A CONVERSATION WITH: 2020NE US Olympic marathoner Jake Riley...

In yet another in our series of conversations with some of the top collegiate and post-collegiate track and field athletes in the state of Washington and the nation, paulmerca.blogspot.com is pleased to talk with Bellingham native and 2020NE US Olympian Jake Riley (left/file photo by Paul Merca), who secured his ticket to Tokyo with a second place finish at the US Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta on February 29th.

Riley talks about his time at Sehome HS, where he won the Washington state 2A cross country title, where one of his main rivals was current University of Washington assistant distance coach Chris Kwiatkowski, who ran at Bellingham HS.

We then talk about his career at Stanford, where he was a eight-time All American in both cross country and track, and where he was part of the Cardinal's 2010 Pac-10 cross country championship team, which won the title at Jefferson Park Golf Course in Seattle.

He then talks about his time with the Hanson's/Brooks Distance Project in Michigan, where he was able to build on the foundation that he had while at Stanford, while building himself up for his eventual debut in the marathon in 2014, where he ran 2:13:16 to finish 11th at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon.

One thing he admits to during his time with the Hanson's is not training with "as focused of a purpose". He admits that he showed up at a couple of USA national track & field championships not quite as focused as he felt he should have been.

We then discuss the 2015 and 2016 seasons where he started off well by breaking 28:00 at the Payton Jordan Invitational, then ended with a disappointing finish at the USA outdoor championships, followed by the 2016 season where he was 15th at the marathon trials in Los Angeles, and 12th in the 10000. 

This period was about the time when he started having Achilles' tendon issues, and started having doubts about himself and his training, which were made worse through a series of personal issues.

He then talks about missing the next 2 1/2 years where he dealt with his Achilles' tendon, which turned out to be Haglund's Deformity, the subsequent surgery, and the move to Boulder, Colorado to work with Lee Troop, a three-time Australian Olympian and coach to an number of elite American road racers.

Following that, he talks about the buildup to the 2019 Chicago Marathon, where he got the Olympic standard, then the process of making the 2020 Olympic team, cumulating with his second place finish in a personal best 2:10:02.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns about the video content, please don't hesitate to click the envelope at the bottom of the post or in the comments section of the YouTube channel.

Here's the video:



NOTE: Special thanks to Mike Scott, Kirby Lee/Image of Sport, USA Track & Field, Dyestat, and Stanford University sports information for contributing photos for the video.

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