Any takers? : )

As for running marathons, I think you’d be shocked at how far you can push yourself. I worked myself up from running 10km to 40km in four months and it took another four months to get up to 80km. I’m pretty confident that if I wanted to, I could double that again to 160km (100 miles) as many people have done before me. Try to find another pursuit where you can double your maximum three times in eight months. Getting to be a fast runner takes some hard work as the article comments on, but gaining endurance is surprisingly easy. When you find a good pace, almost any person can run for hours and be relatively comfortable, especially if they work up to it for a few months and carry a supply of water and food.

I’ve always been in good shape, am in my mid 20′s, and could probably run a marathon if under sufficient stress without actually dying. But I don’t think that really counts – I still don’t think I’m good at it. Rather, it seems like it’s just something on the edge that is barely possible.

My point, which I think may not be completely true (but perhaps mostly true), is that the things animals have evolved to be good at they are to a substantial degree simply good at – they may improve by practice, but will still outclass other species. Examples: Tigers or bears that spend their lives in a zoo not exercising will still be vastly stronger than most other creatures, and probably still have a fighting chance of survival by hunting if tossed into the wild. At the very least they will have the instinct to hunt, and attempt to do it. Same with dogs and wolves.

However if you take a person (think corporate office worker) and release them into the wilderness, I just can’t imagine them having the instinct or ability to even attempt to chase down prey until it becomes exhausted. They are going to wander around looking for anything edible, and maybe try to figure out a clever way to catch something small.

The biomechanics of running article is actually fascinating, and the barefoot running trend is interesting, but I just don’t think the evidence that we evolved to do more than be able, with a struggle, to run long distances is that compelling. We’re pretty decent at traveling longer distances slowly, but running… I just don’t see it.

Along the same lines, higher mathematics is another thing that we can do, but didn’t evolve to be great at. We are ok – it seems we can figure things out – but beyond the initial abstractions (natural numbers, basic geometric reasoning…) it’s a skill that takes real effort and is not widely distributed across the population.

I read of studies of groups that hunted using endurance to outrun prey in Africa and they showed that this style of hunting offered a very high success rate and big rewards with relatively low risk and cost and could be used at all times of the year (with variations for prey and local land conditions).