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Feb 2019
11:27pm, 26 Feb 2019
107 posts
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Mark
I've had one experience of a very free range parkrun, I was standing around chatting to a friend who had just finished and we noticed that the bar code scanner volunteer had vanished.
So I just asked the RD if I could borrow the scanner for a moment to scan my friend's codes, and then scanned the half dozen people who finished after her.
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Feb 2019
7:06am, 27 Feb 2019
6,813 posts
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larkim
Having done over 100 at Delamere and just being used to the funnel process, I can’t imagine why on earth any parkrun would have their scanners 500m or further from the end of the run!! Surely even if you do’t fancy flowing everyone through to the scanners immediately, just a few standing about 5m away from the end is the ideal model to avoid chaos?
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Feb 2019
8:12am, 27 Feb 2019
10,164 posts
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Cerrertonia
All down to local conditions I suppose. Not a huge amount of space at the finish at Milton, would be more not less chaotic to have scanners there I reckon. Almost everyone would be making their way back to the start anyway, as it's the only car/cycle route out of the park. Doing it near the cafe makes a bunch of other things easier too. It's nicer for the volunteers, you have tables (so can have printed out sheets of position number barcodes), can put out buckets to assist with token sorting etc.
One of our other local parkruns (Clare Castle) have a marquee at the end of the funnel and the scanners stand or sit in there.
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Feb 2019
8:15am, 27 Feb 2019
30,517 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Lol Mark, that is free range - ad hoc scanning!
In some ways, I wonder why handing out position tokens is required at all - make the finish funnel long enough and scan runner's barcode in order. Don't let them away!
I wonder how long it will be before chip timing comes to parkrun? Personal chips are getting cheaper, as are the detection mats / pads.
The "cheapest" ones are the ones where you have to "dib" a sensor at a receiver pad. Or even just using the current scanning technology, just a bit bigger, mounted at wrist height, on a stick and scan your wrist based barcode?
While your time could be +1-2s to place your hand/wrist at right place, it would be your responsibility, as the runner, to do so. Parkrun results (position) would only then be of the people who swiped, not of those who didn't. But that would be OK. If you forgot your chip/barcode, by definition, no time. If you chose not to dib/scan, no time.
You'd need as many strung across the finish area, as there were likely to be simultaneous finishers. How many might that be, for the busiest parkruns? 5? 10?
You'd need - no timers, no barcode scanners, not tokens (just the runner's own chip/barcode which would be their responsibility.)
Or am I mad?!  G
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Feb 2019
8:54am, 27 Feb 2019
5,873 posts
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Jovi Runner
Timing mats would never work at our parkrun - there is no way we could carry a timing mat from the car park to the start/finish area every week ie up and down a very large hill.
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Feb 2019
9:03am, 27 Feb 2019
8,787 posts
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SarahWoo
You are slightly mad, Happy - but we love you that way
Not sure about timing mats, etc. but who knows as technology progresses?
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Feb 2019
9:04am, 27 Feb 2019
33,049 posts
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Lip Gloss
Whatbl happened to having patience. We moved ours away from the funnel by 200 yards or so and seems to work cause once you have your token it's not an immediate rush to have it scanned.
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Feb 2019
9:07am, 27 Feb 2019
8,789 posts
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SarahWoo
We're much the same at Leamington, LG. They walk from the end of the finish funnel back towards the pavilion and we have a couple of tables outside the pavilion where the scanners sit.
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Feb 2019
9:29am, 27 Feb 2019
314 posts
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Spideog
I've head of the Exeter setup and having to go into a cafe and then upstairs to get scanned, and there was something about no muddy shoes as well (although I don't know what the course is actually like). For that reason it's removed from my list of potential courses to do when touristing, going into the cafe is fine (but should be optional), but no way I'm going to subject myself to dealing with removing a screaming child from a buggy, muddy shoes removal and dragging them up and down stairs just to get scanned.
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Feb 2019
9:48am, 27 Feb 2019
17,273 posts
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Dvorak
But :-)G, you would be removing all those volunteering opportunities! And those are the point of parkrun, not the walk
More seriously, you would be reducing some of the points of human contact and making the event more like a race, so although it maybe could be done, soon if not now, I suspect it won't be.
For you first point: could work in events up to 100 finishers: above that, just impracticable. Maybe not even 100.
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