Tara Murray
The return to focusing on the track and the shorter distances has paid off for Jack Rayner.
Having made the marathon his focus the last few years, Rayner and his coach made the call last year after a few injuries that the shorter distances would be the go.
With not one, but two Australian records this year at the 10 kilometre distance, one on the track and one of the road, it has proved to be the right decision.
For Rayner it’s been his best season to date, despite a few injury setbacks.
“Running the track record in March was the highlight,” he said. “I unfortunately got injured after that so I wasn’t able to run again for another month after that and had a European season, got fit again, ended up getting another injury and had to have another month off after that.
“I seem to build back to fitness relatively quick and to be able to string together a good year or so without any injury I’ll hopefully get some even better results.”
The Western Athletics star added the road 10 kilometre Australian record to his keeping late last month, winning the Burnie 10.
While it wasn’t something he was targeting, it had been on his radar.
“I’m over the moon,” he said. “I had my eyes on the race record which was only 11 seconds slower than the Australian record.
“My coach had a chat with me and was like see how you are tracking and it’s possible to get both if you get a good run.
“I had thought about it, I didn’t know whether it was quite possible or not but it turned out it was.”
Knowing what he has done this year, Rayner said it had been slightly frustrating that he hadn’t been able to put a full season together due to injury.
But he also looked at it from the other view.
“I’m still running the best I ever have off the training I’ve done,” he said.
“It is frustrating getting an injury following a really good result. You want to keep building on what you’ve already done, kind of put a stop to it a couple of times.
“It lets you reset as well, forces break which can be a good thing even though it’s through injury.”
Injuries impacted his ability to train in the lead up to the World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
He admits he was disappointed with his World Championships time and while his Commonwealth Games was slightly better it wasn’t where he should have been at.
Rayner said with his injuries concerns, he’s going to focus on the shorter distances for the time being with the marathon a more long term plan.
“In 2018 I pretty much didn’t do any track racing at all,” he said. “My coach said to me, I’m going to keep you in Australia for most of the year and run on the road.
“After that he pretty much said I’m going to send you into doing the marathon stuff now cause I think you’ll be able to qualify for the Olympics doing the marathon but he didn’t quite see me making it on the track at that stage.
“Ultimately I got injured a few times… that was very frustrating. So then after that he did a bit of 180 and said I’m going to send you back to the track and that’s when I started running well on the track, late last year and into this year.
“I’m still quite young to be going to the marathon, but it’s something I have set my sights on in the future.”
Rayner’s next main focus is to make the Australian 10 kilometre team for the World Cross Country championships which are being held in Australia.
He’s also keen to qualify for next year’s world championships in the five and 10 kilometre events.
