Episode 194 - #PALM20 Teaser

Welcome

00:00:16Scott Trickett: It's all about leaving a legacy, Mel. Welcome to episode 194 of the parkrun adventurers. My name is Scott Trickett, otherwise known as Scotty. How are you, Mel?

00:00:30Melissa Erbacher: I'm really well, thank you, Scotty. I like how there was a bit of a hesitation when you obviously had to read what episode number we were up to.

00:00:41Scott Trickett: Well, I haven't been following along. I haven't been here every week paying attention to stuff like that. I just dip in and out when I feel like it.

00:00:50Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. What's it like dipping in and out when you feel like it?

00:00:53Scott Trickett: Well, I alluded to it then. You need to leave a legacy, and the legacy I've left is the theme music. Nothing else but the theme music. That's been my takeaway. Because you've let it play a bit longer, particularly on the outro, and I really like it.

00:01:09Melissa Erbacher: Oh, have I?

00:01:11Scott Trickett: Yeah, you have. Yeah. So I find myself at the end of an episode, because you always leave me wanting more, and then I'm stuck just bopping along to the theme music that, you know, when I was running the show, we changed it every year, but you decided to keep it for 2020, and I'm really glad you did. So I don't ever want it to be changed. This is the theme music.

00:01:37Melissa Erbacher: Oh, see, the thing is, you're the one every year who wanted to change music, change music, change logo. And I started off this year thinking, okay, well, it's time to change the music and the logo. And I got as far as the logo. And then I seem to recall sending a message to my friend Scotty and saying, hey, have you got any recommendations? I'm looking for some new theme music. And you're like, keep it, keep it. This was just your little master plan to have your legacy to continue.

00:02:11Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:02:12Melissa Erbacher: Okay.

00:02:13Scott Trickett: So when you hear that music every week, think of me, listeners. Gone but not forgotten.

00:02:20Melissa Erbacher: I didn't realise I let it run longer than you did because obviously when you jumped ship, I just had to learn everything the hard way. You jumped ship and pushed me out on the way. Yep. I was in the water floundering around going, okay, I've got to figure this out. So, yeah.

00:02:41Scott Trickett: So people might have thought we did it for the drama, the way I left and I just did it so abruptly and it was like pulling off the Band-Aid. But no, that's it. There was no handover. All that happened in real time, people. And I left her with nothing. Nothing.

00:02:58Melissa Erbacher: Except a podcast.

00:02:59Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:03:00Melissa Erbacher: You left me as a caretaker of a podcast that we built.

00:03:03Scott Trickett: And you have taken care.

00:03:05Melissa Erbacher: Have I? Have you been logging in to the downloads? Because I haven't looked at them once since you left and I've got no idea. We might be right now talking to two people. I couldn't honestly tell you.

00:03:17Scott Trickett: I'll check on that and I'll report back on that next time I'm on.

00:03:21Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. Maybe in the meantime, if you could, like, send me the login details so I can maybe have a look at it myself. Because in the start I was scared, but now I'm starting to be like, meh, I could probably handle the rejection, so I might want to log in, yeah.

00:03:37Scott Trickett: Okay. Guess my password and you can have all that information.

00:03:44Melissa Erbacher: You make up the most randomest of passwords, though. You probably don't remember what it is.

00:03:51Scott Trickett: This isn't the password adventurers, Mel. Come on. Keep on track. That's what I've liked about being away. We don't go off on tangents anymore. It's just all parkrun, parkrun, parkrun.

00:04:02Melissa Erbacher: Ah, so were you the one responsible for the tangents?

00:04:05Scott Trickett: Maybe. Maybe. Maybe not.

00:04:08Melissa Erbacher: You were the one. You were the master of digressions. Okay. Well, no tangents then. We're adventuring. Let's go to you, Scotty. You've been away for a while. Well, look, I have.

00:04:21Scott Trickett: Yeah. Have you been keeping track of me? Do you know what event number I'm up to? Are we still having that silly competition?

00:04:29Melissa Erbacher: I'll be honest, I haven't been keeping track of our competition as religiously, you know, every week as I used to. I pop in every probably eight to ten weeks to check on it because you've been away a long time. Adam, on the other hand, is keeping very keen eyes on what you're doing and whether you're catching up.

00:04:48Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:04:50Scott Trickett: I missed the showman because I was catching him.

00:04:53Melissa Erbacher: You were, and I told him that, and he was like, right, I can't be caught. And then we have not helped that situation at all with our attendance at parkrun this year. So I think you're closing the gap quite substantially.

00:05:05Scott Trickett: Yeah, well, like I have been listening. That's not a lie. And, yeah, you've missed a lot of parkruns. So Adam must have missed a lot of parkruns, so I must be catching him.

00:05:17Melissa Erbacher: He tends to miss more than I do. You haven't missed any. That's very impressive.

00:05:22Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah. I still love parkrun. I go every week.

00:05:30Melissa Erbacher: But you know what we figured out? Adam and I, the other day, we kind of did an account cumulatively of how many parkrun days each of us had ever done. And he's about a year behind me.

00:05:42Unidentified speaker: Oh, really?

00:05:43Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. I could not fathom that he had missed a year's worth of parkruns since we started in 2012. Yeah. But in the early days, you know, we were trying to figure out why he would have missed some things that I still got to go to. And a lot of it had to do with his work commitments. There were lots of Saturdays where he had to be on shoots and things like that. So he just couldn't make both things. And over 10, well, not 10 years, it's been eight years. But if you miss, you know, half a dozen a year or just for work, and then there are other couple of anomalies along the way, it all adds up.

00:06:24Scott Trickett: I'm not surprised by that stat. And I'm not surprised, you know, I went, I was at parkrun on Saturday and I did a Queensland parkrun and I'm still suffering the effects of it. I think I suffered a little bit of heat poisoning. Heat poisoning, is that a thing? Well, I think it is now. I've invented it.

00:06:42Melissa Erbacher: Okay, let's back up a little bit. You were at a Queensland event on the weekend.

00:06:48Scott Trickett: Yes, I was. I was up on the Goldie all week and then ended up in Brisbane on a Saturday morning and I was trying to find something that fitted in with Ubers and airports and flights.

00:07:01Melissa Erbacher: This was last weekend.

00:07:03Scott Trickett: This was the one just gone, the most recent parkrun day.

00:07:06Melissa Erbacher: Where was my invite? Why did I not get told?

00:07:10Scott Trickett: It's an open invitation, Mel.

00:07:12Melissa Erbacher: Well, what do you mean? Like it's an open invitation when you're in Victoria?

00:07:16Scott Trickett: It was all a little bit last minute. I did reach out to my Brisbane folk and they all appreciated me.

00:07:26Melissa Erbacher: Not your Queensland folk.

00:07:27Scott Trickett: No, well, it's a fair, decent drive and you've got two young boys and you've got commitments. You're a celebrity and you've got places to go. I didn't want to impose my schedule on you.

00:07:38Melissa Erbacher: We were literally on Friday night going, where should we parkrun tomorrow? Shall we go to Brisbane? What's going on in Brisbane? Nothing. Okay. We'll just stay local.

00:07:49Scott Trickett: Oh, we should have talked. You could have come to Kedron. We would have had a great one.

