RunFestRun: Inside the UK's newest family running festival

What happens when Chris Evans gets the running bug? He puts on a running festival of course. Enter RunFestRun, the UK’s newest running festival putting a firm family spin on a line-up that already includes the likes of LoveTrails, the Salomon Trail Running Festival and Devon’s Something Wild. So did the Virgin Radio breakfast show presenter and his famous friends pull off a festival to remember? Here’s a quick look at what went down at Bowood House in Wiltshire and my take on the highs and lows.

RunFestRun 2019: Running, food, music and family fun

We arrived around 6pm – apparently after most of the other 6,000 attendees – on the Friday night and left early evening on the Saturday after most of the runs had taken place. So we didn’t get the full festival experience. We missed some of the talks from the Olympians in the Motivation tent and tales of incredible adventures from the likes of Mimi Anderson and Ben Smith in the Inspiration tent. Both of which had a solid line-up of familiar running faces over the course of the weekend. We also bailed before Olly Murs hit the stage but I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or not!

So anyway, the weekend rolls a bit like this:

Friday night – chilled out affair with a couple of light runs and a couple of strong drinks!
Saturday: Run. Do all the runs. Get sweaty in the gymasium. Take the 4-year-old on the Helter Skelter 23 times. Pretend you’re not 40-something listening to Faithless DJ set.
Sunday: Wake up in a tent again. Realise you are 40-something and things hurt a bit. Ease it down for one final run. Go home happy and with a less-engorged liver than at any festival you’ve ever been to before.

97,718km = the total distance covered by RunFestRunners over the weekend

The good

Fuss-free entry: Unlike some festivals where the arriving and setting up camp can be a nightmare, getting into to Bowood House and read to have fun, was straightforward. No traffic, little fuss on entry and plenty of room to pitch the tents in a good camping location.
Decent races: There were a good selection of race distances, well spaced out over the weekend, from 2.5km, 5km, 10km and half marathon as well as a night time neon run and a fancy dress bug run. That meant there was something for everyone and the more trail-like routes around the grounds of Bowood House were stunning.
Inspiration from British Athletics: By far one of the best bits of the whole event was an activity run by British Athletics that let kids ‘compete’ against adults in three events, a short sprint with proper starting blocks, the shot put and the high jump. Brilliant fun and a fantastic way to get the youngsters excited about sport – particularly when they beat the parents. The athletes who ran this section were awesome with the kids too.
The celebrities ran in the crowd: It was nice to see Olympians, musicians and entertainers all mingling with the ‘normal folk’ on the runs. At one point, just as Chris Evans ran past, my 4-year-old was having a melt down because I’d not pinned on his race number. So I called after Chris and sought his help to get the Mini Me out of his grump. Which he did. We went on to cover 2.5km and finished that race joking to Colin Jackson about a sprint finish.
Inspirational for kids: Serious runners will want to check their short shorts and Strava segment hopes at the entrance to RunFestRun because this is all about mums, dads, sons and daughters, grandparents too. All getting moving and having fun while they’re doing it. No egos, just smiles. The spirit was amazing with support and encouragement all over the place. Think: the best buzziest bits of running races but over a whole weekend and a fantastic way for families to share an active weekend.
Not just running: The Gymnasium tent had hourly fun fitness sessions with huge variety of classes, everything from RockBox Fitness getting you sweating out the anger with drumsticks to Shakira Akabusi busting myths around pre and post-natal fitness. All of the sessions were open to all ages too, so nicely inclusive.
Water, water everywhere: Drinking water points in the campsite and the main festival area made it easy to refill your bottles. Good for the planet and for thirsty runners.
There was a mini funfair: I don’t think this needs me to elaborate.

The not so good

Lack of diversity: Looking around I’d say 95% of the people who went to RunFestRun were white middle-class. Maybe that’s Chris Evans’ audience, maybe it was the music line-up, or maybe that says something about mass participation running. I don’t know but it was very noticeable.
T-Shirt fiasco: The RunFestRun organisers made a huge deal about the teams, whereby everyone who went was split in one of four teams (including Labybird, Bees, Dragon Flies with a celebrity captains Steve Cram, Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson and Natasha Evans). Each team had a t-shirt but there weren’t enough t-shirts for everyone. That meant families who’d come to run together as part of the team couldn’t. I can also tell you that it’s not ideal when you’ve sold that idea to a 4-year-old and then have to disappoint them. This aspect was a total shambles, particularly when you consider the price of the tickets and the fact that such a big deal was made in the build up and at the event about the team aspect of the event.
No shade: It sounds like a small point but there was a real lack of shaded areas on what was a blistering hot weekend in Wiltshire. Far from ideal for families with lots of young children, particularly after you’ve run anywhere between 5km and 21km. Had it rained there would have been no shelter too.
A bit salesy: Meanwhile big prominent chunks of the festival ground were given over to stalls selling stuff. While there was plenty of sampling going on, at times it did feel like you were trapped in a two-day marathon expo.

RunFestRun: The Verdict

I guess the big question is would I go back? For me the best weekends take you completely away from the day-to-day and give you that feeling like you’ve been able to rinse your brain of all the midweek stress and this definitely did that. Despite only being away a night, I felt like I’d been gone for days, in a good way. So the answer is a firm yes. But I’d go in a bigger group and probably run more races.

And there are definitely things I think the RunFest team can easily improve. But overall this was a really fun family weekend that I’d recommend.

RunFestRun tickets and price

A full weekend camping pass covering Friday to Sunday, that includes access to all the races, costs £140 per adult and £65 for children. Meanwhile a day passes will set you back: