Rathfinny Run
Next Race: 27/04/2025
The Tasting Room, Rathfinny Wine Estate, Alfriston, Polegate, BN26 5TU
Welcome to the GREEN race that puts our environment at it's heart.
This is a Partner race
This means that we are working with a host Partner Organisation to provide timing and / or race management services for their event.
UKA Licence: Applied for
Event Overview:
This race has sold out every year since its inception four years ago - so it's in high demand!
The Rathfinny Run is an exceptionally special running experience. Taking place on Sunday 27th April 2025, it focuses on reducing it's environmental impact and encourages runners to reduce their carbon footprint. It's a green race achieving amazing things and we invite you to be part of it! This run will be for those runners that want to make a difference to the environment and their place in it. The Rathfinny Run is a UKA Licencsed event and takes place 2 days before World Earth Day, raising money for local cancer charity, the WOLO Foundation. IT is a carbon neutral event.
The Location & The Rathfinny Wine Estate:
You will race through the breathtaking Rathfinny Wine Estate, the first grower-producer of sparkling wine in the world to become B Corp certified. The route will guide you through the beautiful vines via hilly trails and cambers with views of the South Downs National Park. Once a working arable farm, the first vines were planted in 2010 and today Rathfinny comprises over 200 acres of predominantly Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier.
Rathfinny Wine Estate is located in the South Downs National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty in Southern England. It occupies the main part of Cradle Valley, on a south-facing slope close to the iconic Cuckmere Valley, just three miles from the sea and the famous Seven Cliffs, about half a mile south of Alfriston village.
As well as being a stunning site, the Rathfinny vineyard is perfect for growing sparkling wine grapes: The light, thin, clay loam soils over chalk are free draining and very similar to the Champagne region of France. The chalk provides a ready source of water for the vines during the drier summer months. The warm semi-continental climate and long summer days ensure perfect ripening, and the proximity to the sea helps mitigate frost risk, a major problem in cooler climate vineyards in Northern Europe.
Course Details:
This beautiful race offers two distances around a hilly loop within the estate. The route is an undulating 10.7km off-road trail through the Rathfinny wine estate with half marathon runners completing two loops and 10.7km runners completing a single loop. There will be distance markers every 2km. The elevation for each loop is approximately 330 metres. The course is mainly trail with some hard track and wooded trails. You can expect it to be fairly bumpy with cambers, hills and kissing gates all forming parts of the course. If the weather is wet and inclement, then it is likely to be quite muddy so please choose the correct type of trainer in this instance. Please take care and also be aware of any protruding tree roots especially through the wooded trail section which may cause a trip hazard. There are a couple of tight switchbacks and a few hills with two particularly tough!
Available Races/Distances:
Half Marathon / 10.7K
Race Start Times:
Double Loop (Half Marathon): 10:15am *(3 hour cut off)
Single Loop (10.7k): 10:35am *(1 hour and 40 minute cut off)
Course Briefing:
Runners will be asked to gather for a Race Director's briefing 10 minutes before the race start times listed above at What3words address: refrain.glare.stopwatch
We will be starting all races at the start/finish line adjacent to the Tasting Room (different to previous years). After each warm- up and race briefing you will be led to the start funnel (used fishing rope!) where you will line up to start.
Warmup:
There will be a five minute warm up before each race start supplied by GingerFit Personal Training.
Prizes:
There will be recycled medals awarded to all finishers. In addition to the medals, we will also be awarding trophies to the 1st male and female in each distance. Rathfinny will also be donating a bottle of Sussex Sparkling wine to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd female and male runners in each distance. Prize giving and presentation will be as soon as winners cross the finish line.
On-the-day Entry Fees (subject to availability only):
Half Marathon race: £40.00
10K race: £30.00
A carbon neutral event:
This is a carbon neutral event and there will be no single use plastics in use on race day. We recently appeared in Damian Hall’s new book, ‘We can’t Run Away from This’ and also appeared in Runners World Magazine as one of the best races in the UK to run in April. We feel that it's important to ensure that this race doesn’t impact on the local environment. The Green Runners mission is ‘Running without the footprint’ and has 4 pillars that determine what we do.
1. How we travel?
2. How we kit up?
3. How we eat?
4. How we speak out?
Find out more info about The Green Runners at www.thegreenrunners.com
We will be awarding recycled slate medals to all runners who complete the course and instead of a race t shirt we will be planting trees and shrubs within the estate for every runner that has entered. We will also be giving each runner a (lite) Trainer Repair Kit to help extend the life of their trainers.
We will be operating a kit swap shop where you can bring along and donate old (but reusable) running kit for other runners to have or ‘swap out’ for other kit.
Reminder: We are a CUP-LESS event, so please ensure you bring your own cup or hydration option.
Supporting the WOLO Foundation:
The Rathfinny Run raises money for the good work of the WOLO Foundation by offering 30 free spaces to runners who wish to raise money for WOLO.
The WOLO Foundation helps families living in Sussex through their cancer journeys. They support them by offering practical help and support to make their day-to-day lives easier. They work with local businesses and communities to offer families a wealth of services to support them through their diagnosis, treatment and beyond.
If you would like to find out a bit more about what they do, then please take some time to look at their website... www.wolofoundation.org
If you would like to, then we would encourage our runners to raise as much as they can for this very worthwhile cause through additional sponsorship so that the WOLO Foundation can continue all of their wonderful work supporting families in Sussex who have been touched by Cancer.
Event information will be sent to all registered entrants prior to race-day.
Further race-day information can be found at: The Rathfinny Run Web Page
Rathfinny Run no-group
Location
Directions
Race HQ: The Tasting Room, Rathfinny Wine Estate, Alfriston, Polegate BN26 5TU
Car Parking: There are parking spaces at Rathfinny near the Cellar Door and Tasting Room for runners only. (What3words location: pill.lushly.strikers). Marshals will direct all cars into the car parking area, which will be open for arrivals from 08:30am. Please allow plenty of time to park and join the race. Car Parking is free for cars with 2 or more runners as per our car sharing criteria.There will be a charge of £10 for each car with single runner occupancy. This charge will be donated to WOLO.
Shuttle Bus: To help us reduce our environmental impact, we will be organising a free shuttle bus for runners only. There will be two different pick-up times at the station to get you to the venue and start line in time for each distance.The bus will run from Berwick station to enable runners coming from both sides of the county to get to the race in a carbon neutral way.
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