Bourton 10k 2025

My husband, sister, brother-in-law and I recently ran Bourton 10k. Bourton 10k is a popular, fast and competitive race in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire. It always sells out within minutes and has a big waiting list. My sister and brother-in-law got their places through the waiting list. It’s not on our club’s race series or the Gloucestershire race series, but there were still lots of runners from our club there, along with lots of runners from clubs in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Bristol and further afield.

I’ve run Bourton 10k once before, in 2023. My husband has run it three times before and my sister and brother-in-law have run it twice previously. When I ran it in 2023, I got a big 10k PB of 46:40. That was before I joined the running club and started getting faster. But I’ve actually only beat that 10k time once – at Cirencester 10k last year when I ran 46:11. My aim for Bourton was to get below 46 minutes. My sister wanted to get below 50 minutes, but would have been happy with sub-52. And my husband just wanted to do his best!

But the forecast was for 42mph winds. The wind would almost certainly help us in one direction, but would definitely be a problem at some points.

The race started at 9:30am and we arrived in the village at 8:30. You could pay to park in the centre of the village, but organisers suggested parking for free on the roads of a nearby industrial estate. From there, it was probably a 10 minute walk to race HQ at Bourton-on-the-Water Primary Academy. We picked up our numbers and timing tags for our shoes and joined the toilet queue.

When we joined the queue, it was quite long. When we left the queue, it was extremely long! We kept our jumpers on for as long as possible, before putting them in our bags, leaving them in the bag drop and braving the cold for the short walk to the centre of the village and the start of the race.

The race information said there were public toilets in the village near the start line for 20p. I’d guessed they would probably be payable by card/ phone, but I’d put a 20p coin in my shorts pocket, just in case. It turns out they were 40p! But they were payable by card at least. Although we didn’t actually pay because someone had overridden the gate and you could just sneak in and out. Whether it was one of the runners or whether it had been broken beforehand, I didn’t know. But I made the most of it and so did plenty of other runners.

The course starts with two little laps of the beautiful Cotswold village, crossing the River Windrush which runs through the village twice on each lap. We’d been warned to look out for potholes and there were plenty of them!  The laps were gone in the blink of an eye and, before we knew it, we’d run a mile and were heading out of the village, past Birdland and out into the countryside.

The race takes place on closed roads – there were signs up saying the roads would be closed from 9:15am until 11:15am. But we still weren’t allowed headphones, not even bone conducting ones. There were a couple of cars on the course, but they definitely weren’t supposed to be there.

A friend from the club had told us he was going to be pacing another friend’s daughter to 45 minutes. I know he’s very good at pacing, so this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. My husband and I hadn’t intended to run together, but we slotted in behind them and we stayed there. No need to even check my watch! He would definitely get me across the line in under 46 minutes.

The course follows one long, straight road, then it turns and follows another long, straight road. We seemed to pass the 3k mark very quickly. The road was a long and gradual climb, getting a bit steeper towards the turning point. The 4k marker seemed to come quickly. My watch said I’d been running for 22:21 when we got to 5k. To put that into perspective, my fastest parkrun (5k) so far this year was 22:35.

We overtook our informal pacer. I could hear that the young woman was struggling a bit. I heard the pacer saying we were onto the toughest mile. People were passing us in the other direction. It felt like a long slog from the 5k sign, through the turn and onto the 6k sign.

The return should have been quicker, as it was downhill. But it felt tough. I was going as fast as I wanted to. I wasn’t even sure I could go that fast for 10k. Luckily the 42mph winds didn’t seem to happen. It wasn’t still, but it definitely wasn’t as windy as that. Possibly being tucked in behind people helped to keep the worst of the wind off me.

It was a relief to pass the sign which said we were back into Bourton-on-the-Water, but we were still only at about about 8k. Past Birdland, past the 9k sign and into the village proper… Just one final lap of the village before the finish line. It’s funny how that one lap felt harder and longer than the two laps we did at the start. I was hanging on for dear life, wondering if five miles was my limit for running at 7:15 min/ mile pace. But I overtook a few people – most of them women, most of them younger than me.

Then it was over the one of Bourton’s famous bridges for the final time and I was heading for the finish line. I finished in 45:05 – over a minute faster than my previous 10k PB and over a minute and half faster than my last Bourton 10k. Having finished 11 seconds behind my husband at both the Linda Franks Race and Guy Fawkes 5 recently, I was just nine seconds behind him.

And my sister and brother-in-law finished in under 50 minutes! It was a good race for us all. Bourton 10k doesn’t do medals, but they gave out a very nice water bottle this year. No doubt we’ll be back next year.