Parkrunners, assemble!

[RunRunRun]

Taken from twitter. Looks like Mara Yamaurchi (and others) asking for the women’s sex category to be protected has resulted in parkrun actually making a decision about it (although hiding that as being the reason I suspect).

I’m interested to see how it goes down. It’s not been officially announced, this screenshot was sent to ambassadors apparently. I’m sure there will be the usual meltdowns on the Facebook groups and twitter. But it does at least solve the inconsistency around ‘it’s a run not a race’ but then going big on course records and placings.

Although if they are going to keep the event results pages the same, then the data is still out there…so does it really change anything? I’m in two minds.

 

[WeepingCassandra]

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Ouch.

Christ, they need to have a day off. Has it occurred to anyone there that if your normal numbers are in the low 80s (gathering from the first timer comment) then your problem may be that the ratio of people who care enough to volunteer (there are 20 roles on their future roster that I can see would be necessary for the event to go ahead) is just too low? That's 1/4 of your regular runners. My local parkrun pulls in over 500 runners most weeks and still struggles to fill roles.

 

[Gym&Tonic]

It shouldn’t take more than an hour for anyone to run 5k. Even when I first started and was much less fit than I am now I was doing it in about 45 minutes, and that was with stopping and starting.

 

[Millyve]

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

Don’t over do it, if you need to walk, walk & always make sure you stretch after a run.

I joined a running club and just stuck with it and now I have found something I love and enjoy including the social side of it.

 

[Millennial Pink]

I've just seen that Henstridge has now stopped for good. I feel sorry for them, they were obviously annoyed at never getting any volunteers (or the same volunteers) and it spilled out in that report. Clearly took its toll on them though

Oh dear. They aren't the first event directors to throw in the towel. It is a shame that they didn't have anyone to pass the torch to, I suppose that's a big part of the event's sustainability. I think it probably needed to attract more runners to make the volunteer numbers work. A 1/5 ratio is fairly high.

 

[Millyve]

Oh no hope it heals quickly. My parkrun buddy fell on her run yesterday and broke her shoulder

Ouch! I’m so fortunate it’s my wrist and not my ankle! I have a 10K on Sunday .
---

The cynic in me suspects that they got a bollocking from HQ and said sod this

100% think this aswel. But I see so many people on 100’s of park runs and never once volunteer, so must be frustrating. I think HQ need to promote the volunteering abit more and maybe make it more attractive, not money incentive but discounts on merch.

 

[Bonbon76]

I have tail walked at Junior parkrun and that's a challenge! Suddenly a child drops out and you have to sprint to catch up to the next one. Or the last runner runs and then walks and then runs, you have to be prepared to cover all speeds!

 

[runningbutnotinfluencing]

Pah. I’ve got some love for these comments but also some disagreement.

I’m all in for the parkrun tourism / going places for a daytrip via a parkrun / Christmas parkruns etc. I don’t run the same parkrun weekly so I don’t use it for 5k benchmarking but I do like it for a competitive (ish) paced run. Otherwise my running is too easy to just skip out of targeted pace

I’ve no interest in chasing specific numbered events however, that’s just irrelevant and designed by someone who thought of it.

 

[Northernscumpet]

My local one is friendly and very mixed ability wise, we get some tourists but not loads but I've found others (and my tourism is rare and only if I'm already going to be in a different place on a Saturday and it fits the schedule) far less pleasant. I can't be doing with the obsessive tourism, challenges and the idea of flying JUST to do a parkrun is bonkers to me. I know people who have done it but yeah....absolutely not.

 

[Fifah1907]

I’ve stumbled across a mad facebook group where a tshirt has been printed for people to wear on their 250th run. You can book it for your run and someone posts it out for you to wear

Oh yummy everyone wants a T-shirt that multiple other people have already sweated in

I know you can wash it, but….

 

[GalofHal]

I've often been tail walker as we get a lot of tourists to ours and it's interesting to chat. But sometimes kids are being forced round and they stop to pick flowers or often have a tantrum and parents insist they carry on. Makes for over the hour and volunteers hanging around at the finish.

 

[Matisse182]

That would make sense alright. It kinda shows that parkrun HQ should be supporting events more. If events are struggling for volunteers, low participation numbers etc they should feel they have somewhere to turn to for support. Volunteer is often a thankless job and there’s only so long you can keep doing something for free that is costing you time and energy and getting nothing in return.

I totally agree with this. Or HQ could privately remind people that it is ok to walk away if enough people aren't sharing the volunteering at an event. I appreciate people feel they want to make it a success or they may even feel they're failing if it doesn't work out but they're so dependent on others sharing the load, they should be able to feel they can just step back whenever.

 

[Lastqueenofscotland]

I'll be down in London in a few weeks time, and I was considering doing Bushy, but 1000+ people?! No thanks, I'll try a quieter one.

To be fair, bushy is a beautiful park and copes really well with big numbers. For a similar feel but smaller numbers Richmond would be my shout

 

[Fifah1907]

People travel further for a park run than I’m travelling for a marathon next year

 

[orange club biscuit]

I think it’s more the made up challenge element than anything else. That’s how I read it anyway.

was also rolling my eyes at the ‘challenge’…had no idea that there even was a trans flag

 

[chickhicks86]

Totally agree about the very slow walkers making volunteering less appealing! But I guess how do you draw the line between the repeat offenders who hold things up every week, and the ones who have maybe overestimated their abilities and didn't managed to do it as quickly as intended. I'm not keen on the "parkwalk" initiative either, it's diluting the essence of parkrun, which I've always thought was to challenge yourself a bit against others (even though it's not a race!) and against your previous times. There are plenty of other groups etc out there for those who want a social walk.

 

[WeepingCassandra]

So we actually made it to parkrun this week and I'm back with some thoughts about walking XD

First of all, I did walk a bit - roughly 2/3s of a mile in bursts - as I went off way too fast and was running at about roughly 3 minutes per mile quicker than I have done since May 2021 (my first mile was 9:xx and I haven't run sub 11 minute miles since getting pregnant). There were several other people who also walked at times. But everyone was giving it effort, no-one was ambling around looking like a lost soul following the pack blindly because they felt they should. I think that is the key difference and what probably annoys volunteers more. There's a big difference between someone walking as fast as they can with short breaks and someone just plodding along, not getting out of breath and taking 2 hours to do 3 miles.

 

[instaclowns]

They stopped to go into the cafe? Wow. Guess they weren’t there to get a time!

Yep! Said they were thirsty and when they looked on the website there was no finish time for the event

 

[Millennial Pink]

Does anyone know of a parkrun which has moved location? Ie they are still in the same town but moved to a new area and course?
(Doing a bit of research for an event director who is considering moving an event to a different location but in the same area)

There has been a few near me that moved location but kept the same core team. Tees barrage moved to Wynyard Woodland, Gibside moved to Chopwell Wood. Catterick moved to Thorp Perrow. Seems to be quite difficult for the teams to find a nearby suitable location once they've lost permission, so they can end up a few miles away.

 

[Lastqueenofscotland]

So they got rid of the New Years Day events because they thought people were driving over the limit to get to them? Am I misreading that?

I think it was two fold, events that usually got small numbers were getting 5/600 runners, and some courses don’t cope, my local 100% wouldn’t.
Also people were doing daft things to try and do a “unique” double and some reports of dangerous driving were made iirc