Parkrun deleting all the course records and age category records is complete and utter BS.
If anything the course records strive you to become a better runner!
Wokeism has now infected parkrun.
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Dont try turn this into some culture war BS. Its just a dumb decision. Not all dumb decisions are to do with woke or gammon or snowflake or incel or whatever. Labelling it as such detracts from the actual decision
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race to the bottom wrote:
Winthorpe53 wrote:
Why can’t it be both?
Because if it's competitive it needs to be fair and if it's fair then it can't be inclusive.Parkrun chose inclusivity over racing from day one. See the founder's comment today
Who previously had their right to participate curtailed?
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fvdfetge wrote:
race to the bottom wrote:
Because if it's competitive it needs to be fair and if it's fair then it can't be inclusive.Parkrun chose inclusivity over racing from day one. See the founder's comment today
Who previously had their right to participate curtailed?
Nobody had their right to participate curtailed previously.
The question is: would requiring and actively enforcing strict sex-based registration, as these keen campaigners have been demanding, put people off from participating?
Would parkrun's volunteers relish the job of enforcing these rules, gathering and assessing the proof, handing down judgments, and generally being at the sharp end of endless ugly invective from both sides of this all-consuming and tiresome argument. Sod that.
People just want to go for a run with other people in some nice surroundings.812 -
race to the bottom wrote:
Mara Yamauchi has been running this campaign for some time now.Parkrun have probably just had enough and frankly I don't blame them. It's an inclusive weekly community activity run 100% by volunteers, just trying to get people who wouldn't normally get out to be active. And it's been pretty damn successful by that measure. The competitive element was always just a fun added extra, but for some competitive types it seems the need to win at all costs is too strong.
Wow, I didn't know she was obsessed with this. Great runner, but I just lost a lot of respect of her.
Nobody is "forced out" of a ParkRun because someone enters in your gender (or age-group) on their own attestation. As a 30-something man, I could not care less if some 25 year-old weirdly says he is 30 to enhance his age-group "placing."
Literally nobody cares. Or 99.9% don't, and the 0.1% who do should move on.
I'll be at a ParkRun with my girlfriend this weekend. If another runner says they are male-to-female trans and entered as a woman, we will tell them welcome and good luck.
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"This is absolute bull____. As a cis female I do not care if a male born person now runs as female at parkrun! But I’m gutted all the records are gone. It’s hard enough motivating teens to get out from their computers! Thanks TERFS!726
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hellinhandcart wrote:
surely the thought process isnt that the abolition of record times across the whole of british parkrun has been prompted just by the male-to-female trans thing which Mara (eminently sensible as ever and notably at 180 degrees from His Sebship on applying fairness at sub elite level) has championed? Given that no self-identifying men can be compared to self-identifying women's former-course records, and I'd guess at least 98% of women don't care what their course record is, we are talking about less than 1% of parkrunners who can be practically and/or emotionally directly impacted by the trans aspect (I totally agree with MY that this notional 1% need fairness for where they sit within the sport). There's the obvious alternative that parkrun could have taken.
Theres been a couple of posts on mumsnet about this issue, and many, many women (the majority of posters) are really angry about transwomen identifying as women for the purposes of park run. This issue affects all women, even slower women like to see other female runners running fast times, not some random man who thinks he is a woman for the day/week/month. Most women (when they do actually get the chance to speak and this isn't a given online as our posts do seem to get frequently deleted) find men identifying as women for park run discriminatory against women.
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I like to put bricks on my local course.
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Coevett wrote:
I also wonder what their new sponsors Brooks think of all this?
But it doesn't really matter so long as they do continue to time them and publish the results, as all it takes is for somebody with a bit of Python coding knowledge to create their own site that can work out and list all the category records for every course.
You just don't get it.
95% of people who show up for a ParkRun have zero thought of winning the race.
Most people don't care at all about their place, although they will enjoy racing with people around them.
Brooks gets it. Participants who support trans people buy more shoes than the Mara Yamauchis of the world. ParkRun is for the 95%, not the 5% (who are welcome to enter races that follow sex at birth if they want).
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The top story on the Daily Mail now.
One of the top reader's comments with over 770 upvotes : "The government needs to step in now!"
Outrage as 'cowardly' Parkrun DELETES all its fastest race times amid row over trans women smashing…
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Twister Times wrote:
hellinhandcart wrote:
I'd guess at least 98% of women don't care what their course record is, we are talking about less than 1% of parkrunners who can be practically and/or emotionally directly impacted by the trans aspect
Theres been a couple of posts on mumsnet about this issue, and many, many women (the majority of posters) are really angry about transwomen identifying as women for the purposes of park run. This issue affects all women, even slower women like to see other female runners running fast times, not some random man who thinks he is a woman for the day/week/month.
