17 ms·

When Women Outrun Men

86 points by kaboro 7y ago

gwern 7y ago
Talk about bait and switch. Headline: "When Male Runners Lose to Women: Conventional wisdom has long asserted men outperform women in long-distance races. Ultramarathon results prove that assumption wrong" Actual article: men outperform women in long-distance races, usually but not always winning: "By the most common perceptions about the biology of strength and endurance, physiology was stacked against St Laurent. On average, her male competitors had bigger hearts, larger lung capacities, and leaner bodies. And most results reflect that: in last year’s marquee Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc TDS, a 145-kilometre mountain race with more than 9,000 metres of elevation gain, the first female to cross the finish line came twenty-third. St Laurent, who placed fifth among women, came sixty-first overall."
- insickness 7y ago
  > most results reflect that But sometimes women do win these ultramarathons. You'd never see that at any other distance.
  - chongli 7y ago
    There's a whole lot of "might" and "maybe" being thrown around here. Honestly, I think the biggest factor in these longer distances is the smaller sample size. There just aren't as many elite athletes competing at the ultra distances as there are at marathon and shorter distances. The article throws in a bit of speculation about how men might be socialized to run too hard at the beginning of a race. I disagree. That observation says, to me, that the men competing in these events are not as well trained, not as experienced. Look at the men's marathon and you'll see everyone taking it easy at the beginning of the race! They have to hire people to push the pace in the beginning because the elite runners don't want to do it. That directly contradicts the speculation about male socialization.
    - Declanomous 7y ago
      There's actually very substantial differences in the metabolism inside of muscles for men and women. Nobody realized this because literally every study that created baselines for what was going on inside the muscles in relation to the metabolites that ended up in the blood was done with men. So when women were later included in studies they just used the blood workup or VO2 to estimate energy expenditure and the like, and it turns out those are nearly completely wrong. Long story short, women switch to catabolism way earlier than men, while they still have glycogen inside their muscles. Men don't switch to catabolism until after they are completely out of glycogen and are creating fucktons of lactic acid. Since your muscles run on glycogen, and lactic acid is not a great thing to have kicking around, women actually appear to have a better metabolism for endurance. Unfortunately a lot of doctors and researchers are men, and are extremely dismissive of the idea that there is any reason to actually study women, instead inventing behavioral reasons for why you don't always get the same results for men and women in studies. I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has signs of a similar chauvanism. (This is mostly off the top of my head, but I have a degree in biology and I have studied metabolism fairly extensively)
      - fromthestart 7y ago
        >I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has signs of a similar chauvanism. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that men drastically outperform women in almost any other physical trial, and this therefore has the markings of a statistical anomaly? What's with this desperation to explain away any differences with accusations of sexism? What's next? Chauvanism is the reason we believe that men can lift heavier weights than women?
        Declanomous 7y ago
        Men generally have the potential to be stronger than women, yes, but in general men are only stronger than women and larger than women, neither of which is particularly meaningful in endurance racing. I replied to the comment above you in greater depth, but basically endurance appears to be something that women have the potential to be better at than men. If this strikes you as wrong, well, it's probably because it challenges your conception of male superiority rather than because of any innate advantage that men actually have.
  - obpacheco 7y ago
    You also see this type of thing happen in long distance swimming. Dr. Julie Bradshaw holds many records for long distance butterfly swimming, including being the first to swim around the island of Manhattan only using butterfly (28 miles). I remember listening to a podcast about this, one of the theories is that women have a much higher tolerance for lactic acid build up, pretty much they can deal with sustained pain better than men.
    - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
      Another contributing factor that has been theorized is that women are somewhat more buoyant than men due to a different distribution of bodyfat. As a result, they expend a bit less energy keeping themselves afloat and can instead use that energy for moving forward. It's probably no single factor but rather several working together to give women an advantage in long distance swimming.
      - thrower123 7y ago
        At the very tippy ends of the spectrum of humanity that these crazy ultra-endurance athletes are on, some freak genetic mutations can account for significant differences. There have been a bevy of stories about Michael Phelps having the perfect body for swimming. Likewise I recall a nordic skier that dominated because he had a gene that boosted naturally his amount of red-blood cells, as if he were doping. I won't even touch what is going on with intersex runners in track and field...
        Mountain_Skies 7y ago
        It's interesting to ponder how many people there are who have these far end of the spectrum genetic traits that could give them an edge in some sport but have no idea and may have never even tried out the sport. How many other Michael Phelps are there in the world who never had access to a swimming pool, much less a social environment that would have encouraged taking up competitive swimming?
