Latest / Stuff You Should Know / The 4-minute Mile: Greatest Sports Story?

Transcript

The 4-minute Mile: Greatest Sports Story? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry and
0:16
Speaker 1: there's Roger Banister and we're all hanging out, running around
0:21
Speaker 1: being crazy and this is stuff you should know. Good intro,
0:27
Speaker 1: it was not my best. Let me ask you this, Chuck,
0:31
Speaker 1: do you miss the intros of your where like I
0:34
Speaker 1: would relate some maybe current news story to what we
0:37
Speaker 1: were talking about, or um, just there would be like
0:41
Speaker 1: an intro that I presented. Do you miss that or
0:43
Speaker 1: have we evolved past that? I mean, I thought those
0:47
Speaker 1: were great for sure, and occasionally when you do them again,
0:50
Speaker 1: it's nice. But also just don't mind the banter version
0:55
Speaker 1: as well. I think they're both great. Okay, well, maybe
0:58
Speaker 1: I'll pepper it in a little more than I have been. Okay, alright,
1:02
Speaker 1: I love it because I like the banter too, But
1:04
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I'm not like slacking
1:06
Speaker 1: off on you know, my end I'm supposed to be
1:08
Speaker 1: holding up. No, I mean you know that certainly keeps
1:12
Speaker 1: me quiet longer, which is good or bad depending on
1:18
Speaker 1: which one of us you prefer. So why can't you
1:22
Speaker 1: just prefer both? You know? I like to think so, um, like,
1:25
Speaker 1: who's an Ernie fan? And who's a Burt fan? And
1:27
Speaker 1: everybody's a Burden Ernie fan, you know? Okay, three, the
1:32
Speaker 1: Charlie's Angels equal, Yeah, but Cheryl Lad was far and
1:36
Speaker 1: away the best. You saw that. She was on your
1:40
Speaker 1: on Good Morning America three and we were in our
1:45
Speaker 1: little virtual green room on zoom. And when you're doing
1:49
Speaker 1: that everyone and you're on live TV, you're watching the
1:52
Speaker 1: feet of the television show, so you kind of know
1:53
Speaker 1: what's going on. And they did a teaser to go
1:56
Speaker 1: into commercial or show this this very pretty lady with
1:58
Speaker 1: blonde hair, kind of from a dis so sitting on
2:00
Speaker 1: the couch, and I went, in my mind, is that
2:03
Speaker 1: Cheryl Lad? And sure enough they said, in coming up,
2:06
Speaker 1: Cheryl Lad. She followed us. We opened for Cheryl Ladd. Finally,
2:10
Speaker 1: I know. It's pretty cool. Yeah, so um, and I
2:16
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. I watched a lot of
2:17
Speaker 1: Charlie's Angels. Cheryltte is definitely the best one. Okay, nay, um,
2:22
Speaker 1: So I've got an intro for this one. Oh, we
2:26
Speaker 1: had the banter in the intro perfect, Chuck, Yes, we're
2:31
Speaker 1: talking about the four minute mile today. Let's begin. Uh.
2:39
Speaker 1: You know, I got this idea because I was until
2:42
Speaker 1: I quit watching it because it's pretty terrible. I was
2:45
Speaker 1: watching that show Winning Time on HBO about the Lakers Dynasty.
2:49
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, didn't get bad. Yeah, I think it kind
2:52
Speaker 1: of stinks. But John c Riley is really good in it.
2:55
Speaker 1: But he told a story about Roger Banister and the
2:58
Speaker 1: fact that ethist. To Roger Banister, no one had ever
3:01
Speaker 1: thought the four minute mile was innachievable, like the human
3:05
Speaker 1: body just couldn't do it until he did it, and
3:08
Speaker 1: then it started happening on the kind of semi reg
3:12
Speaker 1: and it was in the show. It worked really well.
3:14
Speaker 1: It was a good story, and I thought, you know,
3:16
Speaker 1: I don't know much about Rogerster, Roger Rogster Banner, Roger Banister,
3:22
Speaker 1: or his story. So we had Dave Rouse cook up
3:25
Speaker 1: this article and it's I found it's super cool and
3:28
Speaker 1: kind of inspiring and uplifting. Yeah, it is. It's pretty neat.
3:32
Speaker 1: Um Ruse did a really good job with this too,
3:34
Speaker 1: like the suspense and I've got chills a couple of
3:38
Speaker 1: times reading. He He asked us a shout out to UM.
3:41
Speaker 1: A guy who wrote a book called The Perfect Mile,
3:44
Speaker 1: Neil Bascombe, because he used it as one of his
3:47
Speaker 1: sources in it. He I guess he thought it was
3:49
Speaker 1: so great that he wanted to shout out Neil Bascombe.
3:52
Speaker 1: But UM, one of the things that that you gotta
3:55
Speaker 1: have to do when you're talking about the four minute
3:57
Speaker 1: mile and why people thought it was impossible bowl UM,
4:01
Speaker 1: is to kind of start at the beginning, because the
4:04
Speaker 1: mile hasn't always existed. So the four minute mile hasn't
4:07
Speaker 1: always existed. UM. The mile has been around much longer
4:11
Speaker 1: than the idea of the four minute mile. UM. In fact,
4:14
Speaker 1: it was the ancient Greeks who kind of kicked the
4:18
Speaker 1: whole thing off by coming up with a measurement called
4:21
Speaker 1: a stat. And a stat was the distance across a
4:25
Speaker 1: field in the in an an Olympic stadium. I guess
4:29
Speaker 1: the Olympic stadium, it was about two ds, right, And
4:33
Speaker 1: so if you were if you were running around a
4:35
Speaker 1: modern track like a track and field track, you would
4:39
Speaker 1: go halfway and stop and you'd shout stop A That's
4:42
Speaker 1: what I do when I run, yep, I go about
4:45
Speaker 1: halfway around the track. I'm finished. And everyone's like, what's
4:49
Speaker 1: up with this creep? But that was the Greeks were
4:54
Speaker 1: into their running events, and the two d the half lap,
4:59
Speaker 1: as we know at the stop day, was the big
5:01
Speaker 1: showcase event. And then they had the uh diet dioulos
5:08
Speaker 1: dioulos that was too studies. It was a four hundred
5:12
Speaker 1: and then they had even longer ones all the way
5:14
Speaker 1: up to about forty eight hundred meters uh. And then
5:17
Speaker 1: we get if you want to know where the name
5:20
Speaker 1: mile cames from, cames from? What is going on with me?
5:25
Speaker 1: I guess you're getting on a little foggy Oh no, no,
5:28
Speaker 1: no no. The Romans they ran, but that that wasn't
5:32
Speaker 1: like their premiere event. Um. But the Romans did like
5:36
Speaker 1: to march, and when they did march, they marked their
5:39
Speaker 1: distance every thousand strides uh. And in Latins that was
5:44
Speaker 1: known as a melay pass us m I L l E,
5:49
Speaker 1: with a stride being two steps about two ft five inches.
5:53
Speaker 1: So at that time every melay pass us was four thousand,
5:57
Speaker 1: eight hundred and thirty three ft still not quite where
6:00
Speaker 1: we are today, right, And that's considered the first mile.
