George Mills: “More is more.”

Words by Sheridan Wilbur. Photography by Lea Kurth.

In the roasting heat of Dullstroom, South Africa, British middle and long-distance runner George Mills grinds on the treadmill. He keeps the windows closed. At training camp it’s “No Fan Jan,” a challenge he and his OAC Europe teammates have set to make training ‘fun.’ Temptation looms in front him as he struggles to cool his body on the belt, “sweating [his] bollocks off.” He thinks to himself, “don’t turn it on, don’t turn it on.” And Mills resists. He persists. Eventually, all workouts end. 

Wringing out his shorts, taking off his sopping-wet shoes, he looks like he’s just jumped out of a lake. It’s February by the time we speak for an interview and the challenge is over, but Mills still carries on this punishing habit. “It gives you a mental edge, like, ‘Okay, in that amount of discomfort I can still stick it out,’” he says to me now.  

This is the mentality of someone who at 24, is already fed up with heartbreak and willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. “Whether that's falling in the European Indoor final last year, coming third at British Champs last year and not making the team for Worlds, or not being selected for Europeans, I’ve probably had more disappointments than highs.” The 2016 European U18 800m champion, 2020 British champ for the 1500m, and third on the British all-time mile list with a time of 3:47.65 has an impressive resume, but Mills believes his proudest racing moment is still to come.

Earlier in January, Mills flew 24-hours from Dullstroom to Boston to run his second 5K ever. “It was the most scared I’ve been for a race before.” Those 25 laps around the indoor track at Boston University “felt like a now or never moment” for the 5K Olympic standard. 

Once the gun fired, Mills went straight to the front, “instincts on.” Naivety can be a strength in a sport that is such a mental game. “I grabbed the race by the scruff, its neck,” he says. Sometimes front-runners resemble a sacrificial lamb, but Mills was in hunting mode. He “had to do a lot of work in the horrible part of the race,” and after three kilometers, he “really dragged the lead group” to help them dip under the 13-minute mark. Mills clocked the Olympic standard, a personal best of 12:58.68. He still wasn’t satisfied. “A standard’s a standard isn’t it? It’s just a stepping stone.” 

Is Mills’ unrelenting ambition nature or nurture? Probably both. He says he’s always been this intense, but credits his OAC Europe teammates – Swiss middle-distance runner Tom Elmer, and Austrian middle-distance specialist Sebastian Frey – for taking him to the next level. “It was mentally exhausting to train by myself,” Mills says about his time before joining the club in 2022. Now, he runs stride-for-stride with them at training camps in Dullstroom and St. Moritz. "We have a very similar work ethic and mentality," he says, and their collective intensity keeps it playful. "We set rules like bed at 10 p.m. and there's a forfeit if you don't. We make it fun."

“It’s pretty rare that you find people you can completely match your lifestyle with. How you want to live, in terms of training, eating, recovering and commitment. It’s pretty cool how we match in all those aspects. We’re married to the game.” 

Coached by Thomas Dreißigacker, the third coach of his career, Mills trains according to the Norwegian model (an endurance training method with an emphasis on high-volume, low-intensity workouts, often including double threshold workout days), and describes this as a “mature relationship.” Dreißigacker sees Mills for the dedicated athlete he is, someone who lives by the house motto: ‘If you can do more, why not do more?’ Most of their conversations are Dreißigacker telling Mills to be patient, to calm down. “He’s a bit more sensible than Sebi [Frey] and me.” 

Growing up as the son of Danny Mills, the ex-professional footballer for Leeds United and Manchester City, Mills is no stranger to living in a house with professional athletes. Sport was a big deal for Mills, “pretty much since the moment I was born.” Football, naturally, was his first passion, but by age fifteen he ditched cleats for cross-country spikes. His parents “hammered the message into me as if you're going to do something, do it 100 percent or don't bother.” One of Mills’ brothers plays football for Premier League club Everton, so a lifestyle “where you are a bit out of society, and you're waking up early to train, training late, and you are throwing your life at something” has always been encouraged.  

Mills puts running on a pedestal. “Sacrifice everything,” he says. “But when I say sacrifice, I don't see it as a sacrifice. It’s something I want to do. I want to see what my potential is and how high the ceiling is.” Right now, he’s in the middle of an eight-week training block preparing for outdoor track, hitting 200 km (120 mile) training weeks at 2000m altitude. Dullstroom, with a population of roughly 600 people and routine power cuts, has made it quite easy to live off the grid. Mills had to buy a different cell service SIM card for our interview because the internet was off all day. He embraces the lack of distractions. “This is a place where I come to work and don't leave the house unless I'm training.”

Train, rest, cook, eat, sleep, repeat. “I do the same thing every single day,” says Mills. “That’s it, nothing else. I’m not even joking. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. It’s a privilege.” Mills, Elmer and Frey are “all very extreme in how we go about [our lifestyle].” 

“If it takes away from training or performance, then we're not doing it. We only do things that add to the outcome of performance, which is cool because it’s satisfying when you get decent results or reach certain goals.” 

Mills approaches nutrition with the same maximizing mentality. Inspired by Tim Spector, a British epidemiologist, he grocery shops with the eye of a scientist and the discipline of a marine. “We always divide our colors, good polyphenols.” Ultra processed foods are “forbidden.” Anything artificial, “is a serious red flag.” Soda is banned, other than kombucha. He aims to eat 30 different plants a week, “to excite your microbes with the massive diversity of plants” and “exceed the recommended value.” Because one thing about Mills is he wants more. “It's all about maximizing. I don't want to optimize. If one plus one equals two, I want to do it 10 times or whatever.” 

More food. More energy. More footwork. Eating about 5,000-6,000 calories per day, Mills isn’t restricting, he’s refining. “We load up on the carbs, get the meat or fish if we need it, then we've got a selection of vegetables.” Since dialing in his diet, he’s noticed he’s been able to do more in training and “doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.” Some nights “it’s a bit of force feeding” when he’s too tired to eat, but his body is a furnace that never kicks off. “It’s like you can't fuel enough. If I fuel more, I can train more.” 

Alone, this regimen could be grating. But together with Elmer and Frey, Mills can wake up early, run hard, cook massive and nutritious meals, take naps, go to bed early, and finds this routine “really fun.” He wants to look back on his career and say “‘I literally gave it everything I had. I couldn't have done anything differently.’ I don’t want to have regrets.”

When Mills and his OAC Europe team share a meal, they bring work to the table. “How can we get more out of training? How can we improve here? What do you think we need to do to make ourselves better?” they ask. “Every dinner we’re talking about the same things about having to get better. We’re trying to push the limit and get the most out of ourselves.”

When I ask what a successful year would look like, Mills has a hard time answering. He’s striving more than anything. “I thought about the Olympic standard a lot before Boston, and when I ran it, I was like ‘ok cool,’ but next thing. Let me go do a workout, next thing, next thing.” Mills hasn’t made an Olympic team for Great Britain yet, but wants to earn his spot and excel once he’s there. “If I got knocked out in the first round, I'd be pretty pissed.”

“I don't think it gives you that edge if you're always happy and content with where you're at,” says Mills. That’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy the journey along the way. “I think we're living the dream.” With shins full of scars and cuts from competitors clipping him in races, Mills puts himself as close to his goals as he can. “Let everyone know you’re there, put people under pressure.” 

When it comes to the 2024 Games in Paris, Mills wants it all. “To be honest, I want to double up.” He sees himself as a 1500m as well as a 5K guy. Getting one, or two of the three coveted Great Britain spots for either event, will be difficult. But not impossible. No risks, no rewards. “If you're in a position that you can, then why not try, and see what happens?”