http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/38703000/rm/_38703505_3548_07-05-54_56ka1_vi.ram
This is pretty cool. I found it on the Letsrun.com homepage. You need real player to watch it.
That was awesome, thanks for posting that.
Have you guys read that book, “The Perfect Mile”? GREAT book! They are making a movie of it.
Unbelievable the workouts those guys were doing !
That is a great book. The stories about John Landy and Wes Santee in the book are just as compelling as Bannisters.
It is mentioned in the book how Landy ran around 4:01 several times but they were on the “slower” tracks in australia. He ended up being the 2nd man to break the 4 minute mile in one of his first attempts on the “faster” tracks in Europe.
It is a shame some of the things that happened to Wes Santee in his pursuit to break it. The AAU really held him back.
I really enjoyed the book and I think that a movie about it would be fantastic.
I agree. Santee really got screwed by the “legendary” Kansas coach, and then his personality clashes with the AAU leading to the “ban” from international competition really ended his career. Interesting though how the Marine Corps used him in the same way as the Kansas coach - to win the all service comps - and then essentially just forgot about him.
The author did a great job of “visualizing” the race at Oxford. I had never seen the video, but it plays out just as he described.
I think the author (and Bannister) also have done well in attributing credit to the other Brit runners and the key role they played in his success.
Amazing how Landy was able to get it done on his own though. The guy was just pure talent for about a four year period.
The pic of the race in Vancouver where Landy is turned and looking for Bannister on the left while Bannister is passing him on the right is just classic.
When you read Bannister’s book, it’s amazing how little training they actually did.
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There were no 80+ mile weeks
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They didn’t train all year round
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Most runners back then were either in school or worked full time
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The training revolved around pace running
It was a completely different age. I suspect that raw natural talent had more to do with great performances back then. Better knowledge of training has allowed people with less overall or natural talent to run just as fast or faster over time.
Fleck
Good point most of Bannister’s training was performed during his lunch hour alone. Most of his career was self coached.
He did alot of research on oxygen usage while running. I think he had a treadmill in the basement of the hospital with some testing equipment. In the perfect mile it mentions how he tested Sir Edmund Hillary after his conquest of everest and told him that he did not understand how he did it. He mentioned to Hillary that he did not think that it was physiolligically possible for him to have done it with his fitness level. Very interesting.
This is a bump of something I posted awhile back. Maybe since the ESPN movie people might be interested in seeing the actual footage of him running the worlds first sub 4 min mile.
Looks exactly like the ESPN movie. Cool