Jake Riley – How He Became a Surprise Second-Place Finisher at the Trials – runnersworld.com

Jake Riley didn’t allow himself think he was headed Tokyo until the last 10 meters of the Olympic Marathon Trials. After chasing the lead pack from 30K on his own, Riley still considered himself the “hunter” on the homestretch in Atlanta.

“No more next times,” Riley, 32, thought to himself before he caught Abdi Abdirahman and moved to second place behind Galen Rupp heading to the finish line.

The unsponsored runner’s mantra represented every setback he endured to compete at the championship on February 29. Riley remembered the infection, the major surgery, and the divorce—all experiences from the last three years that made him question whether he should continue chasing the Olympic dream. But in his third Olympic Trials, the University of Colorado graduate student had nothing left to lose.

“It doesn’t matter how bad you hurt right now because you’re not going to get another shot to make this right,” Riley thought as he battled for position.

When he crossed the finish line in a personal best of 2:10:02, one second ahead of Abdirahman, he finally let himself enjoy the moment. Two years after he considered quitting running altogether, Riley was an Olympian.

After the American flag was draped over his shoulders, Riley found his coach, Lee Troop, at the finish. Like Riley, Troop endured his own version of heartbreak that made him question his role as a coach. But together, they both found a second chance and embraced the opportunity.

“We went through a lot of very personal stuff at a very similar time,” Riley told Runner’s World. “My return to activity and getting back to being a professional runner coincides with him deciding that he wanted to continue coaching. We found a new enthusiasm and a life in the sport.”

Always a Runner

From his high school days in Bellingham, Washington, Riley always identified himself as a runner. Running led him to Stanford, where he became an eight-time All-American and contributed to the Cardinal’s Pac-10 cross-country team title in 2010.

After he graduated in 2012 with a degree in biomechanical engineering, Riley became a professional runner with the Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project and moved to Rochester Hills, Michigan.

In 2014, he ran his 26.2 debut with a time of 2:13:16 at the Chicago Marathon. But in 2015, he started to feel pain in his Achilles that became a constant issue.

“It just never goes away and it stiffens up overnight,” Riley said. “It’s like you’re in pain from the minute you wake up. Maybe it’ll loosen up walking around, but it’s always there.”

With the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials on the schedule, Riley continued to train through the discomfort. On a scorching day in Los Angeles, he finished 15th.

In September 2016, Riley decided to leave the training group in Michigan. He and his wife moved back home to Washington, hoping that he’d find an engineering job.

“I was a little bit dissatisfied with where I was in life,” Riley said. “I felt like I was spinning my wheels a little bit, fighting this injury that would not go away.”

By the time Riley moved back to Washington, his Achilles injury had flared up once again, and he was forced to cross-train. He worked with a new doctor on different treatments, but nothing seemed to ease the pain. At the same time, Riley and his wife decided to separate.

“I moved back home with my parents,” Riley said. “At 29, it’s not a great feeling to be at home with no job and no sponsor and hurt.”

In June 2017, Riley’s struggles continued when he contracted Lemierre’s syndrome, a rare bacterial infection that affects the throat and carries lymph fluid throughout the body. If untreated, the infection can cause potentially fatal blood clots. Luckily, doctors caught the infection in its early stages and treated him for five days in the hospital.

Worried about his mental state, Riley’s parents encouraged him to take action after he recovered. “You’re not yourself, you need to do something and start moving forward because we hate to see you like this,” Riley recalled them saying.

The same day he had the conversation with his parents, Riley called Troop after several friends in the running community recommended they work together. Troop, a three-time Olympian for Australia, was the head coach of the Boulder Track Club in Colorado. After Troop encouraged him to join the team, Riley packed up his car and drove to Boulder one week later in October 2017.

“I needed to make a jump in some direction because I couldn’t stay where I was,” Riley said. “It turned out to be a really good decision.”

Kevin Morris

Rebuilding in Boulder

Troop’s first impression of Riley was watching him win the 2012 USATF National Club Cross Country Championships in Lexington, Kentucky. “I saw him at club cross just tear everyone apart,” Troop told Runner’s World a day after the Trials. “I admired him.”

A few months after Riley arrived in Boulder, tragedy struck the training group when Jonathan Grey died by suicide in February 2018. He was a 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier who would have turned 30 that month. The loss was devastating for Troop.

“I lost a lot of confidence in my coaching,” Troop said. “You question whether you played a part in that and if you did, was it because of your coaching?”

