WO prolific racers were conspicuous by their absence during this year's May 24 Marathon Derby, but both are set to re-bounce onto the running scene in the coming months.

Injury was the reason why champion runners Jay Donawa and Victoria Fiddick were forced out of the island's key road race, however they are already looking towards future races with Donawa contemplating his first full marathon possibly within the next two years and Fiddick about to return to her native Sweden for a summer break with two events lined up as her first race tests since February.

Donawa was knocked out of the big race day reckoning when a final training mishap on May 23 ? a sprained ankle ? dashed his hopes of breaking a seven-year streak of runner-up placings.

Fiddick more or less resigned herself to missing the event after winning February's Butterfield & Vallis 5K, but doing so carrying an injury that was subsequently diagnosed as a shin stress fracture.

It brought her running to an abrupt halt after a winter that had seen her triumphant in the PartnerRe women-only 5K race and the Fairmont-to-Fairmont 7.2-mile road race. She also finished third in the Front Street Mile and was the second local woman in the International Race Weekend half-marathon.

But having stepped up her training miles with an eye on May 24, she picked up the injury, which did not become obvious until the week before the Butterfield & Vallis 5K. She ran through the pain to secure victory but knew she needed to get treatment.

Once the stress-fracture was diagnosed it dashed her hopes of taking part in the island's signature running event.

Since then the 40-year-old has been maintaining her fitness as best she can by doing extensive water-running sessions and some cycling. Last week she was given the all-clear to start running again and has now run three training sessions without any problem.

"The injury has healed up. It was not detected for quite a while so it has taken longer to heal than if it had been treated earlier," she said.

"I'd been training for May 24 and the injury was a result of just racing too much and upping my mileage. My leg was pretty sore leading up the Butterfield & Vallis 5K but I wanted to do the race. My training had been going well and I was looking forward to May 24."

Since stopping running she has been braving the cool of the ocean to do "water running" a form of running on the spot but suspended in the ocean without touching the bottom. Because she does not have a floatation jacket she has had to work even harder to keep herself afloat.

the extra effort, Fiddick has done water training sessions lasting up to two hours at a time to maintain her endurance stamina. She has also done some cycling.

Since resuming training she has run up to 8K in a single outing and feels confident that an upcoming trip back to Sweden will see her successfully compete in a 5K race in her hometown of Norrtelje in July and a mammoth "midnight 10K" race in Stockholm in August ? a race where she finished a creditable 17th out of 6,000 women last year.

Beyond that she is looking at Bermuda's Labour Day Race in September and defending her women-only PartnerRe 5K title in October with next January's International Race Weekend 10K on the distant horizon.

Fiddick said: "I've been working on endurance training with the two-hour water sessions, but I still need to do some interval work to get my speed back."

Since her enforced absence from the racing scene a new talent has arrived in the form of English distance runner Dawn Richardson who has won the three races she has so far competed in at distances of 5K, 20K and the Marathon Derby.

Fiddick said: "I've never raced her. I know that she is younger than I am, but I don't know what kind of training she is doing. She looks good over 5K but that is also a good distance for me."

Both Richardson and Karen Bordage finished this year's May 24 in times just under one hour 30 minutes. In last year's race Fiddick ran 1:30, so she doesn't feel she would have been out of the picture had she been able to compete this time.

Of Richardson she said: "I feel she will get better once she is more used to the climate. But that is good. It gives me motivation to train harder."

Donawa has yet to win the May 24 event. His form leading up to this year's race indicated that he might finally have triumphed, having run two competitive half marathons in one hour 11 minutes in last November's BFTA championship and during International Race Weekend in January.

In his last competitive long distance outing at the end of April he scorched to a time of 1:06 in the RMS 20K road race to win by virtually a mile from his nearest rival.

He is refocusing his sights on races later this year and continues to view the half-marathon distance as his forte, although stepping up to do a full 26.2-mile marathon could happen within the next two years.

The 33-year-old said: "I've never run a full marathon but that is something that I might do in the next 12 to 18 months. That is something I'm looking to do, but for now I'm running the shorter distances. I want to master the half-marathon first."