Parkrun..

robinph

Amongst the family I think I've bought 3 apricot tshirts, a water bottle, 5 wrist bands, 5 different types of other barcode... And have received 7 free tshirts and 500+ free timed 5km runs and multiple excuses to visit places we'd otherwise never have considered going.

Think that's a pretty good deal personally.

Edit: forgot there was a book and another couple of casual tshirts I've bought as well.

Annie get your Run

TaurenDruid wrote: »

Yeah, that's the thing. If I do get one of these, it'll be a one-off - likely a Christmas or birthday present. But if they were a more normal price - say €15 or €20 - I'd happily have a couple in my wardrobe. And I'd happily re-buy replacements for my older milestone tees. They'd get more money out of me is the point.

I mean, I've got race entry, a technical top, a medal and a goodie bag for half what they're charging, and that money was also going to a good cause.

My biggest problem with the apricot T's is their colour, not a good look on anyone in the northern hemisphere 😳 unless you're lucky enough to have sallow skin - what were they thinking!!!

I have bought a water bottle and some barcodes though and a couple of Contra items which also supports parkrun.

ThebitterLemon

Annie get your Run wrote: »

My biggest problem with the apricot T's is their colour, not a good look on anyone in the northern hemisphere 😳 unless you're lucky enough to have sallow skin - what were they thinking!!!

I have bought a water bottle and some barcodes though and a couple of Contra items which also supports parkrun.

AMK bought 2 dozen of them

TbL

robinph

A new parkrun map that someone has created where you can easily add simple ratings about different courses such as if the are dog friendly, suitable for buggies, pb courses, etc.

https://wangy.co.uk/parkstats/buggy

Shedite27

robinph wrote: »

A new parkrun map that someone has created where you can easily add simple ratings about different courses such as if the are dog friendly, suitable for buggies, pb courses, etc.

https://wangy.co.uk/parkstats/buggy

They've one Dublin Parkrun marked as buggy friendly - Poolbeg

py

Shedite27 wrote: »

They've one Dublin Parkrun marked as buggy friendly - Poolbeg

It's a crowd sourced map. If you think there are more, which I'm sure there are, add it to the map.

robinph

py wrote: »

It's a crowd sourced map. If you think there are more, which I'm sure there are, add it to the map.

Yep, and I think the site only went live a day ago so needs time for people to add their ratings for different events. But the more people who add their ratings the better it becomes.

There is also the option of putting comments in, although I've not yet on my ratings, as one persons opinion of what is a buggy friendly course, or a pb course, could be totally different from someone else.

crisco10

robinph wrote: »

Yep, and I think the site only went live a day ago so needs time for people to add their ratings for different events. But the more people who add their ratings the better it becomes.

There is also the option of putting comments in, although I've not yet on my ratings, as one persons opinion of what is a buggy friendly course, or a pb course, could be totally different from someone else.

I added some ratings and was thinking this. My rating for a buggy where I'm going ~20min pace, could be very different to someone trying to graduate a C25k plan.

jimmii

Posted on my local one. It's an easy one for buggy use as it's not allowed! I would imagine you would be doing well to get round in an hour if it were allowed very rough conditions!

rainbow kirby

Filled in most of the Manchester ones that hadn't already been filled in. Surprised that nobody had added anything for pancake flat Alexandra or Stretford!

robinph

So parkrun is now confirmed to restart in New Zealand on 4th July as expected:

https://blog.parkrun.com/nz/2020/06/16/covid-19-coronavirus-update-16-june/

My predictions, without knowing a whole lot about individual other country stats, would be Australia around September and possibly Japan around the same time. Possibly Singapore as well.

Can't see South Africa, Europe or the US/ Canada starting up until next year...and that will also then need a relaxation of parkruns "everything back to normal" stance for any of those territories to open. I can't see how any individual parkrun Europe territory can open at a different time to all the others. If Germany restarts because they are clear for example, and they open Ryanair/ Easyjet flights, and there is no quarantine (how would it be enforced anyway?) but parkrun UK doesn't restart... parkrun UK tourists head over and all the bad publicity of UK people travelling and transmitting the virus then gets landed on parkrun as well.

parkrun can't risk being the reason that people start travelling around Europe.

