Most animals are dragsters, they are built to accelerate to a high speed fast and hold that speed a short distance.
Man isn’t fast, everything beats us at a short sprint, but in good shape, with cool conditions and/or a water bottle, humans can go near full speed for days. It’s what we’re built for.
Related, for slightly different performance reasons. They used to teach kids with Japanese racing bikes to be polite when they passed the Harley’s, it may take a bit but the Harley will catch up.
Most animals are dragsters, they are built to accelerate to a high speed fast and hold that speed a short distance.
Man isn’t fast, everything beats us at a short sprint, but in good shape, with cool conditions and/or a water bottle, humans can go near full speed for days. It’s what we’re built for.
Related, for slightly different performance reasons. They used to teach kids with Japanese racing bikes to be polite when they passed the Harley’s, it may take a bit but the Harley will catch up.
Big lungs and the ability to sweat on to bear skin. The most important limiting factor for endurance with most animals is the ability to remove heat from your body. Humans are very good at that because we’re naked AF and sweat. Most mammals cannot sweat as it doesn’t work with fur and would lead to death in winter.
That in addition to simple tools like carrying water and footwear means our endurance (when trained properly) is absolutely staggering and is only realistically limited by our need for sleep, food and water. We can carry food and water with us so those limiting factors do not matter, but we cannot do anything about sleep except sleep.
This means humans can realistically jog for hours and hours on end where as most animals can only maintain that kind of speed for minutes before they begin to overheat and need to stop and rest.
Big lungs and the ability to sweat on to bear skin. The most important limiting factor for endurance with most animals is the ability to remove heat from your body. Humans are very good at that because we’re naked AF and sweat. Most mammals cannot sweat as it doesn’t work with fur and would lead to death in winter.
That in addition to simple tools like carrying water and footwear means our endurance (when trained properly) is absolutely staggering and is only realistically limited by our need for sleep, food and water. We can carry food and water with us so those limiting factors do not matter, but we cannot do anything about sleep except sleep.
This means humans can realistically jog for hours and hours on end where as most animals can only maintain that kind of speed for minutes before they begin to overheat and need to stop and rest.
It’s because most animals are completely incapable of running in an aerobic state, which allows us to fuel our muscles with the oxygen we breathe, so we don’t run out of energy. When we sprint (and the only way most animals can run), it’s anaerobic, which uses energy stored in the muscles, and there’s a finite reserve of those.
Imagine an ultra long distance race between a slower solar powered dune buggy and a faster gas guzzler. Eventually the car will run out of gas and the dune buggy will catch up. Then it’s game over.
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