Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

Happy start of the football season! I’ve got plenty of college football related reporting coming this week, from a closer look at Instant Replay facilities to major storylines to some FOIA fun, plus potentially some updates about the Extra Points Bowl.

But Fall isn’t just the start of college football season. Along with soccer, volleyball and others, the Fall is the start of the collegiate cross country season. And today, I want to turn the time over to regular Extra Points contributor Dr. Katie Lever, a former collegiate runner herself, to talk about a gender equity issue I had to no idea existed in collegiate running….

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The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. For Saint Michael's College head Nordic ski and cross country coach, Molly Peters, her first step in a journey to ensure gender equity in collegiate cross country began with a single email sent over two years ago. Today, she’s still fighting for her cause: for men and women cross country athletes to race the same distance at the college level.

Peters is the founder of the Equal Distance Team, an initiative to balance one of the most blatant inequities in college sports: the max distances that men and women collegiate cross country runners can race. Although the 10000 meters is an event that both men and women run in outdoor track, the same can’t be said for cross country, where women’s races cap out at 6000 meters, while men typically run 8000-10000 meters.

Peters’s Run Equal movement is similar to her Ski Equal initiative, which equalized race distance for men and women at the World Cup, U23, and World Junior levels in the world of Nordic skiing in 2022. Peters has been trying to gain similar success in cross country with little traction in spite of her best efforts and years of perseverance.

“When I was in high school, I was  definitely aware of the fact that there were not equal distances in college,” she recalled. “I did write a big  paper about Title IX when I was a junior in high school, and it's funny because I still have it. My mom kept it, which was great, and I wrote about the discrepancy and distance between men and women in skiing and in cross country running, so it was definitely on my radar.”

It might seem trivial to raise a fuss over an extra few thousand meters. Collegiate cross country isn’t a big moneymaker for universities, and distance runners tend to fly under the radar in a college sports industry that’s dominated by revenue-generating sports.

But for Peters, the principle behind the discrepancy is important, especially looking ahead to future Winter Olympics, where cross country is being considered for inclusion on the global stage.

“I just feel it's just another thing that sort of eats away at the psyche of women and makes them feel like they're less,” she said.

Amid so much positive change for women’s sports, Peters wonders why, in the year 2024, are female cross country runners restricted from running longer than 6000 meters?

It’s a question she's been asking for quite some time with few answers.

Peters started with a simple proposal: have both genders compete at 8,000 meters in collegiate cross country. 

On paper, the plan makes a lot of sense: men already train for the 8k so there would be no inconvenience, meet organizers would only have to worry about mapping out one race route if men and women raced the same distance, and women would get more positive messaging and better training preparation for distance track races, which go up to 10 kilometers.

So Peters wrote up a proposal which garnered the support of superstars in the running community, including Katherine Switzer, Molly Huddle, Kara Goucher, and others. In January 2022, Peters contacted the Division I, II, and III NCAA Cross Country Committees, the NCAA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and then-NCAA president, Mark Emmert, with her idea to equalize the distances between men’s and women’s collegiate cross country races with what she calls the “8k compromise.” 

The Committees rejected her that August, writing that they “were unanimously opposed to changing the men’s and/or women’s race distances at any of the three divisions of NCAA cross country.” According to the Committees, increasing women’s distance races  “could have a negative affect” and could also “be detrimental and consequential to women’s cross country and result in reduced participation.”

“Basically,” Peters recalled, “they said women would have emotional breakdowns if they ran longer. They said participation rates would go down, which is completely unproven.”

Peters has history and data on her side

Many people in running communities are well acquainted with the story of Katherine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967 after facing immense opposition that mirrors the NCAA’s current opposition to equal distance, and culminated in then-race director, Jock Semple, attempting to push her off the course mid-race.

Just this past Olympics, Dutch runner, Sifan Hassan, made history, running nearly 39 miles en route to medaling in the 5,000 meters, the 10,000 meters, and ending her trifecta with gold in the Olympic marathon. Not only that, but according to Ultrarunning Magazine, roughly 30 ultramarathons, or running races longer than 26.2 miles, are won outright by women every year. In fact, in the ultrarunning world, it seems that the longer the race, the better women perform. The ultras that feature female winners tend to be longer races, and women are more likely to outperform men at distances of 195 miles or longer.

Increases in course distances have also happened in women’s cross country before. 2000 was the first (and only) year that the standard 5000 kilometer length for women was increased to 6000 kilometers. According to Peters, at the time, it was widely believed that the increase would negatively impact participation rates among women and that universities wouldn’t be able to field full women’s teams. That didn’t happen–in 1999, there were 4,803 female cross country athletes competing at the Division 1 level. By 2005, that number increased to 5,334 and the NCAA’s most recent participation report tallies 5,896 female cross country runners at the D1 level.

However, even after Peters sent in her well-researched proposal, the NCAA Committees were firm in their decision: “Ultimately the committee members felt strongly that although race distances are different, the experience is equitable and of quality for each gender.” 

The logic here, presumably, is that yes, men run a longer distance, but because women’s times are generally slower, they spend the same amount of time competing. Peters doesn’t buy it.

“Well, you know, a 10k and a 6k time…that is not the same. It's like nine minutes different.”

