Parkrunners, assemble!

[Giggling Squid]

Now I love parkrun. I love that there’s a place I can go and run 5k with a few other people without really needing to think about it, get it done in a Saturday morning. When I cant or don’t want to run, I often volunteer. I’m a member of a local running club, and there’s usually a good number of club runners there so nice to see a few friends.
What I hate is the people who do all these challenges. It’s madness! There’s a few at my local parkrun who I swear all they talk about is the 5k app.

I’ve had a few hilariously awful tailwalking experiences too. My slowest was 1h 15, and honest to god it was horrific

 

[Bonbon76]

Yes, Olympic Dad that I mentioned earlier times the poor kid too and like to announce to him loudly how fast he finished once he's come through the funnel!

I do some sort of opposite performance parenting by shouting loudly "WOW! You worked so hard. Time doesn't matter at all darling! Did you enjoy it?"

 

[jackieweaver’sauthority]

Did my first park run yesterday, I’m pretty fit but I’m not a runner and it showed I did enjoy it so want to go again, as long as childcare allows.

Any tips to improve? Probably do more running

 

[Humblebrag]

How were everyone’s park runs this morning?

I'll never run or volunteer at one again

 

[WeepingCassandra]

Why do people leave getting to a destination until the day of park run someone on park run tourist pages flight was delayed so the chose to get escorted back out the airport and found a park run near by….. utter madness and a waste of money.

Yes, I saw that! And I thought what a bellend, why wouldn't you go anyway and enjoy the city?

Personally I do not get this travelling around to get different parkruns. If we're staying somewhere Friday night for something and we're free Saturday morning, I might check and see if there's one that we could get to but I'm not going to book a hotel or drive for 4 hours on a Saturday morning JUST to run 5k.

 

[Fifah1907]

I’ve done one junior park run with my nephew (aged 5) and he told me I wasn’t taking it seriously when I was telling him he could slow down and walk if he needed to

 

[instaclowns]

If you looked up the words ‘park run cunt’ you’d see runrutrun from instagram as the image being used. Show me a bigger toss bag than this guy when it comes to park run and pretty much in general

 

[Lastqueenofscotland]

I think parkrun has been a victim of its own success, getting rid of the New Year’s Day double perhaps most indicative of that.

 

[Millennial Pink]

I'm impressed by the disposable income they must have to be forking out for hotel stays nearly every week.

 

[Melian]

Mild to compared to those who broke bones but I have a bite from parkrunning Saturday

 

[Millennial Pink]

I was scanning yesterday and one of the participants got scanned and made a big show of thanking all the volunteers and saying we were the backbone of parkrun etc. All very nice, but this guy has never volunteered and he's there most weeks. I wonder what it would take for him to volunteer? He clearly understands how it works. I was thinking about that aggressive run report again. Do most runs have a few volunteers who volunteer most weeks and aren't runners? We've got a number of volunteers like that at my local one and they enjoy the volunteering for it's own sake. Not sure how common that is.

 

[Bonbon76]

I think I've just fallen out of love a bit with parkrun and I'm only a few runs off my 100. Maybe I'm the grumpy one but I can't cope with the people and found myself just pulling faces at the last few photos I saw on Facebook. I think mine has a bit to do with some of my friendships. I just can't be arsed when I can get up, do my own run and be in the shower by 9am.

 

[RunRunRun]

I know this is petty of me, but I’m really enjoying how this BBC article uses an uppercase P for every instance of parkrun. You just know there will be some die hard fans getting properly wound up about how it should always be lowercase.

Parkrun: The local jog that became a worldwide hit

From its humble beginnings as a local event, the story of how Parkrun became a global phenomenon.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Baby Giraffe]

You see that is an example of something unique and always happy to stay and cheer as a runner or stay longer as a volunteer, but those who take the piss are just arrogant, like these two I mentioned

Oh yes, defo sounds like they were entitled pricks unfortunately and have have struggled to to let loose with them. Sadly twats like that can sometimes make people less sympathetic to people that genuinely would massively benefit from giving parkrun a go but then feel they’re a nuisance (when the ones that actually are the nuisance wouldn’t even consider it as they’re too self centered)

 

[orange club biscuit]

It’s very central, wide and flat paths, very densely populated ‘nice’ area with ok-ish public transport links. Very few of the ‘central’ London parks have a parkrun for various reasons.

I’d argue it’s one of the few places in the country that doesn’t need a parkrun tbh the last time I bothered going for a run there was in lockdown and I imagine it’s 30000x more busy there with runners on a Saturday morning even without parkrun!
---
If you haven’t already guessed I will not be going out of my way to attend

 

[Lastqueenofscotland]

I think it’s trying to be too many things for too many people. It is hard to strike the balance right between encouraging walkers, volunteering and super speedy runners and everyone in between.
In the real world most people I know do care about their times for some extent regardless of if they are 15 minute runners or 45 minute runners and j think it wouldfall off a cliff in popularity wise if it stopped giving/publishing times

 

[Millennial Pink]

Oh there are loads of run wankers at our local one. Mainly from the local athletics and triathlon clubs. They run the course in about twenty minutes and then do it again to get a 10k and then run back to the car park. It’s best to just let them get on with it. Most people are nice though.

A few events near me had to ask those types to stay out of everyone's way in the future. They'd be blasting round in 18 mins shrieking at everyone to keep left/right, then running round the course backwards and blocking the path for everyone else trying to enjoy their run. One once got in my way near the finish funnel and I could have hissed at him.

 

[Bonbon76]

It's so hard with kids. I have run with my child at parkrun while they were crying and to an outsider it probably looked terrible but they were honestly given the choice to stop. There's a very difficult balance between encouragement and being pushy.

 

[*twinkletwinkle*]

There’s a new one launching near me in a small town called Cockermouth 🫢

There needs to be a challenge with Penistone and Scunthorpe as well. Any others?

 

[WeepingCassandra]

Thanks - just looked at my local one which I went to previously (it's at the end of my road so couldn't get much closer!). Lots of sub 20 min finishers but 2 people were over 50 mins, so I might be ok there provided those 2 go every week
Checked the next nearest group, no one over 47 mins. Definitely NOT going to that one!

Yeah, it's something I started doing when I was pregnant with my LO. OH wanted to go when we went away (we took a lot of Babymoons ) and I'd check and see if it was walking appropriate for me and/or if the route was good enough that I could do one lap or half of it instead.