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There's a race between humans and horses every year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Mara

There's a race between humans and horses every year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Definitely need to have a look in to this. It seems inconceivable a human on foot could outpace a rider on horseback!
- graycat 8y ago
  The point is endurance, not speed! Basically after a few days the poor horse gets totally exhausted and just stops. Might make a claim that a human walking on two legs is especially efficient use of food energy. To increase the amazement, supposedly the US military has discovered that on really long exercise, say, all-out exercise over several days, say, walking 100 miles through deep snow, women have more endurance than men. The explanation is that the women start out with more fat reserves and are able to use them. So, too soon the men run out of fat and, thus, out of energy. So, maybe in running down a horse, African zebra, or antelope, female humans might be better than male humans!
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Huh, interesting. This Quora answer[1] claims: Some horses do have tremendous endurance capabilities, but not many. The average companion-horse probably would not comfortably go 56km / 35 miles in one day. The average rider would find 35 miles too far, as well! The Wikipedia article referred to up-thread talks about the Human vs Horse race being 35 km / 22 miles, with the humans on foot having a 15 minute head start. I always assumed those movie sequences where a bunch of folk on horseback go after a person on foot, who had a few minutes head start, were a dramatisation. Turns out it's probably more realistic than I thought, with the person on foot having the advantage of being able to traverse terrain a horse would have to go around. 1. https://www.quora.com/Horseback-Riding-How-long-can-a-horse-be-ridden-without-rest https://www.quora.com/Horseback-Riding-How-long-can-a-horse-...

There's a race between humans and horses every year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

Definitely need to have a look in to this. It seems inconceivable a human on foot could outpace a rider on horseback!

graycat 8y ago
The point is endurance, not speed! Basically after a few days the poor horse gets totally exhausted and just stops. Might make a claim that a human walking on two legs is especially efficient use of food energy. To increase the amazement, supposedly the US military has discovered that on really long exercise, say, all-out exercise over several days, say, walking 100 miles through deep snow, women have more endurance than men. The explanation is that the women start out with more fat reserves and are able to use them. So, too soon the men run out of fat and, thus, out of energy. So, maybe in running down a horse, African zebra, or antelope, female humans might be better than male humans!
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Huh, interesting. This Quora answer[1] claims: Some horses do have tremendous endurance capabilities, but not many. The average companion-horse probably would not comfortably go 56km / 35 miles in one day. The average rider would find 35 miles too far, as well! The Wikipedia article referred to up-thread talks about the Human vs Horse race being 35 km / 22 miles, with the humans on foot having a 15 minute head start. I always assumed those movie sequences where a bunch of folk on horseback go after a person on foot, who had a few minutes head start, were a dramatisation. Turns out it's probably more realistic than I thought, with the person on foot having the advantage of being able to traverse terrain a horse would have to go around. 1. https://www.quora.com/Horseback-Riding-How-long-can-a-horse-be-ridden-without-rest https://www.quora.com/Horseback-Riding-How-long-can-a-horse-...