I see parkrun has released an open letter which, to be fair, totally dodges the reason for these data/display changes. It’s not going to fend off the people who are upset by the changes, that’s for sure.
I have heard mention elsewhere that another set of parkrunners are extremely upset about the removal of the data that showed how many different parkrun locations people have done. I wasn’t aware as I hadn’t seen it, but parkrun used to have a ‘most events’ list (ie, most different parkrun venues), and those on that list are very annoyed - I think some have done many hundreds of different venues, across multiple countries, and that list has been taken down and they’re not happy about it.
Ultimate word salad. Insulting really. Telling us why we like (liked) parkrun. I can figure that for myself Mr. Jeffrys. Now resign.
Liew's hatepiece has already racked up nearly 1.5 million impressions on X. The Sky news segment where they interviewed a bunch of moron parkrunners that said "meh no biggie" garnered 7 million impressions.
This must be utterly infuriating when a fantastically written counterpoint such as Victoria Smith's piece gets barely a couple of thousand impressions.
They clearly aren't trying hard enough and aren't thinking big enough. They need to properly level up, start seriously disrupting weekly parkuns, Extinction Rebellion style. Park their 4x4 on the finish funnel. Chain people to the barcode scanner so they can't scan any more tokens. Reverse all the course markings so runners get redirected into a bog.
Well, that's what Parkrun is all about-- PARTICIPATION. As the founder said: "I will always support the right for everyone to participate over the right of a few to compete." In other words, if you want to compete, enter a RACE.
This is entirely correct and deserves noting. Women have been stripped of their Parkrun course records - all in the name of participation.
This is entirely correct and deserves noting. Women have been stripped of their Parkrun course records - all in the name of participation.
Correction:
Well, that's what Parkrun is all about-- PARTICIPATION. As the founder said: "I will always support the right for everyone to participate over the right of a few to compete." In other words, if you want to compete, enter a RACE.
If I don't run sub 17 I don't collect a token. As a result the first place finisher is sometimes put as unknown because I wouldn't accept a *****y time.
But inclusivity goes both ways - you don't dump those at the top to make those at the bottom happy. And really, why would having records and publishing interesting stats stop someone taking part? If you are potentially interested in taking part in parkrun are you going to go to the records page or even the results pages and allow that to stop you??
If I don't run sub 17 I don't collect a token. As a result the first place finisher is sometimes put as unknown because I wouldn't accept a *****y time.
They will know who you are and include you if you are a regular unless you don't actually cross the finish line. If this decision bothers you, do that don't cross the line, or just boycott entirely like me.