Need not forfeit parkrun when away from home

parkrun has grown and is growing substantially. It has spread to at least 20 countries. There is no need to miss out when away from home. Admitting that sometimes one need to travel a bit to get to the nearest parkrun. The parkrun South Africa ‘events’—read venues or places where parkrun timed races take place—page (http://www.parkrun.co.za/events/) portrays the Southern Africa parkruns, including Namibia and eSwatini (Swaziland). Note that the parkrun made, in July 2019, substantial changes to the webpages, including the 'venues'-map:

• it no longer has a right-hand table of provinces/areas, however, note at the right on top are four boxes:
  • the 1^st is a search box
  • the 2^nd contains a my-location image, and by clicking on this button, the map zooms to the current location of the device
  • the 3^rd (+) and 4^th (-) respectively are for zooming in or out
• by left-clicking and holding down, one can move the map to observe other parts, yes even other countries and continents

• if you click on a navy circle with the parkrun logo, a box appears with the name of that parkrun
• if you on the name of the parkrun at the top of the box that appeared, the webpage of that parkrun opens, which in turn contains a link to the parkrun’s course/route page, as well as further details.

Take note on the relevant parkrun’s page of the start time. Most parkruns start at 08:00am, however some at 7:00am (October to March) and 8:00am (April to September) in lieu of summer heat.

All you need in order to participate at another parkrun is to arrive on time, and to have your barcode ready upon completion, in order for your time to be captured. The results are sent to your email address on record, same as for your home parkrun. Sometimes it takes a little longer due to connectivity constraints, or the demands of life on event directors and volunteers. If results are not forthcoming, you can monitor if it has been loaded on the parkrun head office servers. While on the event page of the particular parkrun, hovering with the PC’s mouse over results. A drop down box appears. Click on the ‘latest results’ page. If it is the event you participated in, then it means the results is out and you could search for your results. If for some reason your name is missing, make enquiries.

Unfortunately, errors do occur. Try to memorise the token number you were issued for scanning, and if after a few days no result is forthcoming, send an email to the relevant parkrun email address (on the event page) with your barcode number and token number. In one instance my barcode did not scan, but once my email had been received, the results were captured.

Individual athlete records are kept of all events completed. When 20 different events were completed, irrespective of the number of times at each event, the athlete’s name appears on the ‘most different 5k events’ list—accessible by hovering with the PC’s mouse over ‘results’ on the parkrun SA page (http://www.parkrun.co.za/results/mostevents/). Having achieved this listing, one qualifies as parkrun Tourist. More about this in another post.