Santa invades Portsmouth for the RNLI Santa Fun Run
As the countdown to Christmas gets underway, thousands of runners up and down the country will be putting their best foot forward for charity in December’s annual round of Santa Fun Runs.
Portsmouth is one city that will be joining in this event on December 9. The Portsmouth Santa Fun Run has been held for the last 11 years and will be hosted at Castle Fields, Southsea, to raise money for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat institution).
Robert Piggott of Believe and Achieve — the organisers of the run — said that events such as these are very successful across the UK.
“About 2000 people normally take part in Southsea so it is quite popular.
“We have raised over £100,000 for the RNLI in the last 11 years and have already collected £1000 in donations a week before the event is even due to take place.”
The run, which includes three events — The Stocking Filler Mile, The Pompey Penguin 10k Plod and the Christmas Jumper 5k Jog — starts at 9.30 on Sunday and is already set to welcome 1600 Santas to the south coast.
“Four hundred people are taking the Christmas Cracker Challenge by completing all three events, which equates to the same distance as the Great South Run,” said Robert
“Upon completion they will receive the prized fourth medal as a reward. You can run, jog or walk and it is open to anyone who wants to get involved.”
Past runs have been very successful with people taking to social media to praise the organisers for all their hard work in setting up the event.
Colin Edwards wrote on Facebook: “This was a truly great event for all — from the fast running Santa to the walking Santas. Much fun and great medals at the end of each run (and the snowflake challenge). Rob and his team looked after everyone and made this very enjoyable. I hope this fun run will be in the diary for years to come.”
If you want to get involved with the run, you can go to Believe and Achieve for more information and to sign up.
Alternatively, if you aren’t able to make it this Sunday, you can go to www.santadash.co.uk to find out if there are any other similar events that you might want to get involved in.
