If Usain Bolt raced a Greyhound he'd only be around the 50m mark when the Greyhound finished!

But could a greyhound break 40 minutes for 10 miles?

sub 20 10k's rock!

A pronghorn would leave a greyhound in the dust at ANY distance. It would not be close. 61 MPH v 45 MPH. In fact, a pronghorn can cruise for miles upon miles at the greyhound's max spring speed.

Well Now That You Mention It wrote:

A pronghorn would leave a greyhound in the dust at ANY distance.

I don't know about that. How fast does a pronghorn accelerate? Greyhounds can reach top speed in three strides, so despite pronghorn's faster top end speed, I wouldn't be surprised if a greyhound could win a race of 20m or shorter.

You hippies can come talk to me when another animal is fast enough to escape earths gravity

Greyhound has 4 legs. If Bolt had 4 he'd run 9.58/2 = 4.79 for 100m. This is better than the dog's 5.33 100.

What about a Greyhound bus?

might be wejo wrote:

Greyhound has 4 legs. If Bolt had 4 he'd run 9.58/2 = 4.79 for 100m. This is better than the dog's 5.33 100.

Someone failed the 3rd grade. 4 legs is twice as many as 2, which means Bolt's time if he had 4 legs would be...

9.58 (2) = 19.16

might be wejo wrote:

Greyhound has 4 legs. If Bolt had 4 he'd run 9.58/2 = 4.79 for 100m. This is better than the dog's 5.33 100.

If Bolt had 4 legs, he would be incredibly awkward. Greyhounds are fast on 4 legs because they have evolved to run on 4 legs. If you just threw 2 extra legs on Bolt, he would be really slow.

Bolt has 3 legs.

Exactly. I spend a lot of time out in the field in Wyoming and Colorado and I've paced pronghorns for miles in my truck at 50 mph. They just love to run. One of the things I find amazing is they have quite a bit of muscle, especially on their hind quarters. They're pretty buff little animals for such phenomenal endurance athletes, they must have massive hearts and lungs to supply oxygen to all that muscle for extended periods of time.

Well Now That You Mention It wrote:

A pronghorn would leave a greyhound in the dust at ANY distance. It would not be close. 61 MPH v 45 MPH. In fact, a pronghorn can cruise for miles upon miles at the greyhound's max spring speed.

woof power wrote:

A greyhound would complete that same race in 5.33 second.

Get a greyhound and prove it then, cause it's false. Even cheetahs have yet to break the 6 second barrier.

A cheetah could also easily kill and eat a greyhound.

Yeah the numbers are wrong. Running 45 is one thing, but getting up to top speed in less than 5 seconds is another.

I do wonder if the cheetah is really the fastest animal at 100 meters though. They are very slender with a long flexible spine- able to stride at upwards of 70 miles per hour. Enlarged heart and lungs, not for getting up to speed but maintaining it. They're really built more like a 400/800 runner than a 100-200 meter sprinter. 6 seconds in the 100 seems impressive, but it's nothing compared to the 45 second 800 one could probably manage.

Hitmonlee wrote:

Yeah the numbers are wrong. Running 45 is one thing, but getting up to top speed in less than 5 seconds is another.

I do wonder if the cheetah is really the fastest animal at 100 meters though. They are very slender with a long flexible spine- able to stride at upwards of 70 miles per hour. Enlarged heart and lungs, not for getting up to speed but maintaining it. They're really built more like a 400/800 runner than a 100-200 meter sprinter. 6 seconds in the 100 seems impressive, but it's nothing compared to the 45 second 800 one could probably manage.

Are you kidding me? Trying to analyze the build of a cheetah using humans as reference? Seriously?

Cheetahs are sprinters - built 100% for massive acceleration (50 mph within 2 seconds) and short bursts of incredible speed (70 mph).

I want someone to perform the elementary physics equations and tell me how much of a headstart the greyhound needs in order to escape a cheetah (assume at t=0 that v=0 for both animals).

And then calculate how close a greyhound would have to get to a cheetah at a dead sprint in order to catch the cheetah before the cheetah had reached terminal velocity for a cheetah.

a greyhound is a dog