Why are women so bad at the 800?

If you are trolling, I am biting.

Review energy systems and how long people can operate at an anaerobic level. This is the reason a woman 800 meter runner must be trained differently than a man, yet many coaches fail to recognize this or make any changes to training due to gender. The change is actually being made due to how long the runners are out there, not specifically their gender. I would make the same adjustments for high school boys over 2:00.

Insufficient Hatred

Last year, two women broke 50 in the 400 while 28 went sub 2:00.

13 women went under 15:00 for 5000.

People make more progress in the distances than the sprints/middle distances after high school.

The top high school boys 400 runners approach the Olympic qualifying time (45.19 is the HS record).

No high school 5000m runners do. Rupp's high school record of 13:37 isn't very close to the IAAF standard.

1:46.45 for HS is pretty close.

You are comparing HS boys with adult women. 50 for 400 is more like 1:56 for boys. For instance, WA state (not sprint-heavy) has 22 boys under 50.0 and 22 under 1:56.0 right now.

49 is the winning time for Women's championships, as 1:55-56 is (usually)

Plus steroids help women a little more in the 400 than the 800, most likely.

Oh, and the 5000 is not a competitive event in HS for boys. Even though boys are weaker at distance, 14:30 would be commonplace if it was. A 15:00 over cross-country is roughly the same, depending on the course.

WRs:

Distance Men Women Percentage

100 9.58 10.49 91%

200 19.19 21.34 90%

400 43.18 47.6 91%

800 01:40.9 01:53.3 89%

1500 03:26.0 03:50.5 89%

5000 12:37.4 14:11.2 89%

10000 26:17.5 30:21.0 87%

HM 58:23.0 1:05:12 90%

M 2:02:57 2:17:42 89%

opinionated guy wrote:

If you are trolling, I am biting.

Review energy systems and how long people can operate at an anaerobic level. This is the reason a woman 800 meter runner must be trained differently than a man, yet many coaches fail to recognize this or make any changes to training due to gender. The change is actually being made due to how long the runners are out there, not specifically their gender. I would make the same adjustments for high school boys over 2:00.

To keep it short, the 800 is perhaps the most stressful event on the female body. I have seen so many high school girls who can run a sub-5 minute mile, but can barely break 2:20 in the 800 or sub-60 seconds in the 400 and again can barely break 2:20 in the 800m. A H.S. girls who can run a 2:15 800 can be state champ, but that is only equal to about 2:02 for a boy. Also, when you look at the fact that world class men routinely run 1:43x in the 800m, which suggest women should routinely run 1:56 when you look at the male/female percentage difference in other events. I don't know what is significant about the male/female when it comes to the 800m. Historically, the 800 have been dominated by obvious dopers and women with high testosterone and even questions about their gender.

Kalashnikov wrote:

Plus steroids help women a little more in the 400 than the 800, most likely.

"Likely" based on what?

autoxfil wrote:

WRs:

Distance Men Women Percentage

100 9.58 10.49 91%

200 19.19 21.34 90%

400 43.18 47.6 91%

800 01:40.9 01:53.3 89%

1500 03:26.0 03:50.5 89%

5000 12:37.4 14:11.2 89%

10000 26:17.5 30:21.0 87%

HM 58:23.0 1:05:12 90%

M 2:02:57 2:17:42 89%

Looks like no real outliers.

If anything, perhaps the 10000 and the 100 are a bit out there.

More pertinent to this thread, the 800 seems to be solidly in the center.

Maybe you should ask why high school boys are so bad at the 5000m

We need average times from the past 3 years not the records.

Outing Liars wrote:

autoxfil wrote:

WRs:

Distance Men Women Percentage

100 9.58 10.49 91%

200 19.19 21.34 90%

400 43.18 47.6 91%

800 01:40.9 01:53.3 89%

1500 03:26.0 03:50.5 89%

5000 12:37.4 14:11.2 89%

10000 26:17.5 30:21.0 87%

HM 58:23.0 1:05:12 90%

M 2:02:57 2:17:42 89%

Looks like no real outliers.

If anything, perhaps the 10000 and the 100 are a bit out there.

The 10k is an outlier because he put the world record as 30:21 for some odd reason

The 100 is an outlier because it was likely wind aided

HardLoper wrote:

Maybe you should ask why high school boys are so bad at the 5000m

You are correct, I think it has a lot to do with two facts, one half of your top high school kids will never run the 5000 and the ones that do will only run it maybe once. If you look at the Dream Mile participants, only one two have run a 5K. Two, American kids don't do any specific training for it, they train for the 800, mile and 2 mile. The ones that did like Lingren and Rupp, ran quality times. I am pretty sure Frenandez, Webb and Cheserek could have ran fast if they trained for it.

Thanks for the data. I looked back at a few from 1960. You can see the steroid effect helping to close the gap between men and women as one would expect.

So, for Trackcoach and opiniatedguy, what is your foundational blame? Too much anaerobic work??? Too much aerobic work???

I'll just say this... I know a womens program that lives on aerobic work, and can't produce at all in the 800... but at the 5-10k, they get it done.

Fat Boy wrote:

Thanks for the data. I looked back at a few from 1960. You can see the steroid effect helping to close the gap between men and women as one would expect.

More likely the women-started-doing-sports effect. Steroids aren't as effective a PED as amphetamines which were legal in the 50's and 60's.

quick example, mile WR dropped 10 seconds between 1945 and end of 60's. In the 60 years before that it dropped only 11 seconds, and has dropped only 8 seconds in the 45 years since.

1945-1968 = dope dope dope

ummmkayyy wrote:

So, for Trackcoach and opiniatedguy, what is your foundational blame? Too much anaerobic work??? Too much aerobic work???

I wish I knew the specifics. I was trying to say that since the average person can run anaerobically for about 1:30 or slightly more, an elite male has to find a way to survive another 12-14 seconds. This is tough but doable. Of course they also train to prolong getting there etc. but the basic premise still exists if running sub 1:44 pace. There are not many people who can run a 52 second 400 or faster and remain aerobic. Women have to survive close to 30 seconds. A different and much tougher animal all together. Slower boys face the same dilemma.

Although I have no data to back this up, it seems many more 200/400 type men have/can move up to 800 than the same type of women. I have always assumed this is due to being able to do so without a huge alteration in training that many women would need. I remember a quote from Jearl Miles when she moved from 400 to 800 along the lines of "training is much tougher I now. I hate that long run of 4 miles on Wednesdays."

What about Jarmila Kratochvilova?

autoxfil wrote:

WRs:

Distance Men Women Percentage

100 9.58 10.49 91%

200 19.19 21.34 90%

400 43.18 47.6 91%

800 01:40.9 01:53.3 89%

1500 03:26.0 03:50.5 89%

5000 12:37.4 14:11.2 89%

10000 26:17.5 30:21.0 87%

HM 58:23.0 1:05:12 90%

M 2:02:57 2:17:42 89%

Am I missing something, are we not counting Paula's WR?