        7y ago
  - GreaterFool 7y ago
    If men evolved to be bigger and stronger, as measured in some peak power output, surely there's a price on that? The candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast as the saying goes. Also, the article is mainly about one woman. It mentions that the gap has narrowed but in order to have any meaningful analysis we'd need more stats. Also, many, many people run marathons. So narrowing gap makes sense due to increased participation rate and better training; men and women aren't that different, on average. The extremes though are where differences truly manifest themselves.
    - mr_toad 7y ago
      > surely there's a price on that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone Side effects include increased aggression, risk-taking behaviour, acne, heart disease, and prostrate cancer. Men are basically taking an increased steroid dose all their life.
    - bloomer 7y ago
      This article is about ultra marathons which have very low participation of both sexes. Likely we haven’t seen top performance for either sex. However in the marathon, the evidence is exactly opposite. The performance gap is large and widening. Paula Radcliffe has the fastest female time (male-paced) while men have continued to widen the gap to nearly 15 minutes. Even in the ultramarathon, the top times show a massive performance gap between male and female competitors. This effect truly is one of sample size. You see the same effect even in small local 5k races. Yes a fast woman can enter and win an event with a small number of competitors sometimes. These woman are faster than men in the ultramarathon articles are very poorly researched.
    - OscarCunningham 7y ago
      > If men evolved to be bigger and stronger, as measured in some peak power output, surely there's a price on that? Perhaps the price is just that men can't give birth.
      - Thiez 7y ago
        Men also die younger.
- mcv 7y ago
  Are you ignoring the entire rest of the article and focusing on just that one line? Go read the rest. It turns out there are race circumstances where women compete on equal footing with men, or may even have a slight edge.
hashberry 7y ago
Here's a related scientific study that gives a possible reason why: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/ > Women have more body fat than men in both elite (Vernillo et al. 2013) and recreational (Hoffman et al. 2010a, b) athletes. In both elite and recreational runners the percentage of body fat is higher in women compared to men (Blaak 2001). It could be argued that fatty tissue may be used as an energy reserve and this could be an advantage for ultra-distances since runners tend to lose body fat during multi-hours running competitions (Karstoft et al. 2013; Schütz et al. 2013). Women might benefit from their higher percentage of body fat since both sexes lose a similar amount of fat during an ultra-endurance performance such as a 100 km ultra-marathon (Knechtle et al. 2010a, b, 2012a, b).
- GreaterFool 7y ago
  Sounds reasonable to me. I've been eating keto for a long time and I always feel like I have fat energy reserves to draw on. I wonder if keto-adapted men and women would outperform carb-adapted counterparts in ultra-endurance. From personal experience there is a difference and it is a big difference.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    The body can only convert so much fat into energy at a given moment. Usually we have both carbs we've recently eaten to fuel us plus a store of glycogen. On Keto you should have little to no glycogen and only whatever small number of carbs you've eaten recently. If your energy expenditure exceeds what they body can convert from fat along with whatever it can extract from your limited carbs and whatever glycogen is hanging around, you'll get an energy crash. Keto might be good for ultra endurance events where there is little to no sprinting involved. Just keep a nice steady pace at the level that can be fueled by the body's capacity to convert fat into energy.
    - stefan_ 7y ago
      Except then you would still eat carbs the night before a race because not having glycogen is just intentionally gimping yourself for no imaginable possible gain. It's not like the mj of glycogen energy is weighing you down. You should absolutely train in a glycogen depleted state just so you will know what it feels like and can deal with it. But it's not how you would ever start a race.
bloaf 7y ago
I recall reading in an older running book (maybe one of Jeff Galloway's) something along the lines of: because of physiological differences, in theory women may be able to outperform men in ultra-high mileage events. I suspect the author of this piece is overstating the "conventional wisdom" of the running community.
- mpweiher 7y ago
  Yeah, this (that women have some advantages at longer distances that may prove decisive) has also been something that's been something that's been imparted on me as "conventional wisdom" so long ago that I can't really remember when, so I was also surprised by the author's use of "conventional wisdom" for the opposite claim. If you look at marathon winners, it's clear that the male advantage of more muscle mass doesn't help here. You want to have as little energy-consuming muscle as you can get away with, and as little total weight to lug around as well.
austincheney 7y ago
This phenomenon isn’t just confined to extreme distances. It is present during various high caloric stress events. Another example is potentially marathon ruck marching with a heavy backpack and possibly other hand carried gear.
rdiddly 7y ago
This will be of great interest to all those keeping track of the standings in the great men vs. women race, i.e. people who don't deserve to get laid ever. The whole premise is infantile. Who will win? Men or women? The answer is: grow up.
