The average parkrunner this year

Back on the 13th January 2012 parkrun was preparing for it's 1 millionth completed run, which was achieved the following day. At that time, I calculated the average time taken for all completed runs to date. I didn't know it at the time, but that was parkrun Pat's time. Back then, the average was 26 minutes and 14 seconds. Not bad for the average parkrunner.

I have repeated the same calculation today and have found that parkrun Pat has slowed. Has it been the weather? Do we have some harder parkrun courses these days? Has parkrun attracted more slow(er) (or shall I say less fast) runners over the last year? Have parkrunners been taking it easy for the last year? Have faster runners moved on to other things? I really don't know the answer. But what I do know, is that parkrun Pat's average time is now 26 minutes and 36 seconds, slowing by a whole 18 seconds per runner per run over the last 11 months or so.

And as we haven't yet reached the 2 million completed runs mark, what this actually means is that Pat's average parkrun this year has been slower than that, very close to 27 minutes in fact.

So if you see an average (or shall we say "typical") parkrunner out there running in the coming weeks, remember to give them as much encouragement as you can, as we all have a shared responsibility to help parkrun Pat to improve that average again. Pat can't do it without you. Well that's a lie really, if everyone else speeds up, you could crawl on your belly and parkrun Pat would still get faster. But you know what I mean, we can all help make parkrun Pat's average time a bit faster.

Myself and my son are going to be making parkrun Pat's average a little slower for the next few weekends, so I need at least 2 of you to commit to counter-balance those with sub-20 minute times each week. Any takers?

Happy parkrunning!