Genius Hour Blog 1.1 The Limits of Human Endurance

     Genius Hour #1.1

     Today I began my first task for my genius hour called “The Limits of Human Endurance”. I began by gathering text-sources and deciding who and what my research foci would be. After a lot of debate I decided on a couple of books I have read and a few I have not. I am going to be constantly looking for more as my project goes on, but I have enough text-sources to start my study at least. My research focus is as follows: “In endurance sports, one athlete will nearly always prevail over the other(s). Why? What causes these athletes to have more of an edge than the others? And, is what causes these athletes to prevail more physiological or more psychological? Finally, is this causation of elite performance in some an esoteric, unreachable limit that is set in stone and may not be changed by the common athlete? Or, a more exciting possibility, is can these seemingly elusive limits be stretched and bent? “ I intend to study several elite athletes that proved themselves to be the greatest  in their respective endurance sports by doing what was impossible at the time. As of this moment, I have chose to include Steve Prefontaine, Eliud Kipchoge, Louis Zamperini and Roger Bannister in my study group for endurance running. I have not lined out which cycling athletes I will include in my study. I have elected Muhammed Ali (of course) and Rocky Marciano for my boxing focus group. I have various other endurance athletes under a category labeled “other” as I will not be extensively researching their respective sports, whereas Running, Cycling, and Boxing will be covered extensively. I am excited to start researching now that my sources are gathered to a point that I can start!!!