Distances traveled on foot?

[Omeganian]

I read a 1926 book by Yakov Perelman, where he estimated how long it took an ordinary man to walk the circumference of Earth. The calculations were based on an estimate that a man (in the first half of the 20th century) spends around 4-5 hours every day on his feet. That is, walks 12-15 miles every day as a routine.

[Sky Captain]

According to this source record is 200 km walked in 24 hours. Of course it is done by people who have specially trained in long distance walking. For an average person I would expect something close 100 km would be the limit assuming no heavy gear to carry and good road and to allow some time for sleep. So in 2 days 150 - 170 km could be possible, I'm assuming less distance walked on a second day.

[Twigler]

According to this source record is 200 km walked in 24 hours. Of course it is done by people who have specially trained in long distance walking. For an average person I would expect something close 100 km would be the limit assuming no heavy gear to carry and good road and to allow some time for sleep. So in 2 days 150 - 170 km could be possible, I'm assuming less distance walked on a second day.

That is way too optimistic as other people have already pointed out in this thread. An average person won't make much more than half of that, and then he's in no shape to walk anywhere near that on the second day. Just calculate the times involved - 50km at 5km/h is ten hours of walking. Ten hours of walking is bloody exhausting. Your 100km would take 20 hours which most people simply won't be able to do. Day two I don't even want to think about.

You completely underestimate the benefits and necessity of training when it comes to long-distance walking.

We have this four day walk "festival" for lack of a better word) in the Netherlands in which the "average" person needs to walk 40/50km a day for four days. You don't need to carry anything with you on the walk except some water (there are refill points along the way) and the roads are paved. Unlike what you expect in the Netherlands, it's not flat, but not exactly steep either.
So close to ideal as you probably can get without doing it indoors.

If you don't train for this, but you're relatively fit, the first day is manageable. Blisters might become a problem towards the end, because you probably never walked that long in the same pair of shoes. Also the legs definitely get very tired. Day two things start going downhill. The muscles hurt when you wake up, and blisters will make you walk a lot slower, and that will just get worse on days three and four (especially if you go for the parties in the evening).

If you train in advance things are much easier, but the 50km/day walk is still pretty challenging.


To contrast this relatively flat walk, there is the "Lug walk", which is 55km over extremely hilly terrain. It pretty much goes over any hill top along the way it can find. People tend to carry enough water and food to get them to the next checkpoint, so they travel pretty light. If you're well trained, the average time for this is 15 hours. Note "well trained". Extremely well trained people have done it twice in a day, and the record is three times (not quite in 24 hours), but at the same time it's not uncommon that half don't finish because they don't make the checkpoints in time, get lost, or just drop out exhausted.

A similar walking route which doesn't go over every mountain and is much easier is the Wicklow Way. There the advice is to take three days for the first leg of the trip, which is actually similar to the one above at 61km. So only 20km a day. The main differences here are that people tend to carry a backpack on this one, and the level of training expected from the walkers.

[Thanas]

The Roman army could achieve high speeds of 36km a day when using pack animals and Roman roads. Obviously, if there are neither pack animals nor roads this slows down to 14-20 km.

So that should be a benchmark for this sort of thing.

[LaCroix]

@Twiggler

The people in question are a medieval army. It can be assumed that they were good on their feet, so the Roman army equivalent would be more accurate as your example of people walking a longer distance for probably the first time in their life.

[Lagmonster]

Anyone who has any doubts about the impact and value of modern technology should get a good, hard look at this thread. Especially when you realize people on average terrain with no roads may easily take two days on foot to do my morning commute. Compared to even the most advanced horse-taming civilization, we're gods.

[Twigler]

@Twiggler

The people in question are a medieval army. It can be assumed that they were good on their feet, so the Roman army equivalent would be more accurate as your example of people walking a longer distance for probably the first time in their life.

It's not comparable to the Roman army - since Marius they've been an army of human pack mules, with the army carrying most of the provisions themselves and only a relatively small baggage train, and they had a network of pretty good roads.

Mediaeval armies travel much slower due to the need to pack up the much larger baggage train each day, travel over crap roads, find a camp spot in the evening and build the camp. I'm ignoring logistics since I think the original travel time was two days, so I think they can carry enough food for that, but that tended to slow down the mediaeval army compared to the Romans as well.
One day of rain can totally ruin your day since it bogs down the carts in the muck. So I'd say take Thanas' figures and multiply them by .7 or so.

Also don't forget the Roman legionaries were professionals who would have trained forced marching, building camp, etc. Most mediaeval armies wouldn't be.

[adam_grif]

So 60-80 KM would be a solid estimate?

For additional considerations, the army contains a number of dwarves, who might move slower on average because of their diminished stride length. It was also stated that the party could move faster (possibly significantly so, although no figures given) if they didn't ride with the army, so the roman army estimates are probably a better fit than the "average human walking speed", since they clearly won't be moving at their potential.

[Thanas]

So 60-80 KM would be a solid estimate?

No. If it is medieval, 20-50 would be more solid. More likely it is somewhere around 40 km.

[adam_grif]

Oh and one final thing would be that they might be willing to put more into it, travel more in a day because they're racing to their capital trying to destroy the evil scourge before it kills everybody. They called it a "forced march", but how much more they could squeeze out of a day due to desperation is something I couldn't say.

[Thanas]

36 km was a forced march for the romans, so the above estimate probably still holds.

[Sky Captain]

According to this source record is 200 km walked in 24 hours. Of course it is done by people who have specially trained in long distance walking. For an average person I would expect something close 100 km would be the limit assuming no heavy gear to carry and good road and to allow some time for sleep. So in 2 days 150 - 170 km could be possible, I'm assuming less distance walked on a second day.

That is way too optimistic as other people have already pointed out in this thread. An average person won't make much more than half of that, and then he's in no shape to walk anywhere near that on the second day. Just calculate the times involved - 50km at 5km/h is ten hours of walking. Ten hours of walking is bloody exhausting. Your 100km would take 20 hours which most people simply won't be able to do. Day two I don't even want to think about.

Yea 100 km might bee too much, but ~70 km on good road should be manageable. At least from my experience ~50 km walk along the coast of Gulf of Riga wasn't particularly difficult. Obviously I was a bit tired, but that was roughly comparable about how tired you get when working ~10 hours at a construction site lugging around bricks, cement bags, buckets with sand, water, concrete etc. - you get tired but not so much that you are in no shape to move around and work next day.

When I go to uni (2 - 4 times in week) I walk ~8 km in day (~2km from home to railway station, ~2km from station to uni and back) although I'm not sure if such short distances would qualify as a training to long distance walking.