As first marathons go, Kyle Dawson’s will be a true baptism by fire as the young athlete will run in the Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles on February 13th. The three fastest male and female runners at the event will then get the chance to represent the country at this year’s summer Olympics in Rio.

“I’ve been working towards this goal for a while and to finally achieve it is pretty incredible,” said Dawson after qualifying for this amazing opportunity.

The Coatesville born athlete ran for Penn State, and after graduating four years ago he started running for the Bryn Mawr Running Company. His original decision to try and qualify for the 10,000-meter distance was changed by his coach, David Lapp, who thought that a half marathon would be a better option.

It turned out that the coach was right, as Dawson finished the Philadelphia Half Marathon in 1 hour, 6 minutes and 11 seconds, beating the time needed to qualify for the trials by a minute and 11 seconds.

That achievement got him an invitation for the Jacksonville Half Marathon, a race which was attempting to put together a group of elite runners who would all aim to achieve the half marathon qualifying time. The timing was perfect for Dawson, as runners needed to submit their times by Sunday, and the race was held on January 3rd. He finished 25 seconds under the half marathon qualifying requirement, with a time of 1:04:35.

The new opportunity has changed Dawson’s workout regime, switching him to longer runs in preparation for the big race where he will face the other 199 men who qualified for the trials.

“It’s a lot to think about not having done a marathon yet, and there are a lot of guys who have run marathons before who are also really good at it,” said Dawson. “I’m going to run it hard and go after it. It’s really all I can do.”