Amazingly he basically trained on his lunch hour while studying to be a physician when preparing to run the sub 4 mile. And then went on to be a distinguished medical researcher. He had such a positive influence on running and medicine. If there ever was an athlete that deserved the moniker role model it was him.
Sometimes I wonder how much genetics can explain things like this. Obviously, lettuce has never run a 4 minute mile, but how big is the variance in factors enabling ostensibly normally developed humans to perform impressive feats like this?
Read Sports Gene by David Epstein. He discusses a lot of the genetics vs. developing one's body specifically for a sport, with a large focus on distance running.
From what I've skimmed genes and gene expression seem to play a huge role (e.g. [1] [2]), but it shows the signs of being a multidimensional space where researchers are far from finished even figuring out what the dimensions actually are. Some of the popular press has mutated this into the notion of generic "exercise super-responders" and "exercise non-responders", but as usual they seem to be dumbing it down to the point of saying something almost the opposite of what the research actually supports.
This is often parroted. Comparing long time runners with those that have not run has shown that runner's joints / knees are actually better than those that do not run.
Run with proper form, don't ramp mileage and intensity too fast. Humans are built for long distance running.
Watching the world record marathon in Berlin in person I would agree about form being the decisive factor. There is a huge middle ground between long time runners and people who don't run at all. That said I know multiple successful long time long distance runners who severely damaged themselves.
I prefer cycling. Running has wrecked me multiple times (100m & 200m training). I'm not built for long distance which is a shame because I could hold pace with the best amateurs over middle distances when fit (sub 3 min kms).
Humans evolved on the plains of Africa, hunting animals by running them down to exhaustion[1].
I think some of the bare foot running purists become cult-like in their views, but I think Chris Mcdougall's "Born to Run"[2] book is worth reading and thinking about. It's an easy, well written and entertaining read too.
As far as I can tell, the endurance running hypothesis is not considered a settled matter, but even if it is true, it doesn’t mean that subsequent adaptations in all or some groups of humans hasn’t compromised this ability. Moreover, perhaps the environment when humans evolved on the plains of Africa didn’t provide much selective pressure for joints to last as many years as modern humans expect their joints to last.
But nor is it settled that running causes damage, and I think the endurance running hypothesis provides an interesting reason to consider the counter-case.
Even though I am not convinced running is necessarily bad for joints, and I am a runner myself, the argument that humans are evolved to run seems to fall flat for me.
For one, AFAIK humans rarely aged beyond 40 in those times, so it is entirely feasible that the accumulated wear and tear starts to hurt the joints after that age.
Why run? As someone with more than a couple dozen marathons under his belt, 12 hour and 24 hour races, hundred milers and a hundred k’s, I’ve had lots of time to contemplate this question, sometimes to myself and sometimes out loud with other runners. And the answer I’ve come to is: there is no why. Some of us do it to stay in shape, some for the challenge, some to silence inner demons, some as a form of meditation, or to give our minds time for quiet contemplation. Myself? I guess I do it for all of these reasons at different times, but at the end of the day, I do it because it gives me joy.
Tacky? It's either information of value or it's not. Who cares what it's juxtaposed to. I don't. And what does the occasion matter? To me not in bad taste a all. The man lived to a ripe old age. Not like the OP is trying to profit selling tshirts on HN. For that matter I don't even find it necessary to say things like 'shameless plug' or 'I am not connected'. Just post the link what do I care if someone gains or not in some personal way.
>Tacky? It's either information of value or it's not.
The world isn't black and white. It can be information and be tacky.
This is a less offensive case, given that the person had a long life and died under fairly positive circumstances; but what if someone used a public shooting to spin sales into their gun safe company? What if a company that engraved tombstones hung around sites of mass tragedies offering free catalogs to the bereaved?
At what point does trying to spin someones personal tragedy into your own gain or profit turn tacky? To me : instantly. To others : it varies.
Personally I very much DO want to know if a person giving me advice stands to gain from it. You can use that information to filter out perceived biases and make better decisions oneself.
He was a personal hero of mine. Its a hell of an accomplishment to break four, and even more impressive that he did it on cinders. Interestingly, he never won an olympic medal and pretty much hung it up soon after breaking four.
Its funny back in the day, there were rumors that a person would die if they ran that fast, but this is also the same time when smoking cigarettes was a training method.
There is an excellent book called the Perfect Mile about Roger Bannister (and two contemporary rivals) racing to be the first to be sub-4 minutes. I haven't read Bannister's own memoir, The Four-Minute Mile, but I've heard it is fantastic as well.
TLDR - the mile record times at that period closely track the 1500m times, which had no similar 'psychological' barrier. Also the impact of WW2 had slowed down record breaking leading up to that time.
That article tries to debunk a slightly different notion than I had in mind. It's not that I imagined everybody was sitting just above 4 minutes when running the mile, and that the significance of those round numbers psyched everybody out until Bannister finally broke through.
Instead, it's about knowing what's possible and attainable. It's akin to the story of George Dantzig, who solved two unsolved problems in statistical theory because he believed them to be mundane homework problems.
Put it this way: how can something that had never been done before 1954 is now considering a very basic benchmark? I would argue that it's precisely because it is considered a basic benchmark that it is so common. If you know something can be done, that makes it easier to train to. If you know something is commonly done, then all the more.
Of course, that goes for any record/benchmark, but Bannister's 4 minute mile seems like a particularly significant one.
Maybe they should start selling "tainted" sport watches that shrink/expand 1 second for each run; that way one can think they trained for a worse time than they actually did. Though we might be already much closer to the limits of human body/technique than back in the day...
Franz stampfl was the genius behind the training of Bannister that led to the four minute mile. I have plenty of stories about stampfl. He became a quadriplegic in the 80's and still continued to coach for 10+ years after.
If you’ve never seen a 4 minute mile in person... it is a staggering feat and amazing to see up close.
Here in Raleigh, NC there is a once a year commmunity event where a handful of elite runners are invited to run a 4 minute mile. The women are invited to run under 4:30. For the 4 weeks leading up to the event, there are “pop-ups” around town where us mere mortals get to run. The best runners are invited to run with the elites on the big night. It’s a free event with a few hundred in attendance and we get to stand on the track, leaving just the 4 inside lanes clear. These guys (and the women in their race) are practically flying.
Anyway, the mile isn’t run all that often as an event any more, but maybe there’s a similar event in your area if you look for it.
It really is amazing. Even the dedication, training, and talent to go from a 4:10 to a flat 4:00 is mind blowing.
Watching the rare times a pro will take it to sub 3:50 is nuts. Many good athletes in most HS sports can usually run anywhere from 13-14s for the 100m. That's keeping pace.
If Bannister interests you and you haven't read Once a Runner go and do it now[1]. I go back and forth on if Once a Runner or Tim Krabbe's The Rider[2] is the best fictional sports novel ever, but today I think is the day for running.
He was a really humble man, chalking up his feat to luck of all things. He was probably one of the last Great amateur athletes too. Most of all he was a quite an accomplished neurologist, who had this to say about his struggles with Parkinson’s Disease:
”There's a gentle irony to it. I have seen and looked after patients with so many neurological and other disorders that's why I am not surprised I have acquired an illness.
"It's in the nature of things. I am being well looked after and I don't intend to let it interfere - as much as I can."
