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Arthur Newton was an amazing man altogether: having taken up running to gain publicity for a political campaign that he was involved in, he became one of the greatest ultra long distance runners in the world.  He kept on writing about the sport and training for it, many of his notions have been discredited but by no means all of them.   After the War he contributed articles on training and racing to many publications including the ‘Scots Athlete’ magazine published by Walter Ross.   The story of Newton and his training and racing partner Pete  Gavuzzi is an absorbing story of an age of running that is gone.   “Running For Their Lives: The Extraordinary Story of Britain’s Greatest Ever Distance Runners”  by Mark Whitaker is well worth a read.   We have here one of his books – Races and Training (pub. 1949) – which was scanned in by Alex Wilson.  The first half of the book is all about his racing career while the second half contains his training theories.   For instance he has sections on Marathon training, on the best age to tackle the event, on the cult of speed, on diet, on tactics and many other aspects.   Some chapters are quite short, a couple of pages, some are much longer and they can be accessed from the table of contents below.

CHAPTER XXVIII

SOUTH AFRICA  LED   THE   WAY

IF their governing bodies won’t do it, the athletes themselves must, like everyone else nowadays, alter their outlook and methods, for you can’t have progress without change. I learnt that lesson long ago, but our English authorities resent anything in the nature of radical change and do what they can to prevent it.

As you know, athletics suffered considerably from the war, though long-distance running came out better than most sports. Perhaps that’s because war training doesn’t need sheer sprinting ability as a rule so much as stamina and dogged endurance ; but anyway, cross-country and distance work battled through the ordeal better than many of us expected.

Ever since 1922 South Africa has been teaching athletes a lesson, yet owing to the disinclination of the authorities to accept changes, we have hardly begun to realise the value of it. There was a spate of controversy in the local press when Vic. Clapham started the Comrades’ Marathon in 1921, the 54-miles road-race across mountainous country between Maritzburg and Durban in Natal. Those who had never had actual experience of this kind of thing were apt to condemn it outright because, as they thought, it was altogether too strenuous ; but Clapham knew what he was about and stuck to his guns. After a lot of time had been wasted in useless controversy his Club told him he might organise it under their auspices provided he guaranteed that it didn’t cost them a penny and, chancing whether he lost heavily or not, he promoted the race which was destined to become famous throughout the athletic world.

It was quite unlike other races in more ways than one. In the first place the majority of competitors—yes, actually the very great majority—entered without a thought of winning or even being placed ; they knew well enough that where they were up against such a tough job honours were not overlikely to come their way.

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But that didn’t matter. Everything in their experience told them that much more than average stamina was needed to cover such a distance in twelve hours, and they sent in their names with no other object than to prove to themselves (and maybe to their friends) that they were no less able than others to achieve the task set them.

By the way, two women, one a typist and the other a school-teacher, competed unofficially at different times, and both succeeded. Prizes, generously donated by the principal newspapers and other bodies, were not only on a lavish scale but were numerous, yet they were not the attraction they might have been in shorter events ; the only thing that really mattered was that a fellow should prove his ability to stand the gruelling and reach the tape as undismayed as others.

That was how nearly all of them carried on, at any rate for their first attempt. After that, many of them found that training had improved them so wonderfully that they could make a much better job of it next time without running themselves almost to a standstill, and they had another go.

Then there were a few, and I happened to be one of these, who entered intending to win, or at any rate get mighty close to it. These latter had to do even more in the way of preparation than the bulk of the field if they wanted to stand a sporting chance. You see, those who were only just sufficiently trained to ” make ” the distance in standard time (twelve hours) always arrived at the finish in considerable discomfort—if being most distressingly tired can be classed as discomfort ; anyway I know that was how I felt when still fifteen miles from the end of my first attempt. But the well-trained men were always capable of a bit more when they timed in, for they were not called upon to punish themselves so severely.

It was not only a case of building up muscles to stand the strain ; a fellow’s mind had to be developed at the same time to make sure his muscles acted according to plan ; otherwise he lost a good place or even a win solely through faulty judgment. There was one year when it was all but a dead heat between two at the finish. The second man had been creeping nearer the leader for mile after mile, but he had kept just a bit too much in hand and was finally unable to close the gap ; only a second or two more and he would have done it !

There was another occasion when the man in the lead at fifteen miles struck a bad patch, probably caused by running too fast immediately after a hearty breakfast, and one after another the second, third and fourth men went ahead and left him out of sight-behind. Although constantly losing more ground he knew time might enable him to get over his temporary trouble, and carried on for the next two hours buoyed up by this hope. Round about forty miles he began to pick up, and to such purpose that within the next ten miles he had overtaken all three ahead, finally winning

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I could,, I daresay, tell you a lot about the various Comrades Marathons if I had the time, for I competed in six of them and should have run in many more had I not gone over to America for the Transcontinental Footraces. Amongst other things thev introduced a new method of training which almost at once°proved to be an advance on anything as yet tried. Men were told that for rnarathon work they should ignore speed almost entirely and do nothing more than train six days a week until thev had mastered the art of covering considerable distances every time they went out, no matter how slowly so long as they learnt to perfect their style while actually trotting. At the same time everv possible economy in action was stressed. Joe Binks and Colonel F. A. M. Webster quickly recognised this as a valuable advance, and didn’t hesitate to say so, but ” authority ” on the whole didn’t expect or want to be taught anything by outsiders, a position still maintained.

However, those who accepted these tips and incorporated them into their work did astonishingly well : more than half a dozen South Africans ran right up against, or well into, world records, and then men in other countries began to take notice. McNamara.. the Australian, put up new world’s indoor track records for everything between thirty and hundred miles ; Hardy Ballington followed with even better times on the road, and as recently as 1948, Stanley, another Australian, won the marathon in his continent in vastly better time than had ever before been recorded there. This last man was a member of Cerutty’s marathon club (Victoria) where marathon men were carefully coached on these lines by the founder, P. W. Cerutty : and in the championship event, which Gordon Stanley won, the next seven places went to two new South Wales men and five more marathon clubsters.

When South Africa sent Hardy Ballingtou over here to snaffle a few records for his homeland, he began by cutting the London-Brighton time by one second. The former mark was too fearsome to permit of any great margin, yet Ballington could almost certainly have bettered his attempt had he been able to stay another month or so and get on with his training. You see he had hardly acclimatised himself before he had to tackle the job, and a man can always do better when he has got accustomed to new conditions.

But Ballington had no time for another London-Bright on run just then, as he had come over with intention of having a slap at the hundred miles on the Bath road as well. D’you know, even now people hardly understand bis amazing time of 13 hours 21 minutes for this distance : just think, it beat the acknowledged world TRACK record by nearly three hours—by 15 per cent! Yet Ballington had to run up and down steep hills and long ones, as well as through tens of miles of heavy traffic. Surely it stands to reason that if he could do this his training methods MUST have been altogether ahead of anything previously practised.

Well, it made Englishmen, and even Americans, sit up and think. It was obvious there wasn’t a man in either country at the moment who had any sort of hope against him at his own distance—in the London- Bright on run his nearest rival, a Canadian, was an hour behind ! Among others, Pat Dengis, the American ex-marathon champion, took the lesson to heart and applied the new methods. He didn’t believe in them and openly said so, but his training in the usual way had proved such a strain that he was warned his running days were over. As a last resource, however, he decided to try the new tactics. Within a year he had won the Portchester rnarathon, and then the Pan-American championship, the latter with half a mile to spare. Unfortunately he was killed shortly afterwards in an air-crash.

In this country V. B. Sellars, realising that our men were hopelessly undertrained for marathon running, arranged with his club, the Finchley Harriers, to promote an annual 20-miler for a start; today the ” Finchley 20 ” is a classic. For some time he has had in mind an annual 50-miler, and it is greatly to be hoped that he will eventually be able to stage it.

