After racing 10,000m in Rio 2016 and London 2017, Jess Martin retired aged 24. But she’s now on the comeback trail and enjoying every moment
In 2016 the Night of the 10,000m PBs was won by a 23-year-old Aldershot, Farnham & District athlete called Jess Andrews. In only her second attempt at the distance, she enjoyed a dramatic breakthrough run of 31:58.00 to qualify for the Rio Olympics, where she placed 16th with a PB of 31:35.92.
The following year she qualified for the World Championships on home soil in London but dropped out of the 10,000m. Struggling with injury and keen to start a family with Tour de France cyclist Dan Martin, she promptly hung up her racing shoes at the age of just 24.
Eight years and three children later, the Olympic 10,000m runner has started training seriously again with Dan, who is now retired from cycling and helping to pace her during running sessions, often pushing a baby buggy at the same time near their home in Andorra.
“There are so many reasons why I stopped in 2017,” says Jess. “One of the main ones is that myself and Dan were spending so much time apart. I loved running from a young age but it flipped to becoming something that I dreaded. I began to put pressure on myself and didn’t enjoy it any more.
“I am very much an all or nothing person, so I decided to stop running and move to the next chapter of my life, which was starting a family and supporting Dan with his cycling.”
Jess Martin (Mark Shearman)
The couple got married in 2016. “It was perfect. I got to the Olympics and we got married,” Jess remembers. But things changed in 2017 when injury struck.
“I began putting pressure on myself and became miserable. So I just stopped,” she says. “It was quite life changing to go from training for the Olympics to then doing nothing but I fell pregnant quite quickly with our twins and then running really went to the back of my mind. I didn’t care for running at all.
“After the girls [twins Daisy and Ella] were born, I started to want to run a bit but it wasn’t until I fell pregnant with [third daughter] Heidi that I thought ‘I want to run’.”
Jess’s career is a throwback to athletes of yesteryear – in the 1950s and 1960s for example – who would often retire in their early or mid 20s to start a family or pursue their career. Very few of those athletes ever made a comeback, though.
Jess and Dan Martin and family
The Martins are friends with Jo and Gavin Pavey. “They were two of the first people I reached out to when I decided to make a comeback around a year ago,” says Jess. “I had roomed with Jo as an athlete and they are phenomenal and such a big support. It’s nice to have someone who has been there and done it.”
However, in a twist of fate, Jess also bumped into Josep Carballude, the coach who had guided her to the Olympics and had just started a job coaching in Andorra. “He knows what makes me tick,” she says.
Since then her comeback has gathered momentum with a 10km in Castellón in February in 33:49. Next month she is targeting track races in Andorra in a match against other “small states of Europe”.
Jess Martin (Mark Shearman)
She has lived in Andorra for a decade but is keen to continue representing Britain, assuming she gets another international call-up in future.
“It’s my mission to inspire other people,” she says. “It is possible to run and be a mum. I felt so complete when I had my third child but I also felt a bit lonely and a bit lost. Now I’m running again, I have a purpose.”
Jess admits she hasn’t found the comeback completely straightforward, though. To begin with, even short easy running felt difficult. The couple’s parents aren’t always on hand to help with babysitting as they don’t live in Andorra. She says she has struggled with “mum guilt”, too, although tries to include her children in her activities as much as possible.
“It’s down to Dan and I to juggle everything each week with training and looking after our children,” she says. “My kids are my priority now but with running it was in the back of my mind to give it another goal. It’s also good for my daughters to see what their mum does. After watching me they start running in the garden and stuff like that, which is great.”
Dan, who competed in the Olympics for Ireland and won stages of the Tour de France in 2013 and 2018, describes his wife as “goal oriented” and adds: “I want her to have the opportunity to see how fast she can run and, as a family, it’s nice to go to these races together. I also enjoy training with her because I want to see how fast I can go. I’m now running a lot more than riding.”
Jess Martin (Mark Shearman)
He is targeting records such as “the fastest marathon by a former pro cyclist” and reckons he can break 2:30 for the marathon. Given this, did he show any running ability as a youngster? “I always won the ‘bleep test’ at school and maybe did about two cross-country races every year, which I would usually win,” Dan says, “but apart from that, no, it was all about cycling for me.”
The main focus now, though, is on his wife’s comeback. As someone who quit just before super shoes came into fashion, Jess is excited to see how fast she can go in coming months, too.
“I didn’t believe that a pair of shoes could make such a difference,” she says. “When I first put them on I felt like I was wearing a pogo stick!”
“Most importantly I’m enjoying it so much now. I want to set a good example for my kids. And who knows how fast I can run?”
Jess currently runs about 80km a week with some cross-training as well. They are not easy kilometres either as she describes running in the hilly terrain of Andorra as “brutal”.
“The aim is to build up consistency and to get fitter and stronger this year,” she says. “I might run some road races in the autumn. Eventually I’ll move to the marathon. I’m not young but I’m not that old either so I want to stay with 10km and half-marathon for a while and I think that will benefit me when I eventually move up.”
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