15 ms·

This type of distance / pace is hard for some people to even grasp. This line helps sum it up nicely: > That’s 7:15 per mile or 4:30 per kilometer for 24 strai

This type of distance / pace is hard for some people to even grasp. This line helps sum it up nicely: > That’s 7:15 per mile or 4:30 per kilometer for 24 straight hours. Incredible

cafard 4y ago
Back in the 80s, Yannis Kouros seemed to be able to crank out 6:30 miles for many hours a day, for several days in a row. But I don't remember how many hours--eight or ten maybe.
- stevesimmons 4y ago
  Yannis Kouros was a legend. When I was a teenage, he was a 5-time winner of the Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, from 1985 to 1990. The distance was 800-1000km. It took 5-6 days, running non-stop. He was so much better than everyone else that "in 1988, the race organiser challenged him to start 12 hours behind the rest of the field. Kouros overtook his competitors and won the race with a one-hour lead over New Zealander Dick Tout." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_to_Melbourne_Ultramarathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_to_Melbourne_Ultramarat...
  - cafard 4y ago
    Thanks! Several years ago, I was running in Rock Creek Park when a couple of men in their twenties passed in the opposite direction, and were apparently discussing Yannis Kouros. He isn't or wasn't forgotten.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I can't even imagine. I'm gassed at that pace after a couple of KM.
- js2 4y ago
  I have a 1:28 half-marathon PR, a 3:07 marathon PR, I've twice run 100 miles in under 24 hours, and I can't imagine even more. That said, the marathon WR is 2:01:39 which is 4:38.39/mile (2:52.98/km). So Sorokin is running about 55% slower than that, or what would be considered an easy pace for an elite marathoner. AFAIK, we have yet to see an elite marathoner transition to ultras. However, there are quite a few elite ultra-marathoners who run marathons. The one I'm most familiar with is Michael Wardian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wardian He's run both a 2:17:49 marathon and finished 15th as Western States (19:32:07). And to be clear: I'm not diminishing Sorokin's amazing accomplishment here. I've run a 24 hour race. I got to 105 miles. I'm just noting what the best in the world are capable of at different distances. Humans are amazingly adaptable. I'm reminded of Howard Schatz’s Athlete series of photographs: https://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-howard-schatz/ https://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-how... https://howardschatz.com/human-body/athletes/ https://howardschatz.com/human-body/athletes/
  - troon-lover 4y ago
  - joelrunyon 4y ago
    Wardian is an insane athlete.
pferdone 4y ago
So 13.32 km/h or 8.27 mp/h on average.
hammock 4y ago
Eight gallons of gasoline
- ar_lan 4y ago
  This is a frighteningly-cool insight. If I think about a single marathon, that's roughly 1 gallon of gas for my own car. I don't know how to translate that to human fuel, but it is crazy to me to think that that is not an insignificant amount of fuel the human body needs to burn to do the equivalent of a car.
- elil17 4y ago
  Humans are much more energy efficient than cars, so it was less than 3/4 of a gallon (100 kcal/mile * 200 miles = 20,000 calories = 0.7 gallons of gas or about 6 pounds of body fat). He's probably much more efficient than 100 kcal/mile though.
  - ReptileMan 4y ago
    When I was cycling I was joking that the bike is not much greener than the car, because it burns 4 ribeyes/100km or 17 miles/ribeye.
    - elil17 4y ago
      I read somewhere that if you’re not at least mostly vegan, e-bikes actually have lower lifecycle carbon emissions than bikes because you end up burning fewer calories and eating less (assuming you don’t substitute in more exercise).
      - jvm___ 4y ago
        So. Lithium battery powered humans would emit less carbon than regular humans?
        zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        They would since we could charge them using PV instead of wasteful bovines.
speakfreely 4y ago
Anyone who can run 5 miles at 7:15 pace is a pretty well conditioned athlete. If you can keep that pace for an hour, that shows some determination. Multiple hours is an incredible feat. 24 hours is just suprahuman.
- travisjungroth 4y ago
  The standard to pass the first phase of US Army Ranger School is 5 miles at 8:00 pace. Those aren't pro runners by any means, but shows a standard for a rather well conditioned group of people. They also need to do 49 push-ups and 59 sit-ups in 2 minutes each, plus 6 pull-ups.
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    I could easily meet the push up/sit up/pull up bar but I can only run 12 min miles for 5 miles. Pretty interesting how uneven is my conditioning.
    - lancesells 4y ago
      I can do the running but not the pushups so maybe we can trade
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        You two should buy an extra long trenchcoat and see if you can make it work.
    - jeltz 4y ago
      My conditioning is also very uneven. Running would be trivial (I ran a half marathon at 7:55 min/mile a couple of days ago), I could also manage sit-ups just fine, would fail on push-ups (but not by much) but can't even do a single pull-up.
      - Cd00d 4y ago
darkwater 4y ago
Wow that's better than my personal record for a 10km run. Obviously you cannot compare yourself against the top1 guy in an endurance race, and not even against the top1000 but it's still mind-blowing how something that required a lot of effort (physical AND mental to be constant enough during training) for a normal human being can be literally nothing for another human being.
- igouy 4y ago
  > Obviously you cannot compare yourself… Obviously you did. Obviously doing so is a basic way we can try to understand the accomplishment.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    I... obviously :) implied "keeping you accountable for", like when you compare yourself to someone doing better and think "I need to do the same as well!". At least in my case I would ever dare to think I want to try to achieve something like what reported in TFA.
    - igouy 4y ago
      Seems like you did dare to think whether you want to try to achieve something like that, and decided nope :-) Sorokin and Ardzijauskas are "normal human being[s]"; and we can be pretty sure that their accomplishment was so much harder for them than "literally nothing". Normal human beings can accomplish so much! Seems like you could improve your 10k pb :-)

