Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Distance Runs and Distance Runners 323 English climate, as well as the English habit of exercise, has also had its effect in cultivating endurance. The very thing which takes the life and snap out of an American sprinter who spends more than a week on English soil, seems to act as a sort of stay and seasoner to the more leisurely English athlete. There is, undoubtedly, some– thing almost magnetic in our American ·air, at least in the sort of atmosphere that is found in the northeastern Atlantic states where the inter– national meets have been held. It acts as a nervous stimulant, and it has been observed on several occasions that English athletes who had apparently been knocked out by the change of climate, and who went into a contest feeling any– thing but fit, yet managed to run quite as fast as they had ever run at home. What the English climate lacks in this stimulating effect it seems to make up in its general soothing and nourishing influence, and if the athlete who has been bred in it is deficient in snap and nervous spring he is strong in endurance and vitality. The fastest authentic time yet recorded for the mile run was the record of 4 minutes I2f seconds made by the Englishman, W. G. George, in 1886. George had been running for several years as an amateur before becoming a professional in a match with another English distance runner, Cumming , and he had an amat~ur record of 4 minutes 18f