Although Peters’ initial rejection was harsh, she wasn’t deterred. In October 2022, she reached out to the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics to explain the roadblocks she’d faced in her quest for equal distance and rally for her cause. The CWA got back to her in June 2023, sharing the feedback it received from members on the topic of equal distance.

“Some members expressed a desire to increase the women’s distances,” the response letter read. “Others shared concerns raised by coaches about the potential health and safety impact of increasing race distances. Members also acknowledged that some of those concerns may be rooted in gender assumptions and that data would be necessary to support whether health and safety implications were valid.” 

It was a decent start compared to Peters’ last rejection. And it got better with the CWA’s recommendation in the next paragraph

At this point, Peters recalled feeling hope. Maybe her persistence was paying off–by now, she was less concerned about ensuring equal distance and more concerned about garnering honest feedback from athletes and coaches, and the tide was turning in her favor with the support from the CWA. 

The CWA’s request for a survey was then sent to the track and cross country committees that rejected Peters one year prior. They rejected her again.

“The committee discussed its frustration with the decision to explore surveying men’s and women’s cross country programs on the topic of race distances,” read the minutes of the meeting rejecting the survey. “The committee noted that all three divisional committees with cross country oversight have unanimously voted down the idea of changing the NCAA men’s and women’s cross country championship race distances twice in the last two years. The committee is frustrated that despite the opposition from the three sport committees, a survey is being explored.” 

Peters, too, was frustrated. “They basically took the recommendation from the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics, and completely just said no. Which I thought took a lot of nerve.”

At that point, Peters was at a loss. Above all, she craved data on the issue, whether it was in support of or in opposition to equal distance. 

“And so I was like, ‘well, if they're not gonna do a survey, I'm gonna do my own survey.’”

Peters then spent $275 on a Survey Monkey package, got to work writing her survey, and emailing her fellow coaches asking them to answer her survey and pass it along to their athletes. The response was enormous.

“I got over 900 responses,” Peters recalled. “The results were resounding–86% wanted [women] to try an 8k or a 10k. And this was men and women answering.”

Molly’s other results were just as conclusive. For instance, 96% of the respondents thought women could race longer than a 6k, and 89% have thought about women’s distance races being shorter.”

However, what Peters considers the “most important” statistic is the one that would be easiest for the NCAA to turn into a reality: 90% of her respondents wanted the NCAA to do a survey about race distance.

Feeling emboldened, Peters then sent the results to prominent figures in the cross country world, including NCAA president, Charlie Baker, the heads of the US Track and Field Association, as well as the committees who rejected her twice. This time, things started to turn in her favor.

“I got an email from the NCAA Championships and Alliances department, and they said, ‘Hey, Molly, we want to talk to you. Let's set up a meeting,’” Peters recalled. “And then they told me that they were gonna do a survey, that they were super excited to let me know that they've decided that they were gonna do a survey and ask the athletes what they thought about equal distance.”

And the results are…yet to be determined. 

“The survey was supposed to happen this fall,” Peters told me on July 24. “Then, four days ago I got a letter that told me that like Cross Country Committees had met, and, once again they shot me down, and they're not doing a survey. So I don't know what my recourse is. I don't know within the NCAA if I have anywhere else to go.”

Peters has considered going the legal route, but there are many gray areas she is concerned with there. Can she commit the time and effort to managing a lawsuit and a collegiate cross country team in the fall? Does equal distance count as a Title IX violation if races are sponsored by the NCAA rather than individual schools? Why should she have to go through all of this trouble just to get an honest survey distributed? 

She at least knows the answer to that last question.

“I have a lawyer that I've been talking to for a couple of years now, and she's been helping me a little bit,” Peters explained, recalling the legal advice she received: “You’ve got to go through all of the steps within the NCAA before you really can go legal, just because you need to dot all your i’s and cross all your t's, and they have to say no, and they have to say it in a letter.” Peters paused. “And that's sort of what's happened.”

So for now, Peters feels stuck. Having exhausted all of her internal routes within the NCAA and feeling weary about the legal headache of a lawsuit, she feels her options are limited. 

“I'm tempted to write another letter to the president of the NCAA,” Peters said, “And just be like, ‘Do you know, this is going on?’ Because I feel like the championship directors were on my side, even if they weren't necessarily 100% for equal distance. They were all in for the survey and trying to find out what the athletes actually want. And I just can't fathom that the president of the NCAA doesn't want feedback from the athletes.”

Peters wrote that letter after our interview with no response as of this writing. Even if she gets one, after so many roadblocks, nobody would blame Peters for giving up on her cause. Although Olympic track and field just pulled huge viewership numbers, college cross country runners are far from the biggest stars in college sports. They’re tremendous athletes, but they’re not the kind you’ll see plastered on billboards or signing seven-figure NIL deals. There’s no “November Madness” for cross country nationals or a Cross Country 2k video game. But for Peters, these athletes’ representation matters, and that’s why she’s fighting so hard for them.

“What message are we sending to young women when they step on the line, and they're racing a shorter distance?” Peters said. “I've heard before, ‘well, it's just different.’ [But] it's not different. It's always less. And it's always been less across the board.”