When I was a boy, there was a period of a few years when three legendary British middle-distance runners - Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram - competed for the world record in running the mile. It was an exciting time for British athletics.
It was only superceded in terms of anticipation and excitement by the events of three decades earlier, when another British athlete, Roger Bannister, acheived the incredible feat of being the first man to ever break the barrier of the four-minute mile.
I've known the name my whole life, but known very little about the person, so found myself enthralled by dramatisation of his life in the 2005 TV movie, Four Minutes. And don't let the phrase "TV movie" put you off, as this is an enjoyable and gripping drama.
Bannister was not actually a professional athlete, but was a medical student at the time he ran his now world-famous accomplishment. If the film dramatisation is in any way an accurate relection of the real personality, then it seems he was indeed a fascinating character - incredibly knowledgable, determined and driven, but yet remarkably rather humble.
Beyond his own personality though, I found myself musing upon what it was that set him apart for greatness, and how he was able to achieve what had never been done before, and what some saw as an impossibility in all likelihood. I'd like to share the thoughts I had whilst watching this intriguing biopic, as there may be some life lessons for all of us.
He was inspired!
Roger was just 16 years old when he witnessed Sydney Wooderson - another great English middle-distance runner now largely forgotten - make an incredible comeback to the sport in 1945. Plagued by an ankle injury and subsequent surgery in the 1930s, he had nonetheless managed to set world records for not just the mile, but also the 800m and 880 yards in 1938.
After a bout of rheumatic fever in 1944, doctors advised Wooderson that he might never run again, but just a year later he was competing again, and set a new British record for the mile.
Rather than just watching in admiration for Wooderson's amazing achievement, Roger's response was to take inspiration from it in order to spur him on in his own activities.
True greatness rarely just falls out of the sky, all neatly packaged with a bow, ready for us to step forward and merely accept it. Instead, it is often just the next link in a continuous unbroken chain. In other words, whenever we see someone like Roger Bannister, their achievements are usually the result of inspiration received from someone else who went before them, and they in turn by someone before them.
When we look up to our heroes, as well as the natural admiration we feel, it should also have a positive effect on our own lives. Rather than compare our current situation, and feel overwhelmed that we have done so little by comparison, let's look to those great men and women and realise that they are just ordinary people like us, and with some hard work, we can rise to the same level.
He was prepared!
Bannister's medical training certainly gave him an advantage in this area, though he worked hard physically as well. He was a man fascinated by the limits of human endurance, and applied his medical knowledge to better understanding how to achieve his goals.
On an almost daily basis, he would run on a treadmill (in the days before they were widely used) to test these limits, often using an oxygen mask in order to stretch out the test conditions as much as possible. He would test his lactic acid levels by attaching hollow-point needles to his fingers, to better understand his own muscle activity.
In other words, this was not a man who just blindly turned up to a track, and ran as fast as he could, with vague expectations that he might beat a world record. Instead, he spent years not only physically training himself, but also understanding the human body in a way that would allow him to push the boundaries of possibility.
We can learn a lesson from this as well: hard work will take us part of the way, but often we need to really understand what it is we are trying to achieve, to get under the skin, if we are really determined to see success.
He was not alone!
This was the one thing from the film that impressed me the most.
Although Roger was the one to receive all the glory, he had a dedicated team supporting him in his efforts. Obviously his coach was a key player in this respect, but two other names are important as well. Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway.
These were student friends of Roger's, and athletes in their own right. At the time, they were equally well known, and although they have both achieved much later on, winning medals of their own, and Brasher is perhaps best remember as the founder of the London Marathon.
But of these three friends, it is Bannister who set the record for the mile and became the household name. What is interesting though is the part they both played on that day in history, a role not often remembered. Both were to act as pacemakers for Roger during his record-breaking run: Brasher for the first two laps, and Chataway for the third lap.
This was a planned strategy. The aim was never for either Brasher or Chataway to win the race, but instead to simply provide assistance to their friend in achieving his goal. That takes an incredible amount of humility on the part of the pacemakers, to be content simply to play a supporting role and allow someone else to take centre stage.
For some of us, that may be our role, and we should be ready and willing to accept that, as there is a degree of greatness in playing such a part, even though we might not receive recognition ourselves. And for those, like Roger Bannister, who are the ones to "win the race", let's not ever forget the contributions made by others in helping us to achieve our goals, for we rarely work alone.
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