British middle-distance runner talks about following Chris Hoy’s example, pursuing the mile world record, going for Commonwealth gold, future marathon ambitions and the outlet that running provides him.

Josh Kerr knew he’d really made it when he was asked to go back to school. It was at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh where he had sat as a wide-eyed pupil while Sir Chris Hoy regaled assemblies with tales of Olympic cycling excellence and the art of realising ambition. Kerr got the message. Those encounters made anything seem possible. 

The schoolboy is now 28, with three world titles – not to mention two Olympic medals – to his name. He has been able to tell his own story to the next generation. but he isn’t done yet. There is work still to do, targets still to be hit and, hopefully, more return visits to be made to his seat of learning.    

Kerr is in Denver as he talks to AW over video call, the last stop on what has been a lengthy return journey to his Albuquerque base after winning the second world indoor 3000m gold of his career in Toruń. There were also detours to the Scottish capital, his home town, as well as London, and it is his appointments back in the UK later this year that are occupying a huge amount of his thinking time as he gets back into the thick of training.

Two dates in particular have been circled on the calendar and both involve being first over the line in the mile. The first is July 18, when Kerr will shoot for the moon and a place in the history books with his attempt to replace Hicham El Guerrouj as world record-holder during the London Diamond League Meeting at the Olympic Stadium. The second is the evening of August 1 and the “One Mile” final at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. 

Success in both would mean the world, personally as well as professionally, to the man who has placed himself in the spotlight by being so public with the level of his ambition. He knows the goals are “lofty” and that the stakes are high but that’s the point. He intends to leave a lasting mark. 

Kerr might have lived on America’s West Coast for over a decade now but Scotland is certainly on his mind as he talks at length about a summer ahead that is filled with potential. 

Should everything go to plan in the coming months, he will strengthen his case as one of his nation’s sporting heroes, which brings us to his own choice of local hero. 

“My biggest one was Chris Hoy,” says Kerr. “He went to our school, and he came back and spoke at multiple assemblies. I was able to do that for the first time a couple of years ago. I'd been brought in to speak a couple of different times, but never for a full assembly and I was like: ‘I guess I need to keep proving myself here’. I was able to go back and do that, and that was really fun. 

“I was trying to share a similar message to the one he did when I was sitting there on the floor with my legs crossed and sore back and sore knees after doing the training in the morning. To have role models like that, it's just incredible. Obviously he's the most successful person, but it was just so cool to see that side of him and be like: ‘He went to my school and this is the process that he went through’. He’s a huge hero.”

Kerr grew up surrounded by sport. His father John and brother Jake both played professional rugby, both representing their country, but it was running that stole Josh’s heart. A Scotland singlet, rather than a jersey, came his way and pulling it on brings with it a collection of memories and emotions of which he will never tire. 

“It's massive,” he smiles. “It's not that I take pulling a British vest on for granted – it’s very, very special – but I think there's this nostalgia play that happens when you pull [the Scotland vest] on. 

“When I got my first Scotland vest… I didn't think it was going to happen, first of all. There were a couple of races where it went down to selection and I didn’t get selected. And that was back when it was a letter in the post [to let you know], so you'd be standing there by the post box every day, waiting for it.

“The first time pulling on a Scotland vest was absolutely massive. I think it was the Home Countries cross country, and I ended up winning, I got my name in the paper, it was a whole thing and I still feel that energy.”

Kerr will take that energy with him into that next opportunity to wear those Scottish colours, at the aforementioned Commonwealth Games. He will line up at Scotstoun, a venue he knows well, in hope and expectation that things will go rather better than in Birmingham four years ago, when a heavily Covid-afflicted campaign saw Kerr finish 12th in the 1500m final. He won’t be short of motivation, either.

 “When I saw [the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow] in 2014 it was like: ‘I want to do that’ and that has never left me. When some people are talking the Commonwealth Games down, I just can't wrap my head around that, so as long as that's still a competition it’s going to be a massive priority for my year. I've got to get that gold medal. It’s a slight obsession of mine.”

First, though, will come that much-publicised world record attempt. Project 222 – so called because its aim is to cover the mile on that London track in 222 seconds (3:42) and overtake Guerrouj’s mark of 3:43.13 – is ambitious. His current best is his British record of 3:45.34 from 2024.

Aided by his Brooks team, headed by coach Danny Mackey, the preparation will be forensic. There will be hand-picked pacemakers, bespoke speedsuits and racing spikes – all a far cry from Kerr’s very first event experiences of the distance as a nine-year-old. The memory is slightly hazy but he’s sure that a cross country outing “perhaps Broxburn” took place over the mile. He also recalls running the “kids Bupa Edinburgh mile” with his dad. “There's definitely stuff in there of doing it from an early age.” 

The mile education really set in for Kerr, though, during his time at the University of New Mexico. The mile is raced regularly indoors in America and it’s just over 10 years since a major moment for him with the event. 

“I started to really understand it,” he says. “I ran 4:05 or something [it was 4:05.32] for one of my first races as a freshman in January of 2016 and that was a really cool moment. From then on, it was like: ‘I've got to go after it’. I think the reason I like the indoor scene so much is because we get to run the mile versus the 1500m and that's where I learned my craft in the mile.”

How much Kerr has learned will become evident in London at an event that he hopes can help keep his sport in the national consciousness during a summer that will be dominated by the football World Cup. 

