On This Day in History: May 6

The 4 minute mile

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Humans are primed for belief, often to our detriment. See: history of world religions. Sometimes, however, people believe we can do amazing things, like travel to the moon, and then we do that thing despite so many others saying “Fucking impossible.” Some people thought running a mile in under four minutes was fucking impossible, until someone did it. 

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 6, 1954--

Just a few years ago many believed it highly unlikely the two-hour barrier in the marathon would be broken any time soon. Statistics showed how small the improvements were over past decades and said humans were approaching the marathon speed limit and just stop expecting it to happen. Then on October 12, 2019, Eliud Kipchoge said fuck you and did it in 1:59:40, beating my best time by an hour and 25 minutes. 

The four-minute-mile barrier stood for decades, with many trying in vain to break it. It had become a psychological barrier, an unscalable mountain. The expert opinion that it was “impossible” was actually a myth perpetuated by sportswriters. They just knew it would be really fucking hard. Many proclaimed it could only be done under specific circumstances. The temperature needed to be a room temperature 68F with no hint of a breeze. The said it needed to be a certain kind of track: hard clay, and it had to be dry. Also, the sport psychologists of the day said there would need to be a massive crowd cheering the athlete on to motivate them to achieve such a lofty goal. Of course, the runner would require the best training available to prepare for the feat. 

Roger Bannister said fuck that. Fuck all that. 

Roger eschewed traditional coaching. He was considered a lone wolf, a full-time student who devised his own training methods. In the 1952 Olympics, Bannister was the fastest Brit in the 1,500m race (109m shy of a mile), coming in fourth overall. Interestingly, that just-missed-a-medal performance had him saying, yeah, I’m gonna be the first to break four minutes. And that’s what he did fewer than two years later. 

On May 6, 1954, it was a cold and wet day at a small track meet in Oxford, England, with only a few thousand spectators in attendance. The winds were high, and Bannister almost didn’t run, thinking he should save himself for a future attempt. But the winds dropped shortly before gun time and he said to himself, “Roger, today is the day to do the thing.” And he did do the thing, in 3:59.4. 

The proof was in; it could be done. And then others started doing it too. Australian John Landy beat Bannister’s time by 1.5 seconds 46 days later. A year after that three runners broke four minutes in a single race. To date, fewer than 1,500 people have broken the 4-minute mile, all of them men. As of 2021, the fastest female miler is Sifan Hassan, with a time of 4:12:33. 

Thanks, Tina, for the suggestion of today’s post. 

GET THE BOOK! Order “On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down” at JamesFell.com. 

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