An amateur runner is hoping to cross the line as national champion when he competes in the England Athletics Championship this weekend after just running for two years.

Jordan Chambers, 24, of Parkway Maidstone, has always been a sporty person but has only taken up running for a club in Tonbridge since 2020.

The 24 year-old began running as a hobby doing park runs with his brother and father but the competitive bug soon bit.

He said: "I just got into it by accident really did a bit at school and what not.

"I did a few park runs with my brother and my dad and kept getting better.

"I tried a bit of cross-country and then thought I'd try the track so entered the Kent Indoor Championships and won it being my first track race and then I've gone from there."

Jordan, soon joined a club starting at Maidstone Harriers but soon moved to Tonbridge Athletics Club this year.

The club is sitting in the second tier of the National Athletics League and its base is the location of where the Australian Commonwealth Games team is currently training.

With one event left, they are hoping to be promoted to the top tier to compete with the best teams in the country.

Jordan also competed in the annual Medway Mile last week in Gillingham - usually a road race but the event organisers decided to hold three elite races on a track.

After the four laps, Jordan had won the race setting a time of 4:13:13 - a record for the track itself.

He said: "It was a privilege to take part, the organisers did a fantastic job.

"With athletics you don't get a lot of interest in it but they put a lot of things on for the kids and people who weren't necessarily there to watch it started doing so.

"It made for a great atmosphere so it made it probably the best run event I've been to all year."

When asked about the appeal of running Jordan said: "It's a very pure competition.

"You get out there and you have two laps of pure racing against one another with very little other factors - it pretty much is whoever is quickest on the day comes out on top.

"One of the good things about running it's not really a sport with serious rivalry.

'What I'm doing now felt impossible but I always tell myself everything is impossible until you go and do it'

"When you're racing it's very competitive and you have no friends on the track but actually everyone gets on quite well and you know the effort they are putting in so you want them to do well.

"You see your mates doing well and you congratulate them and it pushes you to do better because you want to beat them but it's a friendly rivalry."

One such friendship is with his racing partner Ben Murphy with both pushing each other to do better.

Jordan said: "We race together and train together and we talk everyday about running we are always the first ones to congratulate each other and he was the first person to send me a message when I won on Friday but I can guarantee if we're racing each other we want to beat one another.

"We're best mates before and after but between the start and finish line we want to beat each other."

'It's not a glamorous sport and can be miserable at times but I'll keep trying'

Another piece of inspiration comes from his admiration of his dad.

Jordan said: "He used to do a lot of running and he has always been incredibly fit.

"I remember being in awe of him when I was younger and how fast he was.

"He used to do the Sevenoaks Seven which is a seven-mile race through Knowle Park so I have an attachment to that race and one of my favourite achievements was to beat my dad's best time.

"I have some motivation from that and to make him proud and to try to be similar to him."

Jordan specialises in the 800m and 1500m but his favourite is the former where he has a personal best time of 1:50:69 - 10 seconds off the World Record set by Kenyan runner David Rudisha at the 2012 Olympics with a time of 1:40:91.

But unlike David, Jordan has a nine-to-five job working with air-conditioners.

He said: "My PB, I ran at Watford at 8pm one Wednesday evening when I was up at 5.45am to go to work that day so I had 14 hours before my race and I went and set a PB."

Not only that he also suffered a horrific cycling accident last year which seriously affected his training.

He continued: "I was in hospital for a week and once I was back to full fitness I was very unfit.

'When you're racing it's very competitive and you have no friends on the track but actually everyone gets on quite well'

"I was getting dropped in every training in the freezing cold to get home at 10 at night and up before 6 the next morning, and you feel broken.

"But by Christmas time it all started clicking again."

Now Jordan is competing in the England Athletics Championships in Manchester this weekend where if he wins he will be crowned national champ.

He said: "The plan is to try to get to the final.

"I'm not going to be the quickest runner there but it's one race so everyone is beatable and anything can happen."

For two years Jordan's running has been going from strength to strength but he is not one to set goals although has half an eye on the Olympics one day.

He continued: "There isn't an end goal.

"What I'm doing now felt impossible but I always tell myself everything is impossible until you go and do it.

"What I've achieved so far I didn't think was possible 2/3 years ago so it seems silly to be setting goals.

"In the last two years I have constantly been moving forward and I don't want to set targets as I don't want to limit myself."

When asked about a future in the Olympics Jordan said: "Why not. It sounds ridiculous but you know why not?

"Why aim for something easy you might as well have dreams.

"It keeps you training as it's not a glamorous sport and can be miserable at times but I'll keep trying and with help from my coach Mark Hookway I just want to keep improving."