Customer Reviews

The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Based on ample first-hand details gleaned from interviewing Roger Bannister, John Landy and Wes Santee, "The Perfect Mile" provides a nuanced character study of what drives these three great men toward breaking the most elusive of athletic goals: the four-minute-mile. While serious students of the sport will know the outcome of this tale before reading it, Neal Bascomb is able to create and maintain a fair amount of suspense by allowing the reader to experience events leading up to the 1954 Empire Games showdown from three very different perspectives.

Roger Bannister is the thinking man's runner, with the classic middle distance athlete's long stride and finishing kick as well as insights into the scientific principles that underlie cardiovascular exertion. These strengths, however, are offset by the demanding medical studies that severely limit his training time and by his tendency to become overwrought before big races.

John Landy is the workhorse of the trio, logging more miles than the others and able to bring a single-minded focus to the task. But he lacks the closing speed and power of the classic milers, forcing him to run the legs out of his competitors from the front.

Wes Santee, the least famous and accomplished of the three, may well be the most talented. Yet the demands of his University of Kansas track schedule, military commitments, and confrontations with track and field's governing body are impediments that prove too difficult to overcome.

For me, the best part of this book was the fact that these three men pursued this historic goal in a noble and dignified fashion that made you really pull for each of them somehow to be the first. None of the spoils of today's professional athletes was available, so each of them was motivated by the simple ideal of achieving the impossible. I also admired the way in which the author tied this athletic quest to the world events of the 1950s, creating a strong resonance between the historic events taking place on the track and the happenings in the politics and culture of the times.

-Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker"

I found the climax of this story-Bannister and Landy's race in Vancouver in 1955-to be almost impossibly gripping. This whole book is just about perfect. It is about a particular athletic quest, and it is also about a key transition period in sport.

There were two related aspects to change at this time in track and field (and by extension other already professional sports). The more obvious was the glaring contradiction between the old, 100% pure amateur model on the one hand, and the growing business and media phenomenon we know today on the other. This subtext is brought out in the second part of the story, and especially in the sad tale of the straight-talking American, Wes Santee.

But this was also a period of radical change in training methods. Emil Zatopek, the Czech runner who won the 5,000 meter, 10,000 meter, AND marathon runs at the 1952 Olympics, is the key figure at the outset of the book. His successes taught runners like Bannister, Landy, and Santee that more training, and harder training, would yield faster times. The author outlines older ideas of conditioning that look ridiculously precious and half-hearted by modern standards. As a masters athlete I was especially struck by this phase of the story, and the author does a good job of recapping the sorts of training the runners did throughout.

The three are so characteristic of their countries, they could almost be fictional types. American Wes Santee is brash and outspoken. It is he who calls the financial bluff of the Neanderthal-like powers that ruled amateur athletics in his day, and it is he who is most severely victimized in the process. (In a kind of entrapment scenario, he was given extra money by one set of AAU officials, and then banned for life by others.) He is also impeded by having to subordinate his individual goals to that of his college team's. John Landy is the hard-working Aussie, scrabbling along with the weakest home-grown competitive environment and the most grueling training routine. Roger Bannister is the idealistic, individualistic and long-suffering Brit. "When he goes out to run," one of his mates says, "he looks like a man going to the electric chair." The sportswriters are awfully grandiose in the England of his day, and Bannister's contemplative manner is indeed a bit Shakespearean.

I have only two small quibbles with this book. One is tiny, especially for the non-athlete: the author pokes good fun at old conditioning ideas, all the way back to the Greeks, but I would have preferred if he had brought modern physiological science to bear a little on the shifting trends of the early fifties. By modern lights Bannister, Landy, and Santee did an awful lot of hammering. This was much better than doing very little of anything, which was approximately the state of things before Zatopek came along. But now we know that there are distinct benefits to long, slow distance training, even for four-minute races. During his brief after-history of the mile record, the author mentions Peter Snell's twenty-mile training runs, but it's as if he's just another specimen in a zoo, and you're expected to merely roll your eyes and not care too much about the meaning of this.