TaurenDruid

robinph wrote: »

Can't see South Africa, Europe or the US/ Canada starting up until next year...and that will also then need a relaxation of parkruns "everything back to normal" stance for any of those territories to open. I can't see how any individual parkrun Europe territory can open at a different time to all the others. If Germany restarts because they are clear for example, and they open Ryanair/ Easyjet flights, and there is no quarantine (how would it be enforced anyway?) but parkrun UK doesn't restart... parkrun UK tourists head over and all the bad publicity of UK people travelling and transmitting the virus then gets landed on parkrun as well.

parkrun can't risk being the reason that people start travelling around Europe.

You don't think an appeal to people's better natures from parkrun central would work?

I know parkrun tourism is a (huge!) thing but generally it'd be tied in to at least a long weekend. Might be an issue for parkruns close to a border or close to an airport, but I'd be hopeful most of us wouldn't be idjits about it.

robinph

TaurenDruid wrote: »

You don't think an appeal to people's better natures from parkrun central would work?

I know parkrun tourism is a (huge!) thing but generally it'd be tied in to at least a long weekend. Might be an issue for parkruns close to a border or close to an airport, but I'd be hopeful most of us wouldn't be idjits about it.

Most wouldn't be eejits, but there are enough parkrun tourists that are more important than anyone else such that the moment Ryanair open flights to a location holding parkrun they will be on the flight...and it only takes one of them to then test +ve for bad publicity to follow for parkrun. There was a lot of effort that went in to limit the impact of a plane load of tourists on the launch of parkrun Nedtherlands so they had 6 events starting at the same time and didn't start the Amsterdam one until a week later so as to spread the load.

Think there would just be too many people deprived of parkrun in the UK who wouldn't be able to help themselves if Germany was to restart and there was no signs of a UK restart this year.

Pherekydes

What about a short term rule of Home Parkrun Only?

robinph

Pherekydes wrote: »

What about a short term rule of Home Parkrun Only?

Not enforceable really, although I guess they could threaten to delete any results afterwards if not at your home event and prevent you changing it temporarily. Mine is set to be a juniors event though.

Could put a block on any events outside of your home country I guess and that wouldn't cause any ructions, except between NI/ Ireland and possibly Sweden/ Denmark. Or just prevent any UK/ Ireland profiles running any events in the rest of the EU and that would stop the vast majority of any international tourism issues.

Seannew1

robinph wrote: »

So parkrun is now confirmed to restart in New Zealand on 4th July as expected:

https://blog.parkrun.com/nz/2020/06/16/covid-19-coronavirus-update-16-june/

My predictions, without knowing a whole lot about individual other country stats, would be Australia around September and possibly Japan around the same time. Possibly Singapore as well.

Can't see South Africa, Europe or the US/ Canada starting up until next year...and that will also then need a relaxation of parkruns "everything back to normal" stance for any of those territories to open. I can't see how any individual parkrun Europe territory can open at a different time to all the others. If Germany restarts because they are clear for example, and they open Ryanair/ Easyjet flights, and there is no quarantine (how would it be enforced anyway?) but parkrun UK doesn't restart... parkrun UK tourists head over and all the bad publicity of UK people travelling and transmitting the virus then gets landed on parkrun as well.

parkrun can't risk being the reason that people start travelling around Europe.

I still feel optimistic that we may have a return to parkrun events in autumn. That is if cases of the virus continue to be suppressed and social distancing can be done at the start and finish lines.

robinph

Seannew1 wrote: »

I still feel optimistic that we may have a return to parkrun events in autumn. That is if cases of the virus continue to be suppressed and social distancing can be done at the start and finish lines.

In the absence of any major marathon events to take the heat off parkrun I think they won't make a move until a few weeks after premiership level football returns anywhere in Europe, or something with similar sized crowds. If football comes back but with people only sitting in every other seat for instance then parkrun will remain off.

Kerry Gooner

robinph wrote: »

In the absence of any major marathon events to take the heat off parkrun

Bit of a step up there

robinph

Kerry Gooner wrote: »

Bit of a step up there

I mean in terms of the bad imagery surrounding a few photos of runners grouped together at the start of a run. Much like the ones of people at beaches/ protests/ Primark over the last few weeks that then get splashed across social media/ newspapers and we are then told about the impending second wave. parkrun needs to not be the first sporting event to have those photos appearing anywhere, so needs a crowd at a football stadium or waiting to run a marathon to take that publicity hit.

