As much as they hate to say it’s a race, they still give you a time and position. These are merely statistics that people work and train hard for, no reason to remove it.

don't like this new decision. we know it is all inclusive because we have park walkers who are fairly new. I am not fast by any means but love all the stats and seeing our top locals doing well.

Something few people mention is that Parkrun stats can also be extremely important and motivating for those with disorders such as OCD or ADHD, it can be really helpful for some seeing a visible structure and being able to monitor progress, shame they’ve done this really.

I think it's a bad idea. If they say it's not supposed to be competitive then why bother to time it and hand out positional tokens. I thought being competitive was all about encouraging people to do better.

As a 16-17 minute runner I was planning on targeting a few of the smaller ones to try and snatch a course record - don't see why they had to ruin that, why would it matter to the slow runners what the course record is anyway

This made me lose motivation to go for course records resulting in not wanting to do parkrun at all. This decision will lose much more faster runners and will make a lot more people less motivated to turn up. Disgraceful from parkrun.

Ridiculous decision. They may as well remove timing and positions as well. In fact, why even bother making it 5k? People may as well just meet up, run for a bit. Go home.

The main Park Run rationale makes no sense: Concern that fast runners participating will put other runners off taking part...? Last I checked some fairly handy athletes run the London Marathon - and that seems to be a fairly popular event with other runners.

Nothing screams competition more than listing everyone's times in finishing order. Scraping out the age grade and category things removes some fun and motivation for folk like us in our 50s who are way past pbs but still competitive against our age group peers. Complete nonsense from parkrun. They're losing the plot.

Cole, as a straight white male your opinion is every bit as valid as anyone else. Cheers.

Parkrun is removing interest this way. It will be less attractive for people who are at least little bit competitive and therefore less inclusive overall. We'll see :). Weird decision in my opinion.

These changes are really bad news. As an older runner (76), I get my weekly motivation by doing well in relation to my age group. Now all those stats have been removed it will be far less interesting and motivational. I may even stop doing parkrun.

Now something as simple as park run has got political, when will it end. I've never come close to winning a park run and I don't see anything wrong with the current format

Are they gonna take the finish line away too in case people get upset that someone else got there first??!? Absolute nonsense by ParkRun.

Disgraceful decision. I’m instantly demotivated.

We live in a pathetic society.

What really annoys me about this situation is that a lot of people who have such a strong opinion probably never volunteer at the event. Personally it doesn't overly bother me (and I have done a lot of parkruns - 326!), but what bothers me is that I rarely see the faster runners, let alone elites, ever volunteer. If they are going to moan so much about parkrun, then at least volunteer and give back to the community as the event is meant to be focused on.

For me I think absolutely sucks. I do park run and find the stats fascinating. I'm 52 and have improved my times over the past 2 years. It's the stats that have pushed me onto my pb of 18.39. It's the stats that make me want to improve and beat my own personal times. I'm not competing against anyone else just my own personal goals. I just think it's a shame.

If it's true and Parkrun are doing this then they're the problem

The end result affects everyone, so I think it's fair that men can talk about it. It's unfortunate that the solution in this case was the nuclear option. One aspect of inclusivity that can be considered is allowing people of different motivations to show up to parkrun. Now they are setting themselves up to cater to the subset that aren't primarily motivated stats. It might not be the majority, but it's still a loss. Personally, I'm not affected by this change, but this is a debate that we need to have and will continue to come up in sporting contexts. Going genderless is a disservice to women's sports. We split the categories for a reason.

I appreciate you addressing this topic and your viewpoint . It’s unfortunate the world is heading in the direction of wokeness.

Awful decision by parkrun. Got 6 course records and it was a challenge every week to add another first place finish. The stats were great to scan through afterwards and check out the fastest times. Not attending tomorrow.

I get that you're scared of being 'cancelled', but that's exactly the reason this mess still exists. I often get posts deleted by youtube, when I talk about this (as carefully as possible), because it's pretty heavily censored. I loved seeing Sharron Davies chiming in, that woman is an absolute champ when it comes to this topic.

Maybe the solution could be simple. when you subscribe to ParkRun you can choose or not: A) I want to be included in runner's finisher list for that run B) I want to be in result list C) I want to be considered a man/woman and be in gender result list D) I declare I'm X year old and I want to be in age result list. In this way you can run "likes a Ghost" and disappear from statistics. Either you can have all the stats with people who want to share this

This is really annoying .I really enjoyed the competitive aspect of parkrun. The whole thing about the gender thing really pisses me off because it is such a small minority of people who have to ruin it for everybody else. There are Male and Female runners, that’s it.

