Phil Sesemann is familiar to the roads, less so to the feeling. The sun shining down, he is making his way to Cutty Sark. The six mile drag from London Bridge, strong legs have long since departed.
“Emile (Cairess) called it a zero out of ten performance, which I thought was a fairly fair assessment.”
The former Blackheath and Bromley man remembers of a difficult day at the 2023 Big Half.
64:43 for 12th, two minutes 13 seconds outside a World Championship standard he thought himself more than capable. More worrying still, not even the pace he would hope to sustain for double the distance just 13 weeks later at the Valencia Marathon.
Back to Leeds
Sesemann regrouped with coach Andy Henderson, the same man he has been with for 10 years. From a 1500m runner at Leeds University hoping to break the Blackheath & Bromley club record to the man dialing into our call from the Rift Valley, Kenya, leaving no stone unturned in his pursuit of 2:08:10 or better.
Both looked to each other with a wry smile, is an Olympic standard really going to be possible?
Rejected by British Athletics for the last two World Championships, despite an invite, simply put it had to be.
“You can mope about for maybe a day or so and be a little bit gutted with the result but then it’s just straight back on it.”
Dog’s work
Sesemann returned to his home on the outskirts of Leeds. For eight or so years it would have been to the demands of the NHS, a medical student graduating to a junior doctor. But for the past two years, life as an Adidas athlete has been simpler:
“I don’t want to come across arrogant or big headed, but I don’t set an alarm on a Monday morning. I just get up and go for a run with my dogs and then come home and chill out and then go for another run. That is never going to get old.
I’m never going to take that for granted and say, well, yeah, it’s really tough because I ran 64:45 at the Big Half and that was a long way from what I wanted to do.”
The new week began and he was out on the trails of West Yorkshire tracked in tow by his two “mileage mutts”:
“Kipchoge is pretty lazy and Haile is probably as enthusiastic and passionate about the miles as I am.”
Six and a half miles in the morning along the Meanwood Valley trail, ten in the late afternoon a short drive to the serenity of Eccup Reservoir.
Mini-crisis over, equilibrium restored. 16 miles to remind yourself that a bad result doesn’t derail a pretty cool journey.
Skinny air
The process continued. Two days later, Sesemann was out in Font-Romeu. 16 miles minimum a day, 25km in new money. Three weeks in the Pyrenees, then a return home.
“I love training in Leeds. I absolutely love it. I can train really hard. I’ve got everything I want in my life there. I’m only on training camps for the altitude benefit.”
Back on the Yorkshire trails, some long tempo runs on the old railway path from York to Selby, jogs along the Leeds to Liverpool Canal.
A rip round Sutton Park with his Leeds City AC clubmates for the 6 Stage National Road Relays title. 17:03, his third best time on the course, a decent marker but not necessarily a huge indication that things were massively trending forward. But miles and B+ sessions incessantly ticked off.
Stepping up
In 2021 and 2022 Sesemann averaged 97 and 98 miles a week respectively. In 2023 that number reached 109. Whilst he doesn’t necessarily advocate for pushing the volume, Sesemann is a long way from dismissing it.
“if that’s what motivates you and that’s what you enjoy, and it definitely is for me then that’s where I can kind of see myself gaining a lot in my fitness.”
Most people would look at the 31-year-olds mileage and paint him as a grinder. In that of course there is some truth but Sesemann is a long way from clichés.
He doesn’t want it more than you. Yes there’s focus and consistency but he’s an aspiring Olympian simply loving what he does.
How much do you really sacrifice when most times you step out the door, after ten minutes of aches and pains you realise there’s nowhere else you’d really rather be?
Andalucia
In early December 2023, Sesemann travelled to Spain and stood on the Valencia startline. For over half the race he stayed ahead of the pace required to qualify for the Paris Olympics but he fell a fraction short. As he dragged his weary legs down the blue carpet, the clock fell 38 seconds past his intended mark.
A double world record holder in Joshua Cheptegei beaming as he fell his way into the hands of race director Marc Roig, Sesemann’s own reaction, one place in front was mixed.
2:08:48, the eighth fastest Brit of all-time but still not an Olympian nonetheless.
Simple pleasures
Back to the drawing board, a couple of lighter weeks and then a return to the process.
January 2024 spent in Iten, a guest house teetering on the edge of the escarpment, vast views of the valley floor below, the distant tiny dots of a pick up truck taking their latest load of safari explorers. The second Kipchoge barely 25km away in Kaptagat.
With Cairess and Marc Scott for company, I put it to him that there’s a possibility that could be the Olympic Marathon trio.
But Sesemann’s not looking for a romantic storyline. For him if Meanwood was at 6000ft, you know the place he’d rather be. Needs must.
Marathon number six
Seville Marathon, Sunday 18th February, one last throw of the dice, though with that 2:08:48, less and less does it look a gamble.
“I’ll have a lot more confidence going to Seville knowing that I’ve ran 2:08 so it’s no longer a jump.
2:10 to basically 2:07 is a huge jump and kind of being quite public and saying that that’s what I wanted to hit and falling slightly short that also takes a little bit of external pressure off.
Like, I haven’t got pie on my face. I’ve shot for a big lofty goal, and I’ve fallen just short. And now kind of mentally, I know I can run 2:08, so just running 2:07, it doesn’t feel like this huge, huge barrier that’s gonna be miles away from where I am.”
Exacting standards
Statistically flatter than Valencia, Seville could see Sesemann achieve that Olympic standard, in so doing, likely becoming the third fastest Brit of all-time.
Will he have been pushed on by British Athletics exacting standards?
“I’d hate to keep encouraging them to set the standards higher, but I do believe that it definitely makes you set your goals higher. I finished 36th at Valencia, so if I was French I would have been the sixth.
That’s what gives me enough perspective of well you’re pretty good, but you need to keep working hard and you could be better. There’s lots of other guys out there who are better than you.
So that kind of helps more so than maybe the time being set really hard is just seeing all these other guys running these amazing times thinking, well, if they can do it, then so can I.”
An Olympian or not, Seville will come and go.
The Leeds to Liverpool canal will always be there. Two feet and eight more bounding behind, it will have its regular visitors.
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Featured image of Phil Sesemann by csansomphoto
