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The XC thread

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larkim Jan 2023 9:00am, 31 Jan 2023 20,095 posts	0 larkim Had a look at entry and it's only really under 17 and junior where there are material differences. Would need historical numbers to know what to make of that. Obviously numbers are significantly lower than in the seniors race so it's potentially about the ratio of adults clubs attract. The flip side to that is that it's only two groups (U13 and U15) where there's no material difference. That pretty much matches my anecdotal experience; get to year 10/11 school age and the imbalance starts to creep in for whatever reason. Similar to Gobi too, the clubs I've seen often have a core group of XC loving women, and the men flit in and out (and are normally more numerous as competitive members also). Applies to our local road running league too, where the team size for men is 10 and 6 for women, accounting for the lower participation rate.
hellywobs Jan 2023 9:09am, 31 Jan 2023 153 posts	0 hellywobs Our club has about 150 members, largely equally split between men and women, but we get more men doing xc as well. We are members of two leagues - one where both men and women run 8k together on a Sunday morning; and another one where men run 10k and women run 6k on a Saturday afternoon. The Sunday league gets more people, perhaps because of the parkrun effect on a Saturday and perhaps because the Saturday league is more competitive. At the last event we had no women there at all, but a decent mens' team. And for what it's worth, I am quite happy doing 6k when I do turn up for the Saturday league and have zero desire to do 10k. I would say that the discrepancy in numbers is also because fathers continue to do their hobbies, but "mum guilt" and the need for "family time" stops women and mums in particular continuing their hobbies. The discrepancy is also seen in road events. However, that doesn't apply to the late teens, it's probably more to do with body image at that point (though doing exercise generally keeps you slim!)
SPR Jan 2023 9:35am, 31 Jan 2023 39,445 posts	0 SPR Larkim - The reason I said you need historical data is if an imbalance was being corrected it would start lower down. You may be correct that the issue starts at older age groups and the reasons why should be explored. The adults thing could be totally separate issue. In my club we get huge turnouts for men in league and less in champs. We have less women but it had grown due work done by the captains unfortunately it's down this year. I still maintain we can't ignore the historical context (that is still being corrected) of sport not being seen as generally for women. What percentage of women that were really into sport as youngsters weren't seen as tomboys, etc? Athletics is probably one of the best but the first women's 5000 in the Olympics was in 1996 with the 3000 first being held in 1984! Funnily enough I was listening to an NBA podcast yesterday and one of the adverts on it was about a Google/ The Athletic (sports reporting site) initiative to report more on women's sport.
paulcook Jan 2023 9:55am, 31 Jan 2023 2,275 posts	0 paulcook Funnily enough I was listening to an NBA podcast yesterday and one of the adverts on it was about a Google/ The Athletic (sports reporting site) initiative to report more on women's sport. That then comes down to a commercial decision. If it's not worth the money in the end then the good intentions will stop. On a not entirely unrelated topic, I see the Telegraph yesterday let its athletic correspondent go.
larkim Jan 2023 10:13am, 31 Jan 2023 20,097 posts	0 larkim I agree about the historical context, absolutely. And that actually still influences the late teens participation too I think. That said, it will be interesting to see the spread of the various vet / non-vet categories throughout the men / women. Bit challenging to see on the powerof10 outputs from last year (though I might find time for a spreadsheet at some point) but I would expect at the older age groups to see a bigger disparity than the younger ones if history was the biggest issue. What I suspect I'd see though is that 23-40 participation will be similarly small male vs female compared to the U17. We're moving in leaps and bounds at the moment with the profile of female elite sport, which is a fantastic thing to be witnessing. But I think to a degree competitive running has been slightly ahead of that curve anyway with the profile of female British athletes always pretty much up there with male British athletes since the 1990s and possibly before. Maybe I'm putting on some rose tinted specs there though, call me out if I am!
Gobi Jan 2023 10:30am, 31 Jan 2023 79,069 posts	0 Gobi hellywobs your mum guilt comment made me think about our club. Reality is we have very few 20s mums or dad's. We have teens and v 35 plus in both sexes. What really get me is we have parents watching kids at xc who definitely jog a bit but don't want to race track or xc
larkim Jan 2023 10:44am, 31 Jan 2023 20,099 posts	0 larkim I was that parent for quite a while Gobi. Partly down to the hassle of being at an event for (say) the U13s race and then "forcing" the youngster to hang around until the end when the seniors races were on. As my eldest got older and was in the U17 or seniors races himself it made more sense for me to get stuck in too so we were there with family participants in the U11, U13, U15, U17, SenW and SenM at one point. Track I found it easier to get stuck into, but even that took a few years of enjoying sitting around at the meetings to thinking it would make sense for me to pull on a pair of spikes and have a dig at 3000m. Timings made that more sensible as we'd be there for the day anyway, so anything I joined in with was within the same time envelope. With XC, especially with winter conditions, it never even occurred to me to suggest my frozen U13 grabbed a cold packed lunch at 12:30 after his race and then wait until 2:00 for me to slop around in the mud too!
Gobi Jan 2023 10:58am, 31 Jan 2023 79,070 posts	0 Gobi So larkim at the end of the day a lot of it is choice , be it what you call considerate parenting it is still a choice. Not unhappy that my lad does karate rather than xc
larkim Jan 2023 11:40am, 31 Jan 2023 20,100 posts	0 larkim Yes, definitely choice. Just giving some half decent reasons why parents who run aren't necessarily always parents who can / want to run XC. It's the same at my kids rugby club. Plenty of fit and active parents who could join in with walking rugby or even the seniors game having played as youngsters, but still prefer to be on the sidelines rather than getting stuck in. As someone who has a life-long aversion to getting muddy it surprised me how enjoyable I found running XC, but I can happily see it's not for everyone!
SPR Jan 2023 11:43am, 31 Jan 2023 39,446 posts	0 SPR hellywobs I missed your post as I started typing then came back and didn't refresh. Your quote below was some of what I was thinking re the adults being a separate issue (although it may still be related). I would say that the discrepancy in numbers is also because fathers continue to do their hobbies, but "mum guilt" and the need for "family time" stops women and mums in particular continuing their hobbies. The discrepancy is also seen in road events.