Scotland, for example, will be making a first appearance in the finals since 1998 while England fans will be hoping their team is destined to feature in the final that takes place the day after the mile world record attempt. Kerr is not about to claim that he expects to be able to compete with that, but the important thing is to go out of his way to try to drum up more interest in and awareness of what he and his fellow athletes are capable of.

“We're not the biggest sport,” he admits. “We're not on the front page of the newspapers all the time and I won’t sit here and go: ‘We should be. This is bull***t, we're more interesting than football’. We need to earn that media attention and, to do that, you need to put a lot on the line and give big moments. 

“The World Cup is a huge moment, and everyone's going to turn up, and people are going to be great and people are going to be s**t, and it's going to be fun to watch. However, for running, we need to create those moments this year because, as big as the Commonwealth Games and European Championships and World Ultimate championships might be, the everyday person doesn't quite care as much as we probably would want them to.

“Creating moments like this and going after world records is an interesting thing and the cool thing about a world record like this is that it's going to take three-and-a-half minutes out of your day. I hope that people tune in and watch. I think it is important. I think we need to earn our way further up the rankings of importance of sport in the UK especially, but in the world, and that takes effort. It's not going to be handed to us.”

For all the uncertainties involved in this record attempt – from the temperature to which way the wind might blow – there is one thing that Kerr knows for sure. It will hurt. But there’s another sensation which he will be paying more attention to.

“With records like this, it is almost like a chase of a feeling versus a chase of a time. That's how I view it. When you're really dialled in, your body's really flowing. There's just this magical feeling between… you're pushing your body to a limit, there's lactic building up everywhere, your mindset is shifting, moving, moving, moving, and then it almost just goes completely quiet, and you're just making absolutely 0.1 of a second decisions, and your body knows exactly what it's doing. You're in the driver's seat in your brain, and your body's doing what it's capable of doing, and that's a really fun feeling. Almost 90 per cent of the reason I'm going after this record is to go after that feeling again, to be honest.”

So training drums in the process and then, come race time, you essentially get out of your own way? Kerr nods.

“There's no more work that you can really do,” he says. “You’ve just got to fill your brain with all the information that you've got and just go and answer the questions that come up. It’s not like: ‘Well, if I do this, this could happen. If I do this, this could happen’. Then, you're one or two seconds behind on your decisions, and that's not a good spot to be in. You’ve got to have those automatic decisions already answered in your brain before it comes up. But I think there will be less decision-making within this race, just because hopefully there won't be many people – or anyone – in front of me, other than the pacers. So it's less of worrying about moves and more just consistency and rhythm.”

It’s also about a chance to excel. To push himself further and faster than ever before – and that aspect is that the core of why Kerr chose this as his day job.

“It gives me an outlet to push myself mentally and physically,” he says. “Progress, for me, is pushing this sport on, leaving it in a better place than I found it and so it's really just an outlet for me. When I grew up, I wasn't like: ‘I want to be the best runner in the world’. It was like: ‘I want to be the best sportsperson in the world and, whatever sport that is, I'm going to give it my 100 per cent’. 

“I fell in love with running, I was good at it, and I then spent the next 15 years trying to get the most out of myself. I'm not perfect, obviously, but I am trying as hard as I can to get the most out of my body. It’s just an amazing outlet for me to see what I'm capable of.”

If he hadn’t found running, though, what sport does he think he would be doing now?

“Just any other sport, if it's cross country skiing… I'm guessing, some sort of Vo2 sport. If you allowed me, I would say marathon running. I guess that's still running, but just something endurance wise.”

Does that mean the challenge of 26.2 miles will feature in Kerr’s future?

“[The marathon] is an inevitable part of my career, we're just not there yet,” he says. “I live for figuring out variables and I see that as two hours and however many minutes of variables. I come from a strength-based background and I've run a couple of half marathons, so I will be definitely giving it a crack at some point in my career. 

“Even if I'm bad at it or I don't quite live up to the standard that I've got in my own head, I'm still going to give myself to that process and see what my body's capable of. I'm a blue riband event kind of guy, so it's either that or the 100m and I don't think my body's capable of the 100m!”

He adds: “I enjoy problem solving and I just see it as a big puzzle. I think it's really fun. That process, being right on it and knowing that you've got two hours’ worth of variables to deal with… that's why I enjoy watching tennis and golf and all these things where they're not just hitting one shot, they've got to be able to relax themselves all the way through that process with multiple, multiple hours. It's like a whole new sport, but with a skill set that I have been building over the last 15 years.”

And with that mention it’s only natural to reflect, to look back and acknowledge the journey so far. That schoolboy is now a citizen of the world. “The road is home now, I guess,” he says, contemplating the length of time he has now lived outside of Scotland. 

“I don't even know where I live any more, but I’ve been lucky in that I only really lived in one house growing up, and my parents still live there, so when I'm home, I am home, which is really nice. 

“But New Mexico is a community and a state has given me a lot as well, so it's a balance. The first time I ever called New Mexico home, while I was in college, my mum didn't like it very much and she was like: ‘This is your home. This will always be your home’. My dad looked at me like: ‘You mucked up on that one, kid’. 

“I will always see Edinburgh as my home. And everything boils down to where you're from and how you were raised. I find that across the board, so it doesn't matter if I move back to Scotland in a couple of years, or if I never live in Scotland again, it's always who I am.”