Few names in middle distance running get people talking more than Alan Webb. The ridiculously talented American was the first high school athlete in American history to break the four-minute mile when he clocked 3:59.86 in January 2001. However, it was his run four months later, on May 27, 2001, that revitalised American distance running; when he smashed Jim Ryun’s high school mile record stopping the clock at 3:53.43 to shatter Ryun’s 36-year-old national high school record of 3:55.3.  Webb would go on as a senior to break the American mile record with his 3:46 in 2007.