From “On The Road” in Track & Field News. May 1982. Cover price $1.75.
Auckland, April 3 – Steve Scott blazed to the fastest mile ever run by a human – 3:31.25 – but he only chuckled about it. Road miling made it from the sublime to the ridiculous with one swell foop.
Scott’s scorching effort came on the streets of the city in the Queen Street Mile, described afterward by one New Zealand newspaper as the “Queen Street Flying Mile.”
“This was just for fun,” said Scott. “Ray Flynn and I must have run 90 miles that week, including a very hilly ten-miler the Thursday before the race.” Besides Scott and Flynn, Aussie Mike Hillardt and New Zealand star John Walker added spice to the field.
“We should have known what to expect after the first two races,” Scott recalled. In a men’s race for local runners, the winner ran around 3:55.
And in the women’s race just prior to the invitational men’s event, New Zealand 800 champ Christine Hughes motored 4:03.07 – merely more than seventeen (17) seconds faster than the official track World Record (4:20.89) and quicker than Mary Tabb’s indoor best (an oversized 4:17.55), Hughes cruised by the half-mile in 1:51.5.
Marathon star Allison Roe dropped out about halfway, apparently feeling the effects of a 26.2-miler in Korea the previous week.
The key to all the fast times was the opening 440 of the race: a steep downhill stretch that dropped some two hundred feet in the first quarter-mile.
“We stood at the start and it was like being at the top of a ski jump,” Scott said. “We all wondered what would happen once we got barreling down that hill.”
Everyone was able to keep his balance down the grade and Scott led past the quarter in 48.5. The four major contestants were running abreast at the halfway point – which flashed by in an unbelievable 1:43.6.
Then Walker began to force the pace and passed the 1320 in 2:33.9.
“I think the same thing happened to John that happened to him at New York,” said Scott. “He saw the finish and thought it was a lot closer than it was. So he started to kick. Plus all the people were yelling for him and I think he got caught up in the excitement.”
Scott, however, rushed to the fore with three hundred yards left and his speed won the day. He passed the 1500m in – are you ready for this? – 3:18.2 and stayed off Hillardt’s late rush.
“I thought we would run around 3:40 to 3:41,” Scott said. “I thought I heard 3:41 when I crossed the line, but then someone told me, ‘No, three-THIRTY-one.’ I was blown away by that.”
3:31.25. So are we.
- Scott 3:31.25
- Hillardt 3:32.20
- Flynn 3:32.75
- Walker 3:33.93
Came across this note. Former mile world record holder John Walker, who finished fourth in the 1982 event, described the initial downhill as “terrifying.”
