Promising runner Jake Smith is set to make his senior debut for Great Britain after a record-breaking start to the year – thanks to the foundations laid in the hills of Hong Kong.
Bermudan-born 22-year-old Smith, who spent 16 years in Hong Kong, is the reigning British U-23s half-marathon record-holder after clocking an impressive 62:00.00 at the Vitality Big Half in London in March. The time, which put him behind only world-record holder Kenenisa Bekele and British Olympian Chris Thompson, earned an automatic senior call-up at the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, which have been postponed to October.
“Living in the countryside in Clear Water Bay, there was no-one else in the way so I would just run,” said Smith, who left for the United Kingdom after completing his GCSEs at King George V School. “The only thing I got a bit nervous over were the monkeys running on the road or the occasional snake. It built me so strong because – as you can imagine – running over mountains is much harder than running on a road.”
Like many Hong Kong students, Smith dabbled with sports such as football, rugby and hockey. It was not until his PE teacher saw the makings of a runner that he started to take it seriously.
“Mr [Charles] Riding sat down with me and literally said ‘you’re a runner, you need to invest more time in it’,” he said. “I always think when youngsters ask me about if they should take up running – I always say ‘just play other sports’. I find playing football and rugby built my endurance massively and I wouldn’t be where I was today if I had focused on one sport.”
Smith was a mainstay in the school’s athletics and cross-country team, and would also train with local coaches in his spare time.
“My parents also used to take me on all these different runs over the mountains. I was so invested in it that by the time I properly took up running. My mum had put a max on how much I could run because of the pollution.”
The family’s move to southwest England took some time to get used to, bearing in mind his more familiar monkey trails and cycle paths.
“It was such a change. Hong Kong is such a busy city, then I move to a place in Devon where the average age is about 70 – there was not that much to do,” Smith quipped. “I just wasn’t used to it. In Hong Kong, the farthest distance I had to travel in a car was about an hour. In the UK, the average is like two, three hours to get anywhere.”
Smith is now based in Cardiff, where he gets the best of both the academic and athletic worlds. His coach, renowned Welsh middle-distance runner James Thie, is also his lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University and the pair have only seen encouraging results so far.
Surprisingly, the global pandemic and national lockdown appears to have helped Smith’s running times. After breaking the national half-marathon record in Paris last November – and again just five months later – races and facilities started to cancel and close, and his Team GB senior debut was pushed back.
“I think it really has benefited me because instead of racing most weekends during the track season, you’re training and your body isn’t as tired. The lockdown meant I could recover really well,” said Smith, who alongside his five Llanishen Street Distance Project housemates set out several ambitious running goals. One of Smith’s main missions was to try dropping down from the 21.0975km half-marathon to 10km.
“I wanted to get a bit quicker so when I do longer distances the pace feels easier. We moved down the distance and introduced faster sessions. Then we set a date in July to do it,” Smith said, adding that he invested in a an elliptical trainer and indoor bike to work around UK’s ongoing “once a day” exercise restrictions.
Smith ran it in a stunning 28:00.50 – the world record is 26:17.52 held by legendary Ethiopian and Smith’s favourite athlete Bekele. While unofficial, Smith’s time is well under the continental qualification cut-off.
“I just thought of these time trials as the biggest races of the year and I went into it really motivated. I was in the shape of my life and training was unreal,” said Smith, who shaved a whole minute off his personal best from the European U-23s Championships last year.
“All I wanted to do was break the European or Commonwealth senior time, which is about 28.20, 28.30. Thankfully the boys paced me round and jumped in every few laps to get me to that time. I ran a 5km PB along the way as well.”
While the layman may see 28 minutes on-the-dot as being a major achievement, Smith could not help but feel disappointment.
“That’s the one thing I want to do – see how fast I can get over the distance. When you look at the clock and you see 28 flat, you’re gutted for a minute or two because you were a second off breaking 27 minutes. It gives you more motivation to go even faster in future,” he said.
Smith, who is opting to represent Wales on a national and Commonwealth level, is aiming to run “61 low” at the World Halfs, assuming it goes ahead in October. He and coach Thie are slowly working their way up to running around 110 miles per week in anticipation.
“I’ll be running against the Kenyans, Japanese and Ethiopians. I want to make a big statement there. For next year – I was talking to my coach – I’m only 32 seconds off the Olympic time so I’m just going to go for it.”
