3:59.4: The Quest to Break the Four Minute Mile [Paperback]

'It conveys well the momentousness of the achievement- It captures the power of the amateur spirit'

'It conveys well the momentousness of the achievement- It captures the power of the amateur spirit'

‘Bryant’s fine book is an absorbing read and a tribute to an era long since passed.’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘Bryant sets Bannister’s crowning glory in a lovingly evoked context’ --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'It conveys well the momentousness of the achievement- It captures the power of the amateur spirit'Alastair Campbell, The Times

The years 1953-54 were marked by the conquests of two unattainable peaks - Mount Everest and the Four Minute Mile. But the dream of setting a new track record for this distance started as early as the 1880s, by the American Lon Myers, a stick-thin hypochondriac who was sick before and after every race, yet still held every US record from 50 yards to the mile. By 1902 a record of 4 minutes and 16 seconds was set by the Englishman Joe Binks, an amateur runner who in his spare time worked as a journalist and writer. And again in 1923 the world inched ever closer to the elusive four minute record thanks to Paavo Nurmi, the 'Phantom Finn', who won nine Olympic gold medals and set so many world records that statisticians are still arguing over the total. Finally, in 1945, when the Swede Gunder 'the Wonder' Haegg ran the mile in 4'01.4 the world knew at last that it was on the brink of conquering the Everest of all sports. But it wasn't until three Englishmen teamed up and took on the challenge as one that they succeeded in accomplishing what was described as the most significant sporting achievement of the twentieth century. This is the story of the long quest for the 'Magic Mile', almost two hundred years in the making. The methods the runners used, the secrets they uncovered, were passed like a baton through the generations, until the quest reached its climax on the 6th May 1954, when Roger Bannister, Christopher Chataway and Chris Brasher united to achieve the impossible. (20040624)

As a life-long athlete, Oxford Blue, country champion, British Universities student national, and coach to an Olympic athlete, John Bryant has an unrivalled insight into the world of athletics and the minds and methods of runners. Since 1971, John Bryant has worked as a Fleet Street journalist where he was Deputy Editor of The Times. He is currently Consultant Editor of the Daily Mail and lives in Kingston-on-Thames. (20040624)

1

A Day in May

Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Thursday 6 May 1954

You wake up half excited, half terrified. Like a man under sentence you have but one thought – the race. And the first thing you always do is go to the window and look out at the weather. Roger Bannister didn’t need four minutes for that. A glance at the tree branches stiffening in the wind, the sky cindertrack grey, the rain spitting from the dark clouds made the whole idea preposterous. How could you run decent times on a day like this, let alone records?

For days and nights now he had existed in a state of tortured anticipation. This was far more than just pre-race jitters. He knew the climax was approaching, and the over-brimming tank of nervous energy that gave him the ability to wring everything out of his body and mind was threatening to wreck him.

All through the previous week he’d cut right back on his training, resting up, greedily hoarding energy for the trial to come. Without the running he had more time to think, more time to worry. Every little tickle in the throat, every imagined pain in the neck, half convinced him he was about to fall victim to a cold. He felt alternately ridiculously strong and impossibly weak. However hard he tried, he thought too much about the four-minute mile; and when he wasn’t thinking about the mile he was fretting about the weather.

It was hopeless. He’d phone up Chris Brasher to say the attempt was off. Then he’d ring Chataway to say perhaps it’s on. To run, or not to run: it was a crazy, impossible question.

After the weather, the legs. The day before, Bannister had slipped on the proudly polished floor of St Mary’s Hospital. It was nothing really, but he trembled a little and spent the rest of the day limping, half dreading and half welcoming the idea that he might not be able to run after all.

Time, on the morning of a race, runs out of control. You have too many things to do, but too many hours to kill. You desperately hang on to routine and try to keep up. So it was off to St Mary’s to find something, anything, to slow down the mind. Bannister took his running spikes with him to the hospital lab. These were the same black leather spikes that he’d had specially made for him in Manchester. He and a fellclimbing shoemaker had tinkered with the design until they’d pared the weight of each shoe from six to four ounces.

Now Bannister took these shoes to the laboratory grindstone and methodically honed each spike into needle sharpness. A passing colleague smiled indulgently and asked, ‘You don’t really think that’s going to make any difference, do you?’ But Bannister knew the rituals he needed. He knew that there might be magic in sharpening the mind along with the spikes. He ached to control everything.

The weather was the first thing they talked about when Bannister bumped into Franz Stampfl on the train at Paddington. Half by chance, half by destiny, both men – the athlete and the coach – had decided to travel up early to Oxford, and to travel alone to focus their every thought on the race ahead.

Though he’d wanted to travel alone, Bannister was pleased and relieved to see Stampfl. The inspirational Austrian coach who had plotted so hard with Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway for this day was just the man to share and perhaps blow away some of his doubts. Behind the scenes Franz had worked tirelessly, using Brasher and Chataway to guide, nudge and shape Bannister’s preparation. If ever there was a moment to ask for his help and guidance, this was it. But still Bannister could not ask.

He clung to the belief, arrogantly some felt, that he needed no coach. He had attended Franz’s training sessions and run, when it suited him, with Franz’s protégés. But he could never admit that Franz was his coach in the accepted sense – adviser perhaps, coach never. Bannister believed he could, and must, do it alone. If he won, the victory was his. If he lost, no one else could be blamed.

But on the train, with the rain flecking the windows, Bannister turned to the artistic, inspirational Austrian. What would be the cost of the wind? One second, half a second a lap? Could the barrier be broken in only the most perfect conditions? Franz knew with certainty that a man could run a mile in under four minutes, and he knew that Roger had the talent and the will to do it.

He argued that Bannister had time in hand, that he was capable of 3 minutes 56 seconds and that the wind could never slow him by more than half a second a lap. The evidence was there, he said, in the training, in the time trials that Bannister had run. It’s all in the mind, argued Franz, the mind can overcome almost anything. And what if this is the only chance you get? Others want that record; tomorrow may be too late.

Bannister knew well that of all the factors which make up a runner, mental strength is the most important. If you lose that, you might as well lose a leg. The body is there for the ride; it’s the will that does the driving. Scientists can talk of pulse rates, lung capacity and lactic acid, but Franz the artist spoke of resolution. His quiet, shrewd words hit home. Bannister got the message. This could be the only chance: reject it now and you might regret it for the rest of your life. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.