by Michael Plank
Once upon a time, there was something called Persistence Hunting. It was a hunting tactic in which people would run down an animal to exhaustion. It worked like this: a group of hunters would come upon a group of antelope, let’s say, and just start chasing them. Virtually all species of antelope can run 40mph or faster. The fastest marathon runner ever ran at about 13mph. It’s ridiculous to even call an antelope-human contest a race. But the hunters would take off after them anyway. The antelope would run out of sight and the hunters would stay on their track.
Eventually they’d catch up to the group and the animals would bolt again. At this point, the hunters would pick one animal to hunt and that’s the set of hoofprints they’d follow. Occasionally they’d catch sight of the animals, but usually they only saw tracks. But one of the great superpowers of humans is our ability to cool ourselves by sweating, which leads to phenomenal endurance. So while we couldn’t even come close to matching the 4-legged animals in speed, because most quadrupeds can’t sweat, eventually the animal the hunters were chasing would overheat and they’d get it.
Now whether or not this was practiced widely is debated, but also beside the point, because it certainly has been done, and here’s what’s amazing about it and why it’s relevant on a fitness blog… with patience, consistency, and determination, groups of hunters accomplished the impossible by catching, on foot, some of the fastest animals on the planet.
It is the first week of January and a lot of us have resolutions and/or goals for 2025. Some of them are lofty. Some of them seem nearly impossible. But a some people will, in fact, end this year actually having accomplished what they set out to do. And do you know what nearly every one of those people has in common?
Patience, consistency, and determination.
They are superpowers. They’re how humans caught animals many times faster than they were. They’re how the tortoise beat the hare. And they’re how you can accomplish almost anything you set your mind to.