Based on opinion or research? You can find out or keep dragging the cat home backwards,you don,t believe my experiences great. But they differ from your opinion in a tangible way. Start with their heart in relation to body size and its ability to perform at top speed for how long. Science, not folktales,how you going to get proof to suit your self without actually doing something?..
Try www.americanscientist.org>...>January-February2002

Look up deer endurance. Still being run down by western natives in 1950's. Mention of eastern natives running down deer and moose.
Just cause you don,t buy people being in condition to run down deer don,t mean its fiction.