Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> And horses are really AMAZING sets of levers--one of the things that 
> one gets into in the study of conformation and biomechanics is how 
> different relative lengths of bones and angles at which ihey interact 
> at joints has a very profound effect on how well the whole mechanism 
> functions to carry weight over distance. And even a poorly-conformed 
> horse can propel my weight over distance with far less work than I can 
> do it, since I am not anywhere near as efficiently designed for such a 
> pursuit as a horse.
> Heidi

That may or may not be that the horse is better put together than the 
human. The top class runners can give a horse a pretty good tussle at 
the 25 mile distance. The human has the advantage up to about 40 meters 
(lower mass and running on two legs equates to a faster start) then the 
horse has an advantage being able to run a faster mile. But at 25 miles 
the capability is amazing similar. The the horse probably may an 
advantage at 100 miles. However, I wonder if a 100 mile race was run 
with humans where the humans got two to three hours rest during the 
event if the Kenyon's couldn't do a an admirable job against the horse.

And as amazing as the horse is in it's biomechanics he still has to 
answer to Mother Nature. Double the mass he has to carry - he has to to 
twice as much work and expend twice as much energy. Mother Nature makes 
an exception for no one - no matter how good their equitation.

Truman

--

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things 
and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil 
things, that takes religion.” Steven Weinberg – Nobel Laureate, Physics


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=