Parkrun..

robinph · 13-05-2020 10:25AM

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

It might be worth dispensing with timing for a while and send people out separately. It is the bigger parkruns with 100+ that are the main issue.

But the main point of parkrun isn't the timing, it's the social aspect. And the main problem in dealing with Covid19 is the social part, not the timing.

Cape Clear · 13-05-2020 11:07AM

I'm thinking of setting up my own 5k runs and will call them Homerun. Members of a household will set off as a group at 1 minute intervals over the space of an hour. I'm going to design my own branding and not rip off the Parkrun branding like someone I've heard of previously.

robinph · 13-05-2020 11:16AM

There was a good idea mentioned on With Me Now last week. A group who lived relatively near each other figured out a route which went past each of their front doors. At 9am they all set off from their door following the route, but in either direction. Then you pass half the group going the opposite way round on your run, get back to your home then sit by your front gate cheering for the others until you've seen everyone.

Seannew1 · 13-05-2020 02:49PM

Sport Ireland have given athletics Ireland permission to allow club training resume in groups of 4 from next week. May not mean much for parkrun but probably gives some indication as to what's down the road for us!

Pawwed Rig · 13-05-2020 09:24PM

robinph wrote: »

But the main point of parkrun isn't the timing, it's the social aspect. And the main problem in dealing with Covid19 is the social part, not the timing.

I would have thought the main point was to remove barriers to running.

Anyway it is my little girls 4th birthday today. So registered and barcode printed
now just have to wait.

She has done about 20 jnr parkruns already but was never able to get a time

Burkie1203 · 14-05-2020 06:51AM

robinph wrote: »

But the main point of parkrun isn't the timing, it's the social aspect. And the main problem in dealing with Covid19 is the social part, not the timing.

I've spoken to a good few ppl from my local parkrun. All are regular volunteers who say they won't volunteer to do tokens or scanning again. You can bang the drum about what you think is or isn't safe but the reality is finding people to have close interaction with 200 people breathing heavy etc, and be relying on them all to act safe is going to be tough.

robinph · 14-05-2020 07:29AM

Burkie1203 wrote: »

I've spoken to a good few ppl from my local parkrun. All are regular volunteers who say they won't volunteer to do tokens or scanning again. You can bang the drum about what you think is or isn't safe but the reality is finding people to have close interaction with 200 people breathing heavy etc, and be relying on them all to act safe is going to be tough.

Agreed.

There has been a fantastic effort globally to, quite rightly, scare the crap out of us all in order to get enough people to comply with some form of being socially distant from each other so that it makes a difference to transmission. The tricky bit now is to be able to ease back on the fear so that we can reach a point where some activities can resume.

Spending 2 seconds interacting with someone holding out a barcode at arms length for it to be scanned isn't a high risk interaction. Maybe it is if the entire field of 200 runners are infected and they all decide to cough whilst being scanned, but that is where governments should be doing testing to spot that kind of localised hot spot of infections and close things down.

How we interact in crowds will have to change, and no idea what that will become yet. Just because we all went round hugging each other, shaking hands and breathing heavily on each other at the end of run previously doesn't mean that's what we still have to do. Might only need a slight change to the social norms with people wearing masks whenever stood 2m away from someone to make the change though.

Still got zero concerns about the touching of tokens. It's the subsequent touching of faces which is the problem, and if nobody other than yourself touches the token it's not an issue.

Burkie1203 · 14-05-2020 07:40AM

robinph wrote: »

Agreed.

There has been a fantastic effort globally to, quite rightly, scare the crap out of us all in order to get enough people to comply with some form of being socially distant from each other so that it makes a difference to transmission. The tricky bit now is to be able to ease back on the fear so that we can reach a point where some activities can resume.

Spending 2 seconds interacting with someone holding out a barcode at arms length for it to be scanned isn't a high risk interaction. Maybe it is if the entire field of 200 runners are infected and they all decide to cough whilst being scanned, but that is where governments should be doing testing to spot that kind of localised hot spot of infections and close things down.

How we interact in crowds will have to change, and no idea what that will become yet. Just because we all went round hugging each other, shaking hands and breathing heavily on each other at the end of run previously doesn't mean that's what we still have to do. Might only need a slight change to the social norms with people wearing masks whenever stood 2m away from someone to make the change though.

Still got zero concerns about the touching of tokens. It's the subsequent touching of faces which is the problem, and if nobody other than yourself touches the token it's not an issue.

But that's not How parkrun operates. Token and scanner volunteers are stuck in the same spot for an hour with 100-500 people all going past them, hanging around chatting, walking back and forth to catch up with people etc.

Look at society at large. The last 2 weeks have seen a big shift in behaviour back towards what it was a few months ago. I'm seeing more and more public gathering, I saw a football match being played in a local park yesterday by about 16 ppl, house parties nearby, saw a pic on Twitter of a party of sorts in Glasnevin cemetery sometime last week

Once society starts to get back to something resembling what it once was, people's behaviour will not be as vigilant as it was a few months ago and therein lies the problem. A well versed person handing out tokens is 100% reliant on 100-500 ppl (depending on which parkrun) to be vigilant at the end of a 5km run.

youngrun · 14-05-2020 07:50AM

Burkie1203 wrote: »

But that's not How parkrun operates. Token and scanner volunteers are stuck in the same spot for an hour with 100-500 people all going past them, hanging around chatting, walking back and forth to catch up with people etc.

Look at society at large. The last 2 weeks have seen a big shift in behaviour back towards what it was a few months ago. I'm seeing more and more public gathering, I saw a football match being played in a local park yesterday by about 16 ppl, house parties nearby, saw a pic on Twitter of a party of sorts in Glasnevin cemetery sometime last week

Once society starts to get back to something resembling what it once was, people's behaviour will not be as vigilant as it was a few months ago and therein lies the problem. A well versed person handing out tokens is 100% reliant on 100-500 ppl (depending on which parkrun) to be vigilant at the end of a 5km run.

Lots of people in fear or panic and risk averse now, maybe 40-50 % ?
Whether justified or not - I am of the opinion not, but likely a minority view which makes it difficult to get consenus re restarting events
For any events to start again there will need to be an acceptance of risk, health or otherwise,

Most likely to be the younger generation who want to get on with life and not hide away

The Black Oil · 14-05-2020 07:56AM

Are we not simply going to return to what was discussed earlier? HQ are not going to risk bad PR.

robinph · 14-05-2020 07:57AM

Burkie1203 wrote: »

But that's not How parkrun operates. Token and scanner volunteers are stuck in the same spot for an hour with 100-500 people all going past them, hanging around chatting, walking back and forth to catch up with people etc.

Look at society at large. The last 2 weeks have seen a big shift in behaviour back towards what it was a few months ago. I'm seeing more and more public gathering, I saw a football match being played in a local park yesterday by about 16 ppl, house parties nearby, saw a pic on Twitter of a party of sorts in Glasnevin cemetery sometime last week

Once society starts to get back to something resembling what it once was, people's behaviour will not be as vigilant as it was a few months ago and therein lies the problem. A well versed person handing out tokens is 100% reliant on 100-500 ppl (depending on which parkrun) to be vigilant at the end of a 5km run.

But this is all happening outside in a big space, apart from one event I've heard of that makes you take your shoes off and go into the cafe to get scanned!?!?

Don't think we are there yet, but New Zealand could be quite soon. Just a couple of small changes and people generally being less close when hanging out in parks will make a big difference.

Paddyman38 · 14-05-2020 05:10PM

I have done regular parkruns up until this virus, and was thinking, could we not do parkruns without scanning barcodes, if we wanted a time we could time ourselves on our own watches most do that anyway ,and if your competitive and like to be near the front you would have a fairly good idea what position you finish in. At least it would get us back out parkrunning ,

TaurenDruid · 14-05-2020 08:00PM

Burkie1203 wrote: »

But that's not How parkrun operates. Token and scanner volunteers are stuck in the same spot for an hour with 100-500 people all going past them, hanging around chatting, walking back and forth to catch up with people etc.

Look at society at large. The last 2 weeks have seen a big shift in behaviour back towards what it was a few months ago. I'm seeing more and more public gathering, I saw a football match being played in a local park yesterday by about 16 ppl, house parties nearby, saw a pic on Twitter of a party of sorts in Glasnevin cemetery sometime last week

Once society starts to get back to something resembling what it once was, people's behaviour will not be as vigilant as it was a few months ago and therein lies the problem. A well versed person handing out tokens is 100% reliant on 100-500 ppl (depending on which parkrun) to be vigilant at the end of a 5km run.

