Overcoming Barriers in Our Mind - The Four Minute Mile and the Story of Roger Bannister

Kai Taraporevala
The Long Form
Published in
4 min readOct 3, 2020

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Image thanks to Pixabay

Mental strength and resolve are often the most critical factors while testing the limits of human performance. For many years, “experts” said that running a mile (one mile is 1,609.34 meters) in under four minutes was impossible. Then on 6 May 1954, an amateur runner and young medical student, Roger Bannister, did what was thought unattainable and ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

As a child, Bannister loved running. He said, “I just ran anywhere and everywhere — never because it was an end in itself, but because it was easier for me to run than to walk!”. At 17, Bannister won a scholarship to study at Oxford University, based partly on his athletics. After his B.A. degree, he won another scholarship to continue studying medicine at St Mary’s hospital in London.

The Right Mindset

It took Bannister 8 years of part-time training, including many failures, to achieve his record. In 1952, two years before he broke the four-minute barrier, Bannister was selected to represent Great Britain in the Helsinki Olympics’ 1,500-meter race. He was the favorite to win but did not have the professional training and stamina to run multiple races. In the Olympics, Bannister had to run the heats and semifinals, before the final, where he came only…

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Kai Taraporevala
The Long Form

Search for an understanding of the universe. The roads I am travelling: the scientific method, science, mathematics, humanism, the arts, music and kindness.