Jake Smith on Training with the World’s Best
Article by Tait Hearps
Jake Smith is a young athlete from the UK who has already performed well on the world stage and looks to have a lot of progression still ahead of him. He has run 60:31 for the half marathon and 2:11:00 for the marathon – in a race he was only meant to be pacing until 25-30km. He also paced Bashir Abdi to his recent European record in Rotterdam on a week’s notice (cruising through the half in 61:57). Jake came on the podcast back in November but we asked him to come back on to discuss his recent move to NN and time spent training with Joshua Cheptegei and his group in Kapchorwa, Uganda.
Throughout his youth in Hong Kong Jake played several sports including football, hockey, rugby and netball. He credits this diversity of activity for developing a great aerobic capacity prior to ever even focussing on running, which he eventually did when he moved to the UK at fifteen. He qualified for team GB for the World Mountain Running Championships at the end of high school. He wasn’t coached for athletics until he started at university at Cardiff Met where he now trains under James Dean alongside a diverse group of athletes. Things have been progressing well here and Jake says his weekly structure hasn’t changed for years now.
He believes that his speed over the shorter distances is currently lacking and is what he plans to work on in the coming years before prioritising the marathon distance. His personal bests of 8:00 for the 3000 and 13:38 for 5000 are no mean feat, however he says that compared to many of the East Africans who perform at the top level in the marathon, his times over shorter distances need work if he is to contend for medals at the top level. Paris 2024 is a big focus – with a short-term goal being to run the worlds qualifier in the 10,000m prior to stepping up to the marathon for the games.
After returning from a big stint in Kapchorwa, Jake spoke to us from Devon the day prior to his last big session before Ghent Half Marathon, where he was aiming to break the 60:00 barrier, however he has subsequently had to withdraw from the race. His time in the Ugandan highlands came about after signing with NN Running Team who have a squad of athletes training there. This was Jake’s first block of training at altitude, and he said that this combined with the relentless hills of Kapchorwa saw him make massive progress during his five weeks over there.
Jake stayed nearby to the NN camp, which he said was very basic – athletes are in very small rooms and have access to minimal amenities. Jake would run down the hill from his accommodation to meet the group and head out for the sessions. Monday, Wednesday, Friday would be ‘easy’ days where up to one hundred athletes would run off together, including other groups such as Jacob Kiplimo’s… these would often end up with big groups running very fast over the hills. This was especially challenging for Jake on the Monday session; many of the Ugandans would not run on Sundays for religious reasons, whereas Jake would be off doing a hard long run.
Adapting to the altitude took a good week or so during which Jake was doing easier running and easing into sessions by pacing the NN female athletes on the track. After this week of adjusting to the terrain and the altitude he started to feel a lot more comfortable and says the hills really started to develop strength – so much so that despite not doing any gym work over there he is now lifting heavier weights than before he left for Africa. Jake was doing some core/calisthenics work but eventually stopped as he found the hills were providing ample stimulus – he says none of the Ugandans were doing any gym work either. Another change he had to adapt to was increasing the number of hard sessions, from the two (plus a long run) that he regularly runs when in Cardiff, up to three plus the Sunday long run.
The terrain was something that came as a bit of a surprise, with many of the runs being on narrow, slippery clay trails through steep hills. Jake says he can’t understand how more athletes weren’t falling all over the place, when at times over one hundred of them would be racing down the hills on these trails. The track the group ran on was a single dirt lane on a field of grass – “undulating” as Jake put it. The weather was warm and when the rain fell the mud caked on their shoes, adding an extra element of difficulty to the conditions.
Nutrition is something that Jake says he has struggled with in the past. During his first appearance on the podcast he spoke candidly with Matt about his difficulties through his late teens – earlier in his career he suffered two stress fractures during periods of underfuelling. Since then he has been prioritising fuelling for performance and is feeling better and stronger than ever.
Nutrition was something that presented challenges in Uganda – the food is very ‘clean’ according to Jake. Many of the meals are a combination of bread, vegetables, rice and chapati, with occasional mince or chicken. The NN athletes also had access to protein powders and Maurten. During his stay he lost about 4kg – his weight fell to 53kg down from 57kg. He ended up curtailing his stint in Uganda as he was beginning to feel deeply fatigued, struggling with sleep and recovery, as well as dropping weight. Now back at home he has been smashing through peanut butter and Nutella (a staple of his) to try to get his energy balance back up. However, unfortunately a bout of illness combined with the fatigue of his stay has meant he had to withdraw from the Ghent Half Marathon.
Another major lesson from Jake’s time in Uganda was to drop the intensity of the recovery runs, and to prioritise recovery overall. During his time there he got caught up in wanting to explore the area and in addition to the ~180km he was running each week, he would also go out on long walks through the hills with his girlfriend Katie. He also went out and ran almost every afternoon, and only learnt at the end of his stay that the team he was training with would normally spend parts of most days napping and also skip the afternoon runs if they were feeling fatigued.
His hardest session whilst in Kapchorwa? 5km (14:47)/4km (11:25)/3km (8:24)/2km (5:24)/1km (2:39) – on road at 1100m altitude.
Some others include the following (all available on Jake’s Strava)
- 10 x 1km (100m walk/100 jog recovery) – average 2:49 at ~2000m
- 5 x 1 mile (4:55 down to 4:39), 2 x (600 (~1:40)/400 (~65)
- 3km (8:34), 2km (5:29), 1km (2:45), 1km (2:43) – ~1km easy jog between reps
- 10km tempo (3:18 avg) followed by 8 x 400 (62.4 avg)
- 2 x 1 mile (4:47, 4:40), 800m (2:21), 800m (2:19), 400m (70s), 1km (2:52), 1200 (3:27) – variable rest
- 12 x 600m (1:46-1:36)
- Hilly tempo ~14km 3:17 average with 314m elevation gain
- Progressive (undulating) long runs of 25km (3:32 avg), 30km (3:27 avg), 32km (3:41 avg), 34km (3:41 avg)
Jake absolutely loved his experience over there and highly recommends it to anyone who is interested in traveling to the country. We can’t thank Jake enough for sharing so much of his experience in Uganda training with the world’s best.
