Went to Hereford parkrun today, had been looking at a few others but despite them being barely 20 miles they were mostly an hour each way as the roads are mostly twisty SC roads with lots of traffic. Anyone letter hunting there’s a few G, K, Y letters which tend to be rare.
It was 28c at 9am, and I was just looking for a steady pace to save the legs. Was a bit quicker than planned but nothing too crazy. Course was fairly dull, 2 laps on a gravel track inside the racecourse.
Finished in 23:11 which was alright.
Could probably hold that pace for another 5k in the heat but would start getting unpleasant after that.
Crewe park run for me today.
My running has been awful this year with injury after injury so a bit of a test.
Objective .. finish with no injuries.
Ran 2 k with the 25 min pacer ( actually 10:05)
Then opened it up a touch, basically 3 k at 4 min kms for 22:03 I had it 21:59 ( robbers)
28 th ( 373 runners/ walkers)
2/55-60
Av hr 153.
Very warm
More importantly really enjoyed it … and no injuries … yet.
Mrs FP’s 100th, I was feeling ok. LO promised to run with Mrs FP for it all today, then proclaimed it was ‘slower than walking’ and took off with 2km to go.
I shuffled around with Mrs FP for 4km but I was feeling it, so backed off and walked the last 1km for a 32.53.
Hmm. Something seems a little questionable. So I wonder how have they defined race?
30-35 minutes wouldn’t be median male result at any parkrun I’ve been to, so these results seem a little skewed on the slower side as I would guess that parkrun with it’s free and inclusive nature attracts more people happy to give it a go, and be slower average paces than other “races”.
Maybe some of the bigger events do have more people going over 50 minutes if they feel included?
But Maybe there are lots of 5k charity events in the data set where where people walk round?
My wife runs 2:15 half marathon, and certainly wouldn’t feel she was average. She has been pretty much last in every event she’s done whereas those results would suggest she’s better than average?
Also I think that anyone under 30 running 5k has an interest in it, but a lot of over 50s are doing so because their doctor told them to or else they’ll die
This is the answer to the times looking slower than you might expect.
For some reason I occasionally get notifications from Instagram or FB, “I have just manged to break 45 or 50 minutes for 5km.”
Most of the time, bless them, its very large Americans. Fair play to them, at least they’ve got out there and ran a 5km.
Partly my point, that I think the data seems too slow anyway, let alone for “races”
So I’m questioning what the “races” were. As if they’re a sample where people had to pay $30 to enter and it was held on a track with a race number, that’s a very different style of event to something pitched at trying to finish 5k, and likely needing walk breaks in between.
My guess was that parkrun as one of the biggest representations of the spetrum of people doing 5km, still wouldn’t give a data set that slow?
But what are you all looking for? The data is the data; it’s not wrong in this context surely?
Do you want to know what the average time is for people who ‘try really hard’ or those who ‘aren’t super slow’? Do you want a more generally represented human/western population sample like a random 50,000 people from the street?
It’s a bit of a pointless analysis at the end of the day I guess because it ‘proves’ is nothing.
Just did the Jersey park run with an old mate from school, plus randomly bumped into a friend from running club back in Dorset who happened to be over here on holiday.
We rode there in the rain & unfortunately only had our bike shoes to run in. Ok-ish course on mixed surfaces. Definitely missed the special shoe premium & was the wrong side of 20 minutes by some distance.
