It may seem hard to believe, but Sunday will be the first time that Chris Estwanik runs for Bermuda.

The six-times May 24th winner has been on the Island for 8½ years, but injury and work commitments have prevented him from being part of a Bermuda national squad in the past.

That will all change in Jersey next week when he competes in the half marathon, an occasion the Island’s best runner can’t wait to arrive.

“I always race in a Bermuda jersey when I go away, but this is my first real chance to do it in an official capacity and I’m very much looking forward to it,” Estwanik said.

As well as the half, Estwanik will run in the 5,000m and 10,000m races at the NatWest Island Games, returning to the track for what he described as his “first love”.

In 2004 Estwanik was ninth in the US Olympic Trials at 1,500m and fourth two years later at the US Indoor Championships in the 3,000.

“I’m enjoying the road running but it will be fun for me to get the chance to go back on the track, and go back to what my first passion was,” he said.

However, it is on the road that Estwanik is enjoying a second career as an athlete and the man who has referred to himself as the “fastest working stiff out there,” sometimes finds it hard to believe that he is still competing, and winning.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would still be doing this at 35 years old,” he said. “But, Bermuda has afforded me the opportunity to do exactly that, and I’m extremely pleased that the body has held up and I’m still running at a high enough level to be selected for things like this.”

Estwanik wants to be competing at a higher level still for Bermuda, and the Games are another step along the road to his ultimate goal, the Rio Olympics.

The Bermuda runner will get a chance to judge where he is on Sunday, when one of his competitors will be Guernsey athlete Lee Merrien, who ran in the marathon for Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics in London.

“He’s a phenomenal athlete, and someone I’m pretty interested in talking to,” Estwanik said. “He had a background as more of a middle distance runner like myself, and then was able to transition it successfully to half-marathon and marathon.

“He’s going to be a formidable opponent and someone, in addition to racing against, I look forward to catching up with and see if I can pick up any training ideas and learn from his experiences.”

Estwanik will take those lessons and apply them at the Chicago Marathon in October when he attempts to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.

The time he must beat is 2hrs 17min, which is three minutes faster than the qualifying time for the Beijing Games in 2008, and a minute quicker than the qualifying mark for London.

Estwanik though is feeling pretty confident about his chances, and said his performance at his first big race after a spate of injuries, the Rite Aide Cleveland Marathon in May, where he finished third behind Abraham Chelanga and Philip Lagat, had shown him that he could meet the Olympic standard. While his time of 2:21:32 was some way off, the 90 per cent humidity that day meant it was a slow race generally.

“I feel like my body is back to cooperating,” he said. “In talking to some of the Kenyan athletes, they were very, very positive about where my training was at, and gave me a great degree of confidence that I can hit it [the mark]. That’s the goal, that’s the way forward, and [I’m] just trying to enjoy the journey as much as I can.”

That journey will take him through Jersey next week, and while Estwanik is not making any medal predictions, he does hope he can follow in the footsteps of athletes who have represented Bermuda in the past at the Island Games.

“The Island Games is like a mini Olympics for the small Island territories and there have been a lot of people who have represented Bermuda over the years, and gone on to bigger things,” he said.