© Anonymous, Associated Press FILE - In this May 6, 1954 file photo, Britain's Roger Bannister hits the tape to break the four-minute mile in Oxford, England. A statement released Sunday March 4, 2018, on behalf of Bannister's family said Sir Roger Bannister died peacefully in Oxford on March 3, aged 88. (AP Photo/File)
Editor’s note: While covering the London Olympics, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler tried, in his own unique way, to replicate Sir Roger Bannister’s historic 1954 sub-4-minute mile. Below is the column, as it appeared on Aug. 8, 2012, offered as a tribute to Bannister, who died Saturday at the age of 88.
OXFORD, England — The rain begins falling just as I arrive at the Iffley Road Athletics Track at Oxford University, where Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile barrier.
Perfect.
This is the same weather, breezy and drippy, that Bannister encountered in 1954 when he arrived for his run.
He considered postponing his quest but decided to go for it. So if I’m going to run with Bannister’s ghost, I can’t wimp out.
OK, “ghost” is poetic license. Sir Roger is still alive and in fine fettle at 83.
I have come to run a mile on Bannister’s track, to see one of the world’s true sporting shrines and pay homage to the great feat.
© Scott Ostler, The Chronicle Scott Ostler at the site of Roger Bannister's record-breaking run in August, 2012.
Bannister came here to break through what fellow runner John Landy called a “cement wall,” a barrier psychological and, many believed, physical. Bannister came to prove that man can run a mile under four minutes.
I have come to prove that man who is already creaky and has been training on ale, greasy chips and cream-filled muffins can run a mile under 14 minutes. Why 14? An athlete has to have a goal, and a 10-minute spot from Roger’s ghost seems fair.
Bannister, by the way, was never an Olympics hero. But his disappointment at the 1952 Games (fourth in the 1,500 meters) caused him to delay his retirement and turn his attention to the sub-four mile. His feat inspired generations of future Olympians.
For the one-hour journey from London I depart by mid-morning train from Paddington Station, because that’s what Bannister did the morning of his fateful run. He was a 25-year-old medical student living in London, returning to his old school to run for a team of amateur athletes in a dual meet against Oxford.
Before leaving London, Bannister sharpened his spikes on a grinding wheel in the medical lab and put graphite on the spikes. So already he had an edge on me.
The track then was cinder - tiny rocks, basically - and the grandstands were packed that day with 3,000 people.
The stands have been downsized to seat 499 and the track has a rubberized surface. Otherwise, the place holds up splendidly, aura-wise. Walking in from narrow Iffley Road to get to the track, one strolls between grass tennis courts and a vast cricket lawn, where a big match is in progress.
Trivia: As a 19-year-old Oxford student, Bannister spearheaded a campaign to renovate and modernize the track, which was built in 1867. Talk about home cookin’.
The track area is fringed with green trees, huge hedges and old-to-ancient buildings, so it’s easy to slip back to 1954. British pride was at high ebb, with Edmund Hillary having conquered Mount Everest the previous year, and fans were keen to see Bannister take his crack at track’s Everest.
Bannister competed with a sense of urgency that day. Other runners, notably Landy and American Wes Santee, were knocking on the sub-4 door. This might be his last chance.
I pay my three-quid day fee at the rec center’s front desk and walk past an alcove of memorabilia from that day in ‘54 - the starting bell, a box of cinders from the track, the wooden finishing post.
The snack area is named Cafe Sub 4.
To the track! Bannister had an advantage over me. Two of his teammates served as rabbits, setting the pace. I have no rabbits. I should have a tortoise. I will run alone, on an empty track, just me and the spirit.
The track is now metric, so I back up a distance from the start to make my run a true mile. I hear the imaginary bell, punch the timer on my iPhone, and I’m off.
The run goes well, although I never reach the spiritual place Bannister did that day. On his final lap, he would write, “I had a moment of mixed joy and anguish, when my mind took over. It raced ahead of my body and drew my body compellingly forward.”
I wheezed my last lap, my mind lagging behind. I breasted the imaginary tape in 12:04. If only I’d waved off that third croissant at breakfast.
When Bannister finished, the head timer - Harold Abrahams, the famous English sprinter whose story would become “Chariots of Fire” - huddled with the stadium announcer, Norris McWhirter, who delivered a classically British wedding cake of an announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one mile. First, number 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which - subject to ratification - will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire and World Record. The time was three ...”
The crowd’s roar drowned out the rest.
It was 3:59.4. Bannister held the record for 45 days before Landy broke it. Bannister retired as a competitor later that year, became a doctor, wrote a famous text on neurological diseases, did pioneering sports anti-doping work, and was knighted.
I silently retire from competitive ghost-chasing. No longer in training, I hie to a quaint pub in downtown Oxford and, to the spirit of Roger Bannister and unbreakable barriers broken, hoist a pint.
Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler