 Right, we are going to talk about Parkrun because Parkrun has completely lost the plot. I love Parkrun. I've been attending Parkrun events since 2011. I'm not prolific. I've done 225, which works out at an average of around 17 Parkruns per year since I started. It's a fantastic community-driven event helping to get people outdoors, get people running and keep people motivated and challenged each week. And I'm all for inclusion. I want everyone to feel like they can take part in Parkrun. And I don't mind events evolving, moving, changing with the times, which is why I fully supported initiatives like ParkWalk and Junior Parkrun. They align perfectly with Parkrun's core mission of making physical activity accessible and enjoyable for everyone regardless of their fitness level. But the latest communication from Parkrun HQ has highlighted a fundamental issue from which Parkrun has suffered ever since that core mission was conceived. Let me explain. The very first Parkrun took place on October the 2nd, 2004. 13 people lined up in Bushey Park to take part in what was then called a 5k time trial. Many of you watching this will be very well aware that Parkrun started out as a 5k time trial event, the point of which is to run as hard as you can for those 5k to set a benchmark performance by which you can measure your fitness and hope to improve over time. So the following week you would try and better that time or at least maintain your fitness. And so it continued for four years as the time trial event. Parkrun didn't become Parkrun until 2008 when an increased emphasis on community and inclusivity meant that Parkrun grew to become what we all know it as today. But at its core, despite Parkrun HQ's attempts to distance itself from its own history, for many Parkrun has inherently remained a 5k time trial. When I started at Brighton and Hove Parkrun, we used to have volunteers standing at the kilometre marker points shouting out your time as you passed, and I know that still happens at some Parkruns today. And of course most relevant of all to this discussion is that the Parkrun website until this week had always displayed fastest times, age-graded data. It always noted the fastest times of male and female Parkrunners at different events and records across countries and across the world. And most crucially, it celebrated individual PBs, the core of time trial achievement beating your previous time. Now I'm going to argue to you that for the vast majority of Parkrunners, this has been and is absolutely fine. And for many is the entire reason they started doing Parkrun in the first place. It makes no difference whether you run Parkrun in 40 minutes or 20 minutes. The challenge is against yourself. You're not racing the person next to you, although some people do. And that's fine too. Fundamentally you are trying to beat your previous best time. Now of course there are thousands of Parkrunners who are there for the social aspect. We jog around, we chat to our friends and we enjoy the morning. I've done that plenty of times. But how many of you do keep a sneaky eye on the watch? How many of you speed up just that little bit in the last kilometre just to make sure you make it in under 30 minutes? Admit it. You like it when you see your time at the end and you love it when you see what position you finished in on your finishing token. Before we move on, if you are enjoying the video, you're finding it useful or interesting, then please do consider subscribing to the channel and do hit that bell notification icon just so you don't miss any of our upcoming videos. Right, on with the rant. This latest initiative by Parkrun to essentially remove as much information related to speed and competition as possible from its website, smacks of the worst kind of mollycoddling and pandering to what I believe is a minority of complainants. Honestly, we've got to get a grip. There will always be someone faster than you, and most likely, there will always be someone slower as well. And you know what? No one cares. Me and my wife will joke with each other when we achieve something that we're vaguely proud of in running. She'll say to me, Stephen, no one cares about your running but you. And I'll do the same to her when she starts droning on about having run the Boston Marathon again. What I'm saying is, truly, nobody cares if it takes you 60 minutes to do parkrun. What we do care about is the fact that you got up, got out of the house and did it. That's fantastic. That's what we care about. I love these lazy Saturdays. It's Wednesday, let the fast guys do 17, 16, 15 minutes. Great. Good for them. And let's celebrate them too without prejudice. There really is no need to feel intimidated if someone is faster than you. This is not about them. This is about you. Gain self-confidence, self-worth and self-validation from your own journey rather than comparing yourself to someone else. I'm sure there are things that you can do which that 16-minute parkrunner couldn't do to save their life. Mid-pack and back-of-the-pack runners are just as valuable and just as valued as those who speed off the front on a Saturday morning. Now, one argument put forward for removing the stats from the website is that it might put off potential new parkrunners who are registering for the first time and searching for their first event. The problem with that of course is that it then sets unrealistic ideas of what to expect when they turn up on the day. The speedy runners will still be there. I mean, if parkrun HQ really wants to remove all semblance of competition, then why time the event at all? We could all just gather together on a Saturday morning at around about 9 o'clock to cover 5k. There's going to be no need for a starting gun, no ready, steady go. I mean, that would also eliminate the need for barcodes and finishing tokens. Why even bother with that? And the GDPR privacy issue? Why even put the results online? No list of people online to look at? Why even bother registering? I love parkrun, I will continue to attend parkrun, but I do disagree with this initiative. And I think it has the potential to in fact discourage a lot of people from taking part in parkrun, which is actually the opposite of what they want to achieve. Here's a video of me and my daughter running the Lansing Beach Green Parkrun. We'll see you over there shortly. If you've enjoyed the video, please do consider subscribing to the channel. Take care and we will see you on the start line next time.