The recent Kings Head Canter underlined the family aspect of athletics.

We are quite used to the odd twins, siblings and sometimes a parent and offspring being involved in competition but rarely do we have both parents and children involved competitively.

However, three members of the Naylor family from Brighton won their groups at the East Hoathly race with son Tom winning the overall event, mum Chris taking the women's over-45 age group and dad, Mike, winning the over-50s race.

At this event there is also an age related competition which was won by Chris with 22-year-old Tom in fifth place.

It was during the mid-80s that Mike first ran in the Brighton 6-miler from the Withdean Stadium.

Chris thought it looked fun and started joining in and so started the family's love affair with running.

Both joined the Arena 80 club and they organised a run to raise funds for the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children in Brighton.

Chris said: "From then on we got increasingly involved in training, racing and more recently organisation.

"Our children, Tom and Alice, were little more than toddlers when we started running competitively. They have grown up with athletics and they are still enjoying it.

"I feel our involvement has made us much closer as a family and we have made so many good friends from our involvement in athletics."

Last Sunday both were racing in the Hove Prom 5-mile road race and Chris finished fourth in the women's race.

Mike was a bit further down the field in his race while Tom was going for a long training run, also along the Seafront.

Both Chris and Mike still work for the Health Authority or, as it is now known the Brighton and Hove Primary Care Group, Chris as commissioning manager and Mike as a business supplies manager.

It is Chris who has, through her example and enthusiasm, helped not only to make the Arena 80 club one of the top women's distance running clubs in the country but also helped lift the profile of women's running within the county.

Many times she has led or been in the Arena 80 winning teams at county, area and national level and she is still waiting to hear if she has won another team gold medal for the recent national 10km road race.

The original team result placed Arena 80 second, but ineligible athletes were included in the computation and the result is still being checked.

Mike, whose athletic exploits have been rather overshadowed by his wife's, has concerned himself more with administration and he was chairman of the Phoenix Club for several years.

The children have not followed their parents into the health business and Tom and younger sister Alice have attended Loughborough University on a management science course.

Tom, who, has managed to keep up athletics while at college, has just completed his course and is planning to open a sports shop in Hove with fellow athlete Kurt Hoyte in the near future.

Tom has collected several Sussex and Sussex Schools titles, both on the track and over the country, and has just completed his best season to date by heading the Sussex 3000m ranking lists with 8min. 33.6sec.

He was also placed second on the 5000m list with 14min. 53.2sec.

"I'm now looking forward to a good road and cross country season," said Tom.

"I will be helping the Phoenix team to qualify for the National six-stage Road Relay at the South of England Championships at Aldershot next weekend.

He added: "I will be concentrating mainly on road races but will be racing in the Sussex Cross Country championships in January.

"And if I qualify I will do the Inter-Counties at Nottingham in February.

"Being part of an athletic family has meant that we can spend many weekends together racing or training and we all understand each other problems more.

"Alice has been following the same course as I did at Loughborough and this year she will be living in Lancaster and working as a market co-ordinator for Reebok shoes.

"She has had a pretty good season over the hurdles and she even ducked 2min. 20sec. for the 800 metres which is a big improvement on her previous best time for this distance.

"Because she will be based in the north of England we will not have so much opportunity for all of us to race together but we certainly will do when the opportunity arises."