To have been really put off Parkrun by this

[rookiemere]

I'll start by saying I love parkrun. I've done over 130 of them and it's a real treat to discover a new one when we're away on holiday.

Everyone there is lovely and welcoming and it's such a great way to start Saturdays with a 5km run.

I am also older, fat and slow, but this is fine as I'm not there to win it.

So last Saturday headed to one of my usual parkruns with a friend. There was a traffic incident so many people didn't make it. This meant that rather than being in the back 10 or so I ended up being the last person bar the tail runner. Again all fine and someone has to be there.

However for the last km or so as I went past people who were dispersing made a big point of clapping loudly and shouting on encouragement. Obviously meant to be supportive, but I've run so many of the damn things and I just like to be invisible rather than the obviously last, slow ploddy person who people want to help.

I'm actually really nervous about going again, it upset me so much. I could go to one with more runners and then I should be less likely to be right at the back, but its a further drive and the whole thing has knocked my confidence and I don't know what to do.

You literally just had to go looking for them specifically on the website. Of course they are there, parkrun is a TIMED 5k.

If you want to do parkrun and aren't concerned by your time, you just don't go onto the website where the times are listed.

"And great hordes of "all the gear, no idea" runners imposing themselves on all the local parks on Saturday mornings with no regard for anyone else."
Yep, this ! I was nearly cannoned into several times when they were in our park.

@SirChenjins, I would say that what you found was quite a good balance: overview of the stats for people wanting an indication of whether it's a fast course; a message that's it's free and fun and you can run or walk and everyone's welcome. I don't understand what your problem is. Inclusive means for everyone.

If the stats are from years ago, then nobody has beaten the records since then.

You literally just had to go looking for them specifically on the website

Also this. You won't hear those statistics announced at the event or see those people recognised with a milestone tshirt.

😂

And in the nicest possible way, that is your issue, not the volunteers'. One of the wonderful things about getting older for me has been the total lack of self-consciousness I now feel about almost everything. I don't care if people are looking at me. I don't care if people are thinking how slow I am, or that I could lose weight, or that I've gone very red in the face. I actually don't think most people I know through parkrun are thinking those things, because I have found them to be very decent, accepting, non-judgemental people - but even if they are, so what? It's a moment of their day, a moment of mine, and then we've both moved on and forgotten about it.

I don't find it patronising to have somebody telling me I'm doing well, I take it in the spirit it was intended and think to myself 'Yes, I am doing well! A few years ago I'd be out of breath walking up this hill, and now I can get up it pretty briskly and carry on a conversation! Think how amazed teenage me would be to think I'd voluntarily be out running at the age of 61! Think how much fatter and even less fit I'd be if I didn't do parkrun! Go me!'

How can you find out about the venues, times etc of various park runs if you don't go to their websites? Don't be daft.

My 'problem' with it (that's far too strong a word btw) @QueenWatevraWaNabi is that the premise of it is that it's a fun community event where you can jog, run, volunteer or spectate - it's not a race, because it's been explained upthread why it can't be promoted as a race, but it is a race....It feels like it's trying to be welcome everyone as a fun thing, but really, it's a competitive event. All I can do is comment from my own experience of taking part and to me it felt very much like a competition and not a community fun run type thing - you live and learn.

I've been a tourist at your parkrun! It's lovely there - very friendly and a nice course. There appeared to be a 'Sikh of the Week' running club there (guess based on tshirts) and they were a really good crowd. The tail walker had a tail too - spaniel (plus a human)

You would look up the location of the PR ONCE.

You can then ignore the weekly times if you don't care about them.

You are making an issue out of something which literally isn't an issue for the sake of having an argument. If you don't care about the times, don't look at them. Don't look at whether you are 1st, 50th or last.

It's really that easy to do.

Weekly times - what are you talking about??