bch 7y ago
See too: Lael Wilcox.[0] [0] https://youtu.be/qqigzj97Vpo https://youtu.be/qqigzj97Vpo
atomical 7y ago
Ultrarunning is such a niche sport. That's why it isn't an olympic sport. There aren't enough people in the sport to make finishes consistent across similar terrain. The winner of the race could be 2 hours ahead of the second place finish.
- analog31 7y ago
  My spouse has gotten into trail running, and has done a couple of 50k's along with shorter events. This amount of variation is really noticeable. I also have a friend who rides cyclocross, and it's a similar thing. My impression as an outsider is that perhaps as a result of this level of inherent variability, the social atmosphere surrounding these sports at the amateur level is much more laid back.
geargrinder 7y ago
I have seen many women win overall races, at distances from 5k to 200 miles. But what is always left out of these articles is the relative talent and fitness of the entire field. Elite-level women can beat 90% of all men. So if a male in the top 10% doesn't show up to race, elite women can win the overall. This is what is happening in all of these cases. I love to see women win the overall, but even they would say it depends entirely on who shows up on the start line.
- hsitz 7y ago
  This is what is going on in these races, the best women can sometimes win races where none of the best men are participating. You can easily check this by looking at race results of the women mentioned in the article at ulrasignup.com . They might beat an elite man if the guy bonks and falls apart (which is not all that rare for men or women in ultraruns), but other than that, no, doesn't happen. I think all of the women mentioned in the article have run at Western States 100, where there are always a decent number of the best men and women (but never as many as want to go, because it's a lottery system with limited spots for elites). It is extremely unlikely a woman will ever win that race. The women's course record (by Ellie Greenwood, one of the women mentioned in the linked article) is 16:47, which is over two hours slower than the men's course record, and in that record-setting run in 2012 she finished the race in 14th place overall. That's an excellent run, even for a male, but she is nowhere near as strong a runner as the best men. I think all these women are quite aware that they're not at the level of the best men; they're not delusional. It's the media that likes to sensationalize things when they see a woman win a race outright. The media doesn't understand that the fields in these races are wildly uneven; there's a limited number of races where substantial numbers of the best runners show up.
- sa46 7y ago
  > Elite-level women can beat 90% of all men. I was curious about this so I looked at the percentiles for the Boston Marathon since the data is readily available. Roughly speaking, the top 1% of women times lines up with top 10% for men so the data backs up your statement. After that, there's a pretty consistent 20% difference. % Male Female 0.00 02:09 02:21 0.01 02:38 03:03 0.10 03:00 03:27 0.20 03:12 03:37 0.30 03:22 03:45 0.40 03:31 03:53 0.50 03:41 04:00 0.60 03:51 04:10 0.70 04:04 04:22 0.80 04:22 04:39 0.90 04:50 05:05 0.99 05:50 05:56 1.00 07:58 07:19 Kaggle link: https://www.kaggle.com/jschaf/kernel3166aa9b08 https://www.kaggle.com/jschaf/kernel3166aa9b08
chriselles 7y ago
It would appear studies have been done on relative body fat % between male and female long distance athletes. But have they included relative different upper body muscle mass between males and females? IF upper body muscle mass differential between genders exceeds the same differential for body fat, perhaps it may explain the declining performance gap between genders over distance? Might male upper body physiology, excess to ultramarathon requirements, become a net negative compared to women’s excess body fat? A human physics and engineering problem that possibly favours females at extreme distance? I’ve got data for hundreds of people travelling 80km, but carrying 25kg. Including female participants. Different story with the additional weight carried though. However, we did have 1 truly exceptional/outlier female who once came in 1st place. Mental resiliency is very much an individual effort. Having a lot of experience assessing humans in this realm, I don’t see any gender based causal factors. However, the one human I met who was truly willing to push themselves to the point of true failure was a female. It was the only time I was nervous in my role. But that is strictly anecdotal.
xchip 7y ago
I am a bit tired of this male-female competition. If you care so much go climbing, you'll see all women doing better than guys. Nobody cryes. Next topic please!
- hjk05 7y ago
  No... I mean you sure do see the same effect as in running that the 1% top woman beat 90% of the men. But there is absolutely no competition between top 1% men and top 1% woman. Testosterone is one hell of a drug. And for the top trails in the woman’s league you can see guys who aren’t even in the competitive leagues scaling it like it was a kids playground.
- bad_good_guy 7y ago
  I don't understand your point? Men perform better than women in climbing too.
- _RedPanda 7y ago
  I doubt that, climbing relies heavily on upper back muscles
  - xchip 7y ago
    Not really, it's all about the legs, and the hands are mainly to keep the balance. Also women are lighter so they dont need to be that strong, it's all about technique
tlear 7y ago
UTMB is probably the most famous Ultra, if you win you will get sponsorship, huge exposure etc. Check the finisher times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-Blanc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-Blanc Spoiler. It is not even remotely close.
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86 points by kaboro 7y ago

