RUNNING. The most primitive form of athletic exercise considered as a sport, running has been in vogue from the earliest times, and the simple foot-race ( 3p6p,o3) run straight away from starting point to goal, or once over the course of the stadium (a little over 2ooyds.), formed an event in the Greek Olympic pen tathlon, or quintuple contest (see GAMES, CLASSICAL) . There was also the race once over the course and return (61avXos) and the 66Xtxos, a long race run many times (often as many as 12 ; i.e., about up and down the stadium. There was also the apobtos OrXurCov, a short race for warriors, who wore full armour and car ried sword and shield. Except in the warriors' race, the Greek runners were naked, save occasionally for a pair of light shoes. No records of the times returned have been handed down, but the contests must have been very severe since the ancient Olympic chronicles preserve the memory of several men who fell dead at the end of the long course. According to Virgil (Aen. V. 286 et seq.) running was practised in circus exhibitions in ancient Italy.
The best runners in the middle ages were most often found among the couriers maintained by potentates and municipalities. The Peichs, or Persian couriers, of the Turkish sultans, often ran from Constantinople to Adrianople and back, a distance of about 220I11., in two days and nights. In districts of India and Africa not traversed by railways, native runners are still employed to carry the mails.
In all parts of Great Britain track, road and cross-country run ning have been popular forms of recreation for many centuries. To-day, however, practically all the sprint records are held by Americans, while many of those for the middle distances stand to the credit of Scandinavian or Continental athletes and all previous figures at distances from 30 to loom. have been eclipsed by the 40-year-old South African farmer, Arthur Newton.
Running at the present day is divided into three classes Sprinting.—Sprinting consists of running over short distances with a full and continuous burst of speed, the chief distances being 1 ooyds., 22oyds. and 44oyds., and the like metric distances.
Distances up to and including 22oyds. are, in America, called "dashes." The course for sprint races, when run in the open air, is marked off in lanes for the individual runners by means of cords stretched upon short iron rods. In the modern style of sprinting the result depends often upon the start. The old method of dropping a handkerchief was the worst possible way to give the starting signal, since the muscles react most slowly to the impres sion of sight, less so to those of touch, and most quickly to those of sound, a difference ofsec. in reaction amounting to over 'ft. in a run of moyds. All modern foot-races are, therefore, started by the report of a pistol. Until 1887 all classes of foot runners commenced their races from a standing position. In that year Charles H. Sherrill, of Yale university, U.S.A., demonstrated an entirely new method, known as the "crouch," this method of starting becoming in a short time universal.
Experiments, made with an electrical timing apparatus of his own invention, by Prof. A. V. Hill, F.R.S., of the University of London, have brought to light many interesting points in connec tion with the physiological processes involved in severe muscular exercise in man. Prof. Hill's experiments indicate that 90% to 95% of the effort made by a sprinter travelling at top speed is expended in overcoming the frictional resistance of his own muscles. The force exerted by the first-class sprinter at maximum speed is equal to 8o% to 90% of his body weight, and in running moyds. he does sufficient work to lift himself 246f t. to 27oft. into the air. He will bring into play approximately 8 h.p. and attain his maximum speed at 6oyds. or 7oyds. from the start, when he may be travelling as fast as 24 m.p.h. Approximately one second is lost in the starting process. After the 7oyds. mark is reached the runner begins to lose speed, through fatigue occasioned by the rapid appearance of lactic acid in the muscles, as much as ioz. of such acid being secreted in the muscle substance every second. In the course of a 2ooyds. race the speed drops as much as 15% between 7oyds. and 190 yards.