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The Best Way to Run a Long-distance Race

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IF RUNNING FROM SCRATCH OR WELL DOWN THE COURSE.

In this position, or in any similar one, your first aim will naturally be to improve it. There are a lot of men in front of you with whose form you are more or less acquainted, and of whom you must get in front if you entertain any idea of being the first to break the tape.

These leaders may or may not be above themselves. This you can have no idea or guess about any more than you can have of any dark horses who may have entered. All that you can go by is the probability of their powers having been known by the handicapper when he arranged the starts, AM you can only hope that he has not erred on the side of generosity to your rivals, and handicapped you clean out of the race.

Well, you know your own form, or ought to. So as there is a biggish field strung out ahead you must set about your work of cutting them down in double quick style.

Quicken, but don’t lengthen, your stride, and do your first mile in a few seconds better than your average best. If this hasn’t accounted for enough of them, get along for the second mile at the same “ bat.”

They will possibly sprint and wait, and generally carry on as they were advised above, but you mustn’t let that worry you. Of course, if you are fairly well up to a man, and can gallop past him, well, do so and go ahead; but if he tries the sprinting game wilily, don’t have any.

This is a long-drawn-out agony remember, and you have to be on hand at the finish, and have a whole field of tacticians to cut down.

So just keep pegging away, at a faster pace than usual, until you have given most of them the “go by.” Say you do the first mile in 4 min. 32 sees., and the first two in 9 min. 38 Secs., end can hang on and put three behind you in 14 min. 20 “ca. or thereabouts, you must he aware that you are running close on record time, and a good deal better than anyone has who laid himself out to cut the ten-mile record.

You will have to pay for this later on, of course, and will reel your last mile off pretty slowly in consequence; but you can ease your mind by reflecting that if the other fellows are keeping their leads that they are also baking themselves proportionately, and records are not the things which are worrying you just now. All that you are troubled about is those fellows in front, and you don’t want to have to overhaul the whole crowd of them in the last quarter-mile.

Some of them may be still ahead then, but keep along cutting your best times until you have reduced their number to as few as you conveniently can, and then lay yourself to a gradual edging up to within such dis-tance as you can conveniently cover in your final gallop.

For this is, or should be, one of your strongest points. I forgot to mention it in my training chapter, but in all those practice- spins of yours you ought to so manage them that you finish up the last 100 yards-and some-times 200 or 300 yards even-at a tremendous pace. If you make a regular habit of doing this you will find that you automatically save up the energy for this. It is a sort of extra special reserve, which you never draw on save for the actual purpose in question, and no other demand can trench on it.

It is a reserve which is under the entire and sole control of your “sub-conscious self,” am the scientists call it, and can only be let out when wanted for the finish.

This may sound rather “tall talk,” but .1 am sure that everybody can get into the way of so conserving it, sup-posing them to train right and to fix their minds on getting the necessary amount of energy properly stowed away under lock and key until called for.

One method which may be adopted in training will help towards its acquisition, and that is to always finish up your track practice with one or two sharp sprints of 100 yards each.

No matter how your trial spin may have taken it out of you, you should have enough in hand just to put in these sprints. They will, perhaps, be awfully trying at first, but after a while you will find that they positively freshen you up, and shake off a good deal of the fatigue following the training spin itself.

FINALLY.

Always travel to the scene of the race, if far distant, the day before, so as to ensure a good night’s rest. following the train journey, before actually engaging in the race itself

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