Barely, if any, difference between the sexes in races at this distance. More women competing mean more will continue to win. Congrats to the BAMF who won.
It's great when women win these races, and I wish there were more, but don't get the misperception they are somehow faster in this sport compared to men than in other sports. It all depends who shows up on the start line. Elite women are faster than nearly all the men, so if an elite woman shows up, but no elite men do, she will likely win.
List of ultrarunning records: https://ultrarunning.com/featured/ultrarunning-magazine-all-...
Normally awards are for "First Place Male" and First Place Female." Not sure why this race had an award for "overall."
To be fair, the differences here seem to be smaller than in other sports, suggesting that while testosterone is a factor it may be less than it is in other sports. If 90% of the competitors in these races are male, that would further impact this discrepancy.
Why would that matter? They're not running as a group; if you're the fastest then you win. This isn't a probabilistic thing. Lots of slow men crowding the starting line isn't going to impact who finishes first.
~~All the distances in those tables are significantly longer than the 50k this article was about.~~
Edit: Ah, I missed it due to the weird order - but my original point stands, there is no point in ignoring part of someone's comment when trying to rebut them.
Interestingly, the 100m record difference is about 10%, which is roughly the same as the gap in the ultramarathon records (and in the record mile time). So the difference is fairly consistent across distances.
I don't think it's quite that close -- there may be sample size/participation factors involved here. For example, the top US women seems to be competitive with the top ~10 US men, which in more testosterone-dominant sports would never happen.
Because it does highlight what women are capable of and it is certainly something to celebrate. Also, when it does happen it creates an interesting story which brings more attention to the sport (like this one did).
That women are winning these races, is a credit to this sport. Sports have no intrinsic value that isn't somehow tied to the good they do for humanity. We should judge them by their fruits. Even so, the vast majority of sports are constructed so that, on average, men have big advantages. It could be that it's easier to construct a sport that way. It could also be that constructing a sport that way better appeals to the prejudices of society. After all, there are some sports in which women compete at the highest level. For example, horse racing, open-water swimming, and as we see here "ultra" running. It's not necessary for women to win all or even most of the top prizes, but it's great that they win sometimes. Personally, although I enjoy watching gendered sports like ice hockey and American football I definitely see them as inferior to sports that exhibit more gender equality.
Sure, running in general is basic to humans. The particular circumstances of particular races, like "so many laps over this particular course through the mountains" are very much a decision that some people made. Such decisions affect the results of those races.
It is illogical to believe that races were "constructed" by somehow varying the number of laps or terrain to make sure men win. It is far more likely that races were "constructed" to mimic the types of terrain people already ran.
No, it´s better for everybody - the human race wins.
Let´s say you had a bunch of computers, and somebody had told you a certain type always ran slowly, so you never used them for anything fast, and even put them on slower connections, because of that. And then one day, you discovered if you connected them up to faster links, they ran faster.
You now have a larger number of faster computers. As with computers, so with society, it´s not a zero sum game.
Looking at those dates in the 24 hour and 100 mile.
Most of the women records are in the last 5 years, and some of the men’s records are from much longer ago.
All the records actually show men still have the physical advantage at these distances that they do at shorter distances. It would be cool if somehow women were faster in comparison the longer the distance, but the records don't show that to be the case.
> Barely, if any, difference between the sexes in races at this distance.
Are there any facts that back up this claim?
50k is barely over marathon distance, and there is a huge difference between woman and men on marathon distance (~2:01 for men vs ~2:15 for woman (10% slower).
I don't know of any longer distance running event in which such a gap doesn't actually increase. That is, the larger the distance, the slower woman actually become relatively to men.
At the far end, for example, for the Spartathlon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartathlon), the fastest men complete the distance in around ~21 hours while the fastest woman takes ~24 hours (13% slower). If you look at the times of the top 3 males and woman of each year, most years top 3 mens finish in ~<24 hours, while women are at ~<31 hours.
It might be interesting to visualize the gap per year vs the temperature. There are some studies about how heat affects the running performance of men and woman in marathon distance races, but not so much for long distance races (https://insights.ovid.com/article/00005768-200703000-00012). IIRC (don't take me for this), heat affects slower runners more independently of sex.
> Barely, if any, difference between the sexes in races at this distance
This is 31 miles, which is not much longer than a standard 26.2 mile marathon. Marathons have a lot of competition, so we can see how top athletes compare, and there the record is 2:01 for men vs 2:15 for women. What you're saying is for much longer races.
> I believe there’s a wall at about 20 miles, too.
~20 miles is the distance that a "median" person can run before muscle glycogen is depleted and less efficient energy-production mechanisms must take up the slack. The size (and duration) of one's muscle glycogen stores depends on many factors, including the physical size of muscles, efficiency of reintroduction of liver glycogen, training status, running economy, GI effectiveness vs stress, and many others.
Interestingly enough, in longer ultras one gets the chance to conquer the "wall," recover, and then hit it all over again, maybe several times.
It's hard to tell how much things like that reflect the shape of the maximum human performance curve, vs which sports are worth it for which athletes to reach peak performance.
Congratulations to her. But that’s really not true. Women’s records lag behind men’s records in all endurance categories. Women’s results lag behind men’s results in major events. The woman’s world record marathon wouldn’t be a first place at any major event. Her time in this 50k was more than an hour and ten minutes behind the 50k world record suggesting the competition at this event simply wasn’t very stiff.
a good example of endurance differences would be the track bicycle hour record (merckx type frame/wheelset, or modern track bike) difference between men and women:
When people talk about women being better than men at endurance, they don't mean things at the ~1hr level. Instead, the events where the top women are close to competitive with the top men are at the ~days level.
> Instead, the events where the top women are close to competitive with the top men are at the ~days level.
People keep repeating this idea throughout thread but as user geargrinder posted earlier, the difference at the ~days level is pretty big, at least in ultra running. For example [1]:
1000 miles Records
Men: Yiannis Kouros - 10 d + 10:30:35
Women: Sandy Barwick - 12 d + 14:38:40
I had also heard - and believed - the idea that women were roughly equal at ultra distances but seeing the tables posted by geargrinder has been a massive revelation to the contrary for me. Is there some other proof that indeed backs the claim that women are roughly equal at large distances, or is this a total urban legend?
The fact that the parent comment was talking about “these distances” aside, men still outperform women in that level of ultra-endurance. The problem you have though is getting any meaningful samples. Each course is different, those races have very few entrants, and far fewer female entrants. Some of those races have been won by women, and there are even some particularly obscure world records held by women, but nothing you could reasonably point to as a trend.
I understand that, but was trying to think of an endurance sport that removes as many physical variables as possible. Same track, same equipment, same temperatures and atmospheric density, etc. The question about multi day events is that there's a number of variables for choosing a route over off-road courses, peak effort during a particular time of day (sun is up vs down), how much sleep a person gets.
The people who regularly win RAAM (race across america) are the masochists who are able to combine peak athletic performance and 2.5 hours of sleep a night for a week.
Obviously something else much longer than 1 hour, with as many variables removed would be a better comparison. I don't think a traditional road race would work, since there's too many variables about team/pack strategy, the peloton, breakaways, etc. But possibly a 2 or 3 hour solo time trial on the same course.
testosterone doesn't just help with building muscles, it helps with muscle recovery and creating red blood cells.
I would guess there's a sweet spot in distance where the finish times in men and women are closer, but considering testosterone helps with muscle recovery and creating red blood cells, I don't think it would be a multi day distance.