The Isle of Wight Festival of Running is returning for its third year on the weekend of 1st & 2nd June, bringing over 750 runners to the West Wight.
The event is held at and organised by West Wight Sports & Community Centre and has become an annual ‘must do’ for runners all over the UK, with a good number of runners coming from the mainland.
On Saturday 1st June the first race is the Freshwater 5K which passes a historic site, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s magnificent home, Farringford. This is an ideal race for those less experienced runners who still would like a challenge. This is followed by the Tapnell 10K which takes runners on a circular route through fields, past Afton Down, where Jimmy Hendricks played his last performance in England, to more than 600,000 people at the 1970 pop festival.
The biggest draw of the weekend is the famously tough Needles Half Marathon, which is happening on Sunday 2nd June. It follows a spectacular trail along the coast from Colwell Bay to Totland Bay, over the heathland of Headon Warren to The Needles. Runners then traverse rugged Tennyson Down to Tennyson Monument, before descending to Freshwater Bay and across Afton Marsh, to the finish.
Younger runners can join the Junior Fun Run on Sunday 2nd June which take a flat course around fields adjoining the West Wight Sports & Community Centre.
There is still time to enter via the event website – www.iwfor.co.uk – and members of the public are invited down to the Centre over the weekend to support the runners.