6:04
Speaker 1: And it became like a regular marker that Romans used
6:07
Speaker 1: the other thing Romans were famous for was building roads
6:11
Speaker 1: everywhere they went, and they marked these miles, these somewhat
6:15
Speaker 1: shorter miles than what we consider a mile today, um,
6:18
Speaker 1: along these roads. And what's crazy is that these Roman
6:22
Speaker 1: roads existed in say the UK for centuries and centuries,
6:27
Speaker 1: I mean like like tens of centuries, um, so that
6:31
Speaker 1: by the fifteen sixteenth centuries, um, wealthy people in the
6:36
Speaker 1: UK used to have their their servants race one another
6:40
Speaker 1: from one mile marker to another mile marker. So first
6:43
Speaker 1: you've got the mile thanks to the Romans. Well you
6:46
Speaker 1: have a history of foot racing thanks to the Greeks,
6:48
Speaker 1: a mile thanks to the Romans, and then the mile
6:51
Speaker 1: run thanks to the Brits in the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, right.
6:56
Speaker 1: And then it took I believe in FI to get
7:00
Speaker 1: to where we are today lengthwise, because British Parliament said
7:05
Speaker 1: a mile is eight furlongs and a for long is
7:08
Speaker 1: six hundred sixty ft or seventeen hundred and sixty yards
7:12
Speaker 1: or the very familiar five thousand, two hundred and eight feet.
7:18
Speaker 1: But we should note that as far as a mile
7:20
Speaker 1: long race, um, we still don't do that mile long
7:23
Speaker 1: race in the Olympics, we do the hundred meters, which
7:27
Speaker 1: is almost that. It's fifteen sixteenth of a mile. Yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: so close. It's just so maddening. It's like, keep going
7:34
Speaker 1: a little further. Kind of annoying. Actually, Um, the same
7:38
Speaker 1: thing happens at track meets in high school and college. Um.
7:42
Speaker 1: Starting in the eighties, they started building tracks to a
7:45
Speaker 1: uniform four hundred meters and you can't really divide a
7:49
Speaker 1: mile by four hundreds cleanly, so you've got four times
7:53
Speaker 1: around the track. Is about as close as you can
7:56
Speaker 1: come to a mile. I think it's nine m shy
7:59
Speaker 1: of a mile in there, Yeah, exactly, Like that finish
8:03
Speaker 1: line is not movable. Come on, let's let's get it
8:05
Speaker 1: together everybody. But they don't. They do have special mile
8:08
Speaker 1: races for college in high school, UM, but it's not
8:12
Speaker 1: like a regular event. It's usually a four eight, six hundred,
8:19
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand meter something like that. Yeah, a hundred and
8:24
Speaker 1: sixty million meter. Alright, So we're gonna go back in
8:29
Speaker 1: time again to the nineteenth century, when you know, I
8:33
Speaker 1: remember our episode on pubs and taverns. They got into
8:37
Speaker 1: running and sporting stuff aside from like darts, and they
8:42
Speaker 1: had tracks sometimes built out behind them, and they would
8:45
Speaker 1: organize these mile long races and people could bet on them,
8:49
Speaker 1: and the runners were called pedestrians. So initially the sport
8:53
Speaker 1: of running was called pedestrianism, which is hysterical so it
8:57
Speaker 1: doesn't exactly roll up the time, no uh. And then
9:00
Speaker 1: someone said, hey, we've got all these cricket fields, we've
9:04
Speaker 1: got all these soccer or football fields to them, and
9:07
Speaker 1: a circle around one of these things is about a
9:11
Speaker 1: quarter a mile if we if we plan it right,
9:13
Speaker 1: and a quarter mile track is what we're looking for.
9:15
Speaker 1: So they started putting these tracks around sporting fields and
9:19
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you've got, you know, a really
9:22
Speaker 1: easy way to to raise a mile, and it's another
9:24
Speaker 1: person right or the clock or both. Yeah. Yeah, you
9:29
Speaker 1: could run against the clock and a person at the
9:31
Speaker 1: same time. It's been done so because by the way,
9:35
Speaker 1: pedestrianism reminds me of like a clinical term for a kink,
9:39
Speaker 1: like walking around in public with no pants on, like
9:42
Speaker 1: porkypasian would be pedestrianism. Yeah. Um. So because the public
9:49
Speaker 1: kands figured out like, hey, we can we can make
9:51
Speaker 1: money off of this, it started attracting more and more
9:54
Speaker 1: people and it became more and more popular, and there
9:57
Speaker 1: was like this this whole jam in the nineteenth century
10:00
Speaker 1: where pedestrians were called milers because people were nuts for
10:03
Speaker 1: the mile race. Um. And there were pretty quickly in
10:08
Speaker 1: the beginning of the nineteenth century like pedestrian stars, miler
10:13
Speaker 1: mile racers stars um. Probably highest among them was a
10:17
Speaker 1: guy named Captain Robert Barclay. The reason that he was
10:21
Speaker 1: such as stars because he was the first guy to
10:23
Speaker 1: break the five minute mark, which at the time was
10:27
Speaker 1: considered beyond the limits of human endurance. Sure, and you know,
10:31
Speaker 1: pretty great. A minute mile was not bad those conditions,
10:35
Speaker 1: especially when you look at the meals that this guy
10:38
Speaker 1: would eat. Barclay his training regiment included a quote, a
10:42
Speaker 1: breakfast dinner of beef steak or mutton chops underdone with
10:46
Speaker 1: stale bread and old beer. Man. I don't know why
10:50
Speaker 1: it's got to be stale and old. Whenever I think
10:53
Speaker 1: of training, like eating for training, I think of that
10:57
Speaker 1: five k on the office and Michael Skott like he
11:00
Speaker 1: was trying to carbload, so a big thing of facchini
11:04
Speaker 1: alfredo right before the race. That was a good one. UM.
11:11
Speaker 1: So yeah, the Barclay had kind of a weird regiment,
11:14
Speaker 1: but it worked for him. And also you have to
11:16
Speaker 1: consider chuck like these these people were not running in
11:19
Speaker 1: like you know, on clouds or anything or nikes. They
11:24
Speaker 1: were running in like probably some the most uncomfortable shoe
11:28
Speaker 1: anyone living today would have ever encountered. And this guy
11:31
Speaker 1: was still running a five minute mile. Yeah on. You know,
11:35
Speaker 1: who knows what the tracks behind the pubs were made of,
11:37
Speaker 1: but like legitimate racing tracks were made of like tiny
11:41
Speaker 1: rocks oftentimes or cinders. I was surprised to see which
11:45
Speaker 1: is a tiny rock? I wasn't. I thought it was
11:48
Speaker 1: like old wood. It's like I think it's sort of
11:50
Speaker 1: like crushed lava rock. Okay, okay, I got you. That
11:56
Speaker 1: doesn't sound very comfortable at all. No, not at all. Uh.
12:00
Speaker 1: I remember when I was a kid, one of my
12:02
Speaker 1: and I still love it. One of my favorite war
12:03
Speaker 1: movies growing up because it was a big HBO special
12:06
Speaker 1: was Gallipoli and that had a sort of a sub
12:11
Speaker 1: story about mel Gibson was one of the young stars
12:15
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the other guy's name, this other Australian.
12:18
Speaker 1: They were like track foes and then eventually friends. And
12:21
Speaker 1: I remembered seeing the shoes that they were running on
12:24
Speaker 1: and the tracks that they were running on. When I
12:26
Speaker 1: was like ten and eleven years old, just thinking like
12:27
Speaker 1: what is going on back then? Nothing of pain, That's
12:32
Speaker 1: what it was going on, foot Paine. Was it a
12:36
Speaker 1: good movie. I've never seen it. Fantastic. That's the first
12:39
Speaker 1: time I've ever heard it pronounced out loud too. Oh
12:42
Speaker 1: really yeah, yeah, good stuff. So the nineteenth century was
12:47
Speaker 1: a big, big deal for um for running. Basically, people
12:52
Speaker 1: were super into it. There's a lot of betting going on.
