Quote

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

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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
Humans
However
Limit
Feel
Running
Improve
Must
Found
Manage
Marginally
Feels
Another
Athlete
Manages
Men
Around
Miles
Runner
Time
Body
Speed
Mile
May
Remains
Runners
Human
Limits
Paradox

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I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.
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Every time I ran the mile I was aware of my own weakness, there was some opponent who could give me a hell of a fight, so I never went into a race with a sense of invincibility. I always had that feeling of fragility and nerves which made me run faster.
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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.
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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.
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It's a question of spreading the available energy, aerobic and anaerobic, evenly over four minutes. If you run one part too fast, you pay a price. If you run another part more slowly your overall time is slower.
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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!
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I was playing rugby and the other games English school children do, and there was an event which was planned in which races were run, and I simply just won these by a considerable margin
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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.
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Without the concentration of the mind and the will, performance would not result.
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When I was about to break a world record and become well known, my mother used to say that for her the important thing was for me to become a doctor - a career which had not been possible in her generation and in her society. Sport was something to be set aside.
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Sport is not about being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport as about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking risks.
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It had always been a British preoccupation to hold this mile record.
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We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves
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I think that is a universal adolescent feeling, trying to find your place. The adolescent who is perfectly adjusted to his environment, I've yet to meet.
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The mile has all the elements of a drama.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is the brain, not the heart or lungs, that is the critical organ.
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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.
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