Add a couple of weeks to that and, after a year’s delay and anticipation, the gun will go off in Sapporo in northern Japan to signal the start of the women’s marathon.

Three British athletes, Steph Davis, Steph Twell and Jess Piasecki will be lining up for those 26.2 miles. For all three, it is their Olympic marathon debut, and for two their maiden Olympics. 

James Rhodes had the opportunity to speak to all three at the Team GB Kitting Out event at the NEC in Birmingham, where they shared their thoughts on training, their Olympic journeys, and expectations of the occasion. 

The first of three pieces is with Steph Davis, winner of the Olympic Marathon Trials in Kew Gardens in March and the only automatic selection for the Olympics as a result. This will be her first Olympics, and also the first time she has worn the GB vest. The Clapham Chaser goes to Japan with a PB of 2:27.16 and looking forward to the fourth marathon of her career. 

The first interview

It has undoubtedly been an exciting few weeks, and will continue to be. We asked Steph whether, now she has her Team GB kit in her hands, it feels that little bit more real that in 59 days she will be on the start line for an Olympic marathon:

“I still have to pinch myself to realise it’s actually happening! Coming here today has definitely helped cement that, it’s been awesome going round and trying on all the kit, I feel like a little girl trying on fancy dress clothes! It’s all a bit mad, but seeing the Team GB branding really helps to cement it as real!”

After that race in Kew Gardens, where the Clapham Chaser took 24 seconds off her PB and punched her ticket to Japan, she spoke to Gill Bland to reflect on the race, and said she would take some time off to mentally and physically recover and recharge to lead into a healthy build up to Sapporo. I asked both how that time off went, but also how training has been going since with less than two months until race day:

“I took three weeks off and that was good, especially with all the excitement, it helped to put some time into that and get used to it, because I wasn’t used to that much attention!

My build up has slowly started, and everything is going well so far. I am heading to Majorca tomorrow to do some warm weather acclimatisation, which will be great. It will be interesting to see how I adapt and how I perform in the heat. We’ve got nine weeks to go, lots to crack on with and do, it’s going to be hard work and I’m looking forward to it”.

Ready for the conditions

Of course, the potential extreme weather conditions have been a major talking point, particularly after the World Championships marathon in Doha 2019, and a challenge for the athletes to prepare for, something Steph has not had to deal with in her marathons to date in London, Berlin and Valencia. Handily, however, the weather in England has started to provide some useful acclimatisation:

“Even just the weather here hotting up in the last few days has really made me realise how much harder it might actually be, so I am looking forward to getting away and the sooner we start the better”. 

Last month, Matt Long spoke to Steph’s coach, Phil Kissi, about his coaching inspirations, principles and approach for the soon-to-be Olympian and her clubmates. In that two-part interview, Phil noted the benefits he feels Steph has had from an element of her training being group-based. 

Working together to grow stronger

Her clubmates include Rose Harvey, who ran an impressive 2:30:58 at the Cheshire Elite Marathon in April to improve her lifetime best by 25 minutes and go inside the Commonwealth Games standard. I asked Steph how much of a role the performances of her clubmates have played in inspiring and pushing her on in training and on the road to Tokyo. 

“It’s definitely helpful to do some training with the group and having people that are just inspiring athletes. All of my teammates ran at Cheshire and Rose obviously had an amazing day, and a few others that didn’t get the goal they wanted to, but they come down, they work hard, they’re amazing athletes and they bring banter, so it just makes training a bit more relaxing and good fun! 

I’ll definitely miss that when I go to Spain, but when I train I’m not worried about it. I trained for Kew [the Olympic trials] on my own, and my partner comes out with me when he can. He doesn’t do as much volume as I do, but he’ll start me off for a lot of my sessions and we work together, so I’ll have him by my side”.

A first time for GB

After missing the World Half Marathon Championships due to injury, the Olympics will be the first time Steph has got the chance to wear a British or Team GB vest. Not a bad occasion to make your debut! To end, I asked Steph what she was most looking forward to about the occasion and experience as an Olympian:

“I am just so excited! I had all that kit sitting at home, and it feels a bit mad that now I have got more GB kit! I can’t wait to wear it and I’ll just feel so proud standing on that line with the gear on ready to go!”

