How Alex Bell has dealt with the transition from 800m to half-marathon

We discuss to the Olympic 800m finalist who now has very totally different targets to purpose for.

Not so way back, Alex Bell’s world revolved round two laps of the monitor. The 800m was her focus as she reached the 2021 Olympic ultimate in Tokyo, ran 1:57.66, and spent years competing on the very prime of British middle-distance operating.

However, this month, the 32-year-old achieved one thing completely new: 70:02 for 13.1 miles, profitable the Amsterdam Half Marathon on her debut on the distance.

“At first I used to be like: ‘What simply occurred?’” she says. “However now it’s sunk in that I’m truly a half-marathon runner.”

Since stepping away from the monitor final 12 months, Bell has thrown herself absolutely into street racing, discovering each kind and fulfilment in a brand new setting. “It’s been like studying my physique another time,” she mentioned. “The way to get better, learn how to gas, learn how to deal with new paces. It’s all been fairly refreshing.”

Amsterdam had been circled on her calendar for months as her first actual check. “It was the primary aim for 2025,” she says. “Coaching had been going very well, however I used to be a bit unknown as to what the end result can be.”

A breakthrough run on the Vitality 10,000, the place she clocked 31:31 behind winner Eilish McColgan and Jessica Warner-Judd, provided a glimpse of Bell’s potential. “Earlier than that, I had 72 minutes in my head [for the half marathon],” she mentioned. “After the 10km, we thought perhaps we might purpose increased. Nonetheless, I didn’t anticipate 70:02. I’m a bit gutted that we did not dip beneath 70, however that’s simply the athlete in me.”

Whereas victory was welcome, Bell insists it wasn’t the primary aim. “I simply needed to put down a time and see the place my coaching was at,” she says. “Successful was a bonus. The brand new coaching quantity has been huge for me, however my physique’s tailored very well.”

After years of stress and expectation in elite monitor athletics, she speaks about street operating with real ease. “It’s like my eyes have been opened once more,” says Bell. “Standing on all these begin strains now, I’ve that pleasure again. That is the sensation I ought to have most likely been feeling once I was an 800m runner, which for an extended interval of my profession, I by no means felt. I used to be having the other feeling that I’ve on the roads, which makes me assume I ought to have made this resolution quite a bit sooner.”

The shift from 800m to the half-marathon has been a dramatic one, bodily and mentally, however Bell says the change has helped her rediscover the enjoyment in coaching. 

“I had a little bit of expertise from cross nation, however eight kilometres is nothing in comparison with what I’m doing now,” she provides. “The restoration facet has been the largest adjustment. There’s little relaxation days now, my physique responds higher to simpler operating days. I had lots of Achilles points and decrease limb points in the direction of the again finish of my monitor profession and it’s mad to assume that I’m doubling greater than I used to be as an 800m runner however my physique is adapting so significantly better to it.”  

The choice to maneuver away from the 800m got here from a spot of realism. “I’d squeezed every little thing I might out of it,” says Bell. “I believe I knew in Tokyo after the ultimate that it was most likely pretty much as good because it was ever going to get. It was a battle after that to try to discover motivation after which the politics of the game made me get actually sick of athletics.”

The brand new problem now lies firmly on the roads. Bell has extra races lined up earlier than the tip of the 12 months, with one other half-marathon possible in early 2026 and discuss of pacemaking on the London Marathon to achieve expertise forward of an eventual full-marathon debut.

“Hopefully at some point I can end my profession doing the London Marathon as a result of one in every of my very first races I used to be concerned with was the London Mini Marathon.” 

For those who might select one particular person to coach/compete with, previous or current, who would it not be and why?

It needs to be Kelly Holmes. She was my inspiration for such a very long time once I was rising up, I all the time seemed as much as her and he or she was the one who acquired me into the game and has since guided and directed me by way of my profession.