After Josh Kerr broke the one-mile record in human history, he now has his eyes set on smashing the 1,500m and marathon benchmarks.
The Scotsman ran a stunning 3:42.66 at London’s Diamond League on Saturday to overtake previous record holder Hicham El Guerrouj by nearly half a second.
He revealed ‘Project 222’ in March, laying out his plans to rewrite the history books.
Additionally, Kerr has earned a $50,000 bonus for his historic feat, which was untouched since 1999.
However, the 28-year-old refuses to stop there and revealed his future aspirations exclusively on talkSPORT’s Hawksbee and Jacobs.
He revealed: “Yeah [I want to break the 1,500m record]. I mean the two records are pretty equivalent; it’s 3:42 in the mile. It’s 3:26:00 in the 1500 so I will have to be in the 3:25s.
“That’s our next goal, is to make our assault on the middle-distance world records, and I hope they’re entertaining watching us break them.
“We know what it’s like on social media and YouTube these days, so we’re just trying to show people what it’s like.”
Chasing greatness
Almost three decades ago, two-time Olympic gold medallist El Guerrouj set the men’s 1500m world record with an incredible time of 3:26:00.
Kerr now wants to smash the Moroccan’s second world-best benchmark in a different race.
At the London Stadium, the Brit’s split time at 1500m was 3:27:62 during his mile run; however, he would need to shave off just over 1.5 seconds to claim his next title.
He was then asked whether he would also want to target the marathon record, which was set this year during the London Marathon by Sebastian Sawe with a time of 1:59:30.
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Kerr added: “I’ve completed the half marathon a couple of times, every Sunday I do my long run for 17 miles, so I have the ability to do it but you have to wait for your time.
“I’m going to stick with what I’m good at for the moment and I will make that move [to marathon distance] in three or four years.”
A show for Scotland
The 28-year-old also spoke about the prospect of competing in front of a home crowd at the Commonwealth Games in July.
Around 3,000 elite athletes from different nations will compete across Glasgow over 11 days of action.
His next major outing will be the Commonwealth mile as he represents Team Scotland instead of Team GB.
He said: “I’m looking forward to putting the Scotland vest on, getting in front of the crowd, and putting on a show.”
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He added: “I’m very proud to put the GB vest on, but there’s a certain grit when you’re up against your fellow Brits and you’re competing in a different jersey.
“It’ll be nice for it to be in Scotland as well, in 2022 it was in England, now we’re playing the home leg.”
talkSPORT will be bringing coverage from Glasgow across the tournament, featuring expert voices such as Greg Rutherford and Christine Ohuruogu.
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