Burling fades after hot '9'
ISLAND ‘half’ record-holder Lee Merrien was on prizegiving duties at the Town front finish in the Father's Day Half Marathon and he will have noted how Ryan Burling is a growing threat to the Olympian’s distance marks.
In fact, for a while yesterday morning as Burling went through seven miles in sub 35min., it seemed that the event debutant would go fairly close to Merrien’s all-time best of 64-07.
But with nobody to push him and a strong headwind facing all the 800-strong field over the closing three miles, Burling slowed to a finish time of 67-51, outside his own 13.1-mile best of 66-28 and a second slower than Steve Dawes's all-time Island No. 2 performance.
At the finish he admitted he had pushed perhaps too hard with the wind at his back down the coast from the L’Eree start.
‘I knew the wind was going to be pretty favourable for nine miles so I thought I’d might as well go for it and see what happens.
‘But I got to mile 10 and my legs [were hurting] and then coming around Vale Castle the wind just hit me and I dropped quite a lot of time. But I still ran the second fastest time I’ve ever ran.
'I went through 10 in about 50-38 which was bang on for my PB.'
Burling had burned off the opposition with a 5-12 opening mile, followed by a 4-54 second.
Arguably, the run of the day came from runner-up Peter Amy, who destroyed his PB with a superb 74-12 that allowed him to pull away from Andrew Van Kints, third in 75-06.
Jim de Garis finished strongly to take fourth, both he and triathlon star Matt Dorrian coming through strongly.
Ulrike Maisch defended her women’s title with a steady run of 1-25.11 which is part of her ‘Ironman’ Marathon debut in Zurich in July.
