Athletics (British Sports Library)

90 ATHLETICS correct number of strides up to and between the first four flights; he may then ease off to what is called the natural gait, but must resume set striding in covering the last three flights before the finish. As regards the number of strides, build will tell. The long, rangy runner can hold a fifteen-stride– between-flights gait at three-quarter speed, but even the best of the small men will have to go all out to hold such length of striding. For such latter athletes seventeen strides between flights at three-quarter speed is in every way preferable to the-utter exhal.lstion of holding the fifteen-stride method at top pressure. J. K. Norton, holder of the World's 440 Yards Hurdles record, used a set number of strides between flights for the first five or six hurdles and then dropped into the natural stride, thereafter depending upon his own sense of distance to get his take-off accurately~a sense, incidentally, which was built up by constant practice' in running at the hurdle from varying distances until he had taught himself to regulate the four or five strides before the take– off, so that he had no difficulty in effecting clearance in good style.