Hi Heidi! I have reached out to somebody who might be able to help you. There are now 5 events in Michigan (3 new this year alone), so things are moving in an encouraging direction. We have learned a huge amount about what works since I wrote this piece a few years ago. Our event in College Park is thriving, and currently sees 150-200 people join us every week, of all ages and paces. We have received huge support from our community. But we have also learned that it is not a no brainer to get to this point. There’s lots of information on our event in its current incarnation at https://bit.ly/m/collegeparkparkrunlinks

Thanks Geoff! It has been a really fun experience seeing this community grow. I’m glad that you were able to visit in July, and sorry that we didn’t get a chance to chat. Your comment reminds me that this post is now super out of date and I should write up some of what we have learned, now that we’re approaching our 5th anniversary.

I’ve enjoyed reading this and your previous post about your experience in setting up College Park parkrun. I am involved with my local parkrun (Joe Creason) and was so impressed when I visited College Park in July. We average about 20-25 finishers and usually 3-5 volunteers. It was a well-oiled machine and a fun & shady course.

I think I agree on all of this, aside from a couple of terminological quibbles. People are certainly working at different grains of analysis, specifying more or less detail in their theories. That is all fine and good. No grain of analysis is privileged, there are useful theories at each. For any phenomenon we simply have to place our bets on which grain of analysis will yield the most useful insights. It’s definitely right that folks who like to self identify as “theoretical” tend to be focused on the insights that come from one specific grain of analysis. And the folks who get labeled as “experimental” (few self-identify as such in my experience) are more commonly working at finer grains of analysis, though that association is certainly weaker. Although I disagree with some of the conclusions drawn from syntactic priming studies, it does seem to be a tool that requires non-trivial experimental effort and does also seem well-suited to addressing questions at an abstract grain of analysis.

But that’s where I find the terms ‘theoretical’ and ‘experimental’ counterproductive, as they set up unrealistic expectations. Everybody has theories, and everybody gets evidence. Some of the evidence is just a bit more of a pain to obtain.

I also squirm at the term “performance” since it tends to be such a grab bag. Sometimes it’s used to distinguish levels of analysis. Sometimes it’s used to distinguish tasks, e.g., the effect of uncertainty in comprehension. Sometimes it’s used to invoke distinct mechanisms. All reasonable distinctions. But things get confusing when they’re munged together.

So while I don’t think the distinction is a myth, I think it’s more about a slightly imprecise use of the terms than anything else. Of course, I agree 100% that the term theory doesn’t belong to anyone, and we have *plenty* of theories. But I also think it’s fair to say that the theories associated with ‘experimentalists’ (read: psycholinguists) bear on research questions that aren’t every linguist’s cup of tea. The disappointment that some folks might feel when moving from ‘theoretical’ to ‘experimental’ is assuming that their research questions will be straightforwardly testable within a psycholinguistic context, which is not often the case.. as this paper very nicely traces out for us.

Fair question. Currently all of the organization’s operations in the US are funded via these startup fees. That includes equipment, insurance, and some of the costs incurred by the all-volunteer team that supports parkrun across the US. parkrun works hard to keep all costs to a minimum, but although events are free to participate, they are not entirely free to deliver.

What is the $5000 start up fee for?

Probably insurance, but what else?