Justin Kent does it all

Q: 4th Fastest Canadian male marathon runner EVER! How the heck does that sound?

A: Pretty unreal. Woke up the next day and honestly had to double-check it wasn’t some wild dream I conjured up.

Q: Was there a moment in the race when you starting thinking “this could be my day”?

A: I had a few moments where that crossed my mind early on. Our first 6 miles were quick and we banked some time and it didn’t feel all that fast. But I’ve had races in the past where I got too ahead of myself early on, and things took a turn for the worse real quick in the last few miles, so I really tried to stay as present as I could.

Q: Where was your head at, heading into this race? Did you have concrete goals? A specific time in mind?

A: I felt like I was in a really good spot. Prep had gone well, and I knew it was being set up to run fast, with two pacers going 25-30km at 2:10 pace, a flat looped course. Mentally I just wanted to take advantage of whatever the day gave us and try to leave it all out there.

Q: You won the race! You were actually in a heated race, with two others, for the win (And you only won by 10seconds in the end)- do you think this helped you vs some of your past marathons?

A: Yeah, that was pretty awesome. I didn’t expect to have a group of 4 with 3 miles to go vying for the win. It definitely changed the dynamic of the race for the better. At a certain point, things switched from, ‘ok how fast can I go’, to ‘ok you’re in one, now let’s go and win this thing’.

Q: You’ve been working hard at this running thing for a long time and had success at shorter distances, when did you think the marathon might be your event.

A: I’m not sure if I ever knew for sure, I kind of just gravitated to the longer distances and higher volume in training and those races started to just make more sense to showcase that fitness. But once I got the taste for racing on the roads I was hooked. The community, atmosphere, and feeling at top flight when you’re in a groove, can’t be beat. I think if you asked Rich, this was his secret plan 11 years ago when I was a 1500m runner.

Q: Your coach, Rich Lee, “retired” this year – did your build look any different because of that?

A: Yeah it looked a little bit different. On paper it was pretty much the same as my build to Toronto, but just with a few more solo sessions. We jokingly made a rule that if the session was shorter than Rich’s commute to practice, he didn’t have to come in for it. But I think it ended up working out in the end, it gave me a bit more flexibility with my work/ Willa schedule and forced me to lock in a bit more for the longer key solo sessions.

Q: Your a new dad, you have a full time job, you coach M2M, and you support Lindsey with her endeavours – how the heck do you balance it all?

A: Ha, yeah I have literally no idea. It’s a big balancing act, and takes a lot of planning and coordination with Linds and a lot of help from family and friends. Plus, it involved a lot of early morning and late night runs (I don’t think I ran in daylight during the week for like 2 months).

Q: We were honoured to see you wore the M2M singlet in the race – What does it mean to have a community like M2M behind you?

A: It’s super special. Wearing that singlet on race day gives me an extra layer of motivation and pride to be able to represent this community to my fullest. The support I’ve received over the last six years has been amazing— they’ve been there for me through some ups and downs, and it’s really special to be able to share moments like this with them.

Q: What’s next for you?
A: Some much-needed time off for sure. Then I’m not entirely sure what my spring or summer holds. Might look at some shorter races to get the legs moving again and then keep my fingers crossed that this gives me enough points for World Champs (in Tokyo in September)