Thanks! Awesome list. My home run (Coed Cefn-pwll-du) drops one place to only the 8th hardest in the UK, 😅 but still top-dog in Wales! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Thanks Tim. Think Church Mead got it’s rightful ranking!

Stockley Country has a tough ranking. It was a new “non-muddy” course when I ran and wasn’t that hard!

@@davewaterman9975 very low down I see. Don't know anything about that one. Is it hilly or muddy or both ?

@@oliverhughes2122 I really need to learn how to pronounce that one in case it drops down :)

Thanks Harry. Recovering from a hamstring pull but hopefully over the worst. You are going very well.

Many thanks. Much appreciated and yeah I have come to realise I can’t “compete” with professional outfits who review shoes seemingly almost daily but I can do things like this.

Thanks!

Thanks! Hopefully will have an updated one based on 2023 data soon.

Ah glad you got the joke on Stephen Cousins of Film My Run. I know him well so fair game I thought :) Check this video of mine from 2 years ago kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jp5xn6Sgns2rnIk.html Might be good to now to revisit this given nowadays virtually everybody is in "super" shoes and you could argue it is just now the new norm with plenty of options other than Nike if they don't work for you.

Ha ha - nice to have ones named after you. Surely you would want to also visit Littlehampton Prom :) Plenty of pace makers. Watch out for any mud though LOL.

@@TimGrose I was surprised to see Littlehampton so high on the list I thought it would be a tough course. Heard the cones can play havoc with the heels of your shoes 😂😜

Ha ha yes - your video was very helpful ! Do you agree Bromley is a fast one? Did surprise me a bit that it came in as high as 2nd. When I did it (back in 2010) it was on the summer course that I seem to recall had some "off road" bits although was very dry when I did it.

Thanks - so am I but that is also due to advancing years! My parkrun PB is now 10 years old.

Thanks!

Bit of a surprise for sure. Have you done it?

Must say am always more keen at the prospect of a fast one rather than a slow one. Can start having coffee & cake quicker :)

Well done ! Think it is a bit short though as you found.

Ah yes as we can access all the data can see when the differential between your time one week and your recent best is much more than the norm and then can infer it was one of those MAF ones.

And many thanks for your videos - very useful to see why certain parkruns are very fast or slow. I saw a recent Harry Morgan video where he did his parkrun anywhere PB at Exmouth. When you say depends on the wind direction is that because one way is slightly longer than the other? That's the case at Worthing.

@@TimGrose You’re more technically inclined then I, so you may know more in this subject, but as I understand it, a headwind hurts your pace more than a tailwind helps. Exmouth is pretty much an out and back on fairly linear heading. If you get a strong wind, which is quite often on the coast, you’re going to struggle on either the out or back. On a calm day though…. 👌👌

I did a have long look at the Kings Lynn data as it was a bit higher than might have guessed. I did it a few years back and did OK but the dead turns made it slower than perhaps I was expecting but equally think I was a bit off in myself that day. Sounds like the same course then. I did Hunstanton on another trip which I thought was very quick but I think I caught a still day on their winter prom only course as think they have a different course in summer. I went to UEA Norwich so have some affinity with the county!

Ah just checking and that one is not the one that is actually called "York" which I recall always seemed fast. How do those two compare for you? I see York is 77th and Heslington 85th so in reality they should be more or less the same but if Heslington has got "longer" maybe not now!

yep very similar now. York is pancake flat so should be faster as Heslington now has 5 laps each with a slight rise and fall. But York gets extremely busy which slows you down in the first K. @@TimGrose

Good to know. I have personally been now to about 10% of all them but there are now so many that it is hard to do this type of sanity check. You are right that a fairly new one will be lower than it could be but in a way that is good as one year I had Berkeley Green top after just 5 runs and then they changed the course anyway! The differences between say 100th and 200th are pretty small anyway - talking of the order of 10-15 seconds and so the margin of error means you could well run as well if not better at one a lot lower down. For instance, my fastest in recent years was at Redcar which is only 165th and indeed right alongside Maryport Prom "in theory". I just felt good that day...

