Track and field

“ All the other roads were nothing but mere horse-tracks, in the most wretched state imaginable, full of holes and great stones, so that you could seldom go faster than a walking pace without danger of breaking your neck at every step, except in those parts where the track lay through forests and open plains. ”

“ From the grand stand the spectators, shielding themselves from the ardent rays of the sun behind parasols and programmes, looked down upon a smooth green oval of turf bordered by the blue-gray ribbon of newly rolled cinders. Beyond was the little shingled, vine-screened boat-house, and the river, glinting with pale golden lights, and then the vividly green expanse of Meeker’s Marsh. To the left, down the straightaway, gleamed a white tent about which the Broadwood athletes congregated. River and links, courts and diamonds, were deserted to-day, for all Yardley was at the field. ”

“ Imagine a track some six feet in width, formed of snow turned to ice by the process of constant watering, and so smooth and slippery that a burnished mirror would be rough and dull in comparison. Imagine this track inclined at a steep angle, walled in on both sides with low ice-banks, and trailing a long and sinuous course for a length of over a mile! Here we have the potentialities of speed when we remember that racing "bobs" are just low frameworks of wood whose steel runners glide over the polished track with as little friction as a flash of lightning traversing a thunder-cloud. ”

“ No road led to the embattled gateway. No carriages were used in those days, and for the horses' hoofs there was the spongy turf. When a rough track had been trampled through the moor grass, and made black with oozing peat water, the riders rode afield and made another way till the first had grassed itself over again. ”

“ Joe laughed.
The road was not what would be called a good road, or even a decent road, in the East, as it was only a track in the grass, full of sand and sharp little stones; it did not lead into the mountains at all; it ran along just to the east of the great range, over the bare, rolling hills of the prairie, so that from the motor bus you could see the entire mountain wall, mile after mile. ”

“ Here the skill of the engineer was taxed to its utmost, for the track winds in zig-zags down the mountain side, rushing through a deep cut here, over a mountain torrent and a high bridge there, darting around sharp curves, in and out of snowsheds, until on the opposite mountain and high above us is to be seen a line of freshly-turned earth, which the knowing ones say is the track over which we have just passed. ”

“ The top of the pass, like that of a great many others, is a narrow ridge, on the farther side of which the track dips abruptly into a tremendous ravine, along whose side we descended for a mile or so in company with a river whose reverberating thunder drowned all attempts at speech. ”

“ We now become aware that a train is approaching on the single track that is hanging over the grade on the canyon side. We have no choice but to unfurl our wings and rise in the air, as the engineer wildly blows his whistle. Brushing the pine tree tops, we cross over the peak and seek the track on the other side of it, selecting an opening in a thicket for that purpose. ”

“ The road zigzags in every direction, winding here and there to get a foothold—now hugging the side of the mountain, creeping along the edge of a precipice, where it makes one dizzy to look down; now rounding a point which seems to hang over some awful depth, or seeking a safer path by a tunnel through the rocks. Up and down, hither and thither we go, but still everywhere encompassed with mountains, till at last one long climb—a hard pull for the horses—brings us to a height from which we descry in the distance the roofs and spires of a town, and begin to descend. ”

“ To-morrow we'll go right and left along the edge of the rock for a few miles on each side of the track, and see if there's any other track they use. If there's only the one, why, we know where to expect them from. ”

“ The man that goes with a travelling mob must keep to a half-mile track;
And the drovers keep to a half-mile track on the runs where the grass is dead,
But they spread their sheep on a well-grassed run till they go with a two-mile spread. ”

“ He mounted his wheel and sped down the slope—Eastward.
Day after day the traveller pushed on, following the windings of the roads now where formerly he would have ridden his horse as the crow flies.
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Seventy miles a day. Eighty miles a day. Population increased; roads were better, ninety miles a day. His training for racing stood him in good stead. One hundred miles a day; his face always turned Eastward.
Rains came; the roads became rivers of mud. He was driven to the drier railroad track and jolted along over the ties. Sixty miles a day. ”

“ As there were no fields, or hedges and ditches, we were able to follow the most convenient track, though certainly not the shortest, for we twisted and turned among the hills for the sake of getting a level road so as to treble our distance, as we found afterwards that we could reach the spot to which we were bound almost as speedily on foot. ”

“ He turned away on a rough track steering by the stars and the loom of the mountain peaks and climbed for a high pass which the road forsook to find an easier way by a long circuit. When he saw below him again after many a mile the gray band of the road on a black shoulder of mountain he halted and listened and after a little heard the beat of hoofs. ”

“ Everyone knows that in a race on a circular track the competitor who has the “inside” running has the least ground to cover, hence the great desire of cyclists, jockeys, &c., to “hug the fence.”
Now a gentleman, six feet high, starts walking round the Earth on the equator; his feet, therefore, have the inside running. Find out how much further his head travels than his feet in performing this wonderful journey? taking the circumference of the globe at the equator to be 25,000 miles. ”

“ Two ropes were stretched across the course at the starting-point—one the whole width of the track, the other leaving a gap through which the horses could pass into line so as to get as fair a start as possible; though every one knows, and the fantino as much as any one, that the start has little to do with the race. ”

“ On either side of the track rose the bare hillside, shutting out the view of what lay beyond. A more desolate path, extending as it did for more than a mile, could hardly be imagined. But my lady held on her way without faltering, and presently the track came out upon the road again, and I saw that we had but taken a short cut, and so saved ourselves several miles. ”

“ At times our heads grew dizzy with the flicker and glitter of the rocks beneath us and as we rounded dangerous curves of the track, or descended swift slides with almost uncontrollable rapidity, I had some doubts, but we kept our wits, remained upon the rails, and at last spun round the final bend and came to a halt upon a level stretch of track, just above the little station. ”

