One of the real talents of Stuart Weir is his ability to interview athletes. As one of the most well-traveled journalists over the past decade, Stuart Weir knows nearly every world-traveling athlete.
Recovering from surgery, Stuart Weir is sending us these interviews from his trove of interviews done in 2023 and 2024. We thank Stuart for his wonderful interviews and hope to see him this Spring or Summer on the track!
Jess Warner-Judd reflects on 2023 and speaks of her hopes for 2024
RunBlogRun, #1: What is your assessment of 2023?
Jess Warner-Judd: I’m thrilled with it more for perseverance, I’d say. It wasn’t the year I’d hoped for. When it was about July, I thought, ‘This season’s not been great. Like I’m not very happy with this. I’d run OK, but nothing extraordinary, especially in the winter; I hadn’t done well. That Highgate [Night of 10Ks and GB trials] went well, and another couple of races that me thinking, ‘Oh,, is going well’. A.’ Then I think at the London Diamond League, I was absolutely devastated. I felt embarrassed that I ran that poorly. So we went away to St. Moritz in preparation for the World Champs and then managed to salvage my season with the run that I thought was there. But again, you have a bit of a crisis of confidence when things don’t go as well and then manage to finish the season in Brussels with a 5K PB. So, perseverance-wise, I’m thrilled with it.
RunBlogRun, #2: Talk about the Brussels 5K PR!
Jess Warner-Judd: I was really, really happy with it. I think that with the 5K, we have a real love-hate relationship; I’ve never had a race that I’ve been like, ‘Oh, that was amazing.’ They’ve been alright, not great. Whereas Brussels, I think, up until 4K, I was like, ‘This is going so well, I’m thrilled.’ And then the last K was adamant. I just had to dig in, but it was so hot and coming off the back of Budapest, which was also really hot. The emotions of that made me just so happy to get a PB. Really happy because between Budapest and Brussels, I caught COVID as well. I did Berlin 5K and didn’t run as well as I wanted to, and I just felt like my breathing was strained. And then, yeah, it turned out I had COVID, so I had to recover from that. I had a bit of a niggly calf as well, but it was one of those. I had one more race to do when Caroline [her agent] told me I got into Brussels. I was absolutely over the moon because you always want to be in Diamond Leagues, and I think,…
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