And that’s where my doubt or concern came from regarding this weekend’s record attempt and Kerr’s season at large. This is a new position for him on the world stage, and any pressure he feels aside, the dude seems quite busy. As Jake Wightman can attest, the media attention can be a noisy distraction.

The question then is how does Kerr handle it all? To help, he has hired 4-5 employees to help manage all aspects of his business and life. As much as I want to make fun of a professional runner needing that big of a team, I am insanely jealous and it makes me think he’ll be okay. Imagine how good this newsletter would be if I didn’t have to go grocery shopping each week!

As Kerr, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and Wightman have spoken openly about their feelings about one another in the media during the off-season, the biggest beneficiary has been the fans. If you weren’t already invested, you should be now: Jakob claims he’d win 98 out of 100 times against the two Scots… who, if you’re keeping score at home, have won twice between them. 

All this while Jakob has bypassed the indoor season with a sore achilles. Most of us curl up in a little ball and cry ourselves to sleep at night when dealing with an injury, behavior which sits on the opposite end of the confidence spectrum from popping off to any Norwegian journalist willing to sit for an interview while you aqua jog. And that’s why Jakob is special — he not only forces his opponents to raise their game on the track, but to elevate their shit talking off of it.

But back to that track thing. Mo Farah’s previous 2-mile world record of 8:03.40 was a fast time. To put into perspective, it takes running a 7:30 3000m, then continuing on at that pace for another 218 meters. When Kerr won the Millrose 3000m last year, he did so in a time of 7:33.47. Has he become THAT much stronger? Or is he just that good at running downhill on the banks of The Armory track?

Given that Kerr was the one guaranteeing fans a world record performance, you might assume that he would have taken it upon himself to keep the pace honest. Instead, Grant Fisher – who must not listen to the Citius Mag podcast because Kerr was pretty clear about going for it! – was the first one on the rabbits. (Special rabbit shoutouts to Hazem Miawad, who got things started, and AJ Ernst, who towed the field through 2000m in 5:04. Ernst is making a name for himself in the rabbiting world, but also ran a 3:52 mile of his own last week – not bad for an unsponsored athlete working a full-time consulting job, who graduated with a 3:39 1500m PB a couple years back.)