00:07:53Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:07:55Scott Trickett: But that's my takeaway from Kedron. My God, it's hot. It's really hot. I think it was hotter than normal in Brisbane on the weekend. I'm sure of it.

00:08:05Melissa Erbacher: That could just be your takeaway from Queensland for last weekend, I think. I'm not sure it's specific to Kedron, though Kedron is a very unshady, let's call it. Yeah, that's probably what it was.

00:08:17Scott Trickett: Yeah. Look, I mean, lovely, dead flat and really well behaved. So there was a big crowd there, like 300 or 400 people, and they've got this separated bike path, run path sort of set up. And it's a busy section, so there were bike riders going past. But everyone was really policing it really well. We were all sticking left and whenever there was even a walker or a bike coming in the opposite direction, there was plenty of warning. God forbid someone on their bike should use their bell, but the parkrunners filled that gap. So it was really well behaved, but it was just, I got to like 3K and I was just, I was trying to enjoy it, just having a jog. And I thought I nearly was going to pass out. I thought all the fluids that had left my body, And I was just going to be skin and bone crossing the finishing line.

00:09:07Melissa Erbacher: The heat poisoning was sticking in.

00:09:09Scott Trickett: Yeah, I think the muscles were starting to melt.

00:09:11Melissa Erbacher: So tell me, did you take the opportunity, knowing that you were going to, or at least thinking you might parkrun in Queensland, to dress appropriately and wear a singlet per chance and a Christmas singlet?

00:09:24Scott Trickett: No, I didn't. I didn't. No. No.

00:09:27Melissa Erbacher: There's many problems right there. You obviously were not dressed appropriately for the situation.

00:09:32Scott Trickett: I like to rep my apricot on parkrun day. And I've only got – we've just released the singlets, so go out and get one.

00:09:41Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:09:41Scott Trickett: But I haven't had time to get one, so I was in the T-shirt. But I don't think that was – that wasn't the cause, Mel. It was just really hot.

00:09:49Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:09:51Melissa Erbacher: Mister, I'm from the greatest state, inverted commas, that has seven seasons in one day. Not just four seasons. There are seven seasons in a day in Victoria and I'm constantly being told, oh, we have 40 degree days in Melbourne and it's... Yeah, we don't run.

00:10:07Scott Trickett: It wouldn't be 40 degrees on Saturday. Hey, where were you? This is not the weather podcast, the weather adventurers. So where were you?

00:10:18Melissa Erbacher: I was breaking my tourism streak literally at Kawana parkrun.

00:10:25Scott Trickett: What did you get up to?

00:10:26Melissa Erbacher: I did the course for the first time I think in about 18 months at Kawana with the bobsled, I might add, my first time pushing both boys at Kawana with all the hills that we had there. And it was good because I was toward the end of the field and I got to meet a brand new person to me, a gentleman named Rogan, who has done the majority of his parkruns in South Africa, actually.

00:10:52Scott Trickett: Yes, South African.

00:10:54Melissa Erbacher: South African.

00:10:55Scott Trickett: The South Africans are back. Yep.

00:11:01Melissa Erbacher: I'm not convinced about your accent, but that's okay. We can move on. Yeah, so I had a great time chatting to him about the different events that he's done. He lives in Johannesburg, so they're used to a few more people at a parkrun on average than we had at Kawana on the weekend, and it was just nice to compare notes and have a good old chat.

00:11:24Scott Trickett: Nice. Nice making it international. Are you still running on the beach? Is that still happening?

00:11:30Melissa Erbacher: No, no, that finished at the beginning of February.

00:11:32Scott Trickett: Okay. Okay.

00:11:33Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, we only do that for five weeks over the summertime while it's school holidays.

00:11:38Unidentified speaker: Okay.

00:11:39Scott Trickett: So what did your tourist rate get up to?

00:11:41Melissa Erbacher: 28.

00:11:42Scott Trickett: Wow, and you broke it.

00:11:44Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Okay. It wasn't easy. That's why we were having conversations on Friday night about where we might go to. Adam and I have discussed dividing and conquering. Okay, so there are certain events that are on our NENDY list which are not pram-friendly or he has done and I have not and vice versa. So the plan is sort of moving towards that. You take the kids one week and I'm going to go somewhere that you've already done or that we can't do at the pram and then we'll swap the next week. I'll take the kids and you can go somewhere fun. I was seriously going to go to Bunyaville parkrun on last Saturday and leave Adam to go wherever he wanted with the kids.

00:12:34Scott Trickett: You know, we really should have spoken because I wanted to go to Bunyaville, but I had this airport, no transport situation to deal with. And I'm really cheap and tight.

00:12:45Melissa Erbacher: Well, I don't know what the transport's going to be.

00:12:46Scott Trickett: Exactly. So I just went to the closest and cheapest parkrun I could get to, but I was eyeing off Bunyaville.

00:12:53Melissa Erbacher: And when you say cheapest, you mean via Uber to the airport, right?

00:12:57Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:12:58Melissa Erbacher: Well, how else? Well, I just need to clarify that.

00:13:02Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:13:03Melissa Erbacher: No. Ubers are expensive. Ubers are expensive. I wouldn't have charged you quite as much as Uber. I would have been a lot cheaper than that.

00:13:13Scott Trickett: Hey, I'm making notes. I've got this new notebook. I'm making notes. Next time I'm in Queensland. Let Mel know. Yeah.

00:13:23Melissa Erbacher: And you know what? Maybe next time I'm in Victoria, I'll let you know.

00:13:27Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:13:28Scott Trickett: You coming to Victoria soon?

00:13:30Melissa Erbacher: Nothing planned.

00:13:31Scott Trickett: No.

00:13:32Melissa Erbacher: No. No. You know where I am going soon?

00:13:35Scott Trickett: Adelaide or Adelaide?

00:13:37Melissa Erbacher: WOMADelaide. I'm going to Adelaide, yes. Are you coming, Scotty? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, good.

00:13:44Scott Trickett: Yeah, I'm coming. I can't wait to see it in action. I want to be part of the audience. Mel, you couldn't have done a worse job than me last year.

00:13:59Melissa Erbacher: It was a team effort.

00:14:00Scott Trickett: Well, yeah, okay. Well, now we can see once you subtract me from the team, what sort of output you can deliver. So I'm confident you will beat last year's effort.

00:14:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, I appreciate your confidence, Scotty. I'm glad one of us is confident.

00:14:22Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:14:22Melissa Erbacher: But speaking of palm20, we actually have a special guest this week, which I alluded to last week. Sorry, look, you're on the pod and I'm stealing your phraseologies, et cetera. I'm not, yeah. I'm an influencer.

00:14:41Scott Trickett: I'm looking at the influencer career, yeah.

00:14:46Melissa Erbacher: You're seriously thinking about taking it up full time?

00:14:52Scott Trickett: Looks pretty easy.

00:14:53Melissa Erbacher: Yes. I mentioned last week that we were going to have a special guest to chat all about palm20. And I've already interviewed him. You weren't available for that. So I did it solo. And shall we have a listen to that anyway now?

00:15:12Scott Trickett: Can't wait. Can't wait to hear all the details.

