Still Running (weakly). Issue 86

PAST – inspiration – “I was resting on billowy white clouds that would, I thought, then, always protect me from the worst of life’s buffetings,” wrote Roger Bannister on the evening of 6th May 1954 after he had run the first four-minute mile.

Two years earlier he had felt very differently, having ‘failed,’ coming fourth in the 1952 Olympic 1500. A semi-final had been inserted between the heats and the final, making the event a trial of endurance (3 races in 3 days) rather than the test of speed that would have suited the Englishman.

Bannister knew that 1956, the next Olympics, would be too late for him. But there was the four-minute mile. The world record was 4:01.4; the public were getting very excited about the possibility of a man running 4 laps in 4 minutes; and some in the medical profession said it was impossible and would result in death.

Bannister set his sights on the mythical barrier, training on an unrelenting diet of quarter miles at the required pace – and filing his spikes on the laboratory grindstone! – to bring the goal within grasping distance (“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, /Or what's a heaven for?”) enabling him eventually to rest on those billowy white clouds.

PRESENT – perspiration – The new year is always special for Sifan Hassan (she was born on 1st January) but this year she’s looking, as always, to do things differently. Having won two bronzes (5000, 10,000) and a gold (marathon) at the 2024 Paris Olympics – to go with her two golds (5000, 10,000) and a bronze (1500) from Tokyo in 2021 – the 32-year-old Dutchwoman looks on Ruth Chepngetich’s world record-blitzing run of 2:09:56 in Chicago, not with fear but as inspiration.

“A female can run sub-2:10 and that makes things easy for me. Now, when I train, I’m not wondering if it’s possible or not possible. I’m trying to hit that thing. In my time I want to see how females can go further, to see what is inside me and what I can do.”

Hassan is an extraordinary talent. Even more importantly, she has an almost childlike curiosity about running, probably unmatched since Emil Zatopek’s (whose triple gold in 1952 is the only single-games feat to rival hers, and who challenged himself to run in army boots, to hold his breath till he blacked out, to run for hours on the spot on sentry duty, to run 60x400 metres for ten days on end) and that curiosity makes her a very exciting proposition for us fans, and a very dangerous one to her rivals!

FUTURE – suggestion – Selecting exactly the right goal or goals will make everything else fall into place. What billowy, white clouds could you rest on? What is the right target for you?

It’s the one that stretches but does not break you. It’s the one that makes a light bulb come on in your head when you hit on it. It’s what my friend Guy used to call his big hairy audacious goal. It’s the one that makes you think, “If I can just achieve that, I can die happy.”

I’m not exaggerating.

The second most important session is the one where you plot the training you’ve got to do – as well as any ‘stepping stone’ events – that will put you in with a chance of achieving your goal.

The training will by definition be hard, because you are trying to achieve something you have never accomplished before, but the good news is – there will never be any doubt that you will complete that training, because your goal is simply too compelling for you not to.

Have a think. What could that goal be? What could make you die happy?!