A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1.6 km) in four minutes or less. It translates to a speed of 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). It is a standard of professional middle distance runners in several cultures.
Middle-distance running events are track races longer than sprints, ranging from 500 metres up to two miles. The standard middle distances are the 800 metres, 1500 metres and mile run, although the 3000 metres may also be classified as a middle-distance event. The 1500 m came about as a result of running 3+3⁄4 laps of a 400 m outdoor track or 7+1⁄2 laps of a 200 m indoor track, which were commonplace in continental Europe in the 20th century.
The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athletics since 1983. It is equivalent to 1.5 kilometers or approximately 15⁄16 miles. The event is closely associated with its slightly longer cousin, the mile race, from which it derives its nickname "the metric mile".
The mile run is a middle-distance foot race.
Jordan Melissa Hogan is an American distance runner. She attended Mission College Preparatory High School in San Luis Obispo and was unanimously selected 2008 Girls High School Athlete of the Year by the voting panel at Track and Field News. In March 2009, she became the ninth high school athlete and third woman on the cover of Track and Field News magazine.
Mount Gilead High School is a public high school in Mount Gilead, Ohio. It is the only high school in the Mount Gilead Exempted Village Schools district. Their nickname is the Indians. The school currently is under superintendent Dr. Zack Howard. The school uses three buildings for students: Park Avenue, a K-5 building; Cherry Street, a middle school containing 6–8; and the High School, also located on Park Avenue. Over the past four years the Cross Country team has participated in the state tournament. In 2002 Jake Haughn won the Division III OHSAA 3200 Meter run title in track, at the time setting a new record. The School has a long-standing and fierce rivalry with Cardington-Lincoln High School.
German Fernandez is a retired American professional runner from Riverbank, California, known for his performance in high school and collegiate cross country and track and field. Later he trained under Jerry Schumacher for the Bowerman Track Club. He is most well known for running the California Cross Country State Meet course record (14:24), as well as running a new American high-school record, 8:34.40 for two miles, at the 2008 Nike Outdoor Nationals championship. He also holds the World Junior Indoor Mile record at 3:55.02. A local meet in Riverbank, California, the German Fernandez Distance Carnival, is named after him.
The 2 mile is a historic running distance. Like the mile run, it is still contested at some invitational meets due its historical chronology in the United States and United Kingdom. It has been largely superseded by the 3000 m and 5000 m, and by the 3200 m in NFHS American high school competitions. The IAAF no longer keeps official world records for this distance; they are called world best instead.
Polly Anne Plumer is an American track and field athlete who set the National High School record holder in the Mile run at 4:35.24, in open competition at UCLA May 16, 1982 while a student at University High School. That distance is no longer run in high school competition since the NFHS converted to metric distances in 1980, but it is still an international record event. Her record lasted over 30 years until it was surpassed on January 26, 2013 by Mary Cain, indoors, running 4:32.78 at the New Balance Games. Cain later improved her own mark to 4:28.25, also indoors at the Millrose Games. Because Cain's marks were set on an indoor track, which is generally considered to be more difficult, they were not recognized by Track and Field News the ratifier of high school records in non-NFHS sanctioned events, so Plumer retains the record as published. Christine Babcock, born 8 years and 3 days after Plumer's record, running for Woodbridge High School, also in Irvine, took the record in the more commonly run but shorter 1600 meters to an equitable 4:33.82 in 2008. Babcock's record was improved to 4:33.29 in 2014 by Alexa Efraimson.
Lukas Verzbicas is an American triathlete. A prominent high school track and cross country runner, Verzbicas holds the U.S. high school national record in the 2 mile with a time of 8:29.46. He was also the fifth American high school boy to run a sub four-minute mile, running 3:59.71 at the end of his senior year of high school.
Jeff Nelson is an American former long distance runner. He was a high school phenom at Burbank High School, where he set the national high school record in the 2 mile run, the predecessor to today's 3200 meter run, at 8:36.3. He set the record before a national television audience, running in open competition at the Pepsi Invitational, May 6, 1979 at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Low hurdle races are a generally defunct form of track and field hurdle racing. The event, generally run at or near a distance of 200 metres, was popular through 1960 at the international level. After that, the IAAF stopped ratifying records in the 200 metres low hurdles and it became far less common. United States high schools ran a shortened version of the race, the 180 yard low hurdles, until 1974, when most states and the NFHS converted to running the 330 yard low hurdles that with metrification evolved into the 300 meter intermediate hurdles, a shortened version of the international 400 metres hurdles. Because the race occurred in a male dominated era, there was no common female equivalent of the race. At the time the race lost its world record position, women were only occasionally running hurdles and when they did it was the 80 meter hurdles, over barriers the same height as the men's low hurdles.
David Torrence was a Peruvian-American middle-distance runner and indoor American record holder in the 1000 meters (active). Born in Okinawa, Japan, Torrence was raised in Tarzana, California. After graduating from Loyola High School in 2003, he went on to run for the University of California, Berkeley and Hoka One One. Torrence represented Peru at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Grant Jackson Fisher is an American middle- and long-distance runner. Fisher holds American records in the 3000 m, two mile, 5000 m, and 10,000 m events. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Fisher won bronze medals in the 5000 m and 10,000 m, becoming the first American to medal in both events at an Olympic Games.
Craig Engels is an American middle-distance runner. He competed for the United States at the 2013 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships, where he won the men's 1500 meters. In the 2016 USA Olympic Trials Engels was focused on making the semi-finals of the 800m and was listed as an alternate for the 1500m. He finished 4th in the 800m final and 5th in the 1500m final, missing out on the Olympics in both events.
Luke Puskedra is an American long-distance runner who competes over distances ranging from 10,000 meters to the marathon.
Emily Sisson is an American long-distance runner. She set the North American record in the marathon on October 9, 2022, when she ran 2:18:29 to finish second at the Chicago Marathon. Sisson also held the American record in the half marathon from May 2022 until July 2023. She represented the United States in the 10000 metres at the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships, finishing 9th and 10th. In June 2021, she won the 10000m at the 2020 US Olympic Trials and placed 10th in the 10000m final at the 2020 Summer Olympics. In 2024, she placed second in the marathon at the US Olympic Trials, qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics. She competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics Women's marathon on 11 August 2024, where she finished 23rd.
Katelyn Tuohy is an American professional middle- and long-distance runner.
1600 meters is a middle distance track and field running event that is slightly shorter than the more common mile run, and 100 meters longer than the much more frequent 1500m run.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen 7:51.35c (2023)
Meseret Defar 8:55.45c (2007)