Some years ago another club, this time the South London Harriers, at the suggestion of C. G. Herniman who provided a floating trophy, also put on a 20-mile event, and found the demand for distance so widespread that it was increased to thirty miles, which was what Herniman originally intended it to be. This, too, is now a very popular annual, and has on two occasions, first by Tom Richards and then by J. T. Holden, brought new world records for the distance. When Richards put up his record over the course Cote, the Canadian, was also inside the old time, and Cote had trained for years on the same lines as Richards, the professional Peter Gavuzzi having been his tutor.

Before the war there were half a dozen South Africans who, because of Comrades’ Marathon training, could probably have filled five out of the first six places in any English marathon race, but if our men now turn to these advanced methods, as some of them undoubtedly will, England will be in a very much better position to accept a challenge. Tom Richards, who trained on these principles, put up a much better performance in the 1948 Olympic Games than any other English runner, and, but for the lapse of attention at one spot, would almost certainly have won the marathon.

Practically all the men who indulged in events of this type served in the Forces in one capacity or another, among them Vic Clapham and his five sons. The encouragement given to cross-country running in this country has now brought in many a new man who is anxious to prove his worth, and it is up to these to study the methods I have suggested. Then there are the old stagers who still compete regularly with the object of keeping themselves in good trim and at the same time offering what assistance they can to the newcomers ; they too will do well to consider the matter.

Rationing with food has of course been one of the snags we have had to put up with, and there have been others as well. If food counts for a lot, so does rest ; and I’ve known men turn out for a race with altogether insufficient sleep beforehand. On one occasion I remember a man, whom I confidently expected to find among the leaders, arrive in exhausted condition in seventh place. Knowing him quite well I asked what was wrong. He told me that if he wanted to compete he had to cut into his sleeping time in order to travel. Acting as one of the officials in the same race was one of the organisers ; travel, combined with lack of sleep, had kept him out of it altogether. Another man, the Club secretary, started off with the bunch knowing his condition was hopeless, for he had only had an hour’s sleep the previous night ; before half the distance had been covered he had the sense to pack up.

We in England don’t seem as yet to have realised that distance running provides not only a more solid foundation for training purposes than sprinting, but is every bit as popular amongst the rank and file. The number of entries in notable cross-country events greatly outnumbers as a rule that of any hundred yards or quarter-mile race. Admitted the Army and Air Force know something about it—though to my mind not enough—and make many of their men, particularly in the Air Force, get thoroughly used to cross-country work.

Well, do you see where all this is leading to ? With peace conditions returning there are hundreds of thousands of young and young-middle-aged men in better physical trim than they have ever been in their lives. They’ll have to work off their exuberant physical energy somehow, and the cross-country clubs will find there’s a bigger field than ever to be catered for. That’s what happened after the 1914-18 war and this time the effect will be even greater because of the number of men engaged and the staffer training they have undergone. All this is to the good. Not only will there be an immense fillip to athletics, but the whole nation has benefitted by the training of its manhood. Taken all round, then, the outlook was never better, and it’s up to individuals as well as clubs to make hay while the sun shines. Perhaps we shall never get such another chance.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE  CULT   OF  SPEED

I’M going to give you a knotty little problem to worry out on your own, and it’ll need all the thought you can give it. You can understand that, having been a runner, I look at athletics largely from a runner’s point of view ; but what I’m about to tell you applies not only to running but just as surely to all forms of athletics.

I’ve had many, some of them widely-known athletes, tell me that I am altogether wrong. They’re welcome to think so. It’s quite on the cards of course that I am mistaken, though that’s for you to judge after you’ve sifted the evidence, when I say that our practice at track, road and field athletics, not to mention other branches, has been based on a misconception right from the start of athletic history. Having got that off my chest you ought to be braced up for the shock, so I’ll proceed to deliver the goods. Here you are, then : I am convinced that it doesn’t help you in any way at any time to practise sheer speed, although that is what practically every athlete has been taught to do, and does ; actual racing in running, or all-out exertion in any other form of sport, should be confined solely to the competition for which you are training, and such events will be all the better if they are few and far between compared with what goes on nowadays.

Revolutionary ? Well, I suppose it is, particularly when you consider that it applies to EVERY form of sport, even sprinting.

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But before you condemn it outright look into my reasons carefully and you will be in a better position to make a decision.

We’ve been brought up to regard speed as something which we lacked but which only needed practice to acquire ; a sort of “practice makes perfect ” affair ; and because the great bulk of our active exponents and teachers have been youthful—as soon as they ceased to be so they discontinued competitive athletics—no one has questioned it, and the teaching holds good today. But if you really pry into things quite a new field is opened up, so much so that an entirely different method of approach is indicated.

Man, as you’ve always understood, is a machine of sorts, no doubt a very complicated affair but he carries on like one all the same—you feed and repair a machine and it turns out energy. There may come a time when you want to work it at its utmost speed ; all that you ever learnt by experience and training has taught you that you will never get anywhere near that until you have removed every defect that is acting as a brake ; also, that to keep giving it speed trials is to keep on postponing its efficiency while consequent repairs and overhauls are undertaken. Apply all that in principle to your body and you’ve got precisely the picture I wanted to show you.

My idea of training for any form of athletics, and I followed it closely throughout my own career, is that first and foremost you should learn style ; learn at slow speed to acquire the necessary action without an atom of wasted movement so far as you can manage it, for good style and economy of action are one and the same thing. Unnecessary action is merely a persistent squandering of your abilities in so far as it consumes energy which could other­wise be used to promote speed. Which makes it evident that there’s no sense in attempting to go all out until you’ve removed such handicaps. When you’ve done so, or got anywhere near it, you will find the speed is there and doesn’t need practice ; it was there all the time but couldn’t be put into commission until every item of wasteful extravagance had been eliminated.

There’s another side to all this, too. Training at high pressure, which we seem to have thought was essential to success, must of necessity be strictly limited ; you can’t do very much of it or it’d make you stale. To guard against this trouble both books and coaches suggest a ” season,” after which you are advised to rest to give yourself a decent chance to recover. Because they encour­age you to swing too high on one side they must balance matters by curtailing exercise on the other. Both these extremes are unwise and unnecessary ; it would surely be more sensible to cut super-intensive practice down by 20 per cent, instead, and then you’d have a very different picture. If you did that you could indulge to an extent which would only be limited by the energy at your command and the time at your disposal. The mere fact that by adopting this method you can devote so much more time .and energy to preparation means that you may expect to reap a corresponding increase in ability during the same period and, the season being extended to the whole year, no loss is occasioned by the ” rest period.” Besides, work of this sort banishes the bugbear of staleness as well as greatly reducing any tendency to strain,’ thus adding still further to your possibilities of improvement.

Every man-jack of us, like every other animal, is born with all the speed (in embryo) he is likely to require ;  it has been built up-through all the countless centuries of our evolution.    It developed just as the body did, and always reached its maximum at full maturity.    In the case of mankind however, it has been so hampered and restricted by civilisation and its amenities—clothes, methods of travel, conditions of living and so on—that a good deal of learning is required to release even a part of what our prehistoric ancestors undoubtedly possessed.    That they were altogether faster than we are there can be no doubt, according to the Darwinian theory, for otherwise legs would not still constitute so large a part of our entire physique.

All muscles respond similarly to the same treatment and what is proved to be good practice for any one set must be good in principle for all. When you learnt to talk undue haste was always deprecated ; your teachers knew well enough that, until you had perfected the minor details, any attempt at speed was a complete waste of time. Well, that applied to the muscles of your tongue, , and of course all others act in the same way ; the sole purpose of training is that you should learn to perform detailed action in the most efficient and economical manner, whether it’s with your tongue or your limbs.

From what I’ve already said you can see that speed depends entirely on the method, efficiency and duration of training, NOT on its intensiveness, for there are no short cuts in Nature and it’s nonsense trying to look for them.

