Sean Trott is the new Bermuda Track and Field Association Half-Marathon champion after setting his fastest on-Island time for the distance yesterday.

And Victoria Fiddick enjoyed a return to winning ways to take the women's title in a closely contested division.

Twenty-year-old Trott flew around the all-new BTFA Half-Marathon course in one hour 15 minutes and 46 seconds, just over a minute outside his personal best, which he set in Philadelphia.

The 13.1-mile race was held in conjunction with a 10K event, and competitors in both races started together. This allowed Trott the opportunity of staying in close contact with eventual 10K winner Evan Naude for the first four miles before Naude and the others in the shorter race turned around on McGall's Hill and headed back to the finish opposite the Botanical Gardens' South Road entrance.

“I stuck to my plan to run 5.45-minute miles through the first 10 miles and then push over the last three,” said Trott. “Evan was a little bit in front of me earlier. I thought he would keep to around 5.30 miles. Over the last five miles I glided, and the last two miles were at 5.25 pace.”

Trott was followed across the line by Geoff Blee, in 1.24.24, and Gerd Balon in 1.24.41.

Women's race winner Fiddick made a late decision to compete. She teamed up with Vivienne Lochhead, who switched from the 10K, and they worked out a pace plan and in the early stages ran together. Fiddick started to pull ahead and went on to win in 1.31.54 from Lochhead who, by around two minutes, set a lifetime best of 1.32.17.

Fiddick, who praised the “well organised” race, was 11th overall. She said: “I trained hard on Friday. I had planned to do an easy run and did not feel that great, but I wanted to run a 1.31 or 1.32. “

She feels, after a number of record-breaking seasons, that she is currently stuck on a fitness plateau, but remains optimistic: “I've had this before where I've had a chunk of stagnation for a while.”

Lochhead was delighted with her personal best. She said: “It was just going to be a shake-out run. I was with Chris Page at the nine/ten mile point and he said ‘Let's go for it,' so we pushed to stay as close as we could to Victoria.”

Third woman was Lesley Caslin in 1.49.06.

Naude, runner-up in last week's Bacardi 8K road race, took yesterday's 10K title. He stretched away to win in 34.53 from Nick Strong (39.47) and William Wood (40.05).

Fastest woman in the 10K was Deborah Norman in 44.48, followed by Gemma O'Brien (47.04) and Martina Olcheski-Bell (47.23).

The BTFA Half-Marathon is the second oldest, continuously run road race in Bermuda. One of those who competed in the first race, in 1972, was Mike Rickards. Now aged 69, he also competed yesterday. Remembering the first event, he said: “We put in a police team, and we didn't even have Jeff Payne running for us that day. It started at Warwick Secondary and went along Harbour Road. It was windy and wet.”

Rickards said the event is a good ‘pointer' for the Bermuda International Race Weekend events in January. He particularly liked the race when, for a number of years, it was a point-to-point event from St. George to Hamilton. But he enjoyed yesterday's route. He hopes Bermuda race organisers will take note of the number of athletes now reaching the age of 70 and add a competitive division for them, and also a division for the 60+ runners.

Half-marathon runner-up Geoff Blee was pleased with his workout. He recently set a lifetime best in the New York Marathon, clocking 2.56.45. Speaking of that performance, he said: “I'd run a 1.21.37 in Toronto. I was trying to keep that fitness up with tempo runs, working out with the ‘VP crew' at lunchtimes and a few runs with Chris Estwanik.

“I had a plan to run 1.27 at halfway. The second half is tougher, but I found myself passing people.” It was his 10th New York Marathon and 20th marathon of his career, and his third time breaking the three-hour barrier.