@@TimGrose Yeah, my PB is at Markeaton, but I wouldn't claim it's a quicker course than Morecambe Prom or Millom which I've both ran since. Not surprised they're so high up. They call it a track but the Millom surface is now flexipave btw. Shared to the NW tourist group and someone else has called out Fletcher Moss too; it's quite a similar course to Armley (have ran both), long off road bits that can be slippery in wet weather and a small hill but in good conditions a really quick course. 417th does feel too low. The other local callout (and has been for a few years) is Chadderton Hall. It's not a quick course at all, waaaay too many slow 90 degree turns, plus a short sharp hill you do 4 times, but we're skeptical that it's slower than the hilly cobbles of Watergrove or the steep rocky climb at the start of Lyme. That might fit better about 20 places further up around Pendle, Witton, my muddy home run of Cheadle Hulme... Other than that, discussions so far are minor stuff that's easy to explain; Southport vs Morecambe Prom (Southport is deceptively fast + sheltered, Morecambe Prom can have a breeze), Peel's slide down the order (the football pitch & trail bit get muddy and slippery in winter, making it slower than Stretford and Alexandra at least at that time of year), etc... Not ran Maryport Prom yet, but it sounds a similar course to Fleetwood Prom. Maybe it's a little long or something.

Also, you know its good content as its already exceeded the Vapor3 video in terms of views!

Ah well done and coming back from Sydney is where I met Sue as we sat next to each other on the plane!

The Vaporfly 3 one still did very well thanks for your efforts. Guess this parkrun one is more unique so that helps. Does show this stats ones are worthwhile but they do take ages to prepare.

No probs. I'll do it again for the next one if I'm around! Wow, that is a unique meeting place! Gold Coast 10k tomorrow!

If you look back long enough you will see 3 runs from me at Banstead back in the days when the legs went a little quicker than now. Indeed at the time my best times at Bushy, Wimbledon, Richmond Park & Banstead where all within 13 seconds of each other and Bushy remains my parkrun PB by one second over Wimbledon. Is Banstead course the same I wonder? 2008 was my last visit. Indeed I largely starting "touring" to test these algorithms and also as motivation for the races/parkruns that were not the fastest on paper. I did Dulwich few years but when was in relatively poor shape and just broke 20. I recall it has a drag up past the start which I certainly noticed that day. I must have done the summer course at Bromley as recall it had a bit of grass but it was warm dry early summer morning and clearly did not slow me too much as I did for me that day.

@@TimGrose I believe Banstead is a little different now. It's the first parkrun I did when it reopened again after lockdown, and I overheard that it used to start at the bottom of the hill. Well, now it's at the top, so you only have to do it once. Ran this one on my wedding day, so it holds a very special place in my heart (and not just for that reason).

Bideford stats are based on this sort of data which is its ranking list for 2022 male or female. They does seem an obvious bias to summer performances? Dulwich I have only done once and it was windy and was in poor shape so I sort of failed before I started! I do recall the drag up past the start being relatively tough. I ought to run that again with better fitness. The differences are so small between say ones in the top 50 or even top 100. My parkrun PB is at Bushy which isn't even in the top 100. Just a day I felt good, went for it and was bone dry summer conditions with no real wind. Oh and it was 10 years ago :)

@@TimGrose yep agreed, Bushy is often a very quick course and of course a stunning place to run. That's a great point, the differences are minimal, the slower ones are I guess less contentious as the differences are greater. I might attempt Durlston soon just to compare. Mount Edgcumbe is stunning and tough, and another that finishes a fair bit higher than it starts! I'm not sure spikes would work at Woolacombe as the start and finish has maybe 1k of tarmac total.

Yeah I did that one once but at the time I wasn’t very fit and it was quite windy too. Was thinking of studying dead turns more. Since doing CityStrides I have had a lot of practice. Victoria Dock used to be the very fastest parkrun despite having 2 dead turns. I believe it now has more and I think this new algorithm models things better. It doesn’t explicitly look at these things but times will slow slightly. That said maybe not a lot but clearly the fastest road races don’t have dead turns. I guess it might be about 5 secs per turn but maybe a bit more as slowing down and speeding up again is like a hill for the extra effort involved.

I have heard that one is very muddy this time of year and if it is hilly too little surprise it comes quite low down. The times I have run at East Grinstead usually been on the Forest and/or Worth Way.

Yes I think there is an element of knowing the course. It happened to me years ago when I first went to the Richmond Park parkrun. I did it 4 weeks in a row and my last run was a whole minute quicker than the first although I recall that last week had very favourable weather and I think I had also got a bit fitter in those 4 weeks.

200m seemed about what I thought looked at various Strava traces and indeed the original course which was 2 laps and more than just a little bit as now. Ah I see I actually used your Pegwell Bay one kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rJ10jZaY0pexc3k.html Very helpful. Many apologies I omitted to credit you in the video details which have now done. Wolverhampton don't know that one but I see it has come out more or less alongside Bushy Park so can well be fast. Have you got a video of it?

