How F. E. Bacon Trains

[BY AULD REEKIE]

I know it will interest all Refereaders to hear how the finest amateur distance runner that ever put pumps on cinders trains, so I purpose telling them what I gleaned from Bacon himself during his last visit North. But whether budding distance runners will do well to copy the champion’s methods is a different question. It must always be remembered that

“One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

One of the oldest training maxims is “early to bed and early to rise.” Well, Bacon breaks the latter part of it at any rate. He likes to be abed till nine o’clock and thinks, albeit he has generally shaken off the drowsy god by six o’clock. When i used to run I lay as long as I could also, but I slept and thought not. Like most other athletes I believed strongly in cold water, but Bacon never takes a cold bath at all. If he feels off colour he indulges in a warm one; and instead of the usual cold tub has three tepid ones per week. Nor does he believe in rubbing down, for the asserts - and there is great truth in what he says - that cold baths and constant rubbing make a man’s muscles so hard that there is a great RISK OF BREAKING DOWN, whereas if the muscles are kept soft and pliable when in repose there is not the slightest fear of getting “crocked.” Plenty good running, he maintains, along with good, plain food, will do everything that is wanted. When he can manage is, Bacon believes in running twice a day. If he is training for ten miles he runs three or four miles morning and afternoon, and puts in plenty good walking in addition. Occasionally he runs the length of six miles, but not often. For miles his training gallops consist of half-miles and quarters, with sprints three of four times a week. If he perspires after running in hot weather he just wipes the moisture off gently and has done with rubbing; but in cold weather he occasionally RUBS HIMSELF WITH WHISKY before he races. He dislikes racing across country, and says he prefers ten miles to any other distance on the track. When he races over long distance he says he just starts at a good pace, and keeps slogging along without thinking about the race at all until the bell ringing brings him back to the track, and he gathers himself together for his final sprint. I asked him why he always gazed so serenely on the sky or clouds when sprinting his hardest to the tape, and he replied that he couldn’t exactly say why he did so unless it was because he fancied he got over the ground. Unfortunately, Bacon caught a severe cold when up here, but says he will speedily shake it off, and hopes to be in his best condition by the end of the month, when he leaves for New York with the London Athletic Club team. He fancies the heat across the Atlantic will suit him. Warm weather always does. He intends waiting over for the CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Bacon has a great idea of young Welsh as a miler, and considers F. W. Bruce is the best distance runner he has run against in Scotland. He has also a great idea of Duffus, but has never had an opportunity of seeing Hannah at his best. Setop, he says, is the fastest finisher he ever ran against, and he admits he was never harder put to it than in the 1,000 yards at Powderhall last week. I never met a more modest champion than Bacon, and hope he may give us many more samples of his prowess before he retires from the path.