Can you run faster than a horse? Not if the horse is running its fastest. But you might be able to run fast for LONGER than a horse. In 1980 a Welsh guy named Gordon Green started the Man vs. Horse race. Dozens of horses and people run for 22 miles. They run the race every year, and a couple of times a person has actually won – including in 2022! At the end of it, both the people and the horses need a good long nap.
Wee ones: Who has more legs, a man or a horse?
Little kids: When 1 person and 1 horse race, how many running legs do they have together? Bonus: If the human gets too tired and stops just 1 mile from the end of the 22 miles, how many miles did he run?
Big kids: If horses have a top speed of 44 miles per hour and humans can run 27 miles per hour, how much faster can horses run than people? Bonus: 2004 had the most people and animals running: exactly 500 people and 40 horses. How many legs did they have altogether?
The sky’s the limit: If the fastest horse runs twice as fast as the fastest person, and they run straight at each other from 60 miles apart, how far from the horse’s starting point do they meet?
Answers:
Wee ones: A horse, which has 4 legs vs. 2.
Little kids: 6 legs. Bonus: 21 miles.
Big kids: 17 miles per hour faster. Bonus: 1,160 legs: 1,000 legs on the people, 160 on the horses.
The sky’s the limit: 40 miles from where the horse started. For every chunk of distance the person runs, the horse runs 2 of them, so that makes 3 parts total…so the person runs just 1/3 of the total 60 miles, and the horse runs 2/3 of it.
