Hardest women's WR for a man to beat?

As far as track records go, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the 3000. Definitely more guys who can run 4:12 or 14:06 than can run 8:06

Your average guy wouldn't be able to break a single record.

It's the 1:02:53 half, and it isn't that close. That time for the half would be the 104 fastest American man of all time, while more than 200 NCAA runners broke 8:06 last year indoors. Gidey's time would have been a men's WR up until 1977.

Nah, these stats are skewed by the advent of super shoes. Not to mention the fact that the half marathon has much less prestige than the full ‘thon.

Versus JJK, Wang, and Koch who were clearly competing without any unfair advantages...

Does anyone know how many Japanese* HS boys run the Half each year? I think that if they can do it, it isn't the "hardest of all events" for a male. It doesn't say "American men" anywhere, does it? And it certainly doesn't say "HS boys" in the OP, so why are we worrying about that. It just says, "for a guy."

* These guys aren't even pros, they are just college age runners:

runningmagazine.ca

Japanese half-marathon sees a shocking 400 finishers under 1:10 - Canadian Running Magazine

Madeleine Kelly

One of Japan's most competitive half-marathons lived up to its reputation on Sunday

Open link

It's not about high school boys, it's about men in general. High school boys don't have the mileage built up for a half marathon and there's no reason for them to ever race one in high school. But I've seen men that never came close to breaking 15 in college end up running 1:01 in the half, and that's decades before super shoes.

You might want to edit the wikipedia then which still lists her with the Appalachian record, on the page about the trail.

"But I've seen men that never came close to breaking 15 in college end up running 1:01 in the half, and that's decades before super shoes."

Ridiculous. So you claim these runners went on to run 30 seconds faster than their college 5K PB more than 8 times over? Were they doing 30 mpw in college or what?

Few high schools have a good enough vaults coach (if one at all) to get them over 5 meters. Even elite decathletes don't beat that by much. So maybe that's the hardest one.

Ironic, since it needs so much upper body strength.

Name a single runner that meets this criteria.

I think male discus throwers could quickly adjust to the smaller disc; do you have evidence to the contrary?

It has to be the marathon. If you were an American man running 2:14 in 2022, you would be a top-25 guy in the nation. I don't think any other equivalent result would net you such a high placing.

Or we could think of the question this way, if you were the coach of an average DI college track team, do you think you would beat all of the women's track records over 20 years of coaching? Yes, of course. But which ones would your athletes rarely beat?

I went to a small DIII school and we had guys who were faster in about half the events. I know alumni who went on to break all these times except the 400H.

That said, I think it would be hardest to find dudes who can run 50.68 in the 400H. That sounds so insane. Sydney is amazing.

WWR - Event - My DIII school's records
10.49 - 100m - 10.32
21.34 - 200m - 20.91
47.6 - 400m - 48.1
01:53.3 - 800m - 1:49.8
03:50.1 - 1500m - 3:45.4
08:44.3 - Steeple - 9:10
08:06.1 - 3km - 8:21
14:06.6 - 5km - 14:19
29:01.0 - 10km - 30:18
12.12 - 100H - n/a (men run the 110H)
50.68 - 400H - 52.7

I would love to know who that runner was. That seems impossible. A male runner who can't run sub-15 could never run 1:01 in the half.

There have only been about 30 US born men who have run under 1:02 and most of them were faster than 15:30 before they even got to college. Plus, there are only about 5 who you could classify as decades before super shoes. Prior to 1980, that time would have been a world record.

There's no such thing as a women's world record for running a trail race of 100 miles, so that's out.

There are course records, sure - but ultra trail running is such a niche sport, with such small participation in even the most well known races (e.g. Western States is capped at 400 runners) that any course record would lack the depth and legacy to drive those times down to the standards of track and road races.

I don't know of many elite male discus throwers that post their 1k efforts. But I do know John Powell, who threw the 2k over 70m, threw the 1k over 90m.

For the average poster, I would say FloJo's 10.49, 21.34 and Koch's 47.60 are pretty beyond difficult. An underrated mention might be Yulimar Rojas' triple jump. People truly do not understand how absurd a 51 foot triple jump is. One of the greatest athletes I have ever known is a 16m+ triple jumper. He is 6' 2 and absolutely shredded, D1 athlete with multiple school records. Rojas could easily be his training partner and potentially snag a win against him on a given day.