I don't get it. If the start line timer is clicked only once, and it can take a good few minutes from the first and last runner to cross the start line, that means the last person crossing the start line will be penalised by a few minutes even before starting the race??? And if people are constantly changing running order, how do the time keepers know what thew start time of each person was and calculate the actual time run? This suggest you need to be right in front of the pack to get anything close to an accurate time? Makes no sense.
Great chat with Nicki. What a fabulous achievement! I can’t help but think that the WMN selfie frame in the top left was a little hint at the yellow! 😄
The decision and the letter were pathetic. No one was put off participating because of the results page and records. They just don't have the courage to exclude men pretending to be women for cheating.
Great how, Danny. What I'm upset about is this dismissal by HQ of all the people that actually make parkrun happen. We're meant to be part of this big parkrun family and all pitch in and help, but when it comes to any decisions it's done in secrecy. It's made me very aware that when I go and volunteer I am effectively helping to pay the salaries of these people that treat us like annoying children. It's really putting me off parkrun, which is depressing, because I've loved taking part for 15 years now.
Yes, I remember stavros...he was Kojak's colleague but actually Telly Savalas' brother. Parkrun has made the changes because the management do not have the balls to address the real issue which is regarding Men running as women and taking their records and positions. Shame on them!
Some good points Danny. The changes have put me off parkrun after doing my first in 2008 when it was a time trial. The stats were a motivation for so many people. Men and Women lol.
If this is enough to "put you off" perhaps it's time for you to move on. The least important part of parkrun is gone and I really hope that this makes it easier for new people to try parkrun for the first time.
@@mjowsey I've encouraged alot of people to start running. Even done a primary school visit to start up 'The Daily Mile' to help get children active. Why are faster runners getting the blame for putting people off? It makes little sense. Somebody has to cross the line first. That's the way it works.
@@JAMESBAKER-jm5dv As average finishing times get slower then more and more beginners will, hopefully, give it a go. If one or two fast runners are going to stop attending parkrun that's a shame but parkrun is changing its focus to the slower finishers and that is deliberate.
Thats not about inclusivity, that's about manners. There are certain parkruns that are less enjoyable as a result. Often busy multilappers esp where they don't encourage people to line up in roughly time order at the start, which is often the main cause of problems.
Unlikely there would have been a survey question asking about getting rid of stats, however some of the questions I would expect are: What do you dislike about parkrun? What stops you attending parkrun? My answers to the above would be along the lines of: There is an issue with toxic and unpleasant behaviour from some of the participants, I have seen and experienced this first hand at the front of the field, as has my partner a little further back. Some people will just be a-holes (like making it difficult for women to pass), others are so focused on the competition, nobody else matters (including other park users and volunteers). People have been physically assaulted by some of the "competitive" participants at some of the parkruns we sometimes attend. We actively avoid some venues because the behaviour of some participants make it unpleasant, I hate to think what it must be like for other participants. I don't think my answers are unique, and that of a significant number of participants (or ex-participants). However I don't think these "customer responses" are going to be easy for parkrun public relations to spin, its going to be very difficult to criticise/admit to a problem with a minority of the participants. I can see the recent actions of parkrun having been considered as a response to feedback about bad behaviour, even at the expense of making parkrun less attractive and "inclusive" for the participants I referred to above. There is an irony that to make it make it more inclusive to the larger general population, it may may need to be less inclusive to some.
The whole official narrative is dishonest. The weekly results are more likely to put people off rather than the deeper stats. Myself and many others love the stats. The choice has been removed. Something which was great is now less so.
haha just saw this video. My local parkrun. Love it, glad you did too. I think me and my son start just in front of you and you can see him waving at the Cars as you cross the bridge at the start. I'm waiting for him at the end when you cross the finish line, lol.
99.3% of the people at parkrun could not give an f about these changes. Therefore if it gets a few more people to parkrun then the chances are exactly right.
Thanks for the interesting video . I am surprised you are so adamant about the benefits of tokens and timers. As park run grows one parkrun has become four and to be honest a lot of RDs and VCs get stressed because there aren't enough volunteers on Friday. Additionally the same few people get guilt tripped on Thursday or Friday into volunteering when they really want to run. Basically parkrun could exist without the London directors but not without the volunteers. But the volunteers are not consulted on big decisions. Even a parkrun ambassador said of stats-gate they " knew nothing about this until the message come out today". This sounds like arrogance by the London office and IMHO is not the way to get the best decisions. I have to admit I didnt know the statistics were there (and I am an RD ) so I am not bothered but its not good to see people I respect upset.
