Josh Kerr On How He Broke The Mile World Record In 3:42.66 | Full Race Recap, Breakdown + Reflections

My guest for today’s episode is Josh Kerr – mile world record holder. On July 18th at the London Diamond League, in front of 60,000 people, Josh ran 3:42.66 to break Hicham El Guerrouj’s record that had stood for 27 years, which was the longest-standing mile world record in the history of the event, and one that many believed might never fall. He did it by calling his shot four months in advance, locking himself into a specific date and venue before he had even finished rehabbing the calf he tore at the World Championships in Tokyo last September.

Josh is already one of the most decorated middle-distance runners of his generation — world champion, two-time Olympic medalist, two-time world indoor champion at 3000 meters. But the world record puts him in a different category entirely. He is now the seventh Brit to hold the mile world record, and the first since Steve Cram in 1985, joining a line that runs through Roger Bannister, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett, and Steve Cram. The race commentator on the world feed, Tim Hutchings, called it the ballsiest world record in the history of middle-distance racing. It was hard to disagree.

This conversation was recorded two days after the race, with Kyle Merber joining as co-host. We get into the full arc of Project 222. We go deep on the spike Brooks built specifically for his foot strike and what it actually contributed to the margin. Josh walks us through the whiteboard session in Albuquerque where they debated every split for an hour, the 1200m time trial two weeks out that converted the last remaining skeptics, the mental performance framework that kept him in flow state when 60,000 people were watching, and what was happening internally when he cracked that smile before the gun and went completely deaf with 150 meters to go.

We also get into what Tokyo taught him, the cage door philosophy Danny Mackey lives by, and who the performance was really for…which is not the answer you might expect.

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