I'll have no problem scanning. I'll wear a mask, until I have a vaccine. With the app now, it's less than 5 seconds per person. Giving out tokens - that can be catered for at all but the largest parkruns, I'd say. Arrange them in batches of 20 or 50 on a bench or table. First person in takes first token on first pile. Next person takes next token. And so on. There are ways and means that are practical, efficient, and safe.

Perfectly happy to run untimed, too, and maybe that's what they should do, at least for a few weeks.

Burkie1203 · 14-05-2020 08:21PM

TaurenDruid wrote: »

I'll have no problem scanning. I'll wear a mask, until I have a vaccine. With the app now, it's less than 5 seconds per person. Giving out tokens - that can be catered for at all but the largest parkruns, I'd say. Arrange them in batches of 20 or 50 on a bench or table. First person in takes first token on first pile. Next person takes next token. And so on. There are ways and means that are practical, efficient, and safe.

Perfectly happy to run untimed, too, and maybe that's what they should do, at least for a few weeks.

Again. Trying to change behaviours of 100s of people is not going to work. Most people don't listen to the briefing as is.

Tokens will end up spilt, knocked over or on the ground.

The process will inevitably have to change

KJ · 14-05-2020 11:17PM

Burkie1203 wrote: »

Again. Trying to change behaviours of 100s of people is not going to work. Most people don't listen to the briefing as is.

Tokens will end up spilt, knocked over or on the ground.

The process will inevitably have to change

And runners will still pull their barcode from all sorts of sweaty orifices to be scanned.

robinph · 15-05-2020 06:32AM

With the various suggestions of running without being timed as a resolution, how do you see the briefings and start happening?

Curious as to why scanning a barcode is seen as a bigger risk than standing around for 15 minutes chatting in close proximity?

TaurenDruid · 15-05-2020 08:03AM

KJ wrote: »

And runners will still pull their barcode from all sorts of sweaty orifices to be scanned.

Unless that sweaty orifice is their mouth, then that's not going to impact anyone's chances of catching covid, a respiratory illness.

Wash hands, leave home, stick on gloves, do scanning, dispose of gloves, disinfect hands even though I was wearing gloves wherever it is that I'm getting coffee, go home, shower.

Obviously if you wouldn't feel comfortable scanning, then don't.

The bigger risk, as robinph states, is people standing around in close proximity at the start.

Sunny Dayz · 15-05-2020 08:25AM

Paddyman38 wrote: »

I have done regular parkruns up until this virus, and was thinking, could we not do parkruns without scanning barcodes, if we wanted a time we could time ourselves on our own watches most do that anyway ,and if your competitive and like to be near the front you would have a fairly good idea what position you finish in. At least it would get us back out parkrunning ,

There's already something similar in place called a freedom run,

What is parkrun Freedom?
parkrun Freedom is the ability to record your time if you run one of our courses at a different time to the normal parkrun.

To record a run just follow the parkrun Freedom link on your parkrun profile page.

The most recent parkrun Freedom runs are shown on the parkrun results page.

Please remember that Freedom runs do not count your run total or any of the parkrun clubs.

Shedite27 · 15-05-2020 10:38AM

Yeah to be honest, there's 2 benefits from Parkrun:

Health - we can all go for a run on our own. You can even do your own Parkrun course at 9:30 on a Saturday morning if you're pushed once it's within your 5k radius.

Social - we have to realise this is a no-no for a few months. It's curtailed in every walk of life. Get on Zoom if you want to chat to someone, or meet them in a park from Monday. I've seen it on every forum, people trying to bend the rules saying "whats the harm". The harm is that if too many people bend the rules we'll end up going backwards to 2k radius

Burkie1203 · 15-05-2020 11:39AM

robinph wrote: »

With the various suggestions of running without being timed as a resolution, how do you see the briefings and start happening?

Curious as to why scanning a barcode is seen as a bigger risk than standing around for 15 minutes chatting in close proximity?

Because at the end of the run you have 100-500 people breathing quite heavily. Sweating, running arms/hands across face etc. People are less likely to be fully switched onto the new reality at the end of the 5km run while they literally catch their breath.