@@TimGrose oh hey dont worry - im not looking for credit - just thought it would be cool if you had seen/used some of the footage ;) hmmm no footage of wolverhampton sadly - Im on a bit of a "no repeats" thing for the past couple of years and I didnt get my camera until maybe last december so havent been back there there with the cam yet - i imagine I will get back there eventually (its the closest venue to my parents/my old house in the midlands and I am fast running out of places to visit that are within a reasonable distance from their house - so i expect a repeat is inevitable soon) - love your work btw - it is so helpful

@@jl45000019 know what you mean about no repeats. I largely starting touring to help test these algorithms but think would be good to see if I can run a bit faster on some of them.

Thanks !

@@TimGrose I'm pretty new to Parkrun and have found your power of 10 index a great guide thx,I discovered PR it through Ben Parkes' original Great Yarmouth video. Which I did in Jan, found it easier(not easy!) Than East Grinstead which I did over Xmas time in the mud and is still by far my slowest/toughest Parkrun.

@@alfdickinson1971 I will have try those two sometime. I usually prefer the faster ones !

Heaton Park is not a parkun am familiar with. Did a quick sanity check and it looks about right. Fastest this year, for instance, is Harry Wakefield with a 15:04 which with an SSS here of 1.8 compares well with his 14:11 on the track. Indeed the SSS on the day he did the 15:04 was 1.7. SSS of 1.8 means, at least for the faster runners, it is about a minute slower than what you might be able to do optimally.

ok thanks for taking the trouble to reply @@TimGrose Still find it surprising though. Maybe hill is compensated by the good surface and lack of congestion.

@@user-ct7px1wm3j Probably. I wouldn't say that one is a "fast" course but equally plenty are slower.

That is a great sanity check and thanks for your Poole footage. Was when I realised the course change. In this analysis I took the ranking list down to 23:00 but is normally week to week about 25:00. I need to find runners like you that tour and/or race and so fairly often to make it more reliable data. I have found the SSS is reasonably robust to different cut offs at 5K but it can be an issue with the longer events when runners are less likely to do themselves justice and then the course itself may not be a big factor. I also need a decent amount of data but not too much as then takes forever to compute and this takes several hours as it is. I will have a look at say ignoring sub 20 runners. They are my sanity check as can often spot people I know to see how they are doing.

Ha ha yes. Part also mickey take out of my friend Stephen Cousins (Film my Run).

Yeah I did the old course with a dead turn each side. Problem on my visit was a near gale but I still ran OK for me. Watched the whole video of course . Time flies as recall when started that was starting to possibly come out very quick in my analysis. Still statistically quick of course but seemingly not now quite as much.

Good to hear that parkruns are growing in Germany. I am not aware of anything like we do for the UK in other countries.

Leinpfad Merzig was by far my fastest german parkrun. I was there even faster than at Father Collins Dublin. The teams there is the best parkrun locals I've ever seen, they are brilliant. Mattheiser Weier and Seewog are also fast but have some hills. Traumschleife Bärenbach is the thoughest one but still a brilliant circuit.

Ah good to know that Pegwell Bay is “known” to be short. Yeah the times I have ran relatively fast at parkrun have generally been mild still days when felt good and had some competition as it were and obviously on courses that are fairly fast. The difference between the ones in say the top 50 or even 100 are tiny (well apart front Pegwell Bay !) so could do it on any of them. My fastest is at Bushy but next at Wimbledon Common which is very down but it was one such morning and very dry underfoot on flat terrain.

Thanks. Yeah does seem to be a lack of room to extend it. I did wonder if it was actually a little shorter than 40 metres but I think it would still be fast even so. Am I right that initial path (for about 1K) on each lap has been made into a Tarmac type one in the last year or so? That is going to help the "speed" too...

@Tim Grose However, the Pegwell Bay parkrun course page states "The course is 5000m (5k) long. This has been accurately measured by us with a professional measuring wheel." If in fact the course is now significantly short as you suggest, and which seems to be confirmed by multiple comments here (to the tune of up to around 200 metres even), that page really ought to be adjusted so as to not mislead people, should it not? One would like to be able to _rely_ on parkrun course measurement statements after all.

@@BadCyborgMovies That wording is used on every parkrun page. I think it is meant to imply that parkrun do their best to try and make sure each course is more or less 5K but they are not measured officially to licensed road race standards that need to have official measurement certificates. In this case it seems the course was originally 5K but was impractical to maintain the same rough start/finish locations so they decided to basically make it more or less 2 laps. As such it does seem the measurement statement is now not strictly correct. Whether that "matters" given parkrun is not a "race" is perhaps more of a personal decision in the same runners choose to run them however they like to that day. That said if overall parkun PBs matter to you then doing one here might need an asterisk against it in your head.

