Gwen's 'debut' - now that was a very solid start - Elite News

Gwen’s ‘debut’ – now that was a very solid start

Chief Correspondent

Gwen Jorgensen impresses over 5000m indoors in Seattle

15:15.64 for 5000m. Impressive. Very.

As we highlighted on Friday (HERE), Olympic Triathlon Champion Gwen Jorgensen’s first (racing) steps on her post-triathlon career as a runner began on Friday night in Seattle, when she ran in the 5000m at the Husky Classic in Seattle.

Thanks to @courtfrerichs8 and @emily_infeld I have a new 5k PR These ladies are fabulous. I can’t wait to race again ❤️ pic.twitter.com/6OvM5jr7y7

— Gwen Jorgensen (@gwenjorgensen) February 10, 2018

By almost any measure – and some were predicting a time of outside of 16 minutes on Twitter – clocking 15:15.64 to finish a very close second to Emily Infeld (Bronze and sixth at the last two 10000m World Championships, 11th at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games), was at (or above) the upper end of predictions for almost everyone.

While the 5000m isn’t a regularly run event indoors (the World Indoor Championship middle distance medal event is the 3000m), six months after the birth of her son Stanley, that is an impressive starting point for her new career.

More to come? Almost certainly. MUCH more to come? We don’t know – and that’s what will make following Gwen’s progress fascinating over the next three years.

We could make lots of calculations and forecasts from that race for times at other distances / what that might mean outdoors / how does that translate to the marathon…. but right now, I don’t think that is important. My thoughts on the difficulty of Gwen’s ‘Gold at the Marathon in Tokyo” task remain unchanged (and are linked below) – but for now, I think you have to say a more than significant “well done” on that debut, and look forward to what may follow over the coming months.