Will women overtake men in the long run?

Every time I stand from my chair, my aching legs remind me I ran the Equinox Marathon two days ago. Every time I see someone I know, he or she reminds me that my girlfriend beat me in that race. I salve my ego with the knowledge that the women who ran the 26.2-mile footrace over Ester Dome in Fairbanks were the fastest gang of females ever to run the race. Fifteen women ran the course in less than four hours, up from 13 the year before and a former high of eight during 1998.

Male winners have finished the race an average of 30 minutes faster than the female winners since 1993, but they have not improved in the Equinox with the same consistency as women. This raises a question tossed up every few years by sports physiologists: will women ever be faster than men?

The predictions are yes and no, depending on where you look. In a 1992 study published in Nature magazine, two researchers tracked the improvement of men and women record holders in running events and projected winning times of the future. If women kept improving at the same rate, the men’s and women’s world records in the marathon would have been equal in 1998, and women would catch up in the shorter distances early in the 21st century, the researchers wrote.

Those predictions did not come true. The men’s record for the marathon, set in 1999 by Khalid Khannouchi of the U.S., is 2 hours, 5 minutes, 42 seconds. Fifteen minutes behind is the women’s record holder, Tegla Loroupe of Kenya, who ran a 2:20:43 marathon in 1999.

Some physiologists think the gender gap will never close because of the differing effects of male and female hormones, which endow women with more body fat and men with more muscle mass. The male sex hormone testosterone increases muscle mass, which is essential to generate explosive speed on the track. Female sex hormones increase body fat, which in most sports adds nothing but a burden to carry up hills.

Open-water swimming is a sport where women have had an edge over men. For 18 years, Penny Lee Dean held the overall time record for swimming the English Channel. Another long-distance swimmer, Lynne Cox, had an ability to almost float in the water with her 36 percent body fat. She swam the gap from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede Island in Russia in 1987. Physiologists thought the feat was impossible because of the cold water, about 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Cox did it without using a wet suit.

In a poll of 1,000 Americans taken before the 1996 Summer Olympics, 66 percent said, “the day (was) coming when top female athletes will beat top males at the highest competitive levels.” Still, some scientists say you can’t argue with hormones.

“Their lack of testosterone means females have less muscle mass, higher body fat, smaller hearts, and less hemoglobin, even after correction for their smaller size,” wrote Stephen Seiler, a researcher in Norway. He compared men’s and women’s running records from 1952 until the late 1990s. He found the improvement of the world’s fastest female runners had leveled off in the 1990s. He believes random, unannounced drug testing has affected women more than men.

“The impact of masculinizing hormones on performance appears to have been far greater for women than men,” Seiler wrote.

In Fairbanks, women are getting faster. I know this because they are dusting me with regularity. As for the local phenomenon, former U.S. cross-country ski team coach John Estle has a few hypotheses:

• Running is a more socially accepted activity for women than it was 20 years ago.
• With more women running, more are training harder.
• Women are getting a better training base because they’ve participated in sports as girls.
• Today, more women possess both a high level of fitness and the knowledge of how to compete under pressure.