FRINTON’S Jordan Rowe won the biggest race of his career at the weekend – and now he setting his sights on more glory.

The 17-year-old Tendring Technology College student won the under-17 men’s race at the fourth round of the British Cross Challenge in Cardiff, leading almost from gun to tape.

The win was another big confidence boost for Rowe who has been the dominant force on the county cross-country scene for the past couple of years.

This was his first national win and he’s hoping it will be a building block for other major events coming up in the coming weeks.

“I’ve not raced in that many big races, so in terms of accolades, this was the biggest win of my career,” said Rowe who switched from Colchester & Tendring AC to Colchester Harriers over the summer. “But I feel it has been coming.

“Now I really want to take it on into big races I’ve got coming up.”

Rowe has got a busy schedule in the next few months with some massive dates on the horizon, starting with the Southern Cross-Country Championships this weekend, an event that he finished fourth in last year despite being the bottom year in the under-17 age group at that point.

“After that I’ve got the nationals, intercounties and English Schools championships as well as the London mini-marathon,” Rowe said.

“When I switched clubs in the summer, the first thing I said was that I wanted to be in the lead group at the Intercounties in Birmingham and I think after my win on Sunday I can do really well in all the races I’ve got coming up.”

Rowe’s form is particularly impressive given that he had a summer bookended by injury.

At the start of the track season he developed tendinitis in his knee and then just after that problem had been cured he had a horror injury to his finger.

“I was cleaning some glass for my mum and it shattered and cut through my hand, partially cutting my finger off,” he said.

“That kept me out for nearly two months, so I’ve only really been back running for three months.”

With that double dose of bad luck, Rowe was due some good fortune and that came around at the weekend when the Essex Schools Cross-Country Championships was called off a day before his race in Cardiff.

“It was in my schedule to run both,” said Rowe. “So in some ways it worked to my advantage in Cardiff but the re-arranged date has made it a bit more complicated because it’s two weeks before the nationals when I was meant to be training. I’ll just have to use it as a training run if I can.”