Jake Townsend & Jess Willis

Our Story

Endurance sport is a huge part of our lives and something we’ve been lucky enough to share together for many years.Jake has been an endurance runner since he was around 20. Running was his main focus for years, but after suffering a stress fracture in his foot, he bought a bike as a way of maintaining his fitness. That eventually led him into triathlon and, as the distances got longer, so did the importance of getting his nutrition right. My main focus has remained running, particularly the marathon and half marathon. Over the years I have progressed into semi-elite competitive marathon running, with a marathon PB of 2:46:02, while also racing everything from 5km through to 50km. Between us, there is almost always someone training for something!

Our Training Philosophy

Our training philosophies are actually pretty similar – consistency is probably the biggest thing for both of us. Jake’s training is very polarised: plenty of genuinely easy work, with the hard sessions being hard for a reason. He’s a big believer in making the easy days easy enough that you can actually absorb the quality sessions. His coach is also Jess’s brother, which makes endurance sport even more of a family affair! He’s played a huge role in Jake’s development over the last couple of years. I takes a similar approach with my running. It’s about being consistent week after week rather than chasing one perfect session. There are hard sessions and big weeks, but recovery and easy running are just as important. With three kids and everything else that comes with family life and work the training also needs to be sustainable.

Why We Use Infinit

Nutrition becomes incredibly important when you’re training and racing at the volume we do, and one of the biggest advantages of Infinit for us has been how simple it makes fuelling. Jake had tried plenty of different products and combinations over the years but never found something that consistently worked, particularly as he moved into longer-course triathlon. He now uses the Premium 120g Carb Mix for pretty much everything – swimming, cycling and running. Changing up the flavour from time to time.  Being able to consistently take in high levels of carbohydrate without constantly fighting his stomach or experiencing that big energy drop has made a huge difference, particularly when racing for four, eight or ten-plus hours. Jess uses SPEED as well as a Premium Fuel mix with 75g carb and 50mg caffeine in orange flavour. Having her nutrition predominantly in the flasks makes fuelling during long runs and races really straightforward, without having to rely heavily on gels.