THE ESSENCE OF RUNNING

Every once in awhile, you come across a site that is just incredibly motivating and uplifting. The pictures below are from Tom Michalik, Professor of Physics, Randolph-Macon Women's College. Thank you Professor Michalik!

Lynn Jennings

THIS RUNNER
by Francis Webb

This runner on her final lap
Sucks wildly for elusive air;
Space is a vortex, time's a gap,
Seconds are shells that hiss and flare
Between red mist and cool white day
Four hundred throttling yards away.

Each spike-shaped muscle, yelping nerve,
Worries, snaps at his stumbling weight;
He goes wide on this floating curve,
Cursing with crazy hammering hate
A rival glued to inside ground
Who flogs his heart, forces him round.

Friends, here is your holiday;
Admire your image in this force
While years, books, flesh and mind give way
To the sheer fury of the source.
Here is your vicious central shape
That has no need of cheer or tape.

From: "The Runner's Literary Companion", Garth Battista, ed., Breakaway Books, 1994, pg. 295.

Jim Ryun

On June 27, 1965 eighteen year-old high school senior Jim Ryun ran a 3:55.3 mile to beat Olympic champion Peter Snell!

Alan Webb

On May 27, 2001 something incredible and unthinkable happened! Alan Webb from South Lakes HS in Reston VA. smashed Jim Ryun's golden record by running a perfect race against Olympic quality competition in the Prefontaine Classic Meet in Eugene Oregon.
Webb's split times were: 58.1 , 1:57.8 , 2:58.4 , 3:53.43
His lap times were: 58.1 , 59.7 , 60.6 , 55.0

Roger Bannister

Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: 1st, No. 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 3:59.4

Hicham El Guerrouj

Hicham El Guerrouj held the world record for the mile in 2001. El Guerrouj is shown here exchanging wisdom with the legendary Sir Roger Bannister. El Guerrouj's time of 3:43.13 means an incredible 55.78 seconds per lap!!