Oh dear. Something new, something unexpected, something we’ve never heard of before at parkrun, and something that made me laugh. Other Dan was disqualified. That’s right, a DQ at parkrun. It’s a run and not a race. Still got disqualified though.
We’ve got this running joke (no pun intended) that I am always cutting off the course and should be disqualified. I can’t remember where it started but we often run together and I sometimes step around the wrong side of a cone or a course marker where the course narrows and people pass. Just a few inches off the course, nothing notable. Other Dan threatens to report me and get my time removed. Just a joke though. Until today.
Other Dan went sprinting off aiming for a time while I wheezed round several minutes later. Except Other “DQ” Dan accidentally went off course at the end of the first lap and missed bit of the course. An accident, turned a bit early. No advantage as he didn’t pass anyone but missed a couple of hundred metres. The event team saw him but assumed he wasn’t a parkrunner so didn’t warn him. Ran the last lap, through the finish funnel, and took a token.
The event team told him that he had missed some of the course so would not get his result recorded. Other Dan offered to run an extra lap (the tail had not gone past yet) but they said no. That he had passed through the funnel and a finish had been taken on the timer so it would stay as an unknown runner.
I laughed when I finished as I thought he was joking. Other Dan took it with good grace, a shrug of the shoulders, and a return visit to Grovelands parkrun would be needed in the future as he still got his free run even if it wasn’t officially recorded. I was less forgiving. Seems a jobsworth reaction, wouldn’t encourage a first time parkrunner to bother coming back again. Not my event and not my call though.
The course was a couple of laps around the park with a slope. I won’t be paying a return visit. I’ll leave that to Other Dan.
