Attitude Means Everything To Unbeaten Walt Hewlett

Why has Walt Hewlett beaten everyone he has run against this fall by at least 20 seconds? "Every race I've known beforehand I was going to win," he explained, "and when I know that, it's a lot easier to run. I'm relaxed."

Unfortunately, even a runner as good as Hewlett can't be sure of winning late in the season, when the big meets roll around. And when Walter's confidence has wavered, he has been known to fold. Last fall, after winning the bulk of the Crimson's dual meets and breaking the course record at Franklin Park, he finished 16th in the Heptagonals.

Listen to Walt talk awhile, and you'll see that his problem is a lot like Hamlet's.

"The Heps (two weeks away) will be my first real race. I'll be running against an Army sophomore, (Jim) Warner, whom I don't know I can beat.

"That's formed a little cloud above me that's started to descend and has tightened me up in practice the last two weeks.

"I know that if I get out in a race around the four-mile mark and I get tired and somebody else is right there with me, I start thinking about being tired and how I have to keep going and if I'll have enough kick at the end to win if I keep up the pace."

That kind of mental strain can beat the best pair of legs, and it has, in the past, beaten Walt Hewlett's.

Hewlett hasn't felt it in the six meets so far, because he hasn't met anyone with the credentials of a Jim Warner--a record-setter in his own right on the West Point course.

But will this year's Heptagonals be a re-run of last year's collapse? Walt does not think so.

Less Tense

"I'm less tense this year than I was last," he says. "I've been training easier (60 miles a week instead of 80), and I haven't been keeping a record of all my work-outs the way I did last year and the year before.

"And I have a strategy for the Heps; I've thought a lot about it and I know it's right. The only thing now is that I hope I don't think about my Heptagonals' strategy so much that I psych myself out."