Parkrun..

robinph · 20-06-2020 07:31AM

Gael23 wrote: »

200 is a decent number for the majority anyway

No reason they couldn't allow the prison events to restart.

chinguetti · 20-06-2020 10:23AM

HQ have said before that a country will start at the one time so Ireland will start altogether on the one day. Because of the North up the road, I can't see them not opening the UK and Ireland on the one day.

The risk, regardless of how high or low, of people crossing over the border and possiblty spreading the virus and linking it with parkrun would be awful publicity that they'd surely want to avoid.

ger664 · 20-06-2020 12:39PM

There are a lot of other issues to deal with. The 200/500 outdoors still has to comply with social distancing also how events now deal with no barcode not time and unknown/unreged participants as contact tracing will have to be in place. There is a lot of work to be done before we get back and I agree it would be stupid to open Ireland and not the UK unless strict border control on the non movement of people is in place (which is not going to happen)

average_runner · 20-06-2020 12:44PM

chinguetti wrote: »

HQ have said before that a country will start at the one time so Ireland will start altogether on the one day. Because of the North up the road, I can't see them not opening the UK and Ireland on the one day.

The risk, regardless of how high or low, of people crossing over the border and possiblty spreading the virus and linking it with parkrun would be awful publicity that they'd surely want to avoid.

They treated Ireland and the north differently when closing the runs

robinph · 20-06-2020 03:08PM

average_runner wrote: »

They treated Ireland and the north differently when closing the runs

But at that point there was only days notice of any changes happening on a country level, and any blame could be squarely laid at the doors of relavent governments and parkrun was one of the smaller events still happening during that week.

There will be several weeks lead in to a parkrun restart, and depending on how much other sport has already restarted by then potentially a lot of publicity. This is the moment when parkrun really doesn't want any publicity about the events at all.

The more other things that have restarted before parkrun the better.

gucci · 20-06-2020 04:49PM

robinph wrote: »

Would love to have a regular "home" event again. We were rarely doing the same event multiple weeks in a row because of avoiding events due to potential overcrowding on some weeks, or them not being suitable for me going at a certain pace with the buggy, or another event having the weather too windy or too much mud on another week or needing to make it back to somewhere else by X o'clock or different people from our old home event having a milestone at one of the multiple local events.

Nice problem to have, but I miss the just going along to the same event and chilling out afterwards without the rush to get anywhere else and knowing that you'll meet this person or that person for a chat, or a "race". Not having been along to running club training in years due to scheduling I really miss the social aspect around running.

Similar here. I brought my lad in the buggy for a few laps this morning and despite us explaining it wasnt the same as before, he still was a bit disappointed the lady with the megaphone wasnt there and that we didn't hang out at the playground afterwards.....from the social aspect and this nice sat morning outing for us it's just something I am craving very badly now.

He did enjoy it though and we still had a bit of a run around and a few snacks after so it wasn't all a wasted morning for him.

robinph · 22-06-2020 09:03AM

Went to one of our more common parkrun venues yesterday and had expected a meltdown and demand for a ride in the buggy as soon as we reached the car park. Thankfully managed to get in a nice walk along the trail and although not following the full course or in the right direction we did manage about 5km without too much disagreements.

We still have some work to do with maintaining a forwards momentum before the return of parkrun.

Seannew1 · 23-06-2020 09:16PM

I think we, in Ireland, could have been very close to a return to Parkrun possibly next month. However, parkrun's statement this evening has all but killed that. We will need to wait on all countries to restart at once. Not looking good when you look at the likes of UK and USA

jlang · 23-06-2020 09:25PM

Seannew1 wrote: »

parkrun's statement this evening has all but killed that. We will need to wait on all countries to restart at once. Not looking good when you look at the likes of UK and USA

But today's update doesn't say that. It does say

As such, at this time, our policy remains that we will only open parkrun events where we can safely and appropriately open every event in that country.

