Do Men Run Faster Than Women?

Not if there’s a shoe sale! Anyway, there has been a debate for some time that women were better fit for endurance runs because they have a higher body fat percentage than men do and that would help them due to having an emergency type energy source. However, Professor Tim Nokes, of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town say that it’s not so.

Then we realized what the problem was. When you look at most recreational runners, men and women are not the same size. If you compare a man and a woman both running three-hour marathons, for example, you generally find that the man is about 10 kg (22 lbs) heavier, or maybe even more. But when we measured the world’s best athletes, we found that the men and the women were roughly the same weight. So, the female world-record holder in the marathon is about 54 kg (119 lbs) and the male world-record holder is about 56 kg (124 lbs). If you don’t match for weight, then women get a huge advantage over longer distances, simply because they have less mass to move around. But once you match for weight, the men run about 10% faster.

What do you think? You can read more about it at Time.com and come up with your own conclusion based on the information.