The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It
by Neal Bascomb
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Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It:
A man who sets out to become an artist at the mile is something like a man who sets out to discover the most graceful method of being hanged. No matter how logical his plans, he can not carry them out without physical suffering.
Running had become more of a competition to draw out the best that was in him, as if he were plumbing the depths of his will.
BEFORE STOPWATCHES, cinder tracks, and perfect records, man ran for the purest of reasons: to survive. The saying goes that “every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or an antelope—when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” There are few instincts more natural than the body in full motion as it races across a field or through the trees. From the beginning, we were all made to run. In days past, when “survival of the fittest” meant exactly this, the only measure of the race was whether the hunted reached safety before being overtaken. Seconds and tenths of seconds had no meaning.
