“If you believe you can, or think you can't, you're right.” —Henry Ford

It was the spring 1954, and there was one sports record that was as elusive as capturing a Yeti: the four-minute mile. The best that man had run in competition over the centuries, was 4:01.3 and that time had stood for nine years.

Athletes, and, perhaps more importantly, scientists, believed that breaking the ­four-minute barrier was physically impossible. The latter posited that our bodies would not allow man to run 1,760 yards in 240 seconds—case closed. As it was the era in which scientific pronouncements were viewed as absolutes, people around the globe blindly accepted that no one would beat the record.