Success in Athletics and how to obtain it

CHAPTER V LONG-DISTANCE TRACK AND ROAD RUNNING-MARATHON RACES THERE is no doubt that to be successful in long– distance and cross-country running the athlete must be slight of build. The ponderous, muscular runner has little chance to excel in .a distance beyond a quarter of a mile, though of course there ar·e always exceptions to prove a rule, and it does not do to be dogmatic upon any topic relating to athletics. One notable exception at least to the necessity of slight– ness of build as important to a marathon runner was demonstrated by the success of the South African, McArthur, in the Olympic contests at Stock– holm in 1912. McArthur was then a hefty, muscular, weighty athlete, and his pre-eminence in the Marathon race was probably due to a combination of causes. It will be remembered that he did not compete with his Afrikander confrere, Gitsham, in the English Marathon race antecedent to the Stockholm contest. He and his athletic advisers snowed great wisdom in this. It is not reserved for even the few to carry off a Marathon prize twice in the same year. It has been said that " every Oxford and Cambridge boatrace costs a life" ; this may be a truism, and 38