parkrun, lap two

flazio

Tubbercurry Trail is on the map.

https://www.parkrun.ie/tubbercurrytrail/

diceyreilly

Picked up an injury to my big toe on Wednesday. Rules me out of running tomorrow.

Going to volunteer as parkwalker instead. Not even too sure what the role entails but will give it a rattle anyway.

Duzzie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121867401#Comment_121867401

Basically chat to the other walkers around you, if they want to chat. Try to encourage everyone, especially slower walkers and first timers. A little encouragement goes a long way to motivate people. Most importantly, show everyone that you are enjoying walking with them and that they are welcome at parkrun. Fair play to you for helping out, enjoy it

dastardly00

This morning at parkrun my barcode time on the results webpage was about one minute faster than the time I recorded on my watch. And I was listed as finishing three seconds, and one place, behind a friend of mine. But in reality I was about one minute behind her and also there was another person in between us. I'm just curious to know how this happened. Anyone know?

Duzzie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121870601#Comment_121870601

parkrun results are a manual process where lots of things can go wrong. The time keepers may have miss-pressed, the finish tokens may have had a few in the wrong order or be missing, someone may have ducked out of the funnel after being timed, someone may have crossed the finish line twice. There are so many things that could cause the results to go awry in a manual system. If you are concerned about your time, a polite message to the event team explaining the issue, preferably with a Garmin time etc., and an offer to volunteer in future may persuade them to correct your time. But it is important to remember that all of the timekeepers etc are volunteers, mistakes happen and there is no guarantee of getting a time or of the accuracy of that time .

dastardly00

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121870954#Comment_121870954

Thanks for the comprehensive reply 😊

I'm not annoyed or anything like that, or looking to blame anyone, I was just curious is all.

Reg'stoy

Normally two timekeepers, who occasionally check in with each other and whoever is handing out the tokens, that "next token is 59" timekeepers should be showing 58 and token confirms 59. In a bunch finish, one finisher extra or less may have been recorded, finisher number should always be one less than the next token, so one timekeeper may add a finisher even though no one crossed the line to keep everything in sync. If a finisher doesn't want a token (you get them) their token should be dropped on the ground. Only one timekeepers results are used, so maybe you got a token that should have been dropped or there may have been an extra finisher needed by one timekeeper to keep sync'ed and that was you 'place'.

I've done timekeeper by myself and in a bunch finish, touching your phone screen 7 or 8 times very quickly can mean errors.

corcaigh07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121873939#Comment_121873939

Can also click the volume buttons for clicking finishers. Especially handy if it's raining.

Reg'stoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121874104#Comment_121874104

Every day's a school day, did not know that, thanks.

robinph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121874104#Comment_121874104

Disable network, connect headphones, phone and hands in pockets, press volume button, listen for beeps, ignore any finishers crossing the line asking for their time, occasionally have a look at the screen in a quiet moment and confirm positions are in synch with the other timekeeper and finish tokens. :)

Pawwed Rig

If it wasn't a pb I wouldn't bother the team with it but as above any number of things can happen. My lowest point as a timekeeper was missing the third place finisher. Thankfully there was a back up timer that day ☺️

py

Anyone run Black Park parkrun near Slough? Trying to convince the family to go this weekend as we're over that way for a visit to Legoland. The others I have looked at nearby look like lap based parkruns. These are avoided when possible with the boys due to them not wanting to run more than one lap.

jakejudy123

Here is a link to the third open letter sent today to parkrun regarding the removal of the statistics.

https://www.change.org/p/reinstate-statistics-on-parkrun-for-all-participants/u/32424914

flazio

Not seeing any massive drop in numbers and as I suspected would be the case, the 5K app is tracking those statistics. Here in Ireland at least, Parkrun is still doing fine.

Sunny Dayz

Because at the end of the day, the majority of people don't really care about the statistics. They don't really care what the course record is at their local parkrun. All they care about is their own stats. But I feel it is unfair to those who do hold course records, age grade records, first finishes etc. It might be important to them, they worked hard for them and to me the removal of them almost feels like parkrun is scolding them - it's not a race !!

Ciara Mageen getting the female parkrun record at the end of last year was great for parkrun. It made so many headlines outside of parkrun circles. It surely would have been inspiring for other runners, particularly female teenager. I ran the same parkrun as Sonia O'Sullivan once and it felt great to be running the same event as a pure legend, someone I watched on tv growing up, and yet she was a parkrunner like all the rest of us, listening to the briefing, queuing to get her her barcode scanned.

