Josh Kerr wants to run a sub-3:47 mile this summer. And then, someday, he wants to win the London Marathon.
The 28-year-old Scotsman, who trains with the Brooks Beasts between Seattle and Albuquerque, dropped both ambitions in the same week. First came the mile world record announcement. Then, speaking to Runner’s World UK, came the marathon confession.
“I want to win a world major marathon,” Kerr said. “And I think that I’m capable of going after that at some point in my career.”
He was careful not to oversell it. “I’m not saying that I’m going to be the best marathoner in the world and I don’t know what I’m capable of. But I know that I want to give it a go and have real respect for it.”
What struck most listeners wasn’t the ambition — it was the reasoning. Kerr described the marathon less as a distance and more as an intellectual challenge.
“Running interests me. The variables that come up within races interest me. It’s a problem-solving kind of situation. And 26.2 miles is over two hours’ worth of problem-solving — currently I only get anywhere between three and a half and seven and a half minutes’ worth of it.”
Not as Crazy as It Sounds
Middle-distance runners crossing over to the marathon is nothing new — but it’s rarely easy, and it almost never works at the elite level.
Kerr, though, has the physical profile to at least make it plausible. He ran a 1:03 half marathon back in 2022, a time that points toward genuine endurance capacity underneath the track speed.
History offers a few striking precedents. Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands has raced everything from the 1500 meters to the marathon at the Olympic level. At the 2024 Paris Games, she collected bronze medals in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters — then, just days later, crossed the finish line first in the Olympic marathon.
Tigst Assefa came from 800-meter roots before running 2:11:53 to win the 2023 Berlin Marathon, smashing the women’s world record by more than two minutes in the process.
And then there is Eliud Kipchoge. Before becoming the greatest marathoner in history — two Olympic gold medals, the first sub-two-hour marathon in a time trial — he was one of the world’s top 5,000-meter runners, winning the 2003 World Championship title as a teenager.
Speed, in other words, does not disqualify you from the marathon. Sometimes it sets you up for it.
Where Does London Fit In?
Kerr made a point of mentioning his pride in the rise of British distance running, and he set one firm condition for his mile world record attempt this summer: it had to happen on home soil, at the London Diamond League meet. That detail may hint at where his marathon ambitions eventually land.
The London Marathon is the obvious target. A record 1.1 million people applied to run this year’s edition on April 26. Last year’s race raised $116 million and drew 56,540 finishers — a world record at the time, later broken by the 2025 New York City Marathon. There are even plans, reported by The Guardian, to host a two-day “Double London Marathon” in 2027 for up to 100,000 runners.
Before any of that, though, Kerr has other races circled on the calendar. He turns 30 in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and has spoken openly about what a gold medal at this summer’s Commonwealth Games — held in his native Scotland — would mean to him. The marathon is a longer project. Something for his 30s.
But there’s something telling about a man who has a mile world record to chase, and is already thinking about 26.2.
