Until recently I was sure I knew who the first person to break the four minute mile was. Roger Bannister’s achievement on a blustery Oxford afternoon in 1954 has, after all, gone down in the folklore of our sport. But was he really the first? I thought so, until I came across some research by
Today it seems almost unbelievable that it took until 1984 before a women’s marathon was included in the Olympic programme, but from the first modern Games in 1896 until then, only men were allowed to compete at the classic distance. That’s not to say that during these wilderness years there weren’t many women racing in
Taken at face value, the data from my Big Running Survey suggests that women runners are significantly less competitive than men. Only 16% of the women surveyed reported a strong motivation to do well in races compared to 30% of men. And taking part in races – one potential measure of a competitive leaning – was