I hated physical education at school. Cross-country was the worst: cold, boring and lung-burning. “Run, don’t walk!” the teacher would shout as we jogged reluctantly through the mud, only to walk as soon as we were out of sight.
Over the following four decades, my PE teacher’s angry barks have been echoed in the constant media reports telling me that I should run, whether informing me that jogging could increase my lifespan by years or that training for a marathon would make my heart younger.
The benefits of exercise are huge. If it were a drug, it would be a miracle cure. It keeps our hearts strong and blood vessels supple, lessens chronic inflammation and reduces the harmful effects of stress.
But do we need to run to get the benefits or can we get a sufficient dose just from walking in the limited time we have for exercise? And what about those who warn about the toll on joints from pounding the pavement? It is common knowledge that running causes arthritis and ruins the knees and hips – but does the evidence back this up? I wanted to find out if my PE teacher’s mantra was right.
The idea that running is the best exercise for us – indeed, that it is part of what makes us human – has many champions. Among them is Daniel Lieberman at Harvard University, who maintains that we evolved to run long distances. He thinks that our now largely untapped talent for persistence hunting – chasing animals over long distances – in hot conditions gives us an edge over other animals and …
It sure was clever in “The Natural” when Roy Hobbs belted the ball into the stadium clock, smashing it. A great moment in a fanciful story.
Shohei Ohtani has been making the fanciful seem real.
With the bases loaded in the eighth inning of his Angels’ game in Boston on Thursday, he smacked the ball off Fenway Park’s manual scoreboard, dislodging one of the numbers there.
The scoreboard had a 17 posted to indicate the current Angels pitcher, Ohtani. When his drive hit the board with force, the other numbers stayed in place, but 17, as if by forethought, dropped. Ohtani had made an impact on Fenway Park that almost crossed into the cinematic.
A quick play by outfielder Alex Verdugo, along with the clogged basepaths, limited the eye-opening smash to a single.
(Ohtani had another bizarrely long single earlier in the game when his deep fly ball was lost in the sun and fell for a hit. The runner on first had delayed to see if it would be caught.)
Ohtani’s batting line ended up 2 for 4 with a run and an R.B.I. in an 8-0 victory. And yes, as the scoreboard indicated, he was also the starting pitcher and was more than a little useful in that role. In his first career start at Fenway, he gave up six hits and no runs in seven innings with 11 strikeouts and no walks.
“I was looking forward to pitching here,” he told reporters through an interpreter. To the Red Sox that feeling may have been foreboding.
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