Running is more easy on a level surface, but should be practised on ground of every variety: upon long, square, and circular plots of ground. The pupils should be accustomed to turn promptly out of the direct line—a faculty not possessed by animals, and exceedingly useful when pursued. They should also run up hill, and particularly down, as it is dangerous unless frequently practised.
FEATS IN RUNNING.
The practice of running may be carried to a great degree of perfection.
A quarter of a mile in a minute is good running; and a mile in four minutes, at four starts, is excellent.
The mile was perhaps never run in four minutes, but it has been done in four minutes and a half.[5]
[5] Half a mile was recently run in two minutes; but it was down a fall as precipitous as a mountain’s side, and the performer was blind in the last twenty yards.—Ed. Fifth Edition.
A mile in five minutes is good running. Two miles in ten minutes is oftener failed in than accomplished. Four miles in twenty is said to puzzle the cleverest.
Ten miles an hour is done by all the best runners. Fifteen miles in an hour and a half has never perhaps been done.
It is reported that West ran forty miles in five hours and a half. This, it is said, was done by one individual in four hours and three quarters, or less.
As to great distances, Rainer failed in two attempts to accomplish 100 miles in eighteen hours. West is said to have accomplished this.