A. A. U.

In the storeroom of Madison Square Garden, piled high through most of the year, is a big heap of pine board sections dusted with splinters and pockmarked with uncountable little holes where the spikes of runners have prodded down into the soft wood. Last week the board track with its splintery topography telling illegibly of past races was set up again for the national indoor meet of the Amateur Athletic Union.

Running on boards is different from running out of doors. Learning how to adjust his stride to the greater spring the track gives on indoor boards does npt completely solve the problem of the runner. He must master the banked turns. No matter how long or limber are his legs on the straightaway, unless he acquires a correct balance around turns, leaning neither too much nor too little, unless he shortens his stride with the inside leg, the runner should stay out in the open. Dr. Paul Martin of Switzerland", bone specialist, U. S. 1,000-yd. champion, has an ideal stride for indoor track but he has only recently recovered from an attack of bronchitis. He withdrew from the 1,000-yd. race and placed only third in the two-mi, steeplechase. To some of the foreign athletes, however, boards were new. Seraphin Martin of France was second in the 600-yd., which Phil Edwards, late of New York University, won for the fourth year in succession. Paul Keller of France did not even place in the 1,000-yd. From this point of view it was a fine evening for U. S. athletes.

Two races left new marks in the world record book as well as in the pine track: the 70-yd high hurdles, and the 1 7/8-mi. relay. Lanky, pale-faced Percy Beard of Alabama equalled the world record in both his heats for the hurdles and then led dark-haired Lee Sentman, last year's champion, and Gene Record of Harvard, intercollegiate outdoor champion, in the final. His time of 8.5 sec. took one-tenth of a second off the U. S. record. The Penn Relay team won their race easily. They were anchored by Carl Coan who, generally late for practice, is seldom late in a race. His teammates were James ("the Rabbit") Healey, Howard ("Schoolboy") Jones, Horace ("Horse") Steele. They had beaten by five seconds (7:30.4) the world record made by an Illinois A. C. team in 1923 when Joie Ray was anchor man.

Already famed for a mile he ran recently in 4:13, Carl Coan's 4:17 mile in this race was enough to put him 20 yd. ahead at the wire. Another Pennsylvanian, Bill Carr, ran a dead heat with Johnny Lewis of Detroit City College in the 300-yd. race and won the runoff. In the 1,000-yd., Ray Conger had to beat George Bullwinkle, intercollegiate one-mile outdoor champion, and wise fans said he could not do it. They knew how Bullwinkle--a pacemaker as well as a finisher--liked to beat a finisher like Conger by getting so far ahead that no sprint would catch him. But this time Conger stuck to Bullwinkle's heels. Bullwinkle never got more than three yards ahead, and that was not enough. Just before the wire Conger turned loose his famed "bicycle kick'' and staggered over, winner by one foot.

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