Talk about bait and switch. Headline: "When Male Runners Lose to Women: Conventional wisdom has long asserted men outperform women in long-distance races. Ultramarathon results prove that assumption wrong" Actual article: men outperform women in long-distance races, usually but not always winning: "By the most common perceptions about the biology of strength and endurance, physiology was stacked against St Laurent. On average, her male competitors had bigger hearts, larger lung capacities, and leaner bodies. And most results reflect that: in last year’s marquee Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc TDS, a 145-kilometre mountain race with more than 9,000 metres of elevation gain, the first female to cross the finish line came twenty-third. St Laurent, who placed fifth among women, came sixty-first overall."

insickness 7y ago
> most results reflect that But sometimes women do win these ultramarathons. You'd never see that at any other distance.
- chongli 7y ago
  There's a whole lot of "might" and "maybe" being thrown around here. Honestly, I think the biggest factor in these longer distances is the smaller sample size. There just aren't as many elite athletes competing at the ultra distances as there are at marathon and shorter distances. The article throws in a bit of speculation about how men might be socialized to run too hard at the beginning of a race. I disagree. That observation says, to me, that the men competing in these events are not as well trained, not as experienced. Look at the men's marathon and you'll see everyone taking it easy at the beginning of the race! They have to hire people to push the pace in the beginning because the elite runners don't want to do it. That directly contradicts the speculation about male socialization.
  - Declanomous 7y ago
    There's actually very substantial differences in the metabolism inside of muscles for men and women. Nobody realized this because literally every study that created baselines for what was going on inside the muscles in relation to the metabolites that ended up in the blood was done with men. So when women were later included in studies they just used the blood workup or VO2 to estimate energy expenditure and the like, and it turns out those are nearly completely wrong. Long story short, women switch to catabolism way earlier than men, while they still have glycogen inside their muscles. Men don't switch to catabolism until after they are completely out of glycogen and are creating fucktons of lactic acid. Since your muscles run on glycogen, and lactic acid is not a great thing to have kicking around, women actually appear to have a better metabolism for endurance. Unfortunately a lot of doctors and researchers are men, and are extremely dismissive of the idea that there is any reason to actually study women, instead inventing behavioral reasons for why you don't always get the same results for men and women in studies. I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has signs of a similar chauvanism. (This is mostly off the top of my head, but I have a degree in biology and I have studied metabolism fairly extensively)
    - fromthestart 7y ago
      >I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has signs of a similar chauvanism. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that men drastically outperform women in almost any other physical trial, and this therefore has the markings of a statistical anomaly? What's with this desperation to explain away any differences with accusations of sexism? What's next? Chauvanism is the reason we believe that men can lift heavier weights than women?
      - Declanomous 7y ago
        Men generally have the potential to be stronger than women, yes, but in general men are only stronger than women and larger than women, neither of which is particularly meaningful in endurance racing. I replied to the comment above you in greater depth, but basically endurance appears to be something that women have the potential to be better at than men. If this strikes you as wrong, well, it's probably because it challenges your conception of male superiority rather than because of any innate advantage that men actually have.
