parkrun

[john2443]

Morden (SW London) started this week and was kept secret to prevent silly numbers turning up.

I keep an eye on the inaugural parkrun FB page (to know where new events are, not because I'll go to one!!) and people are going mental about how it infringes their human rights to not be told of an inaugural and how HQ are not being inclusive - would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

I imagine week 2 will have silly numbers now the cat's out of the bag.

[john2443]

elvismiggell said:

parkrun said:

In 2005, the average finish time for completing a parkrun was 22:17. In 2020, it was 32:30.

Obviously that will be skewed to some extent by people that only do it very occasionally and that's their only running or walking activity. Many of the folks in this thread can reassure themselves that they are considerably faster than average. (The rest of us can congratulate ourselves for getting out there at all, regardless of time.)

Week 1, in 2007, the event I started at had 17 finishers, last place was 26:24.

This week P17 was 20:28 and 153 finished in under 26:24 (plus 200 people behind them), the slower average makes it sound like we're getting worse, but in fact, overall we're getting better, sort of! (I'm not, I'm just getting older and slower )

[john2443]

GloverMart said:

(don't laugh!) 42:54 for my first run...

No one's going to laugh - 99.99% of the population can't do it - non runners might think it's slow but generally they have no clue and think they could easily do it, but most can't.

GloverMart said:

ETA: Time was 36.52, second quickest so far but 28 seconds slower than last week.

I have run 5k more than 99% of the population today so I'm still a winner!

Well done! You probably won't get a PB every week but 36 is OK and sub 30 isn't out of reach as a target as your weight goes down and fitness up.

[john2443]

Arrgghh!

Just checked my result for today - my satisfied pace at the moment is 60%, today I got 59.98%.

1 second quicker would have got me over 60! Must try harder!

[john2443]

GloverMart said:

I've probably lost about an hour of my Saturday trawling through this thread and being royally entertained by those of you with longer parkrun history than I.

I've laughed out loud a lot, scratched my head a bit, come up with various plans for future events to attend and picked up a load of useful tips, one of which was to step in a dog turd before I start. Must admit I hadn't thought of that one...

Great thread!!

Am considering doing Bushy on the 20th anniversary weekend but have noticed that, typically, 2nd October 2024 is a Wednesday. Do we think that the 6th will be the one celebrated anniversary date?

The rule on anniversaries is if the first event was on the 3rd Saturday of the month then anniversary is the 3rd Saturday so Bushy is first Saturday.

I'd love to go to Bushy 20 (I went to 10) but won't because they are expecting crazy numbers and I don't want to add to that - in 2014 900 was normal / anniversary was 1700, now 1500 is normal and parkrun is hugely more popular, it was still best kept secret in 2014 so they could get 3000 for 20th.

[john2443]

How wet did you all get today! That's the wettest I've been at a parkrun for a long time.

Fortunately was at Lewes (Malling Rec) which is only 10 mins from home so no coffee afterwards, just dashed home to get warm and dry.

[john2443]

Although timing is quite good it's quite basic and not foolproof; as well as funnel duckers, timekeeper can miss someone or tap an extra time, tokens can get stuck together or not be sorted correctly last week.

It gets more difficult the more finishers there are. Results processor can correct things afterwards if they know what was wrong but sometimes it's best guess!

Edit - and rain drops on phone screen don't help! Time keeper this week said he had about 30 extra taps! Fortunately the other one had a better rain cover; my time was spot on.

Edited by john2443 on Tuesday 27th August 07:53

[john2443]

No, not at Bushy, RD at my home event.

I just checked Bushy to see what the numbers were but results not done yet. (It was week 1000 if anyone wonders why we're talking about it!)


Edit - Facebook is suggesting there were 6000 (I don't think PH has an appropriate emoji for this!!!) and they gave up giving / ran out of finish tokens and were just taking athlete IDs.

So many inconsiderate tts who thought it was a good idea to overwhelm an event, if they drove I wonder how far away they had to park - it was tricky parking the last time I went and there were only about 1500 then!

Edited by john2443 on Saturday 31st August 14:38

[john2443]

RizzoTheRat said:

maybe next time I have a weekend I can't run I should e-mail a random parkrun with an unknown in their results and see if they'll add me

That's been done! After lockdown Oz and NZ re-started before UK and someone mailed to be added. Someone who run at the same place in NZ checked his history because there weren't many Kiwis who'd done 250 so he stood out, and they saw he'd allegedly run in Oz the week before which was impossible due to travel restrictions so more investigating went on.

[john2443]

Trip over to Tonbridge today (in my friends very non PH electric van!) as it was my NENYD.

