Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

Distance Runs and Distance Runners 331 gymnasium man. Conneff won the national cham– pionship in the five-mile run in 1888, 1889, 1890, and 1891, and in 1890 he won also the champion– ship in the mile and ten-mile runs. After nearly ten years of track racing, Conneff still remained, in 1895, the best miler on this side of the water, and it was in the trial race to choose the men who were to compete against the Oxford– Cambridge team in the autumn of that year that Conneff made his record. George Orton, who was also in this trial race, finished about one hun– dred yards behind the champion, and "Eddie " Carter joined Conneff in the last lap and set the pace in the final three hundred yards. The half was run in 2 minutes 6J seconds, the three– quarters in 3 minutes 10-g- seconds, and the mile in 4 minutes I sf seconds. This supplanted the pre– vious world's record of F. S. Bacon of the Read– ing and Ashton Harriers, made at the Stamford Bridge Grounds, in England, in July of the same year. Conneff had never been in as good form as he was that autumn, and it was the opinion of " Father Bill " Curtis, and other capable judges, that he could at any time have beaten his own record. The chance of a lifetime came at the international games, but Conneff contented him– self with running the mile in slightly over 4 min– utes 18 seconds, saving him elf for the three-mile run which was to come later on. It was anything