Quite old, I even linked the entire series in a past thread (cba to go find it mind you). It's a great event... check out the single segment perfect dark run; it's fucking awesome. Can't wait 'till SGDQ in the summer, wanting to go to it too just to spectate and wanting to find people who'll come along with me, but most of my friends aren't "gamers" ):
All games are a waste of time. What they do is the same we do / watch: perfecting it for the sake of doing so, have fun while enjoying the common activity, some competition and self challenge.
What I like about speedruns is admiring the depth games that I loved have, that it is explained live and with perfect execution. As a show in general I enjoy watching games I haven't played but have interest in doing so because this serves as the condensed version of a youtube lets play video.
Should check out some of the previous years as well. Imo, Yoshifan's fzero speedrun is more impressive than cgn as he makes less mistakes; even though cgn is MUCH better.