Nothing about waiting for other countries, although in our case waiting for the UK isn't totally silly. (Me saying that, not Parkrun)

Seannew1 · 23-06-2020 09:28PM

jlang wrote: »

But today's update doesn't say that. It does say

Nothing about waiting for other countries, although in our case waiting for the UK isn't totally silly. (Me saying that, not Parkrun)

My take on it was that until the Uk can restart, then others will have to wait. Someone made the excellent point on this thread that if you were to restart here or Germany, every tom dick and harry from the Uk would be over on a cheap ryanair flight to get their parkrun fix.

Burkie1203 · 23-06-2020 09:31PM

Seannew1 wrote: »

My take on it was that until the Uk can restart, then others will have to wait. Someone made the excellent point on this thread that if you were to restart here or Germany, every tom dick and harry from the Uk would be over on a cheap ryanair flight to get their parkrun fix.

Parkrun should consider refusing a time for any parkrun other then your home one for the first 3 months after it returns to try to limit travel

robinph · 23-06-2020 09:37PM

That they are shutting down the possibility of restarting The Falklands without the rest of the UK doesn't put much hope in anywhere in Europe starting without the UK either, although that does make sense to me the opening Europe at the same time bit even if the South Atlantic doesn't. Russia is about the only country in Europe that is distant enough from the UK.

ger664 · 24-06-2020 10:07AM

Opening Ireland before the UK encourages parkrunners to make non essential travel. This would be against current covid19 guidelines in Ireland

Duzzie · 24-06-2020 11:35AM

Looking at the way the UK is opening up at the moment, it looks to me like the UK parkruns would be in a position to open before Ireland. Either way the problem of people travelling from the Republic to NI, or the other way round, would be problematic. I could not see UK parkrunners being happy about UK event reopenings being dictated by Irish events or visa-versa. Unless parkrun UK were to separate the reopening of UK mainland from NI events and align NI events to the Republic. Things seem to be changing rapidly here and in the UK and with the reintroduction of contact sports (with spectators), which surely pose a bigger risk than parkrun, I can see parkrun coming under pressure to look at reopening sooner rather than later

The Black Oil · 24-06-2020 01:30PM

If anyone wants to travel purely to tick a parkrun tourism box (out of their own country) this summer they need a clip around the ear, imo.

Duzzie · 24-06-2020 01:40PM

The Black Oil wrote: »

If anyone wants to travel purely to tick a parkrun tourism box (out of their own country) this summer they need a clip around the ear, imo.

I'm not sure if you are responding to my post, but i'd imagine there will be people living within the Republic for whom an event within Northern Ireland would be their nearest parkrun, so visiting a parkrun in another jurisdiction would not be unusual in that case. The close proximity and ease of crossing between the 2 increases difficulty of opening Republic and NI events at different times.

In terms of catching international flights or ferries etc. to take in a parkrun, I would totally agree with you.

The Black Oil · 24-06-2020 01:52PM

Duzzie wrote: »

I'm not sure if you are responding to my post, but i'd imagine there will be people living within the Republic for whom an event within Northern Ireland would be their nearest parkrun, so visiting a parkrun in another jurisdiction would not be unusual in that case. The close proximity and ease of crossing between the 2 increases difficulty of opening Republic and NI events at different times.

In terms of catching international flights or ferries etc. to take in a parkrun, I would totally agree with you.

No, nothing personal.

Meant to post this days ago.

BeardySi · 25-06-2020 09:18AM

There was an intereview with Tom Williams on one of my podcasts the other day discussing NZ reopening - it may have been Free Weekly Timed, but I can't remember - he repeatedly referred to Island of Ireland as opposed to RoI and NI parkruns.

Food for thought.

robinph · 25-06-2020 09:31AM

BeardySi wrote: »

There was an intereview with Tom Williams on one of my podcasts the other day discussing NZ reopening - it may have been Free Weekly Timed, but I can't remember - he repeatedly referred to Island of Ireland as opposed to RoI and NI parkruns.

Food for thought.

It was on Free Weekly Timed as I just got round to listening to it last night and the same thing stuck out to me. Laying the groundwork for Eng/ Sco/ Wal tourists not getting their knickers in a twist too much when parkruns in NI return before theirs do...although most of the listeners won't know the difference between Ireland/ Northern Ireland/ island of Ireland.

BeardySi · 25-06-2020 10:53AM

robinph wrote: »

It was on Free Weekly Timed as I just got round to listening to it last night and the same thing stuck out to me. Laying the groundwork for Eng/ Sco/ Wal tourists not getting their knickers in a twist too much when parkruns in NI return before theirs do...although most of the listeners won't know the difference between Ireland/ Northern Ireland/ island of Ireland.

Unionist parkrunners are going to be conflicted

The Black Oil · 25-06-2020 07:05PM

Rosters seem open from July 4th.

Seannew1 · 26-06-2020 01:30PM

The Black Oil wrote: »

Rosters seem open from July 4th.

We can only dream

A few people suggesting there'll be an explosion of people at first events back. Could be but then again a few other regular parkrunners with underlying conditions may be sceptical and stay away for a while. Difficult to judge.

DeepBlue · 26-06-2020 02:45PM

The Black Oil wrote: »

Rosters seem open from July 4th.

Participants at outdoor events is limited to 200 on Monday so that's too few to allow events to resume. The limit jumps to 500 on July 20th. Still too few probably.

The Black Oil · 26-06-2020 05:15PM

It could be HQ (worldwide) have yet to to hit the button to display 'no event' for July. I'm not fussed about its return at the moment.

robinph · 26-06-2020 07:34PM

The Black Oil wrote: »

Rosters seem open from July 4th.

That is probably just a global setting on the website templates so just been turned on to deal with New Zealand. Doubt it's worth the hassle of trying to manage 22 different versions of the template for the next few months just to save a few people getting excited too soon.

Pherekydes · 29-06-2020 04:51PM

No more New Year's day doubles!

For these reasons, we have taken the decision to remove the option for New Year’s Day doubles. We will still allow events to host an additional parkrun on 1 January, at their usual start time.

Whilst we appreciate this might be disappointing news to some, we are still committed to retaining 1 January as an optional additional parkrunday. Our hope is that by removing the pressure of the double, event teams will feel comfortable hosting an extra parkrun if they wish to, providing an opportunity for the whole community to meet up and enjoy the New Year’s Day parkrun experience.

robinph · 29-06-2020 05:04PM

Well that's my chances of getting my 50th / 500th to coincide out the window. Before lockdown I had a month in hand based on 50 runs a year, now I'm a month behind but would have been able to make that back with there generally being 54 runs available a year. Even if I moved to New Zealand next week and then came out of quarantine I'd not be able to get enough parkruns done in time.

Singer · 29-06-2020 07:31PM

Pherekydes wrote: »

No more New Year's day doubles!

I’m glad I gave then a good go this year. A shame as they were great events. I see their point though.

robinph · 29-06-2020 07:34PM

Just realised that despite parkrunning for 9 years 2020 was my first double. That was lucky I guess.

DeepBlue · 29-06-2020 07:43PM

We know that long distances are often travelled between events on New Year’s Day, which potentially puts road users at risk, and that making the start time for the second event is only achievable by quicker participants in some places.

We also see that very often there is a funneling effect at the second event. With more participants than usual on 1 January but with fewer events to go to as some events choose not to host an additional event, the result is significantly higher attendances at many events (sometimes 5-6 times a typical average attendance), which puts pressure on the volunteer team, has caused issues of late with landowners, and creates much busier car parks, cafes and paths. This is compounded by some events taking place later in the morning than usual, resulting in more congestion and conflict with other park users.

Were these really issues that were happening? Never heard of them myself.
Perhaps they happened in other countries and parkrun issued a global response.
Seems a bit excessive to me. Surely other measures could have been tried first.

Parkrun..

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