Not many know about the connection between Faith Kipyegon’s ambitious ‘Breaking4’ project and a county Down woman, that isn’t Ciara Mageean.
On 26 June in the Stade Charléty in Paris, the three-time Olympic champion will attempt a feat that until 1954 was deemed impossible for men, supported by research completed by PhD student and Dromore AC’s Rebekah Osborne.
Middle-distance running and physiology weren’t the initial focus of Osbourne’s PhD. That quickly changed when a conversation with her supervisor for the Nike-backed role revealed they would be willing to fund a project focusing on middle-distance performance.
“As soon as I had the initial conversation with my supervisor from Nike, my background in middle-distance was brought up during the conversation,” Osborne told Irish Runner.
She added, “The timing of it was just perfect. And the fact that I could do something I was passionate about myself and go and research that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The 26-year-old won the Northern Ireland and Ulster senior 1500m title last year but is currently based in Exeter, where she is completing her PhD, which is a separate entity to the historic breaking 4 project.
Osborne is part of the research team at the University of Exeter led by Professor Andy Jones, who was a scientific advisor for Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour marathon project and has supported some of the world’s top athletes like Paula Radcliffe.
Osborne’s first paper under Jones was published last week and explores the possibility and physiological requirements of running a sub-4-minute mile.
Kipyegon took five seconds off the previous world record set by Sifan Hassan, lowering the time to 4:07.64 in the Monaco Diamond League in July 2023.
The viewpoint article also suggests other factors such as drafting, priming, nutritional supplements, and apparel, that may help bridge the 7.65-second gap.
The PhD student had the opportunity to meet Kipyegon and conduct research at the Nike World Headquarters in Oregon last September.
“We got to spend the best part of two days with Faith. From start to finish, it was just incredible to be with her.”
While Osborne must remain tight-lipped on the exact details of the project, she reveals a personal highlight was running on the Michael Johnson track, a bucket list experience for most of athletics’ elite.
“We did some testing in the Nike Sport Research Lab on the Monday morning. We did some physiology testing with her there.
“And on the Tuesday morning, it was a trip to the Michael Johnson track to do some field testing, which is probably a personal highlight of mine.”
The Northern Irish woman reveals she had to remind herself that the moments with Kipyegon were real when traveling to the track by car with the multiple-world-record holder and doing part of the warm-up with her.
“I was in the middle, and Faith was sitting to my right.
“I was literally rubbing shoulders with Faith. So that was a proper, pinch-me moment. And then when we got up to the track, I was able to do a bit of a warm-up with her as well before we started into the testing.”
There was also some familiarity for Kipyegon, who regularly races fellow county Down woman Mageean on the circuit.
“Ciara’s name did come up. I said that ‘you might recognise the accent’ because Ciara’s from 30 miles down the road from me.
“And her coach, Patrick Sang… Talked very fondly of Ciara too.
Osborne has another area of common ground with Kipyegon, who gave birth to her daughter in 2018. She is currently pregnant with her first child and explains that upon finding out the happy news, her thoughts turned to researching the process.
“As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I’m like, right, what kind of data can we get from this?
“We’re actually doing a case study on me at the moment.
“We have my baseline data from before the pregnancy. We’re tracking the data during the pregnancy, and then we’ll track it again after the pregnancy.”
Female representation in sport and medical research used to be scant.
It is a passion of Osborne’s to ensure that women are well represented in her work, and she has already completed a study on the characteristics of successful female middle-distance runners.
“I think it’s really important that women are represented in research, and that we do it.
“We can’t just assume that we are smaller, slower men.
“My first study was a sample of 21 athletes. We had 10 females and 11 males. So we could then do a sex comparison there as well.”
The paper that was published in the Journal of Applied Physiology last week states: “There is no female athlete presently displaying the endurance parameter ratio, or other physiological characteristics, required to run a sub-4 min mile.”
That may be Osborne’s professional opinion, but she thinks Kipyegon deserves to be celebrated whether she manages the feat or not.
“I would love to see her do it. And I think she needs to believe that she can do it.
“Whether she does it or not, I think she’s still the greatest middle-distance athlete… She’s a once-in-a-generation talent.
“I think that she should be celebrated no matter what. I think it would be a shame not to give her the opportunity to try to do this.”
Like Kipyegon, who is an inspiration to many for her feats on the track and returning to high-level sport after becoming a mother, Osborne is an inspiration in her own way.
Osborne’s journey shows that careers can arise from an interest and background in athletics, and don’t always involve running on the track for a living.
