FEBRUARY 21st - Maybe he Just Wanted a World Record



On this day in 1983, Donald Davis ran a mile in 6 minutes and 7 seconds. It was a world record at the time. How might that be you ask, especially since Roger Bannister broke the four-minute barrier back in 1954? Well Donald and Roger were running a tad bit differently. Roger was running like a normal person--forward. Donald was not. He was running backward. An odd thing to do perhaps, but he got a world record out of it. Perhaps there was more to it though. Perhaps Donald was making a statement on the inefficiency of moving backward. You can do it. Just not as well as moving forward. If you chose to live your life constantly looking behind you, second guessing the decisions you made, and wondering how you could have made things better, it’s going to slow you down. Sometimes you need to look back. To remember what happened to you--to learn from it. And it can even be beneficial--uses different muscles and helps your balance. But most of the time best way to run is forward. Maybe Donald Davis was trying to teach us this. Or maybe he just really wanted a world record.

This Day has been Marked

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