@@TimGrose Yes, I've seen the same wording on probably all the course pages I've looked at. But I'd taken that boilerplate text seriously. It emphasises the accuracy after all, and parkrun also has a whole page about their procedures, talking of being accurate to within a metre. This all suggests a rather higher aspiration than loosely going for "more or less 5K" I'd say. So if a course alteration has significantly altered the distance, it's surely appropriate to modify the course info so we can continue to put faith in parkrun distance statements. That's really the big point here. I'd still happily _do_ a slightly short course if I could get to it. But I'd like to _know_ that it's short.

I've run Hazlewood myself and I did when the course was partly snowbound. Need less to say it wasn't one of my faster ones! Quite a few people have asked about summer/winter variations and all grass courses will clearly be much faster when it is dry and firm to wet and muddy. Indeed my two fastest parkrun times were on part grass courses in dry and warm conditions. Trouble is you can never be sure that it is always seasonal and a huge downpour overnight will make the course tricky the next morning what ever time of year it is. I will see if can have a look at this again. When I need the fastest and slowest ones showed no real difference. Also if we ran Hazelwood now in late April I bet it will be slow and on a 6 month cycle it is already "summer". So, on such courses, there may only be about 10 week period when likely to see scorched earth conditions and then in the UK even that might be hopeful !

Must try that Great Yarmouth one sometime! 13th is perhaps only a second or two from the Top 5 in this sort of analysis so statistically it is probably pretty much as fast as anywhere else on a good day for the weather and yourself of course.

@@TimGrose was luckily on holiday only 10 mins away from Yarmouth so had to try it!

Yeah it can be whatever you want it to be. I think the UK still is the biggest country for it but good to hear that more are cropping up elsewhere. Be nice to have some in Portugal when go there but of course you need teams to organise week after week etc etc

Thanks. Sure it has disappointed many. I do still have access to all the data so will do an update to this soon but thought would wait a bit as the timing seemed wrong otherwise.

@@TimGrose yes i get that. Looking forward to it 👍🏻

Yes such ones ought to be quick and this analysis is more about the faster days than the slower ones. That said ones on loop closed do generally seem to be coming out ahead of them here. I've done Worthing several times and it is indeed quick but the outward part is slightly longer than the return and each time I did it the prevailing wind was headwind for the longer outward bit.

Yeah could do with some validation of Bromley. It has always been there or thereabouts in this analysis but was consistently coming out high when was experimenting with slightly different low level algorithm tweaks. I also haven’t done as many parkruns as could have done partly as am lazy in the mornings and partly feeling I only want to “race” them and certainly in marathon training wasn’t the priority. I have had a few good confidence boosters along the way though and if just fancy a blast well you can decide literally a few minutes before on the day.

Great work Tim. Could you do more parkrun sandwich runs if you're marathon training?

@@samspade2399 I would still need to get up early on a Saturday - in fact probably earlier :) I think my mindset is also if I turn up for an organised "5K" then I may as well as "try" as I could a "tempo" 5K anywhere. Lots of people do use parkruns as part of a longer run though. Kind of the beauty of them that they can be whatever you want them to be.

Good to hear the stats matches reality. Is that both hilly and muddy?

Yeah I think parkrun only really attempt now to have courses that are more or less 5K and are not measured to road race standards. This analysis does not really take the actual distance into consideration but clearly a course like Pegwell Bay will appear to be fast as it is also short.

I did hear that they were investigating trying to "extend" it but clearly haven't yet.

I was going to do one early in 2024 then the stats gate thing kicked off so thought best to wait to see how that played out. I do intend to do a 2024 update in the not too distant future.

@@TimGrose Many thanks. I look forward to seeing the update in due course.

Ah interesting. Unusual these days for the start and finish to be too far apart. Is the finish more “central” or something?

@@TimGrose I'm not sure, but the start is near where you get off the ferry from Plymouth, and the finish is near the loos and cafe (which is a small walk from the ferry), so maybe that's the reason?

Ah thanks and yeah have had several comments now it is about 200 metres short. What were the conditions like that day? Wasn’t sure if the path next to the water after the Tarmac bit gets muddy/wet in winter.

@@TimGrose it could definitely get muddy and waterlogged I feel. It was windy when we went which made it feel quite chilly. I can imagine a nasty head wind of the wind comes in at the wrong angle too! I feel Victoria Dock was much faster (26.51 in icy conditions) but Pegwell doesn’t have that turning round a cone so you can maintain a rhythm. It does have narrower sections which could make overtaking difficult so it’s interesting it is the fastest now. It’s a beautiful course.

