James’s Grand Prix update – May 2025

James’s Grand Prix update – May 2025

In my previous Grand Prix (GP) update back in March, I promised I would explain more about the seven event categories and how the scoring works across them. In addition, in this month’s newsletter I have also provided details of the latest standings, plus an updated GP calendar showing all the events coming up in the next few months.

Grand Prix Event Categories
The seven GP event categories are;
1. Short road (1 mile, 5k, 5 mile and 10k)
2. Medium road (10 mile and half marathon)
3. Long road and trail (20 mile, marathon, long trail and ultra)
4. VS Handicap
5. Parkrun
6. Fell & Trail
7. Cross Country (XC)

Your score will feature in a number of categories/groups – these were fully explained in detail within the previous newsletter, although as a very brief recap, these are;
• Men: (i) overall, (ii) by age group (iii) by category A to G
• Women: (i) overall, (ii) by age group (iii) by category A to G
• Juniors: Male & Female

How do you get your overall score?

Here’s how the scoring works, including a number of ‘conditions & qualifiers’, as follows;

1. Participants must run a minimum of 8 events to qualify for any award.
2. Your total score will be the sum of all 8 event scores.
3. If you participate in more than 8 events, then your total score is calculated based on your best 8 results.
4. The 8 scores must come from at least five different event categories.
5. You will receive a penalty if you don’t race in at least five different event categories. I’ve provided a few examples and scenarios of how penalties might be applied further below…..
6. Points awarded for the club handicap race will be based on your elapsed time, not the position you finish in.
7. Points for an Ultra event will be based on the finishing time as a percentage of the winner’s time.
8. The allocation of points is scaled, where the scaling is based on the number of participants within each event – I’ve provided some examples of how scaling works further below…..

Penalties
Competitors receive penalty points if they don’t race in at least five categories;
• -5 penalty points if raced in four categories
• -10 penalties if raced in three categories
• -15 penalties if raced in two categories
• -20 penalties if raced in only one category

If your top counting races are in less than five categories, you are either given penalty points or your race points from another category is calculated instead of the top 8.

The calculation gives you the most points possible for you.

Example calculation:
You have run 10 Grand Prix races. Your top 8 races are in four categories. You will therefore be given a penalty.

Penalty Scenario One
• You have scored 100 points in your top 8 races and 99 points in the other two races.
• Your counting races will include one of the 99 point races so you have 8 races across 5 categories and will therefore not be penalised 5 points.
• You have 799 total points.

Penalty Scenario Two
• You have scored 100 points in your top 8 races, and 94 points your 9th highest scoring race.
• If your 9th highest scoring race to allow for 5 categories was counted you would get 794 points. It is therefore better for you to be penalised 5 points for missing a category.
• Your total points would be 795 points.

Penalty Scenario Three
• If your top 8 races were across 5 or more categories you would have scored the maximum 800 points.

Penalty Scenario Four
• If your top 8 races were across 3 categories, the calculation would be based on the lower of either 10 penalty points maximum for missing two categories, or the counting of the races in the other categories.

Scaling of points allocation

The first male and first female will both be awarded 100 points each, the second male and female will both be awarded 99 points each, the third 98 points, and so on.

Example 1: in a race where there are more than 10 male or female runners (in this example, let’s say 26), the first male scores 100 and the last male scores 75 and the others are equally spaced in between

Example 2: in a race where there are 10 or fewer male or female Striders, the first male or female Strider in the race scores 100, the last scores 90 and the others are equally spaced in between. Let’s say there are only 3 female Striders completing an event – in this example the participant in first place would be awarded 100, second place is awarded 95 and the third & final participant is awarded 90.
There is no minimum restriction on the number of Striders participating for points to be awarded. Therefore, if only one male participant and one female participant take part in an event, they will both be awarded the maximum 100 points each.
————————————————————————————————————
Latest Standings
Here are the current Grand Prix leaders…..