Bellingham prepares to cheer for one of its own in the Olympic marathon
In the midst of getting ready to fly to Tokyo in the middle of a global pandemic to compete alongside the world’s best distance runners in the men’s Olympic marathon, Sehome High graduate Jake Riley took a few minutes to Zoom with the next generation of runners in Bellingham.
“He talked about his experience and answered their questions,” Sehome coach Kevin Ryan told The Bellingham Herald. “It was really fun to watch, because they’re high school kids who had big eyes and were nervous about asking him questions, but once that first question was out there, they started asked him about everything.
“And Jake was very open with them and talked about his goals and dreams and things he’s overcome. It was amazing to see. It was amazing to listen to him talk about how the dreams and goals he set when he was in Bellingham and at Sehome were coming true for him. It was very rewarding to see as a coach. Jake is a guy who has always stepped up and helped this program whenever he could. He’s never forgotten where he came from.”
When the starter’s pistol sounds on the final day of the 2020 Olympics (3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7, Bellingham time) sending the 110 competitors from 40 nations on their 26.2-mile journey, Riley will become the fifth Bellingham-born athlete to compete in the Olympics and the first in the Summer Games since 1972.
Goods Local Brews posted on Facebook that it will be hosting a watch party for the event featuring the 2007 graduate from Sehome High whose parents still live in Bellingham.
“Come watch Jake run on Saturday with his parents, family and friends. It doesn’t get much more local than this!” the post reads.
If Riley, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado, somehow manages to finish among the top three, he would become the first Bellingham-born athlete to earn an Olympic medal.
Is he a long shot to medal? Absolutely, but Riley has proven it is unwise to put anything past him.
Long road to Tokyo
All you have to do is look at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials held way back on Feb. 29, 2020, in Atlanta to know that.
Riley finished second in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 2 seconds — less than a minute behind race winner Galen Rupp’s 2:09:20. Third-place Abdi Abdirahman was just a second behind Riley after Riley pulled ahead of him in the race’s final stretch.
Riley’s time was a personal best in the marathon and signaled to those watching that he had emerged from a difficult stretch in his career.
Riley, who was an eight-time All-American runner at Stanford from 2008 to 2011, also competed in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, finishing 15th, according to a letsrun.com story about his qualifying run.
But an Achilles injury in the 10,000 meters at the 2016 track trials limited him to 12th place, and he decided not to run again until he was fully healthy, letsrun.com reported. That process ended up taking three years, during which time he had Achilles surgery in 2018 and relocated from Michigan to Washington state to Colorado.
At some points during his recovery, even Riley wondered if he would be able to run again competitively.
But the surgery allowed Riley to begin running again pain free, according to letsrun.com, and he began to work his way back in 2019 by running 5k and 10k races.
“For me, the biggest thing has been kind of learning how to compete again,” Riley told podiumrunner.com. “I kind of forgot how much it hurts to try cover moves in a race than to stay with a pace. I didn’t think it was going to be as much of a learning experience coming back, and I’m just starting to get back into a rhythm of racing.”
Once healthy, Riley qualified for the Olympic Trials with his best time at the Bank of American Chicago Marathon in October 2019, when he finished ninth.
“After he ran that time in Chicago, that’s when he started to know he had a chance,” Ryan told The Herald. “That’s when it felt like he was on his way back.”
Ryan said he actually missed Riley’s Olympic Trials run, as some of his young runners were going on a run on the Pine and Cedar Lakes Trail for the first time, and he didn’t want them to have to go it alone.
“I decided to record it, and then watch it when I got back,” Ryan said. “I got back in the car, and I have a new Garman watch that connected to the phone, and my phone just started buzzing like crazy, and I see all these texts coming across that he qualified. It kind of ruined how I wanted to watch it not knowing, but even though I knew what was going to happen, I was on the edge of my seat watching.
“It was so great to see him do it. After all that he had been through. And it was so nice to see the outpouring of support from people who knew Jake when he ran at Sehome and reached out.”
Preparing for greatness
Unfortunately, the pandemic put Riley’s and thousands of other athletes’ Olympic dreams on hold for a year, but the Games are now nearing their completion, with the marathon scheduled to highlight the final day of competition.
