There are going to be some lonely moments in a marathon'

The big interview Alex Yee As the Olympic triathlon champion prepares for his London Marathon debut, he talks pain, Parkrun and his hopes for personal growth

- Donald McRae

There is a beautiful book about suffering on Alex Yee's coffee table in his front room on the outskirts of Loughborough. There is a beautiful book about suffering on Alex Yee's coffee table in his front room on the outskirts of Loughborough. It's a massive book about cycling and riding up imposing mountains that look gorgeous in black-and-white photographs even as they bring down almost unbearable pain on those cyclists brave and crazy enough to confront them.

Yee, the Olympic triathlon champion, is steeling himself for a new start as a novice long-distance runner who will enter similarly dark terrain in the London Marathon on Sunday. "The nerves are definitely there but I'm excited too," Yee says in his thoughtful yet exuberant way. "Honestly, it's excitement about the unknown. As elite athletes we're used to hurting ourselves and going through that pain. I've been in some dark places before and, in a weird way, I'm probably quite looking forward to experiencing this different kind of pain. I'm excited, rather than daunted."

Yee is used to swimming 1.5km, riding his bike for 40km and then running the final 10km of a triathlon. There are enough photographs of his cherubic face etched in agony to believe his familiarity with suffering - so he thinks hard before selecting a definitive dark place from the past.

"Probably the primary one is the Olympics last year as it was the feeling of everything you'd worked towards slowly slipping away. At the same time you're trying to keep your mind in the right place to focus on digging yourself out of that big hole."

The Paris Olympic triathlon was almost done, and nearly as gone as his legs, as Yee faced the 14.5sec chasm that had opened between him and Hayden Wilde, his great rival and friend from New Zealand. We will soon return to that searing comeback that sealed Yee's Olympic victory but, first, the vast challenge of his debut marathon dwarfs everything else.