On Track and Field

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 173, 12 October 1927, Page 15

On Track and Field

Amateur Athletic Notes

By

“SPARTAN”

SEASON'S FIXTURES The following is the season’s programme of the Auckland Centre of the New Zealand Amateur Athletic Association:— October 22. Auckland Club sports at Carlaw Park. October 24. Akarana Club holds Labour Day sports at the Domain. October 25.-—Auckland centre launches festival scheme. October 29.—Auckland Club, carnival afternoon. November s. —Auckland Club, carnival afternoon. CHAMPIONSHIPS November 12.—Auckland provincial amateur athletic championships at Uie Domain. December 9 and 10.—New Zealand amateur athletic championships at Christchurch. December 26, 27, 28 and 29.—New Zealand and Australian amateur athletic championships at Wellington. Labour Day Sports The first meeting of the 1927-28 track season in Auckland will be held on Saturday week at Carlaw Park, when the Auckland Club is to decide several sprint and middle-distance events. Two days after the Akarana Club will conduct its Labour Day sports at the Domain, and there is every prospect of the meeting being a great success, with such champions as A. J. Elliott, L. C. Williams, J. W. Shirley, Gordon Kells, J. W. Savidan and N. F. Cooper, competing. These athletes are in training at the Domain and all are said to be showing good early season form. The Labour Day programme will consist of the usual sprint, long-distance and cycling events. Entries close with Mr. R. Phillips at the Trades Hall on October 14 at 9 p.m. # # Talent Revealed The last Labour Day sports revealed a wealth of talent on the track which had never bef ore asserted itself. It was

then that A. J. Elliott Came into the limelight as a sprinter. He has since annexed, the Auckland sprint championships, defeating the former holder, Lance Williams. L. R. Hook and J. L. McCoy also came into prominence as men with dash over short distances, and N. F. Cooper

proved his worth by defeating the scratch runner, Gordon Kells, in the two-miles handicap, after the latter had taken charge in the straight. It is to be hoped that the forthcoming Labour Day sports have the same results. 4i • * Dr. Peltzer Beaten France and Germany met at the Stade Olympique at Colombes, Paris, on August 21 last to dispute supremacy in athletics. It was the first official me€;ting of the two countries on French soil since the Great War. The surprise of the day came when Sera Martin (France) defeated Dr. O. Peltzer in the half-mile for, at the English championships last year, Peltzer ran the halfmile in the world’s record time of lm 51 6-l Cs. Germany won the contest by a large margin of points in the aggregate. Where England Leads After locking over the times registered at the last English and American amateur athletic championships, it seems that England's strength at present, is in distances from 440yds to a mile. In D. G. A. Lowe she has a half-miler second pnljr *q the german.

doctor, Peltzer. C. Ellis won the last English mile championship in 4m 17s, which makes American times look surprisingly slow, and Lord Burghley, F. R. Gaby and G. Wightman-iSmith are three hurdlers who will he very strong contestants for Olympic honours at Amsterdam next year. • * • Wellington News The harrier season in Wellington has ended. It has been a good season, in .which some new runn’ers of outstanding ability have come to light. The Wellington Club had a most successful year, winning all the teams’ races, and the two most. prominent individual competitors during the season were P. Wilson* winner of the 10-miles Vosseller Shield match, and J. Shepherd, winner of the five-miles Dome Cup race. e e * The report presented at the annual meeting of the Wellington Centre of the N.Z.A.A.A. held early this week shows that athletics are booming in the capital. Five new clubs have been formed in the territory under the centre’s jurisdiction.

TRAINING HINTS

This is the eighth of a series of articles specially written for THE SUN by Mr. C. H. Taylor , of Christchurch, former Australasian mio'-dle distance champion. Recognised as one of the great s:tylists of his day, Mr. Taylor’s views should prove not only interesting, but instructive to athletes , especially the younger brigade. FOR THE HALF-MILER In this distance success depends on a. combination of three things—speed, endurance and judgment. The halfmiler should have the speed of the sprinter, the endurance of the distance runner. Training for a championship should consist of at least three months preparation, starting with slow jogging for the first three weeks, followed for the next three weeks by runs over 440yds and I,oooyds at half-speed stride. Care should be taken that the leg action is a long swinging stride from the hip without any wasted action of the rear foot A common fault is to make the foot describe a curve upward toward the thigh in bringing it forward for the next stride. The final six weeks should be spent in developing the essentials given above.. To obtain speed a. fair amount of sprinting must be done, and work over 220yds is especially valuable, because it will develop both speed and strength. Endurance will be obtained by running more than the half-mile, occasionally covering I,oooyds and sometimes even a mile. The runner will gradually lessen these long distances as he feels himself gaining stamina, for too much of this work tends to make a man slow.

Judgment of pace is gained by running occasionally the first 440yds of a half-mil© at a set pace, with the aid of somebody with a watch. If a. runner is trying to break 2min for a half, for instance, he must get his first quarter down to 57sec or 53sec. In the final stages of training a man should run frequently over 600yds, beginning fast and maintaining- the pace he has set to run the first quarter-mile until passing the 660yds mark. Then he should ease off gradually. Starting practice should be almost daily practice, because if a race starts on a bend, as it generally does, and a runner draws an outside position, he must sprint out of the holes to get a good position* _