M2M Day 299: Running a 4-minute mile

Max Deutsch
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For August, my goal is to complete one continuous set of 40 pull-ups.

Yesterday, I looked 40 pull-ups in the face, but couldn’t hold my gaze for long enough, failing to complete a final, clean 4oth pull-up. As a result, I set my new PR at 39 and two half pull-ups (i.e. 39).

Rewatching the video, it’s crazy to see how the energy is sucked out of my body immediately as the 40th pull-up comes into view. My brain counted the 40th pull-up before my body completed it, and so decided to shut everything down a second too early.

This is the fascinating part of this month’s entire challenge: My brain is in much more control than my body.

Of course, there’s a minimum physical requirement to complete 40 pull-ups, but I’m pretty sure I passed that threshold a long time ago. Now, I just need to convince my brain that it’s okay (i.e. possible) to actually execute all of the pull-ups.

After yesterday, my brain seems to finally be convinced that 40 pull-ups isn’t actually impossible. And now that I’ve broken this mental barrier, there’s really nothing stopping me (other than my incredibly sore arms) from knocking out 40 pull-ups easily every time.

In other words, yesterday was my Roger Bannister moment…

Before 1954, it was thought that it was physically impossible for a human to run a mile in less than four minutes. The record for a mile had been set at 4:01 in the 1940’s and hadn’t budged since.

Then, on May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3:59.4, forcing every runner to rethink what was possible.

46 days later, Bannister’s record was broken, and, within the next couple of years, dozens of runners broke the 4-minute mark.

In the same way, for most of this month, I actually doubted that I would make it to 40. In fact, this is why I started practicing the “feet-pumping” kip that ruined yesterday’s attempt: I figured, since I wasn’t going to make it, I might as well try to get out 40 in any way I can.

But, then yesterday, I had my Roger Bannister doubt-smashing moment: I unquestionably have 40 pull-ups in me.

As soon as my body feels not-so-sore, I will step up to the bar and run my three-minute mile.

Read the next post. Read the previous post.

Max Deutsch is a product manager at Intuit, the creator of Somebody.io and Rightspeed, and the guinea pig for Month to Master.

If you want to follow along with Max’s year-long accelerated learning project, make sure to follow this Medium account.

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Max Deutsch

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Founder at https://LearnMonthly.com. Blogging at http://MonthToMaster.com. Get in touch at http://max.xyz.

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