It is pleasant to turn from the artificial cinder track to the naturalness and freedom of the open country and from such gruelling contests as the long-distance races to the exhilaration of the crosscountry run. There is excitement in any sort of racing; and in spite of the strain and struggle of such events as the quarter or half or mile races, in spite of overwrought nerves and dizzy senses, veteran runners learn even to like these treadmill battles—to enjoy, in a way, their thrilling pain. But few, even of the oldest and most successful campaigners, would assert that races as we run them nowadays are "fun." Too many men run fast nowadays; the margin of chance is too small. It is fun enough after the race is over and you have won; there is infinite satisfaction in fondling the cup you have captured and thinking of the fight you were able to put up to win it—there is fun to come to you in a hundred different ways from the strength and confidence and running skill which your racing has given you. But as for the race itself—as for those nerve-racking seconds between the whistle-wail and the moment you breast the tape and are taken care of by your friends—in that there is no fun.
Cross-country running, and, above all, hare-and-hound running, is fun while you are doing it. The farther you go the better you feel—it is an increasing joy as long as it lasts—you are free as a bird almost. Clothes, sidewalks, ridiculous stiff boxes called hats, ridiculous narrow grooves called streets, trolley cars, "L" trains, and other artificial means of locomotion are thrown aside; you're yourself and the world's your own. Are there ten miles or so of rough country between you and home—ten miles of thickets and meadow-land and brooks and rugged hillsides? You've got your legs and you've got your lungs, and you know them and know what they can do. And so it's up the hills and through the thickets and over the meadows—hit up the pace and the devil take the hindmost! In all the list of athletic sports there is none that will do more to brush away from you the dust of overcivilization, that will do more to set you on your feet and give you a grip on the world than the run across country.
Cross-country running started, of course, in England. English schoolboys were going in for hare-and-hound runs as far back as the beginning of the nineteenth century. The famous "Crick Run" of "Tom Brown's School Days" was started at Rugby in 1837, and at Eton an annual steeplechase was established in 1845. The boat clubs followed the lead of the schools and the general athletic public followed the boat clubs, and to-day the cross-country championship in England brings out hundreds of competitors. Although taken up in a desultory way by American schools and colleges during the fifties and sixties, the first regular hare-and-hound club—the Westchester Hare and Hounds—was not organized until 1878. A book of rules was secured from England, officers were elected, and the first run was held on Thanksgiving Day. Frank Bunham, one of the fast half-milers of that day, finished at the head of the pack, and W. S. Vosburgh, who was the leading spirit of the club, and the man most active in furthering the new sport, was second.
"They had a grand feast that afternoon," writes E. H. Baynes, in an article in Outing for October, 1893, "and wound up the day with speeches and songs-They awoke next morning to find themselves famous. The newspapers devoted whole columns to the chase. The comic papers also took a hand and represented the runners in anything but stained-glass attitudes." The American Athletic Club Harriers, the next club organized near New York City, held its first run on Washington's Birthday, 1879. A. A. Jordan, the hurdler, was among its active members. As other clubs were organized the sport gradually changed and races over measured courses began to be interspersed between the paper chases. The first important race of this sort was the five-mile run for the individual championship, held by the New York Athletic Club in 1883, over a course at Mott Haven. The third of these individual championships, in 1885, was won by E. C. Carter, the "Little Boy in Pink," who had just come over from England, and who was presently to prove himself one of the most consistent distance runners in the country. Club athletics were at the height of their popularity at this time; the general public interest naturally spread over and included the new sport, and presently the Prospect Harriers and the Suburban Harriers were organized—the two organizations which were to have the greatest influence on cross-country running. The Suburban Harriers were organized in New York City, while the Prospect Harriers were a Brooklyn organization and named after the park where so many of their runs were to be held. Finally, in March 1887, all the clubs in the neighborhood of New York City got together, the National Cross-Country Association was organized, and the first team championship was contested. The Prospect and Suburban Harriers and the Manhattan Athletic Club each entered a team. The Suburban runners under the captaincy of Carter won, and Carter himself captured the individual championship hands down.
