y difficult test
to run when a large field enters for it.

Candidates who enter for this test should really take pains to ensure
that their bindings fit their boots and that they have everything
necessary for a run as well as being up to the standard. Speaking as
a judge of four years' standing, who has run innumerable tests, I may
say that it is pitiable to see the number of casual people who will
come up for a test without reading the regulations and without being
in any way prepared for a 1,500 ft. climb. Few things are more
disagreeable than having to disqualify a candidate, who turns up
without a Rucksack, or more miserable than having to shepherd down
beginners who are worn out by a run for which they are quite out of
training. The one comfort is that a candidate, who is pertinacious and
courageous enough to face this test five or six times without passing
and goes in again, is almost sure to pass in the end.

For the judge's sake, however, I strongly urge such a candidate to
time himself over similar runs with his friends and to persist in this
until he proves that he is up to 3rd-class standard, when he will be a
very welcome candidate in the test itself.

A course is easily found by using an aneroid, or it may also be worked
off the Ordnance Map. Any ordinary watch with a second hand will
suffice for the timing of one's own run.

Some people may think that I am a little harsh in my reasons for
suggesting that beginners should not enter for the running part of the
3rd-class test so lightheartedly. It is really for their own sakes as
much as for that of the judge's. Failure is very discouraging, and I
have known people's nerve quite upset by one of these runs. They have
tried to race down and have taken really nasty tosses in their rush,
while the fatigue of constant falling and getting up out of deep snow,
becoming more and more out of breath in the anxiety to compete, is
very bad for their running. I have often wanted to hide my head in
shame when coming home after such a test with a lot of worn-out
people, wet through, who have failed. And yet, such is life, that many
with the first breath, after they finish exhausted, will ask when the
next Test takes place in order that they may compete again. Such a
candidate really does one's heart good.

Tests have probably done more than anything else to improve the
standard of British running. We all have a liking for competition, and
here is our chance. Having su