Interview Chris Fraser — #palm20 co-organiser

00:15:25Melissa Erbacher: It is officially only two more parkrun days until palm20 is going to explode all over South Australia. For the layperson, that's 18 more sleeps. And I did mention last week that we were going to have a special guest on the pod this week to discuss all things palm20. I'm very excited to introduce him to you now. The ever-wonderful Sunny Blue Skies, Gary Murphy, has this year passed over the baton of the organisation for palm20 to a group of very awesome individuals. One of those awesome individuals is the wonderful Chris Fraser. Chris, welcome to the parkrun adventurers podcast.

00:16:13Chris Fraser: Thank you, Mel. It's been a long time coming. It seems to be like years ago that we had the last one, not just under a year. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you.

00:16:23Melissa Erbacher: Well, thank you for coming. And thank you so much for all the organisation that you have been doing along with the rest of the crew. Do you want to give a shout out to everybody else who's been involved in the organisation before we get started? deep diving into it?

00:16:36Chris Fraser: Yeah, sure. So we've had PK and then we've had Paul Butler and Greta down there as well from Mount Barker and also TOC from Inverloch has had a bit of input as well.

00:16:48Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. So that's a great spread of people from across three states, adventurers from all over the place. I'm sure you've all brought different things to the table in talking about it, especially as none of the crew in South Australia where we're headed have actually been to a Palm. So I'm no doubt that you and TOC, who've been to both of them so far, were able to share a lot of your experience and stuff as well when you were organising this. Can we start? I'm excited. I've seen the events on Facebook on the parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup page and I've clicked going on them all. I'm pretty sure I'll have to go back and double check because, I mean, not that I'm going to need the reminders, but it's just nice to know that I'm going. Can you start running us through the weekend? We could begin on the Friday with all the oodles of fun that's going to happen.

00:17:40Chris Fraser: Okay, yeah, so Friday afternoon at 5.30, so it'll be good for local office workers down there. We're going to kick off the weekend with a Freedom Run at West Beach parkrun. Yeah, so that should be a lot of fun. It's down by the water. You run along the beach and then over a bridge and along the river. And then following that run, we'll head over to the West Beach Surf Lifesaving Club for maybe a short meal and something to drink and meet up and greet with everybody. And that'll be just like your Saturday night, your post-Saturday parkrun, breakfast, brunch, but on Friday.

00:18:20Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. Sounds like a good way to kick off the weekend. I do like that the Freedom Run is at 5.30 so that the locals that, yeah, are working and haven't had the day off can come along and participate. But also it gives a lot of people who are travelling from interstate or other places a bit more time to get themselves sorted before they dash off for the Freedom Run.

00:18:42Chris Fraser: Yes, and it's right next to the Adelaide Airport too. So if you're flying in, cutting it fine, you might still just make it there.

00:18:50Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. So Saturday, Saturday is going to be our biggest day, isn't it?

00:18:56Chris Fraser: Saturday is huge. Yes, so we're starting off with the regular parkrun on Saturday morning at Mount Barker. And that coincides with their pink run for Women's Day.

00:19:08Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it's International Women's Day. Isn't that a lovely random happenstance? We picked our date for palm20 and then International Women's Day must have heard about it and said, you know what, we're going to put it on March the 7th this year just to tie it in nicely with the parkrun adventurers.

00:19:26Chris Fraser: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so they're having a pink themed day that day. Oh, I didn't know that, pink.

00:19:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Oh.

00:19:33Chris Fraser: Yeah, so it's another costume you've got to add to the suitcase.

00:19:36Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. This is going to – well, I don't think Emmett owns anything that's pink. Not costume slash outfit wise. That's okay. Pink, pink. I'm writing notes. I can work with pink. Okay.

00:19:49Chris Fraser: He might have to settle for a Tajay t-shirt, something like that. I've got my regular Tajay t-shirt for pink days.

00:19:56Melissa Erbacher: I do have pink fabrics. Sorry, I'm going to get distracted now thinking about costumes. My brain is already ticking over into... What I've got, that's pink. Not saying that there's anything wrong with a pink target shirt by any means. Sorry, now, but I really am truly getting very distracted. So, yes, let's go back to Mount Barker parkrun, which we're very excited about going to. Yeah.

00:20:22Chris Fraser: And, yeah, so then after the parkrun, we'll head across to the regular Mount Barker post-run coffee at the Laratinga Cafe. It's more or less just across the road there. Following that, there'll be the live recording of the podcast.

00:20:37Melissa Erbacher: This is always the scary part. Yeah. And long-time listeners of the podcast will know that last year, even though we thought it went really well, turns out technologically speaking, not so much. So I will confess, and I know you've asked me a couple of times, am I all okay with the technology aspect this time? Not organised yet, all the gear that we took down last time actually got driven down by the wonderful Dave Moss of the Channel 5 News crew and he was going on a road trip and managed to carry some rather large speakers etc for us this time he's not taking a car he's flying down and it's Bit of an ask to get somebody to carry some, you know, technological stuff in the oversize, try to get it down on the plane and, you know, it might get damaged as well in the flight. So I certainly can't fit it with all the excess baggage that Emmett requires with the rest of his entourage. Not sure what I'm going to do about that yet. It might end up being everybody gets a little bit of a paper cup and some strings. We hook it all up that way. Not sure how the recording aspect's going to go. We'll just have to see.

00:21:58Chris Fraser: We'll figure it out.

00:21:59Melissa Erbacher: Well, no, it's not going to be a wait and see thing. I really am going to do some planning ahead of time. I just have to figure that out yet. But don't worry, everyone. It can't be worse than last year where we lost the whole recording. Let's put it that way. Yep.

00:22:16Chris Fraser: And if you're there, you'll get to hear all the bloopers before they get edited out.

00:22:20Melissa Erbacher: Or you'll hear all the bloopers and you'll never hear anything of the whole podcast again. Well, yeah, look, I promise I'll have something organised. And, yeah, you're right, the bloopers. There were lots of bloopers last year. You really do get to see the whole fly by the seat of your pants kind of podcasting that goes on in this little pod. I'm interested to know, Chris, what was your impression of how, let's say, professional Scotty and I were last year?

00:22:51Chris Fraser: How do I be diplomatic?

00:22:56Melissa Erbacher: Don't be diplomatic. You can be brutally honest. Scotty doesn't co-host a podcast anymore, so he can take it.

00:23:03Chris Fraser: It was a lot of fun to watch it go down because I missed that in the first one in Shellharbour. I missed it in my local event, but I got to see it in Newcastle.

00:23:12Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, isn't that funny? I mean, everybody has a life outside of parkrun, I guess, and you make it to the bits and pieces that you can, so...

00:23:20Chris Fraser: Yeah, I can't remember what I was doing. I must have had some sort of theatre. My alternate life in theatre must have been.

00:23:25Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, you did. You had lots of theatre practices going on that weekend as well.

00:23:29Chris Fraser: Yeah, and maybe shows on or something. But yeah, last year was awesome.

