Bredin on Running & Training

CHAPTER IV. MY CAREER AS AN ATHLETE, WITH SOME REMINISCENCES. IT seems a long time since my first little running tour round the West of England meetings in the autumn of '85, but everything is said to be comparative, which fact may be brought to mind from a remark made by the late Baron Hirsch on his noticing the title of the Jubilee Plunger's book lying, amongst others, on a railway paper stall. "'How I Spent £25o,ooo in Two Years,'" quoted he. "Why, I've spent that amount in a day ! " However, on the occasion I now refer to there was a certain fairly good London quarter-miler who had decided to pass his annual holidays in the West of England, and having taken the precaution to get f1t, no doubt anticipated a successful outing. It so hap– pened that we were fated to meet in the final heat of most of these 440 yards handicaps, when I usually occupied first and he second position. This result began to be somewhat monotonous, but at length a wished-for opportunity to reverse the usual order seemed to present itself to the London man, on the last occasion of our competing together in a scratch 220 yards race, at the Exmouth A. C. Sports, which took place over a grass course consisting of eight laps to the mile. At the start of this one-furlong event the Londoner slipped quickly off, took the inside position R.T.