oops! think I exceeded a charater limit rule! Rest of the article:
So, if you do forget your barcode, as I myself have done on more than one occasion, then yes you will have to wait seven more days for your 10, 50, 100 or 250 t-shirt, or come back next week to have a crack at your PB but please take a moment to consider whose responsibility that really is. Should our 20,000+ hardworking volunteers be expected to spend more of their precious time adding you in manually or should you understand that you still got to run with your friends? That’s what parkrun’s really about, right?
I do realise that many of you will be reading this unsure as to the correct parkrun barcode form so here’s a few bullet points to keep you on the straight and narrow...
- If you don’t have a barcode you should still cross the finish line and take a position token, but then just hand the token to the person with the scanner. You will appear as an ‘unknown athlete’.
- If you bring your barcode but it won’t scan we can write your number down and add you to the results. Please do not bring that same barcode again as it is unlikely to scan in the future, you’ll need to print out another one for the following week. I advise our teams to confiscate unscannable barcodes.
- Even If you know your athlete ID, that does not count as bringing your barcode.
- Our scanning devices do not scan from mobile phones so please bring hard copies. My advice is to print out all six, laminate them with Sellotape and spread them around your car, running jacket, wallet etc.
Once a month I email all of our event teams around the UK with updates from the parkrun world and yesterday I asked that they all adhere strictly to the ‘no barcode, no time, no exceptions’ rule so please don’t be offended if your forgetfulness is met with a simple ‘there’s always next week’.