All that has changed is that two data items have been removed from the home page of each venue. The fastest time by a male and the fastest time by a female. Nothing else has changed so far as I am aware. All the results are exactly the same with age categories and percentages etc. What's the problem? If you want to judge whether it's a fast course, just look at some of the results

It's a real shame that they're removing the fastest finisher and age grade stats. Nobody is offended by having these stats published and it certainly doesn't put people off taking part. It's a completely unnecessary change.

Agree 100% Cole! The running community is genuinely so kind and supportive of each other, everyone is just getting it done. No need to change a concept that provided a great community and event for runners of all abilities!

I personally love park run and use it as a time trial to see if I have progressed or regressed. Don't run it too often but a few times a year is great for me ❤🎉

The people who should be removed are those that have run 100's of parkrun and never volunteered.

What’s inclusive about not catering for faster runners? We all run for our own reasons: health, social, challenge, competition… whatever, but now those who are motivated by the competitive element and the data have had it taken away.

transgenders should be a separate category across all sports as well as park runs . A human born male shouldn't be competing with females . Its a huge injustice

This is the day parkrun jumped the shark. I'll still do parkrun, I bet most of the local teams are as unimpressed as the rest of us. However from now on I have no interest in anything parkrun HQ or their sponsors may say and I certainly won't make another donation.

I remember one parkrun sprinting for the finish aware of someone gaining on me. I was almost done approaching the funnel when I heard a frantic shout "Don't slow, don't slow!". I staggered across the line just a second ahead of the man behind me. When I checked the results I found he had got a PB trying to wind me in. Of course it's a race.

What a heap of nonsense, I don't have an parkrun records but I always look at sub 17min and first Finishers list, always like looking at course records, parkrun is flying it, leave it as it is, great community spirit

Oh no I have only just started doing this since start of this year and had been doing well. Don’t start messing with the results!!!

One of the most motivational and best metrics has been removed, less of a reason to visit the local Parkrun sites. They have ruined it for the vast majority of the silent majority. Crazy!

Well as a media stunt its done them wonders TBH , now more people have heard of parkrun

It’s been a fun run since 2008. Stats will still be published; I just feel bad for people whose life happiness is driven by their performance in a fun run.

I remember when my son was 10, a big part of his motivation for turning up with me to park run was trying to improve his time and move him self up his age category table, no harm in that. Im sure there are quite a few kids like him.

I use the fastest time as a general indicator of the nature of the parkrun. I’m by no means fast, but helps give an indicator of the nature of the course. Comparing this data with my own times gives me a much better idea of my likely time for the events, and helps me set personal challenges. Anyone who attends know these are not about winning, but personal fitness and challenges. The park walkers element is great, encourages people to join and supports those not able to run or just getting into it.

As for them saying it may stop new parkrunners joining I think the stats say bullcrap to that

Parkrun among other things...it has essentially always been a time trial...the stats are important and not just for the very quickest...it effects all ages...so now you cant celebrate when someone breaks an age grade record at an event..for example my local parkrun had the over 75 category broken recently a great achievement and now they have just whipped the rug from underneath them a real pity

Complicating something so simple is no fun for anyone.

As always, hope your injury eventually clears up Cole! I'm injured as well and I have to say cross training is getting a little stale. Can't wait for your full recovery

Glad you shared your views on this Cole. I think Parkrun has made a poor decision. The politics around funding is difficult to navigate - and Parkrun has got caught up in it all!

It is a difficult topic, you want everyone to be able to take part and have fun with their sport in a way that's most comfortable for them. I don't think there's a clear answer yet with regards to trans participation. I know a number of trans women and on the whole, not many of them participate in competitive sports because they're scared to. A lot of spaces are still inherantly hostile to a lot of the LGBTQ community. There's just not enough trans women competing at the elite level for any proper studies to have been carried out yet on things like force production (obviously we're talking about women who have at least gone through hormonal transition), so there's still a lot we don't know about the effects of hormonal transition on the body, particularly the long term effects. I know trans women who have gone through hormonal treatment and basically had to start over from scratch with their sport because of the sheer loss of power they experienced and the adjustment that came with it. People come in so many different shapes and sizes and there have been multiple examples over the years of men who have some biological quirk that happens to make them particularly good at a sport, biology is just really complicated and a system somewhat similar to what the paralympics use would potentially be more applicable in the long term. A system where people are grouped based on physical characteristics. I know they also group people by gender in the paralympics but the category system could potentially be the one that presents the fairest outcome for everyone. In Caster Semenyas case she does still compete, but she was prohibited from competing in distances of 1500m or shorter. She's mostly runs the 5k now and while she does well in meets in South Africa she doesn't place particularly well when she competes elsewhere on the world stage. She's clearly more suited to the shorter distances. I'm on the other end of the scale in that where available, I register in an open category for races because I'm NB, but I usually have to register in the womens/female field. It's not something that stresses me out, I'd be running against a tiny number of people if every race had a non-binary category but where the open category is available I find it a good challenge to see how many men I can beat 🤣 For parkrun I switched my account to essentially be 'no gender' and I obviously no longer get age graded results or gender results because I guess although they make it possible for you to register as Non Binary on the Parkrun site, they haven't actually coded in what that looks like on the results tables haha. I did the same on Strava and chasing strava segments on the overall leaderboard has also been pretty motivating. Bloody hell that was an essay.

