Who Has More Endurance: Men or Women?

When it comes to cyclic sports, men usually have greater speed and strength. Elite male athletes are definitely faster than women in events such as the 100-meter sprint and marathon.

However, as the distance of a race increases beyond 26.2 miles (42.2 km), other factors become more important than speed. Endurance, which involves the ability to maintain the necessary pace until the finish line, becomes crucial.

This is where women begin to really compete with men. Therefore, the issue of who is more enduring is not so straightforward.

In this article, we will discuss women’s victories over men, share the results of endurance studies and attempt to answer the ultimate question: who is more enduring, men or women?

What Is Endurance and What Types of Endurance Exist

In cyclic sports, endurance is a crucial element that allows a person to perform physical activity for an extended period. Compared to an untrained person, an endurance-trained one can resist physical fatigue during exercise and use less energy while performing repetitive actions.

However, endurance can vary depending on the type of sport. For example, sprinters don’t need to focus on the qualities of marathon runners in their training, and marathon runners won’t be working on what sprinters or middle-distance runners would.

Endurance is usually divided into two types: general (aerobic) and specific.

General aerobic endurance is developed through prolonged moderate-intensity training and depends on the functional capabilities of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

Special endurance refers to the ability to sustain a particular type of activity. There are various types of special endurance, including:

• Speed endurance: the ability to maintain maximum intensity during an activity;
• Strength endurance: the ability to resist fatigue during muscle work;
• Speed-strength endurance: the ability to perform high-intensity strength exercises;
• Coordination endurance: the ability to resist fatigue during activities that require coordination skills;
• Static endurance: the ability to hold the body in the same position for an extended period;
• Dynamic endurance: the ability to perform heavy muscle exercises at a moderate pace for a prolonged period.

Women’s Achievements on Ultra-Long Distances

Victories by women in races are neither fictional nor uncommon. Throughout the history of running and other endurance sports, there have been numerous notable cases of women achieving significant victories. Here is a list of some of them:

• Maggie Guterl endured the Big’s Backyard Ultra for the longest time, running 402 km and surpassing all other participants.
• Corinne Favre ran 86 km in 10:35 at the Mont Blanc Ultra-Trail, not only winning the race but also beating 1050 male competitors in a highly competitive race.
• Jasmin Paris won the Spine Race, a 431 km course in England, finishing the distance in 83 hours 12 minutes and 23 seconds, breaking the previous record by 12 hours.
• Katie Wright defeated 40 men and 6 women, becoming the first on the Riverhead Backyard ReLaps in New Zealand, running almost continuously for 30 hours.
• Liz Marshall was the fastest to finish the 154-kilometer Grand Trail Stevenson route in France.
• Courtney Dauwalter won the Moab 240 Endurance Run, covering 386 km in less than 58 hours. She completed the race with only 21 minutes of sleep on the way and finished 9 hours ahead of her male rival.
• Fiona Kolbinger beat all men in the transcontinental bicycle race across Europe from Bulgaria to France, covering a distance of 4000 km in a little more than 10 days. Moreover, she competed in an ultra-long race for the first time and outstripped her nearest competitor by 10 hours.
• The record for swimming across the English Channel belongs to a man, Trent Grimsey, who swam it in 6 hours and 55 minutes at a pace of about 1:12/100m. The fastest woman finished in 7 hours and 25 minutes. However, if you look at the almost 140-year history of swimming across the English Channel, women’s average time is 33 minutes faster than men’s.

Issues with Statistics in Women’s Running

An observant reader may notice that, in general, male winners still represent the statistical majority in long-distance races, and female winners are the exception to the rule.

This is exactly why women’s victories generate more media attention and interest.

If a definitive answer were reached regarding the endurance and superiority of women over men, we would no longer be surprised by their victories.

When comparing the results of both women and men, it is important to note that in some competitions, women represent no more than 10% of the total number of participants. This makes it difficult to make an objective comparison.

Women don’t face any insurmountable physiological difficulties when completing a mountain ultra marathon, but there are reasons why there are fewer applications to participate from them:

• the lower popularity of ultra-long distances among women;
• parenting;
• other daily life responsibilities that interfere with training for this type of race;
• the menstrual cycle;
• the fear of the wilderness or getting lost.

As more female athletes compete in ultra-endurance competitions, the level of competition will become much more demanding.

