Roger Bannister : Anyone can do anything?

Some Coach wrote:

Really?!? Results? I'd love to see who ran in this type of race, and how they ran compared to their pb's. Now that would be intersting, much more than most of the mundane crap on this site.

2006 was the 3rd annual. Previous year had seen Laban Rotich (maybe you've heard of him) break 4 minutes to win a VW. Race was initially started in 2004 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bannister's achievement and they reconstructed a high school track to be pretty much the same surface he faced.

Race website doesn't seem to be active anymore, but archived race brochure is at

Gabe won it this year in about 4:06

I remember the AW articles.

Alot of the claims made by some people in those articles were at best tenuous.

(Including the guy who claimed to have run a 4min mile before Bannister. He said, people watched and were timing but no-one thought anything of it at the time... Funny he said nothing when the world went mad about Bannister)

Loads of stuff is claimed about the Pedestrian rivalries etc. The hype of the whole thing was highlighted by the Captain Barclay style 1000 miles in 1000 hours challenge the London Marathon put on a few years back. In the Pedestrianism mythology it was the supreme feat of endurance by Barclay. When the FLM put it on people got tired and irritable but it was softer than they expected so it all had to come down to who could run the FLM fastest at the end of it.

flubby wrote:

El G has Bannister in the proper perspective. Too bad you don't.

El G certainly does have Bannister in the proper perspective: he respected and admired Bannister's great accomplishment, but he certainly didn't try to train like Bannister.

really.... wrote:

But did EL G "Retire" or "quit"? That is the question.

He quit, what a loser!

El G didn't try to train like Bannister or just copy. But his coach learned from what he did.

Read Neal Bascomb's "The Perfect Mile". Awesome story of the race behind the race.

As far as I know, all sub 4 WR holders are still alive!

Question, who will be the first to die?

It's been 52 years since Bannister so it shouldn't be too many more years until they start to die off.

AGAINTOCARTHAGE wrote:

Ok...I am not on the Bannister bandwagon. He is not one of my favorite runners or what not. But it is pretty inspirng that he went from a 4:52 (I might be mistaken) high school mile to a sub 4 in 5-6 years. Like I said I dont know much about the guy, but its inspiring the he could do such feats with very little running background.

Anyone with me?

Where did you get 4:52 from?

Not that Sub 4 movie on ESPN right?

from Bannister's biography 'First Four Minutes'

Oct 1946 Freshmen's Sports, Oxford 4:53 his 1st mile shortly after he arrived in Oxford, as a Freshman at Exeter College

6 May 1954 AAA v Oxford, Oxford 3:59.4

It's quite amazing that after Bannister broke the mental/physcial barrier 50+ years ago,that so few Americans can run under 4 today.

Perhaps someone on this forum give some insight on this.

Ay Seed Hymduit wrote:

It's quite amazing that after Bannister broke the mental/physcial barrier 50+ years ago,that so few Americans can run under 4 today.

Perhaps someone on this forum give some insight on this.

Lydiardism

What WAS Bannister's training?

hold the phone wrote:

flubby wrote:

El G has Bannister in the proper perspective. Too bad you don't.

El G certainly does have Bannister in the proper perspective: he respected and admired Bannister's great accomplishment, but he certainly didn't try to train like Bannister.

My thoughts exactly. I'm sure El G had the utmost respect for Bannister. But the fact is, El G is technically the superior runner and much of that can probably be attributed to his superior training techniques. Bannister was great in his day, but we should be observing the training methods of runners like Lagat, Bekele, El G, etc. Not Roger Bannister. Bannister could have been faster than he was if he had trained like El G.

my favourite bannister story is actually from the 1948 olympics where he was spectating at teh opening ceremony and the organisres found themselves without a British flag - Bannisters' dad had one in his car and roger ran off to get it and got back to the stadium just in time...

... or something like that...

Again, anyone know what his training usually was?

You have to look into the fact to that back then they didnt have the best shoes either and that the track surface sucks compare to now also, what he did was truel amazing. The men would get like three hours of sleep, take train rides go work then go to school he was amazing. Read his book and you really find out how amazing he was and he did on like no budget at all.

RB did not run for five days before a race

"no, we dismiss them because he ran 3:59.4 and the world record is now 3:43.13."

-you lads are either idiots or just too young to realize what you are talking about. bannister did this:

1.) on a wartime diet

2.) training sessions fit into a 45 minute lunch hour during MEDICAL SCHOOL

3.) WITHOUT drugs (please don't whine about el g being clean- you have to be distinctly naive to believe that)

4.) no coach (though stampfl did advise him his last year)

5.) on a cinder track on a blustery english day

6.) broke a barrier that prior to this was theorized was IMPOSSIBLE as to the limits of human performance

unbelievable run! i have had the pleasure of meeting sir bannister a handful of times and he is about as nice a bloke that one could meet.