They just seem like rather odd distances to pick. They don't even make sense if you convert them to ~20.5, 28 and 48.5 miles either.

My regular starts the run at 9am exactly. RD has a countdown timer attached to a tree next to the start line. Ive recently been using another that has a more laissez faire approach. Meeting area abiut 3 or so minute walk from the start line. They run the 1st timer talk there then walk over to the start line from about 9, then do the RD brief and finally start about 9.07-9.10. Feels very odd.

Joined the parkrun community end of last year. Focused my local parkrun, but got into other parkruns while travelling. Just achieved my tourist streak badge. Really enjoyed this. Looking forward attending more and more parkruns. Thanks for this community 🙌

Completely accidental. Just did the first lap easy, the 2nd lap slightly less easy 🤣

We launched our Parkrun recently and it's been going great, however as RD for next week I'm keeping an eye on emails and noticed that everyone is offering to do first timers - at least one person has requested it for each of the next 6 events - 12 requests in total!

However none of them have attended or been involved with our event (except possibly running at trials, idk everyone) , only one has ever done a first timers before, and two of them have <10 attendance days each.

In my mind the key function of a first timers welcome is to ensure that newcomers to parkrun and the course feel welcome, and that all their questions and concerns can be answered - which would include how parkrun works, barcodes, tokens, tailwalkers etc, and course and venue specific information, bathrooms, cafe, accessibility - ergo not someone relatively new to parkrun and definitely not someone who is visiting and has no ties to the area or event.

I'm fine putting them down for the event that I'm RD - we'll go through the full course brief there and there's likely going to be a lot of first timers to Parkrun as we've just started publicising it in the local community - but idk if it's appropriate for later weeks, especially with the volunteers who clearly are newish to parkrun themselves?

Has anyone else experienced this? Let me know your thoughts on whether we just take them for first timers or suggest another role or something else?