“ You know I sometimes take a turn in the country lanes outside this dismal place; well, I was walking early this evening up a steep lane with dark hedges and grey-looking ploughed fields on both sides; and a young moon was up and silvering the road. By the light of it I saw a man running across the field towards the road; running with his body bent and at a good mile-race trot. ”

“ So great and difficult is the ascent that at one point four parallel tracks may be seen, one above the other, while at another point, as the train passes over a winding trestle sixty feet high, the tourist might easily drop his hat on the track below over which he had passed a few minutes before, but now going in an entirely opposite direction, having gained nothing on his journey save about ninety feet in elevation. So often does the track turn, twist and double upon itself to gain the summit, that at one place of observation it may be seen at seventeen distinct points. ”

“ A road should be easy going for motors, horses, and foot-passengers. Easy and safe.”
“How would you do it?”
“A raised causeway for walkers; a road for carriages, and a track for motors. It only means so many yards more and there is plenty of land. Look at that turf—four yards of it. Might as well be road.”
“What are you going to make your roads of?”
Christopher took a deep breath; the pace of the car increased a little. ”

“ The sun had set and the dew was falling heavily when the track dipped over the brow of a headland, becoming a waterway so steep and rough that I could not get down it on foot without the assistance of my hands, and terminating on a lonely little bay of great beauty, walled in by impracticable-looking headlands, which was the entrance to an equally impracticable-looking, densely- wooded valley running up among densely-wooded mountains. ”

“ If you have ever tried to hoof it up a wild mountain stream running through towering cliffs of shale, without a trail, you can well imagine the task a bull-train outfit would have in working its way through the same maze of trees, rocks and rushing waters, winding from bluff to bluff. ”

“ At a half-mile race track, a little distance out, a very early rising citizen, if he happened to be in that vicinity at daybreak, would have wondered greatly to see a half-clad figure on an old bicycle go flying round and round the track. ”

“ Constantly in the long trains of animals descending to the coast, a slip of the foot or a charge from behind, for they all come down the steep track with a jolting shuffle, sends mule and its load over the ledge. ”

“ We come down the track at top speed, and the impetus will carry us clear across the ramp. Some of the horses'll go down, because the slope is slippery. But the remainder will front form squadron, and charge downhill in line. ”

“ The roads which now connect these great uplands with the lower country are marvels of engineering, and you can count as many as twenty or thirty 148 "elbows" in the track, from the point at which it leaves the valley until it disappears over the edge of the table-land, the entire length of it being in view at one stroke of the eye. The task of ascending is laborious in the extreme, and much sitting at cafés, which is the habit of the townsfolk, does not equip them for the undertaking. ”

“ The route it should therefore take ought to exactly balance the objections to each extreme, that is the expense, &c., of going straight on through hills and over valleys on the one side, and the increased distance and consequent loss of time which a winding track would cause to the transit on the other. ”

“ I could go around by the trail three miles, or ride up to the railroad-track, tie my horse, and walk through the snow-sheds, a little more than a mile—it was contrary to the rules to take an animal inside the sheds.
I started up toward the track, and reached it at two a. m. The night was now clear and still; not the slightest noise could be heard, and the silence was something awful and oppressive. The last man and the last horse on earth will not feel more completely alone than Jerky and I did at that moment. ”

“ It may be thought that a man passing barefooted over a hard rock would leave no trace; and yet the fine dust of the road he left, caked by perspiration, has been sufficient to betray him. Sometimes, in a grassy country, the track is best seen by looking out ahead, when it appears as a continuous line, showing where the grass has been turned, although it is almost invisible at a short distance ”

“ Once fairly off behind the fourteen-mile-an-hour buggy horses, spinning along the smooth 169bush road—the best wheel track in the world in good weather and in a dry country, that is, its normal state—the spirits of the party rose several degrees. ”

“ The gradients have been well seen to, the road ascending by winding curves up the hillsides mostly by such easy stages as enable them to be traversed either on foot, in a carriage, motor-car, or even on a bicycle without much difficulty or fatigue. ”

“ The track is only a more or less level, earth road, which just allows the car to run over its surface but cannot be said to add anything to the pleasure of the drive.
The drawback in this country is the absence of wood, of stone, and of coal. ”

“ The legacy of this untrodden expanse is unlimited productiveness of soil, waterways and forest. The solitary explorer with pack horse and canoe spyed out a winding trail which the railways’ impedimenta of progress has speedily straightened and made easy for the quasi pioneer. ”

“ There was a dip in the road that every coach-driver knew, a sudden stiff descent into a thick wood, the trees arching and mingling their branches, almost like a lofty green tunnel, and then a sharp ascent. Drivers usually let their horses go, so that the impetus of the descent would help to carry them up the opposite incline, for the road was loose, and, with a full load of passengers, the climb tested the strength of the best teams. ”

“ On down the glorious mountain road we make our way at a lively trot, marking the increase in the volume of the Frazier as the range is left behind. After descending some four thousand feet or more, we enter upon an avenue over a mile in length, straight as an engineer can run a line, and adorned on either side with stately pines, that keep off the heat. ”

“ It may readily be imagined what sort of road this must make, until it becomes, by slow degrees, ground and pounded down. The striking out of a footpath across a newly-ploughed field may give some remote approach to it. ”

“ We followed a very good road up through the foot-hills for awhile, but the wagon tracks grew fewer and fewer, as they branched off in different directions, till we struck a common trail, and as we wound around the north side of a high rocky hill this trail disappeared entirely, and we found ourselves off among the barren and sandy foot-hills without the slightest road, trail, or habitation in sight for miles. ”