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Phoenix at the SGP awards

Thursday 11th February 2016

It fell to a men's vet team and one junior to uphold the honour of Brighton Phoenix at the annual Sussex Grand Prix awards on Wednesday 10 February.

Phil Grabsky, Lance Bellers, Nigel Herron, Paul Whelpton and Andrew Haig (average age 56) had completed their eight races during 2015 and performed well enough to achieve second place in the male vet team competition. In fact they were an agonising six points away from first place – that went to Wadhurst Runners.

That wasn't the end of it though – as you can see from the photographs, our table was groaning with awards (and empty glasses) by the end of proceedings. Paul Whelpton was first placed V5 male and Andrew Haig was first V6 male. Andrew has won his age group now for ten consecutive years. Nigel Herron it was, though, who carried off most gongs. Apart from the team medal he was also 12th in the overall men's placings and was third in the fiercely fought MV3 category.

The winner of the junior male category was Will Russell. Those of you who know Will knowl how richly deserved this is. Will is one of the most committed and regular competitors in the club.

Well done all!

Pix by Lance

Sussex Grand Prix 2016

The partial success this year has given us a taste for more – maybe we can even challenge for the top club award (something we achieved over several seasons a dozen or more years ago). To do this we need runners from each section of the club – juniors, seniors and vets both male and female to commit to running eight of seventeen races over the course of the year.

This is how it works:

You can find a list of this year's races together with results and rules at the SGP site http://www.sussexgrandprix.co.uk/ When entering, as a member of one of the twenty three competing clubs you will automatically entered for the competition. Remember to put in the correct club reference 'Brighton Phoenix' and your date of birth.

The first male or female SGP runner to finish a race scores 500 points, the next 499 and so on. You can run as many of the seventeen races as you like but your best eight scores will be taken into consideration. These must include two 10M+ races to optimise your score. If you can't manage eight then whatever score you have managed will figure in the results.

Points are awarded for men overall, women overall, senior teams (10 to count), vet teams (5 to count) and then the overall club competition. There are also awards for best juniors (U20) and those who have run the most races.

The whole thing can give a real focus to your running year especially since the SGP website features incremental results so that you can see exactly where you are placed in relation to the competition.

Phoenix's SGP representative is Lance Bellers and he is going to be making great efforts to boost our input into this amazing competition. Ideally we need more women, more seniors and indeed more vets. If Lance comes your way or you bump into any other of the SGP regulars, have a chat, find out what it's all about. It might give a real lift to your running year.