The other quibble is slightly larger, and it's simply that I think Bascomb could have put a bit more comic relief in this work. Apart from the electric chair quote above, there are two incidents of celebrity mis-identification with regards to John Landy. That's it. I'm not looking for a barrel of monkeys hiding in the history of this very earnest endeavor, but as Hollywood knows, a bit of a tension/release cycle can heighten the ultimate effect of tension. I like an author who stays in the shadows, but I think he might have lightened the tone occasionally-oh, maybe in introducing some of the overblown headlines of the day. That sort of thing. The book is written in Landy's running style-one pace; relentless.

And make no mistake, it's an awesome book. Very important: you know who broke the four-minute mile barrier, but you probably don't know who won that Vancouver race. So don't look at the pictures in the middle of the book until you're done with that!!! The dramatic full-page shot on the left as Chapter 14 opens on the right? HIDE IT! Although as you see from my first sentence, knowing the outcome doesn't spoil things too much.

The Perfect Mile is about the conquest of the four-minute mile, which like the ascent of Mt. Everest, stood in the early 50s as one of the last great frontiers of human endeavor. Three runners emerged as candidates to be the first to break through this barrier. One, Roger Bannister, was British. A full-time medical student and intern, he approached sport of track as the last of the consummate amateurs in the traditional mold. He had little coaching and devised his own training methods. Perceived by many in England as the potential resurrection of British athletics, in a sad state at the time, he carried the heavy load of hopeful expectations thrust upon him by a grim British nation suffering through post-war shortages and austerity. Considered aloof by his enemies in the British press, he possessed two powerful secret weapons: an advanced medical knowledge of the causes of and the techniques to combat fatigue and muscle failure, and an incredible capacity to ignore pain in the late stages of a race and unleash an extraordinary kick.

The Australian, John Landy, competed by seeing to it that he was the best conditioned athlete on the track. In the early 50s Australia was an athletic backwater. After returning home to Australia from the disappointment of failing to even make the semifinal qualifying heat in the mile at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Landy embarked on a brutal training regimen, inspired by the physical fitness guru and great Czech runner Emil Zatopek who won gold at Helsinki in the 5000 meter, 10,000 meter and marathon events, and who Landy humbly approached as an acolyte near the close of the games. By the time the 4-minute mark was in Landy's sights, he was winning almost all of his races as "the human rabbit", leading from the starting gun and simply running the legs off his competition by setting a punishing pace.

The American, Wes Santee, was the youngest and probably the most naturally gifted of these runners. He competed for the University of Kansas, and was soon breaking records, including the world record for the 1500 meter event, and the American collegiate mile record, which he took from the legendary Glenn Cunnningham, former holder of the world record for the mile. Intensely competitive, Santee loved big crowds and high-impact races. His biggest handicaps were his cold and totally unsupportive father, and even worse, the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union), led by the ogre-ish Avery Brundage, which controlled U.S. track and field, and all eligibility for the Olympics with an iron fist. As Santee became more and more famous and independent, he began to be perceived more as a threat than as an asset to the power structure of so-called amateur athletics in America.

The perfect mile is a terrific page-turner and is packed with goodies from beginning to end. The writing is pitched just right: flowing, colorful, detailed, not dry, and never simplistic or trite. It starts with a brief thumbnail history of the mile event and the thinking that led many to believe of the 1886 record of 4:12.75, which stood for 31 years, "the probability is that this record will never be beaten." The complexity of each of the three milers' motivations is given breadth and scope, with particular attention given to the humiliating experience each suffered at the Helsinki Olympics. And The Perfect Mile doesn't stop with the breaking of the 4-minute mark, which occurs about halfway through the book. The second half of the book leads up to the inevitable showdown on the same track, the "perfect mile" of the title, one of the great classic races of all time. For each of these racers a victory in this showdown would have an intensely personal meaning as a reaffirmation or as a vindication of what they had achieved.

Although it helps to be interested in track (as is yours truly, although I have never run a race in my life), The Perfect Mile, like the very best sports books, is not ultimately about sport, but about the human beings who compete in it for a rich variety of human reasons.

It's a story of epic granduer at the center of sports endeavor. Neal Bascomb evokes the attitudes of a time when amatuer sports had high purpose and purity, and the meaning of competition resonated the excellence of individual achievement and national ideals. Bascomb drives the narrative with remarkable skill, revealing the tension, irony, bitter disappointment, and eventual triumph of Roger Bannister, and examines lengths talented competitors will go to test themselves against an idea for the sake of the idea itself. This book should be requiired reading for anyone who wants to know what it takes to be a champion. Bascomb brings back a great era.

