The bulls of Pamplona and other stampedes

Another excerpt from The Speed of Nearly Everything. Not the toads, though: they came later.

I have been to Pamplona in quieter times,
to here is a toad stampede in Whistler BC

Each year, locals from the Spanish town of Pamplona and quite a few tourists, join in the running of the bulls, part of the festival of Sanfermines. If you have your head about you, it is easy enough to do, because the bulls need to travel 848.8 metres from the point where they are started, and the average time is 3 minutes 55 seconds.

Note: that is the average time. These bulls are young, know no fear, and weigh 600 kg (about 1300 pounds) each. In 1959, one bull completely lost interest in running, and took more than 30 minutes, which would have made a bit of a hole in the average. Some of the bulls must run faster to make up for it.

Then there is the human side of the statistics. There are 2000 runners a day on week days, and as many as 3500 on weekends, and at least some of those know that each year, about 300 people are injured, around 3% of them seriously.

That means there is a lot of nervousness (or to be honest, panic) in the hearts of those waiting to run, or running. It means a lot of people who will be happy to trample on you, in order to avoid being trampled by some bulls.

Here are the stampeding toads, slower than
any house mouse, heading off to mate.

So while the average speed of the bulls is only a bit over 13 km/hr, less than 10 mph, no faster than a house mouse, a few of them will have heard about the chap who drowned in a lake with an average depth of six inches. Besides, house mice are lighter, have less staying power, and don’t travel in herds.

Without the other runners, Pamplona would be far safer than running in front of a herd of buffalo which can reach 50 km/hr or 30 mph if they are American buffalo. Make that 55 km/hr or 35 mph if they are African buffalo.