Book excerpt: Excerpt from Cross-Country Techniques Illustrated Cross-country running goes as far back in the history of the human race as almost any activity we know. We can visualize the cave man run ning over the hills and plains in search of food or to safety from preying enemies. Mobility of ancient armies originally depended upon their ability to run with their weapons, and the first competition over hills and dales no doubt took place on an informal basis between the cave men or the ancient soldiers. The resourceful English were the first to place the sport of long distance running across the country on a highly competitive basis. In fact, the now famous crick run of Tom Brown's School Day: was first recorded as taking place about 1837. It is interesting to note that in England the first teams were fielded by the colleges, but they soon lost interest. Athletic clubs took over and pushed the sport to its current European popularity. In America, just the opposite took place. The clubs, such as the West chester Hares and Hounds Club and the New York American Athletic Harriers, were running over the hills in the 1870's. A Short time later, hundreds of clubs sprang up throughout the east on a recreational hares and hounds basis. While club athletes were enthusiastic about cross country running, the Officials who controlled the purse strings were not. Due to a lack of finances, club cross -country running began to disappear. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.