Oh why can't a woman be more like a man?

We Are Gazelles, our hills training group

04.07.2014

To Greenwich Park, to meet up with my hill training buddies (working title We Are Gazelles). As the blokes thunder up the hills ahead of me and all the other women in the group, the song of the title, sung by 'Enry 'Iggins in My Fair Lady pops into my head. Of course its sentiments - playfully intended - offend every feminist fibre of my weak and feeble female body but I do wonder why fit blokes are so very much faster than fit women. We girls have a lower aerobic capacity because of our lower blood haemoglobin, apparently. However, we can do endurance. We can be wiser pacers. Sometimes, not setting off so fast gives us the edge. Still, I couldn't help but feel offended when the fastest bloke suggested we girls be the fox, starting off 50m before the male hounds in sprint repeats round a woodland trail.  At least they didn't catch up with me. It was still great fun though. The best fun you can have with a bunch of middleaged men at 6.15am on a sunny July morning.