12:55
Speaker 1: There were professional runners who made a career out of it,
12:58
Speaker 1: and like we said, Captain Robert barr Clay was the
13:00
Speaker 1: first guy to break the five minute mile. UM. That
13:04
Speaker 1: was the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the towards
13:06
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century, they were getting closer
13:09
Speaker 1: and closer to breaking the four minute mile. Like just
13:12
Speaker 1: in that century with those terrible shoes, they had gone
13:16
Speaker 1: from five minutes to really close to four minutes. Yeah,
13:20
Speaker 1: and it was really cool, like they were, like you said,
13:23
Speaker 1: the professionals that were making prize money and people were
13:26
Speaker 1: gambling on it. But to the there was a certain
13:29
Speaker 1: like academic class of athletes that sort of looked down
13:33
Speaker 1: upon them, and they were known as like the gentleman amateurs.
13:38
Speaker 1: And you know, they went to Cambridge and they went
13:40
Speaker 1: to Oxford, and they were educated and like excelled academically
13:45
Speaker 1: and they excelled athletically, and they didn't feel like you
13:49
Speaker 1: had to give up the one to do the other.
13:51
Speaker 1: And it was sort of a pride in doing all
13:53
Speaker 1: those things really well. And we mentioned this because as
13:57
Speaker 1: we'll see, Banister was one of these gentlemen amateurs. But
14:01
Speaker 1: one of the earlier ones was a guy named Walter
14:04
Speaker 1: George and he was one of the first big dogs
14:09
Speaker 1: that set a record that lasted about thirty years, a
14:12
Speaker 1: mile record. Yeah he um he. So he was an amateur,
14:16
Speaker 1: meaning like he didn't run for money. He considered that
14:18
Speaker 1: kind of lowly, being a gentleman amateur. But he raced
14:21
Speaker 1: against the um the top rated pro at the time,
14:24
Speaker 1: a guy named William Cummings, and in this meat called
14:28
Speaker 1: the Mile of the Century. Um they raced in front
14:32
Speaker 1: of a crowd of like twenty thou people. It is
14:36
Speaker 1: because also this is at the lily Bridge Sporting Grounds,
14:40
Speaker 1: uh in London, and um there were there weren't stadiums
14:44
Speaker 1: or bleachers like you had to, Like you were in
14:46
Speaker 1: a crowd of twenty thou people at ground level watching
14:50
Speaker 1: a race. Now you're watching the head of the person
14:52
Speaker 1: in front of you, basically. Yeah. So twenty thousand people
14:55
Speaker 1: turned out for this mile of the century and um
14:58
Speaker 1: uh Walter George one with a time of I think
15:02
Speaker 1: four minutes twelve seconds and this is in again with terrible,
15:06
Speaker 1: terrible shoes. I wonder if they were just the people
15:10
Speaker 1: in the front, like ten ft were just passing word back,
15:14
Speaker 1: you know, and they're like, they're both running fast, and
15:16
Speaker 1: then they're both running fast, and they would just keep
15:19
Speaker 1: saying that until someone went until at the end it
15:22
Speaker 1: was like the boat hurry smashed, the bannick ensued. Good stuff. Yeah,
15:33
Speaker 1: it is good stuff. Um, but there's something to be
15:36
Speaker 1: said about that for four minutes twelve second um time.
15:40
Speaker 1: First of all, it was the amateur Walter George who
15:43
Speaker 1: who got it. Second of all, like, that's really close
15:47
Speaker 1: to a four minute mile and we're talking eighteen eighties
15:50
Speaker 1: six here, right, So all of a sudden people are like,
15:53
Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe maybe it's not impossible, maybe it
15:56
Speaker 1: is impossible, but we're close enough that there's there's runners,
16:00
Speaker 1: there's elite runners around the world, and this is a
16:02
Speaker 1: time where running was still really popular, not just in
16:05
Speaker 1: Europe but in the United States as well. Um, who
16:08
Speaker 1: were saying, I'm going to dedicate my career to chasing
16:10
Speaker 1: that four minute mile, and um, that's that's kind of
16:13
Speaker 1: what happened starting in the early twentieth century. All right,
16:18
Speaker 1: I think that's a great place to break. We'll talk
16:20
Speaker 1: about a few of these people as that time ticks
16:23
Speaker 1: down towards four minutes. It's very exciting stuff, right it
16:26
Speaker 1: for this Josh and Shock. Alright, So Walter George Is
16:54
Speaker 1: set the record at the time, which was what four twelve,
16:58
Speaker 1: and the thirty years later, almost thirty years later, a
17:01
Speaker 1: man named American actually named Norman Tabor in nineteen fifteen
17:06
Speaker 1: shaved off two tenths of a second. So now Norman
17:09
Speaker 1: Tabor owns a world record. And then for about forty
17:13
Speaker 1: years there were you know, it started just going down
17:15
Speaker 1: little by little. There was a finished runner named Pabo
17:18
Speaker 1: Nurmi who owned the record for a little while, I
17:22
Speaker 1: think brought it down to four ten, made the sport
17:25
Speaker 1: kind of even more popular. A Frenchman named Jules uh
17:30
Speaker 1: how would you say that, uh live, do make you led?
17:33
Speaker 1: Do make you went single digits for the first time
17:37
Speaker 1: at four oh nine point two in thirty one, new
17:41
Speaker 1: Zealander named Jack Lovelock brought it down to four oh
17:44
Speaker 1: seven point six and thirty three, I think an American
17:48
Speaker 1: named Glenn Cunningham brought it down to four oh six
17:51
Speaker 1: point eight. That was Glenn Cunningham the Kansas Powerhouse. And
17:55
Speaker 1: this is a cool story because he as a child
17:58
Speaker 1: had his legs burned in a kerosene accident that actually
18:02
Speaker 1: killed his brother. I was told he might never walk again,
18:05
Speaker 1: and apparently it hurt less to run than it did
18:09
Speaker 1: to walk. So I don't know if Forrest Gump got
18:12
Speaker 1: this from there, but apparently as a child, like everywhere
18:16
Speaker 1: he went, he was running exactly and like he was
18:20
Speaker 1: told that he would never walk again, and he ends
18:23
Speaker 1: up growing up to set the world record for the
18:26
Speaker 1: fastest mile at four point four oh six point eight.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's an amazing story. And also we need to say,
18:34
Speaker 1: like Jack Lovelock, Glenn Cunningham, Parvo Nermi, these people are
18:39
Speaker 1: world famous. Like if you went to America and you
18:42
Speaker 1: said Jack Lovelock, most people would know what you were
18:45
Speaker 1: talking about because again, track was really really popular in
18:49
Speaker 1: the United States for a while, and I went online
18:51
Speaker 1: to look to see what happened, and no one knows.
18:54
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, it's kind of tough to watch it. It's um,
18:57
Speaker 1: you know, it's just one person, it's not a team.
