The Brit won the under-23 race at the Liverpool Cross Challenge, qualifying him for the 2024 European Cross Country Championships in Turkey
You get the feeling that David Stone is just getting started.
The 22-year-old Brit secured a stunning victory at this season’s Liverpool Cross Challenge, defeating last year’s European Cross under-23 champion Will Barnicoat on a muddy Sefton Park course.
It marks quite the return to competition for Stone, who has battled through a myriad of injuries and surgeries over the past couple of years.
Stone, who trains with Barnicoat and Tomer Tarragano – senior men’s champion in Liverpool – at the University of Birmingham, will now be making his debut for Great Britain at this Sunday’s European Cross Country Championships in Antalya, Turkey (December 8).
The Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers athlete’s last full competitive season was in 2019 and although he’s been forced to spend a long time away from events, Stone is quietly confident about targeting a top five finish in the under-23 race this weekend.
Ahead of this year’s Euro Cross, AW caught up with Stone on his journey into running, overcoming an abundant of injuries and his ultimate goals within the sport.
David Stone [3688] (Gary Mitchell)
How did you get into running in the first place?
I was probably about 10 years old or so. The first thing I can remember is that when my dad was 50, he was looking to start jogging. I mostly played football at the time but I went along with him on runs. We lived pretty close to a track in Hendon, where Saracens play.
I just went down, really enjoyed it and soon after that started competing. I did well but it was hard to tell as I was only competing against local athletes.
From the age of 13 onwards, I started competing in national races and the Mini London Marathon. They obviously felt like a massive deal at the time as I got to race the best people in the country.
My favourite race was always the National Cross Country Championships, I loved that. You’re competing against 1000 other people instead of just 12 on the track. I’d love to be running well on the track but because of how the last few years have gone, it’s been tough.
Are you able to open up about your injuries and how you’ve tried to overcome them?
Well to start off with, I didn’t grow until quite late and I had a lot of pains up until the ages of 17 and 18. I was always up there in the big cross-country races but then I’d be absent for a while. You’d watch everyone get better and it was frustrating. When I got back into competing, I was injured. In 2022, I placed second behind Will [Barnicoat] at the National Cross Country Championships. After that, I thought I could really kick on.
Then, it went from bad to worst on the injury front. I got glandular fever for starters and then I had really bad shin pains, which limited me to running 30 miles per week.
After that, I discovered I had bowel problems, which made it difficult to eat and run. Both my parents are doctors and they were struggling to figure out the problem. I wasn’t absorbing much food, found it difficult to eat before I ran and lost a bit of weight quite quickly. It turned out there were these neuroendocrine tumours in the lining of my bowel that had to be removed.
The following February, I came back and placed well at the BUCS Cross Country Championships. I then had really bad pains on my ankles. It turned out I had this extra bone spur on each side – not uncommon – but once it started hurting there wasn’t much I could do apart from operating.
It took ages to work it out. That extra bit of bone was getting crushed when I was running. It was only this time last year when I had the first of two operations.
David Stone at the Mini London Marathon (LM Events)
How was it mentally to keep on believing you could get through that period?
It was a pretty tough period but I definitely came out the other side stronger. I’d be looking at all the people that I’d be competitive with going through the age groups. They were absolutely flying. I would beat myself up about it. I was thinking ‘why’s everything going so well for them while I’m in this position?’. I thought I shouldn’t compare myself to others though.
Once I stopped asking ‘why’s this all gone so wrong?’, I then focused on what I could do about it. I came to the realisation in my head that I could only play with the cards that I’d been dealt.
After the surgery, it was about working up from a clean slate and being a better version of myself for the next few weeks and months. I expected this to be a much longer process and, even though I’m not out of the woods yet with injuries, it’s been steady so far.
How’s the recovery been for you?
I wanted to build that aerobic base so that when I was ready to run, I didn’t lose a year of training that everyone else had. So through April and May, I hammered away at cycling. I’ve always had quite a lot of energy and liked the thoughts of exercising.
Even if I can’t run I’ll do other things. I built quite a lot of fitness quite quickly through cycling. I knew it’d be very tedious on the running side, so cycling helped me get through that period.
Even now though, the ankle that was most recently operated can still be stiff. Progress on it was slow from May to September. We’d been micro-dosing intensity in training and I only started steady runs a few months ago.
READ MORE: Euro Cross 2024 preview
Dean [Miller], my coach, was instrumental for me during this period. His versatile philosophy helped me a lot with my training programme and getting me up to something like full fitness again.
Recently, our training group went out to Font Romeu and I responded really well at altitude. As well as doing steady runs and hill sessions, being on the bike for five hours at altitude did me wonders.
Tarragano, Miller and Stone (Gary Mitchell)
What was the feeling of winning at the Liverpool Cross Challenge?
If you said to me that before the race I’d win it and beat Will, I’d have told you that was amazing. I went off hard and, with the likes of Tomer and Will, we all just slotted in together like it was a training run. I thought I was realistically going to be in a dogfight to get into the top six, as you don’t know what shape you’ll be in, so I was never expecting the stars to align like that straight away.
It felt a bit odd winning but Will’s race is in Turkey. He didn’t need to go out and smash Liverpool. Obviously, it was encouraging to beat him from my perspective but I’d seen him in the week and he had a bit of cold and coursework to submit. I’m sure he’ll compete well in Turkey.
Thoughts on making your Great Britain debut in Turkey?
I’m just excited to be there in all honesty. I think coming in the top five would be great. It still feels like a bonus as I didn’t expect this to happen straight away. I just want it to be the start of even greater things to come down the line.
I’m going to race it to the best of my capabilities and try and have a positive impact on the race. Having said that, I do think the course and conditions will be quite a bit different to Liverpool. I think the cross training you do comes off a bit more when it’s a muddy surface and everyone has slowed down a bit. Whereas it will be a lot faster with dry earth in Turkey.
I’d love to get a medal and I’ll obviously race to try and get one. When it comes to this kind of stuff I’ve got high ambitions and low expectations. I wasn’t actually thinking that things would start going this well instantly. It feels like a blessing for everything to have the stars lined up like that.
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What are your thoughts on 2025 and ultimate goals in the sport?
I’d ideally want to do an indoor season but I think the extra banks on the track will put a lot of stress on the Achilles. So we might try and do just one 3000m indoors. I’ll also do the Podium 5k in Battersea (December 31) and then the Armagh 5km (February 13).
I’d love to also focus on the 1500m next season and get that pace work back up there. I’ve got a lot of cobwebs to blow off on the track.
I’m still trying to work out what to do in the future. I mean, I’d love to run professionally for at least a year or two. I don’t want to look back in 10 years and think ‘oh, if I locked in a little bit more then I might’ve just been able to do something a bit better’.
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The post David Stone: “I want Euro Cross to be the start of greater things to come” appeared first on AW.
