As arranged, we met up with Russ Jeffreys at Higginson parkrun, in Marlow, and after the event, sat down together in a quiet local pub. Russ arrived with Paul Sinton-Hewitt, the parkrun founder. From our side, we had Will Hartley, Mary Taylor and Alexander Smotrov, another signer of our open letters to parkrun.
We started the meeting by sharing a little of our personal backgrounds in parkrun, inc
Had no idea this was a thing to be honest.
Edit: bit tone deaf but can see the value in the changes.
Maybe the culture is different in the UK where Parkrun is bigger, but I really don’t understand where the CEO and founder are coming from with regards to their concerns about Parkrun being “unfair” for women or considered a “race”. The culture at every event I’ve ever been to in my city is inclusive, relaxed and very much built around the local community. I’m pretty sure none of the women give a fuck about having their times and placing put alongside men because the entire point is that it’s not a race. And no one, even the top runners, actually considers it a as such.
The privacy stuff I can see the sense in, though again I think they are overreacting with their plans. It was a little unclear to me exactly what they are planning there but I don’t see any harm in retaining anonymised times for every runner. Knowing what other people are running at your local Parkrun is one of the biggest motivators, particularly when you look at the times of the top runners and think “gee, I’d love to get there one day”. If I just had absolutely no idea what time anyone outside of my immediate vicinity was running then my overall enjoyment and motivation to attend would definitely take a hit.
Maybe the culture is different in the UK where Parkrun is bigger, but I really don’t understand where the CEO and founder are coming from with regards to their concerns about Parkrun being “unfair” for women or considered a “race”. The culture at every event I’ve ever been to in my city is inclusive, relaxed and very much built around the local community. I’m pretty sure none of the women give a fuck about having their times and placing put alongside men because the entire point is that it’s not a race. And no one, even the top runners, actually considers it a as such.
The privacy stuff I can see the sense in, though again I think they are overreacting with their plans. It was a little unclear to me exactly what they are planning there but I don’t see any harm in retaining anonymised times for every runner. Knowing what other people are running at your local Parkrun is one of the biggest motivators, particularly when you look at the times of the top runners and think “gee, I’d love to get there one day”. If I just had absolutely no idea what time anyone outside of my immediate vicinity was running then my overall enjoyment and motivation to attend would definitely take a hit.