George Mills has just finished three months’ relentless winter training in Dullstroom, South Africa. “Eat. Sleep. Train. Not much else going on,” he says with characteristic bluntness of his time in the southern hemisphere. There he crunched through more than 30km per day, running at altitude, eating clean wholefoods and optimising rest with afternoon naps and deep sleep at night aided by blue-light glasses, ear plugs and an eye mask. It is a life of abstinence that Mills genuinely seems to enjoy.
“Dullstroom is a special place,” he says. “I personally love it, hence why I spend so much time there. There’s maybe a couple of coffee shops, a couple of restaurants, but it’s a small tourist town that’s essentially one road, one kilometre from bottom to top. We have a good gym setup, there’s some good trails to run on, and for me that’s all I need.”
Much of his downtime is spent cooking unholy meal combinations. A recent Instagram post displayed a heaving plate of rice, banana slices, blueberries, fried eggs and chicken alongside a bottle of kefir. One follower quipped: “Ever thought about a cookbook?”
Over the past three years the 25-year-old has fully committed himself to becoming the very best athlete he can be, a mentality he credits in no small part to his footballer father Danny Mills. George delivered his first major medal with 5,000m silver at the European Championships in Rome last year, and he is leaving nothing to chance in his goal to become a world and Olympic champion.
“Flavour doesn’t make you fast,” he says, pausing this Zoom call to point his camera down at today’s lunch, a bowl of chicken and rice. “Simple.”
Mills headed to the Paris Olympics last summer with high expectations of a medal in the 5,000m, but the Games turned into a nightmare. Covid hit him days before and scuppered his preparation, and Mills’ frustration spilled over on the track when he angrily confronted French runner Hugo Hay after a mid-race collision, something he later regretted. The clip of the two Olympians arguing quickly spread around the world.
And so he comes into this weekend’s European Indoor Athletics Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands determined to make amends for an opportunity lost, and to keep reaping the rewards of his sacrifice for the sport. He arrives in form, having won 3,000m gold at the British Indoor Athletics Championships in Birmingham last month, two weeks after smashing Josh Kerr’s British indoor record in a time of 7min 27.92sec. Paris is already in the rearview mirror.
“I don't really look at what could have been, to be honest,” Mills says. “I think that’s a negative mindset to be in and I don’t think that benefits you in the future at all. What I say on Paris is I was able to race five times, and I had five very different mentally and physically challenging experiences which I think will really benefit me in the next few years as an athlete racing in major champs.”
Mills sees his clash with his French rival as just another valuable lesson. “That was a bit of a freak racing incident … But I think the main learning from that was how to manage emotions after and deal with certain scenarios and have to come back and race again.”
Mills can compete with the best in the world over 1,500m, 3,000m and 5,000m and has no preference – “I just say I run all three” – and he has chosen to run only the 3,000m in Apeldoorn. He will line up against a strong field which features fellow European 5,000m silver medallist Andreas Almgren from Sweden, the incredibly talented Dutch teenager Niels Laros, and most significantly the race favourite Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who is seeking a third successive 1500/3000m double at the European Indoors.
Ingebrigtsen was the man who beat Mills to 5,000m gold in Rome last year, but the Norwegian phenomenon has suffered at the hands of British runners in major championships before, losing successive world 1,500m finals to Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr, before throwing away his chance of 1,500m glory in Paris with gung-ho tactics.
Mills insists Ingebrigtsen can be beaten again, even over the longer, more predictable distance.
“Obviously he’s a phenomenal athlete, but everyone’s got a target on their backs, right? So I'll be going there to compete. In this sport, nobody’s invincible. If you do everything right yourself, and you’re 100 per cent on the day, anything’s possible.”
He will be representing a somewhat depleted British team without Keely Hodgkinson, Laura Muir, Molly Caudery and Kerr. Mills is perhaps still a decade away from his peak, and yet he carries a fair portion of British expectation in the Netherlands this weekend and beyond, with the Tokyo World Championships in September the season’s ultimate goal.
It is a mantle he embraces, one he has geared his entire life towards, straining every sinew on the roads of South Africa to tune his body over the winter and turning down sauce on his dinner to fuel it. When you’re in the business of chasing medals, there’s no room for temptation. “I’m a simple guy. I love to train, love to hang out with my friends if I’m able to, and spend time with my teammates,” Mills smiles. “That’s a good life.”
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