Quote

Your spikes, which were really quite long then, would catch the material of the track and your shoe would get heavier. I was simply filing them down and rubbing some graphite on the spikes, so that I thought I would run more effectively.

Roger Bannister

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Roger Bannister
Age: 88 †
Born: 1929
Born: March 23
Died: 2018
Died: March 3
Athlete
Athletics Competitor
Autobiographer
Middle-Distance Runner
Neurologist
Physician
Harrow
Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister
Sir Roger Bannister
Roger Gilbert Bannister
Thought
Athlete
Long
Track
Spikes
Really
Shoes
Rubbing
Would
Material
Filing
Materials
Heavier
Simply
Shoe
Quite
Effectively
Running
Catch

More quotes by Roger Bannister

Image
I've always been very impatient. At age 10 I frankly found life boring, and I can remember age 9 having the awful thought, as it seems now looking back on it, A war! That should liven things up a bit!
Roger Bannister
Image
It is a paradox to say the human body has no 'limit.' There must be a limit to the speed at which men can run. I feel this may be around 3:30 for the mile. However, another paradox remains - if an athlete manages to run 3:30, another runner could be found to marginally improve on that time.
Roger Bannister
Image
Without the concentration of the mind and the will, performance would not result.
Roger Bannister
Image
You get very tired, and there was a certain amount of pain and you slow up. Your legs are so tired that you are in fact slowing. If you don't keep running, keep your blood circulating, the muscles stop pumping the blood back and you get dizzy.
Roger Bannister
Image
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
Roger Bannister
Image
The human spirit is indomitable. No one can ever say you must not run faster than this or jump higher than that. There will never be a time when the human spirit will not be able to better existing records.
Roger Bannister
Image
No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.
Roger Bannister
Image
The reason sport is attractive to many of the general public is that it's filled with reversals. What you think may happen doesn't happen. A champion is beaten, an unknown becomes a champion.
Roger Bannister
Image
If there was the opportunity to climb a mountain, or to go ballooning, or some adventurous activity, I would always be keen to do it. I loved the countryside.
Roger Bannister
Image
We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves
Roger Bannister
Image
My introduction to track racing was through the background of cross country running, which is not a sport perhaps as popular in America as it is in England.
Roger Bannister
Image
I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.
Roger Bannister
Image
I trained for less than three-quarters of an hour, maybe five days a week - I didn't have time to do more. But it was all about quality, not quantity - so I didn't waste time jogging, ever.
Roger Bannister
Image
Doctors and scientists said breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead
Roger Bannister
Image
I came from such a simple origin, without any great privilege, and I would say I also wanted to make a mark. It wasn't until I was about 15 that I appeared in a race.
Roger Bannister
Image
We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves...The more restricted our society and work become, the more necessary it will be to find some outlet for this craving for freedom. No one can say, 'You must not run faster than this, or jump higher than that.' The human spirit is indomitable.
Roger Bannister
Image
My family actually lived in the same village for about 400 years. They had great stability until the last century. People lived and intermarried in small villages.
Roger Bannister
Image
I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy.
Roger Bannister
Image
It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.
Roger Bannister
Image
I raced supremely well. I felt I was as well fitted to do it as I had ever been, and as perhaps I might ever be. I went climbing three weeks before, because I was feeling fed up with running.
Roger Bannister