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The Greatest Runner You’ve Never Heard Of

Zátopek was known as the ‘Czech Locomotive’ because of his conspicuous wheezing and groaning.

Michael Shermer reviews Today We Die a Little! The Inimitable Emil Zátopek, the Greatest Olympic Runner of All Time by Richard Askwith, and Endurance: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Emil Zátopek by Rick Broadbent. These ran in the Wall Street Journal under the title “The Greatest Runner of All Time” on June 3, 2016.

In the annals of running, almost everyone knows the significance of 1954, for that is the year the great British miler Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile and became a symbol for conquering psychological barriers to human achievement. Few people know that, in the same year, a Czechoslovakian long-distance runner named Emil Zátopek became the first to break the 30-minute barrier for 10,000 meters, an arguably tougher accomplishment given how much longer the agony must be endured.

The 1954 record was one of many marks to fall to Zátopek. At 6 feet, 159 pounds, this scrappy and sinewy athlete was known as the “Czech Locomotive” because of his noticeably audible wheezing and groaning and the contorted facial expressions that accompanied his efforts. “It isn’t gymnastics or figure skating, you know,” he once growled. Contrasting himself to milers, he opined: “If you want to run, run a mile; if you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.”

Zátopek’s deeds at the 1948 Olympic Games in London netted him gold in the 10,000 meters and silver in the 5,000 meters. Four years later, at the Helsinki Games, he took gold in the 5,000 meters, the 10,000 meters and, stunningly, the marathon—his first, which he entered on something of a whim. All three runs were Olympic records, and the trifecta has never been matched (and probably never will be). Zátopek went on to set world records for 20,000 meters, 25,000 meters, 30,000 meters, 6 miles, 10 miles and 15 miles. He held the men’s one-hour world record for years and was the first to break the 20,000-meter mark in that time. (continue reading…)

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Just Keep Swimming

At 64, Diana Nyad swam for 52 hours, 54 minutes and 18 seconds nonstop

A review of Find a Way: One Wild and Precious Life by Diana Nyad. This review was published in the Wall Street Journal on October 23. 2015.

I first met Diana Nyad in 1982 on the eve of the first 3,000-mile nonstop transcontinental bicycle Race Across America (RAAM). She was covering the race for ABC’s Wide World of Sports; I was riding in it. I knew of her 28-mile swim around Manhattan, her 102-mile open-ocean swim from North Bimini in the Bahamas to Juno Beach, Fla., and her unsuccessful attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida. So at a pre-race dinner in Los Angeles, with my nerves in my throat about undertaking my first transcontinental crossing, I asked her what it was like being a long-distance swimmer and what kept her going through both success and failure.

I don’t remember her exact words. But the single-minded intensity and strength of will that came through in her presence inspired me over the next 10 days to make it to New York.

Diana Nyad is a force of personality that anyone who meets her or hears her speak never forgets. This drive and dynamism is well captured in the title of her moving memoir Find a Way. She has—and her book shows us how we all can.
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