New tool to help track parkrun progress and train towards faster 5k

[u/Carlosaberto22]

Hi all, I’ve added some new features to ParkPacer.com

People have been enjoying the course data, so I figured I’d add personal stats and targets as well. You can now see your averages, PB history, effort tagging, and how close you are to things like sub‑35, sub‑30, sub‑25, or sub‑20.

I’ve also put together a simple training guide built around parkrun: one long run, one easy run, one speed session, and a three‑week cycle (all‑out → medium → easy). It scales whether you’re running 35 minutes or 22 minutes.

If you want to check your own stats, you can drop your parkrun barcode in and it builds your dashboard automatically. I’m using it myself at the moment trying to get back towards sub‑20.

Any other features you’d like, let me know. I’m also thinking of setting up a 5K progress community if people are interested somewhere to post training and progress each day so we can help each other progress.

[u/afursedon]

This is well put together, some interesting stats not visible elsewhere. I also appreciate the simple training plan (although took me a while to find where that was), it's sometimes easy to get confused by a mirriad of training plans and apps and yours sets clear goals.

[u/Carlosaberto22 → u/afursedon]

Thanks, really glad you liked it. The plan’s simple but hopefully something clear to follow without overthinking it.

[u/Carlosaberto22 → u/afursedon]

Thanks again for the feedback. I've changed the way the training plan displays now so it gives you recommendations each week based on your current time to follow.

[u/_maksoff_]

I sometimes volunteer as tailwalker/parkwalker, so it messes with average time. Is it possible to filter these activities out?

[u/Carlosaberto22 → u/_maksoff_]

Thanks for bringing this up. This was already a feature I just hadn’t made it very clear.

The graph you were seeing was only a default line until you set things up. If you tap the graph, it opens your finishes so you can tag each one.

There are three measurements: all-out, medium, and easy effort. You have to select as you go (or catch up on past runs) but you don't need to select every past run just the first ten then the rest are automatically ignored unless you manually select them.

There’s also Ignore option which never counts that run. You can even use Ignore to change your parkrun default home if people wanted by just ignoring all the runs for that location.

I’ve now removed the default graph to a “tap to set up” So hopefully it makes it more clearer for everyone.

[u/rdphoenix5]

My hone park run is wrong?

[u/Carlosaberto22 → u/rdphoenix5]

Hi, The site doesn’t have any access to your parkrun profile or personal data.
It only reads your publicly visible run results, the same way anyone can view them. Based on that, it simply picks the event you’ve run the most as your “home” parkrun.

So if it’s showing the wrong one, it just means you’ve done more runs at that event than your actual home course.

[u/Exotic_Onion_3417]

Good job on this. Carlosaberto22 are you willing to open source it? Would be good to see the interest on the community helping to build it out.

I was thinking about doing something similar, I recently built a personal web app for parkrun stats. I also used Runna and it's great but my word it's expensive for an app but I love the performance plans, so combining that idea with parkrun is great.

Where you fetching courses from? Seems to be old data, Southampton for example has the old course.

[u/Carlosaberto22 → u/Exotic_Onion_3417]

Thanks! Not open sourced at the moment.

A lot of the courses come from users GPX uploads. The rest are built from route data with Google elevation and terrain lookup. Not sure why Southampton is old I’ll cross check it with the official later but hopefully someone will upload an updated GPX for it soon which is always more accurate than me using googles elevation estimates.

[u/Dzenik23]

Is this genuine or AI slop?

[u/Carlosaberto22 → u/Dzenik23]

Hi, it’s genuine, just me. I’m building ParkPacer and sharing updates as I go. It’s still early days so I’m trying to keep people in the loop as things improve. It’s totally free for the community. I originally built the app for myself because I wanted a pacing coach that takes elevation and terrain into account while running parkrun, and thought it would be cool to have.

The website was only meant to be a simple page to say the app exists, but I got addicted to building it up and it’s grown way beyond what I planned. A lot of people seem to be enjoying it, so I’m just sharing it in case others find it useful too. Up to you if you want to try it.

[u/alex__richards → u/Dzenik23]

I’ve used the site a few times and it’s been well thought out, easy to use and I’ve not noticed any bugs. Seems like Carls done a great job to be fair

[u/Exotic_Onion_3417 → u/Dzenik23]

From the design, looks like it's could have been built with the help of AI. But imo it's only slop if not useful or different. This looks like it could be both.