Not only will Faith Kipyegon put the eyes of the world on her sport, as Ben Bloom discovers her sub-four mission might also alter the face of coaching methods forever
How does an extraordinary athlete, who has already run a mile almost five seconds quicker than any woman in history, possibly prepare to knock seven more off her time?
It is a herculean undertaking that will have occupied much of Faith Kipyegon and her esteemed coach Patrick Sang’s thoughts in recent weeks since her audacious quest was announced to become the first woman ever to run a mile in under four minutes.
The Kenyan will have the benefit of assistance for her attempt in Paris, rendering it unratifiable under World Athletics rules. The precise details have not been released, but it will almost certainly include the latest prototype Nike shoes, male pacemakers and perhaps some sort of wind-shielding protocol or streamlined kit.
Regardless, Kipyegon will still have to propel herself at faster speeds for a longer time than she has ever managed before.
“If she didn’t believe in herself, I don’t think she would have taken on the project, so that makes me think she’s capable of coming really close to it,” says Bram Som, who coached Kipyegon before her switch to Sang in 2017, and created the Wavelight pacemaker technology that will be employed in Paris.
“She always has a really good feeling between what her body needs and what is on the programme, when to push and when not. When there has to be something done – like when we were working towards a big championship – there was a huge focus. She could do things in training that I didn’t even know she was capable of. She is strong like that – able to really push when she needs to.”
Kipyegon began her 2025 campaign with a narrow miss at a 1000m world-record attempt in Xiamen, finishing 0.23 off the 2:28.98 time recorded by Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova in 1996. To achieve the improbable of dipping under the four-minute mark for the mile, she must maintain that pace almost exactly for the remaining 609m in Paris.
Geoff Wightman, who coached his son Jake to world 1500m gold in 2022, believes the first hurdle to overcome is psychological.
“Until somebody does it, everyone thinks it’s impossible, out of reach or generations away,” he says. “Roger Bannister’s record only lasted a matter of weeks before it was broken.
“Faith ran 1000m for a season opener at exactly the right speed. So if you go off that, you say: ‘You only have to keep that going for another lap and a half, but we’ll put in male pacemakers, the very latest shoe tech – even if it’s in prototype form – there will be a stadium full of people, and all you have to do is glue yourself to the runners in front. You just have to keep going at the speed you’ve done for two-and-a-half laps.’
“Psychologically, if you start looking at it in those terms, it’s not that hard. In terms of improving her world record, it is a quantum leap. But it’s going to be in circumstances that are quite different. She’s at her peak and she’s started the season well by running two-and-a-half laps at this speed. It’s a step, but I think it’s a step she’ll be up for.”
Jenny Meadows, who coaches Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson and 1500m bronze medalist Georgia Hunter-Bell, suggests Kipyegon’s even pacing during that recent 1000m performance will be key.
“During that race, you could see she is pretty robotic,” says Meadows. “I looked at every 200m split and they were really similar. That is an ideal way of trying to run this mile. There should be very little difference between every lap.
“You should feel like you’re cruising the first lap, then your heart rate goes up a little bit on your second lap, the third lap would feel tougher and your fourth lap you’re just fighting. Faith is a legend so if anyone can do it, it’s her.”
But – warning that succeeding in breaking four minutes is “going to rely on a lot of technological advancements” – Meadows adds that it is vitally important for Kipyegon to be well-accustomed with the prototype spikes Nike have created for the event.
“There’s going to be something drastic in whatever footwear she is using,” says Meadows. “I presume she’s had some time in that footwear, because that is going to feel quite strange.
“Straight away your running mechanics are going to feel quite different because you’re asking someone to run closer to eight seconds faster than she ever has before. She will need to get used to that new running style and how it feels.
“There’s also knowing where you should be around the track. It’s almost like your natural judgement and gauge of where you should be at different points will have changed.”
For Som, that shift in engrained decade-long knowledge is something to tap into and exploit. With Kipyegon needing to run so much faster than she ever has before, Som believes she would benefit from avoiding her usual training sessions and switching to non-standardised distances.
“It’s more of a mental preparation,” he explains. “Sometimes you are stuck in patterns that you do all the time. Repetitions. You do training sessions where you know the result before you have even done it.
“I think you have to get out of certain patterns which lead you towards a certain performance. Do things differently that are out of your scope. Do new things where your mind is not already able to recognise it, to know what the result is.
“When I was competing, if I did a typical 800m session of 10 x 200m, with each rep in sub-26, it would feel a certain way and I would know that I could run a sub-1.45 [for 800m]. I think you have to get rid of some of these standardised sessions and move towards something different where you basically train the same but your mind doesn’t know what it means for competition. That’s what I would do.”
As for how she can go about preparing herself for the challenge of maintaining her quickest pace far longer, Wightman suggests the key is expanding on race simulation sessions that she will doubtless have undertaken throughout her career.
“What she has to try to recreate – and I’m sure she does this on a regular basis – is that ability to run the last lap on heavily lactic-filled legs, where the cadence is going, where the breathing is maxed out and the lactic levels are high,” he says.
“You recreate that in training by doing race simulation. You might do sets of 400s in pairs at race pace. Pause for 15, 30, 45 seconds, and then do another one when you’re absolutely full of lactic, trying to hold your form together, but trying to match that speed. Then take a longer recovery and do another pair like that.
“You are simulating the sort of lactic hole that you’ll be in at the bell, but getting used to being able to maintain form for that last 60 seconds. She is probably the expert at that already. This is just the slightly next level.”
Irrespective of what plays out in Paris, and how close Kipyegon comes to that previously unthinkable four-minute barrier, Meadows’ main area of intrigue is what happens after. Just how fast will Kipyegon go in her next few races – her 1500m world record set in Paris last summer must be in doubt – and what impact might this challenge have on future training methods for all athletes?
“As a coach, you want your athletes to travel at faster speeds than they are used to,” explains Meadows. “That’s why people use heavier training devices like weighted belts or whatever else, so that when you take it off you feel really fast.
“This is the opposite. This is allowing you to feel faster than you normally would, which should promote a neurological stimulus – you’d think the brain will get used to it. So, even if the shoe technology isn’t allowed in competitions, will it be allowed as a training device to travel at that speed and help your brain make the connection when you go back to the permitted shoe technology?”
In that case, might one person’s manufactured time challenge change everything we know about athletics coaching?