Im a age group regional female runner and this is pure wicked bigotry against women

Maybe switch things up...person finishing last wins? (can one say win?) this would incentivise everyone to go as slow as possible 😊

Parkrun Lost the Plot

As long as the results are still posted to power of 10, I don’t really mind

After like 60 consecutive parkrun I did over 14 months period, today I just not looking forward to parkrun even though I never come first with 5k PB time of 21 mins. But I do admire talented runners who can do sub 17 like you Cole.. come on Cole. I also want to know who is the top athlete runners in my parkrun so something I can admire and respect and I turn motivate me to do better.. keep a few seconds closer to these top runners are my goals. Without record, there is no point and target time to focus on running. Of course, we all know that parkrun is not a race, so we can do moderate run and not full blowout run.. now maybe I just walk or not even attend anymore. 😢….. BOYCOTT Parkrun!!

All they have to do is just add some more categories, not deny access to/erase all historical and future data because inclusivity. Why not just ban overtaking at parkruns in case anyone is offended by the privileged runners being competitive?

I Think the flaw in any of the transgender associated arguments is the false dichotomy that's perpetuated. When you sign up for parkrun and choose your gender, there's not two options, there's 4 options, so... The issue seems to be that parkrun are trying to fit 4 categories into 2? Sure you can fit everything into the one category of "runner" but you can just as easily fit 4 categories into.... .... 4 categories. This really isn't complicated.

That also means the world records are removed, thats a big deal. I liked seeing where i was on the age group table for an event and trying to improve. The link from results pages is now removed.

Don't care either way, I only do the park run to gauge my own fitness and while I'm normally near the front I understand it's more to help people into running and fitness. I take a lot from watching the slower and first time runners participating ans I don't think it will make a lot of odds to them.

Sometimes feel people are kidding themselves with parkrun. They aren't all accurate 5ks and people blatantly take shortcuts etc. Go and do a proper race if that is what you are after. Feel that Cole's KZfaq audience isn't the majority of park runners. Feel that parkrun have stuck to their guns, refusing to get involved in some of the debates and thrown a curved ball that nobody was expecting. It's primary a community event to help get people fitter and healthier, mentally and physically. Anything else is secondary, including decent runners being able to bask in the 'glory' of running a fast parkrun. They have extricated themselves from being between a rock and a hard place, although have upset a few people.

I liked glancing at the fastest 500, the club list times have gone - I don’t get that 😢🤦‍♂️. On reflection the format hasn’t changed since I started running early 2018.

I love parkrun but this latest move makes no sense and will be a turn off for many.

Will the results still be going onto Power of 10?

Being a white straight male doesn't make your opinion worth less than someone else on this topic. It's sad that you think this.

Did park run get it wrong from the beginning by giving us too many stats, it certainly wasn't a factor for me to go park running, times change we move on as a running community and hopefully you will be supporting park run this saturday

The saddest thing about society now is highlighted by the part of you saying you don’t want to get cancelled so you won’t say anything else.

Such is the woke society we live in. It’s not fair you’re a better runner than me Cole! That’s the type mentality we have to put up with these days. Need to stop celebrating mediocrity.

I feel bad for the older people who have course records or anyone who has a record for that matter!

I'm sorry you'll never have the glory of appearing above DC on the Whitstable Parkrun fastest 500 results 😢 It seems really strange that they'd take these fairly obscure stats away to increase participation. For a lot of people Parkrun is a great gateway in to the sport, a really important way of increasing levels of physical activity and bringing the next generation of runners through. Wishing you a speedy recovery on the injury!

Watch this space: alphabetical result listings and eventually timing removal all inbound.

It is a for the better least I don't have to be jealous of people run sub 17 minutes 5 km if you help get to 18:20 which I was waiting for 10 years then I change my comment if not I'm ok with that as well I hope lock down comes back to make are life miserable again so lock down please come back

Parkrun became woke

I liked seeing if I could get anywhere near the V40 records. Did hold a few but hey ho can still try and improve. It's a can of worms Parkrun can't afford to open I guess.

So the event pages and personal pages are the same. I also didn't know you could find general stats . . . so, means nothing to me. And, yeah, if you're a record lover then maybe run some real races, not a ParkRun? It's a community fun run, not a race. (Pretty sure you get no World Athletics Ranking Points for winning your local ParkRun!)

