Oh Alatar... you take a great step forward but then.....
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The lottery, with "Powerball" odds of 1 in 146,107,962, seems like a losing bet, and yet people play daily with the thinking that they will win. If one can overcome this logic, overcoming the leap of faith that three beings in a fantasy world can run 135 in 3 + days given that these persons may represent the top Middle Earth runners ever (save Tulkas) doesn't seem too hard to believe, (yes, I know it can't be done, but...), as from above if average me can walk 20 miles in a day and live to tell about it, right or wrong, I can extrapolate that someone could do more in less. You see in the papers stories about persons hitting the lottery twice, and so if they can win, so can I (if I played).
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Walking 20 miles in one day and then resting your tired cinder-block legs for the next few days is light years different than an untrained, stocky, short-legged dwarf running 140 miles over three days time. Lottery? Allow me to quote the great Robert DeNiro in THE DEERHUNTER. "This is this. This isn't something else. This is this." We are not talking about the lottery or odds of anything. We are talking about the possibility or not of a four foot dwarf weighing some 200 pounds carrying weapons and wearing heavy boots, without running training, running 1.6 marathons each day for three straight days. It simply is not in the cards - to keep with your gambling metaphor.
JRRT was a wise man who knew lots of things. He was a great writer. But he didn't know squat about long distance running or how the human body and its muscles work.
I can concede the Elf ---- and maybe under the really right conditions Aragorn IF we infer that he has been racking up great distances striding around for years and call that long distance training. I can meet you two thirds of the way in this. But the Dwarf. NEVER!!!!!!
