Fit and Very Fit

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I agree. That's outright attempting to abuse the rules to silly levels, not proving the base use is wrong. Though I do agree that the running rules are inadequate for use with Very Fit and reasonable levels of Ht, let alone high but still within the realm of human possibility.

I agree on the abuse case of having low HT for an athlete.

However, while the GURPS rules for FP loss and running may not be perfect, consider that there is a wide gap between the capabilities of normal people, even normal military recruits, and people with high HT, Very Fit and high Running skill. Even though Dean Karnazes is not the best ultrarunner in the world, he can still do things that most GURPS characters (and real people) absolutely cannot even get close to doing.

There really are people who can run at endurance running speeds basically as long as they can stay awake (well, as long as they accept eating on the run and... expelling waste in their weird running outfits).

That being said, Douglas Cole's Pyramid article, 'The Last Gasp', has lost FPs give penalties to Attributes, which includes HT. So once you start losing FP at all, you'll gradually start losing them faster, even if you start out with awesome HT and Very Fit.

[Flyndaran]

Most ultramarathoners don't run as fast as Gurps Paced Running. But they keep going for far longer and a bit faster than Paced Marching.

I certainly love The Last Gasp, but don't think even those rules really help for such distances and times.