Sam is the star at Tonbridge

Both the scheduled Crawley meetings were cancelled through lack of officials so Sussex athletes in particular had to look further afield for competition.

Competing in the under 17 age group, both athletes set personal bests with impressive javelin throws.

Brown (right) got the better of what could become a club rivalry between the two with a splendid effort of 40.70m '“ an effort that only five under 17 javelin specialists in Sussex bettered last year.

This was a pretty good throw for his first year in the age group and it even bettered his best of 38.50m last year with the lighter under 15 implement.

Pilling, meanwhile, added nearly a couple of metres to his best of last season with a fine throw of 40.20m.

Pilling was also to set a personal best in the 100 metres hurdles, where he knocked one fifth of a second off his 2006 best time of in 14.5s.

With a big field for the pole vault the two had to hang around for nearly two hours after their warm-up before they came into the competition but they still cleared good heights, with Pilling topping 3.80m and Brown 3.40m.

Crowborough's Darrell Smith, who has been missing from Sussex this past winter, had a good run in the 3,000 metres, clocking a useful 9m.08.0sec. while fellow Crowborough athlete Ryan Driscoll made a good start to the season. Moving up to the under 15 age group, Beacon schoolboy Ryan clocked a nifty 4m.56.8s, and then showed his versatility by leaping 4.23m in the long jump.

Seaford's Vicky Boyle and Lewes's Steve Dabson were both in action in the National Road Relay championships at Birmingham last weekend.

Running for the Arena 80 team, Boyle dropped two places, from 11th to 13th, on the third leg of the women's six-stage event, clocking 18m.59sec for the 4.7km course.

In the men's 12 stage race, Dabson also dropped two places, slipping back to 39th place on the sixth leg recording 17m.20s. for the 5km lap.

Local athletes Rob James and Ashley Williams turned up trumps in the Lewes Easter Monday Fun Runs.

In the senior 10km race James Baker, from Chichester, who had raced in the Sussex Road Relays on Saturday, was unable to notch up a fifth successive victory as Rob steamed well clear over the second half of the race to win in 32m.21sec, to the Chichester runner's 32m.58s.

Under 17 runner Matt Basford, who had also had also been in action on the Saturday, filled seventh place in 36m.32s, two places ahead of club mate David Bradford (37m.44s), who had been the fastest Lewes runner on Saturday.

Uckfield's Laura Burton was the second woman to finish clocking 40m.20s to Wigan's Rachel Moore's 39m.16s.

In the young athletes' 2.7km race, the home club's Ashley Williams proved a comfortable winner, running in 10m.06s ahead of club mate Matt Suter who clocked 10m.27s.

Looking ahead, the London Marathon will be the main event on this weekend's calendar, with many hundreds of Sussex runners and joggers lining up for the start.

Amongst the elite athletes, Rob James, from Newhaven could well prove to be the best of the Sussex runners on show and he is hoping to crack 2 hours 30 minutes in what will be his third 'London'.