Why do girls run shorter distances in long distance?

[TurquoiseOwl]

This was the case at my school. There must be a reason, but I'm not sure what it is, so just want to educate myself.

Thank you

But it works pretty much the same for both men and women. Apart from a little leg dampness maybe in zero gravity.

I would love to have seen that memo. We can't send women to the moon because of leg dampness.

I think the original device was a suction funnel of sorts, and nappies for faecal matter? I'm not sure. I've been doing some googling and there is some interesting material up there re women in some of the endurance tests (and how well they did).

Fascinating. So I suppose you get the urge to pee, but even, inside your own body, it's not coming down because no gravity, right?

Although if they can fashion some kind of device for men, I don't see why they couldn't do it for women.

Unless, of course, they thought there might be the possibility of the device for men being used for things other than just peeing?

Another memo I would like to have seen. The Wanking Issue.

Turquoise I am not sure when the rule changed? All I know is that it's to do with 400m being too long to sprint but not a longer distance - apparently this can have an adverse effect on younger females' hearts. Our H of PE was quite sympathetic when we complained, but said it was the rule and he couldn't change it.

Fascinating. So I suppose you get the urge to pee, but even, inside your own body, it's not coming down because no gravity, right?

I think the issue was making sure that it went down the funnel / tube rather than floating around in globules.

I'm sure they were warned not to use it for wanking ... :)

www.quora.com/How-do-astronauts-pee-in-zero-gravity-on-the-ISS

I don't see why women peeing in space would ever have been a problem. You don't need gravity to pee, just to collect it...

Boys and girls do run different distances at my kids schools, and have different targets for "gold" "silver" and "bronze" for all the events (different distance jumped/ thrown/ different time target)

This has led DC2 to many "its so unfair" rants this year (sour grapes as he failed to get a gold medal for the first time and thinks its unfair because he met the gold target for girls in his age group and for boys in the age group below - he reluctantly stopped ranting when I pointed out he is taller and stronger than pretty much all the girls and definitely all the boys in the age group below at his small school, and not due to any hard work on his behalf! Silly child!)

I think toilets on the early Mercury and Gemini missions were different and a little more primitive than those on the ISS :).

The astronaut peeing story sound apocryphal at best or just outright made up.
I could attempt to list all the reasons why they didn't allow women in space, but I'm sure inability to pee wasn't one of them.
(Although, thinking about it appropriately sized space suits might be. I did remember hearing that at one time, all the space suits were made in one go, at great expense, and the same ones or at least the same batch were used for many years. If they were made man-sized, that may be yet another excuse).

Girls weren't allowed to do triple jump in case their uterus fell out.

I did the 400 35 years ago but now they have the 300

Yes, I believe space suits was another. Another was that women would be a distraction and yet another was that they were not sure how to manage menstruation and they were worried about the effects of space on menstruation. The main reason was that all astronauts were recruited from the air force and women were not allowed to be fighter pilots - although whether this was accidental or a deliberate strategy to exclude women I don't know.

I did quite a lot of cross country and athletics and did exactly the same distances as boys, even trained together - state school Scotland late 90s. For the school awards there was a points based adjustment score for age/sex much like the algorithm Parkrun uses now.

However, we did get to choose which PE we did and girls chose dance/ step reebok more and almost never basketball.

another was that they were not sure how to manage menstruation

They covered this on a QI No Such Thing as a Fish podcast recently (probably the same place I heard about the suits).
Apparently the men at NASA had no clue how many tampons would need per month. If I recall correctly, they massively over-estimated.
And it sounded like they were too embarrassed to ask!

@Rufus27 - I'm not sure, but I was in Year 11 2 years ago and remember doing it in Year 7 and 8.

Late 90's we did 1500 & 800, and xc we did the same as the boys in school. I'm also sure we did 400, but that could have just been in lessons, but wouldn't swear to it either way as I was always long distance.

I do have a vague memory of the older boys doing maybe a 2000 & something or a 3000 & something as well, but I'm sure that was only in pe lessons.