A fine mess

Parkrun is a free weekly timed / position finish run beloved to a number of blippers.

Every Saturday 9am loads of locations across the uk and now overseas.. same distance 5k. Run by volunteers and you can go as fast or slow as you like and the comradery is fantastic.

Full event results are sent to all entrants with time and position. Sometimes I run hard to get a time… sometimes I run slower to take the event photos

Until last week and since 2004 each course had a male / female/ course record / age category best times too.

Now because a tiny number of trans runners have broken a couple of course records the nanny state board has removed all the records allegedly because records are apparently anti inclusive Many don’t care about the records but many do and there are a lot of people might annoyed. Woke wars hit parkrun with funding threats etc

At the professional level the whole trans issue has caused major headaches and cycling and athletics for example have excluded trans competitors from women’s events where born male. Whether one agrees or not I can see in sport why those governing bodies have decided that.

Parkrun… is fun … seems a great shame the records have been wiped

We also know the way this can be weaponised in other areas… JK Rowling getting death threats and being subject to cancel culture.

It’s a great shame when there is a lot of tolerance in this country …but these battles seem to create more antagonism. Never going to please all the people all the time… for me this was a poor decision…. Respect to all !