From 1:57 in the Tokyo Olympic 800m Final to 69:15 in the Half-Marathon: Alex Bell on Burnout, Reinvention, and Chasing the LA 2028 Marathon

She ran 1:57 in an Olympic final as an afterthought—then walked away, rebuilt everything, and came back faster.  

Alex Bell isn't just reinventing herself; she's finally becoming who she was supposed to be.

In this conversation, Alex takes Dominic through one of British running's most unlikely second acts. She opens about the moment she crossed the finish line in Tokyo and knew (lying on her back; a million feelings at once) that she would never run 1:57 again. 

She talks honestly about the mental health toll of years spent as an unfunded elite, working police shifts and retail while competing at Diamond League level–and why she needed to step away from the sport entirely before she could fall back in love with it. 

Now, under coach Andrew Henderson at Leeds Beckett, she's averaging 85 miles a week (double what she ran at the peak of her 800m career) and her body has never felt better. 

She breaks down the training shift in real terms: double threshold days, long canal runs with 20-plus athletes on Sunday mornings, and the kind of joy she says she never once felt standing on a track start line. She describes pacing the 2026 TCS London Marathon, watching the world record fall from the inside, and coming home the next day to hand in her notice. 

The marathon debut is coming in February. LA 2028 is the dream. And she is, by her own admission, just getting started.

Tap into the Alex Bell Special.

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