The Mile, a classic British distance for a race, but it’s not just the British that revere the distance, many of those countries that were part of the British Empire also look on the mile as a classic distance. Whilst other Europeans countries were stopping short of a 4th lap we Brits really took to the Mile race, dominating the early mile record lists. The first recorded Mile World Record, I have come across, was set by Charles Westhall in London on 26 July 1855, with a time of 4:28, and the World Record remained in British hands until Norman Taber, of the USA, set the record at 4:12.6, at Allston, Mass. On 16 July 1915. However, as there was no recognized official sanctioning body until 1912, there are several versions of the mile progression before then, even split between Professionals and Amateurs, So it’s likely that there are innacuracies in them, but that’s life and at least there is something available to look back at.
The first record to be set after an official sanctioning body had been set up was by American John Paul Jones, who ran 4:14.4 at Allston, Mass. On 31 May 1913, notably slower than the ‘unoficial’ world record of 4:12 ¾ set by Britain Walter George in 1886, but then Walter was a professional! Despite Britain’s early domination of the mile records it was to be another 24 years before a Britain was to hold the world record again, when Sydney Wooderson took it to 4:06.4 at Motspur Park.
At that time the big question was whether a sub 4 minute mile would ever be run. It was Gunder Hagg, of Sweden, who ran agonisingly close with his 4:01.4 in Malmo, just before the outbreak of World War II. And there it remained until, another Brit, Roger Bannister, took it below the 4 minute barrier with his 3:59.4 on 6 May 1954. Since Roger’s feat the mile world record has been broken a further 18 times and now sits at 3:43.13, which was run by Hicham El Guerrouj on 7 July 1999, in Rome. Surely, after 12 years it’s time to break the record again. But it’s that 4 minute barrier that still attracts athletes to the mile, and is still a barrier too far for many talented athletes.
I actually have a video, called Supermilers, which tells the story of the mile world record breakers from Bannister to Cram. It’s a bit dated now and leaves you wanting to know more about each athlete, but still inspiring to watch, I sometimes watched it the morning of a race to give me some inspiration, it was better than Saturday kitchen and I always preferred running a good race to cooking an omelette in less than 30 seconds.
Well what of my own record over the classic distance. I’ll admit to being a bit of a novice, only having run 11 mile races in my 22 years as a runner. I really enjoyed running them, as a change from running 1500m, although the 1500m is my favourite race to compete in – because I just loved the tactical aspects, particularly when I was fit enough to truly believe I could win. Despite the 1500m being my favourite race, it was actually the 5000m and 10000m that I have performed best in, so I never really trained for the 1500m and my pb of 3:56.1 was set days after I ran my 5000m pb of 14:35.27, but I’m proud of the time, getting under 4 mins is a big achievement for club runners, it acts as a watered down equivalent achievement to the best guys breaking the real 4 minute barrier – If that makes sense. Of those 11 mile races I’ve taken part in I’ve won 3 of them. 8 of them were on the road, one as part of a cross country relay, which Belgrave won, and 2 were on the track. My pb, 4:24.2, came in 1999 at a Herne Hill Harriers Open Meeting, the race boasted some pretty tasty 800/1500m runners and I was hoping to get dragged around for a good time. Unfortunately the first lap was slow so I just took off, nobody came with me and I stayed in front right to the end. My slowest mile is timed at 7:54 and took place on 29 April 2010 when I attempted to win the Mow Cop Killer Mile, I came 4th. Now that’s a real challenge, but it was so much fun that I wanted to do it again this year, sadly I was on my way up to Edinburgh the night it was on, though I’ll admit to having fun in Edinburgh there’s nothing like a Killer Mile to a runner. I hope to do it again in the future, before I get too old and slow, afterall I’ve got to be capable of running quicker than 7:54.
