[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

It is actually remarkable how quickly we can go from “untrained, can barely go down to the shop on foot without a racing heart” to running being barely a problem (unfortunately to many — it really is hard to burn more energy than what you normally eat with even quite long runs, we are that energy efficient at that).

But the actual point is that people before the agricultural revolution was more than fit enough for that, and evolutionarily speaking that is no time at all, so.. yes, not even being trained from childhood, just deciding to train for that hard, most people could definitely do that.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

In death marches, such as in WWII, even many starving prisoners, walking from dawn to dusk, with beatings, lasted for days on the trail.

The Americans and Filipinos on the Bataan Deathmarch are one example:

>The total distance marched from Mariveles to San Fernando and from the Capas Train Station to various camps was 65 miles long.

For the British there was The Burma Rail: >Camp Nong Pladuk was initially used as a transit camp from where the prisoners were transported or had to walk to work camps along the Burma Railway.

And of course, the Jews and other victims of the Nazis were often force marched.

My great great grandmother returned to her Volga German village in Russia after the rise of the Soviets, was arrested, sent to Siberia, where she worked in a camp for 7 years until her death from malnutrition and other neglects. And she was a grandmother at the time.

I'm not disputing this, but the response was that humans can't generally outrun a horse. Which is true. The average human will not be able to outrun the average horse.

The average human can't fix a toilet.

Because we specialise so much, average human can't do anything, but a trained human cam do everything.

Whereas a horse is mostly always a horse.

> How long does it take to train for marathon? Most marathon training plans range from 12 to 20 weeks. Beginning marathoners should aim to build their weekly mileage up to 50 miles over the four months leading up to race day.

So even untrained couch potatoes could learn in 4 month to run a marathon. (And indeed many do and test themselves that way.)

Training plans do last that long but jumping into a marathon training block from nothing is a very quick path to being injured.

It's also covered in this very nice episode of Radio Lab: https://radiolab.org/episodes/man-against-horse

If we take a look at the numbers of humans doing a 24-hour-run[1], and compare it with Endurance-Riding[2], then humans seem to be able to run far longer, at peak even significant longer. Though, to be fair, it's possible that the numbers are skewed for the horse's safety, and riders are not going all out till the possible mile.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_run [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_riding

But can you?

And now consider this from the perspective of a wild horse: a strange being approaches, your instinctual neophobia tells you to flee. At a safe distance, you stop, only for the being to arrive again and the cycle to continue. You sleep, only to be awoken by its approach. Finally, too exhausted to run any further, you wait for the inevitable… only for the being to feed you a carrot, brush you mane, and wander off.

Look up details for horse marathon. Horses need several breaks and veterinary supervision. And that is just a few miles!

Sounds like humans' sweat capability is also scaled up.

I'd be very curious if there's any studies on time sensibility accross species. Obviously it varies even among humans (cue children with candy experiment here). My hypothesis would be that the ability to delay satisfaction is quite vital for the development of a species. On a completely tangential note, I'd also be curious how it relates to "procrastination". Anecdotall, I fell like people who need everything "right now" struggle a lot less with procrastination.

Humans can build complex societies and use weapons in organized way.

investing isn't just storing "wealth" (ala, a storage of foods). Investing is using the time that such wealth affords you to invent new tools, to make more efficient methods/machines for making wealth! Animals are, currently, missing this part.

Learning and passing knowledge is much rarer, I believe, and I can’t really think of any non-mammal example.

People really did believe even just a few hundred years ago that animals were just “animatronics”, and let’s be honest, plenty of animals don’t disprove it too well.

All predators need the ability to fast.

All non-ambush predators, like wolves or hyenas or humans, need adaptations that ensure enough endurance to pursue their prey for hours, without overheating or becoming too tired.