I flicked onto some Olympic coverage last night and saw that there is such an event as Olympic Walking: speed walking to be precise. The race only lasted 80 minutes or so and the athletes involved didn't look like they were putting that much energy into it. But it got me thinking. There should be an Olympic event called Displacement, a very simple long-endurance race. They could have two every Olympics, one where the competitors have to cover as much distance (around the 400m track) in 24 hours and one where they have to cover the most distance in 1 week. Furthermore, the competitors are allowed to stop as many times as they like around the race, and eat and drink whatever they want, as long as they carry everything they need with them for the whole race. I expect in the 24 hour event the world record holders would run the whole event, probably never stopping once. The week-long event would require more strategy because everybody would need to stop and sleep several times. Somebody racing in this event would need to drink about 5 litres of water a day I imagine, so in the week-long event they would start off carrying 35kg of water, probably 40kg including their food and anything they need to sleep on. So the best strategy would probably be to walk the first few days and go faster as one's weight got lighter. I for one would consider the winners of this race to be the fittest athletes in the world.

I suspect (although I'm hardly an expert in these things), that the world record for the 24-hour event would be something like 150 miles, and the record for the week-long event would be about 500 miles. I remember reading that prior to the battle of Austerlitz Marshal Davout managed to move his corps 88 miles in 48 hours. Considering that they were carrying about half their own body weight again and wearing constricting uniforms and carrying heavy artillery etc, that is pretty impressive.