Female Sub 4 Mile Attempt Breakdown

Diving deep on Faith Kipyegon's attempt to break the special barrier

Faith Kipyegon took her shot at the illustrious four minute mile barrier and came up a bit short. She ended up running 4:06.91* (Nike claims it was 4:06.4. This is inaccurate as I write below). in a special event where she had 11 pacers (9 male) help her see what was possible. This would not have counted as a world record thanks to the pacing, but it still gives a glimpse into performance limits.

In this post, I want to give you a breakdown on what we saw, what we can learn from it, and what it means for women trying to break the 4-minute mile barrier.

Why'd she fall short?

Simple: 8 seconds was too much.

The Nike folks were hoping for a big boost, like they got when Kipchoge took on the 2-hour marathon in a similar unofficial event.

But there’s a key difference between the two events. Kipchoge was attempting a marathon, where the accumulated effect of pacing and drafting are much larger. And secondly, he did so at the beginning of the super shoe boom, when we essentially went from old school tech to shoes that boosted performance by about 2%.

For Kipyegon, most of those boosts have already been used in regular competition. The tweaked her spikes, but the big gains from old tech to new weren’t there. She’d already used the new sodium bicarbonate supplements that helps middle distance runners. The pacing had already been dialed in, as every record attempt has wavelights to guide pacing.

The biggest boost left uncovered was that in her mile world records, she got to follow a pacer for just about halfway. In this event, she'd get it the entire way around.

The Nike folks were hoping optimizing pacing with 11 pacers would get her closer. There was a theoretical paper that showed that it just might. But as I broke down in my pre-race coverage, real world data pointed to a much smaller boost of about 2 seconds. How do we know this? We can see what happens to men who go from leading most of the race to big races where they get to sit behind a half dozen people and get dragged around to a fast time in meets specifically designed to do so. They get a few seconds.

The other potential boosts hyped on the broadcast, like the special speed suit she was wearing…just marketing hype designed to sell a product.

In my pre-race breakdown, I basically called it on the nose, that she'd go for it and fade. I thought 4:05 mid, and she faded a touch more than I guessed to 4:06.4. But any seasoned coach would have guessed about the same. The mile is a tricky beast to master.

The Race Itself

You could tell by 400m she wasn't going to get close to sub 4. Why? She was 60.2 at 400m. I texted in one of my group chats and said "too slow" and that she wasn't coming close. Why? because that split told me...she was pressing to ride that line. And sub 60s was not where that line was going to be. The mile is essentially riding a line between just under control for long enough to gain sight of the finish line… And if you aren’t comfortably at 59 mid effort/pace the first lap, it’s not going to happen. This isn’t the marathon. Negative splits aren’t optimal.

Her splits:

400- 60.2

800- 2:00.7

1200- 3:01.9

Mile- 4:06.91*

As the race progressed you could see the increase in attention and effort to stay on the pace.

The third lap was where it really shone through. She gallantly tried to stay close to the pace as fatigue was mounting. And as anyone whose run the mile know, the 3rd lap is the worst. You are far enough out where it's starting to hurt a lot, but not close enough to the finish where you can taste it. It’s why most amateur or high school runners fade on the third lap before coming back faster on the final. They can’t take the uncertainty and pain of pushing when everything is screaming at you not to.

Kipyegon ignored that voice. She pushed anyways. Which you can see the toll that took on the final lap, her slowest of the race.

Once that bear jumps on your back, there’s not a lot you can do. You are attempting a controlled deceleration. Every step you're fighting not to lose more speed/power. And ironically you have to relax and not tense up to do so. It's a hard place to be. That's the mile. It's riding a very tight line of what you can just barely handle and stay smooth at, while not accumulating so much fatigue, and dipping into your reserves so that your body has nothing to give in the last 400-200m.

If she even split it and went 61.x every lap, she probably could have run 4:04 high- 4:05 mid today. Which I think tells us good pacing/drafting gives her 2 seconds. Which lines up with everything we know.

Where did the attempt go wrong?
The formation was interesting as the rabbit directly ahead of her was several meters in front. Then the others were off to her side. This may have made a lot of sense from a drafting and wind resistance standpoint, but from a psychological standpoint I’m not so sure.

When you are riding the line, it is easier to do so when you are latched onto the person ahead of you. It feels like you’re in the race and getting dragged along. You get to zone out with a single thought of “stay attached” running through your brain.

When there’s a gap, your mind exploits it. It reminds you that you aren’t right on them. It tries to convince you that you are falling off or fading. In fact, it changes your perception.

When I’ve had athletes watch video of races where a small gap formed, they often respond by saying “It felt so big in the race, but looking at it now, it seems so small.” When stress and fatigue hit us, it alters our perception. We’re in a tug of war with our brain trying to will it to press onward, while it’s trying to protect us by getting us to slow down so that we don’t have to deal with all of the fatigue.

What will it take for a female to go sub 4?

The problem for Kipyegon is that the gap between her 800 and mile just isn't large enough. While she doesn't run many 800s, her best is probably 1:54 high/1:55 low.

Even the most endurance based men who go sub 4 in the mile are at least 1:53 low for the 800. And that is very rare. 1:52 is generally the requirement, and the faster you are the more cushion you have. The slower your 800, the better your endurance. But that only compensates to a point.