No, this issue does not "affect all women."
As a 30-something man, there are a lot of people who might finish "ahead" of me at Parkrun:
- People who falsely enter their age (there are no checks for that at Parkrun, are there?)- People who take performance-enhancing drugs (there are no checks for that at Parkrun, are there?
I can't imagine campaigning about this, demanding drug testing or birth certificates for people's age and sex. Because even as a regular top-5 finisher and age group winner, I SIMPLY DO NOT CARE ABOUT MY RECORDED PLACE AT PARKRUN.
If you are deeply bothered by the idea that you might get bumped one place at your local Parkrun, consider the possibility that Parkrun isn't what you want it to be, and maybe it isn't for you.
It's in huge print on the website: Parkrun is a free, weekly, 5k and 2k community event in open spaces around the world.
By the way, the fact that you would refer to a trans woman as "a random man who thinks he is a woman for the day" says it all. You clearly do not value the identities and indeed the lives of trans people. Work on that.
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There are actually lots of threads on mumsnet complaining about men stealing womens' park run records. Its quite a good cross-section of women runners in the UK giving their opinions. These links don't really work, but you can google the headlines that appear yourself to verify.
Honestly beginning to get a bit fed up now of being told that because I'm a woman who does park run, I'm not competitive. Even though I'm an over 50 now, I am extremely competitive against both anyone around me at a similar level, my best times and my age graded result against other women the same age grading as me.
I was beaten to third place in a running race by a trans woman | Mumsnet
ParkRun and Transgender record breaker | Mumsnet
Women's Park Run Record smashed to smithereens | Mumsnet
Park run email today - "Living as myself" | Mumsnet
Trans athletes in amateur events | Mumsnet
There are many more threads about it.
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pathetic obsession wrote:
Twister Times wrote:
Theres been a couple of posts on mumsnet about this issue, and many, many women (the majority of posters) are really angry about transwomen identifying as women for the purposes of park run. This issue affects all women, even slower women like to see other female runners running fast times, not some random man who thinks he is a woman for the day/week/month.
No, this issue does not "affect all women."
As a 30-something man, there are a lot of people who might finish "ahead" of me at Parkrun:
- People who falsely enter their age (there are no checks for that at Parkrun, are there?)
- People who take performance-enhancing drugs (there are no checks for that at Parkrun, are there?
I can't imagine campaigning about this, demanding drug testing or birth certificates for people's age and sex. Because even as a regular top-5 finisher and age group winner, I SIMPLY DO NOT CARE ABOUT MY RECORDED PLACE AT PARKRUN.
If you are deeply bothered by the idea that you might get bumped one place at your local Parkrun, consider the possibility that Parkrun isn't what you want it to be, and maybe it isn't for you.
It's in huge print on the website: Parkrun is a free, weekly, 5k and 2k community event in open spaces around the world.
By the way, the fact that you would refer to a trans woman as "a random man who thinks he is a woman for the day" says it all. You clearly do not value the identities and indeed the lives of trans people. Work on that.
You really are clueless, aren't you?
Not everyone is like you.
And, no, I won't "work on that". Happy to go to jail over it if necessary. Sick of being discriminated against by slow male runners who support other men beating our times in our category because they want to shout over us women. I expect that you're actually one of those slow male runners who does a death sprint with the leading 70 year old women he's desperately trying to keep up with at Park Run actually.
Just jail us non-conforming women. Put us all in jail. All of us law abiding hard working mothers and daughters, your kids' teachers, our former Olympians. You can't get us to shut up any other way. Because we aren't ever going to accept this.
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There are currently 3 trans first female finishers....
We have 2300 park run courses FFS
It's just a timed community run to encourage people to keep fit. It's organised by volunteers. You pay NOTHING to do it.
You still get your times after the event. This is absolutely driven by gammon faced daily mail readers
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The deletion of records is entirely and solely down to males running in the female category.
you only need look at every single reply on the parkrunuk twitter to see it is angry women, running in “protect women’s sports” thirty’s complaining to the men in charge.
if you’re so inconvenienced, you competitive young men, tell park run that they are ruining fair sport for women by letting males race in the wrong category.
look at the comments hereor here. Look at the women in the comments desperate for a level playing field.This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.252 -
You don’t get to speak for all women.
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Throwawayaccount wrote:
You don’t get to speak for all women.
That's presumably why the poster has provided links to numerous other peoples' views.Are those numerous other peoples' views too female for yiu?
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If I could run 15 flat I'd just sign up as a trans woman, Nikki Trollmore, and spend every weekend of the year taking a different course record for the trolls and lols
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"as a 30 something man" the trans issue doesnt affect you does it. If you were an elite or sub-elite woman, this may well affect you.
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