Running in Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons)

Bannau Brycheiniog - the national park renamed from the Brecon Beacons in 2023 - is the part of Wales that rewards runners most directly. Where Eryri gives you rock, this gives you grass: long flat-topped ridges you can move quickly along, linked by escarpment climbs that are short, steep and honest.

Three distinct areas

The central Beacons hold Pen y Fan (886m), the highest point in southern Britain, along with Corn Du and Cribyn. The classic horseshoe from the Neuadd reservoirs takes in the lot and is the region's signature run.

The Black Mountains in the east are quieter - a series of parallel grassy ridges running north to south, connected by valleys, with Waun Fach as the high point. They are made for long out-and-back days.

Y Mynydd Du (the Black Mountain, confusingly singular and at the opposite end of the park) is the wildest of the three, with the Carmarthen Fans dropping away above two glacial lakes.

The exposure problem

There is essentially no shelter on these ridges. In a westerly you will be running into weather for hours with nowhere to duck out of it, and the flat tops that make the going so good also mean there are few features to navigate off in cloud. Fast ground makes people casual here; the ground is not the thing that hurts them.

Access

The A470 runs straight through the middle, which makes the central Beacons unusually easy to reach and unusually busy. Start early or start elsewhere.