You may be right, but Landy also might have won if he had not looked over the wrong shoulder going into the last bend. Those two great runners were two of the runners of the time who advanced running so that the sport could develop to where it is today. The Perfect Mile is a great book!
John Landy no doubt was the harder trainer among the two, Santee it seems trained hard as well. Landy did run without pacers and often came close, but not breaking the barrier.
I purchased the DVD on the mile of the century which was made by CBC. It is a 30 minute show that shows the whole race with original commetary and most of Bannister's first sub 4:00 mile as well. There is an interview with two men who were at the race that day. One was doing commentary and the other was part of a Candadian relay team I think. He said he has spoke to Landy often and Landy claims when he looked back that was to see where the third place runner was since he was exhausted going into the final straight. Also if you have seen both runners run their styles are very different. Landy looks more like a long distance runner (5K-marathon) with his shorter stride and Bannister has a much longer stride it seems even when not a top speed. I know stride length is said to mean little, but in that race the styles became very apparent.
In terms of pacers in the mile of the century the Kiwi runners had a plan to go out quick to wear out Bannister and help Landy win. Halberg and Bill Ballie tried, but Landy took over the lead before the first lap was done in dominating fashion. In my opinion he took the lead too quickly and that hurt him later when he need a little extra to outlast Bannister.
Yeah, both Bannister and Landy both could've run a hell of a lot faster. First of all take into consideration their non-professional lifestyles. They had a lot of other things to do because of the concept of the amateur athlete. I mean, Landy got what, 6 hours of sleep a night?? The other thing I'd take into consideration would be track surface. I mean, this is sub-4:00 on freaking cinder! considering the track surfaces of today, those guys could be blazing! So seriously, I'd estimate that in modern times, they could've gone, oh.... 3:48 or so.
The track surface is important and Landy had problems with that in his attempts at getting under 4 minutes. I think when he did go under the mark in Turku, Finland they kept lane one open and unrun on during the other events. I also recall Santee thought he had a really good chance to to go go sub4 in California one time, but it rained right before the race. I almost think he thought his way out of a sub4 in that case according to how the book retells it.
Bannister broke the mile record in 1954, but people don't relaize how long the previous mark had stood. The two guys who went back and forth with it in the 40s Haegg and Andersson (sp) got so close without getting it and then they were declared professionals. The training that Haegg did was very light like Bannister. He did not like running long distances nor did he like running slowly. Both of them used fartlek and made it a training tool for future runners.
I believe Andersson when he ran a 4:01 record mile was hampered during the race because the starting pistol cap that was discharged as the race was started fell onto the track and it lodged in between his spikes. He felt he would have run under 4 minutes had that not happened. History certainly would have changed if he did.
Current wrote:
'New book'? Didn't this get a lot of attention when it came out over a year ago for the 50th anniversary of the first sub 4? Or did I just get my copy months before it was supposed to be released?
It was new to me, you know it all Jackass!
Sorry about that All Conference, usually I'm the one rolling my eyes at people who can't detect sarcasm on these boards, and this time I didn't. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if someone posted something similar to your first post and was serious, this is letsrun after all.