Five Minute Mile
March 30, 2023 – Lake Arrowhead, California, USA
Porter Bannister rounded the track’s final turn with his lungs on fire. Pain surged up his legs and back with each stride. Every nerve in his body cried for him to stop. He screamed between gasps and forced his legs to keep churning.
Ty Landy stood next to the track holding a stopwatch. Porter lunged past him before staggering to the infield grass. He flipped onto his back and his chest heaved to suck in air. Ty walked over, leaned down, and held the stopwatch over Porter’s face.
“5:20. Close to your best,” Ty said encouragingly.
Porter growled. He pounded and kicked the ground. When his heartrate and breathing finally slowed, he cried, “I’m never going to make it! I’m too old! I was born slow!”
“Come on. You’ve just hit a plateau. You’ll break through eventually.”
“Nah. This is as fast as I’ll ever get. For once in my life, I wanted to accomplish something hard. People tell you if you want something bad enough all you’ve got to do is put in the work. It’s all a lie. I’ve done the work. I’m a failure.”
Ty chuckled and tried to sound consoling. “The five-minute thing is totally arbitrary. It’s not like anyone’s handing out medals for it.”
“Everybody knows it’s the standard. And it matters to me.”
“Once you break 5 minutes you’ll only want more. Next, you’ll be saying 4 minutes, 50 seconds.”
“No, all I’ve ever wanted is 5 minutes. If I can do it once, I’ll be happy the rest of my life.”
Ty smiled to show he understood, or at least appreciated, how Porter felt. Ty blamed himself for Porter’s suffering because he had introduced him to running. The two met at church and Porter talked a lot about getting into shape. After a few evening jogs with Ty, Porter was hooked. Over the course of a year, he shed pounds and built endurance.
Porter and Ty were not sprinters or marathoners. They fit comfortably into the “middle distance” category and Porter grew convinced that the mile was the ultimate test for someone like him. Running a five-minute mile stuck in his head as a milestone achievement. It was the time a decent high school runner should post and doable for a dedicated older runner who was not a freak athlete.
Porter and Ty mostly ran together on the roads near their homes, but after Porter became obsessed with the mile, they made regular visits to the track surrounding the football field at Rim of the World High School. Porter’s first timed mile was barely under six minutes. He studied expert advice on how to break the five-minute barrier and incorporated sprint intervals into his runs with Ty.
Ty found Porter’s new routine slightly annoying, but he tried to be supportive. He held the stopwatch as Porter’s times dropped from six minutes and then seemed to reach a barrier around 5:20. When Ty said encouraging words about breaking through a time plateau, deep down, he doubted Porter would get any faster.
Porter finally got to his feet after his latest disappointment. He shuffled down the track toward his car, which waited in the high school parking lot. “I should have never started running,” he said bitterly to Ty. “Never starting is a lot better than losing.”
“You’re being overly dramatic. Success doesn’t come down to one number.”
Porter said nothing else on the way home. When Ty got out of the car and looked back at Porter’s miserable expression, he found himself agreeing that it may have been better if Porter never discovered running. The simple joy it once gave him was replaced by a reminder he was growing old and his life looked like a collection of unfulfilled dreams. Failing at the five-minute mile may have aggravated a mid-life crisis or been the trigger for one. If it was the latter, Ty felt responsible. But what could he do to fix things? He could not replace Porter’s body or subtract years from his life.
The two friends parted in virtual silence and Ty was left with a stabbing guilt that felt like a knife in his shoe. He spent the weekend doing his own research on the mile, hoping to find a trick Porter overlooked. By Sunday night, he formed an obvious plan and found Porter at home to tell him about it.
“You’re running at too high an altitude. The high school is 6000 feet above sea level. We’ve got to time you somewhere lower down where it’s easier to breathe.”
“Is that fair? Does that count?”
“Of course it counts. All major competitions are at sea level. And five minutes up here is the same time as five minutes down there.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“And I found us a track built for middle distance. It’s got a special surface. Lots of bounce.”
“Where is it?”
“Pasadena. We can be there in 90 minutes. I say we go down there on Thursday night. That’s when your body’s used to time trials. We’ll keep the same routine.”