Cape Clear

robinph wrote: »

Think there would just be too many people deprived of parkrun in the UK who wouldn't be able to help themselves if Germany was to restart and there was no signs of a UK restart this year.

Seems like a whole load of effort to go to for the sake of a 5k run. Each to their own I guess.

robinph

Cape Clear wrote: »

Seems like a whole load of effort to go to for the sake of a 5k run. Each to their own I guess.

Yep, but there are people who fly half way round the world in order to run at the first parkrun in Japan, or find a friend with a private pilots license to fly them to a parkrun on the other side of the country that is actually around an airfield so they can be the first to fly directly to an event and get their landing fees refunded by the airfield, or have to go extreme distances in order to run an event starting with a particular letter of the alphabet.

There is a whole other level of obsession out there, which you are probably best of not knowing about.

opus

Cape Clear wrote: »

Seems like a whole load of effort to go to for the sake of a 5k run. Each to their own I guess.

From listening to the various parkrun podcasts I've gotten the impression that parkrun tourists in the UK are a lot more obsessive than here (could be 100% wrong of course!). One of the presenters of With Me Now seems to spend every Sat crisscrossing the UK for example.

robinph

opus wrote: »

From listening to the various parkrun podcasts I've gotten the impression that parkrun tourists in the UK are a lot more obsessive than here (could be 100% wrong of course!). One of the presenters of With Me Now seems to spend every Sat crisscrossing the UK for example.

...and Danny Norman isn't even close to being the most crazily obsessive about parkruns and different little unique niches.

rainbow kirby

robinph wrote: »

...and Danny Norman isn't even close to being the most crazily obsessive about parkruns and different little unique niches.

There are some quite scary people out there! :eek:

I've done a whole pile of tourism but was really getting to enjoy being at my local ones regularly before lockdown hit.

Sunny Dayz

robinph wrote: »

I can't see how any individual parkrun Europe territory can open at a different time to all the others. If Germany restarts because they are clear for example, and they open Ryanair/ Easyjet flights, and there is no quarantine (how would it be enforced anyway?) but parkrun UK doesn't restart... parkrun UK tourists head over and all the bad publicity of UK people travelling and transmitting the virus then gets landed on parkrun as well.

parkrun can't risk being the reason that people start travelling around Europe.

I think this is a real risk. From listing to the UK parkrun podcasts and the parkrun discussion facebook page - there are many in the UK who are parkrun obssessed and uber tourists. I think plenty will use it as an excuse to travel.

I also think if parkrun restarts somewhere in Europe that is not the UK, then I think many parkrunners in the UK will have their noses out of joint because, and this is the impression I get reading between the lines, that parkrun is first and foremost a UK thing because it started there, because Bushy is the "home" of parkrun. And I think there will be a few who would be peeved off if the UK was one of the last countries to restart. But not fair to hold up other countries cos the UK wants to be head of the line.

Sunny Dayz

rainbow kirby wrote: »

There are some quite scary people out there! :eek:

I've done a whole pile of tourism but was really getting to enjoy being at my local ones regularly before lockdown hit.

I was the opposite. I found I was at my local almost every week either running or volunteering and as a family we said we were going to do some parkrun tourism this year. We had two already planned for March & April (Derry & Edinburgh), we were going to do Mount Lucas the next free Sat that came up. And then we were each going to pick one to organise a weekend away around. Sure look, there's always next year....

robinph

Would love to have a regular "home" event again. We were rarely doing the same event multiple weeks in a row because of avoiding events due to potential overcrowding on some weeks, or them not being suitable for me going at a certain pace with the buggy, or another event having the weather too windy or too much mud on another week or needing to make it back to somewhere else by X o'clock or different people from our old home event having a milestone at one of the multiple local events.

Nice problem to have, but I miss the just going along to the same event and chilling out afterwards without the rush to get anywhere else and knowing that you'll meet this person or that person for a chat, or a "race". Not having been along to running club training in years due to scheduling I really miss the social aspect around running.

TaurenDruid

robinph wrote: »

Yep, but there are people who fly half way round the world in order to run at the first parkrun in Japan, or find a friend with a private pilots license to fly them to a parkrun on the other side of the country that is actually around an airfield so they can be the first to fly directly to an event and get their landing fees refunded by the airfield, or have to go extreme distances in order to run an event starting with a particular letter of the alphabet.

