Nike Milers - giving you the tools to get faster

Run247's Supermum Cally went along to the launch of Nike Milers to find out why the mile is a great distance to work on improving your speed

Nike Milers is a training programme to make you a faster athlete. Whatever the distance you are training for, a faster mile makes all the difference, and with the distance rooted in Nike's history and heritage, the brand is giving runners the tools they need to go faster – including the likes of introducing regular track sessions, support through Nike+ and Nike Zoom products.

The launch event was held on a sunny April evening in a subterranean car park in Hyde Park. Hosted by Paula Radcliffe (amazingly fresh after completing the Virgin Money London Marathon less than 48 hours previously) and Steve Cram, we were treated to a lively discussion about why the mile is a great distance to work on improving your speed. Too often runners focus on increasing their distance, whereas the elite athletes spend a lot of time working on shorter, faster sessions, even those who (like Paula) run marathon distance.

Representatives from the British Athletics team (Gemma Steel, Laura Weightman, Ross Murray, Jake Wightman, Kyle Langford and Charlie Grice) lined up at the start of a mile course that weaved around the neon lit car park, preceded by a camera on a motorbike so that we could watch their journey on huge screens running the length of the wall. Despite their different distance specialities, they stayed together as a tight pack, completing the mile in around 5 minutes, although I suspect that none of them were trying to set any records. Paula and Steve then interviewed them about their future training and competition plans. Eilish McColgan was also there, but due to injury was unable to run, she is however flying out to Utah this week to start altitude training.

We were then split into groups, initially working with David Harmer, British Athletics Endurance Coach. He explained that being an athlete is not just about going out running, it’s about how you look after your body, including how you warm up before a run. He took us through some warm up drills, which gradually worked the whole body, including some that seem to be based on dance moves, including step ball changes and can-can! Physically, I definitely felt more prepared than usual for a run and it was now that we moved onto preparing psychologically.

Jennifer Savage is a British Athletics Sports Psychologist and she explained that when people try and use positive self talk to convince themselves of success, they too often focus on the outcome e.g. winning the race rather than on how they will get there e.g. start strong and focussed. Also, they may use unrealistic positive self talk e.g. winning the race (in my case) and they then don’t believe themselves. She explained that each athlete may have different psychological barriers that hold them back from achieving their potential and she works closely with their coach to identify these and work on eliminating them.

With all of this top notch guidance, now was the time to put our bodies and minds to the test! We were set off in pairs around the course. It certainly didn’t hinder our progress that we were kitted out by Nike in their Nike Miler range, including Nike Air Zoom Vomero 10’s that gave a reassuring grip on the car park surface.

I had previously set my best mile time at the launch of the London City Mile, where I achieved 7minutes 29 seconds, I was quite sure that I could beat this as there were no pedestrians to dodge (and more importantly I’d had some expert coaching)! I set off down the ramp leading into the car park and I think I was running 100m pace rather than mile pace as I burned out really quickly, my asthma kicked in within a minute and my legs felt like lead due to the lactic burn. I was determined to give it my all as I knew that it wouldn’t be for too long. I was overtaken by some of the ‘youngsters’ from Run Dem Crew, but otherwise I think I held my position fairly consistently throughout. Running around an underground car park as fast I could is certainly not something that I’ll forget in a hurry. I also recorded a fairly impressive mile time (for me) of 6 minutes 44 seconds.

All in all it was a great evening, with lots of great tips to take away. Whilst running shorter faster distances is not something I particularly enjoy, I definitely appreciate that it is an important ingredient in training, no matter what your distance and I intend to try and slot in these sessions when the kids have gone to bed later than usual and I don’t have much time to get my run in.

The Nike Milers hub is now live: www.nike.com/gb/en_gb/c/running/milers

Here, you can sign up to the newly created Track Session at Mile End (starting 6th May) where you can train with British Athletics Coaches who will put you through your paces to make you a faster and more efficient runner. The hub will also be updated over the coming months to include additional tools to help you do faster.