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I couldn't touch my toes with straight legs, but I could break 4 minutes for the mile.
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
Straight
Legs
Touch
Couldn
Minutes
Break
Mile
Toes
Miles
More quotes by Roger Bannister
It had always been a British preoccupation to hold this mile record.
Roger Bannister
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.
Roger Bannister
Without the concentration of the mind and the will, performance would not result.
Roger Bannister
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.
Roger Bannister
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
We run, not because we think it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves
Roger Bannister
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.
Roger Bannister
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
The mile has all the elements of a drama.
Roger Bannister
Our house was bombed, and the roof fell in. We were sitting under the stairs of the basement, and we were quite safe, but it brought home the realization. In two nights 400 people were killed in small town.
Roger Bannister
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
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.
Roger Bannister
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
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
Roger Bannister
Whether we athletes liked it or not, the 4-minute mile had become rather like an Everest: a challenge to the human spirit, it was a barrier that seemed to defy all attempts to break it, an irksome reminder that men's striving might be in vain.
Roger Bannister
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
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
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
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.
Roger Bannister
I enjoy singing, and the instruments which truly move me are the horn, the trumpet and the cello.
Roger Bannister
