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.

Although if you know how the links work you can still find the age category records.

For example: results | Wepre parkrun

It looks to me as if just the per-course "Top 500" have been removed. The standard course records page is still available: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/results/courserecords/
as are the per-course results pages, e.g.: https://www.parkrun.org.uk/aliceholt/results/latestresults/

It’s is the links that have been removed. The event results pages aren’t being changed.

Just another example of how destructive gender ideology is.

Really? That person is supposed to have been stripped of all athletics titles since 2016. Why haven't they removed him/her?

They can't even pretend it's a oversight this was in the papers a year ago about them holding the records.

Personally I feel parkrun lost it's way a bit a few years ago but that's just my opinion.

If parkrun thought this would make the issue go away they were very naive. It's just blown it all up into a much much bigger issue. Mara apparently being interviewed on tv about it.

And this is before most people notice the changes there will be on Saturday, no doubt you'll get less in the information sent to you about your time.

I think a lot of people think that it has lost its way and did some time ago. Organisations get too big and there has been a sort of cult about it. And I say that as someone who goes every week without fail unless I am ill or away.

They said in their statement that the results email won't change, but I agree with you, I think in time it will.

I think the solution here is an option for people to register as non-competitive at parkruns. A button you pick in your settings. Competitive or non-competitive. If you tick competitive you get a result as normal. If you tick non-competitive your name gets listed alphabetically at the bottom of the results with no time - your email will however give this - but acknowledgement that you completed the parkrun. Trans people can be competitive only if they run as their sex. If they want to enter as a woman they are free to
do so non-competitively.

It would also suit a number of participants who don’t want everyone knowing what time they have run.

This is an option for sure.

Will it impact a female runner’s time though if they think the ‘woman’ running ahead of them is faster than them without knowing it is a male ? Is it a demotivator or a motivator?

The people in the parkrun stats facebook group are NOT happy. I can't see how it won't impact participation.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/feb/08/parkrun-records-dropped-from-website

Personally I felt with parkwalk it started to lose its way, it's trying to be inclusive to everyone and trying not to upset anyone but ends up alienating a lot of people.

mrs one would think that the parkrun stats fans would have cared that the data was so poor when they collected mens running times as women's.

I don't think their penny has dropped yet....