
When Women Outrun Men - kaboro
https://thewalrus.ca/when-male-runners-lose-to-women/
======
geargrinder
I have seen many women win overall races, at distances from 5k to 200 miles.
But what is always left out of these articles is the relative talent and
fitness of the entire field. Elite-level women can beat 90% of all men. So if
a male in the top 10% doesn't show up to race, elite women can win the
overall. This is what is happening in all of these cases. I love to see women
win the overall, but even they would say it depends entirely on who shows up
on the start line.

~~~
sdenton4
The most intriguing 'graf in the article for me was this:

'After scouring the results of nearly 100,000 marathon finishers, Sandra
Hunter, a professor of exercise science at Wisconsin’s Marquette University,
made an interesting—if not intuitive—find. The more men there are in a race
relative to the amount of women, the bigger the performance gap between those
genders. “If you had one female for every twenty men, the likelihood that that
female is going to be the best . . . compared with the best male in that age
group is pretty small,” says Hunter.'

Which suggests it has a lot more to do with the statistics of outliers than
anything else. Elite performance is signal (training!) plus noise (daily
variation, environmental variance, Athena rooting for you, etc), which can
overwhelm the signal on any given day. But each participant is also a random
draw on the /signal/ variable as well. Get more people in the event, and you
get more draws on the signal variable. Get more people on race day, and you
get more chances for outliers on the noise variable.

~~~
geargrinder
I'm not exactly sure what you are saying. Elites are outliers by definition.
Elite runners are mostly elite because of genetics. Then they train hard to
realize their potential. 99% could never become elite in traditional running
events, no matter how much, how hard or how smart they train. The top 1/10 of
1% of the general population is more likely the definition of elite in
running.

~~~
sdenton4
Outlet statistics work differently from measurement of means. The distribution
of the largest draw from a collection of draws from a normal distribution
depends heavily on the size of the sampled population.

Consider each runner's skill, training, etc as a sampled variable. Then the
top score in the sample depends heavily on the population size. Comparing the
best draw from two equivalent groups of different sizes is thus going to favor
the larger group. And this sounds like what they observed in the study.

------
hashberry
Here's a related scientific study that gives a possible reason why:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899381/)

> Women have more body fat than men in both elite (Vernillo et al. 2013) and
> recreational (Hoffman et al. 2010a, b) athletes. In both elite and
> recreational runners the percentage of body fat is higher in women compared
> to men (Blaak 2001). It could be argued that fatty tissue may be used as an
> energy reserve and this could be an advantage for ultra-distances since
> runners tend to lose body fat during multi-hours running competitions
> (Karstoft et al. 2013; Schütz et al. 2013). Women might benefit from their
> higher percentage of body fat since both sexes lose a similar amount of fat
> during an ultra-endurance performance such as a 100 km ultra-marathon
> (Knechtle et al. 2010a, b, 2012a, b).

~~~
GreaterFool
Sounds reasonable to me. I've been eating keto for a long time and I always
feel like I have fat energy reserves to draw on. I wonder if keto-adapted men
and women would outperform carb-adapted counterparts in ultra-endurance.

From personal experience there is a difference and it is a big difference.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
The body can only convert so much fat into energy at a given moment. Usually
we have both carbs we've recently eaten to fuel us plus a store of glycogen.
On Keto you should have little to no glycogen and only whatever small number
of carbs you've eaten recently. If your energy expenditure exceeds what they
body can convert from fat along with whatever it can extract from your limited
carbs and whatever glycogen is hanging around, you'll get an energy crash.
Keto might be good for ultra endurance events where there is little to no
sprinting involved. Just keep a nice steady pace at the level that can be
fueled by the body's capacity to convert fat into energy.

~~~
stefan_
Except then you would still eat carbs the night before a race because not
having glycogen is just intentionally gimping yourself for no imaginable
possible gain. It's not like the mj of glycogen energy is weighing you down.

You should absolutely train in a glycogen depleted state just so you will know
what it feels like and can deal with it. But it's not how you would ever start
a race.

------
bloaf
I recall reading in an older running book (maybe one of Jeff Galloway's)
something along the lines of: because of physiological differences, in theory
women may be able to outperform men in ultra-high mileage events. I suspect
the author of this piece is overstating the "conventional wisdom" of the
running community.

~~~
mpweiher
Yeah, this (that women have some advantages at longer distances that may prove
decisive) has also been something that's been something that's been imparted
on me as "conventional wisdom" so long ago that I can't really remember when,
so I was also surprised by the author's use of "conventional wisdom" for the
opposite claim.

If you look at marathon winners, it's clear that the male advantage of more
muscle mass doesn't help here. You want to have as little energy-consuming
muscle as you can get away with, and as little total weight to lug around as
well.

------
chriselles
It would appear studies have been done on relative body fat % between male and
female long distance athletes.

But have they included relative different upper body muscle mass between males
and females?

IF upper body muscle mass differential between genders exceeds the same
differential for body fat, perhaps it may explain the declining performance
gap between genders over distance?

Might male upper body physiology, excess to ultramarathon requirements, become
a net negative compared to women’s excess body fat?

A human physics and engineering problem that possibly favours females at
extreme distance?

