23-year-old long distance athlete supported by Hoka One One.
Personal Bests:
800m – 1:55.12
1500m – 3:47.06
3000m – 8:11.26
5000m – 14:06.56
10,000m – 30:17.61
Half Marathon – 67:29
XC – 9th Senior Men’s Inter Counties XC Championships 2020
XC – 6th Senior Men’s Northern XC Championships 2019
XC – 15th Senior Men’s Inter Counties XC Championships 2017
XC – 5th Junior Men’s Northern XC Championships 2016
I first got into running when I performed for my secondary school, Queen Elizabeth High School (Gainsborough). I qualified for the Lincolnshire Schools Cross Country Championships and narrowly missed out on a place in the Lincolnshire team for the English Schools Cross Country Championships in my first year. I continued to only take part in running for the school team as my focus and passion was in football.
My mum and sister saw my natural ability as a runner and finally convinced me to join the local running club Lincoln Wellington AC at the age of 14. I spent a few weeks training in the beginner’s group before progressing to Dave Humberstone’s group for nearly a year which helped me develop my endurance. My focus was still on football however, until I asked Mark Baddeley (head coach of the men’s distance squad at LWAC) if I could join his group to train. It was at this point when I started to dedicate more time in running. Rather than running for pocket money, I ran for improvements in my personal bests on the track and to improve my positions in big championship races. I was a decent runner locally but on the national stage I was a backmarker, usually placing close to 200th position. Despite making huge improvements in my track times over two years, my cross-country results remained stagnant which caused me to lose motivation to train and lost my love to race.
Not many people are aware of this, but I have Andy Dunderdale to thank for why I am still in the sport today (I met him through his son, Haran Dunderdale, an international steeplechaser). He did not only convince me to keep turning up to training nights at the club every Tuesday and Thursday, but also ran with me and improvise sessions in each run to keep my fitness up. He kept me going until I found my desire to train back in the men’s distance group again. Without his help, I would have undoubtedly quit athletics and gone back to focussing on football.
The next few years (ages 16-18) back working closely with Mark Baddeley, I made huge strides on the track, including running my personal best for 800m which still stands today (1:55.12) and progressing in cross country too, placing top 5 in the county championships and top 25 in the North of England Championships. It was during this period where I dropped out of football to focus solely on running.
But it was my year at Sheffield University which really transformed my ‘running career’. Still coached by Mark, I jumped in the university distance training group which was ran by Keith Whitelam. I began to train consistently 6 days per week, influenced by the ‘dirty mileage’ lads Steve Bayton and Will Mycroft. All runs in Sheffield were unavoidably hilly, which in combination with two sessions a week caused my endurance to skyrocket. That year I made the big jump to a seriously decent standard, placing 5th in the North of England Cross country Champs and improving my track times drastically:
1500m from 4:02 to 3:48
3000m from 8:56 to 8:27
5000m from 16:05 to 14:50
10km from 32:15 to 30:55
I had to drop out of Sheffield University for both personal and academic reasons, but in that year out I joined back in the group at Lincoln Wellington and improved further in the 5km and 10km, knocking 30 seconds off my personal best in each event and won Lincoln 10k for the first time – a long-term goal I made when I first did the race when I was 15.
The following year I joined Loughborough University to give the undergraduate life another crack. I found myself joining the university in the best shape of my life and felt invincible until I pushed it too far in training, humbling me to 3 months on the side-line with an IT-band syndrome injury. It was in the rehab process pacing GB internationals during sessions which I met one of the British Athletics Head Coach’s, Rob Denmark. It felt like I was living in the runner’s dream, training with such strong calibre athletes and coaches, so I asked Rob to coach me. It made sense at the time because I felt I could have more face to face relationship over my three years at the university. The type of training was more serious than I was used to, a complete contrast to the lad’s banter at Lincoln and was very intense. That track season I probably ran my best race ever, getting a personal best in the 5000m with a time of 14:06.56.
Motivation in sessions began to dip again so I decided to start jumping in numerous training groups at Loughborough but mainly trained by myself. A few conversations with Mark Baddeley convinced me that I could self-coach through all the lessons and experiences I have had over the years. I am now at a point where I feel confident enough in my own running knowledge to train myself for key races, predominantly with Mark’s training philosophies but also a hint of ideas I gained from both Sheffield and Loughborough. This decision brought me best cross country results to date, placing 6th in the Northern Champs, 17th at the Nationals, 10th at the British University Champs and 9th at the Inter-Counties.
With COVID-19 forcing the world into lockdown, I decided to switch up my training to focus on my debut marathon, which will be in Manchester in October (if the lockdown blows over). Mainly to stay fit and keep my motivation through the period. This isn’t me making the permanent step up to the distance but will be a good benchmark for when I finally do make the permanent move.
Joe’s current training regime!
