Fishwick defies strain to defend title

Colin Fishwick made a successful defence of his Kappa 30km Pre-Marathon title yesterday at Shek Kong Catchwater despite running with a strained hamstring.

Fishwick, who works at the US Consulate in Central, will leave for Morocco in April after completing his three-year posting here, and was determined to make the most of yesterday's opportunity.

'My hamstring went tight on a training run on Saturday and so I had to take short strides through the first half of the race to avoid causing damage,' said Fishwick, 34, who beat Kenya's Thomas Kiprotich to win last year's race. 'When I got to the 20km mark I felt the muscle relax and so my speed went up as a result.'

Fishwick ended up finishing four minutes quicker this year with a time of one hour, 51 minutes and 41 seconds in ideal conditions.

Wun Yiu-cheong finished the undulating course in second after posting a time of 1.59.18 to be the only other runner in the 800-strong field to break the two-hour mark.

Like many of the other runners, veteran May Chong was using the event as a gauge of distance fitness with just six weeks to go to the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon. 'I was planning to run a time of around 2:30 but after the turnaround point at Tai Lam I found myself closing in on the leaders, and so I just pushed on to the finish,' said Chong, a nurse at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, who crossed the line to win the women's race in 2:25:13.