Cotswold Way Relays
The Cotswold Way is a 102 mile (164Km) long National Trail running between the market town of Chipping Campden and the city of Bath. For most of its length it follows the Cotswold escarpment giving wonderful views of the surrounding landscape and passing many unique landmarks on the way.
The Cotswold Way Relay is a team relay event organised by Team Bath AC. The event starts at Chipping Campden in the early morning and arrives at Bath Abbey in the early evening, and uses the waymarked route of the Cotswold Way as the run route. The relay is over 90% off-road, taking in many hills, woodlands, fields and tracks, all offering spectacular views of the countryside around (if ever a runner looked up from the path to take it in!).
The 102 miles is split into 10 stages, varying in ascent and length. This allows each team to field a group of runners with differing abilities and experiences.
In recent years the Cotswold Way Authority has considerably improved the signage on route, as part of its upgrade to National Trail status, but there's often one or two runners who speed past a sign to take time to appreciate some countryside off the main route. For this reason this it's a very good idea for each runner to familiarize themselves with their leg before the race. A 'recce' will enable you to run with confidence on the day without having to look too closely for the way markings.
The event operates as 10 back-to-back races, starting each stage with a mass start at the expected arrival time of the 1st runner from the previous stage. Teams member's times are accumulated to give an overall team time at the end of the day.
The following table shows the detail of each leg. The easier legs are 3, 7 and 9. The harder ones are 2, 4 and 8.
Schedule 2019.pdfInformation
Here is a link to Team Bath AC's Cotswold Way Relay website: Cotswold Relays
Below is a spreadsheet detailing all members results over the years and also showing everyone's overall times so far:
Chepstow Harriers Kings/Queens of the Cotswolds
Our club currently has an amazing ten Kings/Queens of the Cotswolds - members who have raced in all ten of the Cotswold Legs: Dick Finch, Dave Andrews, Bill Savage, Paul Dodd, Geoff Bayliss, Gareth Jones, Paul Lidgett, Berta Havers, Andy Ost, Jan Morris. This challenge is a decade in the making.
There are a set of maps for each leg which can be viewed here (leg 3 has changed since these were produced): Maps for CWR
Overall results for each year - follow this link to the Bath AC website which shows all the results back to the 1st year: