It starts with the passing of Sir Chris Chataway on Monday at the age of 82. Best known for pacing Roger Bannister to the first ever mile faster than four minutes and setting a world record in the 5000 meters. Back when the gentleman amateur was the law of the land among British athletes, they adhered to the motto of "effortless superiority". Urban legend has it that Chataway would show up at the track smoking a cigar, place it on the inside rail, run a workout then pick up the still lit cigar.
The paper in mention was for Dr. John Lucas Olympic History class my senior year. I chose to write about the quest for the first sub 4 mile. Made sense since I had already ready two books on the subject. If anyone is interested in reading it, click here to download it*. Still had it saved on my computer. A reader of the blog under the name Truthbetold commented about writing a similar paper and I would be every interesting in hearing more. If it is still out there somewhere.
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| Pacing History |
*I won't be offended by the lack of readers. I probably wouldn't bother to read someone else's term paper from college either.
WR of 13:27 or so while never running more than 25 miles in a week. "When men were men and women liked it!"
ReplyDeleteMy only paper chronicled the minute details of actions of a parasitic wasp when encountering its host caterpillar. Which meant eventually stinging it and laying eggs inside. Even I won't read it again.