- obpacheco 7y ago
  You also see this type of thing happen in long distance swimming. Dr. Julie Bradshaw holds many records for long distance butterfly swimming, including being the first to swim around the island of Manhattan only using butterfly (28 miles). I remember listening to a podcast about this, one of the theories is that women have a much higher tolerance for lactic acid build up, pretty much they can deal with sustained pain better than men.
  - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    Another contributing factor that has been theorized is that women are somewhat more buoyant than men due to a different distribution of bodyfat. As a result, they expend a bit less energy keeping themselves afloat and can instead use that energy for moving forward. It's probably no single factor but rather several working together to give women an advantage in long distance swimming.
    - thrower123 7y ago
      At the very tippy ends of the spectrum of humanity that these crazy ultra-endurance athletes are on, some freak genetic mutations can account for significant differences. There have been a bevy of stories about Michael Phelps having the perfect body for swimming. Likewise I recall a nordic skier that dominated because he had a gene that boosted naturally his amount of red-blood cells, as if he were doping. I won't even touch what is going on with intersex runners in track and field...
      - Mountain_Skies 7y ago
        It's interesting to ponder how many people there are who have these far end of the spectrum genetic traits that could give them an edge in some sport but have no idea and may have never even tried out the sport. How many other Michael Phelps are there in the world who never had access to a swimming pool, much less a social environment that would have encouraged taking up competitive swimming?
        7y ago
- GreaterFool 7y ago
  If men evolved to be bigger and stronger, as measured in some peak power output, surely there's a price on that? The candle that burns twice as bright burns twice as fast as the saying goes. Also, the article is mainly about one woman. It mentions that the gap has narrowed but in order to have any meaningful analysis we'd need more stats. Also, many, many people run marathons. So narrowing gap makes sense due to increased participation rate and better training; men and women aren't that different, on average. The extremes though are where differences truly manifest themselves.
  - mr_toad 7y ago
    > surely there's a price on that? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone Side effects include increased aggression, risk-taking behaviour, acne, heart disease, and prostrate cancer. Men are basically taking an increased steroid dose all their life.
  - bloomer 7y ago
    This article is about ultra marathons which have very low participation of both sexes. Likely we haven’t seen top performance for either sex. However in the marathon, the evidence is exactly opposite. The performance gap is large and widening. Paula Radcliffe has the fastest female time (male-paced) while men have continued to widen the gap to nearly 15 minutes. Even in the ultramarathon, the top times show a massive performance gap between male and female competitors. This effect truly is one of sample size. You see the same effect even in small local 5k races. Yes a fast woman can enter and win an event with a small number of competitors sometimes. These woman are faster than men in the ultramarathon articles are very poorly researched.
  - OscarCunningham 7y ago
    > If men evolved to be bigger and stronger, as measured in some peak power output, surely there's a price on that? Perhaps the price is just that men can't give birth.
    - Thiez 7y ago
      Men also die younger.
mcv 7y ago
Are you ignoring the entire rest of the article and focusing on just that one line? Go read the rest. It turns out there are race circumstances where women compete on equal footing with men, or may even have a slight edge.