18:59
Speaker 1: People have hypotheses, but none of them were like, this
19:02
Speaker 1: is what happened. I suspect it was the rise of football,
19:06
Speaker 1: and people are like, yeah, football, and I like baseball too,
19:09
Speaker 1: and it just kind of got edged out by the
19:11
Speaker 1: popularity of other sports. That's my guess. I feel like
19:14
Speaker 1: Olympic track is still very big, definitely, like I feel
19:19
Speaker 1: like in America, at least in the summer Olympics, like
19:21
Speaker 1: the Michael Johnson's and the the Flow Joe's are like
19:24
Speaker 1: they make a lot of the biggest headlines. Um. I
19:28
Speaker 1: always loved I was never good at track, um and
19:32
Speaker 1: I never tried to do it, but I always really
19:34
Speaker 1: loved it growing up because my dad was a uh
19:38
Speaker 1: collegiate track star in a small school Union University in Tennessee.
19:43
Speaker 1: But he still owns some like records from Union as
19:45
Speaker 1: a hurdler, and it was sort of his passion. So
19:48
Speaker 1: like growing up. He would watch the track in the
19:51
Speaker 1: Olympics and really get into it, and I was always
19:54
Speaker 1: desperately trying to seek a way to connect with him,
19:56
Speaker 1: so I would watch track and it's still sort of
19:59
Speaker 1: as this special thing for me for the Olympics. Love
20:01
Speaker 1: watching track. Yeah, I can imagine it sucks me up
20:04
Speaker 1: um every time too. But then you know, after the Olympics,
20:07
Speaker 1: I forget all about it until the next Olympics. And
20:10
Speaker 1: there's plenty of races that are like run all around
20:14
Speaker 1: the world, around the country like year round basically, and
20:17
Speaker 1: they don't get televised, you know. Yeah, that's the thing.
20:20
Speaker 1: It's it's a big Olympic sport here, but you you
20:22
Speaker 1: don't know, one talks about like the you know, the
20:25
Speaker 1: Hawaiian program or whatever, right, but this is so this
20:28
Speaker 1: But this is at a time when like the world
20:31
Speaker 1: is into track. And one of the one of the
20:33
Speaker 1: things that happened that really kind of captured the imagination
20:36
Speaker 1: of everybody was when to Swedish runners became like the
20:40
Speaker 1: world's best runners and they started breaking one another's world
20:44
Speaker 1: record for the mile, getting closer and closer each time
20:48
Speaker 1: to a four minute mile um. And there was this
20:51
Speaker 1: really famous meat between the two of them, Goonder Hog
20:56
Speaker 1: and Arnie Anderson. And it was five at Malmo in Sweden. Um,
21:03
Speaker 1: so it's the two best runners in the world who
21:06
Speaker 1: everybody knows in the world. Both of them are Swedish
21:09
Speaker 1: and this race is being held in Sweden, so it's
21:12
Speaker 1: like a big deal race. And both of these guys
21:15
Speaker 1: are like flip flopped world record holders for the mile,
21:19
Speaker 1: that's right, And both of them got basically cheated out
21:23
Speaker 1: of Olympic fame because of World War Two. The Games
21:26
Speaker 1: were canceled in forty four when they would have been
21:29
Speaker 1: at like the peak of their you know, athletic ability.
21:33
Speaker 1: But I believe the end up. I mean, like you said,
21:37
Speaker 1: they flip flopped and it ended up at the Malmo event.
21:40
Speaker 1: I think, uh, Hog one and set the new record
21:44
Speaker 1: at four oh one point four close. I saw that
21:50
Speaker 1: it was estimated that he was four stride short of
21:53
Speaker 1: a four minute a four minute mile. Yeah, and I
21:56
Speaker 1: think this really like hits home on just how hard
22:00
Speaker 1: it was to do and it's still super hard, but
22:03
Speaker 1: how hard it was back then that the premier athletes
22:07
Speaker 1: in the world could get close but not quite get there. Yeah,
22:11
Speaker 1: Like it didn't. It didn't they. You didn't get any healthier,
22:14
Speaker 1: you didn't get in any better shape, You couldn't run
22:16
Speaker 1: any better than Arnie Anderson and Gunder Hogg. So and
22:21
Speaker 1: they just couldn't do it. It must have driven them crazy,
22:24
Speaker 1: you know. So people people some people looked at it differently.
22:28
Speaker 1: There are two different ways to look at it. And
22:29
Speaker 1: some people said, these guys are one point four seconds
22:34
Speaker 1: off of a four minute mile, right, somebody's going to
22:38
Speaker 1: get there. We're just too close, and we've been edging
22:41
Speaker 1: closer and closer over the last century or so, So
22:44
Speaker 1: somebody's going to get there. Other people said, look, if
22:48
Speaker 1: if you know Hogg and Anderson can do it, nobody
22:51
Speaker 1: can do it. It's beyond the limits of the capabilities
22:55
Speaker 1: of the human body. Yeah. There was a guy in
22:58
Speaker 1: particular attract coach, sort of a legend apparently named Brutus
23:01
Speaker 1: Hamilton's who He was one of the ones saying like
23:05
Speaker 1: it can't happen. And he coached at cal Berkeley and
23:09
Speaker 1: did a lot of He wasn't just sort of like not,
23:11
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's gonna happen. He did a
23:13
Speaker 1: lot of research on the limits the physiological limits of
23:18
Speaker 1: human the human body, and published a list of what
23:21
Speaker 1: he called the ultimates of human effort, where he took
23:23
Speaker 1: a lot of these track and field sports and basically said,
23:27
Speaker 1: no one will ever be able to throw a javelin
23:29
Speaker 1: further than this, or a shot put further than that,
23:32
Speaker 1: or uh, or go over a high bar until by
23:36
Speaker 1: the way, look for a future episode on Dick Fosbury
23:39
Speaker 1: that's totally coming. Uh. And he said the mile. He
23:42
Speaker 1: just said, there's no way it's ever gonna happen the
23:46
Speaker 1: human body. There's just a physical barrier there that won't
23:49
Speaker 1: allow it. Right. And I read an l A Times
23:52
Speaker 1: article from the nineties that pointed out that every single
23:55
Speaker 1: one of those limits have been broken at least once. Yeah,
23:59
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's sort of the hubrist of
24:02
Speaker 1: being in your own time and space and thinking that
24:04
Speaker 1: it will never get any better. Yeah, that's a lot
24:06
Speaker 1: of hubris, though, to publish your hubrists, you know. Yeah,
24:10
Speaker 1: So poor Brutus Hamilton's I guess he had good intentions
24:13
Speaker 1: because he was saying like, don't even try, everybody, just
24:15
Speaker 1: give up, which makes him a terrible coach really, But
24:19
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what his motivation was but um, there
24:22
Speaker 1: were people out there who are like, no, brutus, brutus,
24:25
Speaker 1: Hamilton's is wrong. Um. And one of those people was
24:28
Speaker 1: our hero of this story, Roger Banister, who was a
24:32
Speaker 1: British dude who I believe was twenty four when he
24:36
Speaker 1: ended up breaking the record. Yeah. I think if we
24:39
Speaker 1: were a PBS documentary we would say, and it would
24:42
Speaker 1: be right before the commercial. Is what Hamilton's did not
24:45
Speaker 1: count on was the power of the human spirit, the
24:50
Speaker 1: spirit of Roger Banister. Because that's really true. I mean,
24:54
Speaker 1: as you'll see, I mean, let's go ahead and talk
24:56
Speaker 1: about Banister. He was by all accounts a great He
25:00
Speaker 1: was an Olympic caliber runner. Um. But he was, like
25:03
Speaker 1: we said, one of those gentleman runners who was very
25:07
Speaker 1: stubbornly apparently a gentleman amateur and like many times or
25:11
Speaker 1: much of his career, refused to take on a coach.