This type of distance / pace is hard for some people to even grasp. This line helps sum it up nicely: > That’s 7:15 per mile or 4:30 per kilometer for 24 straight hours. Incredible

cafard 4y ago

Back in the 80s, Yannis Kouros seemed to be able to crank out 6:30 miles for many hours a day, for several days in a row. But I don't remember how many hours--eight or ten maybe.

stevesimmons 4y ago
Yannis Kouros was a legend. When I was a teenage, he was a 5-time winner of the Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, from 1985 to 1990. The distance was 800-1000km. It took 5-6 days, running non-stop. He was so much better than everyone else that "in 1988, the race organiser challenged him to start 12 hours behind the rest of the field. Kouros overtook his competitors and won the race with a one-hour lead over New Zealander Dick Tout." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_to_Melbourne_Ultramarathon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_to_Melbourne_Ultramarat...
- cafard 4y ago
  Thanks! Several years ago, I was running in Rock Creek Park when a couple of men in their twenties passed in the opposite direction, and were apparently discussing Yannis Kouros. He isn't or wasn't forgotten.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

I can't even imagine. I'm gassed at that pace after a couple of KM.

js2 4y ago
I have a 1:28 half-marathon PR, a 3:07 marathon PR, I've twice run 100 miles in under 24 hours, and I can't imagine even more. That said, the marathon WR is 2:01:39 which is 4:38.39/mile (2:52.98/km). So Sorokin is running about 55% slower than that, or what would be considered an easy pace for an elite marathoner. AFAIK, we have yet to see an elite marathoner transition to ultras. However, there are quite a few elite ultra-marathoners who run marathons. The one I'm most familiar with is Michael Wardian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wardian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wardian He's run both a 2:17:49 marathon and finished 15th as Western States (19:32:07). And to be clear: I'm not diminishing Sorokin's amazing accomplishment here. I've run a 24 hour race. I got to 105 miles. I'm just noting what the best in the world are capable of at different distances. Humans are amazingly adaptable. I'm reminded of Howard Schatz’s Athlete series of photographs: https://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-howard-schatz/ https://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-how... https://howardschatz.com/human-body/athletes/ https://howardschatz.com/human-body/athletes/
- troon-lover 4y ago
- joelrunyon 4y ago
  Wardian is an insane athlete.

pferdone 4y ago

So 13.32 km/h or 8.27 mp/h on average.

hammock 4y ago

Eight gallons of gasoline

ar_lan 4y ago
This is a frighteningly-cool insight. If I think about a single marathon, that's roughly 1 gallon of gas for my own car. I don't know how to translate that to human fuel, but it is crazy to me to think that that is not an insignificant amount of fuel the human body needs to burn to do the equivalent of a car.
elil17 4y ago
Humans are much more energy efficient than cars, so it was less than 3/4 of a gallon (100 kcal/mile * 200 miles = 20,000 calories = 0.7 gallons of gas or about 6 pounds of body fat). He's probably much more efficient than 100 kcal/mile though.
- ReptileMan 4y ago
  When I was cycling I was joking that the bike is not much greener than the car, because it burns 4 ribeyes/100km or 17 miles/ribeye.
  - elil17 4y ago
    I read somewhere that if you’re not at least mostly vegan, e-bikes actually have lower lifecycle carbon emissions than bikes because you end up burning fewer calories and eating less (assuming you don’t substitute in more exercise).
    - jvm___ 4y ago
      So. Lithium battery powered humans would emit less carbon than regular humans?
      - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
        They would since we could charge them using PV instead of wasteful bovines.

speakfreely 4y ago

Anyone who can run 5 miles at 7:15 pace is a pretty well conditioned athlete. If you can keep that pace for an hour, that shows some determination. Multiple hours is an incredible feat. 24 hours is just suprahuman.

travisjungroth 4y ago
The standard to pass the first phase of US Army Ranger School is 5 miles at 8:00 pace. Those aren't pro runners by any means, but shows a standard for a rather well conditioned group of people. They also need to do 49 push-ups and 59 sit-ups in 2 minutes each, plus 6 pull-ups.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  I could easily meet the push up/sit up/pull up bar but I can only run 12 min miles for 5 miles. Pretty interesting how uneven is my conditioning.
  - lancesells 4y ago
    I can do the running but not the pushups so maybe we can trade
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      You two should buy an extra long trenchcoat and see if you can make it work.
  - jeltz 4y ago
    My conditioning is also very uneven. Running would be trivial (I ran a half marathon at 7:55 min/mile a couple of days ago), I could also manage sit-ups just fine, would fail on push-ups (but not by much) but can't even do a single pull-up.
    - Cd00d 4y ago

darkwater 4y ago

Wow that's better than my personal record for a 10km run. Obviously you cannot compare yourself against the top1 guy in an endurance race, and not even against the top1000 but it's still mind-blowing how something that required a lot of effort (physical AND mental to be constant enough during training) for a normal human being can be literally nothing for another human being.

igouy 4y ago
> Obviously you cannot compare yourself… Obviously you did. Obviously doing so is a basic way we can try to understand the accomplishment.
- darkwater 4y ago
  I... obviously :) implied "keeping you accountable for", like when you compare yourself to someone doing better and think "I need to do the same as well!". At least in my case I would ever dare to think I want to try to achieve something like what reported in TFA.
  - igouy 4y ago
    Seems like you did dare to think whether you want to try to achieve something like that, and decided nope :-) Sorokin and Ardzijauskas are "normal human being[s]"; and we can be pretty sure that their accomplishment was so much harder for them than "literally nothing". Normal human beings can accomplish so much! Seems like you could improve your 10k pb :-)