Comment by begueradj
3 days ago
> Compared to virtually any other animal, we can vastly outperform them in the most arduous environments. Our bodies are mechanically optimized for running at every level.
I'm not sure from where you got this because any documentary/book/article and simply real life experiences related to this subject states the opposite (take a common animal such as a dog as an example)
This is not an obscure theory, it's called the "Endurance running hypothesis" [1], and it does seem that humans are one of very few species exceptionally well-adapted to very long-distance running (though dogs and wolves are another one). The idea is that ancient hominids in Africa practiced "persistence hunting"[2], where they would hunt e.g. antelopes and similar species by repeatedly chasing them down. The prey would sprint off when humans got close, but doing this repeatedly causes the animal to exhaust their energy or die of heat stroke, humans being much better adapted to running for many hours on end (this kind of hunting is known to happen to this day). It's plausible that persistence hunting also contributed to evolving our other super-powers, as it requires good spatial awareness, tool-use and communication.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
Have you ever went running with a dog? Dogs can go fast over a short distance but they overheat quickly. People just keep on running way past the time the dog has collapsed.
This is specifically about long distance running, where basically no animal can keep up.
A key hunan advantage was persistence hunting - track and run after a deer (or similar) prey. Tgey can burst outrun the human, burt hemshe keeps on running, eventually, often after double-digit kilometers, the human can just trot up to the exhausted nimal and kill it. That's what the tendons and evaporative cooling do.
There's a famous Uktramarathon race, iirc, the Western States 100, 100 miles in the Sierra mountains that was a horse race, until some people started running without the horse, and winning.
“Real life experience” tells me I’ll run any dog into the ground if it’s over 50F. Cooler than that? The dog still better be part of a trained sledding team.