
A woman who outruns men, 200 miles at a time - rusbus
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/sports/courtney-dauwalter-200-mile-race.html
======
tzury
I saw her first at Joe Rogan's podcast[1]. Far beyond the athletic
achievement, I was amazed by her humility, how modest was she was during the
entire conversation!

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DfjXnIk6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DfjXnIk6c)

~~~
sysalphUS
I really found her modesty refreshing. If you’d like to hear more, she’s also
on the Humans of Ultrarunning Poscast episode 1. One thing that stands out is
her absence of formal structure and training plan. She just really enjoys
running and does what her body is up for at any given day for in training.
[http://humansofultrarunning.com/episode-1-courtney-
dauwalter...](http://humansofultrarunning.com/episode-1-courtney-dauwalter-
ultrarunner-who-loves-the-pain-crushes-competition-in-any-ultra-distance-and-
shes-just-getting-started/)

~~~
feketegy
Well, I don't know about that, on the Rogan podcast at one point she mentioned
that one time she actually temporarily got blind of the exhaustion, but still
kept running, so clearly her body was not up for it, but she was/is "crazy"
enough not to stop.

~~~
sysalphUS
I’m pretty sure that was during the actual 240 mile race. Not training.

------
mindcrime
FWIW, women beating men in ultra-marathon length events isn't a new thing. Pam
Reed won the Badwater Ultramarathon[1] outright in 2002 and 2003.

More insights on this topic can be found here:

[https://trailrunnermag.com/people/is-women-winning-ultras-
ov...](https://trailrunnermag.com/people/is-women-winning-ultras-overall-a-
trend.html)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badwater_Ultramarathon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badwater_Ultramarathon)

~~~
flukus
There was also that time a 61 year old farmer beat world class athletes in a
543 mile race: [https://elitefeet.com/the-legend-of-cliff-
young](https://elitefeet.com/the-legend-of-cliff-young)

Efficiency is the most important factor.

~~~
dagw
Of course the follow up to that story is that once those world class athletes
saw and copied his strategy of keeping a slow pace and avoiding sleep they
soundly beat him in every other race he entered.

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newnewpdro
Her Moab 240 pace wasn't actually that competitive, the exception is she
didn't sleep.

It will be interesting to see what this does to the sport, if it ends up
becoming as much about performing for days without sleep as being physically
capable of running 200+ miles.

~~~
patejam
Isn't that the point? Endurance vs strength/speed. Endurance includes not
needing to rest as much as the rest of the field.

~~~
newnewpdro
I didn't say she cheated, it's well within the rules to skip sleeping.

It's just not something the competition has been doing, and I suspect it's
largely out of self-preservation rather than a lack of ability. Sleep
deprivation is not particularly good for the brain.

Now that Courtney has demonstrated this strategy, and how impossible it is for
even the fastest of distance runners to beat it if they sleep, I expect
ultramarathons to become a bunch of sleep-stumblers after the first day in the
future.

Which makes it not really about distance running anymore. It's more like a run
followed by a long tired hallucination-ridden hike.

~~~
anonymfus
Maybe if make it a week long competition then sleeping well will be a good
strategy?

~~~
newnewpdro
The organizers could just require a minimum number of hours spent stationary
if they're interested in preserving the _running_ aspect of the race, and not
alienating athletes who have no interest in subjecting themselves to extreme
sleep deprivation.

It should probably be a separate class.

~~~
dagw
There are other races which are run X miles pr day for N days in a row and
then add up the times for people who want more of a running focus. There are
also variants where you have to keep a pace of at least X mph or get
disqualified.

Personally I respect the 'purity' and simplicity of get from here to there on
foot as fast as possible.

------
travisoneill1
Interesting topic. Terrible reporting. Conclusion is contradicted by the data:

[http://www.iau-
ultramarathon.org/images/file/Records/2017_20...](http://www.iau-
ultramarathon.org/images/file/Records/2017_2020_RecordsTable20181124.pdf)

~~~
loeg
Yeah, it seems there is some relationship between hip width and running
efficiency. (Wider hips create an angle between knee and hip, whereas narrower
hips the leg extends basically straight down in front profile.) So if you're a
woman with relatively narrow hips, great, you've got a chance of keeping up
with the men over 100s of miles. But many women have wider hips than most men.

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tasuki
The numbers for 2017 Moab 240 don't seem reasonable to me: She ran the 238
miles in 58 hours. That's 4.1 mph. She beat the next competitor for 10 hours
or 20 miles. Now let's focus on the competitor...

If 10 hours is 20 miles that's 2 mph for the last 10 miles. First, that's not
running, that's not even walking. I walk about 3.5 mph. So either the
competitor spent a couple hours in bed or it doesn't check out at all.

It'd also mean the competitor ran at 3.75 mph for the first 218 miles. Did
they lose almost half the speed for the last 20 miles?

~~~
feketegy
Listen to the Joe Rogan podcast with her, nobody can run non-stop for the full
240 miles. They sleep, rest even if for 10 - 20 minutes.

She was also resting, but on average she stopped fewer times than anybody else
in the race.

Also, Moab is not like a marathon, it's rough terrain, so you can't possibly
run with full force, like on a marathon flat surface.

Look at the terrain they're running on:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YseTVpI4R5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YseTVpI4R5U)

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prepend
This is cool. I think it will be helpful to have more sports that don’t have
gender or sex separated categories and finding activities where there aren’t
biological advantages is important.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
Why? Virtually all sports (including this one - see the comment from
travisoneill1) have gender-related biological differences one way or the
other. Why try to minimize this fact?

~~~
warent
It has nothing to do with minimizing anything. Sometimes it's just cool to see
men and women compete at things they can be equals at, e.g. business, right?
So, acknowledging that men and women have biological differences, I'd still
like to see more things we can equally compete in, just for the
entertainment/competitive spirit if nothing else.

EDIT: Although gp did say it would be "helpful." So, yeah, I don't know what
they meant by that, but this is my take on it anyhow.

~~~
Udik
> cool to see men and women compete at things they can be equals at, e.g.
> business, right?

Funny that you are using the business example just _assuming_ that they _must_
be equal. There is no data that I know of to support this.

~~~
warent
You can reason through it with existing evidence:

1\. It can be reasonably agreed that (as of 2018) becoming a billionaire with
a successful (profitable; influential) business empire is the peak of business
success.

2\. Women encounter more prejudice/sexism in business than men.

3\. Becoming a self-made billionaire is more challenging as a female than a
male.

4\. There are both male and female self-made billionaires.

The conclusion is that women can be at least as competent as men in business.

~~~
Udik
Your conclusion sets a precise numerical (in)equality: Female competence >=
Male competence. Your data is entirely non existent and/ or handwavy.

Let's assume that 1) is a good metric. Then 2) needs to be argued for and
_quantified_. 3) follows from the (missing) quantification of 2, plus some
other parameter for its impact. 4) Also needs to be numerically quantified:
what's the ratio between male and female billionaires?

So we're back at square one: you believe your parameters to be whatever they
need to be to make your conclusion true. That doesn't prove much, does it?

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starpilot
Would LOVE to see this as a summer Olympic sport. Talk about testing the
absolute limits of human ability.

~~~
LanceH
If you like a sport, don't wish the olympics on it.