Certain conditions will lead to gps devices measuring a longer / shorter course consistently, such as large obstructions either side of the path or coverage from foliage etc. These could end up being repeatable over a long period of time, which could explain why other devices are experiencing a similar length route. Overall, these devices aren't going to be particularly accurate, but it could be a possibility that it's a bit long :)

@bobandbobandbob in my limited experience the presence of trees and other potential overhead interferences leads to many parkruns reading shorter than 5k. Indeed glossop is my biggest bugbear. With its heavy coverage and tight twisty corners the most it has ever read on my garmin is 4.74k and once read as little as 4.11k! Alderley park is another local one that also reads very short but I have only done that twice whereas glossop is a regular visit for me having done it 6 times now.

Yeah you could argue this is perhaps also an indirect analysis of the shortest and longest parkruns given they are only measured to being a notional 5K. GPS error is always a factor but if you see every single trace you look at measures long or short then they can't all be wrong and 0.3 K is huge. Even for fast runners on a flat road course that is a good minute. Since I got Multi GPS on the Forerunner 955 my distances on "known" courses have been "more or less" correct. Something would be very odd to come up 5.3K if was really 5K.

Yes see the pinned post.

Eden Project used to come very quick but always did strike me as a bit of an issue with my algorithm so that was a good to test of an revised one. Exmouth has got to be up there with the best of them if not too windy? What about Penrose? It is close to other parkruns I have one that have been reasonably quick.

Teignmouth Prom must be one of Devon's fastest, but is at 261 - which is a surprise. Exeter at 396 is slower that I'd expect Agree that all other Devon & Cornwall runs I have done have been utter b'stards!

@@TimGrose I honestly have been out of the Parkrun game for a long time! I haven't actually run one since Jan 2016, due to work and injuries. Plan to get back to it, but sadly won't be anything near full gas! Lanhydrock is the only one I've actually run at, and not the newer (possibly slightly easier) route! Can't wait to dust off the barcode and visit some others as fitness rebuilds!

@@johnlbirch we are certainly blessed with hills and mud down here! Wishing I was fitter though, as I'm up near the Teignmouth Parkrun for work currently, would love a change of scene and some speed!

Yeah I think it would still be a fairly quick course regardless of the length.

Good idea and I have tried to work that out but it is actually quite difficult to be accurate as if you just take one instance then it is heavily dependent on who runs and if they all "try". With this type of analysis am trying to take out those sort of things. By and large though the fast ones will always be so and vice versa. Of course if it is windy or wet/muddy underfoot on any one day then that is going to slow things. Obviously, wind aside, less of an issue on all Tarmac/hard compacted courses as all the fast ones are.

@@TimGrose Yes, I understand it would be tricky, and that is why I suggested maybe taking the 10th fastest day, to try and remove some of the anomaly. I was just there are still some fast courses that involve some grass, that in the winter will be significantly slower than when it hasn't rained for a few weeks, Bushy Park for example. On a fast day, it surely has to be a very fast course considering Andy's WR but, in the winter, or when it's rained, I imagine it is significantly slower

Thanks for the info. I suspected it was something like that. Did they decide it would be impractical to finish 200m past the current finish on the path that I think has been Tarmaced (or similar) in the last year or so?

Ah good stuff. How did you get on?

19:00 (2nd) very happy with that. I've been running regularly for 5 years with reasonably high mileage (50-60) for the past 12 months.

Just made a reply about a similar situation at Bideford. Like there the 2022 Cheltenham ranking list www.thepowerof10.info/rankings/rankinglist.aspx?event=parkrun&agegroup=ALL&sex=O&year=2022&venue=Cheltenham still does show ones in the summer. It would be hard to model as parkrun does not centrally record what course was used. You could probably work it out for a few by word of mouth and/or Strava analysis but not all 760 current UK ones and ever growing. When I did look at things say from Apr to Sep as opposed to Oct to Mar there was very little difference at the very fastest or slowest ends as you kind of would have expect as that is why they are where they are. Be something to look for a future update for sure though.

@@TimGrose Wimpole also has a flatter, less grassy, winter course. The summer course is famously hilly.

Thanks Ian. Out of interest when did the Poole course change come into effect ? I did it Xmas Day 2019 and it was so crowded. At one time I sort of went through a tree as had nowhere else to go :) I ran well for me though and made good room for Xmas dinner! "Hard" and "Slow" maybe aren't always the same thing. Here statistically it is "slow" I am looking at. Looking at the Whinlatter clip it looks like you could get into an uphill TT rhythm but it just will be slow because of all the net uphill. The other two you mention look "proper hard" because of the constant changes of gradient and surfaces.

