Ancient man walked, but struggled to run.

The studies show that "whilst these very early fossils could walk well, our initial findings suggest that efficient running came about quite a bit later in the fossil record," he said, adding "we have only just started to look at running and so there are still plenty of questions to answer."

Funny, I wouldn't think that a fossil could walk at all...

"The next really interesting question is to look in more detail at running. It has been suggested that our ability to run for long distances took a lot longer to evolve than our ability to walk. Our techniques should let us get to the bottom of this question because it will let us measure the running abilities of our fossil ancestors directly."

"What we need to discover now is when in our evolution did we develop an Achilles tendon as knowing this will help unravel the mystery of our origins."

Well, at least I do have an Achilles tendon.

No exercise quite matches the pleasure and exhilaration of a long run. Nice to have that tendon.

Yeah running is great as long as one can stay well away from spoiled geared up runners who spend their time on the loo slavering over runners magazines and kenyan marathon runners, you know; the usual self-important "Runner" egos.

Since guys & gals of that kind infest most running space within a 5 click radius I tend to go for an enjoyable walk instead when the opportunity arises. Preferably in the late winter night when everything is cold & serene and the "Runners" haven't even woken up yet.

Anyway I enjoyed the subtle humour in the post Rand, nice writing.

"fun run" is an oxymoron.

Raoul, assuming you were making a serious statement, my theory about people who don't like running is that they try to run too fast. Of course the first thing would be to be able to walk. Assuming that works and feels good, then run at a pace that you feel good, even if its a 12 minute per mile pace and very slowly build up to something faster like an 8 or 9 minute pace. Alternating running and walking is another good strategy. And always run on a trail rather than asphalt. Just my 2 cents for what its worth.

Raoul--I completely agree with you.
TnT--Sorry, but I've tried most every variation possible, and I still don't enjoy running.

I was recently taking a look at the BBC program "Walking With Cavemen" and puzzling over why it struck me as the least convincing or effective in the "Walking With Dinosaurs," "Walking With Prehistoric Beasts," etc. series. Part of it, I think, is that while the other series were heavy on computer animation, "Cavemen" relied mostly on real people in fur suits and prosthetic masks for the more distant, more ape-like ancestors. So not only did the proportions seem wrong for creatures in the three-to-four-feet high range, but the gaits didn't seem right. Too human, too much like people in suits. It also occurred to me that my disbelief could have come from seeing something that no one has ever actually seen in the modern world: how would an upright ape walk on two legs in an earlier stage of adaptation? The show could have gotten it exactly right, but it would still seem wrong to me for lack of familiarity. Even so, I got a sense of too ape-like in some scenes, too human-like in others, and not really a convincing compromise in any. The lack of an Achilles tendon surmised in the linked article could explain a lot here, and it might be an important datum not available to the producers of "Walking With Cavemen" when it was made...

And it seems we are still evolving to run even faster. On Sunday Asafa Powell just broke the 100 meter record, again, with a 9.74. And it looked like he let up a little at the end even.

No mystery at all, the efficient running began after the innefficient runners were eaten by Sabretooth tigers, thus encouraging les autres to get moving.

After all you don't have to outrun a sabretooth, you just have to run more efficiently than the other guy.