Chapter I: Athletic Training in England

In one or two particulars it seemed to me that we might learn from the English methods of training. On the Oxford team we took long walks every other day instead of track work. Our instructions were to climb all the hills in our way. This was in order to bring into play new muscles as far as possible, so as to rest those used in running. Though similar walks are sometimes given in America as a preliminary "seasoning," our training, for months before a meeting, is confined to the track. This is not unwise as long as a runner's stride needs developing; and in the heat of our summers such walks as the English take might sometimes prove exhausting. Yet my personal observations convinced me that for distance runners--and for sprinters, too, perhaps--the English method is far better. Under our training the muscles often seem overpowered by nervous lassitude; at the start of a race I have often felt it an effort to stand. In England there was little or none of this; we felt, as the bottle-holders are fond of putting it, "like a magnum of champagne."

This idea of long walks, which the English have arrived at empirically, has been curiously approved in America by scientific discovery. It has been shown that after muscles appear too stiff from exhaustion to move, they can be excited to action by electric currents; while the motor nerves on being examined after such fatigue are found to be shrunken and empty, as in extreme old age. The limit of muscular exertion is thus clearly determined by the limit of the energy of the motor nerve. Now in a perfectly trained runner, the heart and lung must obviously reach their prime simultaneously with the motor nerves used in running; but since these organs are ordained to supply the entire system with fuel, they will usually require a longer time to reach prime condition than any single set of nerves. Thus continual track work is likely to develop the running nerves to the utmost before the heart and lungs are at prime. Conversely stated, if the development of the running nerves is retarded so as to keep pace with the development of the heart and lungs, the total result is likely to be higher. All this amounts to what any good English trainer will tell you--that you must take long walks on up and down grades in order to rest your running muscles and at the same time give your heart and lungs plenty of work--that is, in order to keep from getting "track stale."

The amount of work we did from day to day will best be understood, perhaps, by quoting one or two of the training-cards. For the hundred yards the training during the final ten days was as follows: _Monday_ and _Tuesday_, sprints (three or four dashes of sixty yards at top speed); _Wednesday_, a fast 120 yards at the Queen's Club grounds; _Thursday_, walk; _Friday_, sprints; _Saturday_, 100 yards trial at Queen's Club; _Sunday_, walk; _Monday_, light work at Queen's Club; _Tuesday_, easy walk; _Wednesday_, inter-varsity sports. The man for whom this card was written happened to be over weight and short of training, or he would have had less track work. If he had been training for the quarter in addition to the hundred, he would have had fewer sprints, and, instead of the fast 120, a trial quarter a week before the sports, with perhaps a fast 200 on the following Friday. For the mile, the following is a characteristic week's work, ending with a trial: _Sunday_, walk; _Monday_, one lap (1/3 mile); _Tuesday_, two laps, fast-ish; _Wednesday_, walk; _Thursday_, easy mile; _Friday_, walk; _Saturday_, a two lap trial (at the rate of 4.30 for the mile). For the three miles, the following is a schedule of the first ten days (the walks are unusually frequent because the "first string" had a bruise on the ball of his foot): _Monday_, walk; _Tuesday_, walk; _Wednesday_, two slow laps at the Queen's Club; _Thursday_, walk; _Friday_, walk; _Saturday_, a long run at the Queen's Club; _Sunday_, walk; _Monday_, four laps, fast-ish, at the Queen's Club; _Tuesday_, walk; _Wednesday_, inter-varsity sports. The chief difference between this work and what we should give in America is in the matter of walking.