I think it's a theme that they've run with. from time to time. No, no kilts on Saturday.

Instagram showdown — Scott Tricketthost photo competition

00:06:54Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:06:54Melissa Erbacher: Well, do we want to wait until the very end of the pod to reveal whether or not your entry into the Instacomp was victorious?

00:07:04Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, I haven't checked. I haven't checked. So, yeah, give me time.

00:07:08Melissa Erbacher: I'll be honest, Scotty. I literally only just checked Instagram to see what photo you even loaded. Okay.

00:07:17Scott Trickett: Don't spoil the surprise, Mel. Who's going to win?

00:07:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, I don't know. See, judging by the fact that I wasn't at parkrun, that might give some people a bit of a tip-off, but we'll see. We'll see. Cliffhanger.

00:07:28Scott Trickett: But I thought you would have come in over the top with a cute photo of Emmett like you threatened Emmett and Wes, and I thought I'd have no chance.

00:07:37Melissa Erbacher: But if I wasn't even at parkrun, that doesn't seem like it's very fair.

00:07:41Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm just looking now. I'm pretty confident.

00:07:47Melissa Erbacher: And I can't get in with a late entry for my parkrun adventure anyway. I did have a parkrun adventure, Scotty, just so you know. However, I didn't think it was fair because we mentioned last week that the rules were that we would both post at the same time so that, you know, we're hitting the same amount of traffic, all that sort of thing. And I didn't think it was fair to post a couple of days later. Yeah.

00:08:14Scott Trickett: So I win.

00:08:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, I thought we were going to leave it as a cliffhanger.

00:08:19Scott Trickett: Well, I think you've given it away there, Mel. You just said you didn't post. So I win by default. Yes. I'll take it.

00:08:26Melissa Erbacher: You said last week you would take it. So the glory is all yours, Scotty, this week.

00:08:32Scott Trickett: Yeah. And the crowd agrees. Thank you. It's about time. It's a long time coming, a victory over you, Mel. They're just happy to see me win once, you know. You've proven time and time again you are the people's favourite. You are the funnier one. So now it's just nice to have a victory. And Instagram.

00:08:34[applause]

00:08:51Melissa Erbacher: All this self-deprecating stuff, Scotty. I don't know. Anyhoo, are you going to ask me about my parkrun adventure or do you want to leave that until the end of the pod?

00:09:04Scott Trickett: Well, I thought you didn't have one. You just said you didn't go.

00:09:06Melissa Erbacher: Well, I wasn't at parkrun on Saturday, but that doesn't mean I couldn't have a parkrun adventure.

00:09:12Scott Trickett: Did you go to Junior's? No, I did not go to Juniors. Okay. Well, you know what? I think people are dying to hear from Ian. So let's go to the Ian interview and let's pick up your parkrun adventure after we've chatted to Ian. Deal.

00:09:28[music]

Interview Ian Rutson — Technical Lead, parkrun Global

00:09:40Melissa Erbacher: We have decided to get another bit of a British accent on the pod against this week because that's what we love and we know all our listeners love it too. We have a very special person who we are, I say excited all the time, but I really, really mean excited this week. We've got parkrun Global's technical lead, Ian Rutson on the pod. Ian, welcome to the parkrun adventurers.

00:10:07Ian Rutson: G'day Mel. Hi.

00:10:09Melissa Erbacher: Oh, look, you're all sounding Aussie.

00:10:11Ian Rutson: That's it.

00:10:14Melissa Erbacher: It's always nice when the guests try to make us feel comfortable instead of the other way around. I'm really well, thanks, Ian. Thank you for joining us this week. Oh, my goodness, there's so many questions. I barely know where to start. How about, okay, what does a technical lead do in layman's terms, if possible?

00:10:37Ian Rutson: Yeah, well, I'll do my best. What's a technical lead do? So I look after all the IT infrastructure behind parkrun. So I look after results processing, serving the websites, and making sure everything keeps running so that everyone gets their results emails and volunteer emails and all that good stuff.

00:10:58Scott Trickett: So if something goes wrong on a Saturday morning, we're cursing your name or praying your name. Are you going to come to our rescue or have you caused the problem?

00:11:07Ian Rutson: That's a really good question. Sometimes I cause the problem. Even if I've caused them or I haven't, it's my job to fix them. So the technical team at parkrun is really, really small. There's me and Jake, effectively, who manage all the IT stuff. So between us, we break it and we fix it. We hope to fix it more often than we break it.

00:11:28Scott Trickett: So how does that work on your Friday night when we're waking up here in Australia? You're asleep.

00:11:33Ian Rutson: That's right.

00:11:34Scott Trickett: There's only two of you. Do you ever switch off?

00:11:39Ian Rutson: Fortunately, our systems are reasonably reliable and reliable. There's only so many ways they can fail. I do try to switch off. I do have a quick check round before I go to bed on a Friday night to check everything's running okay and the first results have come in from New Zealand, which is a fairly good indication. If the first ones work, the rest of them tend to.

00:12:02Melissa Erbacher: Do you have any rules like let's not try out new things on Fridays just before the weekend?

00:12:08Ian Rutson: Oh, absolutely right. Yes. So we have software releases that would never happen on a Friday. If it's just a change of a word, for example, then we might consider it, but anything more major than that, anything with any logic behind it, we would never ever release on a Friday. It is almost guaranteed to spoil your weekend.

00:12:27Melissa Erbacher: Well, I know that I've seen you up late at night fixing things behind the scenes for us in Australia. So we're always very grateful for your help. And So many people wouldn't even know that things ever got broken because you fix them before they cause major catastrophes. And I'm sure our event teams out there as well, if they knew the extent of what you guys were doing, they would be the ones praying, as Scotty was saying. So that aside, you – You have some pretty decent superpowers because of what you can do. I've also received a screenshot from you at one point where you had completely wiped my run history, my parkrun history, all my volunteers, everything was zero. You very nicely reinstated it afterwards. But, you know, you showed me what you were capable of. And I'm just wondering, are you the only person with those kind of superpowers? And have you ever used them for evil?

