Bredin on Running & Training

SPRINTING. II fast only when allowed to gradually get up speed. These generally consist of long striding men with no great development of muscle in the hips and thighs. The effort of sprinting at top speed gets them out of shape, and retards rather than increases their pace. My advice to any such runner is, in practice, run as fast as you are able; but in the race-after dashing off at the report of the pistol-do not over-struggle, in fact withhold just a slight amount of exertion until half the distance has been completed. The effect of so doing will probably only mean a couple of feet lost at fifty yards, and the extra speed thus reserved for the finish will more than make up for this deficiency. I ran a trial with P. J. Blignault, the South African, whilst he was training in '98 for the roo and 440 yards championship. To fully extend him I started from the eight yards mark in r2o. My instructions from old Nat Perry were to take it easily until he overtook me, and then endeavour to hold him for the remainder of the journey, which I carried out with success, for after being level at eighty yards I came away by myself at the finish, much to Nat's surprise, as Blignault's time was r2t seconds, Referring to sprinters proper, I fancy even they (involuntarily perhaps) follow this method m a slight degree. For instance, if we take a an example a man who runs a f1fty yards trial in six seconds, and roo yards in eleven, these times in each case representing his highest rate of speed, we should find that in the longer of the two he occupies more than six seconds to cover the first half of of the century; or presuming the race to be originally