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Comment by davidrm | Hacker News Reader

In running, female only trophies follow the same philosophy as age group trophies. Overall winner is reserved for whoever crosses the line first. Then there are M/F age groups for older runners (5y wide age groups most often starting at 30), and "female overall winner".

Having male only trophies is most often redundant because 99% of overall winners are male. That's just life. From time to time, an high/elite level female runner shows up when there are no elite male runner and she takes the overall winner. And that only happens in niche races (niche being every race longer than a marathon and some smaller city races). Ultras are also more likely to have DNFs (did not finish).

There's yet to be a popular race (6 majors, olympics, world championship, even regular "city marathons" etc.) where there's an overall female winner, because both m/f elites show up and men win by a huge margin.

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> There's yet to be a popular race (6 majors, olympics, world championship, even regular "city marathons" etc.) where there's an overall female winner [...]

It wasn't a major city race and probably had a lot of casual runners, but I ran a half marathon earlier this year with around 20,000 participants. A woman won the overall in 1:18:30.

The people who are good at this are just so much better at it than the average person. A fast woman, even if she isn't faster than the fastest men, will still be faster than 99.9+% of them.

>The people who are good at this are just so much better at it than the average person. A fast woman, even if she isn't faster than the fastest men, will still be faster than 99.9+% of them.

That's not in doubt. An extremely skilled person will outcompete the field, all other things being equal. Unfortunately, with reference to most sports, all other things aren't equal, which is why good high-school male teams in sports such as soccer can credibly compete with national-level adult female teams.

But 1:18 is far far away from any professional result. That’s actually confirming what I said. I’m friends with two people who can beat that (1:16, 1:15). They have day jobs.

That race just wasn’t that competitive, even if it had 20k runners.

>There's yet to be a popular race (6 majors, olympics, world championship, even regular "city marathons" etc.) where there's an overall female winner

Courtney Dauwalter dominates men in Ultra races, you can call them niche races if it helps your ego, but lets call those races what they really are...the longest and most grueling races, stacked with elite and professional runners.

Good fact presented poorly.

Is it better to just present falsehoods as facts in a polished manner? Or downplay woman's accomplishments as niche, when its clearly the harder accomplishment? What causes one to do those things?

Surely you're not arguing that these ultra-marathons aren't niche compared to, say, the New York City marathon or marathons in the Olympics? It seems like a bad-faith argument to assume the person you first responded to is belittling the races just because women can and do win them, rather than because they get MUCH less publicity/interest. No reasonable person is going to suggest a 50K marathon isn't physically way harder than a standard marathon.

>Surely you're not arguing that these ultra-marathons aren't niche compared

The speed advantage men have, and I never said they didn't, is lost/leveled over distance, so to dismiss these longer races where women can and will filter to the top is odd when making a point about men's superiority. Do less people run them, sure, does that make them niche? No, thousands of people still run Ultra's, its not like we are talking about 1 trained woman and a bunch of untrained men.

>It seems like a bad-faith argument to assume the person you first responded to is belittling the races just because women can and do win them, rather than because they get MUCH less publicity/interest.

"And that only happens in niche races (niche being every race longer than a marathon..."

I don't think it is bad-faith to interpret the post as saying, men are better than women, but acknowledge women do sometimes beat men (statistically more likely in longer races), but then broad brush stroke those wins as "only in" niche races. But I'm not going to get stuck in debating what is niche, especially when it has now devolved into "more niche than marathons."

Nothing wrong with remaining objective that men do have a clear speed advantage over women, but that advantage diminishes over long distance, but maybe I am wrong, maybe we should disregard women's wins automatically as niche races.

>No reasonable person is going to suggest a 50K marathon isn't physically way harder than a standard marathon.

People in this thread have.

A woman won the overall/men's title at the 2018 New York City Marathon. It only had 55,000 runners and is the biggest marathon in the world, but don't let facts get in your way.

You must be massively confused. Confused by the name of the overall winner, perhaps? In Ethiopia, that’s apparently a man’s name. I don’t know how we’re talking past each other, but a person with a penis crossed the line first at NY in 2018.