00:13:29Ian Rutson: Oh, for evil, no. For the odd bit of hijinks every now and again. I didn't actually delete all your results, Mel. It was just the front. I just edited the page so it looked like your results were deleted. I wouldn't actually delete anyone's results.

00:13:43Melissa Erbacher: It was like a Photoshop thing, was it?

00:13:46Ian Rutson: If you like, yeah.

00:13:48Melissa Erbacher: Okay. That's what you're going to tell people.

00:13:50Ian Rutson: Yeah.

00:13:51Melissa Erbacher: Just so you don't get in trouble.

00:13:53Ian Rutson: So lots of people around the world have access to all the results, so the operational teams in the major territories have access to those, but there's only me and Jake who have that deep access into the database where we can change things en masse really easily if we wanted to. I feel I should have a white cat on my lap here and be stroking it. I feel like a Bond villain.

00:14:20Scott Trickett: Well, let's paint you in a better light. So, I mean, parkrun has grown. We've talked about it a lot on the podcast over the years, and it's continuing to grow. How are you coping with more and more results coming in, more and more people registering? Like we had our six millionth last week. That's only going to get bigger and bigger. Yeah. How are you coping with the growth? Is the system handling it? Are you having to continually update it?

00:14:48Ian Rutson: Yeah, we've got a continuing program of updating things that are getting closer and closer to what would be a breaking point. So all of our systems are now in the cloud. There's no sort of physical servers sat in a server room anywhere. We rent all our servers from Amazon through their AWS, Amazon Web Services platform, and And almost everything in the infrastructure is completely scalable. So, for example, we have a server that serves the front-end websites. So if you go to your local parkrun's website and look at the results, that's handled by a particular type of server. So during the week, there's two of those serving all the traffic around the world, which is fairly light during the week. And then at the weekend, that scales up automatically. So at 11 o'clock on a Saturday morning there's 15 to 20 of those servers running, doing exactly the same thing, so it handles the load better.

00:15:41Scott Trickett: And how are you coping with, as we bring on new countries, different languages that just look funny? They go different directions, the languages. You know, I'm talking specifically about Japan and I guess Russia in that regard. Are our systems able to cope with all that stuff?

00:15:56Ian Rutson: Yeah, sure. There are limitations. Launching parkrun Japan was one of Jake and I's biggest technical challenges over the last year or so. Fortunately, Japanese is left to right. We don't have any right to left. countries in the parkrun world just yet so if we Launching any of the Arabian countries where Arabic is right to left, that would be a fairly significant challenge. One of the things that we're working on at the moment is being able to have websites in multiple languages. So, for example, in part of Canada, they have official languages of French and English. And our aim is to hopefully sooner rather than later be able to switch between the two for Arabic, those people who use French in Canada.

00:16:48Melissa Erbacher: And would that – so, I don't spend a lot of time looking at the countries where I don't speak the language and things like that. So, forgive me for being naive about this, but at the moment, is there an option for somebody to view the Russian websites in English? Yes.

00:17:07Ian Rutson: Only using Google Translate. So if you visit parkrun.ru and right click on the background and you're using Chrome browser, you can select an automatic translation to English, which I think how most people who visit other countries are navigating their way in the parkrun world.

00:17:24Melissa Erbacher: And is that on, is it, you know, for people, adventurers out there who want to travel to different countries and things like that, is that on the agenda at some point in the future for everyone to be able to view any of the websites in their home language? I mean, I guess there's so many languages in the world.

00:17:44Ian Rutson: Yeah, certainly the main content on the country pages that's fairly consistent over the countries we could do that for. And I think the aim will probably be to have every country, every event available in native languages, whatever they are, as well as English. which gives the automatic translations the best chance. We're never gonna get to the point where an event in South Africa has its course description in Polish, Russian, and Japanese. There's just too much, we need too much resource to keep translating those into every language that we support.

00:18:23Scott Trickett: You never say never. There might be some great app that comes along that auto-translates everything.

00:18:29Ian Rutson: You never know. Well, Google Translate does a really good job, actually. If you go to a Japanese course page or a Russian course page and ask the Google Translate to do its stuff, you will pretty certainly be able to find out where the start line is and how many laps it is and enough for a parkrunner to find and complete the course.

00:18:49Scott Trickett: One of the new introductions was the event maps.

00:18:52Ian Rutson: Yeah.

00:18:53Scott Trickett: Got updated, and I know you had a lot to do with it. Maybe you had everything to do with it.

00:18:57Ian Rutson: Yeah, that's my baby, yeah.

00:18:59Scott Trickett: Yeah, so I've got two questions for you. One, how did that come about? Because it was a long-requested feature that people were after. And how do you view the feedback once you – or do you watch the feedback as it happens online when that stuff gets released? Yeah.

00:19:15Ian Rutson: Yeah, absolutely. So how it came about, as everyone in the parkrun world is aware, we re-skinned the parkrun website about six months ago, something like that, maybe a little bit less. And as we were working through that process, both in-house work and through an agency in Australia who we're working with, it was clear that the two weakest parts of the website in terms of usability, especially with the new theme, were the map and the results pages. I'm a bit of a map geek and the fact that the map was so awful really sort of got under my skin. So one Friday night I sort of set about tackling it and got a prototype working really, really quickly. And then just got it to the point where it was ready for production. And I think it certainly looks a lot better, it performs a lot better, and it's using much more modern technology. But you talk about feedback. Yes, of course, we take all the feedback. We have a big group on our Slack, our in-house communication system, which is used by several hundred people, parkrun staff and ambassadors and partners, and we get a lot of feedback on the events, and certainly everything is read, everything is considered, and there are some improvements coming to the map in the next few weeks.

