Rating: 
Summary: The Great Race for the Four: Story of Three Great Men
Review: Terrific story of three great men from different continents who are more than just athletes but are men enmeshed with academic responsibilities that come first but they found time to train under unique circumstances while trying to break the four minute mile barrier on cinder tracks. Banister is well know as the 1952 Olympian who is racing against his own personal time knowing his completion of medical school will end his career soon as he tries to break the barrier before anyone else. John Landy is the modest Australian somewhat isolated who trains virtually at midnight after school and studies are done and has a break through after escaping from Cerutty's unique Stoatan training program that is controversial but has some success. Wes Santee is the Kansas miler whose coach puts the team above individualism that costs Santee the opportunity to run fresh against major competition. All three come to a head in 1954, as it is virtually a race of opportunity since either of the three appears to be able to break it. Bannister literally streaks ahead with his training partners in a controversial but legitimate first sub four-minute mile. Landy roars back weeks later with an amazing front led 3:57. The second climax of the book is the great show down between the two sub fours at the Vancouver games. Santee cannot be there due to his commitment to the Marines. Landy cuts his foot bad enough to merit stitches the day before the race, keeps it secret but runs another sub four after leading virtually from the start but is cut down by Bannister at the end. Terrific book about three great men that you have to admire and you feel for Santee who has limited individual opportunities and is handcuffed by the rigid AAU officials who also limit his opportunities seemingly in pay back for his free spirit. Wonderful book that will charge up any former or current track athlete particularly when you think how just rain could ruin any attempt by making ruts and lakes in the cinder track and even after rolling off the water and repaving the track, the dampness would remain making the track heavy to run on. The author also fills you in on what else was going on in the 50's and punctuates the book with quotes from classical writers such as Lewis Carroll that have some metaphorical relationship to the chase for the record. The racing passages are so exciting, you can literally feel the lactic acid building up in your legs while reading of their attempts to run those last 200 yards in those gallant attempts at the record.
Rating: 
Summary: WHAT A MESS!
Review: THE BIG PROBLEM WITH THIS BOOK IS THAT THE AUTHOR HAS TAKEN A GREAT, TRUE STORY - THE EFFORTS OF 3 PREMIER ONE MILE RUNNERS VIAING TO BE THE FIRST TO RUN A SUB 4 MINUTE MILE, AND ALL THAT WAS INVOLVED AROUND SAME & CHOOSE TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT IT! -- SOUND CRAZY? - IT'S NOT - HE TOOK WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A NOVELLA AND DROWNED A WHOLE LOT OF "GOOD STUFF" WITH SO MUCH REPETITION & UNIMPORTANT, UNINTERESTING MATERIAL FOR WHAT APPEARS TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN CREATING A 322 PAGE BOOK. TO COMPOUND MATTERS YOU READ OVER 200 PAGES WITHOUT KNOWING WHO THE FIRST MAN WOULD BE, AND THEN SUDDENLY, & FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE BOOK, YOU ARE CONFRONTED WITH NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PERIOD SHOWING EACH RUNNER AT SUCH PLACES AS A TRACK MEET, PRACTICING,AND MORE -- AND GET THIS -- A SHOT OF THE MAN WHO ACTUALLY WAS THE FIRST TO BREAK THE 4 MINUTE MILE, RUNNING THROUGH THE TAPE AND ACCOMPANIED BY A CAPTION TELLING WHAT HE ACCOMPLISHED! -- UNBELIEVABLE! -- THE READER LEARNS OF THE ACCOMPLISHMENT AT THAT POINT BEFORE READING ABOUT IT -- DA! -- WHY? THIS AUTHOR JUST DOESN'T WRITE TO HIS READER (A VERY SPECIFIC ONE) & DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO GET OUT OF HIS OWN WAY WHEN IT COMES TO WRITING. UNFORTUNATE, BUT A MESS!
Rating:
Summary: Nearly a perfect book on the subject
Review: The greatness of this book isn't in recounting "the race" that saw the 4:00-mile barrier broken. Rather, the greatness of this book is in the tracing of the lives of the three men racing to be the first to accomplish the task. It's a fascinating character study of three vastly different young men, all from different continents, all trying to attain the unattainable. Most people with a sense of track history already know who got there first; knowing doesn't lessen the enjoyment of reading about the quest. Besides, the author continues the story to the end of each man's racing career, so the reader isn't left with an incomplete tale.
