Parkrunners, assemble!

[Baxter75]

Done 9 park runs now I alternate between 2 locally.
The one that's more central just off motorway my least fave as over 500 runners hard get a good pace on lap 1 as so many trying to start.
Lap 2 is around a lake.
Lap 3 around whole park then half to finish.
Issue is after Lap 2 coming up hill from lake to start Lap 3 you share the same path as those who are super fast heading to finish line as get to end of path and some turn right to finish but I'm straight head to 1.5 more laps feels mentally hard see so many finished before.
I'm always in final 50 to 60 places and my personal best is 36mins 11 seconds.
What annoys me about results.

Is never tell you how many female runners.
How many in your age group
Percentages think 43% around highest yet the bench mark for good is 60%.

Was so cold minus 2 yesterday went to smaller ones so half the number of runners but basically each Lap is up one big hill and down.
More of a rough path than the others I came 194/ 225 runners with 36.56 finish time.

I never look forward to it but feel great afterwards.
Definitely getting faster and volunteers always seem lovely.

Find hard get past buggies and nearly tripped up over a few dogs.
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I think most say thank you just some runners defiantly more enthusiastic and extra chatty with marshalls than others was the point.

Is it St Albans parkrun?

 

[Millennial Pink]

What the hell, I commented on a post on the park run tourist trying to help someone with some advise and the admins have banned me until 15 August, no idea what I’ve done wrong and now making me see the cliquey toxic side of this stuff.

The moderators are a bit ban/delete happy over there. They took someone's post down earlier- it had parkrun themed earrings in

 

[RunRunRun]

Where is it? I’m assuming London given the numbers? I don’t pay any attention to new events these days so haven’t got a clue.

 

[Millyve]

Its sort of a hate follow for me, the guy who organised that Ireland trip seems to revel in it, how zany can they get, in fact they set up their own facegroup page, on the trip to Ireland he made sure to finish after 12pm, so he was only the 4th person on the world to do it or some OCD bullshite (on top of his 6th alphabet)

I’m intrigued to hear more on this story

 

[Baby Giraffe]

My whinge about parkrun is that the ones in my town start at 7am. I’m a jogger/walker pushing a pram with two little kids in it, and that’s really early to be organised and out the house.

Am assuming you live in a hotter country (otherwise wtf?), thankfully all 9am in England

 

[Camperfan]

Somerdale Pavilion is the curlywurly one! You go round in a spiral to the circle centre and back out again. My friend PBd there (Eastville is her home parkrun) which surprised her given the curlywurly bit.
I actually like Ashton Court, yes, it's 1.5 mile uphill, but it's then 1.5 mile down. I have my Strava fastest mile ever recorded there doing parkrun!
Bath is skyline but I don't think it's hilly. There's also Severn bridge, or Blaise Castle (bit hilly and uneven grass in places, so unlikely a PB course).

 

[NotGonnaLieToYou]

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)

 

[Millennial Pink]

I agree it may be a big achievement but I think there has to be some give and take. Which is why I said at the events discretion they should be allowed to implement a cut off of no less than 1 hour. Should they see fit. Assuming me and millenial pink are talking about the same post, I know for a fact the event in question struggles for volunteers and is very dependent on DofE volunteers for the finish line roles (if regular runners volunteered more maybe they wouldn’t need to depend on children).
In circumstances yesterday when it was truly disgusting I can see how someone might have had a sense of humour failure and thought there should be a cut off. Not nice to hear, but we are human beings. I also think that in conditions like yesterday the RD should be able to implement an hour cut off for the sake of the volunteers, especially when several are actual children. I think so much effort to welcome slower runners means the well-being of the volunteers has been forgotten

Yep, same one about the walking. I'm all for inclusively and don't mind walkers at events generally, but over an hour in a storm and they're complaining about the volunteer? Absolutely not.

There was a post the other week where a tourist felt 'shamed' about an RD mentioning volunteering.

