After her record-breaking performance at the Chicago marathon, Izzi Batt-Doyle talks about the work that is helping her learn to excel over 26.2 miles.

Izzi Batt-Doyle recalls the moment she overtook four women in the last mile at the Chicago Marathon last month. After reaching halfway in 10th position with 70:29 and buoyed by her pacemaker – her fiancé Riley Cocks – the Australian knew that she had more in the tank.  

At the 35km mark she was one minute and 30 seconds behind the pack ahead, but kept herself in range and, by the 25th mile, that gap had closed to four seconds. 

Over the course of just over six minutes she picked off Kenya’s Masai Magdalyne and Loice Chemnung, Ethiopia’s Degitu Azimeraw and home favourite Emma Grace Hurley. 

With her mother Rosey cheering alongside Sonia O’Sullivan in the crowds, Batt-Doyle crossed the line in an Oceanic women’s marathon record of 2:20:38, bettering Jessica Stenson’s 2:21:24 from Valencia last year. 

It was the culmination of months of hard work and years of fine tuning her race strategy. This was the first time Batt-Doyle had run a negative split in the marathon – her second half was 70:09 – and she demolished her personal best of 2:22:59 from Valencia two years ago. 

“I didn’t want to get carried away or celebrate too early because I've had marathons before where it has gone poorly in the second half or last 10km,” she tells AW. “I think that’s why I got so emotional. I started to choke up and started crying a little bit while I was running in the last stretch. Being able to take that last 100m as a bit of a celebration and run through the finish, before giving Riley and my mum a hug afterwards, was amazing. They’ve been such a big part of my journey and we broke the record as a team.” 

Batt-Doyle made sure her training was catered to getting the best out of herself in the latter stages of Chicago. Having spent previous marathon blocks travelling to European high altitude training camps like Font Romeu and Hoyos del Espino, she wanted to stay closer to home in Adelaide. 

She trained with her recreational running group RunAsOne around the parklands in Adelaide – a green belt area in the city centre – and varied her long runs between the undulating paths next to the River Torrens and the beachfront. The aim? To run fast on tired legs. Her training volume peaked at approximately 180km but she averaged around 160km – a pronounced reduction from the 200-220km weeks she had run in other blocks.

“I decided to reduce volume and focus on more variation,” says Batt-Doyle. “I kept in ellipticals twice a week for half an hour each time. I wanted to constantly keep my legs fresh and maximise the long run sessions, so it wasn’t just junk mileage.”

She also continued her work with strength and conditioning coach Fabian Garcia-Byrne, from the South Australian Sports Institute, after starting the partnership around last December’s Valencia Marathon. 

“I was quite diligent about doing strength and conditioning twice a week during this build,” she adds. “I hip thrusted 125kg and was doing some strong work in the gym. Sauna also helped and it provided an extra stimulus.” 

Her longest long run was 41km and there were around five to six runs between 38km and that mark. Riley, a 2:16 marathon runner himself, was never too far away on these long runs and coached Batt-Doyle throughout the block. She believes that, but for him, she would have gone out more aggressively in Chicago, highlighting how controlling the pace of her long runs in training helped her peak later on in the race. 

“I wouldn’t describe it as a jog but [in training] we did the first 10km at 4:13 per kilometre and then 8km ‘steady’ at 3:30-3:50s, depending on day and session. We followed that with 3:37s on an undulating bike path and a 1km jog. I then changed shoes and we would often do a 3x5km between 3:15s and 3:20s on a flatter loop, with 2km float at 3:50s and then an easy 3km jog to finish. This was the most beneficial session for me ahead of Chicago. We wanted to build fatigue without running a bunch of kilometres at marathon pace, before running that speed on tired legs towards the end.” 

Batt-Doyle also trained in Adelaide in preparation for April’s Boston Marathon, finishing 16th overall in 2:25:06. During the summer she won three consecutive half marathons with a best of 67:29 on the Gold Coast in July, just 12 seconds off her Australian record from Nagoya last year. Then, five weeks out from Chicago, she paced the Sydney Marathon for 25km at 3:17 per kilometre and states that “I couldn’t run the day afterwards!” 

“The weeks went quickly but I really wanted to get some good stimulus through these types of races,” she says. “It was about getting the knowledge and experience to run fast on tired legs. In the past I'd done more time-based long runs and then a separate longer interval session. This time was about being more clinical in sessions and building up my endurance.” 

Having finished her first marathon in 2:28:10 in Melbourne four years ago, Batt-Doyle has since competed in nine 26.2-mile races across four continents. Including her national record, she holds four of the fastest 10 times in Australian marathon history and has gone under the 2:24 mark on five occasions. 

This is the first season where she has solely raced on the roads. After representing Australia in the 5000m at the Tokyo Games, she qualified for the Olympic marathon in Paris but was selected to run over 12.5 laps instead. 

With World Athletics stating that the qualification period in the marathon for the Los Angeles Olympics runs from November 1, 2026 to April 30, 2028, Batt-Doyle knows she will have to replicate the quality of that Chicago run again. At the time of writing the entry standards for the marathon were yet to be released, but it is highly unlikely they will be above the 2:23:20 required to secure automatic qualification for next year’s World Athletics Championships in Beijing. 

The 31-year-old’s plan is to remove any semblance of doubt and, after her performance in Chicago, is now targeting breaking the 2:20 barrier. “I do think this is achievable now,” she says. “It’s something I’ve seen the likes of Emily Sisson and Keira D’Amato do and I believe it’s now within my reach. I didn’t want to overshoot in Chicago and not deliver, so I am delighted I now have a platform to go off. 

“I feel I am now part of an era of Australian athletes that are breaking boundaries. We’re punching above our weight on the global stage and from the Diamond League and Ultimate Championship to major marathons, we’ve seen some incredible performances this year. 

“I have yet to decide my plans for 2027 but my main goal in the next couple of seasons is to make the Australian team for LA 2028 and be competitive at the Olympic Games.”