SUPER-TALENTED Jessica Judd has revealed she has had to forsake some of her cross-country endurance to prepare for a massive year on the track.

The 17-year-old is focusing more on speed work than mileage this winter in a bid to start the track season with a bang.

But despite that she still managed to win a bronze medal in the under-17 women’s race at the English Cross-Country Championships at Parliament Hill and was only denied victory in the closing stages when she was overtaken by Becky Straw (Cannock & Staffs) and Alex Clay (Invicta).

“I was really happy with my performance,” said Judd, a sixth-former at King John School. “I have been doing a lot more speed work this winter and not really focused as much on the cross-country and I just haven’t got the endurance of some of the other girls.

“It’s just something I’m going to have to accept. My aim is the track season and looking to peak in June for the World Junior Championship trials and the full UK Championships and trials.

“I want to be getting faster times on the track earlier on in the season than I did last year when it took me a bit of time to get going. That’s not going to be good enough this year.

“I ran quickly over 3,000m because I was coming off good cross-country training, but this year I want to get track training under my belt earlier.”

Judd, the World Youth Championships bronze medallist at 800m will again be concentrating on the two-lap discipline this summer and aiming to lower her personal best of 2m 2.70s.

“I ran quite a few 2m 2s 800 metres last season, but couldn’t get faster. I think the endurance work I did last winter helped me, but now I need the speed work to go that bit faster. I really want to do better on the track and I’ve had to accept, to do that, I have to give up a bit on the country. I still aim to be competitive, but I’m a different runner now and I can’t expect to do everything.

“It’s a big year - it’s 2012! I might as well give it a go and if things go wrong then I can go back and look at things again, but it’s worth trying.”

Before the track season begins in earnest, Judd has a couple more big cross-country races to look forward to – the UK Intercounties Championships and the English Schools Championships – and the Canvey teenager admits she may look to reign in her front-running tactics.

“I’ve learned to sit in and run with a group on the track and maybe I’ll have to do that over the country,” she said. “I went out too fast at the Southerns (where she was beaten into second by Clay) and paid for that. But I thought I ran perfectly at the nationals. I left my kick to about eight minutes to go. But the two girls came past me in the final stages and I couldn’t respond. I got my tactics right, I just couldn’t win on the day.”

* Rayleigh’s Sophie Riches, 16, joined Judd in the bronze medal-winning Chelmsford AC team at the championships.

The Rayleigh teenager, a bottom year athlete in the under-17s, finished in 22nd place. Kim Johansen and Rebecca Wade made up the team.

Southend AC pair Sarah Imbush and Alex Morgan were 133rd and 169th respectively.