[fer]

Same opinion. There are so many wrong things with how the data is used.

For starters, the data is biased because the basal metabolic rate of someone who does sports is higher than someone who doesn't, and that's without taking into account the higher metabolic rate of people who are overweight/obese (albeit for different reasons), and even for people who are fit, runners are trained to be more efficient at running (duh).

But the underlying message isn't really all that insightful: the optimal running pace isn't the slowest nor the fastest, but somewhere in the middle, which is pretty obvious to anyone who's done some running.

[Ekaros]

Isn't same true for any mode of travel? At least terrestrial. Optimal speed is not either top or slowest speed.

Lot of factors affect efficiency, but almost certainly neither very slow or maximum speed is most efficient.

[fer]

It's true for most machines (as in, energy conversion).

The main exception would be heating, and even then, it's usually that the optimum performance is just really close to the top performance; e.g. imperfect combustion of more fuel being less efficient than perfect combustion of less.

[chrisco255]

What determines "slow" or "fast"? These are subjective quantities.

[Gasp0de]

I wish 14.5km/h was my "somewhere in the middle" running speed

[throwaway12223]

yah they obvoiusly never ran a day in their life :P