You can get a useful simile by comparing the energy deposited in your system with your assets at the bank.    In business, provided you’re constantly turning over your stock, adding a bit here and a trifle there as you go along, your bank will arrange for a considerable overdraft if a sudden demand makes it necessary.    When you’ve built up an extensive connection it will back you to any reasonable limit.    That’s what happens with your training and reserves of energy.    Steady work of the right sort will provide you with a decent margin should a call in the shape of a competition arise ;    while the man who has  unbroken  years  of such preparation to rely on can tackle with serene confidence a task which would be either highly dangerous or hopelessly impossible to a partly-trained rival.

Your aim throughout, therefore, should be to avoid all maximum effort while you work with one purpose only : a definite and sustained rise in the average pace at which you practice, for that is the whole secret of ultimate achievement. This enables you to build up considerable reserves and to add continually to them. Speed trials are worse than useless ; they merely squander all your carefully-built up vim in order to convince you that it really was there, and in so doing put the clock back for weeks with regard to your condition. Any serious competition will, for the time being, deplete your reserves and if you attempt another before they are fully restored you’ll only disappoint yourself and everyone else. Among others, Ballington, the South African, discovered this for himself with a little experimenting, and in consequence wisely refrained from entering a marathon which he might, and probably would, have won, because it came too soon after his London- Brighton record run.

You must have noticed many such mistakes in modern athletics, for competing at unduly short intervals has been thoughtlessly overdone time after time. On the other hand there are those few outstanding men who refused to be caught in the trap, and whose every appearance in public could be relied on to reach a high class of achievement. The ultimate in speed, like the limit in everything else, is abnormal, and should be resorted to only on abnormal occasions ; to over-indulge by even a trifle is to skim the cream off your condition and deprive you of the success your training has so hardly earned.

If you’ve absorbed all the above you will understand better why I decry such things as time trials ; I am convinced that they are nothing but senseless waste of time and energy. What good are they anyway ? They can’t teli you any more than the race itself could. But they can, and will, drain your reserves and do so exactly at the most inopportune time — just when you are getting ready to test your abilities in a competition. The fact that you take a test of this sort makes it look as though you knew you were working in the dark and wanted to make a trial to see that all was really going well ; as though you simply couldn’t be sure about it unless you had actual and indisputable proof. That might be good enough for children but it certainly isn’t for thinking men, for they’re expected to have developed an intellect they can rely on. If you knew you were not using the best possible methods there might be some excuse, but as you are already satisfied that your work is about as good as you can make it you’ll get exactly that result when you race — the best you are capable of with regard to your present standard of training. Time trials ! I reckon they’re one of the evil things we’ve got to learn to do without ; they’re merely a way of heaving overboard all your earnings (reserves) to bolster up your self buoyancy at the moment, stupidly squandering what you’ve saved up for racing.

Yes, I know we’ve been brought up and taught to believe in such things and in maximum speed work for practice too — in our father’s time they were recognised as well-considered and proper procedure. But our fathers had already learnt that the semi-raw meat and corrective medicines of their fathers could be improved upon, and it’s high time we learnt to improve upon what our forbears were able to teach us. There is always better to be found if we look for it ; even the ” advanced ” views I’ve stated above, as many of the old-timers would dub them, though I think they are the best obtainable at the moment, will be pruned, pared down and brought nearer perfection, and possibly you’ll be one of those who help to do it. You’ve got to realise that training, like everything else in life, never ” stays put ” ; it must always be changing with the advance of time, and it’s up to you to use your reason to learn what you can so that you may initiate such changes as you yourself progress.

I don’t expect you, or anyone, to digest all this at a single gulp ; new ideas are sometimes awkward to assimilate off-hand. But if you think these matters out on your own and apply reason and commonsense, you’re sure to find points that can be very useful in your work. Follow them up in your own way and they will lead to enhanced progress.

CHAPTER XXVI

ALL WORK AND   NO  PLAY

QUITE recently I met by appointment a man who told me he was seriously thinking of taking to athletics with the object of putting up new records.    He wanted to know what I thought of it and what I could suggest in the way of useful tips.

We were complete strangers, though I knew him well by name, as do the great bulk of athletes in this country, champions as well as small fry. When I met him I found a young-middle-aged healthy specimen, chockfull of energy and vitality, and one with ideas on training distinctly in advance of those of most textbooks on the subject. We didn’t waste any time over formalities but got down to business right away. He had his theories—as yet untried by himself—and was convinced they were sound. I thought so, too. Very good then, what did I think of his chances if he himself put them to the test ? If he succeeded, these theories —disavowed and derided by nearly all our present teachers— would prove their worth, and he would then have done a good deed for athletes all the world over.

I told him what I could in the short half-hour we had for discus­sion and thereafter spent much time at intervals thinking out the major details of what I believed to be essential for capturing a world athletic record. What I tell you here is, of course, just my personal opinion ; but as it has worked successfully on half-a-dozen different men, all of whom gained their records, it’s sound enough to accept as a basis until a better is discovered. So I’ll leave out all frills and tell you what I consider the plain truth.

Incentive comes first of all; without it you’d never get anywhere. And to achieve world records your incentive has to be great indeed, something far beyond the usual. With that already ” in being ” it’s as well to remember that mentality always comes out top dog in the end ; to be better than any other man in the world, therefore, you must get to know more of your subject than any other man. That hits two ways : (1) you’ve got to put more physical energy into it and (2) you must study intensively the results of such practice as you proceed. Yet another point : athletics must be your major engagement for at least two years on end, your business or means of making a livelihood being at all times one of secondary importance. It couldn’t be otherwise, for if you don’t give practically all you’ve got to the achievement of your object you’ll never be certain of outclassing men who did.

Right ! Get ready for extreme and prolonged discomfort, an outsize dose of both. At what speed will you have to run to make sure of your chosen mark ? Well, if you picked on the marathon a steady 10 2/5ths miles per hour would just about do it. But you must never, except for short temporary bursts, practise at racing speed : the most useful pace in this case would be nine miles per hour. So that’s what you’ll have to learn.

Except for one day in seven practice must be a daily affair and nothing but urgent necessity should turn you from it, your pace being a steady nine miles per hour average up and down hill. The more hills you practise on the better for your ultimate form. At first you will be able to do no more than a few miles without getting badly tired, but after a month or so you’ll be doing more than double the distance and adding a bit to it each week. Don’t go any faster, for your race doesn’t require excessive speed ; but go so far every day that the last mile or two become almost a desperate effort. So long as you’re fit for another dose the following day you’re not overdoing it, and while you keep to steady rhythmic work you’ve nothing to be frightened of. You may think you’re mighty near ” all in ” when you get back, but a short bath followed by a meal will make you feel so much better that you can then turn your mind to less exhausting employment.

Don’t let distance frighten you—it’s only pace that kills. You’ll have to stick at it until you can manage a hundred miles a week quite comfortably. Don’t set a daily schedule ; it’s far more sensible to run to a weekly one. You can’t tell what the temperature, the weather or your own condition will be and should run just as far as you can each day taking all these things into

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consideration. Bad conditions may make you do rather less one day ; given a weeekly schedule there’ll be time to make good the deficit without overstraining. Another time you may find you’re going better than you expected ; put a few more miles into it while you’ve got the chance. Also, every now and again—perhaps once a month—take a 25 per cent, longer run at a slightly lower speed ; you must be quite capable of running thirty miles if you are a first-class marathon man.

Early to bed—probably nine hours there—and early up ; you will need and must have plenty of sleep. Another necessity is the best of food to work on, a somewhat difficult matter in these times. But there’s no compromising ; you require it and must have it. Early nights mean that you cut out nearly all social activities ; records must take precedence of everything. I don’t suppose a gentle binge in the way of a theatre or dance once in a couple of months would do any harm ; it might do good if only because it broke monotony. But nine-tenths of your usual pleasures have to be scrapped to make time for this new work you’ve taken on.

No ; I wouldn’t advise any man to undergo all this ; it’s for him to decide. If his incentive is sufficient he won’t shy at it ; if it’s not, he’ll discover ” it’s just too bad.”

