Olympic triathlon champion explains why his marathon debut in London will likely be about a lot greater than protecting 26.2 miles
Alex Yee vividly remembers the races he would run at his dwelling monitor within the Ladywell Enviornment in Lewisham to qualify for the Mini London Marathon and symbolize his native borough. Again then, the aspiring kids have been preventing it out for the best to compete over the closing three miles of the complete marathon route, from Outdated Billingsgate Market to The Mall, and between 2010 and 2015 he achieved the feat 4 occasions, twice ending third in his age group.
A decade and someday on from his closing Mini Marathon look, the now 27-year-old will full the circle by lining up on the beginning line of the primary occasion for the primary time. The truth that the venue he first set foot in throughout his early days with Kent AC has been renamed because the Alex Yee Ladywell Enviornment maybe greatest illustrates simply how a lot life has modified for him within the intervening years.
“He’d be amazed,” says Yee, when requested what that teenager would make of his older self’s achievements up to now. It’s a formidable record.
Yee was as soon as mooted as a possible inheritor to Mo Farah on the monitor, a British 10,000m champion in 2018 in addition to European Cross Nation medallist. Nonetheless, it was solely by way of triathlon that he first found his love of operating and it’s in that multi-sport self-discipline the place his star has shone brightest. He’s essentially the most profitable Olympic triathlete ever, having gained particular person gold within the males’s occasion and Blended Relay bronze in Paris final summer time so as to add to his Blended Relay gold and particular person silver from Tokyo 2020. He was topped world champion in 2024, too – solely the second man to win that title and Olympic gold in the identical 12 months – whereas he’s additionally a two-time Commonwealth gold medallist.
Alex Yee (Coros)
“From 2010 to 2015 my solely aim of going to London was to run as quick as I might and have the most effective time I might with the folks round me,” he says, casting his thoughts again. “To begin off a sport only for the love of it, and nonetheless to be doing that for a similar motive, I feel is extremely particular.”
These preliminary encounters with racing on the streets of London have been central to Yee’s early schooling as an athlete, although he admits that wasn’t essentially his precedence at first.
“I feel in 2010 and 2011 most of my pleasure most likely got here from going to Chinatown to have Dim sum after the race and it motivating me to get to the end line!” he laughs. “To try this final three miles, I feel I most likely took it as a right for the primary few years.
“However, as I bought older and began to remain on slightly bit [for the main race] afterwards, I started to understand that this was greater than only a race. After 2012 there was extra of an appreciation of sport, of the Olympics, the marathon and what it meant. It was throughout these years once I began to attempt to get in that entrance row to observe the elite guys come previous.
“Having accomplished among the coaching, now I’m much more in awe of them due to how extremely exhausting it’s. It’s fairly cool to assume that I used to be as soon as a type of folks leaning over the limitations, cheering on everybody and hopefully I will be in that place [of being cheered on] as effectively.”
Mini London Marathon (Mark Shearman)
Yee’s profile, to not point out his operating means, signifies that his marathon debut is a very intriguing storyline at this 12 months’s occasion. Simply as with the Mini Marathon, the thought of studying extra about his capabilities is a central theme.
Anybody who witnessed his brilliantly timed late surge to seize Olympic gold forward of New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde again in August would possibly disagree, however Yee insists he has work to do in relation to his operating. With the subsequent Video games in Los Angeles not rolling round till 2028, he determined to grab the possibility to shake issues up a bit.
“To search out the place my limits are,” he says, when requested what he’s trying to get out of the expertise. “Submit-Olympics, I needed to do one thing that challenged me and hopefully allowed me to develop as an athlete. I haven’t been in a position to work on my operating for 5 years, and this felt like the best time to work on that once more, however then I even have a deep love for the London Marathon and it’s one in all my solely bucket record races.”
Alex Yee (Getty)
As somebody who competes within the Olympic or “commonplace” distance triathlon, it’s often a 10km project which Yee has to sort out – instantly after having swum 1.5km and cycled 40km. His marathon mission means he has to run over 4 occasions additional than regular, however the occasion by which he has made his title is rarely removed from his ideas.
“I do know that if I do the identical factor as I did earlier than, I don’t assume I’ll get the identical final result as a result of, essentially, I’m a unique individual than I used to be three years in the past,” he says of this new Olympic coaching cycle.
“I have to do issues barely otherwise. Finally the aim is to go to LA and to be as aggressive as I can there in triathlon however I feel doing it in a means the place I work on completely different bits, turn into a greater individual and a greater athlete, is one thing that’s thrilling me in the intervening time.
“I’ve been very fortunate in triathlon that I’ve been in a position to be aggressive on the again finish of a run on a couple of events, however I’ve additionally been left weak on the odd event, and I’d like to be able the place I simply check my limits and see what I can obtain. Is constantly operating below 29 minutes or [around] 28:30 off the bike for 10km doable? What’s the restrict of my physique that I can obtain and what can I discover? That’s one thing which retains me up at evening, retains me excited and retains me pushing the envelope.”