Poole changed course when it came back from Covid. This was mainly to suit the core team as it made it easier to set up and pack away. Whinlatter is hard but you can run it all, whereas some sections of Durlston are un-runable to all except the strongest. The dune of doom stops everyone running at Woolacombe, though the 1+ mile along the beach in the right conditions can be super quick. Regards.

17:27 is the fastest can see in a UK one but we have only got access to UK parkrun data as UK is our remit for runbritainrankings & Power of 10. We also agreed with parkrun and UK Athletics not to show U11 rankings as neither organisation wants the U11 age group to be more about fun than serious competition.

Yes see the pinned post and yeah Durlston just "looks" tough! I wonder if those paths get slippery/muddy ? It looked nice dry, summery weather in Danny Norman's video.

As I understand it, Durlston's now officially the hilliest Parkrun in the UK. Poole is my local run, but I hopped over to Durlston a few weeks ago. Being at opposite ends of this list, they are certainly very different!

@@lewiy curious as to what reference you are looking at for hilly parkruns and then is that some sort of measure of elevation change throughout or the difference between start & finish heights (which must surely be Whinlatter) ?

@Tim Grose I think they've based it on total elevation change. It starts and finishes in the same place. Good point though, there's more than one way to measure these things!

@Tim Grose incidentally I recorded 212m of elevation.

Good to know thanks! I have been to a few where had to avoid some ducks :) Broadwater near Guildford is one recent I can recall.

Ah I am starting to know that feeling. Being so tall I fear one day an 11 year old will run "under" me :) By my "old" method Yarborough was top 10 but after so few runs there so far it seemed "better" to opt for this more conservative view of the newer ones.

I have just put the link in the pinned post.

@@TimGrose Excellent. Thanks.

Thanks! If you would like to see my reply to Darren Annis just now covers a lot of those points. Which courses have you done which that might apply?

@@TimGrose sorry missed that one. All fair points. Seven Fields and Tetbury Goods Shed are ones I’ve done that often have an alternative course due to boggy/flooded fields over winter. Being based in Swindon it looks like I have to travel a fair way (25+ miles) just to get somewhere that scrapes in the top100 (Chipping Sodbury), though geography isn’t my strong point. Severn Bridge was always on my list for a fast attempt, but seems to have dropped quite a lot of places with your new calcs.

@@benwalter9457 I did the very first Swindon one (when it was still called that)! Looking at my best times/runs in parkruns then a lot of them came out at venues outside the Top 100. Often it was due to a good weather morning on a dry course and some motivation and freshness. Also there are so many now that the differences between those say around 100th and 200th aren't very much at all - 15 secs at most.

Yes will do an update before too long. I was going to do one by now but then with the stats issues of late thought might be best for that storm to blow over a bit more.

The algorithm does favour "ideal" conditions as it takes the fastest run by each parkrunner at an event in the period of question assuming they meet the criteria for inclusion like having enough other performances to compare with. Besides conditions can't have been too bad on the day Andy Butchart set the current global parkrun record here.

I do Edinburgh and Perth quite regularly and i've worked out that there is roughly an 18 second difference between the two. Edinburgh being the slower course because it's longer.

@@TimGrose Also Andy Butchart said in an interview with Andrew Baddeley that the head wind that day at Edinburgh was strong.

@@travellingshoes5241 ah so with Perth being 20th and Edinburgh 32nd with about 0.2 SSS difference that it is quite close to how you find them relatively. You asked about a negative SSS but can't see the comment. One way is if the course is short.

@@TimGrose Yes, I deleted that comment about minus SSS at Pegwell because I realised that the reason for this would be because the course is short.

How does your 18:51 compare to your best times on other parkrun courses?

@@TimGrose 18.41 on the road Tim

@@declanmorrison8566 ah pretty close. However fast a parkrun might be, would typically not expect it to quite as fast as a road race on a good course.

If it is "long" that certainly won't help! Opposite problem to Pegwell Bay. Also the algorithm will tend to downgrade newer parkruns as less runners will have had a chance to really try there. I thought it best to do it that way rather than maybe artificially inflate newer ones. There were several new ones on Saturday just gone (15th) that at least I was able to include "somewhere". One of those looked very fast "on paper" but this time the relative times weren't that fast.

Statistically there was really next to nothing between them - maybe a second if that! MUSA did surprise me a bit but just the way the stats came out. I did wonder that the Victoria one might just attract more of those club runners and this analysis is about relative performance of each runner and not necessarily the absolute fastest times which is more dependent on who runs as an elite runner will run fast anywhere. As a mini sanity check Tommy Hughes has ran faster at MUSA than Victoria although has ran more often at MUSA. Have you ran both and, if so, how do your times compare ?

