Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#31

Post by T4iga » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:21 AM UTC

The difference between an untrained runner, a trained runner and n elite athlete are left completely unanalyzed. Given how seemingly varied for no apparent reason some of these points on the graph are and coming from an anecdotal perspective this analysis is not very useful, and probably even wrong.

Seemingly an elite athlete must have been tracked because almost nobody(considering the whole population) can run the given top-end pace for a sustained amount of time (More that 100metres).

I was hoping for more from the article, or at least that it was called 'calorically More efficient'.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#32

Post by Mordisquitos » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:22 AM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #19

Calories are not metric. Joules are. 1 MET = 4184 J/(kg hr), and, since a joule is a kg m/s^2, 1 MET = 1.162 m^2/s^3

>Calories are not metric. Joules are.

To make that unit even more confusing, by convention a Calorie is equal to a kilocalorie or 1000 calories.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#33

Post by david-gpu » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:25 AM UTC

ralferoo wrote: post #21

The article seems to actually be answering a different question than it poses. From my experience of roughly analysing this a couple of years ago when I was losing quite a lot of weight, I drew two main conclusions: * Calories used is a function of total distance travelled and your weight, your speed isn't really that significant a factor. * Walking rather than running uses about 80% of the calories for the same dist…

Purely anecdotal, but I was surprised to find out that I gained significant weight when I switched from walking 6 hours/week to riding a bike for the same amount of time. I find it much harder to recover from riding, which makes sense because my heart rate goes way higher.

Riding is much more fun, but I suspect you are completely right about walking being the better choice for weight loss. I was at my leanest when my breakfast was just black coffee and it was followed by a 60-90 minute walk.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#34

Post by kijin » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:26 AM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #25

Hmm a 7 min mile is equivalent to 13.79 km/h. That gives you a hair over 13 min time on a 3000m run. When I was in the (Norwegian) military, that time would get you a 7 out of 9 score for males, and 8 (or 9) out of 9 score for females on a physical test. Pretty solid score. It would also almost give you a sub 3 hour marathon. You'd be a pretty capable runner if you can keep a steady 7 min mile, for the sake of runnin…

Another commenter talked about prehistoric hunters chasing game. I would assume that those hunters were quite a bit more fit than the average Western dude today. It's also not surprising that a human body in good shape is still optimized for that prehistoric lifestyle.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#35

Post by gns24 » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:28 AM UTC

pverghese wrote: post #2

7 min mile as most efficient seems off. Not many people run a 7 min mile especially for the population of people who walk generally

I don't see why that means there's anything off. Just because most of us can't produce enough energy per unit time to maintain this pace doesn't mean that it's not the most efficient pace per unit distance.

Anecdotally, when I start (or re-start) running I find the pace I can run at increases quite rapidly. That makes sense with this data - although my fitness is only increasing slowly, being able to produce slightly more power actually gives a disproportionate increase in pace because the higher speed is more efficient per km.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#36

Post by davzie » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:35 AM UTC

kijin wrote: post #34

TrackerFF wrote: post #25

Hmm a 7 min mile is equivalent to 13.79 km/h. That gives you a hair over 13 min time on a 3000m run. When I was in the (Norwegian) military, that time would get you a 7 out of 9 score for males, and 8 (or 9) out of 9 score for females on a physical test. Pretty solid score. It would also almost give you a sub 3 hour marathon. You'd be a pretty capable runner if you can keep a steady 7 min mile, for the sake of runnin…

Another commenter talked about prehistoric hunters chasing game. I would assume that those hunters were quite a bit more fit than the average Western dude today. It's also not surprising that a human body in good shape is still optimized for that prehistoric lifestyle.

I think they benefited from slower runs across the course of days rather than sprints to chase game. Lots of animals are faster than humans, but in order to cool down they have to stop. From what I've read, humans' ability to run and stay cool through sweating allowed them to, over the course of days track and just simply wear out animals to the point the animal would just collapse from exhaustion.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#37

Post by derriz » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:39 AM UTC

Requires a correction: "about 9 mph or a pace of 6.6 miles per minute" should be "about 9 mph or a pace of 6.6 minutes per mile"

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#38

Post by kijin » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:43 AM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #33

ralferoo wrote: post #21

The article seems to actually be answering a different question than it poses. From my experience of roughly analysing this a couple of years ago when I was losing quite a lot of weight, I drew two main conclusions: * Calories used is a function of total distance travelled and your weight, your speed isn't really that significant a factor. * Walking rather than running uses about 80% of the calories for the same dist…

Purely anecdotal, but I was surprised to find out that I gained significant weight when I switched from walking 6 hours/week to riding a bike for the same amount of time. I find it much harder to recover from riding, which makes sense because my heart rate goes way higher. Riding is much more fun, but I suspect you are completely right about walking being the better choice for weight loss. I was at my leanest when my…

Also purely anecdotal, but I once lost 17kg (37lb) just by walking an additional 90 minutes a day for several months straight. And successfully maintained the new low weight for years afterward, also by walking moderately more than the usual.

The great thing about walking is that you can just keep doing it mindlessly, while also doing other things such as commuting, shopping, running errands and taking care of the dogs, which you need to do anyway. The inefficiency, compared to running, is more than offset by the fact that it's so much easier to find an opportunity to walk.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#39

Post by ralferoo » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:45 AM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #33

ralferoo wrote: post #21

The article seems to actually be answering a different question than it poses. From my experience of roughly analysing this a couple of years ago when I was losing quite a lot of weight, I drew two main conclusions: * Calories used is a function of total distance travelled and your weight, your speed isn't really that significant a factor. * Walking rather than running uses about 80% of the calories for the same dist…

Purely anecdotal, but I was surprised to find out that I gained significant weight when I switched from walking 6 hours/week to riding a bike for the same amount of time. I find it much harder to recover from riding, which makes sense because my heart rate goes way higher. Riding is much more fun, but I suspect you are completely right about walking being the better choice for weight loss. I was at my leanest when my…

I'm not a particularly fast cyclist (usually average around 20km/h), but I'm generally in zone 2 for most of my ride and just creeping into zone 3. On the other hand, being quite fat, I find hills push me much harder than running because I'm forced to go at least 5km/h * because of the gearing of the road bike and having to maintain a cadence of at least 60 (because lower cadence actually makes it harder).

Last year, I mostly switched from a road bike to a gravel bike and found the lowest gear far more comfortable for steep hills because the lowest speed was about half.

* I actually can't remember the exact speeds, but I think it was about 5mph / 8km/h on the road bike and roughly about 5km/h on the gravel bike.

Re: Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking?

#40

Post by pastage » Mon, Aug 12, 2024, 9:48 AM UTC

newaccount74 wrote: post #18

pverghese wrote: post #2

7 min mile as most efficient seems off. Not many people run a 7 min mile especially for the population of people who walk generally

7 min mile is one kilometer in 4:20. You need to be pretty fit to run that fast, especially over longer distances.

As a 17 year old I got there by running an hour three times a week, maybe I just had the body for it low weight and long legs. You will be top 25% in our local 10 km competition[1]. The track is considered perfect for running in a fast pace, people compete to get a good PB.

[1] https://www.marathon.se/racetimer?v=/sv/race/resultlist/5768...

This is two minute bins that made 10km in X minutes, only those under an hour are included.

  min count   percentage
  30  9       1
  32  18      1
  34  46      3
  36  89      6
  38  182     12
  40  160     10
  42  162     10
  44  150     10
  46  159     10
  48  176     11
  50  83      5
  52  102     6
  54  111     7
  56  69      4
  58  61      4

Edit: changed bin size to remove 40 minute bias.