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LOVE TRAILS, CARING FOR THE LAND, AND REDISCOVERING JOY IN MOTION
LOVE TRAILS, CARING FOR THE LAND, AND REDISCOVERING JOY IN MOTION
Running festivals like Love Trails are reshaping UK festival culture – bringing movement, music, and deep respect for the land together in a beautiful way. From trail runs to ecosystem-aware campsite culture, they're proving that partying and nature can coexist when we rethink why we gather.
The last time I ran was for a bus, so stepping into a running festival for the first time was a bit of a shock to the system. While slightly apprehensive about whether this was ‘my place’, it quickly became clear that festivals like Love Trails aren’t just about athleticism alone, but atmosphere. These weekends feel less like endurance events, and more like a collective reminder of the power of movement to connect.
Trail running festivals and movement-led gatherings are part of a growing shift in UK festival culture. They represent something different from the typical weekender: a present, land-conscious approach to partying.
Nature as a Participant
What makes these festivals unique is the way the landscape isn’t just scenery. Nature isn't just a backdrop, but an active, living and breathing part of the culture.
Whether stumbling across stoats, birds of prey, mackerel in tidal pools, or even the occasional lost mole, it's easy to feel like a temporary guest in someone else’s natural home. Perhaps most importantly, that awareness shifts behaviour. People tread lighter and are conscious of their footprint, or pick up their rubbish without being asked.
Like many other movement-led festivals, Love Trails takes place in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which makes environmental respect non-negotiable for participants. On top of this, the act of running itself engenders care. When you spend hours moving through hills, forests, cliffs, and coastlines, you feel the land in your body – with every climb, mopping of your brow in the heat, a gentle refreshing breeze, or grit in your shoes.
Movement Over Intoxication
Unlike traditional festivals where bars run dry and drinks populate the dancefloor, Love Trails operates differently. People still drink, but without alcohol setting the tone.
People can be seen lying on the grass and relaxing after feats of anything from 10-27k runs, or multi-hour hikes. Conversations revolve around trail conditions, workshops, and calf cramps.
There’s an excitement in the air that has nothing to do with intoxication and everything to do with collective achievement.
When the music starts, crowds dance because they want to express movement. It doesn't carry the slow lethargy of being hungover day-after-day that many associate with festivals. Rather, it's a refreshing kind of hedonism built on endorphins, and a different kind of escapism I’m used to.
Repair Culture, Respect, and Rethinking Waste
Movement festivals also reveal how repair culture is becoming part of festival culture. Stitching ripped tents, patching blow-up mattresses, fixing zippers. These are small interventions that prevent gear from becoming landfill, and as I’m sure you can imagine by now, no tents are left behind afterwards.
Independent stalls, repair workshops, and ‘leave no trace’ education are quietly shifting attitudes. Some festivals end looking almost as clean as they began, a complete contrast to many UK festivals that are notoriously waste-heavy.
Workshops and Play
What surprised me most at my first running festival was the play aspect. Workshops on grounded movement, breathwork, cold water practice, and ‘Bamboo Legs’-style sessions invite people to move like they did before exercise became a chore.
Kids, elders, runners, dancers all spring around together. The separation between fitness and fun dissolves into active play, which brings a lot of joy.
Movement-led festivals aren’t short on music either. The programming still delivers with anything from bands, live percussion, afrobeat collectives, and bass-heavy electronic sets.
A New Way to Festival?
Running festivals like Love Trails offer a blueprint for something rare in UK festival culture: a weekend built on movement, connection, and care for the land.
We felt Love Trails wasn’t just a festival for hardcore running, but an example of how a festival of freedom of movement and fair use of the land could be really transforming for those who attend.
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