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.
Not with the fire in me now.
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. As in the point when age-best or category-record or sub-whatever means nothing at all. If it ever did.
It was Ronnie Delany who first preached this to me, explaining why after his last competitive race in 1962, aged 26, he never raced for real again. The thing Delany found was even if he jumped into some local charity run there would always be someone trying to beat him, Olympic 1,500m champion and all that, when the last thing he needed to prove was he could still beat them.
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Truth is most runners will always feel some need or longing to test themselves against the clock, or better still other runners. That’s all part of running’s beauty and simplicity, and which is why once or twice over those last nine years I have spun down the mountain to Marlay Park for a brief flirt with that Saturday morning running phenomenon (and the word is justified) known as the parkrun.
Consider some of the numbers: what started in 2004 when founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt staged an open 5km time trial in Bushy Park in London has over the last 20 years now gone properly global, about 2,200 parkrun events held every Saturday morning in 23 countries, including Japan, US, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand (and for a while in Russia too) with about nine million signed-up parkrun members. It’s all free, remember!
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.
The parkrun organisers have always sold their events as exactly this, strictly non-competitive, although over those last 20 years have published updated weekly statistics on their website covering such things as course and age-category records, most first finishes, the fastest 500, sub-17-minute men and sub-20 women, etc, for each individual parkrun.
Then without any warning last month all these stats disappeared, along with a search function, and it seems a lot of parkrunners are not happy. At least 22,970 have signed one of the online petitions titled “Bring back the Stats!”
It’s clearly a touchy subject, with an Athletics Weekly story on the parkrun petition getting more traffic than any other story this month (and it’s still running). Among other things, the petitioners argued, “having a competitive element of parkrun for those who want it has always been part of parkrun since its first four years as Bushy Park time trial ... and we do not believe these records are stopping people from wanting to join”.
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.
“We are in no doubt that the removal of some records is a proportionate and appropriate step for the charity and in line with our mission to transform health and happiness by empowering people to come together to be active, social and outdoors.”
That didn’t go down well. In the latest response to Jefferys, a third open letter from the petitioners to the parkrun organisers this week said: “You have not given us evidence that the course statistics that you removed were barriers to participation. In contrast, we have provided you with a range of evidence to show that the course statistics inspired many in our communities.”
The founder of this petition, Mary Taylor, also said the removal of the stats has “left a void in the hearts of many participants. These stats are not just numbers; they represent personal milestones and progress that inspire runners of all abilities to push their limits”.
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.”
Deirdre Parnell, a parkrun ambassador for several years but also retired from running in any true competitive sense, also contacted me this week expressing her dismay at the sudden removal of the stats, suggesting it is possibly putting people off her local Lough Key parkrun in Roscommon.
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“The whole fiasco has motivated lots of parkrunners to give up their Saturday run or not register their barcode,” she said. “Most of us who run love a bit of competition, even at the back of the field.”
There was some gently jesting last week when Ciara Mageean told the story of tweaking her hamstring after the 5km parkrun at Victoria Park in Belfast last December, two days before Christmas, her time that day of 15 minutes and 13 seconds, the then fastest parkrun by a woman anywhere in the world (before that stat also disappeared).
She ended up missing the entire indoor season as a result, no big deal as her only true focus this year is the Paris Olympics, although try telling a super competitive athlete like Mageean that this was only a run in the park.
Still for the great majority of people who start a parkrun every Saturday morning it is exactly that, a run in the park that no one else should ultimately care about only themselves. Give them back their stats!
