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.

@Manners23

Firstly, from the main gate and pay point to where you were asked to hold and wait is in fact 665 yards, not the Mile you perceived it to be (OS maps route attached). From the point where you were asked to wait to the car park entrance is 447 yards, significantly more than the scale on your drawing would suggest. The reason I make this point is that there were probably people on the road that were out of your line of sight and probably the reason you were asked to wait.

actually from the main gate to the pay point is 2.2 miles not the mile I perceived and certainly not 665 yards. I’ve just measured it on mapmyride. Not sure why you’re quibbling that point anyway. But whatever.

I can assure you I had better things to do yesterday than come and find the race director, especially as you’d already Delayed me. I didn’t want to waste any further time.

The park run volunteer was rude, I’m sure you won’t believe that and that’s your prerogative. You also come across as rather rude and entitled so there we are. I was very happy to get his attention to ask why he wasn’t letting people through seeing as nobody appeared to me to be on the road. At no point did he give me directions to any other car park, that would have been helpful if he had but no he just shouted at me.

I can assure you I waited over ten minutes. My post stating I arrived at 9:30 was approximate as I was not under the impression I was giving an official statement. If the road was opened at 9:35 I would say I must have arrived at the stop point between 9:20 and 9:25. I hardly think numerous cars behind me would have been turning round if it had only been a couple of minutes.

You can answer me one thing though, if the course runs alongside the road for a short distance why were the cars held for a bit and then let through? Because there were still runners /walkers there when the cars were let through. So either it’s safe to let them through or it isn’t? And if it isn’t and it’s a two course lap with a mix of fast runners and walkers then you must surely need to close the road to the car park for the hour the park run takes?

People have mentioned (inc you) about a car park on my left. I never saw a car park on my left, never saw any signs to it and followed the cars going to the car park I ended up in which I turned right into. If there is another car park on the left it needs signing better. I am now aware that non blue badge holders can use the car park last the coned off road even though the sign says “accessible parking”. If I had known that I would have gone elsewhere. But the combination of cones and that sign makes you think it’s blue badge holders only.

I won’t bother emailing you to discuss it further. You seem to prefer a public discussion and anyway you are clearly biased towards ParkRun so I doubt I’m going to be told anything other than put up with it or don’t come at that time on a Saturday morning.

But what about all the people who had paid money who were not former ParkRunners, and didn't know that?

I've never done any kind of run, and when I was terrorised by an unadvertised charity run through narrow public streets I didn't have a clue who to go to to ask or complain.

It's all well and good to say "well walkers and wheelchair users participate too" (which feels like exploiting them), but we all know that any kind of run will draw very competitive runners who want to win, position themselves at the front, and will barge or knock down anyone in their way. Those runners can often be very aggressive.

That's why competitive runs need to be held in such a way that the running route is reserved just for the runners and clearly advertised in advance, like the London Marathon is. Both to protect the runners and to protect members of the public who might otherwise be using that space.

I wouldn't want to be a runner running past a road of cars being held up by me without warning, and trying to squeeze into gaps between runners to access what they'd paid for.

Yeah, sadly I already avoid my local,favourite dog walk on a Saturday morning which I had done early every Saturday morning for years but have now been hounded off that footpath.

if I had known about the park run at clumber I wouldn’t have gone to the visitor car park. I’ll just keep on parking in the non parking zones at other points of the park to keep away from the park run from now on. Or maybe the accessible car park. I certainly don’t think i should have to avoid the park between 9-10.

but what about all the people who had paid money who were not former ParkRunners, and didn't know that?

they had to wait 10 minutes and complain By email later for this total non-event of a drama? I dunno. 🤷‍♀️

Imagine how much of the OP's precious time would have been saved if they'd quietly fumed for 10 minutes, dashed off a strongly worded email to PR and NT and then moved on with their life.

But no, here we are, 32 hours later and still going on about having wasted 10 minutes.

Absolute Peak Mumsnet. Marvellous.