There is a whole other level of obsession out there, which you are probably best of not knowing about.

Gas. My parkrun tourism thus far:

* The next parkrun over to my home run - run once. Keep meaning to go back cos they've low numbers and I had my first and only top 10 finish there!

* Three other nearby parkruns - once or twice each.

* Killarney (Muckross) parkrun when away for a (non-running!) weekend with a big group. Don't know how I managed it, cos we were up drinking until the wee hours.

* Going to Australia on holiday with every intention of getting to parkruns in Sydney and Brisbane, then completely forgetting to do so once I was there.

Not very impressive as parkrun tourism goes!

Gael23

Will we be seeing some of the smaller events get going in the next few weeks? The big ones won’t be back for a while bough

Ted_YNWA

Gael23 wrote:

Will we be seeing some of the smaller events get going in the next few weeks? The big ones won’t be back for a while bough

It will be all back, or none at any country level.

If it was down to size, there would be an influx of neighbouring 'tourists' going to the smaller events.

Gael23

200 is a decent number for the majority anyway

robinph

Gael23 wrote: »

200 is a decent number for the majority anyway

No reason they couldn't allow the prison events to restart.

chinguetti

HQ have said before that a country will start at the one time so Ireland will start altogether on the one day. Because of the North up the road, I can't see them not opening the UK and Ireland on the one day.

The risk, regardless of how high or low, of people crossing over the border and possiblty spreading the virus and linking it with parkrun would be awful publicity that they'd surely want to avoid.

ger664

There are a lot of other issues to deal with. The 200/500 outdoors still has to comply with social distancing also how events now deal with no barcode not time and unknown/unreged participants as contact tracing will have to be in place. There is a lot of work to be done before we get back and I agree it would be stupid to open Ireland and not the UK unless strict border control on the non movement of people is in place (which is not going to happen)

average_runner

chinguetti wrote: »

HQ have said before that a country will start at the one time so Ireland will start altogether on the one day. Because of the North up the road, I can't see them not opening the UK and Ireland on the one day.

The risk, regardless of how high or low, of people crossing over the border and possiblty spreading the virus and linking it with parkrun would be awful publicity that they'd surely want to avoid.

They treated Ireland and the north differently when closing the runs

robinph

average_runner wrote: »

They treated Ireland and the north differently when closing the runs

But at that point there was only days notice of any changes happening on a country level, and any blame could be squarely laid at the doors of relavent governments and parkrun was one of the smaller events still happening during that week.

There will be several weeks lead in to a parkrun restart, and depending on how much other sport has already restarted by then potentially a lot of publicity. This is the moment when parkrun really doesn't want any publicity about the events at all.

The more other things that have restarted before parkrun the better.

gucci

robinph wrote: »

Would love to have a regular "home" event again. We were rarely doing the same event multiple weeks in a row because of avoiding events due to potential overcrowding on some weeks, or them not being suitable for me going at a certain pace with the buggy, or another event having the weather too windy or too much mud on another week or needing to make it back to somewhere else by X o'clock or different people from our old home event having a milestone at one of the multiple local events.

Nice problem to have, but I miss the just going along to the same event and chilling out afterwards without the rush to get anywhere else and knowing that you'll meet this person or that person for a chat, or a "race". Not having been along to running club training in years due to scheduling I really miss the social aspect around running.

Similar here. I brought my lad in the buggy for a few laps this morning and despite us explaining it wasnt the same as before, he still was a bit disappointed the lady with the megaphone wasnt there and that we didn't hang out at the playground afterwards.....from the social aspect and this nice sat morning outing for us it's just something I am craving very badly now.

He did enjoy it though and we still had a bit of a run around and a few snacks after so it wasn't all a wasted morning for him.

robinph

Went to one of our more common parkrun venues yesterday and had expected a meltdown and demand for a ride in the buggy as soon as we reached the car park. Thankfully managed to get in a nice walk along the trail and although not following the full course or in the right direction we did manage about 5km without too much disagreements.

We still have some work to do with maintaining a forwards momentum before the return of parkrun.