hashberry 7y ago

Here's a related scientific study that gives a possible reason why: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/ > Women have more body fat than men in both elite (Vernillo et al. 2013) and recreational (Hoffman et al. 2010a, b) athletes. In both elite and recreational runners the percentage of body fat is higher in women compared to men (Blaak 2001). It could be argued that fatty tissue may be used as an energy reserve and this could be an advantage for ultra-distances since runners tend to lose body fat during multi-hours running competitions (Karstoft et al. 2013; Schütz et al. 2013). Women might benefit from their higher percentage of body fat since both sexes lose a similar amount of fat during an ultra-endurance performance such as a 100 km ultra-marathon (Knechtle et al. 2010a, b, 2012a, b).

GreaterFool 7y ago
Sounds reasonable to me. I've been eating keto for a long time and I always feel like I have fat energy reserves to draw on. I wonder if keto-adapted men and women would outperform carb-adapted counterparts in ultra-endurance. From personal experience there is a difference and it is a big difference.
- Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  The body can only convert so much fat into energy at a given moment. Usually we have both carbs we've recently eaten to fuel us plus a store of glycogen. On Keto you should have little to no glycogen and only whatever small number of carbs you've eaten recently. If your energy expenditure exceeds what they body can convert from fat along with whatever it can extract from your limited carbs and whatever glycogen is hanging around, you'll get an energy crash. Keto might be good for ultra endurance events where there is little to no sprinting involved. Just keep a nice steady pace at the level that can be fueled by the body's capacity to convert fat into energy.
  - stefan_ 7y ago
    Except then you would still eat carbs the night before a race because not having glycogen is just intentionally gimping yourself for no imaginable possible gain. It's not like the mj of glycogen energy is weighing you down. You should absolutely train in a glycogen depleted state just so you will know what it feels like and can deal with it. But it's not how you would ever start a race.

bloaf 7y ago

I recall reading in an older running book (maybe one of Jeff Galloway's) something along the lines of: because of physiological differences, in theory women may be able to outperform men in ultra-high mileage events. I suspect the author of this piece is overstating the "conventional wisdom" of the running community.

mpweiher 7y ago
Yeah, this (that women have some advantages at longer distances that may prove decisive) has also been something that's been something that's been imparted on me as "conventional wisdom" so long ago that I can't really remember when, so I was also surprised by the author's use of "conventional wisdom" for the opposite claim. If you look at marathon winners, it's clear that the male advantage of more muscle mass doesn't help here. You want to have as little energy-consuming muscle as you can get away with, and as little total weight to lug around as well.

austincheney 7y ago

This phenomenon isn’t just confined to extreme distances. It is present during various high caloric stress events. Another example is potentially marathon ruck marching with a heavy backpack and possibly other hand carried gear.

rdiddly 7y ago

This will be of great interest to all those keeping track of the standings in the great men vs. women race, i.e. people who don't deserve to get laid ever. The whole premise is infantile. Who will win? Men or women? The answer is: grow up.

bch 7y ago

See too: Lael Wilcox.[0] [0] https://youtu.be/qqigzj97Vpo https://youtu.be/qqigzj97Vpo

atomical 7y ago

Ultrarunning is such a niche sport. That's why it isn't an olympic sport. There aren't enough people in the sport to make finishes consistent across similar terrain. The winner of the race could be 2 hours ahead of the second place finish.

analog31 7y ago
My spouse has gotten into trail running, and has done a couple of 50k's along with shorter events. This amount of variation is really noticeable. I also have a friend who rides cyclocross, and it's a similar thing. My impression as an outsider is that perhaps as a result of this level of inherent variability, the social atmosphere surrounding these sports at the amateur level is much more laid back.

