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OT: Women & Endurance Sports

(12 posts)
  • Started 3 years ago by Stickman
  • Latest reply from Greenroofer

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  1. Stickman
    Member

    Interesting article:

    As more women compete, however, women are starting to beat men in ultra-endurance sports, including in running races. In one weekend in December 2016, five women runners won outright victories at ultra-marathons across the United States.

    It’s not just ultra-marathons. In 2016, American cyclist Lael Wilcox became the first woman to win the suffer-fest that is Trans Am—a 4,300-mile race from Oregon to Virginia. Wilcox completed the course in eighteen days and ten minutes, trouncing the nearest male rival by two hours.

    In ultra-distance swimming, women currently hold most of the world records, Roslyn Carbon writes in “Female Athletes.” Females outperform men in two of the three most challenging open-water ultra-distance events—the Catalina Channel Swim and the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (males are faster in the English Channel). And the United States’ Diana Nyad is still the only person to have swum the 110 miles from Cuba to Florida, in 2013, without the aid of a shark cage.

    Carbon writes, “the physiology of this supremacy is not well understood but may relate to improved fat metabolism, local muscle endurance at low workloads, tolerance of temperature extremes, and greater buoyancy in water.”

    https://daily.jstor.org/the-woman-who-crashed-the-boston-marathon/

    Posted 3 years ago #
  2. Greenroofer
    Member

    If my daughter grows up to be either Lael Wilcox or Courtney Dauwalter I would be more than pleased. Both of them give off a positive energy that I find utterly inspiring: they both seem to really love what they do and be incredibly good at something while appearing not to take it completely seriously.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  3. gembo
    Member

    The ultra marathon fell running vet that lives Midlothian way tends to win all events too, even when she has to stop to breast feed. Bionic.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  4. nobrakes
    Member

    Let’s not forget Amanda Coker who completely destroyed the men’s ‘how far can you cycle in a year’ record a few years ago.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  5. gembo
    Member

    And Beryl Burton an earlier vanquisher of puny male cyclists

    Posted 3 years ago #
  6. paddyirish
    Member

    Jasmin Paris is the fell running vet;
    Fiona Kolbinger who won the transcontinental;
    Colleen Blair, the first person to swim the Minch;
    Lee Craigie who was second in the Highland 550;
    Sarah Hammond, who won the Race to Ayers Rock for the first 3 years;
    Nicky Spinks who, despite having breast cancer is the only person to have completed doubles of the Ramsay Round, the Paddy Buckley Round and the Bob Graham Round.

    That's just scratching the surface. Great to see events where all able to compete on even terms

    Posted 3 years ago #
  7. LaidBack
    Member

    Jenny Graham's round th e world cycle record. Amazing achievement and great film too.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  8. fimm
    Member

    Jasmin Paris held the Ramsay Round ( 56 miles/90 km and 28,500 feet/8686 metres ascent) record outright for a while. Then she was part of the support crew for a clubmate who took about a minute off her record. Then over the summer Finlay Wild (who must hold most of the fell/hill running records in Scotland) went and took about an hour off it.

    I read somewhere that events have to be very, very long and tough before the advantage men have over women reduces.

    The other one I saw a video about recently was what they call the "Backyard Ultra": you run a couple of miles. Exactly an hour later you start the same route again. And again, on the hour, every hour. The last person standing is the winner; it takes a couple of days... And the event I saw the film about was won by a woman.

    Interestingly the race organiser in the film said that he deliberately didn't offer a woman's prize because that meant that the last woman standing would be tempted to stop when she'd won the woman's race, and he wanted to encourage her to keep going. (He's an interesting character; he also organises the Barkely Marathons, which has never been finished by a woman (and only by 15 men).)

    Posted 3 years ago #
  9. gembo
    Member

    EBC seem at the moment to be trying to shift in their presentation with a Beryl Burton post today. I don’t think Heather who emails me from them is real. I think she is a robot. They had a picture of one of their staff laughing with a woman customer also in an email

    I have asked Heather to do a secret shopper to see how patronized she is in their shops.

    The Jasmin Paris race I am remembering when she had to breast feed at stops, was from England to Edinburgh I think?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  10. fimm
    Member

    @gembo, Jasmin Paris won the "Spine Race" which is along the Pennine Way in the middle of winter (January I think).

    Strictly speaking she didn't have to breast feed. She had pretty much weaned her daughter, but not quite (not helped by her daughter having an upset stomach in the run up). As I understand it (never having breastfed myself), if you stop breastfeeding suddenly your breasts carry on producing milk and this is 1) uncomfortable and 2) can cause problems. So Jasmin was expressing milk with one of those machines - I don't know if it was even given to her daughter, that wasn't the reason she was doing it. As far as I know, she didn't see her daughter for the whole of the race.

    On the other hand, I have seen a photo of a women breast feeding during UTMB - she had asked to defer her place for a year but the organisers would not let her.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  11. paddyirish
    Member

    More examples

    Quite liked the tone of the article- more that women breaking endurance records was normal (a few examples shared) and concentrating on the athletic feat.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  12. Greenroofer
    Member

    Now that @paddyirish has resurrected this post, @fimm I've since seen that video you mention of the Backyard Ultra that Maggie Guterl won. The last man standing looks absolutely broken, and there she is looking totally the opposite.

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Plugin

    Also Dr Kolbinger is doing some totally inhuman things on a bike https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-14-june-2021-284049#live-blog-item-25523

    Posted 3 years ago #

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