eli5 Why can’t humans sprint a marathon?
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Sprinting essentially means running as fast as you can, naturally humans can’t run as fast as they can for 26 miles.
The reason sprinting is essentially impossible to do for more than 200 yards is because of lactic acid buildup in your muscles.
Lactic acid is a byproduct of the chemistry that makes your muscles function. The more they function the more lactic acid is built up, and if they are not given enough time to get rid of the lactic acid, your body’s muscles will eventually stop working properly for a time because the precise chemical balance needed for your muscles to function is thrown off.
It’s like a car, if a car is driven at top speed for long enough the engine will get too hot and it will stop working.
All things need balance.
You might ask why we aren’t built to run faster for longer? That’s because of evolution.
Evolution only cares about an animal being good enough to survive, and we can run fast enough to survive as is
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