00:23:34Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so we'll have some of the regular features of our palm gatherings is there's always a quiz and the incredible Simon Mackley has been working hard on the quiz questions. I think, I mean, maybe this will be the final year that we do the quiz because everybody who's attended knows that the winner of the quiz gets to take home a golden pineapple. And three years ago, I bought three golden pineapples, two the same size and then one that was bigger. And so far, the other two that we use as the trophies, they've both gone to the same gentleman. He's got a matching pair, but who knows who's going to take it out this year. And this year, it's going to be the big pineapple. The reason I ended up opting for the smaller one the very first year was because of It was a situation with baggage allowance. And so then last year I thought, well, I better take one that's the same size because otherwise if somebody else wins it, Brendan's going to be a bit sad that he's got a smaller pineapple. And now this year we're just going large. And I think, yeah, we'll call it the last of the quizzes for Palm Meetups because I no longer have any more golden pineapples. This will be the last one. But that won't be very good. So there's some inside goss for you right there.

00:25:02Chris Fraser: We'll have to come up with a way to nobble Brendan. Give someone else a go. So everyone out there has to practice all their stats. Swat up hard.

00:25:13Melissa Erbacher: I really hope everybody has been since last year. I'm sure somebody's got to be chomping at the bit. We will bring the same beepers, the buzzers as last time. We always have a triangle, a little clown horn, a tambourine, and what's the fourth one that we usually have? Anyway. Okay, so... There might be some other little things that we pop into the pod this year that I'm not going to divulge now. You, the listener, can decide whether or not that's because I know what I'm actually doing or I just want to keep it as a surprise. It could go either way.

00:25:53Chris Fraser: Yeah. Okay, and then following our podcast recording, I think we don't have anything for a little while after that, so you're free to go and have lunch or have a bit of a rest or a lie down, whatever you need to do.

00:26:08Melissa Erbacher: A shower if you don't want to be parkrun fresh all day.

00:26:11Chris Fraser: Yeah, or get a spray-on shower. That's what I normally do. Yeah, and so then we head off for our Freedom Run at Lochiel Park. And that's at what time? Three o'clock. We'll have to fact check that one, but I think it's three o'clock. Yeah, out at Lochiel Park, which is another nice flat course along a river.

00:26:34Melissa Erbacher: It is beautiful. I did Lochiel Park on New Year's Day. It was a gorgeous event. Highly recommend it. There were koalas at Lochiel Park. So that was pretty special. I should mention, everybody is very, very encouraged. If you have an Ugly Christmas Singlet, palm20 is absolutely the time to bring it and wear it. We want to see them. We want to get a group photo. We forgot to do it last year to get an actual group photo of everyone who was wearing their Ugly Christmas Singlets. You can choose to wear it to parkrun but probably not Mount Barker if that's a pink thing unless you wear pink on bottom and pink on your head and just leave the Ugly Christmas Singlet to clash gorgeously with those things. But, yeah, there's opportunities at the Freedom Run at Lochiel Park or there's going to be a Freedom Run the next day or the Freedom Run on the Friday. There's so many parkruns that we'll be able to get in. Not sure if I will be running the Lochiel Park one myself because 10 kilometres is a lot on my legs. And this is the perfect opportunity to say everything across the whole palm20 weekend is 100% optional, isn't it, Chris?

00:27:46Chris Fraser: Yeah, and also the Freedom Runs, you can walk those as well just like you can with all parkruns, yeah.

00:27:54Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. And so everybody, it's like a choose-your-own-adventure adventure.

00:27:58Chris Fraser: That's right, yeah. You can high-five, you can be official high-five crew, whatever takes your fancy.

00:28:05Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, and I mean, last year I didn't do the Freedom Run on the Friday. I went along and I cheered, but I didn't do it because I knew that if I did, that I would not also get around the beaches on Saturday morning, so... if that's a factor for you and you don't want to be on your legs that long, then you don't have to be on your legs that long. But we'd still encourage you all to come along and, you know, just be part of it and hang around. It's always good fun. But after that, there's different kind of fun. I mean, it is all parkrun people and it is all parkrun themed for the whole weekend, but there's different kind of fun on a Saturday night, isn't there, Chris? And this is kind of usually the highlight for me of the whole weekend.

00:28:46Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:28:47Chris Fraser: That's correct, yes. So Saturday night is our fancy dress dinner at the Ed, the Edinburgh Hotel in Mitcham, I think the suburb's called. Yeah, it's an older hotel, but the publican there has graciously given us a private area that we can all gather and sit down.

00:29:07Melissa Erbacher: Have they done that because they heard it's going to be fancy dress and they don't want to look at us? We did get a lot of strange looks and questions last year.

00:29:14Chris Fraser: We did, didn't we? Yeah. And it was quite crowded there as well. It was. Costumes bumping into regular people. But yeah, so we've got a separate area and we can also spill out of that area into the back sort of open air area. And yeah, so it should be good in all types of weather.

00:29:31Melissa Erbacher: Wow, sounds very schmancy.

00:29:33Chris Fraser: Of course, our Dress Up theme is the 1920s and how you interpret the 1920s is completely up to you.

00:29:40Melissa Erbacher: Yes, we're bringing the 20s back. But it is, well, I mean, is it 1920s or is it just 20s? People could come dressed as what they're doing now. They could do. And still be on theme.

00:29:50Chris Fraser: Yeah, so I think anything 20s related whatsoever, you can interpret that in any sort of way you like. It doesn't have to be 20s fashion. It could be anything.

00:29:59Melissa Erbacher: I strongly encourage people to think of the weirdest, quirkiest ways to interpret things. You don't need to take things literally all the time. Abstract is always better. It is. And if you don't have to explain your costume, then you're obviously not weird enough.

00:30:13Chris Fraser: Yeah. Yeah. So once you've had your fill and you're just about to drop dead after all the activities during the day, you head off home. And the following day, we're heading up to Cleland parkrun for our Freedom Run.

00:30:27Melissa Erbacher: At the leisurely time of? 9am.

00:30:31Chris Fraser: So you get one hour sleep in. Well, if you're Queensland, you get two hours sleep in. So the other runs are nice flat courses, but Cleland is going to be a little bit of a challenge. Not that I've been there before, but I hear that it's one with a little bit of vert.

00:30:46Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, like 2.5 kilometres of vert. And you know what? They save it for the second half of the event.

00:30:56Chris Fraser: Okay.

00:30:56Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, no, but excited to be heading to Cleland. And that will only go ahead, though, if there is not a total fire ban on the weekend. So fingers crossed that the weather, once again, is in our favour.

00:31:10Chris Fraser: We do have a plan B, a secret plan B. Ooh. Yeah, that'll be okay. Following that run, we'll be heading to the Crafers Hotel for brunch. Sounds awesome. Yeah, so all these ones that have got food related, we'd need everyone to go over to the Palm page and click on going so that we get a rough idea of numbers for the food and catering and that sort of stuff.

00:31:36Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, it always helps the venues out, especially if they might need to consider putting on staff and things like that. As Chris said, please go and click on going or interested. Even if you're not sure now whether or not you're going – Go find the event, click on interested and then closer to the time when you know what you're actually doing, you can upgrade that to going because that's what you should be doing.

00:32:00Chris Fraser: Yeah. Yeah. And there's just so much other stuff going on in Adelaide at this time as well. The Adelaide fringe is on. So if you're, not up to one of the runs you can head on to the Adelaide fringe festival got lots of music going on in so many different venues over there not to mention all the other things that are available in Adelaide if you're a winery person or Other sightseeing, you know, there's just heaps to do there.

00:32:28Melissa Erbacher: WOMADelaide's happening at the same time too and there's a whole bunch of different things that are involved in that if people want to go and get a little bit of culture happening. There's heaps to be taking in in the beautiful city of Adelaide.