Given the Semenya situation, isn’t it better and fair to categorize ‘men’ and ‘women’ by levels of testosterone, rather than sex or gender? Absolutely agree that people can identify however they want, but sport is about the capability of your body, not your feelings…

If they stop timing it or the they take away individual pbs that is the beginning of the end for the event.

You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. Parkrun - how about we please none of the people all of the time. Huge step backwards. Trying to appease a tiny percentile and managing to fail epicly

Most of the important stats are still there and I cannot spot how anything specific has been done to address any trans-women issues. The removal which makes most sense to bring back is the age group records and searchability for competitive people who want to see how they rank in their own category. Juniors and vets. Overall male and female records are available on individual event pages. With all courses being unique there isn't any precision in trying to compare them like for like anyway. Personally I'd drop the % of WR irrelevance as well. Most Olympic tracks don't have pushchairs and pensioners as obstacles who could send you crashing into the steeplechase hazard if you cut your pass too fine.

Have people misunderstood the news (or have I!?), but do people think they won't get a time, a position and they won't be able to look at their own history? That's not my understanding.

Parkrun is in a very difficult position here, as the gender recognition act exemption for gender affected sports only applies to secure fair competition or where required for safety. Parkrun isn't a race per se, and so I suspect if they did insist on people using sex at birth they'd then be at risk of being in breach of the GRA...

Why don’t the stop timing parkruns and just publish the people who complete the 5km run. Job done.

Boycott it. You don’t need Parkrun for your own times. Get yourself Strava. Pathetic times we live in.

"Diplomatic" yea right

Why not just make 2 transgender category’s? It’s a win all round. Just a load of woke bollocks

Participation medals all round!

You’re not “privileged” to be what you are. Don’t fall for all this BS

Not trying to be controversial, but trans people running parkrun isn't an actual issue. Parkrun already wasn't meant to be a race and it's not like trans people are dominating parkrun 😱. Everyone getting angry about this, just calm down.

My comments keep getting removed!...not very inclusive behaviour.

This event runs very deep in our community, especially with the volunteers as it’s a great way for everyone to relax after a long work week and actually mix in a friendly environment. Taking away this valuable element will deter so many of us who run and I fear could be the death of many Parkruns around Australia. Such a disappointment

Such a shame

Since this decision is closely tied to Govt funding, we can’t blame Parkrun HQ. However, Parkrun is not the Olympics…..! I’m getting just a little tired of everything changing because of damn minority groups. I see their point but I don’t particularly support it. Keep messing around with Parkrun at it’s peril. I feel sorry for those who have invested years in Parkrun only to see it fall prey to issues like this.

Yep, parkrun has really faceplanted!

Hi Cole being a white male is not a privilege don’t ever apologise for who you are.

...aaaand here we go again. When they'll start to reduce the height of NBA' basketball baskets so that nobody may feel "not included". I'm sorry but this is not the way.

Would the records be on strava?

It's obviously a trans issue that they understandably just don't want to touch with a 20ft pole. It is a shame but I can't blame park run for doing it.

I am not impacted by the loss of stats although i did enjoy the age category stats but primarily just for self improvement. Parkrun is a free 5km social run that you put into what you feel able or want to on the day , supported and facilitated by an army of volunteers. I do not get the obsession with stats apart from your own use to motivate you. Regards the transgender issue that has been raised, if i was a woman that had held a fastest time and a transgender runner ran faster i really would not care in the context of parkrun, .. Caster Semenya case is not a good comparison, i really did feel for her as a young athlete and her biology being scrutinised by the world media, she trained hard , has higher testosterone levels, .... she can compete but only at certain distances, ... There are men that stand on the start line , i am thinking of 100 metres Usain Bolt, nature gifted him a fantastic physique, he had an advantage over a smaller athlete, so many factors to consider besides hormone levels.... Caster simply did not fit the media idea of what a woman should look like, i believe if she had more curves, softer features and dare i say it ,been a white european athlete, then i think she would have had far more support. I have digressed, apologies. Summary, parkrun is still available, go and run it if you want and share on strava if that is your thing, thanks Cole for a great and clear overview, and I hope you get some clarity on your injury and recovery can begin asap,

Imagine taking funding away from Park Run when it keeps so much of the country active. It's not like you win prize money.

Cole - if you sit on the fence too long, you'd get splinters on your bum 🙂

It's still a great, fun Saturday morning activity for people of all ages whatever their background or however they identify. Everyone is welcome and you don't even have to run. It's a shame that these statistics have upset some people. I'm male but totally support fairness for women. Nuff said!

Just give the trans their own records, I think we should strike against Parkrun! I was hoping to make the top 100 this year, not worth getting out of bed now

I’m not going to share my Strava data anymore. Don’t be 👀 at my Strava records! I identify as a beaver so don’t think it’s right for anyone to see them

Has it ruined Parkrun? No. Could they have handled it better? Yes. This is a run, not a race.