What sub-3 runners can learn from Josh Kerr's mile world record

On a warm Saturday afternoon in July, around 60,000 people packed into the London Stadium to witness what many thought might be impossible. Josh Kerr had spent weeks publicly documenting his attempt to break Hicham El Guerrouj's 27-year-old mile world record, serialising every aspect of his preparation in The Telegraph.

This was no secret assault in a low-key meeting halfway around the world. Kerr wanted to put one of athletics' greatest records centre stage, in front of a British crowd, and invite the public along for the journey. As he wrote in his opening Telegraph article: "Athletics also needs big moments... We have to put it on the line and say: 'We're going to try something amazing. Come and watch.'"

I was fortunate enough to be at the London Stadium with my eight-year-old son. He had followed the build-up throughout the preceding weeks and knew exactly what Kerr was attempting. When Kerr crossed the line in 3:42 – and during the last 400m when he was clearly running ahead of the green lights indicating world record pace - the noise inside the stadium was extraordinary.

My son was completely caught up in the electric atmosphere, cheering him home with everyone else, and was almost disbelieving that he had actually pulled it off. Long after the splits and statistics have faded, I suspect those final few hundred metres will remain vivid for him. Even when he is 80, I imagine he will still fondly remember being there on the day Josh Kerr brought the mile world record back to Britain.

But what relevance could a 3:42 mile have for someone chasing a sub-three-hour marathon? Quite a lot, as it turns out. Kerr's Telegraph series was fascinating not because it revealed some secret training formula, but because it demonstrated how an elite athlete thinks about preparation. Strip away the custom-built spikes, altitude chamber and world-class support team, and many of the principles transfer directly to ambitious marathon runners.

The following lessons are drawn from Josh Kerr's excellent Telegraph series documenting Project 222. I'd strongly recommend reading the original articles in full - they contain far more detail than can be covered here.

Give your goal an identity

Kerr did not simply announce that he wanted to break the world record. He gave the project a name: Project 222, representing the 222 seconds required to run 3:42. Every day, he recounts, he wrote the sentence, "I ran 3.42 at the London Diamond League. July 18th, 2026." in a notebook. As he wrote in his Telegraph series, his ice baths lasted exactly three minutes and 42 seconds. Even the password on his phone reflected the target. This constant reinforcement formed part of his visualisation strategy and helped train his subconscious mind towards the objective.

There is an important lesson here. Too often we think vaguely about wanting to "run quicker" or "have a good race". Elite performers are far more precise. A sub-three-hour marathon is already one of the best goals in endurance sport because it has an objective definition. Giving your goal that level of clarity changes how you approach every training session because each decision is filtered through a specific destination rather than a vague aspiration.

Consistency really is king

When runners ask elite athletes about training, they often hope to discover the magic workout that transformed them. Kerr almost dismisses the idea: "I do not believe in single 'hero' workouts. Consistency is king."

That philosophy could almost have been written specifically for marathon runners. There is no Tuesday morning interval session that guarantees a sub-three. There is no single 20-mile run that suddenly unlocks another 20 minutes of marathon performance. Success comes from accumulating hundreds of sensible training sessions over many months, avoiding injury and turning up week after week. Marathon training rewards reliability far more than brilliance. The runners who succeed are rarely those who produce spectacular sessions in February before disappearing injured by March. They are the ones who quietly complete another 60 or 70 miles this week, then do the same again next week.

Train faster than race pace, but spend most of your time running easily

One of the misconceptions about middle-distance runners is that every session resembles the final lap of an Olympic final. Kerr's training tells a very different story. His easy days are genuinely easy, while even many of his harder sessions remain around six or seven out of ten effort. Maximal efforts are surprisingly rare.

Equally interesting is that when Kerr does train specifically for his goal, he often runs faster than world-record pace. Psychologically and physiologically, race pace then becomes more manageable.

Marathon runners should recognise the same pattern. The overwhelming majority of your mileage should be genuinely comfortable, allowing you to recover and accumulate volume, while selected sessions should ask you to operate beyond marathon pace. If your body occasionally learns that 6:20 per mile is sustainable for shorter periods, then 6:52 begins to feel considerably less intimidating.

Recovery is not what happens after training. It is part of training

Many runners are happy to invest time in intervals and long runs, yet treat recovery as optional. Kerr clearly sees things differently. He writes that he sleeps around nine hours each night, often adds an afternoon nap, schedules multiple physiotherapy sessions every week and deliberately protects his recovery windows. As he says in his Telegraph series: "Completing great training sessions is one part of the job. Recovering so that you can repeat them and gain the maximum benefit is another."

Few readers will have access to an altitude chamber, nor do they need one. The altitude chamber is an optimisation. Sleep is a necessity. Likewise, you do not need a physiotherapist on speed dial, but you probably do need to stop scrolling your phone until midnight before an early-morning track session. Elite athletes exploit expensive technology where available, but the foundations remain remarkably ordinary: sleep well, recover properly and arrive fresh enough to train again.

Fuel your body, not your social media

Kerr discusses nutrition throughout the article series without pretending there is a miraculous superfood. Instead, his emphasis is on supporting training, recovering effectively and maintaining consistency. He describes his training bag containing protein snacks alongside gels and recovery equipment, reflecting the importance of repairing muscle after demanding sessions.

