It's like she's never been away.

Ashley Estwanik won the women's Half-Marathon Derby at a canter yesterday, and broke her own record in the process, knocking one and a half minutes off her previous best to finish in a time of one hour, 21 minutes and 58 seconds.

Despite taking a year off to give birth, Estwanik was still far too strong for the rest of the field and finished almost six minutes ahead of her nearest rival, Victoria Fiddick.

Fiddick, who won last year in Estwanik's absence, came home in a time of one hour, 27 minutes and 43 seconds, while Karen Bordage was third in a time of one hour, 30 minutes and 17 seconds.

There was never any question that Estwanik would win, instead it was always more of a case of by how much, and if she could beat the time she set two years' ago.

Another fast start, something she'd said prior to the race she wasn't going to do, and a series of sub six-minute miles, took her clear and with Mark Morrison and Chris Harris by her side. The only thing Estwanik had to battle against was the wind.

"Nobody can ask for more than a personal best, and I'm pretty happy about that," said Estwanik. "I think in perfect conditions, cool day, no wind, it could have been faster obviously but I'm not going to complain.

"I definitely went out a little bit too fast, I think one of the miles was 5.50 or something in the beginning which is way too fast. But you get excited, you feel good, you forget about the fact that there is 13 miles ahead of you, and everyone is cheering for you.

"It's such high energy that it's kind of hard to rein back, but I'm learning. Chris (Estwanik) and I are both shorter distance runners by trade, we were milers back in the day. He's probably learned a little bit faster than me so I'm learning to rein it back and take it a little bit easier.

"But I think the more experience we get, the better we'll be at it. I'd love to get away and run on a nice, flat course, with no wind, and no humidity, and see what we can really do.

"The wind didn't make it easy. We were really feeling it at the beginning. Mark Morrison, Chris Harris and I were trying to work together and take over for each other every few minutes. It's hard to do you know, you get behind somebody and you feel like they're going too slow, and then you get ahead and you realise 'wait, I don't want to be in the wind'.

"We were trying to work together but then unfortunately got split up. Chris Harris and I got away just before Burnt House Hill and then after that I didn't seem him again.

"After that it was just battling it on my own, which is never easy but pretty much whenever I felt the wind was at my back, or at my side, all of a sudden it was in your face again. The only time I felt awesome was on Front Street."

While Estwanik was setting a record-breaking pace, last year's champion Fiddick was running her own race.

"I prefered the conditions, over the sun and the heat," said Fiddick. "I ran a personal best on the course, which is always nice and as a Master runner, to be second in this field is not a bad thing.

"I felt good, I was comfortable but Ashley was way ahead, she's so good that I had no intention to go with her, even. You've got to be smart, you've got to run your own race. She's so superior to me so that I would have killed myself (trying to keep up).

"But it held out good, I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to do it, period. I've been feeling pretty badly the last couple of weeks. After my last race (in New York) I just couldn't recover so I was happy to finish and I'm still going strong."