Anyone who grew up with the middle distance rivalries of Bannister, Landy and Santee in the 50s or David Coleman's BBC commentary to Coe, Ovett and Cram in the 80s will be blown away by this masterpiece by Neal Bascomb.

You may know some, or all (or none-at-all reading some of the other reviews!) of what happened back in the 50s when middle distance running and the four minute mile captured the headlines around the world. Of course there have been many incredible moments in middle distance running since and we can all list other great middle distance runners from Coe to Coughlan to El Guerrouj. But Bascomb has taken one of the great moments of the 20th Century and brought it back to life for you and I to relive, be blown away, and walk away at the end richer for it.

After you've read it, you'll want to tell everyone the story, but please dont. Leave the storytelling to Neal Bascomb.

Terrific story of three great men from different continents who are more than just athletes but are men with academic responsibilities that come first but they found time to train under unique circumstances while trying to break the four minute mile barrier on cinder tracks. Banister is well know as the 1952 Olympian who is racing against his own personal time knowing his completion of medical school will end his career soon as he tries to break the barrier before anyone else. John Landy is the modest Australian somewhat isolated who trains virtually at when he can and he has a break through after leaving Cerutty's unique Stoatan training program that may have given him the necessary base to perform at a high level. Wes Santee is the Kansas miler whose coach puts the team above individualism that seems to cost Santee the opportunity to run fresh against major competition. All three come to a head in 1954, as it is virtually a race of opportunity since either of the three appears to be able to break it. Bannister literally streaks ahead with his training partners in a controversial but legitimate first sub four-minute mile. Landy roars back weeks later with an amazing front led 3:57. The second climax of the book is the great show down between the two sub fours at the Vancouver games. Santee cannot be there due to his commitment to the Marines. Landy runs in spite of an injury, keeps it secret but runs another sub four after leading virtually from the start but is cut down by Bannister at the end. Terrific book about three great men that you have to admire and you feel for Santee who has limited individual opportunities and is handcuffed by the rigid AAU officials who also limit his opportunities seemingly in pay back for his free spirit. Wonderful book that will charge up any former or current track athlete particularly when you think how just rain could ruin any attempt by making ruts and lakes in the cinder track and even after rolling off the water and repaving the track, the dampness would remain making the track heavy to run on. The author also fills you in on what else was going on in the 50's and punctuates the book with quotes from classical writers such as Lewis Carroll that have some metaphorical relationship to the chase for the record. The racing passages are so exciting, you can literally feel the lactic acid building up in your legs while reading of their attempts to run those last 200 yards in those gallant attempts at the record.

This is truly a fascinating look at the "old days," when it
was truly a different world in athletic competition, and the
3 greatest long-distance runners in the world were all true
amateurs, and they competed for reasons that are beyond the
comprehension of today's athletes.
The four-minute mile was long considered impossible, one of the
"holy grails" of athletic competition, and it certainly was
elusive in those days when no respectable athlete ever took
any drugs, and "performance-enhancing" drugs would have been
considered by all to not only be illegal, but, more importantly
to those men, immoral.
This is a story of dedication and determination unlike any to
be encountered in this day and age.
During the early '40s, the Mile Run world record was broken
several times by a pair of Swedish runners, each of whom kept
breaking the other's record at a time when the rest of the world
was involved in WWII, but the new records were usually being
set by fractions of a second over the prior record, and most
people still considered the four-minute mile to be impossible.
There was thought to be some limit to human capacity to run, to
expend energy, that would prevent that particular goal from ever
being met.
The men who became the 3 greatest long-distance runners in the
world, Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee, competed
in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and they all failed to meet
their expectations, as well as the expectations of their respective countries, and they were all so discouraged at their
failures, they each determined to go after that four-minute
mile barrier and capture the world's record.
This book details their different personalities, and their approaches to winning and setting the great record, and the author does a nice job of capturing the ideals of the time
and the different approaches they took in their training.
True track and field fans need to acquaint themselves with the
best runners and trainers of the day who helped these 3 work
toward their goal.
Men virtually forgotten are profiled, such as the incomparable
Emil Zatopek, who won 3 gold medals in distance running in 1952, and whose superior training methods influenced the runs toward the four-minute mile, Franz Stampfl who also introduced
some radical (for the time) new training methods, and Bannister's Oxford teammates who worked at setting the pace perfectly, to allow for Bannister's kick to propel him to the
record.