So how has Riley spent the last two weeks since the Opening Ceremonies preparing for Sunday’s marathon?
According to an Aug. 3 post he made on Instagram, he is running in circles — lots of circles — as COVID regulations have limited where athletes can train.
“The only good thing about doing all this running on less than a mile of asphalt is that the marathon is going to feel great based solely on novelty. 4 days out, body feeling good,” he wrote, including photos of him running on an area around what appear to be tennis courts.
Riley also took the opportunity to take some pictures in his Team USA gear in the area around the athlete’s village, according to an Aug. 1 post, including in front of the Olympic rings, though he said he “was only able to think of one pose.”
At night, Riley has developed a new preparation process, standing in front of a mirror, wearing a T-shirt with his image after qualifying for the Olympics and yelling “You’re a winner!” at his reflection for 10 minutes, he wrote in a July 27 post.
“Will it help? Not sure, but I’m committed to leaving no stone unturned. Whoever my roommate in Tokyo turns out to be, I hope they like getting pumped up right before bed,” Riley wrote.
Finding a plan and sticking to it is what has made Riley so successful, even when he was a young runner at Sehome High, Ryan said.
“He was so coachable and such an intelligent runner,” Ryan said. “He is a tough racer, but he’s also so technical and so intelligent. He sees the big picture. He knows how to break down a course and run turns the right way.”
After winning the Washington State Class 2A Boys’ Individual Cross Country Championship as a senior in 2006, Riley advanced to the Footlocker Championships in California. Ryan said he was unable to go, but he and Riley broke down the race, talking about how he wanted to handle the hills and all the curves.
“After the race, I talked to him and he was like, ‘It went exactly as we thought it would. I put on the brakes where we decided, and other guys didn’t have a plan about how to handle the course, and it worked out perfectly,” Ryan said. “His patience and execution have always been amazing. He has extreme confidence in the plan he sets, and whether it’s a marathon or a training run, he knows what he wants to do and he goes out and does it.”
The plan for Sunday’s marathon?
“His goal is to be smart early, especially with the heat they’re expecting over there,” Ryan said. “But with all the hills, I think that will benefit him. It’s an extremely hilly course with a lot of turns, and that’s all to Jake’s advantage.”
‘Exciting time for all of Bellingham’
So when was it that Ryan and former co-coach at Sehome Mark Kerr knew they had something special in Riley?
“Jake was always a very talented runner from the very beginning — you could tell that right away when he came to us as a freshman,” Ryan said. “But the most exciting time for him wasn’t when he ran a great time or won the individual title. It wasn’t even when he went to Footlocker or became an All-American.
“The most exciting time for Jake was when he finished third at the state championships (as a junior cross country runner in 2005), but his run helped the team win a state championship. He helped our boys team win at a high level against a very good North Central team — a team that would go on and win 10 straight titles at the upper-class level. That day, when he finished third and our team won the title, to see how excited he was that he helped our team win its first title, it was crazy.”
To this day, Ryan said he feels Riley still looks back fondly on his time in Bellingham and at Sehome, as evidenced by his willingness to give back to the community.
“He’s gone a lot of places and done a lot of things, but you can tell when he recounts his time at Sehome, that was a very special time for him,” Ryan said.
And the feeling is mutual, as the community awaits its chance to cheer one of its own on at the Olympics, even if they are halfway around the world.
“This is a town that takes a lot of pride in its running community,” Ryan said. “They take a lot of pride and are showing a lot of enthusiasm to see one of their own go on and succeed. Jake has always been amazing, giving back to Sehome and the greater Bellingham running community.
“I think that is something our entire community can take pride in. Sure Bellingham has changed a lot over the past 25 years — the past 10 years. But we have a local kid who does well and he still looks back and gives back to this community. This is an exciting time for all of Bellingham to have one of our own in the Olympics.”
Bellingham-born Olympians
Four Bellingham-born athletes have previously competed in the Olympics, according to sports-reference.com:
▪ Paul Jessup finished eighth in the men’s discus at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
▪ Roy Rubin advanced to the semifinal with the U.S. men’s coxed four rowing team in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
▪ Fred Luke finished eighth in the men’s javelin at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
▪ Angeli VanLaanen finished 11th in the women’s freestyle skiing halfpipe at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