Seannew1

I think we, in Ireland, could have been very close to a return to Parkrun possibly next month. However, parkrun's statement this evening has all but killed that. We will need to wait on all countries to restart at once. Not looking good when you look at the likes of UK and USA

jlang

Seannew1 wrote: »

parkrun's statement this evening has all but killed that. We will need to wait on all countries to restart at once. Not looking good when you look at the likes of UK and USA

But today's update doesn't say that. It does say

As such, at this time, our policy remains that we will only open parkrun events where we can safely and appropriately open every event in that country.

Nothing about waiting for other countries, although in our case waiting for the UK isn't totally silly. (Me saying that, not Parkrun)

Seannew1

jlang wrote: »

But today's update doesn't say that. It does say

Nothing about waiting for other countries, although in our case waiting for the UK isn't totally silly. (Me saying that, not Parkrun)

My take on it was that until the Uk can restart, then others will have to wait. Someone made the excellent point on this thread that if you were to restart here or Germany, every tom dick and harry from the Uk would be over on a cheap ryanair flight to get their parkrun fix.

Burkie1203

Seannew1 wrote: »

My take on it was that until the Uk can restart, then others will have to wait. Someone made the excellent point on this thread that if you were to restart here or Germany, every tom dick and harry from the Uk would be over on a cheap ryanair flight to get their parkrun fix.

Parkrun should consider refusing a time for any parkrun other then your home one for the first 3 months after it returns to try to limit travel

robinph

That they are shutting down the possibility of restarting The Falklands without the rest of the UK doesn't put much hope in anywhere in Europe starting without the UK either, although that does make sense to me the opening Europe at the same time bit even if the South Atlantic doesn't. Russia is about the only country in Europe that is distant enough from the UK.

ger664

Opening Ireland before the UK encourages parkrunners to make non essential travel. This would be against current covid19 guidelines in Ireland

Duzzie

Looking at the way the UK is opening up at the moment, it looks to me like the UK parkruns would be in a position to open before Ireland. Either way the problem of people travelling from the Republic to NI, or the other way round, would be problematic. I could not see UK parkrunners being happy about UK event reopenings being dictated by Irish events or visa-versa. Unless parkrun UK were to separate the reopening of UK mainland from NI events and align NI events to the Republic. Things seem to be changing rapidly here and in the UK and with the reintroduction of contact sports (with spectators), which surely pose a bigger risk than parkrun, I can see parkrun coming under pressure to look at reopening sooner rather than later

The Black Oil

If anyone wants to travel purely to tick a parkrun tourism box (out of their own country) this summer they need a clip around the ear, imo.

Duzzie

The Black Oil wrote: »

If anyone wants to travel purely to tick a parkrun tourism box (out of their own country) this summer they need a clip around the ear, imo.

I'm not sure if you are responding to my post, but i'd imagine there will be people living within the Republic for whom an event within Northern Ireland would be their nearest parkrun, so visiting a parkrun in another jurisdiction would not be unusual in that case. The close proximity and ease of crossing between the 2 increases difficulty of opening Republic and NI events at different times.

In terms of catching international flights or ferries etc. to take in a parkrun, I would totally agree with you.

The Black Oil

Duzzie wrote: »

I'm not sure if you are responding to my post, but i'd imagine there will be people living within the Republic for whom an event within Northern Ireland would be their nearest parkrun, so visiting a parkrun in another jurisdiction would not be unusual in that case. The close proximity and ease of crossing between the 2 increases difficulty of opening Republic and NI events at different times.

In terms of catching international flights or ferries etc. to take in a parkrun, I would totally agree with you.

No, nothing personal. Meant to post this days ago.

BeardySi

There was an intereview with Tom Williams on one of my podcasts the other day discussing NZ reopening - it may have been Free Weekly Timed, but I can't remember - he repeatedly referred to Island of Ireland as opposed to RoI and NI parkruns.

Food for thought.

robinph

BeardySi wrote: »

There was an intereview with Tom Williams on one of my podcasts the other day discussing NZ reopening - it may have been Free Weekly Timed, but I can't remember - he repeatedly referred to Island of Ireland as opposed to RoI and NI parkruns.

Food for thought.

It was on Free Weekly Timed as I just got round to listening to it last night and the same thing stuck out to me. Laying the groundwork for Eng/ Sco/ Wal tourists not getting their knickers in a twist too much when parkruns in NI return before theirs do...although most of the listeners won't know the difference between Ireland/ Northern Ireland/ island of Ireland.