Parkrunners set to protest this weekend, plus why I’m non-plussed by the Hardest Geezer’s athleticism
The campaign by parkrunners to “bring back the stats” reaches crunch point in coming days with a co-ordinated protest on Saturday (April 13) and a face-to-face meeting with parkrun chief executive Russ Jefferys on April 27.
Almost 25,000 people have signed one of two online petitions calling for course and age category records to be returned to the parkrun website. This weekend runners are also planning to support what is being called “The Big Bring Back the Stats Saturday”.
Will Hartley, one of the campaigners, says: “The protest is simply to run or volunteer at your local parkrun, take a selfie and post the photo up on social media, potentially on your local parkrun Facebook page in a positive way to show support and encourage parkrun to bring back the stats.”
T-shirts can be bought here but Hartley adds: “Some people may want to wear their own home-made shirts rather than buying them, which is cool, others may choose to not enter the funnel or not scan their barcode. But the main thing is we are showing some awareness and reminding parkrun to take our meeting on April 27 seriously.”
Hartley and Mary Taylor, the latter being the writer of the main petition, plan to use their meeting with Jefferys to voice the concerns of the thousands who have signed the petitions.
He says: “We want the fastest 500, age-graded league, sub-17 male, sub-20 female, age-category lists, most events, most national first finishes and first finishers, and all the rest of them back for those that just plain like them and those that got a sense of achievement from them!
“Another important point that has come up in the last two months,” he adds, “is that people feel they don’t have a say in parkrun and the decisions just come top down, their focus groups and listening to brand ambassadors isn’t enough, and as a community organisation parkrun should have ordinary parkrunners from around the world represented in some way in running parkrun and their decision making.”
Why I’m going all Ebenezer about the Hardest Geezer
Kudos to the Hardest Geezer for running the length of Africa and raising more than £700,000 for charity in the process.
Yet I’m not sure I agree with fellow journalists who have gushingly described him as an “endurance athlete” and potential BBC sports personality of the year winner.
Some have called his year-long…
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