Cardiff parkrun review: fast course, busy start line

Cardiff parkrun is flat, fast and one of the ten biggest events in the country on a normal Saturday, but be warned - where you stand at nine o'clock decides which of two runs you get. In the front rows there is clear air and the fastest course in Cardiff. Further back and you are losing precious time before the path has opened up. It's still a fast course, but a 30 second wait at the start will put a big dent in your PB hopes.

This article covers both courses, the car park, the pacing and how to build a longer run around it.

The A course

The course you will almost certainly get starts in the woods at Gabalfa, on the Taff Trail alongside the Tesco building. It runs south along the River Taff through Bute Park and comes back the way it came. Not laps - an out and back. Tarmac footpaths throughout, and flat.

Bute Park is 56 hectares, one of the largest urban parks in Wales, with the river down one side and Pontcanna Fields across it. For a run that starts beside a supermarket, it stops feeling like a city surprisingly quickly.

The path stays open to everyone else while you are on it. parkrun asks you to keep to the right, and that is not a formality; cyclists come through mid-run and you will hear the warning shouted down the line before you see them. The bollards near Blackweir are the pinch point. Sort your position out before you reach them rather than in the middle of them.

After rain there will be mud, wet leaves and puddles on some stretches. It is tarmac underneath, so I would not bother with trail shoes, but the far end deserves a bit of respect in winter.

The B course

The whole thing moves across the river to Pontcanna Fields several times a year, starting near Cardiff Riding School and the stables. I usually get it in the summer, when Blackweir Fields is being built for the concerts, and in the winter, when the Christmas light trail is going up or coming down in Bute Park. It has come out for work on the Taff Trail as well.

Blackweir Live has permission to run until 2031, up to 42 days a year including the build and the break-down, and the field is shut to the public throughout. The summer swap is here for a while yet.

The B course is two circular laps and then a straight finish, and it is noticeably slower than the A course. I would not travel for a PB on it. Dates go up on the event's notice board rather than on any calendar, so check there before you set off. Parking does not change - Tesco as usual - but allow an extra 10 to 15 minutes to walk over.

Parking at Gabalfa Tesco

Park at Gabalfa Tesco Extra. Hundreds of free spaces, and the store has given parkrun permission for runners to use them; I've never had a problem finding a space.

Two things to get right. Use the bays around the click and collect area if you can - that is the corner to aim for. Then watch the three hour limit. It sounds like a lot for a 5km, and it is, but it is the coffee afterwards that eats it; park up at half eight, stay in Bute Park for an hour after the run and you are nearer to it than you think.

The start

On paper this is a brilliant PB course, and for the quickest runners it is exactly that. The course records are 14:15 for the men and 15:49 for the women, the second of those a parkrun world record when it was set. The front runners are always seriously fast - often sub 16, sometimes sub 15.

Everybody else has a different morning. Cardiff had 926 finishers on a Saturday in May, tenth biggest in the UK that day out of 872 events, and the path is wide enough for six runners abreast. Six across, 900 runners. You can do the arithmetic.

I have started at both ends of that field and they are not the same event. If you are chasing a time, the first ten rows are fine. Further back it bottlenecks, and it stays bottlenecked for longer than you would like. Anyone going for 25 minutes or more, seeded honestly among runners of the same pace, should expect to lose time at the start and should set the target accordingly.

So arrive early and get as far forward as you honestly belong. Standing well ahead of your pace to save a few seconds just makes you the obstacle.

Pacing the course

There are few turns and nothing technical, so the pacing is the whole job. It is flat, but it is not flat in both directions in the way the course description implies - there is a slight downhill on the way out and the reverse of it on the way home. Heading south you will not feel it. Coming back you will.

Hold your pace on the way south. Actually hold it, because the temptation on a course this fast, with the drop under you, is to bank time you have not earned and hand it all back later. I would rather come through halfway a couple of seconds down with something left.

The moment to spend it is the turn, when you start meeting runners coming the other way. Push into the tank there. Everything after it is the drag back up.

The Taff Trail before and after

The start sits on the Taff Trail, which is what makes this my first choice when I want the parkrun to be part of something longer. The trail runs from Cardiff Bay up to Brecon along the river, and through the city it is continuous and traffic-free - Sophia Gardens, Bute Park and Pontcanna Fields, over the pedestrian bridge at Blackweir, then up the eastern bank under the A48 flyover, past Llandaff Weir and into Hailey Park at Llandaff North.

Two directions off the start line, then.

North is an out and back to Hailey Park. That stretch was rebuilt over the winter and reopened at 3.5 metres wide, so the surface up there is better than it has been.

South is Cardiff Bay and a loop of the barrage. The embankment is 1.1 km across to Penarth, flat and with no steps, and Pont y Werin brings you back over the Ely; the loop is signed and almost all of it is on cycle path. Barrage access does get closed at short notice though, so check it before you build a morning around the crossing.

Either one adds 5 to 10 km to the morning, before or after, and it is nearly all flat. Run the long part first and you can forget the PB; save it for afterwards and the 5km stays honest.

And if it is the 900-strong start line putting you off rather than the distance, Cardiff has other parkruns.