Coaching and Care of Athletes

THE QUARTER-MILE AND 400 METRES bound to happen at times, a rest period must follow. Similarly, if there is more than one really important race for the athlete to take part in during the season, then after an important race has been run there must be an alteration in the schedule, to represent a rebuilding process towards reaching a further peak performance in the next important contest. Since there is a correlation nowadays between quarter-, half-, and one-milers, I think we must consider the half-miler who com– bines the ·quarter-mile in conjunction with the half-miler who combines the mile as his seconcl event. Such a man must obviously have speed, or he would never think of going in for quarter-miling. His most likely defect would be lack of strength and stamina. I should suggest, therefore, that the 880-440 type of quarter-miler should take the training schedule which I consider suitable also for the 88o-mile type of half-miler. The details of such a man's training will be given in the next chapter. p 225