1975: Fastest Mile
August 13, 2025
By AHNZ
On 12 August, 1975, John Walker ran a mile in a faster time than anyone ever in history. Or so mainstream history tells it.
Mind you, he probably had more amazing shoes than any human being for the prior 10 million years. But still, the fastest man ever.
Mind you, he probably had a more perfect running surface than any human in medieval times, back to Rome, Greece, or prehistoric athletics. But still, the fastest man ever.
Mind you, he had the benefit of precisely measured distances, certified timing devices accurate to a hundredth of a second, and officials to record it — luxuries not afforded to the Inca messenger racing over mountain passes, the Greek hoplite running for his life, or the Maoris bounding over supplejack vines. But still, the fastest man ever.
Mind you, he had the advantage of modern nutrition, high-altitude training, sports medicine, and pacing strategies. But still, the fastest man ever.
Mind you, he didn’t have to contend with uneven ground, wind gusts, potholes, loose gravel, or the possibility of someone trying to kill and eat him mid-race. But still, the fastest man ever.
Well, he was probably the fastest man in Sweden on the day. That we know of.
Walker won a particular contest at a particular time based on particular rules that a small population was able to participate in. Those rules have since changed and change again. Usain Bolt didn’t run the same contest as Walker and he’s already pissed that people in the future will not be running the same race he was. Ref. “Usain Bolt said that advances in spike technology that could help wipe out his world records are laughable and that the new shoes also give an unfair advantage…” – ‘Weird and unfair’: Usain Bolt criticises advances in spike technology, Guardian (2021)
John Walker being the greatest runner 50 years ago is a situational statement. ‘Runner’ is an ephemerial concept that has already outlived Walker and Usain Bolt, both. Likewise, we could talk about what an amazing sailor Russell Coutts is compared to Peter Blake or James Cook. But you don’t really know what you’re talking about unless you factor in that ‘sailing’ has changed meaning. People in Cooks time raced actual working ships that handled cargo. Coutts sails a plastic disposable purpose-build one-trick rig and has no other day job.
No sooner did I type that than the news of the new sailing rules for the America’s Cup have come out. “America’s Cup teams will be required to compete with a female sailor on board, batteries will replace manual power, and a cost cap has been introduced, in a major shake-up for the next edition.” as reported by NewstalkZb and others (image, right.)
Well, that’s how it was for Walker too. As he admits himself, apart from the custom technology track and shoes the run was effected by other people on the track. Fellow-runner Rod Dixon claimed that if he were racing with Walker he would’ve run 3:49 that night in 1975 and Walker 3:48 rather than 3:49.4. “If I had had some help definitely I would have run faster. ” says Walker. Ref. runblogrun.com (2020)
Something screwy is going on here with running, sailing, with sport and most everything. An historical trend toward Goal Displacement which is a concept referring to how the way we measure a quality replaces that quality. In education we call it ‘teaching to the test’. But how did this happen?
Goodhart’s Law and Arch Jelley
Mr. Arch Jelley has just reached the age of 103. Born 13 August, 1922, he presents as more healthy than many men half his age.
A teacher and school principal, Jelley has also been a very successful running coach. Hard to be that these days though as running (like so many other things in elite sport) has lost all meaning. Jelley was at the cutting edge of responsibility for how this very Goal Displacement infiltrated his field.
Goodhart’s Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Running used to be a measure of a man. But now men cut out their humanity just to be one thing for one time. “…to do well at the Olympics, you’ve got to be [training] for a lengthy period, and you’ve got one day every four years where you’ve got to be at your best.” says Jelley.
“Another difference was the quality of athletics tracks now, which were getting “better every year… and the shoes that they wear now with the carbon springs, that gives them quite a big advantage, so it’s … hard to compare the times they do now with the times they did in the past”. – RNZ (2024)
“But I never believed the people when they spoke of great men, and I maintained my belief that it was an inverse cripple who had too little of everything and too much of one thing.” – Nietzsche
Men like Jelley and Walker and Usain Bolt have all pushed along running so that fulfills Goodhart’s Law. It has become more specialised, more of Nietzsche’s “reverse cripple” where the ‘athlete’ is super-specialised and, increasingly, uselessly unfit for anything other than their one trick.
Those racing yachts can go fast around a set course and, now, they will also be great at ticking off a gender equality box too. But they carry no cargo and wouldn’t have a show in hell of doing 10% of the things that James Cook and his crew had their ships do. They are no longer fitted to living in reality. They are fitted to passing an arbitrary test set by officials in charge of a branded property that is seeking to entertain people and sell broadcasting rights.
Likewise, in 1975, running was already far along in becoming this ugly reverse-cripple mockery of human athleticism. The artificial target, the measure, had replaced the true spirit of the enterprise we had set out to pursue. The Olympic Motto – “Faster, Higher, Stronger” – was supposed to be a proxy for something. Now it’s full of qualifications. Competitors today might be faster, higher, stronger but they’re doing it with State and corporate sponsorship and expensive equipment and drugs and full time training programs. Then, they turn around and say they’ve set a record and are better athletes than we’ve ever seen before! Take away all the circumstantial scaffolding and John Walker’s run isn’t really special at all; It’s totally situational. He wasn’t winning a race for the history books at all. He was winning a race that had only recently come into existence and was soon replaced by a new kind of race.
The only permanent thing about ‘the race’ is that it changes, like Zeno’s river from his paradox. “You never step into the same river twice.” It’s a Red Queen’s Race. You need to keep re-defining what a runner is and what running is just to stay in the same place. Everything in athletics and sport has long since crossed over into the ridiculous as far as I’m concerned. Rugby, cricket, netball, all included in that estrangement process. Our culture has become exhausted by it and a reset is inevitable. The last great runner of the era will be someone who was the fastest rocket-propelled man on a travelator track with an intravenous adrenaline implant with cheetah DNA in a 2G vacuum laboratory. Or, at some point, hopefully before then, the joke will have gone too far for anyone to believe any more. And if you’re not thinking about Walker and Jelley in those terms you’re just writing propaganda for a culture not its true history.
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