The Four-Minute Mile: Why It’s So Hard To Be Incredible

The bar is just too high these days

No adult has ever described to me the moment they came to terms with their mediocrity. Maybe that’s because it isn’t one single moment, but a composite string of experiences that teach them the truth; you are not special.

Every child is born with dreams of grandeur, of being special, and of eventually finding that they have a purpose in the Universe. But somewhere along the line, these dreams fade against the harsh brightness of reality. Inevitably they enter the rat race — maybe with a few perks or debuffs depending on the circumstances of their birth — and are lost in the sea of billions of Homo sapiens doing what typical humans typically do.

A few days ago, I had such a moment.

It hit me so hard that I nearly fainted. But then I decided, in characteristic fashion, to write about it. Here are my thoughts as to why the world is such a difficult place. It has something to do with the four-minute mile — you’ll see.

The four-minute mile

The concept of a four-minute mile is familiar to athletes and other sports-inclined people, but not so much to everyone else. It’s the act of running a distance of one mile (defined as 5280 feet or 1.609 kilometers) in less than four minutes. No surprises there.

The first recorded four-minute mile was run by Roger Bannister in 1964 in Oxford (with a race time of 3:59.4). He was (he died in 2018) an Olympic middle distance runner and a neurologist. His record was incredible.

Just 46 days later, his record was broken. And this is the crux of this story.

(If you're curious, 1663 people have run a sub-four minute mile as of April 2021, and the current record is held by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, with a time of 3:43.13).

The self-raising bar

We sometimes fail to appreciate how talented people are. You might not be the best dancer, singer, programmer, writer, or artist out there — but someone certainly is. And despite the capricious nature of society, talent counts for something.

Plus, if someone has done something before, it gives others the confidence to try. “At least we now know it’s possible”. Take Roger Bannister, for example. No one before him had ever run a four-minute mile. But once he proved that it was possible, someone else broke his record shortly after.

Imagine that effect multiplied over the years. In whatever field you’re in, people are consistently breaking the records. Bannister’s record is the least impressive entry in a long list of sub-four-minute mile times, when once it was the only entry.

Wilheim Steinitz was the first World Chess Champion. Yet, in modern times, his FIDE rating would be just under 2200 — less than that of an International Master, and far below current World Champion Magnus Carlsen (2864).

Life is a bar, reader, that ascends towards the heavens forever. Few can jump it, and another is always ready to jump higher.

The bright side

I don’t really like depressing thoughts, so I always look for an upside to things. And coming to terms with my likely mediocrity — fingers crossed — means that I get the chance to improve myself. Maybe I’ll never write as well as Ursula K. Le Guin or Isaac Asimov or all those other incredible writers, but one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that I’ll get better. I’ll leap over bars of my own. And I’ll find meaning in whatever I’m doing.

So will you, reader. So will the rest of humanity.

Thanks for reading.