The two Grant brothers illustrate vividly the consequences of running by impulse and run ning with self-control and judgment. The younger of these Canadians, representing Penn sylvania, won the two-mile race at Mott Haven in 1899 and 190o, and in 1903 at the Traver's Island track he set the American amateur record for this event at 9 minutes 27k- seconds. He won the amateur championships in the five-mile run in 1902, in the two-mile run in 1903, in the mile in 1899, 19oz, 1902, 1903, and in the half mile in 1900. None of these races was won in phenomenal time, although the performances were all respectable enough ; and by them and by ex cellent indoor work the younger Grant is down on the books for all time as a successful and con sistent long-distance runner. His older brother, on the contrary, never won at the intercollegiates, although he carried the Harvard colors for sev eral years, and except for a five-mile dead heat, which he ran with his brother for the amateur championship in 1899, at Concord Junction, Mas sachusetts, and some minor successes in cross country runs, his name scarcely appears on the record books. Yet, when he first appeared on Holmes Field, at Cambridge, he was looked upon by the undergraduates as a sort of prodigy from another world, not governed by the ordinary laws of fatigue and speed, tireless and invincible. The first morning he came out on the track, if we remember correctly, and was told to jog an easy quarter or three-eighths, or something like that, he clipped out a half mile in 2 minutes 3 seconds, pounded on with unabated enthusiasm into the third quarter, and if the trainer hadn't stopped him he would probably be running yet. He had been bred in Canada, where, so the undergraduates of his day believed, almost anything might happen, and stories were told of his running fifty and sixty miles as a constitutional, of his deserting the railroad train and striking off cross country whenever he got within a hundred miles or so of home. The writer will never forget a hare-and hound run in which Mr. Grant and he happened to be the hares. We had scarcely left the back yards and chicken coops of wildest Cambridge and struck out into open and uphill country before the pace began to become embarrassing, but when seven or eight miles had been covered and the straight, hard length of Commonwealth Ave nue stretched on endlessly toward town, offering not the slightest excuse for loafing — it was when we reached this point and Grant, disdaining longer to conceal his impatience, whirled round and, easily keeping up by running backward, began an animated discourse on the evils of intem perance, that we began to suspect that we were rather out of his class. The man did seem prac
tically tireless. He was hard as nails, and his rather heavily built legs with their bulging calves — like those of a professional baseball player— were perfect dynamos of spring and muscle. He was sincere in his training and he had plenty of sand. In short, on paper he had all the makings of a phenomenal runner, and yet the first time he went down to New Haven to run in the dual games he was fooled by one of the simplest of devices —the sending out of a decoy pace-maker to set a quite impossible pace for the first quarter — ran himself almost out before the race was half through, and was beaten by men who should really have not been in his class.
It is far from our purpose so to accent this matter of " headiness " as to make the mere win ning of a race overbalance in importance the sport itself and the general fun of running. At the same time, if racing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, and there is no reason why it should lose its zest in any way because intelli gence is used in directing and restraining the merely physical impulse to " let loose " and win. There are other times in which the straight pleasures of running, unadulterated with calcula tion or device, may be indulged in besides those trying moments on the cinder path between the pistol shot and the breaking of the tape. Com pared with track racing, even such arduous sports as steeplechasing and cross-country racing are, in a way, leisurely, and their competition takes on more of the pleasures of the chase. In the next chapter we shall leave the cinder path for the turf and follow the distance runners into the open country.