The author does a great job of providing the reader insights into what made each runner tick - and didn't spare the warts. One gets to see it all; the positive and negative qualities of each man's drive to be first. The author also did a masterful job of setting the background for the quest, and the support (or lack thereof) that each man's circle (friends, coaches, national federations, government) provided for him. (The self-serving, anti-athlete leadership of the USA AAU in the 1950s comes through loud and clear.)
By the end of the book, I'm not sure which runner I admire the most (or the least). To me, that makes it a solidly successful read and gives the brain something to think about long after the book has been put down.
(Note: There is a center section of pictures. Like most books that contain pictures only in the middle, they give an overview of the whole story. If you don't want to know the end, it's pretty easy to skip the pictures until after you've read. How hard is that?)
Rating: 
Summary: Inspiring and Motivational
Review: This book is unexpectedly inspiring and motivational. When I learned that the first man to break the 4-minute mile trained for this feat during his medical residency, I realized nothing was impossible. "The Perfect Mile" will help you get in the mood to achieve the impossible.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect running book
Review: This has been justifiably compared to Seabiscuit. Lovingly researched and written, it tells the tale of three runners' pursuit of the four-minute mile. When I first heard of it, I couldn't see how there could be enough story for 300 pages. Then I read it and found out how mistaken I was. It's actually a trio of stories, each comprised of three parts. The first is the unhappy experiences of the three runners in the 1952 Olympics: experiences that set each on a quest to be the first to break the mile barrier. (Today's mile record is much faster, but modern runners have the advantage of high-tech tracks, shoes, and training techniques unknown to these pioneers.) Part 2 is the tale of the three runners' individual efforts to be the first. Most of us know who succeeded. Part 3 deals with efforts to get all three onto the same track at the same time in a head-to-head race-the "perfect mile" of the title. Amazingly, 50 years later, all three are still alive, and Bascomb had access to them to tell this wonderful story. That said, non-runners may find too much detail. Me, I'm the coauthor of two running books and am fascinated to learn how these people trained. One, for example, ran 20 quarters at two seconds each slower than his target mile pace, with a quarter-mile recovery. I was pleased to discover that I could do that workout (based on my mile pace, not his!). But he did it every other day for a month! I'd die. This is one of the best running books ever written.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: This is a fascinating book about the three men - Santee, Landy, and Bannister - trying to be the first to break the four-minute mile back in the early fifties. Although I knew who would prevail, the book remained suspenseful. All three had several heartbreaking close calls until one of them (I won't say who in case some readers don't already know) finally broke the four-minute barrier. The three subsequently raced each other (it turned out that only two of the three could participate in the race) and that was suspenseful provided you don't look at the photo section in the middle of the book that shows one of the runners decisively winning.
Evidently the author didn't have enough material for an entire volume, so the book is filled out with thirty pages of skipable footnotes and an over-stuffed fifteen page index (with entries like: "Empire Games - Bannister's mood before mile race at"), but that's okay - the book's length is just right and it is elegantly written.
