Forget "slow and steady wins the race." A new study shows that,
at least sometimes, the best way to conserve energy and reach
your destination on time is to alternate between walking and
running-whether your goal is the bus stop or a marathon finish
line. In the January 30, 2013 issue of the Journal of the Royal
Society Interface, researchers examined how people budget their
time as they travel on foot to reach a destination at a
particular appointed time. The study found that when people have
neither too much time nor too little time to reach their
destination, they naturally switch back and forth between
walking and running, which turns out to be the best strategy for
saving energy. The study is the first of its kind not conducted
on treadmills, and it supports the notion that the human body
has an innate sense of how to vary speed to optimize energy when
we're on the move in our natural environment. "We don't live our
lives on a treadmill," said Manoj Srinivasan, co-author of the
study and assistant profes