Women winning outright

[Witton Park]

There's a couple of issues.

Men have been running ultra distance since the year dot.

Women have only been running marathons for 40 odd years and it matters.

I think also in coaching of the last 20 years or so, there's been a lot of pressure on coaches, particularly in the western world via the LTAD system, to under work young athletes.

I was once at a North West coaches conference and our speaker advocated Year 9/10 girls train twice a week and if racing only once.
The idea was to allow them to develop and step it up as they matured and strengthened, thereby avoiding burnout.

I knew the coach well and his club.

I asked how many senior women he had in training. I knew it was zero

I can see in the next 20-30 years that women will close the gap from the 10% at endurance events from Half Marathon upwards.
Greater exposure, better training methods to suit them, and greater numbers taking part.

[Graham Breeze]

There's a couple of issues.

Men have been running ultra distance since the year dot.

Women have only been running marathons for 40 odd years and it matters.

I think also in coaching of the last 20 years or so, there's been a lot of pressure on coaches, particularly in the western world via the LTAD system, to under work young athletes.

I was once at a North West coaches conference and our speaker advocated Year 9/10 girls train twice a week and if racing only once.
The idea was to allow them to develop and step it up as they matured and strengthened, thereby avoiding burnout.

I knew the coach well and his club.

I asked how many senior women he had in training. I knew it was zero

I can see in the next 20-30 years that women will close the gap from the 10% at endurance events from Half Marathon upwards.
Greater exposure, better training methods to suit them, and greater numbers taking part.

"Close the gap?" "2%,1%,0.5%, 0.1%?

If your argument is sound the trend lines will support your view now - or not.

[Witton Park]

"Close the gap?" "2%,1%,0.5%, 0.1%?

If your argument is sound the trend lines will support your view now - or not.

Maybe I should have said "could" close the gap rather than "will" because there are a lot of factors at play.

But take the marathon.

In 40 years the mens has improved from 2:08:18 Di Costello, to 2:01:09 so 5.6% improvement and over the same time the ladies has gone from 2:26:12 Joan Benoit to 2:14:04 so 8.3% improvement.

I know it's just a random date and distance, but the gap has closed and I can see that the women could take another 5 minutes off that in the next decade, but 2 minutes would be a huge ask for the men.

So the closing gap, could close further.

Biggest issue though could be depth/numbers. More men running, bigger base and more quality and depth such as we see in some other sports.

[Mike T]

Better performances in women's events always raises in my mind the possibility of performance enhancing drugs - they can be more effective in women because of their naturally lower testosterone levels.

Having said that, for a long time training programs were designed around men, and as that changes I have no doubt the "gap" will narrow, but I don't think it will close.

[anthonykay]

Caroline Lambert (Middlesbrough AC) won Toms Bransdale Fell Race (organised by Esk Valley Fell Club) by 3 seconds last Wednesday.

[Steve Chilton]

Yeh, saw that. Another one to add to a burgeoning list.

[Travs]

Caroline Lambert has been running well, and beat the likes of Sarah McCormack and Sara Willhoit at the inter-counties, so certainly of the ability to win a lot of races outright.

[TimG]

Caroline almost won a couple of weeks ago at Whorlton on the NY moors (admittedly more of a road and trail race) but she took a wrong turn late on. She was so far ahead she didn't realise no-one was following behind her!

[Wardy]

https://www.racetecresults.com/resul...=20223&RId=120
Katie Walshaw came close at Whaley Waltz

[MattPo]

https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2023...d_record-73379.
Very impressive!