How fast 4 minute mile

To know how fast is a 4 minute mile is we should first look at the history of the event, and when it was first broken.

This is when a result showed the world that running a sub 4 is actually humanly possible. Although for 9 years the time stood still, and people started to wonder again, would anyone be able to break it?

Luckily on May 6, , Roger Bannister became the first person to break the four minute mile, with a time of This showed that what experts thought was wrong.

The question now was how many others could break 4 minutes, and more importantly how much faster could they go? A 4 minute mile is equivalent to running m in 4 minutes or less. To produce a sub 4 result you would need to pace your speed comfortably at around seconds per lap m. The 4 minute mile is really only a 3 lap race, because the final lap turns into a sprint, no matter what happens during the first 3 laps.

Knowing this it is common for runners during the last lap to produce their fastest m split of the event. During the first lap of the mile, the runners often settle into a rhythm, this could mean they are slightly behind schedule, running seconds for the first m.

After that, the next 2 laps pace picks up dramatically, running closer to 56 seconds per m. It is not uncommon for runners to lag during the 3rd lap and often this where the goal of breaking 4 minutes is lost. So during a sub 4 minute mile attempt, the 3rd lap is actually one of the most important laps of the event.

This will ultimately dictate whether the runner will be able to run under the 4 minute barrier. Today, for the m, it would be half-a-second faster. But former mile record holder John Landy Australia cut it fine; his best m was only The m time appears to have a direct effect on miling aspirations.

Noureddine Morceli, with a mile time of Seb Coe's best mile is Said Aouita's best mile is If we take an average of these deficits it is It is clear that an athlete with an m time of and less has a better chance of running a sub-four mile.

But all is not lost for the non-speedy athlete. One of my runners in had a reading of only for m but he ran a mile. Using the previous calculations, his combined m time was only 14 secs short of his mile time. Thus we have a range of secs deficit to measure miling potential. The important omitted factor in this case was his 3 km time, 7mins. If we halve this we get In this case it comes to The age when an athlete is most likely to break four minutes for the first time is now Two decades ago it was The youngest-ever sub-four man was year-old Jim Ryun, who went on to break world records at the mile, 1,m, half-mile and m.

The 1,m gold medal escaped him in two Olympics. He suffered all his athletic life from asthma. Opinions differ as to the preparatory work required leading up to the track season. Arthur Lydiard NZ advocated building up to miles a week of steady running for 10 weeks, followed by six weeks of extensive, fartlek-type hill running.

In stark contrast, Bannister did only 28 miles a week in the winter, most of it on an ash track, five laps to the mile, consisting mainly of 10 X yds in 66secs, with yds jog recovery in a fast two minutes. Each month the time for the repetitions was reduced by a second. He reached the stage when the yd reps were being done in 56 secs. Lydiard's protege, Peter Snell, 16 years after Bannister's best time of Sebastian Coe devoted his winter to weight-training three times a week, hill running and a session at his estimated 5km pace He was able to run 7 X m well under s with 45 secs rest.

Roger Bannister, born in Harrow, England, in , was a top mile-runner while a student at the University of Oxford and at St. In and , he won British championships in the mile run. As he prepared himself for his first competitive race of the season, Bannister researched the mechanics of running and trained using new scientific methods he developed. Conditions were far from ideal; it had been windy and raining. A considerable crosswind was blowing across the track as the mile race was set to begin.

In a carefully planned race, Bannister was aided by Chris Brasher, a former Cambridge runner who acted as a pacemaker. For the first half-mile, Brasher led the field, with Bannister close behind, and then another runner took up the lead and reached the three-quarter-mile mark in 3 minutes 0.

Thereafter, Bannister threw in all his reserves and broke the tape in 3 minutes Bannister went on to win British and Empire championships in the mile run, and the European title in the 1,meter event in At the end of the year, Bannister retired from athletic competition to pursue his medical career full time and in recounted his experiences in the book The Four Minute Mile.

He later earned a medical degree from Oxford and became a neurologist. In , he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died in March , at age His world record in the mile did not stand long, and the record continued to be lowered with increasingly controlled climatic and surface conditions, more accurate timing devices, and improvements in training and running techniques.