From: glen mccready 
  To: 0xdeadbeef@substance.abuse.blackdown.org
Date: Mon, 07 Apr 1997 16:15:36 -0400

Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <bostic@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: Rob Mayoff <mayoff@tkg.com>
Forwarded-by: walding@tkg.com

Thursday April 3 5:41 PM EST

April Showers? Run!
	-- New Scientist, March 29, 1997, p. 19

If it starts raining and you want to stay dry, run -- don't walk -- to
the nearest shelter. Now, while your first reaction may be -- "No
kidding!" -- a previous report suggested that runners were likely to get
just as wet as walkers.

Indeed, British researchers calculated that the amount of water that would
be avoided by running was almost negligible compared with walking.  But
a new study has found that when precipitation starts, runners will soak
up about 40% less water than people who saunter, according to an article
in New Scientist.

In the first study, conducted about two years ago, researchers at the
University of Reading in the U.K., made their calculations based on a
walking speed of three meters, or roughly 10 feet, per second. Any faster
than that conferred only a tiny benefit when it came to ducking the rain,
they concluded in their report, published in the journal Weather.

But that walking speed seemed too high to meteorologists at the National
Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

They compared an average walking speed of 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) per
second to running four meters, or 13 feet, per second. As they suspected,
the benefit was greater in that case. If a walker was slightly over 300
feet from shelter, he or she would get 16% more wet than their faster
counterpart -- in a light sprinkle. In a downpour, the walker would soak
up 23% more moisture.

And after taking into account the fact that a runner hunches over,
shifting rainfall onto their back, the U.S. team figured that a runner
would get 36% less wet than a walker in heavy rain, according to a report
in New Scientist.

The researchers, Thomas Peterson and Trevor Wallis, decided to test their
theory. The two ran 100 meters, or more than 300 feet during a heavy rain
shower while wearing identical clothes. The walker soaked up nearly half
a pound of water, while the runner ended up with roughly a third of a
pound of H2O -- about 40% less, or close to their predictions.

The take home message? If you want to stay dry, forget about the singing,
and run -- don't walk-- in the rain.