25:13
Speaker 1: He would have his own methods of training. Um, he
25:17
Speaker 1: would go to school. He studied medicine at Oxford and
25:21
Speaker 1: he he didn't like give it all up to just
25:24
Speaker 1: train full time and hire a coach to train him
25:26
Speaker 1: full time in order to improve his times. No, this
25:30
Speaker 1: guy was training to be a doctor and an Olympic
25:34
Speaker 1: runner at the same time, in the same life, in
25:38
Speaker 1: the same years, in his early twenties exactly, so he
25:41
Speaker 1: was rather motivated, you could say. UM. And he started
25:45
Speaker 1: out ho home kind of. I think he had a
25:48
Speaker 1: time of like, UM four fifty two and his first
25:53
Speaker 1: race at Oxford, UM, his first mile race, he was
25:56
Speaker 1: a freshman. He still came in second, so that was respectable,
26:00
Speaker 1: but he's like, this is not nearly good enough. Um.
26:02
Speaker 1: Within a few months, he shaved twenty seconds off of
26:05
Speaker 1: his time. And he also yeah, and he also learned
26:09
Speaker 1: that he really liked this track stuff because he had
26:12
Speaker 1: been across country runner in high school or grammar school. UM.
26:17
Speaker 1: And when he got to college he tried track, and
26:19
Speaker 1: in track you can just run past a whole bunch
26:23
Speaker 1: of people when you, you you know, kick it into six gear.
26:27
Speaker 1: And he was like, I like doing that a lot.
26:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start really focusing on this track thing. And
26:32
Speaker 1: that's what he he did. He basically set all of
26:36
Speaker 1: his spare time toward training to be a track star
26:40
Speaker 1: in between times when he was studying and practicing to
26:42
Speaker 1: become a doctor. All right, I think that's a great
26:45
Speaker 1: time for a break yeah, yeah, listen to me. I'm
26:49
Speaker 1: Arnie Anderson. Yeah, sure, I'd run a fast mile. That
26:53
Speaker 1: was great. That's appearance in the past few weeks. See
26:57
Speaker 1: what's going on? Uh, the sweet are in the zeitgeist,
27:01
Speaker 1: I guess. So all right, we're gonna pick up with
27:03
Speaker 1: Roger Banister and his sites set on Helsinki right after this,
27:23
Speaker 1: Josh and Shock. All right, Chuck, So we're talking about
27:34
Speaker 1: Roger Banister and he said, I really like this track stuff.
27:36
Speaker 1: And when he started to become a track star at Oxford,
27:39
Speaker 1: people started saying, hey, you know, there's some Olympics coming up.
27:43
Speaker 1: I think they're They were the ones in Los Angeles, right, okay, yeah,
27:48
Speaker 1: and people said you should run for that. You know, um,
27:51
Speaker 1: you should try the mile race. I think you do
27:53
Speaker 1: really well maybe there, who knows. And he was like
27:57
Speaker 1: he was levelheaded enough not to get swept up in
28:00
Speaker 1: that because he knew he just wasn't ready. So he
28:03
Speaker 1: decided he would set his sights on the nineteen fifty
28:05
Speaker 1: two Games in Helsinki and train for those instead, rather
28:09
Speaker 1: than trying to rush things and and enter the nineteen
28:11
Speaker 1: forty eight Olympics, which he probably could have, but he
28:14
Speaker 1: just didn't have enough faith in his abilities to win
28:17
Speaker 1: gold um, so he put it off for four years.
28:20
Speaker 1: That's the kind of like mental discipline this guy had.
28:23
Speaker 1: And that would be Helsinki, Sweden, Finland. Do you get
28:29
Speaker 1: that reference? No, I wish I did hang out there then.
28:32
Speaker 1: I always feel so foolish when things like this happened, Like,
28:35
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm going to talk for the rest
28:37
Speaker 1: of the episode. You played it perfectly, though, you answered,
28:40
Speaker 1: just like in the movie it was Uncle Buck. Now
28:46
Speaker 1: it wasn't die Hard. It was when that jackass newscaster
28:49
Speaker 1: they have like the terrorist expert and he talks about
28:52
Speaker 1: something like the Helsinki protocol or the Helsinki something and
28:55
Speaker 1: he just butts in and goes and that's Helsinki, Sweden,
28:59
Speaker 1: and the guys like, no, Finland. You did perfect too, Buddy,
29:04
Speaker 1: I feel like talking again. So I sounded like a
29:07
Speaker 1: world jackass newscaster. You did. But that's what you were
29:10
Speaker 1: going for. Alright, So where are we are? Oh? Yeah,
29:13
Speaker 1: he's He says yes on Helsinki, which is fifty two,
29:18
Speaker 1: and again shuns the coaching and starts kind of sponsoring
29:23
Speaker 1: or not sponsoring, but um planning out these races and
29:27
Speaker 1: all over the world. He raised in New Zealand, he
29:29
Speaker 1: raised in America. He was lighting himself against the best
29:32
Speaker 1: runners in the world. He ran a very high profile
29:36
Speaker 1: race in Philadelphia called the Benjamin Franklin Mile appropriately and
29:40
Speaker 1: became sort of a big star in America at this point. Um,
29:44
Speaker 1: such that there was a headline, or I don't know
29:46
Speaker 1: it's a headline, but something in the newspaper was quoted, uh,
29:49
Speaker 1: no manager, no trainer, no monsieur, no friends, he's nuts.
29:53
Speaker 1: He's good. That's pretty great, very nineteen fifties. Yeah, especially
30:01
Speaker 1: with that voice of yours. Man. It just they also
30:04
Speaker 1: said that he was a worthy air to Jack Lovelock,
30:07
Speaker 1: which just goes to show you how much of a
30:09
Speaker 1: star Jack Lovelock was because he'd raised like twenty years earlier.
30:14
Speaker 1: And where was he. He was at four oh eight
30:16
Speaker 1: by this point, by the way, Okay, so he's got
30:18
Speaker 1: it down to four oh eight, and he's like, okay,
30:20
Speaker 1: I think I'm ready for the Olympics. Um. And he
30:23
Speaker 1: goes there and he runs in the undred and he
30:25
Speaker 1: places fourth. So it doesn't meddle. And this is completely
30:30
Speaker 1: out of step with the plans that he had. I
30:35
Speaker 1: just suddenly started talking like William Shatner for some reason. Uh.
30:41
Speaker 1: And it was, you know, it was a big disappointment
30:43
Speaker 1: for him and England because this was post World War two.
30:47
Speaker 1: England was you know, got beat up pretty badly as
30:51
Speaker 1: far as like the shape of the cities and especially London,
30:54
Speaker 1: and they needed some big athletic victories and I think
30:57
Speaker 1: they only got one goal that year. They ended up um,
31:00
Speaker 1: kind of toward the top middle of the pack with
31:03
Speaker 1: eleven medals total, but it was certainly kind of looked
31:06
Speaker 1: at as a as a national disappointment as far as
31:09
Speaker 1: the Olympics go. Yeah, and Banister was very disappointed in
31:12
Speaker 1: himself too. I think he'd really felt you know, the
31:15
Speaker 1: spirit of England on his shoulders, so he felt like
31:17
Speaker 1: he failed his whole country. Um. And like I said this,
31:21
Speaker 1: this was totally out of step with his plans, which
31:24
Speaker 1: were he was going to get the gold in Helsinki
31:27
Speaker 1: Helsinki in fifty two and then retire from running and
31:31
Speaker 1: focus on medicine and that's just what he was going
31:33
Speaker 1: to do with his life and it didn't pan out
31:35
Speaker 1: like that. So rather than just being like, man, this sucks,
31:38
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to be a doctor anymore. I'm
31:40
Speaker 1: just gonna go, I don't know, just be a shiftless drifter.