Well that’s all a bit of preamble to what this blog was supposed to be about, and, for equality purposes, I’ll cover the ladies world record further on in this blog. The blog was inspired by a session I did with one of my client’s, last week. If you’ve been reading my blogs you’ll have come across mentions of Ray before. Ray is one of my running clients and is conveniently located in Northwich. Ray’s been running well of late, the previous weekend he’d set a big pb on the Pennington Flash Parkrun and on this particular session he was keen to see what he could do for a 1 mile time trial, having never raced anything shorter than 5k. After some debate about location, we finally decided on Neumanns Flash. We used Ray’s gps watch to mark out each 400m, with the last one being 410m (the watch wasn’t calibrated to mark out 9m). I also put a stick down after the first 200m so I could check I’d not set off too fast (sometimes a problem in my races).
We set off at a good pace, it felt ok but I wasn’t sure it was right. I looked for my stick but it wasn’t there. Well it might have been there but I’m either blind or we were too fast as I missed it completely. So the first indication I had of pace was at 400m, which we went through, according to my watch, in 82 seconds. This was a little quicker than I had planned (90 secs). Ok don’t panic, Ray was breathing heavier but I slowed down a little and told him to relax. We reached the second 400m in 3 minutes exactly, right on target but in order to reach that we’d run that second 400m in 97 seconds. Now was the important 3rd quarter, where you can win or lose time. I pushed the pace a little, trying to encourage Ray, but Ray isn’t used to this type of speed work and he was hurting. Hurt or not Ray’s no softie and he gave it everything he had. A little down at 1200 (4:34) it was now we really had to work, I was encouraging Ray with everything I’d got and Ray was doing his utmost to respond, heavy breathing, a little bit of streamlining as we hit a windy patch, and fighting the desire to stop. 410 metres never felt so long but eventually we saw the finish, I tried to muster a sprint out of Ray but the sprint was on holiday today. Then it was all over, Ray displaying the classic signs of someone running his first middle distance race.
Ray had stopped his watch at 6 minutes 13 seconds. His pre-race aim had been to beat 6:30, mine to get as close to 6 minutes as possible. Both optimistic, mine perhaps a little too optimistic but we weren’t far off. It’s given us a marker that Ray can use to gauge future races. Plus the other thing I feel it will have given Ray is that knowledge of how to really push yourself in that final mile of a race. So expect Pennington Flash to go below 22 minutes before the end of the year.
While I was thinking about the session I started wondering how many sub 4 minute milers I had as friends on Facebook. I thought it might be 5, but it turns out I only have 4, though there are a few more knocking on the door, or they may have knocked on the door and no one answered. Then I had a really geeky thought, why not rank my Facebook friends according to their mile pbs. Well the problem with that is that I don’t know what everybody’s pb is. So I used that great oracle of factual information, the Power of 10 listing. Ah, but then again, I know that’s not accurate for people like me, i.e. older athletes who achieved their best results more than 10 year’s ago, unless you’re a real big name of course. But I soldiered on and many hours later I produced a totally inaccurate listing. Inaccurate because I have many friends who have no registered times and yet I know they’ve run the mile or 1500m (I thought I’d use both distances as not everybody has done a mile but has a 1500m time that can be related to a mile and then there are others, like me who have a far superior 1500m time to their mile time, so it was a way of levelling up). So I’ve listed everyone I could find. If you’re not here it’s because; you’re old and Power of 10 doesn’t have your result, you’re foreign and Power of 10 doesn’t recognise you, you’re both old and foreign, your time wasn’t registered for some other reason, or you never did run these great distances. Also there are many names in the list that I’m sure have run a lot faster than the time published. So here’s an appeal to all my Facebook friends, let me know your genuine pbs and I’ll update it. And for those still young enough to achieve a pb, get out there and climb up the list.
So for anyone who wants to see the list, read on, for those who don’t, skip the next section and I’ll write some more. You should note that there are many people without a mile time but I’ve ranked them based on their 1500m time plus 18 seconds for the 109m (wholly inaccurate again, as someone running a 4 min 1500m can cover 109m faster than someone running a 6 min 1500m, but give me a break I couldn’t be bothered with working out a sliding scale), but what I did do was take into account people who have an inferior mile to 1500m time (e.g. my best mile time would equate to around 4:14 with the 18 second rule) and ensure those people without a mile time didn’t appear above somebody with a superior 1500m time. Well it kept me higher up the list anyway! No mile or 1500m time is indicated with ---. Finally I haven’t given a fig whether it’s an outdoor or indoor or if the mile is on a track, cinder, road, or grass. So have a look and see where you feature, or should feature.
