Hit the ground running

Watched a Mythbusters about idioms, such as "you can't polish poop" (which it turns out you can), and "hit the ground running."

They found that whether they were running, or biking, or in a car, literally hitting the ground running slowed them down compared to a standing start.

For some reason that reminded me of some motivation thing I remember from somewhere about how lions have to hit the ground running first thing in the morning, and outrun the slowest zebra, or they will go hungry. And that zebras have to hit the ground running or they will be food. So to make it in this world, we have to run for all we are worth.

Aside from the fact that hitting the ground running isn't helpful speed wise, I have to wonder if the writer had ever seen lions? They sleep like 20 hours a day. And zebras mostly stand around and graze. The whole running thing is pretty infrequent. So there, dumb motivational thingy.

But that reminds me. I just read a Time article that said that humans are really good at long distance running. In fact, we can outlast nearly every other animal on the planet on distance running in searing heat. There is an African tribe that chases antelope until the animal is so exhausted that it just give up.

Weird.