i008787 wrote: » Parkrun is probably the best health initiative of the past 10 years. It is truly a wonderful concept. It is deeply treasured. Your harsh and inaccurate words won't stop the return of parkrun. It caters for the top athletes to people like my 86 year old Dad who still parkruns every week.
robinph wrote: » There is nothing like more people walking than running. Even in South Africa where the ratio is much more towards the slower times, they are a long way from having a majority of walkers. The main concern of parkrun is participation. By getting people to participate they are getting them to improve from their previous sedentary Saturday morning lifestyle. There isn't anything I've seen to suggest that once someone starts doing 5km at parkrun they then become slower at covering 5km. The individual becomes faster, but parkrun becomes slower due to the increased range of times.
average_runner wrote: » Parkrun is a run and not a race. To top athletes it doesn't offer much but that was never the aim. It's a social gathering to help people get fit and it achieves that.
robinph wrote: » Define top athletes? There are a fair number of UK internationals who participate whilst still in the prime of their career. The female parkrun record having been broken a couple of times by internationals within the last year. The male with the most different parkrun course records will be running in the elite field in London next month, and regularly volunteers, I got handed my finish token by them at a London parkrun a couple of years ago with them dressed as spiderman. If meaning just local top level runners there are plenty of the winners of local actual races who I'd regularly see at various local parkruns. One of my more recent first finishers at a local event was thanks to a regular first finisher walking parkrun that day as they were then running in the national road relays later in the day. As was I, but their team won a national medal, we just managed to get around with only getting lapped the once. There is plenty at parkrun for the full range of athletes.
average_runner wrote: » Times are not important or a part of parkrun.
robinph wrote: » Times are pretty important part of parkrun if you have international athletes running the same time in a parkrun as they do in a road 5km or for a track 5000m during 2019:https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=17290https://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=57843 Think they care about the effort/ times that they have put into parkrun, despite the fact that they are not getting prize money for running them. They are still doing equivalent efforts. But you are right that at the same time parkrun times don't matter, the fact that the times are recorded matters (regardless of if the individual cares about it at the time or not). The option of someone seeing their time is an important motivation to show progress from having picked the options to parkrun of a Saturday morning rather than stay in bed, and it's also important for the elites to see what they are doing, and for those of us in the middle. The time is important because it doesn't matter unless you personally want it to, but it is essential that it is timed in case you do.
rovers_runner wrote: » parkrun/parkwalk panders to the lazy who need a social outlet for their once a week shuffle.
Annie get your Run wrote: » I can't quite believe you came in here to insult every person on this thread that participates/participated in parkrun, many of whom run it as part of their 30/40/50+ a week mileage, along with the thousands of others not on this thread who also run regularly and participate in parkrun. Not to mention those 'lazy' people who never ran before and started doing parkrun and are now running regularly. But yeah, parkrun = lazy people.... :rolleyes:. In fact most of the core team members I know are fast marathon runners, ultra marathon runners, adventure racers etc. Curious to know then why so many top athletes took part every week? Yes it's run and not a race, but there are many top athletes, fast club runners, competitive club and non club runners that were taking part in parkrun regularly. People used it as part of their marathon training including parkrun in long runs, tempos, race prep etc. The fantastic thing about parkrun, and the thing I miss the most is the large mix of people, fast, slow, etc. all learning from each other, all passionate about something that, in my opinion, caters for absolutely everyone. I am so looking forward to its return, I don't think that will be any time soon but nonetheless it will eventually be back.
rovers_runner wrote: » Get off your high horse and actually address some of the facts I stated about the regression of times over the years and how parkrun does nothing to promote healthy lifestyles or actually improving personal fitness. It's a social event run by a limited company.
Murph_D wrote: » Yiz are getting sucked in, folks. This is someone who likes to complain about ‘townies‘, ‘fatties’, and now ‘parkrunners’. It’s a pity he doesn’t like his local parkrun event, which could do with a bit of support from club runners in a town with a decent running tradition.
rovers_runner wrote: » But I can assure you club runners are out putting in the hard miles on a Saturday morning as I see them. They aren't the type to jog 5k at walking pace and spend as long afterwards eating cake.
rovers_runner wrote: » I'm not a club runner and never was, don't have the talent to be, so can't answer for them. But I can assure you club runners are out putting in the hard miles on a Saturday morning as I see them. They aren't the type to jog 5k at walking pace and spend as long afterwards eating cake.
Murph_D wrote: » Imagine thinking you have to be talented to be a club runner.
rovers_runner wrote: » Club running is for competition.
eoinín wrote: » No its not. In the course of 3 or 4 posts you have managed to show your complete ignorance of 2 huge elements of the running scene in Ireland: parkrun and running clubs. Could you do us a favour and define how you think a runner should behave, what their motivation should be, what kind of events they should attend or avoid etc? And then try to estimate what percentage of people out running regularly actually meet your criteria once you've eliminated all the parkrunners, non-elite club runners and whatever other elitist criteria you have decided to impose. It will be quite a small percentage.
rovers_runner wrote: » People don't need to fit either of what you mention above. I'm sure there are many thousands who don't. Although it does play to that rag Irish runner's target market by aiming at people who run 5k in the week and consider themselves runners. Sure let them keep lowering the standard and soon there will be an "Irish runner tie your shoelaces memorial run" .
eoinín wrote: » you seem to be, perhaps deliberately, missing the point that at least 2 people have clearly explained above - the reason that the "standard" is being lowered is not because parkrun, Irish Runner, etc are telling existing runners that its fine to not try as hard as they used to, or that its fine to have a slower time in a race than they used to, it's that the overall number of people regularly running is going up and there are a huge amount of people starting out and running more slowly than others, therefore diluting average times and "lowering the standard". If you genuinely still think, after this issue being clearly explained to you again, that parkrun and Irish Runner are telling individual runners to slow down, can you please show me where this is happening?
Another question for you: would you rather have, say, 1,000 people in Ireland able to run 17 minutes for a 5k, giving an average national 5k time of 17 minutes, or 1,000 people in Ireland able to run 17 minutes and another 10,000 people running much slower because they have decided to try to improve their health and wellbeing and become healthier people through exercise. One consequence of the latter is a slower national average 5k time. But surely that's a small and rather irrelevant price to pay for increased activity and health, right?
malistheman wrote: » More people are getting out and getting exercise and improving their health. Most people are trying to improve their time each week regardless of whether that’s beating a PB of 17mins or 37mins. How anyone could think that’s bad is beyond me.
rovers_runner wrote: » What I said was they don't encourage improvement, they just want to have larger numbers.
rovers_runner wrote: » Also they launched parkwalk and added operation transformation people so no, running alone is not their aim, growing their brand is.
rovers_runner wrote: » Adding to that you can take part without registration or a bib it makes it a free for all in terms of returning to running events post covid-19.
rovers_runner wrote: » Why pick 17 minutes? Why not use the real figures from parkrun? Their averages are in the 30's, hence there is a lot more people walking/jogging than running.
rovers_runner wrote: » Why claim they rest are running when they clearly aren't. People who run a social 5k a week and nothing else from Sun-Fri is not increased activity, it's the same as the ones who pay a few hundred euros in Jan to a gym and go the odd time.
