…and what does it all mean?
The club holds an annual Awards Night in February. Awards night celebrates the achievements of members in the previous calendar year from across the Club, from newcomers to elites. You can read the report for the 2023 Awards Night, held on 3rd February 2024 here, which explains a lot about what’s going on.
This page is designed to give a bit more information to members to help you understand what Age Grading is, where we get our data (and what to do if it’s wrong) and how we determine who wins what at Awards Night.
Certificates and Age Grading
As well as a variety of Club trophies, we also award graded certificates for those who have competed in UKA-licensed road races and/or parkruns included in the Club’s Grand Prix competition, all of which are based on age-grading.
Age-grading is a way of measuring your performance taking into account your age and sex. It enables you to produce a percentage score for each run based on how old you were when you did the competition and the comparative performance of world record holders taking into their age, sex and the event itself. This enables older members of the Club (statistically tending to be slower) to compete fairly against younger members (statistically tending to be faster), takes in to account the physical differences between sexes, and recognises the achievement of all. We have the following certificates:
Tin: 40-44.9% & Tin +: 45-49.9%
Pewter: 50-54.9% & Pewter +: 55-59.9%
Bronze: 60-64.9% & Bronze +: 65-69.9%
Silver: 70-74.9% & Silver+: 75-79.9%
Gold: 80-84.9% & Gold+: 85-89.9%
Members can work out their own age-gradings by visiting the online calculator on the website of Howard Grubb, which is available here. GRC uses the 2006/10 factors for the purposes of calculating age grading.
Power of 10
For Awards Night, we pull data from the Power of 10 website. Power of 10, or Pof10, as we call it, is the official UK Athletics rankings website with results, fixtures and rankings for all UKA licensed events run under World Athletics rules that have a sufficient standard of officiating.
We use Pof10 data to calculate age gradings by putting the data into an Excel spreadsheet that does the calculations for us, based on calculation tables created by a statistician called Alan Jones.
Power of 10 FAQ
Pof10 is not always comprehensive and members are strongly recommended to check their own records to ensure their races have been added.
How to get a Power of 10 profile
Profiles are usually created automatically for Club members when they compete in a race run under UKA rules, and you don’t need to do anything at all! However, if you don’t have a profile yet, you can create one by registering with Power of 10 and then linking results to your profile (see below).
A result is missing from my Power of 10 profile
To claim a performance that is missing, you need to find the performance in the competition results. Click the envelope beside your result to notify Pof10 and get the result added to your profile.
A result on my Power of 10 profile is incorrect
Runners can’t update their profiles as they’re driven from the official results of races. If there is a problem, you should email Power of 10 explain the issue. If there’s a problem with the official results, then the meeting organiser will have to amend the results before your profile can be updated.
Power of 10 has the wrong age group on my profile
You can correct this on your profile, either by registering with Pof10 using your correct date of birth, or you should email Power of 10 and explain the issue.
Also, please ensure that you state that you are a member of Grantham Running Club when you enter a race – this makes it possible for our race report writers and stats nerds to find your results on Pof10 and other results websites more easily!
A Guide to the GRC Club Awards
The following list gives the criteria for the GRC awards. For all awards listed as “Men’s and Ladies'”, there are two trophies awarded, one for either sex, but the assessment criteria is otherwise identical.
Men’s & Ladies’ 5K Champions
Male and female members with the fastest time from a UKA-licensed race over the distance.
Men’s & Ladies’ 10K Champions
Male and female members with the fastest time from a UKA-licensed race over the distance.
Men’s & Ladies’ Half Marathon Champions
Male and female members with the fastest time from a UKA-licensed race over the distance.
Men’s & Ladies’ Marathon Champions
Male and female members with the fastest time from a UKA-licensed race over the distance.
Ultra Runner of the Year
Decided by the Men’s & Ladies’ Captains.
Cross Country Runner of the Year
Decided by the Men’s & Ladies’ Captains.
Best Newcomer
Open to any runner who joined the club between 1st Jan and 31st Dec of the year in question, the winner is decided by the Committee, and is always open to judgement and interpretation.
Biggest Improvement Award
In an attempt to smooth out possible statistical anomalies, the biggest improver requires the two best performances from both the most recent complete year and the previous year. The age-grading is averaged to give a score. The winner is the runner with the biggest improvement in age grade from one year to the next.
Men’s & Ladies’ Points Champions
This competition totals the age grade from every road race and parkrun that a runner takes part in over the course of the Championship period (1st January – 31st December of the year in question). The runner with the highest score wins.
Members’ Member of the Year
Voted for by Club members in an online poll conducted by the Committee.
Men’s & Ladies’ Club Champions
Separately from the organised GP Series, the Club Champion is calculated from all UKA-licenced road races and is scored from the age-graded average of the four best races a runner completes.
The criteria is that at least three different distances must be run. Only road races count, so parkruns, multi-terrain races, cross country fixtures, fell races and track meets are not eligible.
Men’s & Ladies’ Club GP Series Champions
The Grantham Running Club Grand Prix Series comprises 22 local races from which the best six age-graded performances by a runner are totalled to produce a final score. The winner is the runner with the highest score.
Nathan Walker Memorial Trophy
The Nathan Walker Memorial Trophy ‘is awarded to the member who has made an outstanding contribution to the Club, or has been recognised for an outstanding achievement at a race event as either part of a team or as a solo participant’.
This awards honours Nathan, one of our most promising athletes and son of two of our most popular members, Ady and CJ Walker, who died tragically in 2016. The Committee provides Ady and CJ with a shortlist of 3 nominations and rationales to consider.