I heard Abraham Lincoln also ran 2:30 in the Mile, but someone lost the results for it. Support the channel! / runnerboi Insta: / runnerboi_yt Twitter: / runnerboiyt
My grandfather was actually on the team that ran against Bannister for his sub 4 mile. He used to tell us about how when he congratulated Bannister after the race, Bannister admitted that he himself had thought it was impossible for a few years leading up to the record, but started actually running faster after he convinced himself it was. Crazy to think about how much mindset actually matters!
At 3 m 45sec a young lady on TikTok makes an outlandish claim that within a year (1955) of Bannister’s first sub 4 mile another 37 runners had achieved this feat - Fact check - It was 4 - John Landry (also 1954) then Tabori, Chataway & Hewson (in 1955) - She goes on to claim within 2 yrs over 300 runners had achieved the feat - In fact it was 5 ! At the end of 1956 a total of only 9 athletes besides Bannister had ‘cracked the barrier’
She makes it sound like if she had more time on a TikTok her next claim would have been "and now it's trivial and preschoolers are running 4 minute miles before they've had their carrots". If you can run a 4 minute mile, you're still an exceptional athlete.
@MxCraven if you can run a 4 minute mile you are an extremely gifted athlete to this day less than 2000 individuals have broken 4 minutes in an official capacity
With a topic as specific as this one, she most likely found those numbers and falsely attributed them. Im sure someone could track down what '37' she was referring to. Maybe that was how many openly attemped to do it?
My personal theory (based on no science or research whatsoever) is that Louis Zamperini would have been the first sub-4 miler had it not been for World War II. He had already run 4:07(?) in 1940, and if memory serves correct based on the book, he had run ~4:10 on the beach while stationed in Hawaii not long before his ill-fated flight. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that he could have shaved 7 seconds off if he was able to continue training uninterrupted. Of course, those 7 seconds are a long seven seconds so who knows.
The argument that Zamperini could have run a four-minute mile comes down to idea that the grit and determination he showed as a POW would have translated to faster race times; but the four-minute barrier was not broken by grit and determination. It was unlocked through the cumulative advancement of training.
Walter George ran a 4:12 mile in 1886, with a training regimen that consisted of him running in place behind his pharmacist counter for hours on end. No one would break 4:12 for nearly four decades, until Paavo Nurmi set his 4:10.4 record in 1923. George held the mile world record for longer than it took for the record to be lowered from 4:10 to 3:59. In contrast to George’s regimen, Nurmi is the father of modern endurance training. My hypothesis is that 4:12 was the true limit of how fast a human could run a mile, and it was only surpassed with the advent of intense running-specific training that only became possible once walking was no longer an athlete’s primary mode of transportation.
Sub 2 hours is probably near human limits but do you avec examples of any serious figure saying it's utterly impossible? Because top runners are close to the needed pace, it's incredibly hard not impossible. Impossible is sub 1 hour
@@mnm1273 impossible for the marathon is probably 1:54 if done to perfection. I’m If someone ever runs that quick, it’ll be because they have bionic legs and we’re all long gone by that point.
in a way this channel could be a documentary about itself. which is to say I agree, but I say that because the creator used to cover a (relatively) obscure area of video games in this same style, and now that the creator has expanded this same methodology to a more popular subject the channel can 10x its viewership.
Glad to see some more well thought out content from you, and while many others have already debunked popular myths about the sub 4 minute mile, I don't think this discussion has been laid out in a well packaged, comprehensive format to most people yet.
I think the interesting part is that it was decades of people not being able to break this barrier, then after he finally did others followed not far behind. People were trying to break the four minute mile for a long time and I think that is were the story may have gotten twisted a bit but it still does speak to mindset.
"well, I didn't actually buy-you know what I mean" I love moments like this, and want to raise a question: are familiar with Brenkus's "The Perfection Point"? this book uses odd statistical extrapolation to imagine what the maximum record is for many of these efforts. it hypothesizes things like a human maximum of 900lb raw bench press - inconceivable at the moment, but maybe over time with the right people and right PEDs the math should check out, or whatever.
