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Apr 2019
9:11am, 26 Apr 2019
10,346 posts
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Cerrertonia
Parkrun's problems are (mostly) ones of success - most of the problems talked about here largely come down to there being too many people at many events.
If you look at GRL's website, it seems like many of their events have not lasted very long. If you add up the numbers running 5k at a GRL nationwide in any given week, it comes to less than some of the bigger individual parkruns.
Anyway, the point was that Birmingham has relatively few parkruns and one reason for that is that the city council in 2015 paid Great Run Local to establish lots of events, and that approach has clearly failed.
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Apr 2019
9:14am, 26 Apr 2019
7,285 posts
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larkim
It does surprise me that GRL hasn't just offered itself up to be subsumed by parkrun as it clearly hasn't got the critical mass that parkrun has.
But I suppose with differential run start times / days compared to parkrun it wouldn't be as simple as just re-badging the events.
If there is a functioning GRL event in a particular park though it is unlikely that parkrun would be able to operate in the same one, so from parkrun's perspective I imagine it is viewed as something of a mild irritation if there is otherwise a local appetite for a parkrun to get going in a potentially good location.
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Apr 2019
9:18am, 26 Apr 2019
10,347 posts
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Cerrertonia
It's a business, whose parent company makes quite substantial profits from running events and directors are on pretty hefty salaries. Wouldn't expect them to hand over part of the company to a charity.
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Apr 2019
9:22am, 26 Apr 2019
10,348 posts
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Cerrertonia
Although I think that they did spin off Great Run Local as a separate non-profit company. Whether that involves money being paid to the parent company for services/use of the name, I don't know.
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Apr 2019
9:26am, 26 Apr 2019
7,286 posts
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larkim
That's precisely why I don't quite see the fit - Great Run intends to, and does, make profits from running. That's fair enough as a business model. And GRL could be a "loss leader" to facilitate more customers for the main Great Run brand. But in reality it is so small as to not be worth doing I'd have thought, and there is parkrun which inevitably is helping to create new customers for Great Run without any need for GRL.
If it is a charity which is paying some costs up to GR for services, that is perfectly do-able, but I doubt it really scratches the surface of anything substantial.
Ultimately GRL is the "betamax" of the free local 5k scene. It should probably die a quiet death over a period of time.
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Apr 2019
9:35am, 26 Apr 2019
282 posts
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Dowse
I was about to say, Great Run Local already operate a lovely run around Edgbaston Reservoir on a Sunday morning at 9:30. There's a 2.5km and a 5km option. We all warm up together. There's around 50 people. There's often a table with drinks and snacks at the finish line where everyone chats for a bit. It's got a real community feel. I have a feeling like a new parkrun there will destroy that.
GRL targets people and communities that wouldn't normally run, so the pace is generally a lot slower than parkrun.
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Apr 2019
9:39am, 26 Apr 2019
4,135 posts
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Eynsham Red
LindsD, is there news on apricot tops? I’ve not seen anything for a while.
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Apr 2019
10:01am, 26 Apr 2019
12,569 posts
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Ultracat
New apricot tops are rather expensive I hear,
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Apr 2019
10:07am, 26 Apr 2019
41,482 posts
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Velociraptor
Apricot tops £33 including personalisation and postage. Apricot isn't my colour anyway.
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Apr 2019
10:13am, 26 Apr 2019
17,509 posts
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Dvorak
Really, Dowse? The last four GRLs in Glasgow (average 27 runners) have had a median finish time of around 25 minutes. Rather faster than any local parkrun. There is also a 2K - average attendance last four weeks of 4.
Optimistically, maybe Run Birmingham now have a pile of money which they would be delighted to pass on to nascent parkruns.
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parkrun Café
Jun 2025