00:32:40Chris Fraser: Yes.

00:32:41Melissa Erbacher: So tell me, Chris, what part are you looking forward to the most out of the whole weekend?

00:32:48Chris Fraser: Ah, well, the run I'm looking forward to is Cleland because I'm No, I'm a sucker for punishment. The harder the runs are, the more that I like them. The bigger the sense of achievement I get at the end. You know, and if it was easy, everybody would be doing it and how much fun would that be?

00:33:04Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I think you guys have done a really good job of grabbing like a whole bunch of really different events across the whole weekend we've got a run at the beach you've got a run at Mount Barker which is not actually a mountain but then you've also got Lochiel Park which is near a river and then heading out to Cleland it's yeah it's it's a really diverse slice of what you can experience in South Australia good job yeah yeah but then the um the Saturday night dinner is going to be very good um

00:33:42Chris Fraser: It's always good to catch up and talk to people you've met at previous parkrun adventures and meeting all the new people.

00:33:49Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely. Letting your hair down metaphorically and in actuality if you've got a 1920s do-to-do.

00:33:59Chris Fraser: I don't have enough hair for that, I don't think.

00:34:02Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's what wigs are for, Chris. A hat. I have hats as well, yes. Yeah. Lots of hat options for the 1920s. They were big on hats back then.

00:34:10Chris Fraser: Yeah.

00:34:13Melissa Erbacher: Chris, thank you so much for coming and laying out the whole weekend so everybody could understand what is going to be on the agenda and look forward to it. Hopefully we get a bunch of people who have possibly never even listened to the pod come along from the local areas in South Australia to some or all of the Freedom Runs and other events across the weekend. It's always great to meet new parkrunners and share the adventure love. I'm really looking forward to seeing you again. It has been a year, hasn't it?

00:34:47Chris Fraser: It has, yes.

00:34:49Melissa Erbacher: That is far too long between parkruns with friends. So I'm looking forward to seeing you and everybody else who will be travelling either just down the road from where they live or from interstate, wherever that may be. Thank you for joining me. It has been so great talking all things palm20.

00:35:07Chris Fraser: I cannot wait to see you in a few weeks. Thank you. I'm very excited to be on the podcast. Actually, before I go, before I go, before I go, back in the early days of parkrun Podcast, the parkrun Show, and with Mossy and Robbo and the Naked Runners, Brendan Scullery and I used to have a competition to see who could get the most mentions on these podcasts. And here I am. I'm a special guest. So in your face, Brendan Scullery.

00:35:34[laughter]

00:35:34Unidentified speaker: LAUGHTER

00:35:39Melissa Erbacher: Oh, poor Brendan. He's another friend of the pod. How many times have we mentioned your name, Chris? I guess, will you be counting them up after the episode or is Brendan keeping the log for you?

00:35:51Chris Fraser: I'll probably have to keep a spreadsheet, yeah. The more spreadsheets, the more parkrun spreadsheets, the better.

00:35:58Melissa Erbacher: I agree, 100%.

00:35:59[13 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Warringal Parklands parkrun

00:36:12Mark Scarborough: Hello parkrun adventurers, this is Mark reporting in for the Channel 5 News crew and today I'm reporting in from a drizzly Melbourne. And I'm at the launch, actually, of the Warringal Parklands parkrun. Warringal Parklands is a recreation site on the north bank of the Yarra River within the Yarra Valley Parklands. And it's a beautiful parkland and bushland area. And the parkrun course is a two and a half kilometre out and back. And it's going to be a good course, I reckon. We're going to go chat to a few other parkrunners. I'm here with Megan, who's at the very busy finish line, assisting in finish token handing out. How has this morning been for you?

00:36:53Megan: It's been brilliant. Had a great run out on the course. It's a beautiful course. And it's a great vibe at the finish line. Lots of excitement for the first event.

00:37:02Mark Scarborough: So you're here assisting out the finished tokens. I think we're up to about 609 maybe being handed out right now. This is 638, sorry. Wow, so it's a bit of a quiet launch today at Warringal.

00:37:16Megan: Yeah, quiet's an interesting term. I'm not sure that that's how I describe it. Lots and lots of people out there, and it's great to see people come out and get behind the first event.

00:37:25Mark Scarborough: Yeah, it's a wonderful course out there, nice and flat, and it's going to be a pretty fast course, I reckon.

00:37:31Megan: Yeah, I think the mixed terrain will be a good test for people. A bit of a change from Albert Park and Maribyrnong, which are a bit flatter, or this one varies it up a little bit, which is really good to get out and do some different style courses.

00:37:46Mark Scarborough: Where do you normally parkrun?

00:37:48Megan: Maribyrnong is my home run, so I'm an RD there. But yeah, I'm trying to get around and visit as many as I possibly can. Very good.

00:37:56Mark Scarborough: Well, thanks for having a chat.

00:37:57Megan: No worries. Have a good day.

00:37:59Mark Scarborough: I'm now with the Mayor, Alison. Thank you for joining us this morning at the launch of Warringal Parklands parkrun.

00:38:06Alison: My pleasure. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak.

00:38:10Mark Scarborough: This is a wonderful space we've got here in Melbourne and it's a great location for a new parkrun.

00:38:16Alison: Yes, it is. I've actually come to understand that there are some really dedicated parkrunners and they often look out for new parkrun places. This is launched today, so the Warringal Parklands Park parkrun was launched this morning and we had around 700 runners this morning for the launch and I've actually learned that some people love it because if those of us who live close if they sleep in they still get to do a parkrun because there's one just down the road from them rather than going to another one a little bit further out but I've also had people say look I don't repeat the parkrun so I've got another one here that I can do and it saves me driving to New South Wales or Canberra or South Australia. So it's actually a great reason to create a new one for those.

00:39:00Mark Scarborough: Yeah, and the interesting thing is the community that are here today. It was quite interesting, you know, 700 people out on the course today and I saw a lot of people acknowledging other parkrunners from a lot of different parkruns around the Melbourne area. So it's a big community here.

00:39:12Alison: Yeah, a great community. And it just goes to show that parkruns are becoming a very popular way to be well and be healthy. And this is another one that's been created by Matthew Gregory that is clearly going to be successful.

00:39:27Mark Scarborough: It is, and right next to us is the playground as well. What can you tell us about this playground? This is going to be amazing for parkrun families who bring their kids along.

00:39:34Alison: Absolutely. So this is Possum Hollow. So Possum Hollow... Thank you, Tom. Councillor Tom Melican there just congratulating us on a great job. Possum Hollow is a playground for kids and it also holds an exercise station. So before or after your run, you can always do a little bit of exercise with your weights and your body weight to get a bit more of an all-round fitness, cardio and muscle fitness as well, and it is free.

00:40:03Mark Scarborough: And we've also got a cafe right nearby, so that Post parkrun Coffee, which is a big part of our subculture in parkrun.

00:40:10Alison: Yeah, absolutely. It's what we do now, isn't it? If you can't get a coffee, you kind of don't go. So now we've got Chance's Cafe, which is a social enterprise initiative set up with Banyule City Council and Araluen. After many, many conversations and ideas going back and forth, we finally opened Chance's Cafe last year, and the Araluen group actually run it, so it gives people with special learning needs and disabilities an opportunity to be employed and create skills and add to their CV and allows for employment for them into the future. So that is a great place to come for that.