CHAPTER XXV

AGE  AND   THE  MARATHON

 HOW old ought a fellow to be before he goes in for the marathon ? Well, you have two different opinions to choose from (a) that of those who haven’t done much good at it, and (b) the others who have. The former, and of course they’re in the majority, tell you that men should not seriously tackle the race before they are around 26-28, in fact they seem to think that it is an ” old man’s event ” ; the others, that there is no reason why anyone between twenty and forty should not indulge. I agree with the latter, though I would extend the useful limit to fifty—Webster, the Canadian, was well past the forty mark when he won the event in the Empire Games.

We seem to have been brought up with an impression that this long-distance race is too strenuous for any but specially favoured individuals. Indeed the man in the street is so frightened of it that constant medical supervision is regarded as essential for any

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who take to it, and you won’t be allowed to enter one of these events unless you comply. As a matter of fact the better-trained you are for this kind of work the less likelihood there is of your sustaining injury from it at any time. But as doctors haven’t personally had much—if any—experience of running by the hour you can’t blame them if they keep to what they consider to be the safe side. Did they but know it the ” safe ” side has nothing to do with distance ; it is solely a matter of speed.

Did you ever hear of the American Transcontinental Footraces ? They started at one coast and ended at the other. Many competitors were youngsters of around twenty—the winner of the 1928 event was exactly that age, while one runner was no more than sixteen—but not one of them was the worse for his three thousand miles in seventy-nine days. In collaboration with the doctor who travelled with the contestants, the American medical fraternity satisfied themselves on this point immediately after the conclusion of the first race. The bulk of men were between twenty-four and forty-five, and of the fifty-five who finished, all ages from sixteen to forty-nine were represented. If that doesn’t prove that distance running is not dependent, within certain limits of course, on age, I don’t know what does. And remember these men averaged daily a much greater mileage than the orthodox marathon. Those of them who indulged in speeding dropped out in the first week ; the rest travelled leisurely at a dead easy pace, the leaders doing about 6½ miles per hour.

So it doesn’t seem to matter a rap what your age is provided you’re between twenty and forty; the younger you happen to be the sooner you can get into decent trim. But your mind is not so experienced in the early twenties, and at that time the work may appear to be too gruelling altogether to make it worthwhile. So long as you’re just about fully grown, as the great majority are at twenty, there is nothing to stop you from becoming first-class at the marathon or any other event you happen to be reasonably fitted for.

Aren’t we just as much animals as horses and dogs, albeit certainly brainier ones ? Any well-grown animal can keep pace with the rest of its kind within reason, and if we are trained for it there’s hardly a man who couldn’t become a decent marathoner. Donkey’s years ago when our forebears were savages every individual must have been a first-class distance merchant as well as a decent sprinter. Convenience has made us drop prolonged travelling afoot but games have kept a certain amount of sprinting going, with the result that the training for distance must now be more arduous than it is for shorter events.

Where 99 per cent, of younger men go wrong in their training for long races is in speed. They ignore the fact that they’ve already got much more of this than they’re ever likely to require for the purpose ; what they haven’t got is the ability to keep going for the length of time, and of course it’s that that wants developing. Did they but realise it they could afford to ignore speed and train solely for distance ; if they feel they must let out occasionally the last half-mile of the daily run is the time to do it.

Your system will get accustomed to almost anything if you practise often enough. There’s nothing fearsome about walking because you do some every day, perhaps several times a day. The same can be said in a way about marathon running if you follow similar methods, i.e. take a long run practically every day.

Fellows fail to make really good at it only because they fail altogether to fit in the necessary preparation. The prospect of fifteen miles a day for six days in the week would stagger most of the youngsters yet that is far from being too much. Twenty miles would be better. Certainly it can be done. Ballington, the South African, used to average a lot over a hundred miles a week—he was then in his early twenties—and there wasn’t a marathon man in England at the time (1936) who could be sure of beating him in spite of the fact that he did not specialise at the distance but merely took it on as a sideline. Ballington’s forte was fifty-milers.

So if you intend to make any sort of show at the marathon you’ve got to make up your mind right away that the first thing to do is to get busy with real work ; not too heavy to start with perhaps, but gradually increasing as you feel you can manage it until, after a lapse of about eighteen months, you are covering something in the region of a hundred miles per week or a bit more. If you need an incentive remember that there are certainly men who will extend their mileage to that figure and if you are determined to give them a good run you’ll have to knuckle down to it yourself.

CHAPTER XXIV

MARATHON  MERCHANTS

OF all our standard events probably the marathon is least under-stood. You can point to the reason without much difficulty ; its inclusion in modern sports came so much later than any other distances. As a matter of fact prior to the 1914-18 war twenty-six miles was actually considered suitable only for those who had been especially favoured by Nature with more than the usual toughness and stamina, a mistaken opinion due solely to lack of knowledge.

There’s another reason too, and an equally potent one, which will go far to explain our ignorance about it.     Have you ever realised that its technique has been taught and explained by men who never at any time contemplated running such a distance themselves ?    These are the only teachers we’ve had ;   men entirely without experience of the game beyond having seen others engaged in it.    Nearly every book on training that we’ve got today has been written by authors of this type.    Mind you, I’m not trying to belittle their work or to blame them ;   far from it.    They gave us the best they knew and that’s all anyone can do.    The only pity is that they weren’t in a position to know more.    It just shows how dreadfully behind-hand we are with this form of athletics. The only possible explanation is that this department of running has blossomed out so recently that in spite of its popularity it hasn’t had time to produce the number of technical exponents common to shorter distances.    In this respect, therefore, marathon men are at a disadvantage compared with all other runners.

Have you ever considered why distance running should have faded out so much more than sprinting ? There can be no doubt that a few thousand years ago all men, and to a slightly less degree all women too, were equally efficient at both, just as both sexes of the rest of the animal world still are. But as civilisation progressed and men harnessed animals, metals, and then science to aid them in their ever-widening activities, the need for personal exertion to cover long distances elapsed, and horses, trains or motors provided a quicker and more convenient method. Then, too, financial competition promoted a busier life, limiting yet further the time available for recreation.

In this way long-distance running as an everyday affair slowly but surely petered out, though sprinting was always kept going by its inclusion in various games. Yet when you come to think of it both forms of running are equally natural, and it’s only because we’ve allowed distance work to lapse that its technique is less understood.

There’s another point which will show how wide the gap has become between our knowledge of sprinting and that of marathon running. Among various records put up during the last fifty years Hutchins’ thirty seconds for 300 yards still stands, yet the

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Olympic marathon figures of 1908 and 1912 wouldn’t rank today as decent second-class performances. We couldn’t have made all that progress without having learnt a lot ; such a marked advance proves that marathon running is still in its infancy whereas sprinting, being nearer the ” adult ” stage in development, hasn’t scope for improvement on such a scale. I don’t for one moment intend to suggest that earlier Olympic marathoners were intrinsically inferior to their modern rivals ; they failed to put up better times only because they hadn’t learnt how to set about the business. Had they known as much as we do they would have gone in for far more training, possibly of a less strenuous kind in some respects and would have specialised at the one event.

No doubt methods have improved quite a lot, but marathon technique is still such unexplored territory that the times put up today, very much better as they are, will yet permit of further and considerable reduction. Only when the race is run in something like two hours twenty minutes shall we be able to say that it’s science on a par with that of the shorter distances up to the mile. Yes, they will reach the 140-minute mark or very close to it when we get men to train consistently in the most up-to-date manner.

For a start you’ve got to remember that there’s more lost ground to be made up in the marathon field than there is in any other event and this of course will need a corresponding extension in training. This point has never been mentioned in the text-books because the writers had not recognised how backward we really were. Consequently we have been spoon-fed with altogether inadequate work with regard to the necessary training ; and not only that, but much of what has been advised is futile. If there’s one thing that is absolutely definite it is that walking doesn’t teach you to run. Marathon men must learn to run long distances and walking, so far as their training for running goes, is only a waste of time and does nothing to help with the specialised event. Yet we are still taught by non-marathon runners, and of course by those who haven’t as yet spotted the weak point, that long walks, excellent in themselves apart from running, should form a definite part of the training schedule. They make a strong point of it too !

