Wake, walk the dog, go to work, train, shower, eat and go to bed – meet Jessie Knight, the primary school teacher with Olympic dreams
Jessie Knight’s build-up for this weekend’s British Indoor Championships has been relatively serene by her hectic standards.
Sure, she has been steadily working her way through 32 half-term school reports for her year six pupils while still training at the track every day. But compared to her frenzied life during term time – wake, walk dog, teach, train, shower, eat, sleep – it has been a breeze.
Knight was little known even in athletics prior to last weekend’s Glasgow Grand Prix, when she stunned a world-class 400 metres field by winning in 51.57 sec to go third on the global list this year. Not bad for someone who is on her second stint in the sport and is predominantly a 400m hurdler.
Less than three years ago Knight, 25, was forced to give up on her athletics aspirations due to time constraints as a newly-qualified primary school teacher in Epsom, Surrey.
“Your first year of teaching is really tough – you’re getting to school at 7am and I was working until 10pm,” she tells Telegraph Sport. “My athletics took a back seat and I didn’t want to do it if I couldn’t be the best I could be so I made the really sad decision to stop. I’d been doing it since I was eight, so I was really gutted.”
A year later, by the end of summer 2018, she realised “there was a hole in my life” and decided to give running another go. Cue the military levels of organisation to which she now operates.
“I wake at 6am and have to fit a dog walk in before work,” she says. “I’m at my desk for 7.45am and have to be really productive in the school day. The children leave at 3.15pm, but I stay until about 5.30pm doing my marking and planning. Then I have enough time to go home, refuel and I’m at the track for 6.30pm. I tend to leave the track at 9/9.30pm, have a shower, eat dinner and go to bed.”
Knight’s rate of progress, since returning to the sport, has been remarkable given the gruelling schedule. Having knocked almost two seconds off her 400m hurdles personal best last year, she is not far off replicating the feat in the 400m this winter.
From a “national-level athlete” before her teaching-enforced sabbatical, suddenly she is favourite to win her first British title in Glasgow on Sunday and realistically targeting Olympic spots in the individual 400m hurdles and 4x400m relay team.
So is it prudent – or indeed necessary – to continue her teaching career? A promotion to British Athletics funding seems certain and it may be that she is too fast to be a full-time teacher.
“We’re discussing maybe going part time as a teacher next year, but I haven’t fully decided yet,” she says. “No matter how well the season goes, I definitely wouldn’t leave teaching completely because it gives me a healthy distraction.
“But I do think going part-time would make everything a bit more manageable and mean I can get more sleep. At the moment I’m working off seven hours’ sleep, which I know for an athlete training at this level isn’t maximal.
“When I’ve finished a day at work, I’m absolutely exhausted and I know I have a lactic session in the evening, so I can’t say I’m not envious of full-time athletes.”