620 finishers on a very nice route partly in a park but also through the woods and round a lake - only downside was a few narrow bridges that brought us almost to a halt in the first 2k.

[john2443]

There's nothing definite about pacers, some events organise pacer weeks once a month, some never have any.

Other than World Womens day when we have women pacing every minute we have random times depending if anyone offers.

[john2443]

GloverMart said:

Master Bean said:

GloverMart said:

PB broken this morning, knocked 1.25 off my previous best which I'm pleased with. Didn't feel THAT fast but maybe my FAST has got faster than my previous FAST. (if you see what I mean!).

Was at the Somerdale Pavilion course in Keynsham and wore trail shoes so even more surprised to get such a good time.

I got a really good time there. 1 second off my all time pb. Course came up short but probably just gps struggling with the never ending bends.

Hi MB, it's an issue a lot of people get. I've only "measured" the course once as I've been running it and it also came up very short but as you say, I'm sure it's the bends that cause it to be out. And if they measure the 5km in the centre of the track, there are so many bends that you could knock off quite a distance when you take the racing line through corners.

The shortest line should have been used when measuring the course, it's very difficult to accurately measure an off road course and with the Curly Wurly section I suspect that GPS has very little idea what's going on!

[john2443]

We're in Yorkshire for a wedding, booked an Airbnb close to parkrun and the venue...it snowed and all the local parkruns are cancelled

Damn!

[john2443]

476 cancellations in UK mostly saying Weather as the reason.

Fortunately as I'm in the South East, only the seafront ones cancelled as there was a risk of being washed out to sea. I just got quite muddy at Malling Rec (Lewes).and finished before the rain started.

[john2443]

GloverMart said:

Here's a list of those parkruns that are, and aren't, putting on events on Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

https://www.parkrun.org.uk/special-events/

I'm in a mix of looking forward to and dreading 25/12, we normally get 5-600, was over 900 last Xmas and so far the weather's looking good for this year, so have prepped tokens up to 1500 but we don't really have room for that many!

No other local ones are on so everyone comes to us!

[john2443]

JQ said:

I just think it's fantastic that organisers and volunteers are prepared to give up their time to do this on Christmas Day, absolutely amazing. I only really started Parkrun properly this year, and this could be my first Xmas day one. I suspect I won't be doing yours as 6 of my local ones are running, but I just wanted to say a big thank you.

Interestingly, we had no problem getting vols for Christmas Day, we've mentioned it in the run brief but haven't done the hard sell of mailing people, posting on Facebook etc. It's become a tradition that we run on Christmas Day, if we didn't organise it people would probably just turn up and run anyway.

Every year our autumn Core Team meeting has an agenda item of "Christmas Day - Yes or No" and it takes 5 secs for everyone to say Yes, so there's no lack of enthusiasm from them, we're heading home by about 10.15 so not too much of a chunk out of the day and we feel less guilty about the amount we eat and drink later!

We don't really see it as giving up our time, it's just a choice of how we spend our time and Christmas Day run has a great atmosphere!

[john2443]

Preston Park - waiting for RD to untangle the results, but timers clicked about 1250 finishers!

Warm (for December) and dry so nice conditions to be out in.

Edited by john2443 on Wednesday 25th December 11:47

[john2443]

NaePasaran said:

Over 630 at my local one yesterday (Edinburgh). How many people do you think will attend an event across the UK as a whole as on any given Saturday? It's a fantastic event and setup considering they don't cost a penny to attend.

Worldwide total over 400,000 runners, walkers and volunteers this week.

(HQ stats include vols because volling isn't considered to be a chore, but a worthwhile experience - I was at a run a couple of weeks ago where there's an old guy who marshals every week, he does it because he was lonely and it gives him a purpose, a chat, a coffee and people say Hi and thanks so although for some it's 'giving up a run', but for others it's life enhancing. Stats are arguable because they include both categories, but there we go!)

[john2443]

LastPoster said:

The RD has dropped by and stated they did measure it and I’m sure they did but human nature is to go the shortest route not down the middle.

The correct way to measure a course is by taking the shortest route. I don't know if all parkruns have done that! (They quite likely haven't!)

[john2443]

Taking it slightly cautiously today because I ran over my foot with a trolley last weekend volunteering at the half marathon and can still feel the (probably) bruised or (less likely) broken, toe!

First properly sunny Saturday of the year and Int Women day with about 30 women pacing everything from 19 mins upwards led to a large turnout of 750 - we keep lengthening the funnel and then more people come so we add a bit more on!

Maybe we should shorten it and less will come