BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS IN YOUR MIND
by Nigel Risner

As we go through life, many of the barriers and obstacles that keep us from being successful come from within. We create limits for ourselves and then don't think it's possible to go beyond those limits.

But once those barriers are broken we often look back and realise that the barrier was in our minds. Not in reality.

It was 49 years ago - May 6, 1954 - that Roger Bannister, a 25 year old medical student, broke the Four-Minute Mile Barrier. A barrier that many "experts" felt was impossible to cross, because they 'knew' that the human body couldn't run that fast.

But what's the difference between running 4:01.4, which at the time was the current world record set by Sweden's Gunder Haegg in 1945 and running 3:59.4? Only two seconds. Just a couple of steps.

That must have been what Roger Bannister had been thinking as he trained for what many track-and-field experts consider to be the most important event in the sport's history.

In 1946, Bannister had gone to Oxford University in England to study medicine. In his spare time he focused his energies on the track, becoming an accomplished middle distance runner.

For middle distance runners, the fascination was The Four-Minute Mile, for it was widely assumed that it was impossible for a human being to run a mile under four minutes.

Bannister believed it was possible, and he used his knowledge as a physician to give him as much help as possible. He painstakingly researched the mechanical aspects of running, and developed scientific training methods to aid him.

Bannister's plan was to break the four-minute barrier with the help of two friends who would be his 'rabbits.'

Chris Brasher would run the first half-mile, with Bannister just behind; and Chris Chataway would run the second half-mile.

Brasher ran the first lap in 57.5 seconds and passed the half-mile mark in 1 minute 58 seconds. Then Brasher dropped out and Chataway took the lead. Bannister passed the three quarter mark at 3 minutes 0.7 seconds.

At the beginning of the back stretch of the final lap, about three hundred yards from the finish, Bannister passed Chataway and sprinted toward the finish line. This is how Bannister described those few final moments:

"I had a moment of mixed joy and anguish, when my mind took over.
It raced well ahead of my body and drew my body compellingly forward.

"I felt that the moment of a lifetime had come. There was no pain, only a great unity of movement and aim. The world seemed to stand still, or did not exist.

"The only reality was the next two hundred yards of track under my feet. The tape meant finality - extinction perhaps.

"I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well. I drove on, impelled by a combination of fear and pride.

"The air I breathed filled me with the spirit of the track where I had run my first race. The noise in my ears was that of the faithful Oxford crowd. [A thousand strong.]

"Their hope and encouragement gave me greater strength. I had now turned the last bend and there were only fifty yards more.

"My body had long since exhausted all its energy, but it went on running just the same. The physical overdraft came only from greater willpower.

"This was the crucial moment when my legs were strong enough to carry me over the last few yards as they could never have done in previous years.

"With five yards to go the tape seemed almost to recede. Would I ever reach it?

"Those last few seconds seemed never-ending. The faint line of the finishing tape stood ahead as a haven of peace, after the struggle.

"The arms of the world were waiting to receive me if only I reached the tape without slackening my speed.

"If I faltered, there would be no arms to hold me and the world would be a cold, forbidding place, because I had been so close.

"I leapt at the tape like a man taking his last spring to save himself from the chasm that threatens to engulf him.

"My effort was over and I collapsed almost unconscious, with an arm on either side of me. It was only then that real pain overtook me.

"I felt like an exploded flashlight with no will to live; I just went on existing in the most passive physical state without being quite unconscious.

"Blood surged from my muscles and seemed to fell me. It was as if all my limbs were caught in an ever-tightening vice. I knew that I had done it before I even heard the time.

"I was too close to have failed, unless my legs had played strange tricks at the finish by slowing me down and not telling my tiring brain that they had done so."

The time was announced. "Three... "

The rest was drowned out in the cheers.

Bannister ran 3:59.4. He broke the Four-MinuteMile Barrier.

Crashing a Barrier

More importantly, a psychological barrier had been crashed.

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John Landy, who was considered one of the great milers of that era,
had never gotten closer than with 1.5 seconds of the 4-minute barrier.

But 46 days after Bannister's breakthrough, Landy surpassed the record, running 3:57.9 in Finland.

Later in the year in the "Mile of the Century" there was a runoff to decide who was the faster mile. Bannister won in 3:58.8 to Landy's
3:59.6, the first time two men in one race had broken 4 minutes.

By the end of 1957, 16 runners had logged sub-4-minute miles.

Fast forward to July 7, 1999. Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco set the world of 3:43.13 - an incredible 55.78 seconds per lap. This was the
19th time the record for the mile had been broken since 1954.

To date, 955 runners have run sub-four-minute miles, accomplishing it an astonishing 4700+ times.

What Barriers Are Keeping You Back
Forty-nine years ago Roger Bannister broke through the Four-Minute Mile barrier. What barriers are keeping you back?

What negative thoughts are in the back of you mind. That wee small voice that says

* You're not good enough.
* You don't have enough talent.
* You don't have enough education/training.

Don't accept it. Don't listen to it. Forge ahead.

Turn those negative thoughts into positive actions generating phenomenal results.

How many nay-sayers do you have in your life?

* People who pull you down, instead of building you up.
* People who take from you, but don't give anything back.
* People who drain you of your energy, enthusiasm and your dreams.

Remove them from your life. Surround yourself with positive uplifting, encouraging, supportive people. People who want to see you succeed.

What are your dreams? Goals? Ambitions? Where do you want to go? What do you want to become?

Roger Bannister wanted to become a physician. But along the way he wanted to do the impossible. He did both.

His name is forever etched in history.

When asked about his momentous feat, Bannister explained, "It's the ability to take more out of yourself than you've got."

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