10 Really Slow Things

1. The Slowest Kentucky Derby winner record since the course was changed to its current 1.25-mile length in 1896: Stone Street. He finished the race in 2:15 in 1908, 16 seconds slower than the fastest horse to win the race – Secretariat, of course. He probably would have been much faster, but the track conditions were terrible and muddy that day.


2. The Slowest Sports Day of the Year: the day after the MLB All-Star game in July. There are no baseball games, no basketball, no football, no hockey, not even golf or tennis.

3. Slowest Car in the World: According to a May report from Motor Trend, it’s the Smart ForTwo, which takes 14.70 seconds to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour.

4. Slowest Concert in the World: Written by composer John Cage, the organ piece started on September 5, 2001, and will end 639 years later. The next sound change is scheduled for July 5, 2012.



5. Slowest Mammal: The three-toed sloth. It moves at a maximum of 10 feet per minute, making it the slowest animal ever. Coming in at a close second would be my husband while grocery shopping.

6. Slowest-flying birds: there are two birds that can fly as slow as five miles per hour: the American and the Eurasian woodcock. The fastest-flying bird, by the way, isn’t the Hummingbird. Its wings beat the fastest, for sure, but the peregrine falcon moves the fastest at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.

7. The Slowest Mouse in all Mexico: the aptly named Slowpoke Rodriguez. He’s Speedy Gonzales’ cousin, and while he may be slow in movement, he makes it a point to mention that he’s not slow en la cabeza. Here he is in action:


8. Slowest Marathon Time Ever: 54 years, eight months, six days, eight hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds. In 1912, an Olympic marathoner from Japan just disappeared right in the middle of the race. Supposedly he stopped to get a drink at an outdoor party and ended up staying longer than he meant to. Once he realized how long he had spent, he was too embarrassed to finish the marathon, and quietly went back to his hotel and left for Japan the next day. In 1966, he finally returned to finish the run he started.


9. The Slowest Man in Baseball (maybe): Ernie Lombardi is often called the slowest man in baseball, or at least one of them. He played from 1931 to 1947 and lumbered a bit due to his height and weight – some say it was nearing 300 pounds near the end of his career. One manager said Lombardi ran like he was carrying a piano on his back – and the man who was tuning the piano. Despite his slowness, he had a great arm and did OK when he was up to the plate as well – at 190 home runs, he has earned a spot on the top 500 MLB home run hitters (#312, in case you were wondering).

10. The Mammal with the Slowest Heartbeat: the blue whale, which has a heartbeat of only four to eight beats per minute, depending on whether it’s diving or not.