John Walker 3:49.4 - 8/12/75

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3 years ago 08/12/2022 9:19am EDT

John Walker runs 3:49.40; 47 years ago; 8/12/1975 ... The first man ever in track history to break the 3:50.0 mile run..! Video in link below.

Walker may be the greatest miler of all-time ran the mile, 135x under 4:00.0...!!
His first run under 4:00.0 was on July 7th, 1973 at the age of 21 with a time of 3:58.8

Walker was the first man to reach 100 sub 4 on 2/17/85 ...! His 100th was 3:54.57 at age 33.

**
**To become the first man to record 100x sub4 he ran ..12 sub 4 between 12/15/84 to 2/17/85..!!! ~65days/12sub-4..!

Recorded a total of 135 of sub-4; but I can't find the date of his last one... Maybe 16+ years of sub-4..!

5x sub-3:50.00...! His best 5 times sub-3:50.00...
3:49.73; 3:49.73; 3:49.50; 3:49.4; 3:49.08 ... His sixth best was 3:50.01..!
Gold medal in the 1500; the metric mile; at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games.

teara.govt.nz

John Walker breaks the mile record

In 1975 John Walker became the first person to run a mile in under three minutes, 50 seconds. Watch as he wins the race in a record-breaking time of 3 minutes 49.4 seconds, in Gothenburg, Sweden – a feat which made him world-...

Link:http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/video/3996...

3 years ago 08/12/2022 9:23am EDT

re: NOT

One of the greats for sure.

I'm not too enthralled with the 100 sub-4 thing though. Once you have the ability to do it, running a huge number of them just means you attempted to do so, so meh to that.

3 years ago 08/12/2022 9:36am EDT

re: NOT

NOT wrote:
John Walker runs 3:49.40; 47 years ago; 8/12/1975 ... The first man ever in track history to break the 3:50.0 mile run..! Video in link below.
Walker may be the greatest miler of all-time ran the mile, 135x under 4:00.0...!!
His first run under 4:00.0 was on July 7th, 1973 at the age of 21 with a time of 3:58.8
Walker was the first man to reach 100 sub 4 on 2/17/85 ...! His 100th was 3:54.57 at age 33.
**
**To become the first man to record 100x sub4 he ran ..12 sub 4 between 12/15/84 to 2/17/85..!!! ~65days/12sub-4..!
Recorded a total of 135 of sub-4; but I can't find the date of his last one... Maybe 16+ years of sub-4..!
5x sub-3:50.00...! His best 5 times sub-3:50.00...
3:49.73; 3:49.73; 3:49.50; 3:49.4; 3:49.08 ... His sixth best was 3:50.01..!
Gold medal in the 1500; the metric mile; at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games.
Link:http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/video/3996...

"[M]etric mile" - cringe.

3 years ago 08/12/2022 9:43am EDT

re: Flagpole

Flagpole wrote:
One of the greats for sure.
I'm not too enthralled with the 100 sub-4 thing though. Once you have the ability to do it, running a huge number of them just means you attempted to do so, so meh to that.

Like driving a Ferrari lol

3 years ago 08/12/2022 7:15pm EDT

re: Flagpole

Flagpole wrote:
One of the greats for sure.
I'm not too enthralled with the 100 sub-4 thing though. Once you have the ability to do it, running a huge number of them just means you attempted to do so, so meh to that.

How many sub-3:50 miles have you racked up; how many sub-4:00 ?! What are you enthralled with if not this ?

3 years ago 08/12/2022 8:08pm EDT

re: Jzs

Pre died a few months before this. Too bad he couldn't rabbit this for his bud like he did Wottle.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 8:54am EDT

re: Jzs

Jzs wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
One of the greats for sure.
I'm not too enthralled with the 100 sub-4 thing though. Once you have the ability to do it, running a huge number of them just means you attempted to do so, so meh to that.
How many sub-3:50 miles have you racked up; how many sub-4:00 ?! What are you enthralled with if not this ?

