parkrun

[Halb]

I can remember...not suree when, the last time we had decent snow for a significant period, running in snow. It felt amazing, I got out there quite a bit when it was going on. I mean having to run so the legs go straight down into fresh snow.up to the calves.
I would get back in, and then have a steaming hot bath, ace.

I'm a natural heater so I prefer things a lil brisk.

[jeremyc]

Harpoon said:

The mind boggles at the numbers of runners above.

Two finish funnels and more than forty volunteers at Bushy Park to cope with the 1,500+ runners.

[Halb]

I was told today that people nicking tokens is a thing. I was asked if I remember the bloke behind me on NYD because he nicked one. Plus another, plus one today. People wear them on chains when they tourist, and steal more. A shame there are aholes like that.

Got my purple t today, 4 away from my black one.

[Evanivitch]

Good run today, particularly busy, broke the 500 runners mark for first time (my course doesn't do any of the festive races).

Halb said:

I was told today that people nicking tokens is a thing. I was asked if I remember the bloke behind me on NYD because he nicked one. Plus another, plus one today. People wear them on chains when they tourist, and steal more. A shame there are aholes like that.

Got my purple t today, 4 away from my black one.

Urrgh, always has to be some people that ruin a good, FREE thing.

[Gilhooligan]

Did, what has to be one of the harder parkruns in the U.K. this morning, Drumchapel in Glasgow. Watch says 125m elevation gain. Ran over 2 mins slower than last week on a flat event. Great little event with only 50 odd people there.

[downthepub]

Halb said:

I was told today that people nicking tokens is a thing. I was asked if I remember the bloke behind me on NYD because he nicked one. Plus another, plus one today. People wear them on chains when they tourist, and steal more. A shame there are aholes like that.

Is this weird; I once had a dream that I kept all my pr tokens as a keepsake and that I had many many in my collection. Woke up with a guilty start and then slowly realised that it wasn't true. Dare I say it, but I've never kept a token. No idea where that dream came from! Too much parkrunning!

[anonymous-user]

Halb said:

I was told today that people nicking tokens is a thing. I was asked if I remember the bloke behind me on NYD because he nicked one. Plus another, plus one today. People wear them on chains when they tourist, and steal more. A shame there are aholes like that.

Got my purple t today, 4 away from my black one.

Most parkrun I do, the token is kept by the person who scans it.
So the tourist will presumably be a ‘unknown’ if they pinch the token.
Seems a bit odd, can’t brag about all the runs you’ve done if your name never appears in the results!

[KTF]

Yes, at our event, almost all the tokens that have gone missing are 'unknown' in the results so they take a token then seemingly head off home with it for whatever reason.

On the few times we have a name against a missing token, they generally return it after being contacted.

[Smitters]

New record attendance at our jpr this Sunday. 67, which compared to our normal 30 is awesome. I wasn't in hi-vis for once, so just enjoyed the atmosphere and did about 60% before the boy bailed out and went to the funnel to cheer his mates in.

Sounds like our neighbour had fun though - 199 and ended up with 20 parents in the funnel, results all over the shop. Quite a, er, direct, Facebook post from their ED afterwards about paying attention in the briefing. Not sure I'd have gone that route, but it obviously used up a bunch of time on Sunday that could have been spend eating Yorkshire puds and watching crap telly.

[john2443]

I'm hoping for a few weeks of crap weather on Saturday mornings to discourage people from running! We handled 685 at Christmas and 644 this week, but it's a bit full on, 450 is reasonably easy.

I certainly don't envy the likes of Southampton and Cardiff getting over 1000.

The other local event I've been involved in (Bevendean) still happily gets 30-40, everyone can talk to everyone else, it's all very relaxed and there's room in the pub for everyone to have coffee or breakfast, there are definite advantages of small events.

[Smitters]

john2443 said:

I'm hoping for a few weeks of crap weather on Saturday mornings to discourage people from running! We handled 685 at Christmas and 644 this week, but it's a bit full on, 450 is reasonably easy.

I certainly don't envy the likes of Southampton and Cardiff getting over 1000.

The other local event I've been involved in (Bevendean) still happily gets 30-40, everyone can talk to everyone else, it's all very relaxed and there's room in the pub for everyone to have coffee or breakfast, there are definite advantages of small events.

Couldn't agree more - I love a small event, even if I'm not local, since I can talk to people easily. I think issues arise when events get big steps in numbers and aren't used to it. I'm sure Cardiff think 1000 is perfectly normal now. Our ambassador was in Facebook over Christmas asking if everyone was ready for the New Years Resolution crowds, so hopefully none of my local events had horrible shocks.


I'm just writing a short speech on parkrun/jpr as I'm accepting a donation from the Rotarians for our junior parkrun and thought I'd use it as a chance to get the word out a bit. A few mind-bending stats are always good for a laugh (said no-one, ever). Anyway, I thought I'd share:

parkrun has 5 million registered participants, up from the original 13 in 2004...

Meh, I hear you say.

parkrunners have covered enough distance to get from the Earth to the Moon, and back. 290 times. Or put another way, we're closing in on the halfway mark of the return journey from the Sun.

This equates to a single person who's been running non-stop since Pythagoras was in nappies, Buddhism was born and Croesus had more pocket money than he knew what to do with. Just a casual 2,500 years or so...

[Gilhooligan]

[Smitters]

Awesome. Probably not a stat I'd share with a room full of elderly Rotarians, but superb none the less.

[Halb]

Purple tee arrived today. Prefer the older make. Not keen on the fking itchy tabs they put in these things. The other make had it printed in the tee, like civilised people.

[RobM77]

[downthepub]

Did my first US parkrun today, at the 2nd ever event in Houston at the Terry Hershey park. Expecting flat, but it was nicely undulating. Small attendance at 59, and I've noticed that the US events the average time seems to be a bit slower than the UK. Getting a nice run of internationals under my belt.

[irish boy]

downthepub said:

Did my first US parkrun today, at the 2nd ever event in Houston at the Terry Hershey park. Expecting flat, but it was nicely undulating. Small attendance at 59, and I've noticed that the US events the average time seems to be a bit slower than the UK. Getting a nice run of internationals under my belt.

I see what you mean, just clicked into a random us one from the list and 22.42 won it.

[johnwilliams77]

irish boy said:

I see what you mean, just clicked into a random us one from the list and 22.42 won it.

I don't know what the stat's are for UK but I doubt there are many which do not have sub 19 runners (in the bigger ones often 10-20).

[anonymous-user]

Apologies if a repost, may be of interest.
Parkrun ‘difficulty’ rankings:-
https://www.runbritain.com/news/course-rankings-st...

[KTF]

This one ("One low horse stile and a steep hill up a gravel path make this a challenging course for buggies") is deemed the most 'difficult' based on the current data: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/flattslane/course/

With this one, unsurprisingly, looking like it might knock it off the top spot: http://www.parkrun.org.uk/whinlatterforest/course/