Jack on Track | Rayner’s Return from Marathon Wilderness

Barring his mustache, Jack Rayner is best known for his marathon prowess. But the 26-year-old Australian just served up a gargantuan national record of 27:15.35 over 10,000m to announce his return from the marathon wilderness.

Rayner blitzed Patrick Tiernan’s former mark of 27:22.55 when tearing around 25 laps at Sound Running’s “The Ten” meet at Serra High School in San Juan Capistrano, closing his final 1200m in a tick over three-minutes to confirm what he has long believed – that he is good enough.

“I knew I hadn’t run anywhere near what I should be running on the track until today, so I’m super stoked to get something good on the board. For years I feel like I was thrown to the marathon because I wasn’t quite good enough on the track, but now I’m stronger and know that I can do it,” he said.

It’s easy to associate a high-profile athlete with the event in which they made the Olympics in, but Rayner concedes he may one day wear the “marathoner” tag with pride – provided he performs to the best of his ability over the distance.

“I don’t think I would call myself a marathon runner. I’ve done one good marathon where I hit the Olympic standard of 2:11, but that’s not very good anymore. It’s still a good time but I think I’m better than that, I haven’t run the right race or put in the proper training – that’s definitely something I will do in the future,” he said.

The Australian record holder’s breakthrough comes off the back of Olympic heartache in Tokyo, where he failed to finish the marathon after an interrupted preparation with a femoral stress fracture – fuelling a 2022 rampage under the guidance of Nic Bideau and Collis Birmginham.

“Coming off Tokyo was pretty dismal. I was not conditioned for running at all so I had that motivation coming off an Olympics where I didn’t finish, I wanted to get back into training and find some form again,” he said.

Find some form he did, winning the 10,000m national title at Zatopek:10 prior to today’s national record – where he finished in third place of a world-class field filled with World Championship hopefuls.

“The race was pretty hectic at the start because there were 34 people in the race. It was chaos for the first few laps, everyone was fighting for the rail. I kept getting pushed out and clipped so I was like ‘alright, I’ve gotta do everything I can not to fall over’,” he said.

Fellow Australian Patrick Tiernan provided a familiar face for Rayner in the race, and who better to follow than he man who held the now former national record holder?

“Pat [Tiernan] made a big move at to go to the front of the second pack at 7km, so I just followed everything he did and knew that if I was around that him then I was where I needed to be,” he said.

“I was still feeling pretty fresh, I didn’t know when it was going to hit me. I gave it a big effort in the last few laps and really surprised myself when I was 27:15 at the end.”

With race organisers delaying the event by one day to ensure optimal conditions for competitors, Rayner took full advantage what was originally a qualifying attempt to hit the 27:28.00 World Athletics Championships and Commonwealth Games standard – walking away with a new national record to boot.

“I didn’t really know exactly what shape I was in because you don’t do 10km races very often, but I knew I was in the best shape I had ever been in just based on training,” he said.

Rayner puts his improvement down to an emphasised focus on recovery and work in the gym, even sourcing a pair of weightlifting shoes for optimal performance when working on his strength – an area that he says he has long neglected.

The Olympian will now return to Australia where he is entered in Saturday’s national 3000m at the Sydney Track Classic, before he will contest the 5000m at the national championships and look to race on the international circuit on the track.

“It will definitely be a strong field at nationals. After a good 10km I have a lot of confidence, I’m definitely in better shape than 13:30-whatever my personal best is,” he said.

By Lachlan Moorhouse, Athletics Australia
Posted: 7/03/2022