Kansas girls make the switch to 5k

by Melanie Reese

All runners want to improve, and the only way to do that is to put in the miles. Whether the athlete is male or female, the hours of training and number of sweaty, tiresome workouts are the same. Male and female cross country runners both run, but in some states, the similarity stops there. This is the first year that both boys and girls will run the 5K.

In previous years the state of Kansas, along with several others, have had girls race 4K instead of the 5K race a boy would run. Running Times states that arguments from 4K racing states include concerns that increasing racing distance for females would impose more injuries due to the 900 meter increase of the race course and longer training distances. Along with the worry of injury increase, many coaches’ concerns lay with the notion that increasing race distances will lead to a large number of participants to drop out of the sport.

Most states that have already made the switch to 5K years ago believe that keeping girls limited to 4K races is an unfair discrepancy between genders, allowing a message to be sent that males are more physically capable than females.

“Girls can handle anything a guy can, they just have to work as hard as the boys,” said Clayton Faircloth, Jr. “The girls here [at Eudora] already do. It’s like a half a mile more in a race. It’s not even far compared to what girls run on long runs, so a 5K is nothing.”

Allowing females to race 5K also helps those who will run at the college level prepare, since college females run 6K.

The change becomes official on June 15. Also making the switch are Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan, leaving Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota as the only states left that have high school girls race a shorter distance than the boys.