Although their vest is predominantly tangerine, Ipswich JAFFA Running Club has nothing to do with oranges! Ipswich JAFFA RC, established in 1977, promotes Jogging And Fitness For All (JAFFA) and has nearly 400 members who espouse that mantra.

The club promotes the Ipswich Half Marathon in September, the Ipswich Twilight 5K in May, and the Ipswich Twilight 10K. The latter event was held on Friday, 18 July 2025. The Ipswich Building Society Twilight Road Races first hit the streets on a Friday evening in August 2015.

The event was the brainchild of Carl Ashton. The vision was to put on town centre races, which hadn’t happened in Ipswich for 30 years. Carl said: ”I had heard that the club previously wanted a town centre race, a 10K. I wanted to put on an event that gave us that, but also tried to build some national profile for us. There are lots of 10K’s around, but very few good quality road 5K’s. I thought, ‘Well, why don’t we do both?’. To attract the elites costs money, so a business model was created where the 10K effectively funds the 5K”.

This year's 10th-anniversary Ipswich Twilight 10K was another sold-out success, with 1,314 finishers inside 1:40:00. The top three men were Cooper Berry (unattached, 31:36), Brandon Barber (Ipswich Harriers, 31:58) and M45 James O'Brien (St Edmund Pacers, 32:44).

Kat Parnell (unattached, 37:54) took the women's first prize ahead of Katie King (St Edmund Pacers, 39:02) and Alice Goodwin (Ipswich JAFFA RC, 42:44). The team awards went to St Edmund Pacers (men) and Ipswich JAFFA RC (women).

The Ipswich Twilight 10K programme is complemented by the Suffolk Schools mass participation Daily Mile and the Family Wave Fun Run 2K, with another 223 young runners and their family members experiencing the excitement of town centre racing in Ipswich.

A detailed history of Ipswich Twilight 10K and 5K is available here.

Full results of all events are available via the runABC South race listing here.

Photo from a previous Ipswich Twilight 10K courtesy of the event Facebook