People beat horses on the regular. The “man vs horse” race balances the course to try to make it equal. Horses will trounce people on courses under 3 hours or so. Humans do better with steep terrain. So humans will crush a trail endurance race over longer distances. We will lose badly on short, flat courses.
Interestingly dogs are the other species that can really hang with people in endurance runs. We will eventually leave them behind as well. They can outrun us in sprints and courses under a few hours. They can’t keep pace at 4+ hours.
Yup, that’s thought to be one of the main reasons we domesticated dogs. They could keep up, so they earned their keep, and because we anthropomorphize everything it was obviously only fair we share with them.
I used to work as a safety officer for a mountain ultramarathon race. The shortest course was 8 miles, the longest was 100. We have humans that can run 100 miles in a day and a half. I don’t think any other land animal can do that. Hell, I’m a human, I can’t do that.
Isn’t there an annual “man vs horse running race” where, once every decade or so, someone actually beats the horse?
People beat horses on the regular. The “man vs horse” race balances the course to try to make it equal. Horses will trounce people on courses under 3 hours or so. Humans do better with steep terrain. So humans will crush a trail endurance race over longer distances. We will lose badly on short, flat courses.
Interestingly dogs are the other species that can really hang with people in endurance runs. We will eventually leave them behind as well. They can outrun us in sprints and courses under a few hours. They can’t keep pace at 4+ hours.
Yup, that’s thought to be one of the main reasons we domesticated dogs. They could keep up, so they earned their keep, and because we anthropomorphize everything it was obviously only fair we share with them.
I used to work as a safety officer for a mountain ultramarathon race. The shortest course was 8 miles, the longest was 100. We have humans that can run 100 miles in a day and a half. I don’t think any other land animal can do that. Hell, I’m a human, I can’t do that.