Was running the same for our ancestors?

Yes

Why? No roads, no tracks, not even trails. No alphaflys, no sports gels. So why would it have been the same. They wouldn’t have been running as fast, as far and as often.

Who the hell thought Neanderthals were persistence hunters? They were built like fire hydrants. Stocky like dwarves. Seriously, who exactly was under the impression that they were built for distance running?

TLDR

Just because you have now come to the realization that Neanderthal build was not an ideal distance runner build does not by default mean Neanderthals were sprinters. Neanderthal build is more similar to squatty build possessed by those from Nepal.

Neanderthals are more like cousins than direct ancestors, although there is a small percentage of neanderthal DNA present in current European populations from inter-species mating. People say homo sapiens (our current species) were distance runners, not neanderthals. If you compare homo sapiens to it's earlier ancestors, which were more like neanderthals, it's clear they evolved to be better distance runners and trackers in a hot environment.

Check out this book or seek out a podcast he was interviewed on.

My understanding has been that Neanderthals were ambush hunters, who nonetheless were nomadic in following game herds by walking, often great distances. When the megafauna died out, their days were numbered, whereas sapiens were able to switch to smaller, more agile game, using tools like atlatl, bow and arrow, dogs, etc., and yes, persistence hunting where appropriate.

They didn’t have Strava - none of their runs were legit since we can’t see the map

Back in the day, there were only two genders. Can you imagine?

And some members of the enlightened tribe would say that Neanderthals still exist among those who still believe that there are only two genders (or three if you count the neuter gender).

Many ancient cultures recognized those who don’t conform to gender norms. Some were given special roles or became shamans.

Humans are exactly as fast as evolution wants us to be. If there was an advantage to running faster, we would have done it. In hunting and in warfare, working together has more advantages than than one person running faster. Running faster as a team would have advantages, so I think evolution maximized our speed.

Some people compare humans to other similar-sized mammals and lament how slow and unathletic we are. Instead we should celebrate how much our intellect and tool-using ability saved us from having to be specialized runners like so many species that have that and only that as a means of survival. Our lousy ~4:00 miles barefoot were plenty good enough to get the job done, and were not even necessary when dealing with lumbering pillars of meat like mastodons and ground sloths.

Were our ancestors to primitive to make trails to run on? They had tools to make trails with. They made trails.

Anyone can run barefoot on a nice dirt trail with no risk of injury at all. If the trail is too rough, they can kill an animal and sew up some mocassins. They had sewing tools.

Neanderthals didn't go extinct. About one fourth of their genome is still with us, which is pretty good. A mad scientist could pretty well reconstruct a 1/4 Neanderthal which pretty much counts .

My bad folks…I only linked the article about Neanderthals as a piece to support my thread. The focus was definitely not on them. I could have just as easily linked an article questioning whether as a species we were born to run or not.

Personally, I don’t think we were. Walk, yes, run, only when we really had to.

Even Lieberman…the guy who’s work founded the born to run concept, admits that our ancestors would have run pretty infrequently and that our default mode of movement is walking.

Just for better context…

podiumrunner.com

Are We Really Born To Run?

Staff

There is evidence that debunks the popular running theory, writes Thomas C. Michaud.

Link:www.podiumrunner.com/culture/are-we-re...

Good Question. And you got the right answer. No.

The way we run is predicated on why we run. If I am running to a hunt that is taking place tomorrow, I don't really care if it takes me 6 hours or 6 hours and 40 minutes. If I am running 200m to escape a bear, I am running it all out. The idea of someone doing a TT in 14:08 and being pissed that they didn't break 14 minutes would be impossible for an ancient person to even understand. Why would anyone ever bother running that hard or that fast for no reason?

You can check my answer by looking at indigenous peoples around the world. Many of them run but none of them time their results and track their mileage. For them, It doesn't matter if you run 58 minute instead of 54 minutes from point A to point B, since that distance isn't measured either. Measuring is a modern thing...