In the same year, Troop’s running store, Fleet Feet Sports Boulder, closed. And while he struggled to cope with Grey’s death, several athletes left the Boulder Track Club. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it fell in one and that’s pretty much how I felt,” Troop said. “Everything I’d built over 20 years just all fell apart.”

In October 2018, he announced his departure as head coach of the group, but he continued guiding a few individuals.

[Build your personalized and adaptive training plan for FREE with Runcoach.]

“I was trying to work out what the hell I was going to do and didn’t think I’d get back into coaching, but then you see Jake and he’s like this wounded gazelle that you want to nurse back to health,” Troop said.

While coaching Riley, Troop also started working with Colorado graduate Carrie Verdon, who suffered from several injuries in college. Like Riley, she was also working toward a comeback.

Troop recalled a particular moment during a 6 a.m. workout when he drove alongside his athletes to shine headlights for them in the dark. While guiding his runners through the snow, Troop came to a realization. “These kids believe in me and I need to get my shit sorted,” he thought.

Through the grieving process, the father of three turned to his family and his friends in the running community for support. Troop also started a scholarship fund in Grey’s memory. And he took the time to reflect on his own coaching style.

“I’m definitely not the coach that I was,” Troop said. “I wouldn’t say that I’m better, and I wouldn’t say that I’m worse, but I’m definitely different.”

These days, he’s more flexible in his approach to training. If the workout calls for 10 repeats, he’ll consider stopping at eight depending on how the athlete is feeling whereas two years ago, he would consider 10 repeats the only option. He also practices gratitude for the process and takes more time to enjoy each moment with his team.

“I probably should have appreciated it more,” Troop said. “With my athletes, that’s one thing that I certainly stress and push is to just stop and appreciate what you’ve got and what you’ve done.”

Finding a New Foundation

While Troop was grieving, Riley was rebuilding. In May 2018, he underwent major Achilles surgery due to a condition called Haglund’s deformity—a congenital defect involving an enlargement on the back of the heel bone. “That [surgery] was my cut off,” Riley said. “Like, try and come back from this and if it doesn’t work out, it’s probably not worth it anymore.”

While he couldn’t run for several months, Riley worked with a strength coach to target other imbalances outside of his lower leg. For example, his hips were out of alignment and he showed a lack of mobility.

In August 2018, Riley did his first walk/jog workout. With Troop by his side, he ran slowly for one minute and walked for nine minutes three times around a turf field in Boulder. With practice, the jogging segments became longer and the walking segments became shorter.

In the process of coming back to running, both coach and athlete started to heal together.

“We recognize that this is a sport that we are both committed to,” Riley said. “We recognize the passion in each other and the desire to be great, and I think being on the same page in that is enough.”

A ‘Broken’ Man Comes Back

By spring 2019, Riley was training consistently again. In May, he ran a local 5K—his first race since placing 12th in the 10,000 meters at the 2016 Olympic Track Trials.

In road races throughout the summer, Riley continued to build his confidence. He raced at the Bolder Boulder 10K in May, where he ran 31:20 and placed 25th. In September, he ran 1:10:59 for 15th place at the USATF 20K Championships.

Then he became reacquainted with the grind of marathon training—hard efforts on a 3-mile trail loop outside of Boulder helped prepare him to race 26.2. “It’s a really good workout for the marathon because there’s nowhere to hide on it. You always have to push,” he said. “It teaches you how to hurt.”

Riley’s first test came at the Chicago Marathon in October 2019. For three years, he missed the rush of adrenaline before a big race. That feeling of excitement finally came back the night before Chicago.

Troop reminded him that he needed to harness all of his anger and frustration from the challenges and use those emotions as motivation to beat competitors.

“Has anyone gone through what you’ve gone through?” Troop asked. Riley didn’t have to answer. He was ready to take the risk for a breakthrough.

In his first marathon since the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials, Riley finished ninth as the top U.S. finisher in a personal best of 2:10:36.

“This is the first race where I’ve actually felt like the old me beforehand—or actually a better me, because I have two Achilles now,” Riley told Runner’s World in Chicago.

Before the Olympic Trials in Atlanta, Troop encouraged Riley to embrace the opportunity. “This is a childhood dream,” he said. “Run to it, don’t run from it.”

As they planned, Riley made his move at 30K despite the 30-second gap that separated him from the lead pack. With each mile, Riley inched closer to the top three, and by mile 24, he caught Abdirahman, Augustus Maiyo, and Leonard Korir. His late move brought him into second place at mile 25.

A sprint to the finish secured his spot on Team USA.

“There’s nothing better than seeing a broken man come back,” Troop said. “And when they come back, they’ve got nothing to lose.”

Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer living in Chicago.