EDIT: mm, I see; stealth edit. Well, I already typed a reply...

Men still holds the records for all categories, only reason a woman wins is that very few practice ultramarathons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#IAU_World_Best_P...

You can see that the top man ran 433.095 km in 48h, while the top woman did only 401.000 km in that time, so he was about 8% faster. Compare that to 100m where the men are 9% faster, so the male advantage is basically constant with respect to distance.

Of course the worlds fastest women will beat any man who doesn't practice, so dedicated women have no problem beating men in smaller races.

>so the male advantage is basically constant with respect to distance.

No the men's speed advantage is lost over greater distances. Yes, less people run utlra's but also of those who do run them, they are higher caliber runners on average (professionals/elites).

>Of course the worlds fastest women will beat any man who doesn't practice,

She is beating professionals in these ultra's, people don't just roll out of bed and run 240 miles without practice. And she has beat them by as much as 10 hours. She even holds the record for longest run in a 24 hour period and its not because men don't run that race, hell David Goggins has done 24 hour races and she beats him by over a half marathon.

> She even holds the record for longest run in a 24 hour period

No she doesn't, she held the womens record for that category but never the mens.

Men record 24h: 303.5 km

Women record 24h: 262.2 km

Dauwalter record 24h: 250.0 km (155.391 miles)

> She is beating professionals in these ultra's

I highly doubt that, there are extremely few professional ultra-marathon runners. She might beat professional marathon runners, but that is another sport so isn't really comparable. It is like beating a 100m runner in a marathon, women can do that easily.

That is a fair correction, not at all WR for 24 hour period. WR for a 24 hour race.

>there are extremely few professional ultra-marathon runners.

That is generally fair, but there are extremely few professional runners period. But per capital, you will find the the runners of 100 mile/240 mile races are going to be more elite on average than your average marathon runner. Are there less ultra runners sure, is the average ultra runner more likely to be elite than a casual runner? I still don't consider Ultra runs niche, and by default I think its wrong to say if a women runs a race, by definition that race is niche.

She even holds the record for longest run in a 24 hour period

It's time to give up on this throwaway account, you're just spewing garbage now. The 24 hour record is held by someone who has a penis attached to their body, and the women's record is not held by Courtney. And a woman didn't win the NYC Marathon in 2018. Three strikes...

Please don't do personal attacks on HN or post in the flamewar style, regardless of how wrong someone else is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Courtney Dauwalter is my favorite runner, but the races where she dominated men were really not the most competitive ones. The theory I read says that difference between the sexes gets less as the distance increases, but even in the marathon there is over a 10% difference between women's and men's world records. Or take UTMB, the most competitive ultra out there taking about 24 hours to finish. The women's winner was 33rd and 41st overall the last couple of years.

>The theory I read says that difference between the sexes gets less as the distance increases

That is my understanding also. And that's all I am saying, I'm not saying a woman is going to go out and beat Bolt in 100M sprint or even win the WR for the mile.

Still to acknowledge the playing field levels over distance and then dismissing those races as niche isn't fair. Read these comments, they suggest the only reason Daualter wins is because men don't practice these runs, that is ridiculous, no one is waking up and running 240 miles.

Is it Moab 240 that you're referring to? Tell me which of the men she beat was elite. Courtney had a great race at Western States last year and dominated the women's field, but she was 12th OA and almost 3 hours slower than the OA winner.

Here are the MOAB 240 (2017 results) I guess not a single runner is elite in your minds eye. You can also check the 2018 results and see if any live up to your standards as she holds the overall race/course record.

https://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=43733#id14104...

>Courtney had a great race at Western States last year and dominated the women's field, but she was 12th OA and almost 3 hours slower than the OA winner.

And one year she failed to complete that race altogether. She holds multiple records, had has won multiple races overall, but certainly I'm not saying every time she races she wins.

