Evening star., 1938-03-14
GLENN PREDICTING
F0UR-M|NUTEM|LE
Says Improved Method of
Timing Will Do It-Ace
Sprinter Dreams.
BY JOHN LARDNER,

by JOHN LARDNER.
NEW YORK, March l4.-The two
most remarkable track and field
achievements of the season were Glenn
Cunningham's 4:044 mile on the
India rubber runway at Dartmouth
and Benjamin Washington Johnson's
6O-yard sprint in seconds nat. Those
are couple of new ceilings.
But as soon as you get a new CELL
ing in track, somebody tears it down
and puts up a higher one. At least.
somebody begins talking about
higher one. Cunningham's Dart
mouth record merely touched off
fresh flights Of oratory about the
4-minute mile. Johnson's 6-second
60-well, it's hard to get under that
one, but dreamers will have their
dreams. Now they speak of a ST. so,
corresponding to 9.4 seconds for 100
yards, but much more difficult.
Some Visionary Ceilings.
Track men have a complete set of
visionary ceilings, like these:
100 yards-9 seconds fiat.
220 yards-20 seconds fiat.
440 yards-45 seconds
$50 yards-1 minute IS seconds.
Mile-4 minutes.
Two miles, minutes so seconds.
Shotput-60 feet.
Pole Vaults feet.
High jump feet.
Broad Jumps feet.
Some Of those marks seem abso-
iutely impossible Of fulfillment. Can
any man put the 16-pound iron ball
so feet through the air, from sta
tionary or wooden circle take-off?
Can any runner devour quarter of
mile In three quarters of a minute,
which means sustained sprint at 20
miles an hour? The left-Wing ex-
perts say these things can be done,
as well as all the other things in the
calendar Of ceilings. They remind
you that 4:O6 mile and 9.4 hun
dred were considered, not so many
years ago, to be out of reach of mans
capacities.
Glenn Cunningham-old clockWork
probably is as sound an authority
on running as you'll find anywhere.
This earnest Kansan is not only
practicing expert, but q textbook ex-
pert, too. New York University. where
he is working for his Phi. D. in ply
sical education, considers him the
most brilliant graduate student it ever
had. Cunningham's thesis is expected
to contain new and unexplored data
on timing, endurance and the human
pulse.
The Kansan believes that a four
minute mile Is possible. A fast quar-
ter-miler and great half-miler, he
thinks that the ceilings in those two
events have yet to be touched.
A Matter Of Application.
Even if you assume" he says,
"that there never will be any faster
natural runners than the runners to-
day, you can expect to see the pres
ent records lowered. It's a matter
of study and application. What is
the perfect system of running a mile
by divisional times, for instance? No
body knows. Some day somebody
will find out, or come close to the
answer. Then We'll have new records.
I've experimental quite a bit with
divisional times-slow first quarters,
slow second quarters, 59-second final
quarters, and so forth. I've developed
a sort of flexible system that gives
me world records, but I'm not sat-
isf1ed by any means that it's the per-
feet system, the one that gets the
maximum amount Of running out of
q man"
Cunningham is the pioneer of the
faster second half" The earliest |
mllers used to run as hard as they |
could as long as they could and stag |
ger home by sheer willpower. Paavo |
Nurmi, the flying Finn, was a revo-
1utionary runner to the extent that |
he practiced the gospel of even pace
running as fast in the second half |
mile as he did in the first.
Glenn Also Revolutionary.
Cunningham, with his faster Sec
ond half, is another revolutionary.
He believes that the old-time runners
would have made much better times
- eAASy " AAAo uhOAA 1Ao SySUCIu.
And that's an example of what I |
mean by study and application" he
says. THE old-timers had natural !
speed and stamina, maybe as much
as we have, without knowing what |
to do with 1t. The more we learn
the more time we'll chop of the rec
ords."
Ben johnson, the brown bullet who
has scudded so yards over boards in /
6 seconds, believes that faster times
are possible
When was going my fastest"
says Benjamin, I've always felt I |
might go a little faster. A tenth |
OF second will break a record-and |
almost every sprinter has got a tenth |
of a second left in his system, after
his fastest race"
George Varoff looks forward to the |
15-foot pole vault. Cornelius johnson |
has gone on record as predicting a !
1-foot high jump-figuring, perhaps,
that man will appear some day with |
legs even longer than Cornelius. These
fellows are in the grip of a restless,
vndictive spirit and the sooner they |
can kick holes in the ceiling the better |
$hays1,