But why is every visitor to Clumber Park supposed to know the time ParkRun operates? Why can't ParkRun use a part of the park that doesn't impinge on people driving to the car parks? Why are their needs more important than those of the people whose money is helping to keep that park open and available?

@Manners23 sorry, have realised when you are quibbling about distances I have measured the wrong points on the map, you said from the pay point to the stopping area. Not the main entrance. The pay hut I went through is at the turn off from Limetree Ave near the caravan club site. So looks like it’s 1.6 miles. Though I’m still not sure why you’re so interested in how many yards that distance is, still more than the 600 yards you stated though. 🤷‍♀️

Complain to both clumber park management, NT and parkrun. IMO some parkrun participants think they own the place and are very rude to regular users of places where their park run takes place.

@TheGhostofLoganRoy Because some of the people on this thread would just LOVE roads being fully closed for hours at a time, all over the place, all the time. That's much better than a few minutes wait during a journey, obviously.

'Terrorised' and 'exploited' FFS. I've read it all now.

Do you not have any kinds of interests or hobbies, or attend any events that might impact slightly on people who aren't taking part?

Runners can be so selfish.

We live near a lake and the busy footpath at the end of our road gets joggers galore. So many of them try and barge past children walking and huff and tut at you if you’re walking hand in hand with a child and two of them want to come past. We’ve nearly been run over by them on a single path footbridge so many times. So inconsiderate.

The local parkrun ones act like they own the park too despite children coming to play football or learning to ride their bikes are coming through.

They also jog two-abreast down country lanes and make no effort to move over for cars and don’t wear high vis jackets or anything - madness. I’m a really careful driver and know the roads well so know they could be coming around every bend but I really worry for them if other people are speeding along at 60mph and have no idea about all the runners.

I think it’s great they’re out there getting fit but they don’t have the right to inconvenience everyone else.

You've completely missed the point!

I'm a parkrunner myself but get so annoyed when I see other runners not moving for buggies or other park users. Parkrun is for adults and supervised children, they're more than capable of being mindful of a few cars who are presumably filled with paying NT customers. Whether or not they're in a rush or not, is not for you to police!

Parkrun is great and I love doing a sociable 5k on a morning but no parkrun deserves this level of entitlement and lordiness over others. That volunteer needs to be knocked down a peg or two

How were they also supposed to work out in advance that it would be a 10 minute wait? Given that some gave up and turned back, I rather suspect it was longer than 10 minutes.

Quite. It’s a bit ironic for a poster to say I think I’m more important than the park runners while telling me to go at a different time. Therefore insinuating the parkrunners are more important than other visitors. I just think there needs to be better management of both parties so nobody is delayed so much, which I don’t think is unreasonable.

So either have a traffic light system where each group can enter the point where both groups meet for a minute at a time.

or don’t allow cars to turn towards the main car park and have someone on the previous junction directing all cars to the car park away from the park run

or have a different park run route that keeps away from the roads.

any of those options would be a reasonable improvement and I don’t think any of them are crazy suggestions. Particularly the middle one of directing cars to the other car park 🤷‍♀️

much better than telling other park users well don’t come on a Saturday between 9-10. I wouldn’t tell anyone they can’t do something they’re entitled to do for an hour at a weekend. Yes they may have the rest of the weekend but maybe they have other stuff on at other times?

Please read section 206 of the Highway Code. Runners on ‘country lanes’ don’t have to make an effort to move over for cars, you need to make an effort to give them plenty of room.

If you’ll read my post I do give them plenty of room but they’re often running two a-breast on a narrow country lane and it’s impossible to pass them safely so I don’t.

A little inconsiderate to do this at peak school-run time I’d say but there we are.

Really? Two abreast means you have to allow a full car's width for them. Most lanes don't have that room and need passing places for other cars. So to allow them to use the lane for running two abreast, you have to slow down to runner speed until sucha space or they recognise that there is another road user. Thus a lower gear and more fuel and emissions. Goes for cyclists abreast too.

Oh dear @Manners23 . Parkrun not looking good right now.