00:20:45Melissa Erbacher: Scott is probably wanting to ask what the improvements are, but I want to know what your favourite part about the map is, Ian.

00:20:53Ian Rutson: Oh, my favourite part. That's a really good question. I like the fact you can have junior events and 5K events on the same map and flick between them. But my favourite part is if you click on that compass rose and it shows you where you are and where your nearest events are. So the geolocation function.

00:21:11Scott Trickett: Ian, I'm a massive fan. That's just not company speak either. I think it's a massive improvement over what we had. So well done. Another thing that I know is requested often is an update to the WebFMS system. Are we going to make that more mobile friendly now that we're using the app? It's on our phone. It kind of makes sense.

00:21:33Ian Rutson: Yeah. It's on the radar. It's on the list of things that we want to improve. WebFMS is showing its age in terms of its technology, but the bottom line is it does actually work. So we're looking at... seeing if we can apply some minor improvements to make it more mobile-friendly, because it's actually an incredibly complicated piece of software that was written by effectively one person several years ago. And re-implementing it from scratch would be a massive project that we don't have the appetite to do at the moment because WebFMS works. So if we can find some way to tweak it so it's better on mobile, I think that's the course we're going down at the moment.

00:22:23Melissa Erbacher: And so what are those improvements? What are those little tweaks that you're looking to do? If we can know if it's not a secret.

00:22:31Ian Rutson: It's not a secret at all. It's just something that we haven't looked at in great detail yet. It would be things like making the login box fit on a mobile screen. So the first, when you go on to WebFMS on a mobile device, the login box is bigger than the screen. So tweaks like that and shuffling some of the tables around so they fit better on a mobile device, we think we can do without too much investment in terms of time.

00:22:58Scott Trickett: Okay, Ian, I want to learn about Ian the parkrunner now. We've done the nerdy stuff. I want to talk pure parkrun. Tell us your story. How did you get involved in parkrun that led to being Mr. IT Guru?

00:23:13Ian Rutson: That's a really good question. I mean, I... I've never been a runner I was the guy at school who was picked last for the sports teams and when we did cross country running when it was raining did you do that in Australia is that a thing absolutely yep Yeah, so I was the one who walked around at the back huffing and puffing. And the only thing that school taught me about running was I couldn't do it. So when I was in my late 30s a few years ago, I sort of looked in the mirror one day and decided that I needed to lose some pounds or some kilograms. So I dieted, as people do, and it just wasn't going very well. So a friend challenged me to the Couch to 5K program. So that's a nine-week program from walking at first through to walk running with the aim of after nine weeks of running for 30 continuous minutes. So my friend and I entered a race at the end of those nine weeks. And it was really, really hilly, and it was really, really hot, and I didn't finish. I completed the 5K, but didn't run it all. I was really annoyed with myself. So I went home before doing anything silly like showering. I looked for the next 5K race that I could enter, and I found Pontefract parkrun, which is only five or six miles away from home. And as a Yorkshireman with... Short arms and deep pockets. The price was my favourite price. Anything that's free is good. So I entered that, went along, ran every step and felt fantastic. And then I sort of got the age-old story of getting more and more involved, starting to volunteer, joined the core team, became the Event Director of Pontefract parkrun. And then being the running geek that I'd become, I started helping out parkrun HQ in the UK with various things and editing the newsletter. And then I was offered a job eventually activating events in the UK at first, which I did for about a year before moving on to the technical side.

00:25:32Melissa Erbacher: Now, obviously, I'm keen to hear about the adventure side. You're way over the 300 plus parkruns and about a third of those are at different events. You've got a high tourist quotient. So, Ian, that spans across four different countries. Do you have any highlights?

00:25:53Ian Rutson: do I have any highlights I don't like singling events out because all parkruns are great but yeah you said into four countries do it anyway do it anyway okay you're a bad influence, you're that little devil on my left shoulder well it doesn't mean that the other ones are any lesser it just means that these ones stick out in your memory that's all Yeah. So you, you talked about the four countries. So visiting, um, Milano parkrun in Italy, uh, I went, my wife and I went for a trip last year, year before a couple of years ago. Um, and that was, that was really nice. It was a really down to earth friendly parkrun in a city that I, I already loved. So that, that was memorable. Um, I suppose visiting North Beach parkrun, the largest parkrun in the world in South Africa this year, would be amongst the highlights. That was a great experience.

00:26:50Scott Trickett: So what motivates you each week, Ian? Do you like getting back to your home, which is Pontefract? Is that it?

00:26:57Ian Rutson: Pontefract, yeah.

00:26:58Scott Trickett: Or do you like adventuring, trying new events?

00:27:03Ian Rutson: I like both. It's okay to like both, isn't it? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I love my friends at Pontefract and all the wonderful people I've met there. Pontefract isn't my nearest event anymore. There's two events that have started quite significantly closer to my house than Pontefract. It still feels like home. It's where I started. It's where I first ran 5K. It's where I first parkran. It was an event that I was Event Director of for a couple of years. So it feels like home, but I really love getting around and seeing new places. I've always loved travelling, and even if travelling is only 10 miles down the road to see a new parkrun, it's still travelling in my mind.

00:27:43Melissa Erbacher: Now, this brings me to the next question. Are you a fan of the – well, I won't ask if you're a fan of the running challenges, but are you chasing any challenges down in particular at the moment? Are you an alphabeteer or do you, you know, look for Wilson Index stuff? Yeah.

