Earlier this year I ran in the Right to Run 19k in Seneca Falls. The race itself is an homage to the nineteenth amendment which gave women the right to vote and had its roots in this small town in the finger lakes. Partially as a result of this branding, there were a lot of women in the race.
This was noted at the starting line when a special shout out was given to the men who choose to join in this race. At the time I thought that this wasn’t all that unusual as it felt like the women usually outnumbered the men. In fact, every previous road race that I had run in 2016 (Runnin’ O’ the Green 5 mile, Spring Forwards Distance Run 15k, and Flower City Half) had all been majority female.
Over the course of a full year this pattern evened out some as most races I participated in were closer to 50/50
But for the half marathon (the traditional distance closest to 19k) a different pattern emerged. In addition to the 19k, the women outnumbered the men in both half marathons I ran this year. At three further events (Buffalo Marathon, Shoreline Triathlon, and the Rochester Marathon) a 13.1 mile race was held concurrently and all of these events were also majority female.
In fact I looked for every Half Marathon I could find anywhere in the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Finger Lakes areas and every single one of them was majority female. In fact women made up over 59% of the field in all but two of these races.
I don’t know why the gender split is so large, but women have definitely proven that they have the right to run half marathons…