The Ladies Must Have a Secret

Edna Kiplagat winning 2010 NYCM
(Courtesy asterix611 @ Flickr)

Yesterday's post was all gaga (not that lady) about looking forward to watching the Olympic men's marathon on August 12th. Perhaps the timelapserunner's enthusiasm got the better of him, forgetting his manners, forgetting all about the ladies. Elite women athletes will be running an Olympic marathon as well, of course. This was not always so, however. It took a suffragette-like battle to establish the right for women to even run a sanctioned marathon; and it was not until the 1988 Seoul Olympics that women competed for Olympic gold at that distance.


There's an interesting secret hidden in the track and field records book that we'll lay bare here: women may be extremely well-suited to running the marathon. Yes, we know: men are faster / stronger than women on the track. However, if one examines world record performances across the many contended distances of international track and field, one will notice something interesting. As the distance of the race increases from 100 meters through 10000 meters, women's world record performances gradually get relatively slower than those of the men, but at marathon distance that trend is reversed! (See figure below.)

Ratio of Women's World Record Pace to Men's as Race Distance Varies

What's going on here? Well, it's not entirely clear and there are studies that argue for and against the notion that as distance increases dramatically women start to gain an edge. There are many factors that could play into these results, but given that women have only been competing in marathon-length races for a relatively short time compared to us men, this appears to be a significant result.

So, the next time you're trying to hold pace at Mile 18 in a marathon, and you start to hear footfalls behind you, odds are there's a lady on your tail, Bud.

N.B.: Women's marathon will be run on Sunday, August 5th, and can be seen at 5AM (CDT) on NBC.

TODAY'S WORKOUT: Four miles at the Lakes after warming up with our active-isolated stretching. Warm and humid, as they say. Planned pace: 11:58; actual 11:56, using 2:01 / 1:00 intervals, with nominal running pace of 10:38 per mile. No injury or soreness to speak of.