Alex Yee (Coros UK)
On the afternoon when Yee sits down to speak with AW, he admits to feeling slightly weary – maybe not shocking provided that the interview takes place not too lengthy after the completion of a operating session that included a steady 30km effort and concerned a couple of tempo variations.
“I’m attempting to get the most effective really feel for what the marathon will really feel like,” he says. “There’s slightly little bit of the unknown about it for me, however the extra we will make it much less of an intimidating distance, the extra understanding now we have of my physiology and what I can do then hopefully it gained’t be a scary distance and as a substitute be one thing which I’ll actually look ahead to. Then the day is usually a bit extra of a celebration than a little bit of a scary fact-finding mission.”
Yee’s is in no way a traditional marathon coaching plan. Sure, he’s inserting a bit extra emphasis on his operating however he isn’t simply ignoring the opposite two triathlon disciplines, both.
“I’m doing about 5 hours of swimming in the intervening time, eight to 9 hours on the bike after which my operating quantity might be between 9 and 10 hours, so between 80-90 miles,” he says of a typical coaching week at his Loughborough base.
“I’m doing lots of my operating as longer single runs, as a substitute of doing a couple of smaller double runs, after which I complement the second cardio stimulus of the day with a experience or swim. It helps to maintain a really feel for the swim and the bike, but in addition gives that additional stimulus that the blokes are getting after they’re operating 120-130 miles per week.
“It’s a low quantity programme compared to guys operating loopy distances and it’s been fascinating to be taught and to be a bit distinctive and a bit completely different in my preparation. Hopefully I can both pave the way in which or present folks what to not do in preparation for a marathon!”
Alex Yee (Mark Shearman)
Yee is a giant admirer of a person who has proved himself adept at main by instance within the marathon but it surely was Eliud Kipchoge who publicly said his need to satisfy with the champion triathlete. The 2 are as a consequence of spend slightly time collectively in London, the place little doubt the Kenyan will impart a few of his trademark phrases of knowledge. There are echoes of Kipchoge’s philosophical nature in Yee’s phrases, although, when he comes again to the considering behind his marathon debut.
“I feel the place we do our most progress is once we don’t know stuff about ourselves and we’re studying,” he says. “Studying is a crucial a part of being an elite athlete, and in the event you’re not doing it, then I don’t assume that you simply’re in a position to progress and develop.
“It’s been nice for me to have the ability to study myself, but in addition put myself in an setting which I don’t know a lot about. I assume I am going into the London Marathon a bit like tens of 1000’s of different folks do, being a novice and experiencing it for the primary time, and that’s actually thrilling.
“It’s a spot the place I really feel like I’ll do my most progress and my most studying and hopefully we’ll be capable to take that again to triathlon, to operating 10,000m on the monitor, to no matter it might be in a couple of months’ time. Hopefully I’ll be capable to be a greater athlete from it.”
Alex Yee (Mark Shearman)
The place Yee differs from so many first-time marathon runners, in fact, is not only in his athletic pedigree but in addition his goal time, albeit he isn’t about to make any outlandish claims.
“If I’m being sincere, the goalposts preserve shifting week on week,” he says about what he is likely to be able to. “However I’d like to be in that 2:08 to 2:09 bracket. I hope that there’ll be lots of British guys round there within the discipline. I’m positive there will likely be a couple of who will attempt to go faster, however hopefully that places me in that aggressive home discipline, and I’d like to be part of that.
“If I can try this then who is aware of? Possibly I can come again and do one other marathon in some unspecified time in the future however we’ll should see. I feel my potential hopefully sits slightly bit increased than what I can obtain in London so hopefully I can present that in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later.
“Pre LA, my thoughts is totally targeted on the triathlon, however I feel over this 12 months there could also be one other alternative to do a marathon. It’s a protracted season and there are many alternatives throughout the first 12 months of an Olympic cycle. I don’t have the whole solutions but. I’ll most likely have a couple of extra solutions as soon as I cross that end line and I both have a starvation for extra or a need to get again to the swim and bike after experiencing that stage of ache. I’m actually excited to do it and hopefully I can put down an excellent marker.”
That marker ought to make him the quickest marathon runner in his household by fairly a long way. Yee’s dad and mom have each run London and that he’s about to get his personal style of the occasion which begins so near the place he grew up – a showpiece that has been a part of the material of his sporting life – is a very attractive prospect.
“Experiencing what I’ve heard so many different folks speak about experiencing, from the ambiance, to the bands, to the noise,” he says of what he’s most trying ahead to. “I wish to soak that up as a lot as doable, in addition to attempting to run the most effective race I can.”
This time, protecting these closing three miles of the marathon route goes to be a somewhat completely different expertise to 10 years in the past.
“I ponder what that final 5km will really feel like?” says Yee. “[I won’t find that out until] I’m in that final 5km. I’m trying ahead to that, in a means. I feel that’s one of the best ways I can do it – trying ahead to that problem somewhat than fearing it.”
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