G.O.A.T. Marathon
7Today’s Greatest Of All Time is “marathon race”… Inspired by a discussion with @kidsandliz about overheated dogs.
Anyhow greatest Marathon takes place annually in Llanwrtyd Wells in Wales each year. At 22 miles long over rough hilly countryside you wouldn’t think this is the greatest marathon but it has a twist. Humans race against horses
Your first thought might be, "that’s ridiculous, humans can’t run as fast as a horse, " and you’d be right for short distances, but it turns out over marathon length distances human endurance and stamina is quite remarkable compared to many animals and even begins to rival horses.
The winner is usually a horse, but the gap isn’t usually as large as you might expect. A top horse athlete typically only beats the top human athletes by a few minutes and there have been two cases where humans have beat the horses… beat as in finished first not whipped them. The trick to humans beating the horse over long distance is it has to be hot weather. Humans have superior ability to cool down over horses. Colder and wetter the race the more the horses gap over humans become.
Of course, coming from Wales the origin story of the race involves a pub and two men arguing over whether humans or horses would win over a long distance run.
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I’mma marathon watch all of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
@ELUNO notice the Hobbit never rode on horseback… he knew they’re slower than people on long distances near the hot firey pits of mordor… There again the Hobbit didn’t ride on human back either.
@OnionSoup Does it count if Sam carried Frodo for a bit there at the end?
@ELUNO no because thats Hobbit back not human back.
@OnionSoup They also rode on those eagles, but saying eagleback sounds too much like nickelback. shudders
@ELUNO @OnionSoup the hobbits never road on THEIR OWN on horseback. They definitely rode on them. Practically they wouldn’t be able to mount one and most of their journey on their own was not horse friendly
Sorry, you’re wrong this time.
The greatest marathon(s) are the Barkley Marathons.
@Limewater that sounds a pretty awesome race!
FOOLS! TOOLS! JEWELS! AWESOME!
@Limewater FYI, Barry Barkley, after whom the race is named, passed away this past December 5 at age 70. Not sure why it didn’t make it into @Sohmageek’s RIP thread for 2019
Correction it was @f00l who I was talking about animals and over heating with.
@OnionSoup thanks for sharing. Super interesting. Need to google this to see how the watering stations are setup. Been damn near run over by a human at a race before.
@jimmyd103 best of luck. Trample those stupid humans if you have too