Success in Athletics and how to obtain it

CHAPTER IV MIDDLE DISTANCES-THE HALF-MILE AND MILE ATHLETES who aspire to fame in the 88o yards are of two classes-the first who combine the 440 and 88o yards as their two distances, and the second who combine the 88o with the mile. · Of the two classes, probably the latter are more ideally built for the race in question. · Take, for instance, Melvin Sheppard, who won both the 8oo and 1,500 metres races at the Olympic Games of London, 1908, John Paul Jones, the Cornell University crack, and T. H. Just of England. The suitability of milers to the shorter distance is curious, in that the 88o yards .is really approximated more closely to the 440 than to the mile. In deciding to take up half-mile running, the first essential is to make quite sure that lungs, heart, and muscles are sufficiently strong to stand the great strain which will be imposed upon them. At the shorter distances a really strong runner may go through and be with his field at the end of a race, although totally untrained, but to the half-miler this is practically a physical impossibility. As the strain of medium-distance running is so 31