Every year in October, Béziers is invaded by thousands of sporties during the Béziers Urban Trail (BUT). This yearly event first started in 2019, and the 2025 sixth edition attracted over 7,000 participants. Of which mostly women (53%, just saying). There were four running trails: 10, 16, 24 and 42 (for the first time), and one walking trail of 10 kilometres. This year, there was also a race for the little ones aged 4 to 11 on the Saturday, called the Mini BUT. Whichever course you did, you could be sure it would be full of surprises. And stairs, a lot of stairs…
Level of Fitness
Since 2019, Béziers has also had its Urban Trail, following in the footsteps of other Occitan examples like the Nîmes Urban Trail and the Veni Vici in Uzès. To enter, you simply have to subscribe online (starting at 23 euros per person), which you can do a couple of months prior to the trail. Everyone above the age of 7 (the hike), 16 (the 10k and 16k runs), 18 (the 24k run) or 20 years old (the 42k run) can join. However, you do need a certain level of fitness as the courses will lead you up and down (literally and figuratively) town. And the runs obviously require training. Once you have subscribed, you can pick up your ‘dossard’ (jersey number) the day before the race, check the route and departing time, and you’re good to go!
Disguise
It is great fun to join a walk or run with a couple of friends. This year, one of my friends and I also lured our husbands to join us with the 10k run. Chéri was getting a bit nervous the week before, but was completely up for it on D-day. The organisation knows how to build up the tension via its socials and emails, and asked to come in disguise. Not many runners do so, so we decided to skip the costumes and focus on the run. Every course has its own starting time, and they all leave in waves to avoid too big a crowd in one go. The ambience was great from the start at Les Allées Paul Riquet, with cheering and music. And at 10h30, our race began. As soon as we started running, Chéri got rid of his jitters and we just followed the crowd.
Cheering Crowd
All the courses show you a different side of Béziers and take you from the labyrinth of little streets to the outskirts. Like every year, we ran through some of the town’s well-known buildings, like the Lycée Henry IV and the former Palais de Justice, to name a few. We also ran through the Polygone shopping mall, the bowling club, and the old arenas. Volunteers and bright orange signs showed us the way while a cheering crowd and live music animated parts of the track. It helped lift our spirits, although the many stairs remained challenging… Running over the Pont Vieux with the famous view of Béziers was glorious, even though we had to go up again by what must be Béziers’ steepest stair.
Surprises
By this time, we were about halfway, and some fun surprises still awaited us. Like the cheerful Brazilian percussion band ‘Baduê Sud’ https://badauesud.com/ at hotel La Prison, coming from the cathedral’s cloister. This year, night club Usine à Gaz, and Maison Jullian were part of the game. And so was local beer brewer La Gorge Fraîche (who handed out water, which was highly appreciated), and many others I’ve forgotten. Even locals get to see another side of town, and the streets buzzed with vitality. With the finish in sight, we had to take one last climb before reaching the Place Jean Jaurès from the town’s park, Plateau des Poètes. Although there was no time limit, all of us managed to finish within the first… thousand. Boosted with energy, we have already started planning for next year’s edition of Béziers Urban Trial. Are you coming too?
