IN A SERIES OF INTERVIEWS back in March with running and general media in both Great Britain and the U.S., Edinburgh native Josh Kerr, who is a member of the Seattle-based Brooks Beasts, said that his primary goal was to go after the 27-year old World Record in the mile set by Hicham El Guerrouj in Rome on July 7, 1999.
In contrast to Faith Kipyegon’s “Breaking 4” WR shot last year in Paris, Kerr said that his record attempt would happen in a meaningful race at the London DL meet in the British capital’s Olympic Stadium.
Everything that went on behind the scenes in the buildup to “Project 222” on July 18th was calculated and deliberate, from the custom World Athletics-approved Brooks Hyperion 222 spikes his sponsor built for him complete with titanium spike pins, the one-piece Brooks speedsuit, spending more time than usual at altitude in Albuquerque, and limiting the amount of races going into the record attempt.
Kerr also was very transparent about the work he completed, posting videos of his key workouts on his personal YouTube channel.
After the announcement, Kerr and his wife Larimar, whom he married in December, converted the bedroom in their Albuquerque home (elevation c5300 feet) into an altitude chamber to add 3000 feet. According to a first-person piece he wrote for The Telegraph, Kerr spends at least 12 hours a day inside the altitude chamber between sleeping, taking naps after workouts, and overall recovery.
He even went as far as to bring his parents, John and Jill, over to Albuquerque to live with him in the buildup to the race. Jill, who is a physiotherapist in Edinburgh, is part of a team that includes a chiropractor along with the Beasts’ longtime athletic trainer Sarah Bair-Cross.
“The mantra was that we’re not chasing World Records, we’re creating the conditions where World Records become inevitable,” Kerr said.
His hard days are scheduled on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. On Sunday and Tuesday, he generally runs about 16 miles, with the majority at tempo pace, while the Friday session consists of the hard track sessions that he posts on YouTube.
A key component of the two hard sessions on Tuesday and Friday are strength training workouts in the gym that happen about 2 hours after the running sessions. Tuesday’s focuses on mobility exercises, box drills, and jump squats, while the Friday session consists of traditional lifting routines, tuned to his specific needs during the season.
Two of the key workouts in the month leading up to the WR attempt were a 4 x 800 workout with 6 minutes recovery, with the first two at around 2:00, and the last two at mile WR pace. In that particular workout, he ran a pair of 1:59s, with the third in 1:50, and finished with a 1:49.
Kerr’s final major workout in Albuquerque was a 1200-meter time trial, with Brooks Beasts teammate Brannon Kidder pacing him through the first 800 in just over 1:50 and continuing on for another 100 meters before letting Kerr take it home to finish in 2:42.45.
In describing that final workout, Kidder said, “I knew Josh was really fit, so I felt a little bit of pressure to not mess things up.
“Josh just looked so good. I was like, ‘If he wants to squeeze, I don’t want to get in the way’. [It’s] such a cool moment. I’ve known the guy for years. He’s a gamer.”
Between the time Kerr won the world indoor 3000 title on March 21st in Toruń, Poland, and the mile WR attempt, he raced exactly twice, both at 800 meters.
Kerr, who set his previous personal 2-lap best of 1:45.01 at last year’s Grand Slam meet in Miramar, opened his outdoor season with a 1:44.60 clocking at the LA Track Festival at UCLA on May 23rd. Beasts teammate Brandon Miller won in 1:44.26.
In his next race, Kerr finished 4th at the LA Grand Prix at USC on June 14th, running 1:45.46, also in a race that Miller won in 1:43.94.
On race day before more than 60,000 fans at London Stadium, Kidder led the way, taking the field through the first 800 in 1:50.63, before Slovenia’s Žan Rudolf, who was not the originally announced second pacer, took over the pacing load, dropping out past the 1000 mark, which he covered in 2:18.7, slightly faster than his national record time of 2:19.03 set in 2024.
Rudolf, who was on pacing duties four days earlier in Budapest, worked out with Kerr once before the race, running a 300, 200 and 100 at WR pace.
Kerr, the Paris Olympics silver medalist and 2023 world outdoor champion at 1500, took over with more than 600 meters to go, and crossed the 1200 in 2:46.39. However, American Yared Nuguse and Germany’s Robert Farken were still within striking distance to overtake Kerr should he falter.
Faltering was neither in the plan nor the execution, as the track world now knows.
As Kerr came off the turn, the gap back to Paris bronze medalist Nuguse opened up even more, as the new recordman crossed the line in 3:42.66.
Afterwards, Kerr — referring to the Brooks Beasts team led by head coach Danny Mackey, and assistant Julian Florez, as well as the Brooks production and design team that made the custom kit for his successful WR hunt — told reporters in the mixed zone, “Those performances take every part of you, every part of your team. Out there, I am just the body, but there is an incredible amount of work behind the scenes. Today is a result of all that hard work. The last lap was incredible. I was deaf in the last 110 meters.”
Now that he has the WR in his back pocket, there’s a home Commonwealth Games title to win in nearby Glasgow, Scotland, in a couple of weeks.
“Every season has to have a peak, and I hope to continue this for a couple of weeks and ride that momentum,” Kerr said.
He and the Brooks Beasts team have not committed to chasing the other WR, that being El Guerrouj’s 1500m mark of 3:26.00 set on July 14, 1998, in Rome.
If, — and it’s a big if — he decides to do so, it would most likely happen at one of the four regular season Diamond League meets remaining: Lausanne on August 21, Chorzów two days later, Zürich on the 27th or Brussels on September 4th.
Lausanne doesn’t have a 1500 on the schedule, and Brussels would require Kerr to hold his peak the longest.
