Camille Herron sets new 100-Mile Record and Wins USATF Champs outright!

That 100K women's record is THE huge outlier. Assuming it is legit (not mismeasured), it must be a combination of a weak men's record and an EXCEPTIONAL women's record.

Here is Letsrun's assessment:

"Why we don’t think this record is the GOAT: To be honest, initially when were pretty far along in this process, we thought about having separate GOAT men’s and women’s records and this was going to be our women’s record. It’s certainly impressive but we aren’t giving it GOAT status for two reasons. The first is that Lake Saroma features a huge start-finish separation of 47%, just under the IAAF limit of 50%. So basically the course can be majorly wind-aided. “Ultra trail legends” did a great job of explaining on the message boardthe reservations many have about the course being accepted for records. That being said, it’s not like the course is point to point, and even if you add, say, 10 minutes to Abe’s time, it’s still very close to the men’s WR in terms of percent (9.19%)."

letsrun.com

What Are The Greatest Ultramarathon Records? These Are 7 Of The Greatest But Not THE Greatest

LetsRun.com

We share with you 7 of our favorite ultramarathon records. On Monday, we'll unveil the GOAT. *MB: Who are the greatest ultramarathon runners in history? *MB: What are the best ultramarathon records?

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What's the saying: There are lies, white lies and statistics?

Okay, lets just say (give or take), *generally* the top women (women's records) are about 10% slower than the top men (men's records). Due to typical physiological differences between sexes, that range can theoretically vary with the changing energy demands of certain events.

Whether it is 14% at the 100-mile even vs 10.6% at the 400m, doesn't mean that women are "closer to men" at 400m on average necessarily. They may very well be (and there could be be biggest gap in the mile-5km and "high Vo2max events which can be explained by science quite easily). But the big thing here is the very small sample size of ultramarathon distance races being run. So forget about even comparing the 100-mile records right now.

Women and Men road marathons happen all the time in pretty good weather conditions on fast days. Same with track events. There are many, many more data points.

With ultra running you have very, very small sample sizes and numbers (of total participants, but also women) even competing. And how many people run a flat 100-mile road/track course in really good weather conditions? There are barely any events like that.

However, I'd say that given Camille's road marathon PR (compared to a guy's marathon PR of 2:37) she "converts" very very well up to 100-mile-24 events on flat courses. She just beat several guys with 2:20x marathon PRs. Women generally are more efficient at utilizing fat as a fuel. Vo2max and sheer running power matters way less in ultramarathon distances. That is just basic science and fact.

But mainly the sample sizes are just too small to be drawing any sort of conclusions/comparisons between mainstream Olympic Distance events and something like 100-miles or UTMB.

There's no need to do a deep statistical analysis to answer the question of whether women close the gap to men at extreme distances. Looking at just the WRs/CRs in the range from sprints to ultra is sufficient to see that there is a fairly consistent gap between top men and top women. There's variance all along, but no trend line to see. Women don't close the gap to men at extreme distances.

It'd be wrong to try to explain the relatively small differences in the gaps between the events as anything other than the statistical noise of individual performances. 9% to 13% is essentially a consistent gap. The outlier gaps either way, by Walmsley or Abe for example, are due to small sample size in ultras that you mention (and maybe tailwind in Abe's case).

Trying to explain the small differences in the sex gap in some events due to "high Vo2max events" would not be scientific. If you were writing a scientific paper, that would be like speculation in a conclusion... not at all related to the data being looked at. I've written hundreds of scientific reports, and really try to keep the conclusions tidy and supported by the data. Otherwise, I could be setting myself/my company up to be sued. I have had lots of loss prevention training!

The sample size of Marathons is big.

At 100k there are plenty of data points (not in the US)

At 100 miles road/track there are almost zero data points because the distance was not raced on roads and track ever until recently anywhere in the world.

24 hours have enough data points

The main difference between Marathons and ultras is the time frame you need to compete. With more time more things can go wrong. That's why Don Ritchie's 100k World Record stood for almost 40 years.

And in 24 hour racing Yiannis Kouros was the outlier.

ultrarunninghistory.com

The Greatest 100 km

In 1978 a great 100 kilometer race took place at the Crystal Palace in England where Don Ritchie of Scotland set the world record that lasted for more than 40 years.

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Has a woman ever beaten the men at a USATF championship before?

It should be OPEN and women's category and she deserves the prize money for both. Did the guy still get the guy's 1st place money?

Wow a loop course like that in the sun...it might be easier logistically, but that is an impressive mental accomplishment to endure that monotony. I would have unraveled.

I think that might have happened at these weird "US" 24 hour Championships they have every year in Ohio because the guys knows somebody at the USATF.

Well of course there is a "consistent gap" between top Men and top Women at distance running events. Do we even need to state that obvious fact at this day and age? Men generally have larger hearts, larger lungs, higher Vo2max, more relative muscle mass, more testosterone etc. Give or take you can say "well it's consistency around 10%". I mean this is just basic Science. But in terms of validity and trends of times/records I say we don't have enough data in Ultramarathon events to say women can't "trend towards getting closer to men".

So you can't accurately (from a quantitative viewpoint of validity) compare 100m-Marathon event top performances and records to the ultramarathons (especially 100-milers...which mostly are run on trails anyway). The vast amount of more consistent data in standard Olympic events is just on another level and a much, much larger sample size. From high school kids running track to the millions and millions of people that run standard road marathons each year.

It has yet to be seen in the few numbers of top men and women running 100-miles-24 hours (because of small sample size), but I'd actually make the argument that Women could very well "close the gap" slightly on Men. This is again due to basic physiological differences between Men and Women with fat burning utilization (to name one obvious variable). Of course other variables like pacing/strategy and nutrition/gear and mental attitude influence longer ultramarathon times heavily. Those may be harder to control for. But if we had the same kinds of numbers of Men and Women that ran standard road marathons all of a sudden start running 100-milers and 24 hours in these "time trial" kinds of events I'd bet on you'd start seeing women getting more consistently within 10% of men.

I agree.

For reference, women are more in the 30% less region for field events. Running is more egalitarian in that regard.

Looks like the course was a little short. Still an amazing run, though!

washingtonpost.com

She ran a 100-mile world record. A course error means it won’t count.

Distance runner Camille Herron’s latest feat has not been ratified after questions were raised about the racecourse.

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Damn, that really sucks for her!

It's funny reading the comments in the Post article, some are suggesting the record should still count. These must be non-runners commenting, there is no way any short course should ever count towards a record.

Camille Herron is really irritating. First she goes after Ashley Paulson and accuses her of cheating at Badwater without any proof (we're still waiting, Harvey Lewis), and now she's basically demanding her record be certified even though the course was proven 3 times to be short.

The RD admitted to altering the previous course and didn't have it recerified, and they measured it 3 times. Her complaint is "I'm running out of time so they should just give it to me."

She's ok with cheating if it benefits her. What a whiner.