[AmericanChopper]

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.

[walrus01]

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:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour_record

men: 55 km

women: 48 km

[jefftk]

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.

[arcturus17]

> 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?

[1] https://ultrarunning.com/featured/ultrarunning-magazine-all-...

[js2]

FWIW, Yiannis Kouros is an outlier even among men.

[emptyfile]

No one who actually follows running thinks that.

[AmericanChopper]

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.

[walrus01]

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.

[sysadmindotfail]

Enter Courtney Dauwalter:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/sports/courtney-dauwalter...

[crashbunny]

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.