31:44
Speaker 1: How about that? Um, he didn't do that. He redoubled
31:47
Speaker 1: his efforts and said, Okay, maybe I can't get Olympic gold.
31:50
Speaker 1: I have my shot, didn't make it. I'm going to
31:53
Speaker 1: focus my my sights instead on breaking the four minute mile.
31:56
Speaker 1: That's what I Roger Banister, I'm going to do. And
31:59
Speaker 1: he set about doing it. Yes, And he had a
32:01
Speaker 1: little trick up his sleeve, and that he was just
32:04
Speaker 1: he was no ordinary runner in his studies that med.
32:08
Speaker 1: As a med student, he had a research scholarship while
32:12
Speaker 1: at Oxford to study the physiological effects of running. So
32:17
Speaker 1: this is amazing. All of a sudden, he's doing these
32:20
Speaker 1: deep dive experiments on the very thing he's trying to achieve,
32:24
Speaker 1: which is what can the human body take athletically. He
32:28
Speaker 1: had a paper called the carbon and like on a
32:31
Speaker 1: scientific level, he had a paper called the carbon dioxide
32:34
Speaker 1: stimulus to breathing and severe exercise probably helpful. And another
32:38
Speaker 1: one called the effects on the respiration and performance during
32:41
Speaker 1: exercise of adding oxygen to the inspired air. So he's
32:46
Speaker 1: getting a scientific physiological understanding of what needs to happen,
32:50
Speaker 1: which was I think for sure. I mean, he had
32:53
Speaker 1: the heart, but this is definitely a leg up on
32:56
Speaker 1: his competitors, Yeah, definitely. And he had the help of
32:59
Speaker 1: kindred spirit named Norris mcwherder, who would go on to
33:03
Speaker 1: found with his twin brother, the Guinness Book of World
33:06
Speaker 1: Records UM. And Norris mcwardor was also into running, he
33:10
Speaker 1: was into data and analysis UM, and so he very
33:14
Speaker 1: eagerly helped Roger Banister with these scientific studies, including being
33:17
Speaker 1: a guinea pig himself. And one of the studies UM
33:21
Speaker 1: that they conducted together was to put mcwhardor on a
33:24
Speaker 1: treadmill like a nineteen forties treadmill by the way, or
33:28
Speaker 1: a nineteen fifties treadmill, I guess, um, and just make
33:32
Speaker 1: him run flat out as fast as he possibly can
33:34
Speaker 1: for as long as he could. And I guess he
33:36
Speaker 1: made it to like the six minute mark before he
33:38
Speaker 1: blacked out and fell and was shot like an arrow
33:42
Speaker 1: out of a cannon, which wouldn't be very effective, but
33:47
Speaker 1: it wasn't this case. It was a mcwherdor arrow out
33:49
Speaker 1: of a treadmill cannon. And luckily they had a bunch
33:52
Speaker 1: of blankets and pillows and stuff like against the wall
33:55
Speaker 1: behind the treadmill to catch him. Because I guess Banister
33:59
Speaker 1: had conducted this experiment on himself many times and knew
34:02
Speaker 1: what to expect. So he's like, okay, the six minute mark.
34:06
Speaker 1: If I can just whittle down my time, I can
34:10
Speaker 1: run flat out for four minutes um and I won't collapse.
34:15
Speaker 1: Those are the Those are the things here, the time
34:18
Speaker 1: running up against the time and then collapsing at some point,
34:21
Speaker 1: Like it's it's that's what's going to happen if I
34:24
Speaker 1: if I run far enough. So from these studies, like
34:26
Speaker 1: he started to devise his strategy at breaking the four
34:30
Speaker 1: minute mile, and it's extremely clever. Yeah, Like it made
34:35
Speaker 1: perfect sense. He was like, I'm so close and and
34:38
Speaker 1: several of us are so close. If we can just
34:41
Speaker 1: stave off that collapse for a few seconds. That were
34:45
Speaker 1: there And one of his big jams was conservation of energy.
34:49
Speaker 1: And when you look at like when you look at
34:52
Speaker 1: a Michael Johnson run or a Flow Joe or anybody
34:55
Speaker 1: in their prime, it always just astounded me how compact
35:00
Speaker 1: and efficient their stride was. There was no like if
35:04
Speaker 1: you look at me run I look like a sick chicken.
35:07
Speaker 1: You know, there there's no form, there's no efficiency. I'm
35:11
Speaker 1: like limbs are running all over the place. And you
35:14
Speaker 1: know that's when you look at these elite athletes. Their
35:17
Speaker 1: strides are perfect, uh, machines of efficiency, basically no wasted energy. Right,
35:24
Speaker 1: And and that was one thing that Banister you know,
35:27
Speaker 1: zeroed in on. Like you you like like you're you're
35:31
Speaker 1: just moving forward. That's everything. Every movement of your muscle
35:34
Speaker 1: was to propel you forward. Um. The other thing is
35:37
Speaker 1: he was trying to figure out how to expand his
35:40
Speaker 1: his um cardio pulmonary um limits um to take in
35:46
Speaker 1: more oxygen when he inhaled a breath. Um, he could
35:50
Speaker 1: probably breathe through both nostrils. I'm guessing. Um he didn't
35:54
Speaker 1: have a deviated septum to um lower his resting heart rate,
35:59
Speaker 1: which is a hell tail sign of either somebody with
36:02
Speaker 1: a heart condition or an elite athlete. It's weird that
36:06
Speaker 1: both of those have lower resting heart rates. So he
36:09
Speaker 1: worked on this stuff. He figured it out, but he
36:11
Speaker 1: also realized that he needed help. He needed basically teammates
36:15
Speaker 1: and so um he went against his own uh, his
36:20
Speaker 1: own type and met up with the two Chris's Chris
36:24
Speaker 1: Chattery and Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, and he used
36:28
Speaker 1: these guys, well, then use them. I think they were
36:31
Speaker 1: fully aware and you and like willing participants. Yeah, they're
36:35
Speaker 1: on his training team, right, Okay, that's a better way
36:37
Speaker 1: to put it. Um, he used them as pacers, so
36:40
Speaker 1: they helped him keep his pace and um, after three
36:45
Speaker 1: laps around the track, they would unleash the banister. That
36:50
Speaker 1: was the strategy. Dirty. Uh. Yeah. I think it's really
36:54
Speaker 1: interesting to the idea of having these pacers because it
36:58
Speaker 1: is a solitary sport, but early you're better when you
37:01
Speaker 1: have either racing against someone or in this case, have
37:05
Speaker 1: a pacer that's sort of you know, reminding you how
37:09
Speaker 1: fast you should be running at this point in the race,
37:11
Speaker 1: because it's not it's not a sprint. You know, there's
37:13
Speaker 1: there's a technique there, and there's a game plan and
37:17
Speaker 1: in every case, I believe, uh, generally it's you've got
37:20
Speaker 1: to save some for that final burst, otherwise your toast.
