{"id":1040008711,"date":"2025-11-07T11:40:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T11:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/?p=1040008711"},"modified":"2026-01-17T18:11:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T18:11:53","slug":"how-alex-bell-has-handled-the-transition-from-800m-to-half-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/news\/how-alex-bell-has-handled-the-transition-from-800m-to-half-marathon-1040008711\/","title":{"rendered":"How Alex Bell has handled the transition from 800m to half-marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

We talk to the Olympic 800m finalist who now has very different targets to aim for.<\/p>\n

Not so long ago, Alex Bell\u2019s world revolved around two laps of the track. The 800m was her focus as she reached the 2021 Olympic final in Tokyo, ran 1:57.66, and spent years competing at the very top of British middle-distance running.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, this month, the 32-year-old achieved something entirely new: 70:02 for 13.1 miles, winning the Amsterdam Half Marathon on her debut at the distance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I was like: \u2018What just happened?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cBut now it\u2019s sunk in that I\u2019m actually a half-marathon runner.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

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Since stepping away from the track last year, Bell has thrown herself fully into road racing, finding both form and fulfilment in a new environment. \u201cIt\u2019s been like learning my body all over again,\u201d she said. \u201cHow to recover, how to fuel, how to handle new paces. It\u2019s all been quite refreshing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Amsterdam had been circled on her calendar for months as her first real test. \u201cIt was the main goal for 2025,\u201d she says. \u201cTraining had been going really well, but I was a bit unknown as to what the outcome would be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A breakthrough run at the Vitality 10,000, where she clocked 31:31 behind winner Eilish McColgan and Jessica Warner-Judd, offered a glimpse of Bell\u2019s potential. \u201cBefore that, I had 72 minutes in my head [for the half marathon],\u201d she said. \u201cAfter the 10km, we thought maybe we could aim higher. Still, I didn\u2019t expect 70:02. I\u2019m a bit gutted that we didn't dip under 70, but that\u2019s just the athlete in me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alex Bell (Dave Woodhead)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While victory was welcome, Bell insists it wasn\u2019t the main goal. \u201cI just wanted to lay down a time and see where my training was at,\u201d she says. \u201cWinning was a bonus. The new training volume has been massive for me, but my body\u2019s adapted really well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

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After years of pressure and expectation in elite track athletics, she speaks about road running with genuine ease. \u201cIt\u2019s like my eyes have been opened again,\u201d says Bell. \u201cStanding on all these start lines now, I have that excitement back. This is the feeling I should have probably been feeling when I was an 800m runner, which for a long period of my career, I never felt. I was having the opposite feeling that I have on the roads, which makes me think I should have made this decision a lot sooner.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alex Bell (Mark Shearman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shift from 800m to the half-marathon has been a dramatic one, physically and mentally, but Bell says the change has helped her rediscover the joy in training.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had a bit of experience from cross country, but eight kilometres is nothing compared to what I\u2019m doing now,\u201d she adds. \u201cThe recovery side has been the biggest adjustment. There\u2019s little rest days now, my body responds better to easier running days. I had a lot of Achilles issues and lower limb issues towards the back end of my track career and it\u2019s mad to think that I am doubling more than I was as an 800m runner but my body is adapting so much better to it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alex Bell training in South Africa (Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The decision to move away from the 800m came from a place of realism. \u201cI\u2019d squeezed everything I could out of it,\u201d says Bell. \u201cI think I knew in Tokyo after the final that it was probably as good as it was ever going to get. It was a battle after that to try and find motivation and then the politics of the sport made me get really sick of athletics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

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The new challenge now lies firmly on the roads. Bell has more races lined up before the end of the year, with another half-marathon likely in early 2026 and talk of pacemaking at the London Marathon to gain experience ahead of an eventual full-marathon debut.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully one day I can finish my career doing the London Marathon because one of my very first races I was involved with was the London Mini Marathon.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Alex Bell wins The Match in Minsk (Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you could choose one person to train\/compete with, past or present, who would it be and why?<\/b><\/p>\n

It has to be Kelly Holmes. She was my inspiration for such a long time when I was growing up, I always looked up to her and she was the person who got me into the sport and has since guided and directed me through my career.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We talk to the Olympic 800m finalist who now has very different targets to aim for. Not so long ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578457,"featured_media":1040007991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","inline_featured_image":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_championship":0,"wds_primary_country":0,"wds_primary_sports":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,12,36595],"tags":[],"championship":[],"country":[],"sports":[35984,36035],"class_list":["post-1040008711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-news","category-training-cat","sports-800m","sports-road-events"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040008711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1040008711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1040008711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1040007991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1040008711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1040008711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1040008711"},{"taxonomy":"championship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/championship?post=1040008711"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=1040008711"},{"taxonomy":"sports","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athleticsweekly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sports?post=1040008711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}