Can a Human Outrun a Horse?

This is a story about sweat, survival, speed, and the peculiar ways running may have shaped us as humans. Armed with a hydration vest, a dream, and paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman's endurance running hypothesis, filmmaker Nicole Teeny set out to push the limits of her own endurance. Nicole's mission takes her from the Kalahari Desert to Kansas to see if humans really did evolve to run. Along the way, she discovers humans' unusual superpower and asks, can a human outrun a horse? This episode was written and produced by Nicole Teeny . Sound designed and produced by Ray Pang. Edited by Audrey Quinn. Our host and executive producer is Meredith Johnson. Want more of this story? Listen to Nicole's four-episode series on ESPN's 30 for 30 podcast! Support our show and the science we talk about! Until August 31, all donations to Origin Stories and The Leakey Foundation will be quadruple-matched by Leakey Foundation trustee Nina Carroll and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.

You can listen to Can a Human Outrun a Horse? online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Can a Human Outrun a Horse? is an episode from Origin Stories by Meredith Johnson.

This episode is 39:01 long.

This episode was published on Aug 6, 2025.

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