geargrinder 7y ago

I have seen many women win overall races, at distances from 5k to 200 miles. But what is always left out of these articles is the relative talent and fitness of the entire field. Elite-level women can beat 90% of all men. So if a male in the top 10% doesn't show up to race, elite women can win the overall. This is what is happening in all of these cases. I love to see women win the overall, but even they would say it depends entirely on who shows up on the start line.

hsitz 7y ago
This is what is going on in these races, the best women can sometimes win races where none of the best men are participating. You can easily check this by looking at race results of the women mentioned in the article at ulrasignup.com . They might beat an elite man if the guy bonks and falls apart (which is not all that rare for men or women in ultraruns), but other than that, no, doesn't happen. I think all of the women mentioned in the article have run at Western States 100, where there are always a decent number of the best men and women (but never as many as want to go, because it's a lottery system with limited spots for elites). It is extremely unlikely a woman will ever win that race. The women's course record (by Ellie Greenwood, one of the women mentioned in the linked article) is 16:47, which is over two hours slower than the men's course record, and in that record-setting run in 2012 she finished the race in 14th place overall. That's an excellent run, even for a male, but she is nowhere near as strong a runner as the best men. I think all these women are quite aware that they're not at the level of the best men; they're not delusional. It's the media that likes to sensationalize things when they see a woman win a race outright. The media doesn't understand that the fields in these races are wildly uneven; there's a limited number of races where substantial numbers of the best runners show up.
sa46 7y ago
> Elite-level women can beat 90% of all men. I was curious about this so I looked at the percentiles for the Boston Marathon since the data is readily available. Roughly speaking, the top 1% of women times lines up with top 10% for men so the data backs up your statement. After that, there's a pretty consistent 20% difference. % Male Female 0.00 02:09 02:21 0.01 02:38 03:03 0.10 03:00 03:27 0.20 03:12 03:37 0.30 03:22 03:45 0.40 03:31 03:53 0.50 03:41 04:00 0.60 03:51 04:10 0.70 04:04 04:22 0.80 04:22 04:39 0.90 04:50 05:05 0.99 05:50 05:56 1.00 07:58 07:19 Kaggle link: https://www.kaggle.com/jschaf/kernel3166aa9b08 https://www.kaggle.com/jschaf/kernel3166aa9b08

chriselles 7y ago

It would appear studies have been done on relative body fat % between male and female long distance athletes. But have they included relative different upper body muscle mass between males and females? IF upper body muscle mass differential between genders exceeds the same differential for body fat, perhaps it may explain the declining performance gap between genders over distance? Might male upper body physiology, excess to ultramarathon requirements, become a net negative compared to women’s excess body fat? A human physics and engineering problem that possibly favours females at extreme distance? I’ve got data for hundreds of people travelling 80km, but carrying 25kg. Including female participants. Different story with the additional weight carried though. However, we did have 1 truly exceptional/outlier female who once came in 1st place. Mental resiliency is very much an individual effort. Having a lot of experience assessing humans in this realm, I don’t see any gender based causal factors. However, the one human I met who was truly willing to push themselves to the point of true failure was a female. It was the only time I was nervous in my role. But that is strictly anecdotal.

xchip 7y ago

I am a bit tired of this male-female competition. If you care so much go climbing, you'll see all women doing better than guys. Nobody cryes. Next topic please!

hjk05 7y ago
No... I mean you sure do see the same effect as in running that the 1% top woman beat 90% of the men. But there is absolutely no competition between top 1% men and top 1% woman. Testosterone is one hell of a drug. And for the top trails in the woman’s league you can see guys who aren’t even in the competitive leagues scaling it like it was a kids playground.
bad_good_guy 7y ago
I don't understand your point? Men perform better than women in climbing too.
_RedPanda 7y ago
I doubt that, climbing relies heavily on upper back muscles
- xchip 7y ago
  Not really, it's all about the legs, and the hands are mainly to keep the balance. Also women are lighter so they dont need to be that strong, it's all about technique

tlear 7y ago

UTMB is probably the most famous Ultra, if you win you will get sponsorship, huge exposure etc. Check the finisher times. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-Blanc https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-Blanc Spoiler. It is not even remotely close.

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