[According to Charles Westhall, a physician, as well as one of England’s greatest pedestrians.]

Pedestrianism, from its being the basis and principal agent in securing a thorough and perfect training to all who may have, from choice or necessity, to undergo a great amount of physical exertion, may be considered the chief feature in the preparation of men for all contests in which great strength, speed, and wind may be required. From this point of view the science of walking will be treated in the present work; for whether a man may have entered in an engagement to run, walk, jump, swim, row, or box, no training can be thoroughly accomplished until the athlete has undergone a certain amount of exercise on foot, and reduced his superfluous weight to such an extent that he can follow up his peculiar forte with fair chance of improvement, or at least so that he may not have to stop short from sheer want of wind or strength.

Pedestrianism, which has before been stated to be more or less indispensable to the man undergoing preparation, from its healthful and beneficial effect upon the human frame, is of most vital importance in keeping the required equable balance which should exist in every constitution, whether robust or otherwise. Good training is as requisite to any man who wishes to excel, as it is to the thoroughbred race-horse. A man who is fleshy and obese might as well attempt to compete with a well-trained man as the race-horse that has been fed for a prize-show to again enter the lists with his highly-prepared and well-trained contemporaries. A man may be endowed with every requisite in health, strength, muscle, length, courage, bone, and all other qualifications; but if untrained, these qualifications are of no value, as, in every instance, a man or horse, well-trained, of much inferior endowments, has always under the circumstances proved the victor. Good condition, which is the term used by trainers to indicate the perfect state of physical power to which the athlete has arrived, is one of the greatest safeguards to his health; as, in many instances, severe and long-continued exertion when unprepared has had an injurious and continuous effect on the constitution, and, in some few but fortunately almost isolated cases, produced almost instant death. These few words are not alone intended for the man who has to compete, but for a great portion of mankind, who go through the regular routine of life day after day, their business being sometimes performed with apathy, and the remainder of their time passed in excessive smoking, eating, drinking, sleeping, sitting, or any small pet vice to which they may be addicted. That such a man can undergo the same process of training as the professional who has an engagement to perform some arduous task against time or a fleet antagonist, we do not ask or expect—his occupation would not allow the same time; but the assertion that he would perform his allotted duties with more pleasure to himself and more satisfaction to all concerned if he were to submit to undergo a partial training, is a truth that ought to be tested by all who have any regard for continued good health. Were this system carried out to even a small extent, the physician would have cause to lament the decline of his practice, and the advertising quack become a nonentity. As a proof how necessary training is considered by the professional, it is only requisite to ask any pedestrian of note for his candid opinion to satisfy the most incredulous. The higher in the pedestrian grade the man may be to whom the question may be put the better, in consequence of his having gone through the whole performance, from novicehood upwards; and, in every instance, it will be found that more than one of his defeats will be attributed to want of condition (proper training) arising from neglect of work or other causes, such as carelessness in diet, want of practice, and, in some instances, from the neglect of the precepts attempted to be inculcated by his trainer. Most of the above mistakes have arisen from overweening confidence in his own powers, or from underrating his adversaries’ abilities. However willing and thoughtful he may have been, these contretemps have almost invariably been the fate of all our leading athletes, not only in the pedestrian circle, but in the ring, on the water, and in all sports in which a great lead has ever been taken by man. He will inform the querist that he will require from a month to two months for his preparation, and if he has been out of practice for some time, even more—thus showing to the dullest intellect the requisite time and attention needed; for if a man who has shone pre-eminent in the sphere he has chosen for his exertions, and has had the benefit of previous trainings, must again undergo the same ordeal as heretofore, a man totally untrained must at least require the same preparation, as well as a greater amount of practice, to fully develop his particular forte as a pedestrian. To sum up in a few words, training is a complete system of diet and exercise duly carried out and strenuously adhered to. From the mode of life which almost all lead, the health becomes impaired, and the only remedy will be discovered by him who follows the principle of training in some form or other, the more simple the better. That the same system of training will suit all constitutions, it would be absurd folly to advance; or that the same amount of work and strictness of diet is requisite for a man about to run a race of one hundred and twenty yards, as for a struggle of an hour’s duration, would be equally preposterous. Nevertheless, the groundwork of training arises from the benefits derived from regular diet and steady exercise. Training will bring out all the hitherto latent powers of the athlete, raising the man who has previously been considered almost a nonentity into public notice, the one of mediocre calibre into the first rank, and thoroughly develop the excellencies, etc., of the first-class proficient to an extent that will not only surprise himself, but his associates and long-tried friends and backers.