Three of Bermuda's faster runners turned out in two separate events in the US on Sunday.

Three-time May 24 winner Terrance Armstrong was the pick of the bunch as he finished the Philadelphia Half Marathon 42nd in a time of one hour, eight minutes and 48 seconds, which put him only three seconds and one place behind Kenya's women's race winner Pamela Chepchumba who ran 1:08:41. The overall winner was another Kenyan Julius Kibet, who crossed the line in 1:02:02.

Eight-times May 24 runner-up Jay Donawa, who was second again this year, finished 109th in the field of more than 18,000 runners as he clocked a time of 1:14:41.

On the same day Otis Robinson was just outside the first 100 places the CVS/Caremark Downtown 5K road race in Rhode Island.

He travelled to the US hoping to trouble his personal best of 16 minutes and 55 seconds, set earlier this year in Bermuda.

But the Swan's Running Club athlete found conditions to be harder than anticipated as the early morning race temperature dropped to 42 degrees Fahrenheit causing him to struggle for breath in the cold air during the latter part of the event.

He finished in 17:16, 107th place in a race that was won by New Hampshire-based Simon Ndirangu in 13:45 from Richard Kiplagat in 13:47 and had just over 3,400 finishers.

Robinson, who is preparing for New York's Fifth Avenue Mile race at the end of September, said: "Everything went well right up to mile two and then I struggled with my breathing. The first mile was 5:03 and I reached two miles in 10 minutes."

The large race field, nine turns to contend with during the 3.1-mile distance, and the cold conditions were all factors that Robinson felt kept his time worse than he had hoped. However, it was an improvement of 1:40 on his race pace from a year ago.

"I would have liked to have seen what the result would have been with better weather," he said.

The quality of the event was underscored by the times clocked not only by the leaders, but the first two women Shalane Flanagan and two times US champion Sara Slattery who ran 15:26 and 15:42 respectively. The first 99 runners to finish broke 17 minutes.

Robinson is now concentrating on sharpening up for the Fifth Avenue Mile on September 29 where he has hopes of running a time as low as 4:50. Bermuda's Lamont Marshall, who won the season opener Labour Day five-mile road race at the beginning of the month is also participating in the Fifth Avenue Mile race, having been awarded an elite start place.