John Gladwin – Mile 3:51.02 – 1500m 3:35.26
Andy Graffin – Mile 3:54.7 – 1500m 3:35.53
Andrew Geddes – Mile 3:59.28 – 1500m 3:41.0
Kris Gauson – Mile 3:59.74 – 1500m 3:40.59
Darren Gauson – Mile 4:01.12 – 1500m 3:42.16
Paul Freary – Mile 4:01.51 – 1500m 3:43.3
Phil Mowbray – Mile 4:01.81 – 1500m 3:41.63
Mark Miles – Mile --- - 1500m 3:42.86
Bashir Hussain – Mile 4:06.6 – 1500m 3:47.4
Dave Anderson – Mile 4:07.7 – 1500m 3:46.77
Justin Chaston – Mile 4:08.3 – 1500m 3:46.58
Mike Quinn – Mile 4:10.4 – 1500m 3:49.9
Mark Mitchell – Mile 4:13.42 – 1500m 3:44.44
Paul Evans – Mile --- - 1500m 3:45.4
Dave Taylor – Mile --- - 1500m 3:47.9
Nick Goolab – Mile --- - 1500m 3:48.34
Jerry Watson - Mile --- - 1500m 3:49.9
Jerry Watson - Mile --- - 1500m 3:49.9
Martin Whitehouse – Mile --- - 1500m 3:49.97
Andrew Barber – Mile 4:13.96 – 1500m 3:51.5
Paul Coughlan - Mile 4:19 - 1500m 4:00.6
Henryk Piotrowski - Mile 4:20 - 1500m 3:54.9
Ossie Arif - Mile 4:20 - 1500m 3:57
Paul Coughlan - Mile 4:19 - 1500m 4:00.6
Henryk Piotrowski - Mile 4:20 - 1500m 3:54.9
Ossie Arif - Mile 4:20 - 1500m 3:57
Roger Alsop – Mile 4:24.2 – 1500m 3:56.1
Kevin Quinn – Mile 4:26 – 1500m 3:53.79
Stevie Cairns – Mile 4:27 – 1500m 3:52.9
Dougie Selman – Mile 4:28 – 1500m 3:51.15
Iain Lockett - Mile --- - 1500m 3:54.4
Iain Lockett - Mile --- - 1500m 3:54.4
Jonathan Henderson – Mile --- - 1500m 3:57.02
Ben Paviour – Mile --- - 1500m 3:57.74
Tim Elsey – Mile 4:28.99 – 1500m 4:04.4
Nick Altman – Mile 4:31 - 1500m 3:58.0
Matt Norminton – Mile --- - 1500m 3:58.42
Alaster Stewart – Mile --- - 1500m 4:00.27
Neil Wilkinson – Mile --- - 1500m 4:02.37
Ryan O’Hare – Mile --- - 1500m 4:04.53
Robbie James – Mile 4:33.2 – 1500m 4:35.3
Owain Lewes - Mile 4:35 - 1500m 4:10
Owain Lewes - Mile 4:35 - 1500m 4:10
Chris Peach – Mile 4:43 – 1500m 4:02.38
Iain Lockett – Mile --- - 1500m 4:02.4
James McMullan – Mile --- - 1500m 4:03.0
Chris Busaileh – Mile --- - 1500m 4:03.77
Matt Bell – Mile --- - 1500m 4:04.25
Simon Coombes – Mile --- - 1500m 4:04.9
Francis Marsh – Mile --- - 1500m 4:06.24
Jack Brown – Mile 4:45.8 – 1500m 4:12.92
Andy Robinson – Mile --- - 1500m 4:15.63
Tim Field – Mile --- - 1500m 4:17.6
Mark Johnston - Mile 4:46 - 1500m 4:17.9
Mark Johnston - Mile 4:46 - 1500m 4:17.9
Sarwar Khan – Mile --- - 1500m 4:18.7
Julian Critchlow – Mile --- - 1500m 4:18.7
Barry Attwell – Mile --- - 1500m 4:18.91
Geoff Jerwood – Mile --- - 1500m 4:19.0
Mark Critchlow – Mile --- - 1500m 4:25.8
Gillian Palmer – Mile --- - 1500m 4:25.88
Adam Priestley – Mile 4:47 – 1500m ---
Tommy Lawrence – Mile 4:48 – 1500m ---
Bill Rubie – Mile 4:51 – 1500m ---
James Mittra – Mile 4:53 – 1500m ---
Ian Campbell - Mile 4:55
Ian Campbell - Mile 4:55
Charlie Dickinson – Mile 4:56.4 – 1500m 4:26.5
Sam Knight – Mile --- - 1500m 4:27.4
Harry Matthews – Mile 5:04.6 – 1500m 4:45.2
Ann Hood - Mile 5:15 - 1500m 4:54
Ann Hood - Mile 5:15 - 1500m 4:54
Katja Eravisto – Mile 5:17 – 1500m 4:28.53
Dave Gough – Mile --- - 1500m 4:35.65
Rob Payne – Mile --- - 1500m 4:39.4
Sharyn Ramage – Mile --- - 1500m 4:44.04
Sharyn Ramage – Mile --- - 1500m 4:44.04
