To think the National Trust should not let Park Run volunteers marshal the cars at a NT property

[ParkRunIdiots]

So rocked up a very large NT property with lots of parkland at about 9:25 today.

had gone through the payment control bit, then you drive for about another mile (no joke) to the car park. Just before the car park all traffic stopped in a traffic jam caused by two Park Run people in pink vests who would not let any cars through.

So I sat there and say there and sat there, not a single car moved through. I could see the runners approaching from the right, at times there were gaps in the runners but still no car was allowed through. After ten minutes still no car had been allowed to pass. Several cars behind me did a 20 point turn and left.

Then I realised that the runners weren’t even crossing the road as I’d originally assumed, they turned right and ran alongside the road edge, which has a massive Green verge they could run on . So in my mind no need to stop any car. Or if some risk assessment has deemed it too dangerous to have the cars beside the runners then it means there’s no access to the car park for about 45 mins, in which case the NT property needs to open later!

the runners were all strung out, no big wide bunch/crowd, so single file or in pairs.

anyway I honked at this point. One pink vest guy had obviously been waiting for this moment and charged up, ran past me and bollocked the car behind me who was mid 20 point turn and leaving. That driver grassed me up so the park run guy came and condescendingly told me “when there’s a gap” we will let a car through. I said it was ridiculous, that there had been plenty of gaps, nobody had been allowed through and the runners weren’t even on the road!

At which point he told me if I didn’t like it I could leave!

then the other marshal let some of us through, even though there were still runners running alongside the verge the same as there had been for the last ten minutes! I think they were letting cars through in groups of 5 or 6 as some had gone through just before I got stopped. Again when there were runners there! So nothing to do with gaps!

diagram for an idea.

I do feel like emailing the NT and telling them they need to have an NT person there overseeing it, and preventing the Parkrun people been rude to other users.

I may be slightly anti park run after my (on lead, walking to heel) dog was trampled on and tripped over by several park runners on the inaugural run of my local new park run on a narrow public bridleway and they shouted at me for been there with a dog (even though I’d stepped into the mud at the side). Still not forgiven them for that.

The second photo has no such meters of grass to the side.

The other photo while it does have grass to the side is a private farmers field, not the public footpath/bridleway which is only the tarmac path. So yes, they are literally blocking the path. And not everyone can walk on rough grass, I struggle some weeks due to my mobility issues.

Totally. Sadly they’re so blinded to the cause they’re never going to be reasonable. If anyone else was acting like this apart from the group/activity they enjoy they’d be horrified.

I’ve got nothing against park run if it was better managed and not so inconsiderate of others. I totally get that it’s a worthwhile organisation which helps many improve their fitness and mental health. Just a shame that they are so self absorbed they think they have the right to tell others to not turn up at places on a Saturday morning, or to walk in the rough grass even when that poster has repeatedly said they struggle with mobility. 🤷‍♀️

You'd think park run was fucking Live Aid if you read some of the posts on this thread.

Well, no. Apart from speculating that they might use our local parks, I have no clue where ParkRun operates, let alone when. If I am visiting a National Trust property, why would I assume that would be a ParkRun site?

It really is no answer that one person knows for next time. There were obviously a number of people in that queue who didn't know, and in fact with National Trust properties that will be the norm - most people visit on a one-off basis and have no particular reason to think that park runs will take place there, let alone that on a large site with a wide choice of places to run, Parkruns will be organised in a place where they will obstruct visitors to the property.

I've certainly visited a Parkrun site where the park is that small. However, the people organising the run have the sense to route it well away from the roads through the park.

That's a particularly daft comparison. The London marathon is very well publicised and roads are fully and officially closed, and it only happens once a year. ParkRuns wouldn't be allowed if they were causing that sort of disruption every week. Instead, they wisely make quite a big thing of saying that they must be run considerately without disrupting traffic, pedestrians and other users of the venues in question.

IME most ParkRuns are quite sensibly organised to comply with those requirements, which makes it all the more puzzling that people are seeking to defend one that wasn't. Do you really want to condone something that could bring the whole activity into disrepute?

Why can't the runners run to the side or step aside and wait? What do they do if the person walking towards them is pushing a buggy or a wheelchair, or using crutches or a walking stick? How do they know that the person isn't unsteady on their feet and dependent on being able to walk on a reasonably smooth surface?

How quickly do, say, 400 runners move past any given point?

Some of these organised runs can draw hundreds or thousands of people (I googled, and the largest ParkRun draws around 2500 people), who all run at different speeds and often quite drawn out. When you have that mass of people, it certainly takes more than a minute or two to let the entire crowd pass, and if it's an area with poor visibility it can be really scary trying to walk without knowing if crowd are about to run around the corner at top speed.

Really, would you be okay with your 92yr old granny who can't see very well, very wobbly on her feet and finds it painful to stand still for long, to have to stand on a slippery grass verge in the rain for 15 minutes while she waited for a couple of thousand people to run by? Frightened that she's going to get knocked or shouldered out of the way?

