Bike → parkrun → Bike

parkrunathlon

A reverse duathlon where you cycle to a parkrun, parkrun, and cycle back

Explore parkrunathlons

LEADERBOARD

position parkrunathlete age group event band time score validated

Bike → parkrun → Bike

What is parkrunathlon?

a parkrunathlon is an unofficial reverse duathlon where you cycle to a parkrun, parkrun, and cycle back.

The basic format

Timing

Your parkrunathlon time is the sum of the time it takes you to bike to the parkrun + your parkrun time + the time it takes you to bike back. We have rules for how long between the bikes and parkrun (transition time) you can take before it starts counting towards your parkrunathlon time, which are described in the Coffee and No coffee categories.

Coffee and no coffee

Distance bands

Validation

Submitted parkrunathlons enter a validation queue. Validated parkrunathlons are checked against the submitted parkrun ID, parkrun details, and supporting evidence.

parkrunathlon is not affiliated with or endorsed by parkrun

Contact & info

More information

Feel free to reach out if you have any feedback, suggestions, concerns, corrections, or would like to help with parkrunathlon!

Email: hello@dcwelch.io

parkrunathlon is an unofficial community project created for fun. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, approved by, or associated with parkrun or parkrun Global Limited in any way shape or form.

Duathlon pictogram image: Citius Altius Fortius , CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Category

Coffee vs no coffee

Coffee and no coffee are transition allowance categories. They do not change the basic format of a parkrunathlon: bike → parkrun → bike.

If your transition time is within the allowance, it does not add to your parkrunathlon time. If it is over the allowance, only the amount over the allowance is added.

The coffee transition allowances should give you enough time to volunteer before/after the parkrun and hang out a bit. The no coffee transition allowances should give you enough time to be respectful, scan your barcode, be safe, lock/unlock your bike, and attend the first timers briefing (with good pacing), without being extremely long.

Normalized leaderboard

What is a parkrunathlon score?

Your parkrunathlon score is inspired by the Age Grade used by parkrun. It compares your parkrunathlon time against an estimated benchmark time for your total bike distance. The score is effectively a percentage where higher is better. You can use this score to compare parkrunathlons of different distances.

The score is calculated as:

parkrunathlon score = benchmark time ÷ parkrunathlon time × 100

Where:

benchmark time = 13:44 + 54.7 × total bike km1.065

The benchmark time is based on Nick Griggs' 13:44 parkrun plus a cycling benchmark approximately fitted to four reference points: Jeffrey Hoogland's 55.433 second 1 km track time-trial record, Marcin Białobłocki's 16:35 10-mile time-trial reference, Jonas Bohr's 2:10:40.12 100 km WUCA/Guinness solo road record, and Christoph Strasser's 23:18:20.27 1000 km WUCA/Guinness solo road record.

The benchmark time is a reference time used only to produce the score. Currently, there is no difference between the reference time for Coffee or No coffee transition rules. If a more accurate metric is made in the future, maybe there will be.

I will admit that the calculation is pretty crude; there isn't much data out there on reverse duathlons or parkrunathlons at the moment, so it's very approximate and un-scientific. Furthermore, it does not currently normalize across different age groups or gender in the calculation like Age Grade does. If enough people submit parkrunathlons, we may be able to build a more sophisticated age-and-gender-adjusted score in the future.

Example benchmarks

Total bike distance 100% 75% 50% 25%
1 km 14:39 19:32 29:19 58:37
10 km 23:12 30:56 46:24 1:32:48
10 mi 30:16 40:21 1:00:32 2:01:04
20 km 34:53 46:31 1:09:46 2:19:32
50 km 1:14:00 1:38:40 2:28:00 4:56:00
100 km 2:21:17 3:08:23 4:42:34 9:25:08
100 mi 3:51:15 5:08:20 7:42:30 15:25:00

Example 20 km benchmark breakdown

Assuming a 20 km total bike distance, with the bike time split evenly between Bike 1 and Bike 2, and the parkrun and bike portions scaling evenly from the benchmark.

Score Bike 1 parkrun Bike 2 Total
100% 10:35 13:44 10:35 34:53
75% 14:07 18:19 14:07 46:31
50% 21:09 27:28 21:09 1:09:46
25% 42:19 54:56 42:19 2:19:32

Distance bands

What do the bands mean?

Bands are like parkrunathlon weight classes. They are labelled based on the one-way bike distance. To calculate your distance band, we take the total bike distance from both legs combined and divide that by two.

If you want to validate your parkrunathlon, try to have close to the same start and end point. If you don't, that's okay, but if you end up with a significant advantage from it — like a massive net downhill across both legs — we may not mark it as valid.

Ideally, you should try to complete a parkrunathlon that doesn't add much unnecessary distance within a band to be most competitive within that band. But if you do, the parkrunathlon score is an effort to normalize your parkrunathlon time for any distance to more reasonably compare between any length parkrunathlons.