00:28:00Ian Rutson: I keep an eye on all that stuff. It's good nerdy stats, isn't it? Running challenges is a great extension. I love all the stats. I'm not chasing anything particular at the moment. I'm keeping an eye on the alphabet. I think I'm at 21 letters, something like that. So the J and the Q and the Z are... they need doing at some point. And that E really needs doing, just haven't been over to the nearest ones over in the northwest. So it's probably an hour and a half's drive. Just haven't quite got the... I'm not chasing anything at the moment. I'm just enjoying the parkrunning.

00:28:37Scott Trickett: I think I'm going to give you a free hit here, Ian. Any plans to – well, the running challenges, you said we're a fan. We're a fan here. Any plans to implement that officially into the parkrun database records, or should we just leave it as an unofficial thing?

00:28:54Ian Rutson: I think it works well as it is. I like the fact that they are free to do anything that we wouldn't consider a priority. So implementing that would never get to the top of our list, but the fact that the – The guys that have invented that and coded that and maintained that are doing things that add to the tourist part of the community is a good thing. I don't see us changing that.

00:29:21Melissa Erbacher: So you talk about being a stats geek. What are your favourite things that you look at every week? So obviously, parkrun has a lot of numbers coming in after the events every week. What is the first thing that you check after the results are all in?

00:29:40Ian Rutson: I tend to get fairly obsessive about exactly that, making sure all the results are all in. So it's usually Tuesday before all the results are in from all around the world. There's particular challenges, some events. So we have some of the events on the custodial estate in the UK have difficulties with internet access. And then some of the events in South Africa... There simply isn't internet access near to the event, so it has to wait till whoever's got the equipment or the files goes to work on the Monday or Tuesday to upload the results. So keeping an eye on making sure all those are in is the thing I look at most. But then I like to look for interesting milestones coming up. We're coming up to half a millionth volunteer. We're coming up to a four millionth runner, i.e. someone who's actually taken part in an event. And we're coming up to 2,000 events. Looking out for milestones like that keeps me interested in the stats.

00:30:46Melissa Erbacher: 2,000 events as in – explain to me 2,000 events as in – no, we've had more instances than that, surely.

00:30:55Ian Rutson: 2,000 locations, so –

00:30:58Melissa Erbacher: Ah, yeah, okay. Yeah. Maths is not my strong point. You might have picked that up over time.

00:31:06Scott Trickett: I think a bit of baby brain kicked in there, Mel. Apologies, Ian.

00:31:10Ian Rutson: Yeah, that's fine. It's one of those words that's used in multiple contexts in various places and confuses us all the time. I'm going to let Mel off for that one.

00:31:21Melissa Erbacher: Thank you. I appreciate your generosity. I was actually, before you mentioned that, I was going to ask, is there a record for, or do you know what the record is for how fast all the results have come in of a weekend or of a week. I guess it's one of those sliding scales that's probably moved with the growth of events over time. But how fast have we had all the results in at any given point?

00:31:48Ian Rutson: It's not something we monitor, but the quickest would be sometime in the late 2000s when there was only one or two events, wouldn't it? And then it's always going to drift out. There's always going to be events with difficulties. Like I say, it's usually Tuesday before all the results that need to come in are in. And that's okay. This is all done by volunteers.

00:32:06Scott Trickett: Hey, Ian, I've wanted you on the podcast for a number of years now. I remember catching up to you at the first UK conference I went to, and I think we had a chat about making this a reality. It's happened. Thank you. I know that we've got listeners who are going, why didn't you ask him that? Why didn't you ask him this? But you've answered all Mel and I's questions. So thanks very much for coming on the podcast. Maybe it's just an opportunity to come back for a second visit one time.

00:32:31Ian Rutson: It's an absolute pleasure, Scotty. I mean, I'll certainly read any questions that come in and maybe we can have a revisit one day.

00:32:32[music]

00:32:37[12 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Gerard Corcoran — Karkarook parkrun

00:32:49Gerard Corcoran: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's the G-Train here from Karkarook parkrun today. We've got a special event here today with one of the running clubs taking over all the volunteer spots here at Karkarook. And I'm here with Emma now and I'm just going to find out what brought her along today.

00:33:05Emma: Yeah, good morning. So I'm actually here with part of the Achilles team celebrating Amanda's 25th volunteer stint. So I've been one of the guides for the Achilles for probably just the last few months. They actually did a bit of a session at Gardiners Creek a couple of months ago and taught a few of us how to guide and I thought it was a great opportunity to do some other volunteer work and help some people that, you know, it's really good to see some, you know, visually impaired people getting out there and running and help support that.

00:33:34Gerard Corcoran: That's fantastic, Emma. And so you said you did this at Gardiners Creek and is that your home parkrun?

00:33:38Emma: It is, yeah. So no, that's been my home parkrun pretty much since they started back in Jan 2018.

00:33:44Gerard Corcoran: Oh, lovely. And it's just down the road from Karkarook. Do you get out to any other parkruns as well?

00:33:49Emma: I do occasionally. I guess I'm a little bit restricted because I've got kids' sport and things like that. So I do certainly, I guess, school holidays and things like that, get out. So I did You Yangs the other week and have done a few others, Jells, and toured around Victoria a little bit when I came on school holidays and getting out and about with the family.

00:34:06Gerard Corcoran: That's fantastic. And what's your volunteer role today?

00:34:09Emma: I'm actually one of the Marshals, so I'm here following people through, making sure that they know which way to go and also how to get to the finish line, probably more importantly at the end of it.

00:34:18Gerard Corcoran: Awesome. Have you done any guiding yourself yet?

00:34:21Emma: I have actually. I've done a bit of guiding. I did a little bit of that at Gardiners Creek. I'm probably a bit of a plotter, so I help out with some of the walkers that come around. But yeah, fantastic experience to get out there and guide.

00:34:34Gerard Corcoran: Oh, great. And if anybody else wants to get involved with the Achilles, how can they do that?

