Running Recollections and How to Train

CHAPTER XIV. FIRST HANDICAP AT POWDERHALL. THE greatest pedestrian event of the year, the Powder hall New Year Handicap, of 1897, came off exactly afort­ night after my match with Cross, so it was not to be expected that I would be in very good sprinting form. Harper, thethen champion, had to give me three yards in this event, but it was hardly likely that any importance would be attached to our meeting, if indeed weshould meet. I was backed to win a small sum, somewhere between £300 and£400, by my own party, and one enthusiast (not in our school, by the way) took £100 to £3 about my chance. I won my heat, but was beaten in the second round by Burns, of Glasgow (13), who, however, could only manage to get fourth in the final. 1 was not destined to come from that meeting without adding to my list of professional successes, for I won the 300 " hands down," off the five yards mark. I might add—it can do me no harm now—that I could have won it off scratch. About a week after this event, Bredinand I signed articles to run 400 yards for £50 aside, on a ground to bemutually decided upon. The Bolton track was eventually selected. I went into training, partly atPowderhall, andpartly at Hawkhill. I was living at theGranton Hotel, near Edinburgh, at the time, and both grounds are very easy to reach therefrom, the journey by rail only occupying afew minutes. i remember that theweather during my course of training was simply abominable. Nearly every morning the track would be covered with snow, which had to be swept oft