Participants of this popular Saturday running event are not happy
Bless me starting guns and stopwatches for I have sinned: it’s been nine years since my last competitive race. Sometimes old advice is still good for you and perhaps my best running years are gone, but I wouldn’t want them back.That’s no great confession and may not even be entirely true, but either way there is no right or wrong time to let these things go. Just trace the trail of any once-upon-a-time competitive runner and there comes a point when every race is already run.
The first parkrun in Ireland happened in Malahide in 2012, and there are now 109 different events around the country each Saturday, with total finishers to date of 2,874,375. They do have some sponsors now but it’s almost entirely voluntarily run and going by my brief Marlay Park experience this was never considered a race, least of all a competitive 5km. My finishing time is long since forgotten and most definitely meant nothing to anybody except myself.
In an open response on its website, parkrun chief executive Russ Jefferys said: “It is a sign of a passionate and vibrant global community that parkrunners find interest and inspiration in all sorts of information connected with participation ... Indeed there is likely no end to the data and information that might be of interest, but that doesn’t mean it is right for parkrun to publish it.
Their latest response also included an appendix with a selection of the reasons given for signing the petition, one of which read: “It can be parkrace, parkrun, parkjog, parkshuffle, parkwalk. It’s whatever you want it to be. Don’t take away the record of those that have achieved something amazing because of a fear of it feeling like a race for everyone.”
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