The post Countdown to Tokyo: Steph Davis appeared first on Fast Running.

On her international debut, Louise Small secured a top 40 finish in the senior women’s race, while Victoria Weir and Sam Stevens finished as the top Britons in their junior races with 40th and 43rd place finishes respectively as the GB team put in a determined showing.

For Small and her fellow senior women’s team members Claire Duck, Rebecca Murray and Emily Hosker-Thornhill, the anticipated quick-fire pace from the gun saw the field of 106 split in a near instant, with each of the quartet working hard throughout to pull back places.

As the five laps went on and the 10km race drew to a close, it was Aldershot, Farnham & District athlete Small who did the most when it came to working her way through the strung out field effectively and efficiently for an eventual 38th place finish, while European Cross U23 team gold medallist Murray also impressed to claim 42nd as she transitions into running as a senior athlete.

GB team captain Claire Duck finished in 63rd, and Hosker Thornhill finished in 90th.

Afterwards Small, reflected on the race: “It was tough and it was hot out there, but I’m proud of the way we battled as individuals and as a team.

“The pace was quick from the off, but obviously we expected that to be the case, so it was a case of making sure we kept our cool and ran our own races regardless of what was going on in front or behind. Overall I’m pleased with the finish, and both the race and the championships have been a fantastic experience.”

In the men’s U20 race, won by Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo in front of a rapturous home crowd, Leicester’s Sam Stevens worked his way through the field over the course of the three 2k laps to eventually claim a highly respectable 43rd place finish as he, like many, debuted at the World Cross Country Championships against stiff opposition.

With the sextet of junior men largely sticking together as a pack for the first lap-and-a-half of the 6km race, it was Stevens, Scott Beattie (Mike Bateman) and Inter-County champion Jonathan Shields (Michael Thompson) who led the way for the British Athletics team, with the sight of the trio swapping places something of a regular occurrence in the earlier stages of the race.

Only when the bell came did Stevens make a push forward as the heat began to take its toll on many competitors, and as the home straight beckoned it was he who pushed on to claim a finish inside the top 45, with Beattie four places and nine seconds behind for 47th place.

Commenting on the race, he said: “As a team we played the race out to go off steady and I think we did that. As we went through the race we tried to move through as individuals and a team, but obviously it’s so difficult to not drop off out there.

“I’m pleased overall though – I was ill at nationals, then I wasn’t quite at it when it came to Inter-Counties, so I really wanted to just come here and kill myself out there on the course, and I 100% feel like I did that.”

Elsewhere in the race, Shields took 60th; Hugo Milner was 69th, despite a niggling injury throughout; debutant Luke Prior (Simon Prior) finished 80th; and Ben Davies (Simon Goodwin) came home in 87th.

In the first race of the day to feature British athletes, the women’s U20 race, Victoria Weir (Bud Baldaro) was the first Briton over the line for a noteworthy 40th place in another impressive showing on what was her first global competition in a British vest.

At the 2km point of the U20 women’s 6km race Weir was sat at a mid-way point between the middle and back of the field, but a resilient final lap saw her move through the field to snatch placings back from the 104-strong field in determined fashion.

Speaking on a challenging course and temperatures of 27 degrees, post-race Weir said: “You train to be able to run hard, so in that aspect the course is fine because you’re used to running hard, but for me I hadn’t really adapted my training to the heat. I think if I was to do another course like this in these conditions I would definitely be changing aspects of my training as a means of preparation.”

On her first international vest and representing GB for a third time, she concluded: “I can’t even describe it – last season I didn’t even do cross country and was unsure about continuing to run competitively, so to start University after a really good track season and be able to be given the opportunity to represent your country, which was a life-long dream, three times in almost as many months [European Cross Country & Great Edinburgh XCountry] is almost indescribable.”

Also in the midst of the field for much of the race were Scottish duo Gillian Black and Anna MacFadyen, as the pair eventually settled for 46th and 48th place finishes on their British Athletics debuts. In the same race, Tonbridge’s Phoebe Barker (Richard Owen) was 57th on the back of good work undertaken in the earlier stages of the race, and Wales’ national U20 champion Cari Hughes (Andrew Walling) claimed 64th.

Unfortunately Amelia Quirk did not finish the race as she withdrew at around the 3km point.

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