Cotswold Way Century & Cotswold Half Way

The Long Way to Bath, One Village at a Time

Chipping Campden School becomes race HQ this weekend for two of the toughest tests on the Cotswold Way calendar. The Cotswold Way Century sends around 150 entrants the full 102 miles south to Bath Abbey, while the smaller Cotswold Half Way peels off after 47 miles at Painswick Rugby Club. Both start together at 11am on Saturday and follow the same acorn waymarkers the whole way.

Cotswold Trail Events, who also run the Broadway Marathon, hold the race under UK Athletics and Trail Running Association permits, and the course has outlasted its current organisers: the records set back in 2017, Holly Rush's 20:17 and Rob Forbes' 17:34, still stand. The Century climbs roughly 12,100 feet, past Broadway Tower and over Cleeve Hill, the highest point on the whole trail, then on through Leckhampton Hill and Painswick Beacon toward checkpoints at Stumps Cross, Aggs Hill, Birdlip, Painswick, Coaley Peak, Wotton-under-Edge, Horton, Tormarton and Cold Ashton. Runners have 32 hours to finish, and anyone who does it inside 24 takes home a different buckle for the trouble.

Anyone in a village along that stretch, Painswick, Wotton-under-Edge or Tormarton among them, will likely see runners passing through on foot at all hours of Saturday and into Sunday morning, tired but still moving.

That kind of distance changes people by the time they reach your gate, worth a shout of encouragement if you catch them going past.

Saturday 19 September 2026 · Chipping Campden School, Cidermill Lane, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire GL55 6HU · Starts 11am