This will lead to an improvement in the quality of training and level of participants, ultimately contributing to the possibility of women’s victories becoming a more frequent occurrence.

Endurance Study in Men and Women

Women are not physically stronger than men in any sport, with their results typically 10-12% lower. In endurance sports, this difference can be explained by various factors.

Why are men physically stronger?

• Men have a higher concentration of erythrocytes, which carry oxygen to the muscles. On average, men have 42-47% erythrocytes in their blood, while women have 37-42%;
• Testosterone, a hormone that contributes to an increase of bone and muscle mass, can be up to 20 times higher in men than in women;
• Men have a higher muscle mass and lower fat mass. For instance, men’s legs contain 80% muscle, compared to around 60% in women’s;
• The percentage of body fat is also higher in women (10-12% of body weight compared to 6-7% in the thinnest individuals of both sexes), which means women carry extra weight during a race.

However, one study found that women have greater muscular endurance and are therefore less prone to muscle fatigue. While men are physically stronger, women can endure dynamic muscle exercises significantly longer.

We examined this scientific study that compared muscle endurance and fatigue in men and women.

Researchers recorded data on the speed, strength, and electrical activity of the participants’ muscles during calf muscle contractions (heel raises) exercises.

The study found that:

1. At the beginning of the task, men showed superiority in performance, but toward the end of the test, women’s productivity decreased less than men’s. 
2. Although men completed 200 heel raises faster, their strength dropped significantly more than that of women by the finish. Women had lower peak power and muscle strength, and generally slower performance. However, they experienced less change in power and speed over time compared to male participants.

Which Distances Do Women Perform Better on?

The State of Ultra Running 2020 study reveals an interesting trend of how the gap between men and women changes as the number of kilometers in the distance increases. Experts analyzed 15,451 ultra marathon races held over 23 years and examined 5,010,730 (!) results.

Here is what they discovered:

• In 5 km races, men on average finish 17.9% faster than women;
• In 100-mile races, men finish 0.25% faster than women;
• On distances over 195 miles, women outperform men by 0.6%.

The study provides a few more curious statistics:

• By 2018, the percentage of female participants had risen to 23% compared to 14% in 1996 (the study analyzed data from 1996-2018);
• The longer the distance, the fewer female participants there are: there are 45% more female runners in 5 km races than in longer races.
• Interestingly, out of the top 20 nations France, the USA, and South Africa have the highest proportions of the world’s ultra runners.

In summary, this study shows that men and women perform at more or less similar speeds when running ultra-long distances.

However, when the distance becomes extremely long, women have the potential to excel due to their strength endurance and may even outpace men.

Reasons Why Women Can Be More Resilient Than Men

One of the reasons why women can compete with men and sometimes outperform them in ultra marathons is that the high maximum abilities, such as strength and speed, which men possess, are not as crucial in ultra-long distance or endurance races.

In this category of racing, athletes never work at the limit of their speed and maximum strength capabilities. Instead, success depends on proper energy management, well-organized nutrition, and developed psychological endurance.

But why else can women be more resilient than men?

1. Metabolism

According to scientists, the female metabolism is better at utilizing fats as an energy source, allowing female athletes to save glycogen.

Although researchers do not yet have enough data to support this argument, there is a theory that the “female” hormone estrogen helps make more fat available to the body as a fuel source.

This occurs after the initial glycogen stores have been depleted, and is particularly relevant for ultra-endurance races.

2. Better muscular endurance

Studies have shown that women are more resistant to fatigue and muscle damage. French researchers conducted an experiment comparing men and women with the same athletic performance level and found that men experienced more muscle fatigue at the end of long races.

This may be due to the greater elasticity of muscle fibers in the female body. Another explanation is that women have more slow-twitch muscle fibers than fast-twitch ones. W

hile this slows them down in speed competitions, it makes them more resilient in ultra marathons.

According to a 2016 scientific article, another advantage of female physiology is that women’s elbow flexor and foot flexor muscles tire less because their contraction speed is slower.

Therefore, in repetitive muscle movements typical of long distances, women have an edge over men due to their lower level of fatigue.

3. Flexibility

Women are usually more flexible than men, which can have both positive and negative effects on running.

On the positive side, flexibility means that the body moves slightly differently with each step, resulting in the load on the joints varying with each step.

