Jake Ols

Athlete of the Month

Jake Ols

Coach: Reed Fischer

Event: Marathon

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Interview with Jake Ols

Q: Hey Jake, welcome to The Axe. How's it going today?

I’m doing pretty well! I’m wrapping up some bigger-than-usual training weeks and trying to enjoy some small patches of sun here in San Francisco. We’re deep into what we call “Fogust” (wordplay on Fog & August) while the rest of the country enjoys summer.

Q: Can you tell the audience a little bit about your running journey so far?

Yeah of course! I started running about five years ago when my girlfriend Christy dragged me out for a run – I was told it was going to be "short" (it ended up being 6-7 miles). I surprisingly didn't swear off running (or her) and found that it was actually a lot of fun. San Francisco has a huge running community, and after that first run, I started going out to group runs and to some small local races that are held every week in different parts of the city.

Initially, I just wanted to run "as far as possible" so about a year later I hopped into a marathon and a 50 miler a couple of months apart. They didn’t go too badly and I ran primarily trails with some half marathons mixed in for the next few years until I decided I wanted to try my hand at road & track and got in touch with Reed.

Q: How'd you find Hammer & Axe? Why work with Reed?

I followed TME on Instagram for a while before seeing Hammer & Axe announced. I knew that I wanted to get a coach after some injuries and generally unproductive training. Reed always gave off a "heads-down & hardworking" vibe, and I remember his coaching profile mentioning his ability to balance running with a full-time career. That was really important for me because in the past I was pretty bad at any kind of balance with running. We had an intro call and things seemed to click right off the bat.

Q: How has that coach/athlete relationship benefited you since you started working together?

It's benefited me a ton for a slew of different reasons. The first is just how great of a coach Reed is – I never ran on a team so the idea of structured training weeks was completely foreign to me. Thankfully Reed eased me into our typical schedule of 3 quality days a week pretty gradually.

Secondly, which I'm sure everyone who knows Reed would agree with, is that he's a really great human. If I'm traveling or there's anything in life that's stressful he's always proactive in making sure we're not piling too much on and that running is still enjoyable. At times when I've felt a bit burned out or want to do something random (like only racing 1500m-3000m) he's super supportive. Sometimes on our weekly call, we’ll just chat about running news or life if there are no coaching things to address. He’s definitely become a friend in the past few years.

Lastly, a lot of people talk about their relationship with running, and coaching has really changed that for me. Rather than spiraling on Let's Run forums (is that a forbidden word here?) trying to emulate a training program I can have faith that Reed's going to put together the right training for me. Taking away the cognitive load of having to plan my own running schedule is probably one of the reasons I haven't quit out of frustration.

Q: What workouts have you done so far where you've finished and been like, "Damn, I've never done that before, that was a huge step"

A recent one from this build was 16 miles of "in-n-outs" (one-mile marathon / one-mile moderate). It ended up being an almost 24-mile session, and I felt amazing the whole time. Afterward, I was like "I've had easy runs that have been harder to get through than this". Besides that one, there was a time last year when my fitness just increased so much that every workout seemed pretty unbelievable. I had a 3-mile rep during a workout that I ran faster than what my old 5k PR used to be the year before.

The other "damn" factor this year though has been looking back on the consistency of training. I've only missed a handful of sessions the entire year which is really motivating.

Q: What's coming up for races? What are your expectations for those events?

Right now, I'm doing my first-ever marathon build. The last and only other marathon I've run was when I first started running and I had no idea how to train for one. The goal is to take this one pretty conservatively and have a good first experience feeling strong, and then "send it" next year at Boston. My best races have always been where I'm less concerned with time and just dialed into the right effort, so I hope to get a proper feel for the effort this time around.

Q: Anything else you'd like to tell our readers, Jake?

The last thing would be that a lot of people I've talked to think getting a coach is just to tell you what workouts to do and how much to run – but in my experience, it's equally important to have a coach who tells you when NOT to run. I've been lucky that Reed is great at doing both, and that's 100% the reason why I haven't been injured in the last few years. For us non-professionals, this is just a hobby, and having longevity with it is essential.

Keep up with Jake!

Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/31979134

Instagram: https://instagram.com/jakeols 

Grab a Training Plan for the NYC Marathon

The New York City Marathon is fast approaching (82 days and counting). Reed Fischer recently created a slew of NYC marathon plans for a variety of goal times, and our other coaches have a ton of non-specific marathon plans that will get you the start line feeling ready to go!

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