Are humans meant to run?

On early Saturday mornings, my answer is usually, "No! This can't be right! Humans were not meant to run!"

Alas, it seems that I am wrong. Our ancestors ran a lot, and not just from the law. (Of course, I am referring to my own ancestors, by all accounts a brutish lot of pirates some 500 years ago, but just on my Dad's side. On my Mom's side, we were all mild mannered businessmen and accountants. I cannot speak about the ancestors of the rest of the group members.) According to a New York Times article, there is evidence that our ancestors were runners and that our bodies are actually highly adapted for distance running.

The New York Times references a 2007 article by Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a University of Utah biologist, that suggests that humans evolved into exceptional long distance runners in response to the need to compete with other meat-eating creatures for food. Here is the abstract from the article:

Humans have exceptional capabilities to run long distances in hot, arid
conditions. These abilities, unique among primates and rare among mammals,
derive from a suite of specialised features that permit running humans to store and
release energy effectively in the lower limb, help keep the body’s center of mass
stable and overcome the thermoregulatory challenges of long distance running.
Human endurance running performance capabilities compare favourably with
those of other mammals and probably emerged sometime around 2 million years ago in order to help meat-eating hominids compete with other carnivores.
Source: Daniel E. Lieberman & Dennis M. Bramble, "The Evolution of Marathon Running Capabilities in Humans" (2007) 37 Sports Med. 288.

In other words, humans developed specialized features that help us to fuel our runs, not trip over our own feet, and keep cool (we learned how to sweat). Sure, the cheetah may outrun us in a sprint but over distance and time, we'll beat the cheetah, especially on a hot day.

Yes, it is hard to believe that a cheetah (see above) could be outrun by me (see below).


Wow. Seriously?








Absolutely. Of course, it does help to compare Chester the Cheetah to a photo of me running. See the second photo of me, on the right.

Hmmmm...I'm still having trouble believing it. But I digress.





Lieberman and Bramble argue that a human could outrun a horse (!) in a marathon (26.2 miles) on a hot day. Think about that! Me (see above, either photo) versus Seabiscuit (see below).

Well, if I wore a mask like Seabiscuit, I would look much faster.

It's all about sweating, I suppose. Seabiscuit can run fast, but over time, he would just become too hot. Humans have efficient heat regulation systems, even runners who do their training in -27C temperatures. Sweating isn't pretty, but it does give us an edge over four legged animals who can only pant.

A final thought -- and this may be a bit arrogant -- but I think that I could outrun Seabiscuit in a very cold weather marathon. After all, they don't make long underwear big enough for horses. And don't even get me started about mittens and toques...