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" St. John the Forerunner used the word, we have to go with the Catohlics: he wore a hairshirt, lived as a hemit, and fasted. That was the example of "metanoia" he gave. You do your own math"

If you are talking about John the Baptist, he was a Nazarite from birth. It was foretold he would be filled with the Holy Ghost and turn many to God. His life style was not one of repentance but that of a Nazarite and a prophet. He was not earning his salvation, he was already saved under the old economy.

If you are talking about another person, then I have no idea who he is or what he was doing.

As far as the prodigal son, his returning was the fruit of his repentance not repentance itself.

he was already saved under the old economy.
Which was a variation of the current economy. John and the Old Testament saints were saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. We are saved on the opposite side of the cross. Both are by grace through faith and not because of their works - though their faith brought forward the good fruit of the saved by grace.

I think you've all got the wrong idea about metanoia, however:

"As far as the prodigal son, his returning was the fruit of his repentance not repentance itself."

The main point of the parable is not the repetence of the son, but the greeting of the father. It didn't make any difference to the father what his son had done. The son, on the other hand, in order to return to the father, had to lose every "thing" that meant anything to him, every "thing" his father had given him and including his own sense of self importance; in other words, he had to die to himself and in that state realize that his only hope was that his father, whom he realized he loved still loved, him and would take him back, even as a sort of slave. But his father greeted him and treated him as a prince.

One can "end up" in that state of personal nothingness and helplessness, or one can strive through a sort of praxis to arrive at the same end, dying to the self. In the first instance one can end up humble enough to come crawling back and be received like a prince, to speak in temporal terms, or simply dissolve into some sort of depraved end. In the other, one can experience the uncreated light of God, to speak in theological terms. Neither way is even remotely easy.

He was not earning his salvation, he was already saved

Very much so (in St. Elizabeth's womb, not in "the old economy"). But he was "making straight the way" by showing the way. That was the way of penance. Incidentally, this is why he is called the Forerunner.