In terms of barriers to entry to parkrun - what I've noticed lately is that newbies to my local parkrun are friends / acquaintances of a participant. With parkrun wanting to increase numbers - perhaps people should be encouraged to bring someone along with them. And people are more likely to continue going to parkrun for the social aspect.

Reg'stoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887154#Comment_121887154

Totally agree, anecdotally anyone I have spoken to on the subject, and no one is really speaking about it anymore, didn't even know you could check the stats you can no longer check. We use the 5k and running achievements apps, purely for the challenges and knowing our NEADY parkruns, as we do a bit of tourism.

robinph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887154#Comment_121887154

The test will be if this change manages to make any difference to the ratio of 40 minute plus participants as according to parkrun HQ that was the sole reason for the change, to encourage people at the opposite end of the field.

It of course won't make the slightest difference as there is far more to getting people to take part than deleting some pages from a website, but HQ continue to fail to make any headway in reaching those people they claim to be trying to reach in any country outside of SA to any significant numbers. There are a handful of non SA locations which reach that audience, but HQ refuse to listen to how those events managed that.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887287#Comment_121887287

Maybe I am a saddo but I spend about half an hour every Saturday looking at results of parkruns and various statistics 🤣

Sandwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121887287#Comment_121887287

Re the Ciara Mageann thing, I'm not really sure that it does anything for Parkrun in terms of increasing participation. It might even have the opposite effect of scaring off potential participants who perceive themselves as slow. A world class athlete showing up to hammer a PR at a Parkrun seems a bit pointless to me, if anything. I think it's lovely to see elites showing up at and supporting their local Parkrun but making a big deal out of a professional athlete running a fast time at a Parkrun always struck me as a bit odd.

jakejudy123

Yep me too. I'm 72, ex marathon runner. Now a slow parkrunner. Love the statistics, keeps me going trying to improve in my age group. It's all that keeps me connected to my beloved running

jakejudy123

The scary thing in my opinion is this statement from parkrun

"l - "parkrun - you said in your recent staff email that "there is still so much more to do" and "we need to make changes that won't be universally popular" - what are they? Will the parkrun community get any say on them?" Hopefully a relevant questions to EVERYBODY in our community, whether they support the stats protest or not."

Wonder what those changes are, timing, name change. Some don't care about stats but may be affected down the line

flazio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121891955#Comment_121891955

And you still get those in your emails. Someone once compared Parkruns to soccer kick abouts with mates. "You're there to have fun with your mates but you still want to know who won 2-1."

robinph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121892075#Comment_121892075

You don't get those stats in the results email, it just gives you a comparison to the track world record.

What you can no longer see is the age grades run by other people at the same event you just ran at, or how you compare directly with others in your age category at your event. You can, with a minor bit of effort, compare to people who ran on the same day, but you can't see where you rank amongst other V70s over the years at the event.

flazio

What's going on here I wonder? The wording is worrying that it's something "political" rather than course unavailability. They only moved to a new section of the Greenway in the past year.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C4ftTg_oKbT/?igsh=MXNsYzB6MWxzZHdxcw==

robinph

That does read as if it's more than just a one week weather / volunteer availability issue.

flazio

And they've listed the reason for cancellation as "Permission issue" on the Parkrun website. This doesn't make much sense. They've been on the go for 120 runs now. The Greenway is Mayo coco property, if there's a dispute on their new section, just revert to the old section.

jakejudy123

Exactly. I'm in 70-74 grade and it was inspiring to see how fast others were doing the 5k and I would plan to do better. No reason to take that away from me and others

Reg'stoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121895277#Comment_121895277

I'm not going to be disingenuous, but all that information is still available. The results page will show age groups, age graded percentages, so you can see how you compared on the day against any group you want. The 5K app will give you a break down of every age group record, for whatever parkrun you want to run in. Loads of stats for the geekest of geeks on both the 5K and running achievements apps.

robinph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121896630#Comment_121896630

The 5k app is unofficial and has the potential to get blocked at any point, not certain how they have got away with their scraping for so long, but for now HQ seem to be leaving them be.

jakejudy123

Great opinion piece re stats removal in today's Irish Times

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/athletics/2024/03/16/ian-oriordan-come-on-parkrun-give-them-back-their-stats/