The mile run (1,609.35 metres or 5,280 feet) is a middle-distance foot race.
The history of the mile run event began in England, where it was used as a distance for gambling races. It survived track and field's switch to metric distances in the 1900s and retained its popularity, with the chase for the four-minute mile in the 1950s a high point for the race.
In spite of the roughly equivalent 1500 metres race, the mile run is present in all fields of athletics and it remains the only imperial distance for which the IAAF records an official world record. Although the mile does not feature at any major championship competition, the Wanamaker Mile and Dream Mile races are among the foremost annual middle-distance races indoors and outdoors, respectively.
The current mile world record holders are Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj with 3:43.13 minutes and Svetlana Masterkova of Russia with the women's record of 4:12.56 minutes.
Read more about Mile Run: History
Famous quotes containing the words mile and/or run:
“For now the moon with friendless light carouses
On hill and housetop, street and marketplace,
Men will plunge, mile after mile of men,
To crush this lucent madness of the face....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)