Lessons in Character — Frank William Brennan
Running Towards the Impossible
How to visualize success…successfully
Before May 6, 1954, it was a popular opinion that to run a mile under four minutes would be an unattainable achievement. Some athletic professionals and physiologists agreed with this simply because no known person had ever run that fast. It was a “humanely impossible” task, like drinking a gallon of milk within an hour (I’ll come back to that).
But on that Thursday afternoon in May, Roger Bannister, a British neurology student, ran the mile in 3:59.4, defeating his Oxford opponents on the Iffley Road track.
How did Bannister achieve something that was deemed unreachable? His secret was one of mental and physical preparation.
Put the Pedal to the Mental
Before breaking the record, Bannister’s best mile was recorded at 4:03.6. He was chasing the world record of 4:01 that was set nine years earlier. This was proof to the running world that a sub-four…
