Bredin on Running & Training

160 RUNNING AND TRAIN! G. New York A . C. with respect to a proposed inter-club match during the autumn at New York . Subsequently two teams left England, Cambridge, having defeated Oxford, consenting to oppose Yale, which was that season's leading American University team; and the London club, aided by several 'Varsity cracks, in addition to Bradley and Do·wner, in September opposed the N. Y. C. A. Owing to business worries I was unable to leave England at that time. It must be purely a matter of conjecture as to whether I should have run well at New York, and if the heat had affected me as it did the majority of our team, doubtless I should have competed with as little success. I commenced training as usual in '96, but broke down early in the spring. Four weeks before the championship meeting I again endeavoured to get fit and overdid the work, with the result that a few days before it was to take place I ran half a mile trial to Old Nat, and finding its time 2 min. 6 sees., attended the sports as a spectator only. Many of the leading amateurs had been suspended by the A . A . A . for breaking its laws, before these championships were decided. Most of them, having run for several years at amateur sports for their own benefit, but also to the pecuniary advantage of various amateur athletic clubs, now elected to reap all the profits themselves, and so commenced a series of matches which caused a revival in public interest with regard to pedestrianism. The first of these matches of any importance was decided in the autumn of '96 at Rochdale between Bacon and a London "pro" named Anstead. Happening