Bredin on Running & Training

MY CAREER AS AN ATHLETE. 149 the L. A. C. v. C. U. A. C. contest. in which I was doing duty for the London Cup in the quarter-mile race. Having previously been informed by F. S. Horan that Cambridge University possessed a quarter-miler above the average 'Varsity form, I concluded that it would best suit me if the race was run slowly, and there– fore from the start did nothing to force the pace, being content to follow some little distance behind the leader until entering the straight of perhaps some 150 yards in length. \V. Fitzherbert then led, and I was about four yards behind him, and gradually commencing my endeavour to close up this gap. But the leader was making his way home at his best pace, and as an indistinct roar from the spectators sounded in my ears, it suddenly flashed across my mind that I was not gaining in the least. Struggling my utmost, the four yards separating us remained four yards, for I was about that amount behind when the worsted was ultimately broken. The train that brought most of the L. A. C. team back to town contained at least one dissatisfied indi– vidual. However, I ran a quarter trial on the following morning, and finding that the watch denoted 50~ sees., one-fifth of a second slower than the time Fitzherbert had won in, I spent the next few days hard at work, sprinting two or three times on each occasion before covering a mile with a couple of sweaters on and a woollen muffler round my neck, during rather hot weather. I soon recovered form, and at any rate was devoid of superfluous flesh and clean inside by the following Saturday week, when the L. A. C. summer meeting took place, in the quarter-mile open handicap