Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

340 Track Athletics and of various athletic clubs, holds the inter– collegiate mile record of 4.2 Jg-, one-fifth of a second better than Cregan's record which he made in 1895. Orton won the mile again at Mott Haven in 1897, in 4.25. He was an inde– fatigable racer and a successful campaigner on all sorts of tracks. He won the amateur champion– ship miles in 1892, 1893, 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1900. His best time for these races was 4.24f, which he made in 1894, the year before he broke the intercollegiate record, and the rest of the times were all respectable. Orton was a typical mile runner, short, compact, hard as nails, and he ran low, easily, and always craftily. This running with one's head, necessary as it is in all the distances longer than the dashes, is indispensable in such long-drawn-out contests as the mile. In the quarter the runner practically sprints down to the last fifty yards, when the inevitable fatigue overcomes him and he finishes "on what he has left "; in the half the first-class racer tries, generally, to do the first quarter in from 57 to 59 seconds. He has the sensation of "moving up " in the last half, but this is caused rather more by the added effort necessary to maintain the pace after fatigue has set in than by any actual increase in speed. It might almost be said, speaking in generalities, that it is the run– ner's aim in the half to start out at a pace which