Faith Kipyegon: “As Shakira sings, we must try everything in life.”

Faith Kipyegon may appear tiny; she weighs less than 45 kilograms and stands no taller than 1.57 meters, but she looms large on the track and also at the interview stool in the chic garden of a hotel near Montmartre, as tough as the anvil on which iron is forged, strong like the arms of the blacksmith hammering it. Not even the day after achieving the best time ever recorded by a woman in the 1,609 meters of a mile (4m 6.42s) did she open up to express her possible doubts, her pain, or what she felt when surrounded by 11 huge men and two women, observed by half the world as she ran four laps in search of what remains impossible for women — a “moonshot,” as defined by those at Nike who organized the event. It was about running a mile in under four minutes on a blue track at sunset in Paris, scorched by heat.

As a woman committed to her cause, that of all women in Africa and the world, she does not allow herself to reveal her innermost thoughts, words that might distract attention from the only thing that matters. The poor girl from a poor country who ran barefoot to school and also competed barefoot has only one message for the world: the empowerment of women. And no, she did not feel dwarfed by the setup and all the turmoil surrounding her; the wall of tall, fast athletes trying to match her pace. On the contrary. “I didn’t feel bad. It was an incredible feeling I experienced on the track,” says Kipyegon, 31, from Bomet, Kenya, in the southern Rift Valley, where humanity dawned and the best runners are born. Not far from there, in Kaptagat, she always trains with men on long runs of 30 kilometers and speed workouts with a male pacer, Bernard Soi. “Nike put together an incredible event. And I was very happy that everyone supported me, that they believed in me to break the four-minute barrier. It was truly amazing to be there, on the track.”

Question. Do you feel frustrated for not having achieved it?

Answer. No. I’m very happy to have tried, to have shown the world that we can attempt it, that we can dream and that our dreams are valid, so we should never stop dreaming.

Q. Is it that simple?

A. Shakira sings it in a song that moves me and has inspired me, Try Everything. You have to try everything in life. Since I discovered that song, it has driven me to get to where I am. And I’ve learned a lot from it; sometimes you fall, but you get up and fly again.

Q. What were you thinking on the track when you saw you weren’t going to reach your goal, that you weren’t breaking the minute in any lap?

A. I wasn’t thinking about that. This whole project was about giving it my all, running as much as I could. I enjoyed analyzing and reviewing the split times of each lap afterward. It was incredible to run the best mile of my life, the best halfway split (2m 1.7s), and by the third lap (3m 1.9s) to go out there and show the world that you can’t cling to what you have, you have to run after what you pursue. That’s how I exploded in the last 300m. If I had held back, I could have run 4.02 or 4.03, but it was about how fast I could execute, how fast I could run, how much energy I had left in my body. I was just looking for that negative split [faster second half than the first], to give hope to the next generation that if they ever pursue it, one day they will achieve it. Maybe if I had set a more conservative goal, 4.02 or 4.03, I could have achieved it, but it was about going for it all. Showing people that we can still overcome our limits.

Q. Did you feel in the best shape of your life to try it? Better than when you set the official record last year? A few days prior, you hadn’t been able to surpass your personal best in 1,000m (2m 29.15s)…

A. No. To be honest, I really think I gave it everything I could. The training was good, and my form was very good, aligned with the training I had done. I did everything perfectly according to the plan, and everything went very well. The message was clear: we have no limits in this world. The message was that we can overcome our barriers. So, the message is already there: we have to try.

We have to give our all in everything we do. That’s why I was so grateful crossing the finish line and knowing that the message was already there. It wasn’t just about breaking world records, but about the message being sent.

Q. A girl who started running barefoot as a woman now runs aided by the best technology and performance science…

A. It’s very special to come from a small village and have run barefoot. And now I have a great team, a great company like Nike supporting me to dare to dream, dare to try.

Q. The heart, the courage, and the talent, and a space suit with aerodynamics, a superhero suit…

A. Exactly. As she says, I felt like a superhero. When I got to the track and put on the suit, I suddenly felt fast. I felt like I had nothing on my body, like I was running freely. An incredible suit.

Q. Will you wear it for the rest of the season, next Saturday in the 1,500m at Prefontaine, in the Diamond League, for example?

A. No, I don’t think so, the team has to decide, although I would love to race in it at another competition.

Q. The World Athletics Championships will be held in Tokyo in September. You have won five world golds and three Olympic golds, and you remain undefeated in the 1,500m both in the Olympics and World Championships, except in 2019, upon your return from maternity. However, you were defeated in the final of the 5,000m at the Paris Games by your compatriot Beatrice Chebet. Will you also double distance in Tokyo seeking revenge?

A. No, I’m really not sure at this moment. I can’t say whether I will double or not. Right now my main goal is the 1,500m. Beatrice is a great athlete; she is my compatriot, we come from the same community, and she is a woman with a lot of talent, so being with the best athletes, like Beatrice, strong women in sports, is really what makes me happiest in this world because you push yourself to the limit when competing with the strongest women in the world. It’s wonderful that such strong women are emerging. In life, as in sports, we need many strong people to send our message to the world.

Q. Will you try to break your mile record under normal conditions?

A. To be honest, I don’t know what will be next after Prefontaine on July 5. I will sit down with my team [her coach, Patrick Sang; her manager, the Dutch Valentijn Trouw, from the Global Sports team of Jos Hermens, the same as Eliud Kipchoge] and we will decide what we will do next. But, for sure, now that the message is getting out there, we will keep trying to soar.