This is an interesting thread. I was really interested to read this post on LetsRun:
"I must admit the thing I hate most about park run, speaking as a former sub elite woman now running a slow 19.30 in my late forties to occasionally be first woman on a good day, is those male park runners who make it their aim to target you as the only person they are interested in defeating in the race. They follow on your heels, you can hear their laboured breathing, and try and sprint past you at the finish. They ignore all of the male runners. Then they come up to you in that little narrow finish chute (if they haven't barged you out of the way despite finishing behind you, that has actually happened to me) and tell you how they've been trying to beat you for the last 3 races. If you don't manage to escape quickly enough, they follow you around telling you about their extremely boring training and previous times.
There just aren't many 5k road races around here within 90 minutes drive, as a former middle distance runner I don't really like 10k but I do like to race every 2 or 3 weeks. But all of this has really put me off park run and I certainly don't want my participation to boost some former man's excitement about thinking he is a woman now and can race in our category and steal our placings.
Us women are always being told to boycott things to make our point anyway."
I had never thought about men making a point of beating the faster women. I have run ParkRun but am far too slow to have anyone attempt to beat my time.