In terms of animals that run I recall reading somewhere that a man can eventually run down any other creature that runs on land over a long distance (say 100 miles). Is this true?
Show me a man that can run a hundred miles.
I’d think it’s far from true. Many large plains herbivores can run at high speeds almost indefinitely - bison, antelope, etc, and I would guess that wolves wouldn’t be very far behind. Humans do have very good endurance characteristics, though probably that’s more psychological than anything else, but you’d need a lot more than 100 miles for that to come through. That’s only a 4 hour lope for a bison. No cite, sorry.
I thought they had some sort of “super marathon” that totalled over a hundred miles.
Ultramarathon, in fact. For a 100-mile race, winner usually finishes at around 15-17 hours for the men.
Where in the HELL did you hear this? I’m an old horseman from way back…while few horses are capable of travelling distances in excess of 50 or 60 miles at a stretch. I have had an occasion to ride a few with the ability to endure treks of over a hundred miles per trip. Granted my ass didn’t much like it, but I’ve been over a hundred miles in a day many times on a horse in daylight hours.
Matter of fact, I had an appendix bred colt one time that I swear could do it in less than 6 hours. If I really pushed that guilding he could probably do it in 4.
But probably the best animal I ever rode was a damned mule. That bitch could maintain a gait of 20 miles an hour from sunup to sundown.
I’m not an expert on the sport or anything, But I believe the Iditorod dogs have gone 1100+ miles in ten days. That’s averaging more than 100 miles a day for ten days pulling a decent load through snow. I WAG that any of those dogs could easily beat a the 15 hours SmackFu cited on dry ground with no load(What is the average ground speed of an unladen Sled dog? :)).
Yes, but doesn’t the fact that the dogs run in teams and have their foot provided to them, make a dog sled team a somewhat different entity than an individual dog or wolf loping across the plains?
PIMF foot = food
I’ll tell you what animal can beat a man in a 100-mile race – a woman. And afterwards, she can trip him and beat him to the ground.
Ya gotta keep an eye on them women.
Heck, put me in my Jeep and a cheeta or a horse might beat me off the line… but I assure you that I’d be in the lead at the 100 mile mark! The key is brains, not brawn.
How about 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours??!! It’s going on right now, and requires each runner (only 6 started the race, and I believe it’s down to only a few now) to run at least one mile every single hour of the day – so the sleep deprivation will be the most difficult part. Also,
So they still have to run a marathon when they’re done! If someone finishes, this will be one of the most remarkable feats of endurance in history.
I don’t think it would make a big difference. Even in a team, a dog can’t take a break and get pulled by others. Maybe there’s a tiny aerodynamic advantage to being in a pack, but I think the ultra-marathon runners also run in packs much of the time. As for food, don’t marathon runners get sports drinks during the run? Or is it just water?
By the way, I don’t think any land animal can beat a human on a bicycle. A fit cyclist can manage 100 miles in 5 hours. I believe the world record is around 3 1/2 hours.
I sure can outrun any animal… just gimme two seconds to start my car…
A fit cyclist will make 200 miles in 12 hours. The best make around 300.
Seriously, I have encountered what I think may be the source of the OP’s info … speculation that the way that early hominids hunted was to wound or just plain separate out an animal from the pack, and then run it down over long distances. The idea being that most animals are adapted to run quickly over relatively short distances – to avoid being pounced on by large predators like lions and crocodiles and tigers and such. Human would just chase the animal relentlessly until it was exhausted, even though over the short distance it could outrun them easily.
I think the nakedness and sweating of humans was cited as ways early humans handled the heating caused by such long chases, giving them an advantage over their prey.
I’m kinda neutral on the theory – iit’s plausible, but seems like a LOT of effort to expend to catch prey.
I don’t have a cite, but given that it’s a paleoanthopology theory, it might be easier to check up on now.
I think it preposterous to believe man can outrun EVERY animal over a hundred mile distance. The story of the tortoise and the hare not withstanding, burst speeds matter.
If a man is not ahead in the first 25 miles, I don’t believe he can win. The rough maximum foot speed for man is about 13 miles per hour over this distance and what would it be for the rest?
There are a number of animals with burst speeds greater than 40 mph. After the first quarter of the race, man would have to run continuously but the animal only a small portion of the time, the remainder being rest.
Agriculture might not have arisen if it actually was the case man could outrun every animal.
Only humans would want to try and run for a hundred miles in the shortest period of time! As an earlier poster said, a horse or even donkey could easily beat a person but that’s only if they have a human on top of them whoppin’ on them with a stick. Let’s face it, people who run Marathons don’t do it for their health, it’s incredibly destructive to the human body to run 26 miles. I have nothing against people who what to be healthy but these people have some kind of problem.
To quote one of two men being chased by a bear, “I don’t have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than YOU!”