Many runners might be unsure about their precise top speed, but will know their personal best (PB) over 5km (3.1 miles). That’s the distance of a parkrun, a free running event with over 12 million registered participants worldwide.
So, if you run a 40-minute 5k, you’re matching the top speed of a woodland vole.
If your PB is 30 minutes, a rat or a hamster.
A time of 25 minutes: that’d be a house mouse or a marine iguana.
And 20 minutes? A striped skunk or a groundhog.
As for former Olympian Andy Baddeley, who once held the fastest parkrun time – 13 minutes and 48 seconds – his spirit animal would be a long-nosed potoroo, a small, hopping mammal that lives in Australasia.
The good news for the competitive runner is that these are the animals’ maximum sprint times, which they couldn’t hold, so you’d likely beat them by the finish line.