The easy part, says Josh Kerr, is getting to the top.
What’s considerably harder, he’s finding out, is staying there.
While retaining his place at the top of the men’s 1500m tree is far from easy, Kerr is as well-equipped as anyone to manage it.
There are few better examples of Kerr’s ability to live up to both the hype and the pressure than his last outing; earlier this month, at the Grand Slam Track meet in Philadelphia, the Scot was in a lowly sixth place with just 200m of the 1500m to go.
Twenty seconds later, he’d won the race, beating the Olympic champion in the process.
It was a performance that illustrated Kerr’s desire, desperation even, to continue improving year-on-year, which is not always easy when the standard you’ve set is being the best 1500m runner on the planet.
“For sure, it’s easier to get to the top than stay at the top,” Kerr says.
“When you’re trying to get to the top, you can take multiple attempts whereas when you’re trying to stay at the top, every person on the planet is gunning for you every single race.
“Getting to the top, you're exploring what works for you, and to stay at the top, you have to keep adapting and get the balance right.
“I've learned so much over the past three years and now, I’ve got a real wealth of knowledge about what works for me and what doesn't. Each year, I up my level of professionalism and improve the way I live my life, the way I train and the way I race.”
“I’ve built off last year and I feel the strongest I've ever been. I'm working on my speed now so I think it's going to end up with some pretty awesome performances.”
The 27-year-old from Edinburgh has evolved into one of the faces of track and field.
His world 1500m title in 2023, which was bookended by Olympic bronze and Olympic silver in 2021 and 2024 is, to date, the high point of Kerr’s career and kick-started a rivalry with the Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen which brought an audience to the sport whose attention had been captured by the back-and-forth between the pair.
Both Kerr and Ingebrigtsen, however, failed to become Olympic champion last summer with American Cole Hocker producing one of the upsets of Paris to claim the 1500m title.
Given Kerr had begun last year stating explicitly that his aim was to become Olympic champion, his Olympic silver was, on paper, a failure.
But a personal best time and a British record in the Olympic final softened the blow somewhat and over the months that followed Paris 2024, Kerr came to accept that he’s not always going to be able to live up to the standards he sets himself. And he hasn’t, perhaps surprisingly, used that defeat in the Olympic final as motivation for this season.
“Olympic silver produces very mixed emotions,” he says.
“I've shown up every year for the last six years and run either a season's best or a personal best in major championships finals and that's the best I can do. I have no control over what anyone else does.
“Yes, if I don't win, I'm not happy with how my year went. That’s a pretty tough standard to meet and it's one I'm not going to meet every year because I'm a human being.
“When you set those standards, you have to be strict with yourself but I love what I do and if I wasn't getting paid to do it, I would still do it because I'm so curious to see how far I can push my body and see if I can keep putting on these performances in high-pressure environments.”
Kerr has raced six times so far this year, all of which have been at Grand Slam Track meets.
The new venture, set up by Olympic running great, Michael Johnson, was developed with the aim of revitalising athletics and bringing it to a new, wider audience.
Kerr has been one of the most prominent faces in Grand Slam Track this season and on the track, the Scot certainly lived up his billing, winning his first Grand Slam Track title at the second meet in Miami last month with impressive performances over both 1500m and 800m (and taking home $100,000 as a result) while at the most recent meet in Philadelphia, Kerr produced one of the most thrilling performances of the weekend with his aforementioned surge from sixth place to first in the 1500m.
This race in particular highlighted one of the major selling points of Grand Slam Track which is that athletes will be racing to beat each other rather than merely chasing fast times, which is what, to it’s detriment, the sport has widely focused upon in recent years.
Grand Slam Track has lofty aspirations to change the face of athletics and while not all of the initial aims have been fulfilled, Kerr retains the belief that it’s been, and will continue to be, a very good thing for the sport.
“The first meet was the first meet. We weren't sure how it was going to go and in some respects, the organisers wanted it to be the Super Bowl but that's very hard to do,” he says.
“What was so awesome about it, though, is that it was continually being tweaked to make it better. And as athletes, we had an awesome time. We got treated like professionals and we raced against the best athletes in the world, which I really liked.
“Recently, we've been running time trials a lot and I wouldn't say that becomes boring but it is very difficult physically and mentally to keep running like that. In the 1500m at Grand Slam Track, we provided some really great entertainment and that’s what people like watching.
“So I feel like Grand Slam track is on a really good trajectory, and I'm excited to see how it looks next season.”
A sizeable bump in the road for Grand Slam Track has been the cancellation of the fourth and final meet, which had been scheduled for next weekend in LA. It is, says founder Michael Johnson, a “business decision” and while many have used the meet’s cancellation as a stick with which to beat the project, Kerr feels none of that pessimism.
“There's always going to be positives and negatives at the start of every new venture and Grand Slam track is just trying to find its way. And actually, I think dropping LA this season is the right decision,” he says.
“It's easy for audiences to sit and critique but I feel like Grand Slam Track was good because it was improving with each meet.
“There's always going to be some negatives around a decision like the one to cancel LA but, at the end of the day, they want to put on the best track meets in the world and elevate the sport, which can only be a good thing.”
The cancellation of next week’s event means Kerr’s competitive appearances will be sparse between now and the World Championships in Tokyo in September, at which he’ll be defending his world 1500m title.
On his schedule between now and his world title defence is only the London Athletics Meet next month and the British Championships in August. This will, he is confident, ensure he’s in the best possible shape both physically and mentally when he arrives in Tokyo later in the season.
“The year is planned out to make sure I’m at my best for Tokyo and that's all on track,” he says.
“My sessions are coming together and everything else is coming together too so I can't complain with where I'm at. Things are going to plan as of right now and the aim is absolutely to retain my world title.”
