From the Editor – JASON KARP, PHD, MBA
Although women’s athletics and the attention on women’s athletics seem to be a relatively recent thing, women have actually been running since the time of ancient Greece. Possibly the first female runner of note was Atalanta, the swift-footed Greek huntress and devoted human follower of the goddess Artemis, whose athletic prowess rivaled that of most men.
Warned against marriage by an oracle, Atalanta prevented any attempts by her father to arrange a marriage for her by devising the plan to marry only a suitor who could beat her in a race and killing any man who failed to outrun her.
“I am not to be won till I be conquered first in speed,” she exclaimed, as the Roman poet Ovid wrote in Metamorphoses. “Wife and couch shall be given as prize unto the swift, but death shall be the reward of those who lag behind.”
Many would-be suitors were beaten, until one day, a man named Hippomenes, who was eager to undertake hard challenges, fell in love with Atalanta and wanted to marry her. Upon hearing of her challenge, he was skeptical, but when Atalanta took off her outer garments for her next race, that was all he needed to send in his race entry!
There was one problem, however. He knew he could not run faster than the quick Atalanta, so he asked for help from Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Aphrodite provided Hippomenes with three golden apples to drop on the race course to distract Atalanta.
During the race, whenever Atalanta pulled ahead of Hippomenes, he rolled one of the golden apples off the course, tempting the curious Atalanta to stop and pick up the apple. Atalanta’s frequent stops to fetch the apples were just enough for Hippomenes to win the race and Atalanta’s hand in marriage.
Many years later, the first female runner to try to run in an official competition may have been another young Greek woman named Melpomene, who asked if she could participate in the marathon at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Her request was denied, but she unofficially ran the course a few days earlier in four and a half hours.
From the time we are girls and boys, it is evident that there are many differences between females and males. Many of these differences—anatomical, muscular, physiological, hormonal, metabolic, and psychological—influence girls’ and women’s running abilities, race performances, responses to training, and how they are coached. Physiologically, females are even more different from males than you might think: more than 3,000 genes are expressed differently between the muscles of females and males.
I have been fascinated with women’s athletics for a long time. Growing up in a single-mother home after my father passed away, my mother’s interest in sports rubbed off on me. In her youth, she competed in softball, basketball, and the roller derby and had a career as a high school physical education teacher. One of my fondest memories is the time I played catch with her in our New Jersey home’s backyard, her training my skills and keeping me on my toes by throwing ground balls and fly balls toward me in different directions from where she was looking. She attended every one of my Little League baseball games and, when I became a runner, every cross-country race and track meet. Her passing in 2010 from metastatic breast cancer left a big hole in my life.
In this breast cancer awareness month of October, we dedicate this issue of Track Coach to female athletes and coaches.
This issue is also dedicated to the recent and long-time former editor of Track Coach, Russ Ebbets, who passed away in August from brain cancer.