Mark Thornley – Mile --- - 1500m 4:47.9
Gail Duckworth – Mile --- - 1500m 5:00.12
Jo Thom – Mile 5:25 – 1500m ---
Kevin Graham – Mile 5:28 – 1500m ---
Kevin Graham – Mile 5:28 – 1500m ---
Cath Ferry – Mile 5:33 - 1500m 5:08.48
Victoria Bailie – Mile 5:36 – 1500m ---
Lorna Rice – Mile 5:48 – 1500m 5:30
Lorna Rice – Mile 5:48 – 1500m 5:30
Ed Bec – Mile --- - 1500m 5:32.4
Helen Smethurst – Mile 5:52 – 1500m ---
Louise Blizzard – Mile --- - 1500m 5:44.15
Jane Searle – Mile 6:04.5 – 1500m 5:52.5
Ray Tran – Mile 6:13 – 1500m ---
As promised here’s a bit about the Ladies progression, it would appear that they haven’t had as many opportunities as us fellas, certainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was probably a bit of a no no for ladies to race. The first record I came across was the 6:13.2 by Elizabeth Atkinson, another Brit, who set this time in Manchester on 24 June 1921. It stayed in British hands until 1953, when Romanian, Edith Treybal, ran 5:00.2. It was taken below 5 mins 4 times, from 1954-55 by Britain, Diane Leather, who left it at 4:45.0. That time took 7 years to break, by New Zealander, Marise Chamberlain. In 1967 the IAAF began official ratification and the first ‘official’ record went to Anne Rosemary Smith, of Britain, who ran 4:37.0 on 3 June 1967. The record has been broken 12 times since, the current record standing at 4:12.56, by Svetlana Masterkova of Russia, which was set on 14 August 1996. Surely we have enough quality women runners to set up a mile race to break that record.
My personal feeling is that it’s a shame there are not more mile races out there. I know all the League races have to be standard metric distances but I sometimes think that in open meetings and local friendly leagues we’re missing an opportunity to give athletes a chance to run something different. Also it would be nice to have an opportunity to run a few more road mile races, I love them, even if I do find them a lot harder now than when I was a lot younger. With 2012, and the Olympics coming to Britain there’s an opportunity to bring back the mile, every location of the torch relay could host a 1 mile event. What a great way to involve the kids. Then in 2014, as well as the Glasgow Commonwealth games, it’ll be 60 years since Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute barrier. Surely it would be more fitting to run a load of mile races than to put a stopwatch on a 50p piece. Maybe I should start a campaign.
Some good news I received last week was that my pal from Edinburgh, Jim Buick, passed his level 3 exams and is now a fully qualified Personal Trainer. So if you’re looking for a Personal Trainer in the Edinburgh area, consider Jim. By the way, if you’re looking for one in Cheshire, I still have slots available. Other good news I’ve been back to the photographer and after an enduring morning I now have some pictures of me smiling, these have been forwarded to the publishers and, hopefully, will feature with the article in September.
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