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The man gets it. It’s a mental effort as much as it is a physical one. There’s a reason the longer the ultra, the faster women are compared to men. Having just

The man gets it. It’s a mental effort as much as it is a physical one. There’s a reason the longer the ultra, the faster women are compared to men. Having just done a 70.3 yesterday I can confirm the journey part, too. It’s a whole lot like life. Sometimes you go downwind really fast and sometimes it gets really tough. Sometimes there’s a stranger telling you the exact thing you need to keep going. And the hard bits always come to an end. All of my races have had some of these and I’ve always recovered. And if not, there’s the finish line and the knowledge I did not give up.

matwood 2y ago
> It’s a mental effort as much as it is a physical one. Like a lot in life to be honest. When I lived in CO I did a lot of hiking at the higher altitudes there. I almost always hiked alone and could have easily turned around when my breath got short, but I didn't. It was strictly mental exercise. Similar to when I power lifted for years. Obviously there's a physical part, but when the numbers got big for me, it became just as much mental. Now I've been doing BJJ for a number of years. There is so much mental effort expended to not panic or give up simply because you're uncomfortable (different from being put in an actual finishing move). As I started with, the exercise of accepting discomfort, staying calm, and moving forward is skill that resonates all through life.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
Why would women be better at mental effort than men? Maybe their biology and biomechanics are just better for the ultra long distance stuff.
- robotresearcher 2y ago
  Parent didn't say women were better at mental effort. They said it's as much mental as physical effort. Men's physical strength advantage decreases in significance as the distances increase.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    They said "There’s a reason the longer the ultra, the faster women are compared to men", immediately after saying it is as much mental as physical effort. It's pretty clear from observing almost every sport, including running distances shorter than 50 miles, that men dominate women physically. If men and women are similar at mental effort, and men are better physically at performing, then why would women start to take over on long distances but not shorter distances? So, either women are better at mental effort than men, or something about biology lets women perform better than men at the ultra long distance stuff but not the shorter stuff. I say it is just biology. If OP thought it had no relation to mental effort skills difference between men and women, then why even bring it up?
    - flappyeagle 2y ago
      You’re not thinking statistically. At shorter distances the tier 2 men dominate the women who happen to be mentally stronger but physically weaker At longer distances the mental advantage for the top women start to matter more than their physical disadvantage when compared with the men who happen to be physically tougher but mentally weaker than them
      - IncreasePosts 2y ago
        Ok, but that is just asserting that mental toughness is what matters here. And it ignores the fact that there are far more men in the slightly less than ultra marathon world than women, so shouldn't there also be more men with a chance to win if mental toughness is equally distributed? Maybe it's the fact that women have a higher percentage of type 1 muscle fibers than men, and it just takes until ultra marathon level distances that the increased proportion of type 1 fibers makes up for the relative higher percentage of type 2 fibers in men. Or maybe women are more efficient at burning fat than men are.
nradov 2y ago
I don't think that's really correct. At least if you look at ultramarathon world records the male performance advantage remains fairly constant across all of the common times and distances. https://x.com/Scienceofsport/status/1828149521441763729?s=19 https://x.com/Scienceofsport/status/1828149521441763729?s=19 https://iau-ultramarathon.org/iau-records.html https://iau-ultramarathon.org/iau-records.html

matwood 2y ago

> It’s a mental effort as much as it is a physical one. Like a lot in life to be honest. When I lived in CO I did a lot of hiking at the higher altitudes there. I almost always hiked alone and could have easily turned around when my breath got short, but I didn't. It was strictly mental exercise. Similar to when I power lifted for years. Obviously there's a physical part, but when the numbers got big for me, it became just as much mental. Now I've been doing BJJ for a number of years. There is so much mental effort expended to not panic or give up simply because you're uncomfortable (different from being put in an actual finishing move). As I started with, the exercise of accepting discomfort, staying calm, and moving forward is skill that resonates all through life.

IncreasePosts 2y ago

Why would women be better at mental effort than men? Maybe their biology and biomechanics are just better for the ultra long distance stuff.

robotresearcher 2y ago
Parent didn't say women were better at mental effort. They said it's as much mental as physical effort. Men's physical strength advantage decreases in significance as the distances increase.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  They said "There’s a reason the longer the ultra, the faster women are compared to men", immediately after saying it is as much mental as physical effort. It's pretty clear from observing almost every sport, including running distances shorter than 50 miles, that men dominate women physically. If men and women are similar at mental effort, and men are better physically at performing, then why would women start to take over on long distances but not shorter distances? So, either women are better at mental effort than men, or something about biology lets women perform better than men at the ultra long distance stuff but not the shorter stuff. I say it is just biology. If OP thought it had no relation to mental effort skills difference between men and women, then why even bring it up?
  - flappyeagle 2y ago
    You’re not thinking statistically. At shorter distances the tier 2 men dominate the women who happen to be mentally stronger but physically weaker At longer distances the mental advantage for the top women start to matter more than their physical disadvantage when compared with the men who happen to be physically tougher but mentally weaker than them
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Ok, but that is just asserting that mental toughness is what matters here. And it ignores the fact that there are far more men in the slightly less than ultra marathon world than women, so shouldn't there also be more men with a chance to win if mental toughness is equally distributed? Maybe it's the fact that women have a higher percentage of type 1 muscle fibers than men, and it just takes until ultra marathon level distances that the increased proportion of type 1 fibers makes up for the relative higher percentage of type 2 fibers in men. Or maybe women are more efficient at burning fat than men are.

nradov 2y ago

I don't think that's really correct. At least if you look at ultramarathon world records the male performance advantage remains fairly constant across all of the common times and distances. https://x.com/Scienceofsport/status/1828149521441763729?s=19 https://x.com/Scienceofsport/status/1828149521441763729?s=19 https://iau-ultramarathon.org/iau-records.html https://iau-ultramarathon.org/iau-records.html