The actual training from the stage of novice to first-class ability is almost sure to take eighteen months, and you’d have to be drastically severe with exercise and relaxation to manage it in so short a time. Three years would be more reasonable. To drop training at any time during that period whether for a holiday or anything else is to throw overboard part of your hard-earned ability ; the longer the holiday the more serious your relapse. Hence you must make up your mind to get busy and stay busy for two or three years on end. There won’t be so much difficulty about it once the habit of regular exercise has been formed ; it’s the earlier stages that have always proved more troublesome.

Hurrying won’t help you and there are no short cuts—don’t kid yourself that you can fool Nature. Nothing but honest work and

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plenty of it will make you more thoroughly efficient at the game than your rivals. Ten or twelve miles twice a week, plus a somewhat longer jaunt on Saturdays, such as our books nowadays advise, is less than half the work you’ll have to get used to—less than half you CAN get quite used to. That may sound a tall order, but it’s quite time somebody put the facts down in black and white ; if they frighten you off, marathon honours are not for you. And that’s where the time factor comes in and explains why two or three years are necessary; you’ve much physical building to do and can’t afford to be slipshod about it.

You might think that if you indulged in twice as much exercise you’d go stale almost at once. So you would if you kept on with the usual speed-up taotics. But if you eliminated racing entirely for the time being you would discover that what you dropped in that sphere could be tacked on to distance, extending it to an almost unbelievable degree, and it’s distance you’re really training for, not speed. One hundred per cent, increase of exercise is no small item and you may be sure it’s going to make you tired. Even that needn’t worry you, for it’ll be little more than temporary discomfort ; a few months and you’ll have built up muscles and sinews to stand the racket without complaining, and the daily grind will have become mere normal routine.

The first thing to do, then, is to increase your outing gradually— and it should be at least five (better still, six) days a week—until you can average four hundred miles per month, by which time you will be able to realise that the few months’ training at present recommended is little more than a playful introduction to the real business.    You can look on four hundred miles as the low limit ; there are plenty of men who have done more than twice as much —I’ve run twelve hundred miles in a month myself—but most of them had more time at their disposal and were not primarily interested in the standard marathon.    I’m just telling you this to show you that there’s nothing in any way fearsome in such a figure once you’ve worked up to it, though it may sound formidable to a partly trained man.    When you’re well on the way to it,, and note the astonishing improvement gained, you will be forced to admit that a few months’ training on standard lines will never get you anywhere ;  all it can dc is to prepare you to battle your way towards much harder work.

The man who says he hasn’t time for such exercise is only telling you, though he might not admit it to himself, that he doesn’t intend to make time. Pat Dengis, the American champion, was averaging a higher monthly figure when he gathered in the All America title, yet he did not allow athletics to interfere with his daily work as a machine tool maker. Ballington, the South African, covered an even greater mileage because his methods and style were suited to distances of from fifty to one hundred miles : and he, also, trained out of business hours. It should be remembered that neither of these men were in any sense of the term ‘” born athletes ” as we understand it, and if they could manage

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four hundred miles a month or more without detriment to their work in factory or office, any other ordinary man can learn to do likewise. Anyway, if you want to do better than tho next man, you’ve got to work harder.

Here’s another point it will pay you to note. Train on the same lines as your rivals and you’ll make about the same headway ; to attain a different result—that, of outclassing them—your preparation must be different. So there’s no need to shy at the programme I’ve outlined even though it is a radical alteration from the normal course ; the mere fact that it IS so perchance provides for better results. You can learn like Pat Dengis did when he gave these new methods a thorough trial, or fail to learn through lack of initiative : the choice is always yours.

The first men to employ improved methods are the ones who usually make the greatest splash. In recent times Nurmi of Finland was perhaps the most notable example. Ballington was another—the -entire sub-continent of South Africa subscribed lavishly to send him over to England to prove his world superiority. Both worked on the lines I’ve been recommending. Had Nurmi been allowed to run at the Olympic Games at Los Angeles in 1932 he would certainly have shown an astounding improvement on the marathon record as it now stands. Ballington did as much in the hundred miles, reducing it far below what had previously been considered the possible limit—more than two and a half hours less than the track record. Then his time for forty miles on hilly roads, sur­rounded with traffic and in bad weather, was more than twenty minutes below the amateur track world record, which was equi­valent to beating that record holder by about three miles ; you can perhaps judge from that what his system was worth.

And Pat Dengis ? He was just beginning to get into his stride with exactly the same methods, having given them a trial—as he openly admitted—without having any real faith in them, but thinking they could at any rate do no harm. His first subsequent race was an outstanding success and a month or two later he had won the All America championship in better time than he had ever managed, beating the runner-up by half a mile. He then wrote to a friend saying he was convinced he was at last on the right track with training and that his former ideas were completely out-of-date. Unfortunately he lost his life shortly afterwards in an air crash.

Future marathon honours, then, are still waiting for men to give these methods an innings. After which of course the standard will be raised again, making it still more difficult to establish new records at the distance.

Let’s get now to some of the more intimate details of training ; perhaps if we tackle some of the major problems first the lesser ones won’t be so difficult. One thing you can bank on for a start is that until you’re really fit you’re not getting the pleasure and satisfaction from your training that you should ; you may be getting some of it, but most of us are greedy enough to want the lot.

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If benefit is to be had, as it most certainly is—and of course pleasure follows proportionately—discriminate with your methods and you’ll meet it halfway and keep company thereafter.

Reasonable exercise, allowing for astonishingly wide differences in stages of training, makes and keeps a man fit ; it is only when he goes to extremes in anything that there is the possibility of a relapse. I have travelled for months at a time with men who kept in super-condition when doing upwards of forty miles a day on their own feet. Needless to say a tremendous amount of training had to be undertaken before they reached that stage, the bulk of it in many cases being overcome by many during the first fifteen hundred miles of the event they were engaged in. At the other end you find fellows who keep in moderate trim with no more than an average of a daily mile or so of walking plus perhaps a game at the week-end. Not that these latter were ever as fit as the others, but they reckoned they hadn’t either the time or desire to reach such a high level of physical well-being.

Anything between these two limits which happens to suit you for the moment will do to start off with ; as you progress you can add to your work without perceptibly adding to the exertion required to perform it ; as you grow fitter and apply your extended experience ycu are able to spread the same amount of energy over a wider field by economising with trifles here and there. There’s much more in this than would appear at first sight as you will soon find out if you try the experiment.

As a man gets to feel he is really improving he naturally wants to measure himself against his rivals. This means a race every now and again and the results, or so he thinks, tell him where he stands. They would, if the races were only now and again. But if there’s one thing we have yet to learn almost from the very beginning—for even the bulk of our present experts and coaches haven’t yet recognised it—it is that races should NOT be undertaken one after the other as is the present practice ; we must know more about the science of athletics.

Now look at this picture and draw your own conclusions. Suppose you foresee an emergency ahead when you will need, say, £100. Straight away you start saving up and putting aside all you can till you have the required £100 in the bank. If you’re sensible you’ll make sure there’s something over to allow for possible unforeseen contingencies. While you were about this you would no doubt consult your bank book to see how you were getting along from time to time, but the last thing you would ever dream of would be to take out all your savings and spend the bulk of them merely to make sure that they were really available. So when the time arrived you would have your nest-egg ready, plus a trifle over, and wouldn’t need to worry over anything.

