Weston and Whitty take the ‘W’ in Liberation Seven
RICK WESTON has put his name among the greats in the traditional Liberation Day seven-mile road race.
The in-form athlete threw down a quick 36min. 39sec. winning time in this year’s Source Recruitment Liberation Seven to enter seventh on Guernsey’s all-time list, just 2sec. behind the time that core rival Steve Dawes set last year.
Impressively, Weston achieved this feat less than four weeks after his monster run at the Manchester Marathon.
It is therefore unsurprising that he was ‘delighted’ with this run afterwards.
‘I did not know what shape I would be in, but I seem to have a bit of residual fitness from my marathon,’ he said.
Conditions were pleasant for the coastal run from Rousse to North Beach, with a mild and fairly neutral wind, and Island Games athlete James Priest lined up as the main threat to the current domestic No. 1.
Weston had started making ground in the first mile, though, and already led by over half a minute at half-way.
He left Priest claiming runner-up for a second year running, which the stalwart did in a very respectable 38-04.
‘I decided really to just push it in the first mile and see if I could get away,’ Weston added of his race strategy.
‘From there, I tried to hold on.
‘I got to 3.5 miles still feeling pretty strong and planned to keep pushing quite hard.’
As the gap grew up front over the second half, a quite intriguing race unfolded between U20 Jack Rees and a group of runners poised behind him.
Rees ultimately had to rely on his finishing kick to edge out veteran Matt Jamieson, with the duo finishing in 39-25 and a big PB of 39-27 respectively.
Nick Mann, Andrew McArthur and Steve Bienvenu filled the next three positions just on the other side of the 40min. barrier.
This all unfolded amid a positive comeback story from Nat Whitty, who only returned to racing at Easter time after losing almost a year of competition to injury troubles.
Whitty successfully retained her women’s title in 43-14.
Despite still having a few ongoing niggles and having just returned from a two-week holiday, she put on an impressive show of pace in the early miles.
It was not plain sailing from there and she had to fight off a mid-race stitch, but she still managed to win by over 2min. from the in-form Abbie Swain.
‘I am happy to be running consistently, even if there are niggles, and I am happy that I got to line up and held on to win,’ she said.
‘It didn’t feel like I was going to, halfway through.’
Swain entered the women’s all-time top 15 with a significant PB of 45-23.
Triathlete Chloe Truffitt took the third women’s spot, posting 46-24, and was followed 25sec. later by the fast-improving Laura Cornelius.
