Man vs Horse Race 2009

[masgramondou]

We were participants in the 30th Man vs Horse Race which was run on June 13th around Llanwrtyd Wells in scenic mid Wales. The race pits runners aganst riders to see who wins. The rider usually does but two or three times a runner has won. However many runners (including yours truly and She Who Must Be Obeyed) beat a number of horses.

Comments

[mrmeval]

That is an interesting race. I'd not heard of it before.

Reality in fantasy

[davefreer]

I've always used Dick King's ride from Durban to Grahmstown as the outside measure of what a horseman can practically do in rough country(600 miles in 10 days). 60 miles is a vast distance if you're not travelling by car. As the sort of idiot who blunders around in the bush - and who has crossed places where a basutu pony would fail, and fought his way through thorns so thick it took us 2 hours to cover less than 500 meters (we then climbed 25 feet on rock that resembled over-ripe brie in consistancy and could see a firebrake - took us less than 10 minutes back down) all I can say is time taken to cover distance not on a road is only guessable as a shortest possible - I can find you a hundred meters that will stop a tank, or cavalryman or an elephant for 3 hours, and paratrooper in full kit for an hour, but a man in a loincloth who knew that sort of terrain could cross in 3 minutes. But the point is most fantasy readers have never experienced this, will never experience this, and will never race a horse either. Writing reality (unless

[harimad]

Neat race, neat discussion. Something to add: in the past year I read an article about a very good runner who underwent and male->female gender transformation. Her running times slowed considerably. What was interesting is that her *rankings* stayed constant. I don't remember the actual number but lets say that as a man, his speed was 20th percentile. As a woman, her speed was 20th percentile for a woman. Fascinating stuff.

[masgramondou]

I wonder if that will change as she recovers from surgery etc.

I do recall that some female athletes have complaoned about competeing against a m->f trans in the past claiming that she had an unfair advantage.

It is also worth noting that the relative M-F difference seems to peak at the half marathon and then lessen as the distance increases.
5km is 1min 35, 10km is 3 min 20s, half marathon world record difference is 8 mins, full marathon difference is 13 mins and 100km difference is 20 minutes.

(must graph this properly)