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

If you wanted to do a parkrun - which is a TIMED 5k - without treating it as a race by getting a time you would look up where it is - or ask someone, if the very idea that other people's times are listed offends you, and then you would go and run it.

You would then not need to look at any times - weekly/course records or whatever.

Or, you could just go for a run because there are 167 hours in a week when a parkrun isn't on.

Meanwhile, the people who DO want to see times can do so.

Weekly times - what are you talking about??

Amazing.

I could ask you the same question - why do you keep mentioning not looking at published weekly times? You're taking this very personally.

Please come along and join in whatever your pace!" - so if that's the premise, why highlight the course records (which seem to be from years ago)?

It's actually really useful to see the course record @SirChenjins

It helps you work out how challenging the route its (and puts your own time into context). I have two local park runs, one of which is a cross-country route and one of which is a tarmac run. The course record for the tarmac is 4 minutes quicker than for the cross-country, indicating the relative level of difficulty. Some people do tour around the country trying lots of different routes and this is useful information, more useful in some ways than a narrative description of the route.

Nothing @AnnPerkins
Just mn virtue signallers being nasty as usual. Its the worst of MN.
I find my watch patronising when it tells me well done for getting up and moving. But i really appreciated someone who came back to cheer me on when i did a 5k swim and i was last in pool.
Ds does Park run and Our town runners, they inspired him to a Marathon and run in generally. Really helped him when he was really down from brak up of a long term relationship

errr, no, I'm not. You are just not making any sense at all.

You said that it was too easy to find times. I pointed out that you deliberately have to go looking for them so if you wanted to run parkrun without getting a time you ..... just don't look at the website.

I fail to see what is particularly controversial about that.

It may be that on the main page for a local parkrun in small letters somewhere near the bottom there's a mention of the male and female course records. This doesn't seem to me to be making an undue fuss about these fast times. The full results from each week's event are on a separate tab. Is that where the confusion lies?

Perhaps this is isolated to my local one then but they never mention anything like participation milestones on their Facebook, only the “winners” that week.

Ah, Facebook. I’m surprised you’re going on parkrun Facebook if you don’t like parkrun. I do like parkrun and don’t go anywhere near their Facebook pages. I actually attend parkrun instead, occasionally as runner and often as volunteer, and have literally never seen a fuss made of winners.

Because I wanted to have a look and see what it might be like and challenge my perceptions that I’ve outlined. But unfortunately they were reinforced. It seemed like a good starting point for information. We had a visitor last week who did it and she came back saying it was amazing but I’m sure it was when she’s a sub 20 runner.

Correct me if I'm wrong as I've only just started doing Parkrun, but could those worried about having their names published just get their position token scanned without their personal barcode, so that they come up as Unknown on the list?

Our female captain has done several parkruns but I've never seen her name on the results page.

I THINK you can run but just not enter the finishing funnel thing where you get scanned but I’m not clear exactly.

You don’t have to get anything scanned at all. You don’t even have to turn up with a personal barcode or ever register at all if you don’t want to.

The only requirement is that if you cross the finish line, you walk through the finish ‘funnel’ and don’t skip that part. As you go through the funnel you’ll get offered a token with a bar code. You can either say no thank you there, in which case your barcode will get put aside, or you can just hand it back to the people doing the scanning and say you don’t want it scanned.

The reason you have to go into the funnel is because it will have been noted that person 323 just crossed the finish line with a time of 34:18, and someone will be waiting with token 323 for you, so that it can be scanned and linked to your personal barcode.

If you duck out then person 324 behind you who actually crossed the line at 35:01 might get given your token instead, and then they and everyone after them will get the wrong time recorded.

That makes sense. Thanks.

Seems a shame, and unlucky, that you had your perceptions reinforced by something that the vast majority of people on here who know parkrun don’t recognise. I don’t think the Facebook stuff can have been the work of the organisers as I really don’t think they would champion the ‘winners’.

Still, you were against it, you had your perceptions reinforced, so you don’t want to go. Never mind.