Like Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the 3000m could well prove to be George Mills’ sweet spot right now. After starting out as an 800m runner, Mills has excelled at 1500m and 5000m in recent seasons but on Sunday, February 2 in France he set a UK record of 7:27.92.
Mills’ previous best was a modest 7:54.27 from last year although he has run a 3:47.65 mile outdoors and 12:58.68 for 5000m indoors.
Like Ingebrigtsen, Mills also seems to thrive off relatively high mileage and lots of threshold running. For the past three months he’s buried himself away in South Africa to train and is now enjoying the fruits of his labour.
In France on Sunday he enjoyed a runaway victory to win by 12 seconds, although fellow Brit Charlie Wheeler also ran with a PB of 7:44.68 in fifth.
Kerr’s UK record of 7:30.14 was set in New York last year en route to a world two miles best.
Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia holds the world indoor 3000m record with 7:23.81 with only one European ever having run faster than Mills indoors – the now banned Spanish athlete Mo Katir.
Mills now sits No.9 on the world all-time indoor rankings ahead of the likes of Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele and Mo Farah.
The world outdoor record of 7:17.55 was set by Ingebrigtsen in Poland last year.
Source: AW
