After finishing second in Tuesday’s St. George’s Weight Handicap 5K road race, Otis Robinson headed to New York State the next day on a high for an assault on the Boilermaker 15K road race this weekend.

In St. George’s he was out-performed by international triathlete Evan Naude who ran a swift 16 minutes 20 seconds. Robinson was looking to duck under 17 minutes for the second time in a matter of months but had to make do with a 17.13 clocking after being blocked by a turning truck in the final stages of the race.

Both he and third-placed Sylvestre Jean-Pierre were impeded by the vehicle, but Robinson conceded he was unlikely to have quite made a sub-17 time even without the intervention of the obstacle during the BF&M-sponsored race and walk that attracted more than 120 entrants.

In the weight-handicap category, in which runners’ times in seconds are divided by their pre-race weight in pounds, the winner was Edward Eadie who was 31st overall in 22:42, beating Spencer Conway and John Legge as the fastest “heavy” runner.

The women’s weight handicap was won by Alison Harvey (20:46) who also won the overall women’s race. In the weight handicap event Rachel Rothwell was second and Pattie Merritt third.

Swan’s Running Club president Robinson was the early leader and ran a 5.07 opening mile. By the second mile marker it was Naude who was in charge, with Jean-Pierre also ahead of Robinson.

But Robinson dug in to his strength reserves to snatch second place and set himself up for a promising time at the prestigious 30th Annual Boilermaker road race.

He is hoping to run around 53 or 54 minutes in the 15K race (9.3 miles). That event should be his last competition for a few months until the autumn season begins. He is looking to take part in a number of overseas races to secure top level competition to improve his race times even more.

In the Boilermaker race, Robinson will be looking to keep pace with defending women’s champion Gete Wami of Ethiopia, at least for a large part of the race. Wami’s finish time last year was 49.31.

Beyond that, Robinson said: “I want to break 16 minutes for 5K next year. I’ve got a new overseas coach from Los Angeles who trains some Kenyan athletes. He is mapping out a schedule for me. I’ll be working feverishly to get my 5K time down and to go under one hour and 20 minutes in next year’s May 24 race.”