Roger’s Lesson: The Four-Minute Mile and Breaking Your Own Mental Barriers

In the spring of 1954, a young medical student at Oxford University entered a shoe shop in Wimbledon, near London. He asked the cobbler to make him a very special pair of running shoes. He wanted them light and strong enough to last just twelve laps. The cobbler provided such a shoe, and the young man improved them further by fitting them with special graphite spikes. This allowed him to achieve better traction because they slipped more easily in and out of the cinder track on which he ran.

As with any successful endeavor, this young man knew preparation and planning were key elements in reaching his goal. They were, however, only partial ingredients in what was later to be known as the “Miracle Mile.” The hardest part of reaching his goal, as indeed it is with many other goals, was conquering the six-inch space between his ears.

When Roger Banister finally broke the four-minute mile on May 6th, 1954, people had been trying to run a mile in under four minutes for almost 2000 years. Since the time of the ancient games at the foot of Mount Olympus, runners had tried to reach that seemingly impossible goal. Athletes ran in the Olympics, in international championships, and around the world; yet no one, even at the highest level with gold medals and world records on the line, had ever run a mile in…