TIPP CITY, Ohio — If you’re a fan of running and marathons, you’re going to want to keep an eye out for the 2024 U.S. Olympic team trials.

On February 3rd, some of the best athletes in the county will make their way to the starting line for a flat and fast course through downtown Orlando, Florida hoping to represent Team USA in Paris.

In Ohio, many are rooting for a man who is no stranger to breaking the tape in some of the state’s biggest races.

For Jason Salyer, every run is one step closer.

“I feel very excited, very confident. My training has been going very well. I’ve been running about 110 miles a week,” Salyer said as he made his way around the high school track in Tipp City.

That’s about two hours a day, rain or shine, day or night, on the track, trail or treadmill.

“There are 227 men that qualified and my goal is to finish in the top 100. I’m going to be competing against the best runners in the nation. I’ll be competing against Nike-sponsored pro runners, Adidas-sponsored pro runners, and I’m just an average guy with an average job trying to see how I stack up in the country,” he said.

He’s an average guy who is pretty fast, to say the least.

He ran four marathons in 2023.

He won and set a new course record for the Toledo Glass City Marathon. Two weeks later, he won the Cincinnati Flying Pig, then he won the Air Force Marathon in Dayton for a second time, and came in fourth in Columbus.

Salyer grew up in Tipp City.

He trained in middle and high school before becoming a D1 athlete.

He taught in Tipp City schools.

“It would take me a long time to count up how many times I’ve run on this track because it’s a lot,” he said.

It wasn’t until 2020, at the age of 20, that he decided to change things up.

“For a majority of my 20s, I did not run competitively. I was trying to focus on my career. I actually went through a career change, had to go back and get my masters,” he said.

Now the 33-year-old works in government accounting from home, which makes it a little easier to fit a running schedule into the day.

“Dayton is a hot spot for distance running talent,” he said.

It’s a hot spot that Salyer has come to hold close over the years.

He’s sponsored by local Dayton companies and he’s always willing to share his knowledge with new runners.

“It’s about maximizing your individual potential. It’s about trying to beat yourself from the week before, the month before, the year before,” he said as he continued around his old track.

His biggest advice is to stay consistent, have fun, run with others, and keep your normal pace a relaxed one.

As he prepares for the trials, even if he doesn’t make it to the Olympics, he’s putting a personal best to the test.

“I didn’t want to be too old at 40 or 50 years old and reflect on my running career and wonder what if. What if I had really gone for it? So I did really go for it and here I am now and I’m about to run in the biggest race in the country,” Salyer said.

Salyer said to his knowledge, he’s the only male in the state of Ohio who has qualified for the marathon team trials this time around.

He said they have become a lot more challenging in 2024.

On the men’s side, you have to run one minute faster to qualify than you did in 2020, and on the women’s side, you have to run about seven minutes faster.

Salyer’s qualifying time to compete in the trials was two hours, 17 minutes, and 19 seconds.