How fit is Fit?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

......and you'd be wrong (though afforst are made to amke sure te horses don't overdo it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_riding

There is nothing there about any 1,000-kilometre or 1,000-mile races.

[gjc8]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Still even a "synthetic" accomplishment like thsi fellow's can be easily matched by pronghorns or kangaroos that run at 20-25 miles per hour for an hour every day. Wolves can pull off that 12 mile sprint more than once per day too.

An hour is nothing. Persistence hunts can last 5 hours or longer.

Of course, wolves can pull off multi-hour hunts, too, though usually they don't because it's a waste of time and energy. I understand it's more common when they're harrying something particularly dangerous like a bear.

Humans are the ultimate persistence hunters in part because they have fewer choices. Wolves can outrun many prey animals, even over relatively short distances, and but they use the pursue and harry strategy to prevent injury. Humans are forced to use either persistence or ambush to get close enough to kill their prey. Although "close enough" means something different if you're able to throw a spear, much less use an atlatl or a bow.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by gjc8

Humans are forced to use either persistence or ambush to get close enough to kill their prey.

Or a combination. It is pretty common to wound prey (especially large prey) in an ambush and then to harry it to a kill.

And then there are nets and snares, of course.

[Cheathj]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Those are almost always based on short straightaways with a rapid turn around at the end. The human can make the reversal and beat the horse back to the start line because the horse wastes time in the turn. It doesn't have anything to do with endurance.

Not so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

Humans lose short races with horses and dogs, but over 20 miles, start to catch up again. Especially with longer races as horses are notoriously poor under adverse conditions. And the modern horse is far superior in speed, endurance and size than the wild horses first domesticated.

Current evolutionary theory is that one of humans traits is endurance running and we're some of the best land animals at it.

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/tramps-like-us

Edit: I see someone else already linked the horse/human marathon...sorry folks.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kyle Aaron

Most people who were formerly sedentary and take up physical training feel a difference, and their speed and strength greatly improve, in the first 4-8 weeks. In game terms, I would say they go from having no skill at all to having the default skill in Running, Lifting, etc. Remember defaults aren't automatic, and I certainly see that most new gym members lack even a default ability at these things.

It doesn't take four to eight weeks of training to qualify for default skill use in a skill where you have continual access to the equipment and will have used it occasionally during the course of a normal life.

You're interpreting the rules really wrongly if you would not permit the average person a roll against default Running. A footrace between two characters with equal Move is resolved by a roll against Running.

Are you saying that it is impossible to resolve a footrace unless at least one of the participants has had four to eight weeks of training in Running, justifying a default? That kids without professional training are incpapable of running?

That's not skill normalising, that's just flat out ignoring the evidence of your eyes and one of the oddest interpretation of fairly simple text that I have seen.

Defaults are not automatic in that you don't get a default roll for skills which you have no way of knowing anything about. The given example is a low-TL desert dweller confronted with Scuba gear.

You get a normal default in stuff you've seen done on TV, for example, or seen your siblings do. You don't need four to eight weeks of training to justify a default. If that were the case, they wouldn't be defaults. They'd be the first level of trained skill.

That aside, I would apply unfamiliarity penalties on top of default penalties where appropriate. That's what the short 'training' period before making the first parachute jump is meant to remove, the unfamiliarity penalty.

But getting a single point of skill doesn't have to take too long. If the skill is the sort where you may be forced to perform it under pressure, you may gain it in much less time than 200 hours or even 100 hours. See Quick Learning Under Pressure and note that this is realistic. Real skill learning follows a learning curve, where the first improvements come really fast.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Gizensha

Hence the fact there are man vs horse foot races where the humans sometimes/often (forget the specifics) win.

Horses in these races are ridden! The human racers need to have a heavy load to compare to a horse is doing. Plus most modern races vet check the horses to keep them from injury and this messes with times as these are rest periods. The true test is unencumbered horse versus human runner. I suspect horse would win because it is so fast over terrain. Endurance horses can 100 miles in 7-8 hours at speeds of 10-14 miles an hour for extended periods. This all academic, of course. Humans are awesome machines and can compete with most animals on the move.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Brett

There is nothing there about any 1,000-kilometre or 1,000-mile races.

Wasn't anything about _races_ of those distances for the humans either. Just solo accomplishments of single humans doing things most animals (and most other humans) would consider a waste of time and energy.

Still if you want a sustained distance over time champ it still isn't humans.

http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazine...igrations.aspx

Terns can average 200 miles per day for 200 days. That's twice as far for 20times as long.

Humans are well above average for endurance and they might be in the top 10 but mthey are not number one.

[safisher]

Here's a data point for horses which are being ridden:
http://www.valheart.com/blog/horseta...ment-patterns/

"Their results showed that horses are naturally good travelers, covering average distances of around 10.6 miles per day in the wild. They would even get as far as 5 miles away from a watering source–or 34 miles away for the wild desert horses. These horses would frequently go up to four days without water and walk 12 hours nonstop to their watering point"

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Gizensha

Not the ones I'm thinking of.

(Granted that specific one has been one by a human twice over the ~25 year history of the event, but - I believe longer parallels exist.)

Well cool! I have never seen anything on a man/horse endurance race before and assumed you were referencing things like Jesse Owens or Amarillo Slim's races against horses.