To think Parkrun should have an hour cut-off

[SummerAsh]

200+ participants, all but two completed in under 54 minutes… but the last two women ambled around chatting and took over 1 hour 10 minutes.

I appreciate that Parkrun should be inclusive, but that’s taking the piss, and unfair on the 20 or so volunteers who give up the first part of their Saturday mornings…. It’s hard enough getting volunteers as it is, without expecting everyone to be saintly martyrs with endless patience.

To complete in an hour requires a pace of 3.1 mph (I.e 5km = 3.1 miles)… According to Google, that’s a casual walking pace.

AIBU to think that if you can’t or won’t complete a park”run” at even a casual walking pace, then parkrun isn’t for you. I think that an hour cut off is more than accommodating enough, and an appropriate line to draw.

Otherwise, what is reasonable? Is it reasonable to accommodate a 90-year old taking 3 hours with their zimmer? If not, where the line if not an hour.

wow I literally volunteer most weeks
and I’m also a woman. I know why
people walk parkrun as I speak to them. So don’t come on here and tell me no. Parkrun is for everyone and that includes slow walkers as well as speedy women who are to afraid to run their own.

For me, as a regular parkrun volunteer (and very slow runner) the spirit of inclusiveness is much more important than an extra 15 or 20 or 30 mins hanging round at the end. It’s a price I’m
very happy to pay to keep the amazing ethos of parkrun. A cut off time would turn it into a different sort of event and put people off participating- exactly the kind of people who might benefit most from taking it up. Also, practically, how do you envisage this cut off working? A marathon has a cut off but they have vans to drive people back to the start. Do you expect the tailwalker to offer a piggy back if necessary?

Spot on.

And with another addition - they didn't want to have to have first aid provision etc at each event, it just isn't practical so that's another reason it can't be a "race", even though all the 10 year olds think it is!

Average walking paces vary greatly by age and sex

And height. As a 5' 1" woman I struggle to keep up with men in my family who are all 6ft 1 or two.

So somebody walks behind the person who actually comes last.

Not always true. More based on fitness usualy.

I used to love the fact that park run was for everyone but then I read threads on here from “runners” looking down at others and just think, maybe, rather than trying to exclude the people who are too slow, you should sign up for actual 5k races aimed at runners.

Things I love about park run:

1. You compete against yourself, and try to maintain or improve but you are not there to win. Completing is winning - wish school was more like this so us non sporty types wouldn’t have been so put off sport for fitness rather than thinking sport was always about winning.
2. It gets people moving, and is an encouraging/supportive environment.

You are talking about 2 people. Maybe encourage them to see if they have complete it 5 minutes faster next week rather than bitching about them on mn - not the spirit of park run! (I don’t do it anymore as ours closed due to being too popular, the venues couldn’t cope).

Yep.
Who made you the boss of everyone?

You don't get to enter a race for free every weekend so these posts don't make sense.it was supposed to be a social way to keep fit, for people to improve their own times.

Given I've been running and volunteering at parkrun for well over a decade (as well as at track events) I am as entitled to an opinion as you are.

It's not just speedy women who don't like running on their own. It was about this time of year when I first joined a running club because I didn't want to run on my own in the dark. parkrun was a thing then but I didn't discover it until about a year after I'd started running.

I maintain that parkrun gives women in particular a safe space to run. If you think it's for walkers, that's your opinion but don't say wow as if my opinion is something utterly outrageous because it is not.

Actual runners would never mock an obese person taking steps towards fitness. It’s those out for a stroll that gets the ire up.

Plus there are also walking communities so I'm not sure why you're trying to make the point that parkrun is the only community available to walkers

Not everyone has a walking community locally. I don't. There's always a parkrun nearby.

Honestly does it matter?

It is frustrating when people are strolling round without a care in the world while you can't feel your fingers , but IME that doesn't actually happen that much

Exactly. Of course it doesn't. If it was that cold the participants would also be freezing cold if they were 'ambling'. They'd be just as keen to get back in the warm as the volunteers.

I’ve been last. Technically it was the tail walking volunteer who was last, but really it was me.
i wouldn’t have offended the OP though as I did it in 43 minutes and learned a valuable lesson about checking previous week results before going to a different parkrun

There isn't always a parkrun nearby - there are eg massive gaps in the south-west, eg around Yeovil which has now lost its parkrun twice.

Park Run is about more than competition. It's about community and friends and feeling good. And I'm saying this as someone work a heart and lung condition and can't physically join in! Wind your neck in!

This

Volunteer tail walkers "finish last". Thank you marshalls!

No, it is also known as ParkWalk.

@Cadeaukatze 👋 yep, I miss montacute house runs but still run the ninesprings route sometimes. I miss the park run family and coffee at the end. Everyone hangs around for a hour after anyway so people would take coffees out and go and chat in groups with the volunteers until the last came in. They were never standing on their own. It was always very social.

I always think posts like these show a complete lack of understanding of amateur races. Do you honestly think that the people entering an amateur race, are racing to win??? Only a handful of people of either sex are hoping to win. Everyone else is there for the love of the event, or to compete against their previous time, or to compete to see the best rank they can get ( which is why it’s important for people to compete in their own sex category in amateur races too. It’s not just winners who are negatively affected by this). In other words, nearly everyone is in a race for the same reason as people do park run.

Yep even my small town has three beginners/ social running groups

I have no problem with people who are slow, but it's the lack of effort to get round in a good time "for them" which rankles. People out for a casual stroll sipping their coffee? No. But that's not an unusual sight at my closest one, unfortunately. An elderly lady with a rollator or a stick is exactly who I don't mind getting cold for.

Yes, I know all that and mostly agree with you, but I was responding to PP who said their club had stopped volunteering because it's no longer real runners.

The club that takes over our parkrun makes it very unfriendly for "outsiders" IMO. Fwiw they are a club of very ordinary runners, but I find their attitude to non members and the relentless recruiting, even aimed at members at other clubs, hard to take.

If you had a cut off of 1 hr then it would scare people away from about 40 mins I think. Then if someone was brave enough to do 55 minutes some people would get frustrated waiting for them. It would change the event and the times would get faster so that a 35 minute runner would stand out and feel self conscious eventually (as they probably would have at the first event in 2004 when the last finisher came in at 29.39.)

Knowing that there is going to be someone slower gives people confidence. I am grateful to everyone who finishes behind me that I am not the one finishing second to last. (I have once been that person at 35mins - bit of a shock for both me and the tail walker)

if there were more people coming in between an hour and an hour and 10 it wouldn’t feel like such a wait. We really need to encourage more walkers to fill the gaps.

They’re moving. Marshals aren’t. Big difference.