Parkrunners, assemble!

[Millennial Pink]

Just seen on a Facebook parkrun page somebody talking about wanting to do a parkrun while on holiday but there isn’t one nearby. Instead of just doing their own run local to their holiday, they are being advised to get up early and drive for 1.5 hours so they can do parkrun. Just why?

This is where the tourism tends to go into unhealthy obsessive places imo. I wouldn't dream of not taking a holiday somewhere over a weekend because parkrun didn't exist there. I wouldn't go miles out of my way to do one on holiday, either. I wouldn't travel overseas solely to do a parkrun.

I understand the appeal of doing stuff like this with your mates, but you could do the same nice social run in your own area (or at least your own country) without spending a fortune on flights and hotels and still have a lovely time.

As I've done more tourism, the appeal of getting up earlier and earlier and spending more and more money to reach new events has really declined. I'm more likely to circuit around my few local ones or volunteer nowadays.

 

[Melian]

I didn't realise that the lot who went to Inis Meáin had actually chartered their own ferry. Flaming hell.

I was there and I,know the pair that sorted it.

Has anyone seen the video of the crossing of the ferry? It was horrible!

 

[muffinheeler]

I was there and I,know the pair that sorted it.

Has anyone seen the video of the crossing of the ferry? It was horrible!

I've just seen it. Hard pass for me

 

[instaclowns]

If you looked up the words ‘park run bleep’ 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

 

[Baby Giraffe]

If you looked up the words ‘park run bleep’ 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

Thankfully no idea who you're talking about

 

[Lalla]

My pet peeve though is people sprinting past in the last 50m when their time is still only going to be 35mins On a good day

Honestly it's posts like this that put me off going back to Parkrun. I did a few before COVID when I was thinner and fitter, and my absolute best time was about 34 mins. I was one of the last 2-3 to finish every time, as ours is quite a small Parkrun and was full of blokes who finish in 17-18 mins.

Now I'm 3st heavier and i doubt I could do it in less than 50 mins. I don't want to be bringing up the rear thinking people will be wondering why I'm even bothering or that I'm holding all the tailwalkers up from going home

 

[Patrickthewonderdog]

I hate parkrun. I was event director for 5 years and I hated the change to including 1 hour plus walkers - like I had nothing better to do with my Saturday than wait for people to walk really slowly round the park when it’s 2 degrees outside and then they never ever offered to volunteer. So I quit - not for me anymore.

 

[DrNooo]

If you looked up the words ‘park run bleep’ 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

Appears he had to get his (presumed) children's names tattooed on him so he doesn't forget them due to brain being filled to capacity with useless PB and parkrun stats.

 

[kazizzle]

I quite like my local parkrun but we have quite a lot of athletics clubs in the area so there are some FAST runners. I'm always in the last quarter of finishers. It's a nice route though and I always enjoy the atmosphere.

My pet peeve though is people sprinting past in the last 50m when their time is still only going to be 35mins On a good day

I always do a sprint finish and my time is always between 33-35 mins depending on the day. I "jeff" at parkrun (run walk run) so always have a good amount in the bag left for the finish straight. 35 minutes is a perfectly reasonable 5k time.

 

[WeepingCassandra]

Honestly it's posts like this that put me off going back to Parkrun. I did a few before COVID when I was thinner and fitter, and my absolute best time was about 34 mins. I was one of the last 2-3 to finish every time, as ours is quite a small Parkrun and was full of blokes who finish in 17-18 mins.

Now I'm 3st heavier and i doubt I could do it in less than 50 mins. I don't want to be bringing up the rear thinking people will be wondering why I'm even bothering or that I'm holding all the tailwalkers up from going home

Don't worry about them. It's a nice bench mark event I find and if I'm up and about, child willing, on a Saturday morning I'll keep going back. You won't be bringing up the rear at 50 minutes but like I said before, it's always worth checking your local for what their normal times are around - for example, Sale Water this weekend had finishers around the 1 hour mark but Phillips Park 5k down the road had everyone home under 50 minutes. Some of that will be course variability but some of it will just the crowd that parkrun attracts.

 

[Lurkeryaar]

Or go to Great Yarmouth where no one is fast

 

[Lalla]

Don't worry about them. It's a nice bench mark event I find and if I'm up and about, child willing, on a Saturday morning I'll keep going back. You won't be bringing up the rear at 50 minutes but like I said before, it's always worth checking your local for what their normal times are around - for example, Sale Water this weekend had finishers around the 1 hour mark but Phillips Park 5k down the road had everyone home under 50 minutes. Some of that will be course variability but some of it will just the crowd that parkrun attracts.

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!

 

[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.

 

[Lastqueenofscotland]

On the subject of unhinged parkrun tourism, last summer (I’m sure I screenshotted it but now can’t find it) I saw a post of a woman who hadnt realised the parkrun in Cyprus was on a closed military base, had booked to stay as near to it and found out two weeks before she couldn’t do it and was genuinely considering cancelling her and her families (no one else was a parkrunner) holiday and trying to get a last minute deal somewhere with one…
Batshit.

I like parkrun and like touring and doing lots of different parkruns. I hate “tourists” the same day return flights to Poland, ignoring requests to not go to a parkrun because of one of the dumb ass number sequences. Environmentally horrible and so selfish.

I used to RD and stopped for a number of reasons but people being absolute twats was high up there, I had two worst offender groups.
1) as someone said before, middle aged middle of the pack men. Always rude, never volunteered.

2) also always rude and never volunteer, a particular brand of tourists: slightly larger women in tikiboo skorts, always with camel packs, who take about 45 minutes, always running in a group on a three lapped course which gets narrow and being bloody dickheads about being asked to keep right.We didn’t have toilets at our parkrun, there were some in the park that the council didn’t open till later in the morning made VERY CLEAR in the course description and I had one woman of the above description literally have a tantrum because I couldn’t open it for her.
They were always also the ones who emailed into complain that the barcode scanner wasn’t super cheery, or the marshal was too cheery and it was patronising (both genuine complaints).

argh

 

[Gym&Tonic]

The last time I did it I got really annoyed with a family in front of me. Mum, dad and two young children a boy and a girl. Dad was obviously a run wanker and desperately wanted to be near the front of the pack but the kids (and his wife) were struggling to keep up with him. Instead of just running ahead and letting them to get on with it he’d stop when they did and stand in the middle of the course wait for them to catch up and they’d all run together as a group before he ended up miles ahead again and stopped to wait for them and they kept getting in everyone’s bleeping way!

 

[Matisse182]

Dad was obviously a run wanker and desperately wanted to be near the front of the pack but the kids (and his wife) were struggling to keep up with him.

'Run wanker' - brilliant . I'm borrowing that one!
I also used to be an RD, quite a few years ago and stopped because I couldn't commit to be there with kids swimming lessons etc clashing. I had some similar experiences though that I really don't miss. The middle aged men who ran maybe 20-25 mins who would email most weeks asking for their times to be corrected by 2-3 seconds. If we said no we would get a barrage of long emails telling us we were wasting their time by not just getting it fixed etc.
I do think it has improved for slower people. I used to tail run sometimes (when it was tail running) and I would struggle to keep up with the last person who was rarely slower than about 38 mins. I'm a lot less fit now and its good to know I can take about 50 mins and not feel I'm holding everyone up.

 

[Melian]

Honestly it's posts like this that put me off going back to Parkrun. I did a few before COVID when I was thinner and fitter, and my absolute best time was about 34 mins. I was one of the last 2-3 to finish every time, as ours is quite a small Parkrun and was full of blokes who finish in 17-18 mins.

Now I'm 3st heavier and i doubt I could do it in less than 50 mins. I don't want to be bringing up the rear thinking people will be wondering why I'm even bothering or that I'm holding all the tailwalkers up from going home

I once tail walked. We had a pair of women walk / run who apologised for being slow. I knew as there was a local race the next day there was going to be a slower runner.

I've walked a few including one where it was so muddy that running was impossible. I almost lost my shoe!

 

[Gym&Tonic]

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.

 

[snapdrag0n]

I’m on a very very very very slow return to running (still pretty much walking) and mine has been pretty good for walkers, but it is bigger so there’s a fair time spread. There’s generally two groups of walkers, slower (closer to the tail Walker) and a bit faster. Interestingly the last few months we’ve got a group who Jeff and each week they ask in the announcements if people want to join them. When I’m up to running a bit more I’m definitely doing that.

 

[Baby Giraffe]

I’m on a very very very very slow return to running (still pretty much walking) and mine has been pretty good for walkers, but it is bigger so there’s a fair time spread. There’s generally two groups of walkers, slower (closer to the tail Walker) and a bit faster. Interestingly the last few months we’ve got a group who Jeff and each week they ask in the announcements if people want to join them. When I’m up to running a bit more I’m definitely doing that.

I often Jeff and am usually faster that way plus less tired at the end, it’s weird how it works