Born To Run

Christopher McDougall

However, the real gems of the book sparkle to the side of that story. McDougall speaks to an evolutionary biologist who surmises that man learned to stand in order to draw more air into the lungs – unlike the muscle-bound Neanderthals who were happy to stay low to the ground.

The payoff for the runners, according to this theory, came when they hit on Persistence Hunting – instead of sprinting after their food, in the shape of ancient antelope, or trapping them in pincer movements like the Neanderthals, the runners simply jogged after their prey and outlasted it. McDougall cites the example of galloping horses, which can cover almost eight metres a second at top speed – but only for 10 minutes at the most, whereupon they drop back to 5.8m per second. When you compare that to marathon runners, who can manage six metres per second for hours, the mathematics don’t favour the horse.