Hardest women's WR for a man to beat?

Going on the premise that you mean male athletes who do the same event, and not just "guys" at large.

I don't have any hard data to support this, and it's mostly just a gut feeling backed by some hands on experience, but I'm saying the women's discus record.

If a good male discus thrower went at the way lighter, way smaller women's disc the same way they did the men's weight disc, they'd overpower it and the physics of it's flight would be a mess. They'd have to adjust a lot of things to adapt to the lighter weight & size and make it fly right, whereas a top male sprinter or miler or jumper would just have to do their normal, and not even as well as they normally do.

If you did mean "guys at large", nevermind I guess.

For someone without sprinting talent, it might be the 100. Obviously the marathon is out of reach unless you’re a supremely talented distance runner. High Jump, long jump, triple jump are pretty dang stout for a mortal as well.

That is because, The BEST High Schoolers never run the Half Marathon or Marathon, a few did about 50 Years ago like Thom Hunt who ran 4:02 for the Indoor Mile and Mid 2:20's in the Marathon while in High School. At least 3 kids at Newbury Park, Would Beat Letsenbit Gidey head to head, and if they Ran RAK or Valencia Half Marathon they would beat her Time of 1:02.52, Every year there would be 5-8 High Schoolers who could beat that. Our TOP High Schoolers do NOT run Half Marathons or Marathon's, Even our TOP College Runners rarely run Marathons, The last Top College Runner who ran a Marathon (With Remaining Eligibility that he did use) was Alberto Salazar who Won New York in his Debut Then set the World Record his first year out of College. If High Schoolers ran Half and Full Marathons, it would be like all the other events The 100, 200, 400, 800, Hurdles, Jumps, Throws etc the TOP Male High Schoolers would beat the World's best Females by a good Margin

His father said at age 16 or 17 J. Ingebritsen could have run under an hour.

You are going to have to provide at least some evidence to back this up. I have a really hard time believing 5-8 HS kids a year have the aerobic base to string together 21 straight 2:58 KMs. Do you really think half a dozen kids each year can run 47:00 10 millers or 28:30 10Ks?

I'd say Jackie Joyner Kersee's Heptathlon 35 years ago.

She long jumped about 24 feet, ran the 100 meters hurdles in 12.6, the 200 in 22.5, and high jumped over 6 feet.

For context, at the NCAA mens decathalon finals this year, her LJ and hurdles (projected for the extra 10 meters, both would have been top #1-3, her HJ fairly competitive, and her 2:08 in the 800 meters projects really well against a lot of the 1,500 meter times. While she wouldn't have beat all the men at the finals, she would have beat the majority in a Heptathlon set of events.

There's a very, very small group of male athletes in her league on the planet.

Those marks, other than the LJ, are middling for a good HS athlete with 200 to 800 range. 12.6 on 33" hurdles isn't fast for a man, but the short spacing could cause some issues. High jumping 6 feet doesn't even require technique four a male good athlete.

Comparing to single or similar discipline athletes sort of misses the point.

Taken as a whole for a single athlete, they aren't middling for collegiate male decathletes, and likely virtually unreachable for any High Schooler.

The fastest decathlete time in the 1500 at this year's NCAA's was 4:24. Of course that's middling for a HS mile specialist.

Male decathletes are not built for the Heptathlon. They are way too big due to the upper body power requirements of the decathlon. An ideal men in the hep world be a long sprinter with good overall athleticism. The shot and javelin marks of JJK wouldn't require much upper body mass.

Heather Anderson's 2015 SoBo record was an overall record at the time but Joey Campanelli went more than 5 days faster a couple years later. Unless something happened recently that I didn't hear about.

In general, records for these huge distance endurance events suffer from the low number of people who actually do them.

Anderson also had the unsupported FKT for the Pacific Crest Trail that she set in 2013, which record stood until last summer, when a Josh Perry set the new record. But I do actually agree with BW that Amish’s performances in these super-long endurance events suggest that women can compete head to head with men. Of course, as you say, sample sizes are pretty small.

But they said men, not US men.

Why is this site so obsessed with comparing men and women?

Get a hobby.

You aren't a man.

That's their hobby. It goes with being a loser.

How dare you suggest that only womyn can give birth! Say “uterus-having humans.” I am outraged.

The question should be, "what's the hardest women's WR for a high school boy to beat?"

Every women's track and field/road running world record has been bettered by a high school-aged (14-18) boy.

An 18 year old Ethiopian ran a 2:04:32 marathon. That's better than the women's half marathon twice in a row...

I'm quoting the OP because I wanted to see if it specified track and field or road racing. It does not, nor does the thread title.

So, I would say that a women's world record for running a trail race of 100 miles is something that not so many men could do, and even less would want to try.

Other than that, I thought the argument for the Heptathlon was pretty sound.

Finally, wouldn't the toughest track record be the one (whatever it is) that is beaten by the fewest men, worldwide, on a yearly basis? Perhaps that would be hard to track because most women's records are beaten by a lot of guys (no offense, just true) every year. For example, the 800 world record is routinely beaten at many high school regionals and most state meets, and that's just U.S. high schoolers.

Something like the half marathon, that is run by fewer men and requires years of development would also be a solid bet.