Am not anti ParkRun, but any kind of run needs to be organised so there's a specific route clear for the runners that the public can easily avoid via having alternate routes signposted.

Well I just wish that the appetite for organising things extended to other places where there are huge crowds. Try Bluewater a few weeks before Xmas and pretty much anyone who turns up gets to barge around the place with little organisation in sight. Yet have a hundred people running in an open park and it's all organised with military precision.

It’s one hour a week. It’s advertised and signposted. I have no clue why one marshal with a bit of a jobsworth attitude making some people in cars wait a bit - like that’s the worst fate imaginable - means that now according to this thread hundreds of parkrunners are now a danger to society.
They’re just people jogging, not a herd of charging buffalo.

I have spoken to my Parkrunning friend, and he has confirmed to me that the route does not (usually) bring the runners (etc) into contact with cars that may be attempting to get to the main car park (near the Chapel). The PR Parking is in the field/overspill car park, and any disabled parking for the PR is close to the Bark café. There is no reason for the main route to be blocked off, people prevented from using it, or any kind of direction to the general public and users of the park by the PR marshals. The main car park should be as available as it always is.
The route goes along a wide track through woodland and down to what is known as the Lake Arm - where they may well meet walkers, cyclists etc - and that is when there might congestion or an issue with dogs maybe.

But in his experience, the parking differentiation is very clear.

The first finisher was 17 minutes at Clumber this week. I bet he wasn't jogging!

I would think that only those interesting in taking part would want to look out for advertising for Parkruns. Casual/general visitors to Clumber should not have to check what they need to avoid (large and one-off events notwithstanding).

But also, see my above post about marshals not really having the remit to direct general users of the park; that is why there are bright yellow signs.

It is too far away for me to go often enough to justify an annual pass, which is a shame, but the NT aren't interested in facilitating occasional mounted visitors to any of their parks. Fine if you are close by but no good for day trippers and I bloody resent having to pay extra for the horse when I can bring a bike, a pack of dogs or a hoard of parkrunners for free.

Ugh joggers! 🙄

I have spoken to my Parkrunning friend, and he has confirmed to me that the route does not (usually) bring the runners (etc) into contact with cars that may be attempting to get to the main car park (near the Chapel).

At weekends at least, what people are referring to as the main car park is coned off and marked as accessible parking only so any visitors following the signs will be going to the cow pastures car park, the park run course cuts across the entrance to this.

That needs bringing to the attention of the NT.

It sounds as if they have made a recent change to carparking arrangements, without thinking it through.

Very fast indeed in some cases, very slowly in others, but it's only for a couple of minutes at the start that all runners are clumped together, and then the field will be very strung out. At our parkrun, before the run starts every single week runners and walkers are told to remember that we don't have exclusive use of the park and not to assume that other people will move to the side to let us past. I assumed this was standard across all parkruns, but there's no legislating for selfish people, who turn up in every area of life. In our case shared use of the park is not a problem as our park has wide paths and good visibility and some of the course is over grass. At other parkruns the terrain may make it a lot harder to balance safety and courtesy to all park users, including parkrunners.

Runners at my local park run start arriving from 8.20 or so, gradually building up for the next 40 minutes and blocking this path way before the run starts. They could all stand on the grass and let cyclists and walkers through, but they don't, even though there's some self-imposed leader bellowing instructions for them all through a megaphone.

It's this selfish, badly organised, entitled behaviour that pisses me off, not their desire to go for a run. But it's disingenuous to pretend that park run just has a 2-minute impact on the park. It does not.

Photo:

Why the question mark?

Her dog was on a lead.

(Volunteer) ED of one event and RD of another event here and this is nonsense, sorry! There’s lots of training before you’re let lose with your event

What I would suggest you do, then, is contact the local parkrun (their email address will be on their website) and ask them to encourage runners to stand on the grass so that other park users can get through. You'd get a sympathetic hearing from our parkrun, which I'm relieved to see isn't the one you have a beef with. It does surprise me, though, that other park users are struggling to make it known that they need to get through. Cyclists could ring their bells, walkers could say, as forcefully as needed, 'Excuse me', surely?

Glad to hear it! My RD acquaintances have been very modest, then. What I was trying to say was it's not a job, it's a volunteer role, and nobody goes off on a course to learn to do it. As far as I've seen, most RDs have rotated through all the volunteer roles out of interest/altruism and end up being asked to step up to RD because they seem sensible, approachable and reliable.

This sure has put me off Clumber. I used to be close enough to visit often, but now would count it as a quick-ish stop off for walking around a bit, on the way to places. I agree that my perception of it would be: first and foremost a National Trust site; very large, so would need onsite parking to be able to visit it; lots of visitors even with its size; no idea of the frequency, route, or size of park runs there, but would have expected that it's possible to plan them to be fairly undisruptive to other people who are not there for the run.