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Preparation and Early Training for a Long-distance Runner

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However a boy may fancy himself, I would strongly advise him to carefully avoid any long-distance work, at all events until past sighteen years of age.

If he is a born sprinter, well I suppose that no amount of advice or preaching will prevent him from showing off his indulges in before eighteen, the better for his future prospects. He should neither race nor train, except just so much as will keep him normally fit and healthy. Cricket, football, or practically any outdoor games, will do all that is needed towards preventing any superfluous deposits of flesh and rendering his joints and muscles supple and lissom.

When he has passed his eighteenth birthday and his frame and constitution are sufficiently “set,” he may seriously begin to test his qualities as a long-distance, track or cross-country runner.

He should not think about entering for any races at first, It would, perhaps, be almost as well if he confined himself to training practice entirely during his first season, although there would be no harm in his competing in a race after he has had, any, thirteen or fourteen weeks’ preparation, and supposing him to keep in good condition and not to have strained himself in any way, repeating the experiment once or twice during his first year.

The danger which he has chiefly to guard against will be any risk of “over-doing” it, either in strength or spirit. Early defeats may dishearten him, and too much continued effort at “getting home first,” before he has come to his full powers, may work some constitutional damage which can never afterwards be repaired.

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