Now apply that to training for a definite race which you have set your heart on winning, or perhaps at the first try getting placed. You undertake certain work in order to build up your reserves of energy, reserves that you know will be essential if you are to meet

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your   commitments  at   that   particular  event.    As  you   progress your general sense of well-being tells you just what stage you have got to ;   you consult your training achievements just as you might your bank book in the other case.    So long as you go on building up you are sure of yourself and have nothing in particular to worry about ;   in fact so little that, should an unforeseen expenditure of a reasonable amount have to be met, as in the case of a race which you suddenly decided to contest, you know you can meet it without drawing too heavily on the balance in hand.    Commonsense tells you that you MUST not overdraw or you’ll have much of your work to do all over again.    All your interim races, therefore, must be in the nature of moderate trials, not excessive ones ;   all you need to know is that your general condition is steadily improving. That’s how it should be.    Yet what is the general practice ? Fellows enter for practically every single race they can manage to attend and, on many occasions, run themselves almost to a standstill every time they compete.    It’s nothing less than sheer thoughtlessness, and it’s high time we realised that there is far too much racing nowadays compared to the amount of preparation fellows have undergone.

By all means enter for a race every now and again, but beyond making a good shot at it leave time trials and everything of that sort very much alone ;  they will only disturb your present balance and, if frequently indulged in, will lead either to constant troubles or such a disgust of the whole business as to cause permanent retirement before you’ve ever had a decent shot at your objective. If animals  don’t  go in for any particular training,  yet  have greater speed and endurance, how do they achieve their result ? By doing a steady amount of more or less gentle work every day and only on comparatively rare occasions letting out for all they are worth.    I am convinced that any man who wants to become an  outstanding  champion  should  arrange his programme  along these lines ;   I have seen it applied with quite astonishing success by several champions in long-distance running during recent years. Will you wait till it becomes common knowledge or get going while the going is good ?    To my mind a marathon man should not race seriously over his distance more often than once in six weeks— once in two months is probably better.

But the amount of work to be done between races will have to be considerable because the mileage of the race itself is considerable. If you’re going to contest a 26-mile event you must at least be used to a hundred miles a week—be able in fact to carry on like this without discomfort for a dozen weeks on end ; only then will you be able to get through such a race without a suspicion of distress. This gives you an idea as to how much is required in the way of training before you can hope to become really first-class at the game ; it will need, as I said before, not only months but actually years before you can get so used to a fifteen or eighteen miles daily spin that you can look at it just as a routine outing. You can get to that stage if you want to ; many have already done it. 

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But 90 per cent, of your practice during those two or three years of preparation should be of the moderate type ; just saunter along serenely at somewhere about nine to ten miles per hour when doing a 10-miler or 8-9 miles per hour when out for fifteen or twenty. Carry on like this and you will build up a constitution that will stand almost anything in the way of reasonable racing you care to put across it.

Men no longer run subconsciously like animals ; they have been working their brains for too long to be able to adopt such instinctive action without, a lot of practice. But you can get to that stage for training purposes if you keep it up long enough, just as you have already attained it for walking ; you don’t as a rule consider the action while you are out for a walk, your mind being busy with everything else.

Rhythm in your stride means everything, but it’s got to be applied throughout and not only with regard to the timing and length of your step. Running along the level is one thing and going uphill another. When you start climbing a hill the first thing to make sure of is that your ” wind ” doesn’t suffer too greatly, for that would mean upsetting the rhythm inordinately in that department ; so you will have to adjust your action to meet the altered circumstances. Keep on moving with exactly the same number of strides to the minute as you employed on the level, but shorten them in accordance with the gradient ; if the hill is very steep the reduction will have to be considerable. Your wind will tell you precisely what length is best if you keep an eye on it ; never under any circumstances permit yourself to be absolutely blown by the climb ; cut down your stride to any extent to avoid this, for it means that your heart and circulation are having to work furiously overtime to meet the excess you are putting across them, and overtime of this sort is energy misspent. Only at the end of a race can you afford to take any chances in this way.

Do NOT purposely lean forward (as so many tell you to) when going uphill ; it would be interfering with your natural balance and therefore adding to your work. All you have to think about is that your body generally is as near rest and unconcern as you can make it, just as it was while you were trotting along on the level.

When it comes to a downhill stretch you have another set of problems to attend to. Your stride, if you don’t take any particular notice of it, will naturally lengthen a bit. This is exactly as it should be ; it is a mistake to butt in and definitely give an order to that effect. Keep going at the same number of paces to the minute as before—anything between 175-190 that you are used to—and if your wind has suffered more than you think was perhaps good for it, take things easy enough to make sure it recovers, after which you can again adjust the pace to conform with your breathing.

You can gather from this that it is quite a mistake to think you

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can make up time going down hill. As a matter of fact if you have carried on at your most suitable pace throughout you cannot make up time anywhere except perhaps at the very end. At that point it will depend entirely on what reserves you have built up ; if you are better off in this respect than others you can proceed to run ” all out ” for the last half-mile or so. But even then don’t lose your head ; you must still bear in mind that you can last longer with a comparatively short stride than with a long one, though you’ll have to quicken the tempo to add to the pace.

Keep your wits about you every time you decide to overtake another man. If he likes to waste his energy that’s his concern, not yours, and he only will have to pay for it. So if he hangs on to you or won’t let you pass, don’t immediately force the pace in an endeavour to gain the position ; just carry on at your customary speed plus perhaps the merest trifle of increase. If you’re the better-trained man the other fellow will be obliged to drop back before long and it’ll be the last you see of him. A sudden sprint to pass him is nothing less than chucking away a lot of useful energy—energy you may need very badly before you reach the tape. It MIGHT frighten the other into thinking you were altogether too good for him, but what’s the use of winning races by a trick of that sort ? It’s YOUR real condition you want ,to prove to yourself and to others, not that condition plus tricks.

As soon as you’ve got your ” second wind,” probably after the first mile or so, use it as your guide : nothing else will serve you as well. If you lose the race after having genuinely done your best it must be because the other man had put more time and attention into his preparation or that his methods were better ; carry on a stage further with your own and you will be able to reverse the position next time, for it is only a matter of sufficient work of the right sort.

Nothing but your wind can tell you whether your pace is correct for conditions at the time, for your breathing is entirely dependent on the amount of energy you are bringing into use. If the day is hot you will be obliged (subconsciously) to sidetrack a certain amount of energy to your refrigerating system; that is, you will perspire freely in order to adjust your temperature. If some of your energy is being diverted that way there will be less left for running, with the result that you will either have to go slower or peter out before the tape is reached. Most of us blame the weather when this sort of thing occurs, though we really ought to blame ourselves for not adjusting our output to suit prevailing conditions.

Heat in itself is no bar to distance running, though, as I have just shown, it certainly affects the pace. I have run with dozens of others through part of Death Valley in California, one of the world’s super-hot spots ; yet every fellow covered his forty odd miles without any particular trouble because the lesson had already been well rubbed in that they had to adapt speed to temporary conditions.

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Unusually cold weather also has an adverse effect, for it is apt to hamper circulation and stiffen joints and muscles. A little extra care at the start will soon cure this, though the wearing of even a trifle too much in the way of clothing may tend to restrict action. In any case, extremes in the way of weather are bound to make a noticeable difference, though, as it is the same for all, those who have formed the habit of adjusting their tactics to suit will always come off best.

Perhaps one of the chief points is to regulate your training so as to be sure of always being on the safe side ; the least trifle of overdose, if persisted in, will surely lead to trouble of one sort or another, and this will cause inconvenience as well as loss of time. The first necessity is to train as often as possible, six days out of seven if you can arrange for it. Having seen to that, the question of amount can be settled without much difficulty, and as you progress this can be gradually increased. You can judge the amount necessary by results : a slight thirst is nothing out of the way, but a really fearsome one, lasting for hours afterwards, is a definite sign that either the pace or the distance has been too much, and curiously enough it is almost always the pace that is to blame. An occasional symptom of this sort may not do any harm to speak of, but for all that it should be avoided as far as possible as it means that your resources are being exploited towards straining point. If ever you get beyond such a stage without apparently doing any actual damage you will note that, not only are you unbearably thirsty but your appetite has entirely disappeared even for many hours after the event. There’s no need to rub the lesson in ; if you are actually in first-class fettle it may be excusable to exert yourself to such an extent for a really important race, but unless you are in outstandingly good condition such an experience is apt to be distinctly dangerous. All of which emphasises that you wear a head for use.

