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The Best Way to Run a Long-distance Race

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WHEN LEADING.

1f you have got in front you will, as already advised. Use your utmost endeavours to keep there. It’s the beat place to be in, you know. But don’t struggle and burst yourself every yard. There is no sense in making a quarter-mile race of a section of the course between yourself and your immediate attendants, so as to crack you all up and leave the field open for the others to jog comfortably in.

Say you have run two or three miles, have put in n fast quarter-mile, and still find that you haven’t increased your lead any, sprint hard for 100 yards and then rest for the neat half mile, allowing your pursuers to gradu-ally make up their leeway while you are taking it soft and easy. Wait for them to almost catch you up, and then burst out in a fast sprint for 100 yards or so. You will have saved your energy for this effort, and it is more than improbable that their effort to catch up your last sprint lead will have so taken it out of them that they won’t be able to respond.

You can then indulge in another breather for half a mile or so, and repeat the operation. A few repetitions are apt to get disheartening to the man or men behind, but you have, of course, to be in first-rate condition to do this.

If you have a good lead-fifty or sixty yards or so-don’t get excited when the other men begin to cut this down. Keep steady, or, if pumped, even stack off a trifle, so as to make them think that they are going faster than they really are. They will even be tempted to spurt so as to pass you soon, and you can allow them to almost come up to you. Then sprint for all you are worth. Jump right away. The man or men who have been coming up will be in rather a quandary. They will have probably taken something out of themselves in their efforts to catch you, and if now called upon to follow you in a fast sprint will not be too confident about the men behind them. For if they let you go on you may put a winning distance between you, and if they accept your challenge they may have to sprint not only fast but far, with the result that they will be baking themselves into a nice pie for the scratch men to come along and cut.

Of course, in every instance it will, to a certain extent, be a match between your brains (plus condition) and the other fellows’. You may not have a 100 yards sprint in you at the exact moment you want it, and you may perhaps be able to sprint even 200 or 300 yards without distressing yourself overmuch. Whichever way you are situated you must try and convince the other men to the contrary.

DISGUISE YOUR POWERS.

You can deceive them as to your actual condition by setting off on your periodical or occasional sprints in a seemingly frantic or in a confident, triumphant fashion. They may, in the first case, accept your challenge, and you can then take it out of them; or in the other instance they may allow you to go on and crack yourself up, or possibly put up such a lead as will enable you to take a long “easy” and recover.

Either will depend on the skill with which you have adapted both your strategy and tactics to the situation.

Never really give in as long as you have any earthly chance, and above all don’t allow yourself to fancy that you are in this predicament until the gruesome know-ledge is absolutely forced upon you. For however bad you may be feeling, it is by no means impossible that the other fellows may be feeling quite as much, if not even more, distressed.

Even supposing that you have been caught and passed without your having had the necessary reserve to “ sprint “ and maintain your lead, but can still keep running, it would be advisable to slack off a bit, take an easy for a mile or a mile end a-half, and then spurt. The others may then come back to you in quite surprising fashion. In any event you have not made your position any the worse, and have done your best towards improving it.

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