00:40:49Mark Scarborough: Great reasons all around. Thank you for your time this morning, Alison, and this has been a fantastic launch.

00:40:54Alison: My pleasure, and thank you very, very much for this time, and good luck to everybody on your parkruns.

00:40:59Mark Scarborough: Thank you.

00:40:59Alison: Thank you.

00:41:00Mark Scarborough: All right, I'm here with Event Director Matthew. Good morning, Matthew. Good morning, how are you? Good. So we like to keep our launches nice and quiet nowadays. So I see that you've invited just some of your closest parkrun friends today. How's the launch been for you? Yeah, really good, really good. It's kind of crazy. It's kind of crazy. We've got over 700. All right, we've actually got Action Man here as well.

00:41:25"Action Man": Yeah, Action Man.

00:41:26Mark Scarborough: How did you find the parkrun Action Man?

00:41:28"Action Man": How did I find it or how did I like it?

00:41:29Mark Scarborough: How did you like it?

00:41:30"Action Man": I liked it. It was very scenic. Like, I love the greenery. Not this end, the lovely, wacky bridge. It's a little bit drier out there, you know what I'm saying? It is very dry. But sunny Melbourne never fails to disappoint with the wetness, right? It is.

00:41:45Mark Scarborough: So this Quiet Secret launch, how did you find out about it?

00:41:49"Action Man": Buddies. It's all about knowing the inside scoop. My man Tim here, he told me the inside scoop.

00:41:56Mark Scarborough: Very good. All right. I'm going to try and get back to talk to Matthew. You just have to hold for your photo. All right, Matthew. So what brought about Warringal Parklands parkrun?

00:42:05Matthew Gregory: Well... Sadly just a runner and I live in the area, I've been here 40 years so I was running on this before it was the main Yarra Trail. Used to run through the blackberry bushes and all that stuff. So I've lived literally on the edge of the course there. So 41 years we've been in the area. I started doing parkruns and I thought, why the hell am I going somewhere else when I've got this down here? And as Ben previously said, it's quite a beautiful course. It's picturesque. And a lot of history as well, with the old Banyule homestead on top of the hill, which dates back 180 odd years. So it's really quite amazing. So yeah, I don't know. I just wanted to do something for my local community. We've got a lot of hospitals in the area um you know so it was just important for me to try and engage and and obviously you know fitness is important to me and I'm a runner and a marathon runner and stuff so plus I've got a little daughter and I'm trying to set a good example for her so good yeah all right well done it looks like it's been a very successful launch well done thanks mate appreciate the time

00:43:24Mark Scarborough: All right, so I'm with another parkrun adventurer. Can you know the voice?

00:43:28Melissa Ellis: Hi, Mark.

00:43:30Mark Scarborough: How are you, Mel?

00:43:31Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I'm good. No, it was busy this morning, but it was a good course. It's been a lovely morning, a bit wet and cool.

00:43:39Mark Scarborough: Yeah, it's kind of good, the little bit of drizzle and a little bit of wind. It's kept the heat down for us, which was nice. And what did you think of the course?

00:43:46Melissa Ellis: Yeah, no, I liked it. It had some undulations, but yeah, nothing too bad.

00:43:52Mark Scarborough: It was pretty busy for a quiet launch though, wasn't it?

00:43:55Melissa Ellis: I don't think it was very quiet, just quietly.

00:43:57Mark Scarborough: All right, so I reckon that you and I need to go get a coffee and a... Pasty.

00:44:04Scott Trickett: And to continue doing all the heavy lifting in my return, it's my job to back-announce. So you've just heard Chris Fraser giving us a great recap. No, not a recap, a preview of palm19. Loved how you got his parkrun story in there. Really loved that. And Mark Scarborough in my neck of the woods. Now, literally in my neck of the woods at the Warringal Parklands parkrun launch, catching up with the mayor, a bit fancy pants and the ED and everybody there for that big launch.

00:44:40Melissa Erbacher: Mark gets all the big names, doesn't he?

00:44:42Scott Trickett: He does. He does.

00:44:44Melissa Erbacher: Not often you get to speak to the mayor, great to see they've got that kind of support there quite a few more people at a launch than I would feel comfortable with to be honest but that's just my personal preference I think if uh Kawana launched with that many people all those years ago I probably would never have signed up to be a Run Director because that would have freaked me the hell out hey do we still do that segment where we announce where the new events are going to be No, we don't do that. We don't even do anniversaries anymore.

00:45:17Scott Trickett: No, I think we got rid of anniversaries before I left. Yes. Launches, yeah.

00:45:23Melissa Erbacher: No, we don't announce the launches either.

00:45:25Scott Trickett: How do you find out about them now, Mel?

00:45:28Melissa Erbacher: Well, to be honest, I find out about them after the fact and it doesn't really make a lot of difference to my life. That might be an unpopular thing to say but, yeah, you know, I mean there haven't been a lot of launches in my neck of the woods in the last six months. They've all really slowed down a lot in Queensland. I know Victoria's probably trying to catch up still and so we're sort of giving you that breathing space to do that. I'll give you a quiet little sneaky insight, Scotty, that hasn't actually been told to anyone outside the room that I'm currently sitting in. This is the good stuff.

00:46:09Scott Trickett: This is what people are listening for. Yeah. Give it to me. Give it to me.

00:46:13Melissa Erbacher: I've got a bit of an itch to start a new event.

00:46:15Scott Trickett: Have you?

00:46:17Melissa Erbacher: I do. All this adventuring and the challenges with the boys and the distances that we have to go. I'm getting a bit, well, I mean, you know I haven't slept for more than really four hours in the last eight and a half months in a row.

00:46:35Scott Trickett: Yep.

00:46:36Melissa Erbacher: So I'm just a bit tired. And the fact that my home parkrun is 25 minutes away, Adam and I have both been thinking, how nice would it be to be like all those people that just roll out of bed and walk across the road or, you know, take a little stroll down the street to the corner park and that's where their parkrun is. How good would that be to be people? Yeah. And just between the two of us, we've started thinking, well, maybe we could start a new event. I'm not an Event Director anymore. Maybe Adam could be an Event Director. He's the one who came up with that idea. Wow.

00:47:15Scott Trickett: Yeah.

00:47:16Melissa Erbacher: These are exciting times.

00:47:18Scott Trickett: And I'll tell you, you're right. The joys of just going to your local. I mean, I was going to potentially go on a rant, but talking about why we don't advertise inaugurals anymore and what the tourist community means to parkrun. But I like this angle you're going to take it down, Mel, because as you know, bringing it back to me, I do have my own event now. And I've had a bit of an itch to scratch as well, but I scratched that with juniors and I love it.

00:47:51Melissa Erbacher: Yeah.

00:47:52Scott Trickett: I tell people now, Saturday's not my favourite day anymore. It's Sunday. And there's something about... going to your local event.