As likely as not you will think that the work I’ve advised is not only much more than you have any intention of doing, but actually far more than is strictly necessary ; and you don’t see why you should be called upon to do an ounce more than you need. Run through it all again in your mind and you cannot but come to the conclusion that every bit of it IS required. The amount needn’t frighten you at all; if you really intend to become a champion, you’ll have to go through every bit of whether it scares you or not. But prolonged training makes all the difference in the world, and after a year or so at it you will be just as astonished at your ability to dispose of a dozen miles before breakfast every day (or in the evening if that is your training time) as everybody else is to hear about it ; it only seems wonderful because so few have tried. Other men have done as much and even a great deal more ; what they did you know very well you can also do if you’re allowed time to prepare.

Why should you carry on to such an extent as fifteen to eighteen miles a day ? Well, the longer distances, such as the marathon,

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have not been nearly so fiercely competed as the 440 yards or the mile, and consequently there is still a wide margin to be cut from the present record times. Even today many of these races are won in around 2h. 40m., though the man who can do no better than that can hardly be considered first-class.

If there is one thing all the way through that frightens practically every prospective marathon merchant it’s the distance. Very good; then commonsense would insist that distance must be practised to such an extent that a 26-miler no longer holds any terror. The thing is simple enough ; you will have to drop the bulk of your present recreations and spend the time thus gained at training ; anything from two to three hours a day will have to be set aside for the game six days out of seven, though of course an occasional day off won’t do any harm. Some fellows do all their training at night, others only in the early morning. Personally I prefer the morning because traffic at that time is much lighter, though of course the temperature in winter is apt to be more trying. But the time doesn’t really matter much; your only concern is to fit it in.

If you apply the programme I have suggested there can be no doubt about your ultimate success for it allows for all contingencies in weather or anything else. To be practically sure of making record time when expected is much more satisfying to the runner —even if it does take more preparation—than the present method which trains a man till he’s so fit that, if he happens to strike luck he will just manage it, but only then. Please yourself which you tackle ; if you want only the best you must be prepared to work for it—it’s there for the taking.

CHAPTER XXIII

FOOD   OR   FADS

LET’S give theories, statistics and all that a miss, and have a casual look at diet from the ordinary active athlete’s point of view. What ought he to eat, when, and what effect does the food have on his abilities ?

You realise of course that every item of your physical make-up requires energy to keep it going ; even when you’re asleep heart, lungs, digestion and other odds and ends are all busy. According to the state of your health you have a large or small reserve of energy which can be drawn on at any time for any particular purpose. But first of all your physique (via the subconscious mind) will demand its quota whether you like it or not ; after that you may please yourself how you dispose of what’s left.

When you eat anything you have to supply energy to the organs which deal with the food, the amount depending chiefly on the sort of stuff you have given them. If it is of a very light and easily digestible character the expenditure may be almost negligible ; if it is heavy the requirements will be considerable. Your ” works,” via those of your ancestors from the time of Adam and Eve, know their job better than you do, and will either attend to it properly or refuse to tackle it at all—the margin between ” yes ” and ” no ” is pretty slight. Provided you’ve got the energy to spare and allow your works what they need, they will carry on in the very best style. But if you try to sidetrack what they reckon is theirs, they will get annoyed at once and start to kick ; continue with your robbery and they will call a lightning strike—you will vomit. It’s just a matter of plain commonsense ; if you don’t know what’s good for them, they do ; and they’re not going to waste time trying to make good your mismanagement.

But it’s not always like this. Sometimes you give them a dollop of fuel that doesn’t require much handling—sugar for instance. This seems to need so little in the way of assimilation that you can almost immediately let fly all your available energy in any direction, and your works won’t even hint at dissatisfaction. It’s useful to know this, as there are times when you badly need a bit of stoking to renew failing energies, and it is all important what effect the fuel will have.

Quite the best way to take sugar under these circumstances, and the quickest too, is to dissolve it in a short drink, either hot or cold, according to the atmospheric temperature. Diluted fruit juices, tea or coffee seem to be the most suitable for this purpose, for they give no hint of trouble, though it’s as well to remember that without sugar they are not really effective—it’s their sugar content that makes them worthwhile. By the way, don’t try and substitute glucose for sugar ; no matter what the text-books tell you it’s not in the same street so far as merit is concerned.

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On the other hand milk, meat-extracts, cocoa and similar concoctions require a great deal more attention from the digestive system and are therefore quite out of place while further abnormal activities are in sight. Any of these drinks are perfectly good and healthy when you’ve got time to relax considerably while our innards get busy with them ; but commonsense tells you that when there’s no spare energy to apportion to the organs it’s useless to give them stuff that will call for it. It is unfortunate that our athletic authorities frequently supply dope of this sort to marathon runners during a race, just when it is most necessary to avoid it.

Even the most luxurious steak-and-kidney pie won’t hinder you for a moment if you are content to allow your digestion its normal quota of energy while you carry on with what’s left. You can put away a first-class feed of any sort and immediately get up and run, provided you are in reasonable training of course. But as there’s not in this case a lavish supply of surplus vim the running has got to be of a very casual nature, no more than a comfortable trot of some seven miles to the hour. You already know that you can walk quite comfortably immediately after a big meal, and you can trot just as serenely when you’re in training. Meat extracts, cocoa or anything else may be taken as a drink with this meal, and still there will be no ill-effects whatever so long as you stick to an easy jog-trot. Every day I set off for my training run immediately after a breakfast of porridge, eggs and bacon, toast and marmalade and probably two cups of tea. Of course this sort of thing applies only to cross-country and long distance practice ; if you’re out on the track for anything between hundred yards and three or four miles you’ll need to be more circumspect with regard to the previous meal ; relatively fast work spells greater expenditure of energy in much less time, and proper allowance must be made for this. That’s why much more time must be allocated to digestion in the case of shorter distances than is necessary for long-distance work.

A long period of meticulous experimenting taught me that a simple unchanging diet is not nearly as productive of energy as a varied one, as you can prove for yourself if you like to try. Also that a vegetarian menu is not as good as a meat one unless you actually prefer it. You didn’t make your likes and dislikes with regard to various foods, Nature managed the business for you ; Nature generally knows what is needed, and what is needed is right. Saddle your digestion with anything you seem to fancy and you need have no qualms.

It comes to this, then ; so long as you are not about to race you can eat anything you like : the mere fact that you like a thing is proof that it is good for you so long as you don’t indulge to excess. To eat stuff that you don’t like or don’t care about is only loading your stomach with unwelcome goods, and it won’t get through its business with any enthusiasm, what’s more it won’t fail to object if you persist. You can take it as gospel, then, that particular dieting for athletes can be spatchcocked once and for all ; exercise, eat and drink like a healthy man and that’s what you will be.

CHAPTER XXII

TACTICS

AS I write this I sit ” choked off.” Very much so indeed ; every bit as much as can be implied politely. In fact I’m told several times over that I am arguing from a false position and that I am completely mistaken and entirely wrong because I don’t understand the subject. And the man who tells me this is a fairly well-known athlete. (KB.—” Methinks the gentleman protesteth too much.”)

Now I’ll admit it’s quite on the cards that he is right ; the mere fact that I think otherwise has nothing to do with it for the moment. But I rely always on the judgment of mature thought, so will leavo it to my readers to decide which of us has steered nearer to the truth.