These 3 men were all so personally dedicated, and worked so hard
toward that one goal, it is difficult to now understand their
motivations and methods, but the author does a nice job of explaining and presenting, so this is a very readable book for
the sports fan.
Also detailed is the very sad story of how the AAU, then controlling all track and field in the U.S., sidelined Wes Santee just as he was ready to take on the Englishman and Australian.
Detailed stories show how Bannister and then Landy did the
impossible and broke the four-minute mile, each setting a new
world's record, all in a very short time-frame, and then the
exciting story of how they were going to meet in the "mile of the century" at the Empire Games in Vancouver, BC, and the
outcome of that famous head-on race between these very best runners.
And for the reader who pays attention, you can learn the answer to a nice trivia question: who appeared on the very first cover
of Sports Illustrated? You can see the picture in this book.
This is a good entertaining and informative story about athletic
competition in the waning days of the true amateur, when Bannistger wanted to win for Oxford and England, and Landy wanted to win for Australia, and neither thought of himself first.
Those days are gone, but this book shows why they were superior
days in the field of athletic endeavour, when individual honor
and integrity meant something, and these men were admired around the world in ways current athletes can't imagine.

Our systems of measurements are arbitrary; a mile is an artificial distance, and a minute is an artificial time. But everyone has heard the phrase "the four minute mile." It might be arbitrary, but as a footrace there is also some symmetry to it. Four minutes, four times around the quarter mile track, a strict fifteen miles per hour. For years, the four minute mile was a monument as an impenetrable barrier, and when Roger Bannister broke the barrier fifty years ago, the whole world took notice. It was Bannister's victory, of course, and often he was depicted as a lone athlete out to break the record, but there is more to the story. In _The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less than Four Minutes to Achieve It_ (Houghton Mifflin), Neal Bascomb gives a full and exciting history of events leading to one of the most impressive accomplishments in sports.

Necessarily, the other two runners, Australian John Landy and American Wes Santee are mere also-rans, but their efforts were heroic, and as Bascomb makes clear, there may have been only matters of happenstance, like weather, that kept them from being first. Like Bannister, they had failed to get medals in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and returned home determined to take the four minute mile upon their return home. Bannister was restricted by his medical studies; he could not train for hours every day, as the others did, so he had to concentrate his training into exhausting short daily bursts. His medical background helped, however, in researching the effects of exercise, giving him scientific assurance he could do it. On 6 May 1954 Bannister made a real try at the barrier. He had, by that time, taken on a coach, and he had two friends to serve as pacemakers. The breaking of the record was a worldwide sensation.

It is not, however, the perfect mile of the title. Even the jubilant British press questioned just how cricket it was to use pacemakers and not sheer competition, and the three aspirants in the quest had never run against each other. The three were scheduled to run in the Empire games in Vancouver three months after Bannister's epochal run, which would satisfy everyone as to who was the fastest miler. The only pacemakers would be the runners themselves. There were heartbreaking complications that prevented Santee from running; they had to do with US athletic authorities who persecuted and banned him because he allegedly breached his amateur status. Both Bannister and Landy did under four minutes in Vancouver in an exciting race, thrillingly described here. This was a classic victory. There was no hint of doping, television did not make it into an extravaganza, and the competitors were not millionaires. The result made front page headlines all over the world; what subsequent footrace has done that? _The Perfect Mile_ thus takes us back to a simpler time, but this is a welcome story of timeless heroes.

Very suspenseful and informative at the same time. Very inspiring for us who wish we had even a fraction of the dedication (not to mention the talent) of these guys. Hard to believe it was over 50 years ago. Neal Bascomb makes you feel it is just happening.

A thrilling book and an inspiration to all those who love competition and always try to improve themselves not only in sports but in every aspect of their lives.