Female endurance — an article about the power of women
A few weeks ago, Tamar was telling me about an article about female endurance he was reading in the newspaper. About a certain kind of super-marathons, where athletes run for days and days with hardly any sleep or rest. I had never heard of these kind of races! According to the article, women are more likely to win than men in these kind of extreme endurance sports. How intriguing!
Recently, there's been a race in the UK with an overall length of 268 miles (that’s more than 10 marathons!), and a total ascent of 13.135m (one and a half times the Mount Everest). It took the winner, Jasmin Paris, 83 hours to complete the track -- beating the course record by 12 hours and finishing 15 hours before the next person (a man). Amazing!
It’s debatable if women are indeed stronger in these extreme sports than men. There simply isn’t enough convincing evidence to support the theory. But what I thought is astonishing about the story is the fact that during the few and very short stops Jasmin allowed herself during the days she was running, she not only ate and slept a tiny bit, but she also expressed milk for her baby daughter. How amazing is that?
The feature image of the article says it all. It’s not Jasmin Paris you see here but another female endurance racer, Sophie Power. On the photo, Sophie is enjoying a short break almost halfway of an extreme race of 106 miles. That’s 4 marathons! While next to her another runner lies flat out on his back with his feet up... Sophie is breastfeeding her 3-month-old son. "I’d gone through the first night with no sleep, as a lot of runners had. But as a mother I was really prepared for that. In terms of sleep deprivation, I was probably the best trained person on the start line," she says in another article I read. She finished the race in just under 44 hours of running, proudly carrying her baby over the finish line while trying to keep up with her three year old boy! : )
Aren't women just amazing? We can run such extreme distance races, win them even -- and we can nourish our babies while doing so! (Says she, writing these lines while breastfeeding her baby...)
xxx Esther
PS the beautiful and powerful photo is by Alexis Berg.