00:34:38Emma: So Achilles does have a Facebook page, so I can certainly reach out to the team through there. Amanda Kwong is the leader of the group, so, yeah, certainly reach out to the Facebook group there.

00:34:48Gerard Corcoran: Awesome. Well, thanks very much for chatting with me today, and we hope to see you again soon.

00:34:51Emma: Cheers. Thanks, G-Train.

00:34:54Gerard Corcoran: And I'm here now with two friends of mine, Adam and Steve, and they're both volunteering today, so I'll just let them introduce themselves. Hi, how's it going? My name's Adam Koops. And what are you doing here today, Adam? I'm volunteering as a Marshal.

00:35:07Steve: And Steve? Volunteering as well, just helping out Adam. Number one, to find the marshalling point, and number two, just to make sure that we're facing in the right direction. And sending people the right direction.

00:35:20Gerard Corcoran: That's right. So, Adam, you haven't been on this podcast before, but hopefully you might come back for an interview at some point, because you're one of the faster blind runners around. Yep. What gets you into parkrun each week?

00:35:36Adam Koops: It's just the beautiful family-orientated atmosphere. You can go out and enjoy it or push a PB, whatever you feel like on the day. I love the entire concept of parkrun. And how many different guides have you had over the years? I can't count that high. I'm not that smart. I've had a fair few, and I've taken guides to PBs, and guides have taken me to PBs as being vision impaired.

00:36:04Gerard Corcoran: It's fantastic work. I know that I've... run in front of you a couple of times and helped clear the path, but after a while you've generally taken me over, so it's certainly not easy keeping up with you. And you haven't run Karkarook yet, have you?

00:36:19Adam Koops: I've run Karkarook twice, and both have been fantastic. Yeah, it's certainly a beautiful park.

00:36:25Gerard Corcoran: Yep, I guess it makes it a bit easier that it's not too windy and just a bit of a loop, a couple of loops around the lake.

00:36:31Adam Koops: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's sealed, it's nice, flat and fast. Yeah, it's nice. And when you're running, what do you focus on? Like, how do you experience the environment? Well, I'm more focusing on my breathing and my technique, I guess you'd say, and where my guide is as I'm vision impaired, where my guide is in relation to me and also concentrating on their, you know, instructions as well to, so we don't die. Um, but yeah, and if, if they've got any breath other than that, yeah, they try and tell me about the park itself too. Fantastic.

00:37:05Gerard Corcoran: And, uh, Steve, you've done a bit of guiding as well, haven't you? I have. Yes. Yeah. Only Adam. Yep. Yep. And, um, whereabouts have you done that?

00:37:12Steve: Mainly at Jells Park, but we've done a few events. We've done a lot of runs outside of parkrun, but parkrun's probably been the main area where I've guided Adam. We're running a Run Melbourne Tomorrow, 21Ks. So you're both doing that together? Yeah. But parkrun's where I met Adam, when I watched him fall off a bridge and didn't actually realise he was blind until I went to put my hand out to help him up and thought, shit, this guy can't see. So yeah, parkrun's probably the main area where I've guided Adam. And it's a hard 5km with Adam.

00:37:47Gerard Corcoran: Right. What do you have to concentrate on when you're guiding?

00:37:52Steve: Everything. Everything, not so much Adam, it's just the surrounds, I guess, because Adam knows what he's doing. It's just making sure that he's got a clear path to get to where he's going. And that's Bridges Park, Bridges and Corners and a lot of walkers around there as well. So it does become quite difficult, but it's very enjoyable, very rewarding. And how much...

00:38:23Gerard Corcoran: We're just getting abused by some of the walkers here, but that's okay. It's a very good family atmosphere down here at Karkarook. A lot of locals come out here each week and have a good walk around the lake as part of the parkrun as well. It's really nice to see.

00:38:35Steve: So they know where they're going.

00:38:37Gerard Corcoran: Yes, that's right. They just have to keep turning left and they'll be okay. Now, Steve, also, you've had some health challenges of yourself over the last year.

00:38:48Steve: I have. Would you like to talk about those a bit? I do. Valentine's Day 2018 was a stroke. And so getting over that and recovery is still in progress. But this is a parkrun podcast, parkrun has been a very, very... Integral. A very integral part of my rehab in regards to when I couldn't run, I was volunteering, and when I could run, I was with parkrun. So it's been a tough year and a half, but very, very... Very good to have someone like parkrun in your background.

00:39:30Gerard Corcoran: It's great. It's fantastic that you're making such a strong recovery and that we're still getting to see you out here at events like this as well. And you're still giving back to the community too, which is awesome to see. So you're doing Run Melbourne tomorrow, the 21K. That should be quite good. What sort of crowds are they expecting there? Do you know?

00:39:49Steve: I wouldn't have a clue. I'm guessing there's going to be quite a lot.

00:39:53Gerard Corcoran: But a big event like that can be quite challenging, can't it?

00:39:55Adam Koops: Oh, definitely, yeah. Especially with Adam. He's got me. We need a bulldozer as well to keep not just us safe, but the other runners safe as well. Yeah, there's a fair few thousand that do it.

00:40:08Steve: The unknown as well, I think, with tomorrow is that we're not guiding at our normal pace. I've had to run a lot slower than normal, so we're in a different group of runners. So I'm just hoping that it does clear out a bit as the run goes on and we get some room to move. Yeah, cool.

00:40:27Gerard Corcoran: And, Adam, you did the New York Marathon a couple of years ago now, I think it was, wasn't it? Yeah.

00:40:32Steve: With Steve as well. You were there too. I didn't run with Adam, but we were on the same run.

00:40:36Adam Koops: Yeah, I ran with Timbo. Excuse me, I'm just going to clap the Tail Walker through.

00:40:42Ian Rutson: Well done.

00:40:43Steve: Weird clock off.