The subject in question was ” tactics ” as applied in track and road races. My point was that, as practised and taught, they should be eliminated altogether. My choker-off was convinced they were, to use his own words : ” Essential to success.” The best thing I can do now is to put all my cards face up on the table and leave it to you to decide the issue. To start off let me say right out what my definitions of ” tactics ” and ” judgment ” are. I consider judgment refers solely to your own action and that when others enter into it you employ tactics to influence or counteract their action ; judgment for oneself only, tactics for oneself plus others.

Perhaps the best way I can get to work will be to quote from my correspondence : I have had many letters on the subject, not all of them admonitory. And then I can trot out my reasons for considering where we ought to improve. Here’s a specimen : ” Perhaps it is your connection with the pro’s years ago that gives you the idea that tactics implied several men ‘ ganging up ‘ to interfere with some other competitors to let another win.” I had of course been referring to what is called amateur sport, for in England we hear very little indeed of any other and are intentionally ” sheltered ” by our authorities from anything else so far as track and road athletics are concerned. What I had hinted at was that the phrase ” boxed in” had become quite understood and that such a misadventure really happened at times. I can pass over the implied stigma on professionals because the writer had, according to his own statements, never had anything to do with

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professionals and therefore couldn’t know much about them. However I, a professional runner in my later days, had always found my ” pro ” competitors precisely as decent in every way as the best amateurs, which is saying something. (N.B.—Do you hear complaints about the sportmanship of ” pro ” cricketers or footballers ?) But I’ll admit I’ve met many a fellow, NOT because they were amateurs but because their numbers so vastly exceeded the pro’s, who did not come up to my idea of the usual sportsman— fellows who looked forward to winning their events by any sort of trickery so long as it could not be called fouling.

If you haven’t seen men boxed in you’ve certainly heard about it and, except for a second or so, this sort of thing should be next door to an impossibility among decent athletes. I’ve been in that unfortunate position myself for a moment on occasions, but a touch on the arm of the outside man was quite sufficient to tell him I wanted to get out and I never knew it to fail. Others, I have every reason to believe, have known it to fail, but that was only because they were unfortunate enough to be involved with some who didn’t know the real meaning of sport. The fact remains that the phrase ” boxed in ” wouldn’t be so universally known and used unless such a thing had happened fairly frequently.

The writer in this particular instance goes on to say : ” This is not what we know as tactics and I have never known such ‘ tactics ‘ resorted to in our sport.” How was it that he had never known what everyone else knew—what everybody else had coined the phrase ” boxed in ” to describe ?

Here’s another excerpt for you. ” Our idea of tactics is judgment, getting the best out of oneself in relation to the rest of the field.” I disagree right away with the inclusion of those last eight words, except that I readily admit that tactics, as practised, are alterations in one’s action to attune with alterations in the conduct of others. As I am of the opinion that under no circumstances, unless quite unavoidable, should you pay any attention to the rest of the field during a race, this sentence should have read only ” getting the best out of oneself.” That, and that only, is exactly what I approve of : surely that’s your sole purpose in racing ?

You don’t need to be told, you know very surely that to get the best out of any subject you must concentrate on that subject ; any division of your attention to outside affairs at the same time will weaken your concentration and bring about an impaired lesult. Right ; apply that to racing. I say you should concentrate on your best running—practice will have taught you just about what your optimum pace will be—and ignore completely, so far as you are able, all other competitors ; that to make any alteration ” in relation to the rest of the field ” is to waste your own time and effort at the very moment when these are most urgently needed for the purpose of doing your very utmost. There is only one ” best ” that you are capable of, and any unnecessary change from that set speed involves loss of time that can never be made good. That is one of my chief reasons for suggesting the entire

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elimination of tactics. There can be only one ” best ” as far as you are concerned—YOUR best ; therefore every time you divert your attention to others you are dividing your energies between yourself and them instead of concentrating all on yourself. That was why I disagreed with the writer’s definition of useful (?) tactics. His reason for his opinion, in the light of what I have said above, will show you what sort of teaching we have had to put up with until now. He says : ” Your lack of experience in middle-distance running is no doubt the reason why you do not appreciate the vast difference between a race such as an 880 yards and one of 50 miles. In the shorter event you must take note of what your opponents are doing.”

Having been told off like this I thought it might strengthen my position if I gave the writer chapter and verse of the sort of tactics I was up against, the sort he said never occurred. I had no difficulty about that ; I just quoted a few sentences from an article on road running by an international man written approximately at the same time as our letters. Here are the tactics advocated : ” Don’t rush at the bottom of a hill but always try to encourage an opponent to do so. If you wobble a bit and look round fearfully you are quite likely to entice a man behind into making a big effort.”

If that’s not attempting to make a man do less than his best I don’t know what is. And to implement it you’d have to do less than your own best, would have to waste energy on trickery when you needed every bit of it for running. Yet I was told the same evening by another athlete—with a long career behind him—that he considered these tactics perfectly fair and above-board and could see nothing but commonsense about them. I applied all the arguments I have given you above but with no effect at all; he was convinced that such tactics were usually taught and were ” all part of the game.” To hammer his point home he wanted to know what you wore a head for if it wasn’t to help you to win. I left it at that, for I reckoned that until he was able to think logically there wasn’t the slightest hope of convincing him that such tactics were NOT in the interests of clean sport.

Mind you, I’m not blaming these men for what I think are mistaken opinions ; I know well enough they are quite sincere and have nothing but the best intentions. All that I can hope is that sooner or later the opinions of those who are able to reason more purposefully will compel them to look into and reconsider much of the faulty teaching that we were all brought up on. I also pointed out to this second man that we are all agreed on the necessity for progress, but that you couldn’t get progress without change. If only for that reason any proposed change should be given careful consideration.

Here’s another point of view where a correspondent looked at things one way while I found I was definitely on the opposite side. This time the reference was to a recent race where, as he admitted, a, second-rate man won, decisively beating four others, all of whom 

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were acknowledged to be faster merchants. It was pointed out that this second-rater won on his merits because he used the tactics he had been advised to employ.

Here are the chief details of the event. “A” is a strong runner but without the speed possessed by many of our best men ; the strong rugged type, coming through fast at the finish. If it was a fast-run race (he was taught), ” hang on to the leaders as long as possible and use your strength over the latter stages to hold on to the leaders as long as you can ; if a slow-run race (880 yards) go all the way from the bell (half-way).” When the next event came off the competitors included ” B,” ” C,” “,D ” and ” E ” and all these men had the beating of “A.” The race was run very slowly, first lap being 62 2/5ths. At the bell “A” dashed to the front and went ” hell-for-leather ” all the way. ” E ” followed him but could not close the gap of 1½ to 2 yards ” A ” had opened up. Then the others suddenly realised that they were getting a bit too far in front to make it comfortable and went after them. But try as they did they failed to catch “A” and ” E.” ” B ” did come through very fast to capture third place and was fast catching up on the leaders. At that point it was assumed I’d agree that “A” won on his merits. I did not, however. To my mind “A’s ” merits would have placed him in fifth position, since there were four others known to be his temporary masters at the game. These four, in my opinion, lost their places because they employed tactics ; they went very much slower in the first lap than they could have decently managed, each intending to outwit the other with a sudden and surprising burst later on towards the finish. Had each of them gone at his best racing pace from the start “A,” who was not so fast a man would have been left behind at once and could never have caught up. Had “A” tried to stay with them he would probably not even have finished, for he would have been run to a standstill in the first half.

When you take the circumstances into account I’ll agree that perhaps “A” deserved to win ; they were all trying to trick each other and, as trickery and not running was the first consideration, “A’s ” tactics came out on top. Actually what really happened only went to show what a disastrous mistake the other four had made in using tactics at all. “A,” to my mind, didn’t ” win on his merits ” but won because of the lack of merits on the part of his rivals. He could never have won up to that time against any of those four had sheer running ability without tactics been the order of the day, so the victory can’t have been an altogether satisfactory one either from his or his rivals’ points of view. From all of which I would argue that the use of tactics, relative to others, once more proved quite unworthy of consideration. What’s your verdict ?