Amy has one foot in Gibraltar after massive personal best

And so it was to be – the Luton AC trainee accountant seconded to Guernsey romped to an impressive win and with it the £500 first prize.

But while Burling knocked out impressive low 5min. splits for mile after mile down the west coast, the real race was behind him where the chase for podium and top 10 placings was intriguing throughout.

In pure islander terms, nobody had a better morning than runner-up Peter Amy and fourth-placed Jim de Garis, both men chalking up new personal bests for the 13.1 mile distance.

From early on, Amy settled into a small group of chasers who had waved goodbye to Burling up the road.

At Vazon, two miles in, Amy was tucked in alongside Cheltenham AC’s Andrew Van Kints and Sam Domenico’s Luke Williams.

Eighty metres back, Michael Batiste was settling in nicely to his half-marathon debut even though it was a small world away from his preferred 800m and 1500m track running, while 100m behind him was triathlon star Matt Dorrian, chasing hard in front of de Garis and Ben Wilen.

Thirty metres adrift of those two were Tom Shaw and James Priest who, in turn, had 50m on the first sizeable pack. One hundred metres back of them Ulrike Maisch, defending women’s champion, was among a group of about 10.

By L’Islet and almost half-way, there was little change among the top order, except that Williams had dropped off Amy and Van Kints and Batiste was starting to suffer from stomach cramps that were to hamper him for the remainder and necessitated an unscheduled pit-stop at Les Amarreurs toilets.

With that stoppage his chase for a top three slot had disappeared and as he slipped several places back, de Garis and Dorrian moved into the top five where they were to finish behind Burling, Amy and Van Kints.

James Priest finished strongly to grab seventh spot with Batiste, Wilen and Shaw completing the top 10.

It had been another terrific effort from Mr Consistent de Garis, who had cracked his PB by two minutes, but Amy’s run was particularly notable.

His runner-up time of 74-13 was a huge slice off his previous best of 76-53 set in 2015 and by six seconds was inside the A qualifying standard for the 2019 Island Games.

‘I was with Andy Van Kints just up until about 11 miles and just before Bordeaux it started to get really windy,’ he said later.

‘Training had been going really well and I had done PBs in 10ks and 5ks, so I thought it [a PB] was on if it was decent conditions and it was a decent tailwind for much of it.

‘I’d love to do the Island Games, but it is a long time until then. But that is the aim.’

Maisch eased home in 21st place in a time of 85-13, by some distance the leading woman in the absence of the likes of Louise Perrio and Laura McCarthy.

The German national was content with the run, which saw run a steady pace throughout.

‘We were chatting all the way around but we set off quite quick and I think my reputation as a steady runner made them joint me.

‘I’d said I wanted to run 1-25 and it was good to have a group.

‘But we all split up and in the end I found myself running by myself.’

Maisch, who trains her own running group, said that her focus is now on triathlons and, more specifically, the Zurich Ironman coming up in July.

‘I don’t do many fast runs now and I should do more fast runs, but I try and do long rides on the bike and fit in as much as I can with the kids and family life.

‘But I hope, depending on how I recover, I may be able to run the Guernsey and Jersey marathons.’

Further down the field, there were familiar faces from a variety of sports, most notably island hockey star and cricketer Zak Damarell. Twenty-fours earlier he had been smashing a century as Cobo snatched the Weekend Championship silverware and after a night of celebrations was still chipper enough to clock 1-37 for 87th place.