Faith Kipyegon’s Breaking4 one-mile race Thursday evening in Paris was widely termed a “moonshot.”
Wrong. It was a crapshoot.
When aerospace engineers aim at the moon, they know what they’re doing. They’ve tested and practiced every aspect of their quest. That can’t be said of Breaking4, at least not to judge from what little Nike has told us about preparations.
Faith Delivers, the Plan Doesn’t
Still, let’s set something straight from the get-go. Kipyegon ran sensationally. She did everything exactly right. She improved her mile best to 4:06.42. She proved beyond any doubt that she is the GOAT.
Congrats, Faith. And thanks for accepting the lead role in this … this … what to call it? Maybe a “sideshow spectacular.”
You ran with determination, and you warmed down with smiles, hugs, and waves to the crowd. That is the hallmark of great champions. You run, you fail, you collapse to the track, and you rise to run again.
Let’s Be Honest About the Gap
While praising Kipyegon, as we should, we should also be careful not to say she “came close” or “tantalizingly close” or anything similar, which is what I have read in many reports
She missed 3:59 by a freaking … well, not quite a mile. But she missed big time. There is nothing “close” about the gap between 3:59.99 and 4:06.42. At least not for anyone who has ever run a hard mile.
It took 17 years for the men’s world record to drop from 4:06.4 (Sydney Wooderson, 1937) to Roger Bannister’s 3:59.4 in 1954.
I don’t know if it will take that long for a female to go sub-4:00, but it might. In 1937, the men’s record for 800 meters was 1:49.6. The female record today is 1:53.28, and that mark (from 1983!) is widely considered to be drug-enhanced.
Nobody has copyrighted the truism “You can’t run a fast mile without a fast 800,” but everyone knows it to be true. According to World Athletics Scoring Tables, a female mile time of 3:59.96 is equivalent to 800 meters in 1:50:07.
Which means we’ve got a long way to go to a female sub-4:00.
Kipyegon’s Breaking4 effort didn’t even move the arc of women’s running. Yes, it was faster than her previous world record time of 4:07.64, set two years ago.
According to the just-referenced WA scoring tables, a 4:06.42 garners her 1296 points. Which is precisely the same number of points as her world record 1500-meter time (3:49.04) from a year ago in Paris.
Kipyegon equalled her previous best effort. Nothing has changed.
So what exactly was Breaking4 about? And what did it prove? Good questions. We’ll get to them in just a moment.
A Champion’s Tactics Meet a Sponsor’s Script
First, let’s say a little more about Kipyegon’s brilliant performance.
Like all great 1,500m/mile runners, Kipyegon prefers to run three laps at a hard, steady effort and then pick up speed on the last lap. We call this the miler’s “kick,” and we have seen enough great mile races to know that everything before “the bell” is mere prelude.
This is more than just preference; it’s how men and women have been setting 1,500/mile records for decades. It’s supported by reams of data and scientific analysis, such as this recent paper titled “Pacing Profiles of Middle-Distance Running World Records.”1Casado, A., González-Mohíno, F., González-Ravé, J. M., & Boullosa, D. (2021). Pacing Profiles of Middle-Distance Running World Records in Men and Women. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(23), 12589. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182312589
Kipyegon, however, had no such latitude in Breaking4. What’s she supposed to do? Run the first lap in 62 seconds, and immediately expose the whole endeavor for what it was? (You name it. I’m not going to.)
Nope. Not an option. So, surrounded by a phalanx of more male middle-distance talent than you ever see in one race except for the Olympics, she motored through the first lap in 60 seconds, more or less. Strong. Focused.
She hit two laps in two minutes. Right on target. Watching the live stream at home, I almost stopped breathing. Two months earlier, I had written an article titled “Why Faith Kipyegon Won’t Succeed In Nike’s Breaking4 Race.”
Was I wrong? Had I missed something? Would Nike’s vaunted shoes, dimpled clothing, chest-squeezing bra, and the biggest, highest-priced pace team ever assembled prove sufficient to get Kipyegon to Breaking4?
She hit three laps in 3:01+. Slowing down. Beginning to show some facial strain. Still, if she kicked in her usual manner–in the way great milers always finish their best races–Kipyegon might yet squeeze under 4:00.
But this was not going to happen. And there are about a billion of us who understand, at a very visceral level, why Kipyegon wouldn’t be sprinting her fourth lap.. Because we’ve been there at one time or another in our own running.
When you start too fast in the mile–no matter what your pedigree, country of origin, or the shoes on your feet- the last lap proves ugly. This is a human physiological fact.
We don’t need to dig deep into all the reasons–VO2 max, anaerobic metabolism, lactate buildup, hydrogen ions, and so forth. We can simply use “ugly” as a stand-in.
Kipyegon’s last lap was tough. She ran something like 65 seconds. It was inevitable, given that she had to start at a 60-second pace. She had no other choice.
Why Breaking4?
So we’re left to ask: whyfor Breaking4? I certainly don’t have an answer. I’ve heard all those suggestions about Nike’s poor stock performance and its failure to attract new female customers.
I hope these aren’t the reasons why the company poured untold millions into Breaking4. I hope someone really thought Faith Kipyegon could cut more than seven seconds off her previous best in one big, highly orchestrated event. (But I don’t understand how anyone could have thought this, not without a lot more testing and practicing.)
I’ll give Nike credit for a couple of things. It was fun to speculate about Faith Kipyegon and women’s mile records for several months before Breaking4. Also, I was barely breathing for two-plus minutes of the event. It’s fun to get that excited about a running race.
What’s Next? “Breaking3,” Anyone?
I’ve even got a helpful suggestion for Nike’s next BreakingSomething race. Stage a “Breaking3” for Kipyegon.
I think she could come really close to breaking three minutes in a three-lap race. She’d certainly be much closer than she was in Breaking4. I’d have to hold my breath even longer.
I’m more optimistic than you about the 4min barrier being broken by Faith but I agree Nike botched it. The pacing is one thing, but another is that she hadn’t raced a 1500m or a mile yet this year. She did one race, a 1000m in China where she managed to run under 4min pace, sure. She needed more races. Does anyone expect to run their best race in the first race of the season? Could they not have tried it in practice first? They should have her do it again at the end of August, after a season of racing, and let her pace it how she wants. On the flip side, it might also be useful, as they suggested on the podcast, to try to get her to wear the tighter fitting race outfit. Quite a few things they could do to make it better.