I’ve got data for hundreds of people travelling 80km, but carrying 25kg.

Including female participants.

Different story with the additional weight carried though.

However, we did have 1 truly exceptional/outlier female who once came in 1st
place.

Mental resiliency is very much an individual effort.

Having a lot of experience assessing humans in this realm, I don’t see any
gender based causal factors.

However, the one human I met who was truly willing to push themselves to the
point of true failure was a female. It was the only time I was nervous in my
role. But that is strictly anecdotal.

------
atomical
Ultrarunning is such a niche sport. That's why it isn't an olympic sport.
There aren't enough people in the sport to make finishes consistent across
similar terrain. The winner of the race could be 2 hours ahead of the second
place finish.

~~~
analog31
My spouse has gotten into trail running, and has done a couple of 50k's along
with shorter events. This amount of variation is really noticeable. I also
have a friend who rides cyclocross, and it's a similar thing. My impression as
an outsider is that perhaps as a result of this level of inherent variability,
the social atmosphere surrounding these sports at the amateur level is much
more laid back.

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------
austincheney
This phenomenon isn’t just confined to extreme distances. It is present during
various high caloric stress events. Another example is potentially marathon
ruck marching with a heavy backpack and possibly other hand carried gear.

------
xchip
I am a bit tired of this male-female competition.

If you care so much go climbing, you'll see all women doing better than guys.
Nobody cryes. Next topic please!

~~~
_RedPanda
I doubt that, climbing relies heavily on upper back muscles

~~~
xchip
Not really, it's all about the legs, and the hands are mainly to keep the
balance. Also women are lighter so they dont need to be that strong, it's all
about technique

------
bch
See too: Lael Wilcox.[0]

[0] [https://youtu.be/qqigzj97Vpo](https://youtu.be/qqigzj97Vpo)

------
tlear
UTMB is probably the most famous Ultra, if you win you will get sponsorship,
huge exposure etc. Check the finisher times.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-
Blanc](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Trail_du_Mont-Blanc)

Spoiler. It is not even remotely close.

------
gwern
Talk about bait and switch.

Headline:

"When Male Runners Lose to Women: Conventional wisdom has long asserted men
outperform women in long-distance races. Ultramarathon results prove that
assumption wrong"

Actual article: men outperform women in long-distance races, usually but not
always winning:

"By the most common perceptions about the biology of strength and endurance,
physiology was stacked against St Laurent. On average, her male competitors
had bigger hearts, larger lung capacities, and leaner bodies. And most results
reflect that: in last year’s marquee Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc TDS, a
145-kilometre mountain race with more than 9,000 metres of elevation gain, the
first female to cross the finish line came twenty-third. St Laurent, who
placed fifth among women, came sixty-first overall."

~~~
insickness
> most results reflect that

But sometimes women do win these ultramarathons. You'd never see that at any
other distance.

~~~
chongli
There's a whole lot of "might" and "maybe" being thrown around here. Honestly,
I think the biggest factor in these longer distances is the smaller sample
size. There just aren't as many elite athletes competing at the ultra
distances as there are at marathon and shorter distances.

The article throws in a bit of speculation about how men might be socialized
to run too hard at the beginning of a race. I disagree. That observation says,
to me, that the men competing in these events are not as well trained, not as
experienced.

Look at the men's marathon and you'll see everyone taking it easy at the
beginning of the race! They have to hire people to push the pace in the
beginning because the elite runners don't want to do it. That directly
contradicts the speculation about male socialization.

~~~
Declanomous
There's actually very substantial differences in the metabolism inside of
muscles for men and women. Nobody realized this because literally every study
that created baselines for what was going on inside the muscles in relation to
the metabolites that ended up in the blood was done with men. So when women
were later included in studies they just used the blood workup or VO2 to
estimate energy expenditure and the like, and it turns out those are nearly
completely wrong.

Long story short, women switch to catabolism way earlier than men, while they
still have glycogen inside their muscles. Men don't switch to catabolism until
after they are completely out of glycogen and are creating fucktons of lactic
acid. Since your muscles run on glycogen, and lactic acid is not a great thing
to have kicking around, women actually appear to have a better metabolism for
endurance.

Unfortunately a lot of doctors and researchers are men, and are extremely
dismissive of the idea that there is any reason to actually study women,
instead inventing behavioral reasons for why you don't always get the same
results for men and women in studies.

I think the fact that you are willing to chalk up the fact that women are
winning these races on occasion to there not being enough elite runners has
signs of a similar chauvanism.

(This is mostly off the top of my head, but I have a degree in biology and I
have studied metabolism fairly extensively)

~~~
insickness
> you are willing to chalk up the fact... has signs of a similar chauvanism.

You were making a good point until the ad hominem. The personal attack makes
me want to discount everything you said.

~~~
bsanr
That's an unreasonable thing to do, especially since it was less an ad hominem
attack than it was pointing out the fallacy at the root of your
misunderstanding. They were doing you a favor. But mostly because, "I will
take this one line from your statement, to show that you were arguing in bad
faith, and use it to nullify the rest of what you said," is... very obviously
a rhetorical tactic, rather than a substantive counterargument.

~~~
ip26
Or perhaps it's simply a form of peer pressure. "Be civil or nobody here will
listen to you".

