Fastest miler’s formula: Bespoke spikes, a team, altitude and attitude
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
By LIAM THARME and GEORGE EDWARDS / THE ATHLETIC
With a fist pump as he crossed the line, Josh Kerr cashed in a check that he had spent eight months writing.
The clock stopped at 3 minutes 42.66 seconds, and the London crowd erupted.
A Briton, on home soil, had just taken down a world record from 1999. Hicham El Guerrouj’s time of 3:43.16, once considered untouchable, was no longer.
“I’m following the footsteps of the giants,” Kerr, who broke the record last Saturday in the London Diamond League, told reporters. He is the seventh British man to hold the mile world record, 72 years after Roger Bannister broke the four-minute barrier.
This performance was the product of Kerr’s self-branded Project 222 — the number of seconds that go into 3:42. He pitched it to Brooks, his sponsor, last November, just four weeks after hobbling to the finish in the 1,500-meter world championship final because of a calf injury.
“The body is electric right now,” Kerr said. “I felt pretty incredible. My legs felt good, my mind was ready, but it’s been a long journey.”
Kerr, 28, does not so much race middle-distance events as play poker within them. He runs wearing sunglasses and is one of the smartest at showing his hand late and covering moves by others. By the same analogy, with this project, he went all-in on a blind hand — and won.
The split of 3:27.62 at 1,500 meters was even faster than Kerr’s British record run, which earned him silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and he was nearly perfect when cutting the race in half. He passed 800 meters in 1:51.1. Then the first pacemaker, Brandon Kidder, dropped out. Kerr clocked the second 809 meters in 1:51.6.
“I knew I had it in the first 400 meters because my pacemakers did an incredible job,” he said.
The preparation for this race was intense, and needed to be for the 2.68-second improvement he produced. But what made it a reality?
Brooks crafted Kerr bespoke spikes, made for his mechanics and to run 55-second laps on repeat, in addition to an aerodynamically tested speed suit. The process of creating his footwear involved VO2-max (how much oxygen your body can use during intense exercise) and perception testing, plus a visit to a facility to run on a treadmill in the race day spikes.
Kerr spoke about the sacrifice his teammates and his family had made. For the past five weeks, his parents have lived with him at altitude in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to allow Kerr to train on a track at 5,335 feet above sea level, with his mother, Jill, providing physiotherapy.
“The mantra was that we’re not chasing world records, we’re creating the conditions where world records become inevitable,” Kerr said.
That meant 70-mile weeks and running as many 55-second laps as possible. One of the key sessions was a 4-by-800-meter workout, with the third and fourth reps at 1:50, in which Kerr tested spike prototypes.
Kidder, a fellow Brooks Beasts athlete, played rabbit in the race, just as he had in training. He hoped to get to 1,000 meters rather than 800 meters, and suffered because of a slightly fast opening lap (54.75 seconds).
“I knew Josh was really fit, so I felt a little bit of pressure to not mess things up,” Kidder said. “Josh just looked so good. I was like, ‘If he wants to squeeze, I don’t want to get in the way.’ Such a cool moment. I’ve known the guy for years. He’s a gamer.”
Their relationship dates to 2017 when Kidder was running for Brooks and it recruited Kerr, a three-time NCAA champion, from the University of New Mexico.
Kerr first shared his desire to break the world record in December, and asked if Kidder wanted to be involved. Little convincing was needed.
Zan Rudolf also stepped in as a late replacement after another pacer dropped out. He and Kerr did one workout together the day before the race — 300 meters, 200 meters and 100 meters at target pace — as Rudolf arrived only in midweek, having been in Budapest, Hungary, for other pacemaking duties. The Slovene went three-tenths of a second quicker than his own national record to lead Kerr through the kilometer mark in 2:18.7, also dropping out short. (He had planned to go to 1,200 meters.)
Coach Danny Mackey, who has worked with Kerr since he turned pro in 2018, was watching from the stands. He said he was “a little worried” to have Kerr, who was born in Scotland, running alone that early, but had complete faith in his athlete.
“That was the most elated I’ve ever been,” Mackey said. “In the lead-up to the race, there have been cameras and attention on us, something we just aren’t used to. We all knew he could do it. I told him I love him.”
Kerr, however, relished the high-pressure moment, which is partly why he publicized his record-breaking attempt in March. “He’s a rare person like that, but he’s still human,” Mackey said.
The coach’s one complaint? That it was only 3:42.66. “Based on a couple of his workouts, if he had better weather, I think there’s another second there,” Mackey said.
Mild crosswinds meant conditions were not perfect. They knew that coming in, and Kerr was happy to roll the dice to do this in front of a home crowd, whereas Mackey would have staged it in Monaco or California.
He and Mackey work as a coach-athlete pairing because of their differences in opinion. “I’m a little bit of a bodyguard,” Mackey said.
An 800-meter personal best for Kerr in mid-May confirmed what Mackey and the team knew in training: His top-end speed was better than ever, and he had rediscovered the final form that Kidder saw in 2025, but a calf injury prevented it from fully flourishing. This was not, as Kerr put it in the prerace news conference, his first time being in mile world-record shape. Rather, it was the first moment he could dedicate a season to target it.
Kidder paced Kerr in a 1,200-meter time trial at altitude at the start of July. They simulated their shakeout run and physio treatment to mimic race day.
Kerr finished the time trial in 2:42.45, more than five seconds quicker than El Guerrouj’s split in his world record run. “I was like, ‘Oh man, let’s line it up tomorrow, he’s got this in the bag,’” Kidder remembered. Kidder was convinced, having seen Kerr finish a workout totaling 4,000 meters at world-record speed — four sets of 200 meters, 600 meters, 200 meters.
It’s easy to see now why Kerr and the whole team were so full of belief. “It won’t look like a chase,” he insisted prerace, preferring the word “pursuit” instead.
Kerr held pace throughout the final lap, pulling away from Yared Nuguse (who finished second in 3:45.69). The American had been close behind when they hit the bell, but faded to finish a little over three seconds back.
“I’ve never heard a stadium that loud,” Nuguse said.