The origin story of our beloved hobby, as told by the world’s leading evolutionary biologist
By Rick Pearson
While the exact date at which human beings began to run remains shrouded in the mysteries of time, evolutionary biologists believe it to be about 2 to 3 million years ago.
Dan Lieberman, a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University, suggests human beings were, in fact, born to run. ‘We have adaptations from our head to our feet that make us terrific at this,’ he told the BBC on the On the Run podcast.
“Like what?” you might ask. Short toes and an arch in our foot, for starters. ‘The arch actually acts like a spring, so every time you hit the ground, your foot flattens and then recoils, pushing you up in the air,’ says Lieberman. ‘And you don’t use that spring when you’re walking.’
Then there’s the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in our body. ‘It has almost no role whatsoever in walking, but it’s an extremely important muscle when we run – it stops our trunk from tipping forward every time we hit the ground,’ continues Lieberman.
We also have twisty waists, arms that swing to assist in stabilising the head, plus the ability to sweat to help us stay cool as we move.
That’s not to say we’re experts at all types of running, though. It’s difficult to be good at sprinting, for example, if you have two legs instead of four. Humans are, instead, endurance runners. Try to outrun an antelope over 100m and you’ll certainly lose. Try to outrun it over a marathon and the tables turn in your favour. And that’s important because, in the view of Lieberman and others like him, human beings were persistence hunters.
But what does that mean? Instead of trying to outsprint an animal, you outlast it. Remember, until relatively recently, humans didn’t have bows and arrows or hunting dogs. Instead, like other animal-eaters, we had to run for our dinner.
This usually involved picking a bigger animal – as they overheat faster than smaller ones – and tracking and chasing it over a long distance (Leiberman suggests around the half marathon mark). Eventually, you run that animal to a state of heat stroke and exhaustion – at which point, it’s relatively easy to kill.
If this sounds a little far-fetched, the evidence is on Leiberman’s side. A recent paper found ethnographic evidence of over 400 accounts of persistence hunting being practiced all around the world. Indeed, Leiberman suggests it might have been the selective force that drove the adaptations we have that make us great endurance runners.
And as for the marathon? For that, we must go back to 530BC and a man named Pheidippides.
Pheidippides was a hemerodrome, or ‘day runner’, whose job it was to relay important messages over long distances. His skills were called upon when it was learned that the Persians planned to invade Greece. Pheidippides was sent from Athens to Sparta, a journey of more than 240 kilometres, to ask assistance. Alas, the Spartans were in the middle of a religious festival at the time and couldn’t help. So, the foot messenger turned around and ran all the way back to Athens. Once there, he went straight to Marathon, the site of the great battle, before running back to Athens with news of the glorious Greek victory. And with that, utterly exhausted, he died – having run not just 42.2 kilometres, but well over 300.
Pheidippides’ heroics are now celebrated every year through the Spartathlon, which retraces his likely route from Athens to Sparta. The 246 kilometre route must be completed within 36 hours and draws runners from across the globe.
And if that’s not proof of humankind’s innate desire to run, we’re not sure what is.
