Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Two-Hour Marathon: What's The Equivalent For Women?, Sandra K. Hunter, Michael J. Joyner, Andrew M. Jones

Exercise Science Faculty Research and Publications

The principal characteristic of the runner who may break the two-hour barrier in the marathon will be their sex: the person will be male. The fastest men outperform the fastest women because of sex differences in physiology including a higher VȮ2 max. This viewpoint addresses the questions of what is the two-hour equivalent for women, and who will break this barrier? The current sex difference in the world record for the marathon is ~10% which is slightly less than the mean sex difference in performance usually documented between elite men and women distance runners. Based on comparisons of the top …

Men Are More Likely Than Women To Slow In The Marathon, Robert O. Deaner, Rickey E. Carter, Michael J. Joyner, Sandra K. Hunter

Exercise Science Faculty Research and Publications

Studies on nonelite distance runners suggest that men are more likely than women to slow their pace in a marathon.

Purpose: This study determined the reliability of the sex difference in pacing across many marathons and after adjusting women's performances by 12% to address men's greater maximal oxygen uptake and also incorporating information on racing experience.

Methods: Data were acquired from 14 US marathons in 2011 and encompassed 91,929 performances. For 2929 runners, we obtained experience data from a race-aggregating Web site. We operationalized pace maintenance as the percentage change in pace observed in the second half of the marathon …