00:48:02Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Well, we're not going to have a juniors for a little while because the next Queensland junior event is going to be down Brisbane way. I've got no doubt there are people chomping at the bit to bring that to the Sunshine Coast in the not too distant future though. However, yeah, there's just, there's so many places on the Sunshine Coast that I think could really do with an extra event. And it's been a long time since we've had one. So that's kind of the reason I haven't gone to a an inaugural for a very long time so just there just hasn't been one close by that's you know convenient and close to me and those are the ones that you would find out about no matter who you are just word of mouth because it's happening in the local area and that's how you find out and that's how you know it's kind of appropriate for you to go to them because they're close to you um yeah So watch this space. I mean, it might take a long time. And like I said, we're literally just in the thought stages. I haven't submitted a new event request or anything through the form online. So that would be kind of ironic because when they come in at work, I actually answer them at the moment. So I would be just submitting the form outside of work and then going, oh, my God, more work to do.

00:49:20Scott Trickett: Her English is terrible.

00:49:22Melissa Erbacher: But you heard it here first.

00:49:24Scott Trickett: Exciting times. Exciting times. But yeah, I touched on it there. Her English is terrible. And speaking of English, but not terrible English, we've got a report from Pippa about the controversy from last week.

00:49:39Melissa Erbacher: Controversy?

00:49:40Scott Trickett: Is that what we would call it? Absolutely. And if it isn't, it should be. What on earth were you thinking? What do you mean, what was I thinking?

00:49:49Melissa Erbacher: What the hell's a pasty? A pasty is one of those things that you eat. No, it's not. Yes, it really is.

00:49:56Scott Trickett: A pasty is one of those things women put on their breasts.

00:50:00Melissa Erbacher: What? Yes.

00:50:02Scott Trickett: Google it.

00:50:03Melissa Erbacher: Okay. So did you Google it and that's what you found out because or did you already know that information?

00:50:09Scott Trickett: I might have. Don't answer that question.

00:50:11Melissa Erbacher: I don't want to know because I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about. Obviously, because I'm a lot more wholesome than you are.

00:50:20Scott Trickett: Obviously, yeah.

00:50:23Melissa Erbacher: But, I mean, you know, there are certain words that you learn in life, I guess, by reading them rather than hearing them. And maybe pasty is one of those words for me. Just like hors d'oeuvres. I didn't know how to pronounce hors d'oeuvres. I used to say hors d'oeuvres. Oh. For a very long, possibly awkwardly long time until I realised I put two and two together. It's a French word. It's pronounced hors d'oeuvres, okay? It's the same with colonel. How the hell they get colonel from colonel, I have no idea, but I do know how to pronounce it now. And it's just, you know, one of those relics of learning things from reading, I guess. And look, I lived in Scotland for three and a half years. You would think I'd know how to pronounce pasty. But obviously I don't. And a lot of our UK listeners were a bit up in arms and very keen to educate me. So I have been subject to some direct messages during the week and would like to thank Pippa very much for – have we listened to Pippa's yet? We haven't.

00:51:25Scott Trickett: No, we haven't. No. Okay. That was all very subtly put.

00:51:30Pippa: Subtly.

00:51:31Scott Trickett: And let's throw to Pippa and see what she's got to say on the matter.

Pippa and the Tame Volunteer

Roving report Pippa — Dulwich parkrun

00:51:36Pippa: This is Pippa and Harriet reporting in from Dulwich parkrun in South London, just after Dulwich parkrun, because our first recording was so windy that you couldn't hear anything. Dulwich is a wonderful, very flat and very, very fast parkrun. It's three loops of a lovely South London park with a great play park in for kids, daffodils and crocuses and really starting to look spring like. It's also 255 miles from Dulwich to Eden Project parkrun. We just checked because the World Pasty Championship sounded really fantastic. We've run into a couple of snags with putting an entry in for the challenge. One of them is that it's a four and a half hour drive to get there from my place, which is quite a long way. And the pasty has to be delivered between 8.30am and 9.30am. Since English and Welsh parkruns all start at nine, we're really going to struggle to get to parkrun as well. All this talk of pasties has made me feel really hungry. So I'm going to go off and get a nice Cornish pasty for lunch. How about you, tame volunteer? I think it sounds like a great idea. Splendid. Talk to you all soon. Bye.

00:52:48Melissa Erbacher: So there you have it, Scotty.

00:52:49Scott Trickett: Yep. And I should say she's making the right choice.

00:52:54Melissa Erbacher: Because she's got the right accent?

00:52:56Scott Trickett: No, I'm talking about her choice not to enter the pasty competition.

00:53:04Melissa Erbacher: Oh, okay. Amongst other things, yeah. So say it again. The what competition?

00:53:14Scott Trickett: Pasty. Pasty.

00:53:16Melissa Erbacher: No, you just got it wrong. No, I didn't. Yeah, you just pronounced it the same way as Mel Ellis. And this is one of the things that was raised. It was hilarious to the UK listeners because neither one of us was correct. So she was correcting me, but she was wrong. It's not pronounced pasty. It's pronounced pasty.

00:53:37Scott Trickett: No, it's not. I know what I heard, but I heard pasty.

00:53:43Unidentified speaker: No.

00:53:46Melissa Erbacher: Well, what you didn't hear is that, well, you would have heard that Pippa mentioned, I think she mentioned, did she mention in the audio that this was their second attempt at the audio because the first set was really windy. And in the first set, she actually explains that it's pasty as in a, as in cat, right? which is a much more family-friendly explanation than the one I got from somebody else who mentioned that it was a as in ass, which is, you know, what you call a donkey.

00:54:20Scott Trickett: Right.

00:54:20Melissa Erbacher: Not a as in arse, which is probably even more of a swear word than ass. But, yes, it's ass. It's a pasty, allegedly. Okay.

00:54:35Scott Trickett: We need to do a straw poll. So you go to parkrun on the weekend and just collect a few friends.

00:54:44Melissa Erbacher: So what are our choices?

00:54:46Scott Trickett: Pasty.

00:54:48Melissa Erbacher: Pasty.

00:54:48Scott Trickett: Pasty.

00:54:50Melissa Erbacher: Or pasty.

00:54:51Scott Trickett: Pasty. Pasty, yeah.

00:54:52Melissa Erbacher: Pasty. And that's what people called it. It's a pasty.

00:54:55Scott Trickett: It's not. It's a pasty. I know. Anyway.

00:55:01Melissa Erbacher: I think the R is something that we as Aussies tend to do. Like we say past, not past, and castle, not castle.

00:55:10Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

00:55:11Scott Trickett: Where are we again? Remind me.

00:55:15Melissa Erbacher: I'm in Queensland. You're in Victoria.

00:55:17Scott Trickett: In the country?

00:55:18Melissa Erbacher: Of Australia.

00:55:19Scott Trickett: There we go.

00:55:20Melissa Erbacher: So you want to say pasty.

00:55:24Scott Trickett: Moving on, moving on. What's the next thing you've got? Because new name challenge is on the run sheet. What does that mean?

00:55:32Melissa Erbacher: What does that mean? Have you completely missed the fact that Andy and Laura have released a new version of the running challenges extension this week?

00:55:40Scott Trickett: Completely missed it. What have I missed?

00:55:42Melissa Erbacher: Scotty, you've missed that a new challenge has been added. They've also fixed some bugs and things like that. There were some issues, I think mostly with the United States not showing certain things happening on certain days, etc., There's a great tweet, which I did read in full and absorbed at that time and then promptly forgotten afterwards. But it was full of goodness and explaining all the things that they had fixed. You know, they also consolidated the challenge, the ton challenges, you know.