Bump … 48 years ago 3:49.4

2 years ago 08/12/2023 9:01am EDT

re: NOT

NOT wrote:
John Walker runs 3:49.40; 47 years ago; 8/12/1975 ... The first man ever in track history to break the 3:50.0 mile run..! Video in link below.
Walker may be the greatest miler of all-time ran the mile, 135x under 4:00.0...!!
His first run under 4:00.0 was on July 7th, 1973 at the age of 21 with a time of 3:58.8
Walker was the first man to reach 100 sub 4 on 2/17/85 ...! His 100th was 3:54.57 at age 33.
**
**To become the first man to record 100x sub4 he ran ..12 sub 4 between 12/15/84 to 2/17/85..!!! ~65days/12sub-4..!
Recorded a total of 135 of sub-4; but I can't find the date of his last one... Maybe 16+ years of sub-4..!
5x sub-3:50.00...! His best 5 times sub-3:50.00...
3:49.73; 3:49.73; 3:49.50; 3:49.4; 3:49.08 ... His sixth best was 3:50.01..!
Gold medal in the 1500; the metric mile; at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games.
Link:http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/video/3996...

World class miler for many years. But was only on top for perhaps 3 years. And may have shared some or all of those with Bayi.

El G and Morceli on the other hand were each at the top for several years, perhaps as many as 9 for El G (Morceli 1990-95 for sure and maybe 1996; El G maybe 1996 and 1997-2004 for sure).

2 years ago 08/12/2023 9:01am EDT

re: NOT

Yes,a great memory I witnessed live at my native town Gothenburg in Sweden. What a great runner he was.

#10

This post was removed.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 11:02am EDT

re: COACH WIZARD 1

COACH WIZARD 1 wrote:
Yes,a great memory I witnessed live at my native town Gothenburg in Sweden. What a great runner he was.

Charisma. A rarity in sport.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 1:30pm EDT

re: Armstronglivs

Armstronglivs wrote:
COACH WIZARD 1 wrote:
Yes,a great memory I witnessed live at my native town Gothenburg in Sweden. What a great runner he was.
Charisma. A rarity in sport.

I just remember that after Pre died John Walker immediately became the "rock star" runner. And Walker kind of had the look and manner of an actual rock star. And we had sort of a "Kiwi invasion" with Walker, Dixon, and Quax... and we even had the "rock star" scandal with Quax running around with Mary Decker.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 1:54pm EDT

re: Flagpole

Flagpole wrote:
One of the greats for sure.
I'm not too enthralled with the 100 sub-4 thing though. Once you have the ability to do it, running a huge number of them just means you attempted to do so, so meh to that.

Flag, how many sub 4 miles was Walker deprived of because he had to run 1500m?

2 years ago 08/12/2023 1:55pm EDT

re: Newname

Newname wrote:
World class miler for many years. But was only on top for perhaps 3 years. And may have shared some or all of those with Bayi.
El G and Morceli on the other hand were each at the top for several years, perhaps as many as 9 for El G (Morceli 1990-95 for sure and maybe 1996; El G maybe 1996 and 1997-2004 for sure).

Don't you find it somewhat co-incidental that an Algerian and a Moroccan dominated the entire 12 years or so of the full throttle EPO era, and since then, the only North Africans who got close were Ramzi and another obvious doper who finally got caught (or at least exposed), and not one North African even made last year's 1500m final?

Imagine John Walker on EPO in 1975/76? He also developed I think calf problems in 77 or even earlier, and wasn't able to train as hard.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 2:01pm EDT

re: Jzs

Jzs wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
One of the greats for sure.
I'm not too enthralled with the 100 sub-4 thing though. Once you have the ability to do it, running a huge number of them just means you attempted to do so, so meh to that.
How many sub-3:50 miles have you racked up; how many sub-4:00 ?! What are you enthralled with if not this ?

