Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Distance Runs and Distance Runners 345 sand. In short, on paper he had all the makings of a phenomenal runner, and yet the first time he went down to New Haven to run in the dual games he was fooled by one of the simplest of devices - the sending out of a decoy pace-maker to set a quite impossible pace for the first quarter - ran himself almost out before the rac:e was half through, and was beaten by men who should really have not been in his class. It is far from our purpose so to accent this matter of " headiness " as to make the mere win– ning of a race overbalance in importance the port itself and the general fun of running. At the same time, if racing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, and there is no reason why it should lose its zest in any way because intelli– gence is used in directing and restraining the merely physical impulse to "let loose" and win. There are other times in which the straight pleasures of running, unadulterated with calcula– tion or device, may be indulged in besides those trying moments on the cinder path between the pistol shot and the breaking of the tape. Com– pared with track racing, even such arduous sports as steeplechasing and cross-country racing are, in a way, leisurely, and their competition takes on more of the pleasures of the chase. In the next chapter we shall leave the cinder path for the turf and follow the distance runners into the open country.