Ultramarathon and Trail Running Daily News | Tue, Dec 5

Koop wades into the gender inequality in ultramarathons discussion with a call that I assume everyne agrees with: Increased participation from females is a good thing all around. Ideas are fine, but answers involve action. What explicit actions would you like to see enacted or adopted to ensure more parity? More specifically, exactly how would/could you make a blind lottery like Western States more fair and equal?

On that note, women are weak (compared to their prehistoric sisters.)

Heads up: Lake Sonoma lottery registration is open. Don’t wait until next year to realize you needed to sign up last year.

Excellent: Learning to say yes.

Awesome: Davy Crockett clicks off 100 miles on his basement treadmill in 18:11. Detailed report from this old school dude. (Here’s our interview w him from a few years ago.)

A bit more on the masters MTB rider busted for doping. A few good lessons from these folks:

If you’re doing something illegal, don’t text about it.
Likewise, get rid of the damn receipts.
Apparently taking testosterone makes ladies sound like Barry White.
Breakups can be very very ugly.

Have you grabbed your free sample of S-Bars yet? If you’re looking to train your body to run on fat, click right this way and see what the discussion is all about.

No matter the performance benefits, my marriage would end if I brought one of these home.

Overall, the Mach is a great option for all types of road-running and trail runs on less aggressive terrain

Ben reviews the latest road/trail hybrid show from HOKA: The Mach.

ultramarathon

Mario’s Morning Shakeout. I’m glad to see CIM is getting so much positive attention! Also, Mario’s first podcast episode drops today. Check it out.

Kaci is recovering well and eyeing a big 2018.

Short news day. Three interviews coming your way!

51 Responses to "Ultramarathon and Trail Running Daily News | Tue, Dec 5"

Zach says:

December 5, 2017 at 7:25 am

Well, the WSER100 lottery seems to discriminate equally. Neither my wife nor I got in this year! 🙂

Reply
Nick says:

December 5, 2017 at 7:36 am

The HR lottery explicitly enforces discrimination in favor of veterans, hence indirectly heavily skewed in favor of men. That’s formally a kind of affirmative action if you will. So why do people object to affirmative action in favor of those that are currently underrepresented or marginalized in the community? Change the lottery, it’s that simple. Don’t pretend it’s gender blind when built into it is a feature that automatically favors a predominantly male group.

As for Western States, Koop’s other suggestions could gradually increase women’s participation in the —largely non-skewed — lottery, thus increasing their participation in the race. Reserving spots could also be a good idea.

More generally, it’d be nice for dudes to stop clinging to the status quo when all some folks are asking is for our (alleged) community to be more diverse and inclusive.

Reply
1. Brian says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 7:55 am
  
  So creating bias (for example, by granting women greater odds of entry into a race compared to men) is the solution to being more diverse and inclusive?? Who determines the appropriate percentage and based on what factors.
  
  How could a race claim to treat each entrant equally and then create different rules for entrant based on different factors (gender, race, age, etc.).
  
  (my comments don’t refer to Hardrock, as I’m not intricately familiar with their process)
  
  Reply
2. eric schranz says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 8:00 am
  
  Re: Reserving spots. Specifically how many and how would that be done?
  Again, I’d love to see increased diversity, but how do you respond to the “slippery slope” retort?
  
  Reply
  1. Nick says:
    
    December 5, 2017 at 9:40 am
    
    I don’t know. My point is people are already accepting reserved spots at WS (for freaking sponsors, elites and race friends!) and a highly skewed process at HR. Why on earth would altering the already-existing bias in favor of those currently underrepresented be bad if having built-in biases is not bad to begin with?
    
    Reply
    1. Mike H says:
      
      December 5, 2017 at 10:13 am
      
      I made some comments on Koop’s site, but I see Nick already made excellent points here. There already is a bias in the HR lottery (and I get the reasons for it — I think the concept of vet participation is important and helps make the race what it is).
      Here is my HR100 suggestion to mitigate the *temporal bias* in the lottery:
      1. Take existing proportion of women’s entries (“p”) as a representative of the female interest in the race.
      2. Create a separate women’s and men’s lottery for each of the 3 groups, with proportion “p” women represented in the 3 groups. Change the “Vet” threshold as necessary to support these proportions.
      
