Ultra Discussion Thread

28064212

Enduro wrote: »

Nice little article on why running long distances is THE apex sport for humans here

Lazy article. Conveniently leaves out the fact that humans get a 15 minute head-start, and claims that the best marathon runners don't compete while ignoring that the relative quality of horses is even lower (not to mention the horse has to carry a jockey)

walshb

average_runner wrote: »

But the horse will over heat eventually?

Like I said, it's human brains that are the key. Physiologically a man is no match for dogs or horses over any distance. You put a man on horseback and guide him through the marathon where he can take breaks and allow his horse to drink, he comes home well before a man running. A horse's top speed is about 67 kph. All he would need is 1/3 of that to win.

average_runner

28064212 wrote: »

Lazy article. Conveniently leaves out the fact that humans get a 15 minute head-start, and claims that the best marathon runners don't compete while ignoring that the relative quality of horses is even lower (not to mention the horse has to carry a jockey)

Yeah but the horse has 4 legs

walshb

A horse being pushed and whipped and jumped can complete over 4 miles in under 9 minutes. End of.

Murph_D

walshb 1 - 0 Science

TFBubendorfer

walshb wrote: »

A horse being pushed and whipped and jumped can complete over 4 miles in under 9 minutes. End of.

Except we're not talking 4 miles when we're talking long distance

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

We may be better than other species at long distance running, but it's a fairly useless skill to have if a tiger decides it wants you for breakfast.

Very true. Trite, irrelvant to the point the article is making, but true nonetheless.

As an equally irreleavant sidepoint: we, and all our simian cousins, have a useful ability to escape tigers, which is to climb trees.

Enduro

walshb wrote: »

Like I said, it's human brains that are the key. Physiologically a man is no match for dogs or horses over any distance. You put a man on horseback and guide him through the marathon where he can take breaks and allow his horse to drink, he comes home well before a man running. A horse's top speed is about 67 kph. All he would need is 1/3 of that to win.

Funnily enough I've done almost exactly that with an AR team and a horse in the desert over approximately a marathon distance. We (and the vast majority of the other teams) were slowed down by having to take care of the horse to make sure it was still capable of forward movement by the end of the stage. So you're just plain 100% factually provably wrong.

walshb

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

Except we're not talking 4 miles when we're talking long distance

So? Long or short. We are no match for four 4 legged animals. It's so obvious that it's stupid!

http://www.wolfcountry.net/information/WolfObserved.html

El Caballo

walshb wrote: »

So? Long or short. We are no match four 4 legged animals. It's so obvious that it's stupid!

http://www.wolfcountry.net/information/WolfObserved.html

Not really obvious, a 2 legged ostrich would destroy a wolf over a short sprint to a marathon and beyond.

walshb

Enduro wrote: »

Funnily enough I've done almost exactly that with an AR team and a horse in the desert over approximately a marathon distance. We (and the vast majority of the other teams) were slowed down by having to take care of the horse to make sure it was still capable of forward movement by the end of the stage. So you're just plain 100% factually provably wrong.

Get yourself a proper horse.

walshb

El Caballo wrote: »

Not really obvious, a 2 legged ostrich would destroy a wolf over a short sprint to a marathon and beyond.

I never mentioned an ostrich. We, as in man.

Enduro

walshb wrote: »

Get yourself a proper horse.

Turn yourself into a proper runner

TFBubendorfer

walshb wrote: »

So? Long or short. We are no match for four 4 legged animals. It's so obvious that it's stupid!

http://www.wolfcountry.net/information/WolfObserved.html

From that very article:

Wolves can keep up this pace for hours on end and have been known to cover 60 miles (96 kilometers) in a single night.

Impressive.
So can humans.

Just because you can't get your head around it doesn't make it stupid. Wolves (and dogs) cannot regulate their temperature as well as humans, which will eventually tell.

El Caballo

walshb wrote: »

Get yourself a proper horse.

The world record for a hundred miles for humans and horses are almost identical and both are highly trained endurance runners in competition, go any further and the horse gets slower and slower.

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

Very true. Trite, irrelvant to the point the article is making, but true nonetheless.

As an equally irreleavant sidepoint: we, and all our simian cousins, have a useful ability to escape tigers, which is to climb trees.

I don’t believe it is irrelevant. The writer seems to laude long distance running as the ultimate in human athleticism because it is something we can do better than the rest, while when it comes to sprinting and jumping we get our asses kicked. Yet what we excel at relative to the rest is actually a very useless skill to have in the first place, if we are going to go down the route of man v animal. At no point will our ability to run for longer ever be a deciding factor in us getting one up on our fierce bitter rivals the lion, cheetah or tiger. We are already dead by the time endurance comes into play.

ThisRegard

El Caballo wrote: »

The world record for a hundred miles for humans and horses are almost identical and both are highly trained endurance runners in competition, go any further and the horse gets slower and slower.

If there was authority in this forum with regards to all things equine, it'll be by someone with the username El Caballo,

Enduro

Chivito550 wrote: »

I don’t believe it is irrelevant. The writer seems to laude long distance running as the ultimate in human athleticism because it is something we can do better than the rest, while when it comes to sprinting and jumping we get our asses kicked. Yet what we excel at relative to the rest is actually a very useless skill to have in the first place, if we are going to go down the route of man v animal. At no point will our ability to run for longer ever be a deciding factor in us getting one up on our fierce bitter rivals the lion, cheetah or tiger. We are already dead by the time endurance comes into play.