I agree Victoria is the fastest.

I did a sanity check. 81 parkrunners have run both events since 2021. The average of their best times is 22:30 for MUSA and 22:33 for Belfast Victoria. So hopefully you can see why "statistically" these two events are coming out basically the same in this analysis.

Also the fastest athlete can see who has done both is www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=642103 Gavin Corey and his best times at each event (in 2021/2) are virtually identical.

@@TimGrose thanks Tim I appreciate you doing the research.

One I feel I must try sometime!

Yeah know what you mean. I would personally probably be nearer to my 250 parkrun shirt than only bit past my 100 one if jumping out of bed on Saturday mornings rather early was something was better at. That said when I have it generally has been very worthwhile as get a hard run in early and then got all day to do whatever.

@@TimGrose me too! 😂

Unfortunately no parkruns for a while now in Paris or indeed France anymore. All cancelled due to French law requirement for each runner to have a medical certificate

@@FilmMyRun oh really ! Is it France that listed the results without positions as it "really" isn't a race there either?

@@TimGrose no I haven’t heard that. I was always given a position at Bois de Boulogne parkrun

Is that your local one? It looks pretty much in the middle of the list.

@@TimGrose yes that is my local park run

This Saturday I am doing my 32th park run I am

Yes see the pinned post.

Yes it is the slowest one I have actually done in the list and indeed that is how I found it.

Yes there could well be variances for the factors you mention. My "local" Bushy Park is a good example of a course that isn't really that fast but is undoubtedly most weeks the most "competitive". This analysis is largely based on what happens in the "best" conditions but the fastest courses are all mainly on surfaces like Tarmac that aren't that weather dependent and similarly the slowest ones are either very hilly and off road or on sand. Also the differences between courses at the "fast" end (bar the very short Pegwell Bay) are pretty marginal so a good runner on a decent day will probably run pretty fast on any course inside the Top 200 or so. Equally the "winner" will have little effect on the stats as am looking at much deeper numbers of runners. That said I only take runners down to about 25 minutes largely as I found that slower than that there are generally isn't enough data to compare parkrun times to say race times. But I would argue by that and large a course that is fast for a sub 20 runner will generally be so for anybody and vice versa.

@@TimGrose Ah, that's interesting, I just assumed the coefficients were based on an average of all events that year and all runners. I think the differences between the course and field conditions to get the best out of a 20 minute runner and a 15 mi runner would be fairly significant. In terms of field Influences, a 20 minute runner will always have people to run with and will be unlikely to encounter significant numbers of lapped runners on the majority of courses. In terms of courses, tight bends really affect the runner trying to maintain miles in the low 5s or under compared to the mid 6s. Remember, the kinetic energy required (or needed to retain) at a certain speed is depended on speed squared (physics teacher alert!).

@@TimGrose I think there would be some good interest (if my running mates or anything to go by) in doing a similar list for 10k races too. Road times seem to be the holly grail these days and people are always searching for the fastest races - the Trafford 10k seems to be the go to race in the north as it is on flat country lanes and has a stacked field - most years it has an SSS of zero or negative and you would typically need to be in at least 30s better shape to run the same kind of time anywhere else. But it would be interesting to see if there are any other decent courses out there that perhaps aren't particularly visible with a quick scan down the top of the run Britain 10k rankings, but nevertheless yield decent SSS scores. If there was a decent course then a training group rocking up en mass would still be able to come away with decent times. I appreciate it's probably harder to do given that you would have to either use just last year's results or mess about trying to compile multiple year's results which presumably aren't linked/filterable in the way parkruns are.

@@AG82Ross I was effectively the 5 min mile pace 5K runner now more like 6. Don’t like the corners relatively matter that much. When younger I was lighter on my feet and able to accelerate out of them just that bit faster. As for road races yes the competition can help a lot. In recent years I have ran well for me at Beachley, Eastleigh, Chessington. Otherwise I often look at previous years results and Strava to see what might expect.

@@TimGrose Interesting that the south doesn't seem to have these 'super 10ks' with massive depth like in the North. Even a relatively new race like the Cheshire 10k (clashed with the northern 12 stage that weekend too) I was around 60th with a mid 33 and only around 5th or so over 40.

As a rule of thumb, 1.0 SSS points is about 30 seconds. Or, being more precise, for 17:00 runners it is more like 27 seconds. So if you lookup the SSS of one parkrun and compare it with another you should get an idea. Of course that assumes conditions on the day are similar.

