Parkrunners, assemble!

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Bonbon76 said:
That's not right! You're meant to be supporting whoever is at the back, surely?
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Yes, that's the idea for the tailwalker. We've had this situation at ours a few times and it always rubs the other volunteers the wrong way.

Parkwalkers are also meant to move amongst the back section, chatting to people and providing support, but I find some of these people do the roles just to get a volunteer credit and don't interact with anyone else on the course. (Not to take anything away from the fab volunteers who do these roles really well).

There are volunteer roles I stay away from because my personality isn't particularly suited to them. I make a slightly miserable marshal, for example.
 
My local parkrun has a temporary route due to works in the park. It's too hilly and I don't like it.

(I will also run somewhere and complain there are no hills...)
 
I think I’ve seen the post you mean. Personally I think parkrun should bring back the rule where at the discretion of the event/RD, they can have an hours time limit. Especially in very poor weather like we’ve had this weekend.
Volunteers are human and is it the end of the world if someone has a sense of humour failure after over an hour stood in an actual storm.?!

I don’t RD anymore but did for god… basically a decade, and saw a lot of changes, and I think the huge push to encourage slower walkers/runners correlated with an issue attracting volunteers. And very little thought is given to the volunteers.
 
Gym&Tonic said:
It shouldn’t take more than an hour for anyone to run 5k. Even when I first started and was much less fit than I am now I was doing it in about 45 minutes, and that was with stopping and starting.
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I've walked a few and they took longer than one hour. But one was on sand and the other it was so muddy.
 
blueblue said:
I think when you are running/walking/generally moving regularly it's really easy to underestimate how unfit some people are. Talking a long time to do 5k might be someone's biggest achievement that week.
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True, and you will get faster the more you do it. I’m still not as fast as I’d like to be.
 
I agree it may be a big achievement but I think there has to be some give and take. Which is why I said at the events discretion they should be allowed to implement a cut off of no less than 1 hour. Should they see fit. Assuming me and millenial pink are talking about the same post, I know for a fact the event in question struggles for volunteers and is very dependent on DofE volunteers for the finish line roles (if regular runners volunteered more maybe they wouldn’t need to depend on children).
In circumstances yesterday when it was truly disgusting I can see how someone might have had a sense of humour failure and thought there should be a cut off. Not nice to hear, but we are human beings. I also think that in conditions like yesterday the RD should be able to implement an hour cut off for the sake of the volunteers, especially when several are actual children. I think so much effort to welcome slower runners means the well-being of the volunteers has been forgotten
 
Lastqueenofscotland said:
I agree it may be a big achievement but I think there has to be some give and take. Which is why I said at the events discretion they should be allowed to implement a cut off of no less than 1 hour. Should they see fit. Assuming me and millenial pink are talking about the same post, I know for a fact the event in question struggles for volunteers and is very dependent on DofE volunteers for the finish line roles (if regular runners volunteered more maybe they wouldn’t need to depend on children).
In circumstances yesterday when it was truly disgusting I can see how someone might have had a sense of humour failure and thought there should be a cut off. Not nice to hear, but we are human beings. I also think that in conditions like yesterday the RD should be able to implement an hour cut off for the sake of the volunteers, especially when several are actual children. I think so much effort to welcome slower runners means the well-being of the volunteers has been forgotten
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Yep, same one about the walking. I'm all for inclusively and don't mind walkers at events generally, but over an hour in a storm and they're complaining about the volunteer? Absolutely not.

There was a post the other week where a tourist felt 'shamed' about an RD mentioning volunteering.
 
Millennial Pink said:
Yep, same one about the walking. I'm all for inclusively and don't mind walkers at events generally, but over an hour in a storm and they're complaining about the volunteer? Absolutely not.

There was a post the other week where a tourist felt 'shamed' about an RD mentioning volunteering.
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Wait…tourist like the ones who travel to different park runs??

people actually travel about to far-flung parkruns to WALK them? 😂😂

no disrespect to walkers, I couldn’t used to run for a bus, but come on. If you want to go on holiday to walk go to a beauty spot
 
georgie_v said:
We have an older tail walker who spends more than an hour because she's just in bad shape, but I don't mind waiting for her at all. If you think there should be a time limit at parkrun it's not made for you, there's so many races you can sign up for with a limit.
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I think it’s more how parkrun has changed over the years. Back in the day, there was parkrunner of the month, the annual points competition where you could get points for volunteering up to three times and when you did, it was over by 9:40 and you could be home by 09:45. My old parkrun was 40 people on average, now it’s 500+ every week. That element of community and competition has been lost sadly.
 
I’ve only just got into park run, I’ve two within a short driving distance of me and have chosen the quieter one, I’ve enjoyed them all and will be keeping it up most weeks when I can…. But this thread has taken me to the tourist Facebook page…. 😂😂😂 omg woah.
 
*twinkletwinkle* said:
I think it’s more how parkrun has changed over the years. Back in the day, there was parkrunner of the month, the annual points competition where you could get points for volunteering up to three times and when you did, it was over by 9:40 and you could be home by 09:45. My old parkrun was 40 people on average, now it’s 500+ every week. That element of community and competition has been lost sadly.
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Personally I find far more of a community in something that's accessible to more people than a more restricted approach where a lot of us weren't welcome as we'd not be deemed fast enough. Doesn't sound like much of a community, more of a clique
 
There is some absolute Parkrun drama on twitter this morning. Can’t find the original tweet/where it’s come from but basically it’s about trans women signing up as women and beating women’s records

😬
 
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