One Year On . . . And Charlotte Arter’s Breaking World Records Again

Charlotte Arter is celebrating after repeating history by breaking her own parkrun world record in Cardiff.

The Wales and Great Britain international took a second off her previous record at the weekend to finish the 5km course in 15 minutes 49 seconds.

It was last January that Arter ran 15:50 on the same Bute Park course to become the quickest woman in the 10-year history of the global phenomenon, parkrun.

She admitted afterwards that she was unaware there even was an official parkrun world record.

Now, the Cardiff AAC athlete has done it again by lowering her own time to confirm her continuing good form in Olympic year.

Paul Graham of Pontypridd Roadents AC won this weekend’s Cardiff event in 14:50, which was the quickest parkrun time overall this week.

Charlotte Arter: I Didn’t Even Know There Was a Parkrun World Record!

Before Arter ran 15:50 in Cardiff last year, the previous female parkrun record had been 15:55, which was set by Hannah Walker at St Albans in 2013.

This weekend, Arter’s training partner Clara Evans was only 15 seconds behind in 16:04.

Saucony athlete Arter’s best road time is 15:39 5k and her track PB for 5,000m is 15:40.15.

Arter broke the Welsh half-marathon record with a time of 69:40 in Barcelona last February and now sits 10th on the UK all-time list, while she ended her year with a seventh-place finish at the European Cross Country Championships in Lisbon.