Parkrun to remove course records

I've downloaded the podcast. Sharron Davies is a brave soul.

At least Jonathan Liew is taking a pasting on Twitter/X. Prat.

I listened to a really good podcast yesterday 'Sharron Davies reveals the hidden misogyny behind the Olympics' on 'Rachel Johnson's Difficult Women', i didn't even realise she missed out on gold because of the East German doping regime!

you may like this from mole at the door

I think you're making a bit of an error here. Real people have hopes and dreams. Women? Can we really say they're actual people with inner lives?

Yeah, budge up all you support humans. It’s not like you even had hopes and dreams in the first place. Shut up and be happy that others are inspired.

Empathy for biological women and their hopes and dreams is clearly not his strong point.

Jonathan Liew apparently wrote this in a previous article. Should have been career-ending.

Man tells women TW in their sport is not an issue. Well it doesn’t affect you dear, either as a woman or a TW. Maybe have a go at men and tell them they should be more welcoming/tolerant.

There is a fucking outrageous piece in the guardian today written by a man accusing terfs of erasing trans women from sport. It's a right wing plot apparently.

I've been a guardian reader for 30 years and this might actually be the final straw. https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2024/feb/14/why-have-rightwingers-made-even-parkrun-a-battleground-for-trans-people

Are they all purporting to be runners, or are they there for the principle?

I can't tell you how annoying I'm finding the tone of this on X - all the tras sneering at anyone who objects to parkrun's handling as "someone who probably never runs anyway" The patronising dismissal is unbearable.

This is an interesting thread. I was really interested to read this post on LetsRun:

"I must admit the thing I hate most about park run, speaking as a former sub elite woman now running a slow 19.30 in my late forties to occasionally be first woman on a good day, is those male park runners who make it their aim to target you as the only person they are interested in defeating in the race. They follow on your heels, you can hear their laboured breathing, and try and sprint past you at the finish. They ignore all of the male runners. Then they come up to you in that little narrow finish chute (if they haven't barged you out of the way despite finishing behind you, that has actually happened to me) and tell you how they've been trying to beat you for the last 3 races. If you don't manage to escape quickly enough, they follow you around telling you about their extremely boring training and previous times.

There just aren't many 5k road races around here within 90 minutes drive, as a former middle distance runner I don't really like 10k but I do like to race every 2 or 3 weeks. But all of this has really put me off park run and I certainly don't want my participation to boost some former man's excitement about thinking he is a woman now and can race in our category and steal our placings.

Us women are always being told to boycott things to make our point anyway."

I had never thought about men making a point of beating the faster women. I have run ParkRun but am far too slow to have anyone attempt to beat my time.

I do get bigging up volunteers, a bit, not "heroes" but like "cheers, that's really useful" especially when events might be struggling, but HQ has a very odd attitude to volunteering, both over-egging it and also saying things like "you should only volunteer for the joy of it, noone should feel obliged" 🤔 For me it's a basic I want the run to happen so I'll help make it happen sometimes. Thankfully my local Core Team are lovely, I can imagine some get very cliquey.

Different discussion really though. The parkrun Australia post and the comments under it are proper funny though.

It's weird how some volunteering attracts a degree of valorisation that other volunteering doesn't.

The volunteers for the 2012 Olympics come to mind. At the time I could think of people who'd turned out every Sunday for decades to cook for charities that home delivered Sunday lunch and tea to the homes of people with HIV+ or Aids. Similarly, the sports coaches who turn out a couple of times a week to train young people and even talent spot them for youth squads for County or Olympic teams.

I've never understood why volunteers are put on a pedestal so much.

I volunteer at junior Parkrun and, my god, the core team are so cliquey. The first time I went one women was so rude to me. If I was made of weaker stuff it could have tipped me over the edge.

Ha yes about the volunteering. I think it can be more intimidating than running. Some are quite cliquey, I’ve seen volunteers turned away before and I find it really unusual that volunteering for parkrun is the only volunteering role I’ve seen that gets so much validation and praise. No where else do I see volunteers bang on about it than I do with parkrun.

Oh dear, surely shouting about "records" is intimidating and will put people off volunteering. Some people can't volunteer as fast as others and might feel altruism-shamed. 😭

(Also find calling volunteers at parkrun "heroes" rather laughably much 😆 - I volunteer a fair amount by the way, and thoroughly enjoy it... possibly more than jogging round and definitely more than running a fast 5K effort which is definitely Type 2 fun.... but I'm not a "hero" for doing so. Bit much. Also makes volunteering sound a bit scary and exclusive when it's really not! Mostly it's just putting a hi vis on and doing one very simple job for a little over an hour.)

The narrative seems to have changed now from 'it's just a fun run' to its 'a charitable community based event'. I guess the latter sounds a bit more earnest and fluffy.

They needed to categorise their victimhood more clearly in order to rely on it as a defence.

People would be so mean to criticise a charitable organisation that has such kind intentions of bringing communities together - I mean, what kind of monster is against charities trying to bring people together?

Oh dear parkrun Australia

🤣

The Times and Telegraph have run stories on this today. Its picking up traction

@mcduffy yes! I don't know the history of it though, only started participating last year. Hope it's not murky....
If you know of any others too I'm interested, 9am on a Sunday doesn't always fit with parenting.

I'm annoyed that they've hidden the age catagory lists in particular,

I guess because they're trying to distance from the sex and gender aspect, and are making a nod towards the idea that self ID records aren't reliable as they can be false, without dealing with the inherent sexism.

Wythenshawe park on a Sunday? Used to be great run local but independent now!

The narrative seems to have changed now from 'it's just a fun run' to its 'a charitable community based event'. I guess the latter sounds a bit more earnest and fluffy. The former line of defense has been torn to shreads in recent months as it is clearly demonstrable that Park Run is what you make of it, a competitive sprint with recorded times and rankings or a social jog with no pressure to perform. It's astonishing how those in charge have managed to fuck this up so completely.

@Needapadlockonmyfridge I don't know where you are but I know of a great run in South Manchester that does timed no pressure 2k and 5k and just lists name and time, no other stats.

Although one week I was told by the two older women taking registration numbers at the end "well done, and first women too." It's a joke to pretend we don't all know boys and men are faster and don't care how well we do.

I was thinking a thread with a list of local alternatives people know of might be a good idea but then realised maybe it would be a bit outing?