List of races she won (beat the men):

Mueller Marathon

Behind the Rocks Ultra

Continental Divide Trail Run (50k)

Coldwater Ruble (52 miles)

Moab 240 (238 miles)

The Bear Chase (50 miles)

Riverbank one day (24 hour run)

Desert Solstice (100 Miles)

Javelina Jundred (100k)

FANS (24 hour run)

The Chatfield Ultra Race (100k)

Tommyknowcker 12 hor & The mine shaft Half (100kk)

Chase the Moon (12 hours)

You tell me which of those races had an elite men's field and who those men were. Or give me odds that a woman will be top 5 at UTMB.

Obviously its impossible, what is being said is if Courtney won, then the men's field was not elite. Courtney won those races, so by definition you won't find any of the men meet you definition of elite.

I did give you the names of the races she won, you could look at the fields and confirm of the hundreds/thousands of runners she never beat an elite make runner.

Here is a question, since your the authority how many ultra runners are elite and are they all male?

You're putting words in my mouth. Let's say elite men are top 5 overall at UTMB; that's why I asked you to give me odds for women making it there.

But please prove me wrong by answering my question directly. Which race had an elite field of men that she beat. Not just one runner, because by that definition I have beaten sub 2:05 marathoners who DNF-ed.

What am I a Vegas odds maker?

Again I can't prove a elite field of men in the races she won, because I don't know you definition. Only you know your definition of elite ultra runners, so why don't you look at the fields instead of having me guess?

I can tell you plenty of the runners are ranked in the top 10% for their group (age/sex) overall, but something tells me that being a top 10% ultra runner in your group doesn't qualify one as Elite under your definition.

You have a much more generous definition of elite. To me elite is somebody who has a chance to win in any race regardless of who else shows up to compete. By that definition Courtney is an elite woman, but I do not believe that she would have a chance to win UTMB overall, or Moab 240 if all the best men showed up.

>To me elite is somebody who has a chance to win in any race regardless of who else shows up to compete.

Yes, my definition is more generous. But it also comes from the industry itself, in my experience marathons/races generally will have "Elite runner" applications/registrations. Like regular registrations/corrals the Elite Runner registrations are time based, and generally waive %'s of the race fee based on prior qualified race times. These are elite runner's in my mind, but in no way do most of them stand a chance of winning any given race on any given day.

And yes sort of by default I would place the top 10 finishers in a 238 mile race like Moab in the Elite category, they all appear to be top 20% of their group in overall Ultra rankings, so they are not the best for sure and its fine we disagree on their status of elite. I certainly wouldn't (and not saying you are, but others are) diminishing Courtney's accomplishments by saying she won niche races against untrained runners...I think its fair to say untrained runners don't run 50/100/238 mile races.

There is no elite field in ultras, only in big road races. Look at the PR-s for the elite guys here: https://www.baa.org/john-hancock-announces-2019-boston-marat... . The slowest one has a 2:13 which is below women's world record and 6 minutes faster than any of the elite women.

Nonsense from a user with a throwaway.

>Courtney Dauwalter dominates men in Ultra races

She will sometimes beat them, if that's what you mean.

>you can call them niche races if it helps your ego, but lets call those races what they really are...the longest and most grueling races, stacked with elite and professional runners.

Even the most competitive ultra is a niche race. If the award money for ultras increased 10x overnight then east africans would be dominating in 5 years (the most competitive ultra in the world, UTMB, has a reward of €35,000).

And competition wise, races in america are a far cry from european ultras which will often have thousands of runners. Not to mention thousands of meters of elevation.

The fact that this woman's many extraordinary achievements are buried under titles like "Women are better then men in ultras" is disgusting to me.

EDIT: Oops east, not west africans.

>She will sometimes beat them, if that's what you mean.

Yes, by as much as 10 hours in the MOAB 240, she set the record in a 100K race, she won another 100 miler by 75 minutes. She set another record in a 24 hour run.

>Not to mention thousands of meters of elevation.

Like the MOAB 240 in Utah she won by 10 hours with 29,467 feet of elevation?

