In June, Middlebury College senior Katie Carlson decided that when her cross country season came around this fall, she was going to run in the junior varsity boys 8K race at the New England Cross Country Championships on Oct. 11 to see how she'd do. It wasn't that she wanted to compete against the boys. Carlson wanted a chance to see how she'd fare at the 8K distance, because she'd had to race a shorter 6K event all of her college career.

In NCAA cross country, women race 6K and men race 8K (men race 10K in the championships). On the international stage, women race 8K and men race 12K. If everyone runs the same distances in track, road races and marathons, what accounts for the separation in cross country?

"When I ask my teammates and friends why they think women [don't run the longer distance], more often than not they will tell me, 'Oh, because we can't. We're weaker and slower than men, so this distance protects us,' " says Carlson, 22, who runs the 5K and 10K in track. "The response breaks my heart every time."

At the end of her junior year, Carlson started researching the race-distance disparity. She began by looking at the hypotheses offered by her peers. Some guessed that longer races in cross country would be more difficult for women, because unlike a 10K on the track, there are hills. Some believed women had a higher risk than men for injuries in high-mileage training. Others thought that the difference in mileage leveled the running field because the energy and time women spent running 6K was equivalent to men running an 8K.

After a couple of interviews with physiologists, Carlson easily disproved the physiological barrier myths. She realized people were grasping for answers because no one had any idea why the difference exists.

"Both men and women are running the same distances in track and road racing—Shalane Flanagan was running Berlin and doing a good job of it," says Jim Estes, USA Track & Field director of events. "I have zero insight why it can't be done in cross country. All I can think is that for whatever reason, nobody's ever questioned it."

An Uneven History

Perhaps that's because the sport of cross country has a history of undulating race lengths. In professional racing, men ran a 13.7K at the first official International Cross Country Championship in 1903. The race increased to 16.1K for two decades and eventually dropped to today's distance of 12K in 1962. Women's distances steadily rose over the years, beginning with the first unofficial 3K race in 1931 and peaking at 8K in 1998. In collegiate racing, men started with 4-mile races in 1938 and landed on today's 10K distance in 1976. Women began with a 5K in 1981, and it remained unchanged until 2000, when the distance increased to 6K. For all of the changes, the women's race distance never lined up with the men's, as it does in track.

"I'm quite surprised that it hasn't changed," says Gina Sperry, associate athletic director at the University of Rhode Island and chair of the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Track & Field and Cross Country Committee. "Perhaps it's a pre-Title IX thing—it's just always been that way. Why make a change?"

Mark Coogan, who ran world cross country for the U.S. in the '90s and now coaches a team of elite women for New Balance, thinks the shorter distance only made sense when there weren't very many high-level women in the sport. After all, the first women's Olympic 10,000m didn't exist until 1988.

"But now that there are just as many women running as there are guys and the top women are just as good as the top guys," Coogan says, "I think it's time for them to start moving it up."

Not everyone agrees. When the women's distance became 6K in 2000, that "was a big deal," says Ray Treacy, director of cross country and track at Providence College and coach of the 2013 NCAA women's Division I cross country national champions. "The topic of changing it further hasn't really come up since then. No coach has pushed for it. I would imagine coaches are quite comfortable where it's at right now."

An understandable position, considering the 6K race's accessibility to middle-distance runners gives women's collegiate coaches a larger recruiting pool. The shorter race also means women can be competitive as freshmen. Men's coaches often spend a year or two training their incoming freshmen before they become competitive in the 8K.

"You have to be careful with whatever distance you select," says Sam Seemes, chief executive officer of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. "It has to allow coaches to field teams in number and field them competitively. When you increase the distance, it shrinks the depth of competitive runners. It's true of either gender."

A Subtle Message?

As part of her research, Carlson surveyed 91 NCAA women's cross country runners through Facebook, and nearly half responded saying they thought they would be "physically or mentally incapable of racing an 8K."

"Overwhelmingly, I found that men are more supportive than the women," Carlson says. "Men told me, 'Yeah, you can run that.' Women told me, 'I don't know if I can,' or 'I could run that, but I don't want to.' Which is remarkable."

"I'm totally satisfied with the 6K distance and now 8K," says Abbey D'Agostino, who won last year's NCAA 6K cross country championship and now competes for New Balance. "I do agree that if they tried to standardize [the distance], as much as you can with different courses, that would make it conceptually easier for casual fans. That's the most common question I hear when I say, 'I do cross country.' People say, 'Oh, what distance is that?' "

Experts agree the anachronistic setup serves no real purpose. It's a holdover from a time when women weren't seen as being as strong as men. For that reason, Carlson, who was forbidden from joining the boys JV race in Boston, thinks that change is important.

"I believe it has a profound psychological effect on women and girls, and how we see ourselves relative to men," Carlson says. "It sends a very subtle message that no matter how hard women run, we're seen as second-best."

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In most places in the U.S., girls and boys race 5K at their high school state meet. Wisconsin and Mississippi increased their girls state meet distance from 4K to 5K in the Fall of 2014. In January, Iowa followed suit, making the 5K the official distance of girls' cross country. The six states above, however, still retain a shorter distance for girls.

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