Far be it from me to quibble with such an august zoological journal as Popular Mechanics* but they are extrapolating the speeds. I doubt that anyone at the magazine bothered to time any of the animals over a marathon distance, the way humans are timed. I'd stick with humans. For shorter distances of a few miles, I would go with the saluki, one of the sight-hounds. There is no animal that can outrun one of them over a three-mile distance and they do have the endurance to run farther.

*Set in sarcastic font.

Humans are up there. They can beat horses in marathons (the horse in another animal that is able to sweat all over). However, according to this article, sled dogs, camels, antelope, and the ostrich both have longer marathon times. The ostrich and antelope are both about tied for number one.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors...

However, being ranked 5th for marathon time out the estimated 8.7 million species on Earth is still pretty darn good. As you can see, many of the species posted above, including humans, evolved in plains or deserts. Therefore, they needed to travel long distances to survive.

more articles

http://www.scienceinschool.org/2011/issu...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_...