Sorry track fans, Faith Kipyegon isn’t breaking 4:00 in the mile – Can we live in the real world and not la-la land?

On Wednesday, Nike announced that Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon will attempt to break four minutes in the mile on June 26 at the Stade Charléty in Paris.

Spoiler alert.

She’s not going to break 4:00. And it’s not going to be particularly close.

Faith Kipyegon celebrates Athlos 1500 win in 2024 (Kevin Morris photo)

How do I know? Well for starters, her mile personal best (pb) is 4:07.64. The difference between 4:07 and 4:00 is MASSIVE.

And even if you take her 1500 pb of 3:49.04, which converts to 4:07.41 in the mile, she’s still a LONG way off.

The idea that better drafting (because Kipyegon will have pacers surrounding her for the whole race versus just having a single pacer in front for half the race like in her mile WR) is going to make up seven seconds is crazy.

From the moment I heard about the sub-4 attempt, it seemed totally ludicrous. However, I didn’t have the guts to put my doubts in print until today (I’m not sure I should have hesitated as I’m already hated by seemingly half of Kenya’s Parliament).

What happened today? Faith Kipyegon made her 2025 season debut in the 1000 meters at the Xiamen Diamond League meet.

And no, Kipyegon didn’t run poorly. She was FANTASTIC as she nearly broke Russian Svetlana Masterkova‘s world record of 2:28.98 that has stood for nearly 30 years (August 23, 1996) by running 2:29.21. To nearly break a world record in your season opener is amazing and shows you why Kipyegon is one of track & field’s all-time greats.

But do you know what time you get if you run 2:29.21 1000m pace for 1609 meters — otherwise known as a mile? You get 4:00.08.

Yes, that’s right. To break 4:00, Kipyegon would have to run an extra 609 meters faster than what she ran today. If you take Kipyegon’s 1000m personal best of 2:29.15 — which is just 0.06 faster — and extend that pace out for a mile, guess what time you get? 3:59.99.

Runners massively slow down if you extend the race distance from 1000 to 1609 meters. For men, an equivalent time for 1000 to 4:00 in the mile is roughly 2:20.6. Now some runners are better at the mile than they are at the 1k. Maybe a guy who can run 2:23 could break 4:00 if they were really strong. Women are relatively better at the longer events so maybe a 2:24-2:25 runner — at the worst — could do it. Kipyegon is nowhere close that.

The only other thing that might get her close is some CRAZY new shoe. But if a crazy new shoe existed, one that is legal to wear in competition — plenty of women could do it in roller skates — wouldn’t Kipyegon have been trying them out today?

Sorry running fans, a sub-4:00 mile for a woman isn’t happening anytime soon, if ever.

##

What would a sub-4:00 attempt look like?

I will admit that Kipyegon, a three-time Olympic champion and unbeaten in the 1500 for almost four years, is so good that I have spent the better part of 72 hours trying to think how a sub-4:00 could possibly happen. And Nike has built up some credibility since Eliud Kipchoge did manage to break 2:00 for the marathon distance in 2019 because of new shoe tech, pacing, and the elimination of hills and water stops.

But there are no hills, turns, or water stops in a track race to get rid of.

It’s a testament to Kipyegon’s greatness and Nike’s audacity that after today’s 1000, I found myself arguing with myself, thinking, “Well if today was a pure time trial, Faith could have saved some distance on the first turn, she could have had rabbiting for the full 1000, not just the first 700, and run faster, maybe one second faster. And in two months’ time, maybe she’s in better shape. So subtract another second. But even then we’re only at 2:27. That’s not close to sub-4 shape.”

As a result, I think the odds of the event being cancelled are much greater than her breaking 4:00.

But if it does take place, what will happen?

When Nike first announced it, it made zero sense to me as a sub-4:00 seems so preposterous. But having thought about how it would play out, it will be entertaining for fans. So I understand why Nike is planning an event which has almost a zero percent chance of being successful.

As a result, I expect the event will take place and the best-case scenario is they try to hit 3/4th of a mile in 3:02 and she runs 4:04 high. That might sound like a big downer, but it could be mesmerizing for casual fans as they would be trying to convince themselves she could somehow find a 57.9 final quarter or a 26 final 200.

Now, if they do it and try to force the pace so she hits 3/4th of a mile at sub-4 pace, I think she’ll blow up and maybe run slower than her current world record.

One other way to think about this is this. Do you think if Nike set this same event up for Jakob Ingebrigtsen that he could run 3:20.35 for 1500 meters or 3:36.83 for the full mile? Well those are the times you get if he improves the exact same percentage they are asking Faith to make in the mile.

Talk about Faith’s sub-4 attempt on the world-famous LetsRun.com messageboard: Faith Kipyegon Breaking4 attempt confirmed -will go for sub-4 mile in Paris on June 26th.