What weird criteria you have there. I need to have run a mile in sub 4:00 to not be enthralled with someone who ran 100 of them? Huh? John Walker was great based on PRs and range. He didn't need to run 100 sub 4:00 miles to be considered great. ANY runner who has run under 3:55 (assuming no huge injury problems), and there are a LOT of those, would have the ability to run 100 sub 4:00 miles if they just ran enough of them. Runners just don't do that. It's the same as being impressed with a guy like Doug Kurtis who ran all those marathons under 2:20 (76 of them). I mean, good for him if he enjoyed doing that, but that doesn't make him extra great...just means he ran a lot of marathons kind of fast.

Running 100 sub 4:00 miles is the least impressive thing Walker did as a runner.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 2:14pm EDT

re: Coevett

Actually he was just as fast with the calf problem. He eliminated long runs, cut his mileage and ran more quality in his training. More miles < 5 worked just fine.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 2:49pm EDT

re: Flagpole

Flagpole wrote:
Jzs wrote:
How many sub-3:50 miles have you racked up; how many sub-4:00 ?! What are you enthralled with if not this ?
What weird criteria you have there. I need to have run a mile in sub 4:00 to not be enthralled with someone who ran 100 of them? Huh? John Walker was great based on PRs and range. He didn't need to run 100 sub 4:00 miles to be considered great. ANY runner who has run under 3:55 (assuming no huge injury problems), and there are a LOT of those, would have the ability to run 100 sub 4:00 miles if they just ran enough of them. Runners just don't do that. It's the same as being impressed with a guy like Doug Kurtis who ran all those marathons under 2:20 (76 of them). I mean, good for him if he enjoyed doing that, but that doesn't make him extra great...just means he ran a lot of marathons kind of fast.
Running 100 sub 4:00 miles is the least impressive thing Walker did as a runner.

That's like saying you are not enthralled with Cal Ripken's stats because if you can hit for a certain average for one year it's not hard to do it for 20 years. Achieving excellence over a long period of time in any sport is impressive because not many people can do it. A miler only can race ao many times a year and Walker had a very long career.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 3:05pm EDT

re: rusty man

Bayi's earlier 3:32.2 was worth 3:49 even by the over-conservative 1.08 equivalence factor, so big deal. Usual case of the mile WR lagging behind the 1500 WR until some Brit or American goes after it. Rest of the world doesn't really care about that.

This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.

2 years ago 08/12/2023 3:28pm EDT

re: NOT

NOT wrote:
John Walker runs 3:49.40; 47 years ago; 8/12/1975 ... The first man ever in track history to break the 3:50.0 mile run..! Video in link below.
Walker may be the greatest miler of all-time ran the mile, 135x under 4:00.0...!!
His first run under 4:00.0 was on July 7th, 1973 at the age of 21 with a time of 3:58.8
Walker was the first man to reach 100 sub 4 on 2/17/85 ...! His 100th was 3:54.57 at age 33.
**
**To become the first man to record 100x sub4 he ran ..12 sub 4 between 12/15/84 to 2/17/85..!!! ~65days/12sub-4..!
Recorded a total of 135 of sub-4; but I can't find the date of his last one... Maybe 16+ years of sub-4..!
5x sub-3:50.00...! His best 5 times sub-3:50.00...
3:49.73; 3:49.73; 3:49.50; 3:49.4; 3:49.08 ... His sixth best was 3:50.01..!
Gold medal in the 1500; the metric mile; at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games.
Link:http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/video/3996...

John Walker had 127 documented track sub-4s with 18 consecutive years of at least one track sub-4 (July 7, 1973 to August 17, 1990).

Here's his last one:
3:57.02 17 Aug 90 Gateshead, GBR

2 years ago 08/12/2023 4:37pm EDT

re: Coevett

Coevett wrote:
Newname wrote:
World class miler for many years. But was only on top for perhaps 3 years. And may have shared some or all of those with Bayi.
El G and Morceli on the other hand were each at the top for several years, perhaps as many as 9 for El G (Morceli 1990-95 for sure and maybe 1996; El G maybe 1996 and 1997-2004 for sure).
and not one North African even made last year's 1500m final?

no Brit made the final in 92, 99, 01, 03, 05, 09, 11, 12

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