>The fact that this woman's many extraordinary achievements are buried under titles like "Women are better then men in ultras" is disgusting to me.

Where did you get those quotes? Maybe you should consider you are "disgusted" by the woman's accomplishments and frame them as "She will sometimes beat them," without being able to acknowledge the degree of her victories over 2nd place male runners. Does she win every race she enters? No, of course not, but when she wins, she sets records and we are not talking seconds or minutes.

Running 240 miles thru a desert and winning against all competition is very impressive, but how on earth do you spin that to a generalization like "she dominates men in ultra races" is totally beyond me.

>Does she win every race she enters? No, of course not, but when she wins, she sets records and we are not talking seconds or minutes.

You literally made my point.

So to say she dominates, mean she must win every race she enters? I don't think so, otherwise you just literally made my point, men don't dominate women (i.e. they don't win every race).

Yes, she dominates...when the 2nd place male athlete isn't even close that is domination. 10 hour victory from her 1st place to 2nd place, 75 minutes from 1st place to 2nd place...that is domination in running.

This is what domination looks like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%ADlian_Jornet_Burgada#Sel...

She is THAT, for women. She is not that for men. Case closed, or at least it would be with anyone who actually runs ultras, or runs at all.

If you can't understand that breaking a record by 10 hours means that the previous record was shit, then I don't how to help you understand that.

In any case I don't like discussions with people who hide behind throwaways. Because I have a feeling you're just trolling me.

Push your weirdo agenda as hard as you like, I don't care. People like you are ruining this forum.

No one would argue that isn't consistent success at the highest levels of running.

>If you can't understand that breaking a record by 10 hours means that the previous record was shit, then I don't how to help you understand that.

I get it you don't like women, and their success threatens you and your identity. What were you saying about weirdo agenda? You can't seem to acknowledge the few hundred men who have been unable to break her record (or come anywhere close for that matter).

>Case closed, or at least it would be with anyone who actually runs ultras, or runs at all.

I look forward to watching you compete against her in a future Ultra and showing us all how she is shit and her records are shit. In fact, as your accusing me of using a throwaway, tell us all your real name and these Ultra's you have competed in and lets see if we can find a single race where a women didn't beat you.

Would you please follow the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) when posting here? You've been breaking them with bits like these:

> I get it you don't like women, and their success threatens you and your identity

> You really seem obsessed with penises

> you can call them niche races if it helps your ego

We ban accounts that make a habit of posting in the flamewar style, so please edit such swipes out of your comments here, even if another commenter is wrong or annoying. They degrade discussion badly—it's notable how much worse this comment is than where things started out—and I'm sure you can make your substantive points without them.

Personal attacks, like you did here and upthread, will get you banned on HN, regardless of how wrong or annoying another commenter is. Please edit such swipes out of your comments here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> You literally made my point.

In that case it's possible to rest in agreement and there's no need to keep fighting a flamewar. Please don't do the latter on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Minor quibble but I think you mean East Africans, not West Africans.

Also, most of the East Africans are actually from the same tribe/town in Kenya, Kalenjin.

But your overall point, agreed. The only reason these races are not dominated by African runners is because of the low prize money involved.

E.g. if Eliud Kipchoge ran a 2:01 for the first 42K he could have walked the remaining 8K and still beaten the winner of this race by an hour.

Nothing against her or the other ultra pros, but the facts are as you describe.

you can call them niche races if it helps your ego

I call them niche races because as one who dabbles in the occasional ultramarathon, I had to go look up most of the races she's won. She wins Western States, then we have something to talk about. Your overweight neighbor has heard of the New York City Marathon, not so much Run Rabbit Run (a race Courtney has won outright).

Yeah, my ego is at stake here. Sure.

Anyway, yes, any race longer than a marathon is basically niche when analyzed based on the prize pool, media exposure, number of professional and recreational practicioners.

Seeing the rise of US skill in football (soccer), we in Croatia like to joke that the only reason we can win a world championship here and there in waterpolo, handball etc., is because americans still don’t find the sport interesting.

