The Last-Minute Decision to Run

On the morning of May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister nearly stayed home. Wind gusted across the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England, and the twenty-five-year-old medical student knew that unfavorable conditions could cost him precious seconds. For years, experts had declared the four-minute mile a barrier the human body could not cross. Some physiologists warned that a runner's heart might simply give out.…