You seem to have entirely misunderstood the point the article is making. He is not saying that our superior long distance running makes us the Apex of the animal kingdom. He is saying that our ability to run long distances is the one physical trait we have which is superior to all the other land animals, and which allowed us to hunt animals which have superior short distance speed. At no point does the article claim that it was a trait that allowed us to escape faster predators. Clearly it isn't. Even more clearly it isn't our sprinting or jumping ability either. You appear to have constructed a classic straw-man arguement against a point constructed in your own head rather than in the article.

Itziger

Enduro wrote: »

You seem to have entirely misunderstood the point the article is making. He is not saying that our superior long distance running makes us the Apex of the animal kingdom. He is saying that our ability to run long distances is the one physical trait we have which is superior to all the other land animals, and which allowed us to hunt animals which have superior short distance speed. At no point does the article claim that it was a trait that allowed us to escape faster predators. Clearly it isn't. Even more clearly it isn't our sprinting or jumping ability either. You appear to have constructed a classic straw-man argument against a point constructed in your own head rather than in the article.

He is fairly good at that to be fair. Put the words 'sprint' and 'distance' into Google and you get Chivito.

On page 2 you get Walshb, Russia, drugs and conspiracy.

How many miles would Enduro have beaten them pesky wolves by in the Coast to Coast yoke?

Chivito550

Enduro wrote: »

You seem to have entirely misunderstood the point the article is making. He is not saying that our superior long distance running makes us the Apex of the animal kingdom. He is saying that our ability to run long distances is the one physical trait we have which is superior to all the other land animals, and which allowed us to hunt animals which have superior short distance speed. At no point does the article claim that it was a trait that allowed us to escape faster predators. Clearly it isn't. Even more clearly it isn't our sprinting or jumping ability either. You appear to have constructed a classic straw-man arguement against a point constructed in your own head rather than in the article.

He seems to suggest that because of this, it makes distance running the greatest form of human athletic endeavour (could be picking him up wrong, but don't really see what other purpose the article has). I'm simply saying that being best of a bad lot at this one area is nothing to be shouting about.

Chivito550

Itziger wrote: »

He is fairly good at that to be fair. Put the words 'sprint' and 'distance' into Google and you get Chivito.

On page 2 you get Walshb, Russia, drugs and conspiracy.

How many miles would Enduro have beaten them pesky wolves by in the Coast to Coast yoke?

Put in the words "Uruguayan sandwich" and you also get Chivito. A tasty number that.

UM1

Chivito550 wrote: »

We may be better than other species at long distance running, but it's a fairly useless skill to have if a tiger decides it wants you for breakfast.

I knew ud come around to my way of thinking sooner or later,though didnt expect it so soon...

Murph_D

Chivito550 wrote: »

He seems to suggest that because of this, it makes distance running the greatest form of human athletic endeavour (could be picking him up wrong, but don't really see what other purpose the article has). I'm simply saying that being best of a bad lot at this one area is nothing to be shouting about.

I think you are taking it up wrong alright. The article is not saying that distance running is the greatest form of human athletic endeavour, merely that it was the most useful from a survival of the species point of view. The author is merely repeating the Lieberman/Bramble thesis that it was human endurance running ability that allowed us to tire out prey animals to the point where they could no longer offer any meaningful resistance and thus we could kill them with simple weapons (sticks and stones). It's moot now, of course, because we have developed technology, weapons, agriculture, etc and no longer need to outrun or outsprint animals for survival as a matter of routine.

Itziger

Chivito550 wrote: »

He seems to suggest that because of this, it makes distance running the greatest form of human athletic endeavour (could be picking him up wrong, but don't really see what other purpose the article has). I'm simply saying that being best of a bad lot at this one area is nothing to be shouting about.

Why does it have to be 'the best of a bad lot'? Why can't it be 'the best of the lot' (I'm not saying that we are necessarily)?

We are demonstrably not the best of any lot when it comes to shorter distances. We seem to be much better as it goes further. Why would anyone have a problem with that fact?

Maybe there's a reason that there's 8 billion of us! Give or take a few hundred thousand.

Chivito550

UM1 wrote: »

I knew ud come around to my way of thinking sooner or later,though didnt expect it so soon...

Haha sprinting in human form is also a useless skill if a tiger wants you for breakfast. Basically we excel at something irrelevant (in relation to escaping from fast wild animals) and suck at something useful.

Fun discussion though.

BeepBeep67

Chivito550 wrote: »

Haha sprinting in human form is also a useless skill if a tiger wants you for breakfast. Basically we excel at something irrelevant (in relation to escaping from fast wild animals) and suck at something useful.

Fun discussion though.

Not if you're faster than your colleague

El Caballo

Chivito550 wrote: »

Haha sprinting in human form is also a useless skill if a tiger wants you for breakfast. Basically we excel at something irrelevant (in relation to escaping from fast wild animals) and suck at something useful.

That Tigers speed is pretty useless when a human can just shoot it due to our bigger brain so speed is also irrelevant given we have killed far more Tigers than have ever touched us. Same strawman concept.

Wild Garlic

Which animal has the best kick. I'm guessing horse.

TFBubendorfer

Chivito550 wrote: »

Haha sprinting in human form is also a useless skill if a tiger wants you for breakfast. Basically we excel at something irrelevant (in relation to escaping from fast wild animals) and suck at something useful.

Fun discussion though.

Excellence in long distance running is far from useless in the wild. Google "persistence hunting" and you might learn something new.

jamule

Wild Garlic wrote: »

Which animal has the best kick. I'm guessing horse.

Is that a kick or a sprint kick

I'd say a donkey