He's a Plugger

Hardin has his own style of running -- he's a plugger. "I'm not fast. I don't have speed, but I can take a fast pace. I doesn't hurt me as much at the end." He doesn't have much of a kick. But Doug will kill you with his perseverence. He stuck so close to McKusick in the Cornell meet that even the Big Red sensation couldn't stand the pace and cramped out.

It takes Hardin about a mile or two to grab the lead, but after that no one can shake him. He says he is scared of half-miles and milers because they have real speed and can kick at the end hard enough to knock him out. "The idea is to keep up a very big lead on them. It becomes a psychological barrier, seeing me out there 300 yards ahead."

Hardin himself is an excellent miler. He han a 4:18 mile last year on the freshman track team, where he ran two miles also.

Yale's Big Man a Threat

How about prospects? First, there is the Big Three Meet at New Haven on Friday. "That's the important one," Hardin says. "I've been thinking of Ron Shorter, Yale's big man, all year." Last year during track season, Hardin ran a 9:28 two-mile race and beat Shorter. This year he wants to take the sophomore in cross-country.

After the Big Three Meet and what should be one of the few regular undefeated seasons in Harvard harrier history, Hardin will go on to the Greater Bostons on Nov. 1, where he will have very little trouble. Then on to New York for the Heptagonal championship Nov. 4, where he and McKusick will be among the favorites. Finally, Hardin will return to New York in 10 days for the IC4A's. And he should have a good chance even there.

"A distance runner has to love the wind running through his hair. He has to have a distance runner's mentality," Hardin says getting up from the couch. Whatever it is, and it seems to be an odd mixture of the serious and the esthetic, Doug's got it.