George Mills is someone who does his talking on the track. On the surface, he’s no-nonsense, straight to the point and tells you how he sees it. Behind the scenes, he is someone who enjoys the simple pleasures of life, relishes the grind and is willing to make numerous sacrifices to reach his ultimate ambitions.
Over the past few months, Mills has spent most of his time in the roasting heat of Dullstroom, pushing his body to the limit on 120-mile training weeks alongside his On Athletics Club team-mates. A simple South African village, it contains a track, a couple of trails and a gym, to name just a few things.
Speaking ahead of the European Indoor Championships, where Mills hopes at the very least to win a medal over 3000m, he describes Dullstroom as a place to “eat, sleep and train” and where “not much else goes on”.
“It’s a special place,” he says. “I personally love it, hence why I spend so much time there. But there’s not much going on. Maybe a couple of coffee shops, a couple of restaurants. It’s essentially a tourist town with one road, one kilometre bottom to top. We’ve a gym set up, there’s some good trails to run on and for me that’s all I need.
“I get a lot of enjoyment from turning up every day and training. To relax the mind and chill, I’m either hanging out with team-mates or I’m on the phone to family and friends.
“There’s obviously a lot of downtime in a distance runner’s life but most of that time you just want to rest as much as possible. Sleep is when you recover. You need to try and optimise that. I try to nap most afternoons and obviously get a good night’s sleep. I have blue-light glasses, ear plugs, eye masks – all those sorts of things.
“I’m fortunate to have a great team around me that’s really supportive and we all look after each other to help each other relax and perform as best as possible.”
George Mills (Getty)
On the call, when asked about his typical diet on camp, Mills reversed the camera and showed everyone his lunch. “It’s just chicken and rice,” he says. “Not a lot and simple. Flavour doesn’t make you fast.”
Mills, a stickler for the detail, seems to have worked religiously on marginal gains this winter and the positive effects are already coming to fruition.
Last month, the 25-year-old opened up his season with a staggering run of 7:27.92 over 3000m at the Meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil in France.
In doing so, he shattered Josh Kerr’s outright British record of 7:30.14 over the distance. Mills subsequently went ninth on the world all-time indoor rankings ahead of the likes of Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele and Mo Farah.
George Mills with father Danny (On)
Mills, who seems to thrive off relatively high mileage and lots of threshold running, went into the race on a lower load of training and states that he felt he could run that quickly.
“It’s what we expected to be honest, that sort of ball park,” he says. “The main goal of the race was to run the standard for world indoors. If you’re aiming to run 7:30, it’s very possible if things click, you’re able to run a bit quicker.”
A couple of weeks later he followed that up with victory in the 3000m at the UK Athletics Indoor Championships, becoming the national champion in the distance for the first time in his career.
The next challenge is to translate domestic domination into success on the European stage. The main obstacle? Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
After the success of Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr against Ingebrigtsen on the global stage, could Mills follow in their footsteps Apeldoorn?
Jakob Ingebrigtsen and George Mills (Getty)
“Obviously he’s a phenomenal athlete,” Mills says. “Everyone’s got a target on their back right, so I’m going there to compete. In this sport no one is invincible though. If you do everything right yourself and you’re 100 per cent on the day, then anything is possible.
“I got a taste of a medal in Rome last year. Now I want, at every championship I turn up at, to be competing for medals. That’s the aim.”
Mills is also hoping the experience of last year will pay dividends. At the European Championships, the Brit placed second behind Ingebrigtsen in the 5000m.
Then, at the Olympics, he faced a very different challenge. After making the 1500m semi-finals, Mills was tripped in the 5000m heats and, even though he was reinstated to the final, his legs didn’t quite recover.
George Mills falls (Getty)
Now, looking ahead, the Brit is eager to use that as motivation for the 2025 season.
“I think that was a freak racing incident,” he says. “I don’t think that’s something you can learn from in terms of that immediate moment. Maybe you run the whole race in a slightly different way because you know how some things can play out.
“But I think that the main learning from that was how to manage emotions and stuff after and deal with certain scenarios and come back to race again. That was the biggest learning from that experience.”
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