      That’s it. Effectively, “Nevers” are the same, while “Vet” experience among women improves. Hopefully, as women’s participation improves, it will motivate more entrants as well.
      If this sounds like an extra layer of complication, it’s only because there already is an extra layer of complication!
      Again, I sympathize with the board’s challenge in satisfying multiple constraints.
      
      The alternative is to wait 100 years or so (I’m not kidding, it would be interesting to simulate) until women’s overall participation asymptotically converges to current interest levels.
      
      Reply
      1. ndcodeblue says:
        
        December 5, 2017 at 2:25 pm
        
        This is an excellent solution. It creates an equality of opportunity for each gender…without sacrificing Hardrock’s purposeful bias towards veterans to keep the community of the race strong.
      2. Mike H says:
        
        December 6, 2017 at 8:43 am
        
        Thanks, ndcodeblue.
        With further thought, considering comments about women not wanting any special lottery consideration, it’s clear that any positive attempt at engineering the lottery often has negative externalities. While well-intentioned (IMHO), what I proposed might be off-putting by perception of distinct lotteries.
        3 other possibilities:
        1. Female ‘elses’ graduate to vet lottery at a lower threshold. Arguments being that the 5-time threshold was chosen (arbitrarily) to distinguish a group of vet experience, but is dependent on the historical artifacts of participation.
        That would be a bias, but it would attempt to correct for the unique history and constraints.
        2. All top-10 (or 5 or “k” finishers) receive better odds the next year (e.g., extra ticket(s), move to vet group, etc.). This is elegant because there is no explicit gender bias, and arguably a well-run race counts for ‘experience points’.
        Drawback: goes somewhat against the run-not-a-race philosophy, but it’s really only an extension of the winner auto-entry.
        3. Leave it as-is: Simpler is better, creating a new bias would have other problems
      3. Dan P says:
        
        December 6, 2017 at 9:29 am
        
        Initially I thought I’d go the other way on this but you bring up a good point about it taking 100 years Mike.
        
        HR does cap their race below what the permits allow (or at least that is what I read somewhere) so they could accept 5 or so additional females off the wait list for a few years. This could get you close to p in your method above. That wouldn’t take away from the folks currently in the systems chances and I bet those aid stations could probably handle 5 more runners spread out over 100 miles. Not perfect but at the end of the day the board can only do their best, there will always be hurt feelings about the HR lottery as long as demand exceeds supply. Once it equals out remove those 5 extra spots.
Brian says:

December 5, 2017 at 7:45 am

While increased female participation would be beneficial, unfortunately Koop misses the mark in his article by declaring there is inequality in the sport. A low percentage of female entrants into WS and Hardrock does not determine inequality. Women have equal ability to qualify for the events, enter the lottery and be selected. There is no gender bias against women (or for men).

Additionally, WS already introduces bias in their entry bias in favor of women and against men through their top ten and golden ticket entries. They don’t grant the top 20 finishers (regardless of gender) an entry into the race the following year. They grant the top 10 male and female entrants entry. This process is clearly biased towards females. If the process was not gender biased, a male runner who finishes 11th overall would get entry compared to a female runner who may finish 35th overall (the 10th Female finished 36th overall at WS last year in 22:31 vs. the 11th male in 18:25). We should remove all gender bias in the sport not instill more bias.

You don’t solve bias by introducing it into the process. You treat every entrant fairly and equally (without considering gender). The argument could be made that the sport would benefit from greater female participation but that does not mean there is gender inequality in the sport (or in the process of selecting entrants into a race).

If you start going down this path, then maybe the argument could be made for racial bias in the sport. What are the percentage of entrants who are African American? I would say they are clearly underrepresented. Should we reserve a certain number of spots for different races to get a more diverse field. Clearly there would be benefits to greater participation and inclusion.

Or perhaps, to remove bias we should treat people equally regardless of their gender, skin color, religion, etc.

Reply
1. Brian says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 7:48 am
  
  Maybe I should have removed Hardrock from my comments above as I’m not familiar enough with their entry process. Every other lottery I have entered doesn’t seem to include gender in the process.
  
  Reply
  1. Nick says:
    
    December 5, 2017 at 9:43 am
    
    Yes you should. And since it’s half of Koop’s point and the most gender-skewed of the two lotteries, your point doesn’t have much bite.
    
