The R4W 2025 Run Down: Looking back on a year of running
This year has seen more people than ever take part in Run 4 Wales’ events thanks to the rising popularity of running.
Our events this year sold out in record speed – with general entry into the Oysho Cardiff Half Marathon selling out in just 12 hours, leading to the decision to go to ballot for 2026.
With thousands of internationals travelling to south Wales to achieve their running goals and millions of pounds raised for charity, the boom in running isn’t looking to slow anytime soon.
The numbers:
7 events took place including the ABP Newport Marathon Festival, Barry Island 10K, Dell Technologies Management Challenge, Brecon Carreg Porthcawl 10K, Brecon Carreg CDF 10K, Rabbit Run Wales & Oysho Cardiff Half Marathon.
3 Records Broken – Yismaw Dillu took the men’s record at the Oysho Cardiff Half Marathon in October with a time of 59:22. Meanwhile, Natasha Wilson stormed the R4W 10K Series and set course records in the Barry Island 10K (34:21) and the Brecon Carreg Porthcawl 10K (33:05).
60,671 people registered to take part – with an incredible 57% taking part for the first time!
The average age of our runners was 38 and there was almost a 50/50 gender split with 53% of runners being male and 46% female.
In total more than 535,910 miles were run by participants taking part this year, with an elapsed time of over 22,853 hours – that’s the equivalent to 952 days or 136 weeks or 2.6 years of running!
90% of runners reported improvements to their health by taking part in our events with 93% reporting improvements to their overall wellbeing.
72% of our participants were from Wales – but our races weren’t just popular among locals as 4,471 internationals from 89 countries travelled to south Wales to take part. 18% of these runners were from Germany with the furthest participant coming all the way from New Zealand – approximately 11700 miles from Cardiff.
Almost 5,000 runners opted to wear a ‘Cymraeg’ badge on their Cardiff Half race bib to help spark Welsh conversations among participants, spectators and volunteers.
Workplaces got competitive with 115 teams taking part in the business challenges to help boost team bonding, CSR and charity fundraising.
Talking of charity fundraising, over 164 charities were represented across our events for 2025 with over £4 million raised. Half of this was raised via our official fundraising platform, Enthuse – which saw 11,641 fundraising pages created, 75,851 donors and 88,502 donations come through.
More than 300 spaces were offered to first time participants to take part in this year’s 100 Clubs across the ABP Newport Marathon Festival and Cardiff Half Marathon weekends to use as a vehicle to improve their health and wellbeing.
Over 50 schools took part in the Cardiff Half Daily Mile challenge – 20 of these were new to the initiative with half deciding to continue with it post event.
More than £13,000 donated to the Run 4 Wales Climate Action Fund – an initiative set up to help balance the environmental impact of hosting events by supporting sustainable development projects and green initiatives. This year saw 2 organisations supported from last year’s donations – Tir Natur and Keep Wales Tidy.
Matt Newman, Chief Executive at Run 4 Wales, said: “It’s so rewarding to look back at our race season and see the impact of our events in 2025 – not just in terms of participation, but in the wider community benefits they create.
“Achieving an almost 50/50 gender split shows how inclusive and accessible running has become and to see participants travelling from as far afield as New Zealand to take part is just astonishing.
“To have over 164 charities represented and more than £4 million raised this year alone is truly inspiring. It demonstrates the power of sport to bring people together and make a real difference.”