This is the start of one of the biggest racing achievements of my life.
And this is the moment it all changed.
I'm here with my coach, Andy Hobdell,
to relive the race step-by-step. We're going to give you some behind the scenes,
exclusive insight into the training that I did in the lead up to the race,
how I was feeling on the day,
and then ultimately the tactics and what was going through my mind in the race
itself. If you liked the video, please make sure you hit the like button.
And if you want to join our amazing community of runners from all over the
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So how much can you remember of the buildup into the
Dream Mile, training wise?
I remember the race itself pretty much like it was yesterday,
but actually the prep beforehand,
I just remember knowing that I was in the best shape of my life.
We always took confidence,
or I always took confidence from you showing me in training sessions,
the amazing thing that we had was that you would quite often predict stuff
with, without telling me,
or sent me a training session that I never thought was possible for me to
complete. And then I would do it and be, you know,
slightly better than I imagined I could, you know, ever dream of doing it,
and that gave me such confidence that you knew what you're talking about,
but that you really understood me and, and what shape I was in.
Yeah. And then let's just get some context. When I first started coaching you,
do you remember how many times a week you were training?
No, not many. I think I say being generous four runs a week.
And what was your key track session that you were very proud of?
Yeah. Six, six, lots of 400 meters. That was it. Six, four hundreds.
And you said I'm good to go? Yeah, I spent the whole,
I'd always spend every summer just trying to get faster and reducing and
reducing my mileage. But then actually during my most successful seasons,
I was keeping my mileage really high, the workouts,
even when they were specific to 1500 meters, still had quite a lot of volume in them
on the track. And yeah, really proud of
like my threshold running was probably the thing that,
that really helped me take a step step up in terms of,
essentially competing at a world-class
level. But I mean, going into the Dream Mile,
one of those things which really comes home to me is we both knew that you were
the fittest you'd ever been, alright. You'd won a lot of races.
You got used to winning, which is a key thing. You've highlighted that already.
You've got to learn to win. Sometimes you drop down in the quality of a race,
but you've got to learn to win. And you were doing that.
And so 2008 was that year, where for me,
all of those things that we'd worked on came together.
Remember when it used to be the Gold League, not the Diamond League?
I preferred that. That's how old I am. You're not old.
Every time - and it's not that often I rewatch this, I promise - every time,
every time I rewatch it, I feel nervous when the names come up on the screen.
See, now I've got this saved on my phone.
So when you say about watching it every,
every now and then I've got it saved on my phone. I mean, why, why wouldn't you,
how often do you watch it then? At least twice a day.
Okay. Yeah. Fair enough.
"Andy Baddeley, of course, of Great Britain, a man who established himself as one of the best in the world last year,
as a 3:51 mile at his best. Look out, though, for Augustine Choge. He won in Berlin last week over 1500m.
This is the Golden League event tonight, it's the mile..."
It's strange seeing the, you know,
behind the lines and the kit bags and the boxes and stuff,
and seeing my- I had a routine,
I used to splash water on my hands and my face and my shoulders and my legs and
all that sort of stuff. Yeah but your hair was shorter then.
It wasn't even that hot. It was, it's what I used to do. It was part of that,
maybe superstition, but just getting into the...
"Just over 4 laps of the track."
"And away they go. The track record incidentally is mighty impressive: 3:44.9."
It always happens really fast.
Like you're putting stuff in your kit box and then all of a sudden you get
called to the line. Um, and everyone forgets,
there's an extra nine meters in the Mile as well.
So you don't start with exactly four laps to go. Oh, the
Number of people that say to me, look,
I've just run a mile and they've run four laps of the track.
And I look at them, well, no, you've forgotten the extra bit.
Yeah, adds on a little bit.
And it does make pacing really difficult as well because you're used to what
your, your split times is going to be.
It makes the start line difficult because you're starting on a curve and
everyone dives into lane one. I've fallen over in a mile previously, um,
right off the start line because people just piled in on me.