    Reply
2. Nick says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 9:50 am
  
  “This process is clearly biased towards females. If the process was not gender biased, a male runner who finishes 11th overall would get entry compared to a female runner who may finish 35th overall (the 10th Female finished 36th overall at WS last year in 22:31 vs. the 11th male in 18:25). We should remove all gender bias in the sport not instill more bias.
  
  You don’t solve bias by introducing it into the process. You treat every entrant fairly and equally (without considering gender).”
  
  This is such a bizarre argument. Are you against female sports in general? Are you really suggesting that we should grant golden tickets, or any award for that matter, on the basis of performance regardless of gender? That’s not exaclty what fairness means.
  
  “If you start going down this path, then maybe the argument could be made for racial bias in the sport. What are the percentage of entrants who are African American? I would say they are clearly underrepresented. Should we reserve a certain number of spots for different races to get a more diverse field.”
  
  There is no built-in racial bias in the HR lottery, but there is an indirect gender-bias. There is pressure to include more women at WS because WS like almost every other footrace has two divisions: male and female runners, so it makes sense for the latter to get more participant influx than it already does. But, to be honest, I wouldn’t find it shocking if there were a few spots reserved for runners from underrepresented or marginalized groups who are making important contributions to make the community more diverse or inclusive or could inspire others to do so. Unless you have a general argument against affirmative action, which is a fair argument to have, the slippery slope argument is just a fallacy.
  
  Reply
  1. Brian says:
    
    December 5, 2017 at 10:09 am
    
    I guess the argument could be made that trail races should segregate their races to create different gender based divisions with equal spots to each gender. However, you then have the issue that women would have much higher odds of getting to run the race. I suppose women would not mind the higher odds of getting to run the race, but men might complain about the inequality.
    
    Interesting that the original article was based on gender inequality, but the premise that men and women are treated equally (without regard to gender) is somehow biased against women and not fair. What is wrong with men and women both toeing the starting line and running the same race and evaluating performance based on finishing time. Is that not considered “fair”. Isn’t the argument that we should have different standard for men and women biased negatively toward women – why do women need a “handicap” and lower standards than men.
    
    Reply
    1. Nick says:
      
      December 5, 2017 at 11:21 am
      
      No, that wouldn’t be fair, for reasons you should understand. Fairness and equality are distinct notions. I won’t google that for you. Also I don’t understand your first point. Granting an equal number of tickets to top females and top males at golden ticket races doest mean women have higher odds. Maybe I’m missing something.
      
      Reply
      1. Brian says:
        
        December 5, 2017 at 1:15 pm
        
        Lets say a race has 400 spots available. The race director decides there should be equal numbers of men and women in the race, 200 each. There are 1,000 entrants that apply, 750 men and 250 women. Each woman then has an 80% chance of gaining entry (200/250) and each man has a 27% chance (200/750).
        
        Or perhaps we should just let the percentage of each gender be consistent with the percentage that apply, which is basically what is occurring across the sport.
        (again Hardrock excluded, but it is only one race and does not represent what is occurring throughout the sport).
      2. ndcodeblue says:
        
        December 5, 2017 at 2:07 pm
        
        “Granting an equal number of tickets to top females and top males at golden ticket races doest mean women have higher odds. Maybe I’m missing something.”
        
        There are fewer female ultrarunners competing for golden tickets/trying to get into WS than there are male ultrarunners. Therefore, if X tickets are assigned to each gender, female runners will necessarily have a better chance of getting a ticket than male runners. Because there are fewer of them, competing for the same number of X tickets.
        
        I think the point being made by Brian is that bias is not necessarily in one direction as is assumed. So if you are going to talk about the implicit bias in the HR lottery, you also need to talk about the implicit bias in the WS lottery.
      3. Nick says:
        
        December 5, 2017 at 2:32 pm
        
        Granted, but this only applies to potential golden tickets contenders, not female contenders generally. It’s only a small fraction of entrants, and ones that do not participate in the lottery.
3. Mike H says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 1:00 pm
  
  “Or perhaps, to remove bias we should treat people equally regardless of their gender, skin color, religion, etc.” This is the misguided slippery slope fear.
  
