Running Packt

So part of the idea is that humans are terrific runners because we're pack hunters.  Being in a pack is much cooler than being in a herd;  hearing about how a "herd is stalking its prey" just doesn't sound as interesting.  One reason humans enjoyed a competitive advantage was our ability to hunt, and therefore access high-quality/concentration (animal) proteins which enabled the explosive growth of really big brains which resulted in the development of agriculture, civilization, computers, and "Hot or Not".com.  (For the ethical vegetarians/vegans in the crowd, you could argue that we humans are now sufficiently advanced that we how have the moral obligation to use our technologies to find alternate sources of protein that don't exploit animals.  Most everyone else is too busy eating porterhouse steaks to listen, but I hear you.)

The point being that not only are human beings great at hunting by running down prey, but that we're meant to run in groups, with each other, cooperating, challenging, encouraging one another.  This morning I went for a distance-run with my church running group;  well, we're kind of an unofficial group, about 7 of us who've decided to run the LA Marathon in March, a little like a cult - but I digress.  At 8:15 this morning we assembled by Angels Stadium to take a quick run down the Santa Ana River Trail.  Each of us eventually found a partner who ran at roughly a similar pace, or at least out of kindness agreed to buddy up at someone else's level of ability, and there we were, padding along.

One of the really curious ideas that has come out of the proposition that humans are persistence hunters (if you've never heard the term, you can google it, and youtube has some clips of interest as well, but it basically means that human beings can run down any land animal on the planet, not in speed, but in terms of distance;  we eat because we're persistent) is that our pack hunting is, at least in part, the way in which we developed empathy.

In persistence hunting, catching a fleet-footed animal requires that a pack of humans run it to exhaustion;  the problem arises when the relatively speedier creature temporarily outruns its human pursuers, and our ancestors are left scratching their heads, wondering where the animal went, or if the particular gazelle/wildebeest/neolithic-Big-Mac melted into a herd of its own kind, how to decide which of those creatures is the one that's been chased after and is slowly losing its stamina and therefore the one to continue to chase, rather than its rather similar-looking herd-mate (I'm not saying that all gazelles look the same - some of my best friends are gaz...) who's fresh and ready to keep our forebears running until it can pass the pack on to another guy who looks the same, an endless relay race of human hunger.  But what does empathy have to do with hunger?

The idea (proper attribution:  I read about it in Born to Run) is that humans began to develop a sense in which they were able to see through the eyes of their prey, feel what they feel, think what they think, and in so doing became able to anticipate what the other, the prey, was thinking and doing, and voila - empathy!  Because they needed to eat, humans had to develop the ability to empathize with others in order to anticipate down which trail their next meal would decide to run, which gave us the ability to see things from the perspective of others which resulted in all of agriculture, civilization, "Hot or Not".com, etc. etc.  Hegel would have a field day with this idea.

I played high-school football - surprise!  Not only that, I played both offensive and defensive line - double surprise!!  What should not surprise you, however, is that at 5'6", I wasn't very good at the sport (that, and I've never been very athletic, and no one ever taught me the rules - I still don't know how many downs to a pass okay, you get the point), but part of what makes one a great footballer (I imagine) is the ability to empathize with your opponent.  Okay, not empathize as in you feel their pain when you get a good tackle, but to understand what they're thinking, to see through their eyes.  The weird part is when you begin to respect the other, your opponent, as one with whom to empathize, which leads to kindness, love, and tackles.  Or at least, my favorite part of the game, when an athlete lends a downed player from the opposite team a hand to get back up on his feet.  And it may be derived from the fact that as humans we share the ability to run.

My favorite part of the day running with my church group:  running in a group, chatting and getting to know my fellow runners better, headed toward the same goal.
I'm assuming that everyone else's goal is also to burn off enough calories to eat more pie...

Santa Ana Trail Run
13.03 mi.  2 hr:10 min:1 sec.  9:58 pace.  1,134 calories.