Canterbury Running Tours

Introducing our Christmas Lights running tours for 2024.🌟

You’ll learn about the story of Christmas in Canterbury while taking in the famous illuminations.

Together, we’ll look at:

🎄How Christmas Day started in Canterbury Cathedral and it’s connection to the Romans.
🎄The Franciscan origins of the Nativity.
🎄Norman influence and Christmas traditions.
🎄The Plum Pudding riots of 1647.
🎄How Canterbury überfan Charles Dickens saved Christmas.

All of these stories will be wrapped up in a festive run of just over 5km, with the option of finishing in the local brewery.

Tours are available on request from Friday, November 15th and are perfect for local running clubs or Christmas parties with a difference.

Tours are available on request. Message me or head over to our website link in bio for more details.

Half term 💛

🍁🍂

Introducing our new street art tour 🤣🤣🤣

Someone must’ve got a blue spray can for their birthday. I counted about ten of these ‘masterpieces’ along the river on our run this morning.

They’re not quite Banksy’s are they?

Feeling human for the first time in a while. Even managed a 5km in the sunshine.

Maybe we’re back.🙌

Golden hour 🌅

Tonight’s run squeezed in the last of the day’s light and I was treated to a stunning sunset. We’ll miss you summer… 😕

Great evening run with social media star and all round good egg

If you haven’t yet seen the “When Gen Z wrote the script” post from featuring Dave then be sure to check it out.🤣

A Thursday throwback to this day in 2020 when I was joined by Claire and Gareth for a 5km city tour.🗓️

This tour was significant in a number of ways. After launching Canterbury Running Tours in February 2020, this was our first tour post-COVID lockdown; it was also the first time we’d had more than one guest running on our tours.

Claire and Gareth have been back twice since that first tour to run with me. In 2022, Gareth and his Dad ran our 10km city and country tour, and then earlier this year we ran a bespoke 7km tour along the North Downs way in the pouring rain.😆

Thank you both for your continued support and see you again soon.😊

Autumn evenings and a word of warning… 💩😆

Excited that our brewery runs with have been featured in this month’s magazine as part of their harvest feature.😁

Our brewery runs are a lot of fun and I really enjoy doing them. You can find our more via the link in our bio.🔗

Happy Friday everyone!

Our summer break was special.🇸🇪😍

Now it’s back to school and back to work. Bookings are open for our 5km, 10km and Brewery running tours throughout the autumn.🙌

Sunday run along the river. There are lots of ways to see Canterbury!

Thirsty work on tonight’s 5km run 😜

Take a punt on Canterbury… 😉

The final stop on our trip to France was The British War Memorial in Normandy.

As part of the D-Day 80 commemorations, the Standing with Giants installation features 1,475 silhouettes representing the number of servicemen who lost their lives on 6 June 1944. There is also a French memorial on the site surrounded by silhouettes of the 50 resistance fighters who perished.

The installation is in place until the end of the month. It’s a powerful and moving tribute.

When your owner won’t let you jump in the river after a hot morning run.🐾

It’s going to be another stunning day in Canterbury.😍

Last week’s running took me to Sword Beach, scene of the Normandy Landings in the Second World War.

Sword was the code name given to one of the five main landing areas along the Normandy coast during the initial assault phase of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of German-occupied France commenced on 6 June 1944.

Stretching 8 kilometres from Ouistreham, where we were staying, to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, the beach was the easternmost landing site of the invasion. Taking Sword was to be the responsibility of the British Army with sea transport, mine sweeping and a naval bombardment force provided by the British Royal Navy as well as elements from the Polish, Norwegian and other Allied navies.🇬🇧🇵🇱🇳🇴

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings, there are commemorations along the Normandy coast for all those involved.

My personal favourite were the banners celebrating the individuals who faught in the Battle of Normandy.

A great run along a seafront full of history.

👍 Thumbs up for the merch! 👍

Eugenio enjoyed his run with us so much that he asked for his very own Canterbury Running Tours shirt. We were only too happy to oblige.😆

Glad you like it Eugenio! 🙌

Last week I was in Normandy, France ahead of the Olympic Games.🇫🇷

Did you know that the Abbey of Saint-Étienne in Caen and Canterbury are made from the same stone?