But the gap is closing!

I’m not 100% sold on your statement. One simple argument you’re making is that men are stronger than women, which is currently true. But why?

From googling for a few min, I found some interesting stuff; For example, women were not allowed to compete in Boston marathon until 1970s [0]. And times within the some groups of runners, since women began competing, is displaying a trend that men vs women times are getting closer (same article).

So this begs the question: since women haven’t been allowed to compete in sports for thousands of years, what will happen to their bodies when they are allowed to compete? In other words, on a long enough time scale, I believe that certain sports will have equal competition (running is one).

There are also clear cases and valid reasons for men being stronger/more fit but the main culprits, in at least endurance sports, is total body fat and hemoglobin [1]. I’m not 100% certain these factors cannot, over time, be diluted into equilibrium.

I’m not a scientist and don’t study such things but my guess is that male dominance won’t always be as pronounced as some folks think. One totally unscientific reason for my hypothesis is that there are just too many edge cases in sports that proved people wrong. The most famous ones, I can think of are: sprinters shouldn’t run standing up (Bolt). NBA players not shooting Free Throws underhand (Berry).

[0]: https://www.outsideonline.com/2386436/are-women-closing-men-...

[1]: https://www.outsideonline.com/2336111/defining-upper-limits-...

Were men hunters and women gatherers because of gender norms?

No. Women are a more valuable resource and hence had to be protected.

If most men die, we can repopulate if there is a large population that is able to birth young. If most women die, resources are diminished because of time consideration.

Men go to war because they’re expandable. Why are you bringing in gender norms into the equation?

> since women haven’t been allowed to compete in sports for thousands of years, what will happen to their bodies when they are allowed to compete?

I am not sure I get it. Are you suggesting that the reason men dominate almost all sports is not due to their undoubtedly greater physical capacity, but due to some societal discrimination?

Also, are your suggesting that evolution works such that appreciable biological differences show up in just a few thousand years?

Based on data, some sports are showing that women are becoming as competitive as men, within a very short timetable when they were able to compete.

I’m making a statement based on data not a weak held opinion.

My opinion that in some cases, I do believe that with time, women and men will compete at the same level. Will it be boxing, American football, or Rugby? Most likely not. Other sports, however, may converge on a unified field.

With regard to biology, again based on the data, it seems that women and men are converging to a level playing field.

Also, if you took the time to read both articles, I did try to have a balance view showing there are physiological superiorities in male athletes.

In endurance sports, it seems fat and hemoglobin are the male superiority (less body fat + larger bodies and hemoglobin count). Question I pose is will this trend continue into eternity or will there be a time when such differences are mitigated via sports science?

> Based on data, some sports are showing that women are becoming as competitive as men

Which sport? I know that they can compete in shooting and some other dexterity based competitions, but other than that men outclass women in every sport I know. Men just have more energy and power per body mass in addition to having more body mass, so for everything where you have to move around yourself or something else men have a huge advantage.

> Since women haven’t been allowed to compete in sports for thousands of years, what will happen to their bodies when they are allowed to compete?

I believe the effect here would be mainly in terms of training, recovery, and nutritional science targeted specifically for women evolving over time to increase the caliber of female talent overall.

You also need the recruitment programs, marketing, and prize money to more successfully identify the potential number 1 top females for specific sports, and convince them to devote a lifetime to training for it.

It’s not an evolutionary (gene pool) thing, it’s an environmental thing.

I would assume certain sports lend themselves more toward selecting for physiology that both men and women are equally likely to develop (e.g. hemoglobin) and others will tend to benefit from testosterone or muscle mass that men will always hold an inherent biological advantage, meaning the sports should maintain distinct biologically male and female playing fields.

In my opinion, you’re spot on. There will be areas of a unified sport field while other sports are simply impossible (boxing comes to mind).

I don't give clicks to rags like outsideonline.com, sorry.

On another note I'm always amazed how confident HN posters are about any subject, even when they admit all their knowledge comes from a few minutes of google searches and articles.

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