37:24
Speaker 1: That's why you see these great moments where someone comes
37:27
Speaker 1: from like five or six back at the end because
37:30
Speaker 1: they have saved more than the other people. Have in
37:33
Speaker 1: front of them. Yeah. And that was the role of
37:34
Speaker 1: the two Chris is to keep him from expending too
37:37
Speaker 1: much energy too early. And they were really good at
37:40
Speaker 1: running a specific pace. And because he had two different pacers,
37:44
Speaker 1: he um like each one could run at a specific
37:48
Speaker 1: pace without exerting themselves beyond their own limits. Because the
37:52
Speaker 1: first Chris would run the first two laps, the second
37:55
Speaker 1: Chris would run the third lap, and then the fourth
37:58
Speaker 1: lap bandished or ran by himself, just away from the pack.
38:03
Speaker 1: And this was their strategy. Um, this was what they
38:06
Speaker 1: trained for. And um. Apparently he didn't run for like
38:10
Speaker 1: eight months before the race that he ran on May sixth,
38:13
Speaker 1: ninety um. And he chose this race very wisely and deliberately.
38:21
Speaker 1: It was hen race other people specifically, right he trained, Yeah, right,
38:26
Speaker 1: he was training, but he didn't participate in any actual race. Yeah.
38:30
Speaker 1: And he chose this the place, the site, the day,
38:33
Speaker 1: everything very carefully, didn't he. Yeah. So he chose his
38:38
Speaker 1: favorite track, which was the Ithaly Road track at Oxford. Uh.
38:43
Speaker 1: And again this was the cinder track. And on the
38:46
Speaker 1: morning of May sixty four, it would it had rained.
38:51
Speaker 1: And so a cinder track is going to be saggy,
38:53
Speaker 1: which would indicate like slower times. And then his memoir
38:58
Speaker 1: he he sort of was like, you know everything, I'll
39:02
Speaker 1: just read it. Uh. I had reached my peak physically
39:04
Speaker 1: and psychologically. That would never be another day like it.
39:08
Speaker 1: This was my first race for eight months, and all
39:11
Speaker 1: this time had been storing nervous energy. If I tried
39:13
Speaker 1: and fail, I should be dejected and my chances would
39:16
Speaker 1: be less on any later attempt. So what he was
39:18
Speaker 1: basically saying was it's now or never today. Yeah, And
39:22
Speaker 1: what the problem was is the weather wasn't cooperating. So
39:25
Speaker 1: whether whether it worked out or not, this was his day. Um.
39:30
Speaker 1: So he went out there, of course to try it.
39:33
Speaker 1: And it just turns out that this this terrible weather,
39:35
Speaker 1: the wet track, the gale force wins, everything just kind
39:38
Speaker 1: of died down by race time and he was like, Okay,
39:42
Speaker 1: everything's starting to fall into place. This this is in
39:44
Speaker 1: fact going to be the day that I break that
39:46
Speaker 1: for a minute mile. And apparently he got ready and
39:50
Speaker 1: set and um, if this were a movie, you you'd
39:54
Speaker 1: be like, I can't believe they did that. But apparently
39:56
Speaker 1: in real life there was a false start. All this
39:58
Speaker 1: build up Roger band. He is about to like pop
40:01
Speaker 1: from nervous energy, and there's a false start. They have
40:04
Speaker 1: to start over again, so he has to reset his
40:06
Speaker 1: mind back at the starting line, and then finally it starts,
40:11
Speaker 1: and I think Brasher, Chris Brasher was the one who ran,
40:14
Speaker 1: who paced him for the first two laps, right, that's right,
40:18
Speaker 1: So he's setting pace. Banister is yelling at him to
40:21
Speaker 1: go faster, but he's that's basically Banister being a little
40:25
Speaker 1: over hyped in the moment, and thank goodness he had
40:29
Speaker 1: his pacers there because Basher's Brasher's job was to stay
40:32
Speaker 1: in the moment and know what the pace should be
40:36
Speaker 1: and not like deviate from that. So he he didn't
40:39
Speaker 1: go faster, He stayed that pace that he knew we
40:41
Speaker 1: should stay on and ignored him basically. And they were
40:44
Speaker 1: at the half mile mark at one, so it is
40:50
Speaker 1: they're halfway, they're they're on pace to do it, and
40:52
Speaker 1: then Chris Chataway takes over. Yeah, and so Chataway and
40:55
Speaker 1: Banister running for um the third lap, the three core
41:00
Speaker 1: or of a mile mark where they finish, and they're
41:02
Speaker 1: at three minutes point seven seconds, minutes and seven tenths
41:08
Speaker 1: of a second and they're a little bit over. That's
41:10
Speaker 1: a little bit nerve racking um. And then at the
41:13
Speaker 1: end of that three quarter mile mark, at the end
41:15
Speaker 1: of the third lap, Chataway just melts away and Banister
41:20
Speaker 1: takes off. And Banister had figured out how to accelerate,
41:27
Speaker 1: how to move himself after being exerting himself for three minutes,
41:34
Speaker 1: you know, like this was a really fast three laps
41:37
Speaker 1: around the race, and he figured out how to find
41:39
Speaker 1: a different gear and he put it into that gear
41:42
Speaker 1: and he took off at a sprint for the last
41:45
Speaker 1: the fourth lap, and he ended up crossing the finish
41:48
Speaker 1: line at what chuck, Well, this is the coolest part
41:54
Speaker 1: and the way they puts it as really very dramatic
41:56
Speaker 1: and awesome. Uh. The announcer at the event, I think
42:01
Speaker 1: it was his buddy Norris mcwhorder, right, which is so cool,
42:05
Speaker 1: just like the movie moment. His best buddies there, and
42:08
Speaker 1: he said the result of event number six, the one
42:10
Speaker 1: mile winner A G. Banister of Exeter and Merton Colleges
42:15
Speaker 1: in a time which will be a new English record,
42:18
Speaker 1: a new track record, a new British Empire, Commonwealth record,
42:23
Speaker 1: a European record, a world record, and three and Apparently
42:28
Speaker 1: as soon as he said three, everyone went nuts and
42:31
Speaker 1: you couldn't even hear the rest of the time announced yep.
42:35
Speaker 1: So Banister ended up running that day a three minute,
42:39
Speaker 1: fifty nine and four tenth second mile, the first human
42:43
Speaker 1: being in history as far as we know, to have
42:47
Speaker 1: run a mile in less than four minutes. Amazing, he
42:51
Speaker 1: did this impossible thing. People were like, it's not possible,
42:54
Speaker 1: and Banister did it. And what's really remarkable and weird
42:58
Speaker 1: and kind of circles back to John's Riley is within
43:03
Speaker 1: six weeks banisters four minute mile, this thing that no
43:07
Speaker 1: human had ever done and they've been trying to do
43:09
Speaker 1: for centuries. Now. In six weeks banisters record was broken.
43:15
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. I think it was John Landy of Australia.
43:20
Speaker 1: Go Australia. He beat his time by one second. And
43:24
Speaker 1: then in fifty four there was a showdown between the
43:27
Speaker 1: two of them, which was a big one. You know,
43:29
Speaker 1: you've got Britain against Australia at the Commonwealth British Empire
43:33
Speaker 1: and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, and they the race was
43:37
Speaker 1: called the Miracle mile. Uh Landy is ahead on the
43:40
Speaker 1: final turn and apparently glances over his left shoulder to
43:43
Speaker 1: see where Banister was, and Banister booped him on the
43:47
Speaker 1: nose and passed them. He had flair like that, Yeah,
43:52
Speaker 1: he did. Uh. They both finished under four minutes, which
43:54
Speaker 1: was amazing, Like I'm sure that was the first time
43:57
Speaker 1: and there were ever two runners in the same race,
44:00
Speaker 1: but Banister one three eight to three fifty nine six.
