Boston Marathon

If you want to win the Boston A. A. Marathon--26 mi. over macadam and concrete roads from Hopkinton to a finish-line on Exeter Street--a good way is to finish eighth the year before. Jimmy Henigan was eighth in 1930, winner the next year; Paul De Bruyn was eighth in 1931, winner a year ago. In eighth place last year was a short, prudent Pawtucket, R. I. mill worker named Leslie Samuel Pawson who trains for marathons not by drinking beer like many of his confreres but by total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, long runs around Pawtucket when he gets through work. Last week Leslie Pawson started off smoothly with a group bunched in third place. For 18 mi. he scampered lightly along, not plodding like most marathoners but running on his toes. Of the other runners in the race, 219 straggled behind him and two, Walter Hornby and John DeGloria stayed in front.

Just before Newton Hills, the most punishing part of the distance, Pawson caught Hornby; at Brae Burn he caught plucky little DeGloria, ran past him at the top of a hill. That settled the race. Running shrewdly, keeping to the shelter of trees as much as possible when the chilly wind blew in his face, waving to his parents and fiancee at the finish, Pawson broke the tape in 2 hr. 31 min. 1.6 sec. -- no less than 34 sec. below the Olympic marathon record, a full two minutes better than the record for the Boston run. Eighth last week was iron-legged old Clarence DeMar, Keene (N. H.) school teacher, who has won seven Boston Marathons, finished second or third in four.

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