This can help prevent injuries because repeatedly loading the same joint point in the same way can cause a lot of wear and tear.

However, the downside of having greater flexibility is slower running performance. This is because overly flexible muscles can limit a runner’s ability to generate maximum energy.

4. Pace

In general, women are better at maintaining a steady pace during a race than men. An analysis of data from 14 marathons and 91,929 participants—with almost 42% of them being women—revealed that men slowed down significantly more than women at the midpoint of the race, running the second half of the marathon almost 16% slower than the first half.

Women were about 12% slower in the second half. Among the participants who slowed down significantly, there were much more men (about 14%) than women (only 5%).

Researchers attribute this to differences in metabolism between the sexes. At any given exercise intensity, men burn a higher percentage of carbohydrates as fuel, while women use more fat.

Both male and female bodies contain significantly more fat than stored carbohydrates, which is why men are more susceptible to hitting the “marathon wall” when their glycogen is depleted.

In addition to the “metabolic” explanation, there is another factor. Male runners are more likely to start with a faster pace at the beginning of the race, which increases the likelihood of slowing down in the second half of the distance.

5. Heat dissipation

Women generally have smaller body sizes and weights than men, which allows them to dissipate a greater percentage of the heat produced while running.

Additionally, women’s skin is thinner, and the thickness of the skin determines the amount of heat that will be retained in the body.

These features are advantageous for long-distance runs in warm and hot weather, which are typical in competitions.

However, these same characteristics can be an obstacle to activity in cold conditions, as women get cold more quickly.

6. Motherhood

Pregnancy and motherhood appear to improve the performance of many female athletes both psychologically and physiologically.

For instance, during pregnancy, a woman’s heart pumps more blood, leading to more efficient oxygen delivery to the muscles.

For many female athletes, the primary benefit of motherhood is the development of psychological resilience, as short-term pain during a race is nothing in comparison to the pain of carrying and giving birth to a child.

7. Self-care skills

In long-distance competitions, it is essential not only to run hundreds of kilometers, but also to take care of your body by eating well and on time, and by taking proper care of your legs and feet.

At times, male athletes are too focused on achieving results and forget to prioritize their well-being.

Do Women Really Perform Better Than Men in Ultra Marathons: a View from Sports Scientists

There are doubts as to whether women actually outperform men in ultra-long distance races. Guillaume Millet, a researcher at the Inter-University Laboratory of Motor Biology at the University of St. Etienne, suggests that the main reason for women’s success in ultra marathons is the significant dropout of participants and the fact that statistically more men with average performance participate in these races.

If a woman with very high levels of performance enters, she is capable of winning the race.

Dr. Bryce Carlson, an ultra marathon runner who has participated in over 150 marathons, shares this view. He believes that there is still not enough data to determine whether women are better ultra-endurance athletes than men.

“In some years, a woman can win outright,” he said. “When that happens, it’s a really small sample size, where you have an elite female runner who has trained really hard and well and has great skill in the sport, and the competition in the men’s sport might not be that high.” 

Ross Tucker, another sports scientist, is also skeptical about women’s dominance in endurance. He highlights that women’s achievements in ultra-long distance races can be attributed to the fact that these are niche events. According to him, there aren’t sufficient female athletes taking part in these competitions to confidently assert women’s superiority.

“In running, from 100 meters to 90-kilometer ultra marathons, the gap between men and women doesn’t change. That said, it could be that there is a kind of ‘inflection’ point where suddenly it begins to count. The data is just too thin to know for sure,” he says in an interview with The Guardian.

“It seems that as ultra races get longer, the percentage of women competing in them also gets smaller. It’s possible that the few women who choose to run distances approaching 200 miles at a time are already some of the best runners around,” Insider magazine agrees.

Conclusion

Nonetheless, women continue to compete with men and even beat them in endurance races at times. The size of the sample does not diminish their accomplishments. However, it can’t be unequivocally stated that men are more enduring than women.

Over time, scientists may accumulate more data and reach more definitive conclusions. But even now, it has been proven that the female body is no less adapted to prolonged exercise than the male one, and in some aspects, even better.

In addition to physiological characteristics, psychology also plays an important role in ultra-endurance races.

Mental preparation can help anyone win the competition, even those who are not physically the strongest. This insight can motivate and empower women to participate in long-distance races.

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