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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, one of my favorite childhood memories was getting to meet the most of the 1985 Oklahoma Sooner Championship football team, including head coach, Barry Switzer, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share lessons I learned from a world famous runner.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
Do you recognize the name Roger Bannister? Roger is a famous track athlete. He was born March 23, 1929 in Harrow, England. His first love was science, specifically, medicine. More specifically, neurology. His family was poor and could not afford to send him to Oxford, so he earned his way to Oxford the best way he knew how. He earned a track scholarship. He started running for Oxford in 1946 and he probably had no idea that his love for running would change the landscape of the sport.
For many years before Roger ever enrolled at Oxford, runners around the world had been obsessed with breaking a barrier: they wanted to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. The 4:30 mile had been broken in 1861. It would take many more years to bring the record down below 4:10. In 1933 an Englishman named Sydney Wooderson ran the mile in just over 4:06. Sydney’s achievement served as a great inspiration to Roger. In 1944 a Swede named Arne Andersson brought the record down to 4:01.06 and a year later another Swede, Gunder Haegg, lowered the record to 4:01.03.
Gunder’s record would remain intact for another 9 years. Despite many runners doing everything they could to lower the record and complete the mile in under 4 minutes, it didn’t happen. It finally got to a point where the achievement was thought to be impossible. Cue Roger Bannister.
Roger was a very strong runner as evidenced by his Oxford track scholarship. He began to evaluate his running style and looking at it scientifically. He made a few modifications to his form, and it helped. He knew that he still needed to do more if he would achieve the impossible. He teamed up with two other Oxford runners, Chris Chataway, and Chris Brasher.
On May 6, 1954, the day arrived for them to run for the record. The gun sounded at 6pm local time and the men raced off the starting line. Chris Brasher took the early lead and was responsible for setting the pace. Roger was feeling good that day and felt like the pace was too slow. He urged Brasher to go faster, but Chris held his pace. At the quarter mile point the pace was 57.5 seconds. The half mile pace was 1:58.
Shortly after the half mile point, Chris Chataway took the helm. He was responsible for keeping the pace and leading the next lap of the race. Chataway and Bannister broke away from the other runners and built up a sizeable lead. As they crossed the start/finish line to begin the final lap, the bell sounded. The pace was 3:00.7. He needed to run the final lap in 59 seconds.
As Chataway and Bannister reached the backstretch, Bannister gave it all he had. He ran past Chataway and sprinted through the final turns of the track. As he came to the home stretch, the pace was still strong. He crossed the finish line at 3:59.4 and became the first person in history to run a 4 minute mile.
You might think that since it took 9 years to get the race time from 4:01 to 3:59, that Roger’s record must have lasted a long time. However, that is not the case. A few weeks later Roger’s time was beaten by Australian, John Landy. Then, a few weeks after Landy’s record, Landy and Bannister raced each other at the Empire Games in Vancouver.
On August 7, 1954 both men gave it all they had and both men ran a sub 4 minute mile. In a span of 3 months 2 men had ran the 4 minute mile 4 times. Today the record is 3:43.13.
I love this story. There’s so much to learn in it. I often think of it when I finally accomplish something that I’ve been trying to do for some time. I wish I could tell you that it was something really monumental that brought it to mind for today’s episode, but it wasn’t. In fact, in comparison to Bannister’s achievement, it’s pretty lame. I thought of this story after finally beating the game, 2048.
Here’s what I learned.
In case you aren’t familiar with 2048, it a really addictive mobile app. The game board consists of a 4×4 grid. You start with a two tiles, a combination of 2’s and 4’s. You then slide the tiles in one direction after another. If two tiles of the same number collide, they join into one tile equal to the two numbers added together. So two 2’s become a 4, two 4’s become an 8, two 8’s become a 16, and so on. The object of the game is to combine two 1024 tiles to form a 2048 tile.
When I first started playing the game I thought I’d beat it pretty quickly. I achieved a 512 square pretty quickly. However, after a few days of playing it, I could not seem to get beyond the 1024 square. I told my friend Emilee about the game. A few days later she let me know that she had beaten it. What? How could that be? I only had a couple of windows in my day that allowed time to play games. Maybe she had more free time than I did. Perhaps. Or perhaps she’s just smarter than me. In fact, I’m quite certain she’s way smarter than me.
Emilee’s victory inspired me. The next day, I beat the game. I then beat it the day after that and the day after that, and the next 2 days. I finally stopped playing it because I was now beating it anytime I wanted.
It’s easy to see parallels in these stories. I reached a point in the game where I thought I would not be able to progress any further. Then, once someone around me pushed through the barrier, I soon followed. So it was with Bannister. He broke through the barrier, and many people followed him.
I’m now getting close to getting the 4096 square.
You know what I like about tying in a game to Bannister’s achievement? It’s easy to look at Bannister’s achievement and dismiss it. I’m not athletic as I’ve made clear numerous times. While I can appreciate what he did, I can’t really relate to it. It’s distant. It’s an athletic competition. It’s a person I’ll never have the honor to meet. But when you take Bannister’s achievement and compare it to something at a more personal level like beating a game, the principles inherent in both stories suddenly become more real.
Now you have something personal that you can tap into. The principles in these stories are found everywhere, everyday. If you’re facing a barrier that you can’t seem to break through, don’t give up. Look around for inspiration. Look at what you can do to tweak your effort. Build up a team around you that can help push you. Look at other victories in your life and realize that you have it within you to win again. Before long those barriers that once seemed impossible to overcome will become trophies.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s app time.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
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