Also, on occasion, a woman does beat all the men and win an ultra race as Courtney Dauwalter did last fall in the Backyard Ultra. Still, the debate continues because it’s fascinating and may have some physiological explanations behind it.

In 2021, the world records stand almost exactly 10 percent apart (2:01:39 vs 2:14:04), right where they were in 1990, and right where they are in the Backyard Ultra. In 1992, Nature magazine, a leading scientific journal, even carried a letter from two esteemed physiologists predicting that women would catch and surpass men in the marathon by 1999. A few experts began speculating that women would eventually outpace men. Remember it.įlash back a few decades: In the mid-1970s, when women started running marathons more regularly, it soon became apparent that some were very good at the 26.2-mile distance - and even ultra distances. Comparing the two performances, Sabbe beats Dauwalter by almost exactly 10 percent. female endurance.Įxcept that male runner Karel Sabbe was still going strong in a sister event in Antwerp, and he eventually logged 312.5 miles. It seemed a giant leap for womankind in the long debate over male vs.

Over almost three days, she covered 283.33 miles to beat all the men. This may be due to the historical influences of traditional gender roles however this effect may be diminishing as female participation in Scottish ultra-races appears to be increasing.Last October, Courtney Dauwalter won the Big’s Backyard Ultra in Bell Buckle, Tenn., tying the course record. Qualitative responses suggested negotiation-efficacy was important for factoring in training around work and family commitments, and although a greater proportion of males had dependants compared to females, female participation was considerably lower than males. Enablers were: wanting a challenge, nature/outdoors, and the friendliness of the ultra-community. Similar experiences among male and female ultra-runners were identified. One-to-one-semi-structured phone interviews were conducted with a subset of runners to further explore themes from questionnaire responses. In this study, online questionnaire responses were collected from ultra-runners taking part in the Scottish Jedburgh 3 Peaks ultra and Highland Fling race. Female participation rates in ultra-running is considerably lower than that of males, but the reasons for this are not fully understood.

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