 

[RunRunRun]

My comment was a little bit facetious but looking at their annual accounts and return it does seem that they are indeed, raking it in. https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search?p_p_id=uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet&p_p_lifecycle=2&p_p_state=maximized&p_p_mode=view&p_p_resource_id=/accounts-resource&p_p_cacheability=cacheLevelPage&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_objectiveId=A12501792&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_mvcRenderCommandName=/accounts-and-annual-returns&_uk_gov_ccew_onereg_charitydetails_web_portlet_CharityDetailsPortlet_priv_r_p_organisationNumber=5107721

Perhaps not enough to offer minimum wage to every volunteer everywhere every week, but certainly enough to manage to solve this problem one could say.

I’m not sure if those results also include the other limited companies that are also associated with parkrun.

Edit to add: from reading the link it does look like it - profits are donated to the charity part. Lots of opportunity for creative accounting then.

 

[runningbutnotinfluencing]

I wonder if HQ could get it closed down. The bloke running it seems like an absolute creature with such a bee in his bonnet about parkrun HQ 'gatekeeping' these events.

The temptation to join it with a made up event...

I fully understand the reason behind letting new events bed in. But the complete overkill that people have to this guy spreading news to a very small section of people? Wow.

Because, in truth, the percentage of people who see this information and could act on it is tiny.
Biggest fb group has around 24000 people in it. The same number of people did their first or second ever parkrun this weekend just gone. 24000 out of 290k parkrunners this weekend just gone (global parkrun numbers I know, sorry I don’t have U.K. specific).

I mean honestly. Why do you think parkrun hq could get a Facebook group closed down?
Because he is sharing factual information?

 

[Melian]

My local parkrun has a temporary route due to works in the park. It's too hilly and I don't like it.

(I will also run somewhere and complain there are no hills...)

 

[Millyve]

Literally someone at my park run has taken 5 roles on our future roster weeks ahead…. These are roles which can do and take part in park run aswel so leaving only roles to undertake available and also not get a time… I get if it’s same week then feel ya boots but 3/4 weeks ahead give others a chance.

 

[Millyve]

We had today at our parkrun, a girl about 12-13 her dad pushing to the max and throwing up twice when she crossed the line. We offered them some water, her dad was like she is fine. Tell her to get up off the floor and walk. She was like a ghost, and not steady on her feet at all. Then the dad was saying to her stop been dramatic and walk. we couldn’t believe it..

I dread to think what time he pushed her to get round in.
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Junior park run is supposed to be full of pushy parents.

 

[Melian]

We had that at our parkrun. The tail walker suggested (as he was under 11) she'd walk with the child and his father can go ahead. The father said no.

We haven't seen them since.

I know some children do need encouragement but it should be fun.

 

[Millennial Pink]

I have a friend who is running an ultra at the weekend. Apparently it goes close to a parkrun course. Sone idiot has asked if he can detour from his almost 50 mile route to do parkrun and then continue with the actual race so he doesn't lose his streak. Apparently its a deal breaker and if he can't do parkrun he won't do the race

Someone from one of the podcasts did exactly that a few years ago. I couldn't handle the stress, frankly.

 

[Lastqueenofscotland]

Anything within an hour or so of me is off. Not that I think I’d get my car off the ice rink that is my road tomorrow anyway! Looking forward to a lie in

 

[Giggling Squid]

Literally someone at my park run has taken 5 roles on our future roster weeks ahead…. These are roles which can do and take part in park run aswel so leaving only roles to undertake available and also not get a time… I get if it’s same week then feel ya boots but 3/4 weeks ahead give others a chance.

Surely it’s better to have volunteer spots filed than not? We have a lot of people who do this at my local

 

[orangelolly]

For those who listen to WMN, why did DN stop calling it the Freyne club? Anyone know the tea?

 

[Lemming312]

I think it was one event that had to cancel? They announced it on the day I think. I’m not sure of the ins and outs but for example, I know HQs guidelines is cancelling for vehicles for example. So if they’ve bought a van and we’re packing up and driving out.
I was RD when someone was setting up an event (we’d been told they wouldn’t be there till about 11) and we had to cancel with about 20 minutes notice as there were a few flatbeds driving in and out of one of the gates.

I would have told them they didn't have access till 11, bit rude of them!

 

[runrun321]

Parkrun removing the course records etc has caused a huge stir in Australia. A lot of people don’t realise that they rely heavily on UK funding and that the initial report findings indicated that their funding should be withdrawn if they didn’t do something