Why nearly every sport except long-distance running is fundamentally absurd. | Hacker News Reader

Why nearly every sport except long-distance running is fundamentally absurd.

slate.com

19 pointsakandiah10 comments

Let's go with the author's supposition that the only human sport is the physical one in which we compete with every other species on the planet. While humans can be excellent long-distance runners, there are at least three species which are faster than humans even over long distances.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/physics/anim... claims that camels are able to run a marathon in 1 hour 2 minutes, and http://www.athletic-animals.com/ claims "On a mail run in Western Australian goldfields camels regularly covered 144km in 10 hours." I am having difficulty confirming that. The fastest camel in the "Great Australian Camel Race" sustained 7kph over the 6 legs of the 3,236km race and female camels "can run 8km (5 miles) the longest track distance, in 12 and a half minutes - a speed of 40 km/h (25 mph)" so 14.4kph over 10 hours seems feasible.

The Popular Mechanics link also says the Pronghorn Antelope "can sustain 30 mph for about an hour." I have been able to find (from the journal Nature) "pronghorn antelope are distance runners rather than sprinters, and can run 11 km in 10 min" and from elsewhere "During the fall migration, the animals move southward 30 miles a day for three or four straight days", but nothing about longer distances or maximum distance per day.

The Popular Mechanics article ends saying an "Ostrich would finish a marathon in about 45 minutes." The Wikipedia entry on Ostrich claims "can maintain a steady speed of 50 km/h (31 mph), which makes the Ostrich the world's fastest two-legged animal." http://netvet.wustl.edu/species/birds/ostrich.txt confirms with "Ostriches can cover between 16-to-23 feet per stride and maintain speeds between 30 and 50 miles per hour for 30 minutes."

The 100 mile (160.9 km) human record is 11:28 (on par with the camel 144km). The six day human record is 1038km (average sped of 7.2km/h).

http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org/images/file/World_Best_Perf...

Another data point is that sled dogs run the 1100+ mile Iditarod, pulling sleds and sometimes breaking trail, in under 9 days (there is one 24-hour and two 8-hour layovers that are mandatory and included in the time). That beats every other ultradistance number you have stated.

The sled dog one was covered in the original article, so I didn't repeat it here. ("Huskies can trot up to 100 kilometers in Arctic conditions when forced to by people. But in warmer climes—no way.")

I have been unsuccessful in finding good endurance times for these animals. http://www.jordanjubilee.com/outdoors/camels.htm claims "A very good camel can cover 120 or 130kms in 12 hours. Some specially bred camels have been known to continue at racing speed for up to 18 hours."

Getting similar times for ostrich and pronghorn antelope, which don't have jockeys and even less reason to run for 12 hours straight, would be much harder. While doable, there's little fame or money reward for doing so, which means the observations are based on the average fastest speed for the species, and not the fastest of the fastest like it is for humans.

Oh, and I wonder if a specially prepared road or track would give better times for a camel; the human times you quoted are on roads or tracks, not cross-country like the camel races.

Anyone who has put sled dogs in harness know that they are extremely eager and don't need coaxing. They also go far further than 100km speeds well beyond what people can do. The dogs lose their underfur in summer and can cover long distances then too (you can see this if you do a river trip with the dogs running on the riverbank). You'll also see wolves sometimes cover huge distances very quickly, regardless of season. Lack of a summer race does not indicate that those animals are not capable of it.

Fair point about the road/track being more efficient than overland. People move much more slowly on the Iditarod trail whether on bike, skis, or running (http://www.alaskaultrasport.com/).

Absurd (adjective):

1) ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous

2) having no rational or orderly relationship to human life

This title definitely doesn't conform to the second definition, since even McDougall, the author of "Born to Run" believes that sport has been a fundamental part of human life throughout history.

While I appreciate the content of the article, the logic: "since human's aren't physically the best at x, competing in x is absurd" is nonsense.

Also, keep in mind that very few human sports are purely physical accomplishments. Almost every competition involves a significant amount of skill. Especially the popular sports (Soccer (Football), Basketball, Baseball, etc.) - The best fastest athlete in the world is not the best soccer player. Michael Jordan was not known for his physical superiority, but for his skills. I would like to see a team of any of these physically superior animals beat a human at any of these sports.

People are interested in sports as a demonstration of skill, not of raw physical prowess. That is why golf has it's own channel on TV and distance running is more or less completely absent from TV.

There are some interesting facts in the article, but the only absurdity is the idea that animals being able to run fast has anything to do with professional sports.

Author have obviously forgot cycling. Trained man on bicycle can outrun all existing animals using muscular power only, even cheetahs. Not to mention horses...

Single page link for those who would prefer to read the article as one single whole: http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2012/06/long...

>Yet being the absurdly self-enthralled species we are, we crowd into arenas and stadiums to marvel at our pathetic physical abilities as if they were something special.

We do?

The larger point being made that we are "born to run" is a more interesting one, though not at all new. If you haven't read it, you should check out the book of the same name, which argues the same position (besides having an excellent story): http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Hidden-Superathletes-Greatest...

That's all very well, but how is your cat from the three point line, and can it drive to the basket?

I will remark that over 25 years ago I went to the Old Dominion 100 Mile race as "handler" for a friend, i.e. one who drives around with refreshments, dry socks, etc. One may also enter horses in the race, both for 50 and for 100 miles. I was interested to see that there were intermediate checks for the horses, where the heart rate was checked after some short period of rest (and perhaps before, I forget). Humans got a looking over before the race, but were on their own after that.

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