Castles in the Sky

I get stupidly territorial over my running route. September last year I was running up the Taff Trail while a whole bunch of runners were running the other way. My initial grumpiness at being mildly inconvenienced at having to dodge around was soon replaced by curiosity. They all seemed to be running a race called ‘Castle2Castle’, which I found out was an annual race starting near Caerphilly castle and ending at Cardiff castle, and in aid of Velindre (a charity close to my heart). I was in! Which is how I found myself in a park in Caerphilly early one Sunday morning.

The route is pretty much the route I take on my weekly bike ride and big Sunday run, it’s also mostly down hill which is another plus and it also acts as a good training run for the Cardiff half marathon. It was unique for me as a run because there was no running chip, so no official time, which is quite freeing but didn’t stop me throwing myself at it. I got off to a decent pace which I was able to keep up, especially on the hill down to Taffs Well. It should really be called Castle 2 Castle 2 Castle cause you pass Castle Coch in Tongwynlais in the first quarter of the race. As it’s not a full official race they don’t close off the roads so you have to rely on the marshals (very good) and the road users (very patient).

It’s a great route passing the weirs along the Taff Trail Radyr, Llandaff and crossing the bridge across Blackweir towards Sophia Gardens and the finish line. All the publicity says it’s eleven miles, but my Garmin said it was well short of that. A great race, well organized, I punted in a good time. My only slight grumble was the goody bag at the end had to pork sausage rolls in it, which I literally couldn’t give away, but I’ll be doing Castle2Castle again.