00:56:18Scott Trickett: It's good now called tons of runs.

00:56:21Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's what it's called now, yes, tons of runs, which makes more sense to me. I've never once got on the board for the tons of runs because I think the most parkruns I've done as a participant in one year so far has been 29.

00:56:33Scott Trickett: No, no, tons of runs you've got to get to 100 at one event. So you can have a single ton, a double ton. That's tons of runs.

00:56:44Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Now I'm thinking of the other ones, the obsessives. They've also consolidated the obsessives, the silver and the gold level obsessives.

00:56:51Scott Trickett: So those are ones that I've never seen. Neat and clean now. Well done. And yeah, name badge.

00:56:58Melissa Erbacher: Yes. So here's the thing. Have you done an event? And I actually misinterpreted this and thought that you had to spell your full name in a row. So you had to go to events backwards.

00:57:12Scott Trickett: Oh, okay.

00:57:13Melissa Erbacher: in the spelling of your name so that they would all be there. But apparently, no, it's just kind of like the alphabet challenge but different in that you just have to spell out your own name as it's registered on the parkrun system. So my question to you, Scotty, is, I'm assuming you're looking at it now.

00:57:30Scott Trickett: Looking right at it. 13 out of 13. Yep. Got it?

00:57:33Melissa Erbacher: You've got it. You've got the whole thing.

00:57:36Scott Trickett: Yeah. My name's pretty easy. I've got lots of T's and S's and… Well, I actually only got one S, but yeah, lots of Ts and yeah, I've done it.

00:57:46Melissa Erbacher: Well, there you go. I have gaping voids, unfortunately, in my own challenge progress for that one. But that's good because it means I've got some adventures to be had.

00:57:58Scott Trickett: Another random challenge, isn't it? Like if your name was Bob Knob, you could get it pretty quickly. But you've got Erbacher, so you've got a bit more of a challenge.

00:58:10Melissa Erbacher: And a long first name. I've got 15 letters in my name to get for starters and I've got three missing and they are all the same.

00:58:20Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:58:20Melissa Erbacher: Can you guess?

00:58:22Scott Trickett: E's.

00:58:22Melissa Erbacher: E's, yeah. Yeah.

00:58:23Scott Trickett: I don't have an E. Yeah, because I heard you last week say you didn't have an E. That's what you're missing.

00:58:28Melissa Erbacher: That's what I'm missing from the alphabet, and I need to get three of them to complete my name, which is definitely going to mean an adventure because we've only got one E in Queensland, and even that is a bit of a get-to situation.

00:58:42Scott Trickett: Emerald.

00:58:43Melissa Erbacher: Emerald. Yep, it's a gem, that one.

00:58:47Scott Trickett: Well, there's a few in South Australia. You were just there. Missed opportunity. You're going back there. Another missed opportunity.

00:58:56Melissa Erbacher: Well, it depends on what you classify as a missed opportunity. I'm going to be taking in a whole bunch of freedom runs as well as doing Mount Barker officially for the first time. I don't think that's a missed opportunity.

00:59:07Scott Trickett: You're probably right.

00:59:09Melissa Erbacher: You've got to have your priorities.

00:59:11Scott Trickett: So are you a Melissa? Is your registered name Melissa?

00:59:14Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. It's not Mel to answer, which is probably what you're thinking is that, oh, I could just cut it down to, you know, three letters instead of seven. And that's, you know, going to bring us to another thing, which I'm sure has already probably happened. How many people do you reckon are going to go change their registered name?

00:59:39Scott Trickett: But you're only cheating yourself, Mel.

00:59:41Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I know. I know. It's certainly not something I would consider doing.

00:59:45Scott Trickett: Changing that to Bob Knopp just for one week.

00:59:49Melissa Erbacher: Well, see, personally, I think I would like to change my name to something more difficult to give me the opportunity to have a bit more of a challenge.

00:59:58Scott Trickett: Okay.

00:59:58Melissa Erbacher: But I do like the three E's. The three E's is going to be a thing for me to aim for. So thank you, Andy and Laura, for adding some more fun, especially because this is something everyone can do the world over. Not everyone can do all the Ponty's, especially if you don't live in the UK. So that's a bit more out of my reach. But this one, this one I can get to with a bit of adventure.

01:00:22Scott Trickett: This is a good one. Quincy's the name you want to avoid. Why? Just off the top of my head. Quincy, you've got your Q, you've got your I, you've got your U, you've got your Y.

01:00:33Melissa Erbacher: I've got all those letters. Yeah, but they're not easy to get. If my name was Quincy, I'd have it.

01:00:37Unidentified speaker: Okay.

01:00:41Melissa Erbacher: And, I mean, it's one of those good things. They also let people have Xs. If somebody's got an X in their name, it's given to them, just the same as if they've got a hyphen in their name. That's already thrown out as a freebie, which is nice.

01:00:55Scott Trickett: Very generous. Yes. Another reason to check back in on the running challenges. They're like a drug. They just keep bringing out the new thing to drag you back in if you haven't been.

Sign-off

01:01:06Melissa Erbacher: It's wonderful watching them evolve over time. So, Scotty.

01:01:11Scott Trickett: Is that it? We done?

01:01:13Melissa Erbacher: Well, calm down now. Calm down. I want to hear the music again. You can listen to the music anytime. You sent me the stings. I'm pretty sure you've got them somewhere in your computer at home. How do you feel being back?

01:01:28Scott Trickett: I've loved it. I've missed it immensely.

01:01:32Melissa Erbacher: This is a one-time only show for- This is a one-time only, yeah. It's a guest situation.

01:01:37Scott Trickett: I'm a guest situation, yeah. I thought we could do another little segment. We've probably run out of time. We're also going to review all your co-hosts. Just give them a grading. Give me my top three. Maybe out of 10.

01:01:47Melissa Erbacher: Give me your top three.

01:01:49Scott Trickett: I'll give you your top three. Okay. Well- We really are pressed for time, so maybe if you ever ask me back.

01:01:57Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Which surprised you, that I did actually ask if you'd like to come along?

01:02:03Scott Trickett: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the begging was a bit undignified on my behalf, but it's been six months or something, hasn't it, Mel? I think I left in about one episode, 160 or something.

01:02:18Melissa Erbacher: When did I leave? I think it was 170. 169 was your last episode.

01:02:21Scott Trickett: Okay.

01:02:23Melissa Erbacher: So 25 episodes ago, which is, yeah, bang on pretty much six months when you consider the fact that we had a break at Christmas time. Maybe in another six months you'll come back again.

01:02:33Scott Trickett: Once a year. Well, that would be twice a year. Twice a year.

01:02:38Melissa Erbacher: Still as good at maths as you ever were. It's good to see some things never change.

01:02:43Scott Trickett: Yep. Now can we have the music? Well, you've got to let me thank you.

01:02:49Melissa Erbacher: I will thank the co-hosts. Thank you, Scotty, for joining me on Episode 194 of the parkrun adventurers Podcast. It has been fun having you back.

01:03:01Scott Trickett: Oh, shucks. It's been great to be back. Now can we have the music? We can have the music.

01:03:05[music]

01:03:44Unidentified speaker: So,