The Olympic triathlon champion Alex Yee, who made such an impression on his marathon debut at London, has announced he will run the Valencia Marathon on 7th December.
Yee was 14th behind winner Sabastian Sawe in London in a time of 2:11:08 but he believes he can go markedly faster than that over the distance given the learnings from his first race over 26.2 miles.
The likely cooler weather over a flat and fast course in Valencia should also help him and he ran in the Spanish city when in the top 30 of the Valencia 10km this January – and will head there again in late October for the Half Marathon as part of his training block.
He’s returned to triathlon this summer – winning on his comeback at Supertri Toronto and notching a top 10 at WTCS French Riviera – but this year was always going to be a lighter one on the swim / bike / run front before the next Olympic cycle begins in earnest ahead of LA 2028.
But after that, Yee has raised the intriguing possibility of him trying to qualify for the British team for the marathon at the World Athletics Championship in 2029, should that event be awarded to his home town of London.
All of this was revealed in the latest Runna Podcast.
Looking for 2:08 or better
The unexpected heat in London in late April meant that Yee, in common with the majority of the elite field, slowed down fractionally in the closing stages.
READ MORE: What is a good marathon time?
And speaking on the Runna Podcast, which is embedded below, he explained: “Finishing that first marathon left me kind of asking questions and also learning so much about it that I couldn’t not do another one.
“So I’m going to race Valencia Marathon at the end of this year, which is going to be really, really fun. And I’m also going to race the Valencia Half Marathon as well.”
Asked if he has a target time in mind, Yee replied: I went through halfway at London in 64:15 so I’d like to do something similar in Valencia but hopefully negative split. I feel like that would make the marathon a much more positive experience than doing a big positive split [in London].”
More to come in triathlon
So the focus will be on the marathon for the rest of 2025, but after that it will be back to triathlon for the next three years: “I think my big goal fundamentally is to stand on the [triathlon] start line in LA in 2028, feeling like I’m ready to kind of race the ultimate race that I want to race,” said Yee.
“Paris was an amazing day, really special, but I feel like I still left a little bit out there on the course that I could hopefully uncover. And that’s excited me, and that’s kind of led me to come in to the marathon and working on my run, something I haven’t been able to do for five years.”
But after that there could be a return to the marathon as he added: “I would say that this Olympic cycle is all about triathlon. [But] I know that there’s potentially chance that the World Championships is going to come to London in 2029. That could be an amazing thing to be part of.
“But, who knows? That’s a long, long time away. And for me I’ve just got my eyes set on this next marathon coming up and hopefully just being the best athlete I can be there.”
Asked how training is going, he said: “It’s going okay. I’ve just come off doing a triathlon race in the French Riviera which was really fun and nice to be back doing that. But yeah now eyes are fully focused on the marathon and getting up to volume.
“It’s going to be around 135km this week so we’ll kind of keep pushing on and see where we can take it.”
