Text Box: The view from the outside lane….. A semi-lucid look at things…… By Chuck Nacy Text Box: Let’s face it…..neither walking nor running involves rocket science. Sorry to burst your bubble, but neither activity has changed much since our Neanderthal forbearers strapped on their leather tunics and set out to gather a few berries or go a couple of rounds with a wooly mammoth. It’s still left, right, left, right at one pace or another. You’d think evolution could have done a little better than just standing us up straighter and giving us larger brain cavities - a great deal of which seems to go unused. How come eons of trudging across the glacial plains or trying to outrun a saber-tooth tiger to the friendly confines of Og’s cave hasn’t given us all a predisposition to hiking, long distance running and world-class sprinting as a way of life? Indeed, the opposite seems to be true as the fattening of present day America becomes more and more of a health issue. Perhaps our downfall started when some radical-thinking genius discovered that he or she could get to the neighbor’s hovel in the next valley by actually sitting astride and riding one of the animals normally turned into the next meal. Chariots, wagons, steam locomotives, and the Model-T weren’t far behind, historically speaking. Don’t get me wrong…. I’m all for discovery. The technological advances we have benefited from over the past fifty years alone have both extended life expectancies considerably and expanded the overall quality of life in the world’s developed countries . It just seems that much of science is dedicated to saving us from ourselves, helping us overcome the fruits of a fast-food society and omnipresent transportation opportunities. The “running boom” of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, and its more recent associated interest in the benefits of aerobic activities, was more a resurgence than an innovation, more a rediscovery than ground-breaking news, and it came at just the right moment. While the old saw that “there’s nothing new under the sun” doesn’t hold a lot of water in the realm of science and invention, it is still a truism when applied to the basics of human conditioning…. diet and exercise are important, and if we falter in one area, the other can help sustain us for awhile. My spouse accuses me of substituting logic for emotion on occasion and she’s correct, as usual. I do, however, find it difficult to understand the seeming lack of logic and concern on the part of so many individuals who, although they would never opt to step in front of an on-rushing train or hold a three-iron aloft while standing on a golf course during an electrical storm, think nothing of eating a sausage McMuffin and smoking a cigarette while driving to work. Fortunately…..and here’s where we may feel compelled to pat ourselves on our collective back….those of us who have given in to the allure of regular running or walking, whether recently or long ago and for whatever motivation, have, by returning to our most primal roots, displayed more than a modicum of common sense and self-preservation. Generally, I like to keep things simple and that may have been one of the subtle reasons why I was drawn to running. Indeed, when others ask me why I enjoy working out on a track I tell them that other than the left-right-left-right thing, I only have to remember “left turn, left turn.” But beyond that, the test of time has shown me that the benefits of regular aerobic exercise are essential to my physical and mental well being, and that when I am either deprived of that activity or foolishly ignore it for whatever reasons, my world is no longer fully in sync. To our early ancestors, walking and running was both a way of life and a means of preserving life, the human instinct for survival burning no less brightly in them than it does in mankind today….get up and move or die. Now, the lessons of time and the knowledge of science have confirmed that what early man practiced daily is no less important in the present. As custodians of our own destinies in the twenty-first century, we have more choices to make, more opportunities to grasp or let go of. We’ve made at least one good choice…..let’s hope others do, too.