Is it not Mara's fault? She made the point parkrun is a race so needs to adopt UKA transgender policy. Parkrun denied it was a race and doesn't have a race permit so doesn't need to adopt national rules.
I think if an organisation submits its results to the UK's elite athletic ranking systems, measures all of its courses with professional surveyors' wheels, and actively celebrates elite/record breaking times at their events (see their tweet here: ) then that organisation puts on races, without any doubt whatsoever.
They are submitted to Power of 10 but they do not count towards the national 5K rankings and you cannot run a 5K PB on a parkrun course.
Not all of the courses are measured, some are, a lot aren't super accurate. Most of have a guy shouting 'go' really loudly at the start.
They are going to stop celebrating course records and fast times, that's what this hoo-har is about. Maybe they got that wrong in the past, but they're correcting it now in response to Mara's criticism that this makes it a competitive race.
Is it not Mara's fault? She made the point parkrun is a race so needs to adopt UKA transgender policy. Parkrun denied it was a race and doesn't have a race permit so doesn't need to adopt national rules.
I think if an organisation submits its results to the UK's elite athletic ranking systems, measures all of its courses with professional surveyors' wheels, and actively celebrates elite/record breaking times at their events (see their tweet here: ) then that organisation puts on races, without any doubt whatsoever.
Not sure it's parkrun who's submitting results to the UK's elite athletic ranking system. The runbritain FAQ states:
parkruns are imported on a Monday afternoon / evening and will normally be available by Monday evening / Tuesday morning.
So the ball is probably now in runbritain's court. Either stop importing them or parkrun needs to turn off their API.
runbritain might think to expunge historical parkrun results from their database too as these results have now been proven flawed. Either that or at least remove their influence from the ranking system.
this is really not complicated. they want it to be YMCA soccer. you play games but no score or standings are kept. everyone gets a trophy. tons of kids try it under those circumstances. the idea is encourage people starting the sport against the background of plenty of competitive events if they like it.
that is how i started. when i wanted serious i "graduated" into the other rec league that kept standings and built to a state champion, then made select, then etc. norway runs their whole youth sports system on this concept. encourage broad youthful participation for education, experience, and health. then if you want "games that count," keep playing.
they said they wanted to increase participation and looked at the barriers. they said nothing about transgender. quit the fake agenda pushing.
as a matter of ethics and process, my suggestion would be to have given the runners a few weeks' headsup that their times would be removed, so they could put them down on whatever SS or app people use. but i don't think they owe the runners posted times forever if they have decided that is contrary to their mission.
they said they wanted to increase participation and looked at the barriers. they said nothing about transgender. quit the fake agenda pushing.
Come off it, you'd have to be gullible beyond belief/ completely unfamiliar with the previous parkrun website to believe their 'barrier' excuse. Virtually no newcomer would be aware of the 'category record' page as it was hidden away in a bunch of sub-menus well away from the registration page. Even I would struggle to find it as a regular user. And if this was really, really, really about barriers then why have such a prominent results page- the most accessible page of them all- that still lists times and places of all participants in time order? Indeed, why still list 'slowest time' in each athlete's race history if we're trying not to scare people off?!! This change has been entirely brought about by the recent campaigning of 'save women's sports' at parkruns across the UK- that's why parkrun are only removing the alleged 'barriers' that help squash that criticism- i.e. the listing of records that show men have been taking women's records. Use your brain here.
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Some folks care about the competitive element of parkrun and some folks telling them they shouldn't care about it. Theres not going to be any compromise between these two groups.
Then theres the "should trans women be counted as female in sport?" Which is a whole wider subject than parkrun. And the presumption is that parkrun dont know how they could deal with it, or even want to go near it, so have just deleted the bits where its causing ripples?
what folks are missing is if the idea of parkrun is (or has become) to encourage people to get out and run, and try a race, group 1 (the serious folks) are already netted. the new direction may irk some of them, but so what. you no longer see yourself as a race organizer but instead as a organization who holds lowkey timed runs. so you are then concerned with what group 2 -- folks who aren't running or have no racing -- want. you have not abandoned group 1 as there is abundant stuff for them to do. you have successfully gotten them in the sport. if you cater to group 1 instead you might as well relabel yourself like NYRRC as a race thing.
have none of you done a "learn how to _________" afternoon? some of those organizations may have a separate competitive track but they usually keep that walled off from introductory efforts.
the US is overly competitive. i enjoyed teeball and eventually had good hand-eye and a great arm but one reason i played soccer instead was listening to nasty parents give a 5 year old just learning how to catch, crap for, say, making 2 errors in an inning. i had similar struggles in k-league soccer but it wasn't meanspirited and i grew out of it. by season 2 i had 15 goals. few years later, select, few more, varsity, few more, college. but a lot of it goes back to my first memories of soccer being pleasant, out in the woods, smell of a cut field, trying to learn how to play. when a coach is giving you heck and some hideous workout, that's what i would be calling upon to endure. that i just enjoy being out there.
Kilted still does not offer any alternative to what's happened. Even if it was aimed at trans people (which it clearly only exists in a few weirdos heads) then iv still not been told how to cancel out these trans runners.
Post event there's a whistle blower hotline (lol)?
We stop people in a desperate funnell with a picture of a dick on it?
The organisers actively want inclusion they want to slow park run down as a kpi because it indicates new runners who were previously scared are taking the leap.
