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He called it “one of the best performances of my life” and no wonder as Alex Yee produced a pacing masterclass at the Valencia Marathon – click here for full report.
The Olympic triathlon champion was only running in his second ever marathon after clocking 2:11:08 on his debut in London in April but he went exactly four and a half minutes quicker in Spain with a sensational 2:06:38 which equates to an overall average pace of three minutes per kilometre.
That’s the equivalent of running more than eight 5km parkruns back-to-back in 15 minutes each!
It all added up to the second fastest ever marathon time by a Briton, with only the great Sir Mo Farah ahead of him with his 2:05:11 at Chicago in 2018.
Those 5km splits in detail
Yee was given brilliant assistance by fellow Brit Emile Cairess, fourth at the Olympic Marathon in Paris last year, who paced the group that contained Yee and compatriot Phil Sesemann to beyond the 35km point.
Yee and Sesemann have been regular training partners in Yorkshire over the last few months, with Cairess joining them on occasions.
And as you can see from the splits below, it was executed brilliantly by Yee. His first 5km split was 15:05 and that was followed by 15:03, 15:05, 15:01, 15:02, 15:07, 15:09 and 14:49, with the last 2.195km taking 6:17.
He had a negative split for the two halves – 1:03:32 and 1:03:06 – and his overall pace was almost exactly three minutes per kilometre as he produced his fastest pace over the last 7km, pretty much a textbook marathon.
| Distance | Time | *Pace (min/km) |
|---|---|---|
| 5km | 15:05 | 3:01 |
| 10km | 30:08 | 3:01 |
| 15km | 45:13 | 3:01 |
| 20km | 1:00:14 | 3:00 |
| 25km | 1:15:16 | 3:00 |
| 30km | 1:30:23 | 3:01 |
| 35km | 1:45:32 | 3:02 |
| 40km | 2:00:21 | 2:58 |
| 42.195km | 2:06:38 | 2:52 |
| Overall | 2:06:38 | 3:00 |
‘I had learned so much from London’
And he said afterwards: “Valencia marathon blew away any expectations I had of myself.
“I had learned so much from London which was such a special experience but I felt with better preparation I had a chance to do something special.
“From start to finish the atmosphere was amazing and kept my legs and mind pushing through to one of the best performances of my life.”
He’s an Olympic and world champion in triathlon and this performance belied his relative inexperience over 26.2 miles and potentially gives him multiple avenues to explore in the future.
But he’s said all along that the focus from next year onwards is to defend his Olympic title at LA2028.
Written by
Jonathan Turner
Jonathan Turner is News Director for both TRI247 and RUN247, and is accustomed to big-name interviews, breaking news stories and providing unrivalled coverage for endurance sports.
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