Why do girls run shorter distances at many cross country events?

It's because the coach thinks that if they are too tired, the girls will not be as interested in getting their cherries popped.

yes, you are an asshole.

I think history and some antiquated ideas are why women run shorter distances. historically, it was stated that women were too fragile and weak to run long distances, also that it would destroy their fertility... which was their only real use anyway.

it was said that a woman could not even finish a marathon; and Switzer had to literally fight her way to the finish as an angry race director attempted to grab her and pull her off the course. Now we have multiple women below 2:20 in that event.

Think what you want to think about it, but many women take their running just as seriously as men do,& we work to achieve our true potential, despite any inherent disadvantages we have in our biology.

2 hours to finish a long race. I agree. I don't like waiting around 2 hours for women OR men to finish marathons.

wow, thank god that didn't happen to Kara, Deena, & Paula. Maybe they should switch over to 5k races.

Sometimes girls running shorter or less intervals make the amount TIME they ran equal to the guys. Or, perhaps their intervals are based on a percentage of their weekly mileage.

Never seen the point in women's running. If you're so equal, you can run in the men's races and go as far as you can.

One possible reason to continue this practice could be that under title ix, the name of the game is the number of women participating. Longer races might deter some women from participation.

Haven't you seen the women collapsing at the finish of the NCAA XC meet? If anything they need to run even shorter - maybe 4K.

Don't be so bitter.

f*** women wrote:

Never seen the point in women's running. If you're so equal, you can run in the men's races and go as far as you can.

Because they don't manage their iron levels properly.

"Every minute of this 10,000 is one minute closer to my death"

-Harry Groves while watching a women's 10,000m

It's a convention that no longer has any meaning. In US HS both boys and girls generally run 3M/5km (standard distance). But at the IAAF level (generally run by a bunch of crotchety old men, at least in the past anyway), therefore trickling down from there, the women run different distances because it would be embarrassing for the women to run faster than the men (not that they would, but such is the paranoia), at least that is how I see it. It's one thing for Juniors to run shorter distances than Seniors, another for women and men to be different. But then this is steeped in an attitude (see 1928 OG and eliminating women's 800m from the program for another 32 years) of misogyny (both in science and politics).

The track now has the same events - once the 3000m was advanced to 5000m at the IAAF for World Champ/OG ('95, '96) - and had 10000m in '87,'88, and Marathon in '83,'84 prior to this change anyway. There is little reason for the Senior women not to be running the same distances now as the Senior men in XC.

Not sure why 12km became the standard distance for men's XC - perhaps it was a compromise as England had 9 miles as its standard XC distance at one time. Also it may have been to distinguish it from Track comparisons. There is little reason, especially now that the short course experiment has been abandoned, why both distances aren't (men reduced and women increased) standardized at 10km. Then this could be adopted by the NCAA (presumably 6k and 10k as shortened versions of 8km and 12km).

As to why coaches have runners do different distances in training. This should apply to juniors and women or simply slower men as well, in that energy system development is time-dependent, not distance-dependent. So someone taking 2.30 to do 1k repeats is doing a different session (Physiologically) from another taking 4.30 to do 1k repeats.

It never made any sense to me. I understand that it must come from old ideas about female fragility, but why is cross country the last to figure it out, NCAA and IAAF need to get it together and realize that women are perfectly capable of running the same distance as men for a race.

I have also noticed that most women do not train at the same intensity as men who run at the same level of competition. Whether it's high school, college, or pro. Few women run 100+ miles a week where it's a standard for elite men, in high school most women I knew ran half the mileage of the men. However when women do train at the same intensity as is standard for men, they tend to dominate the women who don't and just get by on talent. To me this proves that women can handle the training, just fewer of them want to do it.

The one difference I get is the height of the steeple barriers or hurdles, women are shorter, that makes sense. Also, do women run 100 meter hurdles and men 110, that just seems silly. Does it have something to do with stride length and steps between hurdles?

f*** women wrote:

Never seen the point in women's running. If you're so equal, you can run in the men's races and go as far as you can.

If men where slower that would definitely be the case

I doubt you ever managed to f*** any women though

I agree with you for the most part.

I have observed (anecdotally, no numbers to back this up) that women seem to be more prone to stress fractures with high mileage.

I don't know if this is just high mileage, per say. A lot of this might be due to the triad sequence (inadequate caloric intake --> inadequate body fat --> inadequate estrogen production --> ammenhorrea --> brittle bones -->

stress fracture) and not high mileage alone. Women are more likely to have inadequate caloric intake at 100 mpw than, say, 50 mpw.

For women who do menstruate regularly, there is increased risk of iron deficiency anemia with high mileage. (Again, though, this is something that can be easily corrected with diet or supplements.)

Women do generally have weaker bones. (There is plenty of evidence that we have higher rates of osteoporosis, etc.)

None of this is to say that women CAN'T or DON'T handle high mileage. Many of the top runners rely on high mileage and get to be top runners because of it.

Women just have to be careful about these potential pitfalls that men don't have to worry about.

Lets talk about steeple/hurdles for a second. Should the hurdles be the same height as the guys but for a shorter distance? Like have guys run the steeple with 36' hurdles and girls run 2000m steeple with 36' hurdles, or have guys run 400m hurdles with 36' hurdles and girls run 300m or 200m with 36' hurdles? Should they keep the same hurdle height and shorten the distance, or keep the same distance and shorten the hurdle height like they do now?

For Cross, it's like the opposite of track. They have different distances but same intensity, as opposed to the same distance with smaller intensity. So maybe the women COULD race 12K, but the hills wouldn't be as big or something, just like women can race 400m hurdles or steeple, but the barriers aren't as big.

Which do you prefer, for both track and Cross?

a girl wrote:

Switzer had to literally fight her way to the finish as an angry race director attempted to grab her and pull her off the course.

Jock Semple was pulling Switzer off the course because the rules were at the time that if a woman finished the race, the Boston Marathon would lose its AAU accreditation, and the BAA and all other related entities would be cut off from the precious little funding they enjoyed at the time.

all things being equal, girls run about 15% slower than guys, right?

so if they train and race shorter distances, they actually spend a similar amount of time doing it. it makes perfect sense; they (boys and girls) run races in xc whose physiological demands are identical--unlike identical-distance races, where females do a more endurance-specific race, e.g. 10k races in which girls are "on the clock" much longer.

whirledpeas wrote:

all things being equal, girls run about 15% slower than guys, right?

so if they train and race shorter distances, they actually spend a similar amount of time doing it. it makes perfect sense; they (boys and girls) run races in xc whose physiological demands are identical--unlike identical-distance races, where females do a more endurance-specific race, e.g. 10k races in which girls are "on the clock" much longer.

roughly 11% slower

my $.02

Womens WRs:

800m = 1:53.xx

1500m = 3:50.xx

mile = 4:12.xx

3000m = 8:06.xx

Steeple = 8:58.xx

5000m = 14:12.xx

10,000m = 29:31.xx

Marathon = 2:15.xx

I'm guessin those marks stack up pretty well with posters on this site ... no? Pretty impressive in my book. Further, I'm pretty impressed with anyone who steps to the starting line and fights the good fight ... regardless. Just for a straw poll - how many here have run 2:15 or better? ... 14:12? Attempting to put others down does nothing to elevate on'es own status OR validate their own accomplishments. I would think if you don't like women's racing ... don't watch it.