It was a busy week for Axe Valley Runner Jake Smith starting with a 1,500 metres race in Cardiff on Wednesday. Jake’s recently been focusing on some shorter stuff and was delighted to run a six-second PB of 3min 50.89secs.
Next up for Jake was a pacing assignment on Sunday at the Cheshire Elite Marathon. Tasked with trying to get some runners under the Olympic qualifying time of 2:11:30, Jake ran through 30km bang on pace.
As he was still feeling pretty good and with encouragement from the other runners and the race organiser, he decided to keep going to the end. With the other runners eventually falling back, Jake managed to finish 1st in 2:11:00 in what ended up being his full marathon debut.
Whilst being under the Olympic marathon qualifying mark, Jake won't be part of the GB team in this event as the team has already been selected. Next up for Jake is the 10,000 metres Olympic trial in early June.