The book I am reading now is called The Perfect Mile and it is about the tree men, one goal and less than four minutes to do it. These three men were Roger Banister who was a young English medical student who found time to run in between classes. There was John Landy who came from a wealthy Australian family. Finally Wes Santee who was a farm boy who started running to get away from his abusive father on their ranch in Kansas. The first sub four minute mile was run in 3:59.4, which is just about as close as you can get to four minutes without going over it. Roger Banister took 1952 off from school to focus on running and try and break the four minute mile (1952 was an Olympic year).
Roger Bannister running and winning one of his races with know one in sight in this picture.
Roger only ran in a few races so that he would not loose his edge. I don't know if it would work for everyone but it definitely worked for him. He won every race he was in that year except for the 800 that he was in and he still ran a 1:53. I haven't read about the Olympics yet but I think that they are quite a ways into the book.
1 comment:
That sounds like a really good book!! I really admire those guys becuase I am in track and I know how hard it would be to run a four minute mile!! That is really fast!! I know I could never do it!!
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