Learned this while listening to the NPR Science Friday podcast: Elite marathoners can outrun horses over the marathon distance! That seems shocking to me.
The reason why man can beat out horse: because to keep up with man, the horse has to go into a gallop. And over the marathon distance (26.2 miles) and time (a little over 2 hours), the horse cannot sustain this pace because it can't keep itself cool enough. Indeed, I did some Googling and came across the Man vs Horse Race. Although most of these races were won by horses, the distance was only 22 miles (instead of 26.2) and the human runners weren't truly elite marathoners. They ran the 22 miles in a slower time than the best marathoners would run a full 26.2. So I think in a full marathon with the best marathoners, humans would win by a comfortable margin.
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