The press release implying that the views of people who were thinking about trying parkrun are more important than regulars wasnt helpful. If most of it is still there why all the fuss, they have really mishandled the message.Parkrun HQ is a very different beast to the actual events, its a big charity now and I suspect the real reason is about keeping the government grants flowing in. They have been backed into a corner but they have made a mess of it.
Parkrun has completely lost the plot, quite simply a man is a man and if a transgender woman breaks a record it doesn’t count, that is the end of it. Wow a parkrun is not a race, that is just silly, I’ve never met anyone who has stopped going because someone is taking it too serious, this cancellation the records is beyond the pale, unbelievable 🙈
@@mjowsey I hope I’m not insulting your intelligence here but when a man says he’s a woman for whatever reason and runs in the woman’s category let’s not forget he’s still a man, then this transgender woman has a distinct advantage and could take course and age group records so rather than address the gender issues parkrun has taken away the records 😀👍
Thanks for your comment. I feel the same and very strongly that this deletion of well earned records is quite frankly evil. I don’t hold any of these records. But I do support to my end, the right of runners to try for these records and not be treated simply like numbers that can be deleted. That is sick. I am no longer going to Park Run. Ignorant sheep can keep going every Saturday. But it doesn’t make it right. I have run Park Run over 150 times and volunteered around 30 times including timekeeping for 500 plus runners. Everyone can get stuffed with this change. Society can go to hell.
Another comment as I didn’t want to blurt thoughts amongst an encouraging message, but as a fairly new parkrunner and runner in general, I am just excited to go and run and chat to people every Saturday. I do think that the statsgeek/numbers/data side of things is a really big part of it for some people, but I really do think they’re a minority. An interesting thing to think about though is the way in which the milestone culture (which is lovely) does in some way propagate the feelings of entitlement that have been swirling around. It’s the IKEA effect I suppose (feeling more ownership and attachment to something you have built yourself). Because these achievements take time and consistency we feel like we have bought in or earned something of parkrun, when we haven’t. It’s free, for everyone, whether a 500-clubber or a brand new parkrunner. I will say I liked seeing the speedy records, and they were a fun way of gauging the difficulty of a parkrun. But I can do that just as well by looking at last week’s results tbh, which I’ll still be able to do. In a way having speedy people celebrated makes me feel more at home at parkrun: if it were all people running at my pace I would feel disconnected from the wider running community, at a ‘beginner’s class’ essentially. I don’t feel like that at all. But parkrun is still there on the Saturday, same as it always was. Things just change for the statsgeeks and the people who go for reasons which, to be honest, I find a bit questionable in the first place.
Thank you Danny for your thoughtful and helpful ideas. It makes me sad to hear you talk about ‘parkrun on the side’ in the way you do, when I know it had previously been such a big part of your life, but of course you are absolutely right. parkrun is a fabulous and lovely part of all our lives but love, community, family and friends are always paramount. I’m sorry that these things weigh so heavily on you, they are sad and upsetting to all of us who share a love of parkrun but you bear the brunt of it in so many ways. I hope you’re able to get away from it all with Jem, and look after yourself and her.
For what it’s worth Danny, I’m heavier than you and I have a pair of carbon plated shoes. I’ve always been on the heavier side and haven’t been running as long as you have, but those carbon shoes have saved me a lot of foot pain, which I experience a lot when running longer distances. Plus I wouldn’t pay over £120 - which is full price for a “normal” pair of trainers - for a plated shoe. But that’s me, and my plated shoes are reserved specifically for training and racing. I’m quite happy running every day in my Hoka Cliftons, or Brooks Hyperion Tempo (which is my parkrun shoe of choice).
I love these videos. Seems the ha ha got the last laugh! You actually ran along beside it as you run the path nearest the house. Thank you for sharing.
Spooky seeing that old pavilion. 50 years ago, my dad used to take me to the old cinder track adjacent to the parkrun course. There's a skateboard park built over one corner of the area now, but the faint 400m track outline is still there. I am aiming on getting down there in about 6 weeks to run it. Thanks for the video :-)
Thanks, Danny. That’s a very useful video & I picked up a few new tips although I have been using EMS for a while. From a Volunteer Coordinator’s perspective the most useful thing for me is to be able to bring up more than 20 runners with the same name as I have had a few occasions where I can’t put people in the roster without their barcode & some others where people e-Mail in under a different surname to that which they are registered under.
Very good. As someone who isn't on a core team but does support them when I can, this has been an interesting walk through! Thanks Danny and James for taking the time to do this.
Thank you so much for doing this. I have been using EMS for a few months now and found it very user friendly. I will share this with the rest of our RDs. Please can the creator of this system come and work with my employer as they could learn a lot about how to create a program! 😊
