Yeah, assuming that a yard is meant to approximate the stride of an adult human, who's the Goliath-sized motherfucker with the 5' 3" stride who took a thousand steps and called that a mile?

Edit: Okay, I checked.

The furlong (meaning furrow length) was the distance a team of oxen could plough without resting. This was standardised to be exactly 40 rods or 10 chains.

An English mile is defined as 8 furlongs, 8 presumably being chosen because it divides by 2 and 4. What a cockamamie system of measurement.

Edit Again: Okay, I checked again.

The modern English word mile derives from Middle English myle and Old English mīl, which was cognate with all other Germanic terms for miles. These derived from the nominal ellipsis form of mīlle passus 'mile' or mīlia passuum 'miles', the Roman mile of one thousand paces.

A pace is a unit of length consisting either of one normal walking step, or of a double step, returning to the same foot.

This is all still very silly.