parkrun defending their position

[Funtime2]

I used to be a parkrunner and do not understand how parkrun can defend their position of allowing trans identfying males into the female category.

I read that 280 published race winners in the female category are actually men identifying as women. How is this fair to women? Some women don’t care about this but some women do, just as some men take it as a race and care about the rankings and some men don’t

The other option of course is they could stop the timing, stop recording winners and records?

AIBU to genuinely not understand why parkrun claim not to be a race when they time the runners, publish times by category, rank times and runners, and have record holders by category.

It shouldn’t be timed. They clearly state it isn’t a race, it’s a community event for ‘fun’ but NOT a competitive race so why the timing element? I realise it’s part of the fun for lots of people (beating their PB and such) but what it actually means is lots of aggressive competitive males hurtling past everyone so they can finish their 5k in 15 minutes. And yes I deliberately said males because it’s almost always the white men, usually middle aged.

But whilst it is timed and they announce course winners in categories of make and female they need to stick to sex for fairness and not openly encourage cheating

It literally was called the Bushy Park Time Trial before it changed it name. It’s whole reason for existing was for time trials. Yes it is an inclusive event for lots of people but underlying it is the premise it is to be used for people to get times

You can’t cheat in something that isn’t a competition.

I couldn’t care less. It isn’t a completion, if you make it into one that’s your problem.

Why can’t they just add a trans category?

No-one is expecting an event with volunteer marshalls to enforce the policy. And that's fine. Most grassroots competitive events don't have the means to enforce antidoping policy, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have one.

Welll they kind of are if they are a man masquerading as a woman

Its ranked.
Age range for your SEX.

Do you have your fingers in your ears and eyes closed shut?

They rank times by sex category (and age) which is useless because their rules state men can be women in their categories. They do not however state you can identify as any age.

The mark WINNERS for courses and best in each SEX.

Please explain how this isn’t a competition if some people choose to read parkrun’s notices.

Parkrun was originally a guy timing his running training group around a 5k to help them see whether or not they are improving. The timing is an important part of it.

It’s a little frustrating that as a runner this race by runners for runners has become more about community cohesion than actually running. See also the London Marathon. So much of it is about raising money rather than actually running. It’s really hard for runners to get a place because they’ve all been flogged on to charities. Imagine if this had happened to e.g. football. There would be outrage.

Do you have your fingers in your ears and eyes closed shut?

Do you have problems computing that we don't all think the same?!

Exactly 😁

I am sure that if I took a massive blatant short cut approaching the finish line allowing me to overtake a couple of runners, the marshalls handing out timing tokens would think that i was cheating and it would suddenly be a competition again.

No I respect you might think it’s a fun run and that other’s take it as a fun run.

It is you that has a problem computing that we don’t all think the same.

SOME people like to race it.

Can you compute this.

But it’s not officially a race so those that wish to run and for it to run without being a race trumps somebody who wants to turn it into a race.

Parkrun is officially a free, weekly, 5k timed run, not a competition. While results are timed and recorded, the focus is on community, participation, and individual health, not winning. Participants are encouraged to go at their own pace, making it inclusive for all abilities rather than a competitive race.

Isn’t it a run for everyone however they like to run it.

Are you the parkrun police?

If women want to race it they can use the information parkrun produce that enables them to rank their time against their SEX and age.

Stop policing other peoples motivation.

I’m not telling you that you can’t jog or walk it so don’t tell others they can’t race using parkruns own data

Then why do they categorise and show stats?
And why do thy announce winners

I suspect you’ll either ignore this or come up with some silly reason.

You can do what you like but what you can’t do is change the official criteria to suit how you want it run.

Says who? The parkrun website is perfectly accepting that some people the joys of parkrun is tracking their progress. We don’t all jog around group hugging, it’s inclusive for ALL abilities, not just the slow people. It originated as a training aids for serious club runners.

And park runners are asked to choose between male and female (biological sex categories), ‘prefer not to say’ and ‘another gender identity’. No need whatsoever for trans people to be arseholes and declare themselves to be something they are not.

Imagine that I started a kids fun club with activities.

Then on my website I started logging times that it took those kids (naming them all individually) to do certain activities. I then separated boys from girls for the data and then further separated out their ages into categories and then published winners in each category on my website each week.

Occasionally the press would also interview some of the kids to discuss their winning times and publish their accomplishments in the newspaper

I suspect parents would be totally furious that the fun club was pitting the kids into competition wouldn’t they? They might say why are you making the fun club competitive would they?

I actually don’t get why this is a big fuss. How would you even police this? When I registered for Park Run I simply did it online, ran each week and scanned my bar code after each run to get my time.

I only accessed my time to see how I compared to myself. I can see with professional races but how would Park Run even begin to ensure people only run in the appropriate sex category?

It really doesn’t matter whether you ‘think’ the same as others about whether it is a competition or not. The organisers have made it competitive while denying it is competitive.