Top 500 runners at parkrun unfair on female runners?

[MrsPCR]

Every parkrun event has a list of its top 500 fastest runners; however, our local event is gradually just becoming a list of men! There are only 25 women on the list, and the number is constantly decreasing. I made it on there for one week, (about 50 women at that point) before a man kicked me off. I'd now need to run over a minute faster than my PB in less than 21m30 to get back on the list.

YABU - all is fair, it's fastest 500 runners.
YANBU - this is not acknowledging women's achievements or physiological differences.

Nothing misogynistic at all. The numbers are simply the numbers and reflect the times achieved by the runners. Zero interpretation applied, zero bias. Stop seeking injustice where it doesn’t exist.

@YellowMeeple thanks, found it. TBH I had no idea it existed. The results are predictable, only 38 women in top 500 and fastest is at 68 with an 18:13. I don’t really understand the point, should be separate lists for men and women, like Strava has separate KOM and QOM rankings for each segment. Basically this is a top 500 men ranking, with a few honourable mentions.

Some of the Strava QOM are held by men because Strava also allows self-id.

I didn't think it was possible to waste even more time looking at yet more stats after a parkrun, and like a pp, I have never looked at the Top 500 fastest runners for a local course until this thread.

Having looked at mine, there are 22 female runners, with only one being in the top 100 at a time of 16:32, who is a female bodied female. You need to have a time of faster than 18:16 to make it on that list.

As many have already said before, we need to have two lists where it's segregated strictly by sex and not gender. It won't stop those who are trans registering as the opposite sex which isn't fair, but 249 out of 250 female bodied women on that list is better than 22 out of 500 for comparison.

Or get rid of the fastest runners list altogether. You already have the results for that day and your own results are stored from previous weeks so analyse your performance that way.

I'd keep the fastest 500 runners but have male and female categories - after all, they have the sections for under 17 and under 20 mins, 17 for men and 20 for women.

As for Strava, I no longer subscribe due to their allowing men to take QOMs.

I mean, yeah. It also allows you to self declare your name, age, weight etc with no checks in place because it’s just an app that the majority of users don’t even pay for. Everyone local to a segment will know when a QOM/KOM is dodgy though (bloody e-bikes!) and will flag them.

Imagine if strava or parkrun emailed members with a story about how a 35 year old man feels like a 60 year old and they explain that the 35 year old can change their age on the app/website to 60 so they can feel more authentically themselves. What would all the men feel and say then? This is the very organisation themselves endorsing recording of personal data that is incorrect. Personal data that other members rely on as honest and truthful data.

One day I think women should all re-register for parkrun and either put their ages as way later and get all the age grading accolades, or put themselves down as children and run junior parkrun or get the kids accolades.

One day I think women should all re-register for parkrun and either put their ages as way later and get all the age grading accolades, or put themselves down as children and run junior parkrun or get the kids accolades
Yeah, that's not going to happen though is it, because not all women see Park Run as a bloody competitive race.
Go moan about you know, actual competitive races instead of expecting an inclusive for everyone fun run to bend to you.

Yeah, that's not going to happen though is it, because not all women see Park Run as a bloody competitive race.

Firstly it's parkrun - small p all one word
Secondly why should women (actual biological women) only be able to treat it as an inclusive fun run...while men can do as a fun run or as a competitive race.
If it's only a fun run and results are irrelevant why have them at all?

From the website. Not competitive.

parkrun is a free, community event where you can walk, jog, run, volunteer or spectate. parkrun is 5k and takes place every Saturday morning. junior parkrun is 2k, dedicated to 4-14 year olds and their families, every Sunday morning.
parkrun is positive, welcoming and inclusive, there is no time limit and no one finishes last

You're welcome to treat it as a competition, that's up to you but it's off to try and get everyone else to as well. They are inclusive to people who are trans. If you don't like that, find a race that isn't or set up your own race.

If it's only a fun run and results are irrelevant why have them at all?
To compare your scores to your past ones and try and beat your personal best.

Looking at my parkrun, #54/500 is the fastest woman. On the day she set that, she set the world female parkrun record. There's 23 women on the list.

As pure fact it's interesting seeing that context, and there are other more useful data provided too with the age gradings and sub 20/ 17 lists.

Interestingly, the top 500 list at my junior parkrun is far more balanced. Fastest female is #15. In the u10 category, the sex makes little difference, and in the 11-14, the girls get a temporary boost at the lower end of the range, and it's about 13-14 when the male advantage emerges.

I'm a very average runner and will never get on those lists. I love the fact that I can see how average I am for my class, aim to beat my own pbs, jog or walk around at my own pace and just rock up on a Saturday morning. It always has been a timed run, always has been keen on producing data, and always has valued participation.