And it was "a shame" that the OP's dog was trampled on? Is that the best you can muster?

I wasn't referring to the OP's situation, I was referring to my situation that I described upthread (which obviously is different, but I believe is similar enough that sharing is is not threadjacking).

I had to wait 15 mins in cold and rain (with nowhere to sit down, and I'm disabled) and missed my train because some absolute chumps had decided to organise a charity race (maybe training?) through extremely busy and narrow pedestrian streets, at 6-7pm on a weekday (so prime commuting time in that area), and some of the runners were being aggressive and hostile and were running so fast down extremely narrow passageways in darkness that it was physically dangerous for anyone who's wobbly on their feet to try to walk in the opposite direction.

There were a lot of upset commuters that day, and elderly people trying to get to the theatre in time for the play to start.

Obviously a run in a park is very different because there's space, but the point is these runs are often organised without thought to how other people will be affected. The organisers of the run I encountered should have had their run on a Sunday, in daylight hours, should have advertised it well in advance, and should have worked with the council to close off certain roads to avoid runners racing at top speed three abreast down extremely narrow passages or should have planned the route to only encompass wider paths. Or they should have had ushers enforcing walking through the very narrow passages and tunnels.

The organisers of the OP's park run should have made better arrangements for NT ticket buyers to be directed to a car park that didn't cross the run route, and to ensure this was well-signposted.

Do you not have any kinds of interests or hobbies, or attend any events that might impact slightly on people who aren't taking part?

No, of course not. I can't even imagine what that might involve.

I certainly wouldn't do activities that involve disabled and elderly people being frightened or injured.

Park run rules stress that park runners don't have sole use of the Park and have to show consideration for other users. This gets reiterated at the start of the race.

The “run director” posting on here didn’t seem to demonstrate much consideration for other users - apparently it was well worth OP waiting in her car for a few minutes as parkrun is great…

Yes, and at my local park run, a guy with a megaphone reiterates this in front of a big crowd of people blocking a public pathway who all get pissed off when you try and use the pathway while their important gathering is taking place.

these runs are often organised without thought to how other people will be affected

Every official run, particularly charity related ones, that I've ever had the slightest involvement in has been literally the opposite of this. There are myriad issues of obtaining insurances, public and participant liabilities, securing landowner / council permissions, and so on and so on. I've never encountered one that hasn't been detailed in local media / social media / by signage in the area beforehand.

An acquaintance organises an annual run in memory of a young person lost to suicide, and raising money for mental health charities. There are MONTHS of red tape, boxes to tick and hoops to jump through.

It is absolutely not a case of just turning up en-masse and running, and if it is then it's not an official or organised race.

So @TheGhostofLoganRoy You've never ever attended an event / festival / concert / market that pops up in an area it's not permanent in? Never spectated any kind of parade or sports event or air display? Never been to the Christmas lights switch on or a pop-up art event? No Firework displays or bonfires? Never been on holiday to somewhere that gets swamped by tourists? All of these things have an inconvenient impact on someone, somewhere, who would rather they didn't happen. Live and let life.

I've never encountered one that hasn't been detailed in local media / social media / by signage in the area beforehand.

The one that took place around Bankside Central London last week on a weekday evening had no signage, and I haven't been able to find a single word about it anywhere online. Maybe I'm not using the right search times but it certainly wasn't advertised, and no amount of advertising is going to make a race through very narrow passageways on a weekday evening, in the dark, with loads of commuters and tourists milling about, be physically unsafe. It was just very very poorly organised with no thought to safety and sheer arrogant entitlement.

You've never ever attended an event / festival / concert / market that pops up in an area it's not permanent in? Never spectated any kind of parade or sports event or air display? Never been to the Christmas lights switch on or a pop-up art event? No Firework displays or bonfires? Never been on holiday to somewhere that gets swamped by tourists?

None of those things involve running three abreast at top speed at elderly and frail people in a very narrow dark alleyway, or barging disabled people out of the way causing them to fall and become injured.

What an utterly ludicrous and offensive comparison.