EVERY athlete wants to set a new record, personal best, call it what you want.
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Harry Jones is no different ahead of this weekend’s King of the Mountain event at North Brother Mountain.
Jones will aim for his fourth-straight win in the five-kilometre race to the top of the mountain – all uphill.
He has spent the last couple of months competing in England preparing for the upcoming triathlon season, so the conditions expected on Sunday are a little different to that climate.
The Port Macquarie athlete said preparations hadn’t been ideal and a slight bout of the sickness could rule him out on the morning of the race.
But he still remained confident he would be able to take his place at the starting line although he is not a certainty.
“Coming back from England I picked up a bit of a cold, but the preparations haven’t been too good and I’ve been diagnosed with asthma as well which doesn’t help,” Jones said.
“I’ve done this race for the last four or five years and I’ll still enjoy it.
“I’ll decide on the day whether I race, but I have entered and I’ll still go down and support the atmosphere and enjoy it.
“It’s not the best prep, but there are no excuses as an athlete, you do your best on the day.”
He admitted the less-than-ideal preparations for the event meant he was unlikely to set a new King of the Mountain record.
It’s not the best prep, but there are no excuses as an athlete, you do your best on the day.
- Three-time King of the Mountain champion Harry Jones
“Mark Tucker still holds the record and in the first year I competed in it he beat me by a couple of minutes,” Jones said.
“The record is around 22 minutes 41 seconds or something so generally I do it in 23:40 so I come in a minute off the record.
“But even just to finish a five kay event is a fantastic achievement, but to do it up hill and do it in 25 mins is a good time.”
Jones said he enjoyed the “uniquely different” atmosphere at an event the locals strongly support.
“The fact it is uniquely different because you go five kays up the hill, it’s once a year and there is always a good atmosphere so the motivation to train for it is always there.”
If he doesn’t compete at the King of the Mountain, Jones will have a couple of months’ break from racing, with his eyes set on the Noosa triathlon on November.
“It’s about getting back into training and deciding what to do next,” he said.
“The Australian elite season would be next, but I’ve still got a couple of months before that to get 100 per cent healthy.”