Great North Run just one example of a women’s revolution in endurance sport – The Telegraph

When the first Great North Run was staged in 1981, women made up just 11 per cent of the 12,000-strong field. On Sunday, as 57,000 will pound the streets of Tyneside for the 39th edition of the event, just under half will be women.

The figures reflect a revolution sweeping across the exercise industry: females are not only dominating participation sports, but are excelling at them. Last year, 62 per cent of half marathon and 10k finishers in the UK and US were females. Remarkably, women have even closed the performance gap on the difference in the average marathon finishing time, which has shrunk from 38 per cent in 2006 to just 12 per cent this year, according to research by Let’s Do This, the world’s largest discovery platform for participation sports.

Katie Wright ran the route from Newcastle to South Shields nearly a decade ago, but has since graduated to ultra-endurance events. In May, she completed the 201km (125 miles) Riverhead Backyard Relaps Ultra-marathon in New Zealand, an elimination event which involved completing continuous 6.7km loops of the Riverhead Forest within an hour until one runner remained. Wright not only won, she outlasted 40 men.

“I think in general women will be able to pace themselves a bit better and use coping strategies to deal with problems as they come,” says the Windsor-born 32-year-old, who ran just shy of 30 hours. “I probably got a couple of minutes of sleep every hour. I had some nutrition and shut my eyes for four or five minutes before I had to get up again and start the next lap.”

Sunday’s event will not be as sleep-sapping – or as exhausting – for Kenyan Mary Keitany, who will vie for a fourth Great North Run title while Britain’s Mo Farah will look to become the first athlete to win six consecutive titles. Yet Wright’s success has been echoed by a small number of women who have exhibited astounding ultra-endurance ability.

Last month, ultra-cyclist Fiona Kolbinger won the Transcontinental Race over 2,485 miles from Bulgaria to France, beating her nearest male competitor by more than 10 hours. In January, Midlothian mother Jasmin Paris knocked 12 hours off the course record of the 268-mile Spine Race from Derbyshire to the Scottish borders, despite having to breastfeed her daughter en route.

Her experience resonates with Sophie Power, another British woman whose photo of expressing milk to three-month-old son Cormac during the 105-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc last year went viral. It was an extra obstacle Power had to navigate if she was going to cross the finish line.

“An ultra is a mental race, but it’s an eating-thinking race,” says Power, who vividly recalls hand-expressing her milk to relieve the crippling pain from her two “watermelons” behind aid station toilets in Italy en route.

“You’ve got to keep down enough calories to get around. I could go for a three-hour run without eating before I had my baby, to learn to use my fat reserves. I couldn’t do any of that while breastfeeding, because I was hungry. I was having cookies at 2am. I knew I had to drink a lot to keep my milk supply up. That was one of the few red flags I agreed with my husband.”

Power believes the planning nature of ultras is suited to women.

“Endurance events are all logistics,” she said. “If you plan everything right, that’s how you finish. That’s why women are often better than men because we’re so used to planning in so many different ways, especially mums. If you’re used to planning for two kids and a husband, you can plan yourself around an ultra.”

It is not uncommon for women to win races and beat records shortly after giving birth. In 2007, Paula Radcliffe won the New York City Marathon less than a year after giving birth to her daughter and, during the 2011 Boston Marathon, two-time Olympian Kara Goucher recorded her personal best time at the distance just seven months after her son was born.

“In the first few months of pregnancy, the body produces more hormones that enable you to perform better,” says Nic Berger, a senior lecturer in exercise physiology at Teesside University who suggests post-partum women may be at an advantage in such gruelling distances. “There’s also some evidence that women may be better at coping with sleep deprivation than men.”

But why are women – even those who are not recent mothers such as Wright and Kolbinger – impressing in such exhausting events? “In general, women are smaller than men,” adds Berger.

“They have less muscle mass. One of the things some people report is that they’re more efficient so in a really simplistic way, they need less energy. Even if you have to take energy from your body by utilising fat stores and maybe even muscle, you’re not having to do that as much as men, who are typically bigger.”

Berger has been supporting British marathon runner Sharon Gayter, who in 2011 beat the men’s and women’s world record for long distance running on a treadmill over seven days by running 517.33 miles.

Berger says: “I’ve heard reports from Sharon where she’s beaten a lot of men in races and she said at the beginning she’s behind but never worried, because she knows she can continue her pace.”

Power insists the key to her success was keeping fit during pregnancy, but her backstory is enough to inspire anyone to sign up to next year’s Great North Run.

“I was never a runner,” she said. “I was second from last in the mile at school. I was the overweight unfit kid who thought she couldn’t run. I accidentally signed up to the six-day, 251km Marathon des Sables, having never run one mile in my life and had nine months to train for it.”