Are Women Better Than Men at Endurance Running?

"The race is too hard for women. They are simply not tough enough to do it."

Those are the words of Lazarus Lake, race director of the Barkley Marathons - one of the world's hardest ultramarathons which to date, of the approximate 1,000 people who have started, only 20 have ever completed.

Speaking in 2015 and daring for someone to prove him wrong, it took nine years until a British ultra-runner did just that.

Completing the extreme 100-mile course with just one minute 39 seconds to spare of the 60-hour cut-off, Jasmin Paris from Midlothian made history and cemented her name in the ultra-running history books.

But now, increasingly, she is not alone.

Last summer, there was a female one-two for the first time in the gruelling Montane Summer Spine Race from Derbyshire to Scotland. Rachel Entrekin set a new course record and became the first woman to win the Cocodona 250 in Arizona in May, while last month Sophie Woods smashed the overall record by six days to complete the Via Alpina.

It appears female runners are no longer just taking part in ultra-endurance events, they are competing with their male counterparts, breaking records and in some cases, winning races outright.

All of this has prompted suggestions that they are perhaps better suited to these kinds of challenges.

But is there any scientific proof? Do women really have any physiological or psychological advantages in endurance exercise (anything that takes more than six hours)? And if so, could we see more of these records fall in the future?

In running distances up to the marathon, there is on average a 10-12% performance gap between males and females.

Men are generally stronger and built with a bigger aerobic engine.

But as the distance increases, those physical advantages appear to become less relevant and the gap starts to narrow.

The "gender pace gap" diminishes to 0.25% in 100-mile races, according to a study of more than 20 years of amateur ultra-race data conducted by RunRepeat, in collaboration with the International Association of Ultrarunners,

Anything further than 195 miles and women have the potential to be faster.

So why might this be the case?

For Professor Andy Jones, an expert in endurance performance at the University of Exeter, there are three potential physiological explanations why women could perform better over longer distances or durations.

Fat metabolism – women have higher fat stores and burn it more efficiently, giving them a steady energy source for longer.

Muscles – women have more oxygen-efficient muscle fibres, known as "slow twitch", that are better suited for endurance activities.

Fatigue resistance – women retain more strength over hours of endurance exercise.

However, Jones, who played a key role in Eliud Kipchoge's sub two-hour marathon challenge in 2019, is keen to point out that the science in this area is "behind".

"There isn't as much hard evidence as there would be for shorter distances, which have been studied for a long time in quite some detail," he adds.

That is a view shared by Dr Richard Burden, co-lead of female athlete health and performance at the UK Sports Institute, who feels a lot more information needs to be gathered before conclusions can be made.

"At the moment we are speculating … there are definitely some physiological adaptations that you see more in women than men that are favourable for ultra-type events. But those need to be better established and more studies would need to be done."

- Author: Sarah Dawkins, BBC

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