Finish areas are also a honey pot for social activity and the volunteers are stuck in the same spot.

Will the VHI advertising plastic tape be done away with as the virus can stay on surfaces for days on end. Or will it be single use only and then bin?

My local parkrun gets average 150-200 in the last 12 month's. I've seen people vomiting at the finish line twice while volunteering on tokens/scanning.

It will have to change IMO or else it could be a long time before it returns

robinph · 15-05-2020 12:30PM

Burkie1203 wrote: »

Because at the end of the run you have 100-500 people breathing quite heavily. Sweating, running arms/hands across face etc. People are less likely to be fully switched onto the new reality at the end of the 5km run while they literally catch their breath.

Finish areas are also a honey pot for social activity and the volunteers are stuck in the same spot.

Will the VHI advertising plastic tape be done away with as the virus can stay on surfaces for days on end. Or will it be single use only and then bin?

My local parkrun gets average 150-200 in the last 12 month's. I've seen people vomiting at the finish line twice while volunteering on tokens/scanning.

It will have to change IMO or else it could be a long time before it returns

Ignoring the sweating and vomiting as being routes of transmission unless people are getting up to exceedingly weird things we are left with breathing in close proximity to others for a significant duration.

There are multiple ways of minimising any risk during the token handing out and scanning process. But doing away with scanning and timing does nothing to eliminate the socialising aspect at the start and finish. So why are people suggesting doing away with the timing as a solution? I can't see any gain from doing that as far as reducing the standing around at the start and finish aspects.

Getting rid of timing doesn't eliminate the standing around chatting at the start, and it also doesn't eliminate the standing around chatting at the finish. Unless you are suggesting people getting chased from the park with a cattle prod as soon as they cross the line?

TaurenDruid · 15-05-2020 01:53PM

robinph wrote: »

Unless you are suggesting people getting chased from the park with a cattle prod as soon as they cross the line?

While I do want to improve my speed, that seems a bit drastic!

Cape Clear · 15-05-2020 02:20PM

When are road races ect. expected to return? Any what sorts of restrictions/protocols are likely to be in place as I'd imagine Parkrun would be expected to follow similar guidelines.

Murph_D · 15-05-2020 03:39PM

Cape Clear wrote: »

When are road races ect. expected to return? Any what sorts of restrictions/protocols are likely to be in place as I'd imagine Parkrun would be expected to follow similar guidelines.

No time soon anyway, IMO. Lots of discussion and suggestions on how to do things abound, but the fact is there are likely to be social distancing protocols in place for a long time, and racing/parkrunning as we have known them are just not going to happen before those restrictions are no longer advised, either by govt or health authorities.

corcaigh07 · 15-05-2020 05:26PM

Definitely think timing will need to become self service somehow, maybe upload your time if available (unknown if not) or have a timer there and let people claim their time and position afterwards.

Thing is, the site for uploading is very manual labour intensive. The website would need an overhaul. A reusable timer chip would be cool but that flys in the face of parkrun ethos.

Maybe they could somehow include freedom run results as “real” parkrun results on a Saturday? (Obviously trusting people not to bs with this solution)

The briefing should be ok at most parkruns even with social distancing. I’d only be worried about the busier ones in a confined area like Bushy Dublin for example.

ger664 · 15-05-2020 09:05PM

I would hate to see volenteers roles reduced. 12% of people who volenteer dont or have never ran a parkrun. Some people get more from doing this from a mental health social prospective. The biggest risk of contagion @ parkrun will be the coffee afterwards again for some thats the best part and it would not be the same without it.

opus · 26-05-2020 03:24PM

Not a surprise anyway with the latest announcement from parkrun hq.

We can now confirm that parkrun events across the world will be suspended until the end of June. Please note that this represents a minimum time-frame for all parkrun countries and we expect most, if not all, closures to be in place for longer.

opus · 09-06-2020 02:47PM

From the latest parkrun update, NZ will be the first back it looks like.

As such, we hope to confirm a reopening date for parkrun New Zealand in next week’s update.

rainbow kirby · 09-06-2020 03:14PM

Just waiting for the uber-tourists to start booking flights

Seannew1 · 09-06-2020 04:12PM

No social distancing required in New Zealand, I think we are a good bit off them, unfortunately.

Parkrun..

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