What are the limits of human endurance?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When it comes to speed, humans have got nothing on cheetahs - or greyhounds, kangaroos or zebras for that matter. It’s over long distances we really come into our own: when running for hours or even days, our body structure and excellent sweating skills make us able to outpace much faster mammals.
But what are the limits of human endurance? Can we run ever further and faster, and what’s the best diet to fuel such ambitions?
This week’s questions come from two CrowdScience listeners in Japan who already know a fair bit about stamina, having run several marathons and long-distance triathlons between them. We head to Greece, legendary birthplace of the marathon, to witness an even more arduous challenge: hundreds of athletes following in the footsteps of the ancient Greek messenger Pheidippides, to run an astonishing 246km across the country. The ever-so-slightly less fit CrowdScience team do our best to keep up, and try to discover the secrets of these runners’ incredible endurance.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards
(Photo: a runner in the Spartathlon ultramarathon, with kind permission from the International Spartathlon Association)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.5 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.6 | Hello crowd science listeners it's the middle of January and I'm wondering how many of you |
| 0:36.8 | made New Year's resolutions to keep fit or get in better shape or otherwise push |
| 0:41.6 | your limits and how many of you have already given up? |
| 0:45.2 | Look, we're in a pandemic, so really you have permission from me to set the bar really low. |
| 0:51.2 | Getting out of bed and dressed every day deserves a medal in my opinion. |
| 0:56.2 | But in case you need to be encouraged and inspired by what our bodies can really achieve, |
| 1:01.2 | we thought we'd revisit a crowd science podcast from 2017 about the limits of human endurance. |
| 1:07.0 | Since this episode first went out, those limits have been pushed even further. |
| 1:13.0 | For example, back then, listener Alberto wondered whether a human could run a marathon in under two hours. |
| 1:19.0 | And in the years since he pondered that, Elliot Kipchogae has obliged by running a |
| 1:23.9 | marathon distance in one hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds. The people we're |
| 1:30.4 | focusing on in this show however are running a lot further than that. |
| 1:35.0 | Let's hear from them. |
| 1:37.0 | The racing's the easy bit, the hard bits, the months of getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning training. |
| 1:42.0 | This is just such an amazing spectacle and an event. |
... |
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