Success in Athletics and how to obtain it

28 SUCCESS IN ATHLETICS you to go out to win. In this way he has got to go on striding his best all the way, while you can rest your limbs by lengthening and shortening the stride to suit your purpose. When running the training spins, the strides should be alternately lengthened and shortened without any change of pace, to accustom you to employing this method of resting in a hard-run race. · Starting practice, with following runs of roo yards or so at top pace, are always necessary, in order to engender the great speed it is frequently found advisable to employ at the beginning of a quarter– mile race. It must be done very gradually; the rapidity with which the athlete comes out of the holes must be gradually increa.sed with perfect smoothness of action and balance. The modern crouching position is . more responsible for break-downs than anything else, as the strain of coming up out of the holes is so intense. The muscles must therefore be built up by degrees, and gradually accustomed to the sudden strain, so that the start is accomplished with ease and smoothness. Those who have never been accustomed to running in spiked shoes, should take the greatest care that they do not overstretch themselves; spiked shoes worn for the first time always conduce to longer striding. Any irregularity in the ground-e.g. a sudden drop in the track-:-may lead to a serious strain ; · therefore the perfect sprinter requires a perfect track. Build.-Usually the athlete who goes in-for sprinting and attains pre-eminence is a heavy, well-developed, muscular man, such as Ramsdell, and of old times • Wood and Warton ; exceptions to this rule' are Walker and Applegarth. The· same may be said of