Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/38

32 for a period of five and a half years. Their statistics do not show appreciable variation from those of the one third who engaged in running only.

Naturally and yet unexpectedly the men who trained on an average of about ten weeks a year, notwithstanding they numbered less than two fifths of the whole number, had nearly twice the percentage of injuries. In attempting to fit themselves for the strain of a distance race in such a short time, they overworked, with consequent bad effects. Curiously enough, the men who trained twenty-six weeks a year and continued running from seven to twelve or fifteen years, had no injuries at all. It might be supposed that this vigorous exercise continued for such a long time would drain their vitality. Exactly the contrary has been the case. With one exception, all claim to be more vigorous than the average man of their age, and the exception declares himself fully as vigorous.

One half of the athletes began running as schoolboys, and 78.5 per cent, made good in college, as compared with 75 per cent, of those who did not take up the sport until they entered college. Twice as many of the boys who ran only a year or two in school made good, as of those who ran three or four years. This seems to indicate that boys who begin at school, if they do not begin too young, and if they are brought along gradually, learning stride and pace and developing stamina, have a slightly better chance than even the more mature man who takes up the sport after he enters college. There is nothing surprising in this, as it requires several years to bring a distance runner to his best. C. H. Kilpatrick, winner of the American and Canadian championships, '94, '95 and '96, and until recently holder of the world's record for the half mile, began running while at school, as did also George Orton, intercollegiate mile champion for several years. Melvin Sheppard before becoming an Olympic champion was famous throughout the middle Atlantic states as a school-boy runner. It is a common saying, however, that school-boy stars usually "fall down" in college and unquestionably many runners of promise are spoiled before they get there, but, generally speaking, the school-boy star fails to develop into a college star because he has stepped from the narrow limits of school competition into the much greater range of college athletics. I am inclined to believe that unless he has been overrun, he equals in college his school records and usually surpasses them, and while the data to support it are not at hand, I should expect this to be particularly true of distance running, at which a man should get better and better the longer he keeps at it. The evidence shows, furthermore, that boys who were over sixteen years of age when they began running did twice as well after they entered college as boys who began under sixteen. Evidently the boy who begins too young is throwing away his chances in college.