They want trans people because in a community fun run, you invite all the community not just middle aged men and women in alphaflys
Again the myopic view point that a charity not aimed at solely him might want to attract different people scares him
How many more times, I could not care how slow or fast you are. I dont care about Women i dont care about Men. I just go to my parkrun, race get my time and then go home.
last point, if you ran track, do you really expect them to years later have stored away every all comers meet and triangular? particularly, i predate the internet. nationals, yes. regionals, yes. conference, yes. every little meet? i will give them a pass. all comers meet? that's almost designed to be a nice one off and then evaporate. parkrun, to me -- all comers meet.
last last point, there is an administrative/manpower burden associated with the infratsructure of a race. did you run XC? were you familiar with all that went into running those? there is a significant savings or retasking you can do with personnel if it goes from rigorously taking times for a bunch of people to "check the clock when you cross if you want to know." likewise, you save that much computer memory for every week for every location.
Really sad. Of course I run fast, iv told u before I want to beat the next person that's why I run 15min park runs but heck your missing entirely the point
It's not about us. It's not a race it's a community run so once again as you can't get that tiny little mind around this again il spell it out to you and maybe you can do a potato print in bright paints as a way of communicating like a toddler.
They want to invite as many people to do their community event. But the target audience is not me or you. It's new people.its old people it's fat people it's smokers. That's why park run is so busy like gyms in Jan.
So nobody is stopping you racing but if a charity wants to change the emphasis on their website to attract their demographic
And remember next time you go to your park run to see the age of the marshals and volunteers, there's younger people starting to come through slowly unlike track where 99% of the official are ancient
That's because younger people see the world differently and accept change
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How is having overall and age-group course records preventing any person from participating in parkrun?
just reading your post you're starting to expand and expand and expand the list of people to be recognized, which feels like a crowbar to open it back up to running it like a race for everyone. bearing in mind that, say, the women's U55 age group record taker might be in a pack of men a few minutes behind the winner. or the men's U80 winner near the back. you'd end up having to record everyone just to extract your age group successes.
to me it's also a general vibe where routinely on here after some major race you have someone who claims to be quick mocking the slowest finishers. that this may be a flip side of the coin of recording that the U65 women's record is now ________. perhaps concern that if you encourage that the vibe is no longer quite what you want to get some 35 year old housewife out to try. if you want your U65 record there's a long list of other races for it.
also, to me, if you get into records there can be a control aspect to it. i had a school record for 2-3 years once. i wanted the sucker in lights and never broken. this can create a control dynamic. like, you want/need to move the course. "but that's the course where i set the record. you can't touch that." they are in fact saying the organization and its intended purpose are more important than your time on the 35th weekly race in 2017 at regents park.
Some further perspective, from someone who clearly doesn't hang out on LRC enough..
"Who is this interesting for? I always wonder. It’s a bit like dreams – no one is ever bothered about anyone else’s. Trust me on this. At some point, I naively assumed people would develop the self-awareness to realise their statistics held all the fascination of drying paint for the rest of the world. Alas, it seems not."
Why does it matter how fast you ran a weekly 5km in your local park? And who else, other than you, could possibly care? Unpopular opinion alert: Helen Coffey thinks we should forget the PB and focus on having fun
Some further perspective, from someone who clearly doesn't hang out on LRC enough..
"Who is this interesting for? I always wonder. It’s a bit like dreams – no one is ever bothered about anyone else’s. Trust me on this. At some point, I naively assumed people would develop the self-awareness to realise their statistics held all the fascination of drying paint for the rest of the world. Alas, it seems not."
How is having overall and age-group course records preventing any person from participating in parkrun?
just reading your post you're starting to expand and expand and expand the list of people to be recognized, which feels like a crowbar to open it back up to running it like a race for everyone. bearing in mind that, say, the women's U55 age group record taker might be in a pack of men a few minutes behind the winner. or the men's U80 winner near the back. you'd end up having to record everyone just to extract your age group successes.
to me it's also a general vibe where routinely on here after some major race you have someone who claims to be quick mocking the slowest finishers. that this may be a flip side of the coin of recording that the U65 women's record is now ________. perhaps concern that if you encourage that the vibe is no longer quite what you want to get some 35 year old housewife out to try. if you want your U65 record there's a long list of other races for it.
also, to me, if you get into records there can be a control aspect to it. i had a school record for 2-3 years once. i wanted the sucker in lights and never broken. this can create a control dynamic. like, you want/need to move the course. "but that's the course where i set the record. you can't touch that." they are in fact saying the organization and its intended purpose are more important than your time on the 35th weekly race in 2017 at regents park.
?
parkrun has, without any offense to anyone maintained records since forever. The fact the YOU don't value or appreciate some aspect of parkrun does not mean others feel the same.
This has a very Harrison Bergeron feel to it. Handicapper General PSH has decreed we shall all be equal in order to not offend some mythical person that Handicapper General PSH believes exists somewhere.
So you're telling me, and all the other women who race park run and are interested in getting a top 3 finish recorded, that we are all mistaken and we are not racing at all? Because you are a self admitted slow male runner who has never come within a chance of winning a race?
Our poor little female brains, not knowing what to correctly think!
Thank goodness a great man has come along to correct the error of our ways!
Next time, I will make sure to run along sprinkling fairy dust, dressed in pink, leaving the men (all incarnations of them) to race past me!
Except there won't be a next time, because all of the fast women runners in our local area are boycotting park run for the foreseeable future.
Then you can complain about how slow female park runners are compared to males. At this rate, even you will be in with a chance of finishing in the top 100 overall!
Only the "fast" women are boycotting parkrun? Why not all women? Do slow women want to be mansplained what to think?
Here is an idea. Organize a women-only race that requires a chromosome test to enter. Also limit all the staffs and volunteers to women (verified by chromosome tests). And encourage all women in your area to join your race instead of parkrun.