Caen Stone has been the principal building stone for Canterbury Cathedral since the major rebuilding that started in 1070 under Archbishop Lanfranc. Quarried around the city of Caen, the creamy, honey-coloured lime stone was loaded onto sea-going vessels to make the crossing of the English Channel.

The uniform texture of the stone also makes it an excellent medium for sculptural work and consequently is popular with masons.

Declining quality in the stone quarried in Caen led to the opening of a new quarry in 2004 around 15km from the city to extract limestone of the same characteristics and age as the medieval stone previously quarried in Caen. Canterbury Cathedral has been using stone from this quarry since 2007 ensuring an excellent match with much of the original stonework that remains within the cathedral.

So now you know.

We’ve been doing a few evening tours as of late, so I thought we’d throw back to one of the first I did back in October 2021 with

Alex was part of the tour and had these very generous words to say in a review on Trip Advisor.

If you’re interested in an evening tour for you or your running club, get in touch with me to set it up. If you want to find out what our guests say about our tours, please visit or ⭐️

Welcome to the Yin and yang of Canterbury Running Tours.☯️

There were a couple of firsts on one of my running tours last week.

First off: I got heckled!

I was talking about the history of Westgate Towers when a taxi driver shouted from his stationary car that “He doesn’t know what he’s f***king talking about!”. I like to think I do sir, but maybe next time be more constructive with your feedback.🤣

Second, the yin to the yang: I got some random praise from a stranger!

A few minutes on from “taxi gate”, we bumped into a lovely runner in Solly’s Orchard who slowed down to say, “I follow you on Instagram. What you do is great!”. Turns out that the legend in pink was none other than

Thank you - that was a really lovely thing to say and you’re totally getting a free tour if you want one.🩷

To anyone reading this, you too can be Team Gracie and heap on the praise. Or, if you’d prefer to be Team Taxi and heckle me, that’s fine too. Just go ahead and book a running tour with me. I’m cool with either.🧘

The tours keep on coming, and tonight it was the turn of Eugenio from Milan.🇮🇹

To say Eugenio is passionate about running is an understatement: although he only took it up regularly during COVID, he runs 5-10km every day, even when travelling. He’s only in town for around 36 hours, and saw an ad for our tours in the summer guide so reached out over email late yesterday to arrange a run. I’m delighted that we were able to squeeze it in and had a blast running our 10km route with him.🙌

St Augustine, the Dane John Mound, the Roman walls - it’s only when you run with an Italian that you realise how much of the city’s history is tied to their country.😆

Enjoy the rest of your stay Eugenio, and safe travels.

Private tour this morning with Breanna and Derek from Lafayette in Louisiana.🇺🇸

Last July the couple ran our 5km city tour and promised they’d be back for more. Today we followed the White Cliffs from Dover down to the beach at St Margarets Bay where they chalked their initials onto a rock.

On the way back the most ridiculous rain ever set in and drenched us. I was keen to show Derek the Fan Bay bunker and sound mirrors: getting down to them was easy enough but the rain had made the path back up very slippery and treacherous, turning into a crawl climb. It was definitely an adventure.🙌

The couple are off on cruise up to Iceland later today as part of an amazing 21-day itinerary. Thank you for starting your holiday with a tour, and safe travels.

Our second tour of the day was a private evening run with Hannah and Brian from London.🇬🇧

The couple are in the city for just one evening and unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were only able to run an abridged version of our 10km tour. We still managed to blast through some of the key sights though.💪

Most people I run with are experiencing a running tour for the first time: that wasn’t the case with Hannah and Brian, who have run tours in several UK cities and as far afield as Morocco. Their first tour was with .runs.the.world and who are one of the inspirations for what I do here in Canterbury.🙌

Thanks for running with us tonight and enjoy the rest of your stay.

A soggy but special 5km city tour this morning with Yaimara, all the way from Cuba.🇨🇺

Yaimara lives in Miami and one of the first things she told me was that she loves running in the rain - well, today was your lucky day as it did not stop this morning.☔️

A good run for me is when the conversation flows, and I learnt a lot about Yaimara’s life, her travels, and her fondness for running up and down Miami’s ‘trash piles’.🤣

Enjoy the rest of your stay and safe travels!