Bredin on Running & Training

TRAINING. SI will usually be found to lie between the ages of twenty– five and twenty-nine, with the exception of those mortals who are naturally inclined to become stout early in life . Should this tendency be very marked, the necessary reduction of weight rnay at the same time unduly diminish strength. A month or six weeks' training will prove a sufficient allowance to most youths of twenty. Shortly after the thirtieth anni– versary of one's first appearance in the world, when all wise men will have, or should have, used running shoes for the last time, to seek their recreation in other forms of sport of at any rate a slightly less vigorous character, the word "training" begins to acquire a new meaning. Men at one time good runners, and not yet old from an athletic point of view, but who through various causes have been compelled to cease active participation in this sport for a considerable length of time, frequently lose heart after a few weeks' return to track work, during which no improvement can be noticed, and are apt to conclude that their athletic ability has departed, never to return. In the majority of these cases time and practice would effect the desired change. It is well to constantly bear in mind the fact that "fitness" cannot be forced to come. Overwork will only result in driving it further away, but if sought for steadily and conscientiously, without undue haste, it will almost certainly be obtained, and that condition which enables one to enjoy both the excitement and exertion of a foot-race will at length recompense the athlete for n1.any days spent in a some– what monotonous round of exercise. l once heard in a village church in Cumberland a E 2