And so getting off the start line safely is actually not that straightforward. I
mean, to be fair, I've seen you fall over a couple of times at the start,
which is probably why you develop this habit of maybe not being the quickest off
the line. Is that fair?
I think so. And I did get a bit of stick for that. But, um,
often when I was running my best, I wanted to get off the line,
be able to see everybody and see what was happening from the front towards the
back, and then, you know,
work out what pace I was going at and trust my pace judgment,
which was more key than ever before in this race. I mean, to
be honest, I think you were ahead of your time,
because if you look at the likes of Mo Farah and people like that these days,
where do they normally start?
I mean, he's got a lot, much longer, much longer race to get it right.
And obviously won a lot of Olympic gold medals. But, um, I,
when I was fully in control of my racing,
I was comfortable being anywhere in that field and, uh, being able to,
to move up and move through.
Yeah, so I find it funny when I watched the race and listen to what the commentators
are saying. They talk about the leaders, they talk their way down
through the field, and they don't mention you because you're at the back. I'm
not even in shot here. We're coming through one lap ridiculously fast,
53 seconds is 800 meter pace, not, not one mile pace. Um,
and actually at this point coming through the first lap, you can't see him now,
but on the infield actually just past through the camera there on the infield was a
guy who was working with my agent Marie Plant. And he was yelling at me,
he's Australian. And he was swearing a lot.
And he was yelling at me to get with it, get **** there, get, get,
get back in the race, because I was drifting off the back. Can I be- Can I be honest?
The reason why he was shouting at you is because you were second from last.
I mean, let's be serious, right? It's like, come on, get your **** up there.
Yeah. He had a, he had a point. I genuinely, at
the time though didn't feel that nervous about it, but when he shouted at me,
it did give me a kickstart and it made sure- you can see the race is kind of split,
those two guys got left behind.
And actually I was just focused on making sure that I didn't get gapped.
And I was staying with these guys.
Yeah. I mean, I mean, my memory is very much a, just, "Badders, stay with them.
Stay with them. The pace is fast. The pace is good and strong,
but you just got to hang with it" and you are, you're with that group.
You just at the back, but you're with the group and you're hanging on to them.
I mean, here we are 800 meters done. It was quick and you're still there.
So what were you thinking? It's halfway through.
And it's just starting to bunch up and I could see the splits.
I was always quite aware of split times and I could see the, the big clock and
that was like, that was world record mile pace. And I just saw,
I could feel people start coming back to me.
And this was the point when I knew - the third lap's the thing we've always talked about,
we hammered it so much in training the third lap, your most tired,
it's the least part of the race where you want to push. And all I was doing was,
as people dropped off the back of the race,
I was making sure I passed them and I stayed in touch.
"Andy Baddeley, by the way, right towards the back of the field for the first couple of laps, but he's very much in touch and now beginning to move through."
"[inaudible] more sensible splits for the first two laps. He's run..."
It's really good. Cause for me, watching,
you were doing absolutely the right thing, coming around just past 500 meters and
you're starting to edge your way up the field approaching the last lap - just what
I wanted to see.
Yeah. For me, it was always 500 metres to go.
So you've got to do the work in the home straight to get into the right position
at the bell. So all of a sudden I've gone from last in the space of a lap
to now I'm fifth at the bell.
I'd all of a sudden realised how much I had left in my tank from having conserved
energy and been sensible with my pacing.
Ultimate question. Did you think you were going to win coming into the last lap?
So I don't know. If I, I don't know whether I've convinced myself that I did,
but I'm pretty sure that I did.
I definitely, all of a sudden the bell rang and this switch went on in my mind,
which was, this is there, this is there for you to take it.
And I knew the guys in front of me, I knew who they were,
and I knew that they looked tired.
"... Andy Baddeley in fourth place is looking strong..."
I knew it was going to come. And just as you're coming here, you can just see,
here we go, you just start to straighten up.
