Spring is in the air, and we bid (fond?) farewell to Lloyd George Avenue as the site for our midweek sessions, and hello to Bute Park once again. Unless otherwise specified, we’ll meet up for our Monday and Wednesday sessions outside Pettigrew Tea Rooms; there’s a bike rack there if you fancy coming by bike, and car parking facilities in Sophia Gardens.
Monday Nights
During the pandemic, we shifted to out-and-back routes to help us administer the sessions easier, and avoid potential choke points like Blackweir Bridge. With restrictions easing, we’re in a position to inject some variety into the Monday runs.
We’re going to alternate between offering 3km / 5km / 7km routes and doing out and back routes on a weekly basis. The routes will be more or less the same as a couple of years ago (if you remember them) but we’ll start and finish in the same place.
3km route | 5km route | 7km route
We’ll have two different routes for the out-and-back – using the Taff Trail as before on the east side of the river, and alternatively over the Millennium Bridge, up to Pontcanna Fields and heading towards Llandaff Fields.
Wednesday Nights
For the first quarter of 2022 we built towards the half-marathon; for the spring quarter, we’ll look towards one of our favourite events, Cosmeston Relays. It’s been given a provisional date of 06/07/2022 so we’ll schedule this block of training to 29/06/2022 to target that.
We’ll also continue to have scaled versions of all the Wednesday sessions so if you’re new to interval training or returning from injury, you’ll be able to take part.
The first block of four weeks will look like this:
| Date | Session |
| 06/04/2022 | Re-learning the loops: 1000m, 800m, 600m, 400m, 200m |
| 13/04/2022 | Partner relays: 600m / 400m routes |
| 20/04/2022 | 1km repeats |
| 27/04/2022 | 25 minute Fartlek |
We’ll then post the block of training for May at the start of each month.
Sunday Mornings
But that’s not all! We’ll also be spicing up the Sunday runs a bit as well; whoever’s leading the run that week will make a decision on the route – and that’ll be clearly indicated on the Eventbrite link – so we’re not just locked into doing the same route around Bute Park every week.
We’re not going to totally ditch that route, but we’re going to mix things up to keep things interesting and see some different sights around Cardiff.
Other stuff!
We’re also going to look to have some more trail runs when possible, and also see if we can get back to the track (either at Leckwith or Cyncoed). Once we’ve got dates for these, we’ll let you know.
We’ll do a run at some point to collect the Snoopy statues on the Dog’s Trail as well!