Although I still think *Once a Runner* is the greatest running book of all time, *The Perfect Mile* wins the non-fiction category. Obviously this book will be more interesting to runners, but I think it might have a broad appeal - it is inspirational and entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: A Running Treasure
Review: This is a great book for runners and sports enthusiasts. Unlike Seabusciut, to which this book has been compared, however, I don't think it will appeal to people without some sort of interest in running. The book has plenty of action, engaging protagonists and the benefit of recounting one of the great athletic accomplishments ever, but Seabiscuit had all the elements and emotions necessary for an epic story, whereas this book didn't quite reach that level. Bascomb did an incredible amount of research to write excellent biographies of each of the main players (enough has been written about Bannister that his story is well known, but Landy and Santee come alive in this book) and his accounts of the races are intense and dramatic, just as good sportswriting should be. The main reason I don't think everyone can relate to the story, however, is the context for why the races were so important to the world (the cultural history aspect) just isn't very persuasive or complete. I don't think this will take away from racing fans or runners (for whom this book is a must buy), but it will lessen the appeal for people who aren't captivated by a mile race. All in all, I liked this book a lot. It was a quick, easy, intelligent and fun read and it will stand proud next to the rest of the running books in my collection, but it isn't for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: A refreshing new read
Review: This is a wonderful book on the short history of the attempt to beat the four minute mile. This is the intertwined story of three mean, one American, one Englishmen and an Australian who set out to break the world record in a variety of contests. This book profiles other famous runners and explores running theory and why it was that so many considered it physically impossible to break the threshold. Nevertheless this is a surprisingly refreshing look at the world of running and pushing to envelope in history making speed records. Definitely worth a read. Seth J. Frantzman
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic sports story
Review: This is the account of three men--Wes Santee, Roger Bannister, and John Landy--and the race to break the four-minute mile. Though I vaguely recognized one name from my running days in high school, I was not certain who actually broke the record. Bascomb does an excellent job of keeping suspense at a high level. He also uses the story of these three to track the movement of sport to the commercial in the past half century. As I read this, I was reminded of the sheer joy of running. A wonderful and inspirational read.
Rating:
Summary: A Different World
Review: This is truly a fascinating look at the "old days," when it
was truly a different world in athletic competition, and the
3 greatest long-distance runners in the world were all true
amateurs, and they competed for reasons that are beyond the
comprehension of today's athletes.
The four-minute mile was long considered impossible, one of the
"holy grails" of athletic competition, and it certainly was
elusive in those days when no respectable athlete ever took
any drugs, and "performance-enhancing" drugs would have been
considered by all to not only be illegal, but, more importantly
to those men, immoral.
This is a story of dedication and determination unlike any to
be encountered in this day and age.
During the early '40s, the Mile Run world record was broken
several times by a pair of Swedish runners, each of whom kept
breaking the other's record at a time when the rest of the world
was involved in WWII, but the new records were usually being
set by fractions of a second over the prior record, and most
people still considered the four-minute mile to be impossible.
There was thought to be some limit to human capacity to run, to
expend energy, that would prevent that particular goal from ever
being met.
The men who became the 3 greatest long-distance runners in the
world, Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee, competed
in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and they all failed to meet
their expectations, as well as the expectations of their respective countries, and they were all so discouraged at their
failures, they each determined to go after that four-minute
mile barrier and capture the world's record.
This book details their different personalities, and their approaches to winning and setting the great record, and the author does a nice job of capturing the ideals of the time
and the different approaches they took in their training.
True track and field fans need to acquaint themselves with the
best runners and trainers of the day who helped these 3 work
toward their goal.
Men virtually forgotten are profiled, such as the incomparable
Emil Zatopek, who won 3 gold medals in distance running in 1952, and whose superior training methods influenced the runs toward the four-minute mile, Franz Stampfl who also introduced
some radical (for the time) new training methods, and Bannister's Oxford teammates who worked at setting the pace perfectly, to allow for Bannister's kick to propel him to the
record. These 3 men were all so personally dedicated, and worked so hard
toward that one goal, it is difficult to now understand their
motivations and methods, but the author does a nice job of explaining and presenting, so this is a very readable book for
the sports fan.
Also detailed is the very sad story of how the AAU, then controlling all track and field in the U.S., sidelined Wes Santee just as he was ready to take on the Englishman and Australian.
Detailed stories show how Bannister and then Landy did the
impossible and broke the four-minute mile, each setting a new
world's record, all in a very short time-frame, and then the
exciting story of how they were going to meet in the "mile of the century" at the Empire Games in Vancouver, BC, and the
outcome of that famous head-on race between these very best runners.
And for the reader who pays attention, you can learn the answer to a nice trivia question: who appeared on the very first cover
of Sports Illustrated? You can see the picture in this book.
This is a good entertaining and informative story about athletic
competition in the waning days of the true amateur, when Bannistger wanted to win for Oxford and England, and Landy wanted to win for Australia, and neither thought of himself first.
Those days are gone, but this book shows why they were superior
days in the field of athletic endeavour, when individual honor
and integrity meant something, and these men were admired around the world in ways current athletes can't imagine.
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