The gender self-ID is a seperate issue, but as much as it stinks that men can self ID as women and claim times that can only be matched by elite women, I don't know what practical action parkrun could take to manage it. It's not going to be clear at the finish line, or barcode scanning stage, and by the time the results are published each week it would be hard to piece together that a result is claimed by a gender that doesn't match the sex. RDs spend hours each week making the events happen without risking incurring political wrath. It's not just about an HQ policy, it's about thousands of volunteers being able to uphold it each week.

@BogRollBOGOF your observation about sex differences in children will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone involved in children's endurance sport. Sex differences are non-existent pre-puberty, girls get a slight advantage as they hit puberty earlier, then the boys catch up and power away.

@BogRollBOGOF what if it was clear to run directors that someone was saying they were a completely different age? What do they do if there's a teenager rocking up to parkrun? There must be situations where they have to intervene to protect the fairness for everyone? Also it was the fact that, as I said, there was a bloody email saying that for a subset of people, they are being encouraged to lie in their parkrun form? It's not even about people registering incorrectly without parkrun's endorsement.

@BogRollBOGOF the volunteer marshals have no idea what name, age, or indeed sex category you have registered on the parkrun website under. There's no registration or sign-on like in a conventional race, you just get your barcode scanned as you cross the finishing line. When you scan a runner's barcode the app doesn't display any identifiable details about that runner - it just sends the barcode ID and time off to the parkrun website.

Parkruns happen in a community. I used to be on the core group of volunteers. You get to know people, you all keep an eye on the stats, any particular outliers are observed such as a good for age or first female finisher who appeared soon after the first male finishers would be noticed. If these runners came often enough those who look at the results online would notice a fast female appeared male.

And then what would or could they do?

Building up resentment isn't good for anyone.

@enchantedsquirrelwood I'm with you here. I am a reasonably competitive cyclist, and there is very little for faster women there too. Too many take 'inclusive' in womens sports to mean slow, and faster people get 'why are you even here, it's supposed to be inclusive' as you lap someone or suggest that setting off the fastest first is safest to prevent loads of overtaking, which is the polar opposite of inclusive...

In terms of the top 500 from the OP, I think top 250 male and female would be better. I don't think the weekly volunteers can effectively police what someone signs up as with self ID and the anonymous barcode scanning, but believe me if parkrun turns out to be anything like time trialling on a bike, most of the local faster women will know all the other local faster women anyway, but it would give something for woman number 30 to aim for woman number 29, whereas they probably wouldn't feature in the top 500 men.

Yes. All that would need to happen would be that the ED would email parkrun HQ to say that the female "winner" or new course record holder was actually a male bodied person and parkrun HQ would adjust the results, which they eg also do if a child under 11 is unaccompanied by an adult and the ED notices.

Obviously it wouldn't help with people finishing further down the results, but it would at least protect the "podium" and the course records. At the very least the course records should be protected.

I'm a regular parkrunner (I'll be doing my 200th on Saturday and have volunteered 50 times) and I never noticed this top 500 list existed. I totally agree with the OP that there should be a list for men and a list for women though. The top 500 list for my local parkrun has only six women on it. There should be a separate one for us too. I might even be on it!

I don’t think anyone who is advocating that registering as female should be for females only are suggesting that this should be policed by volunteers on the day in any way. I also don’t expect volunteers to police people cutting corners or otherwise not running the course as intended (although I would expect them to remove the time of anyone who had obviously run the wrong number of laps on a multi-lap course). It’s the policy itself which is important as it makes it clear what people are supposed to do, many people will stick by the rules so changing parkrun policy will help. Changing policy would also mean that it would be legitimate to challenge a new female course record to parkrun HQ if there was a descrepancy with say Power of 10 data and would stop people changing the sex on existing registrations.

We all know that this can’t be policed effectively, but it doesn’t mean that there should be no rules, just because I don’t think anyone has ever been prosecuted for speeding in my residential street doesn’t mean it should become derestricted.

I agree that it’s not good to be resentful, but I don’t see how it is to be avoided. In relation to women’s sport it is impossible for everybody to get what they want. We all have to decide which battles in life we personally care about in order to get resentful when we dislike policy, that or we just have to let everything wash over us. There are plenty of things that don’t go the way I want, but I don’t personally care enough about to do more than shrug my shoulders, but this one I do care about enough to get resentful. It seems inevitable to me that unless policies change, in 10 years time every female course record will be held by a man, as once they are set they will become unassailable.

All the records have disappeared today. They have also removed the link to attendance records for different events from the UK main page.

So rather than deal with the unfairness for females they remove it al. What utter utter cowards. 🤬

They are standing by what they said, ie it is not a competitive event.

This is a nasty surprise. I wonder if we'll find on Saturday that they will have changed the wording of the results emails as well? We'll know we finished eg position 100 because we'll have seen our position token, but I wonder if all we'll get is the position, time and age grading, so it won't say we were 10th female or 3rd in our age group.