Marilyn’s Meldon Madness
On Saturday afternoon, Marilyn’s Meldon Madness fell race took place. Formerly the Great West Fell Run, the race was renamed in memory of ORC Marilyn Cooper and is the first race in the ORC Summer Series and second in the wider SW Fell Runners Summer Series. Starting and finishing at Meldon Dam, the self-navigating route climbs up to the highest point in south England before a welcome descent via Black Tor and Longstone Hill. At just over 5 miles with almost 1400ft of ascent the race is a tough but beautiful challenge for any off-road runner including sections with no clear path, boulder fields, tussock grass and a super fast grassy descent to the finish.
Junior races were run before the full senior race and there was a good turnout of 19 runners. The younger juniors ran a 2km course and the older juniors 4km with both courses including the steep climb up Longstone Hill and the fast downhill back to the dam. The ORC Juniors ran well with Alistair Taylor 1st MU13 in 18:59 followed by Arthur Lane in 21:04 and Thomas Spiers in 25:10, Ruairi Duffield 2nd MU11 in 10:58 followed by Jacob Lane in 11:21, Alice Spiers 2nd FU11 in 13:48 and Ellenor Taylor 2nd FU15 in 24:29.
In the Senior race, a new course record of 36:09 was set by Sam Kelly from Exmouth Harriers. There was a great turnout of ORCs with Luke Stannus 2nd overall in 39:28 and Katie Littlejohns-Riches 1st female in 46:03 (winning her the Marilyn’s Meldon Madness trophy). Tom Poland was 6th in 42:28, Stewart Taylor 8th in 44:02, Joe Lane 10th in 44:18 followed by Ian Duffield in 45:50, Charlie Temperley in 48:51, Ian Ripper in 52:18, Matt Grint in 1:00:30, Lou Duffield in 1:03:37, Lorna Critchlow in 1:13:51 and Lucy Gooding in 1:26:20.


Roadford Lake Trails
Also on Saturday, the Roadford Lake Trails races took place with five ORCs taking on the 5km and 10km distances. By popular demand, these races are a new addition to the calendar at Roadford by Sportiva Events and the courses loop round in a different direction to the Autumn races.
Four ORCs ran the 10k with Rory Honeychurch finishing 3rd overall in 45:12, Lou Walsh in 58:11, Chris Fulford-Brown in 1:03:42 (1st MV70) and Pearl Barnes in 1:05:52 (2nd FV50). Mary Roberts ran the 5k finishing in 29:09 as 3rd female and 1st FV50.



Ultra Trail Snowdonia
On Saturday, Gill Spinney travelled to Wales to compete in the Ultra Trail Snowdonia 50k by UTMB which is a truly international race with almost 1200 runners from all over the world.
Starting and finishing in Llanberis, it has four big ascents, climbing Snowdon twice then Mynydd Mawr and Moel Eilio, totaling 57km and a little over 3400m of ascent. Gill first completed the race in 2023 then disaster struck in the 2024 race when she fractured her ankle descending the PYG track. This year was more successful and she finished 20 minutes faster than in 2023 in a time of 11hrs58 placing her 6th in her age category.

Ivybridge 10k
Erme Valley Harriers’ Ivybridge 10k took place on Saturday evening. Starting at Ivybridge Station car park and finishing at the rugby club the race had a field of 600 runners from all over the SW taking part. The course is relatively fast despite the steep hill from Bittaford to Moorhaven with the last 6kms being almost entirely downhill making for a speedy second half to the race!
Andrew Vernon ran well on the undulating course in lovely conditions and was pleased to finish 1st MV55 in 40:09.

Devon Coast to Coast Ultramarathon
Starting on Saturday morning with a 38 hour time limit to complete, was Climb South West’s Devon Coast to Coast Ultramarathon. This is a 112 mile non-stop race crossing the whole county starting in Wembury in the south and finishing in Lynmouth in the north and includes a full crossing of both Dartmoor and Exmoor. The route follows the Erme-Plym Trail to Ivybridge and then the Two Moors Way. Whilst some of the route is waymarked, some sections require self-navigation. ORCs Claire Grubb and Peter Roisetter took on the challenge.
Claire had been running well until the warm daytime weather conditions followed by cold conditions overnight and then foot issues took their toll. She took the difficult to decision to pull out at West Anstey having covered an amazing 88 miles and whilst still achieving a personal best time over 50k!
Peter meanwhile pushed on and completed the full distance finishing on Sunday evening after an incredible 35hrs 32mins. He said it was the hardest race he had ever done and a massive personal achievement.


Couch to 50k Marathon
Last but not least, on Sunday head coach Rob Richards led the Cto50k Marathon event on yet another amazing weather day.
Departing from Okehampton, the group ventured out onto Dartmoor in the scorching heat. This section of the route took them to Hangingstone Hill, Wild Tor and Kestor Rocks before they took on some well earned food and drink near Scorhill.
They then embarked on a pleasurable hidden lane tour through Gidleigh, Throwleigh, South Zeal, South Tawton, Sticklepath and Belstone. They finally arrived back in Okehampton having covered almost 44k with approx 1200m of ascent. For some of the group this was the furthest they had ever run. A great achievement!


