PUBLISHED 11/19/2007
Women are moody. Women are obsessed with their thighs. Women are incapable of going 2 minutes without talking. Women are tireless in their toiling for the people they love. Women are the weaker sex. Yada, yada, yada.
If you've heard every cliche and stereotype about women that you can stand, we're with you. No two women are exactly alike, and for every woman who matches one of those generalizations, you know another woman who doesn't.
That said, some stereotypes are based on a modicum of truth that's worth exploring and understanding because they can help your running. "If you know your tendencies as a woman, you'll be able to train more effectively," says Dee Ann Dougherty, a physical therapist and running coach in Portland, Oregon.
To help you do this, we asked several women coaches to identify the six most common traits they've noticed in the women runners they work with. While not all of these traits will apply to you, some will, and we'll tell you what to do about them.
Feminine Trait: Time-Starved and Sleep-Deprived
Being chronically short on time certainly isn't just a problem for women. Men also carry Palm Pilots and cell phones, and kids squeeze in homework between soccer practice and Must-See TV. But women tend to take on more than their fair share, or at least feel as if they do.
"Women tell me that most tasks at home fall to them," says Donna LeBlonde, a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Team in Training coach in Bellingham, Wash., and a veteran of 11 marathons. And research backs them up, showing that even in our more egalitarian world, women continue to perform the majority of housework.
Women also typically assume a disproportionate share of emotional work-listening to and comforting the grandmother who's mad at her doctor, the teary-eyed teen just dumped by her boyfriend, the second grader who's worried that the other kids will laugh at his science project, and the exasperated husband who wants to start a new career.
"I coached a woman who had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning to do her training runs," says Dougherty. "She had four kids and wanted to run a marathon, so something had to give." Unfortunately what many women give up is personal time, and that often means the time they should be sleeping. If you're skimping on sleep because you're up with the baby (or just worrying about the baby), you're setting yourself up for trouble.
Sleep deprivation can create a host of problems, including fatigue, lack of motivation, and increased susceptibility to illness and injury.
Advice: "You have to learn to make time for yourself," says Dougherty. Get enough sleep, and schedule your day to allow at least an hour of private time, when you turn off the phone, put aside the housework, and hand the kids over to their dad or a sitter. Make your workouts non-negotiable. You wouldn't quit breathing just because you were too busy, right? Exercise should be equally important.