You can see the leader, you're coming around and it's just, for me,
there was just goosebumps. Look, it's happening. The funny thing
is this is the point, literally a hundred, hundred and ten, hundred and fifty metres to go,
in my mind, I was already in the lead genuinely. I've retold this to my wife.
And she was like, we talked about it.
You went into the lead with 30 meters to go. And, uh,
but in my mind retelling it,
I guess I was absolutely convinced I was going to win coming into the home straight.
[inaudible].
You look over your shoulder and you pass, you pass, and you're in the lead.
You're away, you're winning, you're winning, you're winning.
"It's Andy Baddeley who's run so strongly at 800m last week, and a win here tonight from Andy Baddeley."
You just won the Dream Mile, oh my God, it was awesome.
Here's the best bit though,
because I get given some flowers and I actually won a lot of races this
year, but I didn't have them to the point where I'd won loads and loads of races.
So being able to do a lap of honor, I get given the flowers and stuff,
and also really nice thing here.
You're about to be on camera, coach, when I give you the flowers and you very
rarely travelled with me to European races. Um,
we had confidence in what we talked about beforehand in the race plan that we
put together. Um, and I actually got to give you the flowers in the crowd,
which was pretty special.
It was the funniest thing, just walking down there, taking the flowers,
and then looking back at the guys that I was with going "they're all mine."
Yeah. Magical moment, being able to do a lap of honour
in, you know, for me growing up,
what was the most historic stadium in the world for,
for the distance that I was passionate about - running a mile, 1500 meters,
Oslo was the place to go. And we'd always talked about it.
And we talked about going under 3:50 being truly world-class. I remember you
stealing the results off the wall.
That's it, that's it.
I've got those on a print-out at home and a poster that I think we ripped out of
one of the poster cases as well. That's on the wall at home as well.
So I mean, not just winning the Dream Mile. That year,
you were the fastest miler in the world.
Yeah. So winning that race and then finishing up the end of 2008 Olympic year as the
fastest in the world. That is definitely a career highlight.
There were not too many people who can say that I was the fastest miler in the
world. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Oh, that's amazing.
Yeah. So they, they're gonna, they're gonna re-show the,
the, the slightly embarrassing moment I crossed the line and I made a,
I made a gesture, which I hadn't really thought about it.
It was totally automatic at the time, but I went, I went to,
to say "ssh" basically, um, and that was,
it was pent up emotion because all that people have been talking about before
this race, it was nothing to do with,
there were loads of British runners in lots of different events,
running and jumping and, and achieving really good things.
But all they were talking about were various people who had served drugs bans,
and whether or not they were going to be eligible for the Olympics. And so that,
that gesture for me was, as to the media, the press. It was like, you know,
stop talking about that stuff and, and write about this stuff.
We've got like genuine, you know, exciting prospects to talk about.
Um, and that had wound me up to this point.
So I think that was just a little bit of outpouring of emotions and yeah,
I was running so fast and so tired at the end that I completely missed my mouth.
And no one knew what I was talking about anyway. So it was pointless.
I knew the training you've done. I knew what work had gone into that.
I think you were, you were more confident than me at this point. Uh,
I guess I needed to be shown, and this was a race where I got to show
myself. I mean, do you know how confident I was? I got a ticket and I came out to watch you.
I didn't think about it. There's a reason why I was there. I just knew.
I still get goosebumps watching it.
And it's amazing to go through it with you and, and relive it. Um,
but the thing that makes me happiest is that you were there with me, um,
as part of this career that I had.
And you helped me have that you shared that moment with me. So thank you. Yeah.
And can I just say the journey we have had has just been simply amazing and to
have highlights like this, the Dream Mile, the winner, world
class time, world's fastest time. Not many people get to do that,
and it's been an absolute pleasure.
Cheers. So there you have it,
a sneak peek into the mind of an elite runner during a crucial race.
What's your most memorable race? Let us know in the comments below.
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