Questions Answered

This post was going to be “The Aftermath and What I Learned”, but I’m postponing that until tomorrow. I had some great questions in the comments yesterday that I wanted to address.

First, Catrina (who, by the way, has her own race recap up!) asked what my time was and how I placed. Yes, I was getting to that! My time was 15:54:58. and out of 83 finishers, I was 59th. To be honest, I was initially a little bummed out by that. I mean… it’s not great! But let’s break it down a little more.

There were 53 male finishers and 30 female, and of the 30 women I was 20th. That’s a little better. And… 16 people did not finish. I was surprised when I saw that. (I know when I DNF’d my race last year, there were only a few other DNFs, which of course made me feel even worse). My heart goes out to every single one of those runners- I know how it feels.

So, with all that, 59th is looking a little better (but still not great). I’m going to come back to this topic in tomorrow’s “What I Learned” segment.

Suzanne noted that all my trail BFFs have been guys. She wanted to know if many women run these races? GREAT question.

This race- with 30 women- had more than I usually see. Women seem to be seriously underrepresented in the ultra world, which is weird because they’re good at it! The longer the distance, the less gender matters. For example- the overall winner of this race I just ran was a woman.

There are people working to get more women into the ultra world. Meghan Gould, who hosts the She Runs Ultras podcast, has a mission to help 10,000 women run their first 50K. And this race was certified by Trail Sisters, an organization whose mission statement is “To increase women’s participation and opportunity in trail running and hiking through inspiration, education and empowerment.” (To be honest, I didn’t see anything especially “trail sister-y” about this race, other than the fact that it was advertised they would have feminine hygiene products at the aid stations- which is something!)

Back to Suzanne’s question. In this race, I had plenty of friendly encounters with women. There were some I talked and laughed with, but none of them were running up to me yelling “JENNAY” throughout the race. Like me (remember I was wanting to do my own thing and listen to a podcast) the women seemed more reserved. It was easier to fall in with the guys because they were more aggressive about it. HMMMM!

This is really giving me something to think about. Maybe a goal for my next race will be to make friends with at least one woman.

One last thing- I have a lot of sore muscles but no injuries- victory!

If you run ultras or trail races in a different state (or a different country), are there a decent amount of women runners?

Do you find it easier to make friends with men or women?

Top photo by Immo Wegmann on Unsplash