John Barnes of Occidental College won the 1952 NCAA 800-meter run. In the Olympic Tryouts, he placed second with the same time as Reggie Pearman, who came in third. In the Olympic semi-finals, Barnes placed fourth, missing the finals by four-tenths of a second. In Helsinki, Finland, Thane Baker, the protagonist in Running in Borrowed Shoes, asked John Barnes if they could run together at John’s regular speed through the woods near the Olympic Village on the pine needles. Thane wanted to see what an 800-runner pace felt like. They started together. Thane thought that John ran smoothly. Soon, Thane huffed and puffed, then stopped. He did not have the endurance to maintain the middle-distance runner’s pace.

H. D. Thoreau ed., 1953 Official NCAA Track and Field Guide: Official Rules Book and Record Book of College Track and Field, (New York: National Collegiate Athletic Bureau, 1953), 16,20. Asa S. Bushnell, ed., United States 1952 Olympic Book, Quadrennial Report United States Olympic Committee: Games of the XVth Olympiad Helsinki, Finland July 19 to August 3, 1952, VI Olympic Winter Games Oslo, Norway February 14 to 25, 1952, 1^st Pan American Games Buenos Aires, Argentina February 25 to March 8, 1951, (New York: United States Olympic Association, 1953), 85.