00:40:44Ian Rutson: Yeah, that's it.

00:40:46Gerard Corcoran: All right. Yeah, sorry, the New York Marathon?

00:40:49Adam Koops: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I did that with Tim Emony and Nigel Hill, one of my two faster guides. And the run is absolutely epic. From the start to the finish, over a million spectators the whole way. Sometimes that loud that I can't even hear my guide, which is standing right beside me. They physically have to push me around the corner. Wow.

00:41:10Gerard Corcoran: Yeah, so I can imagine that would have been quite a challenge and probably a bit disorientating at times.

00:41:14Adam Koops: Yeah, absolutely. It was an informational overload. It's loud. Yeah, it's sometimes just too much.

00:41:20Gerard Corcoran: Yeah. But, yeah, fantastic that, you know, we can all get out and participate and do these things. So, look, thanks for having a chat this morning, guys, and hopefully we'll see you again in parkrun soon.

00:41:31Steve: Thanks, Gerard. Thanks, Gerard.

00:41:33Gerard Corcoran: Okay so I've managed to catch up with the three Tail Walkers today and the special thing about this lot is that one of them's actually got a tail. So I'll get two of them to introduce themselves. So first off on my left we have Amir and beside you is Sally and on my right is Robin. So guys what's brought you out here this morning?

00:41:58Amir: So we are doing a tail walk for parkrun and I'm enjoying it so far.

00:42:05Gerard Corcoran: What do you find enjoyable about parkrun?

00:42:09Amir: The sense of belonging and community and having a family to come and say hello every week. So that's my passion at the moment.

00:42:19Gerard Corcoran: That's great.

00:42:20Robin: And what about you, Robin? Yeah, so we're part of Achilles Melbourne. My partner's actually president of that club. And yeah, we came out here today to celebrate her 25th volunteer role by bringing down a lot of the Achilles athletes to fill the volunteer spot. So it's been a great morning.

00:42:40Gerard Corcoran: That's great. And it's fantastic that you can get out and do tail walking on such a gorgeous day that we've got. Even though there's a bit of traffic beside us with the bypass, but lots of birds out and about here, which you might have heard just before that some of them are a bit noisy. Yeah. But the weather's turned out to be gorgeous, hasn't it?

00:42:59Amir: yes the weather is so beautiful after a long rain last night so this morning has been really beautiful and it's great to be out with Achilles and partnering with parkrun which is you know always pleasure to do lots of running and walking so

00:43:19Gerard Corcoran: And we should have mentioned before, I guess most people would have picked up, but as we said, the third Tail Walker has a tail and that's Sally. And what can you tell me about Sally?

00:43:28Amir: She's a guide dog. So she's been with me for over a year now. And usually the thing is people shouldn't mention her name or completely ignoring her when she's in the harness. So that's why... we you know every day learn about her but she can be funny as well or jumping around as well when she's off the harness so yeah

00:43:54Gerard Corcoran: Okay, then. Well, it's amazing to see guide dogs in action. They certainly... Oh, she's guiding me.

00:44:01Amir: Yeah, that's right.

00:44:02Gerard Corcoran: So often people might see Achilles runners at events and they'll have a guide running with them connected by a piece of string, but that's not happening here at the moment. Amir's guide dog is dragging him around the course and... Having a very enjoyable time by the looks of it. Just need to get her barcode for dogs.

00:44:23Amir: Yeah.

00:44:25Gerard Corcoran: I hope HQ's listening to this. There's a suggestion for you.

00:44:29Amir: Yeah.

00:44:31Gerard Corcoran: Anyway, we'll keep walking along and enjoying this gorgeous morning. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Gerard. Okay, and I'm now here having a quick chat with Amanda who was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. A lot of people out here today for your 25th volunteering stint, Amanda. Yeah.

00:44:45Amanda Kwong: Yeah, I feel really lucky and very loved at the moment. All of my crew from Achilles have come and helped volunteer at Karkarook, fulfilling most of the volunteer roles out here. So it's our way of giving back and saying thanks to parkrun.

00:44:57Gerard Corcoran: That's awesome. And this is your home parkrun as well, I believe?

00:45:00Amanda Kwong: This is my home parkrun. How long have you been parkrunning here? Probably about three years. Yep. Yep. But I'm a Canberra original, so yeah.

00:45:11Gerard Corcoran: So it's a bit warmer for you here then?

00:45:13Amanda Kwong: A bit warmer, yes.

00:45:14Gerard Corcoran: Although, when we were running to you a couple of months ago at Gardiners Creek, your hands were shivering at the end, so much so that you couldn't register your barcode.

00:45:23Amanda Kwong: Yes, this is true, yes. I was out guiding as well, and you can't quite put your hands in your pocket when you're guiding, so they sort of were a little bit impaired at the end, but that's okay.

00:45:34Gerard Corcoran: Yeah, but it was one of those days where it's a bit hard to get started, but by the end of it you feel great because you've been out and done it in those hard conditions.

00:45:41Amanda Kwong: Absolutely, yep, yep.

00:45:43Gerard Corcoran: Okay, then we'll have a good chat with a couple of other Achilles members earlier this morning. So we'll let you get off for a coffee and hope to see you again soon.

00:45:51Amanda Kwong: Thanks, Gerard.

00:45:52Gerard Corcoran: Bye.

00:45:53Scott Trickett: The Victorian Mafia continues to take over. Thank you, G-Train, visiting Karkarook and talking to the crew from Achilles there. Mel. Scotty.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:46:08Scott Trickett: No launchers.

00:46:09Melissa Erbacher: No launchers.

00:46:11Scott Trickett: There are anniversaries, but we're not going to tell you about it. There's a couple of cancellations, but we're not even going to tell you about them. Check the website for all that information. What you come here for is just the random nonsense that we continue on with at the end of our podcast. So lead us off. I want to hear about your parkrun adventure.