Validation

What does validated mean?

A validated parkrunathlon has been manually checked for validity.

Validation usually means checking that the parkrun ID, name, event, date, parkrun time, bike distances, bike times, and supporting evidence all look reasonable together.

When you submit your parkrunathlon, you'll be added to the leaderboard pretty much no matter what. But to have a validated parkrunathlon added, you'll need to include a bit of evidence with your submission. Evidence can be a GPS track (Strava, Garmin, GPX file, etc...), screenshots, parkrun results, a trustworthy person to vouch for you, etc... We're not that strict about it. This is just for fun. We trust you (mostly). We can't be perfect, so please just don't cheat and be honest. If you think there's an error, feel free to reach out to hello@dcwelch.io to let us know, and we'll try to fix it.

Timing allowance

How transition time works

parkrunathlon time is based on bike-to time + parkrun time + bike-back time, plus any transition time that goes over the category allowance.

Any excess (T1x or T2x) is added to the parkrunathlon time.

If T1 and T2 are provided separately, they are checked separately. If they are not provided, the total elapsed time is compared against the combined allowance. If none of these 3 fields are provided, then the parkrunathlon will not be validated and we will just set T1 and T2 to 0.

Total elapsed time

What is total elapsed time?

Total elapsed time is the time from the moment you begin your parkrunathlon to the moment you finish it.

It should include everything: Bike 1, T1, parkrun, T2, Bike 2. Any waiting, chatting, barcode scanning, locking/unlocking your bike, coffee, volunteering, or faffing around in between. Simply the time on the clock when you finish minus the time when you started.

If you do not enter T1 and T2 separately, this total elapsed time helps us infer whether your combined transition time was within the Coffee or No coffee transition allowance.

Note that this is NOT your parkrunathlon time. To encourage respect and allow everyone to participate in the spirit of parkrun, we have the Coffee / No coffee parkrunathlon categories, which is your official time.

Transition 1

What is T1?

T1 is the time between finishing the first bike leg and starting the parkrun.

T1 is set for the No coffee category to be as small as reasonable while still allowing enough time to find a spot for your bike and listen to the first timers briefing.

T1 is set for the Coffee category to allow plenty of time to volunteer before the event.

T1 is optional on the submission form because if you leave it blank, we will just use your total elapsed time, bike 1 time, parkrun time, and bike 2 time to calculate your parkrunathlon time. But providing it is better.

Transition 2

What is T2?

T2 is the time between finishing the parkrun and starting the 2nd leg of the bike.

T2 is set for the No coffee category to be as small as reasonable while still allowing enough time to respectfully go through the finish funnel, scan your barcode, thank the volunteers, and get your bike.

T2 is set for the Coffee category to allow plenty of time to volunteer for the remainder of the event, go get coffee with your fellow parkrunners, and experience the community of the morning without having to worry about it impacting your parkrunathlon time.

T2 is optional on the submission form because if you leave it blank, we will just use your total elapsed time, bike 1 time, parkrun time, and bike 2 time to calculate your parkrunathlon time. But providing it is better.

Evidence

What evidence should I provide?

Evidence is optional for submitting a parkrunathlon to the leaderboard, but you will need some evidence if you want the result to be validated.

Useful evidence can include a Strava activity, Garmin activity, GPX file, screenshots, parkrun result, route notes, or anything else that helps show the parkrunathlon happened as submitted.

You can paste multiple links or notes into the same evidence box. A real human person will check this so just do your best to make it easy and we'll handle it :)

Note that evidence is private. The only people who can potentially see what you put here are the members of the validation team. If you would like to share your Strava activity or any other evidence publically, please include it in the notes section as well.

Contact info

Why ask for contact info?

Contact info is optional and kept private. It is only used if we need to ask a quick clarification while validating your parkrunathlon.

If you do not include contact info, your parkrunathlon can still be submitted. It just might not get validated if something is unclear and we have no way to ask you about it. If you do not care about validation, it is completely fine to skip this.

An email address, Discord username, or phone number for WhatsApp would be ideal for us.

Submit a parkrunathlon

parkrunathlete

parkrunathlon

Bike 1: To parkrun

T1 (Optional)

parkrun

T2 (Optional)

Bike 2: From parkrun

Total elapsed time = Bike 1 + T1 + parkrun + T2 + Bike 2

—

parkrunathlon time = Bike 1 + T1x + parkrun + T2x + Bike 2

Coffee: —

No coffee: —

T1x and T2x are the parts of T1 and T2 that exceed the transition allowance

parkrunathlon time
(Coffee) —
parkrunathlon time
(No coffee) —
Total biking distance —
Distance band —

Notes (Optional)

Evidence (Optional)

Contact Info (Optional)