Kensington Mums reviews
Taking place on the gorgeous greenery of the Laverstoke Farm in Hampshire, Run Fest Run festival was held between 27th – 29th August.
RunFestRun – The Ultimate Bank Holiday Staycation!
Kensington Mums had the great opportunity to attend this super fun family sporting event. It was the perfect event to attend right before the end of summer and the perfect weekend for those who decided to stay in London and avoid the hassle of traveling during these Covid times, but still wanted to get away from bustling London.
They offer camping sites and glamping accommodations – you do need to book the glamping way in advance. They also have a shopping village onsite for some shopping of a healthy variety of snacks and food as well as running gear. Volvo was their official sponsor. Little ones could enjoy a lovely sand pit, and dig for Volvo cars. Plus there were some food trucks where you could get your fuel back after the run – be it for breakfast, lunch, healthy snacks or dinner. They also offered entertainment such as huge bouncing balls and other fun games, plus face painting and henna tattoos. Overall the weekend promised to entertain the whole family and it certainly did!
The whole concept is simply brilliant and perfect for the entire family. It really empowers and encourages family time in a healthy environment. It can get somewhat competitive I must say – but that makes it also exciting and so much cooler. You could come for the day as it is quite close to London or you could camp the whole weekend from Friday until Sunday. We decided to go from Saturday midday to Sunday and camp on their site as glamping was completely sold out. We also recommend getting your tickets in advance and so you can get your Run Fest Run shirts which are super cool in advance as they will delivered them to you. The shirts are lovely, with different colours, identify you as belonging to a team, it could be the Bees Team, the Ladybird, Dragonflies team, etc. Festival goers were able to select incredible routes, designed by the legendary Steve Cram CBE, through the grounds of Laverstoke Park Farm. Families came together including grannies and nannies to run all together. Paula Radcliffe, Colin Jackson & Steve Cram, (running heroes) were present and gave some inspirational talks. Best of all is that festival goers were able to then swap their running shoes for dancing shoes and head over to the Car Fest and enjoy the live concert that featured great singers such as James Bay, Rick Astley, James Blunt, McFly and All Saints!
All Festival goers were required to present proof of a negative result for a Covid 19 test before coming to the festival and if they didn’t provide their negative tests they were not allowed entry, a real relief for us as we went with my mum.
All was well organised and prepared from the email reservation to the festival itself. We highly recommend signing up and registering as quickly as possible for all the runs you want to participate in as soon as you come. This way you are all set and prepared for your runs. Plus you can then have enough time to partake in the numerous activities they have organised throughout the whole weekend. We loved how they do group warmups and the good thing as well is that they have notices on boards about the itinerary of the whole day including the hours for warm-ups, yoga lessons and talks.
Once we arrived on site – they checked our tickets and gave us wristbands for all and explained where to go for the campsite – we needed to have specific wristbands for camping. Something I simply loved is, that for my son, they gave us an additional band where I wrote my mobile number in the event that he got lost – so this gives you a great relief that if that was to happen someone can eaily check and call me. The car park was full on Saturday and so they kindly allowed us to park close by so we could unload the car, our camping gear and all our belongings. We do recommend bringing a cart or trolley as it is the best way to transport everything, especially toddlers if you are coming with them. We selected our space to set up our tent, we prepared everything and once we were done we were ready to start this adventure and have fun. We had lovely camping neighbours with whom we became friends right away.
We were then off to start our fun run which was simply great and even hilarious as some runners are dressed so funny and the presenters are super comically dressed up as well. We enjoyed it so much and gives you such adrenaline rush! We then quickly grabbed a bite to eat and then changed to a warmer outfit and head over to the Car Fest. It was a real treat being able to see all the all the cars on display, older cars, police car, ambulances, fire engines from long time ago, caravans, etc. Not to mention how cool it was to be able to see the live concert on Saturday night with James Bay, James Blunt and Rick Astley, such a great end to a super cool day!
We can’t wait for next year to come back again to the most unique sporting family festival we have ever been to! Plus the best is that it raises millions for UK Children’s Charities. Well done RunFestRun Team and Car Fest.
For more information for next year, please visit:
https://www.runfestrun.co.uk/
