NY Magazine recently did a great article on marathon swimming. More specifically, the article was about the phenomenon seen in marathon swimming with respect to men’s vs. women’s times for major-distance swims. It appears that when you add distance (and water), race results are quite contrary to common “wisdom.”

When you talk running, even ultra-distance runs, men are still about 12% faster than women. But when you add water and time (basically we’re talking races of 6 hours or more), then “on average, the best women were 12 to 14 percent faster than the best men.” Researchers looked at the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (MIMS), a 28.5 mile tide-assisted marathon around, you guessed it, Manhattan.

Now, dear reader(s), we’ve talked about MIMS before, most recently when discussing integrity (or lack thereof) of a certain well-known (to marathon swimming history/spirit/rules illiterates) personality/celebrity/”national treasure.” As MIMS is tidally-assisted, it is hard to compare things like “fastest man” and “fastest woman.” Where this article and the referenced study excels, though, is that the study researchers looked at 30 years of MIMS times. When n=about 500 swimmers (or more?) then things like tide are factored out. Another study looked at 87 years (!!!) of Catalina Channel swims, and the results were that women, on average, completed the 21-mile channel swim 52:54 faster than men.

But you know what this article and all these studies really show us? The importance of rules, standards, record-keeping! It is because of rule-following and record-keeping that we know DN lied on her FB or Twitter or whatever that picture is that I linked to in the last post. It is the reason why I founded the Lake Issyk Kul Swimming Federation. It is the reason more swimming groups are springing up around the world now.

Anyway, it is a great article, even though it misnames the MSF. Give it your 3-4 minutes to read, and pass it around your friend-circle. Thanks Melissa Dahl for a great article.