A mile in these shoes
Meticulous detail went into a one-off shoe that Brooks Running developed for one athlete in one race this summer. The result is a new world record for the mile.
Scottish middle-distance athlete Josh Kerr has broken the world record for the mile. He achieved the feat in July, running the distance (just over 1,600 metres) in 3 minutes, 42.6 seconds. This breaks the previous record, which had stood for 27 years, by half a second. He said afterwards that breaking the mile record had been his main goal for this year and that he had planned meticulously for his record-breaking run, which came at a wider athletics event at the London Stadium.
This preparation included working intensely with footwear brand Brooks Running to develop a pair of custom, race-day spikes. The Seattle-based company called the new shoe the Hyperion 222 because the whole project had a clear target from the start: for Josh Kerr to complete the distance in 3 minutes 42, working out at 222 seconds.
Originally from Edinburgh, Josh Kerr became a Brooks athlete in 2018 after completing a highly successful college athletics career while studying at the University of New Mexico. He pitched Project 222 to the company in 2025 and serious work to make the dream come true began in March this year.
History rewritten
The Hyperion 222 shoe is the result of what the company has called “rigorous testing”, which took into account the athlete’s individual biomechanics and racing rhythm. Features in the finished shoe include a fine-tuned carbon plate system and a one-of-a-kind upper. Brooks also supplied a race-day speed suit featuring aerodynamic and temperature-regulating functionality. Josh Kerr was the sole tester of the suit, which Brooks said contained “our lightest materials ever” to allow the athlete to focus solely on his record-attempt.
With the new record in the bag, Brooks said: “When preparation meets belief, history can be re-written.”
Target date
Josh Kerr went public with the Project 222 plans in March. He says now that committing this early to a specific date [the London Stadium event was already in the calendar for July 18] helped. “It meant there was no turning back,” he remarks. “Everything was built around that one day. It was a pressure-day, but I think you have to have that pressure.” Pacemakers were part of the record-attempt, but it was still what the athlete refers to as “a real race”, and he thinks that helped too, as did having “a team of incredible, world-class people” working with him.
March to July is a long time to prepare for a run that you hope will last only 222 seconds. There was, immediately, a lot of publicity about it and many media demands. There were also lots of training sessions to work through, with injury-avoidance one of the key objectives, and a strict diet to follow. “Then there were the mindset problems from the pressure I was under,” he says. “It all had to work together.”
He makes the point that there are many opportunities when running, say, a two-hour marathon to control the variables that can occur. You have time to make splits faster or slower if, say, the wind conditions change. There is time to work out the strategies other runners are deploying and decide how best to respond to them. “When you only have 3 minutes, 42 seconds’ worth of variables, there are not that many things you can do,” he observes.
Personal best
This means preparation was almost everything and, clearly, this includes the shoes. The Hyperion 222 were completely custom-made for this particular athlete to run a world-record time over this specific distance.
They were built around his unique foot-strike using a last moulded from his foot. Each shoe has “an extreme rocker geometry”, which meant the wearer could launch himself off the toe instantly, with this asymmetrical push-off offering what the company has called “an ultra-aggressive ride”.
The shoe also features an optimised foam compound for cushioning. Brooks has not revealed the composition of the foam, but it was able to keep the weight of each shoe down to a reported 100 grammes by measuring exactly how much foam to use (to suit Josh Kerr’s body weight) and where in the shoe to put it. For example, the athlete’s landing pattern is forefoot-biased, making less foam in the heel possible.
The carbon-fibre plate, which Brooks has described as the stiffest plate it has ever made, has integrated traction and titanium pins for what it terms “full-tilt racing”.
Technology waits for no one
The new mile world-record-holder says he is completely convinced that he could only have run the time he achieved in the specific shoes he developed with Brooks. He says technology will continue to advance and, as a consequence, record times for the mile, the marathon and most other distances will continue to come down. But running shoes have undergone countless iterations and improvements since previous world-record holder, Moroccan athlete Hicham El Guerrouj ran the mile in 3 minutes, 43.13 seconds. That was in Rome in 1999. All of the advances in footwear materials and construction that have taken place in the whole of the twenty-first century so far were not enough to beat that time, until now.
In general, one advantage today’s athletes have from recent footwear construction developments, according to Josh Kerr, is that lighter weights, greater spring, increased comfort and protection mean that training sessions, as well as races, are taking less toll on runners’ feet and bodies. This means recovery between training and events takes less time and no more “hobbling around on a Saturday” after a week’s work. The Hyperion 222 is special, though. There are unconfirmed reports that a very limited-edition public version of the shoe may become available, but it is, essentially, a one-off.
Head of sports marketing at Brooks, Garrett Heath, says the whole of Project 222 was historic, for the company, the athelte and for the sport. “Josh set out to chase one of the toughest records in athletics and succeeded through courage, preparation and belief. We are honoured to have supported him on this journey.”
Immediately after his momentous run on July 18, Josh Kerr said the Brooks team, “the people who created the spikes”, were fundamental in creating the new record, saying he got over the line in 222 seconds because of the job that they had done.
Josh Kerr breaking the world record for the mile with a time of 3 minutes, 42.6 seconds. Credit: Brooks Running
