“No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamt existed.”
-Roger Bannister on breaking the 4-minute mile

“I was always a great bundle of energy. As a child, instead of walking, I would run. And so running, which is a pain to a lot of people, was always a pleasure to me because it was so easy.”

“The reason sport is attractive to many of the general public is that it’s filled with reversals. What you think may happen doesn’t happen. A champion is beaten, an unknown becomes a champion.”

“I lived on the top of one hill and the school was at the top of another hill. Nobody ever went to school by car-we didn’t have any cars during the war. So that to and from school was itself a training.”

“It’s a question of spreading the available energy, aerobic and anaerobic, evenly over four minutes. If you run one part too fast, you pay a price. If you run another part more slowly your overall time is slower.”

“It was a sense of relief,” says Bannister, recalling the momentous event more than 50 years later. “There was a mystique, a belief that it couldn’t be done, but I think it was more of a psychological barrier than a physical barrier.”

Roger Bannister

Bannister Landy Miracle Mile 1954 Video

Peace

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee
-Muhammad Ali

My favorite sports movie of all time is When We Were Kings. The chronicles of The Rumble in the Jungle. Don King’s first boxing promotion. Everyone doubted Ali. Even Howard Cosell. And then you see a ferocious looking George Foreman walk down the stairs of whatever the G 5 of the day was. German Shepherd by leash. He was big and he was bad. And everyone doubted Ali. And then it may not go off because of promotion troubles.

“Ali, boom-ba-yay”
“Ali, boom-ba-yay”

And everyone thought Foreman was going to crush him.
And Ali wasn’t going to last three rounds.

But his light was too bright.

“Ali, boom-ba-yay”
“Ali, boom-ba-yay”

And then it finally goes down and the big lights are beaming hard and the sweat is pouring off and the rain is pouring down and

“Ali, boom-ba-yay”
“Ali, boom-ba-yay”

And Ali did what was planned and what he said he’d do all along.
Float like a butterfly sting like a bee he did.

Ali boom-ba-yay came alive again.
Because it was written and he was chose to and he was supposed to.

I dare you to walk that line. Where everyone doubts you.
And you persist.
And you break through.
Cuz you were chose to.
And you’re supposed to.

Peace

"Ali, boom-ba-yay"