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So here’s a book idea I had. I’m starting to get into running and pretty soon I'm going into some biology related field so I thought it might be an interesting idea to see how close I could get to running a 4 minute mile and then write a book on it. While that would be the main storyline and would be interspersed throughout the book, I’d also write about human physiology and what makes the best runners great. I’d also like to explore the continuing nature vs. nurture debate and see how that would apply to running. Other topics would include the different training techniques and diets runners have used, with a special emphasis on altitude training. Obviously, if I ever did decide to do it, it would take – I would guess – about 3-5 years of both intense training to get as close as I could to the goal, and about the same amount of time to become a proficient enough writer and researcher to actually put together a quality book. Anyway, my question is what do you think about the hook? Is this type of a book something that you would want to read. Here’s just a few paragraphs I’ve put together recently. Let me know what you think.
The Limits of Human Endurance and a Couch Potatoes’ Quest to Run a 4 Minute Mile
I was in the Northwood’s of Wisconsin on a family vacation in late July. Up to that point the experience had been great. The natural beauty was breathtaking, the water was clear, and few things can compare to the contentment I felt as I saw the majestic beauty of seeing an eagle scoop up a fish just feet away from my boat as I pulled up huge bass and walleye every few minutes. Now, however, I was becoming increasingly irritated. At that moment I had started a long 50 minute run through a running path that was filled with vistas out of a picture book – it should have been nature at its most serene. Unfortunately, flies were buzzing around every part of my body, only stopping for a brief second on various parts of my face, presumably to mock me for my lack of speed. It was then that I came up with an earth shatteringly dumb idea: I bet if I could run a four minute mile, I wouldn’t have to deal with these annoying flies.
These thoughts permeated my consciousness the summer before my 25th birthday. If feasibility played a role in the thoughts I consider, I never would have considered attempting to run a 4 minute mile. I wasn’t a world class athlete. Nor was I in shape. Nor had I ever participated in track and field above the high school JV level. What I was, I had thought, was perfectly content to live a lifestyle that rotated between being a couch potato most of the year, and someone who would go for a few runs each summer to work myself into decent shape. Just that summer my family had castigated me for not having serious goals in life, for having horrendous organizational skills, and for being the least productive member of the planet we call earth. And they were right. Clearly, any attempts to train for a 4 minute mile would simply be delusional, on par with a vertically challenged man attempting to dunk, or someone who prefers cats to dogs. I was also 6’0 tall, 200 pounds, and pasty white, which made me certifiably not a Kenyan.
But as a lifelong athlete who didn’t want to seep into a life of pure laziness now that college sports were over, and as someone who looked at the world through an idealistic lens, I thought that the 4 minute mile was a challenge worth persuing. In the first few months of the summer before my north woods realization, I had improved my treadmill mile time at the local YMCA from 7 minutes to 6 minutes through trail running, and occasionally more intense runs at short distances. I had played soccer – a sport which required a great deal of endurance – from the time I was 8. And I thought of myself as a better athlete than my dad who was a runner in high school and college and who clocked his best mile time at 4:29. If I took of a few seconds a month by training intensely and eating right I’d have it in a few years. I mean, how hard could it be? Besides, saying you’ve run a 4 minute mile give you bragging rights for the rest of your life. No one in human history had ever run a 4 minute mile before Roger Bannister broke the barrier in 1955. And while 17 seconds have been clipped from Bannister’s recorded breaking run since then, the 4 minute mile remains an important mark that promising runners have to meet in order to become world class. It was, as I’m sure some nerdy runner somewhere has said, on like Donkey Kong.
The Limits of Human Endurance and a Couch Potatoes’ Quest to Run a 4 Minute Mile
I was in the Northwood’s of Wisconsin on a family vacation in late July. Up to that point the experience had been great. The natural beauty was breathtaking, the water was clear, and few things can compare to the contentment I felt as I saw the majestic beauty of seeing an eagle scoop up a fish just feet away from my boat as I pulled up huge bass and walleye every few minutes. Now, however, I was becoming increasingly irritated. At that moment I had started a long 50 minute run through a running path that was filled with vistas out of a picture book – it should have been nature at its most serene. Unfortunately, flies were buzzing around every part of my body, only stopping for a brief second on various parts of my face, presumably to mock me for my lack of speed. It was then that I came up with an earth shatteringly dumb idea: I bet if I could run a four minute mile, I wouldn’t have to deal with these annoying flies.
These thoughts permeated my consciousness the summer before my 25th birthday. If feasibility played a role in the thoughts I consider, I never would have considered attempting to run a 4 minute mile. I wasn’t a world class athlete. Nor was I in shape. Nor had I ever participated in track and field above the high school JV level. What I was, I had thought, was perfectly content to live a lifestyle that rotated between being a couch potato most of the year, and someone who would go for a few runs each summer to work myself into decent shape. Just that summer my family had castigated me for not having serious goals in life, for having horrendous organizational skills, and for being the least productive member of the planet we call earth. And they were right. Clearly, any attempts to train for a 4 minute mile would simply be delusional, on par with a vertically challenged man attempting to dunk, or someone who prefers cats to dogs. I was also 6’0 tall, 200 pounds, and pasty white, which made me certifiably not a Kenyan.
But as a lifelong athlete who didn’t want to seep into a life of pure laziness now that college sports were over, and as someone who looked at the world through an idealistic lens, I thought that the 4 minute mile was a challenge worth persuing. In the first few months of the summer before my north woods realization, I had improved my treadmill mile time at the local YMCA from 7 minutes to 6 minutes through trail running, and occasionally more intense runs at short distances. I had played soccer – a sport which required a great deal of endurance – from the time I was 8. And I thought of myself as a better athlete than my dad who was a runner in high school and college and who clocked his best mile time at 4:29. If I took of a few seconds a month by training intensely and eating right I’d have it in a few years. I mean, how hard could it be? Besides, saying you’ve run a 4 minute mile give you bragging rights for the rest of your life. No one in human history had ever run a 4 minute mile before Roger Bannister broke the barrier in 1955. And while 17 seconds have been clipped from Bannister’s recorded breaking run since then, the 4 minute mile remains an important mark that promising runners have to meet in order to become world class. It was, as I’m sure some nerdy runner somewhere has said, on like Donkey Kong.