Conneff, the future American mile champion, came over from Ireland the next spring and joined the Manhattan Athletic Club. He was an old rival of Carter's and in that year's cross-country championship the two men fought it out neck and neck at the finish. A few hundred yards from the finish Conneff fell, exhausted, and Carter won handily. Carter did not compete in 1888, and the race was won by W. D. Day, a boy of nineteen, who weighed barely one hundred pounds. Day proved himself in the next few years to be the best long-distance runner in the country. He and Carter soon held almost all the records from a mile and three-quarters up to ten miles—records which at this writing are still unbeaten. Sidney Thomas, the English cross-country runner, visited the country in 1889 and established several records for distances between ten and fifteen miles. He competed on March 16, 1890, in a handicap steeplechase over an eight-mile course at Morris Park, but even with his handicap of 30 seconds was beaten by young Day, who ran from scratch through a field of over one hundred handicap men and won easily, although the field was ankle deep with mud.
In spite of the great interest which distance runners themselves took in the sport the general public had never, for obvious reasons, supported it with any enthusiasm, and as the prestige of club athletics declined the condition of cross-country running became rather precarious. The growing strength of the Young Men's Christian Association organizations presently helped it along, however and then the colleges began to develop the sport just as they had stepped in and carried on track and field athletics when the clubs began to expire. Harvard was the first of them to take up paper chasing with any enthusiasm, and as early as 1881 what was then looked upon with curiosity as "that Rugby sport" was introduced at Cambridge. Pennsylvania, Cornell, the College of the City of New York, and finally Yale and Brown began to hold hare-and-hound runs, generally as a preliminary training for the track men. In 1890 Pennsylvania won from Cornell in the first inter-college cross-country race, and in the same year the College of the City of New York held its first championship over the Fort George course.
Finally, in 1899, at Cornell's suggestion, representatives from that university and from Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Columbia met and organized the Intercollegiate Cross-Country Association of Amateur Athletics of America—a name, as Mr. Baynes—from whose valuable researches many of these facts are borrowed—remarks, "almost long enough to cover the championship course." The first intercollegiate championship was held at Morris Park on Saturday, November 18, 1899. Cornell won, Yale was second, University of Pennsylvania third, Columbia fourth, and Princeton fifth. The individual honors went, however, to Cregan, Princeton's crack distance runner, who covered the course of slightly over six miles in 34 minutes 5-2/5 seconds. Cornell won again in 1900, Yale in 1901, Cornell again in 1902 and 1903. W. E. Schutt of Cornell won the individual championship in 1903, and broke Cregan's record for the course, covering it in 33 minutes 15 seconds. At Mott Haven, the preceding spring, Schutt also made an intercollegiate record in the two-mile run of 9 minutes 40 seconds.
Such records as these are not made without a hard fight and without straining one's endurance to the utmost. A six-mile race over meadow-land and hedges is a glorious contest, but it is a formidable one, too, and not to be lightly gone into by boys, or men who are not strong and well-trained. But to enjoy the best of cross-country running one does not need to go in at all for cross-country racing. Racing over a measured course, even though that course is laid out in the open, lacks the charm of following the trail; there is no loitering to pick up the scent, no call of "Lo-o-ost Trail!" and cheering echoes of "Ta-a-ally Ho!"—it's too much work to be much fun. But even the duffer can run with the hounds. As the pack strings out, leisurely trotting along the trail, there is a place somewhere for the slowest of us. When you get to the "break" you can have all the racing you want by fighting it out with the real racers from the line of paper laid across the road to the finish and home. And if you're not a fighter nor a racer you can jog home with the rest of the duffers conscious of a couple of hours well spent, with your lungs full of good air, the coursing blood warming your very finger-tips, and many a pleasant picture to remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment