After initial disappointment at a 1:01:29 on his half marathon debut in Valencia, Olympic triathlon champion Alex Yee is now confident he is on track for a big performance when he returns to the Spanish city for the full marathon next month.
Yee was inside the top 20 of the elite field with that time in his first blast at 13.1 miles but it proved a race of two halves – everything was on track with a 28:45 first 10km but then a headwind for large parts of the second part of the race left him feeling “a bit disappointed” as the splits slowed.
It was a similar story for many others too – Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha repeated his win from the previous year but didn’t get close to his time of 57:30.
Just as Yee did with the build to his first-ever marathon in London earlier this year – when he finished 14th in a time of 2:11:08 – he is documenting his training and preparation on his YouTube channel.
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This latest series is titled ‘Vamos’ and training with top British marathon runner Phil Sesemann, who will also race the full in Valencia on December 7th, could hardly have been going better heading into the Valencia Half.
With Sesemann himself electing to take in the Amsterdam Marathon en route and clocking an impressive 2:07, the formlines were on point too.
‘The best shape I’d been in’
But talking through what played out in the Valencia Half, Yee explained: “I would say, if I’m being honest, that I felt in the best shape I’d been in.
“Some of the sessions I’ve been putting out, particularly with Phil, had given me a lot of confidence – and to see him run 2:07 too.
“I’d done a lab test on the Tuesday and that had re-indicated that I was in under 61, maybe close to 60:30, shape so that was maybe something which I thought was on the cards. And yeah, maybe it was something which led me astray a little bit in in those kind of pinch-point moments in the race.
“We went through 10K in a really good place, even at 13 and 14K on on a really great pace. But we then turned a hard left and hit this big headwind and from then the investment to be on the front was so much higher than it was to be tucked in within the group.
“And at that point it was very hard to find somebody who was willing to do that work.”
‘Big learning curve’
There was no pacemaker in that group and though Yee – and others – did short turns on the front, he admitted: “It was so much harder than it was to drop back into the group and it became not the best dynamic for us to run a fast time, which is a shame.
“I think it was my first time experiencing any kind of dynamics like that but that second 10K when everyone’s legs start to go, maybe people are at different levels of fatigue. It’s hard to say who’s going to kick on and what’s going to happen and that was a big learning curve for me.
“I think I was probably a little bit time-oriented in this race which is probably because I felt in such a good place and really excited to be maybe on the precipice of doing something really special. And I probably got a bit carried away with that initially, whereas in a lot of my races, I race free, with process and with enjoyment.
“And maybe there were times in this race where I looked at the watch and stressed out, and maybe reacted a little bit instinctively to that. Whereas before I would race my own race, the one which I believe is the right one to do, irrespective of time and irrespective of outcome.”
‘A good little bit of fuel’
But chats after the race with many of the other elite runners have underlined just how conditions played a key part in determining the times.
Yee’s kilometre splits went from around 2:50 to over 3:00 and he added: “To run with Ben [Connor, who clocked a 1:01:32] who people are saying to me is in such incredible shape – it’s such a confidence-booster for him to say the kind of shape that he thought he was in was maybe similar to mine. That is really, really exciting.
“I think I initially had my confidence knocked a little bit after the time but having spoken to a lot of different people, I can only go in with confidence that I’m in a much better place I was in at London. So we’ll see what happens but it’s a good little bit of fuel.”
And there are hints in what’s another great video, which is embedded below, of the sort of time Yee is hoping for on December 7th – potentially around the 2:07 mark.
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