Bredin on Running & Training

"ODDS AND ENDS." 8g whether the amateur watch-holder is not in reality the correct one. I remember such a contrivance being used at a North of England meeting. During the heats of the quarter, when I happened to be in the centre of the ground, and in a position to observe for myself, the machine made nearly all the heats faster than the official timekeeper, who happened also to be the handicapper; and it is within the bounds of possibility that handicappers generally might be inclined to make men run slowly in their own handicaps in view of the magnitude of the task imposed on the scratch man. This apparatus was worked by an electric current passing along a line attached at one end to the trigger of the pistol, and at the other to the worsted, continuing from thence to a grandfather's clock which showed minute fractions of a second. Whether it was reliable or not I cannot say, but at any rate it didn't become fashionable. It may be questioned if any innovation that curtailed the number of officials at amateur sports would be accepted without opposition. A timekeeper belonging to the decidedly slow school, who attended the 1900 championships, told me that he made most of the sprint heats slightly slower than the official time, and that the distances separating the first three men in the final were such that he could have guessed correctly by their heats; but the watch he had is one of those now in general use throughout the North of England for timing whippet racing, the large hand travelling once round its face for each two seconds, so that the difference of six inches in foot– racing can be readily detected. The ordinary stop-