The women's 800m WR is 1:53 by someone who was almost certainly doped to the gills. That means we need to somehow have some improvements that get the women's 800 to be faster...with someone who also has world class endurance. So your 400/800 types like an Athing Mu won't do. That's the challenge.

And unlike just about every other event, the women's 800 hasn't seen a legit attack on a world record, even with some phenomenal young athletes with super shoes and bicarbonate. That's the hurdle. And it’s a big one.

I think eventually we’ll get to where a female can run sub 4, especially with some more tech breakthroughs. But even if you put the best clean female 800 and 5k runner in history together and mixed them into one human, they wouldn’t have the requisite combination to take down a sub 4 mile. We need more progress.

So what?

Kudos to Kipyegon for going for it. That takes guts to know that you will likely blow up and be in a hell of a world of hurt the final 400 meters.

It's an impressive feat to see someone just lay it on the line.

What we learned is that we're still a ways off. And we likely need some more training progress and a new breakthrough (shoe tech, bicarb or nutrition advancement, etc.) to get there. Pacing/Drafting helps. But it's on the level we've seen in normal races (a few seconds), not the magnitude that was hoped for or hypothesized before.

It's interesting that Nike couldn't come up with a further jump in breakthrough shoe tech or optimized it individually to Kipyegon. I think part of the reason is we know some people respond better to the new super shoes...but we have no idea why. Researchers haven't tied it to any biomechanical marker.

The clothing “advancements” that were hyped were just marketing nonsense.

And if I'm honest, the broadcast was cringe. More infomercial than serious breakdown of an attempt. Would have loved more depth and analysis versus the fluff we got. I understand why: It's one big Nike commercial. They needed the return. But the gravitas of an effort like this from Kipyegon deserves serious coverage.

Women will eventually get there. That's the nature of sport. It gets better.

I do hope though that we see the first women get under 4 in a normal competition. So that there are no what ifs, caveats, or asterisks. It's just the barrier breaker being immortalized like Bannister.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: June 27th:
When Kipyegon first crossed the finish line, the clock said 4:06.91. That’s what I tweeted out in my initial coverage. Yet, moments later the broadcast corrected it to 4:06.4. That’s a big jump downwards, something that rarely occurs. But you just go with it because presumably such a high profile event has a reputable timing system.

But…it’s Nike…so we should know not trust them…

Here’s the shady stuff they pulled. Her actual time WAS 4:06.91.

How’d they get to 4:06.4, which has been reported all over the news? They took away Faith’s reaction time and her first movement until she crossed the starting line. If this was a road race, think of it as chip vs. gun time.

Why is this a big deal? It is NEVER done in track. The actual time always starts when the gun goes off and you cross the finish line. It’s been this way forever. The reaction to the gun is part of the event. It’s so rare, having been in this sport for 26 years, I’ve never seen this done at any legitimate event.

It’s a marketing gimmick. And frankly, it’s BS. Sure, because she ran 4:06.4, it doesn’t matter too much. But in a world where fractions of a second are huge, shaving off half a second is a big deal.

Think about it: the event was set up to optimize everything to give Kipyegon a shot to see how close she could. The pacing, drafting, tech, etc. was done to see what Faith could do in an ideal scenario. Changing how an event was timed does not do that. It alters the meaning of the event. It’s the equivalent of saying “Hey, my dad hand timed me with his watch in the stands, and that time was faster, so we’re going with that for the official time…” How a track event is timed is fundamental to the sport, exhibition or real race.

Just imagine if she actually did get close to 4 minutes? Imagine she ran 4:00.40 for her official time. Nike would have presumably reported her as 3:59.9. Essentially telling the world a women had broken the barrier, which would NOT be the case. They’d have robbed someone else of that experience all for the sake of marketing.

I can’t emphasize this enough. This is a HUGE no-no in track. And the equivalent of cheating. It’s not Kipyegon’s fault. This squarely false on Nike. And it’s disgraceful.

Second update: If you look at the reporting people are confusing the split times. The splits reported above are for 400, 800, and 1200 meters. NOT 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, and 3/4 mile. Why does this matter? A mile is 9.334 meters longer than 1600 meters. So every lap needs to be adjusted by ~0.4 seconds to get the 1/4, 1/2, etc. time. That means she was never close to sub 4 mile pace. Even her first lap was 4:02.4 mile pace. Which is why I wrote above, after the first lap you knew she had no shot.

What’s interesting is the wavelights were set up slower. If you split when the green wavelight goes across it would have been roughly:

1st lap- 60.4 2nd lap- 60.2 3rd lap- 59.6

What does this tell me? The Nike folks knew she had no shot at sub 4. No one runs a sub 4 mile in this manner unless you are fit enough to go WAY under. Essentially dead even with a very slight faster first lap and settling in the middle is how you do this. Negative splits work in the marathon. But trying to do that every single lap is asking for trouble. We might see a big last 400 lap, but making a big push from 800-1200 after going out faster than your used to and pressing down the 2nd lap is just asking to blow up.

What this tells me is the Nike folks wanted to make sure she didn’t blow up even more by going out at sub-4 mile pace (59.6ish per 400 meters). They were likely hoping for 4:04-5.

So what? As I review the latest updates, I feel worse at about the event. Not for Kipyegon. She was phenomenal. But for the Nike marketing and trying to essentially “cheat” their way to a faster time.

-Steve Magness