For sub-3 marathon runners, the message is equally straightforward. You do not need a personal chef or laboratory-designed meals. Most runners would benefit far more from consistently eating enough protein, timing recovery nutrition sensibly after key sessions and maintaining a generally nutritious diet than endlessly searching for exotic supplements promising marginal gains. The basics remain astonishingly powerful.

Own your performances

One of the most striking sections of Kerr's series concerns responsibility. Reflecting on an injury that derailed his World Championship ambitions, he refuses to blame bad luck. Instead, he argues that his own tactical decisions earlier in the race created the circumstances in which the injury became possible. This is beautifully encapsulated in his article on mindset: "Once you take responsibility for things, you can change them."

That mindset is invaluable for marathon runners. It is tempting to blame the weather, shoes, fuelling or crowded starts. Occasionally those factors genuinely matter, but obsessing over them rarely improves your next performance. Asking whether your mileage was sufficient, whether you started too quickly or whether you recovered properly between sessions is less comfortable, but infinitely more productive.

Stop comparing yourself with everyone else

Strava has made it possible to inspect almost every run completed by almost every serious amateur athlete. That can be motivating, but it can also become deeply counterproductive. Kerr's advice is refreshingly straightforward: "Comparison is the thief of joy."

He judges himself not against other athletes' training, but against what he and his coaching team know works for him.

That principle deserves to be pinned above every marathon training plan. Someone else running 120 miles this week tells you almost nothing about what you should be doing. The only meaningful comparison is whether you are becoming a stronger, healthier and more consistent runner than you were six months ago.

Strength training is no longer optional

Kerr admits in his Telegraph series that he once wanted nothing to do with the gym. Today it forms a central part of his programme. Strength training, plyometrics and mobility work are carefully integrated around his harder running sessions to improve biomechanics, reduce injury risk and maximise power.

Sub-three marathon runners are increasingly embracing the same philosophy. The goal is not to become a bodybuilder. It is to become a more resilient runner who maintains efficient form after twenty miles, tolerates higher training loads and spends less time sidelined by preventable injuries. The greatest training plan in the world is worthless if your body cannot withstand it.

Stay in the present

Much of Kerr's mental preparation focuses on preventing his thoughts from drifting. Working with performance coach Jose Maresma, he practises techniques designed to keep his attention rooted in the present moment rather than allowing anxiety or internal dialogue to take over. As he puts it: "Stay in your body and keep out of your mind, because that's where you can talk yourself out of most things."

Every marathon runner recognises this battle. At mile 18, the mind begins calculating how far remains, wondering whether the pace is sustainable or imagining everything that could go wrong. Remaining focused on the mile or kilometre you are currently running, rather than catastrophising about the final six or eight miles, is often the difference between holding pace and gradually falling apart.

Celebrate success before chasing the next target

Perhaps the most human moment in Kerr's series came after the world record had finally been achieved. Within hours, his thoughts had already turned towards Hicham El Guerrouj's 1,500m world record. He recounts that his wife gently intervened with a simple request: "Can you just give us 12 hours before you set another goal?"

There is wisdom in that exchange. Ambitious runners are often guilty of immediately moving the goalposts. They finally achieve a sub-three marathon and within days begin worrying about 2:55, Boston qualification or age-group rankings. Progress matters, but so does reflection. Milestones deserve to be enjoyed before they become stepping stones to something else.

Ultimately, the lasting significance of Kerr's achievement extends beyond the stopwatch. Rather than keeping his preparation secret, he chose to explain it in remarkable detail, following in a tradition of great runners such as Emil Zátopek and Ron Hill, who believed sharing knowledge strengthened the sport rather than weakened it. That openness stands in marked contrast to Roger Bannister, who kept much of his own preparation private before becoming the first man to break four minutes for the mile.

Josh Kerr had a huge, audacious goal. He announced it publicly, explained exactly how he intended to achieve it and then delivered in front of a packed London Stadium. Somewhere among those 60,000 spectators were future Olympians, perhaps now more than there would have been should he have not realised his goal that day. Many more, however, were ordinary club runners, or school cross country or track athletes, who simply want to become the best version of themselves. If Project 222 encourages more runners to pursue ambitious goals with the same clarity, consistency and openness, then its legacy will extend far beyond a single world record.

There is also an interesting postscript. Having conquered the mile, Kerr has already spoken about a much longer-term ambition. Not another record, but one of the hardest prizes in athletics. As he tells The Times: "Winning a major, winning the London Marathon would be pretty incredible. I love variables. It's not three minutes and 42 seconds of variables. It's two hours of variables and hopefully less."

That observation perhaps explains why the marathon continues to exert such a pull, even on one of the greatest middle-distance runners of his generation. Success over 26.2 miles depends not simply on speed, but on judgement, pacing, fuelling, resilience and the ability to solve problems over two hours.

That is precisely why there is so much for aspiring sub-three marathon runners to learn from Kerr's world-record project. The event may be very different, but the foundations are remarkably similar. Define an ambitious goal. Visualise it. Train consistently. Run your easy runs easily. Include strength work. Recover seriously. Fuel your body well. Take responsibility for setbacks. Resist the temptation to compare yourself with everyone else. Most of all, be prepared to pursue a goal boldly rather than quietly hoping it might happen.

Josh Kerr did exactly that and produced one of British athletics' greatest moments. Whether your goal is 3:42 for the mile or 2:59:59 for the marathon, the principles that take you there are often much closer than you might think.