00:46:35Melissa Erbacher: Well, all right. So, I had considerable guilt that I didn't get to parkrun. Actually, I was a bit – more than a bit sad that I missed it this week. I mean, I was happy enough to do that. These are the things you do for family. But it still left a bit of a gaping hole in my weekend and forced me to try and reset my clock for the new week some other way. But what I decided to do, Scotty, is –

The hunt for Fluffy the emuNambour parkrun field piece

00:47:02Melissa Erbacher: I know we've all heard a lot about the enigma that is Fluffy, the emu, allegedly coming out of Nambour parkrun. And I say allegedly because the rumour has it it's all just a giant media hoax. A ploy by the event team at Nambour parkrun to get more adventurers to choose them.

00:47:29Scott Trickett: Really? So Fluffy's a plant?

00:47:31Melissa Erbacher: Well, not a plant, not even a thing. Fluffy doesn't exist, a.k.a. the Fluff Ness Monster.

00:47:40Scott Trickett: But Mel, I've seen – she's on the TV. Well – I've seen photos.

00:47:44Melissa Erbacher: Yes, but you've seen video footage of the moon landing too, I'm assuming. Doesn't necessarily mean it happened.

00:47:53Scott Trickett: Well, technological advances over the past 50 years – I'll grant you that, that it can be a lot more realistic. But, okay.

00:48:03Melissa Erbacher: People can do amazing things with their computers, with Photoshop and all that sort of stuff. Well, like where I'm going with this is I decided to do some investigative journalism on behalf of the parkrun adventurers and to go and – It's sorely lacking, so it's good. On this podcast, yes. And I decided to go to the site – where people claim to have seen said emu named Fluffy to see if I could track the beast down himself. And I went there today twice, Scotty. And I went there twice because the first time I didn't see anything. And I'm not saying I saw anything the second time. But I did record some audio on the second visit. The first visit this morning, I spent almost an hour walking around with Wes and Emmett looking for any trace, and I found nothing. What are you doing?

00:49:05Scott Trickett: Are you calling out? Does it respond to its name? Well. Emu mating sounds or something like that? What are you doing?

00:49:09[other]

00:49:16Melissa Erbacher: Well, I wasn't doing emu mating sounds. Do you know what emu mating sounds sound like?

00:49:21Scott Trickett: I think that was it, yeah.

00:49:22Melissa Erbacher: The whistle. I'm pretty sure that's not what they sound like. I think that is right. Well, maybe you should have come out, Scotty. Maybe you should have flown up to Queensland to see if you could find Fluffy. But as it was, I decided to bring in the big guns. The person who has allegedly captured footage of Fluffy the mysterious Fluffy himself a few times. And that is the Event Director, Melissa Taylor from Nambour parkrun. And she took me on a guided tour to find Fluffy. And this is what happened. I'm here at Parklands Forest Reserve on the lookout for the Fluff Ness Monster.

00:50:06Melissa Taylor: The Fluff Ness Monster.

00:50:08Melissa Erbacher: Yes, that's what I'm calling him because you know what? I allege that he doesn't really exist. I'm pretty sure all those photos we've been seeing on the Nambour parkrun event page have been photoshopped.

00:50:20Melissa Taylor: My photoshopping skills are out of control now. Well, he was here.

00:50:28Melissa Erbacher: a minute ago so he must have followed the mountain bike just down to the skills area okay well hopefully we can check him out we're we're on the move we're walking into the parkland reserve I was here this morning on a recce looking for him and he was a no-show if he does indeed exist so here to settle it once and for all we'll check back in shortly Ladies and gentlemen, there is a sighting up on the rise. He's walking parallel with us down the track. So I'm assuming that's a mountain bike track that Fluffy has taken. And he has clocked us. He knows we're here. So we'll just see whether or not he's interested in coming to say hello. I've got to say I'm pretty damn excited. The Fluff Ness Monster is real. Alrighty, guys. Full disclosure. Turns out I got ridiculously excited when Fluffy was coming towards us. And I didn't press the record button as I thought I had for the interactions. He was... He was right here. I'm standing on the very spot where Fluffy was. I can tell you that he does exist. He came over to us and did this weird kind of mating thing that emus do. I don't know. I've never seen it before. He sort of, apart from circling around, he crouched down with the backward knees and almost like a sit on the ground and then he started doing this funny twirly thing with his head where he'd pick up a leaf from either side and he'd chuck it over the other side and then he'd switch to the other side and all all the while he was making this noise and that is that is a very accurate uh voice description of what he sounded like so um Yes, very exciting. After he was doing his courtship with Melissa, he came over and approached myself and Emmett, had a little look at what was in the pouch and had a couple of goes at my ears. Apparently, he's fond of ears and gave me a little peck. I can report that the... The beak the inside of an emu's beak is quite flat so it didn't hurt too much I don't think he was too serious Otherwise he might have kept hold of said ears and pulled rather than just having a little nip and there are I've got evidence I did get selfies while that was happening. Although they're a little bit blurry, but you can see the open beaks we might share that on the on the socials a little bit later, but That's pretty much it for a wrap. Fluffy is real, people. I've seen him in the feathers. The Fluff Ness Monster exists. If you want to get out and see him, I highly recommend you come and visit Nambour parkrun, parkrun Day, you know, you get a parkrun in at the same time. What more can you want from an adventure? And if you're very lucky, he doesn't show up every week. He makes his own times. he pops in and out and doesn't necessarily stick around for the whole event but you know when he wants to he comes and visits and then he pops back off into the bushland when he's tired of having company so Makes his own rules, which is the way it should be with all wildlife, I guess. And yeah, very, very excited to have met him myself. And I hope you guys can all visit and meet him sometime yourselves in the future. See ya. So there you have it, Scotty. Fluffy fact or fiction, the mystery has been solved once and for all. And you can thank this podcast for uncovering the truth.