Guess it depends on the actual gradient. I went full out up 5% Box Hill one time which is roughly 2 miles and that was about a minute slower than could have done on the flat at the time. I did a flat out downhill TT last year just a bit shallower and over 5K I was about a minute quicker than the flat. The run back up for warm down was a crawl :)

Have to admit there isn't anything that specific publically available. Perhaps I ought to. www.runbritainrankings.com/handicaps/calculator.aspx is my "test" page. Feel free to experiment with that. Further, on your profile page on runbritainrankings.com your can input a time and an approx SSS and see how that might impact your handicap. Handicaps are taken from the average of your 5 best adjusted scores (i.e. the basic score + SSS)

​@@TimGrose Thanks. I've had a look, but I must say I'm a bit at sea with the complexity, and am unfamiliar with 'handicaps'. When I originally took an interest in parkrun course difficulties, it was specifically in pursuit of getting some idea of how much I was being slowed down by the nature of the course. My instinct was, a course's 'difficulty' should be a convenient measure of how much it slows you down, relative to an ideal flat one. But I get the impression that 'Standard Scratch Scores', the things you focus on here, haven't really been developed with that in mind - hence (if I'm reading you right) making an answer to my question problematic. I'd encourage you to pursue it though, because I do think it's a question a lot of parkrunners running non-ideal courses would be interested in. I was surprised not to find it specifically addressed, when I first looked around some months ago.

@@BadCyborgMovies The SSS scores and all that was really for the handicaps on runbritainrankings.com Please lookup yourself and see which parkruns (or races) contribute to your handicap. The golf style handicaps and SSS scores are intended to standardise the assessment of performance over any distance from 800 metres upwards. The original idea was a handicap score based on running performances would be too skewed to fast courses so the SSS was an attempt to standardise things so that whenever you raced (or did a parkrun) then your relative performance compared to previously and others was as important as the actual time and you could improve your handicap as much (in theory) on a hard course on a tough day to a fast course on a good day.

@@TimGrose A commendable system I'm sure. But I do wonder about the potential for a system purely for the world of parkruns and parkrunners, with a view towards it being simpler and less technical to deal with. And with the much narrower focus, perhaps it would also have better predictive power (for giving someone an idea of what their time on one course might translate to on _another_ course). Just an idea though.

Might need to get down there to see if can roll the clock back :)

@@TimGrose 😂

Yes see the pinned post.

Yeah have heard that. Has it been better in recent weeks when lot drier ?

@@TimGrose in the dry it’s a pretty off road course. Not quick, because somewhat undulating.

Yeah seems could be about 200m short or more like 3 miles than 5K

Simplistically the vSSS score on your runbritainrankings.com profile page gives an idea of how well you did compared to expectation based on your previous races and parkruns. If that is negative you did well and better than expected. Also the default order in which your races and parkruns are presented on your profile page is an effective ordering of your best races although older races have a "time penalty" added to try and best reflect your current handicap based on recent form.

@@TimGrose thanks for this, my profile on the website only appears to have one of my park runs even though I’ve linked the account, any idea why that might happen?

@@georgesayles5040 is this you www.runbritainrankings.com/runners/profile.aspx?athleteid=685757 If so fair few parkruns on there.

@@TimGrose yeah I think it just took a while to populate

No problems there. We have the data and parkrun haven't said we can't continue to use it.

How far away is this years list?

Yeah Homewood I have done once as I live in Surrey and it was rather tough. Certainly would not travel there for a fast time.

Almost first. Fabian needs to watch out!

Am working on it!

@@TimGroseAwesome! Always look forward to these 👍🏻🙂

Today’s results / records pages changes / removals by parkrun may have a big impact on your ability to now calculate this! I hope not, though!

@@oliverhughes2122 No problem there because it is just based of each parkrunner's times which aren't being removed as it were.

@@TimGrose Great!

Yes. They obviously don't do other parkruns or races for comparison.

@@TimGrose never knew there was park runs in prisons!

@@JackD87 yeah quite a few now.

It did look that way on the video but is it "fast" though? The stats suggest it is but seems to be some doubt.

I had a look at your stats and when you did it seemed to be one of your fastest ever parkruns at the time.

I maybe should go back to see. I would describe Belfast Victoria as flat.

Just the way the stats come out and I see the male course record is slightly faster at Wycombe Rye. What's your reasoning though? Do you personally run faster at Leamington? Don't forget these stats are based on when the courses are generally fastest so need to really compare dry days with little mud on the ground.

Sorry was doing intervals 😅

Good excuse but it was a near dip finish this time. Do you have parkrun where you are ?

@Tim Grose we do but not many yet. I "won" the first Park run in Groningen last year we had 5k and a 10k course. I did 10k was a night park run. Very impressive