Porter smiled optimistically. “Better track. Low elevation. If I can’t do it there, I’ll never do it anywhere.”
“You’ll do it. I know you’ll do it.”
The pair left their jobs early on Thursday to give them extra time to get to Pasadena. Ty drove so Porter could focus on getting into the perfect mental zone. The sky was clear except for some wispy clouds as they quickly descended the San Bernadino Mountains. Ty cranked up fast and hard rock music to inspire Porter and restricted his food intake to energy bars. Before they reached the special track, Ty stopped at a convenience store and ordered Porter to use the bathroom.
“Get all the extra weight out of your system.” When Porter returned from the bathroom, Ty handed him a bottle of Gatorade. “Drink about half of this. Then you’ll be perfectly fueled.”
Ten minutes later, they pulled into the athletics parking lot for LaSalle Catholic High School. No one else was around. A three-foot tall chain-link fence surrounded the track and football field. The entrance gates were locked.
“Are we supposed to be here?” Porter asked.
“Yeah, I read all about this place. No one cares if you’re running. We’re supposed to just jump the fence.”
They awkwardly climbed over the fence and hurried toward the track. Twilight had already fallen from the sky, coloring the empty spectator stands in cool shades of blue.
“This is it,” Ty said excitedly. “It’s different because it’s got two long straightaways and two short ones at the end of the field. Tight corners. Built for speed. Let’s jog around and loosen you up.”
Porter slowly high stepped around the track to get a feel for the surface and warm up his muscles.
“How do you feel?” Ty asked.
“I feel good. I feel light.”
“Like a feather?”
“Yeah, like a feather.”
Ty held out the stopwatch. “Four times around from here will be one mile. You ready?”
Porter nodded seriously and dropped into a ready stance.
“On your mark. Get set. Go.”
Porter surged forward, eager to test the track surface and the plentiful air. He knew his usual pace and tried to push a little faster. His lungs stayed full and his breathing controlled as he met the first short turn.
He was not exaggerating when he said he felt light. It was a rare sensation, but he had felt it before. His legs carried him along almost effortlessly and he barely felt the ground. In the fading light, he kept his eyes a few paces in front of his feet. Pain built in his legs and lungs, but he also felt flowing energy. Ty was right about the track.
“You’re on a good pace!” Ty called as Porter passed him the first time.
After the smoothest quarter mile he could remember, Porter knew he was now in the “grinding out” part of his race. He pushed the pain as far away as he could and kept his eyes ahead. He concentrated on sucking the thick air in and pushing it out.
“You’re gonna do it!” Ty screamed after the second and third laps.
Halfway through the fourth lap, Porter’s form began breaking down. He could no longer control how fast his lungs heaved. He heard Ty screaming from across the field that he was almost there. His focus narrowed to the lane lines in front of him and the rest of the world went dark as he ignored the pain. And then Ty was behind him.
Porter bent over and grabbed his knees, but he did not collapse. Ty shoved the stopwatch in his face. 4:40.
Porter instantly forgot his pain and exhaustion. “Can’t be! You started it late!”
“I swear I started it on time. You beat it by 20 seconds!”
Porter deliriously screamed toward the sky and then happily sobbed without producing any tears. “I’m fast. For at least once in my life, I’m fast.”
Ty let him enjoy a few moments before asking, “So is it enough after all?”
“Yes. It’s enough. And I never want to come back here. It would ruin the moment. This night was perfect. Thank you.”
Porter was all smiles on the way home. They were the familiar smiles Ty had seen before Porter’s doldrums set in. Ty had a feeling the smiles would be back permanently.
Porter was relieved when Porter said he never wanted to return to the track. A return visit might lead to scrutiny of its special surface and dimensions. Undoubtedly the lower elevation helped break the barrier. All the hype also gave Porter an adrenaline boost. The caffeine Ty slipped into the Gatorade bottle surely helped as well. But the biggest secret to Porter’s success was that he had only run 7/8ths of a mile. Ty had researched all the tracks in Southern California and found one built just a little shorter than the standard.
Porter would never know about the track. He did not need to know. It was not important. What was important was that he believed he was fast. He could accomplish something he set his mind to. At least for one beautiful night.
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