Many of you Daily Hustlers have heard about the long and arduous quest to break the 4 minute mile…
Roger Bannister is likely a name that rings a bell unless you just so happen to be living beneath a rock with Stevie SuperSoft completely ignorant to significant historical events that have had a lasting impact on the human psyche.
Yes, Bannister was the one to eventually break the 4 minute mile barrier but it was a series of events, an arch rival and a little help from a couple friends that ultimately made the incredible feat possible.
John Landy was an Australian runner who had become set on becoming the first person to go sub 4… In 1954 Landy ran 3 consecutive 4:02’s in January, February and April… Knowing that it was only a matter of time before Landry went below 4, Bannister knew he had one shot at it on May 6th, 1954 in a meet between Oxford and Bannister’s AAA running club.
Originally the winds were gusting at 25 plus MPH and Bannister was not going to run, but the breeze died down and at 6pm sharp a field of runners including Bannister and 2 pace setters, Christopher Chataway and Chris Brasher, were off to the races (pun intended).
Brasher went to the front of the pack and led at the quarter mile and half mile marks before Chataway took the lead in the 3rd lap… Chataway led until there were about 275 yards left in the race and Bannister seemingly got shot out of a cannon and distanced himself from the pack and crossed the finish line in a record 3:59.4.
For 9 years the mile record stood at 4:01.4 and the thought of going underneath 4 minutes was thought of by many people as not humanly possible…
Ironically, just 46 days later John Landy ran a 3:57.9 and within the first 2 years after Bannister beat the 4 min mark, it was done 50 other times!!!
What we believe is possible is created in our minds and our bodies tend to follow… The bottom line is that our minds are forever creating our reality and our thoughts are forever dictating our actions. Where those actions take us is 100% dependent on where our mind allows us to go…
As Matt Fitzgerald so brilliantly pointed out in his book How Bad Do You Want It, our mind will always quit before our body physically shuts down.. The only question becomes how close to that threshold are we willing to go? 🤷♂️
-EB
P.S. Have you hopped on a Team GoHard Foot Reflexology Board yet?
