Coghlan Over 40, Under 4 Minutes
First Masters runner to go sub-4 in the Mile: "They created more noise than at any other track I've run at, including Madison Square Garden."
By Marc Bloom, New York Times
After months of painful therapy, weeks of speed training and several near misses, Eamonn Coghlan of Ireland yesterday, Sunday, Feb. 20, achieved his yearlong quest to become the first runner 40 or older to break the 4-minute Mile.
Forty years after Roger Bannister first broke the 4-minute barrier, Coghlan, 41, ran 3 minutes, 58.15 seconds, a world record for a Masters runner (40 & older).
Coghlan did it on the Harvard track in Cambridge, Mass., in a special race set up at the state high school meet. More than 3,000 spectators, most of them high school competitors, cheered Coghlan to the finish.
"They created more noise than at any other track I've run at, including Madison Square Garden," said Coghlan, who lives in Dublin but has trained in Gainesville, Fla., since December.
Continue reading at: nytimes.com
