If you can’t get away from it with a short burst of speed, then you need to turn around and kill it. Humans aren’t gazelles, we aren’t supposed to be loping across the plains for hours on end.
And now I’m going to bed.
(The answer is Yes, Tres Generaciones and then a beer.)
The human capacity for endurance walking/running is almost certainly NOT something that arose from a need to flee predators - that’s called “sprinting”. What the endurance stuff was originally for (probably) was for US being the predator, humans relentlessly pursuing an injured gazelle (as an example) across the plains until it either dropped dead, or it was too exhausted to move/fight back. Then humans needed more endurance to drag the carcass, or at least a significant portion of it, back to the women and children back at the camp/cave/whatever.
So, yeah, vegetarian hominids way back when probably watched our ancient ancestors jogging after a wounded critter and said “that’s stupid, berries don’t run away, MUCH easier to gather than that stupid running and killing stuff!” but it was the jogging omnivores that gave rise to us.
We’re not sprinters like gazelles, true. But I’d say that endurance activities are one of the things humans are best at. Check out the cursorial hunter hypothesis sometime.
Have you ever heard of endurance hunting? There are humans who will literally chase fast predators until they die of exhaustion. It works because predators are designed for short bursts of incredible speed, and simply can’t handle running for a long time. Humans are the only creatures that can do this.
Humans chase fast prey, not predators, and they do so under conditions where the animal has no chance to rest or allow its body temperature to cool off. The animal collapses of exhaustion/overheating and can then be killed.
Two other species evolved endurance running: wolves and horses.
Can’t wolves do this? Just my uninformed belief.
Endurance running is the core of what made us apex predators on the plains of East Africa. Humans aren’t gazelles, but endurance running is what enabled us to prey on gazelles. So endurance sports are perhaps the most fundamental of all.
We all remember Aesop’s famous fable of the tortoise and the hare. But if you don’t, I’ll offer a brief synopsis.
One day in the forest, Mr. Hare was teasing Mr Tortoise about his lack of speed. Slightly peeved at this, the tortoise challenged the hare to a race. “Haha!” said the hare “you can’t catch me!” and runs off down the lane. The hare soon leaves the tortoise behind and, confident of winning, decides to take a nap midway through the course. Slowly, but steadily, the tortoise closes the gap between the two until finally the tortoise catches up. Then he eats the hare.
What about pointed sticks?
Pointed sticks don’t do you a lot of good unless you can catch up with the gazelle.
This is the basis of an old paradox. A cheetah chasing a man will always catch the man. And a man chasing a cheetah will always catch the cheetah.
I second that endurance sports seem kinda pointless. It seems comparable to who is willing to hit themselves over the head more. Kudos to a waste of time.
Not as well. Humans have the advantage of being bipedal (which is more energy efficient), and of being both near hairless & covered in sweat glands. Exertion that makes an athletic human uncomfortably hot will kill most other animals because they lack the ability to dissipate heat anywhere near as well as we do.
Moving over to the Game Room.
David Attenborough, in his *Life of Mammals *series, documents a persistence hunt of a kudu in the Kalahari desert. Fascinating and, I thought, strangely moving.
Lots of ninjas in this thread. 
I enjoy watching people pushing the limits of human endurance (I also prefer endurance auto racing as well, tho vastly improved mechanical reliability has pretty much made them functionally equivalent to shorter contests).
Crucially, we also have the ability to carry water with us, and consume it while on the move.
Meh. The main reason I posted my OP was so I don’t go off on several of my Facebook friends, like (i) the fat guy who posts inane Nike Run Loud updates extolling the virtues of running or (ii) the fat guy constantly crow about finishing a Tough Mudder race (which essentially involves walking through cold mud for a few hours). These guys are basically out of shape pussies who post running stuff all the time. Meanwhile, I have the body of Adonis from lifting weights, and I don’t post shit about it on Facebook.
No, just on the SDMB.
Virtually ALL sports test human endurance, anyway, even a 100-metre dash. You aren’t going to get anywhere in sprinting unless you train like a crazy bastard, after all, and most people don’t have that in them.
[QUOTE=Rand Rover;14834587 Meanwhile, I have the body of Adonis from lifting weights, and I don’t post shit about it on Facebook.[/QUOTE]