00:52:09[other]

00:54:40Scott Trickett: And I've got an apology. I called Fluffy a she, but he is in fact a he.

00:54:46Melissa Erbacher: He is in fact a he. And how do we know this? Well, I can't substantiate the claims because I have not witnessed his he-hood himself, but apparently other parkrunners have.

00:55:01Scott Trickett: Okay. Experts in emu anatomy or what? Presumably.

00:55:09Melissa Erbacher: Look, I wasn't going to ask. I wasn't going to do a deep dive into that. So I'm going to take their word for this one.

00:55:15Scott Trickett: Yep. It's just Fluffy's not a very masculine name.

00:55:19Melissa Erbacher: Well, I'm pretty sure Fluffy and his brother, Miffy, I think they were named before gender had been ascertained.

00:55:29Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:55:30Melissa Erbacher: There's a lot of gender neutral names these days. Why can't Fluffy be a boy's name?

00:55:35Scott Trickett: I'll take Fluffy over Miffy. Yeah. If I'm a bloke, if I'm an EMU bloke.

00:55:39Melissa Erbacher: He was very fluffy. I can confirm that. And we will share a picture as well on the socials. Now that the competition is over, I will share a picture of the interaction that I had with Fluffy today.

00:55:58Scott Trickett: Speaking of sharing pictures on socials, it was great to see our Christmas singlets in full bloom, in full glory.

00:56:05Melissa Erbacher: In the wild, in Europe. Yes. In the European summer. And see, you know what? This is what I love, is the fact that in Australia, the Christmas singlets were worn at Christmastime because it's summer. And they've worn their Christmas singlets at Christmas in July in the UK, and it's summer. It's just perfect. Yeah.

00:56:25Scott Trickett: It is, it is. So we're talking about our spiritual brothers and sisters with me now who had their first powwow, but are very successful, weekend at Dishley parkrun. Tune into their podcast this week. I'm sure you'll hear a little bit about it. But it was great to see their singlets. And I think, Mel, we should honour them and honour the singlets by donning them this week at parkrun. And we don't want to be alone. So if you were one of the very fortunate few to order it last year, we want to see it worn this week at parkrun Day. Everyone does Christmas in July. The parkrun adventurers are doing Christmas in August.

00:57:03Melissa Erbacher: And since it's winter, everybody is completely entitled to wear their singlet over something long-sleeved and warm in Australia.

00:57:12Melissa Taylor: Really?

00:57:13Melissa Erbacher: Yes. Really? Yeah. I'm giving my okay for that right now because that's exactly what I'm going to be doing.

00:57:23Scott Trickett: Hey, it's colder down here, but it'll be a gun show. It is. They're a bit white at the moment, but we'll see them. If you go to. I'm not sure. Again, a free agent again this week. Not sure where I'm going to go. I was going to return home for a little bit of a PB assault at Westerfolds. Not for me, for my fellow Westerfoldians. But we've put that on hold. So I'm going to have one more week of adventuring. before returning home. Nice. Okay.

00:57:52Melissa Erbacher: Well, I've got an adventure on the cards for this weekend as well. Everybody seems to be on the mend, so providing they continue on the upward trajectory of wealth in healthness. That's a word? Healthness? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The adventures will definitely be happening this week. Okay. I'm also like pretty, pretty happy that I'm going to fit back into my parkrun adventurers Christmas singlet, Scotty, because there were a couple of months there where it just wasn't going to happen. Okay.

00:58:26Scott Trickett: But we're confident it's going to work this week because I've just said everyone wear it. Well. It's going to be awkward if you can't get in yours.

00:58:34Melissa Erbacher: I'll do my best. If I have to put it on a leg, I will wear it somehow, Scotty.

00:58:40Scott Trickett: Yeah. Great. So tag us on the socials. Post a photo somewhere. Somewhere. Twitter. Line. Do you use line, Mel?

00:58:50Melissa Erbacher: What is line, Scotty?

00:58:52Scott Trickett: Well, it's all the rage in Japan.

00:58:54Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay.

00:58:55Scott Trickett: Get on it. Yeah.

00:58:57Melissa Erbacher: Hmm. I'll take your word for that.

00:59:00Scott Trickett: Yep, and we'll run a poll this week on Facebook as well.

00:59:05Melissa Erbacher: Oh, look, it is definitely time to start getting excited for this coming year. It will be different again, won't it, Scotty? It'll be limited edition. Yep. 2019 edition only. So, yeah, different than last year, different than whatever happens next year. And we will have the ordering open earlier and for a little bit longer this year to give people an opportunity. We want to hear if you missed out last year and whether or not you're planning on getting one this year as well.

00:59:39Scott Trickett: Help us fund the future of the parkrun adventurers podcast. From all the profits that we made from last year's run, we've continued to provide this award-winning podcast for another year.

00:59:50Melissa Erbacher: For free, effectively. If you want to talk about it being from the profits. Yeah.

Sign-off

00:59:59Scott Trickett: I think that's a wrap, Mel. Thanks for sharing another episode with me. Some people said you came back too early. I'm saying no.

01:00:07Melissa Erbacher: People told you I came back too early. Was I unripe?

01:00:13Scott Trickett: No, not at all. Not at all. Okay. It's the streets talking and I just want to quieten the streets down. It's great to have you back. Can't wait to hear where you get off or where you get off and where you go. What's the saying? One of those. Maybe I do need to have a break. Maybe I came back to it.

01:00:34Melissa Erbacher: Since last week.

01:00:36Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm going to have a cold shower. I need to cool down after this hot episode. So thanks again. Speak to you next week.

01:00:43Melissa Erbacher: See you.