44:05
Speaker 1: And since then, over the years there have been more
44:07
Speaker 1: than fift undred athletes to do it, thirteen high schoolers.
44:11
Speaker 1: And it is not old hat though it is. Every
44:15
Speaker 1: time it happens to any athlete. It is a very
44:18
Speaker 1: very big deal. Still. Yeah, to put in perspective, um,
44:21
Speaker 1: the number of people who have climbed Mount Everest, which
44:24
Speaker 1: was long considered another impossible feat for human um is
44:28
Speaker 1: about six thousand. Only fifteen hundred have ever broken a
44:32
Speaker 1: four minute mile, So it is rather significant when somebody
44:36
Speaker 1: does it. Still, like you said, for sure, and it was,
44:39
Speaker 1: you know, Dave makes a point. You know, obviously, the
44:44
Speaker 1: tracks now, the shoes, the training, the advance of medicine
44:48
Speaker 1: and training and everything they do now is a big deal.
44:51
Speaker 1: But there was there was clearly something to that psychological
44:55
Speaker 1: barrier and that they started to fall like dominoes. These
44:58
Speaker 1: four minute miles. Right after he did it, he proved
45:01
Speaker 1: everyone it can be done, and so everyone else said, well,
45:05
Speaker 1: you know, if this medical student can do it, this
45:08
Speaker 1: gentleman athlete can do it, then I can do it. Yeah.
45:11
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, they You can make the case that
45:14
Speaker 1: it's like the chance of it being impossible was broken.
45:18
Speaker 1: It was now possible, and you knew it was possible.
45:21
Speaker 1: So you didn't have that chance of impossibility hanging over
45:24
Speaker 1: your head when you walked up to the starting line anymore,
45:27
Speaker 1: because Roger Banister cleared that away. And what's neat is
45:30
Speaker 1: he u. He went on to live a very long life.
45:32
Speaker 1: I think he lived for sixty four more years. He
45:35
Speaker 1: died just in two thousand and eighteen, actually, um, and
45:39
Speaker 1: he got to just soak up all the accolades for
45:41
Speaker 1: that that whole time. And he did retire from morning.
45:43
Speaker 1: He went onto um I guess, become a doctor, and
45:46
Speaker 1: then later he became the dean of the medical school.
45:49
Speaker 1: It either Oxford or Cambridge, I cannot remember. And um,
45:53
Speaker 1: if you are from Oxford or Cambridge, don't be mad
45:56
Speaker 1: at me for not knowing which ones which, Yeah, I mean,
46:00
Speaker 1: imagine what it was like for the rest of his life.
46:03
Speaker 1: Every party, every place, every dinner he ever attended, he
46:07
Speaker 1: sticks out his hand like it's like saying, I'm Chuck Yeager.
46:10
Speaker 1: You know, It's like it doesn't matter what happened since
46:13
Speaker 1: then everyone was like wow. Yeah. He says, I'm Roger Banister,
46:17
Speaker 1: I ran the mile in three, and everybody in the
46:20
Speaker 1: crowd just starts cheering. At every party, he can never
46:23
Speaker 1: get it out. It's like Dick Fosbery. People say, I'm
46:25
Speaker 1: Dick Fosberry. You know what I invented? I don't know.
46:29
Speaker 1: I don't know. You don't know about this Dick Fosberry.
46:32
Speaker 1: You got an in joke with me, but I'm not
46:34
Speaker 1: in on. We'll do an episode on it. He invented
46:37
Speaker 1: the Fosberry flop, which is going over the high jump
46:40
Speaker 1: bar backwards. No one had ever done that before. Oh,
46:42
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about this guy. Yeah, because
46:45
Speaker 1: that was a crazy, weird way to do it. And uh,
46:48
Speaker 1: plus his name is Dick Fosbery, right, I mean that's
46:51
Speaker 1: enough to do with at least a short stuff on Yeah. Absolutely,
46:54
Speaker 1: Oh look at you, shade. What did I do a
46:59
Speaker 1: short stuff? Well? No, I'm saying just for your name
47:03
Speaker 1: being Dick Fosberry that even if he didn't do anything
47:07
Speaker 1: remarkable at all, we could just talk fifteen minutes about
47:09
Speaker 1: a name like Dickberry. You and what's the what's the
47:13
Speaker 1: current record? By the way, Um, the current record is
47:16
Speaker 1: held by Hasham L Garrouge of Morocco. Um and it
47:22
Speaker 1: is three minutes, forty three and three tenths of a second.
47:26
Speaker 1: And that's a twenty three year old record. Yeah, that
47:28
Speaker 1: was being Stefan Hassan of the Netherlands holds the women's record,
47:33
Speaker 1: which is four twelve. So the four minute mile apparently
47:36
Speaker 1: has not been broken by a woman yet. Not yet
47:39
Speaker 1: it will though, Yeah, definitely. Um, you got anything else?
47:43
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I love this episode me too.
47:46
Speaker 1: It was a good one, good pick, good idea. Thank
47:48
Speaker 1: you John c Riley for this one. Since I just
47:52
Speaker 1: thank John c Riley, obviously, it's time for a listener mail.
47:58
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this a little love for our TV show.
48:00
Speaker 1: Did you see this one? Yeah? It was very sweet. Hey, guys,
48:04
Speaker 1: want to write this email because my wife recently subscribed
48:07
Speaker 1: to Discovery Plus and after a few days I realized
48:10
Speaker 1: I finally had the opportunity to watch your TV show.
48:13
Speaker 1: I have to admit that for the first fifteen seconds,
48:16
Speaker 1: very first fifteen seconds, Brains Gone Wild had me hooked.
48:19
Speaker 1: And that was the name of well, long story, but
48:24
Speaker 1: as it aired, that was the name that of our
48:26
Speaker 1: first TV episode. Right the pilot aired last, didn't it? Yeah,
48:31
Speaker 1: standard fashion weird thing. I believe that the show is
48:34
Speaker 1: ahead of its time well well, and I'm sad that
48:37
Speaker 1: the only season, only one season was produced. However, I
48:41
Speaker 1: am grateful that the Stuff You Show podcast lives on
48:45
Speaker 1: recently caught up to the eighteen episodes. Oh wow, so
48:49
Speaker 1: Chris didn't gonna hear this for a few years. I'm
48:52
Speaker 1: excited to hear YouTube cover recent topics of as They unfolded.
48:56
Speaker 1: I love you all and thank you for keeping me happy, educated,
49:00
Speaker 1: end grounded through the years and all accord to the
49:02
Speaker 1: great content to come with the biggest hugs one kind
49:05
Speaker 1: muster and that is from Chris L. So I did
49:08
Speaker 1: write Chris L back and say this is going to
49:09
Speaker 1: be on the sturmail so maybe he'll start sandwiching or something.
49:12
Speaker 1: Very nice. Hugs back to you, Chris L. We appreciate
49:15
Speaker 1: that big time. If you want to send us accolades
49:19
Speaker 1: for our TV show or anything else. We'll accept those anytime.
49:22
Speaker 1: You can wrap them up in an email, spanking on
49:24
Speaker 1: the bottom and send it off to stuff podcast at
49:27
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
49:32
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
49:36
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
49:39
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.