JOSH KERR may have run two indoor personal bests in the past two weeks but he knows that with less than five month until the start of the Olympic Games, he still has a considerable amount of work to do if he wants to be competitive in Tokyo.
Kerr finished fourth at the Muller Indoor Grand Prix at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow ten days ago before finishing fourth once again at the British Indoor Championships last weekend at the same venue.
He may have run his fastest ever time indoor at the British Championships but having taken the race to the other runners by surging to the front from the bell and front-running for most of the four laps, he suddenly felt the effort in his legs and began going backwards, allowing eventual winner Guy Learmonth, as well as Andrew Osagie and Piers Copeland to overtake him in the home straight.
Kerr crossed the line in 1 minute 47.37 seconds but if he didn’t know he had work to do before the outdoor season begins, he certainly does now.
“I thought there was a half percent chance of me getting to the front in that first 50m,” he said.
“I got there though so I thought I’d keep pushing on from the front but I just ran out of steam.
“It was a good race. I was watching on the big screen which was probably a mistake because they were coming after me.
“I was giving it all I could but I just got beat.
“I had a really good time at the championships and I’ve run consistently 1:47 every race.
“The Scottish crowd are always the best and I’ve got to take some lessons away.
“You learn from every race and I’ve enjoyed my time in Scotland but it’s time to go back to the US and get some hard work done because those fitness levels won’t cut it when it comes to June.”
Kerr is based in New Mexico in America where he will now head back to for another block of training ahead of the summer.
The 22-year-old finished in sixth place in the 1500m final of the World Championships last year and so he knows that if he can continue to make progress, he has the opportunity to make a real mark come Tokyo, assuming he navigates the British trials safely.
And while it is still too early to predict how things will go come the Olympic Games, the Edinburgh native is happy with how his indoor season played out.
“Getting through an indoor season injury free hasn’t happened to me in the last four years so this has been a good start,” he said of the last few weeks.
“The British Champs gave me a nice little bit of pressure in a championship final and so remembering what that’s like is always good.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here