Sweden's new world half-marathon champion opens up on a career built on patience, a Wilson Kipketer poster and a data scientist's mindset — with New York already on his mind.

There was a touch of Arne Andersson and Gunder Hägg about Andreas Almgren's coronation in Copenhagen — a lone Swede, out on the road, running into distance-running history the way that great Swedish pairing once did on the track.

Almost eight decades on from those two trading world mile records back and forth, Almgren stands as the man carrying Swedish endurance running to a new peak – and he did it in some style: a European record of 58:06 to win the world half-marathon title, as reported here.

Speaking afterwards, the emotion of the achievement was obvious. "This gold medal means so much to me," he said. "I have had a few problems in my career. A lot of fourth places at the Europeans. Then finally I got a bronze medal at the World Championships last year. And then my first gold medal in Birmingham earlier this year and now to become the world champion in half marathon means a lot to me."

A career built on the track

It has not been a smooth path. Almgren's roots are on the track – a bronze medal over 800m at the 2014 World Under-20 Championships in Eugene, in 1:45.65, a time that still stands as the Swedish under-20 record – and, as he has said elsewhere, his idol growing up was fellow 800m specialist Wilson Kipketer. Born in Sollentuna and now based in Stockholm, Almgren studied at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and still works as a data scientist consultant alongside his running. He also played football before committing fully to athletics.

That patient, methodical streak seems to have paid off. This year alone he has broken the European 5000m record (12:44.27, in Stockholm last June), the European 10km record (26:45, in Valencia in January) and now the European half-marathon record twice over – first with 58:41 in Valencia last October, and now with Sunday's 58:06. Throw in his world 10,000m bronze in Tokyo and his European 10,000m title in Birmingham this year, and it makes for one of the most productive 12-month spells in the sport.

The kick of a track runner

For all his talk of a difficult journey, Almgren made Sunday's finish look almost effortless. "I felt extremely strong at the last few kilometres," he said. "I did not only have one or two gears left, I had three or four. I felt like my opponents could try whatever they wanted but I was not going to let this gold medal go."

He was full of praise, too, for the man who pushed him closest. "Nicholas (Kipkorir) was very strong, he led most of the race and he was trying to get rid of me. On the last kilometres he pushed the pace, but I still felt quite comfortable, and with a few hundred metres left, I went for it."

That finishing speed, he explained, is no accident of a track background rather than a burden to convert. "It is actually very nice to come as a track runner to the half marathon, because I know I have a lot of over-speed in me. It was not that hard for me to do the transition from being a track runner to becoming a road runner. In those three weeks leading up to Birmingham, I was running 200 kilometres per week, so to start doing that prior to this race is not that big of a transition."

Even so, the scale of his own transformation has not been lost on him. "It still feels kind of surreal that I have gone from 400 metres to half marathons. Ten years ago, we joked that maybe one day I will run a 5000m race. Now I am world champion in the half marathon and I am going to have my marathon debut in New York in about a month."

Data-driven and self-coached

Much of Almgren's improvement is built on a methodical, numbers-led approach to training. He works in roughly six-week blocks, staying consistent within each one before adjusting, and has been logging weeks of up to 170km. The backbone of his programme is threshold running — typically around 2:40/km, at a heart rate of 167-178bpm — with lactate testing used to set his baseline values.

His sharpening work is similarly precise. A recent key session, detailed by COROS, whose watches he relies on to track his training, saw him run 3 x 3km with three minutes' recovery in 8:00, 7:52 and 7:43, while a race-pace session of 10 x 1km with a minute's recovery averaged 2:34/km at 162bpm.

"Heart-rate data from COROS is a very important part of the overall picture," he has said, using speed and heart-rate metrics to compare one training block against the next alongside perceived effort and lactate readings. (See the upcoming October issue of AW magazine for more on Almgren's training).

Eyes on New York

That debut is now squarely in focus. "Tomorrow I will go to Arizona, US, and start doing altitude training before the marathon. I will do that for a couple of weeks, and then go to New York and get some rest right before the marathon. This gold medal is a very good sign for me, that I am doing something right. But at the same time, running a marathon is something completely different. I do not know how my body will react after 35 kilometres, but I am very excited to try it."

Ambition, though, has not deserted him. "In New York I am going to try to be somewhere in the front, hopefully I can make it all the way to Central Park and fight for the win. But you have to be humble, I have no idea how my body is going to react. I will try to stay in the front, and then we will see how it goes."

New York will close out a long season. "The New York marathon is my last race of the season. And then I will start to prepare for the next season after a couple of weeks off. I ran my first race in January, so it is finally time to get some vacation. I just got a new apartment in Stockholm, so I am going to spend my holiday getting everything in order at home. And then just relax, because it has been very hectic the last couple of months. I need to mentally switch off."

There is already an eye on what comes next, even if the details are yet to be worked out. "Of course I have Beijing on my mind and will try to go for a gold medal there, but I have not done a lot of thinking about that yet."