  Gender distinction *is* an important sports category overwhelmingly exhibited and celebrated in our sport and others. While it’s great to say or even think that some individuals race everyone equally, even if true, there are plenty of others to whom motivation, best performances, compensation and recognition are distinguished by gender (hopefully, equally) in sports.
  
  We as a society haven’t decided to break down sports by skin color or religion. But, in the social areas where those factors come into play, we take reasonable steps to mitigate them. We have laws about charitable giving, taxation, political influence, etc. regarding religion, because it’s an area of concern. We don’t have the same laws for gender regarding those same topics for gender, because it hasn’t been an issue.
  
  Reply
  1. Rudy says:
    
    December 6, 2017 at 10:14 am
    
    Interesting take on breaking down sports by skin color or religion. Dare I venture to say location as well? States qualification races favors the west coast, ultrarunning magazine favors the west coast, etc etc. I don’t have a problem with it, but it would be interesting to introduce location into the mix.
    
    Reply
Andy says:

December 5, 2017 at 7:47 am

I think you should get Dave back on the show. I enjoyed him the first time.

Reply
Guy Cheney says:

December 5, 2017 at 8:52 am

The question of what we consider “more fair and equal” is an interesting one. We all seem to accept the basic premises of a lottery, but wouldn’t it be “more fair” if WS and HR had a process that admitted applicants that had the most tickets first? For example, HR would take 45 “nevers” starting with those with 7 tickets, 6 tickets, 5 tickets and then pull X more from those with 4 tickets. It’s curious that we have systems where some with one ticket can get in while others have been waiting for more than half a decade. This year all the runners in WS with 7 tickets got in (and the last one thanks to CLIFF for using their sponsor slot), but why leave this to chance? Changing this system would get rid of some of the excitement of the lottery (and dash the dreams of holders of 1 and 2 tickets), but wouldn’t it be “more fair”?

Regarding the question of women in the races, both WS and HR have mechanisms to allow direct entry (Dale’s picks at HR and various sponsor and admin spots for WS). These could be used to increase the number of woman in the race.

Reply
Todd says:

December 5, 2017 at 9:28 am

Since when can a girl/boyfriend go to a pharmacy and pick up & pay for a class III substance?

Reply
1. eric schranz says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 10:25 am
  
  I know, right?
  
  Reply
Sean says:

December 5, 2017 at 9:51 am

My wife gets her nails done every two weeks. The shop she goes to requires you to make an appointment since demand exceeds supply so they can’t serve everybody. The appointments are overwhelmingly given to females, since less men call about reservations. After reading the Koop article, I realize that they are not only missing an untapped market, but doing a social disservice by not holding 30% of the reservations for dudes. If they did so, guys would talk to each other about how they had their toes painted, what color they are going to get next time, what gear they are getting to keep up their cuticles, and how having the opportunity to have their nails done has empowered them. Over time, more men would have their nails painted and be calling early to get reservations, therefore eliminating the gender bias. Meanwhile, a certain number of women will be pushed out of being able to get their nails done. They will find some other shop or simply stop getting their nails done altogether. This is in the best interest of the nail painting community as well as the individual shop.

Or maybe dudes just don’t want to get their nails painted?

Reply
1. Mike H says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 10:18 am
  
  Specious.
  Here’s a fairer analogy:
  If only 5 out of 100 customers were men 20 years ago, but now 30 of every 100 that call in for a reservation are men, would it be fair if the salon denied 25 of those 30 men?
  
  Reply
  1. Sean says:
    
    December 5, 2017 at 11:35 am
    
    I think you hit the nail on the head as to the disconnect of how people see it. Some people would see that the 25 men are being denied, and others would see the 25 men as having just as much chance as the 95 women. I’m not sure how having a policy where everybody has the same chance denies the 25 spots to men when there are only 100 spots total. It seems like a free market where everybody has to play the game the same way and has equal chances.
    
    And to Koop’s point that 33% of ultra finishers were female in 2016, when you look at 100 milers, 21.5% were female, which is in line with WS ratios (Paul B linked to the ultrarunning article below). I have no idea what percentage of HR qualifiers were finished by females, but I would guess it’s lower than that. The disparity in applicants could be addressed by having different qualifying/finishing standards for men and women, but that’s one of the really cool things about our sport, that everybody has the same requirements to get in and the same time to finish.
    
    Reply
    1. Sean says:
      
      December 5, 2017 at 11:58 am
      
      BTW, I do agree that the HR process has an obvious bias toward veterans, and a high percentage of the veterans are men, so the result of this is that the genders are not represented equally in the final mix as compared to applicant numbers.
      
      Reply
      1. Mike H says:
        
        December 5, 2017 at 12:49 pm
        
        Yes, I should be clear: my modified analogy was for the HR100, whereas the original analogy is a reasonable argument regarding the existing WSER lottery.
        The 2 lotteries are different (and also have different constraints and goals).
        It does depend on perspective and definitions of ‘fairness.’ Fairness is a subjective concept depending on the metric being observed.
2. Sean says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 5:38 pm
  
  I want to apologize for my original comment, I know I came across as condescending and struck a nerve with a lot of people. After thinking it over on my run this afternoon, I also wanted to make clear that I didn’t intend to imply that our sport should only be for men, but rather to present a situation where the demand was higher from one group than another. Yoga may have been a better analogy since it is welcoming and encouraging to all, but demand is skewed heavily toward women.
  
  Sorry for any hurt feelings, and hope to see you on the trails.
  
  Reply
Paul B says:

December 5, 2017 at 9:53 am

https://ultrarunning.com/featured/ultrarunning-finishes-by-gender/

It’s best to look at data. This is from 2014. I can’t find online the newest data. Data is showing that more and more women are finishing ultras ever year and fewer men are finishing. The finishing gap is coming down which would tell me the gap between men and women starting a race is also decreasing. So across all levels of races more women are running.

It seems most today are only focusing on HR and WS. These are lottery races that only have a select few of qualifying races compared to how many races there actually are. It would be interesting to compare percentages of women starters of all ultras compared to percentage of women starts in WS/HR. I’m sure some has done so already. You would then also need to look at percentage of women vs men lottery submissions.

Reply
Nick says:

December 5, 2017 at 10:05 am

Some of the comments here are doing a lot to confirm Koop’s claim that the community is not as inclusive as one would hope.

Reply
1. BGA says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 10:29 am
  
  Yup. Unfortunately this is confirmed quite regularly here.
  
  Reply
2. Charlie says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 12:23 pm
  
  Agreed. See detestable nail salon analogy above.
  Weak.
  
  Reply
Chelsie S says:

December 5, 2017 at 10:14 am

As a female who is new to trail running and working her way towards a (hopeful, eventual) WS lottery spot, I found that Jason’s article resonated with my personal experience. I don’t think the issue will be solved by changing the lotteries in any way, but instead by all the other suggestions he made. I was invited on a trail run by male buddies of mine who thought I might enjoy it. They treated me like a running buddy – not like a woman running in the woods – and picked a “tough” (for this area!) route for us. I loved the challenge and signed up for my first trail race the next day. Also, if it wasn’t for Billy Yang’s Life in a Day, presenting the badass females of the sport in the coolest damn way, I might not have even taken up my friends’ invitation. I think that by showcasing successes of women in the sport and by encouraging inclusiveness, we could move a lot farther towards closing the gender gap. To me, this is solved best by male runners doing what they can to reach out to their road-running female buddies and for brands/media to help get the women to where they need to be to be seen. Again, this is mostly based on my own anecdotal experience and, of course, is just my two cents worth.

Reply
1. eric schranz says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 10:21 am
  
  Welcome! I think your ideas and thoughts are spot on.
  
  Reply
clare says:

December 5, 2017 at 10:59 am

even though it was hard to see only 13 women on the hardback entrants list, especially because it didn’t include mine! i don’t think i want a spot just for being female. it’s interesting that 13/145 is 9%…because when I did UTMB a few years ago (obviously much larger field, but does not have the historical weighting of a race like HR so can’t blame any male-ness on that) women only made up 9% of that race too. i’m not sure if their %s are creeping up?

Reply
Brian says:

December 5, 2017 at 11:01 am

In case there may be a misconception about my comments – I have a daughter who runs and plays sports. I would never tell her to take a backseat to anyone (male or female). I would tell here to compete against anyone who lines up to race. If she wants to be more competitive and finish higher, then train harder. She shouldn’t feel there are any limits to her abilities based on gender.

Reply
Pete says:

December 5, 2017 at 1:12 pm

Probably an unpopular view, but I’m not sure the community should be telling the race board how to run their lotteries. These are very popular, limited participation events and I’m sure lots of people want to run them, but there are many others to choose from.
Just my 2c.

Reply
1. Nick says:
  
  December 5, 2017 at 2:34 pm
  
  why exactly shouldn’t we be telling how to run their lotteries? honest question
  
  Reply
  1. Pete says:
    
    December 5, 2017 at 11:20 pm
    
    Because it’s their’s to run as they see fit. The community didn’t create the race, make the applications for permissions, or ensure the continued viability. We turned up 25 years later and started making demands….
    
    The fact that HR/WS are ‘must do’/bucket list races doesn’t make them ‘ours’ any more than those races which struggle to attract the minimum entrants to make them worthwhile putting on.
    
    Reply
    1. Nick says:
      
      December 6, 2017 at 7:23 am
      
      so we can’t even suggest it would be nice to see more women toeing the line at HR and offering potential solutions? It’s even too much to consider?
      
      Reply
      1. Pete says:
        
        December 6, 2017 at 9:51 am
        
        Nick
        You can suggest and consider whatever you like, I’m saying in my opinion, it’s the boards decision to run the lottery anyway they see fit.
        There are many issues of inequality that I would rather see effort put into correcting, before I’ll be all that worked up about who can and can’t go running in the mountains in a particular place on a particular day.
        I trust this is OK?
Ian Sharman says:

December 5, 2017 at 10:48 pm

The question is about equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. Since the population is basically 50:50 male to female, equality of outcome seems like a fair goal. But really equality of opportunity in a lottery (and making sure female participation in sport from an early age is encouraged and valued) is arguably a better and fairer target.

Does there need to be short-term correction of an existing inequality? If all ultras or 100 milers had lotteries that excluded women due to an inability to quality for them then there’d be a better argument for this, but only a very few 100 milers have lotteries. So the more important issue is that fewer women run ultras in general, and especially the extra long races. The causes of that are the real problem for adult sport inequality, especially a bias towards women looking after kids and lower female participation in sport (probably added to a perceived lower value placed on it for girls than for boys).

Reply
1. Nick says:
  
  December 6, 2017 at 7:30 am
  
  Those are great points, Ian. But here’s one explanation we can’t rule out. Everyone knows it’s most likely to take years before one is picked in the HR lottery if one is not a veteran. It’s also extremely hard to qualify for HR because the number of qualifiers is very limited, it requires travel, money, and logistics, and some qualifiers themselves are hard to get into. All of this in itself is enough, I conjecture, to discourage many a “virgin” entrant from bothering to start the process of qualifying, entering the lottery, etc. because it’s so painstaking. It’s easy to imagine why this could be even more discouraging for women who, for reasons you point, are more likely to face constraints men don’t face, and who, as a result of what the starting line looks like every year, don’t feel like it’s a race for them. HR is reinforcing its own imbalances precisely by refusing to face them.
  
  Reply
Melinda says:

December 6, 2017 at 7:23 am

The first link reminded me of an incident that happened to me at this year‘s western states lottery. Someone came up to me and asked me whether it was my husband was in the lottery. No husband was in sight, I had a two-year-old on my hip that I was trying to desperately amuse because I didn’t have childcare at the last minute, but as a two-time entry into the lottery I wanted to be there in person and see it. I know I don’t look like the stereotypical ultra marathoner but I’ve managed at least seven ultras in the last three years despite being pregnant in the middle of that. I wasn’t particularly offended but it did show me that how assumptions could be discouraging even as I stood there with that playing card in hand.

I think part of the answer of making the lottery equal is to have more women run and apply. I can’t remember the last time I read a story about a mid to backpack women Hardrock finisher and I’ll admit that crossed my mind as I thought about qualifying . Often People need stories and pictures of people who share some same traits as them to believe they can do it. The biggest comment I receive on blog pics and facebook is other women thanking me for showing that a women with an average body can do this sport. 5’2” 135ish pounds

I’m a vet and the reason vet school is majority women is because they now get a high volume of high quality female applicants compared to 50 years ago. What barriers stand in the way of more females running ultras and throwing their name in the hat for lotteries? Focus on that instead of skewing the current lotteries that are blind. I don’t want special consideration for my gender, I just want to run and be a part of this community.

Reply
1. Nick says:
  
  December 6, 2017 at 7:33 am
  
  Just saw you comment, Melinda, after writing mine. You’re making my point better than me — although again correcting for built-in biases (even if they’re contingent and unintended) in the lotteries would automatically help address the problem you’re describing.
  
  Reply
  1. Melinda says:
    
    December 6, 2017 at 8:29 am
    
    I think that a change of perception and encouragement of women to run ultra can be done in some other way than messing with the blind lotteries. More men apply and more men get in. I am fine with that fact. I don’t need special consideration to further undermine my confidence that I can tow the line and I’m just as qualified to be there is anyone else around me. The field isn’t 100% men.
    
    Here’s actions I’d like to see that are unrelated to screwing with the lotteries or dictating to races how to run their lotteries.
    
    Find those women who aren’t winning the race and air their stories.
    
    Select and promote pictures of women climbing those gorgeous passes during the event.
    
    In general I dislike groups that are centered around the gender split, but I have found some women only focused groups to be really helpful in places like in the vet world where the majority of practices and leadership positions are still male owned. (Sorta like the lotteries are old school mostly men. A reflection of the past) It’s where we talk about pregnancy and pumping and how the hell to do our jobs while also being biologically female doing biologically specific female stuff. Set up A Facebook group for races like hard rock that are female only and have a mix of different experience level so it ends up like a mentoring group. Hell, open it up to any female who has done a 100 or wants to do a 100.
    
    Stop sensationalizing articles about fit and fat that are mostly women directed. There are far more different types of athletic female bodies then male and if I can go the distance or are we even talking about my BMI? It’s discouraging to women who aren’t fat but aren’t very cute in those running clothes either and have had cellulite on their thighs since high school.
    
    I don’t want to get into a lottery based on my ticket having a higher weight because of my gender!!!!!! I want access to more stories of women already doing it now. This isn’t a male only sport even if it’s male dominated so show the women already there!
    
    Reply
    1. Michael Jimenez says:
      
      December 6, 2017 at 10:58 am
      
      Great perspective! Might I say on a different note, I’ve never applied to run Hardrock tho I’d like to because it just seems like such an old boys club; I think I get that they’re trying to preserve the ‘family’ feel or culture of the event but that in of itself can make it seem rather unwelcoming.
      
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Charlie says:

December 6, 2017 at 7:59 am

Maybe we should consider asking the female athletes what they would like to see, how they feel about gender inequality, and any thoughts on improving gender inequality in races?
The first step to improvement always begins with open communication/dialogue (as well as acknowledgement that there is a problem), then identify barriers/biases to improvements, and finally, begin to reshape the landscape through action.

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Mike H says:

December 6, 2017 at 8:27 am

Great points above, Ian, Nick, Melinda and Charlie.
The realistic ‘equality of opportunity’ isn’t so much in the HR lottery, which strictly speaking wasn’t/isn’t gender-biased, it’s in the race experience. As Melinda mentioned, a female mid-packer in the 2nd half of the race, with 13 women, may very well have the nearest female competitor an hour or two ahead, and an hour or 2 behind. This also means, if you’re out their with your daughter, cheering on for an hour in T-Ride or Ouray or Silverton, you might see one or 2 women, and 10 times as many men. These are the feedback mechanisms that might be dispiriting towards women having the best opportunity.
Again, I hope the ‘slippery slope’ argument can be put to rest (and nailed shut and buried) because gender is the predominant split we distinguish in these race results.

To be fair — and much respect is due! — that particularly race has other unique and favorable characteristics. I can’t quantify it, but the fellow runners, male and female, are extra friendly and helpful to team up and run large portions of the race…the aid stations are extra supportive of each finisher, first-to-last…truly.
Additionally, the lottery system for HR has a once-every-2-year qual requirement, and ticket counts double based on total lifetime attempts, not consecutive. HR is therefore more conducive to mitigating the unique challenge brought up earlier this year of pregnancy/childbirth.

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