Canberra is a planned city built around a lake and surrounded by hills, and it is the best-provided Australian capital for running per head of population. It is also the coldest by a wide margin.
Verus currently lists 41 running races in Australian Capital Territory — 3 marathons, 6 half marathons, 8 10Ks, 7 5Ks, 3 ultras and 14 at other distances — alongside 10 weekly parkruns and 5 multisport events. Those counts come from the data on this site rather than from a claim about it, and they move as the calendar does.
The cold
The July dawn in Canberra averages 2.6°C at a 1.6° dew point. That is colder than a London winter morning, in a country most visitors picture as uniformly hot, and it is the reason the Canberra Times Marathon in April — with an average April low of 7.4°C — is the coldest race-morning start on the Australian calendar.
The flip side is that January is manageable: a 15.9°C dawn, cooler than Sydney or Brisbane, in dry inland air. Canberra has no unusable season, which very few Australian cities can say.
Lake Burley Griffin
The lake is the centre of running in the city. A continuous path network runs around it, split into bridge-to-bridge loops the way Perth's river is: the central basin loop between Commonwealth and Kings Avenue bridges is about 5km, the loop out to Scrivener Dam roughly 10km, and the full circuit around 40km. All of it is flat, sealed and traffic-free.
The Canberra Times Marathon Festival runs across two days in April — marathon and half on the Sunday, 10km, 5km and a kids 2K on the Saturday, all AIMS certified, all from King George Terrace outside Old Parliament House. The half publishes 215m of total elevation across 21.1km with 44m between the low and high points, which is about as precise as an Australian race gets about its own profile.
The hills inside the city
Canberra keeps its hills as nature reserves rather than building on them, which is unusual and very good for runners. Mount Ainslie rises directly behind the War Memorial with a summit trail; Black Mountain, Mount Taylor, Red Hill and Mount Majura do the same across the city. None is large, but they are close, and they give a genuinely hilly long run without leaving the suburbs.
The Centenary Trail runs 145km in a loop around the whole territory, linking those reserves with the rural fringe. It is the closest thing an Australian capital has to a national trail on its doorstep.
A club scene out of proportion to its size
For a city of under half a million, the ACT running calendar is remarkably busy. The Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team runs an unusually varied programme here — a 100km road relay and solo run in February, a 10km and 4km in October, a triple triathlon, a 10km lake swim — and Canberra Runners hosts the long-established Women's and Girls' Jogalong. Between them there is something to enter most weekends.
When to run
March to November, with gloves at either end. November is the wettest month at 9.8 rain days, which is dry by any standard. The main practical constraint is frost and fog on winter mornings, and the fact that a 6:15am marathon start in April is genuinely cold.