About this episode

Caden Leonard discusses his journey to break the four-minute mile and the strategies he employs to win races.

He's 0.08 seconds from the four-minute mile, and Festival of Miles is the race he's had circled all year. Caden Leonard arrives in St. Louis as the top-ranked high school miler in the country—coming off a 4:00.07 indoor and a 4:01.02 outdoor, the fastest mile ever run by a prep athlete on Texas soil. Last year he ran this same race through a stress reaction nobody knew about. This year he's healthy, hungry, and done waiting. In this conversation, Caden breaks down exactly how he plans to race the most loaded high school mile field of the year– with Jackson Spencer, Quentin Nauman, Alan Webb's record hovering in the background—and why his strategy isn't to chase a time, it's to win. He talks about extending the kick to make the hurt last longer, staying on the pace instead of reacting to it, and what it cost him last year to give guys like Quentin a head start he couldn't make up. He also gets into what sub-4 at Festival of Miles would actually mean; not just for him, but for his dad, who has now coached two Carroll milers to the doorstep of the barrier. Caden watched Reed Brown do it online as a kid and decided that was the standard. Festival of Miles is where he finds out if…

People in this episode

Host: Dominic Schlueter

Guest: Caden Leonard

Topics covered

• high school running
• mile race
• coaching
• athletic strategy
• personal achievement

Keywords

• Caden Leonard
• four-minute mile
• Festival of Miles
• high school miler
• running strategy
• coaching
• athletic performance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Festival of Miles

Places: Texas, St. Louis

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