third year in a row, turning in a time of two hours, 35 minutes and five seconds in the popular race yesterday.

But his fine effort still fell short of his personal best turned in last year, which was two hours, 32 minutes and 50 seconds. Steven Caines was second among the local runners in two hours and 38 minutes while Patrick Brew was third in two hours, 54 minutes and 54 seconds.

Lopes, who was running his first marathon of the year, thought it was much colder than last year but still felt that the 15-20 mph wind had more of a negative effect than the cold.

He and Caines ran together for majority of the race but Caines ran into trouble with a hamstring injury after 20 miles and was forced to struggle the rest of the way.

"I was never really comfortable out there today, but I was more bothered by the wind than anything else,'' said Lopes. "Stevie and I ran along side by side until the 20-mile mark. I coasted with him for a while as he fought the hamstring problem, but when it really started to prevent him from keeping a steady pace I went ahead and finished.''.

Lopes, who has also competed in the Boston Marathon three times, said that he seems to be particularly attracted to the race in the Big Apple and intends to tackle it for the ninth time next year.

A total of 37 local runners started the race but only Lopes, Caines and Brew managed to come in under three hours.

Anthony Raynor of Swan's Running Club, running in the race for the first time, had a time of 3:29:00 while another first-timer, George Correia of Mid Atlantic Athletic Club, had a time of 3:41:00.

Ed Gomez of MAAC narrowly missed breaking three hours again with a time of 3:01:58, just outside of last year's 3:01:23. The actual placing of the local runners was not determined at Press time.

Bermuda's unofficial times Manuel Lopes (2:35:05), Steven Caines (2:38:00), Pat Brew (2:54:54), Ed Gomez (3:01:58), Simon Farmer (3:07:01), Colin Johnson (3:07:55), Newton Adcock (3:10:26), Ray Ming (3:14:00), Peter Slater (3:16:55), Alex McLoughlin (3:17:00), Harold Gwiasda (3:24:01), Anthony Raynor (3:29:00), Manfred Jung (3:34:00), Moria Scupham (3:37:00), George Correia (3:41:00), Kenneth O'Neal (3:49:40), Joanne Sutherland (3:50:02), Lars Melen (3:51:00), Kim Mason (3:56:21), David Mason (3:57:01), Derek Stapley (3:57:00), Uwe Huber (4:00:01), Murdo McCloud (4:09:17), Alvin Thomas (4:13:06), Ken Monkman (4:15:00), Burnell